~ ~ ~
"Thank you for coming on such short notice. I asked David about the case in question. It appears that it, and others that may be similar, weren't escalated higher than your desk. Escalation may not have been necessary, but I want to be certain that we haven't overlooked anything. Oh, where are my manners? Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"Thank you, no Dr. Mendlesøn. Never acquired a taste for it."
"Just as well. Sometimes I drink too much absent-mindedly and end up with the 'jitters' by the end of the day. My girlfriend is trying to switch me over to her own blend of herbal tea."
"Oh? How's that working for you?"
"I pour it onto the nearest houseplant when she's not looking. Nasty stuff." Eliana couldn't tell if he was grinning, or grimacing, at the thought of the herbal tea.
"Right then, let's move on. About this plumbing and electrical supply company, what are your findings?"
"The findings are still in a preliminary phase, despite the time since the notification landed on my desk. Three genealogists are working the names we have of the children who died without the pediatric surgery that they would have received. Had they lived, as they did in the initial timeline, most would have had grandchildren by now. At this point we have not found anything that raises any concerns. At least no more or less than other, less obvious, changes that have been identified. Logic dictates that there are a myriad of changes that were effected by the removal of the bloodlines of Martin's two now-unborn sons. These will spawn a myriad more ad infinitum, though most likely impossible to be measurable. I believe in a week, two at the very most, I can give you as much of a conclusion to this case as is possible."
"Thank you, Eliana. I appreciate your hard work. Looking at your login/logout printout, I see you've been burning the candle at both ends here."
"Yes sir, there is just so much to do, and not enough time in which to get it all done."
"If we've proven anything here, Eliana, it's that time is relative. I don't want you putting in any more than nine hours a day at your job."
"But sir . . ."
"This isn't just for your sake, though your health and well-being is important to me. It's also for the sake of The Project. The slightest mistake could have a negative impact down the road. Mistakes due to exhaustion are those most easily avoided."
"No more than nine, I understand."
"Thank you. Should your team come up with anything you feel requires additional manpower feel free to requisition added personnel on my authority."
"Thank you sir." Eliana hovered at the door to the office, hesitant to leave.
"Anything else?"
"Well sir, if you have a moment, we have been bantering about an idea. I'd like to ask you about it."
"Certainly. I have to be at a meeting in thirty minutes, I can give you five."
"Suppose that this case, or another like it, proved that the alteration of the past would have negative consequences in our present, or future. Could it be corrected?"
"In theory, yes. In reality, I don't know. In application, it would be ill advised. I suppose the actual answer would have to be given on a case-by-case basis, depending largely on how negative those consequences were in our time. Let me give two examples."
"One. Through some twist of fate the changes we implement in the past make it so that I'm never born. For me, certainly, that is a dire consequence, but does the fact that I never exist affect The Project? Doubtfully, or the past would not have been altered in the first place. Does it affect this facility and my contributions to it? Doubtfully, again for the same reasons. Somebody obviously was able to capably fill my shoes. For all we know even does a better job of it! In this scenario, re-manipulating the past just so that I'm born and fulfill my destiny does not rise to the standard we have set for time manipulation. In this case, we don't look backward."
"Two. Through another twist of fate, the changes we implement in the past make it so that Menachem Begin is never born. He never makes peace with Egypt. The Project and this facility exist in that timeline much as they do now, or the manipulation could not have happened as in the example before. In this scenario, peace with Egypt is too vital, Egypt too important an ally. We risk going back a second time, make it so that our first manipulation never happened, then make yet an additional time incursion to try and achieve our initial goals while allowing Prime Minister Begin to be born and carry out his destiny. Does this make sense?"
"Yes but how could we go back and undo the first manipulation? I mean, it's now a part of the past as well. How does the person who first did the manipulation go back and stop himself? Isn't it impossible for the same person to exist twice in the same time frame?"
"Yes, you're right, it is. Or at least we think it is. Let's just hope it never comes to that. We have now proven that time travel is possible. Even at that so much is still theory that we need to maintain very cautious baby steps."
Eliana added, "I suppose those are conclusions we already reached in our conversations within my group of people. One of my genealogists said that if she were researching a family tree and found that she had never been born, she'd be very upset!"
Leaving for his meeting, Itzhach thought about this conversation, much as he had had similar musings before. How would they go about revising their own revisions of time, if the need arose?
He would, soon enough, have his answer in order to attempt saving the life of one of the two men with whom he was about to meet, Dr. Moshe Levin.
Table of Contents
28. Vincit Omnia Veritas
"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." – Nelson Mandela
Moscow, Russia; Langley, Virginia, USA; and Jerusalem, Israel
The Federal Security Services had successfully maintained a total blackout on the subject of the disaster at a bio-weapons research and development lab years earlier. Learning who was behind the bombing of the lab, and theft of two bio agents remained one of the highest priorities of the FSB.
With almost nothing to go on initially, the intervening time brought to light a great deal of information as to the who, why, and how. The accidental unleashing of one of the bio agents in an apartment building in Los Angeles blew the lid off the incident throughout the international intelligence communities. The strain was identified and traced back to the former Soviet Union. Russia's feet were being held to the fire.
The head of the Federal Security Services - the intelligence service of the Russian Federation - had to be a diplomat, a natural politician, and master spy - sometimes simultaneously. Now was that time if ever there was, as he spoke with his counterparts in the CIA and Mossad on the phone.
"I have sent by diplomatic pouch additional relevant information to our embassies in Washington and Tel Aviv, to be conveyed to your president and prime minister. Let me assure you gentlemen we are sharing everything we have on the biological agents, the theft, and the group we believe has the altered strains."
"Mikhail, forgive me if I'm not fully confident in your understanding of sharing. You said all relevant information. I should think in this matter there would be no information that is irrelevant." Sitting in his office in Jerusalem, Isser Shiloah could picture Mikhail squirming.
"Isser, we have been totally forthcoming and transparent."
"Mikhail, we all know that simply isn't true." Isser curtly responded.
"Gentlemen, we've been at this a while now, I suggest we take a break and then talk again in an hour." Tim Willard, the CIA head, realized that the conversation would deteriorate quickly if this downward course were pursued much longer.
"Nyet Tim, my day is booked solid. We continue."
"Agreed." Isser interjected. "From what we have discussed, earlier verified by my own people in the field, the State of Israel is the main target with Jewish populations around the world as a secondary target. I see no point in delaying another minute, let alone another hour, when this could have been dealt with years ago h
ad our Russian friends come clean at the time."
The last comment hung in the air for a brief moment before Tim stepped in to try and control the direction of the conversation, "Mikhail, you are certain that there were three canisters each, for the two bio agents?"
"Da, we are certain. The other canisters were already transported to, and inventoried in, the new lab. Six canisters remained to be transported in specially-equipped armored bio transport vehicles with a military escort along with the usual precautions."
"You are certain that the perpetrators of the heist were Separatists?"
"Da, we are certain. We also know that they were working with two men from the Middle East who surreptitiously received funding from Iran and a wealthy family member. Aside from funding they are operating independently, off the books as it were. We have shared all of this information with you already. Our FSB agents have identified over 20 sleeper cells comprised of between twenty to forty hostiles in each cell. Most are working in pairs as married couples but also many individuals in various countries going to university or as tourists."
"There must be more cells, many more." Isser cut in, his tone one of undisguised exasperation. He would know better, the Mossad identified sixty eight internationally, plus an additional eight within Israel's borders alone. The latter had a total of 73 hostiles, each armed with both biological weapons.
"We will need a S.W.A.T. type of rapid response, coordinated in each targeted country, to take the hostiles at the same time around the world." Tim addressed the plan the CIA formulated. "Isser, we discussed earlier that you would handle the job of coordinating with friendly Middle Eastern countries. I will coordinate North, Central and South America. Mikhail, the FSB is on board with Asia and Europe?"
"Da, our agents have already taken up locations in all cities throughout Eurasia with a high enough Jewish population to predict an attack. The Chinese government has been most supportive. For their part, the South Koreans are also in a state of readiness."
"A concern I'm sure we all feel," Isser spoke, almost in a thinking aloud tone, "is that massive deployment, no matter how carefully and secretly maintained, will alert the terrorist. Something this large can't be kept quietly hidden very long."
"Agreed." Tim confirmed. "Our target date should be no later than two weeks from today."
"As soon as your diplomatic pouch reaches your embassy in Tel Aviv, a helicopter will immediately air lift it to me here, in our capital of Jerusalem. I'll contact you, Mikhail, should I require any clarification." Isser made this verbal jab as a reminder to these two allies of Israel that all of these decades later neither the United States nor the Russian Federation recognized Jerusalem as the capitol of the State of Israel.
These were the two countries that – when they eventually learned of Hitler's concentration camps – had the power to end the suffering, but refused to bomb the train tracks which daily transported Jews to their deaths. None of the allied forces bombed the tracks, a simple measure that could have put an end to the Holocaust. Who cared about Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Roma, Freemasons, and other groups that Hitler saw as enemies and dilutors of the Aryan People? Isser never forgot this lesson of history. Israel must forever remain strong; the Jewish people otherwise had no true friend in the world that would come to their defense in a future Holocaust.
"I believe there is nothing left for today. Until the next, gentlemen." Tim concluded the conversation.
"Agreed. Dasvedanya."
"Shalom."
Isser sat at his desk several minutes after the conversation, considering options. No foreign government would be told about The Project, not even these two allies of Israel.
Isser placed great faith in The Project but he wasn't paid to have faith, he was paid to protect Israel from enemies outside her borders. He prayed God that Stauffenberg would be successful in the upcoming landing, yet felt it best to also work with the CIA and FSB should it not prove a success. Even were he one hundred percent positive that it would be successful, he still had to fully go through the motions of working with the United States and Russia, so as to not alert them to the fact that Israel had a very different operation underway.
A motto Isser lived by, "Vincit Omnia Veritas," was engraved on the simple frame encasing a map of the State of Israel mounted on the wall behind his desk. "Truth Overcomes All" was overall correct but truth was to be applied judiciously in his profession. If the day should ever arise that other countries were to be informed of The Project, that day most certainly wasn't today.
"Director Shiloah, Doctors Levin and Mendlesøn have arrived." The monitor lit with the face of Isser's assistant filling the top-left quadrant. "Shall I send them in?"
"Yes, thank you. For the next hour we are not to be interrupted."