Quest for the Ark

by Taggart Rehnn

  “No,” David replied. “Good. I suppose we’ll take some rations and cyanide pills as well?”

  “We’ll have a good supply of power bars to avoid abusing the local fare, and to avoid visiting the square holes with spiders too often. As for cyanide pills, that is a bit passé. There are newer, better, things these days. On that point, need-to-know comes in handy. You don’t need one of these inserts,” said ‘Daniel’ pointing to his mouth.

  “I see…Holy f…! Was that a needle or harpoon?” protested David.

  “Don’t worry, milady. Ass-stabbing is now over,” chuckled the ‘nurse’.

  Relieved the injections and pills were over, almost afraid of asking, David looked at Tony, who again shook his head pouting. Perhaps ‘Irene’ had indeed been a random name.

  “Well, soldier, now go enjoy your brief honeymoon, studying, fever and diarrhea notwithstanding. And make sure your equipment, packed as tightly as possible, will be at the address I gave you, tomorrow, at 2000 hours, sharp,” said Tony in a commanding way. “Your study notes are in a thumb-locked memory bar. Study them well. You can read them five times. After that, it will be gone. If you need me, you know where to find me. In three days’ time, we will be leaving for Buenos Aires,” he finished.

  “Buenos Aires?” asked David. “Are we going to study tango as well?”

  “Yes, and no: tango classes cost extra. We leave for Buenos Aires. From there, Davide and Antônio go to Porto Alegre, so you can visit Novo Hamburgo. That’s why you have to study the footwear industry and so on. And while you’re at it, never stop brushing up on you Brazilian-German—and Portuguese, with a good Riograndense accent as well. Study hard my friend—you will have to, if you want to have any honeymoon at the same time, before we leave. See you in three days!” finished Tony, as he cocked his head signaling the condo’s entrance. He then escorted David to the door.

  From the table, the others discretely waived to him.

  David was going to salute, but thought better, gave them a thumbs-up, and left. Right before David crossed the threshold leading to the corridor, when the others couldn’t listen, Tony confirmed he had never so much as mentioned Irène. “So, was there something, my man?” David flipped him the bird, smirked, shook his head, and soon was gone.

  34—Nightmares, Nookies and Novo-Hamburgo

  Having travelled several times to areas endemic in all sorts of exotic diseases, that feverish first night after a large battery of injections didn’t exactly surprise David. However, those few hours of cold sweats and muscular aches were, by far, the most brutal he could recall. Somehow he managed to sleep, only to experience horrible nightmares, swerving and shivering and moaning—until he suddenly woke up, screaming, to a sweat-soaked bed, his fresh sheets now a crumpled, twisted mess.

  Although he had dangled the prospect of, at the end of this madness, having two whole months’ luxury holidays in Paris—something a few months ago Debbie had resignedly accepted would never happen—that nightmarish spell sure didn’t help his case with her. She was still unconvinced he had not done drugs in France, quite miffed by David’s refusal to say exactly how he was reach the Catatumbo site in Venezuela, and worried sick assuming David would have to face far greater dangers than he let out or she could stomach.

  But that night, in the midst of sweat spells and nightmares, David had also awakened, high as kite, and given Debbie the best sex in recent memory, better even than what they used to have, two or three times a day, before the kids were born. She had actually gone to sleep remembering an old joke:

  ‘The king OD-ed so bad on Viagra, Oh, dear!

  That the queen became deaf, of both ears!’—one of David’s honeymoon ‘geek jokes’, which at the time had put her off a bit, and now, somehow, seemed funny and appropriate.

  She also knew full well how much this expedition meant to him. He was clearly both excited, confused, and terrified, beyond belief—but also, as doggedly determined as ever to do this, no matter what. So Debbie chose to accept Haim’s explanation about the stress, lightly checked his behavior to make sure he indeed wasn’t doing drugs, and spent those last few days before departure keeping the kids out of his way when he was trying to study, telling people who called he was on assignment in a remote area with no signal, fighting against the uncontrollable urge to ask questions that would force him to lie or tell her he couldn’t answer, and foregoing anything remotely close to social life; and those last few nights, enjoying the unexpected side effects of whatever mixture of vaccines and pills David was on: amazed at how a man his age could still wake up five times, each time terrified of vampires coming out of a Russian submarine about to kill him while he was attached to an electric chair—and yet, this same man, who had once been treated for sanguivoriphobia, could suddenly become soft and cuddly, and passionately perform six times in one night, magna cum laudem.

  Moreover, when she thought he could not possibly have any more energy, and have nothing else to say or do, twice he had started sobbing, uncontrollably; and holding her tightly, asking her a million questions about anything strange she or Rebekah might have seen; asking about the safety, of not only their home, but also the synagogue; begging her to understand this madness would, hopefully, soon be over; and promising her, as he had on the days of her difficult pregnancy, he’d take more of a desk-type job when he came back.

  After such displays, choosing to believe drugs were not involved, Debbie decided the vaccines made him delirious, and each time gave him some melatonin, and rocked him to sleep in her arms—as she silently cried and prayed Venezuela would return her the David that fateful visit to Haim, had, it might seem, stolen from her.

  As for Tony, once the operatives left after vaccinating David, something, a hunch perhaps, was still nagging him. One or two among these people had impeccable credentials, as operatives go; yet, they seemed to have taken on a type of mission ‘slightly outside’ of their previous paths, and also slightly ‘out of character’. “Looking for adventure” and “escaping the drab Slav gab,” sounded different, yet too much variants of the same excuse.

  One of them was supposedly coming from a job in Eastern Ukraine; the other, from Seryshevo, not far from the formerly most militarized Sino-Russian border, where Manchuria meets South Eastern Siberia. The thought had irritated Tony enough to cross-reference even their profilers, to hack into the consolidated airport face recognition databases—the official ones and the ones from the dark web—and he had come empty-handed. That made him even more uncomfortable. It was all too perfect. Not one lie, one false recollection, one timestamp wrong. Too damn perfect! What if they had changed sides?

  Trying to change ‘iffy’ operatives, on a hunch/whim, so close to a mission—moreover, one they had already been fully briefed on—could spell disaster. Conversely, if any of the others were to notice him keeping an eagle eye on those two, that would destabilize the group. Still, not doing it, if necessary, might spell disaster—or, perhaps, afford an opportunity: if they had provided so good a cover, whoever was behind this was after something much bigger—most likely, those new, experimental submarines.

  However, if whoever on the other side assigned them to this mission knew those submarines would be involved, enemy infiltration went distressingly higher up the food chain, and much more than this mission hung on the balance. Taking the subject up the regular ladder now would, hence, be unwise. Time to get secretive and creative.

  What time was it now in Paris? Three in the morning. Perfect! On the date the team should reach Venezuela, the sun in Bogota would set at about 6:00PM and a flight to Caracas depart at 7PM. Would Severian fly to Madrid, then JFK, then Bogotá, then Caracas, to lend him a helping hand? He’d be arriving almost at the same time as the rest of the group and able to provide protection only at night; but Tony, of course, was far more interested in knowing whether he could trust these two suspect operatives. Severian would also be able to find out how far up the chain of command the infiltration, if any, went.

&nb
sp; So Tony called him.

  Disappointingly, Severian had presently a very long list of things to deal with, and told Tony he was ‘practically sure’ he wouldn’t be able to make it. But, all the same, he had suggested arrangements for an open ticket: ‘someone else’, highly vetted, might yet be able to travel to Venezuela in Severian’s place and provide Tony that sort of help.

  The cryptic part Tony didn’t like much, but given how fuzzy, unsettling and dangerous things were getting, he decided he’d go on a limb and trust Severian’s good judgment once again. In the meantime, Severian had also suggested someone ‘more local’ might be able to probe those minds, someone who ‘dwelt’ between Valencia and Barquisimeto, near the Montaña Sorte, main place of worship of Maria Lionza—a indigenous deity worshiped by many Venezuelans, not so unlike some of the gods of Brazilian umbanda.

  To find that ‘someone more local’, Severian had suggested Tony should ‘check the dark corner of his room’—code for go checking his ‘corner’, in the dark web. Apparently if anyone could uncover Russian infiltrates, this was she—but she, too, might be straddling both sides, and ultimately side only with herself. Even with all those caveats, Severian suggested, there could be a ‘rather picturesque’ way of using her, if worse came to worst. Although this wasn’t what he had expected from Severian, Tony thanked him and hung up.

  Stressed out to almost his very limit, Tony then called the Countess to tell her about his doubts, in as vague terms as he possibly could contrive. Immediately reading him all too well, she assured him she hadn’t forgotten her promise. She promised him that, as soon as those two peculiar visitors, so keen in protecting her as yet unborn grandson—seemingly, she clarified, not even yet conceived—should contact her, she would try to persuade them to go help Tony in Venezuela—all the while reminding him, however, she still wasn’t sure whether they were angels, unusual vampires, demons, or simply good impostors. And anyhow, the whole thing was still contingent on them contacting her soon—a far from certain prospect, since she had visited most sites where they had appeared in the past, some of them a number of times, and, so far, seen no signs whatsoever of their presence.

  All the same, Tony profusely thanked her, and hung up.

  He still had one ace up his sleeve, but that ace was mighty busy re-learning his new old job. Initially, the Vatican had been scandalized to learn the Order’s ‘Oracle’ had been a slave to someone intent on unleashing nothing less than the End of Days, to seek revenge on the Church. Moreover, both His Eminence and His Beatitude were afraid of someone else, of great power within the ecclesiastical ranks. That someone, in possession of potentially devastating confidential information, had opposed Geoffroy taking back his old job now that he was free; and such opposition seemed to be unswayable and unbribable. However, with a little help from Tony’s and some of David’s friends’, Geoffroy had carefully investigated this person. The contentious party turned out to be Odessatron’s Head for Italy. The man himself was soon after found headless; and the next day the Order re-hired his new old Head, Geoffroi de Charny, henceforth to be called Geoffroy de Charney—as chosen by him now of his own free will—the new ‘Oracle’.

  While, in a sense, Geoffroy knew full well his old job, now doing it without any other constraint than his own moral conscience, would require a period of readjustment. The many demons, complots, cabals, threats, and crises he had neglected—while his enslaved mind was driven exclusively to find the Ark of the Covenant and turn it against Humankind—had piled up, to become a cornucopia of urgent crises that any moment now could become one massive global crisis.

  To sort things out fast and do it right, Geoffroy had co-opted Severian’s managerial skills—that being indeed the reason why the latter was so uncharacteristically unavailable when Tony suggest he could use his help in Venezuela. Also to help him regain control, instead of returning their original St. Michael’s swords, Geoffrey let the Order’s Twelve Ministers keep the ones Conrad had given them, to more easily peer inside their minds. Given that, Tony decided to think a lot about his trip to Venezuela and this infiltration problem that must be solved desperately fast—especially while resting his head on his pillow. Even so, he never went as far as asking Geoffroy’s help point blank.

  Eventually, that surreptitious ‘request’ didn’t work either. But this wasn’t his first mission staffed with ‘uncertain assets’. So Tony took a few deep breathes, and convinced himself he would make it manageable, one way or another.

  Detestable though such missions might be, there were too many pieces of this chess occupying the center, too many minor pieces developed, and a rather successful early castling to now abort like an amateur. The thought made him laugh aloud. How long since he last played chess with Arturo? Poor Arturo. Tony’s face twisted in deep sadness. Arturo was still in Venezuela. Always trying to help others, always doggedly determined to live his life his flamboyant way. But this wasn’t the time to worry about him. If Tony was going to succeed, it was time to get ‘insurance’.

  So, before departure, Tony made a final detour, to visit a couple of rather sinister, expensive, deadly, hors-la-loi characters, but extremely well connected resources, strictly bound by the very sui generis code of conduct their particular ‘line of business’ demands. Through them, Tony got a few more intel scraps—scraps that strengthened his doubts about one of those two ‘uncertain’ operatives he had recruited for operation ‘Swampland Thunder’—, which the Lieutenant had rechristened “Wet Fart”.

  Since Tony would travel to Buenos Aires alone with David, he would warn him there might be someone ‘iffy’ in the group, but not elaborate. Hopefully, once David found out, he would neither panic nor act crazy, either at customs, or, worse—once the faked malaise at the hospital would get rid of the already ‘uncertain’ tourist guides—before the ‘other tourists’, who could also be equally ‘uncertain’, had split from the group to go do whatever they were supposed to. (About their objectives, Tony had but very vague suspicions, nothing more). It was time to pour himself something strong and go to sleep.

  Except for Tony racking his brains trying to figure out how much to tell David about those two ‘uncertain’ operatives, the trip to Buenos Aires went on without much of a hitch. For almost the entire duration of the trip, a baby—whose parents seemed so intent in making the next one on that flight that barely tended to him—kept screaming his lungs out on one the seats right in front David and Tony. To add to this pleasant background music, unable to sleep—and used to that sort of high-pitched high-decibel racket from rather recent home experiences—David had masterfully ignored both the cavorting parents and the howling infant, and, for several hours, attempted to turn Tony into his confessor/psychotherapist/ marriage counselor.

  So Tony decided to wait. Only after settling at the hotel in Buenos Aires did he tell David to act normally when in the exclusive company of ‘Swampland Thunder’ operatives—but not to fully trust anyone until further notice. Of course, David wanted to know why, need-to-know be damned. Frustrated after getting only a few cryptic answers, he thought a moment, then suggested Tony should have some vampire get inside their minds and vet them. “You thought I wouldn’t if I could?” Tony retorted. “From sweating cold at the mere idea of having to spend a couple of days underground with them to ‘could you not call on them now, dude?’ it’s quite a change, huh? See how far we have come!”

  Tony’s evasive remark didn’t make David laugh, but panic instead. So what now? He became a machinegun firing questions—some of which he answered himself. Patiently, with a resigned face, Tony listened to his tirade. Once David was done venting, Tony simply replied: “If you want our mad dash to succeed, remember your IDF training. Act normally, don’t panic, don’t over-act but watch your back—from everyone. Everyone is suspect, until I tell you otherwise. Of course, if you see anything suspicious/anomalous, or you get any strange hunch/vibe, find a way to talk to me in private— before you kill someone.

  For now, this is the
best I can do. Also, a good friend of yours might join us there— but that is far from certain. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

  That night, no matter how much David might try to fish for answers, Tony remained true to his word. Eventually, David spent the rest of that night mostly going from his bed to the living room of their suite, to the bathroom, and back, mystified, not reassured by Tony merrily chopping wood until the wake up call ended his bliss.

  The next day, as they flew to Porto Alegre, Tony was fresh as an orchid and David looked like a mauled zombie. His Portuguese was a shambles, and only partly returned once they got to Novo Hamburgo, after endless cups of coffee.

  Relieved seeing that finally happen, Tony started quizzing him, more and more aggressively about his new persona. The entire ‘interview’ went so bad, that, after an hour or so, Tony was seriously tempted to abort, hinted he might, and told David he was going to make a few calls and should be back in an hour or so. Fortunately, by then David had ‘come back from the dead’, was able to endure both a new questioning, a new constant switching from Brazilian Portuguese of the south ‘gaúcho’, to Spanish with Argentinean flavor, to the Venezuelan customs-type interrogation, to a barrage of random questions about his mission that ‘uncertain’ operatives might ask, and, overall, pass Tony’s strenuous examination with flying colors.

  After three days in Novo Hamburgo, ‘Swampland Thunder’, a.k.a. ‘Operation Wet Fart’, was a go.

  35—Bemvindos a Venezuela

  When all members of ‘Swampland Thunder’ arrived at Caracas’ airport, everything seemed to be going fine—except for an ‘imperfection’ in the passport of one of those two whom Tony suspected; oddly enough, the one he suspected the least; even stranger, an ‘imperfection’ sufficiently amateurish to almost have him detained and taken to an interrogation room by Venezuelan customs.