by Hesh Kestin
“Right on it, Mr. President.”
“And have Defense mix a little steel in with the vitamins. Other-wise that colored preacher...”
“Gerry Stallwell, sir.”
“Otherwise Pastor Gerry gonna piss on our parade.”
“Wise move, sir.”
“What I want to know is, how did we miss those F/A-18s? And why are they pink? Who knows what else those foxy kikes, no offense, got up their sleeve?”
“They’ve got nuclear, sir.”
“Well, send them that care package. Maybe they’ll take a Christian attitude if we send some aid. Forgive and forget. Turn the other cheek and all.”
79
AT MARINE FORWARD ATTACK Squadron Wildcat, high-pressure hoses blast the pink paint off the three F/A-18s, whose still-hot engines throw off a cloud of pink steam. In front of the planes on the tarmac, Jimbo, Chris, and Stan pose in their flight suits, their helmets tucked under their arms as Sergeant Major catches the moment with his cell phone camera.
“Sirs, respectfully suggest this here film not be shown in public for a good long while,” Sergeant Major tells them. “Like never.” He glances back at the base commandant’s quarters, whose windows overlook the tarmac. “Colonel’s reaction gonna be bad enough.”
“Wise advice, Sergeant Major,” Jimbo says.
Sergeant Major turns to his maintenance crew. “You handjobs swab my runway down so it’s as virginal as the entire fucking US Army. And once that’s done, you will not recall it ever happened! Semper fi!”
80
ON CV STAR OF Bethlehem, Connie Blunt stands with her back to the bow, beyond which in the distance the low white buildings and glass towers of Tel Aviv’s long shoreline glimmer in the sunlight. From this far away, it could be any beachfront city on the Mediterranean.
“Damian, what viewers are seeing over my shoulder is Tel Aviv, known as the White City. It must be a happier city if, as I hope, news has reached its people that aid is less than two hours away. We can’t be sure, of course, because as CNN has reported Tel Aviv remains cut off from effective communication with the outside world. But as this brave aid flotilla draws closer, there’s no doubt...”
81
SHE IS CORRECT. IN Yigal’s office on the fourth floor of the Isracorp building, the chief of staff’s spotters have already identified the ships steaming closer. Pinky is there, and Misha, who has taken to wearing a semi-automatic pistol on both hips. If he had a sheriff’s star, he would no doubt wear that. The two men seem to have reached a modus vivendi similar to that which appears to have become the rule in the ghetto now that there is a sense of order, if not law. They will never be friends, but they are allies, comrades in arms.
“We need to secure unloading,” Yigal says. “Hungry Jews get pushy at a bar mitzvah. These haven’t eaten properly for weeks.”
Misha looks offended. “What do you think we do all day? Already moving into place.”
“You knew the ships would get through?” Yigal asks.
“We plan for contingencies,” Pinky says.
“And I was going to shoot him in the nuts,” Misha mutters.
“Miracles have been known to happen in this neighborhood,” Pinky says. “Manna falling from the sky. A burning bush that isn’t consumed. The ten plagues—nobody expected that. And now...Kuwait.”
“This is going to work?”
“Yigal, their air force is just sitting there, sixty beautiful F/A-18s, barely used, low mileage, doing nobody any good.”
Misha snorts. “And they call me a thief?”
“So it’s a go?”
“I don’t have any other F/A-18s in my pocket,” Yigal says.
“In that case, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Minister of Police,” Pinky says, grinning for the first time in weeks. “The State of Israel is about to steal itself an air force.”
82
ON THE TARMAC AT Marine Forward Attack Squadron Wildcat, eighty-two officers and enlisted men are lined up at attention as Lieutenant Colonel I. C. McKendrick steps up on a wooden box. She has purposefully kept them waiting in the heat of this Middle Eastern afternoon. To underscore her disapproval, she informed her sergeant major not to offer the assembled Marines the solace of stand-at-ease. They have been at attention in the sun for twenty minutes. When she is sure the squadron has been sufficiently roasted, she signals the sergeant major with a nod.
“Ma’am!” he barks. “All hands on deck, ma’am!”
The base commander is mistress of the Marine officer’s trick of speaking quietly and slowly. Even so, her voice has all the feminine charm of a 50 cal. machine gun. Her delivery is pointed, humorless, staccato. Lieutenant Colonel McKendrick did not get where she is in the Corps because she is a pussy.
“Marines, I’ve been informed there has taken place a bit of unauthorized pleasure flying. In case it is not known to any of you assholes, the aircraft on this tarmac are property of the government of the United States of America, which does not look with favor on anyone borrowing same without official sanction. The original price tag on each of these aircraft is $67 million dollars, stripped. Losing one on an unauthorized flight would not only be sufficient for general court martial for the fist-fucker who does so, but would stain the reputation of this entire squadron, of which up to now I have been damn proud.”
She takes a moment to light a cigarette, something the commandant of any other base would never do, but this one is so far from official purview she can get away with anything up to but not including shooting several of her pilots in the head.
“Be that as it may, we’re in Office Hours.” This is the Marine equivalent of Captain’s Mast in the Navy, a form of military justice from which there is no appeal, and in which there are few limitations on punishment. “Sergeant Major?”
“Office Hours in session, ma’am!”
“Very good, sergeant major.” She looks out at her men with a mixture of anger and pity. “Now all of you gyrene cunts who participated in or aided this morning’s excursion, identify yourselves.”
At once Stan, Chris, and Jimbo step forward. Two other officers join them, then an enlisted man, then another, and another. Two officers follow. When the sergeant major steps up, the entire squadron joins him.
Col. McKendrick shakes her head slowly. “You sorry palm-fuckers make it so easy. Every gyrene on deck is hereby found guilty of violation of UCMJ Article 86, Unauthorized Absence, and is consequently restricted to barracks.”
The colonel pauses for a long time, her scowl slowly melting.
“For a period of two hours. Anyone ever mentions this offense or its level of punishment, I will personally remove his liver with my teeth. Sergeant Major, dismiss these Marines. Semper fi! And God bless America.”
83
TEL AVIV HAS NO harbor capable of berthing ocean-going ships. At the very center of its beachfront, a large marina shelters several hundred pleasure craft, mostly sail, but the port itself is far too shallow for commercial tonnage. Just to the south, in the tiny fishing port of Jaffa, lighters could be used to offload cargo from a freighter lying at anchor in deep water, but the ancient harbor, which was the region’s main port until the construction of Haifa in northern Israel and Ashdod in the south, now has neither the fleet of small boats necessary for the job nor the manpower trained to row them out and back.
Instead, the six freighters of the aid flotilla lie at anchor about two thousand feet beyond the breakers. Crew members on four of the ships pass boxes of supplies to others in lifeboats, who pass these on to a long daisy chains of civilians—male, female, young, old, secular and religious—standing waist deep in the surf. From the other two vessels, tankers filled to the gunwales with potable water, civilians shoulder fire hoses leading to tanker trucks on the beach.
84
AS HER CAMERAMAN SHOOTS the unloading from CV Star of Bethlehem, Connie Blunt manages to carry two pieces of expensive luggage to where Captain Frank oversees the unloading.
“Captain.”
“Captain!”
“Jesus, what?”
“Is it safe to go ashore?”
“Safe? Every second this operation continues is one I can’t guarantee. So far, so good.”
“Well, I’m ready.”
He shouts down to the men and women in the daisy chain, “Hey, hold that thing out of the water!” The crew has now started unloading five-foot-long wooden crates marked FIM-92 in black stenciling. “Shit, anybody know Hebrew here? Billy!”
The rabbinical student comes running up with a carton marked Pharmaco. “These should go next, captain. Medical stuff. I got a whole crate opened—”
“I said I’m ready,” Blunt says. “Captain, we’ll need a boat.”
“Forget the meds. Get down there in the water, son, and make sure those long crates stay dry.”
The kid doesn’t have to be told twice. He is over the side and scampering down a rope ladder like a monkey with a skullcap pinned to his hair. He starts shouting at the people in the daisy chain, who stop for a moment, shocked to hear the strange locutions of biblical Hebrew. Billy shouts again. They get it, lifting the boxes above water. It is beginning to develop a chop.
“A boat! I’ll need a boat of some sort!”
“What boat?”
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to wade ashore!”
“We got no more boats for the unloading, sister, so for fucking sure we got no boats for you. If you’re not helping, go over the side!”
“Over the side?”
“Everyone else is doing it.”
“Captain, we’ve got equipment, expensive equipment. And luggage, Louis Vuitton for God’s sake. And my hair. I’m about to do a stand-up on the beach.”
As he picks up the binoculars once more to scan the skies, he starts to laugh. It comes out a gravelly snort, part amusement, part indignation. “You’ve got expensive equipment? You know what’s in them crates? Each one of them crates cost the US taxpayer thirty-eight thousand bucks, though from what I understand we got them at a significant discount from—never mind who from.” He turns to the daisy chain. “For chrissake, Billy, tell them to hold that shit out of the water! It don’t shoot wet!”
In a split second, Connie Blunt forgets about her luggage. “I thought we were carrying MREs. You don’t mean we haven’t been carrying humanitarian—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Captain Frank tells her, almost laughing now. “We’re bringing food and water, sister, but among the meals ready to eat we got a different kind of MREs. Missiles Ready to Engage. Doesn’t get more humanitarian than that.”
“But this contradicts everything we’ve been told!”
“War is hell, sister. Now get your fat ass out of the way or start humpin’ crates. I got no time to play around.” He considers for a moment. “Missiles Ready to Engage—I like it. You got no fucking idea how much I like it.”
The next moment he stops laughing. The entire daisy chain has frozen in place, every one of its human links looking up.
From out of the east, five gray jet fighters blast into view, coming in high from over the eastern horizon.
85
IN THE AIR, THE Syrian wing commander surveys the scene below: the six ships at anchor in choppy water, each unloading its cargo to long lines of Jews shifting the supplies to shore like a fire brigade of ants. Two much longer queues converge on a central point on the beach to receive the goods. At 2200 feet, this is the Syrian flight commander’s reconnaissance pass, high enough for his Sukhoi SU-24s to evade cannon fire from the beach. But there are no cannons visible on the beach, only several nests of khaki-painted vehicles, some trucks, mostly jeeps. He opens communication.
“Massawi Red to Massawi Flight. Massawi Red to Massawi Flight. Follow my lead, brothers. First the ships, then anything moving on the beach. Massawi 2 the second ship, Massawi 3 the third, Massawi 4 the fourth, Massawi 5 the fifth, and Massawi 6 in reserve. The lead freighter is mine.”
Under his breath, he curses his superiors, who refused to give him more aircraft, suspecting a trap. Some trap. If he had more planes, he could simultaneously strafe the lines of people on the beach into a long stain of blood.
“Follow my lead, brothers. As the Americans say, it is shooting fish in an oil drum. In the name of Islam, let us expunge this plague of Jews and Christians. Death to the Crusaders! Over.”
86
ON CV STAR OF Bethlehem, Captain Frank is desperate, and shouting. “Do any of you people know how to fire one of these things? Are any of you veterans?” He has just managed to pull one of the Stinger missiles out of its box. “I need an infantryman here!”
He gets one, a red-haired diesel mechanic from Kansas City.
“Sir,” Taylor C. Briggs says. “You got that backwards. You’re gonna shoot yourself to kingdom come if’n you don’t turn it around.”
“You know how to operate one of these gizmos?”
“Piece of cake, sir. You see this here, this pops up. It’s your view-finder. Gives you general direction. Then you get it up on your shoulder—”
“Jesus H. Christ, kid. Don’t teach, do! Grab this pig iron and get ready. Those mothers are coming back. They’re turning now!”
A mile out to sea, the Syrian formation performs a graceful unified Immelmann turn and slows to come in low.
87
A STAPLE OF AMERICAN infantry warfare since the 1980s, the FIM-92 Stinger missile is both one of the most complex weapons in the foot soldier’s armory and the simplest to operate. Once it is pointed in the general direction of enemy aircraft, its dozens of micro gyrocompasses home in on the heat from the target’s engines until it makes contact. The infantry calls it fire-and-forget. With a weight of only thirty-three pounds and an effective range of up to three miles, it is both lethal and, if one knows where to look, widely available on the open market in such places as Pakistan’s Hindu Kush, leftover stock supplied by US Special Forces to Muslim insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan. These mostly illiterate fighters used it to send the country’s Soviet invaders packing. They then turned the same weapon on the Americans who, in a triumph of wishful thinking, hoped they would not become targets of their own technology. Once taught, any child can shoot a Stinger, and did.
The red-haired kid on the deck of CV Star of Bethlehem was apparently paying attention during advanced infantry training at Fort Hood, Georgia. In a matter of moments, others on the deck pry open more crates. Firing Stingers is not only easy. It’s fun.
88
AS HE BRINGS HIS SU-24 out of its Immelmann, the Syrian wing commander sees the first missile rising to greet him. He dives. It misses his aircraft by inches, but homes in on his portside wingman, who abruptly ceases to exist. The resultant blast hits the Syrian wing commander’s own fuselage with an enormous push, so that his entire aircraft trembles momentarily before recovering. As the wing commander pulls out and heads to sea, he watches two more of his aircraft disappear in mammoth fireballs.
His radio lights up. “Massawi 5 to Massawi Red. Come in, Massawi Red. Commander, regarding the fish in the oil drum. The fish are shooting back! Over.”
“Roger that, Massawi 5. This is Massawi Red. All aircraft follow my lead. Back to base. Back to base. It is a Jewish trick! Over and out.”
89
OUT INDEED. AS THE remaining four Sukhois shoot eastward over the crippled city back to their base adjoining Yasser Arafat International Airport, a squad of female soldiers, following the lead of a plump nineteen-year-old red-headed sergeant who two months before had instructed recruits in Stinger operation, aim the weapons they have just removed of
their crates. The remaining Sukhoi pilots, flying at Mach 1, break the sound barrier over the beach at 800 miles per hour. Flying at 1200 miles per hour, it takes only seconds for the new round of Stingers to catch up.
Debris from the Sukhois rains down over Tel Aviv. No one is seriously injured, but one of Judy’s pony express riders takes a nasty cut on his thigh and falls off his bike. He is a seventeen-year-old boy of mixed Moroccan and Polish descent, dark skin, blond hair, green eyes, and sufficient determination to remount and continue on his way bringing the news: “Aid has arrived! Aid has arrived! Everyone to the beach. Keep good order! There is enough for all!”
90
THIS IS HARDLY THE main highway to Tel Aviv, but Alex is a local. She has traveled this route many times on the way back from Ben Gurion Airport, where immigration always stops her to compare the male visage on her passport with that of the demure figure holding it. The immigration clerks are mostly young girls bored with the endless lines of tired faces and the need to check the identity of every one of them—tourists, returning Israelis, foreign diplomats, Israeli consular officials on home leave. Each passport must be checked electronically against a computer memory of wanted criminals, suspect aliens, draft dodgers, Israeli Arabs, and foreign troublemakers whose names match those in the database. At one time this was done through the visual scanning of lists, but now the computer has taken over, digitally reading the name and face on each passport and comparing it instantly with names and faces in a database.
When Alex flies on a commercial flight, the drill is always the same.
“This is your passport?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t...look like you.”
