The Dreadful Alchemist: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense Book 1)

by Charles Z David

  The first call of the day was to check whether the chain of command was still operating. The air force colonel in charge of the control room updated the emergency room in the underground bunker of IDF general command center. He was relieved to hear that the Minister of Defense and Prime Minister were on a tour of Israel's northern border on the Golan Heights and were accompanied by the IDF Chief of Staff and most of the senior officers of the General Staff. Just before boarding the helicopter that would fly him back to Tel Aviv the PM made a statement that was issued to all the local and international news agencies denouncing the heinous crime that was perpetrated in the Old City of Jerusalem that was sacred to all monotheistic religions. He particularly emphasized that the Wailing Wall, the holiest site of Judaism was targeted and expressed his grief that the same fate had included the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the mosques on Temple Mount and wondered aloud who would be behind such a sacrilegious act.

  David and "The Fish" were on their way to Jerusalem to check the extra security measures that were put in place after Ollie got away from the roadblocks the previous evening. They were listening to the radio when reception of the Voice of Israel from Jerusalem was suddenly replaced by static noise. They were near Latrun, about 30 kilometers from Jerusalem, when this happened and couldn't figure out what had happened until they saw the mushroom cloud rise rapidly above the Judean Hills in the direction they were heading. With great difficulty David managed to control the car and pull up by the side of the road without being rammed by other motorists that continued towards Jerusalem without understanding what lay ahead. Without another word, "The Fish" and David exchanged a glance and found an interchange on the highway that enabled them to turn the car around and head back to Tel Aviv travelling at a high speed with lights flashing.

  After a few moments "The Fish" and David slightly recovered from the shock and deliberated where they should go first – the Mossad, ISA or directly to the Ministry of Defense and IDF headquarters that were both located in the Kirya complex in the heart of Tel Aviv. By the time they reached the entrance to Tel Aviv the radio had come back to life informing all listeners about the detonation of an atomic bomb in Jerusalem and warning people to get as far away from there as possible. They noticed that all traffic heading towards Jerusalem had stopped and the drivers were searching for a gap in the divider fence to turn around. The chaos was unimaginable and the situation got worse due to the number of accidents that blocked Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem to the rest of the country, so that traffic on the busy highway was essentially at a standstill and no police cars were on hand to control the traffic.

  However, by then David and "The Fish" had arrived at the Kirya and flashing their Mossad and ISA IDs were quickly allowed to enter the parking lot. They rushed to the tower of the Ministry of Defense and saw the officials running to and fro like beheaded chickens. They made their way to the floor where the Minister of Defense had his office and were showed in to the office of the Special Assistant for Unconventional Security who told them that the PM, Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff were already airborne in a helicopter that was expected to land within 10 minutes. The three dignitaries, accompanied by a posse of bodyguards, entered the office and immediately summoned David and "The Fish" for a report. They had already received several updates about the situation in Jerusalem and the emergency response teams were already set in motion but they now wanted to know who was responsible. Meanwhile the head of the ISA and head of Mossad had also arrived and stood peevishly with their subordinates knowing that they were in the line of fire.

  After hearing about the events of the last 24 hours and the failed manhunt to catch Ollie the cynical politicians were already playing the "blame game" and looking for a culprit. Unfortunately for them this time they could not put the blame on their favorite scapegoats in the opposition political parties so the obvious offender responsible for the catastrophe was now the ISA that was in charge of the operation to stop Ollie and the bomb. The attribution and disclosure of the people and organization that actually detonated the improvised nuclear device were important, of course, but secondary to considerations of political survival. So the heads of government were now dividing their focus among three fronts: dealing with the extensive damage and the public panic was the top priority, next came finding excuses for the terrible sloppiness of the security services and those responsible, and finally designating the perpetrators and taking revenge.

  Damage reports kept flowing in and the gravity of the catastrophe became evident. Although there were no precise figures of casualties at this early stage and only rough estimations, the specialists from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission appraised the damage as being somewhat less than the outcome of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This was due to two main reasons – the fact that some of the blast and radiation were attenuated by the massive stone buildings and the fact that it was detonated at ground level. The significance was that the immediate loss of life and total destruction were more or less contained within the walls of the Old City – an area of about one square kilometer with less than 30,000 people. The population of the entire city of Jerusalem included about 500,000 Jews and 300,000 Muslims as well as 20,000 defined as "others" meaning mainly Christians. Many of those residents would receive a dose of radiation directly or from radioactive fallout, and the expected number of casualties could reach about 50,000 within the next couple of months when radiation sickness took its toll. The loss of property, and more importantly the destruction of sites of cultural heritage and great religious significance, would be beyond anything in history.

  Live updates from police and army forces on the ground and photos from airborne drones and helicopter crews showed great confusion and mass hysteria. The medical services in Jerusalem had more or less collapsed due to the influx of patients and the exodus of some members of the medical staff who wanted to save themselves and their families. However, most of the dedicated staff decided to stay and help those who could be saved. The triage – sorting those who could not be helped, those that didn't need any medical attention and those that could benefit from medical treatment – was the most demanding position in the emergency ward of the hospitals. Even the most hardened doctors who had seen mass-casualty victims during wartime or as a result of terrorist bombing of buses and markets could not stay at this post for more than an hour before arriving on the verge of suffering from a nervous breakdown. The real wounded as well as the shock victims continued to arrive in ambulances, private cars, buses and on foot. Fortunately, the two major hospitals in Jerusalem were a few kilometers west from the Old City and they were not directly hit by the blast, heat wave or significant doses of radiation. The roads leading out of Jerusalem looked like a large parking lot until the police managed to install some order and block all traffic going towards Jerusalem, turning the dual thoroughfare into a unidirectional highway. Cars that broke down were simply pushed off the road. Emergency teams, equipped with radiation monitors were flown into the Jerusalem region by helicopters and started surveying and marking the areas where the radiation level was above the hazard limit and assisting people who could not get out of those areas either because of physical injuries or due to loss of orientation. The entire Old City was announced as unsafe and a radiation hazard and subsequently put off limits. A few looters were shot on sight which effectively stopped those who tried to take advantage of the misery of others. A curfew was imposed by armed patrols wearing protective gear to avoid exposure to radioactive dust and armored vehicles which afforded some protection from radiation sources and "hot spots" on the ground.

  By the next morning the government felt that it had gained control of the situation and life was slowly returning to normal in the areas that had been declared safe by the radiation monitoring teams. Fortunately, the so called "rule of seven" stating that after the first hour, every seven hours, 90% of the radiation abated came into effect so that after 29 hours the radioactivity was about ten-thousand times lower
than one hour after the explosion.

  Many people who lived far from the ground zero site offered hospitality in their homes to the refugees from Jerusalem although others were afraid of catching radiation sickness despite the assurances issued by the TV and radio that it was not contagious. By now the government was moving to the second phase – placing the responsibility on the head of the ISA who readily submitted his resignation to the PM who accepted it publicly but in private asked him to coordinate the hunt for the perpetrators. The information provided by Mossad, based on David's work, clearly indicated that the extreme Islamic movement of ISIS was behind this dreadful act, but the PM wanted to use this opportunity to rid Israel of its worst enemies. The list was long, but Iran, Iraq and Syria were at the very top, and the PM called his military and civilian top advisors to propose plans for settling the account with the governments and infrastructure of these countries. The crucial meeting was set to take place the next evening since they wanted to gauge the reaction of the world leaders.

  June 18th, 17:21 Umm al-Fahm

  Ollie and Nasser paid the taxi driver and entered Sheik Khalil's modest house right by the mosque in Umm al-Fahm just as the news about the atom bomb in Jerusalem broke out. Within minutes the central square was filled with shocked residents with mixed feelings. On the one hand they felt that the Israelis deserved to be punished for the occupation and the many crimes committed against the Palestinian people since the foundation of the Jewish state in 1948, but on the other hand they realized that many of the victims were Arabs and mourned the destruction of the Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques. Except the Sheik no one knew the part played by their own young man, Nasser, and by the blond stranger who was the guest of honor at the Sheik's house. However, the celebrations did not last long because in less than an hour the village square was surrounded by armed Border Police troops that were accompanied by ISA agents that had come to arrest the Sheik and the two perpetrators. When the youths in the village demonstrated and tried to stop the troops, warning shots were fired in the air above the demonstrators and as they did not disperse instantly live ammunition was used indiscriminately by soldiers who already knew of the catastrophe that had hit Jerusalem. A few demonstrators were killed or wounded and the rest fled from the area.

  Ollie and Nasser tried to disappear in the scuffle and sought refuge in the mosque together with a large number of villagers. The troops surrounded the mosque and ordered all the men to come out with their hands raised or they would detonate explosives and blow up the mosque. The blond man stood out in the crowd of worshippers and when a police officer approached him with handcuffs Ollie attacked him, hoping to be shot dead, but the sergeant who covered the officer zapped Ollie with his Taser and Ollie dropped to the floor convulsing as the high voltage current swept through his central nervous system.

  David was informed that Ollie was captured alive and arranged for his interrogation at the most secure prison in Israel. The interrogation was short and easy as Ollie proudly narrated his involvement in the planning and manufacture of the improvised nuclear device and in placing it in the center of the Old City of Jerusalem. When he was told that most of the casualties were Muslims he shrugged and said that they too would be Shahids who died for the cause of the true faith. The whole confession was filmed for distribution to the world media. A few days later Ollie was brought to a military court that after a short trial he was sentenced to death by hanging. He was told that the final act would be carried out by a Muslim woman, the widow of one of his victims who had gladly volunteered to deliver the punishment, so that he would never reach paradise and the promised virgins.

  Chapter 16

  June 18th to June 20th, The World

  The immediate reaction from the leaders of the Muslim world was to censure Israel for the destruction of the mosques on Temple Mount so that they could build the Third Temple on their ruins. They put the blame on extremist Jewish factions that had gone on record and stated many times that this was their objective. The Arab leaders said that they did not know if the explosion was a result of "an accidental blast" or a premeditated act by these extremists supported by the right wing government of Israel and added that in any case they held the government accountable. The government of Pakistan, the only Muslim country officially in possession of atomic weapons was under intense pressure by Islamic fundamentalists calling for revenge and urging the government to nuke Israel in order to complete the job the bomb in Jerusalem had started and destroy the Jewish state. Iran, a wannabe nuclear power, threatened to launch missiles with unconventional warheads against Tel-Aviv and Haifa. The leaders of Iran claimed that they were three months short of manufacturing missiles with atomic warheads and said that therefore they could not get involved in an all-out war with Israel. India, whose government had developed close ties with the Israeli defense establishment, threatened Pakistan that it would not sit still while Pakistan deployed nuclear weapons without even being directly attacked. China, no great lover of Pakistan and Muslims, felt that it should deter India from using its own nuclear weapons and issued a warning to India that China would not sit idly if weapons of mass destruction were used in Asia.

  The Christian world did not hasten to blame the official Israel government but in a finely phrased diplomatic language stated that "extreme religious factions, Jewish and Islamic stood to gain by removal of all Christian history in Jerusalem". The Vatican, the power broker of the Christian world sadly recalled the saying "How many divisions does the Pope of Rome have?" and settled for expressions of moral indignation. However other self-acclaimed champions of Christianity including the New Evangelists in the United States, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia, and even the Catholic Church in France all called for unrestrained nuking of Israel and all Muslim countries in the Middle East. When asked about the morality of this action of indiscriminate slaughter of Muslims and Jews they answered by quoting Pope Innocent III who headed the Albigensian Crusade of 1209 against the Cathar heresy: "Kill them all. Let God lord sort them out". The British government issued its own statement about fragile world peace and made a plea to prevent a nuclear war.

  Another cry for action against Muslims and Jews arose from the racist movements in several European countries from Greece, Spain and Italy in the south to Sweden, Norway and Finland in the north. Although not really unexpected the vehemence of these cries for revenge was surprising. Only those who knew how the leaders of these movements felt once they realized that they were duped by Ollie, who had turned out to be a renegade Aryan Swede who converted to Islam could understand the source of their wrath. The racist movements urged their governments to expel all "unwanted elements" as these were involved in acts of terror against Christian assets and set a challenge to "all civilized people". In Europe only France and the UK actually possessed nuclear arms so the pressure from these groups came through the Parliament of the European Union in which the racist factions were represented disproportionately compared to their strength in each country's own parliament.

  June 21st to June 28th, North Korea and the Rest of the World

  The traces of the explosives found in the Padova warehouse that undoubtedly were of a North Korean origin pointed a smoking gun towards that country. The US President and both houses of representatives who had been insulted by the repetitive violations of nuclear agreements signed with Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) seized the opportunity and called for a decision of the United Nations Security Council to punish the DPRK for its involvement in the Jerusalem explosion. They suggested imposing severe sanctions that would effectively boycott all trade with that country and bring it beyond the verge of starvation (which was not far from its current position). China opposed this proposal and vetoed it claiming that there was not sufficient evidence for involvement of the DPRK government and that the explosives could have been stolen by a renegade agent provocateur planted in North Korea by the West. The US threatened to carry out an independent operation wit
h its NATO allies and China answered by declaring a state of emergency and put its armed forces and nuclear facilities on a high alert. North Korea started moving troops to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along its border with South Korea and threatened to invade it unless the US and NATO stood down. It also launched three short-range missiles off its east coast as a warning sign.

  The US kept a close watch on the DPRK troop movements with its satellites and sent an unmanned drone to fly along the southern side of the DMZ. North Korea saw this as a blatant provocation and shot down the drone that fell on a building in the village of Kijong-dong killing a whole family of five who lived there. South Korea responded by shelling DPRK positions near the demarcation line. The US and Japan supported this act by sending troops to the DMZ and making sure that these troop movements were shown on all TV stations.

  From here the situation deteriorated rapidly when these troops were immediately met by DPRK artillery fire. The South Korean response was to send a squadron of F-16 fighters to fly north-west towards the Sea of Japan and then head directly east along the 39th parallel passing over the center of Pyongyang at supersonic speed before crossing into the Korean Bay and returning to their base in South Korea. Windows were shattered all over Pyongyang but the DPRK air defenses managed to shoot down two of the F-16s and capture one of the pilots alive. In response to this provocation, four missiles armed with small tactical nuclear warheads were fired by the North Koreans – two short range missiles targeted Seoul and two long range missiles were aimed at Tokyo. The devastation in both large cities was beyond description and the total number of casualties exceeded half a million human lives that were lost in a blink of the eye.

  The leaders of DPRK left Pyongyang and dispersed around the sparsely populated countryside just hours before a megaton retaliatory nuclear strike by the US hit the city. The Chinese could not accept the loss of face of their close ally and launched a missile with a thermonuclear warhead at Honolulu, more or less destroying the entire island of Oahu. The US answered by taking out Shanghai and its surroundings with one of their own 5 Megaton nukes.