52 – Portland, Maine
The Honda Accord driven by the man who identified himself as Mr. Gimel, the Hebrew equivalent of Mr. C, headed south down the Central Maine coast toward Portland, Maine’s largest city. The first two hours were filled with silence. Finally, as the car drove through Freeport and Levi craned his neck to stare at the complex of buildings that made up the retail store for L.L. Bean, which even he’d heard about in Israel, “Gimel” could no longer contain himself.
“I hear you’re IDF,” he said excitedly, Israel Defense Forces. “From Eretz Yisrael.”
Levi nodded cautiously but said nothing.
“Abram said you’re going to train us, teach us,” the young man continued. “That’s why I’m taking you there. We have to do something, we just have to. And we have to do it soon.”
The young man turned his head to look directly at Levi.
“I’m willing to give my life for Israel,” he said seriously.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Levi barked. “How much longer until we’re there, wherever there is?”
“I’m sorry,” Gimel said. “I know. Don’t talk about anything. Silence. I can keep secrets, military secrets. We’re almost there, maybe another half hour.”
The remainder of the drive passed in silence until the car left the highway and drove through a waterfront industrial area with aging brick warehouse buildings set back from the water and oil storage tanks lining the docks. The car stopped in front of a brick building that looked no different from any of the dozens of others in the area. The two men got out of the car and entered an unmarked door.
The door opened into a small office with a single desk. The desk top was empty. No papers. No lamp. Not even a telephone. There was no chair behind the desk. However, Abram Goldhersh sat on the desk, eating a tuna sub sandwich, his beard smeared with tuna and mayonnaise.
“Ah, Levi, welcome to the world headquarters of Maccabee Trading Corporation,” he said. Turning to the young man, he asked, “No problems getting here, right? Nobody following you?”
“No problems,” Gimel replied. “Are the others here yet?”
“They’re inside, with the equipment,” Goldhersh said. “Come on, Levi, let me show you our product line, this business of mine.”
The three men left the office through a door that opened into the cavernous interior of the building. Some light managed to enter through the dirt-encrusted windows high on one wall, but the space was gloomy, chilly, damp. In a far corner a bare light bulb illuminated two men sitting in folding chairs next to three metal drums, the size of 55-gallon oil drums. Goldhersh led them toward the light.
The two men appeared to be in their early twenties. As with Gimel, both wore small yarmulkes on their heads. Except for that indicator, they were dressed as indescribably as most members of their generation, jeans baggy enough to conceal a brick in their pockets, shirts that looked as if they were purchased for a dollar at the Salvation Army store, hanging outside their pants. They both stood when Goldhersh and Levi approached. Goldhersh spoke first.
“This is the man I told you about,” he said to the two young men. “He can be trusted.” He turned to Levi.
“This is Aleph.” Goldhersh gestured toward one man, who nodded silently.
“And this is Bet.”
Levi did not find it at all odd that Goldhersh referred to the men by the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
“This,” Goldhersh pointed toward the three steel drums, “is what I was telling about, what I managed to obtain and was prepared to ship off to Israel. I take it you know what this is, right?”
Levi walked to the drums and inspected the writing stenciled on the outside.
KAI ZE QIEN GO INDUSTRIAL CO., LIMITED, Jinan City, Shandong, China 250000.
CAUTION.
MilSpec: MIL-C-45010A
HSE Serial number: 32-A-68450
RDX content: 91 ± 1%
Polyisobutylene plasticiser: 9 ± 1%
Moisture: 0.1% max
Velocity of Detonation: 8092 ± 26 m/s
Density: 1.63 g/cm3
Colour: Nominally white
TNT equivalence: 118%
Chemical marking for detection: Marked
Shelf life: At least 10 years under good conditions.
The top of one barrel was pushed partially to the side. Levi lifted the electric light and held it over the drum and looked inside. He whistled quietly.
“You could do damage with this,” he said to Goldhersh. “Of course, without detonators, its just modeling clay.”
To demonstrate, he reached into the barrel and scooped out a handful of light gray material the consistency of putty. He molded it between his hands like a snowball, something he’d heard of but never actually seen.
“See,” he said, tossing the ball from hand to hand. “I trained with this stuff. It’s practically inert.”
At those words he spread his hands wide and let the ball fall to the concrete floor. All three of the young men cringed as it splattered on the floor with a dull thud. Goldhersh was unmoved.
“I know that,” he said, speaking to Levy. “I wasn’t able to obtain military-grade detonators. You’d think they would be easier to buy than the explosive, but I tried and couldn’t get any. I must have tried twenty blasting supply companies but they all wanted to see my explosives permit.”
One of the young men, Mr. Aleph, interrupted. “I told Abram I could take care of a detonator,” he said, a slight smile on his face. “All it needed was a lot of heat in a little space in a very short time. It didn’t take me long. Abram was looking in the wrong stores. I just went where I go shopping for everything else, the mall.”
He reached into a plastic bag labeled Mostly Maine Hobbies and Crafts. He removed a small cardboard box that said Blast Off Flight Pack. Dumping the box on the lid of one of the sealed drums, two dozen small cylinders rolled out, each about four inches long, made of rolled brown paper. They had hard clay caps at one end and an odd, cone-shaped indentation at the other with a small hole through the center of the indentation. They looked, to Levi, like unusual shotgun cartridges.
“Estes Industries Model A8-3 Model Rocket Engine” was written on the side of each cylinder. The box also contained short lengths of wire bent into U shapes with a bit of some material at the bend of the U. Finally, the young man removed a small black plastic rectangular box with two wires ending in alligator clips coming from one end. A label said “Estes Industries Electron Launch Controller.”
“Cost me almost fifty dollars,” the man said, now beaming. “These are model rocket engines. The wires are electrical igniters. Stick the wire in the hole at the end of the engine. Push the launch button on the controller and, BOOM, the engine ignites and hot exhaust flames shoot out the end. There are your detonators.”
Goldhersh turned to Levi.
“Well,” he asked. “Will it work?”
Levi thought for a few moments, recalling the small electronic detonators with digital timers that he’d trained with in the Navy in mock raids in rubber boats silently paddled to shore. These toys were far from the sophisticated devices he’d used. Nonetheless, he was impressed.
“They’ll work,” he said. “The C4 will explode. But you’ve got one extremely serious problem.” He moved his head from Goldhersh to the three eager young men, clinging to each word coming from a real member of the IDF.
“There is no timer,” Levi continued. “You press this button” He gestured at the Electron Launch Controller, with its large red button labeled LAUNCH. “And the C4 explodes. Whoever presses the button will be blown to small pieces before his finger gets off that box.”
Goldhersh spoke first, seeing each of the men nod his head. “We appreciate that quite well. These three heroes appreciate that. How many millions of Jews have already been killed, by that bomb, by the Arabs, by disease or starvation or torture in those camps? What are a few more deaths now if they are in a good cause?” He turned toward the young men. “Do you agree?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think only Arabs have the courage to kill themselves?”
“It is God’s will.”
Levi said nothing but walked off by himself into the darkness inside the empty building. After a few moments, he called out.
“Abram, can I speak with you for a minute?”
Goldhersh joined Levi, the two men standing in the dim light barely able to see each other as more than a shape, unable to see one another’s eyes.
“Abram, I take it you are actually serious about this, about setting off that explosive,” Levi asked. “Three drums of C4, Abram, that’s like a bomb from a B-52. That will kill an awful lot of people, of Americans. Are you really planning on doing that, Abram? That is a serious action.”
“Aren’t these serious times?” Goldhersh answered. “Has any time been more serious for the Jewish people? An atomic bomb has been used to kill Jews, who knows how many Jews. Once again, Jews are being put into camps, camps in the Holy Land and now camps even right here in America. Camps, Levi, camps. Does that sound familiar? Does that ring any bells?
“Do you remember what happens to Jews in camps, Levi? I do. Those boys do.”
“But Abram, bombs?” Levi asked. “Terror. Killing more people. Will that accomplish anything?”
“I need an Israeli to ask me whether terror works,” Goldhersh laughed. “Were you sick the day they taught Israeli history in school? You remember the Haganah? The Irgun? The Stern Gang? They were the so-called terrorists who drove the British from Palestine and let us create our own nation. They were called terrorists. They set off bombs. They killed people.
“And they won. Terror worked and Jews weren’t afraid to use it then.”
“But Jews have been on the receiving end of more terror than we’ve dished out over the years,” Levi answered.
“That we have. That we have,” Goldhersh said. “Black September. The Munich Olympics. The Intifadah and all those public bombings, buses, cafes, shopping centers. But you know what, Levi? You know what? Those bombs worked, too. Do you think that coward Sharon would have handed over the West Bank to the Palestinians, that he would have dragged our own settlers out of Gaza, if it hadn’t been for all those bombs they set off? I don’t think so. Why do you think I got all this stuff in the first place? It was to give to the settlers so they could set off bombs of their own.
“Terror works, Levi. History has proven that. Look what crashing those planes into the World Trade Center did to the United States. Everything changed that day. Nineteen men willing to die changed everything.”
Levi’s thoughts wandered to the wine cellar under the house where Debra Reuben was at that very moment. He considered for a fleeting second whether to tell Goldhersh what was in that cellar. Not yet, he decided, and not without talking it over with Debra first. It’s the government’s bomb, and she is the government.
“So where are you going to use that stuff, Abram,” Levi asked. “What’s the plan?”
“Come with me,” Goldhersh said, taking Levi by the elbow. They walked to a far corner, near an overhead garage door leading outside. A large object was covered with a blue plastic tarp. Goldhersh took one corner of the plastic and pulled. Under the tarp was a white Chevrolet SanteFe van. Painted on the side of the van was a large brown Indian arrowhead, point downward. On the arrowhead were a pine tree and a snow-covered mountain peak. Next to the arrowhead in large black letters were the words “National Park Service.”
“Young Aleph and Bet paid a visit to Acadia National Park last week,” Goldhersh said. “Actually, it was more of a shopping trip. They brought this back. Do you suppose our product will fit in the back of that van?”
“Of course it will,” Levi said. “But I don’t understand. You are going to blow up Acadia National Park. What will that do, kill a few bears?”
“No, my friend,” Goldhersh said. “Wrong national park. Wrong place. Wrong message. We want to get the attention of the government, the United States government. Well, where is that government? And what park service, shall we say, is in charge of all the parks there? We’re going to have our own march on Washington this weekend, Levi.”