Hi-Tech Hijack (6 page)

Ten stone steps led down from the street to the pub door. The dreary exterior was not very inviting, and the pub itself was quite small and relatively unknown. The pub owner, Udi, was the brother of Isaac, an officer from Eddie’s unit who had fallen in combat with terrorists in Lebanon. After Isaac’s death his comrades formed a special bond with his family. As months and years passed, the unit men and women were embraced by the family who bravely decided to keep in touch without pathetically imposing upon their dead son’s friends. Isaac’s parents would come every now and then for a cup of coffee, hoping to run into one of their son’s buddies. At times some of them would find themselves sharing thoughts and experiences with Udi’s parents that they never would have dared shared with their own. On the eve of every Memorial Day before visiting Isaac’s grave in the military cemetery, the family would hold a private, quiet evening at the pub for Isaac’s friends and loved ones, a night closed to the public and dedicated to the memory of their son.

Udi made the lively pub, full of music and buzzing with the clamor of young people whose tongues have been loosened by alcohol, into a second home for Isaac’s friends whenever they came to the big city from all corners of the country. He installed a small, metal plaque with his brother’s name and picture and the date of his falling on the wall next to a casual hang out spot with rugs and cushions on the floor. This surreal combination between mourning and commemoration and every day fun was Udi’s special way of keeping his brother’s memory alive.

On the night when Eddie came to the smoky pub, Udi was behind the bar talking with one of the customers and pouring a glass of whiskey on the rocks. Udi spotted Eddie as soon as he walked in, excused himself, and came over to greet him. The two men hugged in silence, patting each other on the back.

“How long have you been back, brother?”

“I just got back a few days ago.”

“Welcome back. You’ll never believe who’s here—Ronit, your regimental medic. She’s a doctor now. She’s the one who worked on Isaac before they flew him to the hospital. She’s here with her husband sitting in your spot.” Udi pointed to the memorial corner. “Go sit with them. I’ll just finish watering this lot and join you.”

Eddie knew Ronit well. She was the only female medic who was trained to be a doctor that was allowed to enter Lebanon after she had threatened to go to the Supreme Court with claims of gender-based discrimination. As soon as she got to the unit, beautiful, tall Ronit became an instant attraction for all the soldiers. All of a sudden, they became hyper vigilant about their health and found all sorts of excuses to visit the clinic. Eddie had little opportunity to see her during the three months she spent at the battalion since he spent most of that time deep in the field. Then Ronit left the unit for another year of medical school, and the percentage of soldiers suffering from head and back aches dropped miraculously. Since then, seven years had passed, during which Eddie only saw Ronit once a year at the annual unit reunions, to which she usually came alone.

Eddie went over to the corner of the club. There on a pillow on the floor sat Ronit, holding her knees close to her chest, resting her chin on her knees and listening to the music that was playing. Next to her, sitting on a stool, was a clearly uncomfortable man with a bottle of beer in one hand and a fistful of peanuts in the other.

“Good evening,” said Eddie, greeting them both and leaning over toward Ronit, who recognized him immediately and started to get up. “No, no. Don’t get up. Here, I’ll join you,” he said and sat down cross-legged on the pillow across from Ronit and shook her hand warmly.

“I’d like you to meet Reuben, my husband,” she said. “This is Eddie, a commander from my unit.”

“Nice to meet you.” Reuben extended his hand in a friendly manner.

“What’s up?” asked Ronit.

“Well, I’ve just returned from six months in Africa, and I’m supposed to start working. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Not much has changed. I got my degree two years ago and have been working as a doctor in the infectious diseases department at the central Sharon Hospital. I finished my internship a few months ago, and now I’m one of the staff of doctors on the ward. Well actually, I’m the youngest and the lowest in rank there,” said Ronit modestly. “Reuben on the other hand has some news. He’s just finished his army service as professional major; he was an engineer in the Intelligence Directorate, and now he’s exploring some options. We decided to go out and drink to that, and what better place to do that than Udi’s pub?”

“That’s interesting. I also came here tonight because I’m facing a big decision, and I needed to cool down for a bit.”

Reuben joined the conversation and told Eddie about his service as a computer engineer and about the expertise he acquired in computerized mathematical applications. His unit in the Intelligence Corps served as a veritable breeding ground for the hi-tech industry, and many of its graduates went straight on to ride the wave and accumulate substantial fortunes and status quite quickly. Reuben, who had an impressive and interesting professional career, felt he was missing out on the possibilities that life outside the army offered and decided to leave and find himself a start-up, one that would take him to the peaks he had been reading about enviously in the pink economy newspapers. These papers were the ones that raved about the new hi-tech hot shots putting them on a pedestal. They were also the first to kick them when they were down as their visions fell through just like yesterday’s newspaper that found itself in the trash bin the very next day.

“I have this idea, and I’ve been dreaming about making it the foundation of my own venture company,” Eddie told Reuben. “I was planning to work for a bigger company and gain some business experience before I put it into action, but the way things are looking now it might happen sooner rather than later.”

“It has to do with biology, I assume?” asked Ronit.

“Wow, kudos on your memory, Ronit! Yes, I got my master’s in biology about a year ago. Actually, my idea has a lot to do with infectious diseases—your area of expertise.”

“Seriously? Then why aren’t you asking me to join you?” She smiled.

“You’re already spoken for. By the hospital, I mean.” Eddie turned from Ronit to Reuben. “But I’d be more than willing to share my idea with you both.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” said Ronit.

“It’s just an idea, and it’s going to take many years of research and development before it can be defined in specific terms. I don’t even know yet if I can patent it and protect it as intellectual property yet.”

“Reuben also has some experience in biology. That is how we met. The army sent him on some education program in life sciences for some projects he was involved with, and I was a TA in one of his courses.”

“You certainly struck gold there, Reuben,” said Eddie, smiling at Ronit. “And since you’re unavailable, Ronit, maybe I’ll ask Reuben to come work with me,” he said jokingly.

“Let’s hear it.” Reuben was intrigued.

“I’m sure you remember Amit, the team commander parallel to me,” said Eddie.

“How can I forget?” Ronit laughed nostalgically. “Laurel and Hardy, stumpy and lanky, you guys were the funniest pair ever.” She told Reuben about the best couple of team commanders in the unit who would always fight one another to score the most difficult and complicated assignments for their teams.

“Well,” Eddie continued, embarrassed by Ronit’s compliments, “Amit joined me on my trip to Africa.”

“And where in Africa exactly did you go? Knowing you two I’m sure you didn’t go on a family’s trip to the Kenyan safari.”

“You could definitely say this was not your ordinary African trip. After we climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, we headed west toward the Ebola valley.”

“Where’s that?” asked Reuben.

“In order to get there we had to fly to Kinshasa, Congo, which is located on the delta of the River Congo, which flows into the Atlantic. From there we took a tiny plane and flew back east about six hundred miles to a small area called Yambuku. We had to wait two days for the weekly flight to Bombe, the closest town to Yambuku. We flew in a twin-engine light aircraft that was more like an aerial taxi for six passengers. That flight at low altitude along the River Congo was an experience in itself. The whole area is covered in tropical forests and dotted with swamps, and from the air, you can spot groups of hippos and giant crocodiles. There are tiny little villages there with only hundreds, even dozens, of people living in each one. We landed in Bombe, a town south of the Ebola valley about one hundred and five miles from the valley itself. This town is the most remote place you can reach by plane from Kinshasa. There in Bombe, we had a Jeep waiting for us, and we fooled the car agency into thinking we were going to travel along the Congo River back west toward Kinshasa. In fact, what we did instead was drive northeast toward Yambuku.”

“But wait—Eddie, why were you going there, and why did you have to hide your intentions?” asked Ronit, breaking in.

“Because since the last epidemic was eradicated, no one is allowed to enter the area of Yambuku.”

“What epidemic?” Now Ronit’s professional curiosity was intrigued.

Eddie told them briefly about the epidemic that was first discovered in the monastery in the Yambuku area and about the difficulties in getting medical assistance from the West.

“As an infectious disease specialist, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC was the first to offer actual help. An American doctor was the first westerner who dared visit Congo. He came there with the help of the UN and accompanied by a Belgian, Congo-born doctor who lived and worked in Kinshasa, and together they came to Yambuku and stayed there for several weeks trying to locate the source of the disease and find a cure. The epidemic died out, after killing ninety percent of all the patients who had been infected. The doctors could not locate the source, which remains unknown to this day, and their contribution was mainly in boosting morale. It was finally stopped thanks to the severe quarantine the monastery area was put under.”

“Well, the first rule in viral diseases is isolation, any med student knows that,” said Ronit.

“Right,” said Eddie, “and what was most interesting was that even before the doctors got there, the chiefs were the ones who succeeded in isolating the disease. The intuitive approach of the towns’ and villages’ leaders was to prevent any stranger from entering—anyone who was not from their own village, white or black, was suspected of carrying the disease-demon. The villagers set blocks at the entrances to the villages to stop strangers from entering and managed to stop the disease from progressing from village to village. And inside the villages as well, the sick people and their families were treated as impure—or as potential carriers as we would put it. A year after the disease broke out, it was formally declared over. The American scientists from Atlanta made the scientific contribution of naming it Ebola after the river that runs across the region and defined the symptoms that patients presented with: a high fever followed by vomiting and abdominal pain and eventually internal bleeding and death within a few days. Unfortunately they did not succeed in tracing the source of the virus or in creating a vaccine for it.

“We traveled through the area between the monastery and the Ebola River for about two weeks. In the little villages along the way, the locals treated us with suspicion, and on the rare occasion we met the village teacher or some other English-speaking person, we always got the same explanation regarding the apprehensive attitude: the trauma of the Ebola was still very much alive in the village’s collective memory. According to their beliefs, the demon of the disease was not exterminated. It was merely hiding somewhere, only to emerge one day in the guise of an unfamiliar person—most likely white.”

“It’s possible that the locals have developed some sort of natural immune system and that the next person to be afflicted would indeed be an outsider,” said Ronit, speculating.

“Since you mentioned immunization, let me tell you a little bit more about that: there are four known strains of Ebola—three of which are African and the fourth is the Ebola Reston, which is unique and comes from the Philippines in southeast Asia.”

“How is it unique?”

“It turns out people who came in contact with this strain were only mildly affected—a few days of fever—and developed antibodies that apparently made them immune to the really aggressive strains. Except no one’s done any further research. As far as I know there have been no experiments to verify the immunity of the Ebola Reston carriers against the deadly Ebola and no vaccine based on the Ebola Reston has been developed.”

“You got me intrigued, Eddie,” said Ronit. “If you’d like I can do some research and look into the latest medical literature regarding the Ebola.”

“I sure would,” said Eddie, jumping at the opportunity and wondering to himself what it was that made him more excited—the research Ronit was going to do, or knowing he was going to get another chance to see her again.

“You had quite an experience there in Africa,” said Reuben.

“We definitely did, and my urge to explore the Ebola just got more intense.”

“What are you planning to do with it?” asked Ronit, wanting to know more.

“I was thinking about combining the extremely destructive qualities of the Congolese strain with those of the Reston and developing a manageable strain that can be used to kill cancerous cells.”

“Wow, that’s quite a challenge you have lined up for yourself.”

“Would you two be interested in getting involved if I decided to go for it?”

“Are you seriously planning to go ahead with this?” asked Reuben.

“I have an important meeting with the representatives of the company that ran off on me to the States. After I meet with them, I’ll know a lot more. Let’s talk in a few days.”

A group of soldiers wearing uniforms entered the pub, their chests proudly decorated with the badge of Eddie’s unit. Udi welcomed them with a hearty greeting and started pouring a long line of cold beers.

“First drink on the house, as usual. Some of the unit veterans are sitting there in the corner.” Udi pointed toward Eddie and Ronit. The pub grew noisier and noisier, and Reuben and Ronit said good-bye to Eddie  planing to speak again in a few days.

Eddie stayed at the pub for a long while, surrounded by the lively conversations of the young guys around him who reminded him so much of himself only seven years earlier. His mind wandered back to his army service and he thought of Ronit, the unattainable medic, and of Orit across the ocean.

I wanted them both at one time or another
, he thought.
And both looked unattainable until two days ago. Ronit still is; Orit wants me to travel halfway across the globe, and I have Rose waiting for me back in London.
He recapped his romantic status and felt more confused than ever.