The press secretary held his hand up and when the audience grew quiet he welcomed the Prime Minister. The PM appeared to be in an extremely good mood. His usual artificial smile was replaced by a genuine smile that grew larger as he stepped up to the podium. "I am very pleased to welcome the hostages. We have sent medical aid and rescue experts to different points of the globe that suffered from natural disasters like floods and earthquakes because of moral obligations to help those in times of distress. You know that this government would do everything within reason to help our own people. Inbal and Zorik, please come here" when the young couple approached he kissed Inbal and hugged Zorik while patting him on the back. He continued "This beautiful and clever young lady is my granddaughter and this handsome young man will soon be her husband. Both of them represent what we want our future generation to be like". The applause almost brought the roof down as Inbal and Zorik returned to their seats. The PM paused for a moment to signal that he was moving to a more serious subject. "A few days ago I thanked Iran for releasing Vicki and Morris but warned them that if they were found to be in violation of the nuclear deal they had signed they would be severely punished by the international community. Earlier today they took advantage of the hostage release situation and placed a nuclear device that they had clandestinely constructed on the plane that brought the hostages back home". He motioned to his press secretary who unfolded two large photographs of the device and the plane. "Thanks to the information our Mossad agents gathered we were prepared for that. The plane was diverted to an airbase in the Negev and the device was neutralized". He stopped talking and waited for the astonished audience to calm down. He had to pause for some time while text messages with "stop press" notes were sent by reporters to all the leading news channels. The TV crews were elbowing one another to get a closer view of the PM and the photos of the device and plane. Finally he was able to continue "The international community will not sit still until this fanatical, extremist evil regime is replaced by a sane regime that represents the people of Iran. I will now take a few questions".
No one spoke for a moment and then everyone seemed to be speaking at once. The press secretary tried to gain some control but had to give up. The level of excitement exceeded all previous records. Finally one of the reporters gained the PM's attention and shouted "Does Israel consider a punitive or preemptive strike against Iran?"
The Prime Minister put on a solemn expression "Israel retains the right to react against its enemies in the appropriate time and place. I hope this will not be necessary if sanity returns to Iran and the international community. Thank you all, I would like to spend some time with the hostages." The PM walked away from the podium.
Epilogue
The counterrevolution in Iran took place a few days after the plot was unveiled. It was not as bloody as the Islamic religious revolution was but a number of Mullahs and Imams were hanged in Azadi Square and several others were lynched when they tried to escape. Some nuclear scientists and engineers disappeared and their families never heard from them again. The Islamic Republic of Iran became simply Iran. Terrorist movements that were supported directly or indirectly by Iran disappeared or lay dormant when their funding and supply of weapons dwindled to a trickle.
Alan Ross passed away in a dentist's chair at the clinic of one of the best dentists on Harley Street in London. No foul play was suspected nor was any responsible. Apparently Ross suffered a stroke when the dentist's assistant mistakenly focused the powerful lamp on his eyes instead of on his mouth. She had prepared him for a routine check but the bright light triggered some unknown trauma and he had an aneurism that caused the stroke. Not many people mourned him.
Segan died in a freak accident while on vacation with his fiancé at Iguazu Falls in Brazil. For some unknown reason he plunged to his death from the boat that took tourists to observe the famous Falls from beneath one of the curtains of gushing water. Apparently he stood up with his camera to take a photo of his fiancé with the falls in the background and stumbled over the low guardrail to the horror of the other tourists. They could only watch helplessly as he was being pummeled by the tremendous downpour of gushing water. The investigation did not find any fault with the crew of the boat or with any of the people who were on it. His body was sent for burial in Israel as he had instructed in his will. One of the tourists on the boat trip, turned out to be an Israeli citizen and he volunteered to escort the body. It looked as if all the arrangements for flying the body had been arranged in advance.
Julia Carmon completed her term as Head of Mossad station in Berlin and upon her return to Tel-Aviv was promoted to head a section that dealt with keeping close tabs on former Mossad agents, a kind of internal security department. She was not too happy with the new assignment but saw it a stepping stone to a more senior position. She tried to get reunited with her ex-husband but he had already started a new family with a younger woman who had given birth to their twin daughters.
The Prime Minister's plan to replace Shimony with one of his supporters had to be postponed. The PM had decided to have an early general election as his popularity after the Iranian Nuclear Affair, as it became known, had skyrocketed. After all, for years he had said that the Mullah regime in Iran couldn't be trusted, that the nuclear deal was a ruse and that Iran continually strived to arm itself with nuclear weapons and become a nuclear power. Now, that he had been proven correct, he believed that he would be able to gain a majority for his party. He didn't want to rock the boat by letting Shimony, who had also gained credit, go without a good reason that could be publicly justified.
David Avivi decided to take a year off his work at Mossad and complete his Ph. D. in physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His thesis dealt with the theoretical astrophysical aspects of fusion reactions. He sincerely hoped that the topic would remain theoretical and would never get any closer than the distance between Earth and Sun.
Acknowledgments
In this book, and my other books "The Dreadful Alchemist" and "The Dreadful Renegade", I have tried to imagine the unimaginable. Fortunately these are works of fiction and hopefully they will remain so.
First and foremost I would like to thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it despite the scientific jargon that I really tried to minimize.
I dearly appreciate your comments, so please send them to:
charleszdavid1@gmail.com
I would be especially grateful if you would post a review on the Amazon website.
You may want to read my previous books "The Dreadful Alchemist" and "The Dreadful Renegade" that were published on Amazon Kindle Books in 2015.
Like my other books, this book would not have been possible without the help of Dr. Wikipedia and Professor Google and Magister Google Earth. I also found a wealth of information in scientific articles and books. However, any misinterpretation of the technical and geographical information from those sources is my own responsibility.
It is unnecessary to declare that this book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real events or people is not to be understood as anything but a coincidence. I apologize in advance in case any person feels offended by the plot.
Special thanks are due to Glenda Sacks Jaffe who meticulously edited this book.
Finally, I am grateful to my family and friends who read the manuscript and enabled me to improve the text thanks to their astute comments.