ZERO

”The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”
~ Mark Twain ~

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July 4th
Ritz Hotel, London, Great Britain

John Hanson’s laptop beeped once as it was starting and soon he had connected to Internet with the help of his mobile. The mail program was opening up and the latest mails were downloading into his inbox.

John had left the police station only fifteen minutes ago and was now back at his hotel room in central London. After one night and a morning of interrogations John had been released. Daniel Norton had confessed to everything and since both their stories matched, as well as the technical evidence, John was allowed to leave while Mr. Norton was arrested.

The news traveled like wildfire across the world, but it was accompanied along with another letter. It was that letter which John got displayed on his computer and reverentially began to read.

July 4th

Dear future world leaders,

The New World Leader has been with you from the very first step … He has been here from the start. The New World Leader is not someone that suddenly falls over us today, but someone which you have all summoned during the years that have passed, because you have so strongly believed in the things The new World Leader have carried with Him in His message.

The New World Leader has arrived, slowly, during a long period of time sneaked inside your hearts and persuaded you to, by your own power, together, carry out miracles.

I hope that you constantly carry Him with you in all that you do and all that you say and that your children and their children may take part in Him so that also they may carry The New World Leader with them for the sake of future generations.

Continue to choose leaders that make you proud, continue to be leaders who deserve loyalty.

Show each and everyone respect.

Now walk out and discover the world and the universe together and spread the spirit of The New World Leader.

It was your dreams which I only dressed in words!

Sincerely yours

Michael Dunn

John carefully closed his laptop and felt how a tear was being shaped in his eye, which when released ran along the cheek towards the corner of the mouth. The salty taste of the tear was mixed with the taste of iron which had been created in the back of his palate. It was the taste of human Life.

A life which obviously was worth to die for.

Though more important, and which someone had taught him with an undoubted clarity, a life which was worth to care for.

July 3rd
Somewhere in the world

They say that you will see your whole life flash before your eyes within the blink of a second just before you die and Michael Dunn would have been able to confirm that if he had survived, but you seldom do that when your life flashes before your eyes within the blink of a second.

He saw his cousin and first love Mary, whose father, stepfather, had been the most warm hearted human being anyone of them had known. They had grown up on his farm and played themselves through every tree, bush and water puss. Climbed over all the fences and hidden in all the piles of hay. They had chased the cows on the meadow and shoveled in the barn, they had laughed and cried and gone from young to older children on that farm.

They had learned to love, understand and care on that farm. Thomas Evans had taught them. He had taught them how to make a tree house, how to put on a band aid on a sprained ankle, how you build a soapbox auto and how you milk a cow. They had taught each other the meaning of friendship as well as what honesty and loyalty means. But then it had all ended.

It was Michael and Philip who had first heard Mary screaming and crying as she tried to reach up to Thomas, her father’s, lifeless body which was hanging from the ceiling, and by that he had taught them a great deal about sorrow, regret and death as well, but that he probably wished he could have avoided.

That was what Michael’s life contained. The rest, the following, almost 15 years were much more compressed and thin since they did not have the same significance. They were only an effect and a conclusion from the previous 14 years of their lives.

His final thought before all went dark and the light burnt out within Michael’s body was an intense feeling of warmth and an equally reinsuring feeling of that there was nothing he regretted. His life had been short, but it had been meaningful.

One can also assume that Michael also received the answers to all humanities eternal questions about the soul and the existence of God, but maybe that was not as important, because maybe he already knew.

July 3rd
London, United Kingdom

John Hanson fired a bullet into the lock of the door leading to Michael Dunn’s apartment. It echoed with a loud bang in the stairway and he hoped it would attract every single police in London. He then kicked away the remains of the bolt so that the door slung open and he could run into the hallway with a roar.

It was a small one-room apartment and John saw immediately that his entry seemed to have been at the very last second. On the floor in one corner, leaning against a chair, sat a man in his 30’s, with dark blonde hair and an abundant beard. He was neither particularly small nor that big, but his physique revealed a certain interest for keeping the body in trim. John assumed at once that it was Michael Dunn, The New World Leader.

Bent over him with his gun drawn and aimed at Michaels head stood Norton and smiled scornfully at John.

John waved his gun at Norton and yelled.

– Drop the gun, Norton, or I shoot your head off.

Norton began hissing a threatening response at John when Michael calmly spoke, like completely unmoved by what was happening around him:

– John. So we finally meet. I must say though, that I am a little bit surprised of how little you have understood of the message if you come into my home waving that thing around.

John looked at the weapon in his hands. He was not proud of it but it had felt necessary, horribly necessary.

– I… have to save you, he stuttered.

– Save yourself first and foremost and put away the murder equipment.

Norton curiously looked at them both. John swallowed hard and the tears, the anger and the fear were roller coasting through his body and made his hands shiver. He tightened his muscles and kept his aim towards Norton

– I have a wife and child … they need me. He looked intently at Norton.

– Daniel here also has a wife and a child, even if apparently everyone present is not aware of that.

Both John and Norton turned their heads and starred at Michael. Norton spat back at Michael:

– Do not involve them in this.

– I don’t need to. You do that so well all by yourself. I am sure your son will grow up and feel such pride of all the human lives you have on your conscience.

– Shut up you terrorist. You have twisted the head on the whole world with your crap, but you cannot succeed that with me, my son will understand.

– Yes, I’m afraid he will, on your account, I’m afraid he will.

– Shut up.

Both John and Norton was apparently upset about what was going on while Michael seemed totally detached from the seriousness of the situation.

Norton turned towards John.

– Don’t do anything stupid Mr. Hanson. You may walk away from here alive if you keep your head cold and put down that thing. It is not a toy as you know and so eagerly proclaim. It doesn’t matter to me how you choose to act. I will end the life of The New World Leader tonight, in the name and the best interest of our nation. It will end here one way or the other. My life is expendable. My son will grow up in a world where terrorists like Mr. Dunn here, does not dare to put there ugly snouts above the surface.

– You cannot kill The New World Leader.

John and Daniel turned once again to the calm man on the floor who had just spoken.

– Do you think you are immortal too? Then you are crazier than I realized.

– No, I’m not immortal, but The New World Leader is.

– Don’t try anything like that. I know that you wrote all the letters, you and your confused, fortunately dead, friends. You cannot make me believe anything else. I have hard fact that’s the case.

– Yes, I wrote the letters, I and my, fortunately dead, friends. But I’m not The New World Leader …

It became unpleasantly quiet for a second as John and Norton sharpened their gaze at Michael.

– …I’m only His prophet.

– What do you mean? Norton’s voice had a slight ring of nervousness over it. Also John looked a little bit surprised.

– I came with the prophesy of the arrival of The New World Leader. I spread that prophesy, but I would never dare to claim His seat. I was only one of many pawns in this game. I’d like to believe I was an important pawn, but I am not The New World Leader. Not now, not tomorrow, never.

John did not know what to believe and Norton looked at least as surprised and taken back. John ventured to ask Michael to explain himself.

– Mr Dunn, but if you are not The New World Leader, then who is?

– Yes, Daniel shouted. Who is it? Tell me and you might live.

– I guess you will find out very soon. Tomorrow you will all know.

Norton was completely red in the face of anger.

– Tomorrow it’s too late. I want to know now. NOW! Or else I will paint the fucking wall behind you with your brain substance.

John began to relax. Deep inside of him a feeling of calm was growing, an insight, that no matter how the night ended nothing would change. All plans were already locked. All preparations were already made. Michael Dunn’s part was over and nothing Daniel did to him or to John could ever change the outcome. John became warm. The image of his family surfaced inside of him and all that he had struggled to achieve during the last years. When the warmth had spread through his whole body and even reached his hands he suddenly felt how cold the weapon he was holding was, so he quickly put it down on the table beside him like it was infected by something, an infection which apparently had gotten a nasty hold on Norton.

Norton starred surprised at John and at the weapon on the table.

He was not a bad person. During other circumstances Daniel Norton would probably have been a good friend with both Michael and John, but destiny wanted something else and never was there enough time given to Daniel to reassess his chosen path, instead he was the eternal victim at the altar of fast decisions.

At a distance you could hear the sounds of sirens which approached with high speed. Norton heard it as well and interrupted his own doubts by instead reminding himself of the goal of the last five years and of how little time remained. He quickly turned his head towards Dunn and said with a sharp cold voice.

– I don’t believe you, and with that he squeezed the trigger and the sound of the bullet that went off made the window in the small apartment clatter. Michael’s head flew backward and a gush of blood and splinters of bone spray painted the wall behind him. His body immediately sank down into a pile of human remains on the floor which slowly was covered with more and more blood.

John stood like frozen and just starred in front of him, with his gaze locked on the dead body which until recently had been Michael Dunn, the letter writer, the man John had been searching after for five years.

John had through his foolishness and his carelessness led Norton here and that he was now painfully aware of. The blood on Norton’s hands was equally as much on his. If he would have only dared to trust Michael’s own safety precautions, then maybe he would have been alive now. Instead John had, like Judas, brought dead onto the one he appreciated most.

The sirens were now almost inside the very room they were in and the blue light from the patrol cars outside the building swept over their faces and along the walls. Norton had fallen to his knees in front of his victim. That which should have felt like a relief, a final victory, was not feeling anything near that. Instead Daniel was hit by the merciless feeling of having made a mistake. His body became heavy and unresponsive and he neither tried nor could make any resistance when the police officers rushed into the room and disarmed him and brought him out to the police car.

John followed Norton’s example and calmly left the room which stank of man kind’s worst traits.

July 3rd
London, United Kingdom

It was not without some luck that Daniel had found Michael Dunn’s flat in the outskirts of London, and it definitely was in the last second. Daniel was a bit surprised though how peaceful he was sitting there in his small one room apartment and ate his supper, like nothing in the world could touch him. Quietly sitting there the day before the great finale, the day before he would release his beasts which he had stored away for the earth’s people, so unbelievably confident of his own victory, Daniel thought. But he would learn otherwise.

That this really was Michael Dunn there was no doubt about. When Daniel finally had figured out that the name Thomas Evans still had a certain value, it had not taken long before he had figured out the rest.

Thomas Evans had also lived in Wakefield and he had been Mary Hopkins step dad, a hard working farmer whom due to banks and legislations lost his whole farm and all his animals. He first turned permanently drunk for a short while before he decided to commit suicide by hanging. His death was probably according to Michael’s point of view, Daniel thought, the product of bad, evil leadership and it was probably that incident which had triggered them all into having this maniac idea of how they could change the world.

Daniel understood that neither of them were criminally inclined originally nor evil, they were just confused, and poor Mr. Dunn was the most confused of them all.

He had misdirected his anger and despair and chosen to manipulate his friends into believing that by using the methods they have been using, they could force unnatural things to happen.

Unfortunately it had in most parts apparently succeeded. But the world needed to understand that such behaviour was not tolerated. That USA or the free democratic western world did never give into terrorists and their threats. Therefore Michael Dunn and his plans to become The New World Leader needed to be shut down today, once and for all. And it was not enough to arrest him. The world would be too divided if The New World Leader would still be alive, maybe there would even be a third world war. No, Michael Dunn had to die, only then there would finally be an end.

There had been far too many Thomas Evans in Europe for Daniel to have time and money to visit them all since he didn’t know more than the name, the story about the dead farmer in addition with some small bits and pieces he knew about Michael Dunn. So at first it had felt like everything just ended in thin air, but then suddenly had he began to think about the teenage girl Sumenova in New York. It had felt like his last hope, but it had shown that no matter of national background you can always trust a teenager to act irrationally. Now Daniel was totally sure he had the right man on the hook, finally.

He had felt on the door handle of the apartment and it had been just as he had hoped, unlocked. He had stepped into the hall and quietly closed the door behind him and locked it. In the kitchen he heard Michael jangle his cutlery as he was eating. Daniel pulled out his gun and sneaked quietly forward toward the kitchen doorway. Before he hade even seen the man inside the room, his voice came out and greeted him.

– Mr Norton I presume.

Daniel stepped into the kitchen and announced himself by pressing the gun against Michael’s head. Michael had not even bothered to turn around yet, which annoyed Daniel enormously. This revolting self-confidence, like he believed he was immortal.

– You never cease to surprise me Mr. Dunn, but even that will soon come to an end.

Michael turned around towards Daniel and smiled. Daniel did not respond the smile but instead cocked the hammer on his weapon.

– Do you have any final words Mr. Dunn? Would you like to say a prayer? Ask for forgiveness?

– All of that I have already taken care of, Daniel. I have prayed for you and I have forgiven you.

Daniel could not stand listening to this disgusting self-righteous volubility from the man who had taunted him for so many years and who had basically destroyed his life and forced him to abandon his family for almost a year.

Daniel grabbed Michael’s sweater and pulled him down from the chair so that he fell to the floor. He kicked at him so that he was pushed up against one of the corners of the small kitchen and then pressed his gun barrel against Michael’s forehead.

– You have destroyed my world and now I will destroy yours.

July 2nd
New York, USA

Natalya Sumenova’s life collapsed around her. As much as she had found reason to live during the last passing years, equally as little her life was worth in this moment. She had just ceased her hysterical crying and hung up the phone with John who was in Berlin. She had explained what had happened and he had practically thrown the phone in her ear with a miserable and angry ”Damn it”.

It had only been an envelope and a letter where she had tried to express her innermost, just a puny envelope with His address on, which she had hidden so well she believed, before she would send it.

But now it wasn’t there anymore. Left was only a plain piece of paper with the words: ”Thank You! /Daniel Norton”. If this had been his first break-in into her home or if he had been there before now and then, looking for clues, she did not know and it really didn’t matter anymore. He had obviously granted her as the weakest link in their chain, and in that he had been completely accurate. How deeply she wished it would not have been so.

If he had threatened to kill her in order to gain any knowledge, he would have failed, that she knew, but maybe he had known that too, because never did she see any trace of his presence. He had known that she would not speak even if he broke every bone in her body. She was too strong for that and too devoted in her faith in Him.

But it was also that devotion which Mr. Norton probably wished would give him the final clue. A teenager’s typical need to store her secrets in a diary or in a small box shaped like a heart. He had probably seen it before.

Now Mr. Norton was all for certain already far on his way to The New World Leader, and everything was her fault.

Natalya was sitting in the broken remnants of her life. She had phoned John immediately when she had discovered her loss, but it was probably already too late.

She wondered if it was for this reason her young life at one time had been spared, to annihilate the world with her love and yearning.

July 1st
Dublin, Ireland

It was only three days left until the final concert. Jerry Murtaugh was sitting at home in his house in Dublin and relaxed. They had been out on tour non-stop since New Year and had been having concerts basically every other day. He was completely whacked, like most of the others, but it had been worth it. The response had been overwhelming and the attendance as well. Especially the concert in Rio he would carry with him in his heart until his final days.

Now he had given himself and the rest of the team five days off before they would finish this thing here in Dublin at the enormous outdoor arena which had been built especially for this event. According to what Jerry had been told there was room for around 500 000 people on that arena, and it was sold-out. Jerry was out of words.

While Jerry had been busy spreading his message of freedom and kindness all over the world, his own beloved country had gained the very same. Northern Ireland had been freed from the clutches of the United Kingdom and Ireland was now whole again, after centuries of battles. Some hostility still lingered on, but blood on the street was no longer an every day occurrence on the Northern Part of the green island. Jerry had big hopes that Catholics and Protestants soon would stand side by side with each others.

Maybe already in three days.

May 19th
The White House, Washington DC, USA

It was not a simple task to be the president of one of the leading superpowers of the world, especially not if you wanted to change so much of its internal structure and function.

Jean R. Murphy still had a majority of the voters support, but it had decreased quite a deal since the election, almost half a year ago. On the other hand she had an enormous support abroad and was called in foreign press as the best President in the history of US. She doubted a little on the accuracy of that description but was still happy on how she was received when ever she visited or was visited by representatives of other states. The fact was that her victory in the USA had spread all over the world so that leaders of the same spirit and caliber in other countries won their national elections as well. It was like the super power USA´s ability to change had given all other countries a new kind of hope for their own future.

And Jean was not late initiating the promised reform work; extensive environmental programs, the first steps towards an enormous system change of the economical structure and  gigantic transformations in the American military force and secret intelligence. All this, of course, created eternally sworn enemies, but it also created at least as many friends, whom maybe did not have equally amount of power and money, but by the sheer numbers and by the ability to speak up in public were at least as dangerous. Jean hoped though that one day, preferable within a rather near future, the self-proclaimed enemies would be able to transform into her friends, when they discovered all the many advantages with the new direction. Or maybe that was hoping for too much. Time would tell.

At the moment there was an international debate going on whether to join all military forces into one international force which primary task would be catastrophe support and peace mediation.

There were big things happening and President Murphy had all reasons to be proud.

May 7th
Canberra, Australia

To believe you have the answer of a secret which the whole world was asking for and not even have the courage to protect it too much in fear of being the reason that the secret would die, was not a fully easy emotion to deal with, neither to Steve Gibson nor the other three.

They had decided to kill their knowledge by complete silence, to eliminate any tracks that might lead others to come to the same conclusion, and not even ever look in the direction where the secret was hidden. But at the same time the worries were gnawing them, that maybe they had overlooked or missed something, that one of them would talk too much, look just a little bit too long in the wrong direction or trip over their tongue and then, voila, 12000 trigger happy CIA agents would appear and fill their longing, and their expectations with led.

Steve had been engaged with the letter writer and His dream for almost five years now, and something more meaningful as that had been, he could not imagine. He didn’t want it to fall on the finish line and die, so that it would all be done in vain. It could not be allowed to happen. His arrival was prepared. Now He had to come, what else would they do?

Johanna noticed that something burdened Steve and she asked him what it was. He begged her with all his heart not to ask again but also to understand that it had nothing to do with either her nor little Michael, but he could not say anything more at the moment; maybe later, but not now.

Every day as he opened the news paper a cold empty feeling invaded his stomach. Would the headline on the first page this morning be: ”The New World Leader Caught” or even worse: ”The New World Leader Dead”.

Hours went by, days and weeks, days and weeks, but silence still remained. Though somewhere out there was their New World Leader and somewhere else, hopefully somewhere else entirely, His pursuers.

April 30th
Somewhere in the world

Christopher Byrde was sitting in his wheel chair on the veranda of the house he was renting on the French countryside. It was still a little bit too chilly but spring was on its way and you could feel in the air that it would be a warm day tomorrow.

It was only him and Michael left now. It was like the circle had been closed, since it was the two of them who had been the first original friends before Mary had moved to Wakefield and they, a bit later, had met Greg and Philip. Now there were only a few weeks left until the final letter would arrive. Basically no more work remained for Chris, only waiting, but because of all those years that had passed and all that they had sacrificed for a dream which was larger than those in fairytales, waiting was the hardest part.

Chris had begged Michael that He would make arrangements to disappear during the final stage of their labor, as an extra precaution, since they knew that at least that Mr. Tucker had identified him, and there might be more on the way. But Michael had strongly refused any measures of such kind.

”We have played a game with very high odds, we will not suddenly change the rules just because some things doesn’t go exactly the way we want it”, He had said. Chris had protested and claimed that there were no rules. Only the ones they had created and the primary rule was to continue all the way until the end. There was no point in putting oneself in harms way. Michael had then said that if we claim that we have always believed that the world can change, and we have given it almost five years to do just that, then we must also give it enough trust and faith to prove it.

Chris hated His arguments but he knew that Michael had made up His mind. That which would happen, would happen, no matter whether it depended on destiny, the constellation of the stars or just plain stubborn stupidity.

April 22nd
Lhasa, Tibet

Tenzin Takla sat on a rock somewhere up on the Tibetan mountains and viewed the city Lhasa down there and the people who worked in the fields. Above him the sky was blue with only a few white and fluffy clouds passing by. There was no snow where Tenzin was sitting but only a few tens of meters higher up on the mountain the snow border started. It had been a wonderful winter and the spring went along in the same spirit. The people of Tibet flourished and everyday was a gift which they previously for far too long had only dreamt of.

Tenzin had left his post at Kundun and returned to the temple school. His path was the monk’s, the one he had chosen and the one he would walk. He no longer felt any need to find the person behind the letters somewhere in the world; it kind of didn’t matter, it was much more important to find the words of those letters in your own heart.

All is suffering. The longing for an unreachable dream, the regrets for the things you’ve lost and the yearning for the things yet to come.

Change is a painful process which hurts and frightens. The new is always born from blood and agony. But the new is so beautiful, so fragile and wonderful that the torments and the pain soon become only faded memories. It was so beautiful which had happened and what was happening, so wonderful that it ached in Tenzins heart.

Everything was truly suffering, but it was in the suffering where you knew that you were alive.

Tenzin cried for earth’s sake and for his own, but it was the sweet tears of joy that caressed his cheeks; tears which were dried away by the mild winds and the warming sunshine on a mountainside of Tibet.