Crocodiles devoured six critics of the regime overnight. But the news barely moved the morning price of commodities from the Ivory Coast. Cocoa was unchanged, and coffee was slightly up. Vietnam, Tanzania, Java; the beans had travelled the world before their distinct flavor exploded in his paper cup stamped with the green goddess.
Djambo Diallo set it down on the right side of his keyboard. He always arrived first in the morning. At twenty-three, he was also the youngest intern at Occidental Trading. After four years at the University of Chicago, crowned by a joint MBA in Finance and MS in Information Technology, he was at the right place at the right time.
Young Wall Street analysts came from every corner of the world to the vast and promising rectangle of America. Increasingly, they came to search the torch of liberty from the Third World. This was also his case.
He was Djambo the Cheetah, the young boy from the African savanna who had left his village to live his dreams. And this was his first opportunity after college.
He took a sip, and instantly the sweet acidic flavor of the well-roasted Italian nectar transported him home with nostalgia: The coffee trees, the plantations, and his adoptive white parents, Robert and Francoise Martin. They were so proud of his journey.
In four short years, he drove a yellow Chevrolet Caprice Classic, the quintessential cab of the nineties, put himself through school, and successfully graduated. On the Windy City's South Side, grass grew through the cracks of abandoned McDonalds and empty churches, but Djambo never let the surrounding landscape obscure the brightness of his hopes.
Now that Y2K was behind, it looked like clear sailing in the financial markets. He flicked on the bulky computer screen to scan the overnight world market quotations, and began reading the morning news. The entire eightieth floor was empty. Cool, Spartan, dominating the city, it was an ivory tower; a bunker of some sort, where white shirts, ties, suits, and trading tickets would soon buzz around during the frenzy of the 9:30 am opening.
Djambo loved this time of year. It was a pure, blue, early fall morning, with cool air already. The city's humidity evaporated into the heavens without leaving a trace. Coffee, in America, is a religion, a comforting ritual. Without it, mornings are meaningless.
He closed his eyes for a second time, grabbed the cup gently, inhaled it all in his deep lungs, and thought about Felicia whom he had left in Chicago.
When he opened them again, a 767 jumbo jet flying at five hundred miles per hour, carrying eighty one passengers, a crew of eleven, and ten thousand gallons of kerosene in its belly was coming straight at him. It was closing in fast on the other side of the bay window.
It was exactly 8:46 a.m. in New York that morning. The impact did not register in his mind. It was that quick. Instinct took over his body and his limbs reacted automatically. When charged by a herd of Cape Buffalos a decade before in the presence of Robert Martin, far, very far from that cool New York morning, he had plunged to the ground in the same manner. The feeling was identical: Death had arrived.
It did not come from nature this time, but in the cigar shape of a terrifying man made flying machine. The wing decapitated the entire office: Fax machines, computers, water cups, and millions of pieces of paper were flying around him like confetti. Djambo coiled under his desk. Everything had turned black around him, and he immediately ripped off his business shirt.
The heat emanating from the floor below briefly rose to a thousand degrees, and it must have been well over a hundred in his now completely demolished office. It had transformed into a war zone. It looked like the presidential palace in his native Ivory Coast after being looted by the revolutionaries. He was coughing, gasping for air. The windows were pulverized and the sixty-eight Fahrenheit breeze was mixing with the ashes, lighting up fires everywhere.
Djambo crawled to the entrance of the darkened trading room. Six instantly carbonated bodies were lying outside of the elevators from which black smoke was slowly puffing out. He retreated back in, around the reception area. There was a pool of blood, scattered limbs, where young Molly Parks greeted him with a smile at 8:30 am every morning. He had absolutely no idea of what had just happened. Nothing came to his mind, except that he was there, at that moment, and alive. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.
The trading room was no sanctuary. It had erupted into an orange ball of fire and begun to melt. Djambo crawled down the hallway to his left, but an entire wall had collapsed, obstructing it right in the middle. Daylight appeared from a small office on his right.
