Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

Hunter joined the speculation. “Well, the Jordanians, or whoever, sure as hell weren't out to Scud some new improved carrot. Has to've been a military installation- chemical or biological weapons development.”

An irreverent voice behind them intruded. “Yeah, and you boys were out there just padding around in the contaminated debris, all exposed and unprotected.” It was Cissy McFarland, WNN project coordinator, overhearing the conversation as she passed by. She was always ready with an overdue payback jab at the two reporters. “Sassy,” Hunter used to call her. Full of herself for a twenty-three-year-old, Cissy was one of Arnold Bollinger's protegees, with a brilliant, summa cum laude mind and a promising future with WNN.

Meant as a joke, her comment about contamination nevertheless opened an unpleasant door.

“Not entirely exposed,” Hunter returned as she blew by, ignoring him.

“Yep, you're sure two dedicated, dumb news jocks,” she tossed back over her shoulder, red-blond hair bouncing, hips rolling smartly as she turned a corner in her pleated skirt, leaving them in a wake of mock scorn.

Hunter grinned, Feldman looked reflective.

“Okay, Arnie,” Feldman said, adjourning their meeting and heading off with his partner toward their offices. “Let's talk with these eyewitnesses before we call it a hell of a day!”

Feldman only wanted a moment to shed his sport coat, take a breath and settle in at his desk, but the two Japanese men awaiting him were too insistent. They recognized Feldman on sight and, elbowing Hunter aside in their haste, began bowing and rattling at the TV reporter in a flurry of unintelligibility.

With difficulty, Feldman got their identities: Kiyu Omato, a senior professor at Kyoto University, and his assistant, Isotu Hirasuma.

The elder man could contain himself no longer. “Not missile!” he declared to Feldman in a thick accent. “Meteorite!”

Feldman closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest in disappointment. He'd been anticipating insightful revelations into the attack on the laboratory. He looked up, first at Hunter, then back at the two very serious astronomers anxiously awaiting his response.

“Thanks, guys, I appreciate your professional opinion, but I don't think anyone, least of all the Israelis, is going to buy your meteor theory.”

“Not theory.” The earnest face showed concern, perhaps alarm. He pulled from his pocket a white handkerchief, opening it to reveal a blackened chunk of misshapen rock about the size of a baseball. “Meteorite!” he said again, shoving the object at Feldman while his assistant vigorously nodded his affirmation and held up a handkerchief of his own. “Not attack-accident! No war now!”

With that, the second astronomer also produced a satchel filled with more such fragments and explained, in much clearer English, “Four of us see meteorite from observatory. With own eyes we watch meteorite strike laboratory. On our way to impact site, we find survivor in desert.”

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.”

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. All of 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.