Mind Virus

by Charles Kowalski

  ...

  As soon as Miriam performed her miracle and secured his release, Fox caught a taxi back to the detention facility at the airport. His arrival caused some consternation among the guards, who clearly had not been expecting to see him again. He waited as they reread his letter of introduction from Harel, argued among themselves, and made telephone calls. Finally, a sullen guard appeared and escorted him back to the visiting booths, where he waited until a guard on the other side brought Shira. Again, she recoiled when she saw him, but at the guard’s insistence, sat down and picked up her receiver with a defiant expression.

  “Did you sleep all right last night?” Fox asked her.

  She made no reply.

  “So how many of their tricks have they tried on you so far?”

  She said nothing, but her eyes suggested that sleep deprivation had probably been one of them.

  “Tell me, Shira, do you ever read the Bible?”

  Silence.

  “Maybe you’ll recognize this verse: ‘Therefore we are buried with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.’”

  She gave no response.

  “You’ve made it clear that you aren’t going to come right out and tell me when and where your group is going to strike next. But do I get three guesses?”

  Silence.

  “The time, I would say, is probably Easter Sunday. As to the place…well, since your group is from Britain, I’m thinking maybe Canterbury Cathedral?”

  No reaction.

  “Well, I was just warming up with that one. How about the site of Jesus’ baptism, on the Jordan River?”

  No reaction.

  “Okay, one more guess. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”

  No reaction. Either she was very good at suppressing her facial expressions, or she didn’t know, or all of his guesses had been wrong.

  “If I guessed right, then the game is pretty much up. The security forces all around Jerusalem will be on high alert. So, if you’re feeling any particular sense of loyalty toward your mission, then you might as well know it’s already been compromised. However, you might still have the chance to prove yourself useful. If you’ll tell us more about your group, the United States might have a word to say in your favor.”

  Her eyes remained motionless.

  “Shira,” he said, “believe me when I tell you I’m trying to help you here. And believe me when I tell you you’re going to need it. I spent the morning listening to the stories of a friend of mine, a Palestinian woman who was just released from Israeli prison. It was all I could do to keep my breakfast down. And she was only there for a week, partly because she had some influential Americans pushing for her release, and partly because Shin Bet eventually realized she had nothing to tell them anyway. Neither of those will be true in your case, and I don’t think the Israelis will be any gentler to a turncoat from their own side than they were to her. Would you like me to tell you what she told me?”

  She gave a defiant toss of her head. As she did, her hair flew back to reveal something that it had been concealing the last time he saw her: a welt under her chin, near her left ear.

  Fox took a closer look at the mark, then leaned back in his chair.

  “Is it the violin or the viola that you play?” he asked.

  She kept silent, but her surprise was visible.

  “Maybe you’ve heard this riddle,” Fox went on. “How are a violist’s fingers like lightning?”

  The corners of her mouth turned down in a way that suggested she knew the punch line—“They never strike twice in the same place”—and was not amused.

  “I know, those hotshot violinists always like to make the viola the butt of their jokes,” he continued smoothly. “But in the hands of a skillful player, there’s a warmth and depth to it that a violin just can’t match. What’s your favorite piece?”

  He gave her an opening to reply. When she declined it, he continued: “My personal favorite is Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat. It’s always sounded to me like a love duet between the violin and viola, with all the rest of the orchestra cheering them on. Have you ever played it?”

  She gave a slight nod.

  “Was that one of the pieces you played with the Divan?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. She quickly squelched the expression, but Fox’s guess, based on the stamps in her passport, had been confirmed. The West-Eastern Divan Youth Orchestra recruited promising young musicians from all over the Middle East, including both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Before embarking on their international concert tour, they practiced intensively in a city chosen for its history of peaceful coexistence among Christians, Jews, and Muslims: Seville, Spain.

  “Call me an idealist,” Fox went on, “but I’ve always felt that music was one of our greatest hopes for peace. That if you truly had music in your soul, there was no way you could knowingly and willfully harm another human being.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Unless, of course, you had suffered something so terrible that it cast a shadow over everything else.”

  Her lips twitched, and Fox waited, scarcely daring to breathe. Finally, they opened a crack, and out came two barely audible words.

  “Not me.”

  “Not you?”

  “There was someone else who suffered far worse.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who could have done more for the Middle East with his music than our leaders could in a hundred years with their talk. Someone who deserved to have his name known by the world.”

  “He still can,” Fox said, “if you make it known.”

  She gave him a disbelieving look, as if to say: How could I possibly do that now?

  “If you disappear down some Israeli memory hole,” he continued, “then of course, you’ll never be able to share his story with the world. But if you answer my questions, then I may be able to arrange for you to tell it to the people who need to hear it. Or at the very least, you can tell it to me and I can pass it on.”

  Her mouth closed again.

  “So what you did was for revenge?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you could say that.”

  “Did you ever ask yourself whether that was really the way he would want his memory to be honored?”

  “He would want that the world should know the true price tag of Zionism.”

  “Meaning what? More senseless death? More women and children killed?”

  “Made to realize how sick they really are. The symptoms of their infection made easier to see.”

  Fox looked into her eyes, a revelation dawning. “Is that what you thought you were doing? Just making them sick?”

  Her resolute expression faltered. Fox pressed on: “Did you really not know what was in that canister, and what it does? The Zagorsk virus. A hybrid of smallpox and a particularly nasty form of encephalitis. Not just a painful but temporary illness, if that’s what you were led to believe. Two out of three cases terminal, the other left with permanent brain damage. No one infected would ever have recovered.”

  Her mouth opened and her breathing accelerated.

  “Shira,” Fox said, “you can make this right. Tell me where and when the next target is.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Shira…”

  “I don’t know! Our missions were secret. None of us knew what the others were doing.”

  “Who do you mean when you say ‘us’? You, TJ…”

  “Peg, Aidan, and Ahmad.”

  “Last names?”

  “We only ever used first names among ourselves.”

  “What about Rashid?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know a Rashid.”

  “Last name Renclaw.”

  “Sorry.”

  “All right. What can you tell me about the other three?”

  “Peg and Aidan were both from Ireland. Ahmad was from Paki
stan.”

  “How did you all first meet?”

  “We were all in OAF.”

  “Oaf?”

  “O-A-F. Oxford Atheists and Freethinkers.”

  “What does that group do?”

  “We discuss books and films, invite guest speakers to campus, do outreach work to help people break free from the tyranny of organized religion.”

  “I’m guessing bioterrorism isn’t one of the activities listed in the group’s charter?”

  She shook her head. “There was someone I met through that group. He had graduated several years earlier, but he had been president while he was a student, and he still hung out with the group a lot, sort of on the fringe. I often saw him at parties. And at one of them one day, he took me aside and asked me whether I had ever dreamed of taking action that went beyond just words.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Chris.”

  “Last name?”

  She shook her head.

  Fox scribbled a wire diagram on his notepad. Now, more of the players were on stage: TJ, Shira, Peg, Aidan, and Ahmad, all answering to this Chris. But there was still someone waiting in the wings. Where did Rashid fit in? Was he part of a different cell under Chris’s direction, operating independently of this one? Or did Chris report to him?

  “Shira, I really want to help you out. But can you imagine what my contacts in America would say if I called and told them that they need to look for a Chris from England, a Peg and an Aidan from Ireland, and an Ahmad from Pakistan? How many millions do you think that covers?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know, I swear!”

  “Well, you’ve given me something, at least. But it’ll take a lot of persuading for the Israelis to extradite you, and whether my contacts will be impressed enough to give them the push they need is anyone’s guess.”

  There was a long pause, as Shira’s lips twitched, straining to hold in words that were struggling to get out. Finally, they made their escape:

  “I can identify them. If I saw them, I could point them out to you.”

  Fox set down the receiver and turned to a guard. He needed to call Adler, but the guards had taken his cell phone when he came in. “Excuse me. I need to use my cell phone to call my colleague back in the States.”

  He gave Fox the kind of look that a security guard at a mental institution might use on a raving patient.

  “Is there a public phone I can use, then?”

  The guard motioned Fox to follow him, and led him to a pay phone. He peered at the instructions on the telephone and tried to make sense of them. “Do you know how I can make an international collect call?” he asked. “Reverse charges?”

  His escort only shrugged. With a sigh, he punched in his credit card number from memory, wishing he had thought of keeping an expense ledger.

  There was silence as the signal made its way across the Atlantic, until a voice answered in Washington. “Adler here.”

  “Hello, John. This is Robin Fox.”

  “Robin!” came the incredulous reply. “Did I read your message right? Are you in Israel?”

  “You did and I am.”

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  “Well, let’s see. Since arriving here, I’ve foiled the next attack, helped the Israelis arrest the suspect, survived an attempted poisoning, and learned how slow your office has been at following through on your promise of helping us find out what happened to Leila Halabi. Sorry I haven’t called before now, it’s been kind of busy. But here’s the scoop. The subject’s name is Shira Yavin. Israeli citizen residing in Britain, undergraduate at Oxford. For the head of her outfit, I only have a first name, Chris. Okay so far?”

  There was a pause as Adler took down the information. “Okay, keep going.”

  “I’m at a detention facility near Ben-Gurion right now, and I’ve just had an interview with her. Our best candidate for the next target is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, sometime tomorrow. And our subject has offered to ID the agent. Could you make arrangements for her to do it?”

  The silence went on long enough that Fox started to wonder if they had been disconnected. Adler finally broke it with, “Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”

  “Well, let’s think this through. There are about five people in the world who can recognize the members of this group on sight. One is in Washington enjoying his Fifth Amendment rights, three are still at large, and one is here with me offering her help. I think we’d be smart to take her up on it.”

  Adler was silent for a moment. “I need to get my superiors to make some phone calls. I’ll call you back on your cell phone, probably later this evening, your time.”

  “Okay. But the church opens at dawn tomorrow morning. They’ll need to talk fast.”

  ...

  Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers? Fox demanded ruefully of the universe. Why is it that on other Passovers, I don’t have the chance to attend a seder in Israel—and now that I do, it feels as though there’s a ticking bomb under the table?

  They were back at the common room of the Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba. Fox sat with Emily, Miriam and Leila at a table prepared with copies of the haggadah at each place, and in the center, the seven foods symbolizing the deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.Fox always told his students how the most effective rituals involve all the senses, like the Catholic mass—sight of the beautifully decorated church and vestments, sound of music, smell of incense, touch of a neighbor’s hand, taste of bread and wine. The Passover feast, incorporating sound, movement, touch, and taste, was another case in point. A history lesson made edible.

  “We’re all set to take Leila back to the States,” Miriam said to Fox as a shaven-headed, bespectacled orderly set cups of grape juice at their places. “Washington via London tomorrow afternoon. And you? Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Hardly ever.”

  As if on cue, Fox’s phone vibrated. He excused himself and stepped out into the corridor.

  “Robin Fox.”

  “Robin,” came Adler’s voice. “Congrats, or something. In terms of favors owed, I think you’ve single-handedly tipped the balance from Israel to us and back again within twenty-four hours. But it’s all arranged. I’ll fly in tonight and meet you there tomorrow, along with Agent Birnbaum from the Jerusalem station. Where are you staying?”

  “I’ll text you when I know.”

  “Well, wherever it is, try to get a good night’s sleep. If we want to have the place under surveillance before the first Mass, we’ll have to be there at 4:30.”

  Fox returned to the cafeteria in time for the recitation of the Kiddush. Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe…He could only follow the first few words, but just being there and listening to the chanting sent an electric current through him. They may have been in a hospital cafeteria with lime-green walls rather than a temple, but there was no question that they were on holy ground.

  They all sat and leaned to the left, in a symbolic imitation of dinner guests in antiquity reclining around the table, commemorating the journey of the Jewish people from being slaves in a foreign land to being served in their own homes.

  Fox raised his glass to Emily on his right and Miriam on his left. “L’chaim.”

  They raised their glasses to their lips.

  “STOP!”

  Leila’s voice rang throughout the hall. Some of the guests were so startled that they spilled their wine onto the white tablecloth. All heads turned to shoot her an incredulous look.

  She pointed to the door. Lurking outside, watching the festivities through the window, was the orderly who had served the wine. And now that Leila pointed him out, Fox realized that he had seen him before on two occasions. He had progressively less hair each time, but the face was the same.

  Fox dropped his cup onto the table and leapt from his seat. As a red stain spread across the white tablecloth, Fox ran out the door. The impostor orderly p
elted down a ramp and around the corner to the Green Mile. By the time Fox had rounded the same corner, his quarry had disappeared into one of the side corridors.

  Fox did a quick search from one to another, and then ran outside. He saw ambulances and taxis parked at the curbside, and a lottery kiosk where plastic frogs covered with numbers beckoned him to try his luck. But that, it seemed, had run out: the poisoner was nowhere to be seen.

  ...

  Fox, Emily, Miriam, and Leila quickly packed into the rental car, and set off for Jerusalem. Miriam grumbled about having to drive on a holy day, but Fox pointed out that considering how much more skilled she was at Israeli-style driving than the rest of them, it probably counted as pikuach nefesh—an acceptable bending of religious rules when human lives were at stake.

  “How the hell did he know?” Fox wondered aloud once they were on the highway. “I checked the news reports about the attack. None of our names were mentioned in any of them. How did he know that we were involved?”

  “The wonders of YouTube?” Emily suggested. “All it would have taken is for one tourist at the airport to see all the commotion, catch it on video, and upload it. Voila, you’re an instant celebrity.”

  “Even so, how would he have recognized…” He sank back in his seat and pressed his hands to his temples. “Oh, hell. Of course, everyone in this OAF group must know my face. Because of that damned debate…”

  Emily grimaced, remembering. “You mean ambush…”

  “…with Ray Dickinson,” the two of them finished together, exchanging a wry glance.

  A few years ago, Fox had received his first speaking invitation, and in his excitement, accepted at once without doing a thorough background check of the group that issued it. Once at the venue, he saw to his horror that he would be sharing the spotlight with Professor Ray Dickinson of Oxford, one of the world’s most outspoken atheists—who, unlike him, had been fully briefed about the nature of the event. Fox had finished a very poor second by anyone’s measure, and his humiliation had been televised for all to see. Even Dickinson, after the debate, had conceded privately that he found the setup “rather unsporting,” but his sense of sportsmanship had not extended to showing his opponent any mercy on stage.