The land on which the United Nations building stood did not belong to New York City or even the united States. New York had ceded it to the UN half a century before. Maruk Arafshi, head still bandaged, watched the blue-bereted UN military police escort away a violently kicking mirror image of himself.
“I don’t know why they needed you! ” the imposter cried. “I was good!
No one would have checked my fingerprints or my DNA! I was great at being you!”
“I’m sure your were,” Arafshi said with honest amazement at the familiar face before him. At the moment, the recovering Secretary General looked less like Maruk Arafshi than did the fake being stuffed into the patrol car.
Welcomed back to his plush, mahogany-lined office with sincere applause from his staff and fellow delegates, he blinked from the flash of camera strobes and video lights. Leaning unsteadily against his broad desk, he said, “Please, I’m back and I am eager to get to work. My recent unpleasantness is not the issue here.”
“What is the issue?” shouted a reporter.
Without a thought of self-censorship, Arafshi honestly replied, “That the last superpower on earth doesn’t even pay its UN dues, yet shamelessly uses the General Assembly and Security Council as a rubber stamp for its policy of economic and cultural expansion and we all go blithely along with it, eager to trade self-determination for World Bank credit and national sovereignty for a false sense of security.”
Arafshi raised his hand to his mouth and nearly bit his tongue off. Allah take me now, he thought with growing terror. What have I said?
The End
Captain Anger and his companionswill return in Adventure #2: The Ivory Tower
