by Dan Sehlberg
There was a beautiful view of the fertile landscape from the balcony. The grounds of the palace stretched as far as he could see in all directions. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was very warm. Thin white fabric had been put up like a roof to give shade. The others were sitting on pillows, eating breakfast. Samir approached yet another table crammed full of food, and took some fool, bean porridge. He wasn’t hungry; he never was any more. He walked over to the men in the shade. They nodded, and he sat down on an empty pillow across from Ahmad, who ignored him. Ahmad was absorbed in explaining something to Arie.
‘… a lot of it depends on the weather, too. The colder it is, the better.’
Arie dipped a piece of bread in the bean paste in front of him and nodded.
‘If it’s cold,’ Ahmad continued, ‘no one will react to a person wearing a large coat. Then we can hide a belt that weighs up to around ten kilos. If it’s warmer — like today — we can’t hide that much. Maybe two or three kilos.’
The others were silent. Ahmad turned to Samir. ‘You’re late.’
Samir chewed on a fig. ‘I overslept.’
‘Eat quickly. The meeting starts in ten minutes. Be on time — I’ve invited a guest.’
Ahmad stood up and left them. Irfan al Jamal, the prince’s head of security, and Arie remained behind. Samir poked at his fool absent-mindedly. Down below the roof he heard a lawnmower and, faintly, pop music. Fragments of another world.
After breakfast, Ahmad, Arie, and Samir gathered in one of the many parlours in the palace. It must have been one hundred square metres in size, and it was filled with precious objects. Large paintings hung on the walls, all with horse motifs and all in gold frames. The prince was a horse fanatic; he owned over four hundred horses for breeding and competition. In the middle of the room, twelve easy chairs stood around an oval table, on which was a bowl full of fruit. A fan that appeared to be made of pure gold rotated on the ceiling. Samir hadn’t seen the prince himself since the evening before.
Ahmad’s guest turned out to be a Western consultant. Samir guessed that he was under thirty years old. He was wearing a tailor-made dark suit, a white shirt, a dark-blue tie, and silver cufflinks. His hair was combed back.
Ahmad made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
‘The virus is causing great harm. Israel’s financial stability is under threat. Several leading institutions have issued warnings and are advising their clients to wait and see before investing in shekels.’
He turned to Arie and Samir.
‘As active investors, naturally, we are all concerned about the situation. To get a better idea of how things stand, I’ve invited Jonathan Yates from Ernst & Young’s New York office. Despite his young age, Yates is a prominent financial analyst. His focus is on macroeconomics and the Middle East. The floor is yours, Mr Yates.’
Samir noted a certain irony in Ahmad’s voice. Jonathan smiled and cleared his throat.
‘I’d like to thank you for inviting me, and I’m glad to be here. What a place!’
He looked at them with a smile. No one smiled back, so he hurried to hand out a packet of papers.
‘I have compiled my analysis into a brief report. If you turn to page two, you’ll find a number of diagrams.’
They paged through their packets.
‘At the very top you’ll see the New York Stock Exchange. As you know, there are many Israeli companies listed there and on NASDAQ. In addition, a lot of American companies have investments and owners with Israeli connections. Thus we can assume that these exchanges will be affected more by the virus than will ones like the London or Tokyo exchanges. You can see a normal curve during the first ten weeks of the measuring period — relatively little volatility, with fluctuations of plus or minus 2 per cent. Now, if you turn to the eleventh week, you’ll see that the line representing the Israeli exchange especially starts to take a dive, and then it recovers but at a lower level. This was where the exchange system started to behave strangely. Yet it was still nothing too alarming. What we’re looking at is a normal reaction, probably due to a number of speculative articles in the media. The market was more on guard.’
Samir followed the line with his finger. At the end of the eleventh week, it pointed sharply downward.
‘Here is where the news of a virus attack against the Israeli banking system broke. Within twenty-four hours, the Dow Jones fell 5 per cent and the NASDAQ 6 per cent. The negative trend has continued. Altogether, in the period leading up to today, the Dow Jones has fallen 15 per cent and the NASDAQ all of 17 per cent.’
Jonathan looked around to see if there were any questions, and then he continued.
‘The markets in Europe and Asia follow essentially the same pattern, but with a somewhat muted effect. This is because they are more distant from the epicentre. Israel is different. Look at TASE, the index of the Israeli stock exchange. During the past few days, it’s fallen 31 per cent, which is an enormous amount. And it continues to follow here, as well. TASE opened at negative-one-point-four this morning. These numbers are already on a level with so-called Black Monday, 19 October 1987, when the world’s markets underwent a severe correction.’
Arie looked up from the report, pen in hand. He had made an X next to TASE.
‘As I understand it, the virus hasn’t caused any direct material harm yet, correct? But despite this, you say the market is skittish? And market prices are falling?’
Jonathan nodded.
‘Absolutely. As you know, all trading is based on faith. You have to be able to trust the system, the numbers. The least bit of uncertainty, and the ecosystem is paralysed. The media has been crying wolf. Even if no one sees the wolf, they’re covering their asses.’
The analyst regretted his choice of words and quickly continued.
‘If you turn a few pages forward in the packet, you’ll find a number of reports from the leading banks in the US and Europe. They are taking all of this very seriously, and are talking about the financial crisis of 2009. There’s a lot of talk about the fragility of the underlying IT systems. As you know, a great deal of the market is run by so-called “rapid-trade computers”, completely automated trading systems that buy and sell hundreds of shares per second. The stock exchanges in general, and the rapid versions in particular, are sensitive to disruptions.’
Ahmad turned to the consultant.
‘What would be the best outcome in this situation?’
‘For Israel to come out and say that they’ve stopped the virus and regained control — that it’s business as usual. Faith in the system must be recovered, and quickly.’
Ahmad smiled. ‘And what’s the worst thing that could happen?’
Jonathan was quiet for a second, and then put down the report and looked down at the table.
‘The worst thing would be if the virus started to cause concrete harm — if the markets were to see real effects, like lost or manipulated data. And if it turned out to have spread farther than what was feared earlier.’
Ahmad was silent for a moment and then threw up his hands.
‘Is that really your worst-case scenario?’
Jonathan met his gaze.
‘Worse things could happen, sure. Those who are behind the virus could stir things up even more with other sorts of attacks. Or one of Israel’s neighbours could take military advantage of the situation. Then we would end up with an international meltdown, far worse than September 11 and the latest financial crisis put together. But I’m not saying this as a representative of Ernst & Young. These are completely private speculations.’
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the outside of his arm. Ahmad applauded. It sounded small and hollow in the large room.
‘An excellent presentation, Mr Yates. That was exactly what we needed to hear. Thank you and goodbye.’
At first,
Jonathan looked bewildered, surprised by the abrupt dismissal. But then he collected himself, took his briefcase, and hastily left the room. No one said anything; they all seemed to be deep in their own thoughts. Arie stood up and walked over to a sideboard with two teapots of silver. He poured a cup of steaming hot tea.
‘The American’s answer seemed too good to be true … almost as if it had been scripted.’
He looked searchingly at Ahmad, who smiled coolly and turned to Samir.
‘What’s going on with Mona?’
‘Mona has spread more quickly than I’d hoped. The program has already infected 77 per cent of the systems I’d been shooting for. The Israelis have found the virus, all according to plan. The infections they’ve discovered make up only a fraction of those actually infected — only 5 per cent of the virus clones have been instructed to put down their defences, so they are the ones being detected. Israel has created a virus-search program they call Mona Tza’yad — Mona Hunter.’
Arie snorted and shook his head. Samir went on.
‘Because they are now finding infections in a variety of locations, they trust the reliability of the search program. For that reason, they’ve started to back up all the systems they don’t think are infected. Mona comes along in the backups, which is important for the next phase. So far, Mona has mostly been a passive virus. She has focused completely on spreading.’
‘She?’
Ahmad looked at him in amusement. Samir lost his train of thought.
‘What?’
‘You said “she”. Do you consider your virus to be a living being with a definite gender?’
Samir considered the question. Ahmad waved his hand.
‘Continue. You said the virus is focusing on spreading rather than attacking.’
Samir nodded.
‘Mona has slowed down the infected networks, but that’s basically it. I want the dispersion to be as great as possible before I let her attack.’
Samir looked first at Ahmad and then at Arie; both of them nodded in approval. He continued, ‘I’ll wait a few more days and try to get up to 90 per cent infection. Once we’ve reached that, Mona can attack. At that point, the virus will wreck databases, take a great deal of strategic information hostage, and manipulate critical data such as market and exchange transactions, as well as inter-bank transactions.’
Ahmad seemed to be studying his own hands on the table. In a low voice he said, ‘And when will this happen?’
‘In a few days.’
Ahmad slammed his hands onto the table with a bang.
‘So within less than a week, chaos will be reality. Then it will also be time for our honourable martyrs. That will really shake up the enemy. Then Hezbollah will be able to make their demands. With Sinon’s help, the Zionists will do as we ask. The anti-virus program will be hard currency.’
He raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘The withdrawal will be the start of our redress. Allah’s boundless love and merciless strength is with us.’
Samir studied Ahmad. His arms were thin, and his knobby fingers had long nails. He was wearing white cotton pants and a beige linen shirt. A string of brown beads hung from one pocket — ninety-nine beads, one for each of Allah’s names. Samir knew very little about the man who had been in control of his life for months. Ahmad had never talked about himself, and none of the others had asked. Samir had heard him speak English with a British accent, and he guessed he was older than Samir himself.
Ahmad took out a black cloth bag and moved the bowl of fruit that was in front of him. He opened the bag and poured its contents onto the table. Small, angular objects that looked like barbs on a fence, in all different sizes and shapes, fell out. Small bits of iron with sharp points, they might have been scraps from a foundry or from welding.
‘Revenge and redress come in many forms. For the occupying dogs, Allah chooses these, by all appearances, harmless objects.’ He pressed his finger onto a point until it made a hole, and he held up his bloody index finger.
‘On top of their belts, the martyrs will carry bags with thousands of these black diamonds. When the bombs go off, they will guarantee maximum effect.’
Samir gave a start. A dizzy feeling washed over him, and he got a sour taste in his mouth. Maximum effect. He knew better than anyone what shrapnel does to a person. The images struck him like blows from a hammer. He had arrived twenty minutes after the explosion. As soon as he had turned onto the main street of Qana, he had seen the smoke and increased his speed. He wasn’t sure why — maybe it was intuition. People were running, sitting, and standing around the smoking house. Several were trying to put out the fire. A short policeman was speaking into his radio. Three oblong bundles lay in the gutter — one small one, and two larger ones. Out of each bundle poked a pair of feet. One of the larger bundles had shoes on — nice, high-heeled shoes. The other large bundle had only stockings. The small bundle had white canvas shoes flecked with dried mud. The policeman had tried to stop him as he furiously tore away the rags they had placed over her body.
Maximum effect. He had stared right at it, on his knees in Qana.
He turned his attention to the discussion in the room once again. As soon as Mona started to attack the infected systems, the suicide bombers would trigger their loads — one in Tel Aviv and two in Jerusalem. Arie and Ahmad studied maps, and discussed times and suitable roads into Israel. Ahmad had learned that the Mossad had managed to link Arie to the virus. Arie looked worried, and wanted to know more. Samir, too, seemed to be on the Mossad’s list. Maybe he ought to be afraid as well.
Ahmad leaned back. He had the string of beads in his hand.
‘I will personally take care of the operational portion of the next phase.’
There was no question that he was looking forward to the attacks.
‘The largest load will be in a vehicle filled with liquid explosive and thousands of these.’
Ahmad pointed at the sharp metal objects on the table.
‘The target will be the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.’
Samir didn’t know if the plan had been developed after he joined the group, or if it had already existed and had just been waiting for the right person. Not that he cared. He had worked on Mona, day in and day out, driven by raging anguish, without sleeping, eating, or crying. First in a dark, dusty carpet warehouse in the Iranian city of Qom; then in the apartment in Nice; and then at the old missile base in Berbera. Now, as he sat in this magnificent room with its grand view of Karun, he no longer felt any desire for revenge. It had been different while he was burying himself in his work. The days flowed into one another, and weeks turned into months, without giving him time to think about it. But now the doors had opened on an involuntary chance for reflection. Maximum effect.
He looked at the Koran that lay beside Ahmad. He leaned forward and picked up the worn book. Without interrupting himself — or even taking his eyes from Arie — Ahmad snatched Samir’s wrist. His grip was so firm that it felt like his arm was going to break. Samir gasped and let go of the book, which fell to the table with a thud. They sat still, interlaced. Samir looked into Ahmad’s black eyes. Then Ahmad let go and smiled.
‘Ana asif, I’m sorry. Pure reflex. The final testament follows me wherever I go. Here, you’re welcome to borrow it.’
Ahmad’s sinewy hand pushed the book toward him. Samir hesitated slightly, but then picked it up and nodded weakly, dazed and with his wrist throbbing. Ahmad turned back to Arie, who looked embarrassed. Samir stopped listening, paged through the 114 suras, and lost himself in the familiar words.
Stockholm, Sweden
Eric closed the door behind him with an unnecessarily loud bang. The apartment was empty. No, not empty. Deserted. A big difference. The scent in the hall, her keys on the chest, the hum from the fridge in the kitchen — all of these familiar thin
gs seemed strange and forbidding. The tests had confirmed that Hanna was seriously ill, but they didn’t indicate a specific diagnosis. The doctors needed to do more tests.
He hadn’t faltered as he kissed her forehead. He kept it together as he hurried out to the lonely car to go home and get a change of clothes. But now he was falling apart. He sank onto the sofa and started to cry. He gripped its arms hard and sobbed uncontrollably, just as Hanna had done when she’d come home earlier that same evening. But this time no one came running with sympathy and cold towels. The apartment just sat there — passive, quiet, and empty — waiting. Their everyday routine, with its predictable rhythms, had been unmasked. Nothing was reliable. There was no security. Everything was fragile, brittle. The mechanisms of their lives could become jammed at any moment, or simply stop working.
A police siren sounded somewhere outside. He thought of Hanna’s feverish gaze. He wanted to switch places with her. She ought to be sitting here, healthy; he ought to be lying there, sick. His gaze fell on her handbag, tossed on the floor beside the chest of drawers. He took in the scent of leather and perfume, and the simple essentials of her everyday life: talismans, symbols, and products. He loved her world, and yet he knew so little about it. How the hell could everything change so fast? Just a few hours ago he had been happy — or nearly so. Mind Surf was working, and he was going to take on their relationship and the future with renewed energy. Now it had all come crashing down. Hanna was in intensive care. Mind Surf was infected with some sort of jihad virus. He got up and stood before the large mirror in the hall. His eyes were red and his cheeks were moist. His hair was dishevelled. He pressed his forehead against the cool mirror and breathed heavily, his breath fogging the sharpness of the glass. For a long time they stood forehead to forehead, the reproduction and the prototype. The reproduction and the abyss. Oh, God, how could he help Hanna? What could he do?
‘SOS Alarm, what is the nature of your call?’