by Nir Hezroni
After withdrawing the needle, Carmit wiped the puncture area with a small ball of cotton and checked to make sure no mark remained. There was none.
She entered a five-digit code into her laptop and pressed Enter. The other two sections of the screen came to life. One displayed an equalizer and a pattern of sound waves, and the other showed a digital timer that began a 120-minute countdown and a blue bar that flickered frantically at a fluctuating rate.
The dark glasses began emitting a series of blue flashes at the same rate as the blue bar on the laptop screen. Carmit put on a pair of sunglasses with orange lenses and turned to face the screen again for a few minutes. Everything was in order. She removed a checkered tablecloth from her knapsack and spread it out on the carpet next to the towel. On the tablecloth she placed a wine glass, a package of salted almonds and a small bottle of wine from the minibar in her room. She sat down on the tablecloth at the foot of the bed, opened the package of almonds, poured some wine into the glass and raised it in the air, “Cheers,” she said to the figure on the bed.
Carmit then rested her hand on the target’s head and ran her fingers through his hair. She whispered:
Sleep, sleep my little child
And dream of oceans blue and wide
The blue light continued to flicker, and a soft, monotonous voice cycled through the headphones. Using a long pipette, Carmit made sure to carefully place a drop of distilled water into each of the target’s eyes every few minutes without removing the glasses.
She still remembered the lecture she attended at the Department of Molecular Neurobiology of Behavior at Georg-August University in Germany, when she was still working for The Organization. They sent her there to complete a postgraduate degree. She hadn’t planned on going to that particular lecture. The subject of the lecture wasn’t even related to her field of specialization. But when she saw the title of the lecture on the sheet of paper fixed to the door of the hall, she decided she had to go in. It said: “The Smell of Blue Light.”
Olfaction is one of the most important senses throughout the animal kingdom. It enables animals to discriminate between a wide variety of attractive and repulsive odorants and often plays a decisive role in species-specific communication. In recent years the analysis of olfactory systems in both vertebrates and invertebrates has attracted much scientific interest. In this context a pivotal question is how the properties and connectivities of individual neurons contribute to a functioning neuronal network that mediates odor-guided behavior. As a novel approach to analyze the role of individual neurons within a circuitry, techniques have been established that make use of light-sensitive proteins. In this review we introduce a non-invasive, optogenetic technique which was used to manipulate the activity of individual neurons in the olfactory system of Drosophila melanogaster larvae. Both channelrhodopsin-2 and the photosensitive adenylyl cyclase PAC α in individual olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) of the olfactory system of Drosophila larvae allows stimulating individual receptor neurons by light. Depending on which particular ORN is optogenetically activated, repulsion or attraction behavior can be induced, indicating which sensory neurons underlie which type of behavior.1
She’d listened wide-eyed to the explanation about how scientists caused flies to be able to smell blue light by adding a light-sensitive protein to their olfactory neuronal receptors. Contrary to their natural aversion to light, fly larvae were attracted to blue light simply because their olfactory system neurons interpreted the blue light as the smell of food.
It was a window to the brain!
If we have precise mappings of the human brain, why shouldn’t we be able to do the same thing? The lecture posited. Blind people would be able to see by means of their sense of smell, or be able to listen to their environment instead of seeing it. And deaf people could see sounds. The power of the notion left Carmit astounded.
All one would need is an exact topographic image of the individual brain and a suitable cocktail of light-sensitive proteins that would fix themselves to the relevant areas of the particular brain, with the eyes serving as windows through which light would enter the cranial cavity. Eyes that can’t see.
That lecture changed her course of studies.
She corresponded with experts at The Organization’s home base about the incredible potential. But at some point, they broke off all contact with her. She assumed they’d decided to leave the matter to the civilian sector.
Upon completing her studies and returning to home base she learned that they had in fact gone with the notion, but in a completely different direction.
Carmit drank the wine and ate the almonds as she monitored the process through the course of its 120 minutes. She then disconnected and gathered up all the instruments, folded the tablecloth and towel, and packed everything into her backpack again; she returned the rolled-up towels to their place in the bathroom, removed the two small adhesive bandages from the target’s eyes, and wiped clean the areas of his face where the plasters and electrodes had been.
Before leaving the room she compared the pictures and video she’d taken with her laptop on first entering to the room to its present state. She moved the blanket and pillow a little to ensure an exact match and returned the laptop to her backpack.
Carmit opened the door to leave. She turned to give one last look at the room. On the bed, still sound asleep, lay 10483.
NIGHT. JANUARY 2006
The pressure on me at a depth of 30 meters is about 4 atmospheres.
For every 10 meters of depth in water, the pressure increases by 1 atmosphere; so at a depth of 30 meters, the ambient pressure is 4 atmospheres—1 for the earth’s atmosphere, plus 3 for every 10 meters of depth.
That’s why the air from the scuba tank makes a soft whistling sound when you’re breathing. The regulator in your mouth makes sure that the pressure in your lungs is equal to the surrounding pressure so that you can breathe. Otherwise your lungs would collapse together with your sinuses. And that’s also why if for example you have a cavity in a tooth that’s partially hollow and hasn’t been filled properly, the tooth could collapse and disintegrate at such depths.
Because my life is dependent on this small regulator, there’s another one connected to the tank, dangling in the water during the dive and waiting for its twin to malfunction. But it never malfunctions.
When I’m at a depth of 30 meters and inhaling air at a pressure of 4 atmospheres, I can’t rise quickly to the surface because my lungs could explode like 2 small pink balloons.
If I ascend rapidly, even if I ensure to expel air from my lungs all the way to the surface, my lungs will remain intact but my blood, which grew accustomed to 4 atmospheres of pressure, will release nitrogen bubbles like a Coke bottle fizzes when you open it, and these bubbles will accumulate in my veins and arteries and block the flow of blood to my legs or arms or brain. If I’m lucky, I’ll end up paralyzed; if I’m not, I’ll have a stroke.
That’s why I have 2 regulators.
And that’s why you should always dive with a partner who can give you air from his second regulator if both your regulators malfunction.
Dive partners protect one another against decompression sickness.
I dive without a partner.
I’m surrounded by silence.
All I hear is the sound of my breathing.
I check the tank’s depth and air-pressure gauges.
And then again—depth and air-pressure gauges.
One last time.
The sun’s rays at the depth I’m at no longer break directly on the corals but instead they move over them in waves of light that cast an aura of deep blue over everything. The Lighthouse diving site in the Sinai is teeming with corals.
Eilat’s coral reef looks like a desert compared to the abundance here. Sea fans and giant corals cover the steeply sloped underwater rock face, and swimming among them are endless species of fish in every color imaginable. The fish are indifferent to my movements and the bubbles rising from the
regulator, they allow me to approach. They think I’m one of them.
Every now and then, a cloud-like school of tiny fish swimming in perfect harmony flashes through the corals. I see streaks of dark and light blue running over the body of an octopus and watch as it attaches itself to one of the corals, blends in with it, and disappears. The octopus’s body perfectly mimics the coral beneath it and the color and movements of color produced by the darkish-blue ray of the sun from above.
And then I see her.
She’s swimming naked below me. Her long white hair reaches down to her waist and flows around her in the water, weightless. She has no scuba gear and there are no bubbles coming from her mouth. She’s unaware of my presence and swims on, passing by a few meters below me and descending farther along the wall of corals. I descend in her wake.
40 meters.
50 meters.
I can feel the pressure of the water around me increasing. The air that the regulator is forcing into my mouth turns cooler. More compressed. I move my jaw slightly to release the pressure in my sinuses.
80 meters.
110 meters.
270 meters.
Total darkness. It’s harder for the sunlight to penetrate the thick blanket of water here. I’m cold. I almost touch her.
288 meters.
She turns to me.
Her eyes shine bright blue. Her long silver hair flows around her.
She puts a finger to her lips, “Shhhh,” and I know that everything will be fine.
She clasps my head in her hands and brings her face to mine. The deep blue light of her eyes shines brightly into mine.
I wake at 5 in the morning and not at 1:30.
My head is heavy. My eyes hurt. I go over to the sink in the bathroom and splash water on them. I put my head under the faucet and allow the water to flow over my hair and wash down my face for several minutes.
I pull my head away from under the faucet and stand up straight. Water from my wet hair drips onto my shirt.
I go over to my desk, turn on the laptop and open the website for CERN, the international organization that runs the world’s largest particle accelerator. It’s located near Geneva. Scientists there from all around the world are testing physical theories and that’s where my target appears to be working.
I browse through the site for information on how to join one of the guided tours at the facility and sign up for one. I also learn the location of the entrances to the facility, the parking lots, and the employees’ entrance.
I sit in my car close to the entrance from early in the morning and watch the people going in. It takes me 3 days to find my target. She’s not alone. Someone clearly wants to keep her alive. She’s never without security detail. Bodyguards ride with her in her car and in 2 additional vehicles. One in front of her and one behind.
I follow her car from a distance.
The bodyguards take off when her car enters CERN. But security at the facility is high and it’s impossible to get in. She’s inaccessible when she’s in the car, too.
I perform some calculations to see if I could remotely bring down a metal girder from a bridge she passes under in the mornings.
I need t seconds for the girder to drop to a height of 1 meter above the ground.
The height of the bridge is 7 meters. So if d = 6 and g = 9.8, that gives us approximately 1.106 seconds.
The target’s vehicle travels at about 110 kilometers per hour. In the time it takes for the girder to drop 6 meters and be at a height of 1 meter above the ground (precisely in line with windshield), the vehicle will travel approximately 33 meters and 80 centimeters.
I’d have to place a marker on the side of the road at a distance of 33 meters and 80 centimeters from the bridge and cause the girder to fall at the exact moment the target’s vehicle passes it.
To remotely release the bolts holding the girder in place and cause it to drop would require timing-precision of less than 1/10th of a second, and the chances of success are small. The speed of the vehicle and wind direction are also unpredictable factors. It won’t work. I need to get to her in her home.
MORNING. JANUARY 2006
My target lives in an old apartment building in the city center. The building has 7 floors and there are 2 apartments on every level. I take a seat in the morning at the café across the street from the building and watch the entrance from the table adjacent to the window, going through emails from work and eating breakfast.
The target and her family live on the second floor. They took apartments 3 and 4 and combined them into a single unit so they wouldn’t have any neighbors. Bodyguards live in apartments 1 and 2 on the first floor. They’re posing as students.
Bodyguards also live in apartments 5 and 6 on the 3rd floor, thus, access to the target’s apartment is blocked from both below and above.
The building is old, but all the windows on the second floor are brand new. They must have replaced the old windows with armored bulletproof glass.
The target has 2 children. An older daughter who looks about 6, and a younger one who is about 4 years old. I try hacking into CERN and looking in the target’s folders on their file servers but their servers farm is well protected from outside penetration. I Google CERN employees and scientists, find her picture and her name and then search for more information she may have on the web like a Myspace page but find nothing. I keep following her for a few more days and learn by the lights in the apartment going on when she returns home that her bedroom is located at the southeastern end of the building. I learn where she shops for groceries and where her kids go to kindergarten and school. One day she also buys a large Gustav Klimt framed poster. I see her take it from her car and the guard downstairs helping her to carry it in.
I open my website and enter the password. A matrix of 9 simultaneous videos opens on my laptop screen, these are live feeds from all areas of my apartment back in Israel. In the feeds from the living room and kitchen, everything looks fine. Then I check the feed from the infrared camera in the basement. The man in the cage is naked and on all fours. He must be hot. He’s trying to dig into the floor with a piece of plastic from a broken bottle of mineral water. I observe his efforts while I finish eating my breakfast.
I leave a 5-franc tip for the café’s shift manager, who is also a part of the target’s security team. I know as much because I see him communicating on occasion with the security chief, whose silhouette appears in the window of the building across the street. When the shift manager places a call, the security chief removes his cell phone from his pocket and the 2 men converse.
I go to my client’s office to work on the existing computer system’s performance report prior to the upgrade.
That afternoon I get a shirt made with the logo and telephone number of a florist in Geneva that I copy from a local website.
MORNING. JANUARY 2006
I wear the florist shirt under my coat. I buy a bouquet of flowers and an accompanying greeting card. I scribble “Happy Birthday, Olga” on the card and head for the target’s home.
I park my rental car a block away from the target’s building, leave the coat inside and put on a colorful woolen hat. We were taught at The Organization that if you’re wearing 1 conspicuous item of clothing, people will focus their attention on it and remember it rather than your facial features.
It’s 9 in the morning and the target and her family have already left the house. The bodyguards are less vigilant.
I approach the building.
I walk into the building and press the elevator button to the 7th floor. It’s an old elevator. It has large buttons for the different floors. The button to the 2nd floor has been replaced by a cylinder lock, and the floor can be accessed with a key only. Fitted into the elevator door is an elongated pane of tinted glass. I see the silhouette of a bodyguard as I pass the 2nd floor. He’s standing in the hallway. The apartments above and below the 2nd floor are also permanently manned with bodyguards, even when the target and her family
aren’t home. I exit the elevator on the 7th floor and check the door to the apartment on the south side of the building. An oval-shaped sign on the door reads ADRIANA KARSON. I place the bouquet of flowers at the door to the apartment across the hall and turn toward the stairwell. I open the door to the stairwell and peer down. There are no bodyguards in the stairwell.
I take the elevator and leave the building and head to work.
I stop at the Geneva Holiday travel agency on Route de Saint-Georges.
I tell the travel agent that a good friend of mine was diagnosed recently with terminal cancer and that I want to treat her to a holiday package for 2 to Rio. It’s pancreatic cancer. “She doesn’t have much time left,” I say, and explain to the travel agent that she must make it appear as if my friend has won some sort of prize because she wouldn’t agree to accept such an expensive gift from me.
I pay in cash and tell the travel agent that I’m going to write my friend a letter, which will appear to have come from Swissair, to tell her to pick up the tickets that she won.
“No problem,” the travel agent says, “anything to make her happy.”
“Yes, it’s the last holiday she has left,” I respond. “And one more thing, can you please give her a call later today and tell her that you are the agency dealing with these tickets and that she has won and will receive them soon by mail? I am afraid that if I just leave the tickets in her mailbox she will think it is junk mail and throw them away.”
“No problem.”
“And don’t mention anything about her cancer.”
“Of course.”
I meet with the client to discuss my suggestions on how to improve his system’s performance. I get the go-ahead to perform an upgrade to the operating system and the database on Tuesday night.
I use the time at the client’s offices to write a letter.
Dear Mrs. Adriana Karson,
As part of a customer maintenance and reward program, we conduct a weekly prize drawing in which we give away free tickets for vacant seats on flights to a wide variety of destinations.