The Dreadful Renegade: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense) (3 page)

November, 24
th
, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Dr. Eugene Powers was combining business and pleasure by attending a conference organized by GICNT (Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism) in Jerusalem and spending a few days vacationing in Tel-Aviv. The conference, like most other conferences of its kind, was 90% politics and 10% science and technology. The senior delegate of each country, and there were over 30 countries represented here, read a dry statement about the dangers of nuclear terrorism and the importance of stopping it. It was practically impossible to find differences between the statements, even with a magnifying glass, although with a scanning electron microscope one could find some fine nuances. Eugene was bored out of his mind, but when his turn came he read the trite declaration drafted by the State Department and feigned as much passion as if Archimedes had just discovered the buoyant forces in his bath tub. He was glad when the conference was over and he was free to roam the beaches of Tel-Aviv that even in late November were crowded with fun seekers and health aficionados.  He noted the large, practically windowless building close to the sea front and saw the armed security guards and knew that it was the Embassy of the United States. He was looking forward to having a home cooked dinner later that evening with his friend David Avivi, the Mossad agent.

David and Eugene became close friends when they had worked together in Vienna on the case that became known in the popular press as the
Dreadful Alchemist
affair. So when he rang the bell of David's modest apartment in Ramat Aviv and the door opened he was received with big smiles and warm embraces by David and by his girlfriend, Orna. She had been the security officer of the Israeli delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when Eugene and his Russian colleague suspected some foul play with gamma radiation therapeutic sources and sought the help of Mossad. Orna had made the contact between Eugene and David and worked closely with them and the International Task Force.

After a delicious home cooked dinner the three of them relaxed in the living room and over a few glasses of chilled homemade Limoncello chatted about their present work in as much detail as they could, considering their occupation. Orna told Eugene that after the affair in Vienna she had been given a citation of merit and was invited to join Mossad and work with David, which she gladly accepted. David didn't say much about his work but let Eugene understand that he was still involved in chasing the "bad guys" that posed potential threats to Israel's security. Eugene informed them that he was now posted in the Washington office of the NNSA, the National Nuclear Security Administration that operated under the Department of Energy. He said that his job involved a lot of travel to the National Laboratories that were supervised by the NNSA. David told Eugene about the time he had spent in New Mexico when his father was there on sabbatical, and Eugene mentioned that he had returned from a visit to Los Alamos just before heading to Israel. David knew better than to ask him what he did there so they discussed the tourist sites of New Mexico. As they were parting Eugene mentioned in passing that while visiting the Lab he attended a presentation on advanced analytical procedures that was given by, what he jokingly called, "a former close neighbor of yours". This intrigued David who asked Eugene what he meant by that and Eugene said that he was referring to a naturalized ex-Palestinian scientist, who was a graduate of NMSU. Eugene said he did not remember the name of the scientist but would look it up and send it to David upon his return to Washington.

Eugene returned to his hotel on the beachfront and the next day went over to the nearby US embassy and filed a report about his informal contact with Mossad agents. David filed a similar report about his own informal contact with an NNSA employee. Both reports were put on file and no action was taken.

November, 30
th
, Tel-Aviv, Israel

David received the short e-mail message from Eugene with the name of the ex-Palestinian scientist from Los Alamos - Dr. Nagib Jaber. The name rang a bell so he called his father who instantly recollected that he had been on the examination panel in front of which Nagib defended his doctoral thesis. Dr. Benny Avivi recalled that he had been impressed by Nagib's defense and by his maturity that by far superseded that usually shown by American doctoral candidates who were generally very knowledgeable about their specific subject but without a wider viewpoint. Benny also remembered that when asked about his future plans Nagib had said that he wished to become a US citizen and work in one of the National Laboratories, preferably in New Mexico. David thought this piece of information was important enough to pass on to the Israeli Security Agency, the ISA, and perhaps get them to do a background check on Dr. Nagib Jaber, so he called his friend, "The Fish" who was now in a senior position at the ISA and told him the whole story. "The Fish", who earned his nickname for staying cool under fire like his cold blooded namesake, said he would look into it and get back to David if there was anything interesting to report.     

December, 16
th
, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The wedding ceremony was very modest and held in the City Hall of Santa Fe in the presence of less than 20 guests. None of Nagib's relatives attended and from Alia's family only her parents were present. They invited some of their colleagues from the Lab who were mostly very conservative church-going types, so they were genuinely glad to see the young couple getting a formal "stamp of approval" and would no longer "live in sin". At Nagib's specific request, Professor Jack Chen was the guest of honor and informally even filled the role of the groom's father. The professor was getting ready to collect his retirement pension from NMSU and was looking forward to move to the Pacific coast and continue life as a consultant without any teaching responsibilities. Chen called for a toast honoring the young couple and wished good health, a happy life together and prosperity. He proudly mentioned the fact that although Nagib was originally a Palestinian and he himself had been an Israeli but both were now loyal US citizens and living proof that there could be a chance for peace between their two nations. Although some cynics thought that moving millions of Israelis and Palestinians to the United States was not a practical solution, the small crowd applauded and Nagib's face lit up with a big smile, but inwardly he felt uncomfortable for the planned betrayal of his mentor.

December 19
th
, Honolulu, Hawaii

After the wedding ceremony Alia and Nagib travelled to Honolulu for a short honeymoon. Nagib felt that he could fully trust Alia with his real objective, knowing full well that as his wife she could not testify against him, even if she wanted to do so. He was not surprised at her subdued reaction – she said that she now knew him well enough to realize that he was after something really big, not just promotion to a managerial position in the Lab.  She emphasized that she would not do anything against the United States that gave her parents financial and physical security and a chance to a better life but would willingly participate in a plan that would hurt Israel that had been so bad for the Palestinian people and humiliated her personally. She said that she thought that he would be indebted to Professor Chen who did so much for him during his studies at NMSU and helped get a good job after his graduation. Nagib said that he worked very hard for his Ph. D. and that Chen benefited from his efforts no less than he did, and in any case Chen no longer lived in Israel or even considered himself as an Israeli patriot, so he had no qualms about inflicting destruction on Israel. Alia realized that he was really agitated and told him that he could confide in her.

Nagib then told her about his turning point with regard to how he felt about the United States. He said that as a Muslim, not a religious fanatic just someone who was born as a simple Sunni Muslim, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 allegedly to disarm Iraq of atomic, biological and chemical weapons was an insult to Islam. But what really offended him deeply was the treatment Saddam Hussein received after he was captured, especially when a US paramedic wearing latex gloves probed his mouth with a flashlight – and this degrading scene was recorded on camera and displayed repeatedly on global television and all networks. He said that even the worst serial murderers were not treated like this, as long as they were not Arabs. That was the moment he understood that he will never be considered as an equal in the US and vowed to avenge this affront to his people and co-religionists. He told her that he had secretly named his plan Adrestia. When Alia asked him for the meaning of this word he said that in Greek mythology Adrestia was the goddess of
revolt, just retribution, equilibrium and balance between good and evil. She was often portrayed as handmaiden of
Nemesis, the famous goddess of revenge. He added that the presence of foreign non-Muslim forces, he used the term Modern Crusaders, on sacred Arab soil like Saudi Arabia with its holy places, and Jewish control of Jerusalem (Al Quds, he said) was unacceptable.

              When Nagib laid out his plan to intercept a warhead during transport to or from the Lab she told him that there was no chance he could get away with it without a large armed force to back him up with the heist and then to smuggle the warhead out of the US and ship it to Israel. They discussed the matter and eventually came up with a few alternative plans.  One plan called for obtaining a compact nuclear weapon from a US storage site in Europe. This would be viable if Nagib could get a proper security clearance and a pretext to visit the facilities in Europe as an expert in analytical chemistry and learn about the security arrangements and devise a way to steal or highjack a suitable item. This too, required the military and financial support of an organization not an act an individual could carry out. Another option was to purchase such a weapon from one of the republics of the former Soviet Union, but this had been attempted unsuccessfully by much better connected and well funded terrorist groups and allegedly even by some sovereign states. 

After a few sleepless nights and numerous daytime discussions Nagib and Alia hit upon a new idea. This held a much lower physical risk to them and didn't require use of armed force. They would somehow get hold of classified designs for the most advanced nuclear weapons in the Lab and use them to barter with a state that already had primitive nuclear devices or even inefficient weapons. They would hand over the advanced designs in return for a primitive device, even for an improvised nuclear device (IND). They could even make a demand that the IND would be delivered in an innocuous form in Israel, or at a site from which it could easily be shipped there. In order to do this they needed to gain access to the highly classified advanced designs and copy them.

They returned to Albuquerque airport on Christmas day – when everybody else was heading in the opposite direction to Honolulu. They drove back to Los Alamos and settled back in their apartment. One main decision they reached while discussing their plans was not to start a family until the smoke, literally, cleared out.

January 30
th
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nagib, who was no longer supervised by Dr. Brian LeClerk, resumed work in his new position as the head of the section in charge of developing better analytical procedures to determine the isotopic composition and state of the fissile materials, the enriched uranium and plutonium, used in the nuclear warheads. This was part of the stockpile stewardship project for which the Lab was responsible. It was well known that nuclear weapons had a limited lifetime mainly due to the natural decay of the radioactive materials of construction as well as to chemical processes like corrosion or degradation. Therefore samples had to be taken periodically from warheads that were dismantled for this purpose. By "better analytical procedures" the management meant more accurate, more robust, higher throughput, faster and less expensive analytical methods. Nagib seized the opportunity to call for a meeting with the people from the operations division who were responsible for sending the samples and explained that no analytical result was worth the paper it was printed on (not literally, of course, as results were conveyed by computer software and electronic spreadsheets) if the sample was not a true representative of the bulk of the material. He insisted on having his own laboratory team collecting the samples. The operations division people, especially their manager Dr. Max Level, automatically objected saying that the responsibility for sampling was theirs, as had been the custom for decades. The argument went on and on for several minutes with each side insisting that they should be in charge of the sample collection and as they could not reach an agreement they decided to go to the senior management for a ruling and made an appointment with the Deputy Director of the Lab for the next day.

Nagib returned home that evening and told Alia about the debate and explained that by getting responsibility for sampling he would gain access to the actual warheads and the storage area which could help facilitate their plans. Alia said that the name of Dr. Max Level sounded very familiar but could not recall from where. She asked Nagib if he wanted tea or coffee and went into the kitchen to switch on the electric kettle and make two cups of tea. Suddenly Nagib heard her laughing hysterically and when he rushed into the kitchen he saw her bent over the kitchen counter and holding her belly. Nagib thought that she was ill or suffering cramps but saw that her right hand was pointing at the kettle and wondered if she had been electrocuted so quickly unplugged the kettle. With great difficulty, still laughing hysterically, Alia stood upright and pointed to the line signifying the maximum amount of water that should be used to boil water. He looked closely at the line that prescribed the words Max Level and also burst out laughing.     

January 31
st
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nagib and Max Level presented their arguments about taking the responsibility for sample collection and the Deputy Director listened impatiently to both of them and after ten minutes cut them short and said that he had more important things on his agenda. He ruled that for a trial period of five weeks samples would be collected by Nagib's laboratory personnel and if this led to improved results they would continue this practice but if no significant progress was found then the old procedures would be reestablished. Nagib and Max were both displeased with this decision which probably indicated that it was a wise one. When they left the Deputy Director's office they set an appointment with their senior staff members to discuss the details for implementing the decision.

Nagib brought his chief analytical chemist who was in charge of carrying out the analyses and his senior technician who did most of the actual sampling. Dr. Max Level brought his own executive officer who was the mechanical engineer in charge of dismantling the warheads selected for periodic testing and evaluation and the chemical engineer who oversaw the sample collection. Nagib emphasized that his team would not interfere with the dismantling procedure but would only be present as observers of this stage, and they would then guide Max's people to perform the sample collection to ensure that representative samples were collected from all the components of the dismantled warhead. Max did not like being supervised by people who knew nothing about the dismantling and sampling of the unique components, and he avidly rejected the notion of having his team's work criticized or even observed by academic laboratory types who knew nothing of the real world of nuclear weapons. He expressly told Nagib that receiving samples and analyzing them in the laboratory was miles removed from physically handling and disassembling the delicate, highly radioactive components. Nagib said that he was well aware of that and his people would not touch anything or intervene with work and, as he stated before, would only ascertain that the samples collected were truly representative of each component. Max had to accept this as decreed by the Deputy Director, but then raised the point that Nagib had been concerned about and feared – allowing only people with high level security clearance to participate. Nagib played it cool by saying that he would make sure that his staff got the appropriate clearance, worrying that he may fail to get approved which would undermine the whole exercise from his point of view.  

February 21
st
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

It took three weeks but two of Nagib's laboratory staff received the required security clearance and participated in the dismantling and sampling of operational nuclear warheads. The samples they brought were no different than those that had been received by the analytical laboratory in the past. So Nagib was concerned that the whole matter would lead to nothing and it would be hard for him to explain to the Deputy Director what the fuss was all about. He decided that he personally had to get involved and that necessitated upgrading his own security level. He asked Alia, who worked in the Lab's security office, if this could be expedited and she told him she would speak to her boss who was the Head of the Security Office, Colonel (Ret.) Dick Groovey. Her boss agreed to set up a meeting with Nagib and see what could be done.

Nagib entered the Security Office and was greeted with warm smiles from Alia's colleagues and then ushered into the conference room where the Col. Groovey was seated. The Colonel picked up a thick file that was placed in front of him and looked at Nagib with a stern face. He asked Nagib to repeat his life's story and Nagib did so briefly going over his early years in Palestine and describing at length his life in the USA, emphasizing that he felt privileged to be an American citizen and honored to be able to contribute to the security of his adopted country. The Colonel's expression did not change throughout this whole tirade and he asked Nagib if he still had contact with his relatives in the Palestinian Authority. Nagib said that he exchanged a phone call with his parents on their wedding anniversary and they called him on his birthday. He stressed that they had not attended his wedding or even met his wife. The Colonel stiffly admitted that Alia was a model worker and very dependable and reliable. He concluded the meeting by saying that he would be able to issue the requested clearance if Nagib would successfully pass a polygraph test, to which Nagib promptly agreed.

February 23
rd
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nagib sat quietly while the security investigator who was a senior member of the American Polygraph Association hooked him to the polygraph. Nagib had prepared for the test by reading about the polygraph in Wikipedia (where else?). He knew that the machine recorded his blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration rate and skin conductivity (perspiration) while required to answer some questions. He was also aware of the fact that its reliability was questionable and it was regarded by many scientists as nothing more than pseudoscience. He was asked to answer some trivial questions, honestly at first and then to deliberately lie as part of Control Question Technique, he did so without flinching. Then the more serious part of the test began. He was asked about details of his personal history which he had no problem answering truthfully without hesitation. He was then asked the real key questions:

"Are you now, or did you ever work for a foreign government?"

"No".

"Were you approached by a foreign intelligence service?"

"No".

"Are you now or were you ever a member of a terrorist organization?"

"No".

"Are you now or were you ever a member of the communist party or a sympathizer?"

"No".

"Are you now or were you ever connected to an extreme racist or Nazi movement?"

"No".

"Did you obtain your student visa or your US citizenship under false pretenses?"

"No."

This series of questions was repeated twice more. Nagib's reply to all these questions was negative and the investigator appeared to be pleased with the answers and thanked Nagib for his cooperation and released him from the machine. Nagib laughed to himself quietly – he was not an agent of a foreign government, was not contacted by intelligence services, was not a member of any organization (terrorist, communist or racist) and did not lie in his visa application. He was never asked if he plotted to harm the US or its allies, if he planned to betray the confidence of the Lab or steal any secret information from it and use it.   

March 3
rd
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

At last Nagib received the clearance to attend the dismantling of the nuclear warhead that was selected for a thorough analysis of its state of fitness, or degradation, as part of the stockpile stewardship project. All he saw were a lot of small components that were carefully dissembled from a strange looking device. He was impressed by the skill and confident way that Dr. Max Level's people handled these parts. No one bothered to explain to him what each component was and what function it performed and he did not want to raise suspicion by being overly inquisitive. After observing the procedure for a couple of hours he could not come up with astute remarks or useful suggestions, so he returned to the analytical laboratory and supervised the analysis of the samples that were collected. He already knew the isotopic composition of enriched uranium and plutonium that were in the core, or pit, of each warhead type, as did anyone who could surf the net and read Wikipedia, so did not learn anything new from the analyses that were performed in his laboratory. He also read some things about the construction of atomic weapons - once again things that were common knowledge in the public domain. So far, he had not gained a single fact that could be used for bartering and he was deeply disappointed.

In the evening he returned home and told Alia about his frustration with the failure of their idea. He knew he would have to return to the Deputy Director and admit that Dr. Max Level knew his job, so he wondered if he could use this to befriend Dr. Level and get some useful information from him. Alia encouraged him to continue with the efforts to obtain classified information that could be used for bartering.

The next day, Nagib submitted his report to the Deputy Director of the Lab, with a copy to Dr. Max Level. He was summoned to a meeting in which he praised Dr. Level's professional approach and said that there was no need for personnel from the analytical laboratory to be present during the dismantling process for sample collection. Max was pleased with the report and even the Deputy Director smiled and said that it took an honest man to admit that he had been wrong. After they left the office Max thanked Nagib for his frank report and said that they should meet for coffee or for a drink some time and asked him if he and his wife were free on Friday afternoon.

The two couples met in the Pyramid Café that had become Alia's favorite place after the first date with Nagib. When Max introduced his wife as Minnie, Alia and Nagib could barely suppress their laughter because both of them remembered the other line on the kettle that said Min Level. Minnie, who had a degree in mechanical engineering, was also employed at the Lab so the four of them had a lively conversation about life in Los Alamos and work in the Lab. The two couples hit it off despite the age gap between Alia and Nagib who were in their early thirties and the Levels who were in their early fifties. The Levels had a daughter who was attending college in Denver and came home only for Christmas and in the summer.  While the women were engaged in their own conversation Max asked Nagib if their two departments could increase their professional cooperation and hold regular meetings and seminars on issues of mutual interest. Needless to say that Nagib was overjoyed with this suggestion but managed to appear as if he was considering the idea and asked if this wouldn't raise security issues. Max said that he would work through channels and try to obtain the Deputy Director's approval and permission from the security office. The two couples departed agreeing to meet again soon. 

March 23
rd
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

The first meeting of Nagib's analytical laboratory people with Max's operations division personnel was held in a small conference room, and kicked off on a positive note.  After a short round of introductions, each section leader presented the responsibilities and capabilities of his group. It appeared as if some of the problems that arose in the operations division, like evident corrosion and degradation of components could be addressed by the use of analytical tools to study the extent of the problems and the rate of the processes. Max said that viewing the blueprints and pointing out the areas in which the degradation was most prominent would be helpful and Nagib gladly approved. So they agreed to meet on a bi-weekly basis and devise an action plan, pending proper approval from management and permission from the security division, of course. Max said that he would be responsible for carrying out the bureaucratic procedures to gain the necessary clearances.