Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (43 page)

Iran already had nuclear missiles, missiles
the world - lead by the absurdly named
United
Nations -
proclaimed to yet be years away. The Israeli government knew the
precise location of each. Evading anti-aircraft defenses of the
terrorists and terror-sponsoring nations, the Israeli air force
eliminated the offense/defense capabilities of each, then commenced
an offensive attack. Were Israel to fall their sworn enemies would
not be allowed to plunder what remained. If any of the Jewish
population survived, the military would see to it that no other
nation would be capable of mounting an attack against them.

Panicked families outside the walls of the
facilities fulfilled the first prophecies of Ghasem, which Abd and
Abdel made during their Sat-Com conference call. With dizzying
speed hospitals and clinics were filled to capacity; unable to cope
with the dead and dying. Medical professionals, Magen David Adom
ambulance drivers and emergency crew died along with their
patients, causing high-speed crashes on streets and highways. Mass
panic multiplied and accelerated the scythe of the reaper of death,
relentlessly hewing the living in wide swaths.

Though the compounds of each of the
facilities were walled-off to the outside world, complete with
armed guard towers to further ensure protection of the residents,
it was impossible to prevent breathing the air itself.

When people started dropping to the ground,
dead or writhing in the final contorted fits of death, doors
granting passage to the underground bunker-fortresses were closed
and sealed.

Through these thick steel doors muted thuds
could be heard while those barred from entry banged with their
fists, pleading admission. Sounds from the fists gave way to
silence as the final pocket of survivors in the compound above
ground lost control of their bowels, lungs, and vision - finally
and mercifully succumbing to a death none could have expected as
they ate their breakfasts, looking forward to celebrations of the
High Holidays.

Moshe maintained contact with the other
facilities as long as he could. He and Rachael sat glumly in his
office, neither of them speaking. His wife was already in the
bunker when Moshe received the first warning of trouble. A knock on
the door, a list was handed to Moshe of those who made it down into
the safety of bunker. The Stauffenbergs were not found on the list;
neither was her family. The dead who remained above ground were
tragic proof that
The Project
, on which the nation's final
hope rested, appeared to have been a complete failure.

Moshe wanted to evacuate everybody to safety
hours earlier. He had no solid evidence, but his gut instinct told
him they already ran out of time. He was told by the Prime Minister
to wait, to not cause a needless panic. To his shame he did as he
was told. So much blood on his hands. Moshe felt his chest tighten,
his breathing labored, his left arm limp from a dull pain. The
heart attack his cardiologist predicted chose this moment to assert
itself.

He asked Rachael to help him to the fold-down
cot, his new desk and center of operation.

"How long has Jeff been gone?" He already
knew but needed to hear her voice as much as she needed to keep her
mind occupied.

"It's been over six days. Dr. Levin."

"'Dr. Levin', not 'Moshe'" he thought. Was it
stress, or did she blame him for the loss of her family and
countless others?

"Last time he returned in just over two weeks
but he was wounded, seriously wounded. What could have happened
this time? He's not in a country in the midst of war or any kind of
conflict."

"Rachael, he may have been killed in an
automobile accident or something similar. I should have listened to
Ashkelon and sent
two
people back, given what happened to
Jeff in Virginia, but there just wasn't time . . . just wasn't
time." Moshe repeated the last words quietly, more to himself than
her.

They remained silent, the stillness only
broken as information came in. News was slowing to a trickle,
finally there was nothing at all. This was to be expected, there
was nobody left outside to send news.

"It appears that only those in bunkers
capable of filtering air down to a fraction of a micron and
absorbing the hit of a nuclear device, are all that remain of the
State of Israel." Rachael was receiving and assessing details of
the last reports, before they came to a stop. "People in such
bunkers will survive only as long as food and water last." A doctor
from the infirmary looked after Moshe, hooking him up to a heart
monitor as he was being stabilized.

"It was a close call sir, but you'll get
through it." Closing the door quietly behind him as he exited, the
physician wondered if he gave Dr. Levin welcome news, or pronounced
a curse.

"Rest now, there's nothing more to do."

"Thank you, Rachael. I think I'll close my
eyes for a few minutes. Do me a favor, don't let my wife know about
this."

Rachael's thoughts went to her family, hoping
they didn't suffer too long or too much. Once news of the premature
release of the bio agents reached the government, it was too late.
She earlier asked her husband to come with their children to stay
at the facility compound housing.

Having been given authorization to tell him
about the situation, Rachael was allowed to go, with an escort of
two Shin Bet agents and two soldiers, to her home in Ramat Gan to
speak with Yishai personally, as this was too delicate a matter to
discuss over the phone.

His reaction to the news was as she expected.
Strength of the man she had married, coupled with the common sense
and caution one would expect of a good father. He agreed to
transfer their family to the compound before the start of the High
Holidays so they could be safely together for the celebrations.
Mostly, though, both figured that if an attack were imminent it
would be during the holidays. Were this the case the terrorists,
would launch their attack while people were at temple in
prayer.

Arriving at the compound, her husband and
children settled into their new house. It was difficult for the
children, who were looking forward to being with their friends
during the holiday season. More difficult was getting them there in
the first place without any explanation. "Because I said so" had,
for years, no longer worked.

How did she fail to foresee this? It was
expected by all that the bio agents were to be released at
nightfall, not during the day. Many speculated as to the change in
the terrorists' schedule, but no answer seemed reasonable. The one
speculation she thought made some sense was that the terrorists
waited until the American eastern seaboard headed into the early
evening hours to strike, so as to cripple their military response
before hitting Israel. This way, too, the Israelis would be more
complacent, continuing to believe that the strike was yet two days
away as previously thought. Just as the Israeli people were
awakening to a new day, the Americans were already dying, with the
plagues just then being released on Israel.

This made some sense but in the end didn't
matter one iota. As with the Yom Kippur War the Israeli government
knew the enemy was about to strike, yet the government and military
were slow to respond, miscalculating and even dismissing some of
the intelligence that pointed to an attack. In this case the
intelligence was accurate; the government went to great lengths to
protect the nation, and other nations as well. Ultimately it wasn't
enough.

As seconds turned to minutes, it became
evident that Jeff failed in his mission. The temporal shielding, as
well as the fortress of a bunker that could withstand a direct
nuclear hit, if Jeff were still alive in the past he would be able
to return to this time. He
should
have returned by now.

What went wrong?

Rachael quietly slipped out of the room as
Moshe started to snore. She was glad he could find some rest. His
wife came in the room a few minutes earlier. True to her word
Rachael didn't tell her about what happened. The heart monitor had,
at Moshe's insistence, been removed. His wife gave a little start,
staring at him and then looking questioningly back at the exiting
Rachael. Rivka knew something was wrong but chose to sit at her
husband's side rather than demand answers.

Rachael walked down the corridor, then took
the elevator three floors lower to the military floor. Knocking at
the door, she was admitted to the Command Room.

Video feeds on monitors fixed to the walls of
General Aharonson's Command Room continued to transmit scenes from
around the country. The cameras were protected from EMPs by the
same type of Faraday Cage that protected the electronic equipment
of the facilities, as well as other governmental and military
installations in the country.

The scenes were horrific. Fires everywhere.
Somehow, amazingly, a few people survived the initial attacks. They
were walking in what appeared to be a daze. Of the six survivors
that were picked up by the video feeds, one appeared to have gone
insane, ranting and screaming at the dead bodies strewn about on
the street. Taking a weapon from the body of a soldier, he started
firing at imagined targets in the air, then turned the weapon on
himself.

Everybody in the room seemed to be watching
the monitors as if in a daze. The soldiers maintained their
professionalism, but on their faces Rachael saw hopeless
resignation. Their families, gone, their nation, gone, any hope
obliterated.

Two camera feeds went dark at the same time
other cameras were picking up a bright flash of light. Iran, they
realized, was able to get a nuclear bomb into the air - reaching
its target untouched by the "Iron Dome" rocket interceptor system
deployed throughout the country. The preemptive strike of Israeli
jets into Syria and Iran were 99% successful. In a tiny nation
surrounded by enemies sworn to their destruction, the one percent
miss was the same as a 100% failure.

Another bright light, three more monitors
went dark. Iran may or may not have launched, they would never
know. Likely it was Iran but equally likely, having witnessed at
least one more nuclear detonation, the bombs could be originating
from any other country with nuclear capability.

Heartbroken, emotionally shattered, Rachael
was grateful her family wasn't with her, had not survived only to
starve to death so far below ground.

Whatever the origin of the bombs, one thing
was certain - those survivors who managed to make it to the
underground safety of their respective facility bunkers were now,
in reality, entombed. The remaining video feeds went dark.

Table of Contents

35.
Exits and Entrances

"All the world's a stage, and
all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and
their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts
being seven ages."
- William Shakespeare

Cairo, Egypt

Confirming that the family
of Ghasem's
grandfather did indeed begin their journey to Cairo, Jeff boarded
his flight to Egypt.

With the first part of his mission
accomplished, he contemplated the needs that would be required of
the second part. Already, he took much longer than expected. He
wasn't overly concerned though he knew the length of absence would
be cause for concern in his time.

What did concern him was how to keep the
young girl from marrying her then future husband. No plan presented
itself to his mind. The entire trip he invented scenario after
scenario, each playing out to their natural, if invented,
conclusion. Each ultimately being unacceptable. He realized he'd
just have to see how events played themselves out.

Passing over the topography below, it was
interesting how the landscape changed, almost as if by the very
demarcations of national borders of the era.

A long journey concluded, Jeff found himself
near the very center of Cairo. People selling food and water to the
travel-weary passengers were to be found everywhere - most of them
children. Jeff made his way through the crowded terminal,
encumbered by the luggage he elected to keep near him. For the sake
of comfort, he purchased a ticket for an extra seat so as not to
have to stow the luggage in the train's baggage car.

Reaching what appeared to be the main street,
or at least a main street, he bought a falafel and soda from a
vendor on the corner. How different this vendor was from any in his
time! The man was pleasant, unhurried, even helpful. Based on his
recommendation, Jeff hailed a taxi cab, giving the man the name of
the hotel as his destination. The taxi accelerated abruptly,
executing turns with alarming speed, honking horn seeming to have
replaced brakes.

The hotel was nothing as the vendor described
it. Run-down, even ugly, Jeff asked the taxi driver if he had any
other suggestions. Whisked away to another part of the city he paid
his fare, the driver helping him carry his luggage into the hotel
lobby. Not as nice as the place that hosted him in Tehran, it was
nonetheless more than acceptable.

Check-in completed, Jeff made his way to his
room. No elevator, he walked up the four flights of stairs, hefting
his belongings on his back and under one arm as the hand of the
other gripped the railing with each step. Reaching his floor, he
walked the time-worn carpet hallway to his room, naturally to be
found at the far end.

The wallpaper of the corridor was yellowed,
peeling badly. The unkempt condition of the dank, molding corridor
did little to prepare him for his room. A large dark spot on the
ceiling greeted him as he entered. At the entry he saw old, exposed
pipes running the length of the wall, though near the ceiling,
where his bed was situated. Every once in a while, the pipes sang
out as if they were banging together. He figured this would
probably happen every time a toilet was flushed, or a shower or
sink was in use. Considering the appearance of other hotels he
passed, this was probably as good as any. The smell of mildew and
mold blossoming on wallpaper even older than that of the corridor
permeated the room.