Charlie Thorne And The Last Equation

The epigraph attributed to Albert Einstein reads: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Charlie, Dante, and Milana land at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, where they meet two CIA agents from the Jerusalem office: Agent Ratsimanohatra, whom everyone calls Rats, and Agent Bendavid. Rats and Bendavid drive Charlie and the others to Jerusalem. Inspired by Dante and Milana’s codenames, Dagger and Coyote, Charlie wants her codename to be Prometheus. In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to man, a selfless act for which he was punished when the gods left him on a mountain to have his liver ripped out by an eagle every day for eternity. Dante asks: “Is that what you think is going on here, Charlie? That you’re being punished unfairly?” (124).

During the drive, Charlie notices the way the landscape reflects Israel’s history: “Brand-new bridges arced over ancient Roman ruins, [and] Bedouin families grazed their goats outside recently built suburbs” (125). She recalls that some call Jerusalem “the navel of the world” (126). As they approach Hebrew University, where Einstein’s archive is kept, Bendavid explains that they must be careful not to arouse suspicion because they cannot let the Mossad—the Israeli intelligence agency—know they are there.