Last Instructions Page 13

  I replace the door’s lock with the new one I bought, arrange my tools and the rest of my equipment along the wall of the storage unit farthest from the door, unscrew the lightbulb to prevent anyone from seeing a light on inside and trying to open the door to turn it off, step outside, and lock the door behind me. I call a cab and exit the long-term storage facility, leaving the RV parked in the complex’s enclosed parking lot.

  The cab arrives and I get in. The driver asks me where I need to go. “Dulles Airport in Washington,” I instruct him.

  On the way to the airport, I open the Lufthansa website and book a ticket from Washington to Tel Aviv via Frankfurt—LH419 from Dulles to Frankfurt and LH686 from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. I’m still using my Swedish passport for now. I don’t book separate flights, but a flight to Tel Aviv with a connection in Frankfurt. At some point I’ll want the Americans to know I landed in Tel Aviv.

  I add the Internet address of the smart electrical system in the warehouse to My Favorites and define the password in my iPhone’s Safari browser. I check that a single click is enough to reach a point from which one more click will activate the bomb. I close the browser and the phone.

  December 9, 2016

  - How the hell were you able to smuggle all those deadly ants from Colombia to Israel?

  - I didn’t smuggle them.

  - So where did you get them?

  - From outside the hotel. I collected them yesterday when you went to buy the equipment.

  - So they’re just regular ants?

  - Yep. Regular ants.

  - So how did you get them to form a circle around him?

  - I sprinkled grains of sugar in a circle on the floor. They simply came to feed. And that bit about the ball of ants is nothing but a figment of my imagination. There’s no such thing.

  - Nice! Come, grab the carpet from that side and we’ll roll him up in it and tie the edges. Tell me, what was that business with his tooth and finger all about? We could have started right away with the ants and saved ourselves two hours.

  - He would have sensed that something wasn’t right. It would have been too easy. We had to go through a process with him. You have to follow the protocol. Without protocol, we’re …

  - Simply amateurs, yeah, yeah …

  - Where should we dump him?

  - In the Negev somewhere. We’ll make a nice bonfire. By the time someone finds his remains, we’ll be eating bagels in New York.

  - Do you think he lied?

  - No. He was too terrified. Uyuni, Bolivia. The bomb is there.

  - Do you think they’ll send us to Bolivia?

  - Unfortunately yes.

  - Shit. Another Third World country. I think we may have to forget about the bagels in New York. What do they eat in Bolivia? Tortillas?

  - Maybe. We’ll see when we get there.

  - Have you sent the information back to Toronto?

  - Yes.

  - Along with the three names he gave us?

  - Yes. I read them out to Herr Schmidt’s personal assistant. I told her to write them down. Yasmin Li-Ang, Federico Lopez, and Bernard Strauss were the three who worked with him when he was still in Iran.

  - Why didn’t you inform Herr Schmidt himself?

  - He was in a meeting. I didn’t want to disturb him. He’s a very busy man.

  - Did you tell her that they looked for the bomb in Bolivia nine years ago and found nothing?

  - Yep.

  - What was the name of that place there?

  - Uyuni.

  - What kind of a name is Uyuni?

  - A Bolivian name.

  - And that’s where the bomb is. Strange that they never removed it from there. Did you mention that to Herr Schmidt’s assistant as well?

  - For argument’s sake, I …

  - For God’s sake, Lorenzo, forget it for now. We’ll have plenty of time for arguments and discussions in Bolivia.

  - We’ll probably receive instructions to fly there soon. Count to ten and we’ll get a call to say they’ve decided they need us there. I want a raise. Our contract doesn’t say anything about having to work in places that don’t have normal food.

  - We don’t have a contract.

  - It’s a metaphor.

  - Come grab the end of this carpet and let’s make our way to the service elevator, then straight to the car.

  - It looks like a huge candy. I’m hungry. We should grab something on the way south.

  - Where did you park? On minus two?

  - Yes.

  - Do you have the keys?

  - It’s a hotel room. It opens with a small plastic card.

  - I’m talking about the car keys.

  - Yes, I have them, Ricardo. You need to have a little more faith in people.

  December 10, 2016

  Jing Feng opened his eyes. He was lying in his bed and his head ached. His dream from the night before left him extremely troubled. There was a girl who tied him to a chair and put a gas mask over his face. There was even a bitter metallic taste in his mouth. He sat up in bed and looked at his wrists. There were rope marks on them, and a needle mark on the inside of his right arm. It wasn’t a dream.

  His bedroom window was closed and he felt confined. The walls seemed to be closing in on him. He went over to the window, opened it, and looked out. The shadows of the trees outside started creeping toward him. Everything looked alive and menacing. The trees’ branches morphed into huge monster-like claws that inched toward his throat. The chirping of insects outside caused him to slam the window closed again. Maybe it’s a snake he hears, rattling its tail? Maybe it’s already inside? Maybe it got into the house while the window was open? Why did he open the window? What a terrible mistake.

  Jing Feng bent down to see if there was a snake under his bed, but he found nothing except dust. Maybe he’s allergic to dust? Maybe he’s asthmatic? He’s never been tested. Maybe he’ll suffer an attack now from breathing in the dust under his bed. He could choke and die alone here in this room. He coughs loudly and clears his throat. He needs to get out of this filthy, germ-infested room. But outside is no better, maybe even a lot worse. Everything feels menacing. Everything’s a threat.

  Jing Feng shrinks down to the floor in one of the corners of the room, whimpering.

  I make my way down the stairs. The steps feel like they go on forever. I sit down to rest every now and then, turning off my flashlight to save the batteries. I can’t understand why I’m so tired. I’m usually in much better shape.

  The lengthy descent comes to an abrupt stop and I stumble forward when the floor flattens out. I break my fall with my palms as my flashlight flies out of my hand and lands close to the wall of the tunnel.

  I bend down to pick up the flashlight and notice an inscription in small letters. The letters are tiny. Like a very dense font on the page of a book. The inscription reads: COMMON CONSCIOUSNESS ZONE →, with the arrow pointing toward the light in the distance, at the end of the tunnel I’m in. I notice that the inscription appears every ten centimeters along the entire length of the tunnel. You don’t really notice it unless you bend down and really look. I look for more clues and inscriptions, but don’t find any.

  I continue walking toward the light. The air around me gets warmer. I take off my coat and long-sleeve shirt and am left in just my tank top again. I also remove my boots and long pants and put on a pair of tight gym shorts and sneakers. My bag isn’t big enough for me to stuff in all the clothes I’ve taken off, so I leave them in a pile at the opening of the tunnel, put the bag on my back, and start walking away.

  The park is empty of people. I pass by a couple of abandoned structures that were once a restaurant and a bathroom and continue along the park’s trails, crossing several small wooden bridges over dry streambeds. Swirls of dust rise up from the dry stretches of grass whenever a warm gust of wind blows over them. I know where I need to go. I don’t know what’s there, but I sense I’m heading in the right direction. I pass a large cemetery with fading and
crumbling tombstones. Crosses made of wood and stone.

  I leave the park and walk through an immense field of dry thorns until I get to a paved circular stone plaza with a dry fountain in its center. The area is surrounded by stone benches, and flat stones bearing inscriptions form a wide circle of text around the plaza. I walk around and read the text. There is one word on each stone.

  We are entering a time of significant changes. Soon everything will come to an end. Soon everything will begin. A second, an hour, an eternity concentrated on the end of a pin.

  I sit down on one of the benches. The stone is warm. I take my bag off my back and place it on the bench next to me. I wipe the sweat from my forehead, open the bag, and retrieve my transformation kit. I put on the glasses and headphones, fix the electrodes to my temples, and hook everything up to my iPad. I take out a syringe, tear open its sterile wrapping, draw up rosy solution from a small brown glass vial, and inject the solution into a vein on the inside of my thigh. I move my bag off the bench, lie down, and activate the transformation.

  December 12, 2016

  Carmit woke up and looked for the puncture mark on her thigh. The dream had been particularly real. Her lips were still dry and she was sweating.

  The airplane’s cabin lights were off and most of the passengers were fast asleep. She stretched, stood up, and went to the bathroom at the back of the plane. Afterward, she remained standing in the galley area and poured herself a cup of orange juice, followed by a cup of water, and then a cup of coffee. She took a large chocolate chip cookie from a tray in the galley, tore away its wrapper, and devoured it on the way back to her seat. She’d fallen asleep very quickly earlier, even before the aircraft took off from Beijing, and had missed dinner. No great loss on an El Al flight, she thought to herself.

  She tried to remember when she was last in Israel. It was a long time ago. When she’d left the last time, her coworkers at the Organization were sure she was going back to school for another semester to complete her postgraduate degree in Germany, but she disappeared and went to live in London instead. Since then, she married and was now the mother of Emily and Taylor. So much time had passed and yet it seemed to her that she’d left Israel just yesterday.

  She felt as if she was still in her dream. Her leg muscles were aching from the effort of the descent down all those stairs. She leaned forward and massaged her feet. The passenger to her right stared at her curiously.

  “I can help you with that,” he said.

  “With what?”

  “I’m good at massages.”

  “Massage your wife.”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “Your mother then.”

  At least Keiko was leaving her in peace for the time being.

  They’re surely going to question her at Ben Gurion Airport. They’re going to want to know why a British citizen is arriving in Israel from China. Paranoid—the lot of them. She’ll tell them she’s a reporter for National Geographic and has come to Israel for a week to do a piece, including a series of photographs, on the burial sites of biblical figures in the Galilee region. She has a return ticket to the UK for the following week and has already reserved a hotel room. She made sure that she readily recalled the name that appeared in her passport and on her credit cards, National Geographic business cards, and driver’s license—Megan Jenkins.

  03/28/2016–15 weeks and 3 days since waking

  I wake up about half an hour after takeoff. I thought I’d sleep for longer. The past few days were full of activities.

  Since I have more money than I actually need for my plan, I treat myself to a Business Class seat on the flight back to Israel. My expenses in the United States turned out to be less than I thought, and the same goes for the bribe money I dished out in South and Central America. There are no crying babies in Business Class, and Internet access is included in the price of the ticket. I search through the Tel Aviv Municipality’s Tenders page to find the name of the supplier of the city’s trashcans and prepare a list:

    1.  50 round metal trashcans (of the kind the municipality places along the sidewalks for the benefit of pedestrians)

    2.  Half a ton of potassium nitrate (chemical fertilizer)—10 50-kilo bags

    3.  250 kilograms of sugar

    4.  50 liters of gray acrylic paint

    5.  50 kilograms of sulfur

    6.  50 bags of cement, a mixing vessel, and a large tub

    7.  100 kilograms of small nails

    8.  Blue overalls + printed logo

    9.  Closed vehicle—GMC van

  10.  Wedding ring (sized)

  11.  Fine-point purple marker

  12.  Box cutter

  13.  A 100-liter stainless steel professional cooking pot

  14.  100 Sanwa Airtronics receivers for model aircraft

  15.  100 digital servomotors

  16.100 small 1.5V lightbulbs (regular, not LED)

  17.  100 1.5V AAA batteries

  18.  Roll of thin electrical cable

  19.  Sanwa Airtronics remote controller + batteries

  20.  100 1.5V D batteries—Duracell

  21.  Appropriate tools for removing and installing trashcans

  22.  Soldering iron and accessories

  23.  Roll of metal strip, power drill, and screws

  24.  Strong epoxy adhesive—50 large boxes

  25.  Bolt cutters

  26.  Black piece of cardboard and adhesive tape

  27.  6 webcams

  28.  Laptop + large monitor

  29.  Communications switch and several 20-meter lengths of communications cable

  30.  Cell phone with Internet package

  31.  4-inch pipe

  32.  Toilet

  33.  Sewage pump

  34.  20 large bags of dog food and 50 boxes of 1.5-liter bottles of mineral water

  35.  Colored sheets of paper

  36.  White envelopes + postage stamps for the United States

  37.  Air-conditioner extraction pipe

  38.  Soldering iron for electronic components + 3 spools of solder

  39.  Components for the food machine (prepare separate list)

  The captain announces that we’ve reached our cruising altitude and the flight attendant hands out dinner menus. I order a classic lasagna with grilled vegetables and Alfredo sauce. I watch Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction on my laptop while I eat. I get to the scene in which Vincent Vega plunges a syringe of Adrenalin straight into the heart of Mia Wallace. The scene is pleasing to the eye, although in reality a shot of epinephrine directly to the heart would come much later in the treatment. 1st you need to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and cardiac massage; moreover, a shot like that directly to the heart is a controversial procedure that was discontinued several years before the movie hit the screens. It’s better to administer Narcan intravenously. It finds its way to the heart within 30 seconds, assuming the heart is still beating. Since most drug addicts destroy their veins, the Narcan can be given in the form of an injection under the tongue that goes to work within a few minutes. In most cases, the patient isn’t going to sit up immediately like Mia Wallace does. If you do choose to plunge the needle directly into the patient’s heart, it’s best to aim for the vein through which the blood is pumped into the heart and not the heart muscle itself, so the red circle drawn on Mia Wallace’s chest and the angle at which the needle is plunged are off the mark.

  I finish my dinner and watch to the end of the movie. Then I drink a glass of red wine, adjust my seat so that it turns into a bed, and go to sleep.

  03/29/2016–15 weeks and 4 days since waking

  I land at Ben Gurion Airport and take a taxi to my basement. The car belonging to the family living in my apartment is not in its parking spot, so I open the window and go inside. I put my bag on the Last Supper table and read
y the basement for my final departure.

  Before collecting all my money, passports, and paperwork and putting everything in my bag, I 1st make sure that the basement’s cellular phone is connected to its charger and that the camera is hooked up to the network and functioning properly. I then pick up the last page of my notebook that I tore out before giving the rest of notebook to the Aharoni-Shamir law firm and put it in my bag. I say farewell to my work of art in the basement and take a photo of it as a memento with my cell phone. I think it’s improved with age.

  I check to ensure that the fuse wire running through the walls of the basement to the blocks of plastic explosive is connected properly to the detonators. I then connect the electronic detonators to the smart electrical outlet and the Wi-Fi network I’ve set up in the basement. I define a shortcut for it on my mobile. I now have 2 shortcuts defined in my iPhone’s Safari browser. One is labeled: 203 Ibn Gvirol Street Blast, and the other reads: McLean Blast, so I don’t get them mixed up.

  I’ll keep tabs on Amiram on the day I put my plan into action. He’ll probably lead me to Avner’s home. And Avner will then head off quickly to the Organization after reading what I’ve written in the notebook. I’m keeping the last page for Avner’s home. I’ll leave it there after I abduct his wife.

  I pick up my bag and, for the last time, climb up the ladder from the basement into the bedroom closet of the family now living in my apartment. Before ascending, I disconnect the basement’s water and ventilation systems and turn out the light. I leave the apartment through the rear window and head off.