Pandora's Ark

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Yitzhak Paled stood in the Comm Center watching the screen with his arms folded defensively across his chest. The large man, Benyamin Kastenbaum, stood beside him maintaining the same pose, his colossal frame dwarfing Paled’s.

The room was dark, their forms silhouetted before the high-definition screen as encrypted notes downloaded from coordinates in the Alborz Mountain region, specifically from Mount Damavand, an odd point since there had never been verification of activity there.

“Aryeh’s alive,” Benyamin commented.

“From Mount Damavand in northern Iran… Of all places.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“I guess we’re about to find out.”

They watched the screen load up with rune-like characters, letters, numbers and symbols, the techs playing the keyboards to decipher the codes. The data coming forward in five different segments:

The encryptions became clear, the markings and symbols conforming to Yiddish text. There was no doubt. Aryeh Levine was alive in a complex hidden deep within Iran’s Alborz region inside a covert facility near the base of Mount Damavand. The exact coordinates were given for a preemptive strike.

The second verse touched upon a technology more devastating than nuclear weaponry, a nano device capable of destroying organic material while leaving the infrastructure intact with no way to combat it. Israel was now within the crosshairs.

Other segments appeared scattered, the messages themselves needing to be determined as to what Levine was trying to express. Apparently the man was in a rush.

Inside the facility next to the lab lies the true Ark of the Covenant. What it was meant to be used for wasn’t quite clear, the codes indecipherable. But it was apparent that it had meaning in the scheme of things to come. What that was, however, would remain a mystery since some of the data was corrupted.

“It’s not uniform,” said Benyamin.

Paled had to agree. “That means Aryeh was pressed for time. Not a good sign, I’m afraid. As much as I want to hope for his safety, I believe that I may be hoping for too much.”

“The Alborz are cold at this time — too cold for any man to survive.”

“But he did what was required of him,” said Paled. The man bent over the console, the light of the monitor glowing against the sharp features of his face. He scrutinized the screen, the messages, and read into them. “Nanotechnology,” he said. “There’s a name attached to this: A Doctor Leonid Sakharov.” He turned to Benyamin. “Find out what you can about this man and get back to me. If Aryeh has requested an immediate and illegal incursion to these coordinates, then it is with good reason that we must take it seriously.”

“Of course there will be fallout from the international community.”

“When the life of Israel is at stake, then the voice of the international community means little… Doctor Leonid Sakharov. Find out what you can about this man while we consider a strike against Iran. And quickly, Benyamin, time may be limited, so a decision will have to be made soon.”

“Yes, Yitzhak, I’ll do so right away.” The large man was gone, leaving Yitzhak Paled to gnaw unknowingly on his lower lip in concentration as his mind formulated the beginnings of a strike mission.

Of course he would have to contact the proper authorities by moving up the chain of command, which obviously ended with Prime Minister Netanyahu. But Israel’s previous strikes and assassinations against Iran’s nuclear scientists to retard their so-called facilities that “produce the peaceful means of nuclear power” drew the ire of the international community, as Benyamin had said. But here was confirmation from a stellar operative sending a transmission from a covert facility hidden away from the scrupulous eyes of Mossad and the CIA. Such an operation was obviously meant to be concealed. And when an operation is meant to be concealed, then that operation is normally classified as the creation of a WMD, which, in this case, is nanotechnology, a weapon geared to destroy organic matter while leaving the infrastructure unmolested.

“You did well, my friend,” he whispered. He then drew the tips of his fingers over the monitor screen, over the data. “You got your message across.”

In less than an hour, Benyamin returned with a dossier on Leonid J. Sakharov, and sat at a table with Yitzhak Paled and held counsel.

Benyamin opened the file. “Doctor Leonid J. Sakharov was a leading scientist in Russia during the Cold War and a short time thereafter. His primary field of study was in the field of nanotechnology from the mid- to late eighties. According to our data, the man was years beyond other scientists in his field with this type of technology. And it appears, even as the Wall fell, that the Russian government continued to fund his program into the nineties.” He slid a black-and-white glossy photo of a much younger Sakharov to Paled, who examined the man in the picture with a keen eye, studying everything about the man’s hardened features, his mind to never forget the man’s face.

“There was a purported accident in one of the labs, the data not quite clear. But it appears that Dr. Sakharov initiated a test of his findings prematurely, causing the deaths of his technicians. With Russia being the way it was at the time, they saw this as a step forward and allowed him to go on, the deaths of the techs serving as an example of what his experiments can do, rather than to see the tragedy of their demise. Apparently Sakharov sobered to the idea of what his research was capable of and destroyed the data, earning him a long stint in Vladimir Central Prison.”

“So he’s incarcerated?”

Benyamin shook his head. “Not anymore. He was released after the principals running Vladimir were allegedly in negotiations with this man to release him.” He slid another photo across the table. It was a photo of a Middle Eastern man in elegant dress. “Several months ago Sakharov was visited by this man. His name is Adham al-Ghazi. And we believe him to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda. Information on this guy is very limited. But we’re trying to learn as much as we can about him.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“It gets better,” added Benyamin. “Sakharov was living on a small government stipend in Moscow until a few weeks ago.”

“And?”

Another photo slid across the table, one that was appropriated from the memory files of a digital security camera near the Kremlin. “This is al-Ghazi a day or two before Sakharov disappeared,” he continued. “We believe that al-Ghazi was there for Sakharov. And ironically, after this picture was taken, Doctor Sakharov was on a flight to Tehran within days. So tell me, Yitzhak, why would a man of age, a man like Sakharov, whose only roots lie within Russia, go to Tehran?”

Paled nodded. “Because, my friend, sometimes when a man grows old and begins to feel left behind and forgotten, he needs to feel useful. In this case I believe Doctor Sakharov was given the opportunity to feel useful once again, a second chance at life rather than to sit back, exist, then die without anyone knowing your name.”

“So he’s in Tehran.”

“No,” he answered. “He’s in this covert facility at Mount Damavand. Otherwise Aryeh never would have known him. Doctor Sakharov, nanotechnology, it all fits. Sakharov has completed what he started years ago in Russia. And somehow al-Ghazi and the Iranian government have colluded to benefit by sharing a common goal, despite their suspicion of one another. It’s no secret that Ahmadinejad has been recruiting these factions over that past few years to carry out their deeds, so they can sit back and deny culpability by pointing the accusing finger at a scapegoat.”

He leaned back in his chair and gazed into Benyamin’s eyes. “They have perfected a weapon to take out Israel,” he told him. “Aryeh got enough across to tell us that. He also told us that they were in possession of the true Ark of the Covenant. By telling us the exact location and the purpose of this facility, I see no choice but to destroy it in its entirety.”

“We’ll need to contact the Prime Minister.”

“Who will then inform our allies of our findings. The CIA will then use their satellites to zone in on the position and confirm this facility as we did. On the ridgeline are numerous fuel cells maintaining the power of the complex — a target that should aid in its fall.”

“The United States may want further proof than just a few encryptions.”

“It’s not their choice. The United States needs to think less about how they can profit from this and make their economy swing better. Because if they allow this to continue, if Iran and al-Qaeda go forward with this technology, then Israel, the United States, and their allies may not have an economy withstanding at all.”

“And the Ark?”

Paled’s eyes went soft. “It will be lost forever, I’m afraid.”

“Such a treasure for the world to behold.”

“If we don’t do this, Benyamin, then there will be no world to treasure.”