Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (50 page)

"I really haven't given it much thought."
What a stupid response! Why did he have to sit next to me?

"Then I'm to understand you either don't have
plans yet, or you're working tomorrow. Which one would be
correct?"

"I...uh...no plans. Just curl up with a good
book, watch a little television." Great, just great. I flipped the
switch to a glaring neon sign over my head:
Look at me, I don't
have a social life.

"Right-o then, I trust it's a great book. My
stop is coming up next. It was nice to speak with a fellow
Londoner. Cheerio."

"It's my stop too!" Oh good heavens Miriam,
did that sound desperate enough?

"You don't say! Forgive me if this sounds
like a pick-up line, it's not meant to be. I'm taking a few days
holiday in the Welsh countryside. I find sightseeing by myself to
be something of a bore. If it wouldn't be too much of an
imposition, would you let me buy you a pint?"

"No imposition whatsoever."

The conversation went pleasantly enough,
though it was painfully obvious to her early on that there were no
sparks, at least not from his direction. In a way, though, knowing
this helped her to relax. There was a mutual, unspoken,
understanding that beyond amiable conversation there were no
expectations, nothing to cause either discomfort.

He told her a little about his work, a
recruiter for an agency, then asked about hers. They traded stories
of hearth and home. He asked why she chose to work in Wales,
sustaining that topic of conversation for a while. Eventually the
conversation meandered to what each liked to do for fun in their
free time, and so on and so forth. A little more than idle chatter,
a little less than inappropriately personal, precisely the right
balance.

"I've a couple of calls to make before the
evening waxes too late, so I'd best be on my way. May I call you a
taxi?"

"Thank you, no. I live just a few blocks from
here."

"Then, may I walk you home?"

"Thanks again, but no. I'm fine."

"Then it was absolutely lovely meeting you. I
do hope we see one another on the bus again before my holidays come
to an unspectacular end." His look, his manner of speech, he had to
be gay.

The thought put Miriam even more at ease with
him than she had already been. These days, you never know what a
seemingly nice and engaging stranger might really have in mind. In
his case, she wasn't concerned in the slightest.

"That would be nice."

"Well, you know, given that it's the weekend
and you'll be spending it with a book, it's not very bloody likely.
Come to think of it, perhaps you'd join me for breakfast Sunday
morning?"

Miriam actually smiled at the memory, as she
darted over the Atlantic Ocean, recalling the breakfast, how smooth
a talker he was. During the course of the meal he was deftly
recruiting her. At the same time he was administering the first of
three face-to-face psychological examinations, assessing her mental
fitness for the job his employer had in mind for her.

The time spent training with MI6, or simply
"Six" as the agency was commonly called, was at once exciting and
difficult. Her first task wasn't unlike the assignment that
eventually established her in Israel: Work in a bio-tech lab that
held information valuable to her government.

Miriam was raised with a Queen and Country -
now King and Country - attitude since early childhood. The British
Empire had been good to her, paid her education up to and including
her doctorates, allowing her a more than comfortable lifestyle. She
always felt it her duty to give back, frequently volunteering on
civic projects. Without a doubt working for Six made giving back
exciting and interesting!

Agent Northup's insertion into the Research
and Development section of the company owned by Dr. Shmu'el, was,
as the old adage goes, "a piece of cake." Being Jewish, making
aliya wasn't difficult. Her doctorates certainly helped to smooth
the path, abbreviating some of the legal hoops through which others
had to jump.

She thought as an industrial espionage spy
that she'd get a new identity, like so many suave and sophisticated
spies in the movies. Disappointed that she wasn't provided an
alias, and no made-up background story, she accepted the fact that
there really was no way to reinvent herself. Considering her
scholastic and business success, she was too well known in such a
narrowly specific field of research to be anybody but herself.
Besides, there was the consolation that the fewer fabrications she
had to remember, the fewer chances of being tripped up. An
undercover, secret identity would, however; have been the ultimate
in excitement and intrigue.

Anti-Semitism, rearing its ugly head, had
recently gained strength and momentum in the United Kingdom. Even a
couple of members of Parliament publicly uttered anti-Jewish slurs.
The sometimes thinly veiled, now increasingly blatant anti-Semitism
disgusted Miriam. Working for Six was just one way to prove that
one could be Jewish, patriotic, and not blindly pro-Israel as, she
was reluctant to admit, many Jews she knew tended to be. Well, no,
a growing number seemed to be anti-Israel and tortuously
self-loathing as Jews. Most were, however; positively blind to
Israel's faults; as if to criticize the country somehow diminished
their own Jewishness and Zionist ideology.

Jewish to the very core of her soul, though
she never associated with them, she self-identified with the
Neturei Karta group of Orthodox Jews who were vocally against
political Zionism.

Many of the Karta were hostile to the State
of Israel, to the point of going to Iran and stating in the media
that they felt Israel had no right to exist. Miriam also felt that
any secular government, or even semi-secular, that tried to
establish a homeland for the Jewish people, went against the
Messianic teachings of the Bible. But voicing these opinions in the
very media of a country developing nuclear weapons to destroy
Israel and control the Middle East was, clearly, foolish. The
Neturei Karta had the right idea about only the Messiah
establishing a Jewish safe haven, but they were so extreme as to be
dangerous themselves.

The very foundation of the modern State of
Israel was corrupt in her eyes. From the perspective of most
British, the State of Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism, a
terrorism that forced Great Britain to relinquish Palestine to the
Jewish settlers. The Jewish terrorism that gave rise to the modern
State of Israel was enacted only against uniformed soldiers of the
British Empire - never intentionally targeting British citizens.
Today's Palestinian and extreme Islamists didn't care who they
targeted, soldier or civilian, Jew or Christian or fellow Muslim.
Those who equally compared early Jewish freedom fighters to today's
radical Islamic and Palestinian so-called freedom fighters were
either ignorant of the facts, or blatantly anti-Israel /
anti-Jewish.

Fortunately for her, Miriam was never
politically active, had never given voice to her views. This
allowed her to pass background checks, gaining citizenship without
a problem; a citizenship she felt to be invalid as she believed the
country of Israel to be invalid. She was, and always would be, a
true and loyal citizen of Great Britain and only Great Britain.

Approaching Rio airport she glanced at her
mobile phone to check the time. It had auto-adjusted with every
passing of a time zone. Twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

She was excited to meet Dr. Levin. He was
nothing short of a living legend within
The Project
facilities. Working in a different facility than his, this would be
her first face-to-face with the man, the veritable demi-god status
legend.

A helicopter took her from the airport to a
medium-sized yacht, hovering just above to allow her to be lowered
to the deck via a motorized, retracting ladder.

"Welcome aboard ma'am. I'm Agent Frederick
Hampton. You can call me 'Freddie,' all of my friends do. Should
you require anything during your stay, please don't hesitate to
ask."

"Thank you Agent Hampton." She didn't believe
informalities to be appropriate while on the job. "I want to
confirm that a doctor will be available, during the interrogation.
We can't afford to have Dr. Levin go into cardiac arrest. In view
of his medical history, he's at high risk."

"Yes Ma'am. The medical doctor has already
prepped Dr. Levin with a heart monitor. Please, follow me."

Escorted to the room where Dr. Moshe Levin,
recent head of
The Project
, was confined, she was
disconcerted to see his disheveled appearance and sunken, bloodshot
eyes.

Miriam was well aware of his advanced age,
coupled with ongoing health issues, but did not expect this
pitiable sight before her. Having never seen him before, other than
a photograph in his dossier that must have been at least five years
old, she didn't know what she expected, but whatever it was - the
man before her fell significantly short of what she imagined him to
be.

"Dr. Levin, I'm Dr. Miriam Northup. Before we
talk for a bit, can I get you anything?"

Recognizing her name, Levin raised his head
slightly to glare at her from eyes that made it obvious that he
would have killed her, were such possible.

"Nothing?"

"Young lady, I know who you are. I know you
work with
The Project
. We are already well beyond the
pretense of pleasantries. Get to the point, why are you here?"

"Dr. Levin, trust me when I say I didn't want
this to happen to you. I was in one of the temporally time shielded
facilities, Dr. Shmu'el's facility to be exact, when the bio agents
of the terrorists were released, followed by the nuclear exchange.
Just as you, and most other
Project
members, I witnessed an
extinction level event only narrowly averted. I remember that, and
how we were able to manipulate time itself, making it so that the
terrorists were never born, and the nuclear war never happened. I
remember both time lines, the one where all human life, except
those in the shielded facilities, was destroyed, and the current
time line we are now living."

"Again, get to the point! Young lady, you
start your statement with 'trust me' and yet I am captive while you
appear to be the captor - or at the very least cooperating
willingly with them. My wife was murdered before my eyes, I have
been abducted - held here against my will - and there you sit,
speaking to me about
The Project
as if you hadn't a care in
the world, as if it were no more than a silly little game to you.
You, who know more than nearly anybody alive how vital it is that
we safeguard it for the sake of humanity. How dare you! Trust you?
You can go straight to hell." Moshe spat in her face.

Miriam expected resistance, certainly, but
hearing that his wife was murdered came as something of a surprise.
Nobody thought to mention this to her. She assumed Mrs. Levin was
being held elsewhere on the yacht, as it made its way through
international waters.

She hoped their common work on
The
Project
, and her expertise in her field, might help to gain
ingress into the mind of Dr. Levin, garnering vital information for
her country. She realized that the possibility of getting him to
divulge vital information was slim to none, but this was a risk
that her country was willing to take,
had
to take. The man
before her was the architect, the brains, behind
The
Project
. It was his panoramic intellect and vision that gave
birth to
The Project
, bringing it from concept to working
reality. He mastered time, bringing it to heel at his command.

Though less desirable, other avenues remained
open to them, but none were as accessible, and potentially
fruitful, as the "Time Master" himself, Dr. Levin. Six was banking
on Miriam being able to garner at least a few of the vital missing
pieces from him, so that they could complete their own version of
The Project
. They realized that she was lacking in people
skills, but hoped that her scientific knowledge and experience,
especially her hands-on work with
The Project
, would
suffice. At this juncture she was the only ace in their deck of
cards.

In a few days she had to be back at work,
lest she raise suspicions: all too soon his abduction would be
realized and investigated. She tried to think of something,
anything, by way of an acceptable response.

Wiping his dripping spittle from her face,
showing neither hostility nor anger, she responded the only way she
felt that she could, "I didn't know about Mrs. Levin. I'm truly
sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry!? How dare you to even utter
her name. You soil her memory. You desecrate the memory of every
Jew who was murdered throughout history, simply because they were
born Jewish. You disgust me." Moshe spat again in her face.

"No!" she shouted to prevent one of the
guards from striking him.

Knowledge of
The Project
, how they
were able to send a man back in time not once, but twice, to alter
events that had proven tragic in the present, was absolutely
critical. London was so close to realizing this capability. This
man, only recently retired, held the key to the pieces of the
puzzle her country lacked; having overseen all of the facilities
which, combined, formed the totality of
The Project
.

It was obvious to her that Dr. Levin would be
of no assistance to them now, or at any time. It truly did pain
her. Were she unable to unlock the secrets nobody else could - this
was Six's assessment, and she agreed. Torture would never have
worked on him, even if he were he younger, sporting a strong and
healthy heart. Torturing Mrs. Levin may have done the trick,
possibly not even that. Now, they would never know.