Free Blood Line by John J. Davis Page B

about five miles before the woods give way to East Park. We’ll need a car and somewhere to stay the night,” Valerie said as she glanced at her watch. “It’s 3:15 p.m. The sun won’t set till after eight o’clock. Let’s grab our Go bags and stuff them with the extra supplies we bought and move out.”
    I checked the reception on my mobile phone and saw there were no bars. There was nothing I could do about that. I could only hope if there still was an Agent Wakefield she would leave a message.
    “Here, come get your backpacks.” I said. “I’ve packed them as full as they’re going to get. What do we do about the Jeep?”
    “The Jeep will be fine,” Val said. “No one is coming out here till the fall when deer-hunting season begins. We can come back for it later.”
    “Quick question. You did say each bag has $25,000 in it? I get to keep that money, right?” Leecy asked.
    “Not a chance,” I said.
    “Okay, worth a shot. So tell me about after the war, and what does all that have to do with you, Mom?”
    Val shouldered her pack and climbed over the downed tree before she answered. “Right, so after the war, your Granny Granny continued to tour with the USO for a while. According to that cloth map she made as a keepsake, they went to places like Nuremburg, Munich and Stuttgart, and a bunch of smaller towns throughout Germany.”
    Valerie wasn’t waiting for us to climb over the tree. She had one speed and that was full speed. Leecy and I jogged to catch up to her. I took up my usual spot when we were hiking as a family: at the rear of the line of Grangers.
    “When the USO disbanded in 1947, Leona had been back in the States living and working in New York since 1946. She wouldn’t marry Ernst for another two years. She was busy pursuing her career as an actress when the same two men that had recruited her years before paid her another visit in September of 1947.”
    “Oh no, what did they want her to do this time?” Leecy asked.
    “This time they had good news. Good news, that is, with a caveat. They laid out plans for a new secret organization that would be in what we now know as Israel.”
    “But there was no Israel in June of 1947. I studied that in history. The UN General Assembly passed the partition of Palestine resolution in August.”
    “Right, A-plus for your studious efforts. But Jews had been living in Palestine for years before the UN vote. There were several underground outlaw groups fighting the British, before they finally left, and the Palestinians, who had been living there for generations. You’ve heard of the Irgun, who were responsible for the famous King David Hotel bombing in 1946?”
    “Right!” said Leecy. “That was awful.”
    “Yes, but it had a big impact on popular opinion both for and against. But these men who recruited your Granny Granny Leona weren’t from the Irgun, but another group still in the planning stage within the Labor Party government formed by David Ben Gurian. A group that started out as the Central Institute of Coordination, and eventually became known as Mossad. They offered her a job in the new organization, but she declined. Then they upped the ante and said they’d provide financial assistance of any kind to any member of her future family, assuming she would have one of course, as long as they agreed to become part of the Mossad. She asked them why such interest in her future family. Why sign up her children or her children’s children when they’d have all of Israel to select candidates?”
    “Yes, that’s weird, Mom. What did they say?” Leecy asked.
    I smiled at the questions. Not because I knew the answer, but because I understood the reasoning behind the approach the then fledgling Mossad was taking.
    “They said it was Leona’s bloodline.”
    “Bloodline?”
    “And they were right,” I chimed in.
    “Yes, dear. They wanted to recruit the best and brightest; to pursue the future generations of those bloodlines deemed to be