The doorbell rang. Mohammad heard his young third wife open the door. After a polite knock at the living room door several men filed in. They sat on the sofa and ottomans. Mohammad gestured to the woman, who, though young and inexperienced, was eager to please and was doing a good job as a servant. She bowed and disappeared into the back of the house.
The men waited quietly until she brought coffee and sweetmeats and placed them on the low table in the middle of the room. After another look at her husband she left, closing the door behind her.
Mohammad al Husseini studied the faces of his underlings. They had known each other for a long time and trusted each other implicitly. This was a group that had sent numerous suicide bombers, initiated shooting attacks, survived years of fighting against Israel and other Palestinian factions, and was still here to plan more. They looked worried, which was no surprise. The Israeli radio had strange news on Friday. No one in the group had heard the news firsthand as they spent most of the day praying in their local mosque, but they heard reports and even today, a day later, the TV kept repeating the amazing story. But at the moment the most worrisome part, as far as Mohammad was concerned, was the announcement that emergency laws were in force. Those were based on the old British laws from 1945-1948 and were harsh and unforgiving – He knew this both from the history courses he took in college and from real life. Habeas Corpus was suspended, so that a suspect was not required to be brought before a judge after arrest and could be held by the security forces indefinitely. Acting against the state became, at least in theory, even more dangerous than usual. As a lawyer, Mohammad al Husseini did not like these laws one bit.
“Allahu Akbar,” said Mohammad. Whatever else had changed, God must still be praised.
“Allahu Akbar,” the men answered as one.
“I see that you are worried.” Mohammad said, smoothing his full beard. “I can’t blame you. We lost radio and cell phone contact with our brothers in Gaza. It seems that we also cannot reach our Syrian leadership. I expect an imminent assault by the Jews who will, no doubt, use this situation to their advantage. It is possible that they somehow messed up our communications on purpose and will try to get us. But this is neither here nor there.
“Now to the bright points: We know that the emergency laws have been implemented a couple of times in the past. It never led to serious problems – the Jews are soft and can’t repress their enemies brutally or completely. We will benefit from their weakness and be only slightly inconvenienced. The most important fact may not have occurred to you: I think that the Israeli announcement about time travel may be true – they never lie to their own public and are trustworthy in this respect. This means that we are now in 1941 and my great uncle, Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is alive and well in Germany. He has significant influence with Hitler and if we can help the Germans win this war, we will exterminate the Jews just like my great uncle promised our people back in 1939.”
“How can we help the Germans?” asked the commander of the northern Jenin district. “We are much weaker than the Israelis, let alone the Allies.”
“But we have access to a significant weapon: information. There’s enough knowledge in the books at our universities to let the Nazis win this war. And we win with them,” Mohammad proclaimed.
“I am assuming you have a plan,” the same commander said.
“Yes. And it is devastatingly simple: We smuggle several of our people equipped with books about nuclear technology and 20th century history out of the territories into Egypt, Jordan and, possibly, Lebanon. All we need is for one of them to meet a German agent and give him the books. It should not be difficult – there are plenty of German spies in this area. Some of them are our fellow Arabs and relatives. They’ll do the rest. My great uncle has Hitler’s promise to exterminate the Jews in Europe and help us to exterminate them in Palestine. With a German victory this promise will be realized.”
The assembled commanders looked at Mohammad with awe. This was the thinking of a great man. It would realize their wish: a world without Jews or Israel. They stroked their beards in anticipation of the great events. They also didn’t notice the contradiction between their leader’s statement of their communications having been nefariously disrupted by the Jews and his trust in the Israeli’s announcement of time travel.
The discussion on who to choose for the mission, which routes to take, and other mundane arrangements took a while. In the end, one of the attendees had a proposal: “I suggest that we continue our regular activity. This would be a bad time to stop suicide bombings or rocket attacks. If we do, the Israelis may suspect that we are up to something and start investigating.”
“I see that I promoted the right man,” Mohammad responded. “It will be up to you. Arrange for several bombings and some rocket attacks. Don’t tell me the details. Do it the usual way. Go with Allah’s blessing.” He chose to ignore the fact that due to the Israeli security service’s efficiency and the security fence, the number of suicide bombers successfully getting into Israel was negligible and none of the factions in the West Bank had any rockets – those were all in Gaza. But with Allah’s help, anything was possible.
Sulha, the young third wife of the great man, moved away from the living room door, which she had left open a crack, just in time to get out of the way of the dispersing commanders. She jotted down the details and an hour later, left a note in the cracked wall of the neighborhood mosque.
After his commanders left, Mohammad called a number in Ramallah: “I need to meet with the Chairman tomorrow in the afternoon.”
“Let me call you back,” the voice on the other end responded.
The call came twenty minutes later: “The Chairman will see you tomorrow at three in the afternoon. No weapons, please.”
***
Itamar Herz, Managing Director of Israel Aircraft Industries, otherwise known as IAI, felt that he was in a dream. He was chairing a meeting in his large office with the Minister of Defense, several of his department heads, and two managers from Israel Military Industries (IMI). All this was not unusual, except this Saturday, like most Sabbaths, the company was supposed to be closed. The hastily printed calendar on the wall and another on his desk were open to June 21, 1941. He forced his attention back to the proceedings.
“We will need to stay current with operational information from both Eastern and Western Europe,” Nitzan Liebler, the Defense Minister, was saying. “We need this capability yesterday. What do we have available now?”
The division heads looked at each other. A spy satellite project manager said: “We have two satellites ready to launch. The plan was to go from Baikonur – it was cheaper than doing it ourselves. If anybody here can give us a rocket, we can launch in two days. That is if the rocket is a Shavit, otherwise we will have to rework the satellite’s envelope to fit.”
“We have the third stage of a Shavit launcher ready, actually several of them - leftovers from the communication satellite tests last year. We can refuel and have them ready for launch in about 24 hours. We need to get the other two stages from somewhere,” Itamar said.
The Military Industries representatives looked at each other. “I’m not a rocket guy, but it seems to me that we can build a Jericho 3 minus the warhead cone and use it to build a complete Shavit. After all, that’s what a Shavit launcher is.”
“How long will it take to do that?” Nitzan Liebler inquired quietly.
“Probably a couple of weeks,” the Military Industries man responded.
“Too long. We need it now.” Liebler was getting testy. Israeli Military Industries was a company controlled by the government, as was Israel Aircraft Industries. Since Israel was a small country surrounded by enemies, the government maintained majority control of several strategic companies. This allowed the companies to engage in activities on the open market while giving the government control in matters of national defense.
“We can dismantle a Jericho or two and have the Shavit assemble
d and ready to launch by Tuesday. A second will probably be ready a day after,” the other manager said. “We can restore the Jericho with new rockets in a couple of weeks. We’ll need special funding for that though – We have no budget reserves and no way to pay for this stuff.”
“Do that immediately. Let my secretary know how much you need. We’ll transfer the money from our emergency fund,” the Defense Minister was visibly more relaxed. He needed the surveillance ability in place as soon as possible, and having the IAI and IMI cooperate and agree on a way to accomplish it was more than half the job.
“We will need a written order signed by you and the Prime Minister to disable a Jericho,” said the first Military Industries manager.
Nitzan Liebler had the quiet serene look that meant he was ready to explode. “May I remind you that we are under emergency regulations? You will receive your signatures, but in the meantime stop wasting time. By the way, will the satellites have any communication relay abilities?”
“The one over Western Europe will not if we launch it as is,” the satellite program manager said. “It can transmit high resolution images on request and give us diagnostics data. We can also steer it to a different orbit. We could modify its programming a bit to allow a small text buffer for communications. Just take into account that you will need a small dish antenna pointing at the satellite to talk to it. At the speed it is moving, your window of communication from a mobile station will be about ten seconds. Using burst transmissions will allow the passage of several thousand characters every hour and a half – when the satellite is above the antenna. If you want it, it will take another day to modify the programming and test it. This will also likely decrease the resolution of the images we get, but not very significantly”.
“Okay, do the modifications,” the defense Minister said.
The meeting dispersed with only Itamar Herz and Nitzan Liebler remaining in the big office.
“Why the urgency with satellites? We can cover the area with spy planes,” Itamar asked.
“Our resources are limited and having several jets over Europe at all times is not only wasteful but also dangerous. As you know, it is not inconceivable for a Messerschmitt fighter to reach the operating ceiling of an F-15. And accidents happen. We don’t want even a small chance of one of our pilots falling into the hands of the Gestapo or of the Germans seeing our jets. The results would be serious, so we’ll take the risk only if absolutely necessary.”
The Defense Minister relaxed for the first time since they met today. “I have another project for you. It’s not as urgent but the sooner we do it the better. I know that you have an AMOS communications satellite ready to be shipped to Baikonur in Kazakhstan for launch. How about launching it ourselves?”
The Director of the Aircraft Industries was so surprised he was speechless for a moment. “Nitzan, you were the one who killed that project five years ago.”
The AMOS is a geosynchronous communications satellite weighing in at about 1400 kilograms and needing much more rocket power than either of the other spy satellites to get it into its high orbit. The smaller satellites weighed about one fifth of the AMOS and orbited much lower. They were light satellites, one providing high resolution imaging for commercial purposes and the other a military version with additional sensors.
“That was in a different time and universe. We don’t have Baikonur and cheap launchers anymore. The only things on that site in Kazakhstan are sheep, and they will not help us much. So, what do you say?”
Nitzan Liebler was smiling. His old friend Itamar was obviously still in the process of adjusting to the new reality, but he was resilient and would be on top of the situation soon.
“This is a serious undertaking, as you undoubtedly remember from the proposal we submitted to you when you were the Communications Minister.” Itamar smiled, “By the way, the new job fits you better. Anyway, it will be more complicated now. We don’t have access to parts that would have been purchased in the U.S. and E.U. Of these, I would assume the most time-consuming to manufacture ourselves will be computer chips for the navigation module. The rockets will not be as efficient as I would like them to be but won’t be the bottleneck either.” He stopped to think. “If we get the necessary resources, by which I mean money and priority access to one of the microprocessor fabricators, I believe that we can have the first AMOS in Geo-stationary orbit within six to nine months - if we are lucky, more than a year if we are not.” He paused. “May I ask why we would need it?”
Nitzan’s smile was not amused: “You may, but I will not answer, at least not today. Start the project and let my office know what you need – You’ll get it. Oh, and don’t be too greedy. I know you. Try not to feed too many side projects from this trough.”
***
It was early afternoon and the Prime Minister was longing for his customary nap. Working on Saturday was unusual in itself, but skipping his midday nap was most inconvenient. He looked at his watch again. It was almost one in the afternoon. He dialed his secretary.
“Moshe, please invite the delegation in and ask them what they would like for lunch. Get me the usual.”
A group of Knesset members filed into his office. These were the members of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. They needed to be updated on the situation and had agreed to come to the Prime Minister’s office instead of having him testify at the committee chambers at the Knesset. The P.M. had asked for this dispensation since his schedule was too busy to accommodate a trip to the parliament building. Amos Nir waited for everyone to get comfortable around the big conference table and for his secretary to finish taking lunch orders.
“I appreciate you coming to see me,” he said. “It is a break with tradition and hopefully will not happen again. I have about an hour and a half – It should be enough to answer most of your questions.”
“Amos, we know how busy you are at the moment and will take only as much time as we need to clarify a couple of issues,” the chairman of the committee and a rival of Amos’ for control of their party said. “I have an issue with a foreign policy decision that was made yesterday by the Defense Cabinet,” he stated. “Why did you decide to open communications with the British Army in Syria? The Brits are not our friends and never have been. I, and others, think that we do not need them and need not maintain any contacts with them.”
“There were a number of reasons,” Amos responded patiently. “The cabinet assumed the British command would realize something had happened as soon as they tried to contact their headquarters in Jerusalem, which our historians told us would happen about four hours after the Event. Getting no response, they would investigate. This put a limit on how long we could wait to make contact if we wanted control of the situation, which obviously we prefer. We saw no reason to lie to them or invent anything more bizarre than what really happened. Any lie would come out later and harm our credibility with no real gain for us.
“We also had to take into consideration that the disappearance of British Palestine would deprive the forces fighting in Syria of their reserves and logistic support. This could lead to their defeat, or at best a standoff with the Vichy forces - not something we wanted.
“There were also broader strategic considerations. As you so astutely mentioned, the British aren’t our friends. All they needed to do to save lots of Jews was to let them escape from the Nazis into Palestine. Not only didn’t they bother, but they actively hunted down any refugees who tried to run their naval cordon. Then in 1948 - of our time-line - they did their best to support the Arabs attacking the Jewish community in Palestine and to prevent the birth of the State of Israel.
“But the situation is different now. We are the superpower here, at least in some respects, and do not need their favors since we can take anything we need by force. We also do not need them as enemies – God knows we have enough of those in this world. Israel can greatly benefit from an agreement of cooperation on a number of issues with the British Empire. The Brits are not stupid,
especially Churchill, who has a keen sense of history and knows that the Empire is in danger. Additionally, General Wilson’s reports should make them understand that we can cause them serious grief but also be of great assistance. They will not know at this point that we can break them, or the Nazis for that matter, if we choose to, but they will see the advantages of cooperation. We need them to supply us with oil and, maybe, give us access to some of the oil fields they control but at this point in time don’t even know exist. We also need them to keep the Royal Navy out of the way as we will start work on our Mediterranean gas fields. Our limited military help should convince them to deal. If they don’t see their way to cooperating with us within the next couple of days, they will definitely see the advantages after operation Moses begins.
“Speaking of this operation, we will need the Allies’, mostly the Brit’s, cooperation to have it go smoothly or we will have to damage them, which may influence the course of the war.”
The Shield: a novel Page 4
