Predator Paradise by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2013-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hamid Bhouri wanted peace on Earth, goodwill toward all men. There was no animosity, no violence in his heart toward those outside the Muslim faith, no matter how much he might disagree with them, no matter how much they might despise him and his faith. It wasn’t even part of his character to take up arms against foreigners who might desire to impose their will on the people of the Middle East, and in the name of oil, if he chose to believe the propaganda of the extremists. As far as he was concerned, the sins of other men were theirs to own before the judgment of God when they left the world.

Over the years, surviving in a war-torn land, he had come to believe there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to change the hearts of men bent on violence and destruction. Even with the best intentions of keeping his distance from the extremists, he was forever hounded, even railed at by militant Arabs at times to join their ranks, strike down the infidel, even if that meant a suicide attack, which, he knew, was an abomination in the eyes of God. Live and let live, he believed—if only that were true.

He still had to live in Lebanon. And no man, peacemaker or warrior, he thought, was ever allowed the luxury of choosing not to choose.

He prayed five times daily without fail, all passion and feverish imploring for paradise on Earth, free of violence and hatred and war, even though he knew it was little more than a fool’s dream. Considering the darker side of human nature, the present state of world affairs—what with all the wars and rumors of wars—he feared the future of mankind was bleak at best, dire at worst. His own country, for instance, was still a seething caldron of violence and ancient hatreds and religious intolerance, his land surrounded by other nations that could well push the entire region beyond critical mass, ignite the fuse to a cataclysm imaginable only in the very bowels of Hell.

With what he suspected was coming that night, he had to ask God one last time for help and guidance, his faithful servant, if not for the salvation of other men’s souls, then to watch over, protect and insure the safety of his own corner of the world. He was a family man, after all, with a wife and four children whose futures and safety he had to consider. It pained him greatly that his decision, the deceit of his task might very well have put their lives in danger.

To his family and neighbors, he was a simple farmer, a herder of goats and sheep, the rumors of his brief affiliation with Hamas and Hezbollah chaff in the wind, gone with brutal men long since dead and unlamented. Those days, he recalled—when the rumors could be misconstrued and edged toward fact—had been merely a charade in order to survive in the Muslim quarter of Beirut,

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