Feldman's eyes widened. Hunter looked up from a random meteorite chunk he was inspecting. “Survivor?” they asked in unison.
“Yes. Young woman from desert laboratory.”
Hunter and Feldman had already decided that the junior astronomer with a better grasp of the King's English was the preferred interviewee. Feldman pulled out a microphone and Hunter switched on his camera.
Clearing his throat, Hirasuma began again. “Three of us leave observatory to follow meteor. But just outside laboratory grounds, we come across desert people-”
“Bedouins?” Hunter suggested.
“Older man and woman-with injured survivor.”
“So you actually saw this meteor hit the center?” Feldman backed them up to reexamine their story.
“Yes.”
“How close were you?”
“Maybe fifteen kilometer away, but night very clear. We see through binoculars big explosion and follow in car.”
“Tell me more about this survivor,” Feldman said.
“She young woman. Maybe twenty year old.”
“She bleeding bad and in shock,” the older man interjected. “Clothes blown off. She smell like smoke. Not talk, not walk, just make horrible sounds. Eyes not focus.”
“What did you do with her?” Feldman wanted to know.
“We give first aid,” Hirasuma said. “Man and woman not let us take her to hospital. We help put her in cart and cover with blanket. We give man and woman first aid kit, food, money. They leave and we go look for meteorite sample.”
“When we see you on TV news,” Omato added, “we know we must tell you facts.”
“Dr. Omato expert,” the younger astronomer insisted. “He not make mistake. Meteorite, not missile. No war!”
“Do you think you can find again the location where you discovered the survivor?” Feldman asked.
“Yes,” both men answered.
Feldman and Hunter took addresses and phone numbers and thanked the two scientists, promising to get back to them tomorrow.
Apparently not satisfied that they'd convinced the reporters, the two astronomers were slow to leave. “You tell world?” the older man was compelled to ask one more time.
“We'll see,” Feldman replied noncommittally, shaking their hands and returning bows as they backed away.
He held his thoughts until the two astronomers were out of sight, then turned to his partner with a skeptical expression. “What do you think?”
Hunter, who'd been staring vapidly into space, tossing a chunk of meteorite in the air, shrugged his big shoulders and replied nonchalantly, “I think it makes for a bell of a follow-up story. I'd love to get a crack at their survivor- anyone who knows what was going on inside that installation.”
10
Meeting chambers of the IDF Command Center UVDA Israeli military airfield, southern Negev Desert 1:37 A.M., Sunday, December 26, 1999
At an Israeli Defense Force center located approximately forty-five kilometers south of the destroyed Negev laboratory, the troubled high command had convened to receive debriefings about the incident. The IDF chief of staff, Major General Mosha Zerim, a distinguished, straight-shouldered man of sixty-four, had been listening in sober silence as the last officer finished his report.
The general then cleared the room of all but a handful of his confidential advisors, sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Gentiemen, I don't have to tell you how serious this is,” he opened. “Defense Minister Tamin is absolutely furious. If the prime minister or the Knesset find out what was going on, it will be our heads.
After a long pause, he asked of one colleague, “Ben, you've heard the reports, what do you think caused the explosion?”
Brigadier General Benjamin Roth looked up from his notepad and sighed audibly. “It has to have been an attack, Mosha.”
“But there's nothing to prove that, Ben,” argued Intelligence Commander David Lazzlo, a trim, middle-aged man of medium height with neatly combed, short, graying-blond hair and blue eyes. “There is no explosives residue. No missile or bomb casing fragments. Our intelligence systems and American reconnaissance satellites can confirm no launchings, no aircraft in the vicinity. Nothing.”
“We have post-launch radar intercept,” Senior General Alleza Goene interjected. “The missile was probably remote-launched from an attack bomber. And it's too soon to know if there's any bomb residue. Besides, the devastation was so complete; any evidence may have disintegrated. Hell, almost the entire site was vaporized!” A veteran and hero of the ‘67 War, Goene was a large, powerful, intimidating man of fifty-seven. He was red-faced and visibly impatient with the conservative bent of this group.
Lazzlo appeared uncomfortable with this evaluation. “How do we explain the large quantities of raw iron ore debris, then?” he questioned. Having spent most of the day at the ruins supervising the investigation, he was steadfast in his opposition to a retaliatory strike. “Granted it sounds unbelievable, but we can't rule out the possibility of a meteorite impact, as evidence suggests. We're in a period of meteor shower activity!”
“There are just too many damned convenient coincidences,” Goene retorted. “For months, Syria and Iran have been making formal inquiries about the nature of the facility. Even the U.S. has suspicions of our purposes there. And the odds of such a perfectly timed and targeted impact, striking absolutely dead center of the installation during the final phases of activities is beyond calculation! Then there's the trajectory of this ‘meteorite’ — entirely too flat and sustained to have been unpowered, as you claim.”
“Goene is right on all but one account,” Roth concluded. “We were attacked not by missile, but by a super cannon, such as Iraq was developing before Desert Storm. The Jordanians, we presume, discovered what was happening at the center and then, under cover of a meteor shower, propelled an iron ore projectile from a hidden super cannon to destroy it. A cannon would explain the lack of a self-propulsion system. And the Jordanians would have the implausible but defensible argument that we suffered a meteorite hit.”
“All very convincing, gentlemen,” David Lazzlo countered, “except that this projectile is estimated to have weighed over a quarter of a ton at impact. What possible technology exists to hurl an unpowered object of that size over thirty kilometers at such a trajectory?”
“A technology no more incredible than what
Allowing a moment for claws to retract, presiding General Zerim rendered his judgment. “Reluctantly, I must agree with Ben and Alleza. The meteorite theory is simply not credible. Like it or not, we must support the position of Defense Minister Tamin. The official IDF line, and our preliminary determination, is mat this was an unprovoked attack. We'll continue investigations and determine the source, at which time we'll inflict an appropriate counter- strike. Our forces will stay on full alert until further notice.”
11
Israeli Negev Research Institute ruins, Negev Desert, southern Israel 9:46 A.M., Sunday, December 26,1999
