Harel slipped the headphones off his ears, his face blank.
“They are all at the cabinet meeting, and they’re waiting to hear from you. You’d better talk to the PM,” Mossik, director of the now-shut airport, softly urged him.
“Yes,” Dagan chimed in. “Then we move straight to the air force base. We have eight hours to get it over and done with.”
Ehrlich was sitting at the edge of the room with a female soldier who was sitting way too close to him, examining the cupid pendant on his neck. It was hard to believe. His hand was holding her uniform pants and grabbing her bottom. The soldier’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder and she was giggling, her eyes teary. She was in quiet hysterics.
“You don’t miss a single opportunity, do you?” I whispered repulsed.
“I must help her so she doesn’t collapse,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “Life goes on. We have to provide a helping hand.”
Micko came out of nowhere to break us apart. “We are going to the air force base soon to see what’s going on there. You’d better get ready. Everyone is preparing for a glorious rescue operation. This may be our last chance to suggest a political alternative. I’m going to need you.”
Harel was looking as if he was trying hard to come to some decision. His face was blank.
“You,” he turned to Micko. “Get her drafted into the army immediately. If she has to stay with us, I want her to be legally bound to secrecy and I want her to be covered by our rules and insurance.” Ehrlich was dying to help and suggested he take care of my immediate enlisting to the LUFF.
The LUFF HQ was deployed in two rooms in the backyard of the police station that looked, even at that hour of the night, shiny and bright. It must have won some award for best-looking police station ever. Ehrlich, the repulsive philanderer, diligent reporter, occasional tipper, useless IDF spokesman representative, and generally a very useful person, managed to scare two women soldiers and a jolly yet stupid Yemenite sergeant major within ten minutes. Two phone calls later and after some more threats, he turned me into a reserve non-commissioned officer. An officer. The fact that I had never served in the army didn’t seem to bother anyone.
“Evelyone is legisteled,” the lisping sergeant major said with an expert’s pride, trying to rehabilitate his wounded honor. “We issued an emelgency dlaft. I can even dlaft my mothel-in-law, may the devil take hel soul.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder. I headed for the ladies’ room. I missed the tranquility of the shiny white tiles. I brushed my teeth for almost five minutes non-stop. I looked in the mirror. I sat down, exhausted, on the bare floor. I was thinking about what Danny was doing and what Mom was doing. I hadn’t spoken to her since the whole thing began.
“Is everything ok?” Ehrlich knocked on the door.
“Great,” I replied. “Go away.”
“Shira?”
“I just want a few more minutes of privacy. Go away.”
It was close to two in the morning but Mom picked up the phone after the first ring.
“I’m watching it all on television. You guys at CNN are doing a great job. Are you alright? Are you dressed warmly enough? Where are you?”
“I’m at the police station and it’s cold here and I am not dressed warmly enough. Also, I’m not only CNN but an officer in the army as well. God knows how.” I looked up at the ceramic walls.
“You’re not being serious?”
“Of course not. Don’t worry, Mommy, I mean other than being in the army now. That’s true.” I tried to sound authoritative. “It will turn out alright.”
“No,” she switched to French. “No, my little birdie. This time it will end badly. I can feel it strongly”.
I picked up my bag. Ehrlich was gone.
“Now I can call you commandel,” said the sergeant major happily and saluted me. I turned back to see who he was talking to. He was talking to me.
“My regards to your mother-in-law,” I said as I went down to the parking lot.
* * *
Chapter 17
Ehrlich was at the tactical headquarters, explaining the principles of the journalistic profession to a female soldier. Given one or two more minutes of his attention, she would have bought anything from this creep. Without remorse, I dragged him to Micko’s jeep and we drove off to the air force base on the other side of the airport. I shrank in the back, hoping that nobody would stop us, but my plan failed. The sentry was adamant about not letting in anyone who didn’t need to be there. He didn’t care about any authorization or nothing. I sat in the back going crazy while trucks carrying equipment, and others with top brass, kept streaming into the base; jeeps with tall antennas carrying commander insignia, staff cars of high-ranking officers, and three Cadillacs, the general chief of staff of the armed forces and two of the prime minister and his entourage.
“Why do you all need to get in?” the sentry asked when I tried for the third time.
“Operational need. It’s an emergency.” Ehrlich repeated his line.
“Only the Pineapple authorization can come in.” The sentry stood his ground.
Ehrlich tried again, playing both good cop and bad. He dropped some names, he threatened, and he flashed some permits. Finally, the base commander arrived; a full colonel wearing his flight suit.
“He’s just a glorified driver,” Ehrlich whispered to me, afraid I might be impressed. “He’s a transport pilot.” The sentry kept smiling the whole time and trying so hard to be polite that I almost lost my mind.
The pilot explained something to him in a casual tone. In response, the sentry smiled even wider, let us in and stood still, saluting.
“I still don’t understand why this should be LUFF business, but someone high up said to let you in,” said the base commander. “If one word comes out about the stuff they are practicing in here, you will be destroying something very delicate as well as the lives of soldiers. This won’t be just another little leak to the press.”
He wasn’t too crazy about us.
The soldiers of the Special Unit were sitting inside a hangar. Some of them were eating while others were talking on the phone. The rest were lying down or sleeping, using every available opportunity to get some rest. They were in between practice runs.
Ahead of the big show of taking over a hijacked airplane, the general chief of staff and the prime minister got up on their feet and walked over to take a look at the air force’s practice Boeing that was standing outside the hangar. We stayed inside the jeep, trying to avoid anyone who might want to throw us out. Ehrlich and Micko were chatting on their cell phones. The unit’s soldiers were standing in their light tactical vests, huddled around two jeeps, and waiting for the green light.
“Well?” The prime minister drew out the word. Dagan stared and him, recognizing the authorization in his eyes.
“Let’s go, Ami. Do it the way you know,” said Dagan, clasping his arms across his chest. Ami, who looked like a disheveled university student, turned to his soldiers and said, almost in a whisper, “OK, guys, execute.” The last word sounded almost like a dull thud of an explosion. EXECUTE!
The jeeps raced the three hundred feet to the mock hijacked plane at a surprising velocity. Two pairs of soldiers jumped at the landing gear and used it to gain entrance into the plane. A jeep headed for the rear of the plane suddenly and extended hydraulic ladders up to the fuselage. While the jeep was still in motion, soldiers climbed up the ladders and reached the plane’s door, opening it with a crowbar and slipping inside. From the moment that the jeeps started heading for the plane until the soldiers disappeared inside, the elapsed time was ninety seconds. The chief of staff looked at the prime minister who intoned in his low voice, “Too slow. Too dangerous.”
“The whole thing is too dangerous and the odds are not so great,” said the chief of staff. “We have a long ride out in the open, and that’s a problem. The guys know what they’re doing, but if you are still open to suggestions, we have the option of using the Viper, if you re
member it.”
I obviously had no clue what they were talking about, but the prime minister stared at the general chief of staff inquiringly. “Could you show me right now how it works in practice?”
The chief of staff looked at Dagan. Dagan spread his arms helplessly and said, “I can give you a practice run in ten minutes if you’d like. But you know you’re going to lose a Boeing for this.”
“Is there no way of using the Viper, without destroying the plane?”
“No,” said Dagan. “Not if we want the Viper to show what it can do.”
“Where’s the commander of the air force?” asked the prime minister.
The commander appeared two minutes later. “The Boeing right here isn’t in operational use right now,” he explained. “But if I lose it and I lose the hijacked Boeing as well, then we are left with no air force Boeing for transport or for aerial refueling, sir.” The prime minister gave him an empty look, then turned to the chief of staff, and then to Dagan and finally said, “Go for it.”
Dagan was prompt. Ten minutes later, the soldiers were ready again, sitting in two jeeps. A third jeep, which hadn’t been there earlier, maneuvered into place for a minute and then came to a halt. I stood there, astounded; part of a small group of spectators watching the show. Ami, the force commander, once again said, “Execute!”
From the rear of the jeep, a coiled tarpaulin strip, resembling a fireman’s hose, shot out of a tube resembling a mortar and landed on the roof of the plane, wrapping itself around it just above the rear landing gear. A second later, an explosion thundered and a precise cut appeared across the Boeing’s fuselage. Half of the plane landed on the tarmac. At first, the tail touched the ground and then, like a cucumber split open, half of the plane came crashing down. Twenty seconds later, the soldiers disappeared within the half of the plane lying on the tarmac, some of them signaling that the mission was complete from within the front part of the plane still standing on the front landing gear.
The chief of staff said, “We are aiming for a shock that will stun the hijackers and separate the passengers into two groups. We are looking at a simultaneous entrance and a time saving of one minute and ten seconds.”
“How do I know,” asked the prime minister, “That the passengers inside will not be harmed by the explosion or that the explosion outside won’t trigger an explosion inside the plane?”
“We don’t have enough info about the charges inside,” Dagan said apologetically, “but remember, from the moment that the plane is cut in half, no internal explosion can destroy the plane because the blast wave can escape. An explosion inside a confined space will destroy everyone within it. When we cut the plane in two, we are minimizing the effect of the internal explosion to about ten percent of what it would be in a whole airplane.”
It was almost six in the morning. The cars of the first employees started to appear on the road to the terminal. Among them were the trucks carrying milk, eggs, and vegetables to the Tel Aviv market, for the start of a new day. Micko, apparently my commanding officer, showed some fatherly signs, suggesting I get down for a nap somewhere before I fall apart on them. I was ready to take his advice and go home for a couple of hours. On the way out we passed through the tactical headquarters at the tower for a brief update. The balding communications officer was the highest-ranking person at the site.
“Anything new?” Micko tried. Very few people were at the headquarters. None of them seemed to care too much. They were exhausted.
“Look at the log book,” said baldy. “There are a bunch of recordings from inside the plane. Looks like the foreign minister has been unconscious since it all began. They decided that if there’s no interview at seven am, they’ll execute Danny Taylor at eight.” All of a sudden, I was very much awake.
“But they said they would kill the foreign minister!” I blurted out.
“Maybe you should ask them to reconsider,” the balding man replied snidely.
“I’ve got to hear the recording. I want to understand where things are.”
“Who is she anyway?” The balding man blinked at me as if it was beneath him to address me directly.
“It’s alright, she’s with us and we have orders to show her everything.” Micko was showing authority.
“You know this is coming from ‘arrows’ material.” The communications officer tried to dissuade Micko.
“Yes, no, I don’t know if it’s alright.” It was Harel, who had come back from the practice run at the air force base, entered the tactical headquarters and to the relief of both officers, turned to me.
“You’re not fully up to date.” His very blue eyes were red now. “Your cell phone on the plane died a long time ago. The communications guys shot two arrows at the plane and they are now functioning as internal transmitters.”
“I thought you drafted me specifically so that I could handle classified material.”
“Yes, but even within the military, there is compartmentalization. I’m not sure this material is cleared for you.” He looked menacing and way over-confident even when he was hesitant.
“Who decides what’s cleared for me anyway?”
“OK, OK.” He brushed his mustache and calmed down. “The person who decides is actually me. The problem isn’t with protecting our sources such as the ‘arrows’; the problem is with the content of the recordings. If you hear them, you will understand.”
“Let me hear what’s happening to my father!” I must have raised my voice because Micko and the communications officer recoiled somewhat. “Stop playing games with me and stop harassing me,” I went on.
Harel looked at the communications officer and nodded. “If you guys need me, I’ll be at the general staff meeting in Tel Aviv,” he said and disappeared.
The reel-to-reel recorders were in a side room. The communications officer arranged his few hairs professionally in an arc across his bald pate and played with the reels that were making rapid screeching sounds. He ran the reel forward, backward, and then forward once again. Suddenly I could hear Danny saying, “You understand that by doing me, you are finishing off the one last rational person on this plane.”
The conversation was in basic English.
I think it was Abu Shahid who replied, “Oh, Wazir Taylor.” He must have thought that Danny was the wazir, the minister. “I do not wish to speak rationally to anybody. I want to blow up this plane and go to paradise.”
“You’ll always have time to get to paradise. The question is, what will you tell them up there? What have you done before arriving there? Don’t you think you can achieve much more if before the explosion you conduct a serious conversation with our people? I can guarantee that our people will give you many things.”
A third speaker in the conversation was commanding, “Hit him in the face with the butt of your gun. Let’s finish this smart talk.”
There was a loud blow, a terrible groan by Danny, and the hysterical laughter of the other two. I felt it like a blow in my belly and couldn’t breathe for few seconds. Through the mist of tears full of rage, I could see the people in the room looking at me with concern. The recording reel continued to turn.
Abu Shahid made a satisfied grumble. “I have done much and I have achieved much in my life. I have achieved enough to buy a ticket to paradise with full honors, and together with you and your foreign minister, I believe I have an excellent entrance ticket. Your prime minister will give us nothing; of this, I am sure. You will hear it at seven. At eight o’clock, Mister Taylor, you will be standing at the door, then you will bend over, and then you will fly out onto the tarmac.” His laughter seemed to have a question mark in it.
Danny groaned, “I have been working for the past fifteen years trying to get your people and mine closer.”
“For the past twenty years, I haven’t even been considered a human being by your people.” Abu Shahid’s voice was bitter. “I learned not to believe a single word from you people. My most important role today is to kill someone like you.?
??
“If you kill me, what will you achieve? Who will witness it? Who will it impress? What will you be saying, what impression do you think you will be making?”
“Hit him again,” the other man suggested, and I struggled to shut my eyes as nausea and fear choked me.
‘This is a recording of something that happened already,’ I tried telling myself when a new thud was heard, followed by the almost inevitable groan.
“All the TV stations of the world are looking at me right now,” Abu Shahid said proudly. “Maybe they should see you too so that they will understand that we are not playing games. Those who saw you earlier, before your face looked like tomato salad, surely they will start taking us a bit more seriously.” Danny groaned once more.
“All the TV stations need to know that when I say something, my word is solid,” Abu Shahid continued in a hoarse voice and growing enthusiasm. “All the Israelis need to know that until we kill the last one of your people, we will not calm down and we will not rest.”
“But you won’t be here to witness it,” Danny didn’t give up and bravely continued in a broken voice.