Forty-Eight X (23 page)

C
olonel Krantz was hoping that Israeli intelligence would uncover a DNA match to the tissue he had found at the Jolo island massacre site. He hoped, but knew it was unlikely. Although they had DNA profiles on tens of thousands of individuals, this was a world of billons of possibilities. He really didn’t expect a particular person to be identified, but he expected their forensics experts could certainly narrow the field. He would at least learn gender, ethnicity, and perhaps some family connections. As he drove from Ben Gurion Airport
to Aman’s
headquarters, all he could think about was Fala—and with an aching knot in the middle of his chest, he wondered if she was still alive. Where would
Aman
send him next? And would it lead him to her?

Krantz did not receive the polite welcome-home he expected when he arrived at the offices of Israeli military intelligence. Instead of handshakes or commiserations, he was curtly escorted by several armed soldiers to a small, stark windowless room. There were several chairs and a solitary desk in the middle of the room. Two men awaited him. One was a technician in civilian clothes, a thin, bespectacled fellow who busied himself with setting up an assortment of electronic gadgetry and a laptap computer on the desk. The other was a uniformed major, a handsome young man with piercing blue eyes and wire-rimmed eyeglasses that gave him an intelligent, professorial look. Initially, the major said little and simply pointed for Krantz to take a seat. Joshua Krantz was familiar with the setting. He himself had brought “enemies of the state” to rooms like this. He was to be interrogated.

“This is just routine, Colonel,” the major began. “I know it’s insulting and an inconvenience but after any incident, it is required.”

Krantz made no objection. The polygraph that he was attached to was not the simple lie detector system seen on the average television cop whodunit. Lie detection, particularly for Israeli intelligence, had become a far more sophisticated science. After all,
Aman
dealt with spies, and spies were probably the world’s best liars. They had to be to stay alive. The old polygraphs attached the subject to medical instruments that monitored changes in the body—measuring heart rate, blood pressure, and electrodermal activity, or sweatiness. All this information would play out as squiggly lines on rolling graph paper. What it meant was left to the sometimes arbitrary interpretation of a polygraph examiner. It was a very primitive and often arbitrary and unreliable method of deducing the truth. That’s why courts were loath to accept lie detector evidence.

Aman’s
system used digital equipment with the old-fashioned paper scroll human interpretation replaced by a sophisticated computer algorithm. Krantz was connected up, as with the old system, to blood pressure monitors, electrodes to measure heart rate, and electrodermal connectors to measure skin resistance and sweating. The system, however, went far beyond that. Sensors were also attached to his face and scalp that measured brain signals called “event-related potentials,” or ERPs, and were tracked by an electroencephalograph, or EEG machine; and his eyes were pried open and anesthetized so that his pupillary reaction could be assessed. Although the science of polygraphy had plenty of skeptics, the scientists with the Israeli Department of Defense Polygraph Institute claimed a lie-detection accuracy of 97 percent. If the 3 percent error meant a few innocent people would die, well, that was the price of preserving a country surrounded by enemies sworn to destroy it hand-in-hand with their God.

Krantz didn’t resent the test or its implications. He just resented having his fate determined by a bunch of chips and wires in a box. After the major asked some routine identification questions, the rest of the queries came at him fast. A quick yes or no response was required.

“Did you see a replica of an ancient weapon in Pakistan?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who is responsible for the weapon?”

“No.”

“Did you speak with an Iranian mullah about this weapon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you cooperating with the Iranian government?”

“No.

“Have you been paid for any services by an Arab or Islamic government?”

“No.”

Krantz expected all these questions. He would have asked them, as well. After all, he was an Israeli who had traveled to Iran, spoke with the Ayatollah’s secretary, and returned home without a scratch. That alone would make Israeli military intelligence suspicious, even if they had encouraged the venture. The Iranians had an excellent intelligence service. Their Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was the Islamic Republic’s successor to the Shah’s vaunted and dreaded secret police, SAVAK—and they were just as capable. Aman suspected that MOIS had moles within Israeli intelligence. It would be far easier for MOIS to allow Israel to pry a secret from their allies, the Americans—and then learn it from Israel—rather than attempting the more difficult task of trying to discover for themselves what the Pentagon was up to.

“Did you kill your wife?”

Krantz hesitated.

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Fala al-Shohada.”

“She is not my wife. Maybe someday—but she’s…”

“Did you have something to do with her disappearance?”

“No.”

“Are you involved with any other women?”

Krantz popped the lid separators from his eyes and yanked off the cables attaching him to the polygraph. Some questions he would not tolerate. Accusing him of infidelity was one of them.

“We’re not finished, Colonel.”

“Then I suggest you shoot me, Major. Or let me speak with the director.”

The young major quickly departed, and soon two other soldiers appeared to escort Krantz to another room, this one a bit more comfortable with a plush leather couch, beverages and snacks set out on a table, and plenty of magazines to peruse. He had his cell phone in his pocket and thought about calling Cairo and talking to Fala’s parents. He was sure the Egyptian embassy in Manila had made the contact, but still he ought to tell them something. He started dialing his cell phone and then hung up. Sometimes even a wise man does foolish things. Would a call even go through to Cairo
from Aman
headquarters, and if it did, how would it look?

He was not to see the director. The major returned and informed him the general was unavailable.

“Anything you can tell me about the tissue sample I found?”

“It was nothing useful,” the major replied. “If we discover more, we’ll be in touch with you.”

And with that, he was dismissed—as ignominiously escorted out
of Aman’s
headquarters as he had been into it. And he knew what the suspicious minds in Israeli intelligence must be thinking. Perhaps Krantz’s lover had not suffered any foul play; perhaps her disappearance was planned—with or without his involvement. If Krantz was not a double agent, perhaps he was a simple dupe. Fala could be in Cairo now giving information to her Egyptian handlers. What better place to spy upon Israel than alongside a famous Israeli war hero?

Krantz thought that while Israeli intelligence may not have found anything useful in the tissue sample he found, since they suspected his trustworthiness, even if they had, he would not be privy to the information. But he had other resources.

Dr. Krantz drove to work the next morning, to Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel’s fourth largest city, adjoining Tel Aviv. As a professor of archaeology, it was where he was entitled to be, although lately nobody ever expected him. He received lots of cold looks from associates, mostly resentful of the privilege he had managed to obtain. He had an office and a title on the door:
Julius Krantz, Professor of Military Archaeology
. Quite inflated, most felt, for someone who didn’t teach, rarely published, and was hardly ever present on campus. Krantz didn’t disappoint them. He was in his office only a few minutes, just long enough to make an extension call to a friend and associate in the Life Sciences Department, Professor Malko Waldenkoff. Krantz had helped the Ukrainian immigrant biochemist and geneticist obtain his position at Bar-Ilan. He was not a man who would refuse anything Krantz asked.

Waldenkoff watched with curiosity as Krantz unscrewed his Timex dive watch. Krantz had worn the cheap but reliable watch for half a dozen years. It had served him well, with features like a depth gauge, barometric pressure indicator, water temperature gauge, and dive memory. It was waterproof to a hundred meters, although the deepest that Krantz had ever dove was seventy meters, to Greek ruins off the coast of Turkey, near ancient Ephesus. He would have to get a new watch now. It was no longer waterproof since he had unscrewed and pried off the back of it to hide away a postage stamp cellophane envelope containing a small piece of the tissue he had found on Jolo island. If
Aman
would not help him identify the people who were slaughtering terrorists with the Alexander battle scythe, perhaps Professor Waldenkoff could. He might not discover name, rank, and serial number, but knowing race, sex, ethnicity, and other hereditary quirks might help. And anyway he had no better idea on how to find Fala except to keep sifting through clues.

It was late afternoon when Waldenkoff called him back. Krantz suggested they meet at the campus outdoor cafeteria to talk. With the chatter of students and the blast of rock ‘n’ roll from nearby speakers, their conversation could be public but yet very private.

“What can you tell me?” Krantz got right to the point. “Can you narrow it down to somebody black, white, Middle Eastern, Asian, European, or some mixed American?”

“It’s not human tissue,” the professor began.

“What is it? A piece of meat?”

“I don’t think so. This tissue you gave me has forty-eight chromosomes. Human beings have forty-six. The DNA belongs to a chimpanzee.”

“Do Filipinos eat monkeys?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think this was a meal.”

“Why not?”

“This chimpanzee DNA is very unique and identifiable.”

“What?” Krantz asked, clearly bewildered. “A famous chimp? Like Cheetah from Tarzan or the one on the
Beverly Hillbillies?”

“No, no, Joshua,” the genetics professor explained. “It is not from some famous ape.”

“What then?”

“The DNA matches a chimpanzee stem cell line developed in the 1990s by Dr. Julius Wagner, an American scientist. He won a Nobel Prize for his research on mammalian genetics.”

“Maimun,” Krantz mumbled.

“What’s that?” Waldenkoff asked.

“Maimun,” Krantz explained, recalling the Iranian cleric’s explanation, “is an Arabic word that means ‘fortunate.’ It was also used in ancient times to mean a monkey.”

“Oh? I’m not sure what you mean.”

But a fog had lifted. Joshua Krantz at last had a clue, one that might lead him to Fala.

“Where can I find this American doctor?” Krantz asked his associate. “Unfortunately, I read he died in a murder-suicide earlier this year.” How coincidental was that? Krantz thought.

He spent the next several days in the Hebrew University medical school library reading about Julius Wagner and his research. When he thought he had learned everything he could about the man and his work, he knew that he needed to go to California to learn more—from Wagner’s colleagues, and perhaps from his daughter, who was also a geneticist. But would the Israeli government allow him to leave? Why should they? If he was in their shoes, he wouldn’t. There was just no percentage in taking the risk. But Krantz needed to get to America to find out exactly what this monkey business was all about. More importantly, he hoped the information would lead him to Fala.

He couldn’t simply fly out of the country, and he couldn’t just walk out. Israel, despite suicide bombers and cross-border shelling, still, of all nations in the world, had the most secure borders. But Krantz had a boat and a well-forged Egyptian passport. What he needed most now was a new dive watch.

His boat was moored in the harbor at Netanya, a quaint beach resort, which was also well known, like a lot of other Israeli towns, as the site of a particular suicide bombing. Netanya’s was the Passover Massacre. That’s why forgiveness was so elusive on both sides. Towns were not just thought of as seaside resorts, agricultural communities, or industrial centers; they were also memorials.

Krantz slowly motored his cabin cruiser out of the harbor. Just a quarter mile offshore, he turned north. He was running slow, no more than ten knots. The coast of Lebanon was about eighty kilometers away. He had been cruising just thirty minutes when he saw the Israeli gunboat taking a position a half mile astern. If it wanted, it could overtake him in a couple of minutes, and shoot him out of the water sooner than that. It kept its distance until he cruised past the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya. He was now less than thirty kilometers from the Lebanese border. Krantz gunned his engine. His twin inboard Chrysler engines could do twenty-five knots. The Israeli gunboat could make forty. When he sped up, the gunboat closed its distance. When they were a hundred yards away, their loudspeakers demanded he stop. When he didn’t, fifty-caliber machine guns sprayed the water on either side of his boat. It was then that Krantz’s boat turned around and with just as much speed, headed south again. The captain of the gunboat could make out someone at the helm.