Haidar was as solid as a side of beef, and the colliding forces canceled each other out. He hung there for what seemed an eternity, staring through the gaping hole in the windshield at the slaughterhouse of dead and dying strewn around inside. There! Right in front of him, silhouetted against the flames, Haidar saw a dark figure slumped over the steering wheel. It was the bus driver. His arm was shaking and wavering, but it pointed at the center of Haidar’s chest. From inches away, a finger of blue-white flame erupted from the man’s hand, and Haidar felt another searing punch burn deep inside him. It flashed again, and again, pounding and ripping.
In complete disbelief, Haidar’s eyes dropped to his chest. He saw blood flowing out of him from four large holes as the strength drained from his body. His legs turned limp and rubbery, as if they could no longer support him, and he lost his grip on the two grenades. They fell inside the bus and clattered on the floor, as the scene before his eyes faded to black. Strength gone, Haidar toppled backward into the muddy ditch.
Ahmed ran around to the front of the bus, but he could only watch helplessly as Haidar’s body crashed to the ground. In horror, he dropped into the muddy ditch beside his friend and grabbed his shoulders to try to raise him up. This could not be happening! If he could just get him up, he would be okay. It was all a mistake. Looking into Haidar’s limp face he screamed, “No, no! Haidar, get up!” as the two grenades exploded inside the bus and blew the front body panel off. The searing blast and flying metal knocked the wind out of Ahmed and sent him tumbling backward into the ditch like a rag doll.
Ibrahim Al-Bari fumbled with the magazine of his Kalashnikov on the dead run as he finally caught up with the bus. It was little more than a shattered hulk now, but he continued to fire burst after burst into the flames. He reloaded again and jammed the barrel through a side window. Shouting and laughing he fired away on full automatic toward any dark shape he could see in the firelight — seats, baggage, bodies, or whatever.
When the rifle finally clicked empty, he tossed it aside and pulled out a hand grenade. Removing the pin, he dropped it through a window and turned away to run. As he took his first stride away from the bus, he was knocked flat by the twin explosions from the front of the bus. Al-Bari scrambled to his feet and ran a few more paces, looking around desperately for Ahmed, when the blast of his own grenade lifted the bus off the ground and sent him sprawling across the road again. He cracked his head on the hard asphalt and slowly got up to his knees, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. Looking across the road, he saw that the bus was now completely engulfed in flames.
“Ahmed!” he screamed, his ears ringing. “Ahmed! Haidar… where are you?”
On his feet once more, he took several halting strides around the front of the bus, where he found Ahmed kneeling over Haidar’s twisted body, lit by the orange flames of the burning bus. His younger brother was muddy and bleeding. From his wide-eyed expression, it was clear Ahmed was in shock. Ibrahim walked toward him and called out, “Ahmed, we are done here. We must go!” But all he got was the same stunned reaction.
Ahmed rose, took a step backward, and shook his head. “Go? No, no. You cannot… we must…” he tried to say as he took another step back, clutched his Kalashnikov to his chest, and began to run south down the road.
“Ahmed… Ahmed, no!” Ibrahim screamed and ran after him, but he could see Ahmed was in shock and would not stop. “You fool! That is the wrong way! Where are you going?” Ibrahim called out, refusing to believe what he was seeing: his own brother, running away until he lost him in the darkness.
Ibrahim Al-Bari’s plan was destroyed, shattered into tiny pieces. Jamil and now Ahmed were both gone. This was not how it was supposed to be. He cursed the Israelis and their American allies, cursed their patrol boats and airplanes. This was not finished, he swore. He would have his revenge.
CHAPTER SIX
The North Coast Road, Israel, Friday, September 20, 6:18 a.m.
Corporal Ari Avner sat high in the commander’s hatch of his armored scout car. His hands rested on his track-mounted machine gun as his eyes scanned the dark beach three miles south of Acre. Still, he saw nothing. They had been parked here for nearly a half hour, but nothing had come ashore except the surf. The sun would soon be up. Orders or not, they had been sitting here long enough, Avner thought, anxious to get back on the road. Whatever had happened out at sea was long over, and Avner had never heard of an Arab who could swim at all, much less for an hour in the open ocean. If any of them were still out there, by now they were on the bottom blowing bubbles. He and his armored car should be out sweeping the Coast Highway. That was why it had wheels, but he had his orders. Finally, the earphones of his tanker’s helmet crackled to life. “Red Sixteen, this is Base. We are shutting it down now. You can continue your patrol.”
“About damn time!” he swore, and shouted down through the hatch. “Let’s go.” The car kicked up sand as it tore across the dunes and back to the highway. He and his gunner swept the darker spots and low, foggy patches on both sides of the road with their searchlights. It was still more dark than light out there and charging around blind was bordering on reckless.
“You know this tin can doesn’t make much of a minesweeper,” his gunner cracked.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” Avner shouted back. The driver was right, of course. It was not smart, but Avner did not slow down. This section of road was flat and open, but there were too many people out there depending on them and he had a lot of road to cover. Finally, they reached a hilly section of the highway south of Acre. He could even see the reassuring glow of the city’s lights over the horizon to the north. Slowly, his nervous tension began to back away, until he heard that all-too-familiar chatter of automatic rifle fire in the distance.
“That was a Kalashnikov. Button it up!” he shouted down the hatch. As the car picked up speed, he heard more gunfire, followed by three muffled explosions as a dull-orange fireball rose over the hills in front of them. Avner slammed his fist against the hatch in frustration. Switching his radio back to the command net, he shouted angrily, “Base, Red Sixteen. We have gunfire and explosions on the Coast Highway, maybe four clicks south of Acre. Source unknown. We are responding; request illumination and support. Sixteen out.”
Racing even faster down the road, Avner watched and listened intently to the continuing gunfire. While he wore a ceramic body armor vest, the chill wind reminded him that he was still perched high on the rear cowling of the commander’s hatch, very exposed and vulnerable. He quickly dropped down into the seat below, so that only his head and shoulders showed. The certain knowledge that an armed enemy lay up ahead made each second nerve-wracking. Every curve, every dark clump of bushes, the far side of every hill, and every ravine could be a deadly ambush. An RPG rocket streaking out of the bushes would slice right through their thin armor plate and blow the scout car off the road like a child’s plaything. The same was true if they ran over an IED, the ever-popular Improvised Explosive Device the Iranians had taught Hamas to make in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever, he was not about to slow down, regardless of the risk.
They topped the crest of the last hill and he could see into the dark valley below. The hulk of a large vehicle lay in the ditch at the side of the road, engulfed in a black cloud of smoke and dull orange flames. The flames appeared to be dying, but they still lit up a circle around the vehicle.
“Goddamn it, it’s a bus. Those bastards!” Avner said over the intercom.
As they rolled downhill, Avner could see it was indeed a bus, one of the old city commuter buses, not one of the glitzier tourist models. Whichever, it had been ripped open and was lying half on its side in the ditch. Hearing a series of sharp Pops, he looked up and saw a string of parachute flares light up the sky and the countryside around them. Probably from one of the Navy planes called in from the sea search, he realized.
“Ari, I see a body in the road,” the driver called out. Avner could now see the outline of a dark lump, backlit by th
e orange flames of the bus. “But I’ve got a live one running away across the field on my side,” he added. “About two o’clock. You see him? The bastard’s heading for the trees… and he’s got a gun.”
“Roger that,” Avner replied as he switched to his external loudspeaker. “You in the field,” his voice reverberated through the speaker. “Halt! Halt immediately.” It was still dark, but Avner saw the figure continue to run and stumble through the uneven field. The driver was right, the guy had a gun and he did not stop. That cost him his amateur standing. “One warning is all you get, asshole,” Avner said as he swung his 7.62 caliber Negev machine gun around on its well-oiled track and began to figure the distance. Avner was an experienced professional and there was plenty of time. The target was running away diagonally across the rough field, and it only took a second to put him above the front sight. Track him. Lock on. Easy now. Easy! Match his pace and move with him, distance and angle, Avner thought as he pulled the trigger. A short burst of glowing red ribbon of tracer rounds arced across the open field and kicked up puffs of dirt around the runner’s feet. Avner elevated the barrel slightly and fired off a second, longer burst, using the tracers to walk the rounds onto the target.
It had all gone so terribly wrong. Haidar was down and probably dead. Jamil and the men in the other boats were missing and probably dead, too, so he ran. Ahmed had no idea where his brother Ibrahim had disappeared. The war hero, their great leader had proven to be a sham, a failure, and a great coward after all. Suddenly, Ahmed heard the armored car. In a panic, he turned and fled into the open field to the east of the road. He still had his Kalashnikov and he saw an old orchard — olive trees, bushes, and some big rocks. He would be safe if he could reach those rocks. However, the ground was freshly plowed and Ahmed kept slipping and falling in the muddy furrows. He heard himself panting as he ran, wheezing and gasping for air, his heart pounding. If he could but reach the rocks! Unfortunately, that was when the first flare went off. Its harsh white light caught him in the open and he turned, stumbled, and fell again in the mud. Must get up, he cursed. The olive trees and rocks were his only hope. Exhausted, he stumbled on. In his misery, however, he did not hear the loudspeaker or the first chatter of machine gun fire. It kicked up the dirt a few feet behind him, but all he could think of was the rocks.
The red ribbon of tracers from Avner’s machine gun rose until it intersected the path of the runner. In that instant of convergence, the bullets slapped him off his feet as if he were a child’s doll. The runner cartwheeled awkwardly, arms and legs flailing, until he crashed to the ground in a crumpled heap.
“Gotcha!” Avner said with a broad smile.
“Give the man a cigar,” his driver mocked. “I sit down here cramped in this sardine can, and you get all the fun. By the way, here comes the cavalry to the rescue.”
Avner looked up to see a string of vehicles racing down the road toward them from Acre. “Right on time as usual,” he added sarcastically. “Let’s go check the bastard out.”
“Why? You think you missed him? Think he might walk off on you?”
“No, I didn’t miss,” Avner answered as he patted the gun barrel.
By 7:30 a.m., the sun was well up and the fire and rescue units had extinguished the last of the flames from the broken hulk of the bus. Army trucks, more armored cars, jeeps, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances littered road shoulders in both directions, but there was precious little left to do now. Amid flashing emergency lights, small groups of grim-faced men stood around talking in low voices. Throughout the surrounding countryside, crack infantry and border patrol units swept through the orchards, low hills, and dunes, hoping in vain to catch a fleeing terrorist in their gun sights. Overhead, helicopter gunships joined the search. It was a sad but familiar scene, one that greeted all too many cold, gray dawns in that country.
A persistent, oily, acrid haze hung in the air as rescue workers chopped and sawed through the carcass of the bus. A long line of black-rubber body bags lay down the shoulder of the road in neat, military precision, and the work was not yet done. High-ranking government officials had already come and gone. The only purpose they served was to make an appearance on camera, to gesture and frown toward the charred bus and line of body bags, and to visit the pushy mob of reporters who were being restrained by a squad of burly MPs. It had been elevated to performance art, and about the only useful purpose the politicians served anymore was to vent the collective national outrage into the waiting microphones and news cameras.
The thumping of helicopters over the scene had now become routine. A lone UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter with standard beige camouflage paint and Israeli IDF markings, landing in the middle of the open field near an armored car, received little notice. It had barely settled down when Israeli Colonel Rachel Ullman jumped to the ground and tossed her flight helmet back on the co-pilot’s seat.
“Wait here, David, but keep it warm,” she shouted to the pilot over the noise. “I shouldn’t be long.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the pilot answered. The swirling blades blew mud and twigs in all directions, but Ullman did not appear to notice. Bent at the waist, her attention was focused on the armored car, but she did pause long enough to spare a quick glance at the blackened hulk of the bus and the line of vehicles parked on the road. If anyone had been standing close enough to observe, they would have seen a hard and angry look flash across her face. She had been at scenes such as this far too often, with their red and blue flashing lights, hazy smoke, and far too many dead civilians.
General Gershon’s phone call had come less than thirty minutes before. As she listened to the brief account of the battle here and out at sea, she wondered why bother. Seldom was there was much to learn after a Hamas or Hezbollah attack. The IDF did not take many prisoners, and the Jihadists rarely survived their attacks to begin with. They were invariably shot dead or blown into a thousand pieces by their own suicide vests, leaving her internal security unit scant little to work with. So, why waste the time flying up here, she questioned.
However, the General insisted. “I know what you are thinking, Rachel, but I have a surprise for you. This time, we have a live one… Well, at least he’s not dead yet.”
“All right, tell the men on the scene to put a lid on it and keep the politicians and reporters away. I don’t want anyone else to know until I’m done with him.”
Gershon thought about it for a moment, but knew he had to ask. “Are you sure you are up to this, Rachel? It has only been what? Four months since… well, you know what I mean.”
“Since that suicide bomber blew my husband and daughter to pieces in the market? Is that what you are asking me, Yaakov? You see: I can now say it, so why can’t you?”
“Rachel, you and I have been friends a long time. I knew Lev even longer than I have known you. We served together. And Anna… I loved that little girl like my own daughter.”
“I understand, Yaakov, but I am ready,” came her determined answer.
“You know I had to ask.”
“I expected you to. It is your job, and I understand. I may not have been ready a month ago, or even a week ago, but I am ready now. They cannot win, and I will not lose; but I think you knew that. It’s why you called me, isn’t it; because I am still the best you’ve got.”
Gershon’s call had caught her when she was out running, so she was dressed casually in shorts and Asics running shoes, not a uniform. That made no difference. Blonde, petite, and a fit and attractive thirty-nine, the last thing Rachel Ullman looked like was a ranking Colonel in IDF Counter-Intelligence, and occasionally an Agent of the Mossad, Israel’s version of the CIA, whenever General Gershon needed her. Counter-terror operations was a small fraternity, most of whom knew who she was, or at least knew her hard-as-nails reputation. Even if they did not, one look into her hard, gray eyes told them to give her a very wide berth.
It only took a cursory glance for her to understand what happened. She saw footprints where someone ran away f
rom the bus and across the open field, stumbling and falling, heading for the rocks and trees in the olive grove. She also saw the ruts of fresh tire marks in the mud. Where they met, three young Israeli MPs stood leaning casually against the side of an armored scout car. A fourth figure lay on the ground behind it, out of sight from the road, bloody, bandaged, and looking deathly pale.
As she walked closer, in uniform or not, the young MPs became more attentive. Their helmets lay on the hood of their armored car and their flak jackets hung open, but they had the self-assured body language of pros who knew the line between military courtesy and a slouch. They would never quite snap to attention, but they knew to straighten just enough to show a modicum of deference. Besides, this was Israel. Male or female, the IDF was a citizen army and a fraternity, and Rachel Ullman was also a pro. Corporal Avner stepped forward to meet her. She only stood perhaps five foot two, barely up to his throat, and a slim one hundred ten pounds, but the grim look in her eyes said it all. He knew who she was. Running clothes or not, she had a 9-millimeter Jericho automatic in a shoulder holster draped over her left arm and Avner found himself beginning to salute until she dismissed the gesture with a curt wave of her hand.
“How’s the little bastard doing, Corporal?” she asked as she pulled out a pack of American cigarettes and offered it around.
“Not too good, Ma’am,” Avner answered as they all lit up. “He’s torn up pretty good; took a 7.62 round in the gut, through and through, and another in the thigh. We stopped the bleeding for the time being, but that may be because he doesn’t have much left. We shot him up with morphine and he’s conscious, but I doubt he’s going to make it.”
Aim True, My Brothers Page 6
