by E. L. Pini
He soon realized that he had no choice. Burning this car could be the only true end to his former self. He sadly inserted a tube into the gas tank and sucked. The fuel came in a hesitant trickle, at first, which grew into a steady stream, soaking the ground, pooling around the car. He took a long drag and tossed his cigarette into the puddle. The machine burned, marking the beginning of a new era, a momentous era—and Palestine would be the opening chapter, and he’d have revenge, undo the humiliation.
He then briefly coordinated with the ever-loyal Najib and boarded a flight to Cairo. From there he would fly to the Sultanate, where he could finally share his vision with the sultan.
And then it was back to Berlin, to make some stuffed shahids. He couldn’t afford to disobey the sheikh.
30.
O’Driscoll phoned just as I was stepping out of the shower, and requested—ordered, really—that I postpone my flight to Tel Aviv. “Stay put,” he said, “I’ll be there in thirty.”
Thirty minutes later, on the dot, he arrived at the motel, pulled out an iPad and placed it in front of me.
“Look!” he ordered.
It was satellite footage, medium quality and badly edited.
When I’d watched the whole thing, he offered me a glass of bourbon.
“Again?”
“Affirmative. From the top, at Atbara.”
At the bottom of the screen was yesterday’s date. The time was 14:05 plus some serial number. Bird’s-eye view of Imad’s Range Rover parked beside Najib’s Café, near a blue truck. The party left the café, led by Imad. One of them flashed his ass at the estimated location of the satellite.
The Range Rover sped down the winding Route 38 from Atbara to Khartoum. The driver, probably Imad, took full advantage of the rear-wheel drive, drifting through the curves. There was a cut to the blue truck, which left the road momentarily to turn and position itself across it. The shot widened.
Imad’s Range Rover arrived at a sharp curve. The rear of the car broke right, the front swerved left, and Imad was forced to slam on the brakes hard to avoid hitting the truck blocking the road. Too late. The jeep, and Imad with it, collided violently with the truck, spun through the air three times and eventually landed upside down. The camera panned slightly to the right. A Mi-24 attack helicopter hovered above the demolished Range Rover, waiting. One of the passengers—impossible to identify—tried to climb out of the crushed window. The helicopter fired a missile at him, then another. the Range Rover exploded and went up in flames. The helicopter ascended, stabilized, and fired another missile—a kind of pointless confirmation.
An armed figure hopped out of the truck and ran toward the blazing remains of the jeep. He prodded the heads of the bodies with the tip of his shoe, apparently confirming the kills, and raised his head toward the circling helicopter. The pilot signaled with a thumbs-down, and the man on the ground nodded, took out a box of cigarettes and lit one, tossing the box on the sand. The helicopter seemed to be making a final round before departing. On the left landing skid, a knee was visible, as well as two hands holding a camera. The men on the ground waved goodbye, and then, suddenly, the helicopter turned, heading back toward the truck. It stabilized and fired another missile, then another. The truck exploded. The helicopter rose and droned away, and the desert was silent once again.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Wasn’t us,” said O’Dri. “Wasn’t y’all, either. Who else around there has Mi-24s?”
“The Iranians, the Libyans and the Somalis. Some other ones lying around the free market. The KGB Russkies can probably get them, too… did you see the guy from the Unimog who confirmed the kill? Got instructions from the pilot, then got executed? Like a goddamn mafia execution? They’re insane…”
“You can’t expect abnormal people to exhibit normal behavioral patterns,” said O’Dri.
“You got anyone over there?”
“Yemenite police forensic team is down there, collecting evidence.”
“Do they have DNA testing?”
“Affirmative. They’ll pass along their findings.”
Apparently, we weren’t the only ones after Imad. We raised our glasses in the name of the dearly deceased, and I tried to explain the subtleties of the Hebrew expression, “The work of the righteous is done by others.” Along with this minor satisfaction, however, I felt a much greater frustration. As if my quarry had been snatched away from my fingers.
31.
At noon, Froyke, who was looking much better, came to visit me in Agur, along with G. They both successfully passed the entrance exam performed by my dual monstrosities—Garibaldi and Froyke got along famously, while Adolf maintained a respectable distance.
We went over the checklist again. G’s pilots and navigators had been grinding the simulators to dust. The concluding exercises, carried out in a training area in east Azerbaijan, were a success. I was still worried about the sensitive Saudi material, the Royal Air Force stickers—we couldn’t afford a leak. One of the navigators on the assault team had some design experience; we made sure he applied the stickers himself, with no eyewitnesses, no matter their rank.
The skies had also been cooperative and the weather seemed promising, perfect for an aerial assault. When we were done, Froyke asked to see Eran. He leaned on the gravestone and muttered something. G observed from a distance, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Froyke parted from Eran and came over to hug me.
“So today’s your big day, huh?” he said at some point. It was uncharacteristic, and I was caught off guard. And the old geezer had more up his sleeve—before they headed back to Tel Aviv, he casually mentioned, “The little doctor asked about you. She expressed a great deal of interest, in fact,” he added with a mischievous smile that assured me more than anything else that he was back to his old self. “A great deal of interest!” he finished with his standard reiteration.
Five p.m. The setting sun dyed the clouds crimson. Ten hours to H-Hour. That was a lot of time. I lit a small Cohiba and dialed the hospital. I asked to speak to Dr. Verbin and hung up before they managed to transfer me. What would I tell her? That I loved her? Our shared history consisted of all of two minutes, and I was in love? Ask her how she was doing? Idiotic. After several seconds I called again, asked for Dr. Verbin again. The call was transferred and landed in her voicemail. I whistled the main theme from La Donna è Mobile and hung up.
“He’s an overly sentimental crowd-pleaser. And he’s off-key,” my mother would say whenever I played Pavarotti, who was my main link to classical music. My mother taught at the Music Academy and had perfect hearing, but I couldn’t care less that Pavarotti was off-key, or that Bob Dylan was “grating” and Mick Jagger was “all over the place.” I loved every moment of it. It was different, missing my sharp-tongued, opinionated mother, or the father I’d never known. It was so much calmer than the slicing agony of missing Eran and Ya’ara.
My vertebrae were in dire need of attention, so I took off my clothes and dove into the pool. An hour of Ironman front crawl and another thirty minutes of butterfly stroke later, my back should be back to a tolerable state.
Garibaldi and Adolf came running once I jumped in and proceeded to patrol around the pool. I had been trying for years to convince them that I knew how to swim. Nothing seemed to work. The second I was in the water—there they were, patrolling. As a puppy, Garibaldi had fallen into the pool once. It was winter, a cold day. I jumped in to get him and we dried him with Ya’ara’s hairdryer. He hadn’t set foot in the water since, and he ran whenever someone turned on a hairdryer. During my swim, I thought I heard the phone ring, but I kept swimming. When I finally left the water, I found myself hoping it was Verbin, but it was O’Driscoll, calling to wish me good luck.
On my way to the Pit, I attempted to put my thoughts in order: today I destroy the camp at Shabwah. Other than that, Imad had been executed, Taissiri had vanished, and Anna
was busy opening a new children’s clinic in Berlin. I wanted her to come back to Israel. I thought we could give her a clinic for Ethiopian refugee children in some kibbutz. She’d adamantly refused. I asked Luigi to join our Berlin branch and watch over her, her security measures and her debriefing regarding Taissiri’s operations in Shabwah. When I asked him if he wanted Nora to join him there, he practically licked his lips in response. I wished them both a great deal of fun. Tomorrow, when it was all over, I’d finally take Garibaldi to get his teeth cleaned, and read the new Ken Bruen novel. Froyke’s voice appeared in my head, quoting his father—Mensch tracht und Gott lacht—reminding me not to overindulge in expectations. Man plans, and God laughs. Just please, please don’t let Him laugh at my operation. He won’t get away with it, this time.
32.
At the Pit, I went over the checklist again with Froyke and G. The jets had been adorned with the emblems of the Saudi Royal Air Force, and no one had been informed of this other than the parties directly involved in the operation. At my request, G drastically reduces the number of entry permits, resulting in an uncharacteristically empty Pit.
02:00—Recheck all systems. I went out to the small smoking balcony and indulged in another Cohiba. It had been one of those days. I realized that, more than anything, I was expecting a sort of catharsis. Once this was over, I was taking some time off. And Miss Doctor would definitely be coming with me. When I checked my phone, I saw a missed call from Verbin. Overjoyed, I dialed back and immediately realized it was the middle of the night. I hung up.
02:30—The Pit, which we’d emptied so meticulously, was now quickly filling up. The commander of the air force was first to arrive. He shook hands with me and Froyke like we were the mother and father of the bride and then went to huddle with G in some corner. Then came the head of the intelligence corps, the director of operations, the commander of Unit 669, and the head of the Cyber Defense Directorate. Half of the general staff was already there by the time the chief of staff finally made it, accompanied by the minister of defense, the director of the Mossad, and the prime minister’s bureau chief. The DM came over to shake my hand and congratulate me with a “Good job, Ehrlich,” before finding a corner to hook up his laptop and obsess over the risk management program he’d developed.
02:45—The prime minister walked in. The generals rose to their feet as a single mass. I had no choice but to join them. He nodded in greeting, then sat down to exchange whispers with the defense minister and his bureau chief.
02:50—G assumed command. The pilots in the air reported locations and readiness. All small talk hushed. A tense silence took its place. Ten minutes to H-Hour. A cache of hundreds of missiles would be destroyed. The coordinates the pilots had fed into their smart bombs were accurate. This was what Anna had spent a year in the desert for. I tried to predict from which angle Murphy would strike.
My Eran appeared suddenly, to say everything looked good. “Kiddo,” I said, “we crush this Shabwah today, there’s a new Shabwah tomorrow.” An insane scene flashed before my eyes, thousands of brightly glowing ballistic missiles, cruising through the black skies, from every direction—Gaza, Lebanon, The ocean, so many, all at once. The Iron Dome11 computers broke down under the pressure, and the missiles kept coming, their movement oddly slow.
Eran kissed my cheek and vanished. I loved that kid so much.
02:55—The pilots reported one hundred and eighty seconds to target.
02:58—The pilots were ready. Visibility was good. Targets identified.
02:59—G glanced at the air force commander, who looked to the prime minister. The PM nodded. The commander nodded at G, who addressed each of the pilots in turn with an order to “engage!”
03:00—The director of operations, an infantryman through and through, blurted out an enthusiastic “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
How puny we infantrymen looked when compared to a fifty-million-dollar aircraft. The massive technological infrastructure. The bunker busters weighing a literal ton. There would be no catharsis. There was never any catharsis in this line of work.
We watched the plasma screen, following the descent of the heavy bombs. Flyby after flyby, bomb after bomb, the bunkers were crushed, exploded, burned. The secondary explosions looked like Fourth of July fireworks. One camera, I had no idea which, managed to get closer to the destruction. Vehicles were visible, along with burning tents, and dozens of frenzied black grasshoppers, running, burning, falling. Infantrymen.
03:03—G informed us of a perfect execution. The commander of the air force quipped, “I’ve always said our Royal Air Force was the best in the world.” People began to laugh.
“You’ve done great work, which has and will continue to have crucial strategic and historic repercussions. We have struck at the heart of the axis of evil…” The prime minister was spewing his standard political prattle. I was suddenly troubled. I tried to capture the DM’s attention, but he was too deeply focused on his laptop screen. Froyke shot me a curious glance. I realized that at the first sign of political difficulty, our prime minister might use this victory for his own needs, destroying the trust our fragile new coalition was based on.
I raised my hand like a good boy.
“Yes?” said the PM. “Ehr—uh—Ehrlich, right?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the sudden tension in the director’s face. Froyke seemed amused. “Yes, your honor,” I replied. “For over forty years now, Avner Ehrlich. I’ll just take twenty seconds, if it please your honor.” I gestured at the room.
His puzzlement quickly morphed into a smile. “Please, be my guest, Avner. You’re the guest of honor, after all.”
“Friends, I’d like to take advantage of the prime minister’s presence to stress a crucial matter. This operation was carried out by the Royal Saudi Air Force. We had no part in this, nor any prior knowledge. Thank you.”
The prime minister waved goodbye and made his way toward the exit. The chief of staff winked at me and the air force commander, who hugged my shoulder and tipped his head toward the PM’s entourage as he whispered, “Think he got the message?”
I nodded. “Of course he did, and of course he’ll do whatever he wants to, regardless. We’re just the dog’s tail,” I replied, grinning when I imagined a happy, tail-wagging Garibaldi. Froyke approached me along with the director and winked at me.
“Good job, Ehrlich,” said the DM, shaking my hand. “Good job.”
* * *
1Voluntary emergency response teams in Israel who aid in the identification of the victims of terrorism, road accidents and other disasters, and where necessary gather body parts and spilled blood for proper burial. -TK
2 The Shabak or Shin Bet (usually referred to by the rest of the intelligence community as “The Service”) is Israel’s internal security service. -TK
3Order of Battle. The hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of an armed force. -TK
4The heliborne Combat Search & rescue extraction Unit of the IDF Air Force. -TK
5The Kishon is a highly polluted river which the IDF used extensively for diving and swimming training. Many ex-Flotilla 13 (Navy special forces) soldiers later blamed this training for their being diagnosed with cancer.
6Purim is the Jewish holiday on which costumes are customarily worn.—T.K.
7 Ya’ara is the feminine form of Ya’ar (Hebrew: forest).—T.K
8 Rafael “Raful” Eitan was an extremely quotable (among other things) Israeli general and former Chief of Staff in the 70s and 80s, known for his anti-Arab views. He famously referred to Arabs as “crazed (lit. “drugged”) bugs in a bottle.”—T.K
9 Yiddish: “Mother tongue”—T.K.
10 The logo of a popular Israeli chocolate manufacturer. -TK
11 A mobile all-weather air defense system designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired at a populated area. -TK
Book 2
33.
“Good job, Ehrlich,” said the director, and with that, another chapter in my life concluded. I had noticed that with each ending of a chapter in my life, someone else’s life seemed to end entirely. What did that make me?
I was too exhausted to muse at the moment. I took off my shoes, peeled off my socks, and got on Highway 1. I set the cruise control to one hundred miles per hour, stuck my head out to dry the sweat off my face, and hoped not to encounter any cops.
I’d been in this business long enough. I should have known that no joy would come from the demolished camp and the burning, scattering grasshoppers. No sense of victory. No, it was empty and metallic, like after a bad fuck. A full year of work, of tension and fears, and Anna, that maniac who risked herself day after day, just because she was born to the wrong family. A 180-second light show, and voilà! They were gone. Now I just wanted to go home, to my Eran, my golden blue-eyed boy.
When I got to Agur, the sky was already brightening, and the yellow metal gate was ajar. I took my clothes off as I walked, and dropped into the deep end of the pool. I stayed down there as long as I could. Ya’ara used to say that my greatest aspiration was to return to the womb, and I’d destroy whoever gets in my way back there. Adolf and Garibaldi were patrolling the poolside when I popped back to the surface like a cork out of cheap champagne. I decided to make the best of the situation and take a swim. Forty minutes of front crawl and twenty minutes and butterfly stroke, and I was as good as new.
