ABSTRACT
History has determined a cruel backdrop for this book. I began writing in the late summer of 2001 in the wake of the American outrage. Four passenger aircraft had been hijacked by persons then unknown but subsequently revealed to be members of the al-Qaeda international terrorist organisation. Two of the planes had suffered accurate and catastrophic collision with the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one with the Pentagon building in Washington, and the fourth had crashed, upside down, presumed short of its actual target. The shock and tragedy rapidly transformed into anger and horror as the synchronicity of these events coalesced into causality. These happenings were purposive, they were deliberate and they were concerted. Thousands of people had been killed and this was an intended consequence.
