Kill Them Wherever You Find Them

by David Hunter

  ~ ~ ~

  "What have you learned?"

  "It has been confirmed, Director Shiloah, that the coffee beans were laced with the Temazepam powder. Enough to bring down an elephant. The manager of the resort, fearing for his life and nearly soiling his pants when threatened, is being very cooperative. Other than identifying the man who approached and bribed him, he has little to offer beyond a vague description of the two maids who would have cleaned the suite in which the Levins were staying. The operatives in the van a few blocks away were unaware that anything happened until they realized that Mrs. Levin had stopped snoring and there was no sound, at all, coming from the two agents in the main room. They tried to contact the agents when they realized that something was amiss, but by then it was too late.

  Entering the room not ten minutes later they discovered the bodies of the dead agents and Mrs. Levin. The agent posted outside the entry door was also dead, dragged inside the suite post-mortem based on the blood trail. After an initial inspection to clear the area and confirm no hostiles remained, they contacted the day agents and then you, Director Shiloah."

  "Thank you, I'll speak with you later."

  "Agent Ra'am, I have heard from the lead investigative agent in Brazil. It has been confirmed that Moshe was abducted by a professional team, his wife and the two agents in the room and one posted outside the suite all assassinated."

  "Director, is there any information as to who conducted the kidnapping?"

  "At this stage I have no further information. We are reviewing satellite imagery now to determine if we can find anything else, but at this point it doesn't look very promising."

  "I would like to meet with you and your team as soon as possible. How soon can you be here?"

  "We are already in the building, on our way to your office right now. We should be there in five minutes."

  This sophisticated of an operation, it was neither just a simple robbery nor a for ransom kidnapping. Somehow, somebody knew about The Project and, until recently, Moshe Levin's position within it. How could they possibly know, and who was behind it? Was there a mole hiding in the shadows, planning the next step? A friend for many long years, Isser, more than anything, worried about Moshe.

  Until he was able to determine who was behind the assassination of his agents and Mrs. Levin, as well as the kidnapping of Moshe, Isser was determined to keep knowledge of what happened in Brazil confined to a small circle.

  Operation Time Master was now set in motion, effectively the highest priorities for both the Mossad and the Shin Bet. Included in this operation was the need to discover who had knowledge about Dr. Levin's work, as well as how much they knew about The Project, conceived and brought to fruition by Dr. Levin.

  What was their endgame? Did the kidnappers represent a rogue group, a nation, or some kind of consortium? Was their plan to put an end to The Project within Israel, or were they trying to develop one of their own?

  Table of Contents

  3. Red Code

  “Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now” - Denis Waitley

  Somewhere in the Negev Desert, State of Israel

  A Red Code was transmitted to all key personnel associated with The Project who were currently in the State of Israel.

  Dr. Rachael Siwel was giving a lecture at the University near her house in Tel Aviv when she received the alert. In all of her time working with The Project, such an emergency alert requiring her to report immediately to her facility had never before been issued.

  Returning to her assigned facility, Rachael thought back to the first time she used the security-modified shayroot as a means for transportation. The shayroot, essentially a large, stretch, taxicab which could have normally accommodated eight to ten adults, had been modified for the security and comfort of two to three people, including the driver.

  That first trip in the shayroot was very exciting considering the prospect that they were about to change an untenable present by literally going back to change events of the past. This trip, however; was different.

  Considering all that they had been through, the fact that this was an emergency recall of personnel, was significant in and of itself. Rachael could not help but wonder the nature of the emergency, but being pragmatic she wasn't one to dwell on the unknown.

  At length she arrived at her destination. She went through the mindless routine of changing clothing into regulation issue Project attire, surrendering all of her personal items to be locked in secure storage for the duration, then walking down the hall which would scan her body for any foreign objects.

  Rachael finally found herself seated in the conference room.

  The only other person to have yet arrived was somebody from a different facility. Rachael recognized his face, but could not quite place his name, or his function within The Project.

  Looking at him, briefly, a second time, she remembered that he was the lead person for the team working on the quantum teleportation aspect of The Project.

  "Hello Rachael. It's good to see you again after such a long time. Do you have any idea why we are here?"

  Rachael wasn't sure whether she should be gratified, or annoyed, by the fact that he knew her name, when she could not remember his.

  "It's a mystery to me as well. But the fact that you are here in this facility tells me that it must be something of significance to the entire Project, rather than isolated to any one facility."

  "I agree with you . . ."

  A small cluster of people entered the conference room, interrupting what he was saying, to Rachael's relief.

  "Good morning."

  "Good morning to you. It looks as though Rachael and I were not the only two people to be called in so suddenly."

  "You've got that right, Dan. From the number of shayroots and military vehicles pulling into the drop-off area, I expect that this conference room will be full, standing room only."

  'Dan.' Rachael wondered how she could have forgotten his name, glad that it came up in this conversation. Before they adjourned, Rachael would use his name in conversation with him so that she didn't appear to be antisocial.

  True to the stated observation, the conference room was filled to standing room only capacity.

  Rachael noticed Udi Ra'am at the same time General Ashkelon made his entrance.

  This came as no surprise, given the fact that people from different facilities received the coded message to come to this facility. Either something went terribly wrong with one of the landings as newly trained people went back in time, or there was some kind of security breach. She assumed the latter given the presence of the head of security, Udi Ra'am.

  "Thank you for coming on such short notice." General Ashkelon began, "I realize this is an imposition."

  For just about everybody in the room this was, in fact, an imposition. Professionalism, coupled with curiosity, prevented anybody from nodding their heads in agreement.

  "To those who knew him by virtue of your work with The Project, this will be difficult news. To those who worked with him in this very facility, even more so. So I'll not belabor the issue."

  "While on vacation in Brazil, Dr. Levin was kidnapped by an unknown hostile group, and his wife and three security agents were killed."

  Every face in the room, except for General Ashkelon and Udi Ra'am, displayed emotions ranging from mild shock to grief resulting from a personal loss; the latter applied exclusively to those who worked personally with Dr. Levin.

  Allowing a few moments for the news to sink in, the General continued, "At this point, we have no idea who is behind the attack, or even if it's relative to The Project. Given the planning and execution of the operation required to kidnap Dr. Levin, we believe with near 100% certainty that it must be related to his work with The Project. We are moving forward based on this assessment. We have little to go on other than about a fifteen minute window, during which time we know the operati
on was carried out."

  "I requested this conference with the heads of each facility, as well as all department heads within each facility, to not only advise you of the situation, but also to lay out our operational plan by consulting with you."

  "Agent Ra'am will address you first regarding security. I will follow him."

  "Thank you sir. As the General said, at this point we have nothing to indicate who was behind the abduction. But, it was carried out with exactness, by professionals who left no incriminating evidence behind other than bullets in the scope of the three victims and the powerful sleep aid mixed with the ground coffee beans used by the two agents."

  "Because of the planning, manpower, precision, and money required to carry out such an operation, we believe this must be an attack on The Project itself. This means each and every person here, as well as all other personnel employed by The Project, is in potential danger. The degree of higher exposure than usual requires heightened security procedures. In the next several days we will be working to consolidate all facilities into one. The duties and functions of each facility will continue to operate as separate, but for the sake of security all will be operating within this compound."

  "We don't feel it necessary to bring your families onto the compound as we did before, and hopefully this won't change. We do, however; feel it important to change a couple of your personal security protocols, and those of your staff. Transportation and public safety are our two priorities. All employees of The Project will be receiving individualized memos regarding the changes to be made in these areas. Our second priority will be identifying within The Project who knowingly, or perhaps unwittingly, provided classified information that led to his capture."

  "Agent Ra'am, how certain are you that this was an inside operation?"

  "There are enough unknown variables that we are not certain somebody within The Project was involved. That said, the previous timeline when Avi and No'am were feeding information to Mona, has been completely erased. So we have no reason to believe that Iran is involved. The fact that previous conspirators can't be culpable in this situation, it remains, nonetheless, a very high probability that information had to be leaked from within The Project."

  "As far as the world at large was concerned, Moshe had not been involved with the scientific community for several years. Thus, unless knowledge about him being the founder of The Project has been given to a hostile entity, it would be highly unlikely anybody would have the slightest interest in him. Unless somebody within one of the facilities provided that information, for reasons yet unknown."

  "Nearly a day has passed since his abduction, yet there have been no blackmail or ransom demands. This leads us to the likely deduction that whoever took him did not do so for monetary value, or political reasons for that matter, but rather the high likelihood that they want to start their own Project. The more time that passes without any demands for his safe return, the more likely it is that he was abducted for his knowledge, and nothing more. The only reason that his knowledge would be of value to his abductors, would be if they are trying to develop their own version of The Project."

  "Are there any questions before I return the floor to Dr. Ashkelon?"

  "Yes. How do we know that our families are not in imminent danger?"

  "We are not blind to the possibility that your families could very well be in danger, imminent or not. We believe given the facts surrounding the abduction and a very high possibility that it was done to acquire knowledge to build a version of The Project, it's unlikely that anybody's family member is a target. Every employee actually may be a target, most especially you gathered within this room, heads of departments and facilities. The higher up your responsibilities, the higher up your knowledge, thus your value to those who would want to duplicate our work."

  Scanning the eyes and gestures of those in the room he saw that his response was accepted, for now. When it became apparent that no further questions for Udi were forthcoming, the general arose from his seat.

  "It has been decided that we do not have the time or luxury of conventional methods to discover who abducted Moshe. We are going to call on the full resources of The Project in an attempt to discover not only who abducted Levin, but also why."

  "I believe we have progressed to the point where we can send several people back in recent time. Am I correct?"

  As all eyes turned to her direction, Dr. Tamara Barkat, the Director of the Negev facility of The Project and de facto head of the entire Project responded, "Until we have ironed out all wrinkles, we have limited the maximum number of people to three. I believe that number can comfortably be increased to five, but I would like to run some test first for confirmation before committing to the number of people."

  "I don't understand why we can't have it go beyond three people. Is it a question of the energy requirements, or something else?"

  "The technology is stable, and we've even been able to reduce energy requirements since the first landing. There have been problems, psychological and emotional, the further back in time we send people. So far, Jeff Stauffenberg is the sole exception, for reasons we do not, as yet, understand. Where this would be a landing targeting very recent history, neither the emotional nor psychological factor is an issue here. What is at issue, in theory at least, is that the number and degree of undesirable modifications in the timeline increases exponentially with the number of people who are sent back. Given that the people would be sent back only days, perhaps weeks, before now reduces that risk. It does not, nonetheless, eliminate it. The risk, however small, remains real and relevant."

  "Just to be clear, then, from a technological perspective it is possible?"

  "Yes. It is."

  "In view of what we are facing, I'm authorizing a team of five. I want one of those five to be Stauffenberg, given his experience and proven fidelity. Udi, I want you to personally conduct another background check on the other four tonight. For that matter, Stauffenberg too; we can't afford to take any chances. I understand Jeff is in the country now, correct?"

  "Yes, he is sir." Udi replied. "He is visiting the Temple Mount at this very moment."

  "Bring him in, now. Dr. Barkat, assign four others to the landing team. Give Udi their names so he can double check them tonight. Once the team is assembled and cleared by Udi, they are to be briefed regarding their mission. I think it best to send them back approximately one month before the abduction."