Murdered By Gods: One World, Book 2

By Charles G. Irion

ONE WORLD
Those two words propel mountaineer and former intelligence operative Scott Devlon on a quest to unmask a plot to destroy the world order.
Disillusioned after more than a decade of international intrigue, Scott Devlon has found a new mission in life, running Project: RESCUE—an organization dedicated to protecting the volunteers working with non-governmental organizations and relief agencies operating in the most dangerous parts of the world.
Getting Project: RESCUE up and running is going to require talented people, so Devlon embarks on a world tour to recruit staff for Project: RESCUE’s global network.
Danger has always been Devlon’s traveling companion, and this journey is no exception. When a chance encounter in Mumbai sparks his interest in a mysterious charitable organization called ONE WORLD, Devlon finds himself the target of an unknown enemy. After narrowly escaping death in a roadside bomb attack, Devlon is pursued across the globe—from India to Latin America. With every new clue he uncovers, the danger escalates. To learn the terrible secret behind ONE WORLD, Devlon will journey into the deadliest places on earth.
The clock is ticking, and ONE WORLD is about to explode!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles G. Irion
• Release date: Dec 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734718539

Charles G. Irion

Charles G. Irion is a publisher, best-selling and award-winning author, successful entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist, executive producer, and actor. For several decades, he has served as the sole proprietor and broker for U.S. Park Investments, a leading operator of Manufactured Home and RV communities in the United States. Before that, he was a pharmaceutical representative for Johnson and Johnson, McNeil Laboratories after completing his Masters of Business Administration in International Marketing and Finance from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.One of his life-long passions is for the written word. Determined to make his dreams a reality, he wrote and published fourteen books comprised of the Summit Murder Mystery series, and the Hell series. Inspired by his 1987 attempt to climb Mt. Everest, and a 2011 summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, each book in the Summit Murder Mystery series is set atop the highest point of the world's seven continents. Deaths from falls, avalanches, illness, heart attacks, and high altitude sickness are a matter of course, and when you add in murder, action and adventure, the combination makes for unforgettable reads. The climb begins with the first book in the series, Murder on Everest, and is followed withWIKI ARTICLEMurder on Elbrus, Murder on Mt. McKinley, Murder on Puncak Jaya, Murder on Aconcagua, Murder on Vinson Massif, and ends with Murder on Kilimanjaro. There is also a novella, Abandoned on Everest. The Hell Series includes, Remodeling Hell, Autograph Hell, Car Dealer Hell, and Divorce Hell. He also published a fun novelty cookbook for outdoorsmen called, Roadkill Cooking for Campers - "The Best Dang Wild Game Cookbook in the World."Many years ago, Irion's first medical mission was to Benjamin Hill Senora, Mexico with the Phil Am Lion's Club. Even then, he knew that medical missions were experiences he wanted to continue. Charles is currently a Director of the Phil-Am Lions Club in Phoenix, Arizona and has participated in medical missions in a village near Subic Bay, Philippines and in Caborca, Mexico to provide approximately 300 free cataract surgeries to needy patients. He also traveled to the Municiple Hospital in San Pablo City, Laguna Philippines with the 3000 Club, to administer eye and diabetic screenings for those in need.In June 2011, Irion went on a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro with the K2 Adventures Foundation. They took Project C.U.R.E. supplies and used them to examine more than 200 patients. The following year, he visited Lima, Peru to help translate for the doctors and nurses at a C.U.R.E. clinic for a day. In addition to philanthropy trips and translating services, Charles participated in the training session at the Denver headquarters to become a certified Needs Assessment Representative. He went to Burkina Faso, Africa for the field training requirement and his first assessment alone was in Cuenca, Ecuador to conduct assessments on a hospital and a mobile surgical unit. His next assessment trip to Nicaragua included assessments of Project C.U.R.E. Clinics, where he translated for the doctors and passed out medicines and vitamins to children and adults. Since then, he has also conducted needs assessments to Ouanaminthe, Haiti; El Banco,Colombia; Santa Marta, Colombia; Buenaventura, Colombia; Cali, Colombia; Boma, DRC; Lumbumbashi, DRC; Kalemie, DRC; Lima, Peru; Machu Picchu, Peru; Bahia Kino, Mexico; Nogales, Mexico; Benjamin Hill, Sonora Mexico; Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Belize City, Belize; Cuba; Antigua, Guatemala City, Guatemala; San Jose, Costa Rica; Jaco, Costa Rica; Panama City, Panama; Zambia, Zaire, DRC; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Moshi, Tanzania; Manilia, Philippines; Zambales, Philippines; San Pablo, Philippines; Kenya, and Mumbai, India. He loves being involved with such an amazing organization and helping those that really need it. In that spirit, his slogan is One World, One PeopleTMIrion's passion for adventure has encompassed the full gamut. He has traveled to over 60 countries throughout the world. SCUBA diving is a favorite hobby of Irion's and he has seen the underwater world from California to Mexico, Costa Rica, the South China sea, Belize, Colombia, Rio De Janeiro, the island of Phuket in Thailand, Bali, and in Subic Bay of the Philippines. Irion has also skydived throughout Arizona, loved the thrill of white water rafting on Pacuare River in Costa Rica, and in 1988, Irion completed a week long course in High Wall Mountain Repelling conducted in the Bavarian Alps.

Book preview

"No matter the location, Irion makes you feel like you’re right in the middle of the action!"

—Leo G.

For mountaineer and sometimes spy Scott Devlon, saving the world is what happens while you’re busy making plans. Murdered By Gods One World takes you around the world on an action-packed adventure!

—David Wood, USA Today bestselling author of The Dane Maddock Adventures

"Addicting! I couldn’t put it down!"—Nick J.

"Another smart and well-written thriller!"—J.A. Royston

"What a wild and unexpected ride! Murdered by Gods—One World kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time!"—Michael E.

"Brilliant story and brilliantly written!"—Elaine York, Allusion Publishing

"Irion’s books keep getting better and better. An incredibly well-written, thrilling, unputdownable ride!"—Abigail F.

"The perfect quarantine read!"—Anthony T.

"Another book by Charles Irion?! I can’t wait to dive in!"—Goodreads Reviewer

"Irion at his BEST! Blew me away!"—Reece L.

"Irion fans, hold onto your seat!"—Aggie L.

"Murdered By Gods is not a book I would typically read. Having said that, I was intrigued from the beginning to the end. Charles G. Irion will be added to my list of favorite writers."—Jim S.

I know a review is supposed to be about a book, but I’m really just craving Indian food…and Nicaraguan…and food from just about everywhere they traveled. Maybe because I was so deep into reading that I forgot to put the book down and eat! Excuse me while I look up a food delivery app!—Kim D.

One World. A pulsating techno-thriller!—Jennifer M., Author

"With Murdered By Gods: One World, Charles Irion delivers his most audacious mystery-thriller to date. Can’t wait to find out what happens next. Scott Devlon is my kind of hero." —Sean Ellis, Author of BLOODSTORM and CAMP ZERO

"A read you should be certain not to miss!"—Tyler J.

"Terrific read. Scary that it’s totally plausible. I can see this happening in the not so distant future!"—Isa B.

"Always fun keeping up with the exploits of Scott Devlon!"—Savannah R.

"As always, Charles Irion doesn’t disappoint. Is the next Murdered By Gods finished yet?!?"

—Franklin P.

"Fast action + Exciting plot twists = ONE must read thriller!"—Warren K.

"Where does reality end and the fiction begin? Not certain and LOVED every minute of it!"—Ryann C.

"A good deed...and a hero with a good heart...never goes unpunished. Especially true in the literary world! Thanks for the wild ride Charles G. Irion!!"

—Julie B.

"Trouble follows Scott Devlon…and I love every second of it!"—Summer D.

Charles Irion has outdone himself with this latest book. It’s Scott Devlon’s best adventure yet!

—CeCi E.

"An action thriller so timely it is astonishing!  I couldn’t put it down, yet I was nervously turning each page to see if the Scott Devlon would be able save our planet from a technological pandemic."—Greg Lutz, Actor/Narrator

"I love that Irion goes beyond the plot and shares a bit of culture and history

about the locations that Scott visits."—Chuck S.

Books by Charles G. Irion

Murdered by Gods Series

Machu Picchu

One World

Timbuktu (Coming 2021)

Summit Murder Mystery Series

Murder on Everest

Abandoned on Everest (prequel to Murder on Everest)

Murder on Elbrus

Murder on Mt. McKinley

Murder on Puncak Jaya

Murder on Aconcagua

Murder on Vinson Massif

Murder on Kilimanjaro

Hell Series

Remodeling Hell

Autograph Hell

Car Dealer Hell

Divorce Hell

Roadkill Cooking for Campers

"The Best Dang Wild Game Cookbook in the World"

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MBGOneWorld

www.facebook.com/charlesgirion

Twitter: @CharlesIrion

Instagram: @charlesirion

YouTube: Charles Irion

Website: www.charlesirion.com

REVIEWS FOR OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES G. IRION

MURDERED BY GODS SERIES

MACHU PICCHU: "That ending! This book will stay with me for a while!"

SUMMIT MURDER MYSTERY SERIES

EVEREST: "An intriguing beginning to what promises to be a stellar series!"

ABANDONED: "A clever story told from a character’s point of view."

ELBRUS: "Another highly entertaining mystery from Irion!"

MT. McKINLEY: "A vivid tangle of murder, intrigue and danger."

PUNCAK JAYA: "Thoroughly enjoyable! Couldn’t put it down!"

ACONCAGUA: "One of the best protagonists I’ve ever read."

VINSON MASSIF: "Sometimes the book was so realistic I was as freezing as the characters! Grab a blanket and tuck in!"

KILIMANJARO: "WOW! What a way to end it with a bang!"

HELL SERIES

AUTOGRAPH HELL: "I’ve been a collector for years and thought I knew it all—I was wrong. A great read!"

CAR DEALER HEL: "Buying a car? Get this book!"

DIVORCE HELL: "This book is as real as it gets about a tough subject!"

REMODELING HELL: "A must read for those brave enough to conquer their own home repair and remodeling!"

COOKBOOK

ROADKILL COOKING FOR CAMPERS—THE BEST DANG WILD GAME COOKBOOK IN THE WORLD: "More than just a fun novelty item—great recipes too!"

CHARLES G. IRION

One World, One People

www.charlesirion.com

Published by Irion Books, LLC

Copyright © October 2020 by Charles G. Irion C.I. Trust

First Edition 2020

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020916091

ISBN paperback: 978173418508

Murdered By Gods: ONE WORLD is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover Design — Candesigner

Book Design — Elaine York, www.allusionpublishing.com

Project Manager and Assistant to Charles G. Irion — Julie Bailey

Audio Book Production — J Mitchell Music

Voice of the Summit Murder Mystery Series and Murdered By Gods Series — Actor/ Narrator — Greg Lutz

Irion Books, LLC

4462 E Horseshoe Road

Phoenix, AZ 85028

Email: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Praise

A Note from Author

Books by Charles G. Irion

Excerpt from the DASH

Prologue: UNEXPECTED

PART ONE: AHIMSA

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

PART TWO: SAMSARA

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

PART THREE: CAUDILLO

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

PART FOUR: LIGHTNING

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

PART FIVE: ONE WORLD

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue: UNITY

About the Author

Coming Next

Summit Murder Mystery Series

A Note from Author

Charles G. Irion

Once again, Scott Devlon is trying to make a change in his life, but he’s resistant to getting drawn back into the Agency. Instead he’s creating his own venture to help NGO volunteers and relief agencies working in the most dangerous parts of the world. Whether he knows it or not, Scott’s living his DASH, a concept that is very important to me.

What is the DASH? The DASH is YOU. It’s your life. It’s represented mostly in one place in the world...a cemetery...on a tombstone...YOUR tombstone! It represents what you did from the year you were born until the year you die. That’s your DASH. YOU! It makes up everything you’ve done in between those years. While we’re here, whether we know it or not, we’re making a difference in the world and in other people’s lives. I want to be recognized as a person who gave and who made a difference. I believe Scott Devlon is making the most of his DASH by creating Project: RESCUE—Risk Management, Expeditionary Support, Crisis and Urgent Evacuation in Murdered By Gods: ONE WORLD.

I hope you enjoy following Scott’s exploits as they take him to locations all around the globe. Many of the cities and the people in them are dear to my heart. The vibrancy of their cultures and the history of their people will hopefully shine through as bullets fly and bombs explode…but I don’t want to give too much away!

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged and supported me in making the best of my DASH. I am fortunate to have traveled to many of the settings in Murdered By Gods: ONE WORLD while volunteering on medical missions. Helping others near and far is one of my passions. I encourage you to find something you love and channel your energy there. You don’t have to start something as large as Project: RESCUE to make a difference. Tossing a small pebble can cause a ripple clear across a large pond.

I encourage you to make the most of your DASH.

"Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water,

the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects."

~ Dalai Lama

Excerpt from the DASH

"Whether we know it or not,

We’re constantly making

A difference in other people’s lives

— BY OUR MOOD,

— BY OUR ACTIONS,

— BY OUR DEEDS."

Charles G. Irion

To see the full DASH story, visit charlesirion.com or YouTube: Charles Irion

PROLOGUE: UNEXPECTED

If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives.

~ Heraclitus

If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

~ Omar Bradley (General, US Army)

One World.

It was a phrase I might have expected in the refrain of a pop song, or in an advertisement for Coca-Cola or some new line of hip activewear.

It was definitely not what I expected to hear from a suicide bomber ready to blow himself—and everyone else in a fifty-meter radius—to kingdom come.

But today had been one of those days where if I’d gotten a fortune cookie with lunch, the strip of paper inside would have read, Expect the unexpected.

Quiapo District, Manila, Philippines

14° N 120° E — July 2016

I had not expected to be chasing terrorists—not in the literal sense, at least—but here I was, standing at the edge of a rooftop fifty-odd feet above the street. Fifteen feet away, on the roof of a neighboring building, the aforementioned terrorist was getting back to his feet, dusting himself off after successfully leaping over the gap that separated us. He hadn’t exactly stuck the landing, but he managed to clear the distance, putting both feet down briefly before his momentum sent him sprawling.

He had run right up to the edge, bounded up onto the low parapet, and leaped without pause or hesitation, which was probably why it looked almost effortless. I had pulled up short, skidding into the parapet, and barely managed to keep myself from tumbling over. If my adrenaline had not already been redlining, I probably would have needed a minute to compose myself after narrowly avoiding my personal appointment in Samara. As it was, I still hesitated longer than I should have—precious seconds in which my quarry dramatically increased the distance separating us.

In my head, I knew what I had to do—take the leap. It was doable. He had done it with relative ease. There was no reason to think I couldn’t, but convincing the rest of my overly cautious self of this was proving to be a tough sell.

I don’t have a problem with heights. I have stood on the roof of the world—the summit of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet above sea level, where the air is too thin to breathe, where you can barely tell when you’re speaking because there’s nothing to reflect the sound waves. A four-story building seems paltry in comparison, but the truth is, once you get above sixty feet, it really doesn’t matter how much higher you go. Surviving a fall from the top of a four-story building is a coin flip, but walking away from such a fall is another matter altogether. I wouldn’t be much good to myself, or anyone else, with my shins jammed up into my pelvis.

But that wasn’t going to happen, either. And I knew it.

When I backed up to give myself enough room for a good running start, I lost sight of the street below, which helped boost my confidence a little.

You got this, I muttered, and then I began running.

I wish I could say that I soared over the gap like Carl Lewis in his prime, but I’d be lying. I made it across, but it wasn’t pretty. When I had covered about half the distance to the parapet, I realized that I was going to arrive on the wrong foot. Rather than trust inertia to more than make up the difference, I tried to correct on the move by executing a variation of the military change-step—a sort of skipping motion designed to get a marcher back in sync with the rest of the group. Unfortunately, the foot drag cost me dearly in terms of momentum, a fact I was all too aware of as I closed in on the parapet.

Ignoring the desperate screams of my inner panic beast to abort the attempt, I plowed ahead, trying to eke just a little more acceleration out as I took the last few steps, planted my right foot atop the low wall, and launched myself into space.

I pedaled the air with my legs like some kind of cartoon animal trying to outrun gravity, but in the half-second or so it took me to reach the vertex of my parabolic arc, I realized that I should have listened to the panic beast.

I was coming up short. Not by much—just a few inches, really.

Remember that old saying about horseshoes and hand grenades? Add jumping between rooftops to it, because in this case, close was good enough to keep me alive and relatively intact.

My feet might have missed the rooftop, but everything above the belt made it. I threw my arms out, palms flat and fingers splayed like gecko feet to maximize the area of contact, as I mentally braced for what I knew would happen next. An instant later, my lower body slammed into the side of the building. My hips took the brunt of the impact, but the forcefulness of the collision nearly bounced me from my tenuous perch. Ignoring the fact that the wind had been driven out of me, I began clawing furiously at the roof to keep from sliding back.

When I was finally set, I pressed down with my elbows and began the tricky process of worming myself up onto the roof. The first few inches were the hardest—and took the longest—but once I got past my beltline, I was able to propel myself the rest of the way with a couple of good frog kicks. A few seconds later, I was back on my feet and looking for the fleeing terrorist.

I’d lost sight of him during the jump, but there were only so many places to go on the roof, so I took off running in the direction I had last seen him going.

I was in Manila to collect data on Islamic extremist groups in the Philippines. Ostensibly, I was doing this on behalf of the Center for Middle-Asian Studies, where I had been a fellow since earning my PhD from Columbia. But that was just a cover story. I was really working on behalf of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Despite the similar-naming convention, the DIA has a much different mission than the CIA. The DIA focuses on national-level, long-term and strategic intelligence needs—big picture stuff—instead of running operations to infiltrate or destabilize hostile governments. Since September 11, 2001, the big picture on which the DIA and everyone else had been focusing was the War on Terror, a war in which neither the enemy nor the battlefield was well-defined, so instead of looking at specific countries, the Agency’s job—and by extension, my job—was to look at places where the fires of extremism were heating up.

Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism were not new to the Philippines in the post-9/11 world. The current threat—the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf movement—had first emerged in the early 1990s and mostly comprised the radical-leaning members of the Moro National Liberation Front, a revolutionary group from the 1970s that had eventually legitimized into a political party. What was new in 2016 was the abrupt shift in the relationship between the Philippine government and the United States.

Most Americans are unaware that the Philippines were formerly an American colony ceded by Spain, along with Puerto Rico and Guam, at the end of the Spanish-American War. Unlike the other two far-flung islands, which remain American territories to this day, Filipinos were not enthusiastic about the change in management. They had expected the United States to support their bid for independence, and they saw the American acceptance of the Spanish concession as a betrayal. Despite a bloody revolution that took at least two-hundred-thousand lives, and possibly as many as a million, the Philippines remained a US colony until the outbreak of World War II, when the Japanese captured and occupied the islands.

Following the war, the long-sought independence was finally achieved with the creation of the Republic of the Philippines, and for the rest of the Twentieth Century, the relationship between the US and its former territory was strong and mutually beneficial, despite the fact that some of the nation’s leaders were notorious for corruption and brutality. During the Cold War, we developed a bad habit of excusing the human rights’ abuses of dictators in the interest of preserving strategic alliances. But when President Obama threw shade on newly elected Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte by none-too-subtly reminding him of their shared commitment to upholding human rights and the rule of law, Duterte called him a son of a whore and promptly began looking for ways to curry favor with China.

This schism could not have come at a worse time, with respect to US efforts to stop the spread of the Islamic State. The southern Philippine island of Mindanao, with a historically large Muslim population, had long been a flashpoint for revolutionary groups like the MNLF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and most recently, Abu Sayyaf. Now, several of those groups, or their spiritual successors, were openly pledging allegiance to the Caliphate. With Duterte signaling that he wanted a less cozy relationship with the US, there was justifiable concern among the policymakers back home that the Philippines might become the next ISIS stronghold. I had been sent to Manila to make an on-the-ground assessment of just how likely that outcome was.

A couple of days of talking to various officials at all levels painted a picture of a government largely in control of the Islamic extremism problem, as well as a plan to crack down on drug-trafficking—a major source of funding for terrorist groups. That plan had been the catalyst for President Obama’s evidently inflammatory comments about human rights, but at the moment, I was more worried about the Duterte government’s seemingly ambivalent attitude toward the threat of terrorism from the southern island. Colonel Kurt Morales, an officer in the Philippine Special Forces regiment’s counter-terrorism command, who had trained with US Special Forces troops, shared my concerns and offered to let me interview one of his informants who lived in the Quiapo district.

Quiapo has been called Manila’s old downtown. Since most of the city was obliterated during World War II and subsequently rebuilt, old is a relative term. Situated at the geographic center of the city, Quiapo was, for many years, the hub around which Manila’s high society orbited, renowned for trade, fashion, art, and education. But as is often the way with inner cities, the neighborhood became run-down, neglected, and left behind as development and sprawl took citizens elsewhere. Despite all of this, Quiapo still attracts millions of visitors every year, both for its street markets, which are awash in cheap Chinese knock-offs of almost anything imaginable, and for the Feast of the Black Nazarene, which celebrates a life-size image of Christ carrying the Cross, carved from dark mesquite wood from Mexico and brought to Manila in 1606. Quiapo is also home to a sizable Muslim population that, for the most part, just wants what everyone else in Manila wants—to be able to live their lives free of drama.

We met Kurt’s informant at a little open-air café a couple of blocks north of the Masjid Al-Dahab—the Golden Mosque—so named for its enormous gold-painted dome, which seemed to float above the ramshackle rooftops of nearby buildings like a harvest moon rising at noontime. The mosque had been built in 1976 under the direction of former Philippine First Lady and footwear aficionado, Imelda Marcos, for the express purpose of welcoming the Libyan President, Muammar al-Gaddafi. Gaddafi had to cancel his trip, but the construction went ahead, nonetheless. The mosque was definitely a product of its time, aesthetically speaking—a fusion of traditional Middle Eastern architecture combined with a distinctive tribal motif and palette.

Like most religious buildings in the developing world, the mosque had been well-maintained, putting it in stark contrast with the rest of the neighborhood, which had long since gone to seed. Dreary-looking sheet metal and scrap wood shacks vied for sidewalk space with pop-up markets nestled under makeshift plastic awnings. Hidden behind them were the entrances to multi-story residential buildings. The balconies of the latter were festooned with laundry hung out to dry, which may have added a somewhat festive flair to the tableau if it had been framed by something other than crumbling concrete from which faded paint flaked away like badly sunburned skin. A tangled web of wires that illicitly supplied electricity and data to the apartment dwellers crisscrossed overhead, sagging dangerously close to the tops of delivery trucks that negotiated the crowded streets. The humid tropical air was redolent with a mixture of vehicle exhaust and the aroma of food being cooked in homes and sidewalk eateries.

The informant—he did not volunteer his name, and I knew better than to ask—told us about a foreign mullah who had arrived in the neighborhood and, over the course of several weeks, sought out and ingratiated himself with a number of young, mostly unemployed men in the spiritual community. I didn’t need to be told that this was a classic method of radicalization. Convince a young man with no prospects and diminishing ambition that the world—the Satanic and corrupt Western world—has stacked the deck against him, and you’re halfway to getting him to put on a vest packed with plastique and ball bearings and take one last dance at a disco.

The imam in question—imam here being a sort of informal, honorific term used to describe any man who has made a scholarly study of Islam—had given his name as Mohamed Janjalani. Colonel Morales informed me that the name was almost certainly an alias, or rather a nom de guerre, and an allusion to Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, the Moro tribal leader who had founded Abu Sayyaf. Based on the photos the informant had managed to take with his smartphone, Janjalani might have been a Moro, but the informant was certain that he was a foreigner, possibly Indonesian. Either way, it seemed prudent to follow up, so after concluding the meeting, Morales suggested we head over to the address the informant had provided.

I reminded the colonel that I wasn’t there in any sort of official capacity, to which he replied that it wouldn’t exactly be an official visit. But then he did something that really took me by surprise. He knelt down as if to tie his shoe and gestured for me to join him. When I did, he surreptitiously removed a small, snub-nosed .38 from an ankle holster and passed it to me.

You know what to do with this, right? he asked. Unofficially, of course.

He knew that I was a former Army Ranger and fully capable of using the weapon. What he was really asking me was if I could be trusted not to embarrass him, creating an international incident through some act of reckless disregard.

Don’t worry, I assured him as I gave the weapon a discreet function check. Not all Americans are cowboys.

Kurt grinned. But that’s why we love you so much.

I laughed politely and tucked the weapon into the front pocket of my trousers, but his reply was a little unsettling. It occurred to me that he might be playing cowboy for my benefit.

Janjalani lived on the third floor of one of those run-down apartment buildings. The interior hallways of the building were in better shape than I would have expected, judging from the exterior. They were clean and clear of refuse, though there was a faint aroma of tropical mildew.

I did my best to pretend not to notice the looks of naked suspicion from the residents we passed. I could hear their murmurs and footsteps as they scuttled into their apartments, shutting and locking the doors. Nothing suspicious about a well-dressed, clean-cut native and a white guy moving through like they owned the place.

When we reached the third-floor landing, we found the hallway shut up tight. Either everyone was out to work, or the jungle telegraph had heralded our arrival. Kurt made his way to the door marked with the number his informant had provided, and he rapped his knuckles on it.

What are you going to do if he answers? I asked.

Introduce myself, of course, Kurt replied. But I don’t think we’ll find him in there. He spends his days out looking for new recruits, remember?

I considered pointing out that al-Qaeda did most of its recruiting online, which made it the perfect job for the stay-at-home, telecommuting terrorist, but Cowboy Kurt didn’t strike me as someone who would be impressed by statistical data.

After a few seconds of waiting, he turned to me with a See? Told you look on his face, and then he reached into his pocket and took out a slim wallet containing an array of lock picking tools.

Are we really doing this? I asked as he went to work on the lock. Just the two of us? No back-up?

He ignored the question and continued raking the pins until the cylinder rotated, indicating success. We’re just going to have a look around, he said, as if this was a legitimate defense against breaking and entering, as well as conducting an illegal search.

Kurt eased the door open, revealing darkness beyond. He took out a small flashlight, shone its beam inside, and went in. After a quick look around to make sure that we weren’t being observed, I went in after him and closed the door.

It was clear that Janjalani had little use for creature comforts. The front room was spartan, furnished with a small square table ringed by mismatched folding chairs. There were no decorative items—no pictures on the wall, no rugs on the bare wooden floor. A lone hallway at the back of the room led deeper into the interior.

There was a single open door on the left side of the hall, revealing a typical Philippine bathroom—a low commode with no seat and no reservoir tank, a tub with a spigot but no overhead shower, and an unplumbed basin on a counter in place of a sink. Sitting on the floor beside the commode was a small plastic dipper, known locally as a tabo, which was used for post-relief ablutions. There were none of the toiletries you’d expect to find in a Western bathroom—no bottles of shampoo, body wash, mouthwash, or toothpaste.

Scott! Kurt’s voice was low but urgent. In here.

I hurried to join him in the small kitchen, which appeared as tidy and utilitarian as the rest of the apartment, but when I followed the beam of Kurt’s flashlight to a small table in the back corner, I realized that Janjalani had been using the room for a different sort of cooking.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. — Albert Einstein

The table was loaded up with the kind of things you might expect to find in a tinker’s workshop—spools of wire, an assortment of small tools, plastic dishes with nails and washers, and several mobile phones in various stages of disassembly.

I didn’t need Kurt to explain the significance of this. He’s making bombs, I whispered.

Kurt nodded. I could tell he was as surprised as I was. We had assumed that Janjalani was merely a recruiter, radicalizing disaffected young men and then directing them to some other part of the terrorist organization, or keeping them in reserve for some future operation. The fact that he was making improvised explosive devices meant that he was nearing the execution phase of whatever he was planning.

Kurt took out his phone and initiated a call. With his free hand, he motioned for me to head for the exit. I didn’t need to be told twice, and as he began talking, I made a hasty retreat down the hall.

I was just reaching for the front door when another of those unexpected things happened.

The door suddenly swung toward me, revealing a man wearing what we used to call man jammies back when I was a Ranger in Afghanistan. The actual name for the outfit was shalwar-kameez, the traditional, loose-fitting long tunic and pants combo favored by many Muslim men, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I had seen a few men wearing similar outfits in the streets near the Golden Mosque, but they were the exception, not the rule. Most of the men coming and going had worn ordinary street clothes; the only outward sign of their devotion was the distinctive taqiyah skull cap. The man framed in the doorway also wore a taqiyah, white like his garments. The face under the cap was one that I had previously seen in the photograph shown to us by Kurt’s informant.

It was Janjalani.

I froze, for all the good it did me. Amazingly, Janjalani seemed oblivious to my presence as he started forward. Maybe his eyes weren’t adjusted to the darkness of the interior. But then he also froze in his tracks, eyes widening in alarm.

For a fleeting moment, I entertained the notion of whipping out my borrowed revolver and shouting some Hollywood cop cliché—Freeze, punk!—but before I could make the conscious decision to act on such a stupid impulse, Janjalani shook his surprise off, spun on his heel, and bolted out the door.

I retained the wherewithal to shout, He’s running! and then took off after him.

He was only about ten yards ahead of me when he reached the door to the stairwell, and in the time it took for him to wrench the door open, I halved that distance. I stretched my hand out, hoping to snag the lumpy blue daypack he wore suspended across his shoulders, but he was already moving, disappearing into the stairwell. Even then, I might have caught him, if not for the next unexpected thing. Instead of pivoting right, toward the descending staircase and the freedom of the street below, Janjalani veered to the left, bounding onto the stairs leading up.

I didn’t waste any brain power trying to figure out why he had made this seeming blunder, but course corrected and resumed my pursuit, leaping up the steps two at a time. It wasn’t until we reached the roof, and I saw him take that crazy leap over to the next building, that I realized he had not made a tactical mistake after all. He knew exactly what he was doing. And where he was going.

I caught sight of him only a few seconds after recovering from my own nearly disastrous jump, now about seventy-five yards—and a couple of rooftops—away. He was moving in a straight line, which made it fairly easy to reacquire a visual fix, but the irregularities of the skyline required him to move vertically between adjoining buildings of varying height. He was doing so with an alacrity that I might have found impressive under different circumstances. Evidently, in addition to his many other talents, Mohamed Janjalani was also a master of parkour. When I spotted him, he was doing a reasonable impression of Spider-Man, scrambling up a wall to reach the roof of a building that was two stories higher than the one he had just been on.

I sucked in a deep breath, then lowered my head and sprinted for all I was worth. The roofs were a veritable obstacle course, but I managed to avoid any missteps and reached the base of the wall just as