“How long have you been here?”

“Eighteen years, in January.”

“How did I get here?”

“They brought you.”

“So – ‘they’ know you’re here?”

“Uh-huh.”

David rubbed his forehead as if trying to tame his turbulent thoughts into an orderly flow of inquiries. “’Rehab.’ And that place. What – “

“The Institute – your Institute – ran out of money in late 2012. You and other viables were sold as salvage to the military for future research. God knows what – classified. Transferred to Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. After it all went to Hell, three of you were stable enough to qualify for long-term maintenance. We found you a couple years ago.”

“And the other two?”

“Don’t know. Liberated them first; you’re the only one who’s made it back.”

“Why – ?” David eyes shone as he groped for words.

Noam studied him and laid a hand gently on the side of his head. “Let’s get back to the others. We’ll provide you the context you need to feel less…overwhelmed, and take it up again tomorrow – after food, reflection, and rest.” He motioned toward the orderly rows before them. “Why don’t you pick something to prepare?”

David knocked softly and entered.  Noam met him, relieved him of the DVD player nd discas, and squeezed his hand.

“Sleep all right?”

“Considering.”  David shook his head.  “Impeached and tried in the Senate?  For getting sucked off in the Oval Office?”

“Technically, it was lying about it—but, that’s your strongest impression?”

“Not really.  Monica Lewinsky was my last political memory.”

Noam chortled bitterly.  “Perfect!”

“What?

“Highly-developed reflex.  I taught Political Studies at Pitzer College.”

“Claremont?”

“Yes, long ago and far away.”  About 28 miles, as the crow flies.”  Noam looked wistful, then drew David into the room.  “There’re two other people I’d like you to meet.”

A hulking older man had kicked back his chair and was on David, dwarfing his hand in beefy flesh and grinning.  “Seacrest—Simon Seacrest.  Welcome to Xanadu, pilgrim.”

Noam laughed, a hand on each of them.  “Former professor of communications—currently, sarcasm. We’ve had each other’s backs since freshman year at Yale.”

“Two pitiful, old bachelors,” Simon said.  “You left out ‘Department Chair,’ ‘Professor.’”

“And, over here may I present—“ Noam raised the poised hand of an elegant, white-maned ebony woman—“Antoinette Mitchell Cook, Scholar—“

She nudged him.  “’Former.’”

Noam bowed.  “Excuse me—‘former’ Scholar in Residence in Philosophy, U.C.L.A. She is our jewel, our beacon.”

She sniffed.  “Den mother, more like.”

Noam pulled a chair away from the table in the cramped, airless room.  “Shall we sit?”  The elders leaned in and gave the prodigal their attention.

David traced some initials carved into the battered Formica.  “What caused ‘9/11?’”

“Fifteen of the 19 identified hijackers were Saudi Arabian, like bin Laden” Noam said.  “They were all linked to al Qaeda, the second group he formed in 1988 to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.  Ironically, we both supported the Afghani mujahideen—bin Laden with recruits and training and us with arms, through the CIA—before they became the Taliban.”

“Really?”

“Yup—he returned to and was a popular hero in his home country until the first Gulf War, when the royal family rejected him.  A Sunni and devotee of Sharia, he declared a worldwide war on ‘corrupt’ Muslims, especially Shia, and the West in 1998, after being implicated in jihadi  attacks in North Africa, Europe, and the Balkans.”

“Why?”

“My personal theory?  Decades of American involvement with friendly, repressive Middle Eastern regimes, including the Saudi royal family and the Shah of Iran, to keep the crude flowing radicalized younger Middle Easterners, especially dispossessed males.”

“Don’t forget the majority of global people of color—their mothers, wives, and daughters,” Antoinette said.

Noam nodded.  “After that, it was a matter of bad geopolitical decisions, our insatiable demand for oil, and protecting private investments in the region.  Anyway, as you saw, capturing bin Laden became our justification for invading Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ for marching on Baghdad a year later.”  Anyway, take ‘WMDs’, the notion of Iraq as the hotbed of international terror, stir in anti-Muslim hysteria, and our ‘coalition’ takes Baghdad in three weeks.  Our first act is to fire the entire Baathist—“

“Who?”

“Ruling minority party—Sunnis, like Hussein and the Saudis.  Vast majority of Iraqis are Shi’ites, as are Iranians.  So we dismantle the country’s security infrastructure and become referees in a ten-year quagmire of three-way, tribal civil war.  Thought we could charge into somebody else’s back yard, wipe clean a millennium of accrued history by using an occupation army to install ‘democracy’ made in our image, then go home for supper.  Just like Vietnam.”