“Freeing the girls isn’t enough. We must wipe out the terrorists.”

It wasn’t the most eloquent of titles. It didn’t have the panache or fluidity or sophistication that characterizes great prose, and the journalist knew it.

He hadn't laboured over it but whipped it off to meet his deadline. He wasn’t aiming to be Michael Ondaatje. He was simply trying to reflect a sentiment that was spreading like a virus throughout much of the civilized world. And in truth, it had really only been meant as a placeholder — others at the daily were generally tasked with creating catchy titles. But they, like the journalist, were time-strapped too, so it passed muster, became “final”, and was released to the reading public.

It would be only later that the journalist would learn the full impact of his words. Intelligence insiders would later relate that it was this one sentence that had infected the mind of the billionaire — a man who would, essentially, become patient zero, spreading the message and catalyzing a series of events that would ultimately do the words justice.

The only question remaining was — at what cost?

Part 2 — The Billionaire — to follow.