Kill Them Wherever You Find Them

by David Hunter

  ~ ~ ~

  Memorandum

  From: No'am Abrams

  To: Lt. Gen. Dan Ashkelon

  Re: Breach

  General Ashkelon, I regret this memo to you can't be the detail that you will require. As it will be left in my room the lack of security requires discretion, a discretion that I regret has been lacking in my personal and professional life for some time now.

  Requisite brevity has left some holes in my account, holes that I'm certain you will be able to fill in with the assistance of the security services.

  Before my current employment, a few years before, I met a woman named "Mona." She was a Farsi Jew living in Israel under political asylum, having escaped The Islamic Republic of Iran for her outspoken criticisms of the religious and civil restrictions. The Israeli government secreted them into Israel, where they have been living - frequently changing their residence – ever since.

  I fell in love with her the moment I saw her though we remained just friends. Over time she came to love me equally. I would discuss my work with her but only in the most simplistic of terms and superficially. I'm afraid I was at times overly enthusiastic in my attempt to impress her. Though very intelligent, she was no physicist, obvious from the questions she would ask me for clarification in the things we discussed.

  I'm afraid, though, that she was being blackmailed. Iran had captured her parents and was systematically torturing them. To prevent additional torture I was forced to turn over information to their government, through the people controlling her. I managed to secure her father's release though they kept her mother and continued to torture her to unbearable lengths. Some of the information handed over contained details on my current work, with its scientific potential. I tried to limit what I provided but, in the end, she was captured. I just witnessed, via a live feed, her being tortured and, certainly, her murder - as no human could have survived the thing to which she was subjected.

  I regret my actions then, and now. I can't live with what happened to Mona, I can't live with how I may have compromised our work knowing that, in the end, she and her mother are now dead. I accomplished nothing good and probably have hurt my adopted country that I have loved and served for so long. To this end, I have decided to conclude my life. Life for life, mine for Mona's. I'm the reason she's captured and was murdered.

  I do have one final request that, in spite of what I did to you and our country, I hope you will honor. Please tell my parents that I died in a laboratory accident. They wouldn't be able to bear the knowledge that I committed suicide, or that I committed treason. Please General, if my contributions over these years have meant anything, please allow me this one thing, with an honorable burial.