The Artifact

by Quinn, Jack

  “We’re going to have our own problems if this storm overtakes us.”

  “Probably get worse the closer we get.”

  “Mr. Sunshine.”

  “Want me to drive for awhile?”

  Sammy sat beside Andrea’s bed reading a news magazine, looking up when he heard the stifled sound of her crying. He pulled a tissue from its box and dabbed the tears from her cheeks. “I have no idea how you feel, Princess, but I know it must be scary as hell.”

  “All the things I’ll miss, the ones I haven’t even done yet, too busy trying to be top bitch in the kennel. A lot of good that does me now.”

  Sammy reached out to squeeze her hand on the blanket. “Geez, Andy, you’ve lived more, accomplished more, and achieved more recognition in the business than most people do in twice the lifetime in any profession.”

  “Not compared to what I could have done.”

  “This news coup you’ve pulled off will stand up with Watergate and every other investigative scoop since man stood upright.”

  She turned her head to flash a wry grin at him. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been wishing I could get one sweet guy horizontal before I go. One of my saddest thoughts is that the last time I got laid was the last time I’ll get laid.”

  Sammy smiled back. “Don’t you think you’d better save your strength?”

  “For what? The docs said I could have sex, right?”

  “I guess. If you’re serious....”

  She held his gaze. “Dead serious, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “Maybe I can find someone to fill the bill.”

  “Not just someone, Sam. A final fuck should entail warmth and affection, an aura of caring, the hint of love.”

  “Callaghan seems to have taken a shine to you.”

  “Please, Sam. Not on the first date.”

  They held each other’s gaze without words or expression. Finally, Sammy stood, leaned over the bed, held her head in both hands and kissed her full on her lips.

  “Let’s see what I can come up with.”

  Head down, his Russian Trooper hat of black beaver taking the brunt of wind-borne snow, Tom Harrington trudged along E Street NW beside the multi-architectural city block headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His gloved hands were thrust in the pockets of his double-breasted ankle-length herringbone tweed overcoat as he ignored three inches of wet snow that had seeped through his calfskin wing tips.

  “You won’t get a memo on this,” Harrington said, as they walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Special Agent Phil Rognol inclined his bare head toward the Director, as white flakes accumulated on the agent’s wind-blown hair and tugged at the scarf above the neck of his green loden coat.

  “I understand that, Sir.”

  “Handpick your shooters. Swear them to silence under national security, no explanation.”

  “I have just the men, Sir. Trained snipers anxious to use their skills.”

  Harrington wanted to make sure that his highly dedicated agent understood the precise nature of his assignment, but was reluctant to put the instructions into quotable words that could damn him. “The whole lot, you understand, not just the general.”

  “I understand.”

  In his early forties, Rognol was a latecomer to the Bureau, a Grade 3 government employee with only seven years seniority. It was his previous occupation that had made him one of the most dependable, selfless, patriots Harrington had ever encountered. He had joined the Marine Corps when he was 17, requiring the permission of his father, a disabled vet of the Vietnam War to do so, underwent the standard rigorous boot camp training at Parris Island, was accepted at Officer’s Candidate School at Camp Le Jeune, took martial arts hand-to-hand combat training, then spent 15 years infiltrating enemy strongholds of genocidal governments to eliminate various leaders, generals and dictators primarily in African nations. Rognol had long ago taken an official and personal oath to serve his country in every way possible, to die for it if necessary.

  They had rounded the corner and waited for the pedestrian crossing light at 9th Street. The successful achievement of this unequivocal mandate from the very top of the administration would determine Harrington’s future in the Bureau and the quality of the rest of his life beyond it. His own directive had been more subtle and also verbal, nothing he could use to prove he had not initiated this action on his own. On the one hand, he wished he could accompany Rognol and his men to personally supervise the operation; on the other, he wanted to remain as far in the background, out of the potential fallout range in the event of failure or revelation of the essential assassinations. Everyone associated with the Waco disaster in 1993 had their careers sidetracked or terminated. And killing those 85 Davidians hadn’t even been planned.

  “You could go down in this,” Harrington told him.

  Rognol looked straight ahead, squaring his shoulders. “I realize that, Sir. God and country.”

  Callaghan, Geoff, Cassandra, Sammy and the five ex-airborne troopers sat around the living room shortly after noon following Monday’s broadcast.

  “We’re almost home,” the general said. “I am proud of and grateful to you all for your dedication to this critical operation. It was the right thing to do, and whatever happens now is up to the world population. The various nations, religions and peoples of the earth can either continue the divisiveness and antagonism in which they have engaged from the beginning of time, or use Shimon’s document and Hannah’s message to shuck off the meaningless rituals of religion and move closer to God.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if that’s within human nature,” Geoff said. “Everyone seems to want validation of their mystical faith by some leader, the group.”

  Callaghan’s agreed with his friend’s sentiment then changed the subject. “Now that we’re in the final stages of our mission, we have to look out for ourselves. “I didn’t take on this challenge to end up on a slab in the morgue and take you with me.”

  “The White House has already given us amnesty in a public announcement,” Palagi said.

  Geoff resettled himself on the couch next to Conté. “That’s their official position. Nice statement to hide in when they take a body count.”

  “They’ve had plenty of time to locate us with all the state-of-the-art hi-tech tools at their disposal,” Callaghan said. “A natural occurrence like the weather prevented them from acting on it.”

  Sammy had been monitoring the weather on the Internet. “The forecast is for the storm to blow out in a day or so.”

  “Since they couldn’t stop us from going on the air,” Cassandra observed, “they probably figured they’d let us get it out to avoid the embarrassment of censure or confiscation. They must have a dozen scenarios for dealing with a fait acompli.”

  “Which does not include us,” Geoff said.

  Gerlach’s tone was ironic. “State couldn’t afford to have us tell the world we were operating with their approval.”

  Palagi said, “Until they realized what was in it.”

  “Bottom line,” Callaghan told them, “they can’t afford to take prisoners.”

  Geoff frowned, shaking his head, obviously perplexed. “And we can’t afford a firefight, kill a bunch of Feebs, trot off into the sunset.”

  Cassandra had shampooed Andrea’s hair and bathed her from head to foot that afternoon, then applied the perfume and other cosmetics she would have used before going out on a special date. Andrea had insisted on exchanging the hospital johnnie for Sammy’s gift of the Victoria Secret silk negligee. Now it was evening, the lamp on her bedside table was turned low in the early winter dusk, her body covered only by the negligee and a thin sheet. She felt like a teen high school girl waiting for her prom date. At last, her bedroom door opened quietly. A white-robed figure with a turban entered, closed and locked it. Sammy spread his arms wide, twirled around in a graceful pirouette and began a lascivious dance as he sang in a quiet, surprisingly acceptable tenor:

 
“I’m the sheik of Arabee, 

  your heart belongs to me.

  ♪At night when you’re asleep

  into your tent I’ll creep.

  The stars that shine above, 

  will speak to you of love.

  ♪Come rule this land with me,

  I’m the sheik of Arabee! 

  As he approached her bedside, Andy could see the white towel twirled around his head and a pastel blue bed sheet wrapped around his body. Sam let the sheet drop to the floor and removed the towel with a flourish “Ta-dah!”

  “Christ!” Andrea whispered with a soft chuckle. “If I had known you were that well-endowed, I’d have been trying to change your luck for years.”

  Sammy lifted her sheet and climbed into bed beside her. “Well, here’s your chance, Princess. Just hope I haven’t forgotten the opposite sex technique I perfected B.G.G.”

  She snuggled against him as best she could. “That’s ‘Before Going Gay,’ I assume.”

  “Let’s forget that tonight.”

  His tongue was an insistent probe as he kissed her long and slowly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jerusalem, Palestine

  3767 (CE 21 May)Iyar

  That night, Frank Morrissey’s previously recorded voice continued reading the amazing 2000 year old autobiography over the international airwaves via satellite uplink.

  Each member of my family bid farewell to James on the southern plaza, at the foot of the wide steps leading to the Temple gates. Our grip on arms were firm, our embraces tight, before our departure for the return trip to Nazarat. James and I held one another last, somewhat longer than the rest, our eyes wet, our lips speechless as I released him to follow our relatives.

  We were pleasantly weary on that return trip, physically tired from our attempts to canvass every street and merchant stall in Jerusalem, mentally drained by the seemingly constant requirements for prayer and rituals. My sisters chattered softly about the wonders of the City, and giggled about boys they had met, Yehoshua and Rebekah content in their own company, whispering occasionally to one another. Mother rode the cart with her private thoughts, and Father lead Intak with his. My spirits were morose on that journey as I hung back, kicking at stones in the road with my good foot, wondering at the general scheme of things and my own place in it. I recalled the impertinent questions I had voiced to James about our religion, living under the heel of Rome, our own poverty and that of practically every Jew around us, the only pinhole of light from the rebel Zealots shining feebly on our hopeless circumstances, the overwhelming odds against them prophesizing their cruel end on Golgotha.

  My mind revisited those wretched, lingering deaths that I vowed never to witness again in my lifetime, even if I reached the age of Methuselah. I thought I had been inured to the blood and cruelty of our conquerors, the tales related by Vespasian from his father of beheading, rape, evisceration, enslavement and immolation practiced not only by victorious Roman Legions, but the corresponding behavior of marauding, Gauls, Huns and Germanic tribes across Europa, the barbaric Celts on islands to the north and his incredible assertion that asses and horses were trained to rape young girls for the pleasure of the crowds in the Circus Maximus.

  It seemed that no religion or strictures thereof were sufficient to curb the inherent savage, greedy nature in man. Adherents of Judaism, at least, claimed God had created us in His own mage with the capacity to exercise free will. As I look back from my present old age on the life I have led, I wonder to what degree my own choices were made on my own, subject to the influence of others or by circumstances beyond my control. Recalling a line from the writings of the Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, that “Fortune is a god that rules men’s lives,” I wonder what deeds we are responsible for and which are thrust upon us. I offer no excuse for my selection of practically every hedonistic opportunity that presented itself, but have tried to keep the admonishment of our holy prophet, Hillel, as my guiding light: “What is hateful to you, do not do to others.” Nor do I believe I intentionally brought pain or anguish to undeserving men during my lifetime. I shall end this digressive rationale for my sinful existence believing I may have offended God, but not man.

  The month after returning to Nazarat, Rebekah became ill to the concern of all, until it was determined that she was with child. Her lingering discomfort required Yehoshua to plane lumber and assemble furniture in the shop and harvest trees in the forest close to his house, while Father and I went to our commitments in Sepphoris. Judah the Galilean continued to send Zealots to observe Yehoshua’s home on an irregular basis, which made us continually aware of the possibility of retribution the new prefect Pontius Pilate might still impose on my brother for his ill-considered encounter with the publican some ten months before.

  Father had several jobs in Sepphoris that he worked on alternate days to ensure progress on each and show a presence to all clients. One commission involved installing a handrail from the first to second floor in the home of an elderly trader whose young wife seemed to have little to occupy her time other than supervising craftsmen and changing her husband’s instructions. In order to extract himself from that time-consuming process, Father assigned me to that job daily to hasten its completion.

  The wife, Yentl, continued to slow my progress, however. In one instance she made me replace half of the support dowels, in another, ordered the dismantling of almost the entire balustrade, practically forcing me to start the project all over again. By this time, the stonemasons, roofers and other craftsmen had finished their tasks and vacated the premises. So Yentl had only me and my work to harass to my increasing distress. During the previous weeks associating with the other workmen, I learned that the woman had produced no offspring during the couple’s six years of marriage, yet the elderly husband was so enchanted with his bride, who by then had achieved only nineteen years, that he overlooked her barren condition, probably because he had two sons and a daughter from his previous marriage.

  This state of affairs apparently contributed to Yentl’s unsmiling features and wagging finger constantly pointing to her displeasure with the best efforts of her workmen, servants, slaves and just about everything else that came under her gaze. Although her sharp tongue and frown made her singularly unattractive, her robust young body was so appealing that the craftsmen, including myself, almost welcomed her berating our work just to experience her seemingly unintentional body contact and inhale her exquisite perfume.

  She came down the staircase early one morning scowling, running her hand along the section of mahogany handrail I was fitting into the marble steps. “Do you intend to remain here forever building this unstable support?”

  She had reached the bottom step and I stood to face her. “My intention is, ‘Always to be best, and to be distinguished above the rest.’”

  The frown left her face for the first time ever, to my knowledge, as she threw her head back and laughed as full and loud as a man. “An impertinent carpenter who quotes Homer? Do you read Greek or is that the only line you have memorized?”

  “I can memorize anything.”

  Her laugh was derisive this time, as she mounted the staircase and beckoned me to follow. The room where she slept was appointed with tassels hanging from the bedclothes and a lounge with feminine colors throughout. The chamber contained not one iota of masculine influence and did not seem to be shared by her husband. Yentl lead me to a row of shelves along the wall on which dozens of scrolls reclined, the author and content of each clearly inscribed on the facing papyrus. “Tell me what else you have read.”

  “Not much. Some of Plato, Thucydides, Euripides.”

  She stood before the shelves squinting, then reached up to the handle of a thin roll, pulled it down carefully, opened it, and quoted Pericles in The Peloponnesian War: “‘Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you,...’”

  I completed the line from memory: “‘...and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether
they are praising you or criticizing you.’”

  She closed the scroll and placed it back in its niche on the shelf. Then turned to me and smiled, laying her fingers lightly on my bare arm. “Would you talk about me?”

  Already captivated by her scent and transposition, I felt a sensation in my groin at her touch, and swallowed with difficulty. “Never.”

  Following the most ructious intercourse I have experienced to this day, we sat in separate lounges under a canopy on her balcony overlooking the rear garden of the house eating grapes and cheese with watered wine, talking about Greek and Roman poets, dramatists and philosophers until the evening sun descended below the new yellow and white limestone buildings of the city to the west. My work was long forgotten, my usual walk to Nazarat with Father and supper at home out of mind as we removed again to her wide, raised bed in the dusk of twilight. That evening was the beginning of my lifelong lesson that all women are different in their hunger for gratification, in the way they use a man. I recall my particular astonishment at Yentl’s release of pent-up anger during copulation that was often mixed with her capacity for tenderness, what I then believed was her false concern for her younger, lowly, crippled libertine.

  Father eventually became concerned that my task at the home of Yentl’s husband was consuming such an inordinate amount of time. I assured him that we would be adequately compensated for the changes the merchant’s wife had forced me to make, and he was gratified at the additional commissions for built-in shelves she had assigned me to install.

  During that memorable summer, Yentl’s previous acidulous disposition all but evaporated as my appreciation for her intelligence and perspicacity grew. Even the gnawing memories of Tanya began to recede when our sexual excursions became more relaxed and pleasurable. All of those issues resulted in an affectionate relationship, not the least of which was lying naked on her balcony lounge in the warm sunshine, reading poetry aloud, sipping dark wine from the same goblet.