Thibault VERBIEST

AMALEK

They left to save Israel. They landed in hell.

Translated from French by

Sara Carnero

Second edition

Amalek - Second edition

Copyright © 2015 Thibault Verbiest

Drève des Châtaigniers 2

1410 Waterloo

Belgium

thibault.verbiest@gmail.com

Cover: copyright © 2015 Jérôme Vorzanger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, article, book, blog or academic paper.

ISBN of the kindle version: 978-2-930784-35-9

Ebook publishing: Éditions des 3 hibouks

Overijse, Belgium

3hibouks.com

In the book of Genesis, Amalek is the chief of a tribe of Amalekites, a tribe of nomads who attacked the Hebrews in the Sinai dessert after the exodus from Egypt. In Judaism, the Amalekites represented the archenemy of the Jews, and in the Yiddishland of the 1930’s the word Amalek was often used to distinguish the anti-Semites, and mainly the Nazis.

To my wife Stéphanie

and to my children Sarah, Alexandre and Juliette

Amalek

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

The real people from the Auschwitz camp

The members of the Israeli commando

Acknowledgements

Index of illustrations

Notes

CHAPTER 1

On a meadow caressed by a cold dry wind the leafy saplings danced in a synchronised waltz.

Nature had been frozen into a deadly cold by the early winter, and under a depressing grey sky, nothing seemed to move, in a lifeless calm except for the rustling of some dry grass.

Suddenly, a cry pierced the icy air and shadows moved in the sleepy stillness.

- Regroup, quickly!

In a flash, four men and four women in combat suits regrouped into a star shaped formation. Squatting down and with rifles pointing outwards like a giant hedgehog, they identified themselves one at a time.

- Tomer’s missing, exclaimed Hussein, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

Before this strange assembly could catch its breath, a familiar muffled noise, like the crackling of a faulty loudspeaker, was heard.

In a split second, the mouth of the passage, a silver sphere suspended in the air a few metres from the commando began to grow, curving outwards.

A familiar silhouette appeared from nowhere. The number seven, Tomer Hamiel, found himself face to face with his comrades who were dazed by his apparition. And yet, only a few moments earlier, the same thing had happened to them!

- Commander, where are we? stammered Tomer.

- No idea, was the reply, but for God’s sake, keep calm. Concentrate and go to stealth mode.

By a system of iris recognition, and predefined movements of the eyes and eyelids, the chameleon function on the virtual screen flashed up on the interactive menu inside each of the commando members’ helmets. Instantly, they blended into their surroundings, a green field the size of a football pitch fenced in with trees.

Sarah Chabtaï mouthed into the microphone of her helmet:

- Nathan you built this crap machine, say something!

From a male point of view, Sarah was a smiling, smartly dressed, typical blond. You would never guess that the woman hidden behind this freckled baby face was an expert in counter terrorism who had finally become a pacific reporter.

Nathan Weisz, the last minute replacement, regarded as dandy, brilliant perhaps but infatuated and arrogant, replied slowly and gravely trying to keep his temper:

- The only thing that I’m certain of is that we’re not in that God damned Egyptian base. Leah, we have to get under cover in the trees and work out what’s going on.

With a clear gesture of her head, Leah Ben Gibor the unit commander directed the members of the squadron towards the Northwest to the nearest trees. With mankind’s engrained instinct to try and hide in a hostile environment, they all hurried to the densest grove.

Leaning against a solid birch tree in the midst of a multitude of scattered pine trees, the Commander, Leah Ben Gibor activated her PC to check the on-board communications system linking the members of the commando.

- There’s no GPS or satellite signal. It’s inconceivable!

- We’ll have to try a radio scan, Nathan intervened, who’d been responsible for communications in Tzanchanim, the Israeli paratroopers’ brigade.

Nathan switched on the radio and after a few seconds picked up some distant, poor quality music.

- Sounds like a waltz, murmured Nathan looking focussed.

- Keep looking, was the sharp retort from Captain Hussein Jibril, second in rank and deputy leader.

There was a jumble of voices and then suddenly an audible conversation.

- Am I dreaming or is that a Slavic language? Yuri, do you understand any of this babbling?

Holographic images were displayed on the visor of his helmet whilst Doctor Yuri Krassota strained to hear.

- Wait, I’m not sure, it’s a bad connection, but, yes... it’s Polish!

Yuri Krassota was by far the oldest and most experienced of the commando. An ex-military doctor in the Spetsnaz of the Russian army, he had immigrated to Israel seven years earlier, and with a certain amount of difficulty, had managed to enlist in the much respected 669 unit devoted to search and rescue operations for wounded soldiers in enemy territory, or survivors of natural disasters. He was fearless, even suicidal, some said, Yuri had been decorated for saving a little girl in Haiti, trapped under tons of debris just about to collapse in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

The lieutenant Yankel Gnod, third in rank, broke the puzzled silence:

- The Rabbi warned us before we left that God would not let our arrogance go unpunished. He’s testing us and…

- Oh please, shut up! screamed Commander Leah Ben Gibor. Your comments aren’t helping. We need to move on. Let’s find somewhere with civilisation and we’ll soon get some answers.

Sergeant Noam Melekh, whose frail ebony face seemed to float inside her oversized helmet, gave him a comforting gesture as she discreetly took hold of Yankel’s wrist who faintly smiled back at her.

There was a world of difference between Commander Leah Ben Gibor, an angry Zionist from a well off family in Marseille with Moroccan origins, and Yankel Gnod, a kid from Mea Shearim, the ultra-orthodox Jewish district of Jerusalem.

Leah couldn’t help herself, she saw these men dressed in black caftans as phonies. These men were called Haredim, literally meaning “the God Fearers”. They wore beards and Peyotes, side curls, as was the tradition of their central European ancestors.

However, Yankel had cut all ties with his domestic origins which rejected any legitimacy of the State of Israel, and was awaiting the return of the Messiah the only one, according to their beliefs, who could restore Zion. Leah had read his file and was aware of how far he had come, and his entry into a unit of the Kfir brigade exclusively composed of religious Zionist soldiers and officers.

Captain Jibril, the only Druze of the commando, lectured his troops.

- Move exactly like we did in training. Each of you is to get into formation; the first assault group on my left, second on my right and command in front. Move forward cautiously to the edge of the woods. Above all, keep a sharp lookout with your motion sensors.

After about ten minutes the undergrowth became less dense, and the soldiers began to see a glimmer of light through the thick curtain of pine trees.

The right iris of Leah flickered, prompting multiple instructions on her virtual screen.

- There’s a field with fencing. The area is inhabited; I see a building 300 metres away. It looks like a farm.

- I see three targets, continued Yankel in sniper position, his HK 417 rifle firmly wedged in the hollow of his right shoulder.

Without a second’s thought Leah carried on:

- Yuri and Iris go! Yankel and the others cover them.

Yuri made a rapid signal to Iris with his right hand, her elongated face and pouting lips were barely visible, they revealed an exotic mixture of Middle Eastern and Asian descent, as was often the case with Israelis of Yemenite origin.

He grabbed his Tavor assault rifle and headed the expedition towards the mysterious farm in the distance.

- Iris, activate stealth mode only on my orders. We have to economise our energy reserves until we make sense of this mess.

Staff sergeant Iris Lahad silently agreed, whilst checking the technical information provided in real time by her on-board digital communication system.

Arriving at the stables, the first building adjoining the North face of the main structure, the two soldiers paused to take stock of the situation.

- The stables are empty. The owner must have taken the cattle out to pasture in a neighbouring field, whispered Yuri.

They surreptitiously entered the main part of the building through the living quarters located just after the courtyard which runs along the south side. Behind the house there was an orchard which gave way to open fields rising towards the surrounding hills.

Yuri went in first. In front of him he found a spacious kitchen with a large and substantial fireplace in white Carrera marble. The room was empty however the motion sensor indicated three people in the next room, no doubt the dining room or living room. With his right index finger Yuri calmly signalled the direction to take and with a murmur said:

- Gently, we go on three.

Without a sound the soldiers burst into the main living room where the mother was serving some cakes to two children of between four and six years old. They were sitting quietly with their white bibs tied around their necks. The terrorized mistress of the house dropped her tray, which smashed on the floor, whilst Yuri dashed over to prevent her from screaming. Just as quickly, Iris tried to reassure the children who were calling to their mother terrified.

- Please don’t cry, we’re friends, you understand Russian, don’t you? What’s your name? said Yuri hastily in his native tongue, forcing a smile.

With a trembling voice the mother replied: “Katrina”.

- Katrina, tell me where we are. What’s this place called?

- Rajsko.

- What’s the nearest town?

- Jaworzno.

Yuri was deep in thought. Iris asked in a questioning voice, which couldn’t hide her anxiety:

- What’s happening? Where are we?

- We appear to be in Poland. I must advise the others by radio.

The rest of the group arrived a few minutes later and they set up an improvised camp in the main body of the building. The Polish mother and her children remained seated around the table of the dining room under the watchful eye of Iris who tried to distract the younger of the two children with some simple magic tricks.

Taking off his helmet, Yuri began his briefing to a shaky audience:

- If I’ve understood his wife correctly, the owner of this place is being held in a prison not far from here. The farm seems to be isolated. We should be out of harm’s way.

- Did she say anything else? asked Sarah Chabtaï calmly shaking her blond hair free from her helmet.

- She clammed up when she saw the Star of David on Iris’s necklace pendant. It was as if she’d seen the devil in person.

In a learned tone Nathan added:

- We are in deeply catholic Poland where they still believe that Jews poison the wells and perform sacrificial rites on children.

Leah curtly broke off the dialogue:

- On the south side there’s a path leading to a local road. Yankel and Nathan you check it out. See if you can throw some light on this crazy situation as quickly as possible. As we know nothing about where we are, let’s be very careful, safety first!

Yankel and Nathan advanced cautiously for about 20 minutes before the country path gave way to a tarmac road. The two soldiers activated the stealth mode on their suits and took cover. In the distance they heard the sound of an engine and two motorcyclists in uniform appeared, followed by an infantry transportation truck with a Mercedes sign on the radiator.

- Yankel, am I dreaming or is that a vehicle from the Waffen SS?

- Maybe it’s a reunion for historical enthusiasts of the Third Reich.

Having analysed any relevant information from the surrounding environment, Nathan’s on-board computer locked onto an object: a sign post in front of a crossroads 100 metres to the left. Zooming in with the helmet visor he read the word: Oświęcim.

- My God, that’s impossible!

CHAPTER 2

Two years earlier

- My days are numbered and it’s time to fulfil my destiny here, in this cursed place, colder even than death, growled Boris Bakal as he cast an envious look at the snowy steppe visible through the only window of the huge hangar where his laboratory was installed.

Boris Bakal was a bitter septuagenarian. A hunched man who never took off his lab coat and the original whiteness it had had long since become a dull grey which blended well with the deathly pallor of his face.

But Boris had never given up on the one thing that brought hope to his life as a prisoner, his life’s dream, which would make him a champion of the universe, a saviour of cosmic proportions. A dream inherited from his childhood, after the Soviet victory against the Nazi invader, when he was rescued by his grandfather Abraham, who had fled the pogroms which were unleashed in Bessarabia in 1905, known today as Moldova, and who later settled down in St. Petersburg.

- Boris, please, there must be another solution. For God’s sake they need you.

Vladimir Narbowski had been responsible for the computer network on the base for almost five years. The bond he had with Boris had become, over time, a bond of mutual friendship and trust.

In 25 years of captivity, he was the only person with whom Boris had been able to share a part of his secret, a secret jealously guarded in the midst of this terrible Siberian hell.

No one else in the base paid much attention to this quiet, shy computer engineer, permanently immersed in quantum simulations. Beneath the appearance of an insignificant scruffy young man, with ill-fitting glasses, was a sensitive soul who was sympathetic to the injustices inflicted on the man whom he regarded as his master.

His colleagues didn’t quite see things like that. To them, Boris was just a traitor; a Jew who had tried to sell his strategic discoveries to the Americans, even against the most basic sense of patriotism.

Yet it was the same old story. A quarter of a century earlier, when “Holy Russia” dominated a vast empire stretching from Europe to Asia, Boris was a researcher at the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leningrad. His research focused on a topic that was derided by most Russian physicists and those elsewhere: the quantum computer, the true precursor of artificial intelligence!

Until one day, on the 14th of March 1985, Boris managed the unthinkable: the factorization of numbers from atoms.

Boris’ life had been turned upside down overnight. From being the little researcher with limited means, Boris became the rising star of the faculty, tipped as a future winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Although already bankrupt, the Soviet regime provided him with as much material to work with as it could and he was assigned a team of bright young researchers. Among them a certain Aaron Kranovski, probably the most gifted of the physicists that Boris had been lucky enough to work with.

Boris and Aaron’s partnership was not confined merely to academic exchanges on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle or Einstein’s theory of relativity. They were linked by another more intimate passion: in this almost inconceivable world of the infinitely small, where the laws of mechanical physics no longer applied, and in which everything is correlated and nothing is fixed, could there be a divine touch, the indescribable presence of a universe which is everywhere and nowhere at the same time?

There were hours of heated discussions, sometimes vitriolic controversy, but the two men had one thing in common: the search for a higher dimension, where beings, like matter, would unite on a quantum scale.

Within two years, the collaboration of the two men had helped to make considerable progress, not just theoretically but also in practice.

In Moscow, the rumours that spread concerning the experiments of Boris’ team caught the attention of the KGB. According to the official story, Boris attended a conference of physicists in Geneva and used the opportunity to attempt to sell the results of his research to American spies. He was arrested when he arrived back in Leningrad and condemned by the people’s court. The penalty for high treason was death. After a faked execution the KGB and the army secretly commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in a secret base lost in the frozen Siberian plains.

Boris sighed after taking a deep breath as though expressing the sadness of his definitive separation from this vast complex which he was staring at behind the thick glass of the sealed room where he often talked with his assistant.

A strange impressive construction occupied most of the space under the low ceiling. To a novice physicist it could resemble the atomic structure of crystal iron, with its nine spheres connected by large metal tubes.

Boris got up from his swivel chair and approached a picture hung on the wall behind him. He stroked the glass plate that covered a tallit, a rectangular linen prayer shawl.

- Grandpa, I really need you now. Boris whispered, thinking of the extraordinary secret hidden in the seemingly insignificant prayer shawl, the only souvenir left by his father, who had disappeared during the war like millions of other Soviet soldiers.

A few years earlier, the previous director of the base had celebrated his departure and his well-deserved reassignment to Moscow after almost ten years in the desolation of Siberia. For once they did not follow the custom, the atmosphere was festive and Boris had organised a small impromptu party in his den, washed down with the customary bottles of vodka.

Boris had taken a few photos of the meeting with the old Zenit camera which he had guarded jealously. When he developed the film in the dark room that the director of the base had finally agreed to set up for him, Boris was amazed to discover a positive image on one of the negatives, - that of the tallit on the wall.

Like the Shroud of Turin, the prayer shawl was a negative itself!

The tallit contained the plans for a machine that was unlike anything known before. After analysis, Boris found that the linen shawl was impregnated with silver sulphate onto which had been imprinted the images and text visible on the film. A process called proto-photography. Besides the complex patterns for assembly and learned mathematical formulas, there was a directive like a message from beyond the grave: “Do not forget the Tomer Devorah. There is no salvation without the ten emanations.”

Boris felt a lump in his throat. Decades after his death, his father, Andrei, had finally spoken to him, bequeathing to him a part of his secret, in the tradition that had started with his own father Abraham, and the union between traditions and fundamental physics.

Boris knew practically nothing about Andrei Bakal’s story, except that he’d been very young when he arrived in St. Petersburg with his father, and that he had grown up in an atmosphere that was difficult to describe. Honest Bolshevism and the Haskalah - the “Jewish Enlightenment” that the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, a contemporary of Kant, had devoted his life to – and passion for the sciences. And now as he was submerged in his father’s library books, it was the same world which he had come to know himself.

But destiny’s hand did not stop there because Andrei also became a physicist. His career had been abruptly interrupted by the war and he engaged in the Red Army as an infantry sergeant.

Tomer Devorah was a little Kabbalistic text written in the sixteenth century at Safed in Upper Galilee, by the Rabbi Moses Cordovero, known by the nickname Ramac to his followers. Tomer Devorah, are two words that sum up the moral and intellectual commitment of his grandfather Abraham. In it the author proposes a method to imitate God, developed concisely and rigorously in ten chapters so that it was almost a celestial symphony.

Behind the dusty reading desk of his grandfather’s library, Boris had devoured the traditional works of the Kabbalah, like the Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Creation, as well as the classics of modern science, Freud, Einstein and Darwin. The Origin of Species was his favourite book. His grandfather had brought with him an original copy from 1859 when he fled from his native Bessarabia at the beginning of the last century. It was the founding book of the family quest initiated by Abraham Bakal, when as a child, he used to eavesdrop in the kitchen doorway - where his mother reigned unchallenged - on the lively debates that took place every day around the dining room table.

Abraham’s father was an old fashioned rabbi, with his long salt and pepper beard and his small round glasses that sat on the end of his nose. He did however believe that he was open to progressive ideas like those spreading throughout the close knit Jewish communities of central Europe.

- A good Jew must respect any book, he explained to his son, fascinated by this quintessence of profane knowledge, which for him represented the vast outside world, this disturbing ocean of freedom, full of dangers, mysteries and treasures.

And so began the quest for a comprehensive understanding of the universe, in the reconciliatory union of the Torah and Science.

- Matter does not exist. Everything is information. Everything is in the letters. The secret of life and the universe, he often said to Boris, referring to the Book of Creation, one of the oldest Kabbalistic writings of Judaism.

- My child, we must always think about the magic equation: 0 × ∞ = 1. If you like maths then you will know God, he often repeated, so much so that Boris became one of the most gifted physicists of his generation – and with his father’s traditions, a genius forgotten forever.

Boris turned to his assistant who was biting his nails waiting for his master to emerge from his daydream.

- My dear Vladimir, what I’m about to ask of you is extremely dangerous and I understand if you refuse. We’re almost at the end of our research, a few months and we’ll reach our goal. But I can’t let the army get their hands on this technology. You know what they have in mind.

- I know all this, but what do you want me to do? Vladimir asked anxiously.

- We must destroy everything, without exception, said Boris resolutely in a low voice.

- And all these years of work, these treasures of knowledge. And what about your dream that is so close to coming true?

- I’m not giving up, Vladimir, on the contrary. This is what I propose. I’ve already mentioned my old friend Aaron Kranovski to you, haven’t I?

- Yes, your former colleague from the department of Physics at St. Petersburg who immigrated to Israel?

- Exactly, well the day before yesterday, I made an amazing discovery. As I was repeating simulations on the multiverses, Orqua began to behave strangely. A huge amount of combined data started pouring in, as if it had gone completely mad.

- Nothing particularly surprising for a quantum computer, Vladimir replied uncharacteristically mockingly.

- Don’t be insolent, Vladimir, I’m serious, Orqua wasn’t working alone.

- I don’t follow you at all, said Vladimir, frowning.

- What I mean is that there was another intelligent entity involved in the calculations. It was clear that there was an exchange with something or someone from outside.

- But you know that’s impossible. There’s no connection from this base, by computer or any other means, with the outside world. We’re literally cut off from the world.

- Exactly, if another quantum computer exists anywhere in the world, there’s nothing to say it cannot communicate with Orqua. You are well aware that on a quantum level the exchange of information is undetectable from the outside, since it operates instantaneously with no energy transfer.

- I’m beginning to understand. You’re suggesting that your ex-colleague Aaron has developed a quantum computer with power comparable to Orqua’s and he is trying to reach you?

- Absolutely, it’s the only explanation. And I’ve just had confirmation this morning. I have challenged Orqua, as usual. But on a subject that only Aaron could know: I instructed Orqua to find a person on earth with the same age to the minute and the same measurements as Einstein at the time of his death. It was a joke between Aaron and me when we were colleagues in Leningrad. If one of us should ever develop a quantum computer, it should be able to solve this puzzle: Does Einstein have a twin in this world?

- And what happened next? asked Vladimir, impatiently.

- Orqua began to talk with the other entity, and a name came out. There’s a monk in Tibet who should be an exact replica, in age and appearance, to Einstein! Imagine the terrifying weapon that would be in the hands of the army. These computers will be capable of interrogating all the databases in the world in ‘instantaneous superposition’ without having to dial a connection first. The NSA [1] ECHELON programme would be relegated to the cupboard!

- Yes, that’s what we have created, said Vladimir, dreamily.

- Now, here’s the solution. I have complete confidence in Aaron. He must be the sole agent of our research, only he will be able to carry on our work in the same manner. We’ll ask Orqua to transfer all the data relevant to our work to his quantum counterpart. And then we’ll destroy everything.

The two men wrapped themselves in warm clothes and left the lab to go into an adjoining room, where the walls were padded. Orqua was enthroned in a refrigerated environment. Far from the archetypal supercomputer, Orqua was constructed from thin strips of superconducting translucent green magnets, submerged in metallic cylinders containing liquid helium at -269 degrees Celsius.

All the incredible computing power of Orqua lay in a “soup” of organic molecules placed in test tubes. An extraordinary phenomenon, these molecules acted as the “processor” of the computer, after which the calculations were then interpreted and made intelligible by a classical computer.

Orqua’s thought processes were like those of no other machine or intelligent being. The computers that rule our lives today are binary: they deal with basic information, the bits, which can only present a result from two possibilities: 0 or 1.

Orqua was different: its intelligence was a mesh of qubits or quantum bits, which could take the value 1 or 0, or a superposition, an infinite number of states between 0 and 1. The number of qubits exponentially increased the power of the work in parallel with the computer. With 300 qubits Orqua could handle about 10^90 pieces of information, more than the number of atoms in the observable universe...

Wrapped in their fur coats, breathing out white mist with every word, the two scientists were preparing the data transfer to Orqua’s twin computer when a dozen soldiers burst noisily into the room. At their head, General Imanov, commander in chief of the base, a distant, authoritative man, who, in five years of service, had not even exchanged more than five sentences with Boris.

- Dr Bakal, you’re under arrest. I ask you to immediately cease your activity.

- General, this is unacceptable. May I ask for an explanation?

- It’s useless to feign surprise. We know exactly what is going on. Now, please follow us.

Boris turned sharply towards Vladimir, who avoided his eyes.

- Vladimir, what’s going on? Don’t tell me you...

Vladimir slowly raised his eyes and replied:

- Boris, you must understand, they said they would kill my family, all I had to do was wear a microphone. I’m sorry.

- How long has this been going on? A long time? Boris asked angrily.

- It must be about two months now.

The General brutally interrupted the dialogue between the two men:

- Dr Bakal, I always knew that you were trying to double-cross us. The unlikely friendship that you established with this idiot Vladimir was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

- General, you’re making a fatal mistake.

Boris rushed to Orqua and inputted a command on the control pad.

- Fire! shouted General Imanov to his soldiers.

As Boris collapsed, a powerful laser struck the centre of the giant structure that was in the building next door. A silver sphere was formed immediately and ballooned out at a dizzying pace.

Almost instantly, the contents of the room and all its occupants were drowned in this strange sphere, conical in its centre and its edges seeming to distort the surrounding space.

Two hours later, in Moscow, an army intelligence officer came running through the halls of the Kremlin, an envelope tucked under his arm. Out of breath, the officer knocked vigorously on the door of the chief of Army Intelligence.

- Enter.

- General, I apologize for the inconvenience but this is very urgent.

- I’m listening, Captain, replied the General, irritated.

- We’ve just received a satellite photo of one of our experimental bases in northern Siberia. The satellite has detected a highly unusual phenomenon.

- Go on, Captain.

- A huge amount of energy, 100 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.

- An atomic explosion?

- No. The satellite didn’t observe any explosions. I know it is hard to believe General, but the base has in fact... disappeared.

- Disappeared? What base are you talking about?

- General Imanov’s.

- The ‘Gate of Worlds’ programme, cried the General.

- Affirmative.

- Captain, may God protect us, murmured the General, looking at the grey Moscow sky through the window of his office...

CHAPTER 3

Intentionally blank pages (free sample)

THE MEMBERS OF THE ISRAELI COMMANDO

Leah Ben Gibor, the assassin from Mossad

Leah is twenty-nine. She was born in Marseille from a Jewish family originally from Morocco. Leah made her Aliyah [46] when she was twenty-three to escape from a France that she deemed incapable of defending the Jews against an environment becoming more and more anti-Semitic. She engaged straightaway in an elite force of the Israeli police. She is then recruited by the Kidon, a unit of professional killers of Mossad. She has a cold and solitary nature, she is single and has no children.

Sarah Chabtaï, the pro-Palestine pacifist reporter

Sarah is twenty-nine. She was born in Israel, he father a German called Karl, converts to Judaism through the love of Sarah’s mother, Meirav. Meirav is a Sabra (an Israeli born in Israel), she is the director of a private television channel. Her ideals are the opposite of those of Karl, who has become one of the most talked about film directors of left-wing pacifist Israel. Their marriage does not last.

Sarah studies fundamental physics at the Weizmann Institute where she meets Nathan Weisz who becomes her companion during her years of study. A few months after Nathan left her, after having joined the army, Sarah learns suddenly that her mother has breast cancer and she is terminally ill.

Between the army and the hospital, Sarah gets closer to her father, who overcomes his broken heart and decides to stay at the bedside of his ex-wife, to be there for her until she exhales her last breath. All the values that she had inherited from Karl and which she had rejected afterwards come flooding back to the surface. Sarah becomes a pacific journalist like her father. She married a Palestinian doctor, with whom she bears a child.

Iris Lahad, carefree wife of a Zionist settler

Iris Lahad is twenty-six. She was born in Israel; her family was originally from Yemen. During her military service, she becomes one of the first women to pilot a helicopter. She marries a distant cousin, Ouri, a civil engineer and settles down with him in a recently built settlement not far from the valley of Jordan.

As a carefree hedonist, full of energy and passionate about several things at once, Iris is the star of the settlement, always in demand and with too much to do, between the morning radio show that she presents on the local radio, or the Torah lessons that she gives three times a week to wives who want to learn.

Noam Melekh, the Ethiopian lawyer

Noam is twenty-eight. Born in Israel to parents who had fled Ethiopia in 1984 during Operation Moses, Noam’s mother dies when Noam is just nine years old, killed by her father during a violent dispute. She is taken in and brought up by Anteneh, a Kes, a sort of rabbi according to the millennia old traditions of the Beta Israelis, Jews from Ethiopia.

After her military service in the intelligence department of the Air Force, Noam studied law and became a lawyer. Noam opens her own office in her native town, Ashdod. Her naturally conciliatory and empathetic character leads her to intervene in family conflicts that are rife in the Ethiopian community.

Noam has an autistic son called Shlomo.

Nathan Weisz, the arrogant heir to the Devcon Empire

Nathan is thirty-three he was born in Israel. He grew up in Savyon, an ultra-chic district on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. His father Alain Weisz is a famous industrialist, the founder of the Devcon group. From Strasbourg, he is the only survivor of a family taken away by the Shoah. Right up to his death, he had a cold and distant relationship with his son Nathan. His mother, Hia, had grown up in Istanbul in a well off French speaking Sephardic family which spoke French.

After serving as a communications expert in the parachutist unit, Nathan followed a shining university career in fundamental physics. He becomes Sarah’s boyfriend whilst attending the Weizmann Institute. Afterwards he is recruited by the industrial group Ezra, which has close ties with the army.

A perfectionist, hard worker, well groomed, and often considered arrogant, Nathan is a committed Zionist.

Hussein Jibril, the rebel Druze

Hussein Jibril is thirty-four. He was born in the Daliyat al-Karmel, a few kilometres from Haifa, in a large family controlled by an ageing father. His father is part of the closed community of ‘uqqal’ - the wise-men initiated in the secret religion of the Druze. Despite his depraved life of being a bad boy and a ladies man, Hussein is the favourite of the head of the household, who holds dearer than anything his youngest offspring, him and his younger brother Hakim and the precious memories of his adored second wife who died while giving birth.

His relationship with his nine half-brothers, born of the first marriage, is strained because they won’t forgive him for his obvious status of favourite son. Hussein flees the contempt of his brothers and engages in the Oketz Special Forces canine unit, a small army of Belgian Shepherd Dogs specialised in tracking down fugitives.

After military service, Hussein opens a training centre for guide dogs for the blind.

Yuri Krassota, the daring doctor of Russian descent

Yuri is thirty-six and was born in Nevel, the former Soviet Union, from a Christian mother and a Jewish father who abandons him when he is still a child. He studies medicine in Russia at university. He falls in love with a young Jewish student who is traumatised by her time spent in the Spetsnatz, the Russian Special Forces, he then accepts to follow her to Israel. He leaves Russia and his twin brother behind, who had made his fortune as a business man. Once in Israel he has trouble finding work and ends up accepting a job as a military doctor in the prestigious 669 unit, specialised in rescuing stranded soldiers.

Two years later he gets a divorce and his ex-wife gets custody of their only child, a daughter, Dinah.

From the outside Yuri was the portrait of Slav romanticism, a sweet mix of intrepidity and fragility.

Tomer Haniel, the paraplegic kibbutznik

Tomer Haniel is thirty-three. He grew up in a traditional kibbutz, fifty kilometres from Eilat in the extreme south of Israel. His grandfather was the only survivor of a family of Jews from Hungary, victim of the Shoah. His father was the joiner of the kibbutz.

Tomer is a militant left-wing Zionist, a defender of dying values in a society that he judges divided between American culture and religious withdrawal.

At the age of eighteen, he enrolled in the Special Forces of military engineering. During a mine clearing mission in Gaza, he jumped on a mine and lost the use of his legs. He then returned to his native kibbutz.

Yankel Gnod, the soldier of God

Yankel is twenty-seven. He grew up in an ultra-orthodox and anti-Zionist community in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. He becomes a scribe for the Torah scrolls. At the age of twenty-three, Yankel breaks off all ties with his origins, leaving behind him a wife who he thinks is sterile and an adopted child, the son of his dead brother.

He engages in the IDF, in the Netzah Yehuda, essentially composed of orthodox Jews. He becomes a respected officer capable of motivating his men both militarily and biblically.

Notes

[1] National Security Agency [back]

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[46] A Hebrew word which means the act of immigrating to the Holy Land by a Jew. [back]

Table of Contents

Table

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The members of the Israeli commando

Notes