The Hajj Intercept

By Ken Peters

"The Hajj Intercept", two Israeli Mossad agents, Saul and David, were inseparable friends from childhood to entering their national service in the IDF to eventually joining the Israeli Intelligence agency, the Mossad. They've hunted terrorists from the Urals to Zimbabwe. Trained against major threats to Israeli national security and beyond to global security. In their newest mission, they are charged with recovering a viral aerosol pathogen that was stolen by Syria from Russia. The original virus, Marberg is more deadly than Ebola. The Russians have converted the Marberg virus to a new variant called the ∆-Variant, even more, deadly than Marberg. There is the specter that Syria will use this against the Israelis since their loss of the Golan Heights. now being. Between Russia and Syria, the stakes are high in retrieving this pathogen for that Israeli scientists can formulate a countermeasure. David's life changes one day as a Katusha Rocket lands on his home killing his wife and two daughters. After his initial 7-day Jewish tradition of sitting Shiva (Jewish period of mourning), he is called in a few weeks later for his annual physical only to be told he has pancreatic cancer and to get his affairs in order. Having nothing to live for currently, Saul steals the viral pathogen and sets out on a path of revenge to disperse the deadly aerosol pathogen during the coming Hajj in Mecca. Saul and David, lifelong friends have now changed as one plots revenge for those who took his family, while the other becomes the hunter of his best friend to save the world from a nuclear catastrophe that will send the East and West into mutually assured destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667868677

Ken Peters

Dr. Ken Peters is a PhD Int'l Economist, specializing in the Healthcare & Biotechnology area and its impact on worldwide markets & companies. He has been a senior executive for several fortune 500 Healthcare companies for almost 30 years, traveling & living in Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. His PhD as an International Economist in the Biotechnology field provided critical quantitative analysis on International trade policies in healthcare and Biotech markets. In 1997 he founded World Diagnostics Inc. (NASDAQ), a point of care diagnostic test company. Through strategic partnering, acquisitions, and cross-licensing, World Diagnostics applied technological innovation to establish footholds across markets in 55 countries before being acquired. He has assisted start-ups & existing companies in becoming successful through technological change. He has been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal, published in various healthcare trade journals, a recipient of Dx Health Care Awards, and noted in "Who's Who in American Entrepreneurs". Dr. Peters has been 3X (three times) a guest scholar, at the University of Shanghai, lecturing on International Business and is currently lecturing at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He is a senior consultant to Kinetik Corporation an open API platform health care company transforming the "non-emergency medical transportation" industry. Dr. Peters is an author of Biotech thriller novels such as "Off Shore", and his most recent this spring "The Cure". His third biotech thriller "The Hajj Intercept" to be published by the fall of 2022.

Book preview

Cover of The Hajj Intercept by Peters, Ken

Other Thrillers by the Author

The Cure

The Cure is a novel of biological espionage. A sinister group of former European colonialists attempt to alter an HIV vaccine that will result in massive deaths throughout Africa. Can a Biotechnologist who inadvertently tainted the vaccine expose the plot to save millions?

Cuba’s Nuclear Piñata

It’s 1992. Clinton has ascended the Presidency, the Cold War is over, and the West is offering aid for democratization and the dismantling of former Soviet nuclear arsenals. Fidel Castro is left in the lurch with his former Soviet benefactors now bankrupt, and Castro has one last ploy to bring the West to him.

Off Shore

It’s 1985 and the United States is supporting Saddam Hussain in an attempt to defeat Ayatollah Khomeini. Using viral weapons supplied to Saddam by the CIA a water-borne virus is launched into the Iranian desalinization filtration center at Iran’s port of Chabahar on the Sea of Oman.

Dedication

To Les & Peg Stein who after reading my first book and said, Ken you need to write more books. Their words of confidence as avid readers resonated with me that I could write novels. I am forever grateful to you both for helping me to find my greatest adventure in life, writing novels!

Acknowledgments

To Frank Fadil for the cover of this book and the ongoing support of my work. As always to those who read my raw manuscripts, Noel & Susan Weinstock and Les and Peggy Stein. The inspiration for many parts of this book comes from my spy fantasies stories growing up through high school and beyond with my dear friend Alan Ridzinski. Last to Yossi, from the IDF, whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons but who led me through Tel Aviv and who smoked way too many cigarettes. Thank you, Yossi for the time spent in the underground tunnels and for getting me to truly understand the bunker mentality with which all Israelis live on a daily basis. That gravitas brought the numerous characters in this book alive.

THE HAJJ INTERCEPT

Copyright © 2024 Ken Peters. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-66786-866-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66786-867-7

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions,

and organizations in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or their names have been changed, whether in Israel or elsewhere in the world

in a fictitious manner without intent to describe their actual conduct.

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Genesis

Chapter 2 The Kibbutz

Chapter 3 Yom Kippur War

Chapter 4 Mossad Basic Training

Chapter 5 Secret Soldiers Come Home

Chapter 6 Finding ladies not girls

Chapter 7 The Intifada

Chapter 8 Relationships, Marriage and Families

Chapter 9 The Mission

Chapter 10 At Home

Chapter 11 Enter the Lion’s Den

Chapter 12 The Prize comes home

Chapter 13 Shiva, a time of mourning

Chapter 14 Revenge is justice

Chapter 15 A time of revelation

Chapter 16 The hunt

Epilogue

Preface

The story of Israel began five thousand years ago, the Middle East was a problematic issue since the beginning of time. Indeed, the region was the seat of early civilization and thought, from when Hebrews were nomadic shepherds until the birth of Christ, after his death, to the start of Christianity until Mohammad began Islam around 700 AD. Add WWII, when the Europeans created new nations and boundaries to divide the oil reserves based on their self-serving desires equally. It’s no wonder how these evolved tribal entities were now diasporic in their monotheistic thought. When one considers the diversity of their fundamental religious thought, albeit they each derived centrally from the concept of monotheism, no one can dispute the emerging conflicts.

As WWII ended, the real victors were the European nations. As modern industrialized nations grew, oil was the primary ingredient to drive transportation and industrial strength. Oil had become the ten-ton elephant in the room. It was the future gold of the modern industrialized 20th Century. Post-WWII, the world’s nations tended to give purchase to the idea that the Jews, as a group, had been displaced and suffered through time from the Egyptians’ enslavement to the Holocaust in Germany. On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of Israel’s Jewish state. The state of Israel and its lands were all part of former Arab land. The United Nations recognized that the Jews were the rightful ancestors of this land derived from their history and part of their diaspora. Through this action, the bitterness grew to an escalating explosive level as those Arabs who owned the orchards and farms had to accept the United Nations resolution.

The genesis before the inception of the United Nations began in 1917 when Palestine came under Britain’s control towards the end of WWI, which supported a Jewish state in the holy land. Sympathy for the Jewish cause grew even more significant during the genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust. In 1946, the Palestine issue was brought before the newly created United Nations, and a partition plan was drafted. The project organized Palestine into three Jewish sections, four Arab sections, and the Internationally Administered City of Jerusalem. This division of the former Arab lands had staunch support from Western nations and the Soviet Union. Arab countries opposed it; however, six months later, on May 14, 1948, Jewish leaders in the region formed the state of Israel. The British troops left, and thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled. By 1967 Arab hostilities over losing their land to Israel’s state had finally boiled over. The Arab armies invaded Israel, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, et al. In the Arab Israeli War, Israel defeated its enemies. It was the first of many wars fought between Israel and its neighbors, and it has continued, if even in lesser war actions, until the present.

Since then, Israel has flourished with technologies, irrigating farms, and orchards, and it has grown into a thriving modern nation. It was first agriculturally and then industrializing, rivaling Europe and America’s evolved modern development and technology. Conversely, the Palestinians were plagued with anger constantly reinforced by their leaders, who found wealth and power in maintaining hostilities. Therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare would say, the world wanted its oil and cared little for the Palestinians’ arguments. As violence and rebellion against Israel grew, so did the Western world perceive Israel as the victim of this violence; however, many liberals in the latter part of the 20th Century supported the Palestinians. Hence, the modern world and the UN as mediators of world conflicts were divided.

The argument of what was right, who had rights, where, and for which real estate, has been the bane of the Middle East since the inception of the state of Israel and has only grown with intensity. While growing in stature and sophistication, Israel’s plight of the Palestinians only grew worse. In 1992, Yasar Arafat at the Oslo Accords offered the Palestinians 96% of everything the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) wanted. Yet, Yasar Arafat, the leader of the PLO, turned down this peace offering. It was a frequent scenario amongst leaders of the disenfranchised side in many ways. The movement towards peace was at the feet of the Palestinian leaders but accepting the 96% solution meant the end to the conflict, which did not preserve their power. Keeping peace elusive was key to their power.

This constant conflict only gave rise to Israel’s bunker mentality. With it was born the secret service known as the Mossad. Some say the Irgun was the forerunner of the Mossad as the OSS was for the American CIA. Still, the Mossad key leaders were mainly those former freedom fighters who later became an essential part of Israel’s security against external threats to its nation’s survival. Life between the Israelis and Palestinians was constant, with ongoing rouge and terrorist battles. After the war, it has been an ongoing was tit for tat in offensive strikes. The Palestinians would strike a guerrilla blow against an Israeli city through various independent groups. In return, Israel would pound them back with its massive military force. With this ultimately came a border fence between territories. The border fence only incited further violence and anger for many Palestinians who worked inside Israel. The border fence became more than a simple impediment to entering Israel daily, it was a daily reminder of their oppression and loss of their perceived former homeland. Most of, if not all, crossing this fence came for work in Israel, and they depended on these jobs for their livelihood. It was only a matter of time before one strike against the other side would be the grain of salt that would tilt the anger scales. The world would no longer be able to avoid their conflict erupting into a world conflict. This is the story of two prodigies who were both born of Holocaust survivors after the 1973 war until the present day.

Chapter 1

Genesis

David and Saul were both sons of Holocaust survivor families who resettled in Israel from Germany after Israel had become a state in 1947. Both families had suffered tremendous loss of life in their respective families at the concentration camps during WWII. Both of them were the offspring of parents who both met at a Kubutz in a city called Rehovot (Hebrew: ). A town in the Central District of Israel, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Tel Aviv, Today, it has a population of approximately 1,435,000 million. Therein David and Saul’s parents met each other. They worked together at the na’an Kibbutz, and it was there that these two families built a strong bond of friendship as each of their families grew there respectively.

The Ganz’s, Saul’s parents, were Myron and Sylvia. They had met during their detention at Buchenwald Concentration camp. After the camps were liberated, they were each their sole family survivors of the Holocaust. It wasn’t unusual for only survivors to find that common bond during the first few days of liberation. When the US soldiers liberated Buchenwald, they were both lucky versus those camps liberated by Russian soldiers. The US forces were in disbelief at what they saw. General Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, I want all of this recorded on film because some bastard years from now will claim this never happened. The US command policy was to keep all prisoners in their respective camps for a limited period, a few weeks. Simultaneously, the soldiers used surviving camp prisoners to help identify any Nazis who may have taken allied forces uniforms to darn upon themselves or concentration camp prisoner uniforms to blend into the surviving prisoners. US military policy provided all survivors shelter via tents, food, clothing, and medical treatment during this interim time.

Myron and Sylvia met on a food line and began chatting by happenstance. They both learned they had come from the same small village outside of Krakow during this time. While receiving lunch one day on the ration line, Myron stood behind Sylvia, and she bumped into Myron. He turned and, with a laugh, said, Excuse me, madam, but should this be the last plate, rest assured, as a gentleman, I will give you mine. They each laughed at how incredible it was as safety was upon them for the first time in four years. Hence, both appreciated the joke with enormity. After receiving their plates, they seemed to gravitate to each other, smiling at the situation and sitting alongside broken benches. Sylvia spoke first, saying, So where was your family from?

Myron explained he was from a small village in Poland outside of Krakow called Rzaska. Sylvia exclaimed, Amazing, how can that be? She continued, My family was also from Rzaska. Myron responded, Well, the Nazis seemed to have done some homework to have been polite enough to keep the people from the same towns together! Sylvia smirked and said, I doubt they were so concerned, but perhaps that we meet as such is undoubtedly a sign it was Kismet? Myron replied, Not likely but simple happenstance; however, I am pleased I bumped your arm on the ration line. They continued to see where or how it was possible they were both from Rzaska, yet they had not known each other. As they continued, they each knew some of the same families. Sylvia explained her father was a butcher. Myron explained that his father was a leather tanner, so perhaps through their family’s merchant businesses, there was ample reason for each to be familiar with many of the same families from the village. As the banter continued, the discussion naturally being recently liberated to a more somber tone as they asked each other about their respective families. Myron said first, I’m the sole survivor of my family. I was taken away from my mother and father to Buchenwald Auschwitz as the Nazis deemed them too old to work in the camps. I never saw them again. My brother came with me to Lutsk. We were rounded up by the Nazis and taken to Auschwitz.

While Myron’s family were leather tanners, seeing that their respective parents dealt with livestock, a butcher processing meat, and a tanner who processed the skins, it wasn’t a surprise they would be familiar with some of the same families. However, they had never crossed paths as teenagers. After three weeks of the two of them assisting the allied forces in emptying the camp, both Myron and Sylvia had developed a strong bond. They discovered each of their family lives was much more religious and observant. Consequently, they found an even stronger bond in their view of God’s purpose to have permitted such an atrocity as they experienced. Their bond seemed immediate with the horror they had both lived through. Their love had sprung out of loneliness and their connection from their former home villages. Seeing they came from the same foundations, their affection for each other multiplied within the few weeks of working for the Americans. Their Judaism and faith further deepened their relationship together. Perhaps not quite family, but this seemed as close as a family could feel as sole survivors given their past.

Over the weeks spent together, Sylvia and Myron realized that they both came from deeply religious families. They had discussed the idea of emigration to Israel. Considering that both lost their entire families, God must have indeed meant for them to meet in this way and head for Palestine to build a new life together. While neither of them was ready for commitments, Myron and Sylvia agreed to make their way to Palestine to seek a new life once freed from the camp. It seemed it was God’s will.

David’s family, Irving and Selma Katz shared a similar story. They met after the camp’s liberation, but they shared medical duties as Selma was a nurse and Irving was a doctor in their professions. Once the military command identified their previous occupations. Irving and Selma were tasked to work together to screen survivors who were fit to leave from those in critical condition and needed urgent acute treatment at a local hospital. Unlike Myron and Sylvia’s departure after a week, Irving and Selma were there together for more than three weeks until all camp survivors were gone. Different from Myron and Sylvia, Irving and Selma were educated. They had medical degrees, and God had a different definition for them. Yes, they were proud of their Jewish heritage but could not accept that God created Hitler to test the Jews.

Irving was the son of a doctor, and from his early years, he excelled in biology and other sciences while going to school. His father often spoke at the dinner table of the patients he had treated that day. There was a humanity Irving found during these dinners listening to his father. He felt immense pride in what his father was doing in helping humankind, people! It was inspiring for Irving. Between his seemingly natural abilities in his study of Biology, it was a natural fit after university to move on to medical school. He had graduated in the early 1930s before the fundamental transformation of Nazi Germany, and he began a practice in Dusseldorf. Selma was the daughter of two educators. Her father was a secondary school chancellor, while her mother was a university professor of philosophy. Selma was raised with an extreme socialist and secular foundation. Her parents were not atheists and did believe life was more than what they could perceive in the world around them however the idea of the almighty God rising above and predetermining all destinies they found difficult to hold to as educated individuals. Irving and Selma truly fell into the class agnostics. They believed in a higher sense of life but they were not enticed to religion per se other than their keen sense of the values that have been handed down through the generations and the history of Jewish thought. They profoundly and sincerely thought education was the solution to a better society, which only bore fruits to enlightened humanity. They understood that lesser educated people were often easily led down a dark path when poverty needed a scapegoat. It was sadly part of human nature but nevertheless ingrained and clearly, they saw this was the path Hitler used to gain the support of the masses in Germany by the mid-30s as he gained momentum.

While Selma was at university, her parents suggested she go into nursing as