Quest for the Ark

by Taggart Rehnn

  “I believe,” said Haim, lifting both hands to head level and shaking them with slightly curved open fingers, the universal gesture for let’s calm down, “all this blood spilled here amply demonstrates, as things stand now, you are not safe.”

  “You don’t say!” spat Izsák’s son.

  “We don’t know…Severian, do we know how they found this building?” asked Haim.

  “One of them seems to be part of a group of art collectors who also free lances for anyone who can pay—for all sorts of jobs, few questions asked, few limits to what they would do…” he replied.

  “You tried to sell the manuscript, didn’t you…?” Haim asked Izsák’s son, Endre.

  “Well, it was so unusual, so old, so controversial. My father said it had a dark past, and it was our family’s curse to keep it. I’m now an American. I don’t care about Rumanian superstitions. Even my old rabbi said some things are better left forgotten. Then he came with this people in tow. They were threatening him. They killed him. After that, losing it and making some money in exchange seemed like a good idea,” Endre replied, sheepishly.

  “Maybe I wasn’t clear. You tried to sell it Rumania, didn’t you?” rephrased Haim.

  “Yes, I did. But they offered me a pittance. Then I came back home. And I showed it to my old rabbi…My father told me it was cursed, a burden for the family to bear…He also warned me that anyone who traded it, be it for profit or power, would pay, dearly…but I laughed at the notion…My rabbi first said it reeked of paganism, that I should forget it. But he didn’t want to keep it, precisely because it looked pagan. Then he came with these men. They killed him,” Endre said again, crying and shaking. His wife held his hand for a moment. He pulled a paper kerchief, blew his nose, inhaled hard, and cleared his throat. “In Central Europe, we are burdened by centuries of superstition. This old cylinder seemed like more nonsense, not worth the trouble. In the old country we even learned about…vampires,” he said, timidly looking at Severian. “The first strigói I know about was recorded in Croatia, in the 1560s. Then, in 1897, Stoker turned supposedly Vlad Țepeș, ‘Vlad the Impaler’—a man who, after being abused by the Ottomans while forced to serve as child-soldier for the Sultan, decided to go on an impaling spree—from a Christian born in 1427, into a strigói. That made no sense. So, I used to laugh it off. Now, I stand corrected—and terrified…”

  “…But the person who provided a lead to the people scattered all over the hallway,” quickly added Severian, completing the sentence Haim had interrupted with his question, “was someone on a police department, someone who deals with shady collectors, free lancers, and a few other hors-la-loi, all connected by their Wotanism….”

  “These assholes are Nazis?” ventured the lady of the house. “That is what you’re saying? Why on Earth would they want this? To create more trouble for us Jews?”

  “So it seems, Madam,” answered Haim. “Now Nazis cannot pluck gold teeth from millions of people sent to the crematoria, so they make money in black markets to finance their underground, Odessatron—the networked child of Odessa. Unless we can stop them, there could be far more death and suffering in the horizon…and not just for Jews…”

  “Endre,” said Izsák’s son’s wife, “give them that damned manuscript. It was a cursed gift. Heydrich was killed, after Jakub tried to sell it to him to pay for his family’s escape. Jakub was instead sent to Auschwitz. Himmler killed himself. Moses Rosen didn’t want it. Golda didn’t want it. Ceaușescu got it and tried to sell it—and see how he ended. Why keep this abomination?” Endre’s wife’s cousin looked at him and nodded. Endre looked at both of them, nodded, and then disappeared for a long moment. When he came back, he brought a cylinder. “Here!” he said, extending Haim the cylinder. “You can have it! You can burn it, for all I care. I only want my life back, my family’s life back. They are my life!”

  “I understand,” said Haim, taking it. “Soon the police will come. What surprises me, actually, is they haven’t arrived yet. Your neighbors seem to be awfully quiet.”

  “There is nobody else in this half of the building,” said Severian.

  “There are two penthouses per section, staggered,” explained Endre’s cousin. “Our neighbors are travelling the world. We keep an eye on their unit, even if, inside, it’s like a fortress…” he added.

  “That is a good thing,” commented Haim. “So, the other section…”

  “The contiguous section is a little lower…Next section at the same level is quite far, as the crow flies—and, at night, we keep our curtains shut, for privacy…”

  “Well, if nobody saw the flashes of weapons fired, or your security guy hasn’t snapped out of his hypnosis…. Let me contact Tony,” said Severian.

  Haim extended his phone to him. “Tony, we could use your help. We need you to fumble with the building security, to purge what has happened in the last hour or so. We also need your people to find a way to keep these people safe. They gave us the cylinder. But you know they won’t be safe until ‘we stop the bad guys’.”

  “My hands are tied,” protested Tony over the loudspeaker.

  “I understand, Tony” Severian jumped in, “but if you don’t do it, chances are, what your bosses don’t want to get on the dark web, most likely will. This people are innocent.”

  “But…I can’t…” repeated Tony over the loudspeaker.

  “You can’t or won’t?” asked Severian. “If you don’t, I’m sure, positive, it’ll get on the dark web.”

  “Put Haim on the damn phone and cut the speakerphone,” demanded Tony.

  “Easy with the swearing my friend,” started Haim. “Now, now, now… Now we’re talking. You’re so kind, my friend. Thank you for arranging a safe place for them. Please be quick. The night is no longer young—and trouble might still be brewing.”

  “What are we going to do with all these dead people? And, the blood… Our neighbors will be back in two weeks, but this is horrible…Horrible…Carnage…The police…Are we all going to end up in jail?”

  “Are there vampires in the police, daddy?” Endre’s oldest son asked.

  “You’d be surprised!” replied Severian, as softly as he could, while repressing a chuckle. “No worries. If I know Tony—and, I think I know him very well—the cleaning crew will soon arrive, and leave this corridor sparkling clean, looking like new. By tomorrow, you shall also have a new door, and what not. Pack your valuables…and luggage as if you were going…to travel the world for a few months. Once you are safe, get an untraceable phone and leave your neighbors a message, asking them to take good care of your home as you took care of theirs, apologizing you had to leave in such a hurry for, say…family matters in Romania. Tony—I’m sure—will take care of all the rest.”

  While Endre, his wife, his wife’s cousin, her husband and the children all went to prepare their long trip, Haim couldn’t resist: “You know something really terrible, I guess…”

  “I know lots of terrible things. Good people sometimes are forced to choose between their conscience and causes far greater than themselves. When the honorable thing and the honest thing are at opposite ends of the stick, doing the honest thing sometimes can create untold pain to untold numbers, and the honorable thing, a disaster to many more.

  People need heroes—even though some heroes, in reality, are monsters. But, for as long as history doesn’t find out, societies can function. And telling you that, I’ve already said too much. Tony is a good man. That’s all you need to know. I wish he were a bit of a faster operator, though. I have to leave before dawn, and I’m starting to feel itchy.”

  “Look!” said Haim, stuttering a bit. “I was checking the monitors of the security cameras. After they flickered twice—guess Tony did the honors—these massive trucks appeared in the entranceway. They’re almost at the building now. And all have reflective tinted windows! This might be trouble.” Severian looked tense.

  But then Haim’s phone rang. It was Tony.

  The “cleani
ng crew” had arrived.

  “Time to go!” announced Severian, visibly relieved.

  12—David and Deborah discuss Dracula

  In the meantime, Tony had suggested David go back to Laguna Niguel, to spend time with his family, be a bit of a husband and father while he could, and so prepare Deb and the boys for a few “upcoming rough spots” he anticipated in the next few days—or, maybe even, weeks. Past memories, Dave’s enthusiasm about what he was hoping to achieve, his promise to take her to Paris to the second honeymoon they had been dreaming for some time now, the laughing about her personal trainer being more interested in him than in her, all that had lightened Deborah’s mood. Yet, all the same, there were still obvious tensions in the couple. And now again, with all these neo-Nazis spying on Haim’s temple and perhaps on their own home, things had become tense, all over again, David commented.

  “You’re fluent in euphemism, aren’t you, Father Antonio? A few rough spots? Really?” asked David, mockingly.

  “I have to be,” retorted Tony. “Haim and Severian got what we were looking for, Endre and his family will be safe, even if I will have to do some serious explaining to my bosses before we can take the next step. That’s why I say that now would be the perfect time for you to go back to your wife. Enjoy the calm before the storm, no matter how cliché that might sound, and how much of storm chaser you might be.”

  “Almost cute,” said David, taking Tony’s advice all the same and leaving. He arrived home not a moment too soon.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Deborah complained, the moment he entered the house. “The children are asking many questions, and I don’t know what to tell them. They think you went to Europe to study atmospheric ‘anormalies’—which, technically, might be true, but in essence, is a lie. When the Nazis turned Germany into an ocean of lies, our family was massacred. Then everyone had good reasons to lie. So I don’t want to have to lie anymore—and you know that to nobody I hate lying more than to them.”

  “That is true. I detest lying to them too. But another reason why we suffered so much was we picked the wrong friends there. Remember: many thought Eichmann was ‘our friend’ until 1939. In 1937 colonists invited him to visit, the Nazis sent him (as a spy), he went to Haifa, climbed Mount Carmel, and the British kicked him to Egypt. Then we saw the British as our enemies. Still in 1939, Eichmann punished anyone who tried to desecrate Herzl’s tomb in Vienna. But, all the same, he very efficiently shipped hundreds of thousands to their deaths…. That’s why I now have trouble deciding…”

  “I’ve read Uris ‘Exodus’ too. Deciding what…?” asked Deborah.

  “Who is our real friend,” he began. “There are Wotanists cropping up here and there. In Europe, real nasty thugs, assassins, chased us, several times. One of those people who…is now…one of our friends…an odd guy, saved us from them. He butchered them, like a beast, with gusto and sadism to make Mengele clap…and he’s supposedly on our side…but each time I say I’m glad he’s on our side, he replies he’s on his side, protecting his business, his customers, his own interests…”

  “So…? Take him at his word. He’s not your friend: ships crossing in the night. Once this is over, hopefully, you won’t have anything to do with him anymore…”

  “I suppose. But he’s unusual…he’s dangerous…I don’t trust him, and I’m pretty sure he knows things I don’t,” David sighed.

  “Well, unless he can read your mind, you can’t be sure he knows what you think either. And, if he speaks like that, I don’t think he expects anyone to trust him. Maybe, just maybe, he’s one of those who suffered some horrible loss at some point, so he makes a special effort to keep others away…to stay alone, single, isolated, so he can’t lose anyone close ever again… Assholes try to act nice, they fake being generous, good friends, loving, caring—to use you, and then stab you in the back at the first opportunity…like my boss’s wife… a true snake, the size of whale, with so many loops of pearls around her neck we call her “poison coral reef”.

  “I don’t know. Tony seems to trust him a lot. Still, he seems to have something on Tony as well. It is strange. They are like coral and fish: symbiotic…so to speak.

  All this madness started with me trying to get access to Catatumbo, in Venezuela—to make sure the lighting is not stopping altogether, permanently. If it stops, and other sites like it on Earth do the same, the atmosphere could start rotating independent of the planet, and the resulting winds would kill us all. For now, though, I am still here and only got to see a lot of people shredding people, like an F5 in Tornado Alley. And worse, I might be putting you and the kids at risk…and…and…”

  “And…?”

  “And, instead of science, I’m getting involved in what seems like… freaking sorcery.”

  “Sorcery…? This story about the souls and the Shoah is getting to you! They’re getting to me too. I don’t know what to say. You want to leave them and try your luck in Venezuela on your own?” asked Deborah.

  “I don’t know. Haim trusts Tony. Tony seems really well connected. If I bail on him, afterwards, instead of any better, things in Venezuela might get even more difficult for me. My boss is also asking about my ‘strange’ request for a leave of absence. He thinks I might be bailing on him, going to a rival group. My colleagues are asking questions, too many questions. There is a young arrogant fuck that drools and jerks off looking at my chair.

  But I can’t tell my boss or any of the others what I’m doing: if I did, they’d all think I’ve gone bonkers. Then the arrogant fuck sure will get my chair and I’ll be sent to jerk off elsewhere.”

  “How to handle you boss, I can’t say. My own boss and his wife are living proof I have no clue how to deal with that sort of thing. I can either be right or keep my job. For the rest, I guess we have known Haim and Becky long enough to trust them. In fact, now that you’re even less available than before, I’m visiting Becky and going to the temple far more often…”

  “That is another matter. Last night…‘borek’ Tuesday…volunteers were baking…and we…discovered an asshole, hovering, which had a van full of weapons…”

  “Fuck me sideways! Did anyone call the police?”

  “No need. This guy, the one I told you that saved our asses in Europe, turned him into ground meat on the spot…”

  “Elo’ha Almighty! What do you want me to do? What is Becky doing? Are they going to get police protection? They already have a lot of cameras and what not at the house and at the synagogue, don’t they? Haim planting antitank mines in the garden?”

  “I don’t think so. We’re trying to keep things discrete. And yes, they have more cameras than Fort Knox. Worse, the assholes that are behind this sicko…this guy had a keychain with a… valkunt…”

  “Valknut, dear: the symbol of Odin. This is bad. Himmlerskindern? Ach! They are like a bad case of herpes… So, what are you going to do? Is your friend Dracula going to move inside the temple? He sure looks creepy.”

  “Why did you call him ‘Dracula’?”

  “I don’t know. He looks creepy enough. The other night I just had a glimpse of him. He seems to have no problem pulling a Hannibal Lecter here and there. In any case, what are you going to do? Should I go away and take the kids with me? Is there an end to this hell?”

  “Soon I hope. We had to get our hands on something, a bit like a treasure hunt. It might be a map, not leading to any treasure, but ‘instructions’ instead; something, to help us stop these psychos who desecrate tombs, then vanish like the wind, and what not.

  These ‘instructions’ we should get before this weekend. After that, I suspect we might have to go back to Europe, to do something else,” he paused. Deborah sighed. He shrugged and continued: “Once all that’s done, hopefully this nightmare will be over—and I, be able to go to Venezuela to take Catatumbo’s pulse, then take my wife on a second honeymoon to Paris. That’s essentially the plan, as far as I know.”

  “All right. And…what are your plans for tonight�
�?”

  “First, I would love to go kiss the kids goodnight, so they don’t forget my face. Then I would love to kiss their mommy and make this a really memorable night for her…”

  “Well, she has no objection. But you would have to make it a really grand night for her, though…” said Deborah, giggling, as she looked unashamedly at his now clearly enlivened crotch. “I think I’ll go kiss the kids good night first,” she said, “so in the meantime you can maybe go check you computer, and calm this raging erection. Then you can go put them to bed while I shower. When you come out of your own shower, I will be waiting—and also, by then, the champagne will be cold.”

  13—Enter New Experts

  The champagne was so excellent and so frappé that David neither called, nor showed up at Tony’s place in Manhattan Beach until well after 8PM, the next day.

  Regardless, it had taken Tony longer than expected to get his hands on the paraphernalia required to inspect the manuscript without damaging it. So Tony almost didn’t object.

  “Ten more minutes and we would have had started without you, David. Let’s all go to my office,” he said, winking as he welcomed him.

  “It’s time to unscrew the cylinder,” added Severian, making David blush. Haim chortled.

  What Endre had given Haim was a large steel cylinder, with interesting top and bottom screw caps. Inside it, there was a bottle with a label: “Atmosferă de azot. Deschiderea conținutului în aer, o umiditate mai mare de 30% sau o lumină intensă ar putea deteriora grav manuscrisul interior. A se manipula numai de personalul instruit.”

  “My Romanian is far from perfect,” began Tony after Severian carefully removed one of the caps, “but putting together my other Latin tongues, I’d say this bottle contains nitrogen, and, if it were open in air, humidity higher than 30%, or under intense light, the manuscript in the interior could be damaged. To be manipulated only by…instructed…”