Last Instructions_A Thriller_Agent 10483 Read online

  SOMEONE WANTED HIM IN THE ORGANIZATION.

  THAT SAME SOMEONE WAS ALSO THE ONE WHO MADE SURE HE WAS GIVEN 3 TARGETS AS PART OF THE BERNOULLI PROJECT, AND NOT JUST ONE LIKE THE OTHER ASSASSINS.

  HIS 3 TARGETS WERE ALL NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS. THAT, TOO, IS NO COINCIDENCE.

  WE NEED TO TALK.

  * * *

  Rotem sent the mail to Grandpa, locked the computer screen, and went to find the satellite base’s security guard, who was reading a thick book.

  “Is there a shower here? I stink like a skunk,” she said.

  “No, we’re all about the bare necessities here,” the guard responded. “And the aboveground areas of the building are off limits.”

  “Okay then, I’m off to the home base. When you see Avner, send him there, too. I’ll shower there and take a nap in my office. Tell him to wake me when he arrives. I need to get hold of Grandpa in the morning.”

  * * *

  DATE:

  12/06/2016 [11:30]

  CLASSIFICATION:

  BLACK

  REFERENCE NO.:

  623846762

  TO:

  INNER CIRCLE

  FROM:

  SENIOR DIRECTOR - 9

  DISTRIBUTION:

  SYSTEM:

  ORION / BASE: OTR / EXPIRY DATE: 12/07/2016

  RE.: REAPPEARANCE OF AGENT 10483

  /

  GOOD MORNING,

  FURTHER TO OUR MEETING YESTERDAY, AND IN THE WAKE OF EFFORTS BY THE HEAD OF THE PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY RESEARCH DEPARTMENT TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF OUR REASONS FOR USING 10483, I INTEND TO FILL HER IN TO A CERTAIN EXTENT IN ORDER TO ALLOW HER TO BEGIN SEARCHING FOR HIM. FURTHERMORE, AN ADDITIONAL TEAM FROM THE OPERATIONS DIVISION HAS ALSO BEEN ASSIGNED TO HUNT FOR 10483. ITS MEMBERS ARE WORKING WITH THE SEARCH AND RESCUE PERSONNEL AT THE SCENE OF THE EXPLOSION IN TEL AVIV, THEY’RE LOOKING FOR CLUES FROM THE VIDEO FOOTAGE CAPTURED BY THE TEAM THAT WAS IN THE BASEMENT AT THE TIME OF THE BLAST. THE CAMERAS WERE DESTROYED BUT A DATA FORENSICS TEAM IS TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT THE MATERIAL FROM THE MEMORY CARDS.

  APPREHENDING 10483 IS A MATTER OF THE UTMOST URGENCY. WE NEED TO ASSUME THE WORST—THAT HE IS IN POSSESSION OF THE NUCLEAR DEVICE THAT DISAPPEARED DURING THE COURSE OF HIS ACTIVITIES SOME 10 YEARS AGO, AND THAT HE INTENDS TO USE IT. ALL NECESSARY RESOURCES FOR THE PURPOSE OF LOCATING AND CAPTURING HIM WILL BE AT OUR DISPOSAL. IN DEALINGS WITH OUTSIDE ENTITIES (THE SHIN BET, IDF, PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE), OUR COVER STORY IS THAT THERE’S A TERRORIST / ISLAMIC STATE CELL. PLEASE INFORM YOUR RESPECTIVE TEAMS.

  I BELIEVE THAT THE HEAD OF THE PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY RESEARCH DEPARTMENT CAN OFFER ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS THAT MAY HELP US TO LOCATE 10483. I PLAN TO TELL HER IN GENERAL TERMS ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATIONS AND THE TRANSFORMATION CONTENT (THE FINAL ONE ONLY) THAT 10483 UNDERWENT, INCLUDING THE IMPRINTED EXPIRY DATE, SO AS TO GIVE HER A LEAD TO WORK ON. I ALSO INTEND TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH THE HEAD OF THE TEAM THAT IS CURRENTLY AT THE BLAST SITE.

  I WILL ALSO INFORM THE AFOREMENTIONED ABOUT THE SECONDARY OBJECTIVE (ONLY) OF THE BERNOULLI PROJECT—THE ELIMINATION OF THE SCIENTISTS. THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE BERNOULLI PROJECT WILL OF COURSE REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL.

  YOU SHOULD BE AWARE, TOO, THAT THE SUBCONTRACTOR WHO CARRIED OUT THE TRANSFORMATIONS ON 10483 DURING THE COURSE OF HIS BERNOULLI PROJECT ACTIVITIES HAS SEVERED TIES WITH US AND WE HAVE NO WAY OF LOCATING HER.

  I WILL ARRANGE A FOLLOW-UP DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT IN KEEPING WITH THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INVESTIGATION.

  REGARDS,

  GRANDPA

 

  * * *

  The parched orange earth appears to stretch on forever in every direction. Cracks cut through the ground and a fine orange dust rises up with my every step. Fossilized crustaceans are scattered about, red and pinkish hollowed-out crab legs and black and empty sea urchin shells with long spines.

  I tread carefully to avoid them.

  I don’t know which way I’m supposed to go, so I head in the direction of the sun that’s casting a bright orange light over everything. A smaller white sun is rising on my right and my shadow is split into 2—1 behind me and 1 to my left. Once every 16 days the 2 suns are aligned and then I have just a single shadow for a few minutes.

  I retrieve a somewhat battered metal water flask from my backpack, unscrew the top and take a sip of warm water that tastes like sand. I screw the top back on, return the flask to my backpack, and continue walking.

  In the distance, I see a black dot. I walk toward it. My steps kick up orange clouds of dust. That’s where I need to go.

  As I move closer, I can see that the black dot is a large black rock, like the dome of a mosque buried in the ground with only the very top protruding from the earth. The portion of the rock protruding from the earth looks about 3 meters in diameter and it’s dotted with small holes the size of a coin on all sides. Scattered around the rock are the remains of those who got here before me. I refrain from stepping into the kill radius and slowly circle what’s left of those who were here before me at a safe distance. Some of them are nothing more than whitened skeletons, while some are still partially covered with bits of clothing, their dried-out skin still stretched over their bones. It’s extremely dry. It never rains here. They’ve probably been here for a very long time. I sense something I haven’t felt in years.

  Fear.

  01/25/2016–6 weeks and 3 days since waking

  I wake at 3 in the morning and do a few sets of stomach crunches and push-ups.

  6 weeks and 3 days are 45 days since I opened my eyes in the Lowenstein rehabilitation hospital and my body is recovering fast from the 9 years coma. 45 is the sum of all the decimal digits. 0 to 9.

  I drink some water from the tap in the basement, get dressed, and wait.

  The family above me wakes up and leaves the house. I ascend from the basement into the apartment through the opening in the floor of the closet in the master bedroom that was once my bedroom and wander through the rooms. The 2nd bedroom contains 2 children’s beds. Lying on 1 is a stuffed purple dinosaur. I climb through the window into the backyard and shut it behind me. I have several errands to get through today.

  1st I throw away the garbage bag I brought up with me from the basement, then I take a cab to the Seven Stars Mall in Herzliya and purchase an HP laptop at the computer store. It’s nice to see how far technology has come over the past 9 years. The laptop is superfast and has an SSD drive that allows for close to 9 hours of work time without having to recharge the battery. I also discover that Internet connections are wireless now and available pretty much everywhere. I walk around the mall to give my legs a bit of a workout and then I sit down at a table at Café Greg and order a large green salad and a big bottle of mineral water. I turn on the laptop and attempt to log into my bank account. I enter my password and receive a message that says the account has been locked and that I need to call the bank to reactivate it. I call the bank’s customer service line. A call service operator by the name of Yoel picks up. He tells me the account was locked 8 years ago following 12 months of inactivity. I explain to Yoel that I’d been living in an ashram in India for an extended period of time and am now back in Israel again. He asks me for the 1st letter of my maternal grandfather’s name and the 4th letter in the name of the elementary school I attended and also my ID number. He lifts the restrictions and grants me online access to my account. “We’ve emailed you a temporary password,” Yoel says. “You’ll be prompted to change it when you log into the account for the first time.”

  I thank Yoel and log in with the temporary password. I replace it with a new 1 and access the account I opened under an assumed identity while still working for the Organization. I open a 2nd tab. I log into my Gmail account and open an old mail with the subject line, “Investments.”

  The email reads:

  Aug. 2006:

  Canadian Dollars

  102,000 * 0.91 = 92,820 USD

  Swiss Francs

  30,000 * 1.09 = 32,700 USD


  Argentine Pesos

  130,000 * 0.12 = 15,600 USD

  Total = 141,120 USD

  $141,120 / $9.6 = 14,700 Apple shares

  I return to the bank account page and access my investment portfolio. The current Apple share price as quoted this past Friday stands at $101.42.

  14,700 * $101.42 = $1,490,874

  The 14,700 shares I purchased almost 9 years ago are now worth $1,490,874. I have enough money to carry out my plan. That’s good.

  I continue browsing the Internet.

  I buy and download Russian and Spanish language tutorials.

  I check where I can get an international driver’s license. There’s a branch of the Automobile Association on Raoul Wallenberg Street in Ramat HaHayal.

  I pour myself another glass of cold mineral water and drink it slowly. After years of enteral feeding, my throat has yet to grow accustomed again to the passage of food.

  The salad is very good. I eat all of it and turn to the right to look at some children playing on an inflatable castle. Their parents are sitting across the way and drinking coffee.

  I buy a mobile phone. I learn that the leap in cell phone technology far outstrips the advances made in the field of laptops. The phone, for all intents and purposes, is a minicomputer, with Internet access and a high-resolution screen. It’s an Apple device, too. When I lost consciousness 9 years, 1 month, and 13 days ago, cell phones were only good for voice conversations and text messages.

  I buy a prepaid SIM card from Cellcom. The representative at the cellular service provider’s booth in the mall shows me how to insert it into the phone. He also shows me how to use the phone for browsing the Net via my laptop. That’s very good.

  I go into the large supermarket at the mall and buy fresh vegetables, some beef, and chicken liver and place all items in my backpack. Nutrition is important.

  At an electrical appliances store I buy a small hot plate, a frying pan, and smart-power kit with which allows you to turn on an electric device remotely via the Internet. That’s very useful.

  I buy a bicycle. You don’t need to show your ID or complete any paperwork to buy 1 and it will allow me to work on my fitness while riding from place to place. Besides, it’s almost impossible to find parking in Tel Aviv. It was terrible before I jumped in front of the bus and it’s even worse now. They’ve started digging up the city for the Light Rail and entire roads look like open trenches. They say it will take 6 years for the train line and stations to be ready. When they started work on the Jerusalem Light Rail, they said it would take 3 years—it took them 10 instead.

  I buy a 2nd mobile phone at a different store, together with an Internet package and webcam that I’ll install later in the basement.

  I open the laptop and search for an airline ticket to La Paz in Bolivia. There’s no direct flight. I’ll have to fly to Madrid, then to Lima, Peru, and to La Paz from there. I buy the ticket at a travel agency and pay in cash that I took from my basement.

  I pay for everything in cash so as not to leave a credit card trail.

  I leave the mall and ride my bike to the Aharoni-Shamir law firm’s offices. I watch a tricolor cat—black, white, and ginger—walk past the entrance to the building. Sitting in the lobby on the ground floor is a security guard whose job it is to screen the people entering the building. I chain the bicycle to a lamppost nearby and go inside.

  “Hi,” says the guard. “How may I help you?”

  “Where will I find the offices of Aharoni-Shamir?”

  “Third floor. Who do you need?”

  “No one in particular. I just wanted to make sure they’re still here in this building.”

  “Yes, they’re here.”

  I leave the building. The Aharoni-Shamir law firm is still here and the notebook I gave them 9 years, 1 month, and 21 days ago will be released and will make its way to Amiram in 10 months and 10 days. I could break in during the night and remove the notebook but I choose to leave things as they are. I’d rather stick to the plan’s original timetable. 10 years would have been an adequate time for planning how to bring down the Organization. Since I spent most of this time unconscious in bed I need to revise the plan to fit into the 10 months and 10 days I got left. The execution date must remain the same.

  I get on the bike and begin riding toward my apartment. Soon I’ll have to part ways with the basement. On December 4, it will serve as the opening shot in my retribution against the Organization. Well, not actually an opening shot. But more like an opening salvo. A shot is the conversion of the chemical energy of gunpowder into the kinetic energy of a small piece of metal. That doesn’t describe what’s going to happen in the basement when it’s filled with Organization officials looking for clues concerning my whereabouts. Amateurs. The body I removed from the aquarium in the basement and placed on my bed, complete with the thorough dental work I performed on it, kept them away from me for the 9 years in which I, too, was unaware of my existence. The empty aquarium with the layer of cooking oil that remained at the bottom is crying out for a new creation—but I remain focused on the task at hand.

  My phone vibrates and I read the text message that informs me that the RAM R-200 device I ordered has arrived and is waiting for me at the post office. I’ll collect it on my way home. The device is a sensitive Geiger counter that can detect a wide range of gamma radiation. It runs on a standard 9-volt battery that provides 100 hours of operation and can be easily replaced in Bolivia.

  It takes me 20 minutes to ride back to my apartment. I secure the bike to the fence behind the building using 2 strong iron chains and then I dismantle the seat and take it with me.

  The parents must be out at work but the children are in the apartment. I can hear them watching TV as I slip down to the basement through the closet in the master bedroom.

  I had a few sets of passport photos taken while at the mall. Back in the basement, I replace the photographs in my passports and deal with the official seals using basic forgery equipment. I plug the hot plate into 1 of the electrical sockets and make myself a late lunch. I’ll devote some time afterward to my physical conditioning and then do some online research. I plugged the mobile phone into its charger and left it at the top of the ladder leading up into the apartment. It has reception and will allow me to browse the Net with my laptop while I’m in the basement.

  02/09/2016—Afternoon, 8 weeks and 4 days since waking

  I’m sitting in economy class on Iberia Airlines flight IB6651 from Madrid to Lima. Earlier I flew from Tel Aviv to Madrid, and later I will fly from Lima to La Paz, Bolivia. A baby is crying in the row of seats in front of me. He’s been crying since takeoff, 46 minutes ago. The number 46 can be divided by 1, by itself, by 2, and by 23 only. The baby’s shrieks are piercing and I’m struggling to focus on my Spanish studies. I can see the baby’s milk bottle through the gap between the seats in front of me. If he continues to cry, I’m going to get my hands on that bottle and mix a few crushed sleeping pills into the milk. I always have sleeping pills on me. I find they come in handy.

  After my Avianca Airlines flight lands in La Paz, I’ll have to get ready for my trip to Uyuni, 857 kilometers away. At a speed of 120kph, it should take me about 7 hours and 8 minutes to get there, but according to Google, driving there will take more than twice that. I’ll split the trip into 2 days. I’ll drive to Oruro on the 1st day, where I’ll have dinner and spend the night, then I’ll drive from there to Uyuni. I could fly to Oruro but I’d rather hire a car in La Paz and drive. I need to familiarize myself with the route so I can make the return trip to the Bolivian border with the cargo I collect in Uyuni.

  The baby in the seat in front of me has fallen asleep without my help, and the cabin crew is serving lunch. A flight attendant asks what I’d like to eat. “Carne de res y el vino tinto por favor,” I respond. “Por su puesto,” the flight attendant says with a smile.

  The parents of the sleeping baby in the row in front of me are arguing. “You shouldn’t have spoken to him like
that,” the woman says. “Screw him if he doesn’t like it,” the man responds.

  I go back to reading on my laptop. Most of the nuclear devices of the type that were in Kazakhstan before they were returned to Russia weigh between 100 kilograms and 3.5 tons. In general, those designed to serve as warheads weigh between 100 and 600 kilograms and have the capacity to create a blast of 100 to 600 kilotons, depending on the quality of the device and its technological specifications. The 1 I’m on my way to collect is pretty old. I’m assuming its yield-to-weight ratio won’t be very good—a 300-kilogram bomb with a 50-kiloton blast capacity perhaps.

  It’s interesting.

  I read about the Russian bomb known as the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated in a test. Developed by the Soviet Union, the 3-stage lithium-activated bomb had a yield of 50 megatons, which is equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT, or about 3,333 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast. It weighed 27 metric tons and the Russians dropped it out of a plane in 1961. The explosion fireball was visible from 1,000 kilometers away and all the buildings, both wooden and brick, in the village of Severny located 55 kilometers from ground zero were destroyed.

  Too bad my warhead won’t be as impressive.

  My eyes are open, but I can’t see a thing. Only darkness.

  The air I’m breathing is cold and dry.

  I’m outside.

  I can feel something like soft grass under my feet.

  I’m startled by the sudden voice of a young girl on my right. “I’ll help you.” I look to my right but I see nothing. Only blackness. I feel a small hand trying to work its way into my clenched fist.