The Shield: a novel (26 page)

“
The Caliph is actually your cousin, Jamal Husseini. Here is a letter from him. The rest of what I have to say is for your ears only.” Moshe nodded at the SS officer standing at ease in the far corner of the room.

The Mufti tried to slice the envelope with a knife, but with no success. He inspected it carefully, finally saw the thin cord and pulled it, tearing the envelope open
. “I’ve never seen such an envelope before,” he said. “What kind of material is it that a knife can’t cut?”

“
Sir, I will explain everything when we are alone.”

“
I understand,” the Mufti said. “I will read the letter first, and then I will decide.”

My dear cousin, may Allah
the Merciful favor you forever

I
am writing this letter to you sitting in my temporary palace, where the British High Commissioner used to dwell. Due to a great miracle that Allah the Merciful bestowed upon us, I expelled the British and soon will be powerful enough to conquer the world. My emissary, Ibrahim al Taibeh, will tell you all the details of this miracle. I hope that you will come to Jerusalem soon as I wish to make you my first minister. Before I have the pleasure of seeing you here, I need you to perform a service for our cause. Ibrahim will explain all the details to you.

Please keep the contents of this letter secret. After you finish reading  give the letter and
envelope back to Ibrahim, who will destroy it before your very eyes.

The Great Caliph of Jerusalem

Your cousin, Jamal AL-Husseini

The Mufti looked at Moshe then returned to the letter. After reading it several times he folded it, put it in the envelope, and handed it back to Moshe.

“Please do as the letter instructs,” the Mufti said.

Moshe put the envelope on a plate and passed his hand over the envelope as he triggered an
ultra violet light emitting diode in the heavy ring on his left hand. The reaction was almost instantaneous: the chemically treated Mylar de-polymerized, turning into a grayish dust. The performance would have been impressive to most people even in the twenty first century. The Mufti was stunned.

“
I want to know everything you can tell me about the new Caliphate. What am I supposed to do before I travel to Jerusalem? How did the Caliphate came into existence?”

“
Your Excellency, I have a surprising story to tell you, but I have strict orders to do it only in complete privacy.” Moshe again nodded at the SS officer standing guard in the corner.

“
Hasan, please leave us alone,” the Mufti ordered.

The officer hesitated for a moment, then saluted and left.

Moshe turned on the bug detector in his ring. It blinked red. He moved around the room, and finally stopped at the table: “Excellency, would you please move aside?”

The Mufti moved his chair away from the table. Moshe looked under the table and pulled out a box the size of a cigarette pack. He opened it and pulled out the battery. The LED in his ring turned green.

“We can now continue our conversation without anyone listening in.”

Moshe poured water into his glass from a carafe on the table: “About six months ago your cousin, J
amal, found a time portal in a cave in the hills near Nablus. It opens into the same place, but eighty years from now. The time portal can be traversed in both directions and is large enough to transport a passenger car.”

“
Did he find a Caliphate in this future time?” the Mufti asked impatiently.

“
No. What he found discouraged him so much that he almost killed himself, but Allah the merciful inspired him and Jamal found a way to correct the situation.”

“
So, what was the terrible thing he found?”

“
He found seven million Jews controlling a state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. The Arabs have an autonomous little territory around Jenin, Nablus and Jericho. The Jewish state is very advanced and very strong. In fact, it is so strong that the surrounding Arab countries fear to attack them.”

“
What happened to our plans? Why did the Germans allow this to happen? How could the British allow a Jewish state?” The Mufti was indignant.

“
I am coming to this, your Excellency. If history takes its course the Germans will lose the war without exterminating all the Jews, many of whom come to Palestine, doubling their numbers there. The Allies, after winning the war, feel guilty for allowing Hitler to kill so many Jews. They also are unwilling to accept the Jewish refugees into their lands. So the successor of the League of Nations grants the Jews’ request for an independent state. The British had to withdraw but tried to help our cause as much as they could. The new Jewish state withstood our attacks and grew stronger and larger from year to year, while we grew weaker.” Moshe paused for a sip of water.

“
So what was Jamal’s great inspiration?” the Mufti asked impatiently.

“
Your cousin realized that the time portal presented an opportunity to change history. He could let Germany win the war and strengthen the Arabs in Palestine. He had the means to do that – All he needed to do was bring back through the portal advanced weapons and soldiers from the future to form the core of an invincible Arab army. I am one of those from the future that followed Jamal Al-Husseini. There are thousands like me - engineers, scientists and trained soldiers.”

“
Ah, I see. So the Caliphate is real. What is the next step then?”

“
I need to tell you more before we get to the next step.” Moshe reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the Koran he brought with him: “This is no simple Koran. If you open it to page 100 you will find that there is another book hidden inside. That book is a concise history of World War II. It was printed in 1999 and contains an interesting analysis of how the Germans lost the war. I suggest that your Excellency read it before we continue this conversation.”

The Mufti looked through the book, stopping, as instructed, at page 100: “I suggest we have dinner now,” he said, “and renew this conversation tomorrow morning.”

***

The next morning Moshe was escorted by the s
ame SS officer to the Mufti’s suite.

“
Sit my friend,” the Mufti gestured at one of the armchairs next to a coffee table. “Shall we continue?”

“
Just a moment.” Moshe turned on his ring and scanned the room. It was clear.

“
Yes, we can continue now,” Moshe said. “Do you have any questions?”

“
Still the same question: what is the next step?”

“
First, I need to update you on what has been done already: we destroyed the Jews in Palestine – our extermination system is much more efficient than Herr Hitler’s. We also told the British to get out and leave us alone – which they did after a demonstration of our abilities. The next step was to stop the German effort to get rid of the Jews in Europe. Our methods are more efficient but more important, it will free enough of their resources to win this war.”

“
Was the ‘accident’ in Wolfsburg somehow connected to this?” the Mufti inquired.

“
Yes. It was our way of forcing the Germans to obey our request to ship all the Jews in their jurisdiction to Palestine, where we will take care of them. You see, it will take them less than a year to do that, with minimal diversion of resources. In 1942, when they’ll face a critical phase in this war, they will have enough forces to make the Soviet Union collapse. If not, you know what will happen. It happened once already.”

“
Interesting,” the Mufti mused. “A couple of days after the ‘accident’ Himmler asked me if I knew anything about a Caliph. I told him that I had not been in touch with Palestine for a while. It seems to me,” he continued dreamily, “that after the Germans win the war we could take over their domain and rule the world.”

“
The Caliph’s exact sentiments,” Moshe agreed, “and that is why all this has to be kept secret. We are not strong enough yet to take on the world. You will likely be invited to see the Fuehrer and he will ask you about the Caliphate. We left them with the impression that we are incredibly powerful, which is true in a sense, but they can’t be allowed to know the truth until we are strong enough.  After that it will not matter what they know. You are to tell the Fuehrer that the Caliphate came to power as a result of Allah’s miracle, but you will learn the details only after you visit Palestine. Promise to enlighten him after your return here.

“
The Caliph also needs you to tour Europe, including the countries allied with the Germans, and see to the safe passage of the Jews to Palestine. Just be careful not to mention Wolfsburg to anyone – it is to remain a secret until the Caliph decides otherwise. We want the Jews to think that their dream of a home in Palestine is being fulfilled, so that they will come willingly. This way, as small as our numbers are, we can deal with them effectively. After you finish your tour, please come to Brindisi in Italy. We have set up a transit camp for Jews there, on their way to their final destination. You will be welcomed there by our troops and put on a transport to Palestine.”

“
I will do as the Caliph wishes,” the Mufti said. “I have much admiration for my cousin and his inspiration, may Allah guard him. Are you going to accompany me on this tour?”

“
I am sorry,” Moshe responded, “but my orders are to proceed to Brindisi and from there to Palestine. Experienced undercover operatives are needed to deal with our enemies, and I will be very busy for a while. I’ll appreciate your assistance with transportation. It is likely that a fishing boat can pick me up in Dubrovnik and get to Brindisi in less than a day.”

“
It will be my pleasure to arrange it.” The Mufti rose from his armchair and shook Moshe’s hand, smiling and blessing him repeatedly.

The two ministers, Defense and Absorption, finished their tour of the Brindisi facility. They arrived in the early morning on a small military transport and now were treated to a meal in
Colonel Hirshson’s office. It was a working lunch.

“
You are quite well organized here,” the Absorption Minister said, “but I have seen large numbers of refugees that seem to have been here for a while. Is there a transportation problem?”

Hirshson sipped his coffee: “Not really. When we started at the end of June we were getting about ten thousand people a day. It was mostly due to the limitations of the rail system. As you have seen we can now accept four trains at a time, which makes our theoretical capacity close to fifty thousand in a twenty-four hour period. We can transport about twenty
nine thousand per day, on average, by ship to Israel. This includes British shipping, German ships, one Italian ship we persuaded them to give us, three of our own converted cargo ships and the cruise ship that was stuck in Haifa during the Event. The problem is that this is on average. In practice the round trip to Israel takes these ships between seven and ten days, depending on the weather and how long it takes to load and unload them. Which leaves us with substantial numbers of refugees waiting here for transport – the facility is almost empty at times and sometimes contains close to a hundred thousand.

“
You’ve also noticed that we are processing them here for security instead of Haifa, as was originally planned. The immigrants are waiting for shipping here anyway, so we use some of the time to filter out possible spies and such. After they get into Israel the environment is less controlled, they have some of the families waiting and there is a higher likelihood of someone slipping through.”

“
You’re receiving more than ten thousand a day now, are you?”

“
Like I said, when we started in June it was ten thousand. Now we are in the end of July and the number is more or less steady at twenty-five thousand. Our first priority was to remove as many Jews as possible from the Polish ghettos, especially the big ones in Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz and Bialystok. We also got a fair number of people from concentration camps. They have been under German occupation since 1939 and it wasn’t a picnic. We had large numbers of starving and sick that needed urgent medical attention – hence the large rehabilitation facilities. It got so bad that we had to ask any doctors and nurses that were among the refugees to assist us.

“
By now, I think we’ve gotten most of the sick out. The Germans aren’t starving them anymore, so the general condition of the people that arrive now is much better.”

“
I was interested in how you developed the reception procedure,” the Defense Minister asked.

“
Well, we have to be careful not to show either the German or Ukrainian guards or the train crews what is going on. So the first step when a train arrives is to get these escorts into a sealed holding room guarded by our forces just outside the facility. We also keep them happy with food and a little Schnapps – not too much, as we don’t want them to become drunk and unruly, just enough to make them slightly fuzzy.

“
With them out of the way we tried, at first, the German technique of opening all the cars at once and guiding the crowd inside. This may work if you use dogs and beat people, but it didn’t work for us. There are always old or sick or disabled immigrants who need help. People are milling around the platform and it takes an unreasonable amount of time. An average train holds about 2500 immigrants; it took us close to an hour to clear them off the platform. We needed to get the procedure down to twenty minutes max.