“Please, Cedric,” Ted implored, “you don’t have to explain. The bottom line is that she’s in and I’m out.”
“I’m sorry, Ted. I understand what a blow this is for you,” Whitman said softly as he hung up the phone.
Do you, Cedric? Do you understand what it’s like to work forty years of your goddamn life with only one goal? To give up everything, to resist any human involvements that might detract from your work? Do you understand what it means to sacrifice your youth for nothing?
And can you possibly imagine what it means to have waited since childhood for the doors of Harvard to unlock for you? And now to know they never will.
For the moment, what Ted wanted most to do was get extremely drunk.
He sat alone at a corner table in the back of The Marathon and had one of the waiters make sure that his glass was perpetually filled.
Every now and then his brother, Alex, would come over and insist, “Come on, Teddie, you’ll be sick if you don’t eat something.”
“But that’s the point, Lexi. I’m trying to get sick. To get my body in the same condition as my soul.”
By nine, when he was becoming comfortably blotto, a voice interrupted his lachrymose inebriation.
“May I sit down, Ted?”
It was the last person he wanted to see at that moment—Sara.
“Oho, congratulations on your new appointment, Dr. James. I guess the best man won, huh?”
She sat down and chided softly, “Sober up enough to listen to me, Ted.” She paused briefly. “I’m not going to take it.”
“What?”
“I just called the chairman and told him that, having thought it over, I can’t accept.”
“But why, Sara?” Ted asked, gesticulating broadly. “It’s the top of the academic world—the goddamn tippy-top.”
“For you,” she answered gently. “Ted, when I saw you up there on the podium last night, I knew you were in your own special heaven. I couldn’t deny you that.”
“You’re either crazy or just playing some cruel-revenge joke. I mean, nobody turns down the Eliot Professorship at Harvard.”
“I just did,” she responded, still not raising her voice.
“Why the hell did you let them go to all the trouble and expense if you weren’t serious about it?”
“To be frank, I’ve been asking myself the same thing all day.”
“And—?”
“I think it was to prove to myself that I was really worth something as a scholar. I have an ego and I wanted to see if I could really make it in the big leagues.”
“Well, you certainly did, baby—if you’ll pardon the pun—with a vengeance. I still don’t understand why you’re handing back the crown jewels.”
“Because after the initial excitement wore off, I realized I’d be doing the wrong thing. Look, my career isn’t the be-all and end-all of my life. I want to make my second shot at matrimony work. I mean, the libraries close at ten o’clock, but marriage goes on twenty-four hours a day. Especially a good one.”
He did not comment. At least not right away. He was trying, in his slightly woozy state, to piece out what all this meant.
“Hey, Lambros, cheer up,” she whispered kindly. “I’m sure they’ll offer it to you.”
He looked across the table at his ex-wife.
“You know, I actually believe you’d be happy if I got it. Considering what a shit I was, I don’t see how you can feel that way.”
“All I feel is a kind of residual sadness,” she said softly. “I mean, we had some very happy years together.”
Ted felt a knot in his stomach as he replied, “They were the happiest years of my life.”
She nodded in melancholy empathy. As if they were mourning a mutual friend.
They sat silently for several moments more. Then Sara, growing uneasy, rose to leave.
“It’s getting late. I should be going—”
“No, wait just one second,” he pleaded, motioning her to sit down.
He had something important to say. And if he didn’t tell her now, he would never have another chance.
“Sara, I’m really sorry for what I did to us. And if you can believe this, I’d give up anything—including Harvard—if we could still be together.”
He looked longingly at her, waiting for her response.
At first she said nothing.
“Do you believe me?” he asked again.
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But it’s a little late now.”
Sara rose again and whispered, “Good night, Ted.”
Then she leaned over, kissed him on the forehead, and started out. Leaving him alone at the top of the world.
Jason Gilbert’s parents flew over to Israel in the spring of 1974. First they stayed a week on the kibbutz getting to know—and love—their grandchildren and daughter-in-law.
Then Jason and Eva showed them every inch of the country from the Golan Heights to Sharm El-Sheikh in the occupied Sinai. They spent their final five days in Jerusalem, which Mrs. Gilbert pronounced the most beautiful city in the world.
“They’re lovely people,” said Eva after they had waved goodbye to his parents at Ben Gurion Airport.
“Do you think they enjoyed themselves?”
“I think if there’s a state beyond ecstasy, they’re in it,” she replied. “What pleased me most was this morning when your father kissed the boys, he didn’t say goodbye, he said shalom. I bet anything they’ll come back again next year.”
Eva was right. The Gilberts returned in the spring of 1975 and again in 1976. The third time, they even brought Julie—who, being “between husbands,” was keen to test the myth of Israeli machismo.
Jason was an instructor now. Not exactly a sedentary job in the most elite of the special units, but less dangerous than the work he had done in the past.
It was his task to go to the enlistment center outside Tel Aviv and determine which of the eager young recruits would be fit enough mentally and physically for the impossible demands of Sayaret Matkal. He was under the direct command of Yoni Netanyahu, who had been much decorated for his bravery in the Yom Kippur war.
Yoni had spent one year at Harvard and was trying to engineer the opportunity to complete his B.A. He and Jason sat many a summer evening reminiscing about familiar Cambridge landmarks like the Square, Widener Library, Elsie’s, and running paths along the Charles River.
These conversations awakened in Jason a longing to visit the one place in his life where he had led an uncomplicated and happy existence.
He and Eva discussed it. What if they went to the States for a year after he completed his present army contract? If they’d accept him at the advanced age of thirty-nine, he could finish his law degree and then set up practice in Israel representing U.S. firms.
“What do you think, Eva?” he asked. “Would the kids enjoy it?”
“I know their father would.” She smiled indulgently. “And I’ve heard so much about Harvard all these years, I’m practically homesick for it myself. Go on, write the letters.”
• • •
Even after being AWOL for so many years, Jason had no trouble being readmitted to the Law School. Especially since the Assistant Dean of Admissions was now Tod Anderson, with whom, in his previous life, he had been a carefree jock.
As a postscript to his letter of acceptance, Tod added, “You may be a major over there, Gilbert, but to me you’re still my captain. Squash captain, that is.” To which he appended a P.P.S., “I’ve been working on my game a lot and I think I can finally whip you now.”
Jason was admitted as a third-year law student for the 1976–1977 academic year. He and Eva planned to take the boys over in mid-July and leave them with his parents while they searched for an apartment in Cambridge.
In May 1976 he left the Sayaret and active army service. Now all he owed Israel was a month of reserve duty every year until he was fifty-five.
When he said goodbye to his young commanding officer, Yoni co
uld not help betraying a bit of envy.
“Think of me when you’re jogging on the Charles, saba, and send me a few postcards from Cambridge.”
The two laughed and parted.
Then, on the 27th of June, everything changed.
Air France flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked after it stopped to take on passengers in Athens.
But this was not—even by Palestinian standards—a routine terrorist operation.
Landing once to refuel in Libya, it then proceeded to Entebbe, in Uganda. There, the 256 passengers were herded into the old terminal at Kampala airport. And made hostages.
The following day, the captors made known their demands. They wanted fifty-three of their comrades—forty of whom were sitting in Israeli jails—handed over, along with several million dollars.
It had always been Israel’s policy not to negotiate with terrorists. But the families of the passengers besieged the cabinet offices in Jerusalem, pleading for an exchange that would save the lives of their loved ones. The government wavered.
Under normal circumstances such a crisis would have been immediately handed over to the antiterrorist section. But this time the hostages were five thousand miles away. Unreachable by any military rescue operation. Or so it seemed.
Minutes after the first radio broadcast of the terrorists’ demands, Jason walked into the classroom where Eva was teaching the three-year-olds how to tell time. He motioned her to step outside.
“I’m going,” he said tersely.
“Where?”
“Back to the unit.”
“You’re crazy. They can’t do anything. And besides, you’re retired.”
“I can’t explain it, Eva,” he said urgently. “It’s just that I’ve spent half my life chasing some of those murderers who are sitting in jail. If we hand them back, that’ll destroy everything we’ve accomplished. The world will become a terrorist playground.”
Tears began to well up in her eyes.
“Jason, you’re the only thing I’ve loved that I haven’t lost. Haven’t you sacrificed enough of your life? Your children need a father, not a hero.…”
And then she paused, realizing that no words could stop him. Already feeling the ache of his absence even as he stood before her.
“Why, Jason?” she asked. “Why does it always have to be you?”
“It’s something I learned from you, Eva,” he replied softly. “The whole reason this country exists is to protect our people everywhere.”
Eva cried softly against his chest, realizing she’d made too good a Jew of him. His love for Israel now transcended even what he felt for his own family.
And so she let him go. Not even telling him that she was pregnant again.
“Get the hell out of here, saba. This is young men’s work.”
“C’mon, Yoni,” Jason insisted, “if there’s an operation, I want to be part of it.”
“Look, I’m not saying there is. So far, the government thinks it’s much too risky. To be perfectly frank, we haven’t been able to come up with a game plan that’ll have even a fifty-fifty chance of working.”
“Then why not at least let me in on the skull sessions? For God’s sake, I’m not too old to think.”
Their argument was interrupted by Major General Zvi Doron, former head of Sayaret, now chief of intelligence of the entire Defense Forces.
“Hey, guys,” he barked, “this is no time to bicker. What are you doing here, Gilbert?”
“I’m reporting for duty, Zvi.”
“Look,” Yoni said sternly, “we’re up against a wall and we’re wasting precious time. So I’m going to give you sixty seconds to convince me why the sentries shouldn’t throw you out. Now talk fast.”
“Okay,” he began, desperately searching for an argument. “When you picked a team to capture Adolf Eichmann, you deliberately chose concentration-camp survivors. Because there’s no one braver or less compromising than a victim with a chance for revenge.”
He paused and then added, “I’m a victim too. Those animals killed the first woman I ever loved. And there’s no one in this unit who would give more to spare others from living with that kind of pain.”
Jason unashamedly wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. And then concluded, “Besides, you still haven’t got a better soldier than me.”
Zvi and Yoni looked at each other, still uncertain.
Finally the commander spoke. “Listen, this whole operation is crazy. If they let us do it, maybe we need a lunatic like Gilbert.”
While the Sayaret was thrashing out a battle plan, the Israeli government was still trying to negotiate with the hijackers—at least to stall for time.
After another forty-eight hours, the non-Israeli passengers were released and flown to France, where they told a harrowing story. As in the Nazi concentration camps, there had been a “selection”—and the Israeli hostages had been placed in a room separated from the others.
The cabinet was under mounting public pressure to accede to the demands of the terrorists and save a hundred innocent lives. As they hovered on the brink of capitulation, they received a visit from Major General Zvi Doron, who informed them that his staff had come up with a plan for liberating the hostages by force. He explained it in detail and the ministers agreed to think it over.
Meanwhile, Doron went back to rehearse the landing at Entebbe.
Since Israeli architects had helped to build the old Ugandan air terminal, they had detailed blueprints and were able to build a full-scale mockup. And, based on the evidence gained from those released in Paris, they were able to pinpoint where the hostages were being kept.
As one of the veterans present, Jason joined in the discussion of logistics. They could not fly a large force so great a distance, therefore everything would depend on the element of surprise.
Their huge Hercules C-130 transport planes were slow but at least had the range to get there. Still, how the hell could they free the hostages and get them on board before the entire country descended upon them?
In their thoroughness they watched home movies of Idi Amin, the Ugandan leader, riding around Kampala in his long black Mercedes.
“That’s what we need,” Jason urged. “If we can just make the guards think it might be Amin arriving, we can buy fifteen or twenty valuable seconds until they find out otherwise.”
“Good idea,” said Zvi. And then turning to his adjutant he said, “Find us a Mercedes.”
They planned on taking a two-hundred-man strike force, and a few jeeps and land rovers, divided among three transport planes. A fourth Hercules would serve as a flying hospital. For they estimated ten to fifty casualties—if they were successful.
Late that afternoon, the adjutant arrived with the only Mercedes he could find. It was a white diesel model that coughed and sputtered like an asthmatic horse.
“We can’t use that wreck,” Zvi said. “Even if we paint it, that damn knocking motor will give us away before we start.”
“Listen,” Yoni suggested, “why not let Gilbert try to give it an overhaul? He’s not too old to fix motors.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Jason said sardonically. “Get me some tools and I’ll make that thing as quiet as the fanciest limousine.”
He sweated all evening and through the night tuning the ancient vehicle. Then he supervised some of the other commandos spraying it black. But it still needed some spare parts, a list of which he gave to Yoni.
“Do you expect us to send to Germany for this stuff?” the younger officer asked.
“I expect quicker thinking than that from a Harvard man,” Jason retorted. “Find some Mercedes taxis and steal the parts.”
Yoni smiled and went off to select the most likely car thieves among his men.
On Friday the unit held a full dress rehearsal in their model of the old terminal. It took sixty-seven minutes by the stopwatch, to go from imaginary touchdown to evacuation and takeoff.
“Not good enough,” Yoni said to his weary soldiers.
“If we don’t get this down to under an hour, we don’t move.”
They took a break for a dinner of C-rations and ran through it again. This time it was 59:30.
After the exercise Yoni gathered his men and made a short announcement.
“The terrorists’ ultimatum expires tomorrow evening. That’s when they say they’ll start shooting the hostages. We’ve got to get there before it happens. The trouble is, the cabinet won’t be voting on our plan till tomorrow morning. So we’ve got to start the operation and hope they’ll radio us to go ahead. Obviously, nobody leaves the base. All the phone lines have been cut. Now try to get some sleep.”
The young soldiers disbanded and started toward the adjoining room where they had their sleeping bags. Only Jason remained to speak to Yoni.
“Thanks for your help,” Yoni said, “I’m really glad you came along.”
“But why aren’t you letting me onto the plane?”
“Look,” Yoni said quietly. “The average age of these boys is about twenty-three. You’re almost forty. Even the greatest athletes slow down by then. They lose that crucial split second of reaction time.”
“But I can hold my own, Yoni. I know it. I want to go, even if it’s just to service the motors.”
“Look, saba, this is too serious to let emotions creep in. You’re staying here. And that’s final.”
Jason nodded silently and left the room. He walked out of the Sayaret building and, benefiting from years of experience at eluding detection, slipped by the guards and disappeared into the night.
Operation Thunderbolt began just after noon on Saturday, July 3.
First the medical equipment was loaded. Then the military vehicles. Then the black Mercedes. Finally, the men clambered aboard for the five-thousand-mile rescue mission that could not afford to be less than perfect.
Four Hercules “Hippos” lumbered down the runway and into the air heading south. Their plan was to stop for final refueling at Sharm El-Sheikh, the southernmost point of Israeli territory. That would give them maximum possible range.