Hatchet

by Israel Levy

They sat down at the computers and started typing. On the screens appeared long lists of terrorist attacks, their perpetrators and their instigators.

  “Geez, look at all this stuff,” said Aaron. There were lists of first and last names, photos of people, commands, google maps, and footage from every attack. The team was astonished by the amount of data.

  “Hatchet Two, this is Hatchet. Pay attention. Before starting the banking action you need to log into the encrypted internet communications and forward all the material to us. Then back everything up using the hard drive brought by the Hatchet One Experts. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Hatchet Two here, roger that.”

  Aaron hooked the computers to the hard drive and began copying all the material, while simultaneously logging onto the laptop, forming an internet connection and transferring all the data to command.

  Then he and Gila approached the computers. They took off their packs full of tech equipment from their backs and brought out their laptops, wires and burning equipment, working efficiently as a highly trained team.

  Naomi stood at the bottom of the stairs at the room entrance, dumbfounded by the vast amount of information that had been revealed.

  As more and more data popped up on the screens she suddenly saw, in the corner of her eye, one computer’s email box was open and her own private email address displayed. Her heart thumped in her chest.

  “Gila, hold on a second.”

  She stepped up to the computer and asked Gila to move aside for a moment. She clicked on the mail box and saw multiple messages with her email address. She clicked on one and indeed, it was a document, written in Hebrew and addressed to her.

  “Yaron, I’m going upstairs,” she said, her face contorted with raging anger. Naomi felt more betrayed by this man she loved than anyone ever before. She did not wait for Yaron’s authorization. The soldier standing at the stairs looked to Yaron who in turn nodded to him to let Naomi through. Upstairs the fat man sat on the ground, his hood now off. He was surprised to see Naomi but said nothing. Musa was by his side, the black sack still on his head.

  “Come here,” cried Naomi to the soldier standing by the tent. “Help me out with this fat fuck,” she said, kicked the fat man and started dragging him. The fat man stumbled but got to his feet and Naomi forced him to the stairs and down to the computer room.

  “Everyone out, now,” she cried. “Wait upstairs until I call you back.”

  With no understanding of what was going on everyone followed Naomi’s orders and cleared the room.

  “I’m sorry, but that had to be done,” she told the man. “Now I need your fingerprint.”

  The man placed his right thumb on the print reader attached to one of the computers and a password identification popped on screen.

  “You can comeback in now,” Naomi cried out. Aaron and Gila immediately spotted the fingerprint identification on the screen and looked at each other, but said nothing. Naomi kicked the fat man and forced him up the stairs and out of the tent, then marched to Musa. Yaron, who had followed her, gestured for Gilad and his team to let her work.

  She advanced toward Musa and pulled the hood from his head in a swift motion. He was taken by surprise, blinking at the sudden brightness. All he saw was the silhouette of a woman, before Naomi slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

  “Give me the code, you piece of shit.”

  Musa’s head turned with the force of the blow and when he looked back at her his expression was one of deep pain mixed with complete surprise.

  “Naomi? What are you doing here? I can’t believe this.”

  Naomi slapped him again, her eyes brimming with tears. She turned to the team members who were in the tent and yelled “get out, now! I don’t want to see anyone! Leave me here alone with this scumbag.”

  “Hatchet Two, this is Hatchet,” Abraham called Yaron over the radio. “Pay attention, let Naomi stay with Musa alone. It’s up to her now whether the operation fails or succeeds.”

  “Roger that.”

  Yaron motioned for everyone to leave the tent and removed the prisoners. Naomi and Musa were now alone in the tent. Naomi fell to her knees before him.

  “How could you? You told me you loved me! And you were the one responsible for the attack that almost took my sister’s life!” She broke down in terrible sobs and slapped him across the face. “You filthy liar!”

  “No, I’m no liar! I told you I loved you and I meant it! I still love you!”

  “Shut up, shut up!” she hit him again, her face covered in tears. There was blood streaming down the side of his face and mouth. “You keep lying, you murderer!”

  “I’m not a murderer, I’m a soldier, just like you. I didn’t even know you were part of all this. I had no idea.”

  “Stop lying!” she slapped him once again but faintly, as if all the power had been drained from her body. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

  “Naomi,” he whispered all of a sudden. “I’m Gadiel. Contact Abraham.”

  Naomi couldn’t believe her ears.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I’m Gadiel. You need to contact Abraham. But don’t stop shouting at me.”

  Naomi was in shock, but did as she was told and kept yelling at him.

  “Tell me the truth! You never loved me, you were just using me the whole time!”

  Then she stopped for a moment. “Hatchet, this is Naomi.”

  “Naomi, go to the alternate radio wave. It’s written on a label on your vest.”

  Naomi checked and found the frequency number.

  “Hatchet, Naomi here.”

  “OK, listen carefully. This is a coded, encrypted frequency. Naomi, Musa is one of us. Remember ‘Gadiel’? He’s an IDF officer, I’ve told his general background, I won’t go into any more details right now.”

  Naomi thought she was about to faint.

  “Now, pay attention and do exactly what I say, without asking any questions. Call everyone back in, keep hitting Moshe and swearing at him. At some point he will pretend to try and take control of you. He’ll grab the knife from your vest, you’ll pull away, grab your gun – I repeat your gun, from your vest, no one else’s – and shoot him three times in the chest.”

  “What do you mean ‘shoot him’? Did I hear you correctly?”

  “You did, and you need to do exactly as instructed, I’ll explain later. Now do it, we’ve no time for small talk.”

  “Give me the code, you dog!” Naomi screamed at Musa.

  “Come in,” she called out to Yaron. Everyone returned with the prisoners, pushing them to the ground.

  “Don’t talk, ya Musa. You will be a Shahid. Don’t tell them anything!”

  “Naomi, I can’t. Don’t ask me for the code. I love you but I’ll die before giving it up.”

  “You see, you have no love to offer. You were born to hate. You hate everything about us.”

  “What do I do? Oh god, what do I do? Just give them the code! They’ll let you live! We’ll find a way to move on from this, Moshe, Moshe.”

  Naomi embraced him, confused and distraught. Her mind raced with images from the times they shared, lying in bed at home, him at her doorstep holding a bottle of wine, the villa in Tuscany, the woods.

  “Naomi, these zip ties are too tight, I can’t feel my hands. Please, let me hold you.”

  “I can’t. I love you. I want you to hold me. I want us to wake from this nightmare.”

  Naomi leaned on him, exhausted and overwhelmed by the surreal situation.

  “Naomi, the night of the bombing at the Victoria I was trying to get you both to stay home to stop you from getting hurt. I alerted our people there was going to be an attack but I didn’t have the exact location. The suicide bomber was Aisha’s brother and Faris operated him directly. I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t k
now the attack would happen there. I’m so sorry about your sister.”

  Naomi reached in her vest for her knife and sliced the zip ties from his wrists.

  “Hold me,” she said.

  Musa put his arms around her and they both sobbed, kissing and hugging.

  “I love you,” she said.

  Suddenly, he grabbed the knife from its sheath and aimed it at Naomi’s throat, choking her from behind. Naomi tried to resist but he made her stand up and started pulling her out of the tent.

  “Out of my way!” he shouted in Hebrew, “or she’s dead!”

  “Moshe, no! Don’t do this! They’ll just kill us both.”

  “Out of the way,” he kept screaming. “Drop your weapons!”

  Yaron followed them out of the tent, dragging the prisoners with him. The soldiers were all surprised when he ordered them to drop their weapons. Musa was now dragging Naomi towards one of the vehicles. He loosened his grip on her to reach for the car door and Naomi used the split second’s opportunity for an evasive move. She reached for her gun and shot him right in the chest, point blank. The prisoners cried out in horror.

  “No! You will burn in hell, you bitch! Your whole family will die! Musa, Musa!”

  For a second, everything came to a halt. It was as if time stood still. All the team members looked around, unable to move. Musa slowly slid against the side of the car, to the ground, his face contracted in shock and agony.

  “You shot me, Naomi. I loved you and you killed me.”

  Naomi tried to stop the blood, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Medic, medic!” she cried, but no one moved.

  “Someone help, god damn it!” No one budged. Naomi tried to support him. His breath was shallow. He was trying to tell her something. She bent down closer to his lips.

  “I love you. I’m so glad I met you. You’re the most precious thing I ever had in this world. You are the code to my life and death. Never forget, you are the code to my life and death. Goodbye,” and his head fell to one side.

  Naomi stayed beside him for one more second, then looked up in rage at the team members around her. She got up and walked back to the tent, passing Yaron on her way with a frozen expression on her face.

  “Well, what are you all standing around for? We don’t have much time before the whole thing goes down the drain.”

  She quickly went down the stairs to the computer room. Gila and Aaron were trying to crack the secret code but kept failing.

  “What’s going on?” Naomi asked.

  “We haven’t figured out the password and our time is almost up.”

  A message popped up on screen: ‘You have two remaining attempts. Insert your password before the previously set orders apply and access is denied.’ Everyone’s faced seemed to turn pale.

  “Gila, try the last code we found.” Gila punched it in and the message on screen read: ‘Incorrect. You have one more try before the previously set orders apply and access is denied’.

  “Hatchet, this is Hatchet Two. Do you have any instructions?”

  “Hatchet here,” they heard Abraham’s voice over the radio. “Final decision is to type in the girlfriend’s name. Try A-I-S-H-A.”

  “Roger that.”

  Naomi stood there, her heart rising and falling with the force of emotions, her mind going over and over Musa’s last words. (“You are the code to my life and death, the code to my life and death.”)

  “Wait!” she cried. Gila’s finger stopped just short of the keyboard.

  “Type in Naomi.”

  “What?” asked Gila, surprised.

  “Hatchet Two, this is Hatchet. Do as she says.”

  Yaron looked from Naomi to Gila and back to Naomi again. The final seconds of the countdown appeared on screen.

  “Do what she says.”

  Gila typed in the letters N A O M I and the message that popped up on screen read:

  ‘Welcome to the Bank of Geneva. How can we help?’

  Cries of joy filled the room, and everyone leapt to hug her. Her face still revealing the pain she was in, Naomi turned around and went up the stairs and out of the tent, leaving Gila and Aaron behind her still tapping away at the computers, draining the organization’s bank accounts of all its millions.

  The breeze was cool outside. A blanket from one of the tents had been spread over Musa’s body and she saw one of the soldiers taking several some photos and then covering his face.

  The fat man sat there, silent and clearly in shock, and the two prisoners knelt before the body, mumbling a prayer for Musa’s soul.

  She stopped beside the body, her face totally blank, then kept walking until she was out of the camp’s circle of light. She sat down, took off her vest, let her hair fall loosely, and rested her head against her shoulders.

  She was startled by the touch of a hand and saw Ziv towering over her.

  “Naomi, you took off your radio, you didn’t hear, it’s all over. Everyone’s in the cars, come on.”

  All teams were in the SUVs. They put the fat man and prisoners on the floor in one of the vehicles with the Matkal soldiers. She climbed in the car next to Gilad and he looked at her, moving to make room.

  No one said a word. The cars took off, leaving the road and took off down the valley towards the beach. The drive didn’t take long. At the beach, waiting for them, were Peter and a few Seals they had not met previously. They left the cars and boarded the rubber dinghies bobbing in the waves.

  Two F-15 fighter aircraft flew overhead at low altitude, and seconds later they heard the sound of bombs exploding as the dawn sky over the camp turned red.

  “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, ya Shahid, ya Musa.”

  Chapter 13

  The conference hall at Yirmiyahu St. was packed with all the teams that had taken part in the operation. Lively conversation and laughter filled the room and people were patting each other on the backs. The Mossad and General Security Services people were in civilian dress, and Yaron and Gilad’s teams were in their Dress uniforms.

  Naomi stood at the edge of the room, slowly sipping from a glass in her hand, her face rigid (“I’m still waiting for some explanations, a lot of explanations”). Suddenly the room grew silent. Abraham and his team entered followed by bodyguards and the Prime Minister of Israel. He approached the podium.

  “Dear friends, dear warriors. Not since the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, has a single mission so vital to the existence of the State of Israel taken place,” he said, looking at the serious faces before him with a smile that acknowledged the importance of the event.

  “Simply put, and this is even before analysis of the data is complete, we now have information about factions who wish to destroy us - groups we knew nothing of before. But more than that, the unfathomable sums deposited in the various bank accounts, feeding the system of Palestinian and global terror, are now in our hands.

  “You have my word that rather than nurturing destruction these funds will now nurture the growth and fortification of the State of Israel. We are already witnessing significant mayhem within these organizations. Cutting off their primary sources of funding will lead to security and peace, and for that, we thank each and every one of you on behalf of the entire nation. Moreover, in this action you succeeded in infiltrating their organization’s most secret cell and eliminating both the historic leader Faris and the new leader Musa (“I don’t know what’s happening here, except that I’ve been used in the worst sense of the word”).

  “For that,” the Prime Minister continued, “you will each receive the Medal of Valor. The State of Israel is proud to have you as its sons and daughters.”

  One at a time they came up to collect their medals. When they dispersed one box was left on the table, the one with Naomi’s name on it.

  Everyone left the building. Abraham was the last to emerge, looking right and lef
t, Naomi’s box in his hand. He spotted her from afar, walking away from the building.

  “Naomi,” he called after her, “Naomi, wait.”

  She stopped to let him reach her.

  “Let’s go over there,” he pointed to a nearby café.

  He sat down next to her, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  “Naomi, you have every reason in the world to feel used (“That’s right, that’s the exact word I would choose”) but you should know, Moshe is a lieutenant colonel in a highly classified intelligence unit. For the past five years he’s been working alone, cut off from everyone else, to establish trust with the cell members, and he succeeded in doing so by spending some of that time in prison as a terrorist. Then he was ‘released’ in the prisoner exchange for a kidnapped soldier. He risked his life, and was triumphant. Recruiting you, having you meet him, that was all planned. What wasn’t planned was the attack at the Victoria and the great love you two were caught up in. At first we thought about telling you. We considered pulling you off the team and breaking you two apart but then we decided that you were an excellent agent who we did not want to give up. Moshe sent us a message too, asking to change the plan and cut you out of the picture, but we wouldn’t do it.

  The decision not to share his identity with you meant your relationship stayed authentic and that’s exactly what brought the operation to a successful ending. Thanks to you and to your relationship you were able to figure out the password. The prisoners we let live already spread the word about Musa becoming a Shahid. Our man, the accountant, never knew the truth and never will, either. As far as he was concerned he helped us with the information and fingerprints and Musa was killed. That was our way to get Moshe out of their organization safely and back to us, without anyone thinking to look for him. Ziv switched the bullets in your gun to low impact ones and the injuries he sustained were painful but superficial. Naomi, as I said, this was all for a purpose greater than either me or you.”

  The whole while he spoke Naomi stared over his shoulder, frozen. Now he got up, pushed the box in her direction, and left the café. After two minutes Naomi too got up and left.