Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  Then Matt saw Shoshana and Hanni carrying a wounded man into their APC. “They had better get away from there,” a voice said, “until we know who else is out there.” The sharp realization hit Matt that it took a special type of situational awareness to survive ground combat and that he didn’t have a clue.

  “Your APCs got a gun mounted on top,” Matt said. “Why don’t you use it?”

  “APCs don’t engage tanks,” the sergeant barked. Matt thought about that for a moment and then decided to look again. He could see that the Dragon antitank missile had blown off the tank’s left track, but other than that, the tank was undamaged. The turret was swinging back and forth and the PKT machine gun mounted above the main gun was raking the ground in front of the wadi. They were trapped.

  The tank crew was still buttoned up inside and Matt couldn’t see any supporting infantry. Then he noticed the top of the turret; something didn’t look right. He pointed it out to a corporal beside him who looked and only shook his head. “That’s the hatch. It’s got a dent in it.”

  Now the American was beginning to get a clue. Maybe the hatch could be pried open like a tin can and a grenade dropped inside. He ran back to the APC and grabbed a breaking bar he had seen inside. He ignored Shoshana and Hanni who were working on the injured man, trying to stop his bleeding. He ran back to the corporal. “Give me a grenade,” he said. Again, he popped his head up, took a quick look and dropped back down. The tank was concentrating its fire in the direction of the APCs in the wadi, apparently aware of their position. Now he understood why the squad leader had moved away. APCs didn’t engage tanks but tanks engaged APCs. He looked again, screwing up his courage. He was going after the tank.

  With a shove, Matt pushed himself over the edge of the wadi. But the corporal reached up and jerked him back. He lot his balance and collapsed in a heap in the bottom of the wadi. “Why were you going to do that?” the corporal asked.

  “Because APCs don’t take on tanks,” Matt shot back. It was the best one-liner he had ever thought of.

  “That was stupid,” the corporal said, shaking his head. He pulled Matt to his feet and pointed behind him. Matt could see a Hummer with a TOW mounted on top coming toward them. “We had called for help.”

  There’s many kinds of situational awareness, Matt decided.

  “I swear I’ll never even think of playing Rambo again,” Matt said, trying to keep their spirits up with a little humor. The three of them were sitting beside the ambulance at the hospital in Haifa, eating after returning from their sixth run to the aid station to the north. Matt found it hard to believe he could be so tired and still keep moving. Shoshana only looked at him. “You know … attempt to do a John Wayne number on a tank.” In quieter moments, he knew it had been rash to the point of stupidity. But he was also dealing with strong protective feelings that were wrapped around Shoshana.

  “You would’ve been killed,” Shoshana said, a concerned look on her face.

  “Tamir!” Matt recognized the woman dispatcher’s voice immediately. The young woman was standing there, slightly weaving, on the edge of a physical collapse. “There’s a lull in the fighting,” she said. “Only a few more to bring in-for now.” While Shoshana and Hanni climbed into the ambulance, he asked the woman to call the American embassy and tell them where he was.

  “How much longer can you two go on?” Matt asked, sliding into the driver’s seat. He had been going for over thirty-six hours and knew they had been on duty much longer. Hanni was already dozing.

  “As long as we have to,” Shoshana said. “Let’s go.”

  Matt joined the stream of traffic moving north. The road had been cleared and they moved along at a steady forty kilometers per hour, sandwiched between a supply truck and a freshly repaired M60A3 tank. He noticed that the tank commander standing in the hatch was a woman and realized how desperate the Israelis were if they were manning tanks with women. He mentioned it to Shoshana but she was also asleep. Occasionally, he would see a returning ambulance or a truck transporting wounded men with filthy bandages and still carrying their weapons. Those men were wounded, he thought, returned to combat and wounded again.

  “Damn,” he muttered to himself. Through the fog of his fatigue, he realized he had accomplished exactly what Gold had sent him north to do and he had to report it. He passed the spot where the destroyed Merkava tank had blocked the road. The tank had been pushed to one side and a team of mechanics were working on it. He counted six body bags piled off to one side. My God, he thought, they’re retrieving tanks before taking care of their dead.

  Overhead, two Israeli F-4 Phantoms crossed the road. He watched them weave back and forth. Flying a CAP over the road, he decided. He listened for artillery. Nothing. The fighting may have stopped for now, he calculated, but they were far from being secure and the Israelis were obviously rushing reinforcements and supplies forward. He looked at his watch—3:40 p.m. Probably another attack tonight, he decided. Which side will be on the offensive?

  A soldier wearing the distinctive red brassard of the military police on her left arm waved them past the aid station and they continued north. He nudged Shoshana. “Wake up. Change in plans.” She lifted her head, momentarily confused. Another military policewoman directed them to turn off the road toward a barbed-wire compound.

  “POWs,” Shoshana said as they came to a halt.

  A lone MP was standing by a single stretcher, waiting for them. Shoshana and Hanni jumped out and loaded the stretcher. The MP climbed into the back and they closed the doors. Worry was written across Shoshana’s face when they climbed back into the cab. “Don’t like hauling wounded POWs?” Matt ventured.

  “We’ve done it before,” she said. He could hear the concern in her voice.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “This one is wearing an Iraqi uniform.”

  19

  Johar Adwan slipped quietly into the back of the squadron’s ready room and found a seat in the back, next to a wall. Johar Adwan looked around, relieved to see only other pilots like himself—the nobodies. Every Iraqi air base like Johar’s at Mosul had its fair share of nobodies—the little men, the pilots without family or connections.

  The twenty-nine-year-old Iraqi pilot outwardly accepted his position at the bottom of the squadron’s pecking order, trying to be content as a lieutenant, knowing that he would never be promoted beyond captain and that others, much less qualified than he, would rise far above him in the chain of command. But that was life in Iraq’s air force. There were compensations. Johar Adwan flew Iraq’s most modern fighter, the Soviet-built Sukhoi, the Su-27, that NATO called the Flanker. Johar preferred the other name the pilots had given the big jet fighter—Pugachev’s Cobra—after Viktor Pugachev, one of its designers and chief test pilot.

  Another pilot, Samir Hamshari, came into the room, saw Johar, and sat down beside him. Like Johar Adwan, Samir Hamshari was also a nobody. Samir glanced at the slightly balding Johar. “No practice today,” he said. Samir was a year younger than Johar and had introduced him to a new form of air-to-air tactics. Most of the squadron tolerated the two lieutenants, amused by the way they pored over “Red Baron” reports and the issues of the Fighter Weapons Review magazine Russian agents had stolen from the U.S. Air Force and sent to the Iraqis. Because of their interest in American tactics, the other pilots had mockingly shortened the pilots’ names to Joe and Sam.

  What no one knew, and what Johar and Samir’s privileged and powerful superiors would not have tolerated, was that the two pilots practiced the tactics they read about whenever they had a chance. And in order to be unobserved by their own radar controllers, they did it below a thousand feet with their IFFs off.

  “General Mana arrived from Baghdad ten minutes ago,” Samir said. Hussan Mana was the commander of the base at Mosul and, according to his press releases, the number one fighter pilot in the Iraqi Air Force.

  “I’m impressed,” Johar mumbled. “You don’t think he’s going to fly tomorrow?�
� The two exchanged knowing glances. The joke around the squadron was that Mana flew once a month whether he needed to or not. “Did you hear the latest rumor?” Johar asked.

  “That we’re going to join Syria?”

  “Not that one,” Johar replied. “The one about Mana’s younger brother being killed by an Israeli agent. Supposedly, she could stop traffic.”

  “A Mana interested in females?” Samir grinned. “I thought all Manas were alike.”

  A young and boyish-looking lieutenant colonel came through the door. “The commander will be here shortly,” he announced. “Please take your places.” The pilots shuffled into two lines on each side of the center aisle, making a corridor for the general to walk down. They lined up by rank, the lowest and least important near the door. Johar and Samir were the first in line. When the lieutenant colonel was satisfied that all was proper, he called them to attention. The two lines stood there, waiting for the general.

  Five minutes later, General Hussan Mana entered, his immaculately tailored uniform resplendent with braid and medals. As he walked down the line, each pilot would click his heels and give a short bow. Mana didn’t see the lieutenants, ignored the captains and majors, acknowledged the lieutenant colonels with a glance, and actually nodded at the four colonels whose uniforms matched his.

  “Do you think they own flight suits?” Samir asked out of the side of his mouth, referring to the colonels and the general.

  “It has been rumored,” Johar whispered.

  General Mana stared at the assembled pilots, all still standing at attention. “It is my honor,” he began, his voice rigid and formal, “to tell you that we are now engaged in battle with our most hated enemy. Soon we will have the chance to show the world that their air force is nothing but a pitiful collection of half-assed Barbary apes who call themselves pilots.” The general permitted a tight smile to cross his lips.

  “Oh, I hope they are,” Samir mumbled under his breath.

  “I will lead you into battle,” Mana continued, “and prove that our Sukhois are better than the American F-Fifteens and F-Sixteens that have allowed the enemy to dominate our Syrian allies. We will attack using a ‘bearing of aircraft.’ I will be in the lead and you will follow according to position.”

  A bearing of aircraft was a standard Soviet formation, a long line of aircraft that a radar ground controller directed into an engagement. It was a follow-the-leader formation in which each aircraft followed approximately two miles in trail and stacked slightly higher than the one in front of it. The arrangement allowed the radar ground controllers to maintain aircraft separation and tight control. By “position,” Mana meant rank. Johar and Samir would be the last aircraft in the formation.

  Now Mana’s face hardened. “Victory is ours. Itbach al-yahud!” Kill the Jews! The general stomped out of the room.

  On that late afternoon, Iraq had 604 men who could fly high-performance fighter-type aircraft. Two of them were fighter pilots nicknamed Joe and Sam.

  The MP guarding the Iraqi POW directed Matt to drive to a headquarters compound near Acre where a doctor and translator were waiting for them. The doctor climbed into the back of the ambulance and examined the Iraqi while the translator relayed the doctor’s questions. “He says his unit is the Hammurabi Division” the translator said. The Israelis exchanged worried glances. The Hammurabi Division was part of Iraq’s Republican Guard.

  “He can be interrogated,” the doctor said and climbed out.

  Time and the road blended together for Matt as he and the two women shuttled back and forth between the fighting and hospitals in the rear. From the wounded, he heard that the Israelis had mounted a counterattack and then had to fall back to their original positions. Matt was able to learn that fighting was the fiercest on the northern border and hinged on a low ridge that straddled the coastal plain. On one trip back to Haifa, a young wounded tanker described the battle to him. “If they push us off that ridge,” he said, “the road to Haifa will be wide open.”

  The action ground to a halt as both sides ran out of tanks, fuel, and ammunition. Then Matt started hearing stories about how a small, ragtag collection of tanks and infantry called Levy Force had fought stubbornly for the ridge and had held on against repeated attacks.

  Finally, they were headed for Haifa with their last load of wounded. It was early morning when they reached the hospital and Hanni collapsed from physical exhaustion while they were unloading. Matt carried her to an open place under a tree, amazed at how light and frail the dark-haired woman was under her bulky fatigues. She’s been going on sheer willpower, he thought. He gently laid her down and covered her with a blanket.

  When he returned to the ambulance, Colonel Gold, the air attaché, was waiting for him. “I got your message,” he said. Matt sat down, too tired to answer or think. Shoshana appeared with a plastic jug of water and handed it to him. Matt took a long pull at the cool water and felt better. Slowly, he started telling Gold all he had learned and seen. The colonel listened quietly and made extensive notes. When Matt had finished, the colonel asked detailed questions, filling in the blanks.

  “Matt, I was ordered to personally find you and get you out of Israel. The Israelis are taking a beating and this is the only place where they’ve stopped the Syrians. The Syrian Third Army has pushed them right to the edge of the Golan Heights and taken Mount Hermon. God, if they kick the Israelis off the Golan … It’s much worse in Jordan and Jerusalem is being shelled.”

  “In the Sinai?” Matt asked. “The Egyptians?”

  Gold shook his head. “No change. The Israelis still have most of Southern Command in the Sinai covering the Egyptians. If they can free those forces and move them north, the Israelis will have a fighting chance.”

  “The Iraqis are in it now and the Egyptians are going to attack,” Matt predicted.

  “I know,” Gold said. Matt could hear pain in his voice. “That’s the reason you’ve got to get out of here. Furry says your jet will be fixed and ready to fly tomorrow. Be there and get the hell out of Israel.

  “Matt, you gave me the first hard evidence that the Iraqis have come into the war. Look, I haven’t got time to baby-sit you. I have got to get back and try to convince somebody in Washington just how critical things are here.” He looked at the almost comatose young pilot. “You’re in no condition to fly. Get some rest and get to Ramon on your own. If you have trouble, contact me here.” He handed Matt a slip of paper. “I’ve moved to Ben Gurion Airport.” The two men stood and shook hands. Then Gold was gone, running for his car.

  Matt found Shoshana asleep in the ambulance and drove her home to her family’s apartment. The woman Matt had talked to earlier answered his knock, took one look at Shoshana, and half carried her, half dragged her to the bathroom. “You,” she said to Matt. “Go in the kitchen and get out of those clothes. Take a sponge bath.”

  In the bathroom, she lifted out the two small children who were sleeping in the tub and filled it with hot water. She sat Shoshana on the edge and pulled off her fatigues. As Shoshana slipped into the water, she came half awake. “Aunt Lillian,” she mumbled. “That’s him, Matt.”

  “I know, Shoshe, I know.”

  Shoshana let the hot water envelop her. “Aunt Lillian”—her voice was dreamlike and she was twelve years old again—“will I ever be pretty like you?”

  “You’re beautiful, Shoshe.” She gently bathed her niece.

  Lillian closed the bathroom door behind her when she was finished. “You need to soak for a week,” she said to herself. In the kitchen, she found four giggly children standing over the American. He was half-dressed and passed out on the floor. She stripped him down to his shorts and ordered the children to wash him. The children fell over themselves with laughter and went to work while Lillian went to Shoshana’s old bedroom and kicked the children sleeping there out into the hall. Then she went to the bathroom, retrieved Shoshana, and gently placed her in her own bed.

  Back in the kitchen, she found the chi
ldren scrubbing their victim with more enthusiasm than skill. “Now help me get him to bed,” she said to the biggest girl. The two of them carried him to the bedroom and unceremoniously dumped him in bed beside Shoshana. “Not much of a wedding night,” Lillian said to herself and closed the door. She leaned against the wall, closed her eyes and hugged herself, forcing the tears to go away. “I’ll be damned if I’ll call the Ganef.”

  The late-afternoon light filled the bedroom with soft warmth. Outside the door, the apartment was quiet. Shoshana lay there, trying to remember what had happened. The last thing she could remember was the warm water of the tub enveloping her. She touched the bare back beside her and felt a sudden warmth wash over her.

  “Matt.”

  “I’m here.”

  “No, don’t kiss me there. No, don’t stop.”

  “Make up your mind.”

  “Quit laughing.”

  “Shoshana, I love you.”

  “I know. Oh, that’s good. No, don’t stop. Quit teasing me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Oh. Yes. Help me, help me. Oohh, Matt, I do love you.”

  The apartment exploded with shouts and laughter when Lillian brought her small charges back. Shoshana and Matt were on the balcony and smiled at each other. “Have you ever thought of having children?” Matt asked.

  Shoshana smiled gently at him. About some things, Matt was incredibly naive. “Every woman does.”

  “Let’s get married,” he said. “Now.”

  She reached out and touched his cheek, wanting to say yes, wanting to run away from the insanity that had engulfed her and all she loved. A basic need deep inside her wanted to hide inside the love he was offering her. But she couldn’t. “Matt, if we could—”