A vehicle was parked at the bottom of the valley between two hills. He thought that it was an Italian Fiat but could not be sure and didn’t want to bring out his mini-binoculars – a flash of reflected light could give away his position. Five men were sitting on the ground half way up the side of the hill opposite him. Three wore German uniforms. As far as Oren could tell, one of the Germans was a sergeant, the other two were privates. There were also two soldiers wearing Italian uniforms. Both of them were privates.
***
On the flight to New York Jonathan and Dan were surprised to meet two other Israelis. One was an official from the Absorption Ministry and the other a historian specializing in the Jewish and Zionist history of the first half of the twentieth century.
“Where are you going?” one of the two asked.
“To New York and beyond.” Dan responded.
“Okay. Another secret project,” the historian said.
“And what are you doing here?” Dan inquired.
“It’s our third trip. We’re maintaining the contacts between Palestine and the Jewish community in America. These would have been severed when we popped up in this time.”
After they returned to their seats Jonathan looked at Dan. “Another government screw-up? Why not use their contacts? We didn’t need to bother with Snyder.”
“I don’t think it was a screw-up,” Dan responded. “The Jewish community, I mean the part of the community that is really Jewish and cares about other Jews, has no influence or connection with Roosevelt. They demonstrated and made noise in support of European Jews. All that got them was a notice on the inner page of some newspapers. Not even an interview with the President or anybody from the Administration.
“We did look at possible connections there but discovered very quickly that the only contacts with Roosevelt were through labor leaders and Communists. Snyder was a unique opportunity. We probably could have gotten to him through these two emissaries but it was much handier to speak directly to him in Italy. You think that his visit to the Brindisi facility didn’t help us?”
Dan and Jonathan took a taxi from the pier where the flying boat was moored to the Hotel New York. It was close to noon and they expected to be able to wash up and get ready to meet Snyder.
Snyder was waiting for them in the hotel’s lobby: “How was your trip? Any problems?”
“No. Thanks for asking. We are fine, any news about our business?”
Snyder pointed to a table and armchairs in the corner. After settling there and getting drinks Snyder said, “I have good news and bad news. Which first?”
“Tell us in chronological order.” Dan responded.
“Right. I could not find any approach to the Vice Admiral. It sounds like he is a tough cookie and associates mainly with Navy characters. That’s the bad news.
“The good news is that I know a nice woman who used to work for Mr. Roosevelt when he was the governor of New York. She was his Labor Secretary for a while. Now she heads a large union. She’s Jewish, but cares nothing about Palestine – her worries are mostly about the labor movement. On the other hand, she cares about Mr. Roosevelt’s health and has respect for Jewish doctors.
“To make a long story short: after questioning me for two hours, she agreed to recommend Dr. Brown’s services to Mrs. Roosevelt. Eleanor has been looking for a second opinion – she thinks that Admiral McKinley is not the best doctor for her husband.
“Here is the catch though: she will call Mrs. Roosevelt, and maybe the President, only after interviewing you. Our appointment with her is tonight at ten at her office. It’s not too far from here and I will take you there. Before I leave, we need to decide whether Dr. Brown is coming by himself or both of you go.”
Dan nodded. “That’s a good question. My function here is to keep Dr. Brown safe – he’s a prominent physician and has knowledge of research done in Germany and other places. He may be in danger if the Nazis become aware of him being here, especially if his mission becomes known to them.”
Snyder looked from one man to the other. “I wasn’t aware that you were that important, Dr. Brown. If that’s the case, by all means let’s go together. Of course, you will have to explain the situation to Miss Schiller.”
At 10 p.m. sharp they rang the bell at the entrance to a nondescript building in the garment district. The door was opened by a burly man who looked them over and let them enter. The cramped lobby looked old and somewhat dingy. It was lit by a single low-powered bulb which made it look even more worn out that it actually was. There were two other men in the lobby. The doorman motioned for them to lift their arms and patted them down: “Sorry about this, but we have to be careful.”
“Yeah,” Snyder smiled. “I hear the mob is not too happy with Schiller’s policies. They’ll get used to it.”
The man wasn’t amused. “Please follow me.”
They went up a creaking elevator that their guide controlled with a manual lever. It stopped on the sixth floor. The man opened the door and led them down a sparsely lit corridor. Close to its end he knocked on a door.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice shouted.
The first room was obviously a secretary’s or receptionist’s office. It was empty. The door to the next office was open. A woman in her late forties was seated behind a big desk. She got up to great them. “Hi, Howard, punctual as usual. Pleasure to see you again. Introduce me to your friends.”
“This is Dr. Jonathan Brown and Mr. Dan Law.” Both shook hands with the woman.
“Sam, thank you. I’ll call you when these gentlemen are ready to leave.”
Clara Schiller was almost as tall as Jonathan. She looked them over, smiled and pointed to the chairs opposite her desk. “Howard tells me that you are a prominent physician from Palestine. Can you tell me more about yourself?”
Jonathan told her his cover story – basically true, except for the slight modifications necessary to make it fit America in 1941.
“So you can see”, he concluded, “how we at Hadassah became a world center for medical knowledge.”
“Very interesting. I didn’t realize that the little hospital in Jerusalem was so advanced, but it does make sense that with the influx of the best brains from Germany and the rest of Europe you would make progress.
“Mr. Law, what brings you here?”
Dan smiled “Please call me Dan. I am here mostly as a bodyguard for Jonathan. As you know, the German intelligence services are very thorough and probably know of our visit here. They would love to capture him for themselves or kill him to prevent him getting access to the President. I have other functions connected with the Zionist movement, but they are a far second to Jonathan’s safety.”
Clara Schiller was quiet for a while making notes on a pad in front of her. After she was done she said, “Dr. Brown, what do you expect to be able to do for the President?”
“Before I commit to anything I would need to examine him and run some tests. Only after that will I be able to say with any degree of certainty what I can do.”
For a while the room was quiet. Finally Clara Schiller said, “For whatever it’s worth, I trust you and will recommend you to Eleanor. Of course, she will want to interview you herself.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow. Sam will bring a note from me to your hotel.”
***
“Captain, we have a pilot down,” the comm man reported to the commander of the missile boat. “He was shot down somewhere near Tobruk.”
The captain of the vessel looked at his watch. It was 4:20 a.m., about an hour and a half until sunrise. They were east and north of Tobruk and were scheduled to arrive outside the fortress in an hour.
“Anything from the pilot?” he asked.
“No, sir. Both his beacon and transceiver seem to be either dead or off. I did catch a short burst from the ejection seat transceiver so we know where he ejected.”
“Okay. Keep listening. Gil,” He turned to his second in command, “Get HQ, tell them what the situat
ion is and ask for instructions. I don’t like sending the helicopter out over hostile territory without having the pilot’s position.”
The HQ responded in a couple of minutes: “The Air Force is looking for him. Standby at the predetermined position. As soon as we know something we will let you know.”
At about ten in the morning the missile boat’s radar identified two ships approaching their position from the north. One was a merchant vessel, the other a cruiser, both headed straight for the port of Tobruk. Usually Germans didn’t escort their cargo ships. They and the Italians had anti-aircraft guns installed on the merchant ships but didn’t want to risk their naval vessels. A cruiser could put up some fire but it was likely to be sunk if discovered by the Royal Air Force. On the other hand, if it encountered a Royal Navy ship it would have a fair chance to inflict some damage.
This time it was an Italian cruiser that had the bad luck of approaching Tobruk. The missile boat fired twice. Both anti ship missiles hit their targets. The two enemy ships disappeared from the radar display about 15 minutes later. The Gabriel sea to sea missile, though old and almost obsolete was extremely effective, especially if the enemy didn’t expect it and had no countermeasures.
***
Oren was trying to figure out what to do. He was one against five, but this was not as hopeless as it looked. If he was fast he could shoot all of them within seconds. The question was whether to shoot the radio he saw in the back of the open Fiat. If he did, he was giving the soldiers a chance to do something, but he was also making sure they couldn’t contact whoever sent them and call for help. His other problem was shooting people who had done nothing to him and were just sitting there talking and eating. Being a veteran pilot Oren had a lot of combat experience, but never face to face. Now he discovered that it required some determination to kill a person you could see and hear.
In the meantime, he got ready: he carefully moved the Tavor to a ready position in front of him and put a spare magazine by its side. He waited. If the group finished their meal and kept driving along the bottom of the small valley, they would be out of sight in a couple hundred feet. Or they might decide to go back the way they came.
The sergeant got up and walked in Oren’s direction. He stopped not more than fifteen feet from Oren next to a sizeable boulder, opened his fly and started pissing. At this moment Oren’s radio came on – it was set to vibrate for just such an occasion – the pilot was startled enough to twitch, which dislodged a stone near his foot. The stone rolled down the slope. If the German wasn’t so close he probably wouldn’t have heard the noise. Even now he didn’t seem alarmed. He buttoned up his fly and called to the others. Oren knew no German, but it was clear what the order was: they jumped up and started climbing in his direction.
He shot the four soldiers first – they were farther away and if alerted by gunfire were likely to take cover among the rocks. They were also armed with rifles, which Oren thought were more dangerous than the pistol the sergeant was pulling out of its holster.
The sergeant tried to rush him – it was a short distance. He almost succeeded. When Oren finally hit him, he fell almost on top of the pilot.
After it was over the Lieutenant Colonel shivered for several seconds – the effects of a sudden adrenalin rush. When he felt steady, he inspected his radio and then carefully climbed down to the Fiat. The radio seemed Okay but was dead again. Since it had showed signs of life, though at an inopportune moment, Oren decided to open the cover and see what was wrong with it. There was a dent in the battery cover and on closer inspection he saw that the dent was in fact a puncture. The cover and the battery behind it had stopped a fragment of the shell that killed his aircraft. If it hit an inch higher or lower, he would have had to deal with a bleeding wound in his left side. Oren wasn’t sure that this wouldn’t be preferable to being stranded with a dead radio and an apparently inoperative beacon, even if the radio had come to life for a couple of seconds. There was nothing he could do about it now so he looked at his only alternative.
It took him almost half an hour to figure out the workings of the radio in the Fiat. It wasn’t capable of broadcasting in the frequency range of his emergency radio, but he could try to send a message on a short wave frequency that the Air Force was monitoring.
“Zebra, this is Zebra 5. Please respond.” He repeated the English message four times before a response came:
“Zebra 5 this is Zebra. Are you safe and can you keep transmitting?”
“I’m fine. Do you want to know where I am?”
“No, don’t tell the world where you are. We have you now. Can you stay where you are until dark?”
“I’m not sure. The people that contributed the radio may send somebody to collect it.”
“Okay. We’ll come for you at 7:15. In the meantime go to map grid 7253. It is not too far. Give us the usual signal when you hear us.”
“Good. I’ll be waiting for you there.”
He shut down the radio, changed it back to the German frequency and started walking. He had ten miles to cover in less than six hours – not as easy as it sounded. The terrain was getting more and more rugged and, though some grasses and dry bushes were growing here and there, it was becoming sandier.
Oren arrived at the rendezvous point with an hour to spare.
The helicopter arrived on time. On the way back they had to fly very high – the skies very again lit up by explosions and heavy anti-aircraft fire. This time the jets attacked from high up, spreading cluster bombs and incendiaries. By four in the morning there were no worthwhile targets left.
***
When Oren got to his base he was met with a barrage of questions, even before his formal debriefing. Apparently he was the only pilot to be shot down in Operation Quicksand.
He was slightly embarrassed, though he knew that it wasn’t his fault – just bad luck.
“What happened to the plane?” he asked his commander who debriefed him.
“Believe me,” the Colonel answered, “it was much more of a headache than you were. After you called in, it was a simple operation to extricate you. We would have found you anyway – you were clearly visible on satellite images. The plane was another story. We had to send two cargo helicopters and a crew to cut the damn thing up and cart it back home. A real pain. And by the way, you hid the ejection seat real well. If its beacon wasn’t running we would have never found it. Why didn’t you stay in the cave next to it?”
***
“Oren, I always knew that you were a hothead but endangering your life like that? What if you were killed? My only brother has no common sense at all.”
Noam Shaviv paused for breath, “You had no thoughts about Ziva or the boys? You’re a squadron commander and not so young. I mean what is a Lieutenant Colonel in his thirties doing flying such a mission. What if the Germans took you prisoner?”
Oren waved his hand at his younger brother, “But nothing happened. I’m here in one piece. So don’t get all excited.
“First, you know that I had to fly this mission. What kind of a commander would I be if I only sent others into danger?
“Second, I’m way too young to be flying a desk. This mission wasn’t really dangerous. I just had a bit of bad luck. The chances are higher to be killed crossing a street than flying a mission like that.
“And third, look who’s talking. I know for a fact that you’re always in front of your troops and never pass on a chance to participate in an action.”
Noam smiled, “I’m not a Lieutenant Colonel so I’m allowed.”
“Sure. And, Noam, when you get to be one you’ll start leading from behind. Right?”
The brothers were enjoying their after dinner coffee at Oren’s house in Beer Sheba. It was less than a week since Oren came back from his mission. He wasn’t too annoyed by his younger brother’s rant. In fact he got a much worse talking to from his wife, Ziva, who also mentioned their three sons. He told her the same thing he told Noam, but she didn’t accept his explanat
ion and made him promise to avoid volunteering for dangerous missions in the future. Oren wasn’t sure whether he could avoid dangerous missions but he was going to try for his marriage’s sake.
***
Later the same day a heated argument took place at the Israeli General Staff meeting.
Zvi Kaplan, the chief of Military Intelligence, was finishing his summary: “Both our aerial surveillance and radio intercepts indicate that Rommel’s forces suffered a serious setback. He radioed Berlin for urgent reinforcements and complained about the lack of air support. It seems that our air raid last night was quite devastating. Rommel has practically no operational tanks and very little fuel. He is also running low on ammunition. The move towards Cairo and the Suez was canceled and, we think, he is retreating and digging in.”
“I recommend another strike tonight,” said the Air Force commander. “We can finish them militarily and let the Brits just walk to the Tunisian border.”
“Not so fast.” responded Yaari. “You can’t win a war from the air and even if we could, we need to decide whether we should. There are a number of considerations that go beyond the immediate fate of Rommel and his army. Zvi, please go on.”
Zvi Kaplan turned on a projector and brought up a diagram: “You can see from this that the Germans and Italians suffered serious losses in armor, trucks and fuel. Their infantry was also beaten up, but not as badly. This is understandable: the numbers are large and they are dispersed over a significant area.
“If you just count the materiel losses it seems that they should be on the verge of collapse. This is an illusion. The Germans have demonstrated an exceptional ability and willingness to fight. It is evident even now that they are regrouping in an orderly and disciplined fashion and are not about to run.”
“This supports my idea of another air strike tonight,” insisted the Air Force general. “This is our opportunity to finish them off. We may be able to bring them to the verge of collapse and remove their presence from North Africa. The British army will have to do its part, but after a third night of bombing it shouldn’t be difficult.”
The Shield: a novel Page 38
