“Bolander immigrated as a child,” interrupted Yatom.
“Still?”
“They are both trustworthy and reliable soldiers. End of story.”
“Mofaz?”
“Beseder” grunted Yatom, using the universal Israel word for okay. “Sometimes he seems to think he is a Macabee or Mordecai Anielewicz, but I’m not going to complain about such an officer.” Yatom himself was from kibbutz Yad Mordecai, named for the Warsaw Ghetto martyr.
“He refused your order.”
“Argued it,” Yatom smiled. “It’s our way. Besides, he was right.”
Brom nodded. “We’ll replace your man. Expanding the sayeret may not be feasible at present. Mofaz will remain your deputy until you tell me otherwise, or someone gets rid of you or me.”
“Then we could maybe get some sleep” said Yatom. In a separate part of the underground facility Feldhandler examined masses of data thrown up by his computers. The scientist examined masses of data thrown up by his computers. The scientist too had not slept for days, but chronic insomnia had been a bane since childhood. Eventually, he would crash, but at the moment he felt fine. It would have been normal for Feldhandler to feel triumphant, but that wasn’t his way. Feldhandler cared little for public acknowledgement, so long as he got money, support and his way.
To the world he was known as the co-creator of Feldhandler-Gallardo Condensate, an exotic material that did not absorb light but actually slowed it. Other experimental condensates had manged the feat at extremely low temperatures, but Feldhandler and his Argentine-Jewish partner Arturo Gallardo, had created a condensate stable at ordinary temperatures.
For Israel, sympathetic care and feeding of the taciturn genius had paid off. In secret, and before his thirty-fifth birthday, he had delivered the world’s first functioning fusion reactor to his government. It was a research reactor, buried deep underground, and not yet suitable for civilian use or mass energy production, but it provided Israel’s super-secret Dinoma facility with unprecedented power and research capabilities.
Three years and billions of dollars later Feldhandler presented the transport device. Feldhandler had sold the concept in vague terms, as a means to transport troops and equipment, secretly and safely, anywhere they needed to be. In fact, the Device was capable of opening a space/time wormhole, thanks to the power of the reactor and Feldhandler-Gallardo Condensate, which could keep the hole sufficiently stable to transport a specially constructed capsule.
Such were Feldhandler’s accomplishments and reputation that ordinary bureaucratic caution was thrown to the wind. He was given the funding, manpower and material to create the Device and the transport facility adjacent to the fusion reactor. It was at the junction of the two the Feldhandler now worked, surrounded by a dozen other scientists and technicians, for whom the diminutive scientist was a virtual demi-god. They would do whatever he told them to do.
Chief among the acolytes was Andrea Perchensky, a preternaturally bright young woman, in her late twenties. In Perchensky Feldhandler had his Watson, or perhaps more appropriately, his Liesl Meitner to his Otto Frisch—that is assuming that Otto Frisch had been a good deal brighter. Like Feldhandler, Perchensky had advanced well ahead of her peers, and completed university studies at a time when her childhood friends were text-messaging their way through high school. Like Feldhandler she’d interrupted her Ph.D. studies at the University of Gottingen to complete her Army service. Unlike Feldhandler, who spent three years working in various Israeli missile units, Perchansky had spent half of her Army time working on the Device, before returning to Germany to wrap up her degree. Now she was back where she was happiest, sitting one computer over from her mentor.
The Device required unprecedented amounts of energy, which the reactor could only supply in small bursts. Because it was a fusion reactor, it could never be safely shut down, any more than you could turn off the sun, but the plasma could be brought into differing energy levels. The nuclear team was endeavoring to limit the plasma’s energy for the time being. Feldhandler stayed at the computer monitors for several additional minutes until satisfied that all operations were within acceptable limits. He thanked his team and prepared to leave. He glanced at Perchensky and with a nod, asked her to come with him. They walked slowly back toward the transport area.
In his typical fashion Feldhandler went right to the point, avoiding an exchange of congratulation.
“With our success today, we should get permission to launch another mission within a few weeks” Feldhandler told her. “We can’t rest on our laurels.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about getting permission” Perchensky replied doubtfully. “We haven’t seen the fallout from the raid. The government is upbeat now—but wait until the Americans have a go at us. The government won’t be so brave.”
Feldhandler liked Perchensky’s innate pessimism which mirrored his own. “For a young woman, you are a cynic” he smiled.
“I’m a realist. Like you.”
“I am to a degree, but I’m a bit of a romantic too.”
She looked at him a bit warily. Feldhandler was single but more than ten years her senior. More than that, he’d never been anything but professional with her.
“Not in that way” he said. And then quickly before she could be offended he went on. “I’m talking philosophically. We, I mean mankind, should have done better for ourselves by now.”
Perchensky decided to keep quite. She hoped she hadn’t blushed. What the hell was he getting at?
“All this” he spread his hands around “the greatest scientific advances in decades, centuries, maybe ever—kept in secret by a small, frightened despised country. Used at enormous expense and to surreptitiously transfer commandos here and there, when a braver nation, a braver government could drop a few bombs for a fraction of the cost and accomplish the same thing.”
Perchensky was flattered that Feldhandler chose to offer his ruminations—and surprised that he even had them. She stopped and turned toward him, and gently placed her hand on his chest.
Feldhandler stopped as if he’d run into a wall. They were both dressed now in white lab coats. Her tanned skin, thin fingers and manicured nails with peach colored polish (hadn’t he noticed that before) struck him dumb. Her coat fell back onto a thin but well toned arm, sporting a fashionable watch. Perchansky was a technical drone who took pride in her looks. Feldhandler was reminded of his family’s old rabbi who extolled the sexual virtues of the female upper extremities. In the orthodox Jewish world, where women kept everything covered but their faces and hands, a naked arm could be a real turn on. He’d dismissed it as so much orthodox dreck but now he reconsidered.
Perchensky understood better than Feldhandler that a couple things were happening at once. She gently removed her hand and kept professional, but looked the older man in the eyes. Feldhandler’s insomnia showed on his face. His eyes were red and glassy; he looked a decade older than thirty-nine.
“Why don’t we go to the canteen and grab a cup of coffee” she suggested. “I think we can both use one.”
Feldhandler nodded, knocked out of his reverie. “Good. I would like to discuss weight restrictions and modifications of the capsule with you.”
Perchensky gave him a small smile. “Beseder.” The canteen wasn’t much, a few dozen tables and plastic chairs, and the food was typically bad Israeli snack fare, but once there, they both realized that they hadn’t eaten in almost as long as they’d been without sleep. They ordered reheated frozen pizzas of surpassingly poor quality but surprisingly good when you’re famished. Feldhandler allowed himself a bit of small talk, mostly about schools and the army bureaucracy, before getting back to business.