by Nir Hezroni
- I’m simply saying, for the sake of the discussion, that you increase your chances of survival by doing so.
- It’ll always be fifty-fifty. Either you do or you don’t. Fifty percent.
- Lorenzo, I’m going over to this white wall for a moment to have a word with it. I’m expecting a more favorable response than the one I just got from you.
- Be my guest. Give him my best regards. And ask him what’s best to do if he’s caught—to fart or to let one rip.
- You’re a difficult man.
- Of course I am. I’m your twin brother. I got it from you. But what made you bring it up now? The eye thing.
- I was looking at Tuvian when we were interrogating him. At his eyes.
- And how was he moving them?
- Up and down. Nice and professional. You could see he’d been taught to do so. He probably underwent a course on the subject during his time in Iran.
- And did you get the urge to stroke his head when he did it?
- The notion crossed my mind, I will admit, but I repressed it.
- Tell me, do you think we should have passed on an anonymous tip to the Mossad?
- About what?
- About Tuvian. About the fact that his identity’s been exposed.
- Why the sudden burst of generosity?
- Not generosity—just to piss them off. So they don’t think he’s simply run away and disappeared but know that someone got him to talk.
- Forget it. Let them go on searching for him for another two years as far as I’m concerned. Stop here. We haven’t been to this one yet.
“Hola, señor, I’m Ricardo and this is my partner, Lorenzo. If it’s not too much trouble, would you please take a look at these two photographs? These two may look like an innocent couple but they’re accused of the abduction and murder of dozens of children. They fled the United States and were last seen here in Uyuni. They’re probably posing as innocent tourists. Have you seen them?”
“No, I haven’t had a couple like that staying here. I’d remember them if they were here. The woman is guapa.”
“And have you run into anything else? Someone acting strangely, something suspicious, something out of place and not the norm in the town?”
“Aside from the accident at the Salar with the Jeeps there’s been nothing unusual. Do you know about the accident?”
“Yes. Go figure how two Jeeps choose to drive head-on into one another on a dry salt lake of more than ten thousand square kilometers and burst into flame simultaneously with all their passengers inside. Esto es una locura!”
“That’s exactly what everyone else around here says.”
“Thank you, sir. If you see or hear of anything unusual, please call us at this number.” Ricardo took out a business card and handed it to the hotel owner. “By the way,” he added, “there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to their capture.”
Ricardo and Lorenzo turned to walk out.
“Just a minute,” the hotel owner stopped them. “Now that I think about it, I did have one guest who acted somewhat strangely. He was here alone. He didn’t look like the man in the photograph you have, but he drove around here for a week in an open pickup that tourists don’t usually rent and visited every street in town like he was looking for something. Just like that stream of Iranians that came through here some nine years ago.”
“Stream of Iranians?”
“Yes. Lots of groups from Iran. Great for business. You couldn’t find a single vacant room in any hotel in town, and not a single guide was left idle. It was crazy. And they were all wandering around here like they were on a great big treasure hunt. But they gradually disappeared. Since then, we may get an Iranian traveler once in a blue moon. Usually it’s Germans, French, Israelis, Australians, you know, all those who love to explore all corners of the earth. Not Americans.”
“So he was here for a week and then left?”
“Yes. He hardly slept. He’d wake up early in the morning and return to the hotel late every night, and he had a strange look in his eyes. On his last evening here I suggested he visit the train cemetery just outside of town. He was an avid photographer and you can take nice pictures there. Artistic ones. The following morning, after my recommendation to visit the train graveyard, he paid his bill and left. We never saw him again.”
“When was he here?”
“Just a moment, let me look at my calendar. Here we go, he arrived on the fourteenth of February. His name’s René Mercier, a French citizen.”
“Do you have a photograph of him?”
“No.”
“Security cameras?”
“We don’t have such things, señor.”
“Thank you, sir. We don’t know yet if it was him; but if it helps with our investigation, the reward is yours. If you see him again, call me. You have my card. And here’s a hundred dollars in advance for your help so far.” Ricardo pulled out a $100 bill and handed it to the hotel owner, who thanked him profusely and scribbled down the directions to the train cemetery on a small piece of paper. The twins left the hotel and went back to their car.
- One hundred dollars? One hundred fucking dollars? That’s a monthly wage here. What were you thinking?
- I believe in giving to the less fortunate if you can afford to, paying it forward.
- If you carry on like that, you’ll be one of the less fortunate yourself.
- Don’t fret, Lorenzo. I’ll add it to our expense account. Herr Schmidt will cover it. And those one hundred dollars will ensure that we get a call within seconds if and when that guest ever comes back here.
- Okay. Are we off to the train cemetery now?
- A delante.
I continue walking through a dusty field with straight rows of crops. The circle of frost in the park hasn’t spread this far and the layer of dust on the plants is so thick that it’s impossible to identity the crops growing in the field. A mountain range rises skyward on the horizon and I need to get there. My shoes kick up small clouds of dust with every step I take.
I remember the syringe needles being pulled out of my arms, leaving drops of blood on my skin. The feeding tube being shoved down my throat. Knives opening up my body. Parts of me being replaced.
She’s following me from a distance.
My body is moving fast. Responding quickly to the instructions from my brain. They must have fitted servomotors or titanium springs to my skeleton. My lungs inform me of the chemical composition of the dust in the air that I’m breathing. My legs offer information on the density of the earth beneath my feet. They must have done something to my body. They’ve upgraded me.
She continues to follow me. I could kill her if I choose to, but there’s no point in doing so now.
I see a dusty concrete structure at the end of the field and walk toward it. The wooden table and chairs I find inside are old and dusty, and there’s a basin with a rusty faucet. I drink brown water from the faucet. My tongue recognizes the pH level of the water; it’s below 7—acidic. I take off my shirt and wash the upper part of my body. The layer of dust that has mixed with my sweat has turned into orange mud on my skin, under it I see a barcode tattooed on my chest under my collarbone.
When I get the chance I’ll scan it with a barcode reader to see what it says.
I put my shirt back on, step outside, and continue walking.
She’s still behind me, in the distance.
04/18/2016–18 weeks and 3 days since waking
I wake up and go to the refrigerator to drink a glass of cold water. It’s 2 in the morning. I check to make sure there’s no one in the house and I go back to sleep.
I get started in the morning with the construction of the cage in the basement, welding horizontal iron bars to the upright vertical ones. When the cage is completed and closed, I run a 4-inch pipe from the corner of the cage to the corner of the basement, leaving its ends open. I pour a 30-centimeter-thick layer of concrete on the floor of the basement. When the concrete
dries, the iron bars will be firmly fixed to the floor. I think Shlomit and Zvika will be very pleased to see the improvements I’ve made to their home.
The door of the cage hangs on 2 sturdy iron hinges and isn’t fitted with a lock. When I put my guests into the cage, I’ll simply weld the door to the bars. I have no intention of opening it again after they’re inside.
I leave the door to the basement open and turn on a big fan to help the concrete set faster. I expect it to be completely dry and solid within 3 days.
I complete my next shopping list. I order the dog food and cartons of mineral water and drive to Home Center to purchase a toilet, then to a building supplies store to pick up a sewage pump designed for basements. This cage will be a lot more comfortable than the previous one, with a toilet and a lovely food dispenser for my guests.
04/21/2016–18 weeks and 6 days since waking
I use a metal-cutting circular saw to create a square opening at the back of the cage where I can install the food dispenser I’ve designed. I weld the dispenser in place and pour 2 bags of dog kibble into its food well, together with 30 neatly packed bottles of water. I set the timer so that the dispenser will function once a day and release a predetermined quantity of food and 2 bottles of mineral water. I check the machine. The dog food pours into the metal bowl in the cage, followed by 2 bottles of mineral water, which drop onto the pile and scatter bits of kibble across the floor. I adjust the angle at which the bottles fall so they don’t cause any of the dog food to spill.
I install the toilet in the corner of the cage and fix it firmly to the concrete. I connect the sewage pump to the toilet’s outlet pipe and then use a coiled pipe to connect the sewage pump to the home’s waste-drainage system.
I pack the cartons of mineral water and bags of dog food against the wall of the basement and then drill a hole in the ceiling through which I’ll insert an air-conditioning pipe to improve the air circulation in the below-ground room. If I don’t do so, they will suffocate too quickly.
I remove one of the air-conditioner grills from the living room ceiling, pull out the flexible coiled air pipe, and attach the extension I purchased. I then fit the other end of the extension through the hole I’ve made in the living room floor.
I line all the basement walls and its ceiling with foam mattresses, which I fix in place with glue and nails.
The basement is ready.
I return to the living room to prepare the trashcans I bought.
I place one of the trashcans on the floor upside down and remove its metal leg. The trashcan comprises a large outer cylinder and a smaller inner one, with a space between the 2. The trash bag fits inside the inner cylinder. I use the circular saw to cut away the bottom section of the trashcan, about 5 centimeters from the end, and examine the hollow space between the 2 metal cylinders that form the receptacle. The structure of the cylinder makes the trashcan durable and strong, and just right for my purposes. Excellent. I fill the space between the 2 cylinders with water and check to make sure nothing drips out. The outer cylinder is completely watertight. I empty out the water and leave the trashcan to dry. Meanwhile, I take the large cooking pot and place it on the stovetop’s highest flame. I pour 5 kilos of sugar into the pot and allow it to melt, stirring now and then. Once the sugar has caramelized, I add 10 kilos of granular chemical fertilizer, 1 kilo of sulfur, and 2 kilos of small nails. I stir well until the mixture is uniform, turn off the flame, and pour the contents of the pot into the space between the 2 cylinders of the upside down trashcan. The mixture will solidify when it dries.
Using the soldering iron, I connect 2 of the small lights with 2 short pieces of wire and 2 AAA batteries each, joining the 2 batteries attached to each bulb by soldering the negative terminal of the one to the positive terminal of the other. I solder the negative terminal of the batteries I’ve joined to the piece of wire attached to the side of each lightbulb, and I connect the piece of wire fixed to the bottom of each bulb to one of the Sanwa receivers—the kind of receiver that is found in model aircrafts and receives instructions to change course by means of a transmission relayed by the aircraft’s remote controller. I use another small piece of electrical wire to join the 2 receivers. Each receiver is set to a different frequency so that I’ll have to perform 2 operations with the remote controller in order to relay the 2 transmissions to the 2 receivers. I use another piece of wire to connect the 2nd Sanwa receiver to the negative terminal of the batteries, and then I attach another piece of wire, around 40 centimeters long, to the receivers’ antenna ports.
I take a pair of pliers and carefully break the 2 lightbulbs, leaving their filaments exposed and then embedding them carefully in the hardening solution inside the trashcan. I wrap duct tape around the transmission devices and batteries that are attached to the lightbulbs and place them on the hardening material between the trashcan’s 2 metal cylinders. The device is large enough and won’t sink in the solidifying solution. I drill a hole in the side of the trashcan and insert a screw from the inside out. Before tightening the screw to the end, I connect the 2 antenna wires to the thread and then close it completely. I cut off the end of the screw so that it doesn’t stick out the side of the trashcan. The body of the trashcan will serve as an antenna for the transmission devices within. I throw away the servomotors. I won’t need them. I only bought them so that the store manager wouldn’t get suspicious about me purchasing receivers only.
The propellant explosive material I’ve prepared isn’t as powerful as its military grade counterpart; it’s about 50 percent less effective. But the pressure that will be created within the metal structure of the trashcan will cause a powerful blast from the 18 kilos of propellant, with at least a 30-meter wide strike radius for the nails. I could try to prepare nitroglycerine or a propellant made from a mixture of zinc and sulfur, but nitroglycerin isn’t a particularly stable material and it’s very difficult to obtain a large quantity of zinc.
While the trashcan is still cooling, I go to the kitchen to make myself an avocado salad. I boil 2 eggs and then cut up an avocado that I mash with a fork in a bowl, adding the juice of half a lemon, sea salt, and ground black pepper. I take half a baguette out the freezer and thaw it. I remove the now hard-boiled eggs from the pot a few minutes later, peel them, and mash them with the fork into the avocado mixture. I slice open the baguette and fill it with avocado salad and sit down to eat. Playing on the radio is a song by Mashina about a beautiful and somewhat strange young woman who the writer of the song used to meet every night.
I follow dinner with a cup of coffee and then return to the living room to continue my work.
I add an inscription to the inside of the bottom of the trashcan: MADE BY THE ORGANIZATION’S AGENT 10483. FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS, PLEASE CONTACT THE ORGANIZATION’S HOME BASE IN RAMAT SASHARON. I will add the same inscription to all the trashcans.
When the trashcan is no longer hot I reattach the bottom using epoxy adhesive, then I spread more epoxy all around the seam and reinforce the connection with a band of metal, fixing it firmly in place around the trashcan with some screws. I can’t weld the bottom back on because if a drop of smoldering metal were to fall onto the explosive material between the trashcan’s 2 cylinders, the outcome would severely hamper my plans.
I reattach the metal leg to the bottom of the trashcan and place it upright on the living room floor. I look at the trashcan bomb I’ve made. It looks perfectly normal. After the epoxy adhesive dries, I’ll paint the band of metal in gray so that it looks like a part of the trashcan. When I want to detonate the trashcan, I’ll have to move both levers on my model aircraft remote controller—the one that operates the wing flaps and the one that operates the tail flap. The moment I do so, the 2 receivers will trigger their transmission devices and close an electrical circuit that will provide power to the 2 lightbulbs embedded in the explosive material. Because they have no glass around them, the exposed red-hot filaments will ignite the explosive material. The pressure that builds up between
the trashcan’s 2 cylinders will cause a powerful blast. For optimal reception, I’ll have to be no more than a few dozen meters away from the trashcan, so it would be best for me to be behind a barrier of sorts, like a wall or thick tree, when I detonate each trashcan bomb.
1 is ready. And now I have to make another 49 just the same. It’ll take me 3 days if I work on 4 trashcans at the same time. In the meantime, I take a break from the physical work and read through the documents pertaining to the Bernoulli Project that I copied off the Organization’s computers in March 2006, 10 years and 1 month ago. Among the documents is a list of the names of 12 people who the Organization needs to assassinate for the sake of national security. They are 12 scientists in various fields. The 3 nuclear scientists are the targets I received when I worked for the Organization before they betrayed me. I read through surveillance reports that include their respective residential addresses, as well as a classified summary of the inner circle’s decision to eliminate all of them.
I make paper chains out of the colored sheets of paper I bought and decorate the basement in preparation for the piece of art I’ll be adding to the room in the future.
DECEMBER 12, 2017
Dear Sirs,
I am writing this letter to you with a heavy heart because there will be no way back for me the moment I send it—for me or for my handlers. But the truth has to be told.
Following my discharge from the army as a lieutenant colonel, I was recruited in 2001 by an entity in Israel that calls itself the Organization. My decision to join the Organization was motivated by a desire to protect my country and safeguard its citizens, and I truly believed that my service was a calling and not simply a matter of my devotion to the state, but also an opportunity to defend democracy and preserve stability in the region. I thought I would continue to serve until my retirement because I believed I was destined to do so. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out the way I thought they would, and after 14 years of service I informed the Organization that I was leaving. The reasons I gave were a desire to be with my family and the toll that all the years in the army and the Organization had taken on my life. My wife’s parents owned an apple plantation in the north of Israel and were too old to take care of it. Two years ago, my family made the move and we are currently living in the North and making a living from agriculture. The quiet and simple life we lead has allowed me to think about the 14 years I spent in the service of the Organization. Over the years, I was instructed to carry out a number of missions that caused extensive damage in four different countries—Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, and the United States.