Beyond the Shield

by Nachman Kataczinsky

  Just north of Vipiteno the train stopped and orders came to unload. It took them two days to unload the armored vehicles. They brought special ramps, also used to drive the tanks onto the train cars, but the Italians were very slow in installing them despite their government having insisted on doing it. After several hours with no real progress the regiment commander ordered his own mobile maintenance depot to unload their cranes and do the job. The Italians protested but not too much.

  The IDF 7th Armored Regiment spent the next three days taking up positions near the only road crossing the mountains into Austria. Trains kept arriving with supplies, mostly ammunition and fuel. A small combat engineers unit prepared a landing pad for their Cobra attack helicopters, with fuel dumps and ammunition storage nearby. The intelligence company found a good spot to launch their drones. Then everyone went into waiting mode.

  Wolf’s tank was with a company assigned to the south flank, positioned about a mile south from the main road to Austria. An infantry company served as their screen. Wolf and his comrades were busy monitoring their tactical displays, rotating guard duties and performing maintenance. Their company commander took his jeep on a tour of the area and decided to set up several static cameras about four miles away on a secondary road leading into Austria. You could never know which way the Germans might choose to attack. Drones might fail to alert them if the weather was exceptionally foul. He wasn’t going to take any chances.

  The plan was to stop any German forces that might try invading Italy from the direction of Innsbruck. A different force guarded the South-Eastern sector bordering on Slovenia.

  Italian troops took up positions close to the Austrian border and would be the first line of defense. The Israelis expected them to fall back after only token resistance, but one could never tell. Some Italian units in North Africa fought valiantly and they might do so again, especially when fighting for their country and if properly supported from the air.

  The Israelis and Brits agreed to operate separately on two different fronts. Israel was responsible for the border between Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Britain was responsible for the border with Vichy France. Now that everybody was in place, the allies waited for the French Algerian fleet to land Free French forces at Marseilles. Their landing would be the signal for the British army to invade Vichy France from Italy and create a united front with the Free French. Israel, with much smaller forces, was supposed to protect the flank and rear.

  ***

  General Ludwig von Kleist carefully listened to his guest. Admiral Canaris put a typed list of names on the general’s desk. “General, your name is the second on this list. They will arrest you as soon as you step off the plane in Berlin.”

  Kleist waved his left hand chasing away an invisible fly. “What are you proposing? I was summoned to see the Fuehrer and I have to go. Are you saying I should disobey a direct order by the leader to whom I swore personal allegiance?”

  Canaris nodded. “Just a wild guess, I bet that your chief of staff was also summoned.”

  Kleist shook his head. “No, he wasn’t. If he was, I would know about it.”

  “Ask him.”

  Kleist hesitated, than picked up his phone. “Zeitzler, did you get a summons to Berlin?

  “Why didn’t you notify me?” He listened to the response than hung up.

  “You are correct, Admiral. My chief of staff didn’t notify me because those were his orders. He wasn’t ordered not to answer my question though. Very strange. I also find it strange that we are ordered to go see the Fuehrer one day apart. On the other hand, as strange as it is it doesn’t warrant disobeying an order.”

  Canaris had an idea. “General, how about asking for a short delay? After all, you command a panzer group and we are at war. There are unforeseen circumstances. If you ask for a delay of, say, a week and the Fuehrer agrees, then I grant you I might be wrong. I predict that they will insist on you coming exactly when summoned and not a day later, even if the Russians start a big offensive.”

  Kleist drummed his fingers on the polished surface of his desk. “I agree that calling both of us to Berlin at this time and making us come separately looks suspicious.

  “It makes sense to ask for a short delay. I’ll think about it.”

  Canaris presented the same arguments to Rommel and to Eberhard von Mackensen. Both had the same general attitude: a German general couldn’t refuse an order. Being a master spy Canaris was both patient and resourceful. He decided to wait.

  When four days later von Kleist’s plane landed in Berlin, the general was met by a Gestapo agent and three SS guards. They relieved him of his side arm and pushed him, somewhat roughly, into a waiting car.

  An Abwehr agent carefully photographed the proceedings using a telephoto lens. He also followed the Gestapo car to their headquarters at 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse and photographed the handcuffed general being taken inside. The photographs were delivered by airplane to Admiral Canaris, waiting at the headquarters of the first Panzer group in Donetsk, southeast of Kiev. Canaris showed them to General Zeitzler, von Kleist’s Chief of Staff, who was scheduled to go to Berlin the next day. After that Canaris met with General Eberhard von Mackensen, positioned nearby commanding the third Army Corps of Army Group South. From there he flew to meet with Erwin Rommel in France.

  The photographs seemed to be much more persuasive than anything the head of the Abwehr could have said.

  ***

  Lavrentiy Beria, the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, nodded to his deputy, Ivan Serov, and pointed to a chair in front of his desk. “Ivan Aleksandrovich, you know of our arrangement with the Palestinians. They are, as we speak, transporting large numbers of Jews to their homeland. We know nothing about them and this is an unacceptable situation. Any idea what we can do?”

  Serov thought for a moment. “The simplest would be to find a couple of Jews that are members of our security apparatus and have them go to Palestine with the rest. They’ll let us know what’s up.”

  “My friend, you’re a genius.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm. “You think that I can’t come up with such a clever idea by myself? What will you do when your agents are recognized by other Jews and reported to the Palestinians?”

  Serov, who had served under Beria for a number of years and was used to his boss’ style, smiled. “Comrade Commissar, you are the smartest man I know. It never crossed my mind that my idea was clever. It does have the advantage of being simple. We can find someone that is unknown as our agent. I know one such person. He’s from Latvia and did a great job for us there in 1939. Now he’s a translator with Military Intelligence, using his excellent knowledge of German.

  “Very few people outside our command structure know about him, so he should be safe. I might find another one with a similar background.”

  Beria shrugged. “I never said you were stupid, comrade. Does this Jew have a family?

  “He has a wife and a child, a daughter I think,” Serov responded. “He also has a couple of cousins that he helped escape Latvia. I think that we will have to let his immediate family go with him – too many people know about them and it will look suspicious if they stay. His cousins are a different story. They’ll make excellent hostages.”

  Beria smiled. “Very good. Make sure that a Palestinian emissary finds him soon.”

  ***

  The management meeting at Consolidated’s headquarters in Herzliya finally got to the part Ze’ev enjoyed most: an update by his VP for Research and Development.

  The VP turned on a projector and started his presentation. “We have been busy developing a modern car that will sell and can be manufactured now. Our main concern was the power train. We tried to make it as simple and reliable as we could. This, and drivability, caused us to abandon a turbine engine.

  “A turbine looks attractive at first glance, especially as we’re tooling up to make Merkava transmissions, but on closer examination it’s not practical for a car that needs much less power than a ta
nk and must have absolutely no delay in power delivery – even a second might lead to an accident. Another problem was cost. A turbine is much less complicated than an internal combustion engine of comparable power but due to its high speed it requires an expensive transmission and some exotic materials if we want it to be reliable and efficient.

  “After looking at several options we zeroed in on an external combustion engine – a Stirling Cycle reciprocating engine. It has many advantages which are enumerated in the handout. It has two major disadvantages for automotive applications: it needs a warm up time before the car can move and it’s not easy to change the power output to quickly accelerate. We overcame both problems. We managed to shorten the warm up time. It varies from two to four seconds – depending on ambient temperature. To enable the car to move immediately and to eliminate a transmission we utilized a simple hybrid design with lead-acid batteries. We also utilized variable output burners and the ability to disconnect cylinder pairs. This gave us enough control of the power output to make the car drivable.

  “This is what it looks like.” He showed a slide of a car with an open hood and a clear view of the engine.

  Ze’ev asked: “This car looks kind of antique. What body did you use?”

  “We purchased a number of Fiat 2800 Berlina models, all newly manufactured by Fiat in Italy. We also purchased several Lancia Ardea cars. They’re smaller than the Fiat and probably better suited to our local market.”

  Chaim, Ze’ev’s son and the manager of one of Consolidated’s plants, asked, “Can we make them here or do we need to keep buying them from Fiat? And do they comply with our modern safety standards?”

  The VP smiled. “They comply with no modern standard, safety or otherwise, and we can’t make them here. We discovered, with the help of a number of automotive engineers who were rescued from Europe, that this body can quite easily be adapted to comply with most of the standards. Since the power train is compliant, we will have no problems.

  “To be able to make these cars in Israel we need a source of automotive sheet metal, presses to form it and, of course, all the little things liked gauges, upholstery, etc.

  “The real problem now is obtaining sheet metal. I’m afraid we will have to roll our own.”

  Ze’ev intervened. “I suggest that we distribute the three prototypes to everyone here so that each of us drives one for a couple of days. If the general assessment is positive, we can specify to Fiat and Lancia what we want them to do to make the body safety-compliant and maybe modernize the styling. We can buy from them while we tool up to make our own. Assuming we find it necessary.”

  ***

  The Supreme Court in Jerusalem finally rendered its decision: The judges agreed with the prosecution that the Palestinian leadership and its armed forces acted in bad faith and committed treason against its own people as well as against the State of Israel. The sentence was exile.

  A representative of the court read the sentence to the assembled Palestinian Arab leaders and three thousand members of their “security” force. That was the formal part of the proceedings.

  “The sentence will be carried out immediately. There are containers behind you with supplies that should last you six months. There are also weapons and tools. Do you have questions?”

  Ahmed Mazen approached the microphone. “I just want to say that this is an unjust sentence and we will do all in our power to return and take our revenge.”

  The crowd cheered but quickly quieted down when the court representative spoke. “You will do what you always do and frankly we don’t care. Good luck to you all.”

  With that he retreated behind a fence surrounding the crowd and nodded to the technician waiting by a switch. A quiet hum started and the crowd disappeared. The surface of the ground inside the fence was a couple of feet lower than it had been seconds before. Grass was growing where only dust and stones used to be. The traitors have been exiled to a different universe.

  ***

  The Theodor Herzl passenger ship arrived at the port of Ashdod at dawn. The passengers began disembarking in groups of twenty and walked over to a temporary building on the quay. The area was heavily guarded. From that building the passengers emerged directly into the port’s terminal.

  Alfred Goldberg with his wife and five year old daughter were in the third group to be released. They expected to be delayed for no more that fifteen minutes – like the groups before them. Whatever happened in the small building didn’t take very long.

  As they entered, each individual was directed to a separate room. Alfred went in first, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

  “Please take a seat,” a polite young woman told him. She was seated behind a desk with a keyboard and a monitor. Alfred took the seat.

  “Your name and date of birth, please.”

  Three questions later the process slowed down. She looked at the monitor with a slightly puzzled expression.

  Alfred didn’t know what the monitor was but he was smart enough to figure that something was wrong. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  The interviewer shook her head. “No problem. Are your wife and daughter with you?”

  “They’re waiting outside.”

  “Good, this will only take a minute.” She picked up a phone and said in Hebrew, “I think we have one.”

  The door behind her opened a moment later and a middle-aged man came in. He gestured to Alfred. “Please come with me.”

  “What about my family?”

  “Your family will be fine where they are,” the man responded.

  He took Alfred through a number of corridors to a room guarded by an armed soldier. The door clicked behind them with a sound that indicated it was heavy. The room was very quiet.

  “Sit, please.” The man indicated a chair in front of a simple desk.

  Alfred recognized the setup: an interrogation room. He was worried. The man sat opposite him, took out what looked like a flat box from the desk’s drawer, and started the interrogation.

  “You are Alfred Goldberg from Riga. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  The man examined the box carefully. “Your NKVD employee number is 7295176. Correct?”

  “What? What NKVD number? I’m Jewish and barely escaped from the Nazis.”

  “Alfred, I never said you were not Jewish or didn’t escape from the Nazis. I need to know whether the number I just read to you is your NKVD employee number? Oh, and don’t try lying to me, it will land you in a heap of trouble.”

  Alfred was thinking as fast as he knew how. What would happen if he admitted that this was his number? What if he tried to deny everything?

  The man seemed to read his thoughts. “Your direct supervisor at the GRU was one captain Oleg Vyshinski. Your NKVD supervisor in Riga was Nicolai Drugulin and in Moscow it was one Boris Nikodimov.”

  Alfred gave up. “Yes, the number is my serial number in the NKVD.”

  The man smiled. “See, it’s much easier this way. Now you will tell me what your orders are and after that you will join your family. We’ll have to give you an injection first. Nothing serious, but it will enable us to know where you are, geographically speaking. When the time comes, you will be contacted and instructed regarding reports to send to your former bosses.”

  “They will kill me for sure,” Alfred Goldberg whispered, “but I had no choice. If I refused they would have killed me and my family anyway.”

  The man smiled and this time it was a genuine smile. “We will protect you. You, and most important, your family will be safe here.” The smile disappeared. “You are lucky that you may be of use to us and that we’re not as blood-thirsty as your Communist friends, otherwise your crimes against your fellow Jews deported to Siberia would warrant at least a lengthy prison term.”

  ***

  Nachman and Tzila Frumin finally arrived at the port of Ashdod. It had taken them a while. Public transportation was much better than it had been when they arrived in Israel nine months ago, but it wa
s still time-consuming. Ze’ev had promised to meet them at the gates of the port. They waited for only a couple of minutes before he arrived. Together they went into the new passenger terminal.

  The large, open area was pleasantly air-conditioned and busy. People were milling around, obviously families waiting for new arrivals. Two lines of poles extended the width of the space. Each had a letter of the alphabet displayed on a plaque at the top. The letters were Hebrew, Latin and Cyrillic. The Frumins and Ze’ev congregated under the F. There were several other groups waiting there, obviously everyone with last names starting with F,פ and Ф.

  They waited for almost an hour before the first immigrants started leaving the customs area. Finally a girl approached them. Ze’ev recognized his mother, Esther, from the photographs he had of her when she was seventeen. At eighteen she looked not much different, except for being sickly thin.

  Nachman and Tzila hugged their daughter. It took a little while before everyone calmed down enough to introduce Ze’ev.

  Esther was completely confused. She was surprised that she had family in Palestine and confused by the unbelievable time travel story. Finally Ze’ev said, “Let’s go to my house. We can talk on the way there. In any case, the rest of the family is waiting there.”

  On the way Ze’ev tried to explain, again, the strange incident of Israel traveling back in time. He wasn’t sure whether he was explaining everything persuasively or whether it was the car they were riding in and the obviously advanced country they were rolling through that made her accept the story.

  After a while Esther asked, “Where is Wolf and the uncles and their families?”

  Her father answered. “Wolf is serving in the Israel Defense Forces. He’s a tank commander and a sergeant. Right now he’s in Italy and maybe soon will fight the Nazis. The uncles will meet us at Ze’ev’s house.”

  Ze’ev added, “You will also meet the rest of the family there. It’s a big family.”

  When they arrived at the house in Hertzlia Pituach the family was waiting to meet the new arrival.