The Dome Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Part One: 1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  Part Two: 14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Part Three: 24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Appendix: Security Theater

  About the Author

  TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

  a novel by Lior Samson

  Gesher Press

  Rowley, MA 01969

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, incidents, and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, locales, or events, is purely coincidental. Any trade-marks or service marks referred to are the properties of their respective owners.

  Copyright © 2010, 2020, L. L. Constantine, all world rights re-served. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

  Gesher Press and the bridge logo are trademarks

  of Gesher Press.

  5 4 3 2 1

  Cover photo: Lukas Kurtz (LuxTonnerre on Flickr.com),

  used with permission.

  Cover and book design: Larry Constantine

  To Devan, my multitalented son,

  who keeps teaching an old dog new tricks.

  What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists,

  is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant.

  The evil is not what they say about their cause,

  but what they say about their opponents. – Robert Kennedy

  Prologue

  They were the Sage, the Wizard, and the Wonk. They had all agreed on the need to have code names, but when it came to the reality, or unreality, of assigning them, only the Sage had managed to keep a straight face. On Gmail they had become sage40, wizard423, and wonk88, the ultimate in undistinguished anonymity, anonymity multiplied, forty-fold or 423-fold or 88-fold, although they availed themselves of email only on the rarest of occasions, having established other, more sophisticated channels of communication. When the Wonk chose his handle, the Wizard told him he had spent much too much time watching American TV. She would have preferred literary references: Pangolad, Asinoril, and Shimji, but the Sage had vetoed these for what he said were patently apparent reasons.

  It was time, their final meeting. The Sage watched sweet-sour smoke from his cigar drifting up in a lopsided vortex as the door to his study opened. “So good of you to come,” he said to the Wizard, gesturing to the open chair opposite. “You know the Wonk, of course.” He was clearly having fun.

  She laughed. “Yes, and so good to see you again, your Wonkship. And you are looking well, my Sage, my liege. As always.” She smiled, a careful and oddly pinched smile that narrowed her broad mouth.

  The Sage, controlling the moment with his silence, nodded to her, took a short puff on his cigar, and pursed his thick lips as he studied the two of them, his invited intruders. The small, book-lined study, with its dark Oxonian paneling and immense wingback chairs, was his retreat from the world, his fallout shelter from what he had described, in one of his many essays on the failings of the world, as “the irrational radiation, the din that passed for discourse in the disorder of our modern society.”

  It was a retreat reserved for him, his books, his cigars, and the more than occasional cognac. He rarely invited anyone into his sanctum sanctorum, but these two were exceptions. His opinions he would share without invitation with anyone in the street or on campus, his thoughts he broadcast on paper to the world, but it was only with these chosen few that he would confess the dark dreams that drove his ideas.

  “Matters have become so depressing in your sliver of a country,” he said to the Wizard. “I must say I cannot fathom how or why you put up with it.”

  “My adopted country,” she corrected. “We cope. Sometimes it is better, but sometimes, these times, it is worse. Perhaps we need a new vision.” She winked at him broadly.

  “Vision is a euphemism of modern management for upper echelon proposals in the absence of plans,” he said in his best Alistair Cook voice. “It is such a limp word of vague voice, so cerebral and devoid of passion, don’t you think? Specification would be a preferable term. Or initiative, perhaps, which has the ring of intention about it. Wouldn’t you agree?” He had the sublimely civil but domineering manner of a lifelong academic, a man used to intimidating students and other lesser beings, one who expected to be challenged but never to be wrong.

  The Wonk, his junior in both years and position, started to say something, but the Sage continued, as if not wanting a meticulously planned introductory lecture to be interrupted prematurely by some overeager young student. “We,” he said with a sweep of his head, “could be the beginning of a change in the course of history. We can offer an opportunity for changing the conversation, for injecting a new subtext into the historic narrative. Please, no visions for me. The time for vision ended with the second intifada. Now is the time for initiative, initiative undergirded by intelligence and discipline.” Even now, here, with his closest confidants, he indulged his penchant for pedantry.

  His guests both nodded, although the Wizard struggled to suppress a smirk. She had always been amused by his posturing, which had no doubt contributed to both the heat of their early ardor as well as the chill of their later falling out. He sent her a disapproving look, then picked up the newspaper from beside his chair and laid it on the glass-top table, open to inside-page headlines about the latest wave of violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

  “These times, yes. I am sure you know the story already, all too well. This particular time,” he said, tapping on a photo, “it was yet another round of tit-for-tat destruction, with homes in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank shelled by rocket-propelled grenades following the bulldozing of two Palestinian houses alleged to have belonged to the relatives of a 16-year-old martyr, a suicide bomber who had, in her pious but ignorant ineptitude, managed to kill herself while only injuring the right-wing rabbi who was, so it is surmised, her target.

  “Of course, there was what our American colleagues prefer to euphemize as ‘collateral damage,’ in this instance seven students from a Greek tour group who picked the wrong day to visit local churches and synagogues. The attack on the rabbi was, in turn, preceded by the killing of a mullah by mercenaries supposedly, if we are to believe Hamas, in the pay of the Israeli intelligence services.

  “Does no one do their own dirty work anymore? Are all fights by proxy? Has impersonal Semtex replaced the assassin’s intimately personal shiv?” He took another puff on his cigar, clearly enjoying his rhetorical rant. “All this, of course, consequent to the September riots over new restrictions on access to the attractions,” he said, spitting out the word, “on the Temple Mount. The sacred Temple Mount—sacred to the Jews, to Islam, and to Christendom. So we kill each other over it, that it may once again be the cause and sometime site for blood sacrifice. And where does it stop? When do they learn, these benighted barbarian bigots?” No one spoke as he savored his own alliterative outburst, smiling and squinting one eye slightly as though he might be considering a revision to a line in a book manuscript.

  “I still do not see,” he continued, “how anyone as intelligent and rational as you, my Wizard love, could bear to li
ve and work in a theocracy, a country dominated by dark-age denizens like the haredim. The orthodox right even call the shots on who is a Jew and who a gentile, who may return and who may not.”

  The Wizard chewed her lip before speaking. “I work with intelligent and rational people on fast and powerful computers. The ultraorthodox are not much of a factor in our everyday lives.”

  “Yet they reap even though they do not sow. Their scholars live off the labors of others while holding an entire nation hostage to their archaic standards. But,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “These are obsolescent political and religious matters, that I would hope would soon be utterly obsolete, a hope I have held for what begins to seem like a lifetime.

  “I do believe that the Middle East needs more than vision or hope. It needs action of a new order. It is a system, a perpetual motion machine, a self-feeding cycle of death and destruction.”

  The others nodded with him, slowly and sadly, at first. But they also recognized one of his favorite words and, as they sensed what was coming next, amused smiles spread on their faces.

  “Systems, yes,” he said. “And who better understands systems? Here we are, if you will forgive my immodesty, three of the most gifted people on the planet—a wizard, a wonk, and a sage—experts on science and politics and political science, and most of all, on systems. It is past time that the likes of us should put our minds to the task of what might be done, the course of action to a new course, an initiative.” Now both of his companions, amused by his all too familiar grandiosity, were grinning. Pushing aside the newspaper, he placed three large snifters on the table between them and started to pour from a decanter.

  The Wonk waved a dark hand over the nearest glass. “Thank you, no. You know that we … we don’t imbibe.”

  “Ah, yes, of course. How quaint. Laudable, I suppose, but still quaint.” He finished pouring the other two glasses and raised his. “So, then, let us toast to our little political science project, our … our initiative.”

  Their gathering at last shifted from monologue to dialogue, and the discussion quickly picked up in pace, ranging widely over many details and no few digressions—on the surface, a medley of intellectual debates, an academic pursuit, but with a smoldering subtext that crackled like static electricity. They talked of finances and logistics, of facilities and personnel, of responsibilities and communication. They reviewed the research already completed and the projects newly funded. They argued over technology and tactics. They highlighted the holes in their insight and expertise and talked of where and from whom and how they might secure what they needed. They reviewed and reiterated until all the issues had been laid bare, the action items had been identified, their ownership designated, and the whole had been committed to memory, since the Sage had declared there would be no notes from any of their meetings.

  It was already early morning hours when the Wizard and the Wonk finally took their leave. The Sage, without rising, looked up at them as they stood to go. “You seem, perhaps, reticent, shall we say,” he said, looking at the Wizard.

  She looked back at him, lips pursed, uncertainty in her eyes. “No, I am with you. I think it is both needed and righteous, if I may be permitted to use such a word. But it is my country, my family, even if I am an adopted child, and I cannot deny my mixed feelings. Nevertheless, that will not keep me from doing my part.”

  The Sage raised his glass. “All right then, we have our work ahead. I trust you both can see yourselves out. But first, what is it the Jews say? Next year in Jerusalem? So be it, indeed. Next year in Jerusalem. Ah, yes, and that other perennial favorite of modern Israelites, a promise so often invoked even if so seldom kept. Never again!”

  • • •

  His guests long gone, the Sage sat alone in the silence of the study, swirling the last drops of cognac in the bottom of his glass. So much beauty in the world, he thought. He closed his eyes and pictured the cliffs at Ga’ash in Israel, remembering the brilliant light, the on-shore wind steady and strong, and in the sky, a lone kite, climbing and climbing toward the sun, toward the light. I must return. I will. Next year in Jerusalem. Indeed, so much beauty. But also so much ugly stupidity as well. But we shall see what can be done about some piece of that.

  Part One:

  1

  The warehouse smelled of machine oil and rain and mold-rotted cardboard. Miserly light from the street filtered through dirt-clouded windows and glistened off greasy pools of water on the heavily stained concrete floor. Hamadi el-Masri, dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket, paced in long-legged strides as they talked. His thick beard had been trimmed in the close-clipped style of the younger men in his employ so that he might stand out less as he crisscrossed the continent and closed deals with infidels. The ropy scar on his chin, where an Israeli bullet had grazed him as a boy, was uncovered. Instead of the pride he had felt at the time, now it made him feel exposed and irrationally vulnerable.

  He hated the fat, pale men he was dealing with as much as they hated him, but business was business. The asking price was too high, but it was worth something to get so much from one source, and Hamadi knew they were running out of time and options. Besides, the money was not his money, though some part of it would become his. It was more money than he had ever known, yet still, he was not tempted by it as others were and would be. To him, it was only a means to an end, a greater end: the Sword of the Prophet. He closed the deal with a nod of his head.

  “We cannot take care of delivery, of course,” the Colonel told him. “The transport you will have to arrange. But you can pick up the material tomorrow night, if you are ready. The warehouse will be guarded by our people, and two of my men will be at the border. There will be no trouble. After that, it’s your affair.”

  “Delivery, transport, these are no problem,” Hamadi answered with noticeable impatience. “There is never a shortage of mules. Just be sure it is all in small enough packages as was specified.”

  “Why must you complicate things? Do you realize what it involves to repackage that stuff? It is not like dividing up soap powder. No, we do not have the time, and I really do not want to put my men at risk.”

  “That’s the deal, Colonel Glinkov. You are already being well compensated. We need packets that can be slipped under a burqa or into a backpack, not barrels that require a truck. You have the people and equipment that can handle it. Half kilogram packages, sealed, wrapped in lead foil, triple bagged and taped. Understood?”

  “Da, da. Understood. Paka. Later, my friend.”

  I am not your damn friend, Hamadi thought as he turned away without responding.

  By the next night, the rain had turned to light snow, and a palette stacked with neat, plastic-wrapped packets waited for Hamadi on the loading platform. Hamadi jumped nimbly out of the panel truck, ran around, and hopped up onto the concrete platform, while his driver, a skinny young man from a mostly Muslim enclave just over the border, finished backing up. The panel truck jolted to a stop just short of the tailboard, and the driver started to step out of the cab. Hamadi took one look at the palette and waved the approaching driver back into the truck. In clumsy Russian he told the two guards standing near the palette to get the goods loaded quickly, before they attracted attention. The guards looked dumbly at each other but otherwise made no move.

  “Doesn’t Glinkov maintain any discipline?” Hamadi said.

  “Ah, English. Better. Discipline? Yes. But we are not stevedores. Load it yourself.”

  Hamadi looked again at the tiers of nearly identical packets and shook his head. “Glinkov will not be pleased if he learns that we drove off without the shipment. He will want the rest of his fee. And it is not like there are many markets in which to sell goods such as these—at any price. I think you would be wise to load them now.” He started back toward the front of the truck. The two men sighed and began heaving the packets casually onto the floor in the back.

  Hamadi’s driver scowled at him. “What was that about? We could h
ave loaded the stuff.”

  “Sure, if we wanted to die young, which has never been my plan nor should it be yours. You must attend to small details. There was powder on the outside of some of the packets. They were careless packing the material. Their mistake. Let them pay the penalty.”

  The driver nodded knowingly as he watched in his rearview mirror.

  Too bad for the mules, though, Hamadi thought. But mules are mules, and we are all jihadi. Each must contribute as he can.

  After they finished loading, one of the guards came around to the open window and held out his hand. “Good luck,” he said. Hamadi looked down at the man’s hand, rolled up the window, and signaled to his driver to pull out. The guard thrust his middle finger in the air and cursed him loudly in Bulgarian.

  Pity, thought Hamadi as they rolled out into the night heading toward the frontier. He pulled out his smartphone and brought up a calendar. The agreed delivery date was creeping up on them quickly, but they would make it to the boats and then get it to the mules who would smuggle it the final leg to where it was needed, where it would be prepared for use, where it would become the Sword of the Prophet. He checked to see that there was enough signal, then expertly thumbed a three-word text message on the numeric pad: 7-666-99 666-66 2-555-555. He sent it, then shut off the phone and swapped out the SIM card for a new one. The old one he snapped in two and tossed out the window into the snow. Track that, he thought.

  2

  Karl Lustig, a bit winded from the run up the switchback trail from the beach at Ga’ash, worked to control his breathing. Now, he thought, that is a true sign of getting old. When you start to cover up being out of breath after running uphill, you are on your way downhill. When you cover up and there is no one even around to notice, you are already old. No, he protested in a silent shout. Not old, he mentally chided himself, not yet. Older perhaps, as in older Americans, that wonderful euphemism of sociologists and the welfare state of my homeland. Older than who? Older than me. As for me, I for one am sure not ready to hang up my running shoes, no way. With all these new responsibilities coming my way, the word retirement is not even in my vocabulary. I had better stay young. And in shape.