Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

The diminished number of faithful was a disturbing development. For this sacred holiday, Nicholas had been depending on a large turnout of supporters to deflect attention from the millenarians and to help obscure the provocative banners and chants of doomsdays and Second Comings.

Indeed, the media had encouraged the siege by giving the “Romillennians,” as the Roman contingent had come to be known, what they desired most-worldwide exposure. Each news service sought to upstage the other by ferreting out the most outlandish and heretical characters they could find. As a consequence, the media were attracting to Rome the oddest element of fringe-dwelling millenarians Europe had to offer.

Although Jerusalem was a vastly larger center of millennialist activity, most reporters preferred the comforts of Rome. Meaning the Romillennians enjoyed far better access to a far greater number of reporters. And to Nicholas's great chagrin, as he was the most prominent religious leader in the world, the media and the millenarians had carried this foolish, disruptive brouhaha directly to his doorstep.

After much soul-searching, the pontiff had reluctantly canceled a trip to the Middle East during which he was to hold a dramatic convocation on Mount Sinai with Jewish and Muslim hierarchs. Worse, he'd had to postpone the unveiling of his Millennial Decree, a condemnation of materialism that Nicholas hoped to make the defining achievement of his new papacy. This urgently prepared ecclesiastical document, with which Nicholas intended to fulfill a very sacred obligation and usher in a more promising new millennium, was to be unveiled January 1. Now it would have to wait for a more receptive climate, such were the frustrations posed by the strange current events.

The situation was only tolerable because the pope and his College of Cardinals were fully aware that this bizarre religious hysteria would be short-lived. Just like the very similar phenomenon that had occurred in A.D. 999.

This time around, however, with the wisdom of hindsight, the Church was unconcerned about a lasting problem. When the second millennium turned into the third, and January 1 had passed, this current millenarian plague-these one-thousand-year locusts-would disappear as efficiently and completely as its predecessor.

The New Year could not come soon enough for the weary pontiff.

U.S. embassy, Tel Aviv, Israel 9:13 P.M., Saturday, December 25,1999

The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv was an impressive government building in the Roman style, with six large columns at the top of expansive sandstone steps. A spotlessly uniformed valet reluctantly accepted Feldman's Rover from him, put off by the dirt and sand that Feldman never noticed.

There were accolades awaiting inside where the two newsmen arrived unintentionally, but fashionably, late. Having slept through WNN's evening newscast, neither was aware that their Negev Institute report had made lead story. Their first major scoop.

Ascending the grand staircase to the main hall, Feldman and Hunter worked their way through warm greetings from familiar associates and new faces alike, who congratulated them on their freshly achieved stature. A genuinely renowned affair, the U.S. embassy Christmas celebration was originally held in appreciation of Christian consulate members and staff detained in the Jewish state over the holidays. But the Christmas party had grown to include Israeli politicians and government officials, as well as connected media, prominent businesspeople and many of the area well-to-do. A gathering of the elite. Even for the resourceful and persistent Hunter, obtaining two invitations had been no easy feat.

Feldman was not here to dispel any homesickness. Nor was he here for the outstanding cuisine and excellent news contacts. For both Feldman and Hunter, the sole appeal of this event was the prospect of meeting the available young women reputed to make their appearance here. And to the newsmen's complete gratification, the office scuttlebutt, for once, proved accurate. Among the hundreds of elect guests in attendance tonight were some of the most chic and beautiful women the two reporters had encountered since arriving in this foreign land. Hunter and Feldman exchanged pleased glances.

“A veritable trove of nubility,” Hunter quipped, mock-posturing like a sophisticate. Spotting a tempting quarry, the cameraman disengaged from Feldman with a self-announcing, “He's sexy, he's single, he's made to mingle!”

Feldman smiled and shook his head with a slight twinge of envy as he watched his friend assimilate himself promptly into the crowd. It was so much simpler for Hunter. Feldman's love life in the Middle East had been less than satisfactory. It was partly due to his hectic lifestyle, where spontaneous news opportunities and pressing deadlines allowed little time for sociable activities or meaningful encounters. But mostly, if truth be told, it was simply because he was far more discriminating than Hunter.

In leaving America, Feldman had left no special love interest behind. Not for lack of candidates-his honest, handsome features, affable nature and appealing wit having always attracted a fair amount of female interest. It was that he harbored a stubbornness about making serious personal commitments, a perspective he had acquired at a young age witnessing the turbulent unraveling of his parents’ marriage.

Consequently, while he very much enjoyed the company of bright and attractive women, he ultimately avoided lasting entanglements. Before he'd allow a promising new relationship to take off, he invariably did so himself. Not maliciously or to intentionally inflict pain, but as a form of self-protection. And tonight, Feldman was ready to start the empty cycle anew.

It should prove far easier for him this evening, now that he'd become an instant, if somewhat uncomfortable, celebrity. The Negev installation attack, of course, was the hot topic, and the young reporter was in constant demand. Speculations and rumors abounded that the installation was some secret military complex where strange and extraordinary research had been taking place. Everyone wanted more information and no one would accept the fact that Feldman was sharing all he knew.

But Feldman was currently more interested in some extraordinary research of his own. A quick visual survey of the crowd couldn't confirm if an interesting young woman he'd once met was here. It was a long shot. She was a graduate student in journalism, he presumed. This intriguing individual had come to Feldman's attention during a guest lecture he'd given at the University of Tel Aviv a month ago.

In his concluding question-and-answer session, Feldman had experienced a short but rather lively exchange with an attractive, dark-eyed woman with a slight French accent. It amounted to a difference of opinion regarding how much personal slant a reporter should reasonably interject into a story.

In her opinion, the West's “male-dominated club” of journalists was so obsessed with being objective in their reporting that they sanitized the truth out of stories. She had proposed that journalists not be afraid to take moral stands in their coverage of important issues, and that they play more active roles in promoting positive political and social change.

Feldman had responded with the standard line that facts must be allowed to speak for themselves, and that a reporter's job is merely to report, not to interpret. Unintentionally, he'd allowed this spirited woman the last word-an offhanded remark about “the fraternity of journalism not having enough collective testosterone to really get firm on any given issue.”

But there had been no venom in her delivery. Rather, there was a not-so-subtle flirtanousness to it, catching him off-balance and completely sidetracking his train of thought. In the pause before he could collect himself, audience laughter segued into applause, he was summarily thanked by the presiding professor, and his female counterpoint had dissolved into the dispersing crowd.