Back in 1979 I had the perfect start. My initial doctoral research coincided with the emerging Star Wars – not the movie – but President Reagan’s aptly nicknamed Strategic Defense Initiative. SDI promised to umbrella the U.S.A. against intercontinental missile attack.

SDI would require impregnable inter-communications. To destroy a first strike in the minutes available, the computerized weapons must cooperatively calculate targets without human assistance – ‘autonomously’, to quote the vernacular. No chain of command could analyze an attack and implement the optimal defense in time.

Some researchers argued that trusting this critical task to the computers and their encoded communications was unprofessional. Not me, not then. It was only logical. There was no workable alternative. And for a budding computer science academic in Australia, SDI assured me a global audience. Star status at international conferences beckoned. Geek paradise. Wahoo!

Don’t get me wrong. I did have a moral compass too. I just preferred to use it at peace on a yacht. No flies on this suntanned sailor. If I played my hand smartly this bedraggled if not blond beach bum could grow up in a well-paid job for life. All I needed was a seaside university to love my Star Wars work.

Yet in the end my contribution amounted to little in the big-bang cosmos that ballooned from billions of bucks of SDI investment. My nerdy algorithm simply matched patterns in textual characters. But it could also find similarities in encoded messages. Efficiently, very efficiently. So my research conversely facilitated the design of U.S. ciphers with fewer pattern-matching possibilities. This marginally lessened their vulnerability to enemy decryption. Hurrah!

***

In the beginning I naïvely swallowed the U.S. public relations spiels that masturbated global SDI research. Then during 1980 I discovered my work was attracting invisible funding. What’s wrong with that? Scholars usually have to beg for support. Well I found the U.S. Department of Defense was funding around eighty percent of all militarily significant IT research, worldwide. Admittedly, most of their greenbacks were laundered via local agencies and friendly governments. However, none of these institutions, including my university, distinguished between offensive and defensive applications.

This unsolicited and unsavory Star Wars experience ultimately convinced me that military IT research remains in Dr Strangelove territory. It will always feed on delusions of grandeur, leading inexorably to the same old doomsday status quo, the aptly acronymed ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’.

But I was only a handsome twenty-five year old then, and on the back of SDI, soon fortuitously to be Doctor Ivor Jo. So what if I was embroiled in military IT? It’s a high-octane field. And I wasn’t killing and maiming, merely fending off potential aggressors. Anyway, the computer was already the universal weapon – just embed it in the peripheral of choice – a missile, tank, fighter plane or warship.

By 1982 this toys-for-the-boys playground was on the cusp of launching the next dimension – experimental Star Wars paraphernalia. I couldn’t wait. Sure, the literally spatial scale of the necessary computer network was daunting – a juggernaut in the making. And if realized – wait for it – this net could never be fully tested, not even after deployment, obviously.

For us IT experts, SDI engineering posed formidable challenges. For everyone else, I assumed the ethical miasma would eventually ring ‘apocalypse now’ bells. Then the SDI would never fully lift off. Wrong! It was only numerical logistics that gradually white-anted the project; cutbacks followed. Deployment never eventuated. I was cheesed, if a little relieved. Worse, I was grounded too, and after tasting glamour I was getting bored.

Melbourne University of Technologies, April 1982

Languishing back at MUT, my doctoral thesis procrastinated while I awaited my next big break. With the SDI wind gone from my sails, I was stagnating. At least I had built up my teaching profile by cultivating the best undergraduates for me to later supervise as PhD candidates. I would need research assistants to enhance my promotion prospects. But I did not anticipate my very first, soon to be favorite student, Halima Haddad. She was so shy and reticent entering my office to introduce herself, Halima simply handed me the following hand-written note.

Students are bustling along the main corridor, under the gaze of the celebrated computer scientists and illustrious information technologists: Grace Hopper, Von Neumann, Floyd, Turing, Dijkstra, Knuth, Ritchie, Babbage, Pearcy, Sutherland and Boole. [As I read this I recognize the photo filled corridor leading to our main lecture theatre at MUT.]

One woman stands out, but not because her piercing vision penetrates the distance – all the portraits stare at infinity. I am the outstanding one because the whites of my Arabian eyes are the only features visible beneath my cream headscarf draped over a black shirt and long skirt. [I conclude this must be Halima; she’s dressed the same.]

Despite my compulsory garb, I am dying to be inconspicuous. I slink along the wall, blinking furtive snap-shots of the throng, hardly glimpsing the celebrity gallery. I shoulder a large bag on my left. My right hand presses its open top close to my side. I sidestep all oncomers, repelling their eye contact without ever looking down, not once. [I cannot help wondering – is she claustrophobic or agoraphobic?]

A gunshot explodes and echoes. It misses me – unless the shock is yet to register. I am not dead, or I would not have heard the whistle and thud into me. I instinctively draw my pistol, and with my left hand push the holster bag across my torso for protection. I drop to my left knee and lean against the wall for stability. Safety off, I scan the corridor along the barrel – left, right and left again, as though I am about to J-walk. Stampeding bodies in Brownian motion part before my sight like the Red Sea. Crowd hysteria mounts in my ringing ears. [I’m speechless. Is Halima delusional? Paranoid?]

Halima Haddad eventually told me she relived this nightmare after every one of my lectures in the theatre at the end of her ambush corridor. She also confessed that she first warmed to me above her other lecturers because I was younger like her three brothers. They were clearly her heroes back home in Lebanon. And she adored thick curly hair, in my case prematurely distinguished salt and pepper. My gentle voice and informality also attracted her, she confided. Okay by me.

It was only after Halima survived several of my lectures that she resolved to visit my office. She was desperate to implore me to let her enter MUT’s most cavernous theatre via the staff-only entrance at the rear. But in case she couldn’t find the right words when meeting me face-to-face, she was prepared to hand me her extraordinary account to read. And it did knock me off my perch for good.

Eba Anchorage, South Australia, 4 June 2018

Riding out a storm in Denial Bay finds me annotating my autobiography following a career I entered as a scholar and lately exited as a spy. I am specifically revising the early eighties, just before I became Dr Ivor Jo. With a glint of silicon in my eye, I had embarked on the ark of academia. I aimed to rise above the flood of commercial IT professions – sales engineering, support technician – that swallowed my less snobbish and more materialistic peers.

Although I had almost earned my doctoral credentials, I still preferred the student entrance to each theatre I lectured in. Perhaps a less pretentious entry reduced my dread of delivering faux pas. It was not that my imminent PhD contributed naught to the mundane lecture syllabus. Most academics suffer this perennial mis-match. Our expertise hardly ever informs lowly undergraduate lecturing. But I was determined not to merely regurgitate textbook knowledge.

Mounting the stage and approaching the lectern always drew me into the spotlight – an exhilarating but dreadful prospect. As silence fell clumsily, my ears always buzzed, until the instant I spoke. That tingle lasted the next twenty plus years, even after my fledgling academic career completely masked another calling – one that began when Halima Haddad called into my office on April Fools day, 1982.

My office, 1 April 1982

When a distinctive ratta-tat-tat rattled my office door, I opened it to a young Islam attired woman. She immediately handed me a hand-written page. As I read it with increasing alarm I recalled seeing this student several times before. She always sat alone at the rear of our main theatre, left shoulder against the wall. My eagle eye always spotted her. She definitely did not belong with the usual back row rascals at MUT – the mostly male in-crowd that inhabits the peanut gallery and interrupts my thought train.

Once I finished reading I still needed to process the incongruous contents. I randomly hit some buttons on a few of the devices littering my den. An awkward silence prevailed. Thankfully a couple of lights blinked.

“Sir,” she interrupted, “crowds scare me, terrify me really. May I please use the staff entrance to your lectures, the door at the back?”

I despised students – or staff – beating about the bush, but coming to the point this quickly was unheard of. She certainly wasn’t timid, but normally reticent I guessed. I motioned her to a seat. “I’m Ivor. And you are …?”

“Halima Haddad, sir.” Standing to attention, she continued quickly, “If I can avoid the crowd and get into theatre early I can relax and pay attention as soon as the other students settle.”

“No problem, Halima; you can use the staff-only entry-slash-exit.” I hesitated. “But do you realize, over the next three years of your IT degree here at MUT, you will have to negotiate other theatres? Not all have back doors – not even in these enlightened eighties.” Halima failed to follow my overly subtle and equally lame attempt at esoteric academic humor. I moved on. “Um, have you seen anyone about your phobia – your fear of crowds? Perhaps we can help. Please sit down. Agoraphobia is treatable, you know.”

Halima still stood stiffly, just inside the doorway to my dingy box of an office strewn with books, papers and hardware. As I placed her note on my cluttered desk, she lightly waved the door closed behind her, perhaps hoping I would not notice or object. Clunk. I did ignore the door, though it should remain open when meeting a student of the opposite sex. Rules!

I decided to sit down, to see if she would follow. Halima moved her right hand from the shoulder bag to her covered brow. Sensing an easing of tension, I suggested again, “Please, take a seat.” Reluctantly she obliged, briefly closing her striking eyes as if to compose herself before reciting what I soon decided was her well-rehearsed background.

“I am Druze from Lebanon. You know there is war with Israeli invaders?” Surprised – not by the news, but by her unexpected announcement – I nodded without thinking. “We also fight civil war with the Phalange of the ruling Christian Maronites, the PLO of the usurping Palestinians, and the militias of the Syrian backed Sunnis.” My eyebrows arched, incredulous. “We are Arab, but not Palestinian, and Muslim, but not the five pillars of Islam. We worship in churches, mosques, synagogues – anywhere.”

I tentatively raised a finger, wanting to incidentally mention the habits of hermit crabs. Luckily, Halima continued unabated, “We Druze are in the middle. My three brothers fight in the streets of Beirut against all these enemies. I will fight there again at the end of each year of my studies here in Australia.”

I felt like a zombie caught in her headlights. Halima finally slowed and confided, “In Melbourne I am nothing to the Jews. I start no fight here.” But with her eyes ablaze, she warned, “Still, I have international pistol permit.” Opening her bag toward me, “Look, I have Makarov.” I automatically leaned forward to glimpse a black semi-automatic, as far as I could tell. Reeling back, I struggled for composure. Staring down the barrel, so to speak, I reasoned that even asking to sight a licence would be pointless. Halima seemed to take my startled moments of silence as acquiescence. Perhaps she appreciated my non-threatening informality. Little did she know I was simply dumbfounded, shell-shocked – a stunned mullet, as my father used to say.

“In Beirut I use AK-47 – you know Kalashnikov?” I grinned stupidly. “Russians supply all our guns, bombs too. Kalash is best in dusty dry terrain, you know,” and lifting her arm, “lighter too. Never jam like American crap – ooh, sorry sir.” I smiled meekly, too befuddled to animate any other response. “My brothers and I track enemy through the bombed out buildings in Beirut. We keep off rooftops to avoid Israeli gunships. We snipe, we ambush, we trap – we win.”

“Halima,” I interjected finally, “I think we should concentrate on your studies, and how I can help you.” I scrambled to anticipate how my colleagues would handle this situation. Oddly I imagined Dr Jacob Stein’s rabbinical rhetoric swathed in secular euphemisms. At that, a wry grimace started to replace my blank countenance.

I conjured an impossibility – Jacob and Halima putting aside their respective dress ‘weapons’ before a dialogue could begin – Jacob disrobing the tassels if not the yarmulke, and Halima the veil if not the burka. Without their imposing garments, could there perhaps be a chance to ignore the historical intransigence of biblical proportions?

Unfortunately my lingering sneer prompted a touch of paranoia in Halima, or was it persecution? “I am strong, very strong. You will see. I work and study alone, like a dog with a bone.” Realizing I had been misinterpreted, I raised an apologetic hand. Without acknowledging it, Halima softened slightly. “I usually hunt alone too. Radio between us no good, you understand – enemy listen too. I see target so I stalk. No time for backup. Sometimes I spend day and night tracking my prey.”

She leaned forward, “Once, a Phalange sniper dog waited in hiding for me. He singed my hair with his point-blank shot.” Ridiculously, I wondered what color her hair was. “Instinctively I fired back. Another time I could have frozen instead, you know. His single shot might’ve been a warning. But I didn’t give him another chance. I shot volley and hit him here,” grasping her throat. “He gurgled Hebrew words. Surprising for a Christian Phalangist – yes? I waited for his throes to die, then checked if he was cut – down there.” She was pointing at my groin.

As I looked back up, her eyes twinkled impishly. “Now Mossad assassins after me too, you think?” I just blinked, flustered. Then almost drawn in, I nearly queried if Maronite Christians or even Druze are ever circumcised like Jews. (Curiosity has always been an incorrigible illness we scholars suffer.) But I resisted asking; too embarrassed anyway.

Days later I was still pondering how improbable a non-Jew’s dying words in Hebrew sounded.

Streaky Bay, South Australia, 8 June 2018

Dragging one’s anchor can lead to trouble. I should know. I recall around the time of the first Lebanon War (1982) the TV news kept up rumors of Israeli Special Forces operating undercover in the Phalange ranks. The world paid little attention. But many Lebanese disapproved of the Maronite leadership soliciting Israel’s support. Hence I reasoned any Israeli grunt on the ground in Beirut would strive to remain incognito. So a Jewish ‘Phalangist’ could account for Halima’s bizarre observation. Ultimately the full explanation would prove more grotesque.

Counseling 101, my office, still April Fools day 1982

Halima’s outpouring was wilting my resolve to maintain a professional distance and focus. In fact I was feeling increasingly impotent, despite being fascinated by her. I searched myself for answers while Halima’s eyes followed me about the congested room.

I sat down again, steadfastly gulped and reiterated, “OK, what can we do to help?” This time Halima fell silent, as if out of ammunition. I offered to tutor her in any courses where crowded classes bothered her too much to attend or concentrate. She carefully inched her chair toward me, shuffling her bag ahead, one eye on the door. I reached for the phone. “We have counselors; I’m sure they can ease your fear of crowds. I’ll arrange an appointment now.”

“No, no!” Halima exploded, already on her feet, reloaded. “You! … I only speak with you. You can help me. Nobody else.”

“I am not a doctor Halima – not one who knows how to fight your fears anyway.”

“Assassins are my only fear.” She leant forward, wagging her trigger finger at me. “They mingle in crowds like snakes in grass. You can help me weed them out. You know your students. You will know any strange face.”

“Halima, that is not my job. Please relax. I must consult other staff about your situation, unique as it is. No matter they are Jewish, Christian or Muslim. What else can I do?” I shrugged, then unfortunately vented my own pent-up bile. “My colleagues may be sanctimonious, supercilious, self-righteous pr… ” – I stopped mid sentence, realizing my vocabulary would not help here. “Sorry.” I took a breath. “Our staff can be non-judgmental, really …” But unable to resist, I added, “… as long as they can pass or share the buck.” Hesitating a moment, I ventured further, “Our Australian authorities should also be notified. Trouble is, I don’t know which agency exactly!”

“No, no, no! Please, no.” Turning left and right Halima rocked back and forth in anguish, not prayer like at the Wailing Wall. Her glowing eyes flitted about. She may have been suppressing frustration or rage for all I knew; her expression was obscured behind the veil. Abruptly, both her hands rose, possibly intending to shake me to my senses. Oddly, my intuition registered neither fright nor flight, but my every sinew tensed. Her palms clapped loudly, and right wrestled left, writhing like sea serpents.

Startled, I jumped up and clasped both her hands in mine. She sobbed just once. I eased her back to her chair, watching single tears form. Yet she never looked away, not once. She slumped, but kept looking me straight in the eye. She made no attempt to first blot or wipe away embarrassment. I realized to offer a tissue or handkerchief would insinuate an insult.

Tissues have long been standard issue for academics interviewing students, especially after exams, but this instance was unique. I somehow knew if I stayed in this job another twenty years, I would never see such raw emotion again. Halima had an aura, an envelope bursting with the force of her fellow kind. Generations of them perhaps. She radiated their predicament.

I, on the other hand, saw myself as a facile one-dimensional agnostic. And though I discounted the power of religion, there was no denying her bursting spirit. Possibly a little of it seeped into me. Over the years my self-imposed isolation from family, tradition and culture had hollowed out a vacuum. But my present veneer could not withstand Halima’s pulse and presence. I sank back into my seat, flattened. On the surface I was flabbergasted by Halima’s eventful young life and the power of her experience. Underneath I was glowing.

No words were spoken while each of us took stock.

I suddenly wondered when my next class started. I jiggled the mouse to refresh the screen. The toolbar’s time relieved me. I muttered to myself, “Or is there a stupid staff meeting this afternoon? Who will be today’s wanky speaker?”

I looked over to Halima. “Listen, let’s both keep all this confidential for now – our secret, ok? Can you meet me tomorrow, same time?” Halima nodded, grasped her bag, focused her eyes, and stood slowly. I almost felt I should shake hands, but she turned away without noticing my ill-formed intention. At the door she paused. I went to open it, but she instantly turned around and took my outstretched hand in both of hers.

The door had already closed when I looked for the lingering sound of the latch. Clunk.

I frittered away the remainder of the day pondering my newly acquired scholastic role – the idealized version, which, thanks to Halima, I was not fulfilling. When I signed-up, the job description did not include counseling student neuroses, just fail-grade snivels. Now post-purchase vacillation was starting to confuse me. Who’s a social worker too? Black-dog blues began to bite.

Smoky Bay, South Australia, 10 June 2018

Rereading the above with hindsight I remember trying at the time to toe the party line. Here’s a journal entry of mine from the period: “Academia is meant to be self-fulfilling. An academic should also be gratified by their contribution to knowledge. Nothing more is necessary. Learning, teaching and research supposedly form a cycle that rolls relentlessly forward, benefiting society. Every scholar pushes the wheel a little further, or a lot, depending on their talent, effort and luck – including inspiration and providence.” Pompous with niggling doubts. I should know.

Fools paradise, early April 1982

So why weren’t interesting peers and problems exciting me as they should? I already suspected the answer, at least for me personally. Computer scientists and engineers – the ‘producers’ of IT – too readily became the guinea-pig means to an end, specimens in hypotheticals devised by the conspiracy of commercial IT ‘sellers’ and ‘users’.

Then all of a sudden, real life could rudely quake the ivory tower and shatter one’s artificial objectivity. In my case, a single student had crashed through the scholarly software exterior of this callow IT lecturer. Halima already constituted an epiphany, much more than a mere aberration. The pure academic cycle would never be enough for me after all. From now on, it must be embedded in a life plan, infused with real passion. My wheels would no longer spin aimlessly, no matter how much fun. They would have to turn cogs, rotate axles, drive meaningful points.

Action, drama and risk must nurture my professional experience in future. “Not a problem for a physical scientist,” I suggested to myself. “Every field trip presents a new adventure. Not so for computerists, mathematicians and the like.” I realized that some of these abstract thinkers need a practical application to feel fully alive. I was one of them. I had to claw out of my cocoon and apply my software research to substantive issues. Even then I worried my promising career might still need some extra-curricula ‘sport’ to bolster my devotion.

Ceduna bound, Monday 11 June 2018, the former Queen’s birthday

It surprises me now to see how prophetic I sounded as a neophyte musing about my prospective career path. I despised business IT before I was even qualified to comment. Then I became dissatisfied with pure IT science. Is it any wonder my IT vocation eventually forked along the clandestine arm of the knowledge industry, all the while maintaining a scholarly façade? Actually, yes!

It took the burgeoning internet to create me a role as a signals intelligence analyst, spawned by my PhD research for Star Wars. But it would take the human element – the loves of my life – to mould me into the ‘spydemic’ I became. I gradually learned how each side of my work maintained my interest in the other. I’m reminded of the family man with a long-term mistress. She keeps sending him back home for the same reason the wife turns a blind eye to his indiscretions – sustainability. Neither relationship would survive without the other. I should know.

Sucked-in, mid April 1982

Over the past fortnight I felt myself being drawn into Halima’s arena of battle; not as a player, but as an avid spectator of her all-too-serious ‘sport’. She described the fighting like commentating a game of football. Unsolicited, she disclosed operational details that could still endanger her compatriots. I enjoyed her trust. But I anxiously felt guilty that the machinations she confided were delighting my sense of intrigue and heightening my voyeuristic pleasure.

Though betraying Halima never occurred to me, non-disclosure contradicted a scholastic urge. I craved to disseminate my well considered but unqualified views on tactics and strategy. How could I prosper without an audience for my supposedly learned pronouncements, my armchair critiques, my pretensions? My halfway house answer was to keep treating Halima solely as my student. I pretended I could merely teach her about the information warfare aspects of her ‘sport’. I would remain at arms length.

I began to research military communications in depth, particularly in the context of urban battle tactics. Lucky for me IT was increasingly playing a crucial role. I looked for weaknesses to facilitate guerilla eavesdropping. Within two months I became knowledgeable in a very specialized field. I kept it to myself, waiting for the right occasion. I glowed from an inner satisfaction that I possessed concealed power, like Clark Kent with Superman inside. Childish really. Only Halima was no Lois Lane. I was soon to learn Halima possessed subtle powers of persuasion.

Cruising to Western Australia, mid June 2018

It’s no surprise I’ve been sucked-in by convenience on more than one occasion. Oddly, the moment I realized, I didn’t just dropout. Why? Pride perhaps. I liked to think I could get around any inconvenience, still make things work out. In for a penny, in for a pound? Maybe.

By mid 1980 I almost dropped out of my PhD research. At that time I still incubated an idealized vision of academia, and mine did not appreciate being prostituted. But I hung in there long enough to learn almost all PhD candidates are funded for ulterior motives. And an alarming percentage of this high level research, at least in scientific circles, does some harm. Fortunately checks and balances stem some damage, often resulting in more PhDs that refute earlier conclusions. A vicious circle. At least we all learn something, and civilization continues, despite the MAD and SDI phases. Perpetual suckers maybe? I should know.

Ethics in the field, May-June 1982

During one of Halima’s visits to my orifice of an office I voiced my growing despondency with insular academia – no thanks to her, of course. Perhaps her reply was prescient. “I embarked on an IT degree at my dear father’s request… to master the most important weapon of all – the computer.” Looking darkly spooky, she continued mechanically. “Computers already drive every device of violence faster and more accurately than men can.” The oracle paused for effect. “The ultimate weapon will be the information that computers process, not their mere peripheral devices.” This rang a loud gong with me.

To secondhand plagiarize one of my own papers, “The ones and zeros – the bits – will be the bullets of tomorrow.” And to clarify this pronouncement, “Computers will fire them around, the data streams. Whoever controls the computers will aim the volleys. Collateral carnage will decrease, but violence will never be virtual.”

Halima seized my current scholastic disenchantment as the moment to announce her plan to hack into the Israeli Defense Force logistics supply network. I was lounging behind my littered desk, still mulling over her ‘bits and bytes’ monologue. The blue light of idle monitors seemed to brighten a notch. My eye lids certainly lifted.

I already knew the computerized IDF network was well ahead of its time. It enabled centralized management and accounting while facilitating re-order and supply in the field. If the Druze could ascertain the kinds of supplies destined for each IDF base around Beirut, an attack on their enemy could be better planned and executed. Tacticians in the militia could factor in the types and amounts of ammunition delivered to each IDF base. Commanders could more accurately estimate personnel strength and firepower. I listened intently.

I felt the vicarious appeal of being indirectly involved in the hacking of a military net – a relatively new prospect from an IT perspective in 1982. I also understood the strategic military potential behind Halima’s plan. Sure, I tasted pangs of guilt.

I considered putting my IT ethics hat on. Truly. But somehow, preaching Utilitarianism to safeguard the other party – the IDF in this case – paled into insignificance in the face of Druze victimization. So much for professional ethics. And Ethical Relativism would sit on the fence anyway. Smirking, I digressed to myself, “Relativism must be the theory the UN feeds on.”

Overall I felt relieved that Halima’s hack would empower her to contribute to her cause without endangering herself in Beirut. My paternalism, on top of intellectual curiosity, inclined me to look the other way. But when Halima asked if I would actually help her, the issues became a whole lot more personal. I dropped my bare feet off the desk top and sat up smartly.

“Look, Halima,” I pontificated, “it’s clear the skills we teach in the IT degree can be used for good or bad. If your decision today could be postponed, my IT ethics course in your final year might help. Yet, in the end, there’s hardly ever just one black and white, right and wrong. Professional ethics aside, your predicament severely tests every ethical theory. I can’t judge for you. For myself, I wont become an active combatant on either side. Perhaps I’m a relativist wanting an each-way bet. But no matter what, the categorical imperative says we should not treat people merely as means to an end, but as ends in themselves. Which are you planning on doing?”

Halima’s eyes remained impassive. Not even my evangelical zeal looked like swaying her intended course. Yet she stung me with her thoughtful reply. “The Jews are ends, as we are. They incarnate, just as we do. But this time they are wrong to violate our rights in our land, the very rights they previously fought hard and long to win for their nation. How can they forget their roots? Or are they so fearful of their enemies that they become worse than them?”

Giving in, I switched to the practical difficulties in Halima’s plan. “I bet you haven’t worked out how to break access codes by permutation, have you?” Presuming ‘no’, I printed the relevant flowchart from my lecture notes.

She perked up. “I guessed those tips you gave us for password privacy increase permutations and combinations, so I’m confident I can attack IDF access codes. That is, as long as I can find out the magnitude of their key length. I can ask my brothers to steal an IDF terminal if need be.”

“That will draw attention, Halima, and there’s no need to take such a risk.” Always the teacher, I could not help myself. Pointing at the printout, I began. “Remember the N squared test? Try any length N as the password, then try N squared. The difference in the security system’s response time will tell you the order of magnitude. It has to be a multiple of two, probably between power three and five.”

The quizzical look in her eye reminded me that I had set out to be a neutral party. I quickly sidestepped. “How’s your knowledge of Hebrew anyway? And where will you find the IDF glossary of supply codes?”

“Ivor, you know I always do my homework,” she intoned, canting her head obliquely. “Seriously, we have a ‘friendly’ inside the IDF Beirut HQ. She photo’d their list.” Halima waved her hands uncharacteristically, “So many codes for gefilte fish you have never seen.” I had to laugh at her take on Jewish humor. An exhibitionist she usually was not. Her display told me she could carry out her hack without any further ‘help’ from me.

Around one week later Halima bounced the detailed plan off me. I was brooding behind my keyboard, fingers poised, when she barged in. As soon as her eyes adjusted to the dim light and saw my mop top was alone, she slammed the door and launched forth. My heart rate doubled.

Her hacking had located a small IDF garrison in the remains of a convent in her childhood neighborhood. She had the last three supply schedules. The latest, unlike the previous two, did not include tank shells and ancillaries. A much smaller order of diesel fuel further suggested tank support had been withdrawn, leaving the base under defended. “I’m going to urge my brothers to commandeer the next scheduled supply convoy and use it as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the compound. They’ll look for tanks, then get out without making much fuss. The garrison will arrogantly dismiss the incursion as amateurish.”

“No need,” I suggested. “External reconnaissance should be able to confirm the presence or absence of such rumbling goliaths; tanks must idle their engines for at least half an hour each day to keep their batteries charged. The noise, or lack of, should prove the point.” I hoped my interest since childhood in all aspects military would pay dividends this time by reducing unnecessary risks and perhaps lives lost. Of course I was involved up to my eyeballs now. And Halima obviously had absolute faith in my loyalty, not just my ‘neutrality’.

Would I have second thoughts and waiver? Could I still give her away?

Another two edgy days passed before Halima told me the garrison had no tanks. That’s when I firmly considered informing on the operation before it could proceed. I asked myself, “Who the hell should I tell?” The planned attack would be on foreign soil. “Should I ring the Lebanese embassy in Melbourne, or some Australian authority? Which one?”

I practiced my enquiry. “Hello, I have information about an imminent attack on an IDF garrison in Beirut.” The most direct reply might be: “Which garrison, what location, and when?” I didn’t know exactly. There could be many such targets in the Beirut war zone. So much for dobbing. I ummed, “Perhaps … I should just give Halima up to the local police.” But I could not bear her hateful reaction. She would despise me; she’d die to tear me limb from limb.

Finally I questioned myself, “Would they actually lock her up on the basis of my scant information? If so, what about me?” I must be considered a suspect source, even implicated.

Nuytsland Coastal Reserve, Western Australia, late June 2018

If I blew the whistle on Halima these days, the Anti-terrorism Act would have us both detained and interrogated incommunicado. We would be presumed guilty, not innocent. And had I funded Halima in any way, I’d be doing life.

When this law was enacted back in 2005, I remember shuddering. If it had been 1982 instead, my prospective career paths would have been derailed from the outset. As for Halima’s prospects, I’ll never know.

Ramadan begins, 23 June 1982

On the eve of the attack on the IDF base I was still racked with misgivings, but laced with excitement. If it were only a sporting competition, the demonstrables of the hack would be simply sensational. But it was warfare – one woman’s freedom fighting, or another man’s terrorism.

I remained at work overnight, too anxious to leave my ‘bunker’. In the morning I found a typed note under my door. Though unsigned, the contents were obviously from Halima. In Arial 12-point it read as follows.

“Eureka! Say no more.

Afterwards, Ivor, I dreamed I was a gothic letter, sans serif actually, a small ‘c’ representing the Caliph. A phalanx of Greco-Roman alphabet faced me. Their cursor chased me into that ambush corridor, you know the one. I could hear the ceriph catching me. I died invisibly, erased. And you never met me.”

******