Alanna Reynolds stood in the stable door and watched as the horse transport carrying the last load of her Thoroughbred yearlings rolled down the tree-lined drive and out the of Wicklow Stud's main entrance headed for Keeneland Race Course's Lexington sales facility.

The departing yearlings were a splendid group. They represented many months of careful, loving preparation, along with a considerable monetary investment. She would miss them, for all of them had been born on the farm and hand raised. But she understood it was their sale and, hopefully, their future success on the track that would insure the future of her farm and her involvement in the world of Thoroughbred racing and breeding which she loved.

The preliminaries completed, she headed to her car.

As Alanna approached her black Volvo station wagon, parked at an angle to the barn door, a loud noise coming from inside the barn stopped her and made her turn around.

Inside the door, a man stood in the shadows, his arm raised as in a greeting.

"Jake. What a surprise," she called, to what appeared to be the familiar figure of Jake Carter, her best friend, protector, mentor, and comrade in arms through many a dangerous moment in her life.

Leaving the car, she started back to the barn, first at a walk, then at a run, as the figure seemed to move backward into the aisle.

"Jake. Jake, wait! Where are you going?"she called to the retreating figure.

As she entered the barn, all that met her was a long empty barn aisle, and dead silence. Slowly, she walked to the end of the aisle and back, nothing. No one was there. A sense of foreboding came over her, for there could be no mistaking that the man she had seen was Jake. But, Jake, she knew, at this moment should be in France, thousands of miles away.

"Jake!" she shouted into the emptiness, urgent and fearful.

But, only the chirping of a nesting bird answered her call. Its melody echoed in the sound coming from the crazy bird clock a stable hand had hung on the barn wall to her right as it struck 5 p.m.

Kamal, and his splinter Hizballah group, he felt, were the Palestinians' only hope. He knew that for him to be successful in achieving his ends, to restore to his people their dignity, freedom and their homeland, and to ultimately unite the Arab people politically, he must do away with all the Arab factions, gain the respect or the fear of the world, and take command of the situation himself.

It was to that end that he now sought to gain access to the nuclear device, which Francois had assured him, could be had through Francois' Mafia connections.

If things went as planned, soon all of the Middle East's Arab forces would be his to command, the strength and unity of the Arab world would be behind him, and all of this would be accomplished at the expense of the Israelis, who, with the help of a few strategically placed bits of incredibly reliable intelligence and material proof, would become the scapegoats. So disgusted would the American people and the American Congress be with the Israeli's supposed use of one of its nuclear devices to eliminate its adversaries, along with the senseless and callous killing of thousands of innocent bystanders, including some of the world's most respected statesmen and diplomats, that in all likelihood all military support would be cut off, and the hour of their demise as a nation would be at hand.

He smiled at the thought, and returned to his reading.