THRILLER: The Galilee Plot: (International Biological Terror, The Mossad, and... A Self-contended Couple) (2 page)

We studied with the same
professor – one of the greatest luminaries of human microbiology, Mick Antonio,
born in Canada, from emphatically British roots. His affection for the pair of
us was obvious for all to see, and aroused some envy. Despite this, he didn’t
invite us to dine at his house, unlike his other pupils, who were neither Jews
nor Arabs, although we were both reckoned the elite among his students, and we
not only earned praise from him, but quite often, if a student was falling
behind he would be referred to us for some extra coaching.

After Amin was awarded his
doctorate, and I voluntarily excluded myself from the ranks of doctoral
candidates, the professor talked with us in his office, separately. I was the
first to be invited. The esteemed professor launched immediately into a tirade:
“Why do you people tolerate those beasts of the desert among you, you who are
the bearers of the flag of human culture and progress, and have been so since
time immemorial? All the western nations revere those who have emerged from
your midst – Jesus Christ and Karl Marx. You come up with advice about
everything and without you, the practical use of the atom would never have come
to fruition. Finish them off! I respect your refusal to go for the degree of
Ph.D., along with that character, El-Husseini,” – he corrupted Amin’s name and continued
without embarrassment – “or Abdul el-Said, or whatever his name is, who cares,
impossible to pronounce anyway. So please do something! Liberate humanity from
these murderous monsters!”

After me, Amin Abu Halil
went in and received a lecture in the same spirit, although not identical. “Why
are you people proclaiming Jihad? Do it, don’t just proclaim it! Liberate the
world from those leeches, put an end to the ‘Elders of Zion’! Talking of honour
and culture and progress and standing helpless before a gang of leeches! Finish
them off, crush them. Bring about their definitive end, once and for all, and
earn the gratitude of all the great nations, nations of honour and culture, in
the past, present and future. Enough of speeches and demonstrations. One of
your greatest men demanded that every Arab should kill a Jew. If every
self-respecting Arab can kill two – what’s wrong with that! Do something, so
you’ll have a part in building the new world. So you’ll be its princes! You
have the oil, soak all the Jews in a sea of oil and set them alight.”

We met after the personal
meetings with the esteemed professor, and told one another what had happened
there.

“What do you think?” asked
Amin, with deep sadness reflected in his habitually gloomy eyes.

“You’re asking for my
opinion, the opinion of a Jew?” I pressed him.

“Yes. In the situation
we’re faced with, there’s no one else to ask.”

“I’ll tell you my
impressions, which are decidedly objective impressions. The esteemed professor
is inciting us against one another. He wants to get rid of us both, at a
stroke, and he’s leaving the job to us.”

“What’s to be done?”

“An unnecessary question.
You know as well as I do what has to be done.”

“All the same,” he asked
again, “what’s to be done?”

“What logic requires.”

“What does logic require?”
Amin persisted.

“Not to obey it. And the
rest follows.”

“To do the opposite!” Amin
declared.

“Explicitly!” I stressed.

Several months passed. The
two of us continued to hang around the university, with its lofty marble halls,
pleasantly cool in the summer, comfortably warm in the winter, its massive
libraries, its sophisticated laboratories, friendly locals. Amin’s bursary did
not end – on the contrary, for reasons best known to the sponsors, it was
doubled.

My own, personal
resources, I usually managed to avoid wasting in their entirety.

We did a lot of revelling,
the kind of revelry appropriate to our age. We didn’t come across any craze
that we didn’t dabble in. We found girlfriends of dubious character. Those that
Amin chose were more glamorous, laden with strident jewellery. The ones who
came out with me had no glamour about them at all, and it seemed they weren’t
even interested in such things. I drank. Amin refused to be my partner in sin.

His religion apparently
prohibits this – so he told me.

“And what about drugs?” I
asked a pertinent question.

“We’re not talking about
them.”

“Well?” I pressed him.

“Everyone can do as he
pleases.” He was addicted to drugs but remarkably, at the end of the day, he
managed to kick the habit. My drinking stopped before I got hooked.

And then came the day when
he appeared in my room, waving a newspaper at me. A conventional paper, not a
scientific journal, or something of a more serious kind.

He pointed with his long
bony fingers, which reflected his thin, upright body, rising to a height of
1.88 metres.

I read, and I was stunned.

The paper quoted from
research conducted in Canada by some expert in D.N.A., who had succeeded in
proving that Jews have a special, and unmistakable, form of D.N.A. This
scientist had travelled to India and to Africa and on the basis of reliable
tests had proved that among both Indians and Africans there are large numbers
of Jews who have no inkling of their Jewish identity.

“Yes,” I said, “I know
Hitler used to claim that Jews have the blood of Negroes.”

“Then I expect you know
there was Jewish blood flowing in Hitler’s veins too,” Amin commented with
undisguised pleasure.

“I’ve heard that one as
well,” I declared, hinting that I had neither the interest nor inclination to
go wallowing in the putrid mire of a conversation on this subject or anything
like it.  

Amin took the hint, but he
didn’t change the subject and didn’t leave my room.

“There’s something else
here,” he added emphatically, as if to inform me that the “something else” was
of the greatest importance, and he had not the shadow of a doubt that it would
arouse my interest. Perhaps he was right. I listened to his theory.

“If Jews have different
D.N.A., it should be possible to cultivate a micro-organism that will adapt and
become dependent on the D.N.A. of Jews only. And if this micro-organism is
malignant, it will attack and kill Jews. Only Jews. If the Germans had been a
bit smarter, they wouldn’t have needed all those cumbersome camps of theirs…”

“That really is a
diabolical idea!” I couldn’t resist responding.

He was silent.

“And you’re going to try
this?”

“Perhaps this is my
mission on the earth!” he declared.

“A diabolical mission!” I
exclaimed.

“That’s a kind of mission
too,” he replied, sticking to his guns and making no attempt at compromise. And
without hesitation he began setting out his plan before me.

It was based on the
adaptation of
Rickettsia rickettsii
, the micro-organism that causes
Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which has the same rate of lethality, i.e. 90%,
as P. Pestis itself, the bacterium which apparently caused serious plagues in
the Middle Ages and succeeding years and exterminated a third of the world’s population
at that time, except that the micro-organism in those days did not adapt and
did not acquire a dependence on particular D.N.A.

“This time it will be
different,” Amin assured me as if donning the cloak of a comforter.

“It’s going to cost you a
fortune, doing that.”

“My benefactors are
prepared to invest however much is needed.”

“Some benefactors!” I
tried to inject a note of sarcasm into my reply, but I doubt I even managed
mild scorn.

It occurred to me that if I
were to go into the kitchen, choose a sharp and long-bladed knife and plunge it
into Amin’s heart, I might perhaps prevent disaster befalling the people among
whom, by the will of fate, I was numbered. A patriot? I didn’t see myself as a
patriot. And however strange it may sound – I felt concerned for this idiot,
Amin Abu Halil, who would be remembered as an eternal disgrace both among his
own people and his “benefactors”.

“You’re taking on yourself
something that will bring grief to you, to the whole of humanity and most
important of all, bring grief to your own people, that you’re so proud of,” I
said everything that was in my heart and felt relief as the idea of the long
and sharp-bladed knife from the kitchen passed out of my consciousness.

And perhaps, I’m not flesh
and blood and spirit and heart, animated by honour and a sense of
responsibility, but just a little coward.

Amin Abu Halil rose from
his seat, held out his bony hand to me, something he didn’t do often, if at
all. I shook the outstretched hand and he surprised me yet again, saying in
pure Hebrew: “Shalom!”

I echoed him: “Shalom!”

He added in English: “I’m
leaving now. It’s been nice knowing you.”

“For me too,” I answered
him.

And that was how we
parted.

The report in the paper was
as follows:

The new, integrated
village of Hasda caused a worldwide sensation in its time, and perhaps also
encouraged dreams of peace and an end to violence and hatred between Jews and
Arabs. It was established, unlike anything that had gone before, on an Arab
initiative, with Saudi support, both overt and covert, as an experiment in
shared living between Jews and Arabs. Ten young families, most of them
offspring of the Peace Now movement, on the extreme Left of Israeli politics,
came to live there. Each family was given a house and a large patch of land,
which they were obliged to cultivate and cherish, among the similar houses and
gardens of the Arabs. At first nothing special was heard about the practical
development of the place, and there was a general feeling that “no news is good
news”.

A few years before the
foundation of the village of Hasda, a settlement known as Neve Shalom or
“Groves of Peace” had been set up by Father Bruno, a Catholic monk, with
financial support from American and other Jews, on land owned by the Trappist
monastery of Latrun. The monk wanted to unite the three monotheistic religions.
He worked day and night, travelled to countries all over the world, preached
sermons, delivered impassioned speeches, clarified specific points, showed maps
and plans for the construction of a multi-faith university, which would unite
once and for all, from a religious and spiritual perspective, believers in the
three monotheistic religions.

On a bare hillside
buildings were erected and allocated to Jews, Arabs and Maronite Christians.
The whole enterprise soon collapsed, and services in the mosque, the synagogue
and the church no longer took place, and were not attended by visitors from all
over the world, as Father Bruno had hoped and believed.

“Groves of Peace” died the
kiss of death. No one mourned it. The zealous Father Bruno, a convert from
Judaism of French origin, died along with the great project to which he had
dedicated the rest of his life. If I’m not mistaken, he is buried on the crest
of the hill. His rotting bones are all that remain of the brave dream.

At eight in the morning,
Swiss time, there was a call from reception. My wife took the call, heard
whatever she heard, turned to me and announced: “Someone called Shmulik Landau
from Israel wants to talk to you. The subject, he says, is urgent and pressing,
from any angle.”

I picked up the receiver.

“Who is this?”

“Shmulik. Shmulik Landau.
The sergeant-major on the manoeuvres in Ze’elim, about ten years ago. You still
don’t remember?”

“I remember!” I answered
him.

“We need you, urgently.
I’m sure you’ve read the paper.”

“I’ve read it,” I
confirmed.

“When are we going to see
you here?”

“In about a month. To be
more precise, twenty-eight days.”

“I don’t think you’ve
understood what I’m saying,” he responded, adding, “We need you urgently!”

“Who’s this ‘we’?”

“Your homeland…
Incidentally, that song you composed,
King’s Bride
, is something unique,
it isn’t so much a song as a hymn.”

“A hymn to the brotherhood
of the new Israel!” I filled it in for him.

“As for the singer, your
wife has excelled herself with the new song: she’s proved that it’s still
possible to reach astonishing heights. If you’re sincere in your creations and
steadfast in what you’re conveying to your readers and listeners, you must
leave Switzerland at once and stand alongside us…”

“Who exactly is this
‘us’?” I pressed him further.

“Don’t play the innocent,”
he replied, “you know what I’m involved with.”

“I know,” I answered him.
I sensed my voice dropping, and he noticed this. I had no desire to make him
plead.

“So what’s stopping you
coming and playing your part, however modest it may be, in solving the big
problem that has been created… I’m sure you remember what you told us back
then… during the manoeuvres…”

I remembered, but I saw no
reason to bring up the subject again and think it through…

“I have obligations,” I
retorted.

“To whom?” my interlocutor
wasn’t giving up that easily. A metallic voice, of someone used to giving commands
and not getting evasive answers.

“My wife,” I replied,
firmly.

“Your wife will be left by
herself for just two days. You’ll come here and go back. At the expense of the
homeland and for its sake. Explain it to her. I haven’t a shadow of a doubt
she’ll understand, and realise straightaway that you’re trying to evade your
responsibilities and in fact you’re turning into a defeatist, a typical
Diaspora Jew…” He tried insults as a way of undermining my stance but it wasn’t
working. I was too experienced to fall for that.

“It’s out of the
question,” I declared, knowing how much this would annoy him.

“Is that your last word?”
In the question there was a warning, a threat, pressure, and a demonstration of
total lack of consideration, which was perfectly understandable and, no more
and no less – justified. This made me angry.

“That is my last word.”

“If that’s the case,”
Shmulik declared, “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

“You don’t know where I
am.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not revealing my whereabouts,
on principle,” I replied.

“A fine principle,” he
told me approvingly. “You stick to it. But I’ll find you. Don’t be ridiculous.
How do you think I got to you, and I’m speaking to you now? Sleep well tonight
and I’ll be seeing you.” End of conversation.

My wife was burning with a
curiosity that was not to be doused until she heard all she wanted to hear,
demanded to hear in fact, a silent, stern demand that could not be resisted,
willingly or unwillingly, consciously or otherwise.

About ten years ago, I
began telling the story, I took part in manoeuvres, as director of a laboratory
in a field hospital. We set up the hospital in the desert of Ze’elim. And when
I say ‘we set it up’ you have to understand it literally. The whole team was
involved, everyone from the hospital director, a world-famous expert in brain
surgery, through all the medical staff, doctors, nurses, orderlies, the duty
chemist and your husband too, down to the last of the stretcher carriers. We
erected huge tents, crammed in beds, which were nothing more than stretchers on
trestles. I had to set up the laboratory tent myself, with minimal assistance.
I took delivery of a heavy chest, made of wood and containing all the equipment
and materials needed for the lab. Then we were told that the sergeant-major in
charge of the hospital was intent on doing everything to ensure the success of
the exercise, meaning, he would allow no officer, medical or otherwise, to
sleep on the stretchers; they were expected to sleep on the solid ground of the
desert, with no mattresses or anything resembling mattresses. It was clearly
explained that the hospital sergeant-major was a young man, of very rigid
personality and with experience of imposing order and discipline, who had
proved himself in difficult situations, baulked at nothing and without a shadow
of doubt, was liable to pounce on the most minor of infractions. Rumour had it,
it wasn’t worth tangling with this sergeant-major from any point of view.

This was not to my liking
at all. Night came down. The signal was given. And all the personnel of the
field hospital were required to bed down on the rocky ground of the Ze’elim
desert. I sat in the lab tent, for which I was responsible. I lay down on the
box of equipment and materials, and waited for the sergeant-major to arrive.
Time crawled at the speed of a snail crossing dry ground. I stood up and went
wandering around among the other tents, peered into the biggest tent where the
doctors, in spite of the stern warnings, were lying down in the places reserved
for theoretical patients. And then I saw a tall, erect young man, with an
athletic build and an air of unassailable self-confidence, coming in by the
other entrance to the tent. He approached the doctor closest to that entrance,
leaned over him, asked his name and with the utmost civility, commanded him to
get down immediately and lie on the ground… The doctor tried to say something,
the charismatic young man simply repeated the word “immediately!” with dryness
sharp as a scalpel and the doctor obeyed. So he went from doctor to doctor and
soon had them all down on the ground.

I left the tent and the
degrading treatment of those officer-doctors, humiliated before my eyes by that
impertinent, ignorant young man, who had no sense of decorum whatsoever.

He came to the lab tent
and found the acting director lying prone on the box of equipment and
materials, which was locked and bolted.

“Get down from that box at
once!” – his metallic voice cut through the stuffy air in that small tent.

“Who are you, Sir?” I
asked him innocently.

“Sergeant-Major Shmuel
Landau.”

“Pleased to meet you!” I
responded, told him my name and added, “Director of the laboratory.”

“Please doctor,” the
energetic young man promoted me in the interests of achieving his objective,
“tomorrow you can hand over the equipment, and the day after you can go home,”
– encouraging, logical statements, saying clearly, don’t start getting awkward
with me in the last few days of your reserve service, you’re a sensible man!
Please be so kind as to get down off the box and lie on the ground like all
your colleagues!

“With pleasure, esteemed
Sergeant-Major, Shmuel Landau, on one explicit condition – you sign the
transfer chit for me here and now, and take full responsibility for the
contents of this box, which include precious and delicate items such as
microscopes, as well as substances which junkies would be only too glad to get
their hands on and consume. I’m sure you’re aware that among the stretcher
bearers there are at least five known drug addicts, currently in rehab. Are you
prepared to sign for all this?”

A broad, bright,
surprising smile spread over the intense, intelligent face and loosened the
habitually tight lips, and Sergeant-Major Shmuel left the lab tent. So I slept
on the box that night and the nights that followed. My back was not scratched
by the sharp stones of the desert. In the morning, Shmuel visited me again, and
went on visiting. From the 96% proof alcohol that was freely available, and
fresh lemon juice, I mixed a superior cocktail; the hospital personnel,
especially the doctors and some of the admin officers, used to come and plead
for a glass. So we began gathering, without any prior intention, in the tent assigned
to me. And everyone would talk of his experiences to those seated around, while
sipping the potent, natural liquor, which guaranteed, after the third glass,
the absolute separation from his surroundings that everyone longed for. On one
such occasion I mentioned my friendship with Amin Abu Halil and his ingenious
idea, a way of putting an end to the Jewish race by means of pure microbiology,
an elegant and economical process. The listeners, Shmulik among them, were
stunned, and two litres of booze disappeared among them without anyone
noticing. It seemed Sergeant-Major Shmulik remembered that strange story he
heard from me some years before, when he read, as I did, the newspaper story,
and tied up the loose ends.

Incidentally, a persistent
rumour held that Shmulik had been transferred to counter-intelligence services,
and everyone who heard this and knew anything of him, had not the slightest
doubt that in view of his determination, acute intellect and other similar
qualities – this was the right place for him.

The next day, early in the
morning, there was a call from hotel reception: a man called Shmulik Landau was
demanding to see me urgently, and I knew how justified this demand was. He was
waiting for me in the hotel lobby and wasn’t going to budge from there until I
had been kind enough to go down and see him.

My reply was positive. I
dressed, washed my face and hurried down to reception, where a surprise awaited
me. In one of the armchairs, with its friendly beige upholstery, sat a man who
could definitely be described as handsome, in a grey tailored suit. He rose to
meet me, looking every inch the English gentleman.

“Your weekend leave has
been cancelled!” he declared in his limpid, typically sharp voice, and saw fit
to explain: “You haven’t shaved!”

“Sergeant-Major Landau!” I
responded in the same tone. “You said you wanted to see me urgently.”

“There’s always time to
shave. Consider yourself confined to barracks, as of this moment.”

I invited him into the
hotel restaurant. He asked for coffee. I ordered decaffeinated for myself.

“High blood pressure?”
asked Shmulik.

“Just the way I prefer
it,” I answered him.

“You’ve read the papers?”

I nodded.

“I’m sure you can shed
some light on the case. And you can tell us about the guy who came up with the
idea, Amin Abu Halil – your friend from way back.”

I nodded again.

“First things first, and
last things last,” I began and detected a hint of tension in the muscles of the
long face, a face radiating knowledge and confidence and so it seemed, under
strict control, and this reassured me. “As for the disease itself, I can tell
you exactly what’s involved.”

From some hidden pocket he
drew out a thick notebook with a tiny ballpoint pen attached to the side. He
opened the notebook, and sat pen in hand, ready to record:  “It’s a
disease popularly known in English as Rocky Mountain spotted fever.” He made a
careful note of this and I added frankly: “I’m sorry to say, there is no cure
for it. The mortality rate is very high – 90%,” I told him, and he wrote this down
too. “It’s important to keep up the strength of patients affected by it –
vitamins, fluids, strict personal hygiene. The cause:
Rickettsia rickettsii
,
a bacterium transmitted by the ticks that infest animals. Doctors will no doubt
be rushing to consult their textbooks, and with a bit of luck, it may be some
antidote has been developed, since the time when the disease was revealed and
correctly diagnosed.”

He wrote it all down.

“As for Amin Abu Halil, we
were friends, close friends, you could say. He has an obsessive idea, he wants
to finish off the job that Hitler started and if he’s been successful – as the
reports in the media suggest – there’s hardly anything that can be done to stop
him.”

“We want you to talk to
him, probe, find out how far things have gone. We’ve tracked him down, and he’s
living in Berlin, Humboldt Strasse, number 19. He’s married to a German woman,
Hilda, granddaughter of a Nazi general, who committed suicide along with Hitler
when the Reich collapsed. We’re sending you there at our expense, flying
business class, five star hotel…”

“I’ll do it with
pleasure,” I answered him, “as soon as my holiday is over, in about three weeks
from now… as I told you. I shall shoulder my responsibilities.”

“Is your wife upstairs?” –
he arched a thick eyebrow towards the ceiling.

I nodded.