Curled up in his basket, his muzzle resting on his paws,

Oswald gazed at his master. Almost two days without any food,
and God knows how many hours on end without being walked. What
was he being punished for? He needed food. He needed water. He
needed love.
Norman was rummaging in every corner of the kitchen. The more
he couldnt find anything the more agitated he became. His
heart was beating as if it had forgotten how to do it. The
pills! Fucking hell! Hed forgotten about them. Nothing
compared with his mission of unearthing the Pandoras box of
9/11. Mitral insufficiency had been with him for most of his
life but he had always managed to keep it under control with
drugs. No big deal. Hell get them soon. Tomorrow, possibly.
Flinging open the last kitchen cabinet, his face contorted:
two cans of Mexican beans and an ancient packet of crisps.
Thats what you get when you fight for the Truth. Limp crisps
and beans! He snatched the packet and tore it open, stuffing
the stale, industrially fried slivers of potato into his
face[run on], then stormed out of the kitchen and marched into
the living-room.
When Oswald saw him waving that packet around his stomach
rumbled with hope. That was for him his master had finally
remembered him. The dog gathered all his remaining strength
and jumped out of the basket joyously.

Norman saw him coming at the very last moment, and taking that
jump as an attempt to snatch his meagre food, shoved him away.
Oswald smashed into the floor and urinated. Norman stepped
over him, sat down at the table and started to frantically
type on his keyboard.
Oswald lay frozen in an expanding puddle of pee, whimpering.
He was staring at his master as if waiting for a sign. That it
was just a new game. That he still loved him. That their world
would go back to how it was before. But there was no sign from
his master. Nothing he could pin his hopes on.
He picked himself up and dragged himself into the boxroom. His
eyes panned the room from left to right, looking for the right
place or the least worse to finish off the job. In a corner
there was a big cardboard box. He lifted the lid up with his
muzzle, then hopped in. When he had finished, the box was
drenched. He couldnt eat, but he could drink. His slender
frame sneaked into the bathroom. He put his head into the
toilet bowl and lapped up water until he felt full.
Back in his basket, the awful reality had dawned on him: he
would have to survive by himself. So he whimpered and
whimpered. And then he whimpered more. Hed have cried if dogs
could cry. Hed have shouted his grief, if dogs could shout.
His whimpering was low and monotonous, like a sad Mississippi
slavery song, and like a slave song, no one heard.
Not Norman, who was switching from one conspiracy theory to
the next: the one about the five Mossad agents; the one about
the CIA being informed of the attack by Al-Qaeda; the one
about the Pearl Harbour connection. When he raised his head
from the screen of his laptop, it was 3 a.m.. He hadnt eaten
anything in six hours. A low, prolonged lament was floating
around the room. He met the blank and lifeless eyes of Oswald,
who was curled up in his basket as if trying to hug himself
warm. Norman glanced at his dog as a child would do with a
discarded teddy bear. He made himself a pot of coffee and took
one of the cans of beans. Quit whimpering!, he yelled as he
resumed his seat.
His spoon stabbed into the can, a mouthful of beans, and the
hunt began again. Here we go, fuckers!, he yelled to the
world, clicking on a link.

Six a.m. A dark room brightened only by the cold light of a

laptop. Normans eyes like the surface of an alien planet
streaked by blood-red rivers. Ten days into the Task, and he
was nowhere. The sudden surge of disappointment quickly turned
into a vicious mixture of fear and anger.
After the breakdown of his marriage with the only woman he had
ever loved, after the bankruptcy of his company, another
failure was looming. Was he bound to fail anytime and anyway?
Was his life doomed? His arm smacked the laptop hard, and
before he could catch it, it had fallen to the floor. The
screen was cracked. Jesus! The screech of the chair as he
stood up. Ready to attack some invisible enemy. The system out
there. The one that denied Americans and the rest of the world
the Truth. The one that denied him the fame and happiness he
deserved. That very same enemy was trying to annihilate him,
to make him a loser again. Not any more. This time he would
give the system out there the middle finger. This time he
would.
Putting on a thick sweater and a blue bomber jacket, he left
the house with a slam of the door. Oswald started. He barked
loudly, angrily, with his last bit of strength, as if he too
was confronting an enemy. It seemed that the house was now
populated by enemies. But there was no one there to fight .
The barking slowly weakened and turned into a howl of pain.

END OF PART THREE