by Dana Arama
“Right away,” she said and turned to her station. Linda had paved her way out of the poverty-stricken neighborhood she’d grown up in, using a program for gifted adolescents. She was barely an adult, and yet was the most efficient person I knew. She had a bright future ahead of her. I’d been impressed with her from the first time we were introduced.
I walked into the next room and checked on their findings. In this room, the economists sat next to the computers, which regurgitated large amounts of paper lined with information on the finances of the extended Graham family. On a large white board was a summary of all the papers, and it didn’t look good. London, New York, Stockholm, Paris and Dubai were listed, along with Mosul and Teheran.
Who are you Yassin Graham?
“If I had more manpower, I could’ve done things much quicker.” Melissa’s black, almond-shaped eyes glittered with excitement. “You have no idea how much property this family has and how many holding companies they have as well.”
“I actually do have a clue. You must try to focus on anything that concerns their marine property. Which company is connected with marine transportation? Which of the companies may have needed to buy a ship like that?
“That is not an answer I can give at a drop of the hat.” She took off her glasses and pointed with them at the map on the computer screen and then over to the bigger map on the wall. “Look at this… And this is only the beginning. We have been working just under two hours.” Her eyes, usually so full of laughter, showed only concern and frustration. As if to hide that, she put her glasses back on. “There are ownerships and cross-ownerships, as well as common ownerships and companies which have been bought and merged with one another…. Think about it as the human body, with each limb dependent on the other, influenced and being influenced by.”
“But the body is not trying to hide…”
“Exactly. It is not a body; it is a global business meant to serve as a cover.” She pushed a curl that hung in her eyes back to its rightful place.
“And what would help to solve this complexity faster?”
“More manpower,” she answered quickly without hesitating.
“I will transfer more manpower for this purpose. Find me the ship. Any ship. Any connection to the ship will make my day,” I begged.
She smiled and corrected me. “Your night.”
Guy Niava,
Niava family home, November 15, 2015, 3:30 a.m.
“Guy!” The scream was heart rending. I could hear her from the bottom of the stairs. I jumped out of bed.
“What happened?” I called out to her from the top of the stairs and, without waiting for an answer, I leapt down the stairs. The police officer still on duty stood by the door, his right hand waiting to pull out his gun. A look of total bewilderment was in his eyes.
“He’s gone to him…” my sister in law, Michelle, cried uncontrollably. She held her cell phone in her hand. “He didn’t go to the university; he went to him.”
“Let me see what he wrote,” I asked, and she dropped the device into my hand as if it burned her hand.
“Bring them back to me, Guy,” she sobbed quietly. “Bring them home.”
The text message was short and to the point: “I received an email from Jonathan. If I don’t go to the place they specified, they will kill him. I am sorry, Michelle, I have to go and help him.”
“Did he leave his laptop here?” I asked, already on my way to his study.
“I think so,” she whimpered from behind me.
“We have to disconnect the laptop and take it to a lab to be checked out.” I went over to the table and unplugged his computer. “I am sure he did it on purpose. The lab could do something with the origin of the email.”
“What can they do?”
“They can find the IP address. The authorities, together with the internet supplier could get the name of the customer and his location…” I gave her an encouraging smile and added, “Even if the message is from Jonathan’s computer, he was physically at that specific landmark. We will search for that mark.”
I went upstairs to my room, taking the stairs three at a time, grabbed my phone, and made my first call. “Laura, I have some bad news.” Immediately afterwards, I dialed an emergency Israeli number. My boss answered immediately, and I notified him of the situation. “There is a possibility that it is all a cover to reach my brother. He is on his way to the kidnappers.”
“You must stop him. I don’t know what his exact job is, but it is something significant and you must stop him!”
“I’m getting on my motorbike now.”
“Keep me updated. I will try to find out with the satellite experts what the danger is, and I will notify you.”
While I spoke with him, I dressed in my war clothes; my motorbike clothes, which were suited to the harsh weather outside. Soon I was on my bike, speeding towards the university. As I reached the main road, I got a message saying that someone from Laura’s team had picked up the laptop.
Murat Lenika,
The middle of the ocean, en route to an unknown destination, November 15, 2015, 3:30 a.m.
“From this moment onwards, we are disconnecting any internet communications. This applies to each and every one of us and includes disconnecting the AIS which is used by all the sea vessels. We are increasing engine power to reach the shore in time. These are our technical next steps. But before we reach the shore, we have steps for the soul. A prayer to Allah, who gave us this chance to punish all those numerous infidels, the brain to do it with wisdom, and the courage to be shahids, to enhance Allah’s name and that of Muhamed, his messenger.”
Yassin lifted a piece of paper and continued, “I want to read to you the last words of Samich El-Qassam, from the ‘The Quran Of The Death and the Jasmine’:
‘Don’t wait any more, don’t wait!
Take off your nightgowns
And write to yourselves
The letters you wish…’
He raised his eyes and looked into those of his men, who stared back at him. I hoped he didn’t see my feeling of helplessness in my eyes. He said, “We are pacing in the path of great shahids. We will not disgrace their memory! Each and every one of you will leave his devastating mark on the western world. Your names will be mentioned in every silent prayer of each Muslim girl and boy, because your actions will glorify Allah and Muhamed his messenger.”
The ship’s engines made a low rumble, like a giant waking up from a deep slumber. It grew into a continuous, straining growl, as if the giant was angry, and it seemed the engines would explode any minute. We progressed rapidly, toward some destination I had no knowledge of, beyond the fact that I had no interest in arriving.
“We need to take advantage of these hours to pray to Allah, so he can guide us to do the right thing in the war against the infidels.” A general hum of consent was heard in the group of men standing before Yassin.
“We need to ask him to strengthen our hearts.” He laid a fist on his heart. “And blind the eyes of our enemies from seeing us getting closer. May they only open them just to see the fire spread upon them.” His body language emphasized his words and the men surrounding him were clearly entranced. Only I pondered what could I do to stop the madness. Yassin turned his back on his men and got down on his knees, his face turned towards Mecca, thousands of miles away from where we were. We all copied him and started to pray.
I had no idea if there was a specific prayer to be said for such a situation, but I had my own: “Dear God in the heavens... Or Allah, if you are listening to me or if you exist at all, stop this procedure. Blow up the engines in this ship, give him a heart attack now, so they should stop this ship and put him in jail. Something…” All the men finished their prayers and I rose along with them. They all dispersed, and I was left alone with Yassin. This was the time to try and persuade him otherwise.
“Ar
e you planning on attacking the consuls and the planes at the same time, with ten skilled men?” I knew he was planning a series of attacks with his shahids, but a shahid can only attack one target. This frightened me even more. If these were all his men, then I was also counted in the group chosen for the mission. I had plans for a longer life, a life filled with enjoyment, women to pleasure, drugs to try, liquor to drink. I didn’t want to be a sentient bomb, to hold an explosive and blow up an airplane.
“Do you really think you can plan an attack with just ten people?” Yassin pointed an accusing finger at me and announced in a disappointed tone, “Only your sniper rifles… The only thing I trusted you with, and you have disappointed me.”
“The rifles are here.” I was happy to give him this news. “They’re here and I can organize for you to have them immediately.”
“Tell your men to have them delivered at an address that I give y--”
“I can’t endanger my men,” I cut him off before he could voice his wish to recruit my friends.
“You can’t do what?” he asked, in the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. “Did I hear correctly?”
“What I meant was, that I can’t endanger this mission, because my men will find out about it.” I quickly revised what I’d said. “Who can be sure they won’t tell someone?”
“So, we will recruit them. We will send them to suitable places, and they can wait there with the weapons. We will also gain secret transportation and that way we can divide and rule.”
“Near the airport?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Aren’t you planning on shooting down the planes from afar, with these sniper rifles?”
He burst out laughing. “No. Of course not.”
“So what are you planning to do with these rifles?”
“To start the symphony.” He lifted both hands, as if he were shooting someone while advancing and then looked at me and said, “Don’t bother your little head with the details.”
“I still don’t understand why you would need such sophisticated rifles.”
“You’ll see why,” he answered mysteriously.
“So how are you planning on downing the planes?”
“Planting bombs in them, of course.”
“It is impossible to plant a bomb in EL AL planes. The Israelis have the most efficient airline security.”
“It is impossible if you are planning something spontaneous and stupid, but I have been working on my plan for months.”
“And…?”
“It is a fact that planes need to be cleaned.”
“Of course. There are very few companies who are allowed to clean planes. I don’t know how many are certified to clean the Israeli planes.”
“Exactly two companies.” He smiled. “Do you know what they have in common?”
“I have no idea,” I answered honestly.
“Starting eight months ago, both of them belong to me.”
“Which gives you access to them.” I assumed that the look on my face must have shown my admiration of his strategic prowess, because he patted my shoulder and smiled.
“You see? That is how you find out what the enemy does in emergency situations and prepare ahead of time.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Israelis make sure they don’t stop their flights when there is a potential threat, because they assume that there is always a potential threat. So, what do they do when they’re onto something?
“Work according to the emergency regulations?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he replied with a winning smile. “And with whom do they share these emergency regulations? I mean these small changes?”
“With their security men?”
“And also, to those who provide their services, for example, if they move their plane from their regular parking bay, the cleaning staff have to know about it.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
“The more the plane is secluded from its regular framework, the more it needs my services.”
“What do you mean?”
“For example, if the plane is not connected to the docking gate at the airport, they will need a ramp to take the passengers off the plane, yes?”
“They will,” I answered in agreement and added, “So are you focusing on the Israeli planes?”
He looked at me and smiled. “The nice part of my plan,” he said, “is that the Israeli planes won’t be touched.”
“I don’t understand anything.” He had managed to confuse even me. “I thought you were aiming at Israeli targets.”
“Imagine if all the airlines flying on their way to Israel were hit today.” He poured himself a cup of hot, sweet tea and added, “Imagine that only the companies who have flight connections with Israel were hit and yet the Israeli company, EL AL is without any damage?
“It will isolate that country.”
“It will isolate it. They will be under suspicion.”
“It will make the world understand that no one can touch the EL AL planes. That their security is above all.”
He turned to me sharply and announced, “And then we will hit the EL AL planes!”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“According to the plan, we have already planted all the explosives and by next week, we will finish all of our preparations. We will publish our threat. They will double and triple check all the new equipment coming into the area, but we will be using the equipment we have already planted there weeks before that and only awaiting my instructions. On Thanksgiving, in about ten days’ time, instead of celebrating, the United States will be in mourning.”
“That’s a brilliant plan,” I admitted and hoped he didn’t see my disappointment. If he had planned this as carefully as he claimed, I had no chance of surviving.
“The fact that I keep up the image of the ‘playboy’ doesn’t mean that I am not involved in the family business, or that I don’t have foresight of my own and a plan to fulfill my goals.” He smiled the same smile he used to captivate everyone around him. “That is my plan and I have been working on it for a while. For a very long time.”
“And you are prepared to risk everything for this absurd idea of yours to ruin their satellite?”
“I am not sure I can touch their satellite at all, but if I have the chance of getting a new bargaining chip in the shape of an Israeli highly qualified scientist, instead of a boy who is replaceable…well, there is no one happier than me.”
“What do you mean ‘chip?”
“If an Israeli scientist dealing in satellites is kidnapped, what will their first assumption be? That there is about to be an attack on something to do with his work, right?”
“That is definitely an option. So, you expect that the forces will be redirected in that direction?”
“If the forces are directed there, or just the suggestion of such, their network will start sizzling. I love collecting data from overflowing networks. Just as I love to confuse the enemy”
Laura Ashton,
Operations room, November 15, 2015, 3:45 a.m.
When I was part of the American fencing team, before a big competition I would go off by myself for a moment of solitude. I would close my eyes, and, as usual, he would come into my thoughts. In the beginning I imagined stopping him from entering my room. The force of my gaze, the force of my hand, overpowered him. In my imagination, I never had to ask him to stop. I never begged. Never cried. The thought of me being capable of stopping him would fill me with adrenaline and internal strength. Afterwards, I would take a deep breath and let the air out slowly, controlled, as if to cleanse myself of all the toxic, disturbing thoughts, of all the out of place feelings.
I felt the need to do it now that I’d received the okay from the helicopter, now that the car we had been looking for had
been sighted. I asked to be excused from the people awaiting my instructions and went into the bathroom. I stood alone in front of the mirror, but I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes. I stood there, and, like I’d done the first time, I saw the new Laura, the woman who was as strong as my harassing uncle. Strong enough to want to live and to get revenge. But was I also strong enough to lead all these people who were waiting for me in the operations room? Was I strong enough to make the right decisions, even under all the pressure that was being exerted upon me?
Both the circumstances and the pressure from the Israeli side obligated us to discern how we could stop the professor from falling into the wrong hands. At the same time, we had to keep our promise of saving his son. Guy had suggested, and had been accepted unanimously, that he go instead of his brother. They looked alike enough that whomever compared their ID photos would think they were the same person. So, somewhere in the air a helicopter was flying through bad weather conditions not conducive for landing on the ground, and at the same time a motorcycle flew across the ground on wet roads, through strong winds. All the necessary risks had been taken to locate the car belonging to Professor Niava, to divert his route, to prevent him from being successful in his plan to deal with the kidnappers on his own and allow Guy to take his place.
I had agreed to this plan because of its simplicity. Simple plans were the prerequisite for successful plans. I’d agreed because this whole affair already had very blurred boundaries between what was allowed and what was forbidden, between good and bad. And I’d agreed because at this stage I was prepared to try anything. If this nightmare had suddenly begun to put on some fat, it only meant we could start cutting into it. Without it, we only had loose threads which lead nowhere.
I walked out of the bathroom and into the conference room, where they were waiting. Some of the smartest people I have met, all trying to think of ideas.
