Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (26 page)

In a "normal" war, there were signs of
imminent attack between countries: A higher-than-usual amount of
medical supplies were stored in hospitals and clinics. There would
be more "chatter" in and between military and governmental
communications. Food supplies and distribution lines were
reinforced. There would be more than usual vehicular traffic to and
from military and government headquarters, with lights in the
offices remaining on throughout the days and nights leading up to
the attack. Troops and military equipment would manifest a shift
from typical deployment. These, and other signs, signaled an
impending military offensive.

When the enemy does not wear a standard
military uniform, and is working outside a government-sanctioned
operation the signs of pending attack are less obvious, but they
can be spotted under close scrutiny.

The key now lies in movements of the
leadership, communication "chatter" including subtle messages
encoded in website pages, as well as monitoring changes in sleeper
cells that are known to the American and Israeli security services
agencies. As important as these signs were, it was also vital to
monitor the transfer of money to and from financial institutions,
charities
, and a host of other methods used for laundering
the funds required for the financing of local and global terrorists
activities.

A special department was established several
years ago to monitor financial and Internet activities of known
terrorist organizations and individuals. The Internet had become a
critical tool to terrorist organization, planning, and
communications. Not only were websites monitored, social networking
sites were "data mined" and aggregated to identify users and
profiles operated by terrorists. It was universal that a single
terrorist would use a number of login IDs and social network
profiles to accomplish his or her goals.

It was agreed to limit, for now, certain
details about the terror operation and the Israeli response that
would be provided to their American counterparts. Other governments
would have to be eventually notified, certainly, but for now a
limited flow of information would minimize the risk of the
terrorists finding out that the United States and Israeli
governments knew of the plot, and were piecing together a picture
of the global reach of the planned attacks.

Once everything was exposed to the bright
light of day the Russians and Chinese would register formal
complaints about being kept out of the loop on this, though neither
government would press too hard as both would accept that there was
a need for temporary intelligence containment.

The reaction of other nations would be more
vehement. Considering many of the nations sitting on the Security
Counsel were terror-sponsoring states and/or countries with a
documented pattern of human rights abuses, their petitions and
grievances would largely be ignored.

When the time was right the leadership of
both NATO and the UN would be informed simultaneously, along with
leaders of countries whose populations were being targeted.

With the Barium tag and
shadows
tracking movements as well as the accumulation of all verbal,
handwritten, electronic communications to and from No'am and Avi
each, the last weeks, painted a clear picture of their motives. For
No'am it was misguided love only. With Avi it started as similarly
ill-fated love that recently included a damning financial
transaction.

They also were able to concisely define the
extent of the information passed to the enemy through Mona and her
handlers. Because the terror leaders had recruited two people, each
one of the leading personnel of
The Project
, a great deal of
scientific and military information was in their hands.

Though the terrorists would have a good idea
of the function of
The
Project
itself, they didn't
posses the scientific resources to fully understand it – though the
implications would have been immediately apparent to them.

The military information would have been more
readily useful to them, but not so useful as to give them the means
to put a dent in
The Project
short of killing those involved
or moving their own timeline radically ahead. The terrorists were
simply not yet in a position physically or strategically for full
implementation. It would yet be months before they were, just as it
would yet be a few months before
The Project
could safely
move forward with their own final phase.

Premature action on the part of
The
Project
could have disastrous implications for the State of
Israel. It would be a disaster, for example, to kill ancestors of
the two terrorist leaders, Abd El-Monem Abou and Ghasem Suleimani,
only to have some important event altered – for example – Israel's
historic peace treaty with Egypt. Granted, the relationship had
been significantly strained since the Muslim Brotherhood took
control of the Egyptian government. Then the first elected
president of Egypt - a Muslim Brotherhood supporter - was
overthrown, easing the partnership once more. Even a strained
relationship was better than non-existent. Even now the Egyptian
government was brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Abd's grandfather was a good friend to
Nassar, the man who made peace with Israel that has lasted, albeit
at times tenuously, to this day. The interplay with Ghasem and the
Iranian leadership had been much less significant but even the
slightest overlooked detail, the slightest miscalculation, could
bring disaster in its wake.

Isser and Meir agreed it was now time to
bring the two men in for a full debriefing. At the same time
The
Project
in all locations would go into full lock-down for the
duration. Over time additional food and other supplies had been
quietly stored so that each of
The Project
locations would
be self-sufficient for as much as a year. All three locations
already had their own self-contained electricity supply, as well as
underground reserves of water. Water purification systems were also
online should they be required.

Additional personnel: medical, security,
maintenance, genealogists, historians, and etcetera, were placed in
critical positions. They were brought in, very slowly and
cautiously, over a period of months so that each facility of
The
Project
would be functioning 24/7, three shifts each day. For
the duration all would be expected to work six days a week with
alternating days off. The lock-down would be a physical and mental
challenge but there was now no alternative.

No'am Abrams, the head of the facility for
space-time singularities and quantum entanglement as well as
temporal shielding had been replaced, though he didn't know it yet.
A genius and the top of his field, his work and that of his team
had proven successful. Some adjustments and improvements were
needed, but at this stage replacing him with one of his assistants
who had been with
The Project
the entire time wasn't an
issue. Meir smiled when he thought of all the people in the world
who felt they were irreplaceable and how graveyards were filled
with people who also considered themselves to be impossible to
replace.

General Dan Ashkelon, who they confirmed had
no idea of Avi's actions, would have to be informed and Avi removed
from the General Staff of the Tzahal. Ashkelon's health was
faltering; he was well beyond the years he should have retired. His
contribution to
The Project
was incalculable, the crowning
achievement for his career. A good friend to both Isser and Meir,
they dreaded having to tell him about Avi who they knew he
considered as a son. He would have to be told before Avi was
brought in.

They knew the General was enjoying a few
well-earned days of vacation with his wife and a few of his
grandchildren. He would already have been informed, and Avi and
No'am brought in, but they would not consider cutting short these
few days of rest and relaxation. The last time Ashkelon's wife
spoke with Meir she mentioned how weak and tired her husband had
grown over the past couple of years, how he had a pallor to his
skin that worried her. Meir shared this with Isser – both were
already worried about the advanced age and failing health of their
friend. They realized this was probably his last truly free and
enjoyable time; not interrupting it was their final, silent, gift
to their old friend.

Meir was in his office, contemplating the
initial success of
The Project
as well as the significance
of the security breaches now tasked to him, when his phone alerted
him to an incoming call from the operative watching No'am, "I am
sorry to interrupt you sir. I'm the agent assigned to monitor No'am
at his kibbutz . . ."

Table of Contents

19. Life for a Life

"And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall
go for life . . ."
- Holy Bible, Deuteronomy 19:21

Kibbutz David Ben-Yisrael, State
of Israel

No'am sat still in
his room the rest of the
day. Evening drew, the bright sunlight of a hot June day giving way
to the warm golden glow of sunset, finally the dark of night
enveloping his room.

Unable to bring any more tears of grief, his
eyes now were dry and feeling like sandpaper as he lay back in bed.
He barely registered the smell of dried vomit and bile that had
crusted onto the stubble of his three-day-old beard.

Images of Mona and her torture could not be
scrubbed from his thoughts. His thoughts would at times wander
elsewhere, only to be snapped back to her. He thought of their
happy days of hiking around the country, to her joy at his
achievements, to his amazement that his physical limitations never
seemed to even register with her, not even the disfigurement.

He never expected to marry, to have a family,
to have those things in life that most people take for granted. He
had never even kissed a girl before Mona. Early in life No'am
accepted the fact that what he had in great abundance
intellectually would have to compensate for those things he lacked
in body and social skills.

By his late teenage years he truly accepted
this and learned to find happiness in his studies, his work, and
the three friends he had since grade school. As he rose to
positions of prominence in the scientific field others latched on
to his lab coat, feigning friendship, something he allowed so as to
have at least a similitude of a social life but he was never
fooled.

Childhood was difficult for him with few
friends, no birthday parties – No'am remembered inviting other
children to his birthday parties only to have nobody show. When he
was six his parents suggested they celebrate his birthday by going
somewhere special on vacation. For him, this was an improvement. He
could now look forward to his birthday rather than dread it,
spending the day crying. He never received a birthday party
invitation, or any invitation for that matter, until his fifth year
in school when he made a new friend at a kibbutz into which his
family had moved the year earlier.

It was with this friend that he formed a
friendship that soon included two other boys, friendships which
proved to be binding for life and genuine – for these friendships
had bonded before the "light" turned on in his head and he found
mathematics and the sciences to be to him what breathing air was to
others.

Though a mad and ill-fated grasping of
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle earlier in the day failed to
help him understand the meaning of the events surrounding Mona's
torture, he nonetheless felt a certain familiar calm within the
certainty of math and nature itself, at least in the macro
world.

He also realized that the calm he now felt
was resolve, knowing what would come next for him for he knew with
absolute certainty that she was by now dead – and there was nothing
he could do to help her but there was something he could do to help
himself find relief from this bottomless anguish. "Sweet, heroic
Mona – how could I have allowed this to happen to you?"

Turning on the light in his room No'am found
a pen, a piece of lined paper and began to write. He couldn't allow
himself to look at his computer – the instrument through which he
bore witness to the brutalizing of the only woman who loved him.
No, that wasn't true, his mom loved him too. Mona was the only
woman in the world to be in love with him.

~ ~ ~

Memorandum

From: No'am Abrams

To: Lt. Gen. Dan Ashkelon

Re: Breach

General Ashkelon, I regret this memo to you
can't be the detail that you will require. As it will be left in my
room the lack of security requires discretion, a discretion that I
regret has been lacking in my personal and professional life for
some time now.

Requisite brevity has left some holes in my
account, holes that I'm certain you will be able to fill in with
the assistance of the security services.

Before my current employment, a few years
before, I met a woman named "Mona." She was a Farsi Jew living in
Israel under political asylum, having escaped The Islamic Republic
of Iran for her outspoken criticisms of the religious and civil
restrictions. The Israeli government secreted them into Israel,
where they have been living - frequently changing their residence –
ever since.

I fell in love with her the moment I saw her
though we remained just friends. Over time she came to love me
equally. I would discuss my work with her but only in the most
simplistic of terms and superficially. I'm afraid I was at times
overly enthusiastic in my attempt to impress her. Though very
intelligent, she was no physicist, obvious from the questions she
would ask me for clarification in the things we discussed.