“He placed another charge,” said Shapira. “He’s going to bomb a train.”
“Shit,” said Yatom in English. He raised Feldhandler on the radio. “What are you doing?”
“It’s obvious isn’t it?” Feldhandler radioed back. “I’m going to attack a rail transport. I could use some help.”
“You’re mad.”
“You’ll see that I am not—were wasting our batteries. Meet me in the field.” Feldhandler waved and pointed to a spot on the grassy field between the tracks and the tree line.
Yatom radioed Itzak. “Any word from Chaim?”
“Affirmative.”
“Report.”
“They are a click out. Just more woods. A small stream in the distance.”
“He’s been correct so far,” said Shapira, who like all the commandos monitored the same communication net. “If we are where and when he says—and right now I’ve no reason to doubt him—it’s likely that train will pass by here eventually—a German train.”
“He can’t seriously consider attacking a German train by himself—even if it’s 1942,” said Yatom, incredulous that he was even having this ridiculous discussion.
“We don’t have any authorization or orders to attack anything,” Mofaz reminded him. “German, Polish, Lebanese—it doesn’t matter. We are on a training mission. Our duty is to return to base.”
“Not really a German train,” said Shapira, taking back his own words, and ignoring Mofaz. “Feldhandler used the word transport. In southeastern Poland in 1942 the priority transport on the rails was not Germans…”
“It was Jews,” said Perchansky, finishing his sentence.
“Ach!” groaned Yatom, but for the first time since they’d arrived things were making sense to him. Yatom got on the radio to Feldhandler.
“Pick a spot and lay down. I’ll meet you. Out.” He turned to Mofaz. “Bring your team up, with Ido and Rafi too. Have Itzak call back the patrol and wait for them at the capsule.”
Mofaz looked at him as if he’d gone crazy too, and did nothing. Yatom decided not to get into it with the Mofaz at the moment. He told Nir to issue the order, which the sergeant promptly did.
“Ron,” Yatom said, turning toward Shapira. “When the men arrive, take Roi and move one click west of here, staying in the undergrowth. Stop right about where the tracks disappear behind those trees. Understood?”
“Yes commander!” said Shapira, relieved to get some orders and to finally have something constructive to do. He was so pleased he considered saluting Yatom, but thought better of it. It wasn’t the Israeli way. Instead he went off into the woods to meet the men moving forward.
Leaving Mofaz with Perchansky and Nir, Yatom set off to meet Feldhandler in the open area between the tree line and railroad track. The field contained plenty of high grass and while it looked flat at a distance, it actually undulated a good bit, offering plenty of cover.
Feldhandler lay in a defiladed position in a dried up ditch surrounded by a mass of thick Polish weeds about fifty meters from the track, just east of the first bomb. The scientist unlatched the Galil’s bipod, set the weapon on the lip of the depression and looked down the sight. He inserted one of the 50 round magazines, charged the weapon and set it on safe. Satisfied, he sat up, leaned back against the ditch and pulled a Powerbar from a food pouch on the back of his webbing. He was munching the snack contentedly when Yatom reached him.
Yatom was doubly irritated watching Feldhandler eat, not because he wished the scientist to desist, but because he hadn’t thought of it himself. He raised Nir on the radio and told him to make sure the men ate. Of course, the sergeant had already taken care of that. Feldhandler offered the sarayet commander a peanut flavored Powerbar but Yatom waived him off. He should eat while he had the chance, but had no hunger. Yatom sat next to Feldhandler, drank from his canteen instead, and looked around.
“This is a good position Doctor, but even with that,” said Yatom, pointing at the big Galil, “you’ll die quickly attacking a German train, assuming there is one and you are not flat out crazy.”
Feldhandler smiled. “I’m not crazy—at least not in the way you mean. A German train will pass this way.”
“Then you’ll die.”
“Not if you help me.”
“Not this time,” said Yatom dismissively.
Feldhandler chewed on the Powerbar. “I heard you order men forward on the radio, and Shapira to an ambush position near the second charge I set.”
“That’s only a precaution,” said Yatom. “We are not here to fight a war—wherever and whenever this is.”
“Maybe you will change your mind.”
“I doubt it.”
“A transport full of Jews is going to pass down these tracks sometime today. Some of the Jews on that train might well be your relatives.”
“Uh huh,” said Yatom disbelievingly, like he was humoring his daughter. “And how to you know that such a transport will pass this way?”
“Because about twenty kilometers down the track is a place called Sobibor. Heard of it?”
Yatom thought for a few seconds. “A death camp?” he said at last.
“Not as famous as Auschwitz or Trehlinka. There was a revolt there.”
“Yes,” replied Feldhandler, “but not until late 1943. By then hundreds of thousands had died.”
“And today is?”
“My best guess is May 25, 1942” said Feldhandler. “According to the German records, which were kept pretty meticulously, a transport of Austrian and Czech Jews was massacred in Sobibor today. I intend to stop that, and with your help destroy Sobibor before any more Jews die there.”
“You brought us here for that?”
“I told you, I can’t control the device from inside the capsule. Mina directed us here.”
“But with your connivance. You had this all planned.”
Feldhandler took another bite of the Powerbar, but didn’t say anything.
“What’s the point?” Yatom persisted angrily. “This isn’t a game; these are people’s lives you are toying with. We have family, friends, and careers. You’ve marooned us here and now want us to fight a war that isn’t ours to fight. You’re insane. So is your sister.”
“Regardless of my motives or sanity” said Feldhandler calmly, “you are the leader of an Israeli commando sarayet. Are you going to sit around and allow the Germans to massacre thousands of men, women and children today because you’re pissed off at me?”
Yatom rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky. “I want to go home” he said at last. “So do my men.”
“Did you ask them?”
“I don’t have to!”
“If I’m killed today” said Feldhandler, “you’ll never get home.”
“Does that mean you will return the capsule?” Yatom said hopefully.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Why?”
“First because I don’t want to” said Feldhandler. “Second because the capsule is controlled in Dimona, and in 1942, no such place exists, much less a fusion reactor and a time/ space transport device. So there is nobody to bring us back. There is no ‘back’ to go to.”
Yatom considered this. He had been briefed many times on time/ space theory, anomalies and paradoxes. And he knew that what Feldhandler had just told him was not necessarily true.
“You’re bullshitting me” said Yatom. “What you say is true, is only true.” Yatom paused and fought for the right words. “It’s only true if the transport did not create a rival timeline. But it could have. If we are in a new timeline, they could, in theory, return us.”
“Maybe” conceded Feldhandler. “But even I don’t know which case is true. Nor do you, or Dr. Perchensky. It’s theoretically possible for me to reprogram the tachyon transmitter and send a signal. But even assuming we could send a message into the future—or to a rival timeline—Mina would have to acknowledge it and she would have to bring us back.”