Traveller Manifesto
70. Israel - Today

Israel – Today.

“God, I’m bored,” complained Osborne. For what must have been the millionth time he thought of Nuray, where his time would be more productively spent. He missed her.

Leishman gave a chuckle. “I suppose there’s only so many times we can visit Old Jerusalem,” he agreed.

“Yeah,” grumbled Morris, “The tourists are beginning to piss me off! I don’t mind when they just look around, but it’s when they stop and break out into hymns that gets to me.”

“It’s the usual thing, the waiting,” confirmed Leishman.

“Waiting for something that might not happen,” growled Osborne in irritation. “At least on a mission we know our skills will be used. Here, it’s all diplomatic. We’re just a friggin’ token.”

Hurley grunted in agreement. He was another who was becoming more irritated by the waste of time their inspection team was becoming. He had contracts he and Helen were working on. She was pregnant with their second child and preferred that he was around. Much as he would hate to admit it, Hurley was now unashamedly domesticated.

They lounged in a sitting room in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem that had been their base for over two weeks. Their initial visit seemed to make progress, but then the predicted stonewall happened. It was, Osborne conceded, the oldest trick in the book. Each secretly wondered if they could achieve anything, if they weren’t just wasting their time. “I was supposed to be on leave,” complained Osborne.

“What are the rest of your old team doing?” asked Leishman.

“Well, they’ve scattered to the four winds. Hami’s back in New Zealand to visit his family and some of the old New Zealand Travellers and Parker’s already back on the job with the British Army. He’ll be training more Brits. The lads there have been giving him a hard time about being a famous Traveller, but he’s one of the best trainers there is.

“I hear he’s turned traitor and accepted a commission,” added Hurley. “The bastard’s now a captain.”

Osborne chuckled. The divide between non-commissioned and commissioned officers was legendary, especially in the British military. Nothing more needed to be said. “Poxon’s in New Zealand too,” he added.

“Things must be getting serious then,” laughed Morris. Poxon had met a pretty Maori lass when training in New Zealand for Saxon Traveller and, to the surprise of all, had returned on a number of occasions to visit.

“He might stay there a while,” confirmed Osborne. “I had the New Zealand military contact me about something Poxon might want to be part of. It seems there’s a combined Pacific Island approach to a Traveller mission.”

“Bloody hell! That sounds interesting!” exclaimed Hurley. “What are they thinking, going sailing around the Pacific?”

“No idea, but that would be fun,” Osborne admitted, quietly impressed with such a concept. “As you know, Poxon is quite a lad. He’ll no doubt let me know when he has it all sorted. Talk about sailing, Chuck’s taken a few months to get to know his missus again. He just sent me an email yesterday. She wanted to go on a Caribbean cruise, so Chuck followed. He said the passengers are some of the fattest bastards he’s ever seen. His comment was that he had never seen so much neck-fat in all of his life.”

“He’s probably complaining because there are too few pretty girls to gawk at,” laughed Hurley. “I’ve never met Chuck’s missus. What’s she like?”

Osborne wrinkled up his nose, at which Hurley laughed. “Like that, hey?”

“We had Hami chat with us about Chuck,” chuckled Leishman.

“Yeah,” agreed Morris. “They’re good buddies now, but Hami had some funny things to say.”

Osborne nodded. “Well, I can’t say anything because he’s a mate, but when it comes to Chuck’s wife, think of someone who’s as attractive as Chuck, only two or three times as big.”

“Jesus!” exclaimed Morris. “Hami didn’t tell us that. But what he did tell us was that she seems to have this thing for a little dog she absolutely loves. Apparently, it’s one of those highly strung, shitty little Chihuahuas that snarls at everyone.”

Osborne smiled. “Well you have that right. You know what it’s like. When their men aren’t ever at home, many of the wives go loopy.”

“Or screw around,” continued Hurley cynically.

“Yeah, but if you saw Chuck’s wife, you would understand that she’s just gone loopy,” continued Osborne.

“Hami swears that he saw her tongue-kiss that little mutt,” Leishman exclaimed in awe. “He also reckons she regularly cleans the crusty bits out of its eyes and feeds them to it.”

“Okay! That’s it! I’m gonna hurl!” exclaimed Morris with his hand dramatically clamped over his mouth. There was a burst of loud laughter.

“Yeah! Change subjects!” laughed Hurley. “What of our ginger mate? How’s McFee?”

Osborne looked up with a small frown. “You know McFee. He’s a great bloke and he did a sterling job, but the situation in old Constantinople rattled him. He’d never admit it, but he needs to get that shit out of his head. He’s taking a bit of leave with his wife in Scotland.”

“I’ve never met his wife,” nodded Leishman. “What’s she like?”

“Lovely,” added Hurley. “She’s a lovely, patient woman. Quiet, all peaches and cream and thinks the sun shines out of McFee’s arse. I can imagine she won’t be letting him go too soon.”

“Yeah,” agreed Osborne. “I think she’s be working on creating their own little tribe of gingers.”

Morris nodded, his expression unusually sombre. “Good on them,” he murmured quietly. Osborne noticed the Canadian had started to regrow a flamboyant Saxon moustache and looked to Hurley who had shared a few deep secrets about the big Canadian. Something he had heard from Hunter. He mentally shrugged. Who cared anyway? The man was a legend.

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Zak, who burst into their reverie with an excited cry. “Hey guys! Great news! Have you seen the latest from WikiLeaks?”

Osborne had never thought they would make any serious headway with the Israelis. Though Israeli Defence had been polite, they blocked every request for interviews or site access that would allow the team to determine if they were using stolen Traveller technology. That in itself didn’t surprise any of them, after all, the Israelis he had worked with were always tough, stubborn and predictably unbending. Any technological breakthroughs they were using would have been most likely from the Americans, but now the allegations were in the open it seemed the shit had really hit the fan and all sorts of high-profile people were running for cover.

What made matters worse was Professor Taylor’s liaison with the international media. As threatened, he had confirmed the real purpose of their fact-replaceing tour. Backed by the WikiLeaks documents, what could have been a quirky story soon became sensational, for their presence supported the WikiLeaks claims.

“To make matters even more interesting,” continued Zak as he explained the situation to the bored soldiers, “Professor Taylor has been contacted by an academic who is allegedly involved in the Israel Traveller mission. Her name is Professor Rita DeMille from the American Jewish University and she has broken ranks to provide us with a summary of their efforts so far. Like you suggested, Colonel Osborne, they have not only created their own Transporters, but they have four! It seems that they have taken a Transporter through to the time of 1000 AD, set it up, then Travelled back to Roman times.”

“Jesus!” exclaimed Morris.

“No, no sign of him yet,” countered Zak.

Morris frowned and then smiled and nodded as he pointed at him. “You’re getting quicker!”

Zak continued as if he had not heard. “Hear this! They made contact with a Roman patrol. And guess who’s leading the mission on the ground?”

“Anderson,” predicted Hurley.

“Correct!” exclaimed Zak, pointing his own finger like the barrel of a gun. “The funniest thing is that we’ve only just received all of this information. I mean, having Professor Taylor, and Valeria from the UN is scary enough, but when faced with the legal ramifications of my presence, it seems their strategy was to have us stew until we decided to go home. But with the Wikipedia leaks and global news releases about us being here, the media had finally got off their lazy arses and are now going to make a meal of it. I understand the US President has already been approached and swears no knowledge.”

“Shit!” exclaimed Osborne, impressed. “So, where does that leave us?” Their previous malaise had fled and each looked excited and ready for action.

“We have a meeting with General Goren within the hour,” replied Zak.

“Alright!” exclaimed Leishman as he punched the air. “Maybe he’s regained some of his memory.”