The Red Syndrome (37 page)

went outside. Istvan and Janos followed. The sun was rising, warming
the chilly air. I looked at my wrist, forgetting that my watch had been
taken by my captors. From the sun's position I estimated the time to
be approximately seven in the morning. We walked silently toward the
outskirts of the village until we were a safe distance from the huts. I was
about to shock the two Hungarians, and I needed to give them room to
react without fear of being overheard.

"In case someone is watching us," I said in English, "please do not overreact to what I'm about to say."

They looked at me in anticipation. I switched to Hebrew: "I'm a friend
of Benny's. He asked me to help him find you. Unfortunately, I'm now in
the same shit you are."

Dr. Oded Regev-aka Istvan Kovach-opened his mouth to answer,
but the younger man, Arnon Tal-aka Janos Hegedus-stopped him
abruptly. "Wait, don't answer. It could be a trap. Who is Benny?" He
spoke English.

"I understand your caution," I continued quietly in Hebrew, "but this
isn't a ploy; I'm their prisoner as well. You are Arnon Tal from the Office
and he is Dr. Oded Regev of the Nes Ziona Biological Institute. You were
on an assignment from the Office in Rome." I paused. "Is that enough to
satisfy you?" There was no sarcasm in my voice.

"And who are you? You're not from the Office, are you?" The question
came in Hebrew, removing any remaining doubt.

"I'm an old friend of Benny's, and I don't work for him. Please don't ask
me any more questions about me. You know why." They nodded. They
knew that if they were interrogated aggressively, they were likely to reveal
what I'd told them, so the less they knew about me, the better. The fact
that I spoke Hebrew was incriminating enough.

"The only thing you need to know and all I've told our captors is that
I'm a Canadian citizen working as a financial consultant for a Seychelles
company. I came to Marseilles to meet a potential client and was kidnapped and brought here."

"Obviously you're Israeli," said Oded. "Your Hebrew is native."

"Please don't ask him anything further," interrupted Arnon.

"I suggest we speak only English among ourselves," I said, "even when
we're alone. A slip of the tongue could be dangerous for all of us."

"Sure," agreed Oded.

"Is there a way out of here?" I asked.

"We don't know," said Arnon. "We could be hundreds of miles from
civilization. Obviously, that's why they keep us here. Even if we started
walking, we wouldn't get far without transportation and supplies. In this
desert, nobody could survive without a serious supply of water."

"I keep hearing conflicting numbers on the distance," I said.

"Most of it is disinformation or plain ignorance," said Arnon.

"So why a guard?" I asked.

"Some guard," said Arnon in jeering contempt. "Abdel Rahman is
asleep most of the day, or busy chasing off flies and mosquitoes. Once he's
convinced you have no escape plans, he won't mind what you're doing. He
knows we can't go far."

"But why are they keeping us here?" asked Oded. "Do you have any
clue? It seems strange that they'd keep us together."

"Yesterday, the person who brought me here told me I'd be kept here
until his brothers taught all the infidels a lesson they would never forget.
I think they're a small organization, and perhaps they don't even know
we're connected. I think we're simply goods to be traded later for something, and this place is as good as any other to hide us from the world."

"That means that their plan hasn't been averted," said Oded.

"What plan?" I asked.

Oded froze: "You don't know?" I saw suspicion in his eyes.

"Calm down. If you mean spreading hemorrhagic fever, then of course
I know. Benny told me."

Oded let out a deep breath. "You frightened me."

"I'm sorry. I said too much. Honestly, from now on all I can tell you are
things I heard from my captors, or the little stuff I heard from Benny -
and that's only to convince you I'm on your side."

"My read," said Arnon, "is they're going to keep us here until they've
carried out their plan."

"And then?" asked Oded in trepidation.

"There could be any number of possibilities, but a trade or killing us are
the ones that come to mind."

"No, they won't kill you," I said. "You're worth a lot in the human tradein business, and you have the scientific know-how they might still need."

"And you?" asked Oded. "How much are you worth?"

"I don't know. I could prove to be a liability rather than an asset, so they
might prefer to ..." I pointed a finger at my right temple.

"Come on," said Oded, "let's get some shade; the sun will come out in
full force soon."

"Shade? Here?" I said in disbelief.

Arnon pointed to the east. "Behind this hill there's an oasis with a small
pond and palm trees. Why do you think they built this village right in the
middle of nowhere? It has water."

We started walking along the sand dune, sometimes knee-deep in sand.
When we reached the top of the hill, I saw the oasis, just as Arnon had
said. There were approximately twenty palm trees, a few other trees I
couldn't identify, and a two-acre pond. Children were playing nearby and
two camels were gulping water directly from the pond. "This is their
source of life," said Oded. "They use the water for drinking and irrigating
their fields; they also water their herds here. They eat the dates of the
palm trees, and even burn the dry thin bark that falls off."

"The odor I smelled yesterday from Nasser's fire in his hut didn't come
from burning bark. It wasn't pleasant," I said decidedly.

"Oh no," said Oded. "Inside the mud-brick huts they burn dried animal
manure."

They saw the expression on my face and burst into hearty laughter
simultaneously.

"Let me ask you a question." I looked at Oded hesitantly, not knowing whether he would answer. I knew that his employer, the Nes Ziona laboratory, was considered even more secretive than Dimona, Israel's nuclear
research center. Unlikely that he would discuss his work. But I wanted to
know things from the terrorists' perspective, and I hoped Oded would
answer.

"Why hemorrhagic fever? This disease is so lethal, it could spread and
kill their own people. Couldn't they find a more effective virus? Something
that would make people want to make love, not war?"

Oded smiled. "Sure. It's no secret many governments are working on
the ultimate nonlethal bioweapon; one that would send the enemy to bed,
wanting to do nothing but sleep. Something that would take the infected
person's energy, cognition, sleep, immune function, and sense of wellbeing. It's called myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue immune
deficiency syndrome, which results from insufficient oxygen availability
due to impaired capillary blood flow."

"And what does that all mean in plain language?"

"In healthy people, most red blood cells are smooth-surfaced and concave-shaped, like a bagel. They have the flexibility needed both to move
through capillary beds, delivering oxygen, nutrients, and chemical messengers to the body tissues, and to remove metabolic waste, such as
carbon dioxide and lactic acid, on the way back. But an abnormal red
blood cell lacks the flexibility that allows it to enter tiny capillaries.
Scientists believe that, in ME and CFIDS, the mechanism whereby red
blood cells are affected by toxic chemicals provides a possible link to environmental illness, and multiple chemical sensitivity. But as I said,
everyone is still working on isolating it and a means of dissemination."

"Isn't that what happened to thousands of veterans of the Gulf War?" I
asked.

"Maybe," he said. "Gulf War Syndrome symptoms are many: chronic
fatigue, severe neurological disorders, muscle and joint pain, shortness of
breath, gastrointestinal problems, memory loss, insomnia, rashes, depression, headaches, and other complaints, but what's interesting about it,"
his tone suddenly became amused "is that Gulf War Syndrome may be a
sexually transmitted disease, and is also contagious via the airborne route. Scientists suspect that soldiers pass the illness on to their wives and
family members; there are some indications that their children appear to
have an increased incidence of birth defects. So sometimes making love
is as dangerous as making war."

At least it's more pleasurable. But seriously, the question remains, why
did they choose hemorrhagic fever and not one of those syndromes that
make you tired?"

"I don't know. The Gulf War Syndrome agent hasn't been definitively
isolated, so there'd be no way of breeding it in a lab. Hemorrhagic fever
in the genetically engineered form they intended to use is reasonably easy
to spread and so difficult to prevent or cure."

"On a different note, I tried to understand the dialect they are using,
and found it difficult," I said.

"How well do you speak Arabic?" Arnon asked me with interest.

"The Palestinian dialect is no problem, but it gets less certain outside
of that."

"They speak Libyan Arabic here, in an Egyptian Bedawi dialect. Only
about two percent of the world's Arabic speakers use that dialect."

"That explains why I can't understand it."

We sat under a palm tree, soaking our feet in the water. It felt good. My
soles, still injured from the Falaka beating, needed soothing. The water
was cool, a pleasant surprise. If it weren't for the beatings and the abuse,
or the fact that we were prisoners of terrorists, I might have regarded this
as an expedition organized by the National Geographic Society.

"I had a short conversation with Nasser," I said, making sure no one
else was listening. "Although he didn't say it directly, my hunch is that he's
not too happy with Khadafi. I'm not sure why he agreed to keep us here
for the Slaves of Allah. Is it for the money? I don't see it in his standard
of living."

"He could have other motives," said Oded. "One thing I know, though,
is that he's petrified of the Libyan secret police. They make no secret of
the pride they take in murdering Libyans at home and abroad who
oppose the regime."

"He told you that?" I asked in skepticism. "How could he trust you?"

"He didn't say it directly. Instead, he would say things like `people say that
the secret police are doing such and such,' as if he were quoting others, but
then would quickly add, `but I don't believe it.' I got the impression that the
criticism was in fact his. I can understand why. He told me that before the
revolution he lived in the city on a nice salary paid by Standard Oil,
although he was just a low-level employee. When Khadafi rose to power,
kicked out the foreign oil companies, and nationalized their assets, Nasser
lost his job. He had to return to his wife's village and live a miserable life,
working in the small family field from sunrise to sunset and making zilch.
You saw how he lives, so it's little surprise that he's unhappy."

"Perhaps helping the Slaves of Allah is his own expression of his opposition to Khadafi," suggested Oded.

"Could be," said Arnon, "although at the moment they're supported by
Khadafi. Maybe they have long-term plans for Libya that Khadafi doesn't
realize yet, who knows. Nasser's a brave man: Criticism, even as subtle as
his, is like jumping off a skyscraper. They have a law, `the Protection of the
Revolution,' that orders the execution of anyone participating in any
expression of opposition against the revolution. All political parties are
banned. In 1990 Khadafi passed a law that made any observation or directive by the `Leader of the Revolution' binding, enforceable, and not subject
to review by any authority. Khadafi is above the law, accountable to no one."

"Is that all?" asked Oded. "He didn't pass a law declaring himself God?"

"Have patience," said Arnon, "he's still in power.

"And then," he concluded, "two years ago a new law came about that
targets any family, clan, tribe, or community that gives sanctuary to or
fails to report any individual opposing Khadafi to the authorities."