The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  Binder grunted, then looked around the table at the other men, who were smiling, waiting for his response. “But I keep a low profile,” he said.

  Ari Schneller, who was taller than the American yet less physically imposing, laughed and reached across the table. The other men followed suit, offering their cool, rough grips and muttering first names only.

  O’Donovan took a seat across from Binder, Eckstein pulled a chair up between Horse and Baum, and everyone shifted closer to the table’s head. Without being assigned the task, Nimrodi turned his back to the group and straddled his chair as a lookout.

  Benni opened the envelope and extracted one page of computer printout, three black-and-white photographs, a folded map, and a small rectangular leather case. The map was a restricted CIA terrain detail of the western sector of Algeria, bordering Morocco, but Benni could see that it was very large and he would not unfold it here. The photographs were aerial detail taken by a KH-11 satellite, or maybe an SR-71 Blackbird flyover. They appeared to be one-dimensional but were actually prints off two negatives exposed from cameras set at slightly different angles. In the leather pouch was a set of viewing lenses mounted on collapsible legs. When you set up the viewer above a photograph, the target area would appear in three-dimensional relief, as if you were hovering merely a thousand feet above the sharply defined structures, ground features, and human beings. For the time being, Benni left the viewer in its case.

  “And so, gentlemen,” said Benni in English as he flipped the photographs over and laced his fingers together upon them. “It begins.”

  The smiles had faded from the faces as the men leaned closer, straining to hear above the din from the soccer party below.

  “First of all, we have very little time, so I am not going to bother with history for now. You should know that while my boss is aware of this project, it is a private affair, a deniable madness.” Benni paused, unsure that his volunteers understood just how far removed they were from the cocoon of governmental sanction. “If we fail, there will be no rescue, no extraction. Each of us will have to ‘escape and evade,’ as the Americans call it.”

  No one reacted to this tacit offer to back out. The men regarded Baum with the blank impatience of smokers reading the surgeon general’s warning on a cigarette box. To the Israelis, the concept of individual self-rescue was an anomaly. Binder and O’Donovan were ex-Green Berets, and their tradition was similar. They would all survive this as a unit or not at all.

  “So there are two main objectives,” Baum continued. “The first is the rescue of my daughter, Ruth, who is being held prisoner by Martina Ursula Klump and a group of her comrades.”

  Up until that moment, no one had discussed the true nature of the mission with any of the newcomers. These men were accustomed to being surprised at briefings, yet they had also been raised on the iron rule that if a family member was involved in a hostage predicament, they would automatically be scratched from a rescue mission manifest. Nimrodi, who had been listening as he faced away, slowly turned his head and stared at Baum.

  “Yes,” said Benni. “And the second part is no better. Klump is in possession of a small antiship weapon stolen from an American road convoy. In less than three days’ time, we are scheduled to make an exchange off the coast of Morocco, Hizbollah’s Sheik Sa’id for our own Captain Dan Sarel. She intends to stop that transaction.”

  A few mouths opened, someone lit up a cigarette. Sadeen put down his salt shaker and reached for a can of beer, and the popping tab sounded like a distant warhead impacting at the waterline.

  “And so, my friends . . .” Benni lit up another Casa, coughed, and then looked at it as if he were holding a worm. “The problem is simple, no different from a graduation exercise at Bahd Echad.” The reference was to the IDF officers’ school. “Rescue the hostage and prevent her captors from taking further action.”

  Yes, it was a standard problem for elite Israeli units, but no one at the table accepted Baum’s attempt to define the issue as “simple.” The hostage was his own flesh and blood, and the images of possibly causing her death paralyzed the men into silence. Benni saw the hesitation in their eyes. He would have to convince them of his confidence, lead with strength, and they would follow.

  “Chevrey,” he said, using the Hebrew slang for “comrades.” “Your pity will not save her. Nor your silence. Let’s get to work.”

  Didi Lerner took up the cue. He dropped his fists on the table, shaking the various drinks.

  “Awroyt,” said the Australian. “First, let’s eliminate problem two. Get the exchange postponed.”

  “Yeah,” Amir Lapkin agreed. “Take the wind out of Klump’s sails. Then we only have the hostage problem.”

  “Who is this Klahmp?” Sadeen asked in his Spanish accent. He was purely a demolition man and did not follow counterinsurgency current events.

  “German terrorist,” murmured Ari Schneller, seeming chagrined that she should hail from his mother country. “A real bad girl.”

  “Had a part in bombing our embassy in Buenos Aires,” said Rick Nabbe. “It was Hizbollah vengeance for us killing Hussein Mussawi.”

  “And there’s more,” Eckstein interjected. “But it’s irrelevant now. We’ll give you her full CV later on.”

  “Good enough.” Didi took a swig from a can of Pepsi. “So why don’t we get the exchange put off?”

  No one at the table replied. They knew the answer, but they chose to examine their fingernails. Benni had to prod them over the emotional hump.

  “Well, why don’t we?” he posed, and receiving no response, he raised his voice like a frustrated schoolmaster. “Class?”

  “ ’Cause Klump might get wind of it,” Jerry Binder said.

  Benni nodded. “And if she does . . . ?”

  “She’ll kill the hostage,” Rick Nabbe blurted. His expression was pained, but it had to be said.

  “Good.” Benni slapped the table. “Just like any hostage problem. If Klump senses danger, she will kill Ruth. Let’s get on with it! There isn’t time for manners.”

  Shaul Nimrodi stood up and began to pace beside the tables, his cigarette smoke drifting behind his head. “He is right, my friends,” he said. “Freeze your hearts. Think as you were taught to.”

  “Fine,” said Ari Schneller as he summoned his hard side. “Where is the target area? What are the structures? How many men does she have? Vehicles, weapons, communications?”

  Horse was holding Art Roselli’s computer printout, comparing the information to a primitive map in his guidebook.

  “They are located in the western Algerian Sahara, near a place called Taghit,” he said. The men strained to understand his English, for his Russian accent was thick.

  “Is it a built-up area?” Lapkin asked.

  “Taghit, yes,” Horse replied. “But the target area is dunes.”

  “Are they in tents?” Rick Nabbe shivered with the idea.

  “Buried recreational vehicles,” said Eckstein. “Like American Winnebagos.”

  “Jesus,” Binder hissed.

  “Numbers?” Schneller asked again.

  “At least fifteen men,” said Benni. “Maybe twice that.”

  Didi Lerner made a quick count of those present, eleven in all. “How many of us will go in?”

  “Horse will not,” said Benni. “And at least one more will stay behind for support.”

  No one noticed Horse’s body go slack with relief. They were looking at Baum, who clearly meant that he himself would be going in.

  “So that leaves nine of us,” said Sadeen.

  “Nine of us, and maybe sirty of zem,” Rick Nabbe pondered in his Clouseau accent. “It hardly seems fair to zeh poor bastards.”

  A few smiles flashed around the table.

  “We don’t know the weaponry,” said Eckstein. “But we should assume light arms and grenades. Maybe some hand-held antiarmor, and they could have night vision.”

  “What are we gonna use?” O’Donovan scoffed. “Penkni
ves?”

  “That will be my problem,” said Shaul Nimrodi. “But for the moment, my friends, let us talk about climbing the Atlas Mountains.”

  The men looked at him curiously, then realized that he wanted the subject changed. A waiter was approaching from the top of the stairwell.

  “Freeze-dried food for three days, men,” said Rick Nabbe as he picked up Baba’s hint.

  “The Touring Club on Rue de Force Armées will know where to buy,” Eckstein added.

  “Ça va, mes amis?” the waiter asked as he approached the tables.

  “Oui, très bien,” said Nimrodi. “Une carafe du café, si’l vous plaît.”

  “Noir?”

  “Au lait.”

  “D’accord.” The waiter bowed and went away. A thundering cry rose up from the main floor. Morocco had scored.

  When the din receded, Binder spoke up. “What’s the range from here to the target area?” He pulled a face and waved some of Nimrodi’s smoke away.

  “Too far,” said Eckstein. “But we’ll relocate farther south tomorrow.”

  “Marrakesh,” said Benni.

  “And from there?” Schneller asked.

  Horse raised his head from the computer printout. “It is approximately five hundred kilometers to the Algerian border.” He handed the sheet to Baum.

  Lapkin let out a low whistle as he calculated overland travel time. “What’s the terrain like?”

  “I believe the High Atlas range stands between Marrakesh and the border,” said Nimrodi. He was facing the stairwell again, participating with his back to the group. “It is not a molehill, my friends.”

  “That’s a day’s travel time right there,” said O’Donovan.

  Benni was reading Art Roselli’s page of printed information. It was a single sheet crammed with hard intelligence. There was no greeting.

  REAL TIME DATA AS OF 0130 GMT. AIRCRAFT SET DOWN TARGET AREA LAT. 31°15–30N, LONG. 2°17–45W. SAT TRACK ON EMERGENCY TRANSPONDER INDICATES 12 HOURS NO CHANGE LOCATION. PASSIVE I.R. INDICATES TOTAL ENGINE SHUTDOWN, THREE HARD SHELTERS WARM AND ACTIVE, TWO VEHICLE ACTIVITIES, PERSONNEL FIFTEEN PLUS. SHORT RANGE COMMOS AT TARGET, NO LONG RANGE TRANSMISSION. PROJECTED WEATHER NEXT 72 HOURS MOD. WINDS 10 TO 13 KNOTS SOUTH SOUTHEAST, 18 TO 28 CELSIUS, CHANCE LIGHT PRECIPITATION. SURROUNDING AIR TRAFFIC SPARSE, INCLUSIVE ONE FLYOVER MILITARY AND . . .

  “It appears,” said Benni, “that Klump, some of her men, the hostage, and the missile landed by jet at the site. The aircraft was shut down, but its emergency beacon was activated, so we have a precise fix.”

  “Why would they activate a beacon?” Sadeen wondered.

  “Yeah,” Binder agreed. “They stupid?”

  “A dangerous assumption,” Eckstein cautioned.

  Rick Nabbe looked at Baum. “Could your daugh—” He caught himself. “Could the hostage have done it?”

  Benni shook his head. “She would not know how to do that.”

  “Coffee, gentlemen!” Nimrodi warned.

  As the waiter appeared with a large steel carafe and a tray full of heavy glasses, Nabbe improvised more cover babble.

  “I suggest we climb for two days, then get some photographs for the magazine.”

  “Super!” Didi agreed. “Then maybe we can pay for the beer.” He pronounced it bee-ah.

  The waiter left, and the smiles snapped back to tight creases.

  “Then the crew must have hit the switch,” said O’Donovan.

  “Do we know how many crew?” Schneller asked.

  “Two,” said Benni. “Pilot and copilot.”

  “Shit,” Lapkin whispered.

  “Why shit?” Schneller asked him.

  Lapkin turned on the tall blond man. “Don’t you get it? The pilots aren’t Klump’s men. She hijacked them. They hit the transponder.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Binder grunted. “Now you got three hostages.”

  This new reality enforced a somber silence. Rescuing one hostage alive was complex enough, but when you had three “friendlies,” most probably physically separated, the exercise became a nightmare.

  “The problems are tripled,” Nabbe whispered.

  “Or worse,” Horse mumbled, for it was his distasteful lot in life to express the darkest scenario.

  “Elaborate, Soos,” Eckstein ordered.

  Horse took off his spectacles and began to polish them with a napkin as he sighed. “Perhaps Ms. Klump set off the beacon herself. It could be a decoy to draw a party such as this one in, while she, the missile, and the prisoners have relocated.”

  Benni slumped back in his chair. He rubbed the knotted muscles at his neck and stared off into a void of fresh doubts.

  “Christ, man,” Binder snapped at Horse, and the little analyst cringed as if he might be devoured. “We can’t assume that shit. We’ll go fuckin’ nuts.”

  “But it is a possibility.” Nabbe defended Horse’s theory.

  “Full stop,” Benni suddenly commanded as he raised a hand. “Spider here is correct. We have to assume the first case, the simplest one, or be paralyzed.”

  “Then you still have three hostages,” O’Donovan reminded him, thinking now of the two helpless pilots.

  “No.” Benni tried to keep his voice even. “We have one. When she is secure, we go immediately to the secondary problem.” It was clear that he was prepared to sacrifice the pilots. Had Ruth not been his daughter, he could have made that command decision and no one would have questioned his motives.

  “So the men are expendable?” O’Donovan challenged. In his heart he was as willing as Baum to focus all efforts on Ruth, yet his selfish motive caused him to take the opposing tack.

  Benni fixed him with a blazing stare. “If you wish, Michael, you can go after the pilots. The rest of us will follow the operational plan.”

  O’Donovan rubbed his jaw for a moment, then quickly surrendered. “Withdrawn,” he said.

  “Good,” said Benni. “We will tend to them if we can.”

  “What’s the additional range from the border to the target?” Nabbe asked.

  “Approximately eighty kilometers,” said Horse.

  “Can we get our hands on some proper vehicles?” Schneller wondered.

  “To the border, maybe,” said Eckstein. “But we’d have to leave them there and penetrate on foot. And the Algerian frontier troops are not friendly, or bribable.”

  “Shit, people!” Jerry Binder exploded, then dropped his voice as Nimrodi touched his shoulder. “You got six hundred klicks of mountains, dunes, and fuck knows what else. You can have supercharged Land-Rovers and Suzuki dirt bikes, and you still ain’t gonna make the timetable!”

  The contingent erupted in an unruly babel of proposals and objections. They had arrived at the critical impasse. As with most special operations, it was not the point of engagement that was of major concern. The combat they were prepared for. It was the delivery that posed the problems.

  “Mes amis! Mes amis!” Rick Nabbe waved his hands in the air until the men turned to him and slowly fell silent. “Why are we fooling ourselves, eh?” He smiled thinly and dropped his hands to the table. “We all know why we are here, do we not? There is no sea, so we are not frogmen. There is no snow, so we are not skiers.” He looked across at Jerry Binder and offered the traditional inquiry posed at Forts Bragg and Benning. “What are we, Spider?”

  A crease formed between Binder’s brows for a moment. Then he smiled. “Airborne,” he answered flatly.

  “Correct. We are parachutists.” Nabbe perused the rest of the group. “All of us.” He focused on Eckstein. “That is why you summoned us. Correct, Monsieur Tony? This is why Didi is here.” He jerked a thumb at Nimrodi’s back. “And Baba. Is it not so?”

  Eckstein grinned slyly at Nabbe and looked at his wristwatch. Then he frowned at the Breitling like a displeased platoon commander. “Not too bad, Rick,” he said. “It only took you twenty-seven minutes to get it.”

  “Well, it would have been sooner.” Nabbe shrugged and glanced
around. “But I did not see an airplane.”

  Some of the men laughed. Of course they had the capabilities, the experience. They could certainly jump in, but drumming up a long-range aircraft and high-altitude equipment seemed utterly fantastic here.

  “Perhaps God will provide,” said Benni. He was also smiling now.

  “Oh, really?” Nabbe exclaimed. “In that case . . .” He reached out for a napkin, placed it on his head, and began to mumble a prayer. “Airplane, pilots, parachutes, mon Dieu. Airplane, pilots, parachutes . . .”

  More laughter burst from the faces around him, and someone snatched the napkin from his head.

  “All right,” said Benni as he returned the group to order. “So let us assume that we will make the target area.” He realized as he said this how heavily indebted he was to Eckstein. Without Eytan’s foresight during the recruitment phase, they would not be even dreaming now of success. He looked over at Eytan, who was speaking to Didi.

  “But even if we exit over this side of the border,” Eytan warned, “it’s still a long way to target.”

  “We won’t HALO,” Didi instantly decided. “We’ll HAHO.” The distinction was between two types of free-fall insertion. With the first, High Altitude Low Opening, you dropped from the sky for a minute or two of whistling dive, then opened your parachute at only a marginally safe altitude, the entire exposure from exit to landing but a few minutes of air time.

  With the second technique, High Altitude High Opening, you exited the aircraft, deployed the chute quickly, then navigated the ram-air canopy in formation with your teammates, extending the range for many kilometers.

  “Oh, great,” Binder mumbled. “We’ll hop and pop, then freeze our dicks off for half an hour.”

  “That’s why you told us to bring two pairs of gatkes,” said Sadeen to Eckstein, using the Yiddish word for long johns. “Isn’t it so, you batardo?”

  Eckstein shrugged innocently. “And the Nomex gloves.”

  “Nobody told me to bring any of that shit,” Binder complained.

  “My apologies,” said Eckstein. “You weren’t on my manifest.”

  “You can have mine,” Schneller offered to Binder. “I am cold-blooded.” Binder snorted.