Jim Birakos

Unlucky Tuesday Jim Birakos

On a tragic Tuesday, Islamic terrorists plowed into the Twin Towers. On a shameful Tuesday, the Islamic hordes of the Ottomans defiled God's majestic cathedral, Hagia Sophia, and massacred its Christian faithful. But Tuesday in Greek means "three." And a thrice-occurring tragedy is believed inevitable. As Islamic cannons devastated Constantinople the cultivated world considered civilization dead. However, an inspired bishop, the Keeper of the True Cross, was determined to recreate civilization by following God's example: he built a small Ark to be discovered in better times. It carried a precious holy relic to sustain the faith, classical books and maps to safeguard values that shaped Western thought, and history's best kept military secret to protect it all-Greek Fire, the mysterious napalm bomb of the Middle Ages. After years of combing libraries and monasteries searching for clues, a Los Angeles professor located the new Ark entombed in the wall of a cave in Mani, Greece's southernmost tip. Terrorists who had followed his search, finally usurped it. Their heinous objective: re-create Greek Fire with its unquenchable sticky flames, infuriated further by water, and turn a large metropolis into a destructive fireball. On yet another ominous Tuesday, they plotted a vicious attack on an unwary American city.