Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (27 page)

I'm afraid, though, that she was being
blackmailed. Iran had captured her parents and was systematically
torturing them. To prevent additional torture I was forced to turn
over information to their government, through the people
controlling her. I managed to secure her father's release though
they kept her mother and continued to torture her to unbearable
lengths. Some of the information handed over contained details on
my current work, with its scientific potential. I tried to limit
what I provided but, in the end, she was captured. I just
witnessed, via a live feed, her being tortured and, certainly, her
murder - as no human could have survived the thing to which she was
subjected.

I regret my actions then, and now. I can't
live with what happened to Mona, I can't live with how I may have
compromised our work knowing that, in the end, she and her mother
are now dead. I accomplished nothing good and probably have hurt my
adopted country that I have loved and served for so long. To this
end, I have decided to conclude my life. Life for life, mine for
Mona's. I'm the reason she's captured and was murdered.

I do have one final request that, in spite of
what I did to you and our country, I hope you will honor. Please
tell my parents that I died in a laboratory accident. They wouldn't
be able to bear the knowledge that I committed suicide, or that I
committed treason. Please General, if my contributions over these
years have meant anything, please allow me this one thing, with an
honorable burial.

~ ~ ~

Young men and women who immigrate to Israel
without family and then serve in the military are referred to as
"Lone Soldiers." For them service is more difficult without family
to go home to on days off, especially for the holidays. Because of
this there are families throughout the country who "adopt" these
Lone Soldiers.

No'am was fortunate to have been taken into
the home of a family who was always happy to do his laundry, make
home-cooked meals and insist he eat until he could eat no more.
Whenever he had time off they never failed to include him as one of
their own during holidays and family vacations.

The day he was promoted to an officer's rank
his adopted family was proudly seated in the audience for the
ceremony. After the induction his soldier-adopted
father
proudly gave him a gift of a small service pistol that he had used
some decades ago when he was a soldier. No'am kept this pistol in
his desk drawer. Not one who ever used so much as an aspirin, he
realized he didn't have a razor blade either. Loading a bullet in
the chamber and snapping it into place, he put the barrel of the
pistol in his mouth – withdrawing it again.

One often hears people say that taking one's
own life is a "coward's way out." No'am sometimes wondered about
this, thinking that it would require a great deal of courage to
commit suicide, for
any
reason. The instinct to survive is
so strong, a primitive instinct that pretty much trumps all other
instincts except the maternal instinct.

Not believing in any form of life-after-death
other than one's memory which others would carry in their hearts,
he was sad to end this life, to snuff it out so completely.

He thought back to his childhood. As
difficult as it had been, taunted by children while adults avoided
him, No'am at least had loving parents who would do anything for
him.

He remembered his birthday vacation trips.
Not wealthy by the standards of most first-world countries, his
parents were nonetheless sufficiently well off by Argentine
standards of the day. Most trips consisted of travels to la Pampa,
camping trips, a three-day-long adventure to the city of Córdoba
and back. Everything in-country. One year that changed with a trip
to help him take pride in his people and history by going to the
State of Israel. He had never seen so many Jews in his life! It was
exciting, giving him a sense of belonging more than at any time in
his life outside of his family. No'am didn't understand a word of
Hebrew, Arabic, Russian or English – the most common languages
heard then, and now. Language barrier notwithstanding he instantly
understood and fell in love with the people, the cultures, and the
very idea of a country where Jews could be openly Jewish, proudly,
without fear. In his own town, even Argentina as a whole,
anti-Semitism was just a fact of life.

As soon as he was old enough he registered
for a program that paid the travel and living expenses for young
Jews to visit Israel and immerse in the country with tours and
more.

The program, Taglit Birthright Israel,
accepted him and within the year of registration he found himself
again in Israel, with other young Jews from a number of countries
joining him. No'am knew he was home.

Three years later, bidding farewell to a
sobbing mother and stoic but trembling father at the Ministro
Pistarini International Airport of Buenos Aires, he "made aliya,"
immigrating to Israel.

The first few heady months No'am lived in an
Absorption Center where he learned modern Hebrew in an Ulpan class
with other immigrants. At the center, they learned daily living
skills, such as how the Israeli medical system worked, bus routes,
finding employment, preparing for National Service – in other words
serving in the military – for those young enough to enlist, and
much more.

No'am had already applied to Technion
University before leaving Argentina and was accepted pending a good
understanding of spoken Hebrew. Though just nineteen years of age,
he had already attained a year's worth of university studies in
Argentina in Math. A "shoe in" anywhere he wanted to go, he
received a scholarship at Technion, the M.I.T. of Israel.

Introduced to a few disciplines of physics
while still in Argentina, decidedly leaning in that direction
scholastically, he learned of exciting advances in the field of
Quantum Physics at Technion. It wasn't long before he had his first
doctorate, then headed into military service. He told people that
due to his physical limitations he was given a desk job. This was
true, but it covered a greater and more interesting truth.

No'am was tapped by the military to work on
advanced projects in Quantum Mechanics for practical use such as
quantum encoding for ultra-sensitive government documents. He was
there a witness to exciting developments utilizing Quantum
Entanglement. No'am flourished. He missed his three friends back in
Argentina but found another friend in the laboratories devoted to
the infinitely tiny, yet universally pervasive, quantum
universe.

Once his two years of National Service with
the military were completed he took some time off to walk around
his new country. Gifted in languages, including the language of
mathematics, he studied Arabic as a way to relax. Though many
Argentines were fair skinned, he was without question of true Latin
genetics. This allowed him to easily blend in with the Arab
population without raising any eyebrows.

In his backpack he hoisted several books on
physics and his laptop with which he kept in contact with Quantum
Mechanics researchers. Two of the books in the backpack were in
Hebrew, one Spanish, one English, and two German. While in Judea
and Samaria - the two territories of the Palestinians, he refused
to refer to the contested territories as the West Bank and Gaza -
he felt it best that nobody see his books, certainly not the two in
Hebrew.

He moved easily through the cities, shooks,
and neighborhoods of Palestinian-controlled areas. He came to
genuinely like the people who were generally good, generous, and
kind. Most just tried to live their lives and let others live as
they chose. No'am was pleased to learn that the radical elements
such as the Hamas were not representative of the majority of the
people. He wished these people could live in a true and lasting
peace with his own people but realistically understood that as long
as there were militant-minded extremists on both sides, peace
wasn't possible.

He walked and hitchhiked north to the Saba
Farms near Lebanon, then on to the Golan Heights taken from Syria
as a defensive measure during the war of 1967. The Israeli side of
the Golan Heights was now used as listening posts and early radar
warning systems.

He then went south wandering the Negev Desert
areas, where a drought throughout Israel really hit hard, doubling
the price of water. Flower gardens in many yards had shriveled
under the weight of the water bills, though it was still less
expensive to grow vegetables than to buy them, unless gardening
wasn't your forte to begin with.

No'am returned north to see the holy shrines
and beautiful terraced gardens of the headquarters of the Bahá’í
faith. He greatly admired the Bahá’í people, acutely aware of their
persecution and outright murder by both the government and mobs in
Iran, where the faith was born.

Next he traveled to Tel Aviv, a very modern
and beautiful city – easily the most secular population in the
country, at least by the standards of Judaism. Here he met with
some professors of Bar-Illan University to compare notes and enjoy
the sidewalk cafés of the city that were to be found everywhere.
The weather was always, it seemed, perfectly beautiful in Tel
Aviv.

From Tel Aviv, he returned to Jerusalem,
where he took up residence near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
campus of Mount Scopus. From here he could see the wall that
separated parts of the Palestinian territories from the State of
Israel.

Whatever one may think of the Israeli
"Separation Wall" it could not be denied that the wall had brought
terror attacks down over 90%. The downside was now rockets were
being fired into Israel by the thousands.

It was during these travels that he met Mona,
also traveling around the country. "Mona . . . oh, Mona." Tears
welled up in his eyes again. Returning the pistol to his mouth,
No'am pulled the trigger.

No muffler, the sound thundered around the
room, alerting people nearby. The Shin Bet operative for No'am was
the first in the room. Taking in the situation the operative deftly
removed the blood-spattered memo from the desk as others entered.
The agent flashed a police badge and ordered everybody out. Exiting
the room and locking it, he called the Shin Bet chief directly.

As he began talking the operative felt a
sharp sting in his back. Sinking to the ground, he saw a woman
quickly walk away as she put what appeared to be a hypodermic in
her purse.

Table of Contents

20. Who Forces Time

"Who forces time is pushed back by time; who
yields to time finds time on his side."
- Talmud

Broomfield, Colorado, United
States of America

Jeff was happy to
get back home to his
family. He tried to explain his wounded leg and still-bruised eye
as a simple accident to his wife. She didn't believe it for a
second; he knew that she wouldn't. She didn't press too strenuously
for additional details which was just as well since Jeff wasn't
about to offer any lest he be forced to lie, again, to her.

Three weeks later he was still looking for an
opening to introduce the subject of the family moving to
Israel.

He had seen battle as a soldier, had seen
comrades just inches away shot, gone in a second. On one occasion,
his squad was cornered in a trap set in the narrow roads of a
village, with both entry and exit being cut off by hostiles.
Personally familiar with life-threatening events that could chill
the heart and weaken resolve of even the bravest, for some reason
his wife loomed in his thoughts as the one person he dared never,
ever, ever cross.

Jeff never heard Lynn raise her voice or let
emotion cloud her judgment. Never a harsh or condemning word had
passed her lips. But she did have a look, usually reserved for
misbehaving children, which would freeze you in your tracks. Only
once had such a look been pointed in his direction. He felt that
he'd rather be looking into the barrel of a sniper's rifle. At
least in that event, he could defend himself. Not so with his wife
whose look of disapproval would melt the resolve of a hardened
soldier with just a glance.

Jeff also knew that it would be difficult for
Brian and Samantha, leaving friends and the American lifestyle
typical of teenagers. That, in and of itself, was a verbal battle
Jeff wasn't eager to face. For Lynn it would be much more
difficult; leaving her siblings, a foreign language, everything
would be difficult for her. It's so much easier for children to
adapt than for adults who have already established their lives.

Time was slipping away. In less than two
weeks, Jeff had to be back in Israel to begin training and
preparations for the second and final phase of
The Project
.
It was critical to the mission, as much for Jeff as other
considerations, valid as they were, for Lynn and their children to
join him. Time was running out and there never seemed to be an
appropriate opening.

Frustrated and anxious, after dinner when the
children had left the dining room, he just blurted out, "I need to
work in the State of Israel for the next several months and I want
you and the children to go with me."

Absolutely stunned at her response, Lynn
indicated that with the school year just ended, she thought it to
be a fantastic idea. "Really?" Jeff reacted in stunned amazement.
At that moment, a feather could have knocked him over!

"Why not? We all miss you so much when you're
away for so long. These absences impact our family more than you
may realize."

Jeff turned red, not from anger but from
embarrassment at his deceptions designed to lead them to believe he
was on business in Europe all these many months past – with the
exception of one trip home.