It was all he could do to get through a normal day, so remorseful and lonely had he become. In his anger and depression he wrote vitriolic, rambling letters to Yasmine, threatening to steal back the children--all the while knowing she was the best and only parent for them if they had to settle for just one.
Yasmine, in her steely and yet loving way, wrote Abdullah long, earnest missives explaining her faith and outlining the plan of salvation. The first two times she did this, Abdullah tore them into little pieces and mailed them back to her. The next time he stored the letter in a box of keepsakes. She wrote him a half dozen more times, pleading with him to read the Bible, seek counsel, pray, and turn to Christ. He quit answering her but saved her letters. It was good that he did, because apparently she wearied of no response and stopped writing.
Nicolae Carpathia seemed to notice things other people missed. At least people other than Leon Fortunato.
Strange thing: Nicolae didn't much care for Leon outside of what the man could do for him. He was not what Nicolae would call a friend. A confidant perhaps, but not a friend. They didn't socialize off the job. Leon wanted to; that seemed clear. But Nicolae found him clingy, and while he enjoyed being fawned over to a certain extent,
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he was addicted to the approval of the masses, not the sycophancy of one man.
Occasionally Leon surprised and delighted Nicolae, however. Like when they both got the same message from the netherworld. Nicolae had read an obscure item about an Israeli botanist, an elderly man named Chaim Rosenzweig, who was working on a concoction that he believed could make the desert sands bloom like a hothouse.
Nicolae passed over the item the first time but read it with more interest the second time. Then he forgot about it. Then it resurrected in his mind and began to play at the edges of his consciousness. People came up with bizarre ideas all the time, few ever coming to fruition. But this ... if this had any legitimacy, was valid in any way, it could be bigger than the botanist ever dreamed.
What if it was true? What if the man could pull it off? The Middle Eastern nation that managed such a miracle would dominate the region, grow wealthy and fat, and throw the balance of power into disarray. Imagine what something like that could do for Romania.
Nicolae became obsessed with the idea. Why would the man, an old professor, announce what he was working on? Did he not fear competition? What of younger, sharper, brighter minds--perhaps some who had been working on the same thing, like a perpetual motion device, for years--beating him to the punch?
Nicolae set his own mind to the problem. What would it take? What would he need? He bounced it off his spirit guide one evening at dusk as he walked and prayed.
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Sometimes these connections with the spirit world seemed like normal conversations. But this evening he sensed he had tapped into an angry spirit. Nicolae's mind was riddled with cacophony. Hissing. Spitting. Rage. In the depths of his being Nicolae sensed the spirit telling him, "Look to the North from whence come the power and strength emanating from me!"
"But this botanist," Nicolae pressed silently. "Is he on to something? Is it something I should pursue?"
"To the death."
"I do not understand."
"He is one of the enemy's chosen people. Worthy of hatred."
"I am willing to hate him, but should I not steal his idea?"
"Too late." More hissing and noise, as if Nicolae had reminded his spirit guide of something so distasteful he didn't even want to think about it.
"Too late? Really?"
"Win him with winsomeness."
"I do not understand."
"Get it. Take it. Lure it away, or I will take it by force with my minions from the North."
"So I am right? This is a worthy pursuit?"
"Inestimable."
Nicolae was always frustrated when he could not coax the spirit to continue a conversation. His connection to the netherworld went dead, and it nearly drove him mad. He rushed back to his office and jotted notes. The botanist's name. His university. His hometown.
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Ideas on how to contact him. He would put Leon on it the next day.
But he didn't have to wait even that long.
Viv Ivins buzzed him. "Leon is on the line for you."
"What does he want? I am busy."
"He wants to come and see you."
"Tonight?"
"Right now."
"Tell him to come."
Leon arrived within twenty minutes, a rolled-up magazine in his hand. He spread it before Nicolae. "This struck me," he said. "And I believe it is something you should be aware of."
It was a story about Chaim Rosenzweig and his potential formula. "I am aware of it," Nicolae said.
"My spirit tells me we are too late to pirate it," Leon said. "Diplomacy is our only hope."
For whatever Leon was or was not, Nicolae trusted his instincts. Or at least his access to the spirits. Especially when they corroborated his own.
Buck Williams had been with Global Weekly nearly four years. He had already written more than thirty cover stories, including three Newsmaker of the Year pieces. He wanted to bag a fourth, so he went to the next staff meeting with his nomination in mind: Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig of Israel, the humble chemical engineer who preferred calling himself a botanist.
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Buck was certain his colleagues wanted to go with an American, a pop or political star of some sort. But Rosenzweig was the only logical choice, at least in Buck's mind. It was a relief when Steve Plank opened the meeting with, "Anybody want to nominate someone stupid, such as anyone other than the Nobel Prize winner in chemistry?"
No one argued, but Buck wasn't going to leave this to chance. "Steve," he said, "I'm not angling for it, but you know I know the guy, and he trusts me."
The usual carping ensued with everyone else lobbying to be the writer, criticizing Steve for always leaning toward Buck, and Steve reminding them that the decision was his. In the end, the nod went to Buck. He had, after all, done the story when Rosenzweig had won the Nobel Prize.
In Israel Buck stayed in a military compound and met with Rosenzweig in the same kibbutz on the outskirts of Haifa where he had interviewed him a year earlier. Buck had found the wiry little man, with the Einstein thing happening with his hair, protected by security systems as complex as those for heads of state. Here was a warm, smiling, earnest-speaking man honored throughout the world and revered as royalty in his own country.
Rosenzweig himself was fascinating, of course, but it was his formula that had revolutionized Israel and changed the face of the Middle East. Irrigation was nothing new. But, as the retired professor said, all that did was "make the sand wet." His formula, added to the water, fertilized the sand. Buck was no scientist, but he
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knew Rosenzweig's formula had made Israel the richest nation on earth almost overnight. Every inch of available ground blossomed with flowers and grains, including produce never before conceivable in Israel. Flush with cash and resources, the nation made peace with her neighbors. Free trade and liberal passage allowed all who loved the nation to have access to it. What they did not have access to, however, was the formula.
Global leaders sought out Rosenzweig. Just ten days before Buck's visit, a Russian delegation had come calling, clearly imagining what a license to the formula might do if put to work on their own vast tundra.
Russia had become a great brooding giant with a devastated economy and regressed technology. All the nation had was military might, every spare resource invested in weaponry.
"Let me tell you something, my friend," Rosenzweig told Buck. "The Russians left here none too happy with my response. And I did not flatly refuse them. I merely told them that the rights to the formula technically belonged to the State of Israel and that I would not try to sway the government in what it chose to do with them. They will decide when they decide, and they may decide to share the formula with no one.
"The Ru
ssians told me they had already tried diplomatic channels to tender an offer for a license and that they had come to me only when that failed. I apologized that they had gone to all the time and expense to come to the wrong person."
"Who else has visited you?" Buck said.
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"Oh, many. Many. Most all. It has been a joy, I confess, hearing their compliments and accolades. This has been a most interesting aspect. I was most amused by a visit from the vice president of the United States himself. He wanted to honor me, to bring me to the president, to have a parade, to confer a degree, all that. He diplomatically said nothing about my owing him anything in return, but I would owe him everything; would I not? Much was said about what a friend of Israel the United States has been over the decades. And this has been true, no? How could I argue?
"But I pretended to see the awards and kindnesses as all for my own benefit, and I humbly turned them down. Because you see, young man, I am most humble; am I not?" The old man laughed and relayed several other stories of dignitaries who had visited and tried to charm him.
"Was anyone sincere?" Buck said. "Did anyone impress you?"
"Yes! From the most perplexing and surprising corner of the world--Romania. I do not know if he was sent or came on his own, but I suspect the latter because I believe he is the lowest-ranking official I entertained following the award. That is one of the reasons I wanted to see him. He asked for the audience himself. He did not go through typical political and protocol channels."
"And he was...?"
"Nicolae Carpathia."
"Carpathia like the--?"
"Yes, like the Carpathian Mountains. A melodic name,
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you must admit. I found him most charming and humble. Not unlike myself!"
"I've not heard of him."
"You will! You will."
"Because he's ..."
"Impressive, that is all I can say."
Later in the interview Rosenzweig said of Carpathia, "I believe his goal is global disarmament, which we Israelis have come to distrust. But of course he must first bring about disarmament in his own country. This man is about your age, by the way. Blond and blue-eyed, like the original Romanians who came from Rome, before the Mongols affected their race."
"What did you like so much about him?"
"Let me count," Rosenzweig said. "He knew my language as well as his own. And he speaks fluent English. Several others also, they tell me. Well educated but also widely self-taught. And I just like him as a person. Very bright. Very honest. Very open."
"What did he want from you?"
"That is what I liked the best. Because I found him so open and honest, I asked him outright that question. He insisted I call him Nicolae, and so I said, 'Nicolae, what do you want from me?' Do you know what he said, young man? He said, 'Dr. Rosenzweig, I seek only your goodwill.' What could I say? I said, 'Nicolae, you have it.' I am a bit of a pacifist myself, you know. Not unrealistically. I did not tell him this. I merely told him he had my goodwill. Which is something you also have."
"I suspect that is not something you bestow easily."
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"That is why I like you and why you have it. One day you must meet Carpathia. You would like each other. His goals and dreams may never be realized even in his own country, but he is a man of high ideals. If he should emerge, you will hear of him. And as you are emerging in your own orbit, he will likely hear of you, or from you; am I right?"
"I hope you are."
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FORTY-TWO
Chloe had fallen in love with a senior at Stanford and believed it was the real thing. Ricky was tall, a former high school basketball star who had tried to make the Stanford team as a walk-on and failed. He excelled in intramurals and was a business major, skilled at public speaking.
He graduated early, spent three months touring Europe, sent Chloe a cheap souvenir from Switzerland, and disappeared from her life. Her letters went unanswered, and her devastation was complete when one of their mutual acquaintances returned from Ricky's wedding with photos and squeals of delight over his bride and how much Chloe would love her if only they would meet.
The setback had an interesting effect on Chloe. She settled into her task of being the best student she could
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be, and she quit trusting people, especially males. Her father was the only man she respected, but even he had little to offer other than condolence over her love loss.
"I won't try to make this better, Chlo'," he said over dinner during one of his four visits during her first year. "I'll just tell you that I would knock Ricky flat if he were standing here."
Chloe made her father promise he would never give Ricky the satisfaction of thinking he had affected her that way. "He clearly didn't care for me the way I cared for him, and I'd just as soon he not know what this did tome."
And that was the end of it. Except for how it helped forge Chloe's character and future.
Wholly sick of his business, bored with politics, and feeling a failure over his effort to curry real favor with Chaim Rosenzweig, Nicolae Carpathia took out his frustrations on everyone around him. He was short and sarcastic, particularly with Viv and Leon. And he was rude to the staff, shouting at subordinates over every slight or error.
He marched about his compound, barking at security first to give him space and then to not let him get so far from them. He raged at his spirit guide, demanding to know when his next assignment would come, when his next entitlement would be realized, and when he would take his proper place in the leadership of the world.
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When the netherworld was silent he fumed that he would have to do something himself, would strategize the most sophisticated kidnapping plot in history, and would demand the fertilizer formula as ransom for Rosenzweig himself.
Finally his antics had gotten the attention of the spirits. "Patience, chosen one," he was told. "Retribution has already been scheduled."
Buck Williams had enjoyed a leisurely late evening meal with Chaim Rosenzweig a mile from the kibbutz and from the nearby military compound where Buck would stay before his dawn flight back to the States.
The old man was spent, his thick accent harder and harder to understand as he enjoyed his wine, and his eyelids drooped.
"I need to let you get some rest," Buck said.
"I suppose it is true, but this has been so invigorating. You must come visit me one day when we have no business to conduct."
"And when might that be?" Buck said, laughing. "I am always busy, and though you are more than twice my age, you are busier than I."
"We will have to carve out the time and schedule it. Just a time of relaxation and refreshment."
Buck couldn't imagine downtime like that, but he could think of no better companion for it.
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Rosenzweig's driver dropped Buck off at the military compound, where he headed through the command center toward his more-than-comfortable quarters. It was already after midnight, and he was fascinated by the alert attention the strategy room personnel gave the glowing computer screens. Earlier in the week he had met the brass and been given full access to the technicians who kept their eyes on the night skies.
Israel seemed to be in such favor of all their neighbors that no serious threat loomed. Still, these proud soldiers spoke eloquently of their charge to defend and protect. Many nodded or waved as Buck moved through, and a couple of the command personnel called him by name.
A man of planning and systems, Buck rarely slept well when he knew he had to rise early. But he was eager to get home, and he prepared everything so he would be able to merely rise, shower, shave, and go. Always a light packer, he carefully loaded his leather bag and laid out his clothes for the next day.
Before undressing for bed he stood by his window and gazed into a starry sky. He felt keyed up, not drowsy. He would have trouble sleeping; he knew it. It was at times like this when he wished he enjoyed wine the way a man like Rosenzwei
g did. That would have put him out.
Maybe some late reading would do the trick. Just as he was turning from the window to dig a book or magazine from his bag, the raucous blat of sirens shook the place. A fire? Some malfunction? Buck assumed loudspeakers would advise occupants what to do, where to go. He was glad he was still dressed. He pulled on his leather jacket
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and was then drawn back to the window by something new in the skies.
It appeared surface-to-air missiles had been launched. Was Israel under attack? Could it be? Sounds from the air overrode even the ear-rattling sirens. When the skies lit up like noon, Buck knew this was the real thing--a full-fledged air battle. But with whom? And why?
He bolted from his room and ran down the corridor toward the command center. "Stay in your quarters, civilian!" he heard more than once as he darted among ashen-faced men and women in various stages of dress. Many had emerged from their chambers pulling on uniforms and jamming on caps.
The situation room was chaotic already, and this crisis was less than a minute old. Command officers huddled around screens, chirping rapid-fire commands at techies. One man wearing impossibly large earphones shouted, "One of our fighters has identified Russian MiG fighter-bombers."
From another corner: "ICBMs!"
Buck reeled. Intercontinental ballistic missiles? Against little Israel? From the Russians?
Suddenly no one was sitting. Even the experts stood at their keyboards as if staring at something they didn't want to see. Every screen seemed lit and jammed with blips and points of light.
"It's like Pearl Harbor!"
"We'll be annihilated!"
"Hundreds of MiGs nearly overhead!"
"Hopelessly outnumbered!"
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