Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy

by Nicolas Kublicki

  It must be him, they concluded. Molotok.

  Sailors wrapped in black overcoats congregated on the disintegrating railings of the few functioning naval vessels behind the makeshift podium, tilted their shaved heads to hear the man who spoke to their souls.

  “We have lost our empire!”

  “We have lost our pride!”

  “We have lost our respect!”

  “The West plunders our resources! The mafiya krestnii otets, godfathers for the devil, eat at the fabric of our beloved rodina! Plunder our treasures! Our glorious capital! Our agriculture! They corrupt our children and demoralize our families! We are being colonized!”

  Molotok paused and scanned the crowd, making repeated eye contact. He saw the Russian soul in the collective gaze, saw pain swell from behind the hardened masks of daily life.

  “Where is Holy Mother Russia? I will tell you! It has gone to the Amerikanskii demons! They suck our lifeblood! Our natural resources! Our pride and glory! It has passed into the hands of the greedy, money-grubbing Jews, the corrupt Roman Church! The zhidomasonstvo, the Jewish freemasonry! They control our economy! They control our once-noble institutions! Our government!” He paused again and looked into the eyes of the crowd. “They have brought about gibel Rossii—the ruin of Russia. Who else could benefit from Russia’s ruin? From our pain? From our suffering? From our weakness?”

  Many stood on tables to get a better glimpse of the near-mystical figure.

  “The great veterans fought for the rodina! Against the Nazis! They pushed them back!” Molotok roared. “In the snows and ice of Stalingrad! Without food, with their bare hands!” His right hand tightened into a fist. “Our government has forgotten them! Their sacrifices! Glory and pride has been stolen from our children! They have never seen the great rodina as it once was! Under Stalin! When the world trembled at our armies! At our warships! At our fighters! At our bombers! At our rockets! Our children have been robbed of their inheritance! We have been robbed of our birthright!”

  The crowd’s shouts became angrier.

  “And us? What do we have? What have the corrupt Western reforms brought us? Where have the public services gone? The roads? The buses? I cannot afford a loaf of bread. I could barely afford benzina for my car, then it was stolen by the mafiya. My pay goes into the pockets of the capitalist Western demons! To the Jews! To the Roman Church! Our countryside and farms and pastures are blackened by their pollution. Russian soldiers. Sailors. Aviators. Those who protect our great rodina. They have been decimated by the bureaucrats! They are not paid! Their equipment stands idle!" He pointed to the ships in the harbor. "Cannibalized! Why do they do this to us?" He cried out, almost in tears. "What have we done to them? We spilled our blood to liberate them in the Great Patriotic War! We have become the slaves of the West! Where is our country? Where is the rodina? Where is Holy Mother Russia?”

  The shouts escalated to a frenzy.

  Molotok paused, stared hard at the people. “We must rescue the rodina. We must rescue the rodina by force! The force it craves. The pure force of the Russian soul. We must destroy all that threatens the rodina.”

  A unified roar of approval rose from the crowd. Pain, fear, anger, and desperation had found the easy path of expression provided by Molotok. The path of hatred.

  “We must reclaim what is ours! Not by weak and corrupt Western elections. We have seen how that works.”

  “It doesn’t!” screamed a portly babushka, scarred with the pain of her seventy years.

  “No Western democracy! No human rights! No Roman Church! No Jews!” He spat the words with disdain. “Lies and liars all. Leeches on the lifeblood of the rodina! Elections and democracy are for the weak. We are strong. We must take over the rodina by force!” He continued to shake his fist. “We must cut out the Western cancer! We must reclaim our imperial borders! The traitorous breakaway republics! Poland! Alaska! We must be hammers on rotten wood!”

  He paused.

  “And we will do it! Together, as one. Russkost will do it. We will lead the patriotic ones. The patriotic Russian farmers. The patriotic workers. The patriotic unemployed. The brave patriotic Russian soldiers of the army and navy and rocket forces. Together we will be the force of salvation for the rodina! This is our campaign for Russia’s soul!

  “The battle will soon begin! Join me, my Russian brothers and sisters! Long live the rodina! Long live Holy Mother Russia!"

  Raw emotion thundered from the crowd like demons loosed in the glacial cold. Following the prompts of Molotok’s people scattered through the crowd, the people began to chant. “Mo-lo-tok! Mo-lo-tok! Mo-lo-tok!”

  Hatred and anger and fear pumped nationalism through their veins. Now flowing freely, Molotok knew it could be summoned at a moment’s notice.

  Before the crowd could reach him, Molotok rushed into a dirty olive-green Moskvitch sedan and sped off in a cloud of muffterless exhaust. He had three more speeches to deliver in Vladivostok that afternoon. One large city per week. One small town per day. The development of name recognition imposed a difficult schedule, but the thick wads of cash soon to tumble into Russkost coffers would finally transform his words into action.

  17 FRAME

  Macon Grove, Arkansas

  1:00 P.M.

  The economic recession was quick to reach the tiny town of Macon Grove, Arkansas. And as the rest of America’s economy sank after its seemingly unstoppable expansion, Macon Grove had fallen into a deep economic freeze. Jobs held by villagers working in nearby Murfreesboro were eliminated by nameless, faceless men in dark suits far away who had neither visited Macon Grove nor broken bread with their employees. Many had gone to the large cities in search of work. Unemployment was rampant.

  It was against this backdrop that a crowd of residents filed down Main Street to Martha and Ed Jameson’s coffee shop. One of the neon letters above the double doors was burned out. The sign read COF-EE SHOP. Each of the five hundred villagers had been personally invited to lunch by simple mailed invitation through the work of MacLean’s public relations consultants. The lunch was free. People piled their plates with barbecued ribs, chili, and corn on the cob. Dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, a bolo tie, and cowboy boots, Dan Wenzel stood on the formica counter top. A microphone squawked in his hand as he smiled at the guests who could hardly contain their curiosity.

  “How’re you all doin’ today?”

  A low volume rumble of “fine,” “good,” and “great” emanated from the crowd.

  “Food all right?”

  A louder rumble of approval. A few shouts and catcalls.

  “I know you’re all wondering what this is about, so I’ll get right to the point. First off I’d like to thank Martha and Ed Jameson and their wonderful kids Jeanie and Tom for letting me invite you here today. How ’bout a round of applause for them? Let’s give ’em a hand.”

  The crowd liked the Jamesons, was happy about the free food. The applause was sincere.

  Wenzel deep-sixed the fake Southern accent. “Let me introduce myself. You may have seen me around town this week. Many of you I’ve had the pleasure of meeting personally. For those of you I’ve missed, my name is Dan Wenzel. I’m not from here, but I guess that’s pretty obvious.”

  People chuckled.

  “I work for a man named Max MacLean. A little while ago, Mr. MacLean bought a piece of land two miles up the road. It belonged to Theodore Osage, who still lives there.” People nodded. Old man Osage was part of the town’s foundations. Curiosity increased. “Mr. MacLean has decided to open a mining operation on the land, and he’s going to need workers. He sent me down here to see if anyone would be interested in working there.”

  Three dozen men and women shouted “yes” in unison and stretched their arms as high as they would reach.

  Wenzel smiled. “That’s great. That’s great. Now Mr. MacLean realizes that some people might not have the particular training necessary to work in a mine, but he’s willing to train new employees. While paying th
em a starting salary, of course. For starters, we’ll need about forty men and women for drilling, digging, sorting, accounting. The works. There’ll be a signup sheet on your way out and jobs enough for everyone.” He let it sink in. Husbands and wives spoke in hushed tones. Single men and women smiled and clapped.

  “Now, that’s the good news. But you know how it works. If there’s good news, there’s also bad news. So here’s the bad news. It seems that some politicians up in Washington aren’t too happy about the mine.” A series of grunts rose from the crowd. “I have no idea why, really, but it’s a fact. Mr. MacLean has been personally threatened to stop the mine and sell the land. Frankly, he doesn’t give a hoot what Washington thinks. He thinks the mine is going to make him a lot of money and bring a whole bunch of jobs to Macon Grove for a long time. The feds can’t really do anything about it because the mine is legal and this is your town.” He jabbed at the air. “You’re going to decide, not a bunch of politicians in D.C.”

  The room applauded.

  “The thing is this, people, and I’m going to lay it on the line here. Before we can get this mine off the ground and hire people, we’re going to need permits that depend entirely on your city government.” Wenzel pointed at the crowd. “But last time I checked, America was a democracy and you’re the town. You decide.”

  He paused and looked down at the counter. “I’d like to tell you what it is we’re going to mine, but I can’t do that just yet, other than we’re mining rock. What I can tell you in case you’re worried is that there’ll be no chemical processes involved other than washing rocks with water. No pollution. And all our reports will be public, right there for you to see at City Hall anytime you want to read them. Again, you’re the town. You decide if you want this.

  “There is one last thing I’d like to add. If we can get this mine off the ground, we’d like to hire local labor to build the mine itself. Not outside companies. Others may do it cheaper but you can do it better because it's your town.”

  Cheers erupted. People stood and clapped enthusiastically. His ear always firmly to the political ground, Mayor Jack Billings concluded that the political winds were howling in Wenzel’s direction. He made a brief speech supporting the mine, which Wenzel had discussed with him earlier in the week, then everyone dove into the large frosted cakes brought out by the Jameson children. The crowd mobbed Wenzel as he made his way across the room. They slapped him on the back, laughed and introduced wives, husbands, and children. They were good people. Wenzel was convinced that the mine could not possibly be constructed in a better place.

  His immediate mission in town accomplished, Wenzel drove his rented light-blue Ford Taurus back to Osage’s farm to pick up his bags before catching his commercial flight out of Little Rock airport. The gravel crunched loudly under the car’s tires as Wenzel drove up to Osage’s house near the lake fed by the Little Missouri River. The setting sun glowed orange in the West. Clouds hung low in the air. A brisk wind blew from the Northeast. Osage’s new bright red Chevy pickup—a gift from MacLean—was parked under a carport Osage had built especially for it. He doted on the vehicle, only drove it on special occasions. His dented clunker remained his main method of daily transportation. Wenzel smiled. Osage was a neat old bird. He would have made someone a perfect grandpa.

  Wenzel walked to the two-story wood house. Smoke puffed from the chimney. The lights were on. The steps creaked as he walked up the stairs to the front porch. He knocked on the screen door and waited for Osage’s familiar bellow. A minute passed. He tried again. Still no answer.

  Wenzel looked at both of Osage’s trucks. He had to be there.

  He turned the rickety brass door handle, pushed the door. It squeaked open. “Theodore?” Wenzel shouted. “You home? It’s Dan.” Nothing.

  Wenzel walked through the living room, as spotless and neat as ever, through the dining room and the library crowded with myriad books. He checked the bedroom and the bathroom. No one. He finally found Osage in the kitchen.

  Dead.

  Theodore Osage had been shot in the back at close range. At the wooden kitchen table, the portly old man sat, slumped over the latest issue of Bass Fisherman. A pool of blood covered the magazine’s pages, dripped onto the linoleum floor. Osage was dressed in overalls and a Pendleton shirt. His Sunday shirt, he’d once told Wenzel proudly. His eyes were open wide, filled not with rage or fear, but with peace. As if what he’d known all his life would happen had finally come to pass.

  Wenzel bent over Osage, closed the man’s eyes, sat down on the bench, and wept.

  When his tears were spent, Wenzel shaded his eyes with one hand and recited Kaddish for his friend.

  Yis-gad-dal v’yis-kad-dash sh’mey rab-bo...

  Wenzel had become fond of Osage. In many ways, the older man had been like a child. Strong-headed, concerned with the little things in life, like his new truck and his red Pendleton shirt. He’d had his books and his fishing and his truck. Nothing else really mattered. He drank too much, but neither caused trouble nor went looking for it. He’d been kind, gentle.

  And those bastards had murdered him. Wenzel got to his feet, stepped to the telephone that hung on the wall, dialed 9-1-1 with a trembling hand, then realized the line was dead. In his grief, he thought nothing of it and dialed 9-1-1 on his cell phone. It took over a minute for emergency services to answer.

  “Theodore Osage’s been murdered,” he blurted out. “Yes, he’s dead. Shot at close range. He was dead when I got here. Send someone right away. Twenty-two Rural Route One, Macon Grove.” He hung up and regained his place beside Osage.

  It was now completely dark outside. The fire in the hearth glowed red; Osage’s last fire. Wenzel sat near his murdered friend and recited Kaddish over and over, his upper body gently davening forward and backward. He did not hear a car arrive, swung his head in surprise when two men crashed through the kitchen door.

  The shorter man held an identification badge inches from Wenzel’s face. “FBI. Stand up and place your hands behind your head. You’re under arrest.”

  “Under arrest?” He stood, walked to the agents.

  The shorter agent grabbed him by the arm, twisted it behind his back, flipped him around, slammed him against the formica counter, and patted him down.

  “Dammit, that hurts!”

  “Shut up!” The taller agent placed handcuffs around Wenzel’s wrists and secured them tightly. Wenzel winced as the metal bit into his skin with each movement of his wrists.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can—”

  “I’m a lawyer. I know my rights. What’s the charge?”

  “The murder of this man.” The taller agent pointed at Osage’s body.

  “What? Are you crazy? I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I got here.”

  “You can tell that to the court, Mr. Wenzel.”

  They pushed him roughly out the front door, down the creaky steps to a dark blue sedan.

  As they shoved him into the rear seat, a blue and white Chevrolet Caprice Classic drove up the gravel driveway, skidded to a halt inches behind the dark sedan, lights flashing. The local sheriff jumped out from behind the driver’s seat, ran over to the agents.

  “What’s going on here?” Sheriff Boone demanded. “Who the heck are you?”

  The short agent flashed his badge. “FBI, Sheriff. We’re arresting this man for the murder of Theodore Osage.”

  Boone observed the badge carefully, spat a wad of tobacco on the ground. “The heck you are, son.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Sheriff. This man shot and killed the man in there.” He jerked a finger over his shoulder. “He’s under arrest.”

  Boone moved closer, potbelly straining against his shirt, brushing against the agent. “No. I don’t think you understand.” He waved his index finger under the agent’s nose. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if this guy is the biggest mass murderer since Sherman. This here is my jurisdiction. You FBI boys have not one iota of authority
here. Don’t screw around with me, son. I may not have a huge police force, but I’m not some green country hick born yesterday. This murder was committed here in Macon Grove. Now I don’t want any trouble with the FBI, but unless Judge Thompson moves this case to federal court, this guy stays right here in Macon Grove.”

  “Now list—”

  “You got that?” Boone rested his right hand on a pearl-handled Colt .45 revolver, a family heirloom. He had grabbed the weapon in haste on the way out of his house. He never had to use it and wondered if it was even loaded.

  The shorter agent turned red, gesticulated wildly. He looked about to rush Boone head-on when his partner restrained him.

  “Fine, Sheriff, fine.” The agent walked to the car and uncuffed Wenzel. Wenzel massaged his wrists. The agents got into the car. The taller one rolled down the window and looked up at Boone from the passenger seat. “I’m telling you right now, Sheriff. You’re interfering with the FBI in a federal investigation. That’s a federal offense.”

  “So I’ll be arrested and finally be able to take a vacation.” He delivered a wad of tobacco juice on the car’s front tire to emphasize his point.

  The shorter agent launched a curse against the sheriff’s Southern ancestry, and the sedan drove off in a cloud of dust.

  “And cussin’s not going to score you any points with Judge Thompson!” Boone ushered Wenzel into the back seat of his cruiser, radioed his deputy.

  “What’s going on around here, Sheriff? Why do they think I killed Osage? He was dead when I got here. I swear it. Just like I told 9-1-1. And why the hell is the FBI involved?” The words came out like a river undammed. “Theodore was my friend, Sheriff. Why would I kill him?” He wiped away tears.

  “I believe you.” Boone turned around and looked at him. He had checked up on Wenzel during the past week, satisfied himself Wenzel was an okay guy. “But tell me something. Were you really serious about what you said this afternoon? About the feds not wanting your boss to start a mine down here? About the feds interfering?”