Newton’s Fire

FORTY-SEVEN
I

Galia Michaeli had dreamed all her young life of being at the heart of a breaking news story. Now, in just her second week of work experience at the Tel Aviv studios, she was at the heart of the breaking story of the decade. And her main task had been made very clear to her three times already. It was to make coffee on request, and otherwise stay out of the way.

The news channel had a generic email address, but no one ever used it. No one who mattered, at least. It was, however, one of Galia’s jobs to check it every morning, just in case. She did so now. It included another copy of the already notorious email from the Dome assailants. They’d obviously sent it to everyone they could think of. She opened the various attachments out of curiosity. Most were photographs that had already been shown on the news. And there was also the list of prisoners to be released. Without any great expectation, she checked this Word document to see if it had its Track Changes feature on, and whether she’d therefore be able to see earlier drafts. She sat up a little when she noticed a few minor changes in formatting. And then, as if by magic, a whole extra paragraph suddenly appeared.

Our final demand: Aircraft registration number N12891F has now landed at Ben Gurion Airport. Its passengers and cargo are to be escorted by military convoy to the Golden Gate on the Temple Mount. Failure to comply will result in the immediate destruction of the Dome.

Her mouth was dry as she copied the aircraft registration number into a search engine. The second result was for a flight-tracking website. She clicked on the link. A map of the eastern Mediterranean appeared, then a dotted line heading straight for Israel. Contrary to what the paragraph claimed, the aircraft hadn’t yet arrived at Ben Gurion.

In fact, it wasn’t due to land for the best part of another hour.