by Nir Hezroni
You’re standing on a trail.
The trail is straight and long.
It leads you forward.
Your feet walk over gravel. The sensation of gravel under your bare feet is a pleasant one. Not painful. You’re in a safe place.
You look to the right and see a young boy walking by your side.
He’s about fourteen years old.
You realize the boy is you.
He’s you when you were that age.
Can you picture him?
You walk together and talk.
He asks you if you’re happy.
He asks you if you regret some of the things you’ve done.
He asks you if you have any insights to share with him.
You talk.
The sun goes down and you walk together along the gravel trail.
Your breathing is calm.
You look to the right and see you are alone again.
You continue down the trail, which stretches into the woods.
You see a figure standing in front of you farther down the trail.
You approach it.
It’s an old man.
The light is dimmer now and it’s hard to recognize the figure from afar.
You reach him and see that it’s you in another forty years.
You stop.
There’s a stream alongside you. You can hear the sound of water trickling over pebbles.
You both sit on a large rock on the bank of the stream and dip your feet in the water.
The water is cool and pleasant and you can feel it running over your feet.
You ask the old man if he is happy.
He says he isn’t. He tells you you’ve lived a meaningless life and that no one will remember you when you are dead.
The old man weeps.
You ask him what he would have done differently.
He says he would have killed himself on December 12, 2006.
You ask him why.
He says that’s the date of the holy day on which the doors to heaven open once every one thousand years.
You promise him you will do so.
You won’t allow yourself to end up like him.
Your old self looks at you with gratitude. He gets up off the stone you are sitting on and continues down the trail.
You remain seated on the stone. You know what you have to do.
The grass and woods around you disappear.
Your breathing quickens.
You won’t remember this conversation.
You feel wonderful.
You won’t dream anymore.
Never again.
You’ll continue sleeping now until you are no longer tired and then you’ll wake up.
This is your last dream.
– A blinding white flash –
I’m running and jumping on the sidewalk. My arms are stretched out to the sides.
– Flash –
I’m sitting on the train. My twin is sitting in front of me.
– Flash –
My car drives past the bodies on the road. The paramedic leaning against the side of the ambulance exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke and looks at me.
– Flash –
A note lands on the table next to me. “Remember not to sneeze again,” I scribble on it.
– Flash –
Brown water is dripping from the room’s ceiling. I lift my head and look up.
– Flash –
I pick up a knife and drive it into my heart.
– Flash –
I’m sitting at a café. The world around me is frozen.
– Flash –
It’s dark outside. I stop my car at the side of the road and walk over to the pile of clothes lying on the road.
– Flash –
The large black ant moves closer to me under my blanket.
– Flash –
I’m in front of the refrigerator. Its door is open. The jar containing the kidney is resting on the shelf in front of me, illuminated from behind by the refrigerator’s yellow lightbulb.
– Flash –
A hand reaches out and pulls me into the Metro tunnel.
– Flash –
2 shadows are moving across the floor outside the bathroom.
– Flash –
I’m standing in front of the large glass wall and pushing down relentlessly on the pedal.
– Flash –
I inhale cool air through my regulator, diving deep down along the endless wall of corals.
– Flash –
The elevator doors open. A torrent of brown water comes rushing out.
– Flash –
I look for the lighter in my shirt pocket. There is no pocket.
– Flash –
All of them must die.
She’s sitting next to me and caressing my head. She gets up and leaves. She has a knapsack on her back and she’s eating an energy bar. I think I know her but I can’t see her face.
EVENING. FEBRUARY 2006
I get up very late. I’ve slept most of the day.
My eyes hurt and my head’s a little dizzy. But I feel good. I have a sense of duty. A sense of purpose. I go over to the coffee corner in the room and boil water in a small plastic electric kettle. I then make myself a cup of tea without sugar. I don’t like sugar in my tea.
I shower and go down to eat in the hotel dining room.
A woman is sitting alone at a table for 2. I don’t recognize her but I feel as if I know her.
I sit down in front of her. She doesn’t notice.
She puts the menu down on the table and sees me.
She smiles in surprise. “Do you have your tables mixed up?” she asks me in English.
“No,” I respond. Her voice sounds familiar.
I ask her name.
She tells me her name is Kelly Grasso and that she’s here on a business trip. She works for Cymedix. We talk about databases and operating systems. Her eyes smile. We eat dinner together. She tells me about her work. She lives in Boston.
I invite her to my room and she says that her flight is scheduled to depart soon. She says she needs to leave but would be happy to stay in touch. She gives me a business card. I hold on to it.
MORNING. FEBRUARY 2006
I no longer dream and no longer wake at 1:30 in the morning.
I’ve been following my target for several days now. He’s completely inaccessible. His security detail is the tightest I’ve ever encountered and the members of the security team appear well trained. He goes to work at the university in the morning and returns home at night to sleep. He lives alone. The building is under guard around the clock. He doesn’t go out at night, doesn’t eat at restaurants and doesn’t run. The only time he’s vulnerable is on his drive home along the highway, but even then, he’s protected by 3 vehicles with armed security personnel. He must know he’s been targeted. Someone is guarding him closely. The university perhaps.
I rule out my first idea—to break one of the taillights of his car, fill it with a mixture of zinc and sulfur, and drill a hole from there into the fuel tank, thus causing the car to explode when the brake pedal is depressed, because it’s impossible to get close to the car. It’s well guarded even when not in use.
I draw up a shopping list.
1. MP3 player with microphone jack for recording
2. Sensitive external microphone with shirt clip
3. Several cables that connect to the player’s earphone jack and allow the player to be hooked up to an external amplifier
4. Large toolbox
5. Blue overalls
6. Large iron pipe wrench
7. Webcam with cellular modem and a cellular Internet package
8. Electrical adaptor for a camera that can be plugged into a car’s power supply
9. Cell phone with local SIM card and an Internet package
I use the Internet to find a quit-smoking hypnotherapy clinic and register for a course of treatment. I have an appointment in 2 days.
>
I continue to monitor my target from a distance. I notice I’m not the only one who has him under surveillance. 3 more people are keeping an eye on the target and his surroundings.
My target’s drive home from work in the evening takes 35 minutes. 25 minutes at night, when there’s less traffic.
I buy all the items on the list at a large shopping mall and check that all the electronic equipment works well. I get the logo of the Montreal cable company, Vidéotron, printed on the overalls.
MORNING. FEBRUARY 2006
I’m sitting in the clinic of Dr. Victor Sadovsky. He specializes in quit-smoking hypnotherapy. I pay him 500 Canadian dollars. He says I have to pay up front.
Before then, in the bathroom alongside the waiting room, I fit the microphone to my shirt, connect it to the MP3 device and press the record button.
The doctor starts up a metronome. “Close your eyes and listen to rhythm of the clicks,” he says. I begin counting in my head all the prime numbers from 1 to 10,000. He speaks in a calm tone.
“In a moment I will count to three,” he says. I’m already up to 151.
“Now I want your eyes to feel as if it’s very late at night,” he continues, “and you’re sitting at home and watching an old black-and-white movie on TV. You should have gone to bed by now. You’re so tired.” I’m already up to 443.
“You feel your eyes closing,” he says. “Your eyelids are heavy. They’re closing.” His voice remains very calm. My eyes are closed. I’m up to one 1,031.
“You’re asleep now,” he says.
I stop counting through the prime numbers and open my eyes. “Hypnosis doesn’t work on me,” I say to Dr. Sadovsky. “I’m sorry. You can keep the money.”
I get up and leave. I stop the recording in the elevator. I transfer the file to my laptop back at the hotel and edit it, leaving only the hypnosis segment. I delete the rest.
I put on the blue overalls with the Vidéotron logo.
I drive to the parking lot where my target’s car is parked and find a space several dozen meters away from it. There’s a bodyguard standing next to the target’s car. He doesn’t notice me; I’m parked far enough away. I place a webcam on the dash above the steering wheel. I direct it at the target’s car and turn it on.
I get out of my car, retrieve the toolbox from the trunk, walk out of the parking lot and hail a cab.
“Where to?” the driver asks.
“The CBC Radio One building,” I tell him.
I enter the CBC building dressed in blue overalls and carrying the toolbox. I wave hello to the security guard. He responds with a tired gesture. I map the floors in my head as I walk up the stairs. Office floors, the computer room, the broadcasting studio.
It’s almost 8 in the evening and the building is practically empty. Every now and then I open a communications cabinet on one of the floors and pretend to be checking something with the connections.
I leave the building and walk to a café farther down the street.
I eat dinner and keep an eye at the same time on the video feed on my laptop from the camera I left in the parked car. My target’s car is still parked in its spot. I leave the laptop open and continue eating.
At around 8:30 I see my target get into his car and leave the parking lot escorted by his security team.
I place 50 Canadian dollars on the table and leave the restaurant. I have 15 minutes before my target will be halfway down the highway.
I wave hello to the guard again and he responds with a nod of his head. 2 minutes have gone by.
I take the elevator to the ninth floor. 3 minutes have gone by.
I signal to the technician in the studio to open the door for me. He sees the cable company’s logo and presses a button on his desk that opens the door with a buzz. It’s been 4 minutes.
“I need you to move your chair forward so I can get to the cabinet behind you,” I say.
“What’s happening? Is there a problem?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “The transmission is down. I need to check the connections in the cabinet right now.”
I stand behind the broadcast technician, open the toolbox, take out a large pipe wrench and smash it down onto the back of the technician’s neck.
It’s been 6 minutes.
I review the connections on the broadcast console. 2 CD players and a laptop are connected to the console. On air right now is a song by Beyoncé, from the laptop. While waiting for the song to end, I connect my player to the laptop’s USB port and copy the Doctor.mp3 file to the studio’s computer.
It’s been 14 minutes.
When the song ends, I keep the broadcast running and play the edited recording of Dr. Sadovsky speaking. I return the pipe wrench to the toolbox, leave the studio and close the door, take the elevator down to the foyer, exit the building and start walking back to the hotel. Taking a cab now is too dangerous.
February 27th 2006
Dr. Victor Sadovsky was busy closing up his clinic for the day. It had been a particularly long day at work and it was already 8:45. He went over all the payments he had received during the day and made sure everything was correctly recorded in the accounting program on his computer.
A Beyoncé song on the radio came to an end and then someone started talking. It took a few seconds before he realized that the voice coming from the most popular radio station in Montreal was his voice.
A few more seconds went by before the potential danger struck him. His breath caught in his throat.
He grabbed for the office phone and called the police.
“Montreal Police.”
“You need to get every available police officer out onto the streets! Quickly!!! There’s no time!!!”
“Excuse me?”
“Someone made a recording of me performing hypnosis and he’s broadcasting it now on the radio. Drivers are going to be falling asleep at the wheel all over the city within minutes! You need to switch all traffic lights to red right now and get all the officers you have out onto the streets, or thousands will die.”
“Are you aware, sir, that filing a false report is a criminal offense?”
“Turn on CBC Radio.”
The dispatcher at the police station turned on CBC Radio One. The broadcast was just ending with the words, “You’re asleep now,” and then the station went silent.
* * *
-USERNAME
-PASSWORD
-KEYPHRASE
WELCOME TO THE ORION SYSTEM, WAITING FOR INSTRUCTIONS
“SEARCH”
→ SEARCH FOR WHAT?
“MONTREAL 2006”
WAIT …
→ SEARCH RESULTS “MONTREAL 2006” DISPLAYING FIRST 5 RESULTS:
1. 2006 – MONTREAL ROAD DISASTER
ANALYSIS – INVOLVEMENT OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS
2. 2006 – MONTREAL ROAD DISASTER
CONCLUSIONS – ISSUES REQUIRING ATTENTION VIS-À-VIS SECURITY FOR LOCAL RADIO AND TELEVISION BROADCASTS
3. 2006 – MONTREAL ROAD DISASTER
AGENTS 6682, 7015, 6190
4. 2006 – MONTREAL ROAD DISASTER
CONCLUSIONS – AMENDMENT OF EMBASSY AND CONSULATE PROTOCOLS
5. 2006 – MONTREAL ROAD DISASTER
URGENT DISCUSSION AT COMMUNICATIONS MINISTRY
“OPEN DOCUMENT 3”
→ ACCESS TO THIS DOCUMENT REQUIRES REIDENTIFICATION
* * *
Avner swiped his finger over the reader again, entered his personal password, and the document opened in a new window:
* * *
DATE: 2/26/2006
CLASSIFICATION: BLACK
TO: ORGANIZATION – HEAD
FROM: CANADA BRANCH – HEAD
DISTRIBUTION: ORGANIZATION – SENIOR STAFF
DIVISION HEAD – OPERATORS EUROPE
CANADA BRANCH – INTELLIGENCE WING
SYSTEM: ORION / BASE: MTR / EXPIRY: __ / __ / ____
RE: DEATH OF AGENTS 6682, 7015, 6190
/
F
URTHER TO EARLIER TRANSMISSIONS ON THE SUBJECT, I WISH TO UPDATE THAT THREE OF OUR AGENTS WERE AMONG THE APPROXIMATELY ELEVEN THOUSAND FATALITIES IN THE MONTREAL-AREA ROAD DISASTER.
THESE AGENTS WERE DEPLOYED THERE TO MONITOR THE MOVEMENTS OF ONE OF THE TWELVE [XXX CENSORED XXX] PROJECT TARGETS WHO LIVED AND WORKED IN MONTREAL.
THE PURPOSE OF THE SURVEILLANCE OPERATION WAS TO LOCATE AGENT [XXX CENSORED XXX] AFTER LEARNING THAT HE HAD BEEN MISTAKENLY DISPATCHED TO CARRY OUT THREE HITS, WITH DR. BERNARD STRAUSS OF THE ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE DE MONTRÉAL AS ONE OF THE TARGETS.
BERNARD STRAUSS WAS UNHARMED IN THE INCIDENT.
SINCERELY
/
* * *
Avner stared frozen-faced at the notebook and computer screen.
This notebook was a bombshell.
No wonder Amiram lost his cool. If this material gets out, it’s the end of our relations with Canada. And half the rest of the world, too. No one outside the inner circle can get wind of this.
And if Bernard Strauss, target number eight on the Bernoulli list, wasn’t killed in the Montreal road disaster, then who killed him? All the Bernoulli targets had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Avner added to his document:
9. Agents 6682, 7015, and 6190 were killed by 10483 in Montreal. File can be closed.
10. Convene a senior staff meeting tomorrow to discuss the implications of the new material found in the notebook.
MORNING. MARCH 2006
The roads by now have been cleared of mangled vehicles and the traffic lights are functioning again. I take a cab to the parking lot where my car is parked. I turn off the camera, put it in my bag, and see my target’s car still parked there with the guard alongside it.
My target escaped unharmed.
I’ll have to come up with something else. Something inside the school perhaps.
I start the car and drive back to the hotel.
The small piece of a staple from a paper stapler that I left on the door handle to my room is no longer on the round knob. I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, so they weren’t supposed to clean my room today.
Someone’s entered my room and is probably in there now.
I’ve suspected over the past few days that my room had been bugged. So I make sure every night to conduct a number of fictitious phone calls in which I speak about my future plans.