The Shield: a novel (16 page)

Churchill puffed on his cigar for a while without saying anything. What a strange twist of fate, putting this small group of oppressed people in a position of such great power. He suspected that Mizrahi, and the government that sent him, knew everything about Britain’s problems both present and future. Better be very careful, he thought.

“So you’d like us to annul the 1939 White Paper, give German ships safe passage and contribute some of our own troop carriers. Is there anything else?”

“
Mr. Prime Minister, we need to feed the close to seven million people that will be arriving in Israel soon. We also need energy. In exchange for our assistance in the war, we expect Britain to supply us, for a while, with food and oil. We want Britain to cede control of Kuwait to Israel. There are also a number of smaller issues, but these are the main ones.”

Churchill smiled. “Mr. Mizrahi, you want a lot from us, especially considering the serious shortage of food in England and our difficulties exporting coal.”

“Not really,” responded Mizrahi. “The food shortage and problems exporting coal both have a common root: German submarines. Right now you are losing more shipping than you can build and it will become even worse.  We can help you to help us and yourselves.”

Churchill put down his cigar and leaned forward: “How do you propose to solve this bloody submarine problem?”

“Simple. We can pinpoint the position of every German vessel anywhere. If you attack only the wolf packs as they gather to sink your convoys, it shouldn’t take long to sink most of the German U boat fleet or scare them into staying in port.”

“
That will help us in the short run, but I was hoping for more from your people, Mr. Mizrahi. The Grant and Sherman tanks the Americans give us would have been useless if it wasn’t for the quantities. We are being beaten by German armor - How about giving us some of your wonder weapons which so impressed General Wilson?”

“
Mr. Prime Minister,” Mizrahi said slowly, “if we sign an agreement tonight, tank guns and ammunition shipments will start tomorrow, including drawings and instructions on how to install them. You could retrofit your existing tanks and kill any German tank, including models you have not yet heard about. It is more reasonable to improve the tanks you already have. New tank guns will give you a decisive advantage on the battlefield and be useful as soon as they are installed. And that’s just one example of the kind of upgrades we can provide. As our relationship develops and mutual trust is built, we will be able to help you more.”

“
Mr. Mizrahi, I am glad we met tonight. I will present your proposal to the Cabinet tomorrow. If they decide to accept your ideas in principle, we will work out the details over the next several days. It would be helpful if you could put your proposal in writing, so the Cabinet can have all the details without relying on my somewhat defective memory.

“
In the meantime, we need to determine what your formal status in Britain is going to be. Do you want to present your ambassadorial credentials, assuming you have them with you, to the King?”

“
As a matter of fact,” Mizrahi responded, “my country would prefer keeping a low profile for a while longer. Why not refer to us simply as Palestinians for the time being. My official status can be an emissary from Palestine or just a private business man engaged in business with His Majesty’s Government. The Americans, I’m sure, will be interested in us, but there are advantages to keeping our relationship to ourselves. As opposed to the U.S. position we have no objections to Britain keeping its empire, as long as it is friendly to us. The U.S. may not be too happy with our assistance to you – it will diminish the importance of lend-lease and with it, their influence, on your policies. We don’t want to attract attention – from the Americans or anybody else.

“
We do insist on complete secrecy, at least until after our rescue operation in Europe is finished. The Empire is home to thousands of German, Japanese and Soviet spies. We will give you lists, but you will have to be decisive about acting against them – especially since some are in high places in your bureaucracy, including your intelligence services. Even with this information leaks may happen. I suggest that we work out the appropriate protocols as soon as possible. Israel will not tolerate any threat to the rescue in Europe. This will also preclude any written communications, at least until we work out an appropriate procedure with your security services.”

Churchill looked both dismayed and surprised: “Sir, I understand your concerns. A list of spies will be helpful, but we will have to verify each one of them ourselves.”

“Mr. Prime Minister, this is exactly what I was implying. By the time you weed those out it may be too late. So we need to keep this relationship secret until my government decides otherwise.”

“
Agreed. There will be only a very limited number of people that will know what is going on. Anything else we need to cover today?”

Mizrahi hesitated: “Our only immediate difficulty will be with current funds. We have significant
amounts of currency, including American dollars and British pounds, but none of them are from this century. I suggest that your government establish a line of credit for us to draw on to be repaid in the near future. I assure you that you will get your money’s worth very quickly.” They shook hands and Churchill escorted his guest to the door.

After Mizrahi left, the British Prime Minister sat for a long while thinking about the current situation. He didn’t like his country’s position as a client of either the U.S or Israel – or both. To win the war Britain needed help. The
Americans with their land-lease helped, and there was a promise of more substantial assistance in the future, but the price for this help worried Churchill. As things stood, the U.S. was building up a great military industrial capability and the P.M. could see how it would lead to American supremacy in the not too far future. He was also somewhat apprehensive of President Roosevelt’s antipathy to the very idea of the Empire. Until now he had no choice but to accept American help and pay the price. The Israelis may have brought a solution. It would not be free but, at least for now, the price was fairly clear and not too high. The question in Churchill’s mind was simple: could the Israelis’ help free him from the need to accept American handouts and building up American strength at British expense? He didn’t know the answer, it lay in the future, but he hoped that it would.

***

The Infrastructure Minister reviewed a plan submitted to him by the Electric Power Commission. It was a revamped version of a 1980s proposal to dig a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea using the elevation difference to generate electricity. The original plan called for a 500 megawatt power station. The new version proposed a 1500 megawatt power plant and three parallel water conduits. Two of these were envisioned as huge underground pipes and the third was to be a navigable canal passing by Beer Sheba.

In their former time-line, the much smaller plan had been opposed by several environmental groups, whose lobbying had scuttled U.S. loan guarantees for the project. The environmentalists’ concerns were unwarranted: there was no danger of overfilling the Dead Sea. In fact, the Sea had almost disappeared by the time of The Event. Another claim was suspect from the very beginning: that the canal would change the climate so much that the Negev desert would disappear because evaporation from the canal would increase rain in the area. First, what was the problem with the desert turning green without all the artificial irrigation? And second, it was never shown that the miniscule
amount of evaporation would measurably change the rainfall in the desert. There was a third claim, the one that finally scuttled the funding: that leakage of salty sea water from the canal would contaminate the aquifer and make the water under the Negev unusable. It did not matter that any leakage could be prevented by using appropriate building techniques or that the Negev aquifer was not used.

The Minister decided that he liked the new and larger power generation proposal. He still needed to present it to the full cabinet for approval and then find the money in the budget to build it. The hydroelectric project was a short term stopgap solution. He also decided to recommend starting development of the gas fields in the Mediterranean as soon as practicable – It shouldn’t take very long to make the area safe. Israel was producing about ten thousand megawatts of electricity and would need at least double that
amount within a couple of years. Natural gas would provide clean and abundant power.

***

Amos Nir brought the meeting to order. The cabinet had a number of issues on their agenda, and he began with the most important: “We’ve been negotiating with the Brits since last Wednesday. We’ve met with some resistance on a number of issues, but mostly we’re making good progress. They’ve agreed to supply us with coal and oil through the port in Eilat and the Hadera pier. Food will go through the Suez Canal into Ashdod. To begin with, it will be mainly grain, rice, vegetables and fruit from the Far East, Australia and South Africa. We’ll be getting Canadian cattle but will have to expand our slaughter houses to process it. Coal will come from South Africa and oil from Iraq and the Emirates. They are resisting ceding Kuwait to us and, to a lesser extent, transferring control of the Sinai Desert. In their view giving away any part of the Empire sets a precedent they don’t want set. I expect that we will have to give them something more than upgrades to their existing weapons or threaten them directly, which, personally, I am in no hurry to do.

“
On a different note, their Foreign Office is going to issue a new White Paper tomorrow, Tuesday, changing their Mideast policy. The new declaration will encourage Jewish immigration to Palestine. The Royal Navy is standing by to protect our ships. We convinced the Germans that any ships carrying refugees to Israel will fly the Caliph’s flag in addition to the swastika and whatever else they chose to put on them. Nitzan?”

The defense minister took over: “We’ll let the Brits know when one of our ships leaves port. We don’t want the Nazis using our flag to transport supplies to Rommel in North Africa.” The Defense Minister paused to look at his notes. “We'll have an additional satellite above the Atlantic in about a week and a half, this one with the ability to detect magnetic anomalies. Combined with our interception and decoding of German naval transmissions, the new satellite will let us pinpoint individual submarines. In the meantime, we are relying on optical imaging and radio intercepts, which works well enough, to locate
U-boat wolf packs preparing to attack convoys.

“
We also have Military Industries working at full capacity making 60mm hyper velocity cannon and ammunition to upgrade the British tanks. The first shipment went to Cairo just a couple of hours ago. I expect them to be installed in Crusader tanks and ready for action within a week. The quantities will likely not be enough to stop Rommel’s advance but it will crimp his style a bit.

“
Also, I think Amos and I found a solution to the British reluctance to give up Kuwait and the Sinai. It involves some waiting time but will ripen in a couple of weeks.”

It was the Infrastructure Minister’s turn. He presented the proposal for hydro-electrical power generation, which met with general approval. The Finance Minister interjected: “Don’t worry about the cost of this or any other project. We are budgeting in shekels and can print as many as we need. I don’t expect inflation will be a problem either – By the time the new currency hits the market, we’ll have significant numbers of immigrants arriving, food and energy supplied by the Brits, and an economy growing fast enough to keep up with any inflationary pressures.”

“Then we’re in agreement to go ahead with hydro-electric power?” the Infrastructure Minister asked. Everyone nodded. “In the meantime we’ve made tangible progress in other areas. Two of our contractors are erecting temporary buildings to accommodate about five hundred thousand refugees. We’ll be signing contracts in the coming week with four more construction companies. We expect to use the buildings for several years so we’re building them to be as comfortable as possible, including indoor plumbing – much more comfortable than what the new immigrants got in the early days of the State. That’s a strain on our construction industry, but with more labor coming in, we’ll manage. Starting in about two weeks we’ll be able to accommodate 40,000 new refugees a month - 200,000 once we’re working at full capacity. We should be able to accept all of them within a year and a half. If necessary, we can triple this rate if some of the refugees live in tents. They won’t have plumbing but people won't be staying there very long.”

“
By the time the first transports arrive we'll have a staff of clerks and instructors to help with absorption,” the Absorption Minister added. “The Security Service informs me they’ll be ready for screening as well.”

The Labor Minister sighed. “Some of the unions resent the massive hiring since they haven’t been consulted. A good ex
ample is the Military Industry Employees Union: they threaten to strike unless we guarantee that all the new hires get the same rights as those employed before the Event. As you know, current employees can’t be fired. With the big population surge we’re expecting, we can’t guarantee everybody secure employment for life. The law allows us to employ temporary workers without contracts. The unions believe the current labor shortage will force us to accept their demands. I am about to issue an order suspending union rights and activities for the next six months using the emergency laws. We'll see how the situation develops after that.”