The Consulate Conspiracy

by Oren Sanderson

  "When did you get here?” I whispered. The slight motion made me feel like my skull had been shattered and glued back together.

  "Twenty minutes.”

  "How did you get in here?”

  "The doorman let me in. He was worried and went up to the apartment. You gave my number as an emergency contact.

  “Emergency?”

  “Someone beat the shit out of you, after tearing apart your apartment.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago, maybe.”

  “Laure,” I murmured. “She’s in trouble. That horrible man grabbed her.” Dorothy didn’t demonstrate much sympathy, but she allowed me to lean on her as I got to my feet and dragged myself to the car downstairs. It was her idea to go to her place. At least there, I could sit down on something.

  "Jeremiah Moses,” I said to Dorothy. “Logan promised me to take care of him, but that didn’t happen.” I sat on an uncomfortable wooden stool in her apartment, which was by far the strangest in Houston.

  Dorothy lit an incense stick in my honor and declared I had to have a drink. The apartment was small, but exhaustingly laden with Native American masks and tapestries, alongside photographs of holy sites in Israel.

  I told Dorothy about the tense conversation I had with Logan and Barkat and the unhealthy partnership between them. “It does not seem to me that Logan got rid of Moses as he promised you,” she observed. “Logan is less in control of the situation than he would like to pretend".

  “But he’s running the game here, and I want to play.”

  "Are you seriously trying to work with Logan? He doesn’t have one decent bone in his body. I’ve warned you once before.”

  "And yet I thought of working with him, before he broke my models,” I lamented. “He’s got power. And influence.”

  “And…?”

  I shook my head. "I don’t know. It is very tempting. Why do you think I came here? Why should I give a shit about all the ideological subtleties? What is right is whatever is profitable. You have to go with whoever’s strongest.”

  "Do you really believe that?”

  "I don’t know, Dorothy. Help me. Tell me. You have seen almost everything."

  "No, darling.” Dorothy placed a wrinkled hand cautiously on my head. “I have seen everything, and I have seen nothing. There are things that cannot be learned; you are just born with them. You alone must figure out where you’re headed.”

  Nowhere, I thought to myself. I didn’t owe anything to anyone. My mother, for example, never paid attention to me.

  "But where exactly is Giora? Surely he could help you,” Dorothy reminded me.

  "I haven’t heard from him in a long time.” I struggled to find a comfortable way to sit on the hard wooden stool, leaning on the rustic dining table.

  "Maybe you should try to contact him?”

  “I’m mixed up with the authorities too. They want to interrogate me. They can kick me out of here. It is not good for me, or for him, for us to be in touch.”

  “You look horrible. For a whole week you’ve been walking around like a zombie, utterly disinterested. Now someone’s attacked you and messed up your pretty face.”

  “My face?” I was alarmed.

  “It’s just a figure of speech. What’s most important to you now?” She sat down across from me. Her face was furrowed with wrinkles, but her eyes were bright and intelligent.

  “Jeremiah Moses,” I said. “He’s got Laure."

  "And that’s all?” She looked at me doubtfully.

  "What do you know about him?”

  "Well, you know he was a regular at that silly demonstration, and that one time he came up to the consulate and talked nonsense.”

  “Keep going.” I gave up on the stool and lay down on the living room rug to relieve my back. “I’ve had a hard day,” I excused myself.

  "He’s a nuclear engineer or something. He was also a preacher. He has a number of identities.”

  "At the embassy, he introduced himself as a nuclear medicine specialist. He said then that he would be happy to help with anything we need.”

  "He is a fundamentalist madman. Some Evangelicals believe that the Jews have to return to Zion before the Second Coming. The problem is that before that, according to their beliefs, there must be an end-time war. Armageddon.”

  "The war of Gog and Magog?”

  "Call it what you will. Moses wants to see that war begin.”

  "In the meantime, he eliminates those he dislikes.”

  Dorothy was not shocked.

  “I have to rescue Laure.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued.”

  “I have to find her.”

  She looked at me worriedly, her eyes widening in surprise. “Sweet Jesus! The boy is in love.” I didn’t react. “Look, honey, you need to let the cops handle this.”

  “McFlaherty is after me. It will take him a year to get to Moses, who is extremely dangerous.”

  “But not for me.” Dorothy puts on a plaid cape, readying herself to go out.

  “What are you doing?” I groan, trying to get up.

  “‘Spain frightened you,’” she said.

  I didn’t have the strength for her. “What does Spain have to do with it?”

  “What, you don’t know Ted Hughes? He’s a British poet, a very good one. ‘Spain frightened you.’ You don’t know that one?” When I didn’t respond, she continued.

  Spain frightened you.

  Spain.

  Where I felt at home.

  The blood-raw light,

  The oiled anchovy faces, the African

  Black edges to everything, frightened you.

  Your schooling had somehow neglected Spain.

  The wrought-iron grille, death and the Arab drum.1

  “In short…” she concluded, as everything went blurry again, “you are in the right hands. You have nothing to fear.”

  Maybe other than death and an Arab drum, I thought.

  * * *

  1Ted Hughes, “You Hated Spain,” Birthday Letters (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).

  39.

  I woke up close to noon, on a Mexican rug, in a cloud of incense. Where the hell was I? Dorothy. Spain. Death and an Arab drum.

  The house was empty. On the table sits an empty bowl and a bag of oats, next to it a note:

  There’s milk in the fridge. Eat the oats with it. That will clear up your stomach and head. I told them at the consulate that you would not be coming in today. Everything else is okay. I was right. The key was with the anchovy face. Call me when you get up, D.

  "The anchovy face?” I asked her on the phone.

  "Certainly,” Dorothy replied happily to me on the other end of the phone. “Logan. Doesn’t that name fit?”

  "What about him? Where’s Laure?”

  "She’s on her way to you. I talked to Logan last night. I also reached Giora. He’s actually in the area, even though no one needs to know that. He found Laure for you. That’s what you wanted, didn’t you?”

  "Giora found her?”

  “No, Logan. I told you he had the key. I don’t know how, but he found you Laure. That’s another good reason to be careful with her.”

  "And Moses?”

  “I didn’t ask. I think he’s probably holed up in his house. He’s probably angry at you, maybe even wants to take you out. After all, you are standing in the way of the Rapture. All of them over there are connected by some bizarre beliefs. If I were you, I would be careful around any of them. Take care with Laure. It didn’t take much effort to convince her to visit you this morning.”

  Indeed, once Dorothy hung up, the doorman called up to say that someone wanted to make her way up to the apartment.

  “Don’t let her up,” I warned him. “I’ll come do
wn to the lobby.”

  There were two narrow armchairs down in the lobby downstairs. We sat on them, as all the passersby looked at us in amazement. The door of the building occasionally let in hot air.

  Laure sat without uttering a word. I also had a hard time talking.

  "Can’t we go up?” she asked.

  "Won’t something bad happen to me along the way?”

  "I’m sorry,” she said soberly. “He forced me. I can go if you want.”

  "I want you to stay. But he could have killed me.”

  "I know. He could have killed me too. I have no influence over these things. Damnit, I wish I hadn’t come here at all!”

  I relented, and we went up to Dorothy’s apartment and I offered Laure chamomile tea.

  "Where did you go the night of the party?” I asked. “I was looking for you at Klein’s. I actually got away from Logan safely then.”

  "Yes.” She sighed. “I know. They bought you too. It’s okay. I ran away. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I don’t have the strength for it.” Tears welled up in Laure’s eyes, and I looked at her helplessly.

  "I cannot stand this anymore. The back pain is inhuman. Someone has to find a cure for it already. I’m tired of all the heroes who want to save the world. I want to live quietly. That’s all.”

  “Where did you disappear to?”

  “Galveston. They have a quiet place there. I thought they would let me rest. There is a steady supply of painkillers there.” A sad smile thawed her face. “Moses forced me to call you and let him in. I agreed to do it, after he promised not to hurt you. As soon as he came in, I ran away. He wants the money you stole. It’s sacred money, he said.”

  “‘Sacred money.’” I chuckled. “Logan promised me that Moses would be gone."

  "Logan doesn’t always keep his word.”

  "So you’re not one of them?”

  "No, they’re like all the men I know. They’re smart but weak, and try to prove they are not.”

  “Like Zhivago?”

  “No, what are you talking about. Zhivago was a poet. I told you. Weak and helpless. He did not try to prove anything. These men are more like Pasha Antipov. The general who burned half of Russia because he was frustrated and frightened.”

  "But what happens with Lara?”

  "Lara always pays the price and survives. I do not.”

  She got up and came over to me. She caressed the cut on my forehead with her finger. Her soft lips fluttered on my forehead, approaching the cut. “This will take away your pain.”

  "I’m going to kill Moses."

  "You can’t take them on. He scares me. And the back pain is killing me. It’s like my life is spilling out between my fingers. There’s nothing to be done against them.”

  "There is. You must tell me about them.”

  "Klein sponsored Barkat. He loves him. He’s already given some parties on the lawn at his Inverness mansion. Moses is almost always invited, and especially enjoys standing by the barbecue and grilling. That’s even though Klein has enough staff for a medium-sized cruise ship. Moses has a split personality. Introverted and antipathetic or something. After the reception at Klein’s, it was decided that Moses would lower his profile, but he’s not great at obeying orders. Now are you willing to forgive me?”

  "Do I have a choice?”

  "No.” She smiled.

  "But only on the condition that you bring me to him.”

  “Later.”

  “Now.”

  40.

  When Laure called, Jeremiah Moses seemed glad to hear from her. He was in his office, which he had been sleeping and living in. When Laure told him she needed to see him immediately, he agreed without asking too many questions.

  From the Johnson Towers parking garage, I maneuvered my Trans Am out and through the torrid streets of Houston. Laure was impressed by the car. A thick, disquieting haze had settled on the city. We went on a wild drive through the paradox of contemporary H-town: half the city about to collapse into ruins, half of it in the process of being renovated and gentrified.

  What disoriented me more, the exhaustion or the headache? I couldn’t say. Laure was as chipper and alert as a songbird.

  We arrived at his office on Palmyra. I continued past it, turned right and parked the car on the next street.

  A sign announced it was the Enterprise Building, erected in 1936 — not long after Houston recovered from the yellow fever that nearly shut the city down forever. It was the financial crisis on the East Coast that revived the city, which served as an internal port linking Buffalo Bayou to the Gulf of Mexico.

  The Enterprise Building had to be destined for demolition, I was sure. I had no other explanation for the existence of a six-story building without a working elevator and a shaft clogged with old furniture. On the second floor were the offices of the Korean Import-Export Agency, a law firm for tort claims and the engineering consultancy of Jeremiah Moses.

  The door was wide open, leading to a small foyer, and beyond that his office. I nodded to Laure to enter the office, while I dove into an alcove in the foyer, to observe what I could. Moses was sitting somewhere to the right, hidden. I could see only the end of his desk wearily laden with journals and professional literature, the wall studded with certificates. Even from my cramped post, it was not difficult to read them. Moses had graduated from Utah State University, with a graduate degree in chemical engineering and a doctorate in nuclear engineering from Brigham Young University. An educated man, without a doubt. Maybe too educated.

  In the foyer hung a picture of our friend Moses, planting a tree at the Kennedy Memorial in Aminadav Forest. Smiling, his face was pockmarked as if he suffered from a severe skin disease. Moses, who had demonstrated in front of the embassy, who believed in the eternity of Israel, that we Israelis just needed to fight a little harder.

  “Hello, Ms. Manheim,” I heard him say. It was only then that I learned Laure’s last name. “It must be important if you came all this way to see me personally.” He wasn’t wrong. After everything that had gone on between them, he sounded very friendly. Too friendly? “Look, I’m sorry about last night; but the enemies of God deserve no mercy.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Laure tried to sound encouraging.

  “Almost. I’ve found other things in the meantime.” I could imagine his crooked smile. The shelves I saw along the walls were buckling under the weight of many ponderous tomes. Moisture and mold stains were on the walls. The air conditioning wasn’t on, and the room was stuffy. I was looking for the cowboy hat.

  “How is my friend, Professor Barkat?” he went on.

  "He’s fine,” Laure said in a weak voice. “How do you manage to work here?”

  "Without any difficulty. Except Saturday. Saturday we do not work"

  "Who are ‘we’?”

  "I’m a Seventh-Day Adventist, from Wyoming. Didn’t you know?”

  Laure answered no and begged him to turn on the air conditioning. Her voice was weak and choked. She was dying of fright. It turned out that the viscous, hot air was copasetic for Moses’ lungs.

  "I understand from Barkat that the project still has problems,” she said. I thought she had to be improvising right now, on the spot.

  “‘The Lord is a god of vengeance,’” Moses quoted, and I heard him get to his feet. I was ready to escape through the door or rush in to save Laure.

  “‘God of vengeance, shine forth!’” Moses sat back down.

  "You’re busy today,” she said.

  "We have a lot of work, my dear, to eradicate the enemies of God. That’s all. No need to panic. Yes, I have important work to do today. What do you really want?”

  “The moment of truth is approaching,” she declared. What the hell was she talking about?

  “Yes, the day of judgment is nigh,” he agreed. “However, we who
have carried out our mission faithfully have nothing to worry about — whoever fulfills their duty devotedly.”

  “And you have fulfilled your duty devotedly,” she conceded. She had talent. Anyone who didn’t know them would have been sure that this was an unremarkable conversation among friends.

  “Only He Who sits on high can judge. And Barkat, as well. I spoke to him a few minutes ago. He didn’t say anything about you being on your way.” My heart is pounding like an elephant’s feet in the jungle.

  "What are you writing?” I heard Laure say.

  "It’s for me, all kinds of notes, so I don’t forget."

  “Don’t you think it scares people when you keep jotting something down in the middle of a conversation?”

  "Scary?” he mused. “Not at all! People need to know that it’s just out of respect; I don’t want to forget something important while I talk to them. You wouldn’t want me to forget something, would you?” He paused. “You are helping Barkat, aren’t you? What made you come here now? Barkat didn’t know anything about it.”

  "I’m worried, and I wanted to talk to you."

  "Go ahead.” In my mind’s eye, I saw him furiously writing in his notebook. He suspected Laure; he might act in a matter of seconds.

  "You’re an expert in nuclear medicine and isotopes, right? But how can you do that from this office?” Laure asked him.

  "Well, I’m mostly a consultant,” Moses replied after a long pause. “Is that what bothered you?”

  "Do you believe in peaceful nuclear development?”

  "Certainly, certainly,” he assured her. “After all, the entirety of nuclear science is a gift from God, designed to help set right the world order. It vindicates the righteous and eliminates the wicked.”

  “‘Eliminates the wicked’?” Laure sounded shocked. “Barkat wants cooperation and brotherhood.”

  "Barkat is on his way here,” Moses replied.

  I knew we had to leave the place immediately.

  “That is a great strategic error on his part,” Moses continued. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” he announced, like a demanding teacher disappointed with their class. “People need to kill and people need to be killed. It’s so obvious. All this antiwar talk is a waste of time. Isn’t that clear? After all, modern medicine already violates the normal balance of nature, extending the lives of patients who should have died long ago. It is the righteous who deserve to survive and evolve, not for the fools and the weak. The invention of penicillin caused a gross violation of the biological equilibrium in nature. All who seek peace and justice must repair the damage, must correct the biological equilibrium. The greatest wars of today are minor, local conflicts with few casualties. That will result in the earth consuming itself. You must understand who is good here and who is bad!”