The Spear of Tyranny

by Grant R. Jeffrey

  As Isaac rubbed his hand across his face, Sarah heard the faint rasp of his evening stubble. “I don’t know what kind of power the spear wields, but I find it interesting that so many military men believed in it,” he said. “According to history, Theodosius tamed the Goths with the spear, and Alaric the Bold claimed the spear after he sacked Rome in the fifth century. With the spear, Aetius and Visigoth Theodoric rallied Gaul to vanquish the barbarians at Troyes and turned back Attila the Hun. Justinian lifted the spear as a symbol of his authority when he exiled Greek scholars from his realm—a foolish mistake, perhaps, but his action did change the world. The Frankish general Karl Martel used the spear to lead his army to a miraculous victory over the Arabs at Poitiers, and Charlemagne founded his entire dynasty upon his confidence in the spear. In his forty-five-year-reign, he launched forty-four successful military campaigns. His attachment to the spear went far beyond mere belief—he insisted on sleeping with it within reach. When he accidentally dropped it while returning from his final victorious campaign, his subjects considered it an omen of tragedy and death . . . and time proved them right.”

  “Time can prove almost anyone right,” Ephraim said, lifting a brow at his son. “Charlemagne had to die eventually.”

  Isaac shook his head. “There’s more to it than mere circumstance, I think. Altogether, forty-five emperors between the coronation of Charlemagne and the fall of the old German empire possessed the spear. After that, the spear passed through the hands of five Saxon rulers, then the powerful Hohenstaufen emperors of Swabia. Frederick II prized the spear above all his possessions and made it the focal point of his life. From that point, the spear became part of the imperial regalia and was housed in an Austrian museum until Hitler became enamored of the legend and took possession of the spear. At a little past two on the afternoon of April 30, 1945, American forces led by Gen. George Patton discovered the spear in a locked vault within a secret underground bunker. At three-thirty on that same day, Adolf Hitler, who had just lost the spear and the war, committed suicide.”

  Intense interest glowed in Thomas Parker’s eyes. “Where is the spear now?”

  Isaac’s mouth curved in a one-sided smile. “Back in Vienna’s Imperial Palace . . . where I hope it will stay. The world has endured enough tumult and war.”

  “You are right, Son, of course,” Ephraim said, nodding, “but we are not done with trouble. A resistance movement is growing in Jerusalem, and I’ve heard reports of similar opposition in other Israeli cities. Many Jews distrust your Adrian Romulus. They will not take his ID chip, nor do they wish to worship in his Temple.” He shifted his gaze to Parker, the only Gentile at the table. “Rashi, one of our great medieval sages, insisted that the Temple must descend directly from heaven when the Messiah comes. On the other hand, other sages say God’s command to build the Temple is irrevocable.”

  Sarah picked up her coffee cup and smiled at the American. “Do not be surprised, Mr. Parker. We Israelis have a difficult time agreeing on most things. A recent newspaper poll indicated that though most of us think it is time to rebuild, many thousands still believe we should wait for the Messiah.”

  “This resistance”—Isaac’s brows puckered with thought— “how pronounced is it? Romulus needs to know.”

  “You know the old saying—get two Jews together and you will have three differing opinions,” Sarah quipped, bringing her cup to her lips. “I don’t think the resistance is serious, but it won’t go away. My father himself is strongly against the Universal Chip. He says no Orthodox Jew will allow himself to be cut in such a way.” She looked at her husband as she sipped her coffee, then lowered her cup. “Their resistance to the Temple is not important, is it? Won’t Romulus understand that in Israel, extremist politics are nothing unusual?”

  Isaac frowned and stared at the table. “It may not matter . . . yet. But Romulus may begin to think of resistance as a sign of disloyalty to the Universal Network. I know he’s troubled about reports of those two men—”

  “The ones who call themselves Moses and Elijah?” Ephraim interrupted.

  Isaac nodded. “The same. They seem to foment rebellion wherever they go, and Romulus is afraid the resistance will increase if they are not silenced. If the world does not learn to pull together, we shall pull apart. The Universal Movement cannot work unless every country, every government, every individual is united in purpose and spirit.”

  He looked at Sarah then, and even though they had been separated for weeks, she knew what he was thinking—that Shabak would know all about the troublesome prophets and might be persuaded to help Romulus contain their rabble-rousing. She lowered her gaze to her coffee cup. He couldn’t ask her for help without asking her to divulge classified information. And at the beginning of their marriage, they had agreed that work-related secrets were off-limits for discussion.

  Perhaps, she thought, cradling the cup against her palm, if they had not established so many limits then, they would not be dealing with so many now.

  As Sarah cleared the table, Isaac walked his father and Thomas Parker to the door.

  “Thank you for a delightful evening,” Parker said, stepping onto the front porch as he pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. “I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed such a stimulating discussion.” He glanced over Isaac’s shoulder toward the kitchen. “And be sure to thank your wife again for me. She’s a lovely woman . . . and quite perceptive. A rare treasure.”

  Night had fallen while they ate. The air over Jerusalem had cleared, and the stars blazed like diamonds in a sky as cold as airless space.

  Isaac’s father stepped onto the porch, too, then turned and placed his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “My son knows how blessed he is . . . and if he doesn’t, I’d like to remind him.” Isaac smiled in puzzlement as his father gestured toward the darkened street. “Parker, would you mind waiting in the car? I’d like a private word with my son.”

  Parker grinned and flashed Isaac an uh-oh look, then thrust his hands in his pockets and slouched away, whistling in the dark. Isaac waited until the lanky archeologist had been engulfed by the night, then turned to his father. “Something wrong?”

  “Perhaps.” Lines of concentration deepened along his father’s brows. “I am worried about you, Isaac. I know you are away from home for long periods of time . . . How has this affected your marriage? Are you and Sarah as close as you ought to be?”

  Isaac crossed his arms. “Sarah and I are accustomed to the demands of our work. This assignment has been in-convenient, but no worse than others. Sarah stays busy. Sometimes I doubt she even misses me.”

  “I am not speaking to her now—I am speaking to you. Tonight I watched you. You scarcely glanced in her direction. I could sense tension in the air.”

  Isaac’s voice went hoarse with frustration. “We had a bit of a disagreement in the kitchen. It’s nothing. It will pass.”

  His father did not answer immediately, but his eyes filled with infinite distress. Finally he said, “I know about marriage; your mother and I were not perfect. But we made a pact—we never went to bed angry with one another.”

  “Well, Father,” Isaac struggled to lighten his voice, “if you will leave and give me some time with my wife, perhaps I can emulate your example.”

  “I’m not finished.” His father’s sparkling brown eyes sank into nets of wrinkles as he forced a smile. “You were very young, only two, so I doubt you remember when your mother lost the baby that would have been your brother.”

  Isaac’s body stiffened in shock. “A baby?”

  Ephraim stroked his beard. “Yes. A stillborn child. Your mother enjoyed a healthy pregnancy, and everything seemed fine. We went to the hospital together, and then the baby was born with the cord wrapped around his neck. An act of God, they said. A tragic accident, they said. But it broke our hearts.”

  “I never knew,” Isaac said after a long pause. “I don’t remember.”

  His father shook his head. “We didn’t want to burden you wit
h the story. But for a month or two after the baby’s birth, your mother and I went through a difficult time. Deep inside, I wanted to blame someone for the accident—the doctor, the nurses, even your mother. She wanted to blame someone, too, but mine was the only name on her list. Finally we realized that tragedy had tremendous power—it would either tear us apart or bind us together. We made the choice, a conscious choice, to cleave to one another.”

  Like blood out of a wound, silence welled from the darkness and covered the porch, but Isaac heard the unspoken lesson clearly: You and Sarah must come together, or you will be torn apart.

  “Sarah and I are doing fine, Father.” He tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth only wobbled uncertainly.

  His father opened his mouth, then hesitated, closing his eyes. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything . . . but if it were me, I would want to know.”

  Isaac’s heart tightened in sudden anxiety. “Know what?”

  His father’s eyes opened. “When Parker and I arrived, a man was here. Sarah introduced him, but I sensed that she was uncomfortable doing so.”

  “Who?” Isaac forced out the word.

  “His name was Danny Melman.”

  Isaac slumped in relief. “That’s Sarah’s boss, the deputy director. Sarah has worked with him for years.”

  His father’s left brow rose. “In all those years, I have never heard about a deputy director coming to your house.”

  The thought froze in Isaac’s brain. Neither had he. In fact, Melman had no reason to come to the house unless . . .

  “Take heed, my son.” Ephraim’s hand fell upon Isaac’s arm. “Love your wife and do whatever it takes to win her back. Do not let her slip away through neglect.”

  And then, without another word, Isaac’s father turned and disappeared into the night.

  TWELVE

  FOR ISAAC, THE FOLLOWING MONTHS PASSED IN A flurry of activity. He spent far more time in Paris than at home and began to think of his French landlady at the Fleurs de Soleil as sort of a maiden aunt. The wheels came off his suitcase; his attaché developed that rough, worn look common on well-used leather. And his wife grew more distant.

  Sarah was pleasant enough when he came home, of course, but he’d never known her to be inhospitable to anyone. She always greeted him with a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek, and together they would sip coffee and exchange safe pleasantries that touched neither her job nor his. He asked about her father and his; she asked about Paris and the appeal of French cooking. When fireworks launched from a naval destroyer in the Mediterranean Sea lit the night sky over a cele-brating Tel Aviv on December 21, Isaac watched from his hotel room and realized that a full year had passed since Gogol’s Invasion.

  A full year. So much had happened in the past twelve months, not all of it good. Israel had celebrated a miraculous victory over her enemies, and she had seen her Temple begin to rise from the holy mount. But she had also suffered severe drought and famine as well as internal strife. The two prophets continued to spread their message of judgment and repentance throughout Israel, and from the latest reports, Isaac feared their influence was spreading.

  Springtime, with its festivals of Purim, Pesach, and Shavuot, came and went. The heavy winter rains that usually soaked the Holy City did not come, however, and the usual variety of colorful Jerusalem flowers failed to bloom in April and May. The hamsin, a wind from the Sahara Desert, turned its hot breath upon the city and often sent the temperatures soaring to over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Human bodies could not cope, and cases of colds and flu filled the hospitals and physicians’ offices.

  For Isaac, the days fell like leaves from an oak tree, one after the other, virtually indistinguishable. He usually awoke in a nondescript hotel room, then dressed and joined Romulus for a press conference in some international city, then rode to the airport where a jet whisked him and Romulus’s entourage to the next stop on the itinerary.

  Though Romulus’s position as president of the Universal Movement seemed completely secure, he behaved as though he were campaigning for global office, crisscrossing the globe to make speeches, deliver humanitarian aid, and pose for the hungry lenses of television reporters and newspaper photographers. Isaac found himself invited to accompany Romulus on more occasions than he would have believed possible at the outset of his appointment. Apparently Romulus trusted him and often requested that Isaac stand in the background when the cameras began to flash. Isaac obliged, of course, and suspected that his presence might be calculated to win over the still-stubborn element of Israelis who refused to report for their identification chips.

  When it came to compliance with the standards required by the Universal Network, Israel lagged far behind the rest of the world. All Temple workers, Israelis and foreigners, had received identification chips, but Romulus worried incessantly that some unidentified saboteur or terrorist might infiltrate the construction area. And work on the Temple, Romulus explained, deserved the highest priority. Why couldn’t every citizen of Israel understand that the chip was necessary for security reasons?

  On a warm afternoon in June, just after they had dis-embarked at the Brussels airport, Romulus stopped before a television suspended from the ceiling in the airport gate area. As CNN reported live from Bethlehem, the television camera panned a demolished building licked by angry orange flames. An expression of hurt and bewilderment crossed Romulus’s face as he watched, and something in the expression caught Isaac by surprise. He had seen many emotions cross Romulus’s face, but never before had he seen the man looking in the least bit bewildered.

  “No,” Romulus groaned. He brought his hand to his neck as he stared at the screen. “Bethlehem! For what possible reason could the resistance want to bomb that city?”

  Straining to hear over the noise of the airport, Isaac moved closer to the television. The newscaster was explaining that a truck loaded with explosives had detonated in the heart of the city only half an hour before, killing five children on a playground and sending at least thirty other people to the hospital.

  The camera cut to a woman sitting behind a news desk, her face as expressionless as a mask. “Officials are pointing fingers of accusation at the two demonstrators known as Moses and Elijah,” the newscaster said. “They walked the streets of this quiet neighborhood several days last week, calling citizens to repent of their sin and turn to God. Though it has been confirmed that the two protestors were not in Bethlehem at the time of the explosion, it is believed they might have urged others to instigate acts of terror.” The newscaster, a pretty brunette, stopped and shook her head slightly. “In this age of peace and universal unity it is hard to believe that old-fashioned intolerance and hate have not yet been eradicated.”

  “Those two will have to go.”

  Isaac looked up, not certain that he had heard Romulus correctly. The president had spoken in an odd, inflectionless voice, and the customary pleasant expression was missing from the curve of his mouth and the depths of his eyes.

  Isaac lifted a brow. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  Romulus turned away as if he had not heard, then sauntered toward the moving walkway with long strides. As Isaac had suspected, a horde of reporters waited on the curb outside the building. When they spied Romulus, they ran forward, cameras and microphones ready.

  “Mr. President! Mr. Romulus!”

  Romulus stopped as the horde swarmed nearer. Isaac stepped back, allowing Romulus’s security guards to form a protective phalanx around him, but then Isaac insinuated himself into the mob, wanting to listen.

  Romulus nodded toward the first reporter. “You have a question?”

  “Yes sir. What did you think when you heard that Bethlehem had been bombed? Will this act of violence stall your efforts for peace in the Middle East?”

  Romulus lifted his head as his brows drew together in an agonized expression. “I was devastated by the news, gentlemen, completely overwhelmed. Not many people know this, but I was born in that small city. My heart, e
ven now, aches to think of that quiet little town in flames. You may be sure we will do all we can to find out who is responsible for this tragedy.”

  “How will you find the perpetrators?”

  Romulus paused, tucked his hands behind his back, and glanced around as if he could find the resisters in the crowd. “As you know, citizens, we have encouraged the use of personal identification chips for every member of the human race.” He gave the group a bleak, tight-lipped smile as the cameras flashed. “I’m afraid we may now have to require the Universal Chip as a means of ferreting out those who insist upon resisting the common good and our common goals. Everyone who is a law-abiding peace seeker will want to have this microchip, while those who are opposed to peace will fall outside the law. I must meet with my cabinet and speak with other national leaders, but I fully expect that we shall implement this plan within sixty days.”

  Romulus’s faint smile held a touch of sadness. “All who are not for me shall be against me,” he said, his voice ringing over the asphalt walkway. “A world divided against itself cannot stand. We must have peace . . . and have it we shall. I had hoped to eradicate the cancer of violence through peaceful means, but if we must take the scalpel to those who insist upon destruction, we shall not hesitate. We will cut them out from among us so that all men may live in peace.”

  Isaac squared his shoulders as Romulus held up his hand and moved away, drawing his entourage and the reporters after him. The action the president had just proposed seemed harsh in the light of all his talk about peace, but the man was right. The day of reckoning couldn’t be postponed forever.

  One month later, at 10:10 on a Monday morning in July, Isaac slipped into the chateau’s conference room and quietly took a seat in a row of chairs behind the men who sat around the table. Romulus had called a meeting of his top advisers in order to prepare for his upcoming trip to Israel for the Temple dedication ceremony, and Isaac had been specifically asked to attend.