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laughed. Never did a laugh feel so good.
    “No, I’m calling for backup,” he said. “It’s time you and I got the hell out of Dodge. A dead surgeon and reporter won’t do much for world peace and all that good stuff we care so much about, huh, Nick?”

Chapter 4
    BRUISED, BATTERED, BANGED UP—but most important,
alive
—Alan and I were airlifted at daybreak by a UN World Food Programme plane to Khartoum. The good doctor decided he’d stay a few more days there in the Sudanese capital to help out at another hospital. What a guy—and I sincerely mean that.
    “You’re welcome to come with me,” he offered, half joking. “I need a muse.”
    I smiled. “Nah, I think I’ve had enough wilderness adventure for a while. I think I have more than enough good material to write my article, Alan.”
    “Don’t make me out as a hero,” he warned. “I’m not.”
    “I just write what I see, Alan. If that sounds heroic to some people, so be it.”
    With that, I thanked him for the twentieth time for saving my life.
“Salaam alaikum,”
I added.
    He shook my hand. “And peace upon you,” he replied.
    Too bad that wouldn’t be the case, though. Nosiree.
    By that afternoon, I was on a four-hour flight over the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to the United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai, home of the world’s first cloned camel. The place is surreal, if you’ve never been. If you have, you know what I’m talking about. A few years back, I spent a week there visiting all its “tourist attractions” for a piece I called “Disneyland on Drugs.” Needless to say, the Dubai tourism board wasn’t too keen on the title, but what did they expect? Their take on Space Mountain is an actual
indoor
ski mountain, Ski Dubai. Then there’s the man-made archipelago of three hundred islands created in the shape of a world map stretching thirty-five miles wide. It’s a small world after all, indeed.
    But I was only passing through this time. In fact, after a quick nap at the adjacent Dubai International Hotel—by far the cleanest place you’ll ever stay that charges by the hour—I was back on a plane en route to Paris to interview one of the European directors of the Humanitarian Relief Corps, my final bit of research for the article I was writing.
    At least, I
thought
I was on my way to Paris.
    While I was literally on line to board the flight, I felt the vibration of my iridium phone. My editor, Courtney, was calling from New York.
    “How are you?” she asked.
    “Alive,” I answered. It was definitely the word of the day. I quickly told her the story of my Mad Max escape from the Janjaweed militia. She almost couldn’t believe it. Hell, I still couldn’t either.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “You sound a little nonplussed—for you.”
    “All things considered, yes, I’m fine. I even learned something very important—I’m mortal. I’m really, really mortal.”
    “So where are you off to now?”
    “Paris,” I said.
    “Paris?”
    “Oui.”
    “Je crois que non,”
said Courtney.
    Now, I only had one year of French back at St. Patrick’s High School in Newburgh, New York, but I was pretty sure she’d just said, “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?” I asked.
    It was a good question—timely, too, because I was only two people away from handing over my boarding pass and heading to Paris, which is probably my favorite city in the world. Except for the people, of course. Not all of them—just the snots.
    “You need to come home,” said Courtney.
    “Why? What’s up?”
    “Something good, Nick. Something
really
good. You’re going to love this one.”
    That was enough to get me to take a half step out of line. Courtney Sheppard had a few notable vices, but hyperbole wasn’t one of them.
    “Okay,” I said. “So blow me away.”
    And sure enough, that’s exactly what Courtney did. She almost knocked me right out of my shoes.

Chapter 5
    LET ME TIP my hand here—I know it’s