“Can you stop it?” Camp asked as the waitress dropped off two beers and two menus then left.
“Stop what? Stop which wave? Stop which plan? We face hundreds from every border, thousands more within the reach of missiles. Which plan should we stop tonight? Which one tomorrow morning or the day after? All day — every day — I exist to stop hundreds of evil plans for our annihilation. One of these days, I will screw up. One of these days, I will be a step too slow. One of these days, I will make a wrong move on the board. One of these days, I will guess wrong.”
The men were silent as Reuven’s words echoed in their heads and cold beer quenched their thirst.
“Leslie Raines is an incredible scientist, Camp.”
“She’s an incredible woman.”
Reuven lifted his glass to toast her.
“We were nearby when your mission went off the grid in Yemen last year. Obviously, Raines recovered quite well.”
“Apparently you’re not as good as you think you are. ‘Nearby’ isn’t close enough when bullets start flying.”
“When Raines landed in Lyon, we assumed she had mastered the vaccine. She works with a doctor at Fort Detrick who still works with us.”
“Are you spying, Mister Molly Bloom?” Camp said with a laugh.
“That’s what we do, my friend, that’s what we do. Tell me about your hike up the Hindu Kush into Datta Khel.”
“Not much to tell really. Dead soldier, a SkitoMister, a lab with foreign labels on bottles, ether and some surgical tools.”
“And that’s how you learned about the Twelvers?”
“No, that was on the hike up. An Iranian double-agent, Revolutionary Guard, was our escort. Omid was his name.”
Reuven’s face became focused and intense.
“Ah, the all-allusive Omid reappears every three years from self-imposed occultation.”
“Who is he?”
“If I knew that then he wouldn’t be quite as all-allusive. But I have my hunches. He has some authority. He seems to be able to come and go without drawing undue attention. And for some reason, he occasionally helps others slow him down. Not sure if he’s sympathetic and helpful or if he’s cunning and deceptive, toying with his prey and tempting them into a well-laid trap.”
“Have you heard of Kazi?”
Reuven stopped his swallow and put his beer down on the table. He could hardly hide the contempt in his face or the clenched fist that was about to be covered by his other hand.
“That hit a nerve,” Camp said as he took a long swig and stared at Reuven through the glass of his mug.
“Born in Pakistan, raised in Iran by his grandfather who had his son and daughter-in-law murdered as some type of honor killing. Educated in the states, Auburn University, as a microbiologist; worked for years at Brezden University Medical Sciences in The Netherlands where he earned a PhD and now floats around the world as a freelance terrorist. I’m not sure how, but this Kazi has access to the top. I’m talking the religious clerics, all the way to the president, maybe even the Supreme Leader for all I know. You met him?”
“No. He and his friends killed my Army doctor up in Datta Khel Village.”
“We have our theories, with regards to Iran, but what do you think Camp? What’s the grand plan?”
The waitress finally returned to the wooden booth against the back wall of Molly Bloom’s. She held an ordering pad and a pencil as she stared at Reuven and Camp.
“Two Shepherd’s Pies, extra ‘whisky’ for my brother,” Reuven said as she gathered up the menus and left.
“I have a guess.”
“Then you could work for the CIA. We don’t guess.”
“A vaccine-resistant tularemia is spread over Israel to rain down some death, widespread illness and uncontrollable panic. The world has seen two outbreaks of tularemia in the region already; there might be more. The UN will appeal for calm and claim it’s a natural outbreak, the result of poor sanitation. That’s T-minus ten, 10 days out. T-minus three, they send in a covert operation to assassinate the King of Saudi Arabia. T-minus two, they move 500,000 to 1 million Iranian soldiers west toward the border with Iraq. T-minus one, they launch as many as six nukes and 1,000 ‘regular’ missiles. Proxy forces — Hezbollah - move in from Lebanon in the south. Hamas moves in from Gaza and the West Bank as loyalists in Yemen head for Mecca. Israel and the US launch retaliatory strikes as 500,000 to 1 million Iranian soldiers march into Iraq and set up the perimeter for the Mahdi and Jesus to reappear and bring peace to the world. That’s D-Day.”
Camp was intrigued by Reuven’s personality. The secretive Mossad agent became silent, stoic and more unemotional than normal as the waitress dropped two bowls of steaming Shepherd’s Pie down on the table. Reuven pointed to their empty beer mugs, and she disappeared.
“Eight minutes and 53-seconds,” Camp said stirring his bowl. “The first outgoing retaliatory strikes won’t rain down on top of Iran until 10 minutes have passed. They don’t care about mutual annihilation. The Age of the Coming, the new Islamic caliphate, will be next door in Iraq.”
“So we strike first. Jericho 3s take them out before their plan launches.”
“You could do that. But world condemnation might deliver the annihilation they seek. Jihadists from all over the world and sympathetic nation states might accomplish what their 9-minute plan couldn’t do.”
“That’s why we built the Jericho 3, to protect our survival at all costs… even the wrath of the world.”
“But the world doesn’t believe them right now. The world believes they are rattling sabers, mouthing off and spewing hate. Sure, the world believes that they’ll send in their proxies; they’ll supply the Katyusha rockets that’ll rain down on your settlements; they’ll supply the IEDs that blow up Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan; but would they really strike Israel first with six nukes and a thousand regular missiles and willingly accept mutual annihilation? The world doesn’t believe that. That’s not rational.”
“But the Twelvers?” Reuven asked.
“For some of the Twelvers… some… not all… that’s very rational.”
“That ‘some’ could be as high as 200 million Muslims.” The waitress slid two more beer mugs across the wooden table. “You got a better plan?” Reuven asked.
Camp leaned in close.
“What if T-minus ten doesn’t go according to plan? What if the tularemia attack doesn’t cause deaths, doesn’t cause widespread illness and doesn’t cause unprecedented panic and fear? What if a massive bio-weapon attack delivers nothing? There’s nothing to trigger Hezbollah, nothing to trigger Hamas and an assassination in Saudi Arabia fails. There’s nothing to trigger a rush to Mecca from Yemen, and nothing to trigger a million man march into Iraq.”
“I’m listening.”
“Raines has cracked the code. She has created a tularemia strain as bad, maybe worse than what Kazi can do. But she took it further than the apocalyptical microbiologist who only bought a one-way ticket. She made it round-trip. She created the super vaccine for the vaccine-resistant bacterium. No one needs to die, get sick or be afraid. She can kill you, and she can save you.”
“This is the magical vaccine that has yet to be tested on humans? Risk the future of Israel on a prayer?”
“Haven’t you been doing that for 6,000 years? Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve misunderstood the Talmud. God let the children of Israel annihilate Egypt with a first strike, and then the Pharaoh freed the children of Israel from bondage. Geez, I was under the false impression that God used supernatural forces like plagues and locusts to defeat your enemies. You know, you’re as hypocritical as every other religion on the face of the earth. You only use ‘god’ when it’s convenient for you… you don’t really believe anything, do you.”