if animal trapped, call

Rodrigo Rosenberg knew that he was about to die. It wasn’t because he was approaching old age—he was only forty-eight. Nor had he been diagnosed with a fatal illness; an avid bike rider, he was in perfect health. Rather, Rosenberg, a highly respected corporate attorney in Guatemala, was certain that he was going to be assassinated.

Before he began, in the spring of 2009, to prophesy his own murder, there was little to suggest that he might meet a violent end. Rosenberg, who had four children, was an affectionate father. The head of his own flourishing practice, he had a reputation as an indefatigable and charismatic lawyer who had a gift for leading other people where he wanted them to go. He was lithe and handsome, though his shiny black hair had fallen out on top, leaving an immaculate ring on the sides. Words were his way of ordering the jostle of life. He spoke in eloquent bursts, using his voice like an instrument, his hands and eyebrows rising and falling to accentuate each note. (It didn’t matter if he was advocating the virtues of the Guatemalan constitution or of his favorite band, Santana.) Ferociously intelligent, he had earned master’s degrees in law from both Harvard University and Cambridge University.

….

And, according to Rosenberg, it was a case involving one of these clients, Khalil Musa, that had placed his life in jeopardy. A Lebanese immigrant, Musa had risen from poverty to great wealth, manufacturing textiles and producing coffee. Stern, traditional, and hardworking, he liked to recite the inspirational poetry of Khalil Gibran, and was admired as one of the few magnates in Guatemala who refused to plunder the state or make payoffs for favorable deals. At seventy-six, he suffered from vertigo, and he increasingly relied on the younger of his two daughters, Marjorie, to help him manage his business. Marjorie, who was forty-two, was married with two children, and she had an easy ebullience that infused her simple features with beauty. She had mastered the intricacies of finishing fabrics, and she had always been—as her sister, Aziza, acknowledges, without rancor—their father’s favorite.

Musa lived in an affluent neighborhood of Guatemala City, and Marjorie often drove him from their factory, on the outskirts of the capital, home for lunch. On April 14, 2009, they had set out on such a routine trip. The rainy season was a few weeks away, and so clouds had not obscured the steep volcanic cones that tower over the city, periodically showering the streets with ash. When Marjorie stopped at a red light, just outside the factory, a man got out of a car behind her and approached the Musas’ vehicle from the passenger side, as if to ask a question. He then aimed a 9-mm. pistol at Musa, and opened fire—a blur of smoke and light. The gunman sprinted to a motorcycle, where a driver was waiting for him, and hopped on the back seat. They sped away. The stoplight in front of the Musas’ car turned green, then red, and then green again, but the car remained in place, the engine still rumbling. One of the tinted windows on the passenger side had shattered, revealing father and daughter lying in one another’s blood. They had both been shot in the chest. The police arrived within minutes, but by then they were dead.

Like how do you even excerpt this particular piece.

Let’s not focus on how I’m finding out about this fantastic glimpse into American history from a British paper’s website.