The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  “There are some men who would risk their lives to snatch the Mona Lisa from the Louvre,” said Eckstein.

  O’Donovan nodded. “Now, that would be stupid,” he whispered. . . .

  The pilot of the single-engine Cessna 207 was a tall ex-Parisian named Philippe Ducrocque. He wore a tan cloth flying jacket over khaki trousers and leather boots. His hair was salt and pepper, gold-rimmed Ray-Bans were set upon an angular face, and indeed the corners of his long mouth curved up at the ends, giving him the look of a lizard with a secret.

  “No photographs, please,” said Ducrocque as he taxied the airplane. He glanced at O’Donovan’s camera and gestured at the military side of the field, where four Fouga Magistere trainers were parked on the apron. O’Donovan covered the camera in his lap, as if the device had been known to jump up and take its own pictures.

  The failing sun was thickening the haze as the Cessna took off into the west, and O’Donovan noticed a red plastic sign in French, screwed to the left dash plate of the cockpit: Do Not Exceed 147 Knots with Doors Off.

  “Is this a jump plane?” he asked, as Ducrocque leveled off at five hundred meters.

  “It was.” The Frenchman adjusted the engine mixture. “But I am not a jump pilot. I purchased it for charters and surveys.” The American had paid him fifty dollars for a twenty-minute tour, and that was not much air time for wandering about. “What would you like to see?” he asked above the engine drone.

  “Well, coincidentally, I’m looking for a DZ.”

  “A Dee Zee?”

  “Drop zone. I’m a skydiver.”

  “The military has a club at the glider strip at Beni Mellal.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Approximately two hundred kilometers from here.”

  O’Donovan looked down at the small pink cubes of Marrakesh. “Too far,” he said. “I’d like to jump close to the city, so I can hop back to my hotel or get right back to Menara for another lift.”

  The pilot shrugged. “Well, there is no ‘DZ’ here.”

  “How about Amanouz?” The CIA map indicated a long flat plain bisected by a dirt road just ten kilometers southeast of Menara, but only a pilot could tell you if it would eat up an airplane or not.

  “Amanouz?” Ducrocque looked over at his passenger. “There is only a dirt road out that way.”

  “Could you land there?”

  “In an emergency. Not for sport.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Ducrocque was already raising his watch as O’Donovan waved a hundred-dollar bill in the air. The Frenchman glanced at the money, shrugged again, checked his compass, and banked gently to the right.

  O’Donovan reached into his trousers and pulled out another bill.

  “Tell you what, Monsieur Ducrocque. Set it down at Amanouz, and we’ll make it an even two hundred.”

  The Frenchman’s half-smile now bent to an angry gash. “I cannot do that,” he said. “It is illegal, unless I have a true emergency. Your money cannot buy everything, you know.” He increased the angle of his bank, clearly offended, and heading back for the airport now.

  “Okay, okay.” O’Donovan threw up his hands and sighed. He did not need Ducrocque to actually dirty his tires at Amanouz, but he did have to see that it could be done, get the Frenchman to commit to it. The Cessna was large and could handle up to eight sport jumpers. If it could make it into Amanouz, then most other STOL aircraft could as well. He switched his tone to one of nostalgic regret. “You know,” he said, “I used to read Saint-Exupéry. High school French. I guess he made me think French pilots would try almost anything.”

  Ducrocque bridled. “Saint-Exupéry was more of a writer than a pilot,” he scoffed.

  O’Donovan smiled, leaning over one knee as he turned to the Frenchman. “And what are you, Philippe?” he challenged. “More pilot or taxi driver?”

  Ducrocque’s face curdled. He stared at the arrogant American for a moment. “Suce-moi,” he said quite clearly. “Blow me.” Then he yanked the throttle back, jammed the yoke in, and twisted hard to the left, as O’Donovan’s camera crashed to the floor and they dived toward Amanouz. . . .

  It took Shaul “Baba” Nimrodi less than two hours to purchase landing rights at Menara, as well as the air corridor between Marrakesh and Ouarzazate, and then again from Ouarzazate to Zagora. It was a narrow passage, and it would be open for only a limited time on the following night, but he was confident that the Royal Moroccan Air Force would be ignoring the odd blip on their radars.

  The Menara terminal was a long, spacious rectangle of polished tile floors and rarely frequented shops, for the facility hosted only two commercial flights per day. Not far from the main entrance was a small coffee and brandy bar, across from which neat tables and chairs of bent black wood were arranged over the floor. Wearing a gray cotton suit, white shirt, and red wool tie, Nimrodi spent the first hour chatting in Arabic with the old barman, a Berber who had to come down from the mountains each day to support a large family.

  Nimrodi could have trotted up to the flight plan office and tried simply to file for his incoming aircraft, but if the Moroccans were anything like Israelis and refused him on a whim, the plane would be impounded as soon as it landed. So he chose to wait and appeal to the fiscal requirements of the man in charge.

  Air force officers drifted in and out of the café area, and at last a lieutenant colonel appeared, taking a corner table and opening a copy of Le Monde. He was a slim, pleasant-looking fellow in his mid-thirties, who aside from his shoulder insignia wore no wings or decorations on a freshly pressed khaki uniform. Nimrodi recognized the burden of command, for with it comes isolation.

  The barman raised his eyebrows toward the officer.

  “Le commandant?” Nimrodi asked.

  “C’est lui,” whispered the old man.

  Nimrodi slid off the stool, carrying a small leather hand satchel of the type popular with European men. With the exception of a couple of Scandinavian trekkers, the café had emptied, and he approached the officer and offered the standard Arabic greetings, chest palming and flowery politesse. He pulled out a chair and ran up his false flag in mellifluous French.

  “I am a member of the King’s own security detachment, mon cher colonel,” Nimrodi began, and as the officer closed his newspaper and regarded his guest with astonishment, the Israeli embellished. He explained that on the next evening, a transport plane would arrive from Atar in Mauritania. The aircraft would be empty, and the colonel should feel free to inspect it. Nimrodi, who had not yet offered a name, would then board that aircraft and fly to Algeria. Could he expect the colonel’s cooperation in this confidential matter?

  “Of course,” the officer replied, although he was wedged between his penchant for orders and the risk of offending a member of King Hassan’s entourage. “But I will have to inform my superior officer.”

  Nimrodi clucked his tongue. “The King, Allah be with him, would regret that.” He edged a bit closer. “You see, we are determined to prevent an assassination attempt by Algerian fundamentalists conspiring with the Iraqi Mukhabbarat.” Nimrodi produced his Iraqi passport in the name of Ahmed Tabri and flipped it open to show his photograph. “As you can see, we intend to penetrate and destroy these monsters. My mission is, of course, a state secret. Allah willing, I will return.” He shrugged and put the passport away. “If the forgers of our Sûreté are what they claim to be.”

  By this point the colonel’s eyes had widened substantially. “But this is very dangerous for you,” he whispered.

  “As is your role,” Nimrodi warned. “But for your courage and cooperation, His Majesty has approved a ‘field’ bonus.” He placed his hand satchel on the table, opened the zipper, and spread the metal lips with his fingers, revealing a thick stack of green bills. “It is only ten thousand dollars,” he apologized. “But this is also a matter of patriotism, mon cher ami.”

  The officer reached for his demitasse. It trembled slightly as he sipped, the neglected
café noir as cold as river mud. He could refuse and possibly face a hanging. He could agree, and if it turned out that he had aided and abetted an impostor, the same noose would fit the crime. Yet there was a third option: He could write up a report, seal it, hand it to his second in command in the presence of a witness, and if everything turned out all right, he would take it back and destroy it. His wife would not be displeased, and he might even receive something shiny from Rabat to decorate his uniform.

  The officer wet his lips. “I shall do my duty.”

  Nimrodi told him the ETA of the incoming aircraft, skipped the emergency landing, and described the way points of its subsequent navigation.

  The Moroccan nodded, but he hesitated for a moment. Then he touched the leather satchel, slid it to his side of the table, and lowered it to his knee.

  Nimrodi smiled, not too brightly, and he swiveled his head toward the bar. Eytan Eckstein had taken a stool there, viewing the entire transaction in the wall mirror. Eckstein briefly raised a thumb over his shoulder.

  The Moroccan colonel saw it all, and he began to breathe very hard. Nimrodi reached out and patted his hand.

  “Do not worry.” The Israeli smiled. “C’est kascher, comme disent les Juifs. It’s kosher, as the Jews say.”

  The wadi of Oued Issil is not completely dry in the winter months. A small trickle of mountain water gurgles through its winding cracked vein, and in a rainstorm that stream can flash into a rushing swell. But tonight the stars flickered high above the wide trough, and although a chilled breeze blew from the north, the carved walls offered enough protection so that a rigger could unfurl his nylon without it being dragged away.

  The wadi was a comfortable hike from the road to Had Abdullah Rhiate, where Didi had parked the white Mitsubishi on the shoulder and Ari Schneller had jacked it up, removed a tire, and leaned it against a fender in the unlikely event that a wandering police car might find its location an oddity.

  Only Didi, Lapkin, and Schneller had traveled with the truck, for it would not do for a local shepherd to witness a contingent of healthy men streaming from the vehicle like a circus act. Nabbe, O’Donovan, and Binder had hiked along the wadi at spaced intervals from the outskirts of Marrakesh. Eckstein, Nimrodi, and Mustaffa the Berber guide had been dropped by cab in the middle of the Issil oasis, then walked due south through the palm groves until they reached the wadi and doubled back north. No one knew from which direction Baum was coming, until he appeared from the southwest over a hard dune.

  Mustaffa set up shop on a plateau overlooking the road. He made a small wood fire, then covered it with a large inverted steel bowl, upon which he spread thin pancakes of dough to make the bread of the Bedouin called fatir. The fire might draw attention, but it was a natural evening pastime for a Berber. With a whistle, he could summon Mr. Anthony and his friends, who would quickly gather round, playing the crazy foreign campers.

  One by one the men approached the truck and carried a parachute bag up over the long crest of sandstone and down into the wadi. Didi and Amir unfurled a long blue roll of produce trucker’s plastic on the hardpan beside the running stream. They worked on the chutes with penlights in their mouths, and Didi grunted and cursed each time he found a frayed suspension line, a worn canopy cell, or a butterfly snap that looked like a relic from the early Christian era.

  The ram air free-fall canopies bear little resemblance to their round military progenitors. The standard paratrooper’s chute is a marginally steerable mushroom of material and suspension lines, while the ram air is a highly maneuverable portable glider. The ram air assembly is complex, its web of seams, lines, slider and air brakes as daunting as the wiring harness of a Jaguar. Due to the covert nature of his travels, Didi had not been able to import his full rigger’s kit, the steel punches, awls, grommet dies, and vise grips that would have set off airport alarms. But he had risked carrying his bags of rubber retainer bands, an assortment of high-grade sewing needles, “E” thread, and ripstop tape. Still, he prayed that he would not find major structural failures. He had a camel bag filled with Moroccan carpenter’s hardware, but it would be like repairing a racing car with bicycle parts.

  Despite Eckstein’s trepidations, Didi was pleased that most of the rigs were equipped with throw-out pilot chutes. The two rip-cord-activated rigs were missing their cables, and the containers had been closed with rusty twists of steel wire. Tomorrow he would have to fashion rip cords from moped brake cables, and handles from short lengths of PVC pipe.

  The men who had never used a throw-out would learn to do so right here on the ground. Those who had never flown a high-performance PD Sabre would solo tomorrow night. There would be no practice jumps.

  Shaul Nimrodi, who had rigged a few thousand military chutes in his day, was a great asset to Lerner and Lapkin. He marched around the area with an unlit cigarette plugged into his holder, inspecting the containers and affixing small squares of masking tape to spots that needed Didi’s attention. He quietly ordered the other men into support positions, maneuvering them to stand inside the harnesses, lift the piggyback rigs, and lean back gently to provide tension on the lines as Didi and Amir untangled.

  The men were no longer fresh. They had begun the day at dawn, traveling by bus, train, and truck from Casablanca to Marrakesh. The afternoon had been filled with intense preparations, and they had just spent two hours in a dark corner of a restaurant called L’Étoile de Marrakesh, whispering “what if”s to each other as a belly dancer undulated on a small stage at the far end of the room.

  “What if there are sentries outside the perimeter?”

  “We’ll try to take them with knives.”

  “What if the perimeter is mined?”

  “We’ll disarm a path if there is time. Otherwise, we’ll regroup and come straight down the road.”

  “Suppose they’re wearing Kevlar?”

  “Go for the legs and finish them close. You’ll never make a head shot.”

  “Suppose they won’t bring Ruth up?”

  “Benni will have to show himself and try to negotiate.”

  “Suppose none of them are aboveground?”

  “We’re fucked.”

  Horse had not been present for this planning session, and for once his somber inquiries were sorely missed. But he had taken his “groceries” back to the N’Fis and was presumably working with Roselli’s aerial recon photos.

  Jerry Binder was seated on a large rock just across the narrow stream. He was watching Lerner and Lapkin work, and while he admired their skill, he was superstitious about certain practices.

  “When you find one for me, Didi,” he said, “just leave it. I pack my own gear.”

  Didi grunted without looking up from his labors. “With pleasure.”

  “But you will let him check the canopy first, Spider,” Nimrodi cautioned.

  “Yes, Baba,” Binder replied with mock obedience. “And speaking of equipment checks . . . Weapons, baby. How about some tools for this cluster fuck?”

  “They will be aboard the airplane,” Nimrodi patiently reiterated as he inspected the container of a Para Flite XL Cloud. The Cloud was a large canopy popular with military HALO teams. “And there will be one for every man, my friend.”

  “Great,” Binder complained. “Could you be less specific?”

  “I am sorry, Spider,” Nimrodi said without a hint of genuine apology. “But my telephone conversations with Atar could not be more specific, given their en clair nature. My associates understood the requirements, and they will provide.”

  “Jesus,” Binder whispered.

  Ari Schneller’s German accent drifted down from the wadi wall behind Binder, which he had mounted to look out for intruders from the south. “I thought you Special Forces people are supposed to be experts on all foreign weapons.”

  “We are,” said O’Donovan, who was helping Lapkin by kneeling on a deployment bag. “Spider’s just a baby.”

  Binder muttered an obscenity.

  “So where is
our friend le cheval?” Nabbe gripped a fistful of suspension lines so that Didi could apply a rubber retaining band. No one had seen Horse for hours.

  “He will be along,” Benni murmured. He was pacing over the winter-hard sand bed just upstream of the packing mat, his silhouette outlined by the glow of a cigarette in his cupped hand. He glanced occasionally at the labors of his men, but he did not offer to assist, which Eckstein found distinctly out of character. Though the major kept his peace, he suspected the reason for Baum’s distance.

  “And what about Dr. Einstein?” O’Donovan wondered. Sadeen had left L’Étoile halfway through the planning session, having been beckoned to the street by Mustaffa.

  “He’s making a bloody truck from egg cartons,” Didi mumbled as he worked.

  “Balloons,” Binder offered. “It’s an inflatable, like in the Macy’s parade.”

  “No,” Nabbe corrected. “I think he is out hunting nachos. He is tired of lamb stew.”

  “Speaking of which.” Eckstein squinted in the dark, trying to thread “E” cord through a curved needle for Didi. “Don’t let me forget rations tomorrow.” He had drawn up a list of hard chocolate bars, raw potatoes, sucking candies, and other items high in sucrose and starch, low on salt.

  “If you do forget,” Nabbe warned, “we will have to cook you, Cordon Algérie, although you are a brooder and will probably be sour.”

  The thin sound of a tooth-and-finger whistle broke from the direction of Mustaffa’s lookout. For a moment, the men froze. “Keep working,” Benni said. He motioned to Eckstein, and the pair climbed over the wadi lip and hurried up the grade.

  Mustaffa was squatting near his fire and looking off toward Marrakesh. A pile of fresh fatir loaves sat on a straw mat, and the burry-headed boy was smiling as if party to a secret. Eckstein and Baum joined him as he pointed up the dirt road, which twisted between rows of prickly pear.

  “Ein Lastwagen,” he said, for German was the foreign language he had studied in school and his mode of communication with Eckstein.

  As Eckstein and Baum peered into the distance, a pair of very bright headlights emerged from a curve, and they were forced to squint. The sound of badly timed cylinders and the hollow rattle of a cheap truck body reached them on the wind.