Sword of Allah

by David Rollins

  ‘The Arabs control ninety-nine percent of the Middle East. Israel is just one percent of the landmass. And still the Arabs want more. They want it all.’

  Wilkes nodded, not necessarily because he agreed but rather out of politeness.

  ‘Britain, in particular, is losing patience with Israel. They say, “David has become Goliath.” And America says that we must accommodate a Palestinian homeland,’ the major scoffed. ‘But there has never been a Palestinian homeland. Never.’

  The Humvee roared past row after row of basic low-rise tenements and shops. ‘Did you know that in 1917, the British were given a mandate by the League of Nations to create a Jewish National Home in an area that contained all of what is now Jordan and Israel, and all the land between?’

  Wilkes did vaguely remember skimming through the written brief prepared by ASIS and the DIO and reading something like that.

  ‘And then Emir Abdullah had to leave the ancestral Hashemite lands in Arabia. So the British created a kingdom for him that included all the land east of the Jordan River. Our land. They took seventy-five percent of the land the world acknowledged as the Jewish national home!’ The history lesson was obviously something drilled into every Israeli, and from the major’s tone he was passionate about it. ‘Did you know that during the Second World War, the Jews who fought alongside the British were called Palestinians?’

  ‘No,’ said Wilkes. That was true, he didn’t, and his notes hadn’t mentioned it.

  That Wilkes was ignorant of the fact fired the major on. ‘And even though we fought alongside the British, they closed the door to all Jewish immigration after the war, while encouraging the Arabs. The world talks about Israel displacing the Arabs in Palestine, but it was they who displaced us! And the Jews have been here a very long time. We were in Hebron even before it was King David’s capital. And then in 1929, their Arab neighbours set about slaughtering the city’s Jewish population. The British? They just stood aside and let it happen.’

  ‘The Brits sure have a lot to answer for,’ said Monroe, getting into the spirit of the major’s indignation.

  Colonel Baruch leaned across and said, ‘I am sure our visitors would rather talk about the weather or something.’

  ‘Colonel, we are about to fight a battle on their behalf. I want them to know why good Israelis are prepared to die,’ said Samuels, his face flushed with a red heat.

  Wilkes and Monroe exchanged a fleeting glance. There was clearly not a lot of love lost between the two Israelis.

  ‘No, it’s okay, Colonel. We’re interested, right, Tom?’ said Monroe.

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Wilkes. They were guests in a foreign country and neither wanted to appear impolite. And Wilkes agreed with Samuels’ point: the least he could do was hear why Israeli soldiers were prepared to put themselves in harm’s way to achieve his and Monroe’s objective.

  Samuels glared at Baruch. Baruch turned away and looked out the window. Why don’t you tell them that we won’t allow the four million Palestinian refugees – people we pushed into the desert – to return to their rightful lands, that we are scared to live beside a Palestinian nation with a population that exceeds our own? Why don’t you tell them that we assassinate all their leaders, making it almost impossible for these people to organise themselves, to care for themselves? Why don’t you tell them our jails are stocked with thousands of Palestinians held without being charged?

  Samuels continued: ‘In 1948, the Arabs were offered half of Palestine west of the Jordan River for the creation of a state, but the Arabs rejected it. Instead, the Arab world attacked the struggling state of Israel on all fronts. They didn’t begin the war in defence of the so-called Palestinians to create the nation of Palestine. They went to war to take away what little land we had left so that they could carve it up amongst themselves. And they nearly succeeded. They tried again in 1967, in the Six-Day War, only this time we were ready for them and Israel won back the Arab-held lands. And do you know, at no time before that, during the nineteen years between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan and Egypt held the captured land of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, did they offer to surrender those lands to create the independent nation of Palestine?’

  ‘So where did all the talk about creating a Palestinian homeland begin?’ asked Monroe.

  ‘When the Palestine Liberation Movement was founded,’ said Samuels. ‘Its charter said its sole reason for being was the destruction of Israel. They’ve just changed their rhetoric to that of liberating Palestine. Why? Because it sounds better.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ said Monroe.

  ‘That position has changed,’ said Baruch, suddenly turning away from the window. ‘The Palestinians now agree that Israel has the right to exist.’

  ‘Yes, but not as the homeland for the Jews,’ Samuels countered.

  Wilkes and Monroe sat in silence.

  The Humvee in front turned hard right and the convoy followed, circling behind a large, squat hunk of dirt-brown metal – a main battle tank. ‘That’s a Merkava Mk Four. Your M1 Abrams wouldn’t stand a chance against it,’ said Baruch to Atticus, breaking the silence. Wilkes didn’t know a lot about Israeli military equipment, and the tank was a complete unknown. ‘It can also carry around ten light infantry at a squeeze,’ Baruch added.

  ‘Beats the hell out of walking,’ said Monroe.

  A brown Israeli army Mac truck blasting a cone of black diesel smoke into the air inched down a street off to their left pulling two enormous bulldozers. ‘They’re D-9 Caterpillars,’ said Samuels. ‘Big steel rolling pins.’

  Monroe caught Wilkes’s eye and raised his eyebrows silently acknowledging the Australian’s earlier point about the army’s use of bulldozers here. There was very little room to manoeuvre in the narrow street, and the Mac appeared stuck like a cork in a bottle. No doubt the truck would eventually deliver its cargo, but getting the behemoths off the trailer was going to be another problem entirely.

  Brakes squealed in clouds of brown dust as the vehicles pulled up behind a three-storey, newly whitewashed building. There were several other army vehicles parked in the vicinity guarded by half a dozen lightly armed soldiers. ‘We’re here,’ said Baruch.

  ‘Excuse me, please,’ said Samuels, kicking open the door and jumping out, anxious to rejoin his men. ‘I’ll catch up with you later, gentlemen.’

  Wilkes and Monroe both nodded and mumbled their thanks.

  ‘My deepest apologies for the lecture,’ said Colonel Baruch. ‘History is Israel’s curse.’

  ‘It’s okay, sir,’ said Monroe.

  Baruch turned, and led them towards a small shop at the base of the apartment block selling newspapers and bottled drinks. In the dark interior, stairs ran up one side of the room and a barber’s chair faced an old mirror that had lost much of its backing. The shop’s proprietor, a large bald man with a big voice, was arguing with one of the soldiers. Another Israeli soldier sat in the barber’s chair flicking through an ancient magazine. He jumped up and saluted smartly as Baruch entered. The officer ignored him and took the stairs three at a time. Monroe and Wilkes followed in his wake.

  There was quite a crowd assembled on the rooftop. Several soldiers scanned either the rooftops of other buildings nearby or the sky above, casually resting on flimsy brick walls that crumbled, dropping masonry to the street five floors below. Other soldiers were gathered round a brace of laptop computers set up on trestle tables on the flat, concrete rooftop. Wilkes looked around. The skyline was as faceless and featureless as the streetscape. They were surrounded by a sea of flat roofs, some a storey or two higher, but most a storey lower. On a couple of buildings across the street, small crowds of onlookers had gathered. As Wilkes watched, soldiers arrived to disperse these audiences. Fair enough, thought Wilkes, the spectators’ interest in the Israeli army’s activity could easily tip off the terrorists. The terrorists could even conceivably have their own lookouts amongst the crowds.

  Four helos circled lazily several kilometres away
– a couple of Blackhawks and two Cobra gunships, the thumps of their rotors sharpening occasionally with the aircraft’s change in direction or a shift in the breeze.

  The snarl of a small but powerful petrol engine bursting into life caught Wilkes’s attention. He watched as a circular grey contraption around two metres in diameter suddenly lifted off the roof and climbed rapidly straight up, trailing grey exhaust smoke. Wilkes followed it until he lost it against the blue of the sky. ‘Come,’ said Baruch.

  Wilkes and Monroe followed him over to one of the soldiers leaning over the computers. ‘Lieutenant?’ said Baruch. The officer turned and then snapped to attention. ‘Lieutenant Glukel. I’d like to introduce Tom Wilkes and Atticus Monroe.’

  ‘Lieutenant,’ said Wilkes.

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Monroe. No one shook hands or smiled. It wasn’t a social occasion.

  ‘Lieutenant Glukel is commanding the Sayeret unit. She’s Israel’s first female special forces combat soldier. Lieutenant, Tom and Atticus here are…observers.’ The look the lieutenant gave Wilkes and then Monroe was more like an examination, but Wilkes liked her instantly. She had the same tough, no-nonsense self-assurance that was universally shared by combat-weathered soldiers. Wilkes was mildly surprised, and impressed. Surprised because he’d never met a female combat soldier before, and impressed because the lieutenant wore the scars of combat as well as any soldier he’d met.

  ‘How are you feeling, Lieutenant?’ asked Baruch.

  ‘Fine, thank you, sir,’ said the lieutenant, politely speaking English rather than Hebrew out of deference to these foreign ‘observers’.

  ‘How’s the rib, Deborah?’ asked Samuels, who had rejoined them.

  ‘It’s healed well, sir. No problems with it.’ She twisted left then right to demonstrate. Wilkes noted one eye twitch slightly with the movement. There was pain there, but she was in control of it. The woman was tough.

  Samuels was called aside by an NCO.

  ‘This is Lieutenant Glukel’s first week back on operational duty. She was wounded,’ said Baruch, giving the soldier an avuncular pat on her armoured shoulder.

  The lieutenant remained braced up, her face impassive. She was battle ready. Wilkes skimmed a professional eye over her kit. She carried the ubiquitous M16A2 assault carbine, but with a reflex sight, one of the new batteryfree units that utilised tritium and fibre optics to project its dot onto the target. The characteristic Israeli pudding basin helmet appeared heavy and was probably therefore one of the new bulletproof ceramic models. The vest too looked to be ceramic, offering protection from below the femoral arterial line to the mid upper arm. The hand gun she carried was compact and, from what he could see, probably a Glock 17 or 19. Then, of course, there was all the spare ammunition in those pouches on the vest and also, possibly, a brace of hand grenades. Lieutenant Glukel had to be strong to carry all that into battle. Survival in close-quarter street fighting could depend on her ability to move quickly. The gear was a trade-off. She was carrying a lot of protection and the weight of it all might negate the benefits of having it.

  ‘Can I help you with something, Mr Wilkes?’ said the lieutenant.

  Wilkes snapped out of his daydream and realised he’d been staring at the soldier. ‘No, sorry, Lieutenant…er, nice vest,’ he said lamely.

  ‘You want us to take someone alive from that snake pit?’ She didn’t wait for Wilkes to answer. ‘That means we’re going to have to clear the building room by room. The ceramics will make sure I see another sunrise.’

  Jesus, the woman read my mind! The fact that she knew what he was thinking indicated that the lieutenant was every inch the professional combat soldier.

  Lieutenant Glukel turned away before Wilkes could apologise again and spoke briefly and heatedly with Major Samuels. She then left the rooftop, sweeping several of the troopers and NCOs along with her. Baruch and Wilkes both watched her leave. ‘She’s good, Tom. One of our best. But she’s a bit…touchy at the moment. Lost her brother. Died in front of her eyes, on her last patrol in fact.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Wilkes.

  ‘Here, we say, “kakat”!’

  ‘Kakat!’ Wilkes repeated.

  ‘Perfect. You sure you’re not Jewish?’

  Wilkes smiled. ‘The major and her seem pretty close?’

  ‘That’s probably because Lieutenant Glukel is Major Samuels’ younger sister. He wants her removed from combat status. He lost a brother and doesn’t want to lose another member of the family.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Wilkes. The fact that Glukel and Samuels were brother and sister was something he hadn’t expected.

  ‘The choice of combat status is the lieutenant’s. And it’s not my place to deny her that if it’s what she wants.’

  Wilkes nodded. He could understand that. In a way, the situation wasn’t dissimilar to his own skirmishing with Annabelle.

  ‘Israel is a small country and everyone except the religious academics serves in the army at some point,’ Baruch explained. ‘It’s not unusual for brothers to fight together and, in this case, two brothers and a sister. As I said, the major and I don’t see eye to eye on the lieutenant’s combat status. Also, he doesn’t believe taking Kadar Al-Jahani prisoner is worth risking lives for. Especially his baby sister’s. I’ll be honest with you, Warrant Officer, neither do I.’

  ‘You know my rank?’ Wilkes said, taken aback.

  ‘And your regiment.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Wilkes didn’t know what to say next.

  ‘The Australian SAS has a formidable reputation. You of all people would know how difficult it is to storm a building occupied by a committed, well-trained enemy.’ Baruch suddenly brightened. ‘But today, it will go well. I can feel it. See here.’

  The sun had set and night was coming down fast.

  Wilkes allowed himself to be pushed to the front of the crowd gathered around the trestle tables. The fact that Baruch knew he was SAS rather than CIA relaxed him a little. He didn’t know how to behave like a CIA man – now he could just be himself.

  Wilkes looked around for Monroe to tell him his cover was blown, but Monroe was nowhere about. ‘Brilliant,’ he said to himself.

  The portable tables were groaning with monitors, laptop computers and a spaghetti of electrical connection cords and other computer-related paraphernalia. A generator hummed five metres behind this command station, with a backup beside it. Three technicians in civilian clothes sat at the tables and fussed over the gear like mothers over their first-born. One of the grey monitors flashed into life and the knot of spectators pressed closer.

  ‘Sorry, can y’all please just move back a little and give us some air,’ drawled one of the technicians, irritated by the pressing crowd. He was a young black American man of around twenty who wore a red Sikorsky-branded baseball cap, a yellow Hawaiian shirt and jeans that looked as if someone had tried to pull them off him and nearly succeeded, the top half of his Calvin Klein underpants showing. Wilkes thought he looked like a rapper. The halfdozen soldiers of assorted rank politely did as they were asked and moved back a pace.

  ‘Okay,’ the technician said, nodding, relaxing slightly. ‘So what we have here is an update on your Combat Forces Digitisation Program, bringing its efficiencies to the difficult-to-manage urban combat zone. The heart of the system is the Dragon Warrior UAV. We’ve had one Dragon Warrior up for some time, giving us the overall picture, and it has now been joined by a second Dragon Warrior – the one you just saw taking off. That means we can orbit the target building using the first Dragon Warrior as a relay platform, allowing us to obtain a wealth of information from the battlefield in real time. In short, we’ll know what’s going down as it’s happening, and be more able to deploy our forces where and when required.’

  Dragon Warrior – pretty tough name for something that looked like a flying doughnut, thought Wilkes.

  ‘And the Dragon Warrior is not limited to urban conflicts either. It can be given an over-the-beach battlefield capability by s
imply attaching the winglets provided.’

  ‘Salesmen,’ said Baruch quietly in Wilkes’s ear.

  ‘The Dragon Warriors possess thermal imaging as well as infrared, refractive light and x-ray cameras, all with up to one thousand times magnification. Basically, from a thousand metres away, day or night, we can tell you whether the enemy have clipped their nose hairs. And we can relay that information to any other command set, be it a bunker, tank or hee-lo – anywhere on the battlefield,’ he said while he tapped several letters on the keyboard.

  ‘Although it beats me why the presence of nose hairs on the battlefield might be important,’ said one of the other technicians, sharing his observation with a snigger.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said one of the Israeli officers.

  The rapper continued with a grin. ‘Dragon Warrior is the missing link – integrating airborne assets with ground forces, improving overall operational capabilities and, of course, efficiencies. From this desk, we can provide situational awareness to nearly all manoeuvring components on the field of battle. We can also switch command centres as the battle develops. And for those of you who are not familiar with this form of battlefield management – an example. The two AH-1 Zefa gunships we have online are each equipped with four tube launched, optically tracked, wireguided missiles – TOWs. An old-fashioned weapon, really. As you all know, the Achilles heel of the TOW is that the firer has to keep the targeting crosshairs on the intended bullseye, virtually to the point of impact. That can make the firer itself vulnerable to enemy attack. Dragon Warrior, however, allows you to designate one hee-lo the firer, and the other the command centre. The launch platform can then skedaddle and the command vehicle can, from a position of relative security, direct the missile to its target.

  ‘Now, of course, most of this isn’t new, but what Dragon Warrior brings to the picture is. It’s a remotely operated platform that can hover, getting its sensors into all those hard-to-get-at places, and make this information available to all friendly forces…’