Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (51 page)

~ ~ ~

"Damn it, damn it all! Why the bloody hell
was Mrs. Levin killed? Because they were childless, by killing her
we've lost the only possible leverage that we had to use against
him."

"I'm unclear as to the specifics. It is my
understanding that getting both her and Dr. Levin out of the
resort, then safely here, was a field decision considered too
risky. Given their age and declining health, combined with the
rainy conditions that prevailed last night, he was the priority,
while she was considered a liability to be dealt with. We couldn't
wait another night as they were leaving early the next
morning."

The only other person in the room beside
Miriam and Levin was the MI6 medical doctor in charge of monitoring
vitals. It was he who answered her question, though he wasn't sure
if it was rhetorical or actually directed at him.

He was taken aback by the fact that she was
having this conversation with him, loudly, in the presence of the
hostage. "This person should never have been cleared for field
work, let alone hostage interrogation!" He thought to himself.

Angrily, Miriam made her way to the
Communications Room. She barked out, "Recall the helicopter, I'm
returning."

"Yes Agent Northup. What about Dr.
Levin?"

"He's of no use to us. Terminate him. Make it
quick and painless. I don't want him to suffer."

"Ma'am?"

"You heard me. Who was the agent in charge
when Mrs. Levin was killed?"

"That would be Agent Hampton. I believe you
met him when you came on board."

"Have that bloody fool dump Levin's body in
the ocean once you're at least 200 kilometers of landfall. Nothing
is to be traced back to this ship."

"Don't you think that's a bit extreme? There
surely must be a better approach to all of this."

"No, it is
not
too extreme. He will
never talk, especially given the fact that his wife was murdered.
Bloody fools. If anybody, especially the Israelis, intercept us
while Levin is being held captive in the ship everything is over.
We can't extract any information from him, and keeping him here
makes us far too vulnerable. I don't think I need to spell out to
you the greater risk of letting him live and exposing all of us. He
knows who I am. It wouldn't be difficult for authorities to put the
pieces of this puzzle together, tracing me back to England."

As the helicopter transported her back to the
Rio airport, Agent Northup filed her report with Six headquarters
in London. A footnote in that report suggested that Hampton be
dismissed from service with the intelligence agency. She muttered
silently to herself that he hopefully would never find employment
outside a fast food joint.

She looked forward to getting back to
scientific work. Much as she resented the faux Jewish state's
supreme arrogance in keeping such an astonishing breakthrough to
themselves, she really enjoyed her work with
The
Project
.

Her initial assignment in Israel, with its
humble beginnings as a research assistant in a nano biotech company
founded by Dr. Aharon Shmu'el, proved to be an unexpected and
incredible break for England. When he invited her to become a part
of his facility within
The Project
, it opened the door into
a venture that both the CIA and Six suspected Israeli advancements,
but were unable to breach.

The British intelligence agency kept
knowledge of the facilities, with their ultimate purpose, from the
annoyingly prying eyes of the CIA and other countries with which
they were partners in the "War on Terror." At least partners on
paper anyway.

GCHQ, as well as the British Prime Minister,
had been astounded at the revelatory flow of information coming
from their spy, and what the State of Israel had accomplished. If
England could harness this power, she could position herself to be
the world superpower.

At a time when petroleum reserves were
diminishing, and oil producing countries in Venezuela and the
Middle East were dealing poorly with internal and external crisis
situations, it was critical that England manipulate energy output
and military supremacy to benefit the United Kingdom - perhaps
again become the global empire that it once was.

During the flight back to Europe, Miriam
found herself looking forward to seeing her friends at her
facility. They had been through a lot together, forming a close
camaraderie which transcended nationality and political views. She
wondered how they'd react if they were to learn that she had
ordered the idolized Dr. Levin killed and consigned to a watery
grave. She also wondered how MI6 planned to get the information
they needed to complete their own
Project
now that Levin
was, quite literally, a dead end.

Table of Contents

2. Threat Assessment

“
. . . so shalt thou
put away the evil from the midst of thee."
- Holy Bible,
Deuteronomy 13:6

Phase One: Who Controls Time

Jerusalem, Office of the Prime
Minister, State of Israel

The Israeli newspaper,
Ma'ariv
,
posted a report regarding the American
President's televised broadcast to his nation about the Syrian
government's use of chemical weapons on its own population; a
desperate bid to thwart the rebel overthrow of the government. What
had started as a localized rebellion against the government grew
into a groundswell, engulfing the entire nation, while heightening
the alert level of the region.

The Israeli government had, more than once,
sent jets to bomb chemical weapons destined for transfer to terror
groups such as the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs' Brigade and the Hamas in Palestinian territories.

The civil war in Syria, one of the two
northern border neighbors of Israel, was a problem that required
daily scrutiny.

Isser Shiloah, the chief of the Israeli
foreign security service, the Mossad, was more acutely aware than
most of his fellow countrymen of the catastrophic outcome if Syrian
chemical weapons fell into the hands of any of Israel's sworn
enemies - especially organizations such as the Hamas and the
Hezbollah, not to mention a host of other organizations and even
nations whose sole, openly stated, goal was to destroy the small
Jewish nation - by any means necessary.

Though Syria wasn't an overall superpower
such as the United States and China, or even a diminishing
semi-superpower like Russia, they were a globally acknowledged,
super chemical weapons power.

Every imaginable chemical weapon that could
be used for the purpose of fixed and mobile delivery methods,
assuring maximum casualties, was available in Syria. These weapons
were not merely in the research and development stage, but already
weaponized and loaded in warheads, as well as a wide variety of
other deployment systems.

That the Syrian leadership and military had
no compunctions about using chemical weapons such as Sarin Gas to
kill hundreds of their own people - not discriminating between
rebels, women, and children - was an indicator as to how easily
they would rain chemical hell down on the heads of the Israeli
population. It's unlikely the Syrian leadership would have any
qualms about killing the Palestinian populations, as long as they
could guarantee bragging rights of the elimination of the Jewish
state.

Isser lived through the near annihilation of
the entire planet not long ago, even as this current crisis was
escalating. Remembering the timeline where Israel was totally
decimated, while other countries launched nuclear weapons in a
futile attempt to save themselves from the biological
extermination, he considered their current reality.

What his country currently faced wasn't very
different in some respects, though conversely vastly different in
others. In the previous timeline, they only had to see to it that
two terrorists, acting on their own, were never born in order to
put an end to the disaster that had been so narrowly averted by
time manipulation. The end result being the changing of history
itself, which allowed the tiny Jewish nation yet another day of
survival.

The potential
ripple effects
of
changing the histories of two families' pasts were considerable,
yet the possibility of negative effects versus the destruction of
the State of Israel made it an acceptable risk, one that proved to
be the correct course of action.

In the current situation, for Israel to alter
space-time by changing the entire history and course of another
nation; well, that invited any number of disasters in the
here-and-now which could not be foreseen by any computer model
running the most sophisticated of predictive algorithms.

His undercover agents in Damascus, one a
high-ranking official in the Syrian government, warned that the
leader of the nation and his top military advisors were considering
more than simply selling off their chemical arsenal in an effort to
diffuse tensions with the United States.

In the wake of the Russian leader's call to
have United Nations inspectors come in to dismantle the weapons,
the military and civil leaders felt it best to allow this to
happen, avoiding air strikes by the Americans while appeasing their
Russian benefactors at the same time.

Duplicity, however; was to reign supreme in
this plan. They would indeed open their chemical plants, their
storage facilities, and their military compounds to United Nations
inspectors. Even as the investigators were filing glowing reports
with United Nations about how open and transparent the Syrian
government was with regard to their weapons, a significant amount
of chemical weapons, especially nerve agents, were to be
transported to remote areas of the country, as well as to a
neighboring nation that was more than friendly to their cause.

These transports were to be carried out in
small quantities, using civilian vehicles so as not to arouse
suspicions of analysts reviewing feeds from satellite, drone,
human, or other forms of surveillance.

The report from the undercover agent in
Damascus included the detail that the primary method of transport
would involve Red Crescent ambulances; the equivalent of Red Cross
and the Israeli Red Magen David emergency vehicles.

As well as ambulances, transports would
heavily rely upon the favored method; children's school buses.
Where the buses were concerned, they would only convey the deadly
chemicals while unsuspecting school children were on the buses,
with the expectation of avoiding any air strike should their plan
be uncovered.

"Director Shiloah, everyone has arrived and
is about to assemble, if you'll please follow me."

~ ~ ~

"If there are no objections we will begin our
briefing without introductions or needless formalities." The Prime
Minister noticed that the head of the Mossad seemed rested, even
sporting a bit of a tan. In his job, neither rest nor the tan would
endure.

"I trust everybody has already reviewed the
bullet points of your daily domestic and foreign intelligence
briefings." Conforming to his personal style, the Prime Minister
avoided small talk.

"Our neighbors' infighting is having ever
worsening ramifications on the security of our own borders. With
the only democratically elected Egyptian president removed from
office, and the Muslim Brotherhood under attack, our Hamas
neighbors in the West Bank, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood,
are facing problems with the Egyptian military. Just today two
Egyptian tanks rolled up to the very border between their country
and the only entry point between Egypt and the West Bank, if you
don't count the
secret
smugglers' tunnels." A few chuckles
gave way to silence as the Prime Minister continued.

"In southern Lebanon the Hezbollah continues
to gift us with showers of rockets, as do our Palestinian neighbors
who promised peace for land and self-determination that they now
enjoy. These rockets have demonstrated a marked and continual
improvement in both range and targeting accuracy, thanks to their
Iranian benefactors and other suppliers from within the Russian
Federation and elsewhere."

"The Hezbollah has joined in the fighting to
keep the Syrian dictatorship in power, which is causing friction
within the Lebanese general population, leading to fighting among
segments of that society which could destabilize an already
weakening government in Lebanon. Egypt is in turmoil with ongoing
fighting between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and the military,
with civilians caught in between."

"Turkey continues to increase its politicized
Islamic presence in their government, while at the same time
absorbing a growing number of Syrian refugees. I'm happy to say
inroads are being made to reestablishing diplomatic relationships
with the Turkish government, long a friend and ally to Israel. The
Kingdom of Jordan continues to groan under the financial, housing
and social strains of taking in so many war refugees from Syria. To
say that the Middle East is in turmoil is, more than anything, a
statement of the obvious."

"For us, the threat is on every side. The
naïvely named, 'Arab Spring' continues to fill graveyards, with
suffering among the living increasing daily on massive levels never
seen before. These wars and rebellions are bound to spill over into
our own borders. Attempts by the Syrians to breach our borders on
the Golan Heights have already been attempted more than once by the
government to divert focus from their own criminal behavior. If we
don't act we will be forced to react when the Middle East erupts
into an all-out conflagration."

"From our pioneering ventures into history to
carefully reshape events in the present, we've seen unintended
consequences, ripple effects if you will, for which we can neither
plan nor avoid. It appears, though, that these ripple effects have
had no significant consequences to known history. This implies that
the smaller the changes made in the recent past, the weaker the
ripple effects, though that would not always be a guarantee.
Conversely, the larger and more distant the history alteration, the
more far-reaching and potentially dangerous the ripple
effects."