Binyameen Read online

  Hawjan who got off of the armored vehicle as it started to fall did not give the baffled thugs looking down at their armored vehicles a chance, her returned to the ambulance and sped away towards the location agreed previously with Mr. Mansour.

  *****

  Binyameen drove by the shrine of the Báb Alí Shírází that over looked the foot of mount Carmel, before he turned into a side road decorated on both sides with old trees and villas, the car went through the gates of one of them that was only a camouflage hiding a pass way that penetrates it and continues underground.

  “A secret base next to the shrine of the Báb, the most famous tourist attraction in Haifa! What madness is this?!”

  “On the contrary what cunning! The base is directly underneath the shrine, a location that would never accrue to anyone, and with the blessing and protection of the UNESCO!”

  Said Husam in reply to Eyad’s disapproval, Binyameen did not comment while increasing his speed to the point where the lights of that pathway turned into flashes if lines of light, the car finally stopped in front of a huge glass room at the center of a round yard that was stuffed with equipment, Binyameen said abruptly:

  “Welcome to the Aquarium…”

  Elyana was waiting for them with her worried face, she was followed by a team of four men wearing the same military uniform that she had on.

  “Here you will perform the second phase of the experiments”

  “After you almost killed us in the first…”

  Said Eyad commenting, Binyameen sharply tuned towards him and said:

  “Allow me to clarify something for you, you are both abducted and will be disposed of quietly if you do not pass the experiments and prove that you have what is worth keeping you alive… I am the only person who believes you have latent abilities that would only manifest themselves through those experiments, I risked a lot to prove that, and I truly hope that my risk and your lives would not be lost in vain!”

  Binyameen’s strict statement was countered with an even stricter statement from Eyad:

  “And is there anything that guaranties our safe return home if we do pass your tests?”

  “No…”

  Said Binyameen silencing the entire room for a few seconds, then he continued:

  “But I will do what I can to keep everyone safe”

  A situation like this would cause any normal person to panic, but the things that Husam and Eyad have been through set them in a totally different category that loves challenges and never give in to surrender.

  The military team went on to perform some tests on them and they ended it with placing metal bracelets around their ankles, now it was time for them to enter the Aquarium, it really felt like a huge fish tank, its glass that seemed transparent from the outside, turned into polished mirrors from the inside, nothing connected them to the outside world save for the cameras and sensors that measured everything, the speakers conveyed Binyameen’s voice to them:

  “This phase is life or death… literally, you are required to stay alive”

  When Binyameen finished his statement, the only wall in the Aquarium opened, six men heavily armed with non-ballistic weapons, their shouts mixed with Binyameen’s voice who continued through the speakers:

  “Everyone in this group has been sentenced to death in first degree crimes, they were promised their freedom if they killed you, you have to terminate them to move on to the next phase… Good luck”

  The fight was not fair, despite Husam and Eyad’s courage and intense fighting training, but crowds -usually- beat courage and training… especially with the amount of injures on their bodies that enticed the thugs to attack them even faster. That speed brought down the bear chested rhino with a belly who was swinging a weapon that was something between a sword and an axe, he was the first to reach Husam who greated him with a round kick where his left foot heel took on the task of rendering him unconscious when it knocked him down as it slammed between his ear, jaw and neck, Husam caught his weapon before it touched the ground and threw it to Eyad who had decided to forget all humanitarian impulses and turn into a heartless butcher for his girls.

  Binyameen’s eye watched what was going on in the Aquarium through the glass and glimpsing every now and then at their vitals on the screens around him; Elyana approached him and whispered:

  “A call from the central office”

  “From her?”

  “Yes…”

  She was clearly worried, as if the mere mention of her sends shivers down her spine, Binyameen nodded and she transferred the call to one of the screens where she appeared… Tzipi Livni… the most powerful woman in the history of Israel following Golda Meir:

  “Their decision is unanimous on shutting down the project… and prosecuting you!”

  She said without the regular pleasantries and greetings, Binyameen on the other hand was ignoring her to the extent he did not even look at her while watching Husam and Eyad’s fight with what remained of the thugs:

  “Should I expect the assassin, or a more elegant approach… a poisoned espresso for example”

  “We have no time for your mockery, I have given you my trust Binyameen, the budget and authority that you received is beyond what anyone could have dreamed of! You are the first to use the Aquarium since we stopped our activities there in 2008!”

  “You mean ever since military obsession became unfit for anything other than cheap movies and terrorist gangs… I think you yearn for operations that mow innocent lives by mistake!”

  “It is was Binyameen! Do you not understand?! Angels would get their wings stained in blood if they come near war!”

  “Fresh children’s blood! Only devils are enticed by feasts of politics and battle fields”

  “Arabs Binyameen are fighting crocodiles that feed on sectarianism! For every child they lay in our path to cry over, they kill a thousand children by their own hands without a single tear”

  “Even if the Arabs annihilate each other, do you find that an acceptable excuse to spill a single drop of an innocent child’s blood? Forget spilling blood, is there anything that justifies the money gobbled by the military budget or the fires of war?”

  “We are surrounded by nations that pray to God day and night to eradicate us and freeze our blood in our veins and to shake the ground under our feet, they long to exterminate us and throw our ripped rotting corpses in the Mediterranean, would you want us to invest in rose farms?!”

  “They are still occupied with the battels amongst themselves on based on lines drawn by those who died fifteen hundred years ago, and the legality of girls plucking their eyebrows, but when it comes to Israel you find them content with praying alone, luckily Israel it is surrounded by nations that can only master prayer and some cursing! Science is the only weapon worthy of investment, nations who invest in death… do not deserve to live!”

  “And for that exact reason we had focused our efforts on scientific and technological advancement, that is why I put my faith in you Binyameen!”

  “And that is why you canceled the project!”

  “Tell me Binyameen, why did you mention the Temple and teleportation in our meeting? I do not think you only wanted to impress us”

  “I am convinced that the secrets of teleportation are somewhere… in some book… and that it is related to the scientific heritage of Solomon’s Kingdom”

  “Are you so desperate that you are now looking for scientific discovery in midst of religious texts?”

  This one of the few times Tzipi has ever mocked someone… Binyameen ignored her and continued reciting a verse from the Quran then repeated it in Hebrew:

  “An Efreet from among the jinn said, I will bring it to you before you rise from your place, and indeed, I am for this task strong and trustworthy… Said one who had knowledge from the book, I will bring it to you before your glance returns to you”[3]

  “What is that?!”[4]

  “This is a Quranic verse”

  She replied in shock:
<
br />   “You converted to Islam then!”

  “What I believe in is out of limits, I will not allow anyone to question it! But I do memories several holly books”

  “And what did you conclude from the holly books?”

  “The mysteries of King Solomon’s story is scattered between the Torah, Quran and the Kebra Nagast… I concluded that a scientist in Solomon’s Kingdom had knowledge that we did not discover yet, one of which was teleportation, I suspect he was Hiram Abiff… the godfather of the Freemasons!”

  “Mentioning the Temple and teleportation in front of Danny was utterly stupid… you know very well his stature amongst the Freemasons!”

  “I know very well his stature amongst all secret organizations, and was hoping he would pass on the message to his masters”

  “His masters have been dreaming of cracking the secrets of the Temple and the Ark of the Covenant for centuries, do you think they will allow you to get to it before they do?!”

  “Clearly all of their efforts have not been fretful!”

  “In any case, we have a leadership meeting tomorrow at eight, in less than thirty hours… I hope you get some results by then, and if you did not… please watch your back… I won’t be able to protect you”

  The bomb Tzipi dropped created more stress in the room than the stress in the Aquarium, with a slight difference: the amount of spilled blood. Four thugs lay between a coma or died, Eyad was desperately trying to stand by leaning on the axe that was covered in blood; as for Husam, will he was gasping for air and his heart rate was beyond all human levels, wondering if he could last long enough to finish of the remain two thugs.

  Binyameen on the other hand was forced to finish the experiments no matter the cost, he turned to Elyana and said grudgingly:

  “Double the gravity”

  “But…!”

  He ignored her and reached out to a dial on the control board in front of him, he turned it half a turn; that dial creates a magnetic field between the floor of the Aquarium and the metal cuffs on Husam and Eyad’s ankles… or in other words increases the effects of gravity on them.

  Eyad lost his balance and fell, as for Husam, he swayed a bit before he could regain his balance, that was an encouraging signal to the criminals to continue their attack and ignore what happened to their comrades. The less courageous of them attacked Eyad who was covered in his own blood, he wrapped his arms around his neck to choke him, the other gripped his knives tightly and screamed as he stormed towards Husam’s chest whose feet were stuck on the floor because of the increased gravity.

  Binyameen turned a second dial, water started to flood the Aquarium, as if what Husam and Eyad were facing was not enough to finish them, the Aquarium started living up to is name as the water level started to rise mixed with the blood.

  Husam tried to evade the stab, he some what succeeded, as one of the knives slashed his upper arm, he needed to exert double the energy to move his legs, there was no way he can throw a kick in such circumstances, but he can utilize it to break the neck of the thug chocking Eyad, he struggled to raise his foot then dropped it to detach his neck’s vertebrae before the last thug regained his footing…

  Binyameen was whispering to himself as he watched this display of blood:

  “Come on Husam! Bring out your abilities… Damn it what are you waiting for?!”

  The water level reached Husam’s waist, as for Eyad, he was coughing blood and water as he tried to take a breath… the last thug was attacking in a final attempt to finish off Husam.

  On average, a human can hold his breath for no longer than three minutes before loosing consciousness, as for Husam, will he passed that time by at least double, and that was an advantage that he can use to end the battle, he decided to jump the thug and grab his neck so that they would both fall into the pink pond; as the minutes passed the thug attempted to stab Husam in the back, this time he was struggling to take a breath of air… But could not get any… Husam left him float peacefully and ran towards Eyad who’s face started to go underwater and he was unable to swim because of the increased gravity, Husam shouted as he punched the Aquarium’s glass:

  “Binyameen!”

  Elyana asked him:

  “Should we stop?”

  Binyameen slowly nodded NO… and continued watching Husam who lost hope in the shackles coming off, so he headed to Eyad and struggled to carry him on his shoulders, he gasped his last breath before his nose went underwater… he stared in anger through the reflective Aquarium glass directly at Binyameen wo continued whispering:

  “Come on Husam… Please!”

  (6)

  #SaveEyadAndHusam

  H e sat on the edge of the bed, watching me through the reflecting glass in front of him, while I rolled up my sleeves and sat behind him tending his wounds that spread across his back, he was in a bit of pain, yet he smiled a lot. I think we got used to these situations, his life is in danger, his body sustains tons of injuries, I attend to them… and we smile…

  Our joy of meeting each other outweighed injury… it mocked pain.

  “It has been a while since I spent quality time with you”

  “Ever since you went back to your world and stopped sleeping!”

  “Am I asleep?”

  “You are about to drown”

  “Malak, what exactly is going on?”

  “Forgive me Husam… it is all my fault”

  He turned to me and held my face… oh how my cheeks missed his palms, and my eyes his.

  “I did not know that the entire world will hunt you down as a result of what happened between us here…”

  “The entire world does not matter to me… all I care about is returning to you!”

  “My hear aches for you Husam, you are facing death on every moment and I am here powerless”

  “I will come back to you as soon as I know that Maram is safe…”

  “I will miss you Husam…”

  My heart bleeds every time I remember that he will not stay in my arms, every day he spends away from me I live as a decade… every moment in his life is like a long heavy day in mine, he vanished from my arms, my tears washed the remnants of his touch on my cheeks. Husam left me once again and returned to the living.

  Binyameen’s face was dug into his palms, and his brain was deep in a vortex of thought and conclusions… and worry…

  Feelings that he had abandoned ever since he bid his mother farewell and with her most emotions and feelings… but those emotions decided to storm him at that moment; Elyana cut off his line of thought as she whispered in a format military tone:

  “We performed the necessary medical aid on Husam and Eyad… and…”

  “Did you get the recordings from the Marriot Hotel before the explosion”

  He interrupted her as she had his line of thoughts, he was going over all the data and conclusions in his mind… and his eye. As the connection between his brain and eye was not limited to being an alternative tool for sight, but it was also a miniature computer connected to his nervous system and to the internet at the same time. He was digging though all of that in search for the answer to Husam and Eyad’s mystery… Tzipi’s statement and her thirty-hour ultimatum were haunting him.

  “Yes, I emailed you the link just now”

  He accessed his email through his eye, he was able to download that huge video file in second, Elyana had to utilize all of her connections in the intelligence community to access that video in such circumstances, the video played from his eye into his optical nerve directly, his mind reviewed it frame by frame, he dissected every frame… Binyameen noticed the child that was playing the piano with Jumana, and he was utterly shocked at the moment the explosion happened, not because of the explosion itself, but because of what he saw in the fraction of the second between the explosion and the end of the recording, in that small window the camera shook in a way that defocused the image, but Binyameen was able to notice Elyaseen’s movement and him carrying the piano with one hand th
en disappearing with Jumana!

  “Impossible!”

  Said Binyameen calmly in a way that intrigued Elyana’s curiosity while awaiting his instructions… he repeated the scene several times to convince himself to believe what he is now seeing with his eyes. His astonishment grew as he focused on the corner where one could barely see Sawsan, Maram, Hawjan and Jumara, and he fanatically kept repeating the two images: before and after Hawjan, Jumara, Elyaseen and Jumana vanished.

  His smile widened with his astonishment, he raised his head slowly and gave Elyana his commands:

  “Prepare the capsules and the Stealth Bomber, we will start the last phase right away!”

  “But that might cause…”

  “Elyana, my life and yours are in much graver danger that Husam and Eyad, follow my orders without question before Tzipi revokes our authorities”

  “As you command Mr. Binyameen, everything will be ready in two hours and…”

  “Only one hour! During that time, I want to get a complete report regarding the movement and communication of Eyad’s wife and Husam’s sister from the moment they arrived at Paris, in addition to a detailed report regarding their kidnapping operation”

  Elyana dismissed herself as he appeared to have drifted away, she had no idea that he was replaying that scene between his eye and his mind, and his breath was getting faster as his excitement grew to solve the biggest mystery he had ever faced.

  *****

  Tears -usually- carry one of two messages: joy or sorrow. But a mother’s tears are different, a tear slipped down Manal Al-Aqeel’s face carrying its own message, a tear of sorrow, a tear of plea, a tear of query, and plenty of tears of worry.

  The explosion that occurred at Marriot Hotel caused a second explosion that was no less violent in her heart, the was about to get on the first flight from Nice to Paris to catch up with her husband who had canceled his business meetings there to checkup on Eyad, Sawsan and Jumana, but the message she received from Mr. Mansour lit off more explosions inside of her; an abrupt message from their son’s old phone saved under the name Dr. EZ sent tot her maid’s phone: