Meantime, the assembled heads of states—many of whom had simply come for opening day just to have history record the fact that they were there, were probably ready to be important elsewhere.
As the General Assembly emptied of dignitaries, the security teams made sure everyone else was kept back, making it impossible for any press to get to any of the world leaders.
Finally the agents assigned to Demiel spoke briefly to his attorneys and led him out, followed by his lawyers and the prosecutors. As Dona and I watched and recorded his movements, Demiel ben Yusef abruptly stopped in front of us again and again moved in closer than he should have been allowed to. He carefully mouthed, inches from my face, what sounded like “Ani oneh rak le-Elohi,” then, “Go forth for I am six,” before he was roughly shoved away by one of the security men.
“What? What did you say?” I called out.
“Oh, shit…” Dona said, turning around at the sound of rushing feet behind us. The press horde was descending like a crazed beast. Security rushed to meet them up the rows, guns drawn.
So much for passive resistance inside the United Nations, home of peace.
I, however, still in a kind of semishock, looked at my friend, trying to figure out not just what “Ani oneh rak le-Elohi,” and “Go forth for I am six,” could mean, but also what “Oh, shit!” meant.
“Honey, we gotta blow this joint,” Dona said, grabbing up her stuff and my leather satchel too.
“What?” I asked.
“C’mon, Ali, snap out of it! We’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming for us. Or for you, at any rate!”
I looked back and saw people I’d known all my professional life, folks I thought of as friends and colleagues, scuffling with UN security to get to me, like vigilantes after a child molester.
The agents who’d led us inside were headed our way again. “Here comes Brunhilda,” Dona said. “Thank God!”
They grabbed onto our arms and, with the assistance of four more of their uniformed colleagues, surrounded us and walked us to the front doors, out the cleared driveway, and to the gates, where the crowds seemed to have grown since we’d entered earlier in the day.
“Kid killer,” the crowds closest to the gates yelled, behind police barricades manned by cops standing in front, heels to the curb.
“Save our Savior!” screamed an overweight middle-aged woman whom we could see was being dragged away to one of at least fifty NYPD prisoner vans lined up on the street in front of us. “Save Him! Save Him, Jesus!”
“She wants Jesus to save the terrorist!” I screeched mockingly over the din to Dona.
“I guess we won’t be filing back in the UN office,” Dona cracked.
“Let’s get to my place and file from there,” I said. We looked at our captors for permission. The bruiser said, “Ladies, it’s not safe out here for you. We’ll escort you wherever you need to go.”
We made our way, full contingent intact, out the gates and along the outside of Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, hugging the curb, where more barricades had been erected.
As we approached the Japan Society, a crazed TV reporter who’d been monitoring the events from his mobile unit, attempted to reach us, microphone out, cameraman shadowing.
“Ali! Ali,” he cried, using the name that was not on my byline but the one used by my friends.
“Do you know him?” the bruiser asked.
“No, she doesn’t,” answered Dona. “The nerve.” Protecting her turf, I knew.
The crowd noticed the commotion, and it moved toward us.
“Oh, shit,” I moaned, more scared than I’d ever been in my life.
As we approached the Church of the Holy Family, almost at a run, the steel gate of Mary’s Garden swung open and a young priest, holding a key, looking as frantic as we felt, said, “Hurry up, get inside!”
We all ducked inside quickly. As Bruiser and company watched our backs, the young priest said to Dona and me, “Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.”
“Is that from scripture?” I asked, shaking his hand to thank him.
“Edward Gibbon, eighteenth-century historian,” he answered. Then, “I’m Gene. Eugene Sadowski, Father Sadowski, Father Eugene, whatever. Come on in and take a load off.…”
“You have Internet access?” I asked. I didn’t know if this was one of those old-fashioned churches that talked directly to God or needed outside assistance.
“High-speed, wireless, holograph—you name it.”
“Is this heaven?” Dona asked.
“No. Forty-seventh Street,” one of the cops answered. Then into his two-way: “We got a situation. Church of the Holy Family.”