Beyond the Shield

by Nachman Kataczinsky

  “Your response to the latest events – the time travel incident – confirms this. You sent emissaries to the Nazis and to your revered Hajj Amin al Husseini, Hitler’s best friend, with an offer of the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb. You deserve the same treatment as the Nazis.

  “As to elected leadership: You, Mr. Chairman, are now in the tenth year of your four year term. Do you actually represent anybody?” Amos relaxed and smiled, a bit incongruous in light of his short speech.

  Mazen sat up straight and asked, “Is any of this negotiable?”

  Amos responded, “I thought it was clear that you have choices but these are not negotiable. We are done negotiating. We’ve tried that. More than a century of talk is enough, especially since the Arabs have never negotiated in good faith.”

  Dr. Ahmed Mazen nodded. “The Hamas leader predicted this. What exactly will happen if we decide to leave?”

  “We can work out the details later. The rough picture is simple: All Arab settlements in Judea and Samaria outside the security barrier will be transported to the past. You will have a say in what time you’re sent to. All those living in the affected areas will have no choice – they will go. Arabs living in Jerusalem and all Arabs holding Israeli citizenship will have the option to join you, though I don’t imagine many will take it, even though we would compensate them for their loss of property. We will do our best to give you as a group enough supplies to survive until you can support yourselves.

  “I expect a final response from you by the end of April.”

  ***

  Gad Yaari, the Chief of General Staff, looked at the assembled generals. “We have a number of assignments and need to prepare plans.”

  The room quieted down as Yaari continued. “We need to make it easier for the Brits to bomb Germany. This means removal of the German long-range Freya radars along the Atlantic coast to enable the bombers to come in undetected. It also means seriously thinning out the Wurzburg radars that control the anti-air defenses around cities. This mission can start as soon as we’re ready.

  “In about a month, sometime in May, we will start receiving British forces at our Brindisi base. These will eventually amount to two full armies, approximately 300,000 troops. The British High Command expects to have at least two million men in Europe, but that will happen gradually over the next year. Our forces will move through Italy sometime in July or August. We don’t expect fighting in Italy and will deploy in northern Italy. As you know, we’re still working on detailed plans.

  “Any questions?”

  As expected the Commander of the Air Force had a question. “I’m assuming the first mission is mine?”

  “That depends on what we decide. For the moment let’s assume so. What do you propose?”

  “We will obviously need detailed planning, but it looks like a classic mission for the Heron 3 drone,” the Air Force commander said. “We can equip the Herons with one ton bombs with radar sensors. It means about one bomb per drone but we have enough of them to finish off 80 Freya radars in a single run. The Freya is different from the British ‘Chain Home’ in that the individual stations have a longer detection range and are more accurate. They also are more compact, and easier to destroy.”

  The Chief of Military Intelligence stirred in his seat. “The Germans have only sixty-three operational Freyas so your plan is good. You would have to launch the drones from the Brindisi base. Going from here will take too long, assuming you want to hit the Wurzburg radars the same way.”

  The assembled generals looked at the Chief of General Staff. Yaari nodded. “Seems like a plan. Let me know the details.”

  ***

  Michella followed the middle-aged woman and made sure she had a key to the door of a doctor’s office facing a quiet alley near the Roman Coliseum. It was a fairly expensive district and an appropriate location for the office of il Duce’s doctor. The plaque next to the heavy door said just: “Dottore Ambrogio Binda”. The woman was the doctor’s nurse, receptionist, and secretary. Apparently the doctor was concerned about privacy and having just one employee made sense.

  The next step was studying the woman’s routine, habits and friends, if any. Three days later Michella decided she knew enough to formulate a plan of action. The Mossad archivist told her that the nurse was a spinster and had some family, including several nieces and nephews, who lived in the Milan area. Michella didn’t see any signs of friends.

  The courtyard of the house where the nurse rented a small apartment was empty in the middle of the day. Michella was certain that she wasn’t seen as she entered the stairs leading to the third floor. The lock was simple and in a couple of minutes she was inside the apartment. It was spotlessly clean. The kitchen was well-stocked; it looked like the nurse liked to cook and did so frequently. Michella decided that she needed to make sure that the nurse would call in sick the next day and stay away from work for at least a week. The simplest way would be food poisoning, which in the absence of antibiotics could be very serious indeed. Some powdered E-coli, Salmonella and mild hallucinogen mixture judiciously applied to the bread should do the trick.

  The next morning Michella observed a neighbor’s boy run to the doctor’s office. The nurse didn’t leave the apartment. A couple of hours later Michella entered the apartment. The woman was in bed. She looked sick and was somewhat delirious. She accepted Michella as her niece, come to take care of her. When Dr. Binda arrived to check on his nurse he found her being taken care of by her niece, a qualified nurse herself.

  “You say your name is Maria? She never told me about you,” the doctor said.

  “My aunt is a very private person and we’re not that close. As it happens I came to Rome looking for a temporary job and found her very sick.”

  The doctor thought for a moment: “It looks like your aunt has food poisoning, but I’ll take some samples just to make sure.” He opened his bag. “In the meantime, please give her these every couple of hours and apply cold compresses to her forehead until the fever drops. She should be OK in a couple of days.

  “Now I need to find a replacement,” the doctor muttered as he prepared to leave.

  “Doctor, if the medication works my aunt should be out of danger by tomorrow. I could save you some trouble and help while she’s recovering. One of the neighbors can look in on her while I’m at work.”

  Doctor Binda thought for a moment. “Good. Come to the office tomorrow at eight in the morning. Just to be clear, I don’t have a permanent position. After your aunt recovers I may be able to give you a recommendation though.”

  The next day Michella knocked on the door at eight sharp. The doctor let her in. It took him close to an hour to show her all he wanted her to do, explain the routines and carefully instruct her on how to answer the phone. After that he disappeared into the inner office and didn’t emerge until one in the afternoon. At that time he locked the door to the inner office, politely said goodbye and informed her that he was going to see a patient and would not be back until the next day. He also left her a key to the outside door and told her to come at nine the next morning.

  As soon as he was gone Michella locked the outside door and picked the lock of the inner office. It took her almost an hour to find what she was looking for. During that time the telephone rang once. It was il Duce’s office and they wanted to know whether the doctor had already left. When she confirmed, the secretary on the other end of the line simply hung up.

  Michella took a number of photographs of an object at different angles, plus a number of macro close-ups. She transmitted the images to the drone that was circling Rome at forty thousand feet waiting for her signal. The drone re-transmitted the images to the Brindisi base and from there they went to the Mossad.

  Three days later a special courier arrived from Brindisi and met Michella outside her “aunt’s” apartment. He handed her a small package. By then the aunt was recovering and Michella kept feeding her small doses of a mild hallucinogen to keep her from recovering completely an
d recognizing the “niece” for the stranger she was.

  The next day, when the doctor again left at noon, this time with the promise to return by about two in the afternoon, Michella again unlocked the inner office. She found the tin with a cardboard insert of fifteen spaces, of which ten were filled with glass ampoules. She took out the ampoule to be used next and replaced it with what looked like an identical copy. It also had the Bayer company logo and the drug name: Neosalvarsan.

  Just as she was leaving the room the outer door handle began jiggling. She closed and quickly locked the door. As she approached the front door it opened.

  Doctor Ambrogio Binda stood in front of Michella. “Why do you lock the front door? Where are you during working hours? What if it was an emergency?” He was angry and somewhat agitated.

  Michella assumed a supplicant position: head down, hands clasped in front of her.

  “I am so very sorry. I had to attend to a call of nature and thought it best to lock the door. It was locked for less than five minutes. I apologize.”

  The doctor made a non-committal sound: “How’s your aunt doing?”

  “I think she’s fine,” responded Michella. “She wanted to return to work tomorrow.”

  “Good. Please tell her to do so. What you did is inexcusable. Do not return.”

  Michella sighed with relief. Her mission was over and she was sure it would be a success. From the office she went to her “aunt’s” apartment to tell her that she was expected at work the next day. Her next stop was the railway station. The trains ran somewhat better under Mussolini and she caught the seven p.m. to Naples and from there a connection to Bari. There was a slow local train from Bari to Brindisi.

  ***

  Ephraim Hirshson’s General Staff phone was ringing. It was a conference call with the Chief of General Staff and the Commander of the Logistics Branch.

  “Ephraim, we need you to be prepared to accept the British Eight Army and another force of similar size, probably the first Army, sometime in June or July. What do you need to receive them?”

  Hirshson pulled up his notes. “That would depend on what they’re bringing with them and what supplies they will continue to stream after the main force arrives. We would be able to feed the whole force for about a week.”

  The Logistics Commander responded. “That would leave you empty. We will get more food to you but be judicious with its use. It’s only for an emergency if the Brits screw up with their supply line.”

  General Hirshson had a question. “I’m assuming that everybody is aware that the Italian navy is just around the corner from us in Taranto. What if they become hostile?”

  “If they do we’ll have to deal with them, though our intelligence people assure me that this is unlikely,” the Chief of General Staff responded. “They also assure me that the situation will be resolved soon. Do you have enough space in the current confines of the base to accommodate everybody?”

  “I think we’re fine with that. Of course, the Brits will have to live mostly in field conditions – tents and so on.”

  “Okay. If you have any specific requests, contact the Logistics Branch Commander directly.”

  After the call was over Hirshson called in his deputy. “We need a final survey of the base. In another two months we have to accommodate two British armies. I want the terrain properly graded and prepared for them. The Engineers should be particularly careful about the positioning and depth of the latrines they dig.”

  Next Hirshson contacted both the armored brigades and Golani commanders. The conversation with them was short: “Gentlemen, the Brits will be arriving in a couple of months. Assuming that you want to keep up your normal training schedules please consider this. There will be only simulator training after they arrive.

  “As you know we promised the Brits access to our intelligence. A decision was made at a higher level that all the information we give them will be in the form of radio transmissions. They don’t get access to our data networks. Be sure your troops know that these are classified assets not to be revealed to the Brits.”

  ***

  The Prime Minister raised his hand. The cabinet ministers quieted down. “We have a number of items on the agenda. Number one is the management of our war against Germany. The Chief of General Staff will make a quick presentation and we’ll go from there. Gad, the floor is yours.”

  Gad Yaari turned on the projector and a map of Europe appeared on the far wall. “As you can see, the Germans have a line of Freya radars along the Atlantic coast. The idea is to detect British bombers early and be able to jump fighters up to intercept them before they can reach the large industrial centers and cities. These radars are quite advanced, much more advanced in fact than the British Chain Home system. They are more accurate in estimating both distance and direction. Since some of their night fighters also have radars, albeit only short-range, the Freya chain points the fighters close enough to make the bombers very vulnerable.

  “In a week or so we start destroying the Freya radars. There are about sixty of them. We will use drones to drop bombs directly on the antenna arrays. Since the electronics shacks are next to the antennas one-ton bombs will destroy both. Now, the Germans have some spares that they will undoubtedly install with all due speed. We will destroy them as well. This will leave a couple of mobile systems on trains or trucks. We discussed this with the Brits and they think that we should leave them alone for the time being. Their reasoning is that if we destroy all their radars they will sense that something is wrong and try developing new and better systems. The Brits don’t want that and our intelligence people agree – always leave the enemy hoping.

  “Our next operation will be to destroy some of the Wurzburg radars. These are short-range and used to direct anti-aircraft fire around large cities. We will destroy some of them and leave the rest for the RAF to deal with. Any questions up to this point?”

  The Minister for Infrastructure had one: “Why use drones? Isn’t the danger of losing one higher than losing a manned aircraft?”

  Yaari nodded. “Indeed it is higher, but there are other considerations. We normally lose small drones at a rate of one every fifteen hundred flight hours. We’ve never lost a Heron, except the prototype that crashed several years ago. If we do lose a drone the Germans will be able to learn very little from it, at least very little information useful in the short term. The electronics are solid state and the engine is a turboprop. The engine is actually the one useful item they might learn from. On the other hand a manned jet is a different proposition, starting with the pilot. I don’t think I need to go into details.

  “There is one aspect of this operation that also has to be mentioned: If we lose a craft, be it a drone or manned, the Germans will likely become aware of our participation in the war against them.”

  “What about the bombs? Won’t they be able to determine our complicity from analyzing those?”

  “Not easily. With the agreement of the Brits we are using bombs actually made by Royal Ordnance with all the appropriate markings. We only install the primary and secondary detonators and, of course, the radar detector and servo guidance system. In our test everything but one of the detonators is reduced to mush and what remains of the detonator doesn’t look unusual.”

  Amos Nir continued with the agenda: “Our next item is still the war, but from a different aspect. We have several goals. Achieving all of them will not be easy or simple. Just to remind you: we want Germany defeated and defeated in a way that will deter them, as much as possible, from starting another world war. We also want the Soviets to stop at their old international border. And we want to achieve all this without U.S. participation.”

  “Why are you so opposed to the U.S. joining the European war?”

  Amos smiled. “It’s not just me. I think that almost all present agree on this. But let me remind you that Hitler didn’t declare war on the U.S. and there is no will in the U.S. to fight a two front war. Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford are popular a
nd both argue, loudly, for either support of Nazi Germany or, at least, non-intervention in Europe.

  “But suppose that somehow the U.S. gets involved. What’s the guarantee that Roosevelt will not do what he did before and give Stalin all of Eastern Europe with Churchill reduced to futile objecting? With our presence the objections could have more weight but it will mean a confrontation with the Americans that we don’t want.

  Another point we discussed in the past was that if the U.S. joins the war in Europe it will build up both its industry and armed forces, making the country into a superpower. Do we really want that? As of now, we know that the Manhattan project has been slowed down to almost nothing and they lost some of their first-tier scientists, including Klaus Fuchs the mathematician, who were Soviet spies. This also insures that Stalin won’t get the bomb any time soon. If the States join the European war, research will get more funding from Congress and we don’t know where that will lead.

  “Now, we need to discuss how to do all the things we want to do. I think that the Head of the Mossad has some ideas.”

  “Well, it’s more of an observation and analysis,” the spymaster said carefully. “The simple observation is that Nazi Germany is a balanced structure that can be destabilized with some effort. Political and police powers are held by the Nazi party while military power is in the hands of the armed forces. In time of war this may be exploited to cause difficulties.

  “The Nazi party also has some military power in the form of the SS and their own military intelligence apparatus in the SD. The military has, theoretically, to follow the Fuehrer’s orders. But what happens if the military is suspected by the party of an attempt to grab control of the country? Remember Stalin’s purge of the military in 1937? I am quite certain that the German military, if handled properly, will not be as passive as the Soviets were.”