By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
LITERARY S. BRONX / S. LEBANON, May 16 - Wed May 11, 749 am Something was wrong in the Hezbollah trial jury. After days of deliberation and notes sent out about "individual consciences," the judge had dropped the Allen charge on them. This usually worked like Roto-Rooter or Drano, unclugging the pipes and bringing about decision in short order. Not this time. All day Tuesday, as the former president of Honduras was being arraigned and then Kurt went out onto Worth Street to speak with the protesters who had come to see or at least hear about the narco president in chains, the Saab jury continued to deliberate. At 5 pm the judge called them in and released them for the day, saying, don't read about the case. Maybe they should. Kurt, who had been writing more than anyone else about the case, was now free to get back to what he was now calling or at least seeing as the Big Tony serial killer case. There was the body dumped in Hunts Point in The Bronx by the van with the blue diplomatic plates. There was the woman now missing, who had gone into Sutton Place with Abboud's returned offering. Big Tony was now in Vienna, famous for its red light district serving the Palais Coburg Hotel where the Iran nuclear talks were being held. Another Hezbollah connection. But Kurt's sources in UN Security - and he still had some - said that Vienna had been one of Big Tony's main hunting grounds when he was UNHCR chief in Geneva. "He'd go to UNOV when he needed to blow off steam," the whistleblower said. "We knew what kind he liked. Most of them got out. But not all." Didn't they track down missing persons in Austria? Apparently not if they were working girls. Again that euphemism. Or not if the perp was a diplomat or eve more so, the Secretary General of the United Nations. That August body. 8 min 315 Thurs-Fri May 12-13 756 am And finally the Hezbollah verdict came. And it was not what the government, the US government, expected. Not guilty on three of the seven counts, one count undecided - and three guilties, on the less important charges. It appears that one might be dropped for being stale, under the statute of limitations. Marriage fraud and false statements to the FBI? It had come to this. Kurt Wheelock first wrote up the verdict, then tweeted at Hezbollah expert Matthew Levitt seeking his comment. There was none. On to the next trial. In Vienna Big Tony was wrapping up his business, two more victims wrapped in the blue flag as Kurt Wheelock put it. There would be no investigation because there could be no accountability. But Kurt Wheelock would continue to pursue. On to the next case, onto the next city, the UN's next victims. A fish rots from the head. And days later, losses for Hezbollah in the election, even in the south, to an eye doctor like Assad, of all things. So the Party was losing, even as Saab in his way won. Would they be a re-trial? It would be a while until a new election. Kurt hoped to be there.
LITERARY UN GATE, April 15 -- "This is only supposed to happen on Long Island," Sergeant Rosario said. It wasn't clear if to his driver Cory Witmer, or to Officer Linares who had found the body.
She was tied up and naked, and dead. That and the location of the dump, in the weeds behind the Hunts Point Market, had all the markings of the murder of a prostitute or whatever term they were using now. Escort. Sex worker.
"This is some Joel Rifkin b.s.," Rosario continued.
"Or Gilgo Beach," mused Linares, who was younger and watched Netflix on his phone. While on duty, often parked down here at the bottom of the confines of the Four-One precinct..
IV.
In a four story mansion in Manhattan a reclusive man watched the news of the dead woman found in The Bronx.
It was not Jeffrey Epstein - sure Ghislaine Maxwell had been described telling his most artistic victim to watch out when she jogged by the river, but she was still around to say it - but the more corpulent Antonio Guterres. And the mansion was paid for not by Les Wexner but rather the public.
As Secretary General of the United Nations Guterres had a hard job, he told himself. It took a hard man to do a hard job. His double chin was growing, jiggling while he pontificated about fossil fools at the UN Security Council stakeout and then left with security without taking any questions. But underneath he had the same drive as in Geneva, that long decade when Catalina had refused to move with him from Lisbon, and left him alone in a mansion.
It was her fault, Guterres often thought, as he waited for those that UN Security would bring him. The specifics of this supply chain he didn't focus on. Something about Talia's List. And now this, a badly dumped body. Couldn't the UN do anything right?
V.
It wasn't just that the UN's Big Tony club sometimes filmed themselves - sometimes, without their knowledge or ability to censor, they got filmed.
It had happened in Tel Aviv, the white UN four by four of UNTSO, the sex in the van the video of which was published by the blogger Big Tony hated, and who in turn came to hate him.
At first Tony's spokespeople ignored Kurt Wheelock's written questions - Big Tony has already had him thrown out and banned, but they'd said they'd answer in writing so it wasn't censorship - but then other media picked it up. Some credited Kurt and his website, or Twitter account.
And so the same UN Office of Internal Oversight Services which had helped Tony cover up Fabrizio Hochschild's sexual assaults on the 38th floor was deployed, promising an investigation of what anyone with a laptop or cellphone could see.
Three men, it was said, were being reassigned. With full pay, Kurt quickly pointed out. But for most of the media which had reported on the video, the case was closed.
Now this: a body dumped in Hunts Point, and talk about a "Blue Plate Special," not meaning a diner deal but the blue license plate on diplomatic and UN vehicles. In his mansion Big Tony ranted, How stupid could they have been? How stupid indeed. Kurt was digging into it. But of course, they were digging into him - and they had immunity.
To be continued - and see Inner City Press Patreon here
To be continued.
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