by David Hunter
~ ~ ~
"If there are no objections we will begin our briefing without introductions or needless formalities." The Prime Minister noticed that the head of the Mossad seemed rested, even sporting a bit of a tan. In his job, neither rest nor the tan would endure.
"I trust everybody has already reviewed the bullet points of your daily domestic and foreign intelligence briefings." Conforming to his personal style, the Prime Minister avoided small talk.
"Our neighbors' infighting is having ever worsening ramifications on the security of our own borders. With the only democratically elected Egyptian president removed from office, and the Muslim Brotherhood under attack, our Hamas neighbors in the West Bank, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, are facing problems with the Egyptian military. Just today two Egyptian tanks rolled up to the very border between their country and the only entry point between Egypt and the West Bank, if you don't count the secret smugglers' tunnels." A few chuckles gave way to silence as the Prime Minister continued.
"In southern Lebanon the Hezbollah continues to gift us with showers of rockets, as do our Palestinian neighbors who promised peace for land and self-determination that they now enjoy. These rockets have demonstrated a marked and continual improvement in both range and targeting accuracy, thanks to their Iranian benefactors and other suppliers from within the Russian Federation and elsewhere."
"The Hezbollah has joined in the fighting to keep the Syrian dictatorship in power, which is causing friction within the Lebanese general population, leading to fighting among segments of that society which could destabilize an already weakening government in Lebanon. Egypt is in turmoil with ongoing fighting between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and the military, with civilians caught in between."
"Turkey continues to increase its politicized Islamic presence in their government, while at the same time absorbing a growing number of Syrian refugees. I'm happy to say inroads are being made to reestablishing diplomatic relationships with the Turkish government, long a friend and ally to Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan continues to groan under the financial, housing and social strains of taking in so many war refugees from Syria. To say that the Middle East is in turmoil is, more than anything, a statement of the obvious."
"For us, the threat is on every side. The naïvely named, 'Arab Spring' continues to fill graveyards, with suffering among the living increasing daily on massive levels never seen before. These wars and rebellions are bound to spill over into our own borders. Attempts by the Syrians to breach our borders on the Golan Heights have already been attempted more than once by the government to divert focus from their own criminal behavior. If we don't act we will be forced to react when the Middle East erupts into an all-out conflagration."
"From our pioneering ventures into history to carefully reshape events in the present, we've seen unintended consequences, ripple effects if you will, for which we can neither plan nor avoid. It appears, though, that these ripple effects have had no significant consequences to known history. This implies that the smaller the changes made in the recent past, the weaker the ripple effects, though that would not always be a guarantee. Conversely, the larger and more distant the history alteration, the more far-reaching and potentially dangerous the ripple effects."
"We would be unwise to try and solve all of our problems in the present by going into the past to manipulate people and events to suit our needs. I think, also, we would be unwise to shelf a weapon that we know works so well, as long as we are exceptionally judicious in its use. The floor is now open for discussion."
Lt. General Dan Ashkelon, head of Israel's military General Staff, was the first to speak. "Sir, as you point out, our country is facing several concerns on every front. I think it would be good to first gain a consensus as to which poses the greatest threat, then proceed with options for addressing the problems in descending order of priority. Before we do that I would be interested in learning of the progress being made within The Project itself."
Dr. Tamara Barkat, Director of the Negev facility of The Project, interjected; "Based on information gathered from the other facilities, The Project is going forward at full speed. Great strides have been made at sending up to three people back into time without additional energy requirements. Dr. Jeff Stauffenberg's family is now residing in Israel with dual citizenship status nearly granted. From every report it appears they have all adjusted well, the children nearly fluent in Hebrew now. Their main difficulty, though, is not being able to mix with the Mormon community in Israel. I think this is something that needs to be addressed and soon; the Latter-day Saint tradition is so central to their everyday life that not being able to associate openly with other Mormons will be a problem."
"Dr. Jeff Stauffenberg has accepted the position of Team Leader for all time insertions. He is the most familiar with time travel and, so far, the only person to never show any significant psychological strain from his landings in the past."
"Others who have been selected for landing are handling it well when said landing is in the recent past, such as a month or two ago, up to five years in the past. But for some reason the people we send back seem to have difficulties adjusting when the time frame is significantly before the year they were born. We are working on learning why this is the case, as well as why it is that Jeff seems to be immune to this even when he landed more than a century in the past. We are looking into possibilities of genetic or other physiological markers that differentiate Jeff from the others. At this point, we have nothing but conjecture, though I'm leaning toward a genetic factor at this point."
As she spoke Isser abruptly excused himself, leaving the conference room.
Dr. Barkat continued, "To avoid, as much as possible, contaminating the timeline, those who are sent back in space-time are only allowed to stand and look around, not speak to anybody. We land them in a time and location where it is impossible that anybody would know them. It has been interesting to note that when they are landed, even if in a crowd, nobody seems to notice it. It's as if they were always there to those around them. As mentioned earlier, the psychological effects of landings, when they happen in the recent past, are very minute, if at all. Yet the further back in time they are sent, say forty or fifty years ago, the psychological effects are more pronounced, though not dangerously so. There is no evidence of psychosis. More than a century back, however; the negative psychological effects are considerably more pronounced. Tests reveal an alteration in brain chemistry that we don't yet understand. Stauffenberg's brain chemistry remains unaffected."
"Again, we are looking into why this would be different for him. That there would be some associated mental stress has been expected, the alterations in brain chemistry came as a surprise. I have tried to contact Dr. Levin in Brazil, including leaving him a couple of messages on his voice mail, to learn what his initial observations were of Stauffenberg when he returned both times. Dr. Siwel has been monitoring Jeff from the first day he started working with The Project. She has not reported anything unusual. I've not yet had a response from Dr. Levin."
The head of Mossad quietly slipped back into the conference room as Tamara concluded her comments.
"If I may interject," Shiloah spoke as he took his seat; "I have just learned of a developing situation with Dr. Levin. Of the agents assigned to the Levins while they were on vacation in Brazil, three are dead along with his wife, Rivka. Moshe is missing."
Isser broke the news in a subdued voice, not typical of the way he spoke, even during those moments that seemed to stretch one's soul to its limits. "The surviving agents in Brazil are gathering intel, analyzing physical evidence left at the scene in the suite. I regret that, at this time, I don't have any more information. I'm expecting additional details shortly."
The implications of this revelation were far-reaching. Dr. Moshe Levin was Dr. Tamara Barkat's predecessor in the human phase of The Project. As such he had unparalleled access to details of the other two facilities that, all three combined,
formed the totality of The Project.
Other than General Ashkelon and the Prime Minister, Levin knew more about The Project than any living person. His expertise and experience just might paint enough of a picture to allow an enemy nation to develop their own Project, or at the very minimum sabotage the one in operation in the State of Israel.
The unspoken question on the minds of everybody in the meeting was, now that they had dealt with the two terrorists in the past who learned about The Project through one of the agents in their group, how could anybody possibly know about The Project now? With the alterations of the past, the terror group and their undercover agent, Mona, now never existed and The Project was never compromised. Furthermore, how could anybody possibly be aware of Moshe Levin and his critical role and leadership position within The Project?
"Do you know when the abduction happened?" The Prime Minister's brows furrowed as he asked the question that, based on the words, focused only on Moshe but by its line of inquiry factored in the dead, as well.
"At this stage we have no precise time frame, but based on the bodies in the room it happened around 23:00 hours local time. There was no sign of a struggle. The results of a full toxicology panel on the two dead agents show the presence of a very high dosage of Temazepam in their blood, enough to knock them out cold within minutes from time of ingestion. Their stomach contents reveal foods previously eaten to have already been well into the digestive process, so we know their food hadn't been drugged. Both also had coffee in their stomachs. We believe this to have been the delivery method. All items in the suite have been bagged for identification and tests. The ground coffee beans are being tested now."
"Mrs. Levin, was she drugged too?"
"Her toxicology panel came back negative. She was executed, two bullets to the head. I'm afraid now you have every detail that I have. By the end of the day I expect to have a clearer picture of the events leading up to the abduction and, I trust, information on where Dr. Levin is being held, and by whom."
The faces of all in the room betrayed worry. All but Udi Ra'am, the new head of security for The Project, had known Moshe professionally, a few having formed varying degrees of a friendship with the man.
Promoted to replace him as the director of the Negev facility after his retirement, the news seemed to affect Dr. Tamara Barkat more than the others. She had worked under Dr. Levin in the facility almost since the inception of The Project. Though she never formed a closeness with him as had others in the facility, she nonetheless liked the man and felt a great respect for him and his accomplishments. She realized, naturally, that with his abduction she was probably on the short list of people to be kidnapped as well. Not only did she know everything Levin had known concerning The Project, she knew a great deal more in view of the advancements they had made since his retirement.
"In light of this new development, one I wish I had known about before we started this meeting, The not-so-subtle censure wasn't lost on the Director of the Mossad, "The national threat has just assumed a new dimension, deadlier than any posed by our confrontation nations and known terror groups." As expected nobody disagreed or, if they did, they kept their counsel to themselves.
"Until we have some actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of Dr. Levin, I suggest we maintain our focus on the list of concerns on our printed agenda and meet again tomorrow. At that time we can discuss our approach to Dr. Levin and his abductors."
For the duration, the weekly meeting continued as scheduled, each item on the agenda reviewed with solutions offered and, in most cases, shelved for a future vetting. The military, both intelligence agencies, facility directors with The Project, security, commerce and industry, and other leadership coordinated their assignments, finally concluding the meeting after sunset. The next day intelligence, military, security and Project leadership would meet again to consider options, if any, of retrieving Moshe Levin hopefully unharmed, and discovering who was behind his abduction and why. The why was pretty much a forgone conclusion, but they had to be absolutely certain. There was no possible way any organization outside of the Israeli government and Project leadership could be aware of The Project. Yet here they were, faced with the abduction of the man whose research and life's work almost single-handedly opened the door to changing past events that resulted in a modification of the present. Having earned the nickname "The Time Master," his abduction was nothing short of a national disaster on multiple levels.
For members of the Mossad, from Isser Shiloah on down, and for Udi Ra'am and his security team working in the facilities to keep them safe from dangers within and without, the setting of the sun held no respite.