Prologue


If you were the only one left; if you were the last person of authority left alive, could you handle the responsibility? Could you handle watching helplessly as the bodies of your friends and coworkers were pulled from the rubble? Could you look on without crying as the life you once knew was destroyed?

Could you handle signing death certificates day in and day out? Could you handle being the one to deliver the news to the families of these people? Could you tolerate the anger and sorrow directed at you? Could you come to work every day knowing that your actions helped to cause this tragedy? Could you look your bodyguard in the eye and smile, knowing that, before all this, you had tried to kill him?

Could you live with that guilt? Could you live in the world you'd helped to destroy and rebuild? Could you live alone with your fears in a world that hates you?

If you were me, could you go on living?