Hi-Tech Hijack (26 page)

Ronit’s home phone rang and interrupted their talk. She rushed to pick up, and on the line was a man named Uri asking for Nir. After a short conversation, Nir asked Ronit to pick up the other phone and join in.

“Hello, Ronit. I’ve updated Nir on some details, but I think it’s important to fill you in as well so that if Eddie or Reuben make contact, you’ll know what to answer and what to ask.”

“I’m listening.”

“At the PSSIC campus, there aren’t just Palestinian and Saudi workers. We have the names of several Americans of Palestinian descent working there. Also, there’s a couple of Argentinian scientists—the husband is Professor Alfonso Ostreicher and his wife is Dr. Isabella. The professor is considered a leading expert in physics, and his wife is involved in biotechnology. As their last name suggests, they are of German origin. The CIA’s South America desk is looking into their background as we speak. This kidnapping certainly changes our perception of the campus and its employees.”

Uri was silent for a moment, then said, “I just received a lengthy fax from the CIA archive in Washington about the Argentinian scientists. Do you have a fax machine at home?”

“Yes, here’s the number.” Ronit gave it to Uri.

“I’m faxing it. We’ll go over it at the same time. We’ll tap your phone so if you get a call, wait four or five rings before you pick up so we don’t miss anything. We’ll also tap your e-mail account.”

“Ok, but what are you going to do other than that? How are we going to get them out of there?”

“I don’t know yet, Ronit. This is an extremely complicated situation. I see the fax is coming through. Let’s go over it together quickly.”

Alfonso Ostreicher was born in Argentina in 1946, two years after his mother emigrated from Germany. His father, Gerhard Ostreicher, was the commander of a German submarine fleet that roamed the Atlantic Ocean on a mission to take out American cargo ships carrying military supplies and equipment from the eastern harbors of the United States to the Allied powers on the Normandy coast heading east toward Germany. The German fleet consisted of six submarines and a supply ship. The ship was divided into two parts. Its lower part was used as a fuel tank for the submarines’ diesel powered engines, and on its deck were stored food and ammunition supplies.

The fleet left Germany in late 1944 when the Reich was nearing its end. Vice Admiral Ostreicher was ordered to take into consideration a stay of possibly several years at sea—“until victory or sacred death on the shrine of the thousand year Reich.” With these words, the commander of the German Navy dispatched the fleet from the Port of Hamburg in October 1944, shortly before the ice was threatening to block the exit from the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The supply ship was to return to a base in Argentina and restock after each round of supplying fuel and other necessities to the submarines. The meeting point for the ship with the submarines was just south of Cuba so as not to drag the submarines too far away from the shores of the United States.

Argentina was also the location to which the fleet would retreat in its entirety for repairs, should it be denied the option to return to Germany. The orders did not specify what cases meant they could not return to Germany; they could not acknowledge on paper the chance of a downfall, but in an oral briefing given to Vice Admiral Ostreicher, the navy commander instructed him as following:

“You are aware that Argentina is part of the thousand year Reich. It will be the first country in the new world, from which we’ll set out to conquer the whole of America. Our people are already there preparing the ground for takeover of the government if and when that will be required. Juan Peron, the ruling dictator, and many of the other heads of the current government are sympathetic to us and will assist us in realizing our vision. Berlin has transferred hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks to Peron in exchange for his willingness to accept thirty thousand men and women who hold leading positions in the Third Reich. Our people have built agricultural farms that look entirely innocent, but will be used as bases for our organization when the signal is given. One of the farms is designed to accommodate the Führer if need be. Eva Braun already visited it a few months ago to adjust to the notion. So if for any reason you are unable to return to Germany, and with specific instructions from me only, you will be able to lead the fleet to Argentina. In such a case, we will make sure to have your immediate family join you given the first opportunity to do so.”

When the Red Army arrived to the outskirts of Berlin and the Allies were only days away, Vice Admiral Ostreicher received the order he had been dreading for several weeks: “Progress at full speed to the alternative target country.” Apart from him, only the six submarine commanders and the supply ship commander knew of the destination. Now each of them gathered his crew members and delivered with typical German precision, which left no room for doubt, the news that they were never going to see their homeland ever again.

The commanders back at home stuck to their word with the same typical precision. Days after landing at Bahia Blanca in central Argentina, east of the Pampas lowlands and far away from the suspecting eyes of the representatives of the Allies in Buenos Aires, a special plane brought the crew members’ wives and children. Most of them settled in the picturesque mountain town of Bariloche on the lake of the same name. The idyllic mountain views reminded many of them of the familiar Tyrol mountains. Within a short time, a German school was built, proudly adorned by the swastika flag for many more years long after the fall of the Third Reich. The farms surrounding the town had been purchased in advance and used as bases from which the rise of the Fourth Reich was planned.

The vice admiral’s wife wasn’t one of the new settlers. She had been killed in one of the Russian bombings of Berlin days before the flight to Argentina. On that same plane was the wife of one of Ostreicher’s crew members who had been crushed to death in a marine accident on the last day of sailing when the vessels were making contact at the Argentine shore. News of his death had not yet made it to Germany when the families’ plane made its way, and so the officer’s widow found herself arriving at her husband’s funeral and into the comforting arms of the newly widowed Vice Admiral Ostreicher. One year later Alfonso Friedrich Ostreicher was born at the German hospital in Bariloche, son to the old admiral and his young wife, the widow of the deceased officer. Their marriage was that of convenience for both sides.

As the son of patriotic Nazis who paid a heavy personal price during the war, Alfonso was raised on the values of German culture and the Nazi doctrine. His studies at school took place in German with Spanish serving as a second language only. Their basic presumption was that one day German would be the dominant language all over the world. They used Spanish—the language of the inferior, non-Aryan people around them—as a necessary evil for day-to-day needs, but not for the teaching of culture and knowledge, which was to be done purely in German.

In the fifties, the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was trying to develop nuclear missiles and weapons. The German scientists who had fled Germany and hidden in the Argentine farms were glad to assist in the completion of the Final Solution to the Jewish problem that had not been completed back in Europe during the war and had tried to put an end to the Jewish state. One of these scientists was Professor Gunther Von Halbrecht. Nasser’s presumptuous plans failed, partly thanks to the letter bombs Israel sent his scientists. One of the envelopes exploded in the professor’s hands, causing him to lose most of his fingers, as well as his eyesight. During World War II, the established Berliner professor had been one of the bright young talents enlisted in favor of the German War Machine and was a member of the team of Wernher Von Braun, the father of the German missile program. On the few nights he would let himself leave his work, the young Gunther Von Halbrecht liked spending time in a certain cabaret in Berlin. One night he met a beautiful, brown-skinned girl there and fell in love with her at first sight. He spent months staring at her, his imagination captivated, but he dared not approach her. The gifted scientist was helpless when it came to matters of the heart. Finally, the girl approached him and at once brought down the walls of inhibitions Gunther Von Habrecht had built around himself. The beautiful girl who had no financial means found in him the security she needed in Berlin, which was in the midst of war. Eventually they married, but not before the girl had proven to her lover that her family tree originated in South Bavaria and totally eliminated his concerns that there was gypsy blood flowing under her tanned skin. He could not afford risking the dilution of his family’s purity of race and certainly could not risk trouble with his superiors in the Nazi party.

The professor returned to Argentina from Egypt blind and helpless to his wife who was considerably younger and still hot blooded. As she nursed her blind husband, she found comfort in the arms of local young men, whereas the professor spent the rest of his days tutoring his daughter. Isabella had been born during the deployment to Egypt, and her upbringing included an intensive indoctrination in the Nazi ideals. Isabella resembled her mother in her appearance and temper, but inherited her father’s superior intellectual abilities.

The families of Isabella Von Halbrecht and Alfonso Ostreicher were neighbors, and the children grew up on the same set of values. In later years after getting his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires, Alfonso married Isabella who was ten years younger, and the two moved to Buenos Aires. Following his blind father-in-law, Alfonso specialized in nuclear physics and became a professor at the physics department. Isabella, who was drawn to biology, completed her three degrees in record time and established herself as the director of the genetic labs in the Biology Department at the University of Buenos Aires.

History is always repeating itself. When Professor Alfonso was invited by a Saudi millionaire to spend his sabbatical year at the University of Riyadh and assist, as the Saudi put it, in developing scientific abilities that would enable the Arab world to cope with the Jewish threat, he gladly accepted the challenge that came with a hefty advance check.

Alfonso had another reason for wanting to leave Argentina. Dr. Isabella Ostreicher, in her forties, was still an extremely beautiful and attractive woman—a fact she knew very well and was constantly reminded of by the admiring looks of the students she taught. Like her mother in her day, Isabella did not remain indifferent to those looks, and every year she would choose a student that needed some extra tutoring in the field of life sciences. Rumors of the flirtations eventually made their way to Alfonso, and although he could not verify them, he was glad for the opportunity to take a few years’ leave of the stressful, gossip-ridden Buenos Aires campus.

Isabella and Alfonso set out to the Middle East with a great sense of mission. What was originally supposed to be a one-year stay turned into five years, during which Alfonso became the head scientist of the research and development facilities. His wife, no less driven and motivated, took it upon herself to head the biological weapons laboratories and ran them with the assistance of some local lab techs, as well as several Arab American college graduates who were recruited by the same unknown factors.

The report specified some addresses in Buenos Aires connected with the Ostreichers, as well as information about their children, who stayed behind and went to college in Argentina rather than accompany their parents on their mission in Saudi Arabia.

Ronit looked at her brother, speechless, and tried to hold back the tears. “What’s going to happen, Nir?” she finally asked in a whisper. “This is worse than anything I could have ever imagined.”

“Yes, if these Ostreichers are involved, we’re on to an elaborate, worldwide conspiracy against us. They can certainly be interested in developments that have to do with Ebola. I wonder what it is that drew their attention to Ebocell-Tech specifically.”

“That I can help you with. The Ebola is mentioned now and then as the ultimate biological weapon, if only it can be handled right. To do that you would have to crack its genetic code. The Ebola is only contagious by physical contact and isn’t airborne. It cannot survive in the open air for more than a few minutes. In order for it to be spread through the air, something fundamental in its physiology would have to be altered, and that can be achieved by penetrating its DNA and modifying it. They must not have their own solution to this problem and need Reuben and Eddie’s knowledge.”

“And Ebocell-Tech knows how to do that?”

“First, Ebocell-Tech can identify and even incorporate the DNA markers of different Ebola types. Also, as I gathered from Reuben, who wouldn’t go into too much detail, they stumbled across something that could turn the Ebola into the ultimate biological weapon.”

“That’s serious! Who else knows about this?”

“All the company employees, but they buried all the information. It’s kept in a safe that only Reuben and Eddie have access to.”

“What about Mickey? Does he know about this?”

“I find it hard to believe that Reuben kept anything a secret from Mickey.”

“Ronit, I’m going back to headquarters to fill in some people on this. It’s not just a matter of a simple kidnapping. We’re dealing with something much more difficult and complicated here. Anything that has to do with Saudi Arabia, Mossad works closely with the CIA on. Since 9/11, the Americans have listed Saudi Arabia as a pro-terrorist country. On the surface in international politics, they are still seemingly a friendly state, but that’s not actually true. I have to leave you now. Think you’ll be ok on your own?”

“Go ahead. There isn’t much you can do from here. I’ll be fine. You know you and I are made of the same stuff,” she said, smiling in an effort to demonstrate self-confidence.

Nir embraced his sister, kissed her on the cheek, and rushed back to the Security Agency headquarters.