The first engineer began to get frustrated. “Look,” he said, “if you’re worried about a missile attack, your best bet is to destroy the missiles on the ground before they ever get launched. Wipe out the immediate threat and you can swap out the Patriot tracking system at your leisure.”
Esther stood up and got in his face. “In Gulf War 1 back in 1991, the Iraqis fired Scud missiles at Israel to try to draw us into the war and split up the coalition. The coalition air force diverted dozens of planes to Scud-hunting duty, trying to find and destroy the missiles before they could be fired. For the most part they failed because the missiles were on camouflaged trucks well hidden in the desert. That was over 20 years ago, when the missiles were big and bulky. The latest missiles are smaller, harder to find and easier to fire. So quit stalling and get back to work!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he gulped and turned back to his monitor while I tried to hide my smile. The situation was tense, but I couldn’t help but be impressed at what a force of nature Esther could be.
Just then she grabbed my arm and pointed at the screen with the live feed from Tel Aviv. “It’s midnight!” she gasped. Everyone in the room stopped and watched nervously to see what might happen. Esther leaned over and whispered, “The IDF is on full alert, and I’ve been told that your military is also in a high state of readiness.”
But the scenes from Tel Aviv revealed nothing more than the normal New Year’s Eve celebrations. Esther told me with relief that Dimona reported no activity at all. After that, the Raytheon guys wanted to go home but we wouldn’t let them leave. “There’s too much at stake,” Esther said, and the little group reluctantly went back to their work.
After awhile, one of them raised his head and asked, “Does anybody know what’s so special about 1.492?”
I looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Nothing that I can think of – why do you ask?”
“Because that’s the deviation the virus adds in to the targeting data to divert the missiles,” he said. “It just seems like such a precise number, I wondered if it had any significance.”
One of the other techs jumped in. “1-4-9-2? I know that stands for.” Then to our surprise he began to sing-song the childhood rhyme: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue . . .”
Everybody in the room laughed except for Esther, who got a strange look on her face. Quickly she went to one of the computers and did some quick checking. “That’s it!” she yelled. We all looked at her in confusion, so she quickly explained. “Everybody knows that King Ferdinand of Spain and Queen Isabella commissioned Christopher Columbus’s expedition in 1492. But most of us in the west have forgotten the other major event in 1492. That was also the year that the last emir surrendered Granada to Queen Isabella, bringing an end to Al Andalus.”
Then her face paled and she went back to the computer. “Omigod, look at this,” she gasped. “The date the emir surrendered was January second. Thomas, the attack was never planned for New Year’s Eve, it’s coming the day after. ISIS wants revenge for that disgrace. I’ll bet they’re planning to launch their campaign to retake Al Andalus on the same date!”
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