Captain Ishmael Bloch and Lieutenant Ephraim Herzel, piloting the first of the two C-130’s, saw the flares along the Hillah road and banked left as they pulled off more power. Three of the F-14’s assigned to cover the landings shot past their windshield and dove in along the intended landing approach.
The big cargo craft dropped in very quickly as it was designed to do in a combat situation.
In the cabin, fifty Israeli commandos tightened their straps and braced themselves for the jolt that came with an assault landing. The tie-downs on the two jeeps, one mounted with a 106mm recoilless rifle and the other with a dual .50 caliber machine gun, were checked and tightened.
The doctors and nurses again checked the fastenings on their mobile operating unit and their surgical supplies.
Captain Bloch cut the power again and watched the speed bleed away on his indicator. He turned to Lieutenant Herzel. “When we flipped a coin for the road or the mud flat and I won and picked the road, why didn’t you say something?” The giant aircraft seemed to float a few meters above the windswept road. Bloch tried to keep the nearly powerless craft lined up between the flares, but the strong crosswind pushed the plane to the left of the road, and when Bloch tried to slip it back, it yawed badly.
Herzel kept his eyes on the instruments. “I thought you picked the road because you knew it was more challenging.”
Bloch thought for a moment that he would have to pull up and come around again, but the wind dropped for a few seconds and he lined the craft up over the road and came down hard.
The underinflated tires hit the crumbling blacktop and sent tremendous sections of it flying off at all angles. The wind pushed the high-profile aircraft left, and as Bloch compensated, the craft fishtailed, causing the C-130 literally to eat up the road as it taxied north, leaving a sand trail in the place of what had been a paved road. “My wife is a challenge. My girlfriend is a challenge. Why would I want another challenge?” He reversed the engines and stood on the brakes. The noise of the screaming engines and wheels was deafening, and the men and women inside the cabin covered their ears.
Herzel looked back out of the side window as the aircraft made a small turn to follow the road. He shouted. “Leave some blacktop so we can take off, Izzy.”
“Take off, my ass. We’re taxiing into Baghdad after this is over.”
Outside, by the illumination of their landing lights and the flares, they could see a few Iraqi vehicles sitting off the side of the road at long intervals. A few of the men in them waved as the C-130 lumbered by, and Bloch and Herzel waved back. “Are the natives friendly?” asked Herzel.
“As long as we have fifty commandos back there, they will be very friendly.”
The big craft began rolling to a stop at almost the same spot where the Concorde had first touched down. Bloch could see by his landing lights where the Concorde had begun chewing up the road. The C-130 was built for that type of thing. The Concorde was built for wide expanses of smooth runway. He admired the damned fool of a pilot who brought it in. Bloch looked up. He could see the high mounds of Babylon in the distance, silhouetted against the brightening sky. “Babylon.”
Herzel looked out the windshield. “Babylon . . . Babylon.”
The rear gate was down before the aircraft came to a complete halt, and the commandos began jumping out and deploying on both sides of the road. A group of Iraqi officers and government workers eyed them curiously from a cluster of khaki-painted vehicles on a small hillock. The commandos were jittery, and so were the Iraqis. Both sides spent some time waving and making other friendly gestures.
The two jeeps rolled down the ramp and squeezed by either side of the C-130, keeping to the roadbed as they passed under the huge wings. One squad of commandos formed a perimeter to secure the aircraft. The medical personnel on board began preparing for the casualties.
Three rifle squads, each commanded by a lieutenant, with the overall command under Major Seth Arnon, fanned out on either side of the road, jogging to keep abreast of the jeeps. They headed toward their first objectives—the Ishtar Gate area and the guest house and museum.
Captain Bloch watched them from his high vantage point in the cockpit of the C-130. “It’s no fun being an infantryman.”
Lieutenant Herzel looked up from his landing checklist. “They slept all the way here, and they’ll sleep all the way back. Feel sorry for your copilot for a change.”
Captain Bloch looked from the cockpit of the C-130 off to where the Northern Citadel was erupting in orange, yellow, red, and white flames. The sounds of the thunder rolled down from Babylon onto the roadway. “It’s those poor bastards up there I feel sorry for. You know, Eph, when they took off Friday afternoon, I said to myself, lucky sons-of-bitches, going to New York all expenses paid for as long as it takes to bring home a scrap of paper that says peace.”
Herzel glanced up and looked out the windshield at the light flashes on the far mound. “I guess it’s no fun being on a peace mission, either.”
Captain Baruch Geis and Lieutenant Yosef Stern could not spot the Iraqis’ flares on the wide expanse of mud flats, nor could the three F-14’s that were assigned to them. Geis considered waiting for the sun to poke over the distant mountain, but as he monitored David Becker’s voice speaking to General Laskov and as he watched the flaming consequences of their conversations, he knew that there was not much time left. In fact they were probably too late already, but be was determined to complete his portion of the mission.
Captain Geis wanted to get as close to the fighting as possible without coming into range of small arms fire from the citadel mound. He gave up looking for the flares and picked an area barely a kilometer south of the fighting—a spot that was marked Ummah on his map. Strange, thought Geis, Arabic was so like Hebrew. Ummah. Community. He radioed to the lead pilot of the three F-14’s that were with him. “I want to land so that my rollout will end somewhere near the spot marked Ummah. Can you give me light?”
The fighter pilot, Lieutenant Herman Shafran, radioed back.
“Roger. Flare on the way, over.”
The F-14 came in on a west-east axis and released a 750,000 candlepower parachute flare. The sky and earth were transformed with a brilliant, eerie glow.
Geis pointed the nose of the aircraft directly into the hard-blowing Sherji and began pulling off power. Ahead he saw the outlines of Ummah under the artificial light. He placed the aircraft to the left of the village and put down his flaps. The wind added tremendous lift to the aircraft and it seemed to hover over the mud flats.
Lieutenant Stern looked over his right shoulder out his side window. There appeared to be cooking fires lit among the houses of Ummah. The Sherji carried the flare west, and it swung like a pendulum under its sailing parachute, casting distorting shadows across the earth. The flare sailed past the cockpit of the aircraft, and Geis and Stern looked away as it cast a blinding light in the flight deck. The F-14 released another flare over the river, and it too began to float westward toward them.
In the cabin, the fifty commandos listened to the wind blow and the engines whine. In place of the jeeps were a dozen motorized rubber rafts. Everyone in the cabin had a sense of the aircraft hanging, hovering, making no headway at all. Muscles tensed, and as the flare lit up the windows of the cabin, sweat could be seen glistening on brows and upper lips.
The doctors and nurses spoke to each other in whispers. Each C-130 was prepared to handle twenty-five casualties. But what if there were nearly that many casualties among the peace mission alone? There were bound to be some casualties among the commandos. What if there were wounded prisoners?
Captain Geis was finally able to push the airplane firmly down and hold it down. Thousands of cubic meters of mud flew up and covered the aircraft as it charged through the quagmire and headed toward the village. The parachute flare overhead began to burn out and the land became darker.
A few of the mud houses of Ummah loomed up out of the weak light. Beyond Ummah, Geis could see the
Euphrates. He reversed his engines and stood on his brakes. The big craft came to a halt and rocked backwards less than a hundred meters from the nearest hut.
The back gate opened, and three squads of commandos charged out of the aircraft, formed a line, and advanced on the village. A fourth squad fanned out a hundred meters and surrounded the C-130. They immediately began digging foxholes in the mud.
Major Samuel Bartok fired his Uzi into the air, but no one fired back. To the north, across the river, Bartok could hear the sounds of the fight, and he could see flashes of light. He glanced down at his map. If they met no resistance in this village and if they were able to navigate upriver to the hill where the fight was taking place, it would still take them about twenty minutes to get into position to bring effective fire on the Arabs. But even then he couldn’t guarantee that he could keep them from advancing on the Concorde if they were to fight a rearguard action against his commandos. How many Palestinians were there? According to the pilot of the Concorde, there were not more than three dozen left out of over a hundred and fifty. That sounded like an incredible feat of arms for a peace mission. Major Bartok smiled grimly. No, that wasn’t possible. He’d have to be prepared for any number.
The commandos’ line became concave as it bent around the village. To the north, the first Israeli squad reached the Euphrates. The first man actually to stand on the bank of the river, Private Irving Feld, urinated in it.
A few minutes later, the third squad also radioed that they had reached the Euphrates south of the village.
The second squad, with Major Bartok in the lead, advanced up the middle toward the first huts.
An old man appeared in the small crooked street and walked slowly toward them. He looked over the heads of the commandos at the high-tailed aircraft on the barren mud flats, its blue Star of David catching the first rays of the sun. He raised his right hand. “Shalom alekhem.”
“Salaam,” answered Major Bartok in Arabic.
“Shalom,” said the old man, with emphasis.
Major Bartok was only slighty surprised. He had been told that there might be a Jewish community somewhere near Babylon. If he had had the time, he would have spoken to the old man, but he had not one minute to waste. He waved. “Alekhem shalom.” By the number of mud huts, he estimated that there couldn’t be more than fifty people living in the village. He shouted over his shoulder to the radio operator as he led the squad through the village “Tell Jerusalem we have found a Jewish village.” He looked at his map. “Ummah. Ask them if we can take them home. Even if we don’t reach the Concorde in time, we can at least accomplish this.”
Captain Geis in the C-130 took the message from the radio operator and radioed Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister listened as Captain Geis relayed the message. He nodded slowly to himself. Jews of Babylon. But they were Iraqi citizens. Kidnapping Iraqi citizens was hardly a friendly gesture. And if he authorized it over the radio, Baghdad would hear and the rest of the operation might be jeopardized. Still, the Law of Return provided that any Jew who wished to come to Israel could do so. Sometimes they needed a little help getting there. There were precedents for this. He looked around at the full room. Some of the men and women nodded. Some shook their heads. Many faces revealed the agonizing dilemma they all felt. But it was his decision. There was no time for debate. He spoke into the microphone. “Do you have room?”
Captain Geis smiled. “How could we not have room for them?”
“Well . . . well, if they want to go . . . to come home, then let them come. Out.” He settled back into his chair. History in the making. Disaster in the making, perhaps. He had gone so far already that it was easy to ignore the consequences of any further perilous decisions. Once you took that initial plunge, everything else was easier. He asked for another cup of coffee.
35
Laskov watched as the sun spread its first rays over the mountains and the flatlands below. He caught a glimpse of Babylon as he flew by and wondered what it was like down there. He had the same sense of wanting to land as he had had when he flew over the pyramids of Egypt. But his fate was to observe the world from the aerie of his leather seat, with the smell of hydraulic oil in his nostrils. He had spent too much of his life above this teeming earth, and he was looking forward to mixing more with its inhabitants on the ground after this.
He took transmissions from the aircraft protecting the two C-130’s. “Roger. Change missions with me now and unload some of your ordnance on the hill. Be careful.” He came in low for a last strafing run. The sky was bright, but on the ground the dust storm was still keeping visibility down to a few hundred meters or less.
He pressed a button on his flight column, and the 20mm cannon ripped a path from east to west starting from the outer city wall up to the east slope. He released the button quickly as the rounds passed through the deserted Israeli trenches. There was still not enough visibility to bring effective fire on the advancing Arabs without a risk of hitting his own people.
The Concorde suddenly loomed up in front of him and he pulled back on the stick and cleared it. He saw, in that split second, a woman on the delta wing, and he imagined that it was Miriam. She seemed to be calling for someone.
Laskov wanted very much to ask Becker about Miriam. He ached with the unasked question. But there were hundreds of other people in Israel who wanted to know about their loved ones, also. He’d have to wait and find out along with everyone else.
He banked sharply as he passed over the Euphrates and headed south with his six F-14’s to exchange assignments with the other half of his squadron. They would have a chance to lighten up on their load now. He looked as his fuel gauges. The low-level, top-speed flight had burned too much. The combat maneuvers were burning too much. They were cutting it close for the trip home. He hit the intercom button. “Isn’t there a gas station down this street?”
“Right,” said Danny Lavon. “Turn left here, go a thousand klicks to the light and stop at Lod. All major credit cards accepted.”
Laskov smiled. He had alerted Lavon to keep an eye on the gauges without saying, “Keep an eye on the gauges.” Why did pilots talk in circumlocution and bad jokes? Even the Red Air Force had practiced that idiocy. The Americans were masters at it. Invented it, probably. It must be universal now.
As he passed over the C-130 on the mud flats he saw the commandos launching their rubber rafts off the quay of a small mud village. He looked at his watch. It had been seven minutes since the C-130 came to a stop. Not bad time. He radioed Captain Geis. “Gabriel 32 overhead now. Nice landing. I still don’t see those flares. I’ll keep an eye open for foul play.”
“Roger, 32. Nice performance in Babylon. How are they doing on the ground?”
“Touch and go. Out.”
One of the F-14’s peeled off and circled the C-130. Two others took up a pattern around the rafts.
Laskov was on the east bank of the river now. He passed over the C-130 on the Hillah road. Great gusts of wind buffeted the big cargo craft, and Laskov could see that the pilot had left the engines running in order to control it on the ground.
Laskov picked out the guest house and museum and the towers of the Ishtar Gate. His impulse was to put his last SMART bomb into the guest house, but Jerusalem had vetoed that. They had the idea that Dobkin might still be alive in there. Laskov doubted that very much. There was also some speculation based on one of Becker’s transmissions, and Dobkin’s report, that there might also be a female prisoner alive there. He doubted that, too. But they would find out soon enough. He could see the line of commandos and the jeeps approaching the area. Laskov knew there would be a fight there, and if the commandos were held up for more than ten minutes and couldn’t bypass the area, then he had permission to take out the guest house and the museum, if necessary. If there were Israeli prisoners in there, he knew they would understand. He knew he would if the situation were reversed. He wouldn’t like it but he would understand. So would Dobkin. Dobkin was a soldier.
>
David Becker hit the auxiliary power unit switch again. It began to turn over—more slowly this time. The batteries were weakening rapidly—but still no ignition and temperature rise. He looked over at Kahn in the copilot’s seat. “Sorry, Peter.”
A bullet passed into the flight deck and they both ducked. Becker could smell kerosene and he knew that some of the fuel tanks or the feeder lines had been hit
“Try again,” said Kahn. “Try again, David. We’ve nothing to lose.”
Becker shouted over the noise. “Everything to lose. Can’t you smell the kerosene?”
“I don’t smell anything but hot lead. Hit it!”
“I need the last of the batteries to transmit!”
“For God’s sake, try again!”
Becker wasn’t used to Kahn being anything but polite and laconic, and he was surprised. He looked down at the APU switch, then up out of the shattered windshield. Three or four Ashbals were moving across the hilltop less than a hundred meters away. Someone, it looked like Marcus, took a single shot at them with his AK-47, and they fell to the ground, scratching for cover and concealment in the flat terrain. The first light was trying to penetrate the sandstorm, and visibility was somewhat better now. Becker could actually see shadowy figures moving in the distance through the grey and dusty dawn. He wondered who they were.
An F-14 came in so low that the Concorde shook, and tremendous clouds of sand pelted the craft and wrapped it in a shroud of dust. Without any conscious thought, Becker hit the APU switch. He looked slowly at Kahn. “Am I hearing things?”