“Wishful thinking my dear husband. Neither Sara nor Sheina are the oppressed types. It’s more likely that Sara ruled the household and her husband did what she wanted him to do. You think you’re much different from your great-grandfather?”
“Yes, yes. I know that women rule. No more arguments about this. Did you meet my grandfather and great-great-uncle too?”
“Yes, we had a big family dinner at your parent’s house only a couple of days ago. Chaim is a nice man but seems to be troubled – I think that he is worried about making a living and is too proud to accept help from relatives he doesn’t really know. Your grandfather confuses me no end. I knew him when he was in his eighties and now he is back with us, only he is twenty one. I try to think of him not as your grandfather but just as a close relative - That works most of the time.”
“Yes, that confused me too, probably even more than you. After all I knew him for most of my life and the young man resembles the grandfather I knew not only physically but in his mannerisms as well.”
“Oh, by the way, Jacob mentioned that he would like to get your advice about enlisting. He is hesitating but wants to participate in the common defense, as he put it.”
After he was sure that it was not a family emergency that brought him home, Ephraim decided to be patient and enjoy himself. He was scheduled to meet with his bosses in two days. They’d tell him what was going on.
****
“Please wait here,” Major Liat Cohen instructed Ephraim Hirshson. “Gad will be with you in a few minutes.”
Five minutes later Liat emerged from her office. She was smiling as she led him through her office and to a door on the right. Ephraim knew the other door led to Gad Yaari’s office but he had never been through it. They entered a large conference room. Four generals were at the table: Gad Yaari plus the commanders of the northern, central, and southern commands. Everybody rose as Yaari announced: “Colonel Ephraim Hirshson, you have been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. Congratulations.”
His old rank insignia were replaced with new. After much backslapping and a toast with wine, the ceremony was over.
“Now,” Yaari smiled at the new general, “there are a couple of things we need to discuss.”
The chief of general staff relaxed behind his desk: “Please call in the others,” he instructed his secretary. General Zvi Kaplan, chief of military intelligence and the head of the Mossad came in. A couple of seconds later the general commanding the Air force and the Navy commander joined them.
Yaari opened the discussion. “Gentlemen, so far we’ve had an advantage. This has changed now. The history of this time-line deviated from the one we know, mostly because of our actions to prevent the Holocaust.
“The government concluded there was a serious danger of Moscow and/or Leningrad falling to the Nazis, which could lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. A decision was made to intervene. We painted a couple of our old Stratocruisers, the ones we bought from Boeing in the fifties, in British colors and made them sort of look like Lancaster bombers – at least from a great distance. They bombed refineries and fuel depots in Ploesti, Romania. There was a danger of Germany recognizing that these were not what they seemed, but fortunately no one got close enough to do that – the escort jets shot down a couple of Messerschmitts that tried. There may be repercussion though, as the planes flew above the flack, which Lancasters can’t do. We’ll deal with that later if need be.
“The operation was a success in that Germany lost its major source of fuel for at least three weeks. We figured that would slow them down enough to give the Russians a chance. To make sure they did slow down, we also bombed a synthetic fuel plant in the Ruhr. The damage to the plant was repaired in a couple of days, but we destroyed a month’s worth of production reserves as well.”
Zvi Kaplan hung a large map of the Ukraine and eastern USSR on the wall. “In the history we knew, the Germans surrounded five Soviet armies near Kiev. This happened on September 16, 1941, when Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 and von Kleist’s Panzer Group 1 met east of Kiev, completing the circle.
“This time, both Guderian and Kleist are moving much slower. On September 16 they were still more than fifty kilometers apart. Soviet troops, retreating from Kiev, attacked Kleist’s panzers and slowed them even more. Our satellite images show that neither Guderian nor Kleist maneuver as much as they did in our history and consequently are suffering more losses. Because of lack of fuel they are spending much longer just sitting there waiting for supplies. They eventually completed the encirclement of Kiev, but only on October 2.
“The net result of this small difference is that instead of taking about 650,000 prisoners, along with two thousand tanks and almost a thousand pieces of artillery, the Germans only captured about 200,000 prisoners and maybe five hundred tanks and about the same number of artillery pieces.
“This being October 4, we still don’t know what the Soviets will do with their ‘extra’ troops and materiel. One thing is certain: history has changed in a major way.”
The head of the Mossad picked up the reporting. “We are getting information from Germany, some of which is coming through Zvi’s intercepts, that indicate Hitler still thinks that Kiev was a major victory - which objectively it was, just not as big as it could have been. He congratulated all involved, and, most significantly, promised his armor commanders to increase fuel supplies for operation Typhoon, that is, the attack on Moscow. Our conclusion is that the Soviet’s good luck was the result of a simple fuel shortage. Another important piece of information is that Typhoon has been scheduled for October 7 – in our history it began on September 30.
“The winter war will go badly for the Germans, much worse than in our time, unless Stalin does something exceedingly stupid. Our analysts estimate that if it goes badly enough, the Germans will ask the Caliph to help them. It’s also likely that we’ll see less German assistance with trucks or shipping – they’ll try to squeeze the last drop of fuel for their army.”
“It’s my assumption that our government will refuse help to the Germans,” Yaari said. “This brings me to the main subject of this meeting – the Brindisi base. Sometime in February or early March of next year we’ll probably discover that the Nazis are not friendly to the Caliph anymore. We expect that this will happen either because the Caliph will refuse their request for assistance, or, more likely, because they’ll realize who we really are – the government is considering establishing formal relations with several countries fairly soon. The Germans will stop cooperating with our rescue efforts. We have to get everybody out of Europe by the end of the year.”
“I don’t think we can do that,” Hirshson interjected. “There are communities that won’t move.”
“Are they in real danger, or, rather, will they be in real danger when the Germans become hostile?” Yaari asked.
“Difficult to predict,” the Mossad man responded, “but we probably can intimidate the Axis regimes directly, without nuking the Germans again. It’s either taking this chance or using force - German force - to evacuate them.”
“Fine. I will report to the government and let them decide.
“Now the next issue.” Yaari hung a map of southern Europe on the wall: “What do we do if, after realizing that we are not friendly, the Nazis decide to attack our base?”
“Why would they? It makes no sense,” the Air Force commander asked.
“As one who has had direct contact with them, I can tell you that they are definitely not rational,” Hirshson pointed out.
“I agree,” Yaari said. “We need to prepare a defense. And don’t tell me that the Air Force can do it all by itself. Don’t underestimate the Germans. Ephraim, get your staff to prepare a plan. Everybody here will assist. Think of this base as a beachhead for the future invasion of Europe by the Allies – whoever they may be at the time.”
***
Amos Nir was in conference with the head of the Mossad when the Foreign Minister arrived: “Come in,” h
e greeted the Minister. “Our meeting got more complicated than I expected and your input will be helpful.
“We were discussing how to prevent Hitler from declaring war on the U.S. in December. We came up with several ideas, but none of them is guaranteed.”
“We have a number of options,” the head of the Mossad said. “The Mufti is still running around Europe making sure that every single Jew is moved to Brindisi – We could have him try to convince Hitler that it would be folly to declare war on the U.S. Or we had the idea of giving Hitler’s astrologist a sudden revelation of what is going to happen a couple of days before the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. After his prediction comes true, he should have no trouble persuading Hitler that a declaration of war would result in a catastrophic loss for Germany. The last suggestion we discussed was sending an American businessman with good ties to the Nazis and known as their supporter - someone like Henry Ford or IBM’s Thomas Watson - to convince them that the U.S. wouldn’t attack Germany if Germany doesn’t declare war. I’m not saying that all these ideas are doable, but we need to decide what approach is most effective.”
“I don’t think any of those ideas would work,” the Foreign Minister declared. “It’s futile to try convincing Hitler, and I’ve said so in the Cabinet meeting. Hitler’s decision to declare war on the U.S inexplicable. Germany gained nothing from it and lost a lot, allowing Roosevelt to get actively involved in the war in Europe. The Japanese have certainly not asked for German involvement or help. Historians and psychologist have speculated for years why he did this crazy thing. My approach is simple: the man is crazy, therefore unpredictable and uncontrollable. Nothing we can do will persuade him. I think that the full Cabinet has to discuss this again, with input from our resident psychiatrist and the Mossad.” He looked at the Prime Minister: “In the meantime I have news we have to discuss.”
Amos addressed his advisors: “Okay, thank you for your input. I guess we’ll see you at the next Cabinet meeting.”
When they were alone the Foreign Minister again expressed his opposition to interference with American involvement in Europe. He presented the common wisdom position: if the U.S. doesn’t get involved, there will be a real danger of the Soviets crushing Germany and dominating all of Europe, not just its eastern half. They had a similar conversation in the Cabinet meeting, with the Foreign Minister remaining in the minority. Most of the cabinet members accepted the Prime Minister’s opinion that it would be a good thing to prevent U.S. involvement in Europe. After all, it was Roosevelt that agreed to give Stalin, whom he trusted for inexplicable reasons, all of Eastern Europe.
Amos tried to persuade him that Soviet dominance would be unlikely. In the end he presented his plan, which he hadn’t yet disclosed to anyone. After a heated discussion the Foreign Minister agreed that, with some modifications, it was a good plan.
Next they discussed the Kuwait situation. Amos wanted to pressure the British government immediately while the Foreign Minister accepted Mizrahi’s position that they should wait. They briefly discussed the issue and Amos agreed that it was probably a good idea to wait a bit.
The next issue on the agenda was somewhat of a surprise for the Foreign Minister. The Minister for Internal Security joined them, as well as the head of the General Security Service.
“Nathan,” the Prime Minister asked, “what is your opinion of the Peace Now demonstrations?”
“I think they are stupid, but I always thought they were. They think that if we cancel the decision to execute murderers when a new terror act is perpetrated the murderers will just go home? For some reason these idiots always blame us for everything. It is always the ‘poor, oppressed’ Palestinians.”
“I am glad that you agree with me on this, but we have a larger problem here. The last demonstration at Rabin square in Tel-Aviv had more than thirty thousand participants, and the number of their supporters is growing. Now the Arab parties and the leftist peaceniks in the Knesset are organizing for even larger demonstrations.
The Foreign Minister nodded: “I’ve even gotten a couple of telephone calls from the Russian and American ambassadors. Since they are, by our own definition, private persons, they may decide to support this movement. I don’t like it at all.”
Amos Nir looked at his colleagues. “We may have a surprise for these guys.” He nodded to the Security Services man.
“As you know, we have good sources in the Palestinian organizations,” the head of the GSS stated. “One of these alerted us to unusual activity by the Palestinian Authority a while ago. We pinned a micro transmitter on Muhammad al Husseini, the Hamas guy from Jenin, when he was on his way to meet with the chairman of the Palestinian authority. This is what we recorded…” He started a small tape recorder and played back the conversation between Muhammad and Dr. Mazen coordinating the operation to contact the Mufti. Everybody in the room, except for the Foreign Minister, had enough Arabic to understand the gist of the conversation. The Foreign Minister waited for a translation.
“About a month later, there was a meeting of all the Palestinian leaders in Mazen’s office. They swept the office for bugs but didn’t think of long distance laser eavesdropping.”
“What is that?” the Foreign Minister asked.
“Oh, it’s a simple device – You point a laser beam at a surface that vibrates when a sound is made, like a window pane, and, with proper calibration, can hear everything said in the room.
“But this wasn’t the only means we used. One of the participants carried a bug in his clothing.” He played back a recording of the meeting.
“After everybody left,” The GSS man continued, “Mazen made several telephone calls.”
Amos Nir took over at this point: “I think that if we disclose the whole thing to the public, we can stop the protests for good.”
“I wish it was so simple,” the head of the GSS smiled a sad smile. “The liberals, or rather the Marxists, are a religious lot. They never change their minds no matter what, and they never let facts confuse them. They also don’t care if the Palestinians are the ones that initiate terror attacks.”
“We might not be able to sway the true believers, but the great majority of those who come to these demonstrations are just people who want peace and think that if they wish strongly enough it will actually happen. If they abandon the movement there will not be enough support for the rest do anything.”
***
The large conference room was noisy, filled to capacity with business leaders and some of their staff.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places. We have a lot to discuss and little time.” The Foreign Minister waited for the conversations to stop. “You were invited here because your companies were all exporters before the Event and some have experience in areas we are interested in. The Cabinet made a decision that will impact on your business activities.
“The government has decided that certain products may be exported and sold outside of Israel. The conditions will be the same as they used to be for defense items before the Event. For those who don’t know: the export of every item will have to be approved by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. In departure from pre-Event practice, all foreign deals and contacts will be managed by government-owned corporations set up abroad. For example: if a company wants to export shoes to Timbuktu, the Ministry of Trade sets up a trading company in Timbuktu and all exports go through that company. Each exporter will have a separate government-owned company in the destination country. Smaller exporters will share a trading company. The ownership of these corporations will be transferred to you after the state of emergency is over. We are setting this up to insure that future information doesn’t leak out, at least until after we are done with the Germans, and possibly, the Soviets.
“We also want to set up several industries locally. These industries will need equipment we don’t have and can’t make fast enough. The government will purchase the necessary equipment abroad and sell it to you. Any question
s?”
Ze’ev Hirshson was the first. “I’m the president of Consolidated Manufacturing. We need raw materials that we used to buy from Europe before the Event. I assume that you will help us to set up a procurement operation in Britain and Africa for these materials. Is that correct?”
“Not entirely,” the Minister responded. “You give us a list of what you need and, if you have it, information on where to find it, and we buy it for you. You will be able to attach a representative to our missions. At this time only the government will have access to the outside world. One piece of advice: before you try to buy something abroad, check if it’s already available locally and if it isn’t, can it be made here. We have to become self-sufficient in a hurry.”
“Does that mean that the government will set the prices for all imports?”
“Not really,” the Minister responded. “We will start by charging you the lowest price in shekels you used to pay before the Event. As exchange rates get clarified, we’ll modify the prices, after a consultation with your companies. We hope to be out of this business fairly quickly – as soon as diplomatic relations are established with the rest of the world.”
“You mentioned the auto industry,” Ze’ev asked. “Is there a change in the government’s policies as described three weeks ago?”
“No change. We expect some entrepreneurship from the captains of our industry, and this time around there will be no subsidies to make lousy cars here. Just think of the possibilities: our population has almost doubled and there are no cars being imported. If you manage to make reasonably modern cars at a reasonable price…” The Minister smiled. “And after the war is over you will own the world market, at least until the Chinese catch up.”
“So we still get loans on the terms that were offered in the original plan?”
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