Pinnacle Event

15

“Call it Lake Kinneret. That’s its name,” Avraham Reuven scolded.

“I told you Mr. Avidar, my father is sometimes not good with guests. His mind, well, it wanders.” Benjamin Reuven looked to be in his fifties. He had explained that he lived on the nearby kibbutz Hokuk, where he ran a specialty plastics factory. He came into town almost every day to see that his father was all right.

The kibbutz had not been “comfortable” enough for Avraham. To be near his son and his grandchildren on the kibbutz, Avraham had moved to a villa in nearby Livnim, complete with a pool and a great view of the Sea of Galilee. Now, the grandchildren were at university in America, but he didn’t mind, Avraham said. “This view from this restaurant is like the view from my house down the street. I love it. Lake Kinneret.”

They sat outdoors at the Roburg, the gourmet restaurant in Livnim, the Sea of Galilee glistening in the near distance. “Lake Tiberias, the Romans called it, after their perverted emperor, but it’s Kinneret in the Torah, not Galilee. The Galilee is the region,” Avraham insisted.

“We came to talk about South Africa,” Danny Avidar began.

“Operation Peace for Galilee, that’s what they called it when they invaded Lebanon the last time,” the elder Avraham went on. “A piece of the Galilee for the Army, but peace for Galilee didn’t happen, of course. No peace. Peace in Galilee, that would be a real miracle.”

“Dad, Mr. Avidar wants you to remember about your time in South Africa,” the son tried. “He’s from the Mossad, high up.”

“The Christians think miracles occurred in the Galilee, of course. Over there in Capernaum. Down the road in Cana. That was a good one, the one in Cana. They claim a Jew made water into wine there, in Cana, not just wine but high-quality wine. No high-quality wine in Cana now,” Reuven Avraham said looking at Bowman. “Not bad here though, at Roburg’s.” He sipped his glass of dark red wine.

“Do you recall a man named Potgeiter? Or one named Roosmeer?” Avidar asked.

“Yes, Potgeiter, yes. He liked tunnels, built tunnels,” Reuven Avraham recalled.

Danny Avidar perked up and leaned forward. “Tunnels for what?”

“Simeon bar Yochai, he built tunnels, too, up here in the Galilee region. Did you know that?” Avraham asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Danny answered. “I don’t know him. Was that when you came back from South Africa that he built the tunnels up here? Why did he build tunnels?”

“No, before that,” the old man scoffed. “He built them to escape from the Romans. He was a Tannaim. You’re obviously not.”

Ray Bowman couldn’t help it anymore, he broke out laughing. Avidar gave him an evil look.

“It is good wine,” Bowman began, “for a blend.” He rolled the red around in his glass. “I saw Johann Roosmeer two days ago. He said if I saw you to pass on his best. He said without you, he could never have redesigned the warhead to fit on to his missile. He makes wine now, Johann does, with his two sons in Stellenbosch.”

Avraham Reuven turned and stared at Bowman like a falcon contemplating its prey. He pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose. “His missile? It was a Jehrico II, just like ours. You use a little warhead, but you boost it with tritium. Simple. That’s what we did. What they did, too, with the few they made in the tunnel.”

“Potgeiter’s tunnel. That where they made the tritium gas, in the tunnel?” Ray asked.

“Of course,” the old man said, disdainfully.

“And then Potgeiter built another tunnel to store the missile warheads in when he left South Africa?” Ray guessed.

“Yes. The man loved his tunnels, like the Nazis,” Reuven answered.

“What did you think of his second tunnel, the one where he moved the warheads? Was it well designed?” Ray asked.

“Never saw it,” Reuven admitted. “Think I’d go to Madagascar? Even Potgeiter got sick there. Lucky he didn’t get bitten by the bats. Huge things. Built nests in his tunnel. Had to chase them out. Bloody mess. Guano everywhere,” Reuven said laughing, as he took another sip of the wine.

“Potgeiter told people he sent the missile warheads here, you know,” Ray continued.

“Pfft…” Reuven chortled. “He never even offered. We didn’t need them. We had two hundred and forty-eight nuclear warheads. Why would we want theirs? No, they never came here. Went straight to the bat cave. Think they moved them lately? That why you came, find out where they moved them? I wouldn’t know. I haven’t talked to any of them in years, the South Africans. Not in years. Wouldn’t know, not me, no.”

“They still send you the good South African wine though, I hope?” Ray took a shot in the dark.

“Roosmeer does. A case every year at New Year, their new year, not ours,” Avraham Reuven admitted. “Much better than the piss we make in this country. Haven’t made high-quality wine here since that boy did his magic trick over in Cana.”

As they left the Reuvens and walked to Danny’s car in the parking lot, the Mossad man stopped and looked Bowman in the eye. “Forget two hundred forty-eight. He never said two hundred forty-eight, all right? Besides, he’s demented, obviously.”

“I don’t think he’s demented at all. He just didn’t like you. Or Mossad. Or both.” Ray said, and began walking again. “He knew what I needed and he gave it to me. He confirmed that there were secret bombs that the South African whites did not reveal to the UN. He said they never came here. And he told us that they went to Madagascar for safe storage in a tunnel. The coup de grâce? He confirmed the weapons were boosted with tritium.”

“That’s important, the tritium part?” Danny asked.

“Damn right. It’s a limited life component. It decays. By now, it’s dead,” Ray thought aloud. “If the bombs were detonated now, they would not be fifty kilotons, more like five kilotons.”

“Raymond, even a handful of five-kiloton nuclear explosions in Israel and the Exodus happens again, but in the other direction.”

“Wouldn’t do good things for Manhattan and DC, either,” Bowman replied.