Bennie clenched his teeth, then looked back at Eshkol.
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‘’Sir, I strongly believes that kidnapping and killing Laplante would be a grave mistake. For one, she has proved to be a very tough woman and nothing assures us that she will accept to tell us anything about time travel. Secondly, the political and diplomatic repercussions of her disappearance in Israel could be quite severe. And I am not even talking about any reaction that could come from the future, sir.’’
Eshkol’s eyes half closed as he stared hard at his agent.
‘’What do you mean by a reaction from the future?’’
Bennie then raised slightly his tone of voice, getting fired up.
‘’Sir, if she really travels to and from the 34th Century, do you really believe that she is alone to do so, or that she doesn’t work for someone in the far future? If she disappears in Israel, then we should expect an unfriendly visit from the future, either after or before her disappearance date. We already discussed the tremendous advantages that time travel would give to anyone possessing it.’’
‘’Which is exactly the reason why we want those secrets in order to protect Israel, Bennie. As for her revealing her secrets to us, I am confident that Mister Adamovich will be able to make her talk. These orders come from high up in the government. Are you refusing to obey them, Mister Kellerman?’’
Bennie swallowed hard before answering, knowing what his response could cost him.
‘’Sir, I firmly believe that these orders will only attract disaster on us. We should find a less extreme way to find the secrets of time travel, notably by putting Miss Laplante under tight, constant, surveillance, something we have not done yet.’’
‘’I see!’’ Said coldly Eshkol. ‘’I thank you for your advice, Mister Kellerman.
Consider yourself off this case from this moment on. Mister Adamovich will take over Laplante’s case in your place. Make sure that you give him all the data and information you have on her.’’
‘’Yes sir!’’ Could only say Bennie, fuming.
‘’Then you are dismissed.’’
It took all his will for Bennie not to slam the door on his way out.
17:06 (Eastern Standard Time)
Wednesday, November 20, 2013 ‘A’
Office of the Assistant Director for Operations
Central Intelligence Agency headquarters
Langley, Virginia, U.S.A.
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Julian Moore appeared concerned to Dean Price as the latter entered with Erik Johnson the office of the CIA’s Assistant Director for Operations. Moore showed them two swiveling padded chairs placed in front of his desk.
‘’Please sit down, gentlemen. We have just received some most disturbing information from Israel that we will need to act on decisively and quickly.’’
Erik Johnson nodded at the words ‘act on decisively’, understanding that his talents for direct, violent action would be needed again. He sat down with Dean Price and waited for Moore to speak, which he did in a grave tone.
‘’Misters Johnson and Price, what I am going to tell you may appear to be utterly fantastic and unbelievable, but I received solid proofs that it is too true. Basically, someone we have inside the Mossad sent us last night a short report accompanied by two video recordings and a couple of photos, to warn us that the Mossad is about to do something potentially very dangerous.’’
‘’We have a mole inside the Mossad, Boss?’’ Asked Price in his usual, unceremonious way. Moore nodded and smiled weakly at that.
‘’Hey, if the Israelis think nothing of spying on us, what’s wrong with returning them the favor? Yes, we do have such a mole, which will be left anonymous for everyone’s sake. What that mole told us is that the Mossad stumbled by accident about a year ago on someone that supposedly is a time traveler. That said time traveler is about to travel to Israel for legitimate purposes and the word is that the Mossad is intent on kidnapping, torturing and killing her in order to steal the secret of time travel from her.’’
While Erik Johnson apparently stayed impassive, Dean Price’s jaw fell to the floor.
‘’A time traveler, Boss? You’re kidding, right?’’
‘’Not at all, Mister Price. I will now play in succession the two videos sent by our mole and you will be able to tell me afterwards what you think of them, you and Mister Johnson.’’
Swiveling the screen of his computer around, Moore then punched a few buttons and called up a video file, widening it to full screen before starting the ‘play’ button. He sat back in his chair as the two action agents watched the video, which quickly attracted an exclamation from Dean Price that caught him off guard.
‘’Hey! That’s Nancy, when she shot up those Taliban assholes in Bala Buluk.’’
‘’You know that woman, Mister Price?’’
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‘’Sure, Boss! We met during a few pistol shooting competitions in the last few years. I even banged her a couple of times: a great lay, I must say.’’
Erik Johnson shook his head in amusement as Julian Moore stared with disbelief at Price. Moore however didn’t say a word and let them finish viewing the video before calling a second recording on his computer screen.
‘’Well, you should be happy to watch this next video, as the good Miss Laplante appears naked in it, Mister Price.’’
Moore then started the video taken in the office of Victor Medveyev in Kiev. While Dean Price concentrated his attention on the woman in the video, trying to assert if she was indeed Nancy, Erik Johnson didn’t miss the hour and date of the video, appearing in a lower corner of the screen in small digital numbers. His eyes widened and he then examined carefully the woman now seen undressing in front of two men in a private study. Price was the first to speak, with the video still playing.
‘’Well, this is indeed Nancy Laplante, Boss. No doubt about it. What is so special about that video?’’
‘’Look at the time indicator on the left lower corner, Dean.’’ Said Johnson. Price did so and opened his mouth wide under the shock.
‘’March 1, 1992? But…that’s impossible! Nancy was a young teenage girl at that time.’’
‘’She should have been…and was, actually.’’ Said Moore gravely. ‘’I had her background checked quickly by one of our analysts, Ian Dorset, who is now by the way part of the only five Americans to know about this time traveler story. Mister Dorset vouched to me that there was effectively a teenage Nancy Laplante growing at the time in Montreal: he found her school graduation pictures online, along with other proofs that she didn’t simply invent her background history. There is more, however. The second video you saw was taken in Kiev in the home of Victor Medveyev, an arms merchant who was later busted by the Russians but managed to flee to Israel, where the Mossad made a deal with him: they would protect him and let him retire in peace in Tel Aviv, in exchange for information about his past weapons buyers, particularly those connected to the Middle East. That’s how the Mossad got the second video tape. When the Mossad connected it to the piece of news on Laplante from Afghanistan, they sent a team to her home town in Boucherville, Canada, to search her condo and bug it. There, they found nothing suspicious, except for a single small coin that had apparently been lost by Laplante on the thick rug of her bedroom. That coin had writing in an unknown language 347
and bore the date stamp ‘3382’. Furthermore, that coin, once analyzed in Israel, proved to be made of 95 percent pure iridium, plus some platinum, and was adorned with a small hologram.’’
‘’Iridium?’’ Said Dean Price, intrigued. ‘’That’s not a common metal, no?’’
‘’Certainly not!’’ Replied Moore. ‘’In fact, it is so rare that it is worth four times the price of platinum. Economically, it would make no sense to use such a rare and precious metal, which is about the hardest one known by the way, to produce simple coins. However, iridium is much more abundant in the asteroids flying around the Solar System.’’
Moore let that sink in his two action agents before continuing.
‘’The Israelis also found the pictures of a man and of a teenage girl that appeared to be beloved ones to Laplante. The trouble is that Laplante is not married and certainly never had children, something attested by her military medical records. Here are the pictures in question.’’
Price and Johnson bent forward to better look at the two pictures now on Moore’s computer screen. Johnson nodded his head after a few seconds.
‘’They do appear to be family pictures, the way these two posed and smiled. If Laplante is indeed a time traveler, then this man and girl could be living in the future, probably in the 34th Century. This case is definitely shaping up to be a critical one, sir.
You do realize how dangerous the knowledge of time travel would be for us if some irresponsible idiot gets hold of it in our era, sir? In fact, I am not sure that I would trust our own politicians and military leaders with that secret.’’
‘’Oh, I do, Mister Johnson. I do.’’ Replied Moore gravely. ‘’Right now, not even the President knows about it, only us and two other CIA employees that have already been told by me in no uncertain terms to keep their mouths shut. The problem is that the Mossad knows about Laplante and seems intent on stealing the secret of time travel from her…any way they can. You know like me how some of the politicians in power in Israel are less than, uh, sensible when it comes to protecting and expanding their country. The thought of such men holding the secret of time travel is enough to make me shudder.’’
‘’The same here, sir.’’ Replied Johnson, as a number of scary scenarios paraded inside his brain. ‘’What are your orders, sir?’’
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‘’To prevent the Israelis from stealing the secrets of time travel from Laplante and also to prevent the fact that she is a time traveler from spreading further…at all cost.
You…’’
Moore’s telephone then rang, interrupting him. He picked up his receiver and answered, then listened for a few seconds with growing alarm before thanking his caller and putting down the receiver, to look gravely at Price and Johnson.
‘’This was Mister Dorset, who is the sole analyst authorized by me to know about Laplante. Our good Canadian woman left Montreal this morning, to fly to Paris and then Tel Aviv. She should be about to arrive in Israel about now, which would make it about midnight in Tel Aviv.’’
‘’Damn!’’ Said Johnson, clearly not pleased. ‘’The Israelis will have a good 24
hours of advance on us to get at her. You did say ‘at all cost’, sir?’’
‘’I certainly did, Mister Johnson, and I meant it.’’ Answered Moore, his face hard.
00:34 (Israel Time)
Thursday, November 21, 2013 ‘A’
Waiting parking spot, arrivals terminal
Ben-Gurion International Airport
Tel-Aviv, Israel
Sarah Manning, alone in her well-used gray Honda Civic, raised for a few seconds the picture she had been given by the CIA head of station at the American embassy, comparing it to the tall woman who had just walked out of the arrivals terminal of the Ben-Gurion International Airport. Being the rookie agent at the embassy, she had drawn this late minute task about following discreetly a Canadian reporter working for CNN that was due to arrive in Israel. Sarah had her misgivings about being sent alone and without backup like this but her superior had told her to simply follow this Nancy Laplante and find out where she would be lodging, so that a follow-up team could then take over from her. Sarah still didn’t know why that Laplante was to be followed but the woman now taking place in a taxi with her luggage was without a doubt her target.
Starting up her car, Sarah rolled out of her parking spot and started following from a respectable distance the taxi, helped in that by the light traffic of this late hour.
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The taxi with Laplante inside took the highway towards Tel-Aviv, the lights of which were visible a few kilometers away to the West. As she drove, Sarah tried to figure out why the CIA would be interested in Nancy Laplante. She knew her by reputation, mostly from the BBC news video that had shown her in action in Afghanistan a year ago, thus knew that the Canadian could be a very dangerous opponent if she wanted to. In comparison, Sarah had no illusions about her own limited experience, this being her first posting after graduating from ‘The Farm’, the secret estate in Virginia where CIA field agents were trained. In fact, she had drawn the Tel-Aviv station solely because of her knowledge of Hebrew, her being Jewish. Her liberal, moderate religious outlook had however taken little time before she had become thoroughly irritated and angered by the often intolerant and arrogant attitude of many Israeli Jews, with the misogyny of the ultra-orthodox men particularly grating on her nerves. Such a feminist as Laplante seemed to be would no doubt share Sarah’s antipathy for all these stone age-thinking male fossils. Thinking about it, Laplante had the reputation of a straight-talking, no-nonsense reporter with little patience for racism and intolerance. Maybe the CIA bosses in Langley believed that Laplante was going to get herself in trouble with Israeli authorities. After long months of war and intermittent rocket and missile bombardment from both Iran, South Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli leadership was certainly on edge and stressed to the breaking point, with the general Israeli population growing increasingly disillusioned and tired of a war their leaders had started and which was bringing them only fear, destruction and impending economic ruin.
Partly lost in her thoughts, Sarah didn’t notice the minivan and the compact sedan that had been following both her and Laplante’s taxi since the airport. At one point, as they were entering the suburbs of Tel-Aviv, the sedan passed Sarah and took position between her and the taxi. Not expecting her tailing job to be a dangerous one, Sarah paid little attention to the sedan and its three occupants, simply taking more distance in order not to attract Laplante’s attention. When the reporter’s taxi pulled to a stop in front of the entrance to one of the bigger hotels of Tel-Aviv, Sarah simply drove into an empty visitor’s parking spot in the lot of the hotel and shut down her engine. She was about to get out of her car to follow Laplante inside when a man she had not noticed approaching bent down near her open window, a sort of pistol in his raised right fist.
Sarah only had time to turn her head to look at him before the pistol emitted a barely audible ‘puff’ and a dart stung her neck. Her vision became blurred nearly immediately 350
and her head swam before she fell unconscious on her steering wheel. She never saw the group of four men that then entered the hotel behind Laplante.
02:56 (Israel Time)
Mossad safe house
Northern suburbs of Tel Aviv
Nancy woke up slowly, her vision blurred at first and her brain foggy. As she was still only half conscious, a horrible scream from nearby made her jerk, stimulating her back to consciousness. To her surprise, she found herself naked and tied to a wooden chair in the middle of a mostly bare concrete room. Her last souvenir had been of being in her hotel room, unpacking her things, when a hissing noise had attracted her to the entrance door. She had passed out then before realizing that someone was pumping out some kind of gas from a tube inserted under her door sill. With her vision still partly blurred, she now saw another woman tied naked to a chair, less than three meters from her. She was sobbing with pain and her face was bloodied and swollen from a severe beating, while two men stood facing her. The girl seemed barely out of her teens. One of the men then punched her hard in the face, making the girl’s head snap around, then shouted at her in Hebrew.
‘’SPEAK! WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR? WHY WERE YOU FOLLOWING
US?’’
When the sobbing woman simply shook her head, the man that had struck her looked at the other man, who was holding a pair of wires in his hands.
‘’Stimulate her nipples again, Leon.’’
The man with the wires then bent down and applied the end of the wires on the tip of the girl’s breasts. She immediately tensed up on her chair and screamed for longs seconds, until the man withdrew the wires. The interrogator then brutally grabbed the girl by her hair, forcing her to look up at him as she was still crying her pain out.
‘’Do you want my friend to use his wires on your cunt, bitch? Who are you working for?’’
The girl, showing undeniable courage, shook her head again and clenched her teeth.
The man with the wires then kneeled in front of her legs, tied open, and made her scream again for long seconds. Now furious and fully awake, Nancy shouted at the men.
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‘’STOP THIS NOW, YOU BASTARDS!’’
The two men turned around to face her, with the interrogator smiling cruelly at Nancy.
‘’Well well: our time traveler is with us now.’’ He said in English.
Nancy tensed up in alarm at once: how could these men know about her being a time traveler? Her expression made the interrogator’s smile widen.
‘’So, it is more than mere suppositions, hey? I hope for you that you will prove reasonable, unless you want to suffer like that too curious bitch.’’
‘’I don’t know what you are talking about. As for that poor girl, you will pay for your sadism.’’
‘’Another hard-headed cunt? Leon, convince her that we are serious.’’
The man with the wire started stepping towards Nancy, his wires still in his hands, when he suddenly froze, his face turning red and his body starting to shake. He then let his wires fall to the ground and took hold of his head, a second only before his whole body burst into flames from inside. The man screamed horribly for a short moment, then fell to the floor, still burning and with the awful smell of roasted flesh filling the room. The interrogator could only watch that with a mix of incredulity and horror, unable to react.
When he looked back at Nancy, it was to face her hateful glare.
‘’Go roast in Hell, bastard!’’
Yosef Adamovich then burst in flames as well, dying with a long scream and falling to the concrete floor. Sarah Manning, despite her pain and tears, saw clearly the whole scene and eyed Nancy with disbelief as the latter tensed her muscles and pulled hard on her ropes, making her wooden chair splinter in pieces in an incredible show of raw strength.
‘’How…how did you do that?’’ She managed to say between her puffed, split lips. Nancy took the time to get rid of the ropes still around her arms and legs before going to Sarah and kneeling in front of her, concern on her face.
‘’I’m sorry if I was the cause of your ordeal, miss. Let me untie you.’’
‘’But, those men bursting in flames from within. How could this be possible?’’
Insisted Sarah as Nancy started to untie her ankles. Nancy stopped her work for a moment to look the young woman in the eyes.
‘’What is your name, friend?’’
Won over by her concerned, friendly attitude, Sarah answered her after a short hesitation.
‘’Sarah, Sarah Manning. You did cause those men to burn up, didn’t you?’’
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It was Nancy’s turn to hesitate, as she weighed what she should tell Sarah. She then went back at untying her as she answered calmly.
‘’Let’s say that God was not on their side, Sarah.’’
As she switched to the back of the chair to untie her arms and wrists, Sarah moaned with pain, her legs closing. Once her arms were free, she covered her nipples reflexively.
‘’God, this hurts!’’
Her heart broken by her cries of pain and unwilling to let her suffer simply to protect her secrets, Nancy went to kneel again in front of Sarah, gently taking hold of her head and staring into her tearful eyes.
‘’God has heard you, and he hurts as well for it. Do not be afraid by what you will see next, Sarah: I only want to help you.’’
She then gently covered Sarah’s breast with her hands and concentrated. The American’s eyes widened when Nancy’s hands started glowing, soon surrounded by halos of pure white light. At the same time, the pain of her electrical burns gradually but quickly disappeared from her breasts. Nancy then put one hand on Sarah’s groin and the other on her face. Her hands glowed again and Sarah’s last wounds healed within a minute, leaving her to look at Nancy with reverence.
‘’An angel! You must be an angel. Thank you!’’
Nancy eyed her gravely: as sensitive as the revelation of her supernatural powers was, it was still better to make Sarah and whoever else would chase after her believe that she held her time travel capacity from some divine gift, rather than having anyone in this century believe that there was some kind of time machine available to be taken or stolen. Still, this was all very bad news for her and had the potential to end in catastrophe if she didn’t play the game right.
‘’I am not an angel, Sarah, just a Chosen. I promote kindness, compassion and tolerance and also help the innocents…when I can. I am however still very much a mortal, even though I hold extensive powers from The One.’’
‘’The…The
One?’’
‘’Many would call him ‘God’. I call him ‘The One’. Can you get up now?’’
‘’Y…yes, I believe so.’’
‘’Then, we should find back our clothes. I will also have to see if they brought my luggage here. I had some very expensive reporting equipment loaned from CNN that I would hate to lose.’’
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Still under the shock of what had happened in the last minutes, but with her pain thankfully completely gone, Sarah got up from her chair and pointed at the sole door of the room.
‘’I believe that we are in the basement of some house near Tel Aviv. Our things are probably upstairs, but there could still be more of those bastards as well.’’
‘’If there are, I will take care of them. Who are those pieces of trash, anyway?’’
‘’I believe that they are Israeli agents, either from the Mossad or the Shin Bet.
They only spoke Hebrew between themselves. Uh, what did they mean about you being a time traveler, Miss Laplante?’’
Nancy stopped to face her, concern on her face.
‘’You know me, and were following my taxi, yet are not an Israeli agent. Who do you work for, miss?’’
Sarah bit her lips but didn’t answer. Somehow, that made Nancy shake her head slowly.
‘’Decidedly, too many people seem to have caught an interest in me lately.
Believe me, Sarah: my secrets are not meant for anyone else but me. Those who will try to find out about them may quickly regret it.’’
‘’Even me?’’ Replied Sarah. Nancy shook her head, becoming serious again.
‘’No, unless you try to attack or kill me. I do not do the Devil’s work, on the contrary. Now, follow me as quietly as you can and let me do the talking and acting.’’
Still naked, like Nancy, Sarah walked out of the torture chamber, stepping out in another basement room that was half filled with old furniture and dusty boxes. A wooden staircase was visible in a corner of the room, leading up. Her mind was swirling with questions and doubts as she followed the Canadian cautiously up the stairs, trying not to make any noise. What was the Canadian really? The notion of ‘Chosen of God’
was simply too fantastic to accept without serious proofs. On the other hand, she had incinerated alive two men with only the power of her mind and had shown the strength of ten men, then had healed her with the bare touch of her hands. There were also the words used by her now dead interrogator, about Laplante being a time traveler. The only thing that Sarah could say about her was that the Canadian reporter appeared to be a decent person. Sarah then noticed the old scars from bullets, shrapnel and blades on Laplante’s buttocks and upper legs, which were presently level with her eyes as the Canadian was going up the stairs ahead of her. There were many of them, faint but still noticeable. Sarah then remembered that Laplante was a war reporter and a reserve 354
army officer and put the scars on account of her occupation, then concentrated on their present situation.
Pushing slowly the door at the top of the staircase so that it would not squeak, Nancy looked through the crack once opened by a few centimeters. The door opened on a short passage that gave two meters away on a kitchen. A woman was sitting in the kitchen at a small table, her back to Nancy. Somehow her posture seemed curious to her, with her head held in her hands, until she scanned her telepathically: the woman was distraught by the thoughts of what was going on in the basement and was mentally cursing the interrogators. Still moving as silently as she could, Nancy finished opening the door and stepped in the hallway, then took two steps before stopping in the entrance to the kitchen. She could now see that the woman at the table wore a holstered pistol against her left ribs. The woman then slowly turned her head and saw Nancy from the corner of one eye. Snapping her head in alarm, her right hand flew towards her holstered pistol as she pivoted her chair and got up at the same time. To her surprise and that of Sarah, the pistol suddenly flew out of its holster by itself, ending up in the extended hand of Nancy. The Israeli woman looked at her pistol, now in Nancy’s hand, then in Nancy’s eyes, her face reflecting disbelief and incomprehension.
‘’How did you do that?’’
‘’Through the power of my mind.’’ Answered calmly Nancy, then handing the pistol to Sarah, who gratefully took it. ‘’Be cooperative and you will live. Where are our clothes and my luggage?’’
The Israeli hesitated only for a second before answering Nancy.
‘’They are in the lounge, behind you. Where are Yosef and Leon?’’
‘’They are dead, as they should be. Are there any more agents in this house?’’
‘’No! They left