“So. Here we are. What can I help you with this time?” Halevy smiled without humor.
“We’re grateful to you for coming tonight,” Ari said from his perch on the corner of the table. He didn’t like bringing people in for questioning in the middle of the night; he put himself in their place and resented the Service for it. Usually, he thought, it was unnecessary.
Kristall gave Ari a harsh look. “Dr. Halevy, one question. Tell us everything you can about the Mishmar.” She sat back in her chair and exhaled smoke.
“One question, madam? One question? One question like that will take a long time to answer. Why don’t you ask me another question…explain nuclear physics, for example?”
She took a long draught of coffee and put it down.
Halevy sighed and answered in a weighty French accent. “The Mishmar? We are patriots. We are a patriotic group. We are Zionists.”
“Who want to build the Temple on Mount Zion.”
“Yes, that is one of our aims.”
“And how do you plan to carry out this aim of yours?”
“With the help of God.” He answered her stare with his own.
“You don’t contemplate helping him along with the job?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean plotting to remove the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount. To make God’s job a little easier?”
Halevy reared back as if slapped, then began to laugh.
“You can giggle later. For the moment, I want you to answer my question,” Kristall said in a ragged voice. Halevy stopped laughing.
“You take me from my house and my wife in the night. You bring me to this ‘office,’ this torture chamber. And then you demand my respect.”
“Professor, I’m prepared to keep you from your house and your wife in this torture chamber, as you call it, for many more nights. As soon as I have what I need from you, you may go home.”
Halevy grimaced. “No, no. Of course not. There is no such plot. Our group exists to keep the hope of the Temple alive. To prepare for the day.”
“The day?”
“The day that Israel takes back what is rightfully ours. In 1967 our troops took the Temple Mount and then the secularists in the government turned it back to the Muslims. It was treason. So we march, we protest, we raise money, we prepare—but everything we do is legal, peaceful, within the law.”
“So…what do you plan to do? Offer the Waqf enough money and they turn their Haram al-Sharif over to you?”
“We plan to continue what we’ve been doing. That’s all.”
“And so you’ve prepared priestly costumes, ritual items like the menorah and incense burners—all this just in case God decides to sweep the Muslim shrines off the Mount and give you a building license?”
“We propose to bring about the Temple through peaceful means.”
“Such as? How do you propose to ‘peacefully’ erase the Dome of the Rock?”
Halevy was tired. They both knew there was no good answer to the question, so he stared at her impatiently.
Kristall reached for an evidence bag and pulled out Shor’s photograph of the Temple model. “And you know nothing about this writing?”
“Nothing at all, as I told your friend here earlier.”
“What do you know about the gold ring Emanuel Shor wore?”
“It was a gold ring. What is there to know?”
“What does the name ‘Chandos’ mean to you?”
“You’re joking. Chandos? You mean the man who killed the Pope? Who doesn’t know that name?”
“Why was Emanuel Shor in the nanotechnology center on Sabbath? On a holy day?”
“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. And so have your people.”
“Why did Shor have a red circuit on his GeM?”
“What is a ‘red circuit’?”
Kristall beamed a photo of Nasir al-Ayoub from her GeM onto the table. “This man…do you recognize him?”
Halevy barely looked at it and shook his head.
“Dr. Halevy, you are a dry fountain.”
“Then may I go?” He stood; his shapeless linen clothes were creased with sweat.
“Not yet. I have one more question… Now you may explain nuclear physics.”
Irritated, Halevy arose and went to the door. It was locked.
“I’m quite serious, Dr. Halevy. I want you to explain to the officer here about the lattice,” she indicated Ari.
Halevy sighed. “I suppose you have cleared this.”
“Inspector Davan is now on the need-to-know list.”
Ari looked up in surprise; Kristall had changed her mind. But he leaned forward intently.
“All right, Inspector. If it will speed things up.” Halevy stood by the door, looked at Ari with contempt, and began speaking rapidly. “The lattice is a nanoelectronic device composed of quantum dots wired in cadence to each other within a silicon matrix…”
“We can stay here all night, Dr. Halevy. Some people think I live here, and it’s very nearly true,” Kristall said.
Halevy sank back into his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. “How do I explain this to a dolt?” He was quiet; then he seemed to gain new energy.
“Levinsky and I became interested years ago in what are called ‘designer atoms.’ The idea is this: an atom is made up of a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by orbiting electrons. The number of these particles dictates the kind of atom it is. The lowest number of electrons occurring in a natural element is one—hydrogen. The maximum number that occurs in nature is 92—uranium. Atoms that heavy are unstable and give off particles in the form of radiation.
“Suppose, however, that you could trick electrons into orbiting an artificial nucleus. Then by adding and taking away electrons you could change any element into any other element—like changing lead to gold and back again.
“Such an artificial nucleus is called a quantum dot; we can create it in the laboratory.” Halevy stood. “And that’s what we call a ‘designer atom.’ ”
He held his hands up to the bare lamp hanging from the ceiling and laced his fingers together. A cross-hatched shadow fell on the table. “Now picture a lattice made of silicon threads, woven like a basket, with many of these designer atoms embedded in the spaces between the threads. You flood the lattice with, let’s say, seventy-nine electrons per dot. The result?”
Ari answered immediately. “Gold.”
Halevy was delighted. “You know! You’re not such a dolt after all.” He wiggled his crossed fingers and laughed. “Gold! Number seventy-nine on the periodic table of elements. The lattice turns to gold! You can pump electrons in and out of the lattice, changing the number at will many times a second.”
“You mean, you can turn silicon into gold?”
“Or any other element you wish, although you’d be wise to create the ambient temperature the element needs to remain solid—hydrogen, for example, dissipates into a gas at room temperature.”
“Which is why Levinsky’s laboratory