The 'Ands of Time: Causes, Effects, Conscience, and Consequences

By Michael Anthony Bell

The story is based partially in the island of Jamaica and in America. It traces the life of a family from the 1970s into the future and explores the relationship between individual behaviour, greed, selfishness, societal violence, organized crime, tribalism, gang and urban warfare, science and genetics as a consequence of the impact of the global village and ambitions of geo-politics and world domination.

It explores how the thirst and thrust for world domination impacts on the lives and relationship of the family, and their neighbours, and how these factors affects individuals actions which in turn affect the collective consciousness of a nation and lead to murder, mayhem, and social degradation. It explores the reactive and dangerous steps taken by members of this family in order to survive.

Though informative and instructive, the book is a fast paced action pack story with lots of unexpected turns and developments as it builds up the reader with adrenaline paced narrative. You never quite know what is coming next.

The story, though fictionalized, is predicated and inspired by true events, the composite of lives of real persons and the extrapolation of cause, effects, conscience, and consequences. It examines how the attitude and actions of individuals on each other can affect these individual and impacts on the wider society and the world far into the future with multiplying effects. It also looks at the role that science, religion, nuclear proliferation, and politics will play in the future world.

Some of the names, locations, persons, and situations were changed, altered, and fictionalized in order to conceal the identity of some of the persons and characters, places, and to also add dramatic effect and to magnify and illustrate pertinent points and ideas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463400842

Michael Anthony Bell

The Author is a graduate of the University of the West Indies with a Bachelor of Science with a major in Biochemistry, Applied Biochemistry and Chemistry and minor in Economics, Applied Physics and Commercial Law. He had also done post graduate studies in Management and a Diploma in Marketing. He has won the Gleaner Newspaper Silver Pen Award. He also writes music and songs, and plays and produces music. He is presently in pursuit of post graduate studies in Information Technology.

Book preview

© 2015 Michael Anthony Bell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/09/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0082-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0083-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0084-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906949

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

If 6 Was 9 The End of the Beginning

Ambush In The Night

The Year That Was

Only The Strong Survives

Revenge Is Sweet

No Woman No Cry

So Nice, So Let’s Do It Twice

Hard Man Fe Dead

Don’t Trouble Trouble

Let’s Do It Again

I Am The Toughest

Man To Man Is So Unjust

Even Vampires Can Die

The Don Is Dead…Long Live the Don

Who Am I?

When the Going Gets Tough

Out of the Frying PanAnd Into The Fire

All That Glitters

When Push Comes to Shove

When The Tables Turn

The More Things Change

Ain’t I Lucky

All Bad Things Comes To An End

Come Into My Kingdom

The Bigger Game

The Little Secret

You Can Fool Some People Some Times

20/20 Vision, But All Are Blind

All The King’s Men

The Big Secret

The Perfect Crime?

The Beginning of the New Beginning

So you have enemies. Good. That means that you stood up for something in your life.

Winston Churchill

Make sure that ‘something’ is truth, rights, and justice for all. If not, in time, your enemies will be your masters and your life a waste.

Michael Anthony Bell

Part 1

Dedicated To My Children

Seretse, Adrian, and Aneka

My Mother

And

My Wife, Christeen

To the Loving Memory of

My Father, Mr Ronald Bell

My Uncle, Henry John Matthews

And my grandmother

Mrs Beatrice Fowler (1900 – 2006)

Coach Glen Mills and Mr D. K. Irons

To the memory

Of

Prof Barry Chevannes & Dr Lloyd Coke

Wycliffe ‘Steely’ Johnson, Ronald ‘Lightning’ Grant

Mrs Muriel Saulter & Mrs Vaughn

Mark Thomas

&

Freedom & Hulk

Review and Editing

Dr Erna Brodber

Ms. Alma H, MockYen C.D

Christeen Bell-Edwards

About the Book

The story is based in Jamaica and America. It traces the life of a family and its members from the 1970’s into the future and explores the relationship between individual behaviour, greed, selfishness, societal and political violence, organized crime, tribalism, gang and urban warfare, science and genetics as a consequence of the impact of the global village and the ambitions of geo-politics and world domination.

It explores how the thirst and thrust for world domination impacts on the lives and relationships of the family, and their neighbours, and how these factors affects individual’s actions which in turn affect the collective consciousness of a nation and lead to murder, mayhem, and social degradation. It explores the reactive and dangerous steps taken by this family in order to survive.

The story explains why Jamaica has the fastest sprinters in the world.

Dr Erna Brodber, author and retired lecturer in English and creative writing at the University of the West Indies said she found the book ‘enlightening’ and it gave her ‘clarity’ and ‘insight’ into what was happening in Jamaica and the world in the 1970’s and beyond.

Ms. Alma MockYen C.D, retired lecturer from the University’s Caribbean Institute of Mass Communication (CARIMAC) reviewed, Wow!! Good work – good work Michael Bell!!. So enthralling!! Michael, I found this a mesmerizing book, and was fully engaged by the twists and turns from page 1 to the last page of your fantastic fiction. I seem to recognize a few real-life characters (LOL).

The story, though fictionalized, is inspired by true events, the composite of lives of real persons and the extrapolation of cause, effects, conscience, and consequences. It examines how the attitude and actions of individuals on each other can affect these individuals and impacts on the wider society and the world at large, far into the future with multiplying effects. It also looks at the role that science, religion, genetics, nuclear proliferation, and politics will play in the future world. It examines the cycle and interactions of local forces and global activities and how these forces cascade into the global phenomenon of events.

Some of the names, locations, persons, and situations were changed and fictionalized in order to conceal the identity of some of the characters and places, to also add dramatic effect, and to magnify and illustrate pertinent points and ideas.

About the Author

The Author is a graduate of the University of the West Indies with a Bachelor of Science with a major in Biochemistry, Applied Biochemistry and Chemistry.

He had also done post graduate studies in Management and a Diploma in Marketing. He has won the Gleaner Newspaper Silver Pen Award. He also writes music and songs, and plays and produces music.

He is presently in pursuit of post graduate studies in Information Technology.

Acknowledgements

I thank my sons Seretse and Adrian, the catalyst for this book, giving me the inspiration, the focus, the love, and support; for proof reading, guidance, and help in the management of the project.

My daughter, Aneka, for making me the proudest father.

My sisters, Jennifer and Joy, and my brothers Danny and Courtney.

Thanks Paulette Kerr,

Thanks L. Michael McNab for always challenging the assumptions.

For my very special friend and wife Christeen for proof reading and editing and for being so brave, a catalyst of love and selflessness.

To Norma Jones.

Thanks Dr Erna Brodber, for encouraging me to write years ago. I am also eternally grateful to her for selflessly reading, reviewing, and preliminary editing, and for valuable advice and suggestions.

Earl Moxam for review and suggestions.

Ms. Alma MockYen C.D for review, suggestions, and editing.

My teachers, Ms Gabbidon and my English teacher Mrs Dorothy Noel for planting seeds we didn’t know and all my other formal and informal teachers who help to shape my knowledge, thoughts, and experiences, both good and bad, over the eons.

Thanks Kenneth Bailey, Dayo & Victor Taylor, Marvin & Mikayla Gooden, Rox-Anne Hind, Woolery Wilson, John ‘Ragga’ & Junniel Bond, Annette ‘Sledgeann’ Anderson, Nathan Elliot, Joedeen, Kaydeen, Sophia Richards, Matthew, Warren, & Jemar Lawrence, Julia Brown, Elise Freebourne & Family, Andre Anderson & Family, Lincoln ‘Junior’ & Natalie Wright, Ms. Beverley & ‘Piper’ Thaxter & Family, Nadine Kelly, Flexable Trooper, Ryan Barton, Travis Hollaway, Jamie Small, Aliyah Shippey, Ms Helen Green, Richard Lue, Dr Anthony Johnson, Eric ‘Ricky’ Duncan, ‘Skipper’ Miller & Rosie & Ryan, Tafari & Karina Richards, Sylvia, & Makayla, Kay & Gabryiel Newman, Odell & Kadian Johnson, Eyton Ferguson, Edwards & White Family, Empress Pink, Noel ‘Binns’ Francis, Michael Johnson, Fyah Peart, Doc Iman Blak, Cassidy Davis, Norwich & Snow Hill Crew, Winston Bell & Camperdown Crew, Chancellor Hall & UWI Crew, Richie Walker, Nico Brownie, Mello Lawrence, Andrew ‘Bugs’ Phillips, and the Pelps Crew, Sasha Tye-Blake, Marcous Peterkin, Stephen DeLeon, Dr Andrew Pearson, Denroy McKenzie, Dimples & Family, Mr Edmond Brown & Family, Alan ‘Skill’ Cole, Paulette Simmonds, Stteppin Out Loud, & Inntech TV Crew, Duran Patterson, Dr Eustace Smith, Prof Wayne McClaughlin, Dr Mitchell, Kerry Inkk, Damian ‘Russian’, Mr Jackson & Stylz FM, Gary, Tony, Kadian, & Orville Smith, Andell Forgie, Claudia Woolery & Family, Oshane Smith, Elan & Mrs Hyacinth Smith, Val Thompson, Marian & Germaican Hotel Crew, Prof Errol Morrison, Miss Lucille Brooks & Gregory, Mr and Mrs Philpotts, Kaywill Williams, Father Gooden & the Titchfield High Crew, Vineyard Town, Drewsland, & Waterhouse Massive, Damian (DP) Phillips, Pauline Francis, ‘Chubby’ Gardener & Claudette, Lascelles Dixon, Channer Family, Ripton & Rosie White and Family, Peta-Gaye, Fungo, Carl ‘Dungus, Jaylin, & Kalwyn and ‘Gaddeus’ Cleghorn, Passley Gardens Crew, Brucy & Donnovan ‘Puss’ Miller, Pastor Tony Thompson, Mrs Elaine Anderson & Family, Miss Madge & Family, Richard Blackford, Wesley & Patrick Saulter, Ann Marie Campbell, Prospect Crew, Brandon, Dwight Allen, Orrett, Sherine & CASE Crew, Ms. Burton, Mr Bernard, Kadian Osbourne, Lukeland Stewart & The Portland Parish Library & Scientific Research Council Staff, Facebook & on-line friends, & other well-wishers.

To Aimee Reff, Teri Watkins, Michelle Adams, & the Authorhouse Team.

To all the people of Jamaica and the world who have made the sacrifice and who have lived and/or died for the good cause of making the world a better place for all of us who are here and those to come.

I have a mission to accomplish

………………………….

This book, my life, my music, this book,

Is a mission

…………………………………………………..

Walking up the street, axe on my shoulder,

Here I come a-riding, lone ranger cross the border,

With a melody in my mind, lyrics in my hand,

And here I am playing music that you don’t understand.

………………………………….

Just like those who came before, I too got to walk alone,

And just like Nicodemus, the night is my own,

But I’m just a helper in the asylum doing my time,

Anomic terror has the inmates mesmerized.

Michael Bell – Mission to Accomplish

It’s all about the Ands of Time,

Now I know that life can’t rewind,

Can you imagine a story that reflects my life?

And now I am a hero.

TStar - The Ands of Time

1

If 6 Was 9

The End of the Beginning

And so, castles made of sand melts into the sea,

Eventually.

Jimi Hendrix – Castles Made of Sand – Axis Bold As Love - 1967

I was numbed and neutered….. I was a victim of the hands of time!

I was constrained, castrated, castigated, and cast-off.

I was nullified, negated, and neutralized; I was ‘nothinged’.

I felt baffled, disorientated, dazed, fuddled, and flummoxed.

I was all at sea.

I was shell-shocked, speechless, and bowled over as I stared unbelievingly at the morning newspaper’s headline.

I was totally lost as I stared at the unbelievable words. I was knocked off balance by this illogical, irrationnel, and unexpected blow.

I choked on the cruel contradictions of life and was dizzy with fright.

My head was completely empty and my brain was frozen inside. Eyes wide opened but still going blind. I searched inside but no joy I could find. My tears welled up as my sorrows climbed. It climbed a vine that was twisted, entangled, and so entwined.

My heart, my soul, and my mind, were battered and bruised by the hands of time.

I sat dumbfounded, dumbstruck, and just plain ‘dumbed’ by the ‘unreality’ of the headline that was grinning at me. I looked away from the newspaper with astonishment. The headline had electrocuted me into a state of suspended disbelief.

A sharp stake pierced my heart and I was an instant zombie. So, I waited on time and tried to regain my equilibrium.

So, I sat attente, waiting on the tick of the clock.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

I compulsorily looked back at the newspaper’s date to check if I was dreaming and then quickly looked away when it became obvious that I was not.

The date was correct.

The date was Wednesday, September 12, 2018.

I sat hoping for time to snarl the illogic of this dreadful news and bump me out of this incongruous construct.

I thought I was prepared for anything that life threw at me, but was totally unprepared for this. I could not accept this scenario.

As I stared at the headline again, my mind freaked. It zoomed out as my eyes zoomed in. It zoomed in pass words, pass letters, pass fonts and pixels, pass electrons, protons, neutrons, pass strange quarks, and not so strange quarks.

I zoomed in until I entered the twilight zone.

I was Casper in fantasma. I was in a ghost world. I was in so deep that the paper grains became mountainous cold sores ‘irising’ on my eyeballs. I zoomed pass accepted reality, to where certainty breaks down and Heisenberg rules supreme.

I was borrowing time, vacillating, substituting, and waiting. So, I nonchalantly searched for the God particle, the Higgs boson. I was trying to get some cohesion and prove Sir Stephen Hawking ser incorrecto. I was trying to right this wrong, wacky, and absurd world I am living in. I searched for ether. I was searching for dark matter to keep my universe from disintegrating. I needed cosmic glue to keep my sanity.

The standard model did not fit and I wanted to understand the nature of what really matters and decipher my dilemma. I was searching for Jacob’s ladder, to energize me to quantum leap out of this dreadful ordeal.

My mind entered Quantum Physics where the universe was created by a thought. I dwelled in electron clouds, looking at the smudges, searching for nebulosity, searching for cosmic evolution and waiting for the precipitation of paradox, waiting for the paradigm shift to cool my scorched mind and purify my soiled soul.

I played ping pong with gluons, used strong forces as hammocks, made slingshots with weak forces and shot galactic pebbles at big bang birds. I studied gravity and tried to figure out where the universe came from. I blew supernova smoke and cosmic dust to the edge of the universe. I blew my yearning to the edge of time and discarded all things that I had ever known. I dissolved all that matters into primordial soup.

I entered Einstein’s door of relativity where time became an illusion, just the 4th dimension. I wanted to break down the walls of the Chronology Protection Conjecture and unravel Quantum Entanglement and ‘unspook’ and untie everything. I wanted an existence where the past, the present, and the future were all happening at once. I wanted my yesterday to be my today and my today to be my tomorrow.

I wanted desperately to enter this world and I had the key.

But I could not find the door!

I wanted a galactic vessel to ferry around the cosmos. I wanted to travel faster than light to the nexus where time is frozen and everything will be the same forever.

I wanted to rewind time, to before the Big Bang. Then, I would be able to tell Monsignor Georges Lemaître unequivocally if the Big Bang and Creation were one and the same.

I wanted to go back and then tell Sitchin if Nibiru and the Annunaki really existed. I wanted to go back far enough to know, if von D 38022.png niken was right about UFO.

I wanted to stop time and see if Sartre’s être and néant make sense and if existentialism is a state of mind or a state of being. There would be time enough to see if ‘Being and Nothingness’ morphs into something else.

There would be time for Nietzsche and me to write down everything that Zarathustra said. There would be time enough to decode Fanon’s ‘Wretched of The Earth’.

I will be here when the Sun swells up in red anger on the knowledge of its mortality and burns the earth to a crisp. I will be here when it shrinks to a white dwarf. I will be here when it draws its last breath and casts its last ray. I will still be here when it is a black dwarf and the earth into eternal darkness.

I will be here when the black hole sucks in stars and planets to make gravitational glue to try and stop the universe from expanding. I will be here when the universe has contracted back to a pin head and the Big Bang starts all over again. I will still be here when matter has lost its charges and collapses into changeless goo.

I made upbeat wishes hoping to affect my consequences. I was behaving as if I did not know that the Law of Attraction cannot change what is done, it can only influence what is to come.

I was trapped. I wondered what I had done to be in this dreadful situation. But where the truth lies, I know that the rain falls on both the righteous and the wicked.

There are events in your life over which you have no influencia or control.

Still, I was wishful, waiting for the tides to turn. Waiting on the waves of reality to reconstruct itself into something else.

So, I sat frozen, waiting on the hands of time, waiting on the tic-tac of the clock;

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

I was caught in the celestial pull of apprehension and procrastination. I was busting my head, beating my cerebrum, and oscillating my cerebellum like Galileo’s pendulum. I was bobbing and weaving like an accomplished pugilist, skillfully evading the clenched fist of reality, only to be caught by its straight rights.

I camped on Dante’s peak of despair, percolating in purgatory and cooled my head in the hub of the inferno, while dissecting my fate and contemplating the vicissitude of life in the marshes of misery, in the valley of the shadow of muerte.

Like a martyr, a victim, a troubled soul, I sat on the banks of Sam Cooke’s ethereal river, waiting on Godot, praying, weighting, and groping, hoping for something to sweep away my Armageddon.

I sat silently; dazed and confused. Wishing, but knowing inextricably that even if neutrinos travel faster than light, the river of time does not flow backwards.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that denial was an exercise in futility. There was no way around what was ahead. I had to be a man, sit up, bite the bullet, and swallow my medicine.

So I sat up, shook myself off, bit the bullet, and strengthened my resolve. But I still could not swallow my medicine.

Even in a clouded state, I was no Heisenberg. I preferred certainty.

So I again reassembled my thoughts. I evolved out back to the here and now, hoping to see a different headline. But after all the cranial gymnastics, the same cold words were staring obdurately, unyieldingly, and unwaveringly at me.

I was being brutally reminded of an irrevocable fact. I knew that the laws of existence were axiomatic, but my mind simply refused to accept. I was stuck in the quicksand of denial. I was wish-whipped, hope-wrecked, and ‘statued’ on the ‘sures’ of an inflexible actuality.

I was confronted with the harsh certainty of life. It is an exactitude which brutality brushed aside the preposterous assumptions of anthropocentricity. I did not want to face the fact that nothing can be changed by wishful thinking.

No one is above the rules of life and in this existence, there is a cycle. There is karma, there is payback. There is reward or retribution.

In this existence, there is cause, effect, and consequences.

You can change your clock, your watch, your wives, and even your life, but you cannot change the hands of time. You can change your wishes, the things you do, but you cannot back the clock or rewind time.

Time, whether a gift, luxury, quantity, or commodity, whether it is passed or spent, it cannot be twisted, it cannot be bent.

Still, I was bamboozled by self-wish and did not want to accept that the annals of reality, the scrolls of history, and the things of times past were not like canvasses of conversion or placards of perception printed on pretty paper.

Reality cannot be twisted, typeset, or painted. Reality is hardwired, unchangeable, burned, and etched in stone, in granite, and in steel which cannot be changed by personal wishes. Reality is not elastic; it is not play dough, Lego blocks, or pretty putty.

The scripts of time cannot be doctored, spun, or flipped. The road of history leads to the highways of truth and it and its debris will eventually wash up on the shores of facts. Yesterday’s truths could be today’s lies and today’s truths could be tomorrow’s lies.

Reality is incontrovertible, indissoluble, and indestructible.

Still, I scanned the room, searching for a crack; something to stop my mind from being torn in this macabre, Jungian landscape, this horrendous paysage. Something to yank me from this fiendish nightmare.

I was looking to propulser back to the relative relief of a scary reality. I wanted the joy of escaping a nightmare, a pesadilla, that seems just too réel, and auténtico. I wanted back the warped and misconstrued horreur I called la 38020.png f which I abhorred, but to which I would now gladly return.

I searched zealously, but could not find a worm hole or an exit mode. There was no reset, restore, delete, defragmentation, shut down, or format functions. There were no escape keys or abort buttons.

I felt as if I had passed through the door of no return and was standing on the shore of Ouidah with sand in my mouth. I was before the ocean of imminent destruction. I was unwillingly set to embark on the middle passage without walking around the tree of forgetfulness and spending time in Zomaï.

I was a slave of my consequences and there was no escape.

So, I just sat back. I sat back and waited on the tick of the rejol;

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

I finally shook off the illusion of escape and kept my eyes on the newspaper. I raced pass the headline, still searching for an escape. I was looking for a hole to tell me that this was a perfect prank and put a wry smile on my beaded face.

My surrounding was so quiet, so silent, and so surreal. The world was so unconcerned and so unperturbed. It seems so indifferent to my plight. Today, normality seems so phantasmagorical. I wondered why life still goes on the way it does and why everything was the same it was.

My senses were so amplified by adrenaline that I could hear the steam floating up from my coffee as hot bubbles burst on the surface. I could clearly hear a bird’s comical serenade a mile away.

I was very sure that I have never heard that bird before.

The ringing phone was a sonic boom that shattered the strained calm.

I heard the ringing and I was not awakened!

That put a dagger into my hope.

I turned achingly to the phone, hoping that this would awake me, but resignedly afraid that it would not.

I answered. It was Everton, a friend of many years.

You heard the news or saw the newspaper? he asked, always straight to the point.

Yeah, I saw the newspaper, I replied lethargically.

You read the story? he questioned.

Not yet I countered.

What is going on? he drawled.

So uncharacteristic of Everton. Normally, he does not ask redundant questions.

He too was shocked.

Previously, I would have retaliated, but I was too drained, too battered, too bruised, and too defeated to take on any other battles, no matter how minor.

I don’t know, I replied sparingly.

Still, I reached for a straw.

You think that this is for really real? I asked hopefully.

I’m afraid so, he answered matter-of-factly.

That scissor my silver cord and sliced my slither of hope.

He then paused briefly as if to digest the facts himself.

It’s all over, everyone is talking about it, he updated me.

I will call you back, I hastily volunteered When I find out more.

I flipped the phone, quickly escaping.

Right then, I would have preferred to puzzle out all the predicaments of the universe but actually, I could not process whether Pluto was a pup or a planet.

I quickly descended into a state of regression. I slipped silently into a stunned daze and wrapped myself into a vacuum of numbed deliberation. I escaped into the dark corner of childhood ignorance. I went back into the world of sensory deprivation to which I often escaped when the going got tough.

It’s a world I found comforting because although there was no joy, there was no sorrow. There was no happiness, but there was no sadness or pain either. No victories, no losses, no highs, no lows, no ups, no downs, just the flat line of redundant existence.

I had to escape because if this was a dream, a rêve, it was all too real, and if this was réel, then I definitely must be dreaming, I must be rêver.

But I had to come to the conclusion that when have been fooled and failed by all other possibilités, when there is no love or sympathy, the only thing left is reality.

So face it!

Eventually, I returned to the newspaper. I read cautiously and silently, slowly digesting while the uncaring words screamed at me mockingly.

Devon ‘Splaato’ Thompson shot dead

The headline shouted triumphantly at my full attention.

I nibbled down to the byline.

The Don of Dons, known as ‘The Survivor’ killed execution style

I paused, hesitated, and halted briefly, for a moment, waiting for reality to kick in further and to carry on with the ordeal of reading this disastrous news.

I then latched on to the story, choking on, and dissecting every word.

"Devon ‘Splaato’ Thompson, the reputed don of dons, crime lord and drug kingpin, was murdered last night. He was professionally executed in his gated mansion in the exclusive Cherry Gardens community.

"He had just beaten an extradition request and was slated to be the star witness at the Commission of Inquiry on Organized Crime next week.

"The processing of his extradition request was unusual, and again caused strains between Kingston and Washington.

"Two weeks ago he had used legal loopholes to beat the extradition request. His high powered lawyers are beating their chests in victory, but legal luminaries said it was not just a case of Thompson beating the extradition trap. The U.S. Justice Department suddenly lost interest.

"The question is what caused about such an unprecedented development?

"Persons in the know said that there were no procedural errors. These facts lend more that there are other factors involved. The Justice Department had never gone this far and then retreated.

"There was foot-dragging by this government. It was suddenly more difficult to travel to the USA as fewer visas were being issued. In addition, many visas that were given to government affiliated persons were revoked.

"This was the second time in recent history that Jamaica did not have a US ambassador for a protracted period. Usually, the top diplomat is confirmed before the incumbent finished their tenure.

"The situation was shaping up to be a case of history repeating itself. A similar scenario occurred eight years ago. The fall-out after a public inquiry led to the firing of government officials, and the highest level resignation. The highest office was unexpectedly thrust into inexperienced hands.

"Lots of the political gymnastics were done then to stave off public scrutiny. But in the end, that was an exercise in futility and when the details became known, the one, who was larger than life was exiled in the blink for his misdeeds.

"A snap election was called after the leadership change and that administration lost badly and was booted out of government.

"At the height of that confrontation, the country was on the brink of a civil war. There was a state of emergency, slowdown of the economy, and irreparable damage to the country.

"Bearing in mind what happened then and that this request was for a bigger fish, it was feared that this might again cause enormous fallouts.

"But there is more to this case than meets the eye. National circumstances have never deterred the US Justice Department from pursuing their undertaking. Based on precedence, there are other mitigating factors, but no one knows for sure. Many whispered that Thompson had secretly snitched and gave the US the information it needed, but no one said that in public.

"The cause of Thompson’s death was a single bullet to the mouth. From the style of the execution, it is surmised that the motive was to shut him up and send a message to other witnesses.

"There were no signs of a struggle. The police theorized that the gun used had a silencer. Also, no physical evidence were recovered. Only the impression of a single bullet was found in the wall but the slug was removed.

"The ballistic experts deduced from the massive facial damage that a high-powered gun was fired at close range. The investigators are clueless as to the type of gun but are trying to use striation marks to try and garner leads.

"No one saw anyone other than Thompson enter his premises and no one leaving. It is an enigma how the killer was not detected by the sophisticated surveillance system. The security guards who were on duty at the time of the murder have come under a lot of heat.

"Thompson’s death has left volumes of unanswered questions. He was subpoenaed to give evidence next Wednesday at the Commission of Inquiry on Organized Crime. Most of the lesser players have already given their depositions.

Due to the potentially damaging testimony expected, the Chairman of the Inquiry, Justice Elbert Farlow unexpectedly ruled that Thompson’s testimony would be taken in camera".

"There were howls of protests, but the Inquiry’s spokesman, Mr. Raymond Hanna said that a full transcript would be released at a later date.

"Justice Farlow, who was yanked out of retirement to chair the Inquiry, is a seasoned judge. He lost his only son in a botched kidnapping years ago. It is believed that he is the best man and that