The Sixth Station(3)

All Dickie would give me, though, was, “Un-freakin’-believable!”

The man all these people had come to see was Demiel ben Yusef, a known terrorist who was believed by most of the reasonable people on the planet, as well as a worldwide coalition of governments who’d hunted him and finally captured him, to be the one responsible for terrorist bombings around the world. These terrorist acts had left death and mayhem from capital cities to historic and religious sites—with thousands of people dead or maimed not just from the bombings themselves but from the violence and turmoil that too often followed.

Today would mark the opening day of the trial of the millennium, the ben Yusef terrorist tribunal.

On the other side of the law (and not necessarily the world any longer, since his believers were multiplying) were those who had been burning up the Internet with bullshit about how ben Yusef was actually a great prophet, a man they believed was—yes—the second Son of God.

Or maybe even the Second Coming of Jesus Christ himself. The U.S. government, the CIA, MI5, the Russian FSB, Mossad, the UN, the Vatican, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the oil companies, al-Qaeda—you name it and they were the ones who had really committed the atrocities.

Everyone but Demiel ben Yusef was responsible for the massive death and destruction. Sure.

Conspiracy-theory Web sites posted daily warnings and updates. None of them, however, ever explained how all of these governments and all of these people—who hadn’t gotten along for thousands of years—were suddenly all allied for the sole purpose of destroying one ragtag prophet / alleged terrorist.

The conspiracy theorists postulated that all the terrorist attacks were carefully planned (pick any of the above) simply to generate hatred of Demiel ben Yusef.

Yes, they said that this international cabal backed by the United Nations was actually responsible for blowing up buildings, marketplaces, houses of worship, nightclubs, passenger planes, and even cruise ships filled with innocent people—simply to make one man look bad.

Thousands of videos and postings portrayed ben Yusef as a prince of peace. They’d show him preaching to the masses, very Jesus-like. If you watched the videos as carefully as I had, and as many times as I had, you could, of course, begin to have your doubts.

Yes, he was a very compelling speaker, and no, he never preached violence. His voice was at once soothing and fiery, if that makes sense. His accent was universal—not American, not European, not Middle Eastern.

“Everyone is the Son of God,” he famously said in his “Perfect Order” sermon given on a hill to thousands of followers somewhere in Israel two years earlier. All that was missing were some loaves and fishes.

The universe is in perfect order. Everything, everyone, is simply a part of God’s whole. The moon directs the tides; the earthworms in the Amazon aerate the ground so that we all have oxygen. Every creature is as important as every other to that perfect order. The only time the order is disrupted, upended, thrown into chaos is when human beings—the only creatures on earth with free will—step in. Other creatures do not kill just for the bloodlust love of killing.

But every religion that preaches that they are the only ones who know the true words of God, demands just this of their followers: “Kill in His name,” they say. I say, “Do not kill in God’s name. Or my name. Or anyone’s name. Defy those leaders who urge you to kill to preserve what you have.” What they mean is “Kill to preserve what I have.” They are false prophets, false leaders.

Ben Yusef was, if you watched often enough, incredibly charismatic—for an unattractive, skinny guy, that is; for someone who preached peace and practiced terrorism, that is.

Ben Yusef had become the rock star of terrorists.

Second Coming, my ass.

“This is some mess,” Dickie yelled, pulling me out of my reverie. Without waiting for my response he blared, “You got credentialed in case—right?”

I, along with half the staff at The New York Standard, had indeed been “credentialed” by the United Nations Press Office earlier in the week, by submitting birth certificates, passports, and NYPD press credentials in person. We were fingerprinted and interviewed. No electronic applications were accepted because of the volatility of the situation.

“Yeah, a week ago,” I answered. I had already been assigned backup in case the first string—the macho male columnists who were treated like gods by guys like little Dickie Smalls—couldn’t for some reason (which never happened) show up. I knew, or believed at any rate, that there would be no screwups today, because, after all, this was nothing less than the most important trial of the millennium. The current millennium, that is.