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The Consulate Conspiracy, Page 2

Oren Sanderson


  “A buffer?” I asked, as the blood rushed from my face and headed straight down to my feet. “Buffering what? And why?”

  “I think you guys call it a bodel.” Jay’s face didn’t betray any emotion, but what the hell did he know? Bodel is the liaison between our intelligence agency abroad and all sorts of interesting people, sources, and recruits who are not allowed to show up at the Israeli mission. It seemed that Jay, our friend, was aware of such things.

  “I’ve heard of something like that. Why?” I said and looked over his shoulder. It sounded so bad that, for a moment, I wondered if he had some officers there waiting to lay a hand on me. They might have discovered something. However, the passengers’ hall was almost empty. Two bored policemen were chatting in the corner, a chubby and curly-haired young lowlife was checking the contents of the trash can.

  “Have you heard of a buffer who lost contact with his people?” Jay stared at me with hard, brown eyes. He knew something for sure.

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Do you know Freddy?” He would not let go. The curly-haired guy, who had finished with the garbage cans, passed by, and I hoped Jay would lower his voice.

  “Freddy?”

  “Freddy, man. The contact man. Don’t play games with me. I’m your buffer. You guys have to get the message.”

  So Jay is our intermediary, the buffer. God forbid. I can hardly swallow the idea. So we keep on recruiting American officials, risking them and risking ourselves. Why on earth do we need it?!

  A sound of low dry coughing came from the direction of the young bum. Jay suddenly opened his eyes wide, choking. I watched it like a horror movie, as if I wasn’t really there. But then Jay collapsed in my arms, lips red with blood, leaving a wide diagonal crimson streak on my dress shirt. The curly-haired guy was walking away; I could have sworn that he looked back with a horrible, mocking smile. I opened my mouth, but I could not speak. My hands were covered with his blood.

  “Stop!” I finally screamed at the curly-haired guy, who started running.

  “Stop!” I couldn’t hear myself. I mean, I had seen death before, but not in air-conditioned halls. I started trying to lay Jay on the floor, and he collapsed like a rag doll. No one was there to hear me. The two police officers at the end of the room were still in lively conversation, a new wave of passengers approaching the jetway. Jay moaned, struggling for air. I was trying to get to his radio, to call for help.

  “I’m cold,” he said.

  “Number one is down,” I finally said into the mike. “In hallway two! We need help. Do you copy?” I felt horrible. I let the radio go and tried to comfort Jay, not knowing what to do. From a course in the army, deep in the recesses of my memory, I recalled tourniquets. Then a torrent of questions poured out of Jay’s radio, but I couldn’t answer. He coughed and cried in desperation. A tourniquet wouldn’t help, his condition was critical — no, terminal. His eyes went wide in agony.

  “Don’t let them do it,” he gasped.

  “Don’t let who?”

  His eyes were gazing into another world already. He breathed rapidly and shallowly. Too shallow. A new trickle of blood poured from his mouth down his cheek to his collar.

  “The war — the warhead!” He gave a weak, silent sigh, his eyes still open but not seeing anything. His pulse disappeared.

  A cop was finally with us, pushing me to the side and starting a series of tests, trying something that looked like a heart massage. It was too late; it was useless.

  3.

  “You must take good care of the new consul general.”

  I thought about that, sitting on the green imitation-leather chair in the waiting area. If something went wrong with the new guy, then my job at the consulate would be screwed, and so would my plans.

  The thought of the new consul general continued to annoy me as I looked at the pursed mouth of McFlaherty, Jay’s longtime deputy, who took charge with impressive speed. He must have been fifty. You could see the veins in his face, his knitted brows. Jay had thought him slow and dim, a belligerent type who quickly lost interest and gave up in the face of a challenge.

  He sat next to me in the row of waiting chairs, trying to elicit details from me. He was too close, and the smell of sweat and beer rising from him further encouraged the nausea that had been stuck in my throat for a long time, and I was trying not to throw up right in his face. Jay’s body had already been removed from the arrivals hall. I had already gotten rid of my dress shirt, stained with Jay’s blood, and instead I wore a Texas A&M sweatshirt that I’d bought in a souvenir shop in the terminal.

  The panic that had propelled me into extreme motion was subsiding now, and in its place was a sense of horror, which threatened to paralyze me. McFlaherty functioned pretty well, though. He gave brief, logical orders. HPD Homicide and FBI were not yet set up to take over the investigation, so in the meantime he was still in charge. His eyes were red too, probably as a result of the new pressure; he was not the crying type. He, too, wanted to dispose of this distasteful matter and head to the bar. He and Jay hadn’t been that close.

  For the third time, I repeated most of my last conversation with Jay and talked about the curly-haired guy that had escaped from the scene. “You know that no one else saw him,” grumbled McFlaherty, as if it were my fault.

  “I don’t know. I was busy.”

  “So why would anyone want to kill Jay?”

  “For the third time, I don’t know.”

  I was so tired, thinking that we still had many more hours to spend there, including the upcoming landing of the consul.

  “Were you two good friends?”

  I thought of Jay and Freddy, whom he mentioned just before he was murdered. It’s not something I’d repeat. I knew exactly what he meant, but now I had no one to talk to and find out what Jay had meant.

  “Yes, I was at his home a while ago.” I pictured the house full of ornaments, figurines, and porcelain dolls. The statue of the Madonna on the living room wall. I could hear Jay’s mother moaning in Spanish, in a heartbreaking inhuman roar and a long, ancient wail. A terrible lament from a primeval place. A forlorn woman.

  “It’s important for us that the consul general be well-received when he lands,” I said dryly, looking at my watch. After the last delay, he was supposed to land in another twenty minutes.

  “It’s important to us too,” said McFlaherty. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here tonight.” He called over a young sergeant from the Airport Police, who opened a laptop and started, with my help, to compose a sketch of the curly-haired guy I had seen. I just remember that he’d been rummaging in garbage cans and then walked away with a kind of mincing step.

  “Maybe he was trying to disguise his gait?” The sergeant asked a good question,

  “Or maybe he’s just a fruit?” suggested McFlaherty. “I am personally going to see to your consul, and make sure this isn’t turning into what we dread.”

  “What are you guys afraid of?” I asked, but neither one of them was ready to explain.

  4.

  Major General (Retired) Almog, now Consul General Almog, finally landed, one hour and twenty minutes late. It was hard to believe that a murder had happened while we were waiting, the marks of which had disappeared, as if it had never happened.

  I recognized Almog, but I preferred to wait before greeting him. You had to give him a minute or two to breathe, right? I recognized him thanks to the picture they’d faxed us from Israel, but his career-officer demeanor gave it away anyway. The way they walk. The kind of clothes they wear. The show of self-confidence that often blows up into arrogance.

  He was of middle height and middle age, but still in decent shape. A small belly, balding, and blue-eyed, but he looked younger than his forty-eight years. He was holding a huge handbag and glancing to the side, looking for me. He did not let his embarrassment show. He smiled at a po
lice officer, perhaps because of the uniform, and shook his hand. The officer pointed at me and I caught his eye. I nodded at him, and he beamed with obvious relief. Almog came toward me at a brisk clip, perhaps too fast. He reached me, slammed his handbag down, grabbed my hand, started shaking it vigorously and slapped my shoulder.

  “Markovsky!” he said, as if we were lifelong friends. The police sergeant looked sideways nervously. He was convinced that Jay’s murder was only the first act.

  “So it’s you, Mickey Markovsky, information officer. I recognized you right away. Are you an undergrad at A&M?” He was amazed at the sweatshirt my shoulders threatened to burst out of.

  “Sorry, I didn’t have time to change,” I answered without thinking.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Where are the others? Is something wrong?”

  Goddammit, I thought to myself. I mumbled, “No… yes… it just happened.”

  “What? Don’t hide anything from me! We can’t start off like that.”

  “Someone was shot next to me an hour ago.”

  “Next to you? Why? Does that happen a lot here?” He sounded rather shaken. He had loads of questions, most of which I had no answers for.

  “Not really,” I said. “It has nothing to do with us.” I was still trying to save the consul general’s first day.

  “You’re sure? Hm, let’s try this again. Markovsky? Like the pencils?”

  “My grandfather,” I replied, used to the question I’d heard so many times.

  “Something happened over there recently, right? So what on earth are you doing in Houston?” He was worried, looking for someone to lean on.

  “I have to start somewhere.”

  He didn’t bother to wait for my answer. “I trust you, you see. I have to trust you.” He read my mind, and I read his. I suggested taking his handbag and starting to make our way to the exit, with a squad of officers in front of and behind us.

  “Are they waiting for someone?” He was amazed.

  “It’s for you.” I felt more focused now. “It’s a regular procedure with any consul general.” It wasn’t important to be precise now, as much as to calm him down.

  “And where is the vice consul?”

  “On an urgent trip.”

  “So what really happened in the terminal?”

  “The airport police commander was killed an hour ago.”

  He stopped for a moment, digesting this, raising his eyebrows.

  “Just like that? Right now? Do you guys know who killed him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “America.” He was still struggling, his cheeks red. He was under pressure too. “It’s unbearable at JFK,” he complained, a true Israeli after all. “These Americans don’t know shit. They could stand to be taught a thing or two about organization and efficiency, you know. There’s a myth about American efficiency, how they’re always on top of things. Maybe they used to be, but today they’d be eaten alive. Don’t you think? By Japan, China, India, you know.”

  “I’m not sure,” I told him the truth. We descended two floors in the elevator. The police still surrounded us. We crossed the road and a parking lot, finally reaching the consul’s official car. “Wow!” Dan Almog was rooted to his spot, stunned. He might have had problems with American efficiency, but the cars they manufactured certainly impressed him. “Look at it, man. It’s worth my whole trip, just for that.” He did not try to hide his childlike glee. I put the bag in the trunk and opened the door for him. He tried to act as if it were natural, but after a moment he caught himself. “You really don’t have to open the door for me. You’re a student of business administration, right? They told me that in HR. I’ve always treated the people under me as friends, ever since I made captain.”

  I kept silent.

  “I already asked back in Israel for them to arrange for a driver, so someone like you would never have to drive me. That’s just not right, not only because you’re a Markovsky. You’re too good-looking to be a driver.”

  “I have no problem driving you.”

  “Very well, Markovsky of the pencils. But what’s someone like you doing in Houston anyway?”

  “I have to start somewhere,” I repeated my answer from before.

  “You’re not a bit old to get started?” he continued when I did not reply. “Look, I won’t be sitting in the backseat. I’m calling shotgun, and you better remember that.”

  We got in, and I was about to pull out when he put a hand on my arm, as if he wanted to say something, but he was still thinking about it. The car drove him crazy. (Ha ha.) He stuck his other hand deep into his pocket, rustling for a moment, then said, “Listen, this car is a piece of art. Do me a favor, open the hood. Let me see inside.”

  I hid my surprise and opened the hood, and he looked inside for a long time. The spaghetti of the wires, the valves, the electronic mechanisms.

  “What a beast. Let’s see what it can do!” he concluded in deep satisfaction, pulling himself out from under the hood. He got back in, and we finally hit the road.

  The journey from Mickey Leland to the center of Houston was forty minutes, theoretically; during rush hour, it can be as much as an hour-and-a-half. Houston is a flat city, thinly spread over the Texan desert, and an almost never-ending traffic jam. Except for between the hours of two and five in the morning, people are always on the roads. Everybody owns a car, and everybody drives, unless they cannot afford it. In all the years of the city, no one has ever dreamed of building a reasonable public transportation system.

  When we got out onto Route 45 leading to the city, he went back to talking, almost nonstop. Excited and curious, he had a lot of energy to discharge, after being cooped up for twelve hours on his transatlantic flight and four more on his cross-country flight, and so he shared with me all the little secrets.

  “You know, me and my people, we’re like brothers. Like brothers,” he repeated. “I don’t keep any secrets from my brothers.” All that, when he’d known me for less than half-an-hour.

  “Will Mrs. Almog join you later?” In his biography, which we received by fax, it said she was a senior nurse and they had two sons.

  “No,” he said, twitching like he’d just been tasered.

  “Just for a visit?” I thought I was starting to understand.

  He looked at the huge shopping centers on the way to the city, reading a huge blue-and-white sign. “IHOP? They didn’t have that in Fort Bragg when I was here in ’66.”

  “International House of Pancakes,” I explained. “A good place for brunch on Sundays.”

  “Actually there was one in Fort Bragg, only the sign looked different.” He looked back at the fast food place as it faded into the background.

  “Aharona will not come even for a visit,” he explained. “I don’t know how it happened.” He goes on almost without breathing. “It’s a pity that now it’s all gone to shit. Too bad, really. She’s been by my side for twenty-five years now, biting her lip. With all the military operations, moving between bases, even with the vicious gossip and stories about my dalliances. She fought like a lioness and withstood it all. Then God knows why, she gave up now. Never mind… she just told me that it’s the end of the story. Just now, when we’ve finally achieved some peace and tranquility. Now that she can finally enjoy our life together. It’s really a shame. “

  “Maybe she’ll come anyway to visit?”

  “No way!” he said. “She’s started on a new chapter of her life already, with a new man. So be it. Believe me, I could easily do the same. Easily. No big deal,” he emphasized, trying to convince himself.

  We traveled a long way in silence.

  “Where did you say the vice consul is?”

  “On a business trip. Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “Something to do with the Israeli scientists who wer
e arrested. They were detained on Monday. Noni spoke twice with the local police and I spoke to the governor’s office in New Mexico. Today they will be released, and the FBI will take care of the follow-up.” I didn’t tell him that Noni went on this trip specifically to avoid having to come to the airport to welcome him.

  “I’m told he’s a hard-ass.” I wasn’t sure Almog had to share that with me, but he did anyway. “He’s gotten many complaints about not doing the administrative work properly, and being too tough on the consular cases. But I’m going to give him a chance; I give everyone a chance as long as he does not prove himself otherwise.”

  He looked at the landscape.

  “So, are the stories about him true or not?”

  They definitely were, but I was no snitch. “I have no idea. I’m not experienced enough to evaluate his professionalism.” I might have been losing points with Almog, but I didn’t want to get involved in that mess. Especially when Almog seemed determined to bring Noni to heel.

  “So it’s not your first time in America?” I asked, to change the subject, and he eagerly took the bait.

  “No kidding! My first time here I was barely in my twenties, an ‘outstanding company commander.’ That’s when they took us to Fort Bragg, headquarters for Army Special Operations Command: airborne, Rangers — the best of the best, you know. They really cracked me up. It took me less than a day to help them open their eyes. They didn’t know the first thing about rapid deployment. I just asked them, ‘Where are the airplanes?’ The planes are in Seattle, fine. The ramps for loading the equipment and the jeeps are in Louisiana. The chutes are folded up at Fort Bragg. ‘How many hours does it take for you to have the first paratrooper over, say, Europe?’ They tell me Europe is not part of their mission, it’s the 10th Special Forces Group — SFG, they call it — that takes care of Europe. So when the call comes, they’ll start arguing. No way on earth that they’ll get the job done. And think of it — all that was when I was only a captain. Can you believe it?! Since then I’ve visited twice. Last time was on a lecture tour for Israel Bonds. I think then they realized I got what it takes: the ability to touch people, make the right connection with audiences. Business is good, and that’s where my interest lies. You’ll see, my friend. I think this’ll be a resounding success. Don’t worry about it.” He found it necessary to make me feel better.