Ark (28 page)

This time he awoke to the radio alarm, and relief that the night and his dreams were over.

Gene was already dressed and sitting on a chair examining some papers. He heard Jim move and looked up. “Sleep well, dearie?”

Jim swung his feet off the bed and sat up. Dreams and reality seemed to merge as he sat, dazed, trying to orient himself.

“Today’s the big day, I guess,” said Gene. “I wonder if our superstar archbishop will be there.”

“I was dreaming all night,” said Jim. “Nightmares, really.”

On their way to the surface for breakfast Jim told Gene about his dream. When he described the Franklin Mint’s miniature ark collection Gene nearly split his sides laughing. “That’s a great idea, Jim. You should do that one up and present it to them when you get back to Philadelphia.”

Jim wasn’t amused. The horror of a missed deadline still haunted him, and he wondered how the Raftworks was faring in his absence. Since it was Monday, he decided to call Lou after they ate. There was nothing to do anyway until the General set the wheels in motion for Phase Two.

Gene and Jim returned to their room and went over papers that had been gathered by Thunderbolt staffers under the General’s direction. Most pages were information sheets on the ark or related matters, most of which Gene had seen before.

After some soul searching Jim finally dialed the Raftworks. An unfamiliar female voice answered: “Raftworks Studio, Donna speakin’.”

When Jim said who he was the girl recognized his name, called him ‘Sir,’ and quickly switched him over to Lou.

“Jimbo!” Lou roared. “What is?”

Jim was cryptic about his circumstances, but he deflected Lou’s questions with his own about how things were going. He threw in all the appropriate “miss you’s” and told Lou that he hoped his job wouldn’t have him away for more than a week longer. Lou answered that the new ‘temp’ Donna was a good designer and so far everything was under control. He added that the mega check had come to Raftworks from the Wilcox estate “for services rendered.”

“Mega check?” said Jim.

“Sure,” answered Lou, seemingly surprised at Jim’s question. “The mega check for sixty grand!”

Jim stifled his surprise. He’d been told that he’d be generously compensated for his time but had no idea what that meant. “That’s great,” he said. “I told them to send it to the Raftworks, so you can deposit it with the other checks, okay?”

Lou had no further questions. The check had apparently erased all his curiosity about Jim’s circumstances. They exchanged small talk for a while, then Lou got another call. Business as usual.

When he hung up Jim reflected on his fortune and misfortune. For the moment they seemed to balance out. He might be homesick, but he could now daydream about that Taurus wagon that Kas wanted. He’d been told that he’d be receiving two equal payments. That meant he would end this affair with over a hundred thousand dollars. Not bad for a few weeks of vacation.

While he and Gene waited for the General’s call, Gene read a book. He said he would rather have been running the simulation of the ark on the wall screen but they’d been ordered to keep it clear for incoming messages. They expected the General’s face to appear at any moment, but when the screen finally came to life there was only a scrolling message, white letters in a blue field:

ATTENTION / ATTENTION / ATTENTION / ATTENTION / ATTENTION / ATTENTION

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY - IMC - CLASSIFICATION: SECRET

• OPERATION THUNDERBOLT

• PHASE TWO

• TABERNACLE CONSTRUCTION - SECTOR FIVE

• DATE/TIME: 7-11-1430 HRS

• CERTIFIED ATTENDEES:

> BRIGADIER GENERAL LAWRENCE A. WILCOX

> RABBI MOSHE HERSCHEL LEVI

> ARCHBISHOP AURELIOS ANTONIO FRAZETTI

> JOHN A. WILCOX

> EUGENE M. HENSON

> JAMES B. WILSON

> AARON BROWNSTEIN

> MARTA KOHLMETZ

All the usual names.

Gene paid little attention to the screen. “I keep expecting Big Brother Wilcox’s ugly face to pop up on that thing.”

“Seems to be using it mostly for messages,” said Jim. “Maybe he’s camera shy.”

“Or busy. Not in the grotto, at least.”

Jim laughed. “Nobody beats ol’ camera hog Frazetti.”

When Gene and Jim first arrived at Los Alamos, General Wilcox had contacted them in person fairly regularly on the wall screen, but lately there had been only messages, some cryptic. Others were downright obtuse. Jim had even written some of them down:

“WHEN YOU ASSUME, YOU MAKE AN ASS OUT OF U AND ME.”

... spoke for itself.

“FAMILY AND FRIENDS CAN BE TRAITORS TOO”

... was a clear admonition against spilling secrets to the family. But ...

“CANCEL IDEAS, ALERT THE MIND”

... must have meant something to the author, but neither Gene nor Jim could figure it out.

Jim’s favorite, though, was ...

“THINK PIOUS THOUGHTS”

Gene had ignored most of the TV messages but that one drew a comment. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What in God’s name does THAT mean?” he roared. “You’d think at least HERE we could avoid fucking commercials!”

Jim laughed. “You might want to work a bit on that piety.”

Jim tried to remember some of the earlier messages that he hadn’t written down. “What was that one about loons and badgers?”

“Can’t remember,” said Gene. “Concerned General Wilcox, no doubt,” he added with an evil smile. “Fits him to a tee.”

“You know,” said Jim, “here we are laughing it up and making small talk on the cusp of Phase Two. What is it about us? You’d think we’re be speculating about what’s going to happen, you know, when we REALLY do the ark thing.”

Gene agreed. “You’re right. Yesterday we were bantering like this just before the sacrifice. I’ll tell you what it is, Jim. We’re just a pair of sick puppies.”

The General’s face suddenly appeared on the screen.

“Are you ready, boys?”

Gene reached for the SEND button. “Any time, General.”

“We dismantled everything this morning and are going to set it up tomorrow, not today, at the proving grounds. Be ready at six.”

The screen went blank. Gene and Jim looked at each other. “Great. Another day to kill,” said Gene.

It wasn’t so bad. They both welcomed a day off, taking in a matinee at the local theater, and that evening, after dinner, they bowled at the Los Alamos Lanes.

#

The next day at six a.m. General Wilcox came to their room with John at his side. They both wore sunglasses, tan caps and desert camouflage fatigues. The General’s cap bore four gold stars.

“Oooo, aren’t we looking all military and bad today,” Gene teased.

“Bring sunglasses. Sunny up top,” the General advised.

He wasn’t kidding. The airfield was dazzling under a cloudless sky. Three helicopters waited to take the Thunderbolt personnel to a secret testing area at the edge of the White Sands proving ground. A prepared field, airstrip and temporary quarters had been set up there.

From the air the tents reminded Jim of a small refugee camp in the desert. He wondered what the Israelite camp must have looked like four thousand years ago.

Someone, maybe it was Gene, had once remarked that it must have been an amazing sight; the twelve tribes of Israel all spread out, looking not unlike a modern camp of, say, Rwandan refugees. The population of the whole camp must have been well over a million people. The numbering of the tribes mentioned in the Bible is a much lower figure, Gene had said. “They only counted the elder males. That means that there must have been scores of eyewitnesses to the events described in the three books of Moses.”

A circle of white robed priests around a dark blue object came into view as the chopper lowered toward the temporary tarmac. Jim guessed it was the ark, dressed for portage. The Bible said it had two coverings, the outer blue upholstery and an inner layer of sealskin, presumably for weatherproofing. Again, Jim was impressed that the army was at least trying to show some respect to orthodox thinking. Certainly Rabbi Levi and his drafted band of Levites were seeing to that.

Everything else was in a graded and cleared area maybe a thousand feet on a side. The outer courtyard and the Tabernacle were set up exactly as it had been in the grotto: on an east-west axis, with its front facing the rising sun.

A cloud of dust surrounded them as their helicopter landed. One by one, each chopper deposited its cargo of materials and personnel, then lifted off. When the last of the three helicopters vanished into the distance Jim’s ears still rang from the thumping and whine of their rotor blades.

The General ordered everyone into a group. He held a megaphone that matched his desert outfit. With his cap and sunglasses, Jim thought the General looked much younger than his actual age. Gene even commented that with a corncob pipe in his teeth he’d be a “spitter for MacArthur.”

“Mom always loved General MacArthur,” said Gene. “Wanted him for president.”

“What’s on your minds, gentlemen?” asked the General. “Care to share?”

“You remind us of General MacArthur, Sir,” said Gene, to Jim’s surprise.

Without comment the General stared at Gene for a moment, then turned to face the rabbi and the Levites.

“Is there a specific time that you want to do this, gentlemen?” he shouted through the megaphone.

Rabbi Levi answered but Jim couldn’t make out what he’d said. The General looked unhappy.

The rabbi was sweating in his heavy headdress and white robes. His gold breastplate glittered in the morning sun, out of place in the barren landscape.

It must have been no different in ancient times, Jim mused. The priests and their blue ark must have been a standout in the desert. Gene had once described the Israelite camp as a traveling circus with exotic animals and colorful banners displaying the tribes’ identities and locations in the tent city that surrounded the original Tabernacle. Now, four thousand years later, there were only twelve Levites on hand for the rebirth of their ark. Not the same as in the beginning, but it was all the Army could muster and still keep the project a secret.

Jim surveyed the horizon. To the North and South stretched stark desert, almost unbroken in its bleakness except for the occasional Joshua tree or patch of brush. To the West, off the rear wall of the Tabernacle, were hills and distant mountains, just as bleak but more interesting to the eye. To the East was more barren desert except for a line of electrical towers in the distance.

“Hard to believe that we’re only a half hour or so from Los Alamos,” Jim mused aloud.

John Wilcox walked to the back of the group where Gene and Jim were watching the proceedings. He pointed to the impromptu conference between the General and the Levites. “I think there’s some question whether we need another sacrifice,” he said with a sardonic smile.

“There’s no question about it,” said Gene. “The ark was supposed to be consecrated with a sacrifice every day. That’s the law. It doesn’t have to be a ram, though. A bull, sheep or even a turtledove will do, if they don’t have any blemishes.”

“Blemishes?” asked John, looking Gene up and down.

“It’s all in the book,” said Gene with a grin. “I’m not making this shit up.”

John kicked a clod of dirt. “First we have to have a sacrifice, then it has to be every day. THEN it has to be without blemish. I thought you wanted to see if this thing works?”

“John, I don’t make the rules around here,” said Gene. “Complain to the rabbi, not me. He’s the one running the show.”

John Wilcox stalked away to join his father, who already seemed to be involved in a dispute with Rabbi Levi.

“I thought by now Wilcox might have opened a Bible,” said Gene.

Jim laughed. “That’s what you’re here for, Gene. I’d think by now you’d know that.”

“Touché,” Gene replied.

The sun beat down mercilessly on them as the mercury moved toward a hundred degrees.

The General’s voice was getting louder and more high pitched as he argued with the rabbi. Despite the wind, Jim could hear most of what the General was saying.

“Look, I know we should have taken this into account,” said the General, “but we didn’t. We’re shit outta rams today, rabbi, so let’s bag tradition, take our chances and move this along.”

At that point, the archbishop appeared from an air conditioned trailer. He was dressed in a lightweight white outfit and, like everyone except Aaron, he was wearing sunglasses, gold rimmed with mirrored glass. Jim thought the cleric looked more like a drug lord than an archbishop.

Frazetti nosed directly into the fray, a jeweled rosary in one hand and a white leather Bible in the other. “My friends, my friends,” he was saying. “Is there a problem among us that cannot be solved?”

“No disrespect there, father,” said General Wilcox, “but unless you can cough up a fine unblemished ram, I believe there is.”

Rabbi Levi nodded and folded his arms resolutely across his golden breastplate. “In a nutshell,” he said.

Jim looked at Gene. “Is it just me or is this getting funny?”

For the next few minutes the conversation became an unintelligible babble of yelling. At one point John had to physically separate the archbishop and his father before they came to blows.

Finally the General got on his radio. By two P.M. a young calf had been airlifted in from Sandia. How they managed to have one on hand made even the General wonder.

#

The calf came crated and dangling by cables from a Huey helicopter.

The Levites and a small group of soldiers ran to the center of the courtyard to release the cables and open the crate. When the calf was finally standing next to the pieces of the container, mooing plaintively from fear and confusion, the Levites gathered around and held it steady. One of them was brandishing a knife.

Jim noticed Marta disappear into a trailer with her hands over her ears. He shook his head and nudged Gene. “Why don’t they just let Marta go back to Switzerland? She’s having a real problem with this sacrifice thing.”

Standing nearby, John overhead him. “We want a metallurgist on hand even if we don’t use her.”

Jim began passing the time making entries in a notebook that had been left in the apartment. Reviewing his entries, he realized that he had failed to cover most of the work that had gone into the building of the Tabernacle complex. He resolved to fill in the gaps later while the memories were still fresh.