Read Online The Aisha Prophecy by John R. Maxim - Free Book Online

think of.”
    “So?” The colonel shrugged. “What’s so special about Sadik?”
    “A great many things.”
    “I meant to the Nasreens.”
    “I suppose because Sadik’s wife is one of them.”
     

FIVE 
    On a Saturday evening, fully half a world away, Charles Haskell rose to add a log to the fire that crackled on the shore of a shimmering lake. The shimmer came from the light of a hundred such fires that burned along its quarter-mile length. A circle of men sat at each of those fires. Up to a dozen at some. Only three or four at others.
    Haskell could hear the soft hum of their voices, broken sometimes by laughter, sometimes by song. He stood for a moment absorbing it all, a smile of satisfaction on his face. “We really do run the world,” he mused aloud to the others. “I mean, think of it. Just us. Just the men at all these fires. It still boggles my mind, but it’s a fact.”
    There were five at the fire that Haskell was tending. Those in his group were younger than most. All five were in their late forties, early fifties. All were dressed casually, windbreakers and slacks. All sat barefoot. All but one were bareheaded. Only Haskell himself had the toned and rugged look of a man who spent much time outdoors. Two of the men were not members of the club. They had come as guests. They had arrived that afternoon.
    “The whole world?” asked Howard Leland, one of the two guests. “I’d have to call that a bit of a stretch.”
    “Oh, would you? Look around you. Look at all those fires,” said the chairman of Trans-Global Oil & Gas. “That’s the greatest concentration of power and wealth that has ever, I mean ever, been seen in one place. Especially now, with world markets imploding. No government on earth has more influence.”
    “Ours included?” asked Leland, who was senior in that government. A cabinet officer. Secretary of State.
    “Ours especially,” said Haskell. “Who put it in office? It serves at our pleasure, for our purposes.”
    The third man in their group was a banker. He was British. He could see that Leland had taken offense. He said to Leland, “The first day at this gathering is always a bit heady. But you’ll find that it settles quite nicely after that.” He said to Haskell, “Charles, you really must mind your words. Howard Leland has never been anyone’s puppet. I’m sure that you were not suggesting otherwise.”
    “Of course not,” said Haskell. “He’s one of us. Or he will be. My apologies, Howard. Want a beer?”
    Leland declined. He said, “Later, perhaps.” He’d begun to regret having come.
    “And, okay,” said Haskell. “Maybe not the whole world. But you’ll see before you leave that I’m not so far off. Leave out China for the moment. We’ll get to them later. The Mideast and its oil is a work in progress, but well underway. And leave out all the countries that have nothing we want. I should have said we run the world that matters.”
    Leland made himself smile. “That clears it up. Thank you.”
    “Yes, lighten up, Charles,” said the fourth man at their fire. He said to Leland, “We’re not really so full of ourselves. Give it time and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You’ll see former presidents letting their hair down, behaving as they did in their frat house days. Senators, statesmen, all doing the same. I’d imagine you already know many of them. Do you?”
    The man who asked that question was the media mogul. He owned more than a hundred newspapers worldwide and some seventy-five TV stations. Leland answered dryly, “I’d imagine.”
    “Of course you do,” said the mogul. “Those in government, surely. But one can never have too many friends in high places. We’ll see if we can’t broaden your reach.”
    The fifth man at their fire was a Saudi. A prince. Unlike the others who were tall, clean-shaven and lean, he was squat and he was fleshy with a beard in need of trimming. He formed a lump where he sat. The image was