The Glory (31 page)

“
En lahatz
[No pressure], don’t rush.” Yoni glanced at his watch. “This is a rare opportunity.” He took down more papers and rapidly
scanned them.

Amos Pasternak prided himself on keeping his head in tough spots, and he had proved himself often. But in some ways, this
old friend was beyond him. Yoni Netanyahu had served with him in Sayeret Matkhal years ago, then had left the army to study
at Harvard. Now he was back without having completed his degree; a small guy with a slight physique hardened by exercise and
willpower to iron and wire, and kept so despite a grave wound in the Six-Day War. His coolness now was infectious. Certainly
he was right, this intelligence bonanza could save hundreds of lives. It could even crack the whole terror network. “Okay,
but be quick about it —”

BRATATAT, BANG, BANG!
Amos jumped to the open window. Machine-gun bursts outside, cracks of rifles. “It’s the headquarters building, Yoni. I see
the flashes. Trouble. Yallah!”

“Sure. What can I carry this stuff in?” Yoni looked here and there. “A pillowcase, maybe. Just a second.”

I
n the Pit, the cigarette smoke as always was thick and foul. Senior officers paced the enormous map-lined room, Sam Pasternak
among them. At a table with a microphone General Elazar and Moshe Dayan sat side by side. “Mano Shaked, Mano Shaked, this
is Dado. Say again, what has gone wrong?”

Reply from an overhead loudspeaker, harsh with static but understandable.
“This is Mano. The boys killed the guards outside the headquarters, according to plan. But a machine gun has just opened up
from across the street, from some kind of truck or van, and — wait, I’m getting another report.”

Deep silence in the room. Crackling of static. Rasp and flaming of cigarette lighters.

“Okay, this is Mano. Five of our guys are down. The van has been silenced, but more guards are coming and firing. The demolition
squad inquires whether to go into the building or abort.”

The Ramatkhal and Dayan looked at each other. Dayan shrugged. Dado said briskly, “He’s the guy on the spot,” and spoke into
the microphone. “Mano, this is Dado. What do you recommend?”

“I say proceed with demolition. We have good supporting fire. I’ll send reenforcements to cover withdrawal.”

“Approved.”

As the most iron-nerved airline pilot agonizes through a storm when he is only a passenger, because he knows the hazards and
cannot act, so Sam Pasternak was shaken by this turn. Amos was attacking a different building, but still the whole raid was
already compromised. The gun battle was bound to alert the lax Lebanese police, and army units too might roll. A fast withdrawal
to the beach was the raiders’ best chance. Once trapped in Beirut, they would be overwhelmed and captured, if not gunned down
forthwith.

Sayeret Matkhal in Arab hands!
Blindfolded and chained prisoners on world television, a mockery of Israel’s prowess, an ineradicable disgrace! Moreover
high Lebanese politicians were hand in glove with the terrorists, that was known, and prison in Lebanon was no haven. Lynching,
kidnapping, vanishing, death by mutilation — all real possibilities. An interminable tumble of army jargon on the signal channel,
but from the demolition unit no further word. Since the landing, nothing at all from Amos. Sharp voice of Colonel Shaked cutting
through, ordering all units to clear the channel.

“Dado from Mano. No word from apartment unit. Headquarters unit has fought its way out against police and terrorist fire and
is heading for the beach, bringing out all casualties.”

Dayan leaned to the microphone and pressed the button. “Mano, this is Dayan. Was the demolition carried out?”

“Minister, they set the explosives, but they’ve been in a running gunfight, shooting from their cars. They don’t know.”

With a headshake at Dado, Dayan let him have the microphone.

“Mano from Dado. What casualties?”

“This is Mano. Two lightly wounded, one severely.”
Somber looks around the room. Pause. Mano’s voice again:
“Two dead. Hagai Ma’ayan and Avida Shor.”

Crackling of static. With a noisy scrape of his chair, Dayan got to his feet. “
Fashla
[Fuckup],” he said drily, and walked out. Some officers drifted after him. Dado slumped at the microphone, his rugged face
a tragic mask in the bleak fluorescent light. Reports kept trickling in. Pasternak’s pulse thumped to hear,
“This is Mano. Apartment Unit Amos now safe on board
Gaash.
Mission carried out, three terrorist chiefs killed, two boys lightly wounded.”
Dado managed a wan smile at Pasternak.

Within an hour the picture was clear. The entire raiding force, with the Mossad agents who had met them in the cars, were
aboard the boats and heading home. At Haifa’s Maimonides Hospital the helicopter had unloaded the wounded and the dead. The
high wall clock showed a few minutes past three. Dado stretched, yawned, and spoke after a long wordless time. “Well, Sam,
your Amos did valiantly. All the boys did. Still, Moshe’s right. Fashla.”

“Dado, they got the leaders.”

Dado leaned his head in his hands. “Two of our boys, just for those three murdering bastards?” The telephone at his elbow
rang. He picked it up. “Dado here. What?” His face brightened. “Well, did you record all that? … Excellent, rush the tape
over to my office. … Look, Sam Pasternak’s here, tell him.” Dado handed him the phone. “In America the raid’s on the evening
news.” He went striding out to the steep staircase.

Slow deep voice of the new Mossad chief. “Sam? The raid is the big news on American TV and radio. They’re interrupting regular
programs. The story’s already coming out of Beirut, uncensored. First of all, the terrorist headquarters building was totally
demolished —”

“Aha! That’s definite?”

“Blown to a big pile of rubble.”

“What’s the American reaction so far?”

“Positive, admiring, and they’re all citing the Munich massacre of our athletes, and the murder of their two diplomats in
Sudan.”

The big surprise so far, the Mossad chief went on, was the candor of the Lebanese authorities. They had immediately disclosed
the name of the chief terrorists who had been killed, and were allowing cameras at the headquarters building, where rescuers
were digging for PLO personnel who might be buried in the flattened ruins. No neighboring structures had been damaged.

Sam broke in, “You’re sure of that? Amos told me there was a big dispute over the exact weight of explosives they would need,
so as not to injure civilians.”

“Somebody guessed right. The building’s a wreck, nothing else touched. That’s what our consul saw on New York TV. I just got
off the phone with him. Sam, it’s an international success, a masterstroke.”

“Two boys died,” Pasternak said.

“I know, I know. Avida Shor and Hagai Ma’ayan, kibbutznik volunteers, just kids. The cost, always the cost! But go and listen
to Naftali’s tapes, Sam, those boys died for something great.”

M
editerranean weather can change fast. At sunrise the wind was whipping up whitecaps, and even entering Haifa harbor the
Gaash
was rolling and pitching. On the unsteady bridge Amos and Noah were peering through binoculars toward the pier. “Quite a
welcoming party out there,” Noah said. “The Defense Minister, the admiral —”

Amos exclaimed, “There’s my father, by my life! Why the devil did he drag himself to Haifa?”

The blond woman, climbing the ladder to the bridge in a white sweater and tan slacks, overheard this. “
Bonjour
. Which one is your father?”

“Ah,
bonjour.
” Amos handed her the binoculars. “He’s the short man on Dayan’s left.”

“So, that’s General Pasternak.” The wind tossed her loose yellow hair and the pink scarf flung around her neck. In strong
morning sunlight she still looked fetching, though decidedly older than Amos; slim, heavily tanned, her bony face alive with
excitement. “Hm, quite a resemblance.
Ai!
” She fell sideways against him, and he steadied her with an arm.
“Merci, monsieur.”

Amos was bleary from writing up his report in the wobbly wardroom, and also bone-tired, but not too tired to feel a stir in
his loins. His smile, as the woman returned the glasses, was more than polite. “Did you get any sleep?”

“
Ah, oui!
That cosy cabin of yours! Rocked like a baby.
Ai!
” Another cry as the wind snatched at her scarf, tore it from her neck, and fluttered it aft, out of sight.

Amos said, “The Israeli government owes you a scarf.”

“Most assuredly.”

When the
Gaash
tied up, the raiders were all on deck, a ragtag unshaven lot, and the crew was mustered at attention. Assorted high brass
who were in on the secret operation came aboard and went shaking the hand of every raider, one by one.

“For victory, many fathers,” laughed the blonde, leaving the bridge. Sam Pasternak stood aside from the ladder to let her
pass, then came up and bear-hugged his son. “Go shake hands with the big shots, my boy.”

“Abba, you look awful. When did you sleep last?”

“Well, now I’ll sleep.”

Amos saw the Frenchwoman descending the gangplank with the Mossad men from Beirut. “Excuse me, Abba.” He hurried after them,
and intercepted the woman as she was about to get into a car.

“Goodbye,” he said to her, “and many thanks.”

“Mais pourquoi? Au revoir.”

“Look, how do I get in touch with you?” She faintly smiled. “I mean it. What’s your name?”

“Ah, Major, it’s all over, but I won’t forget the pretty lady with the cold clammy stockings and the wet clothes. What was
her name, by the way?”

“Her name?” He laughed. “She didn’t exist.”

“
Justement
. Neither do I, Pasternak
fils
.”

As he stared after the departing car, his father came beside him. “Abba, who was she?”

“Nobody. A volunteer, recruited for the purpose. Amos, it was a great coup, it’s the talk of the media. Of the world. Well
done.”

“We had losses, Abba.”

Pasternak nodded. “I heard. Now you had better get back to your battalion.”

“Why? Something doing down south?” Amos asked wearily.

“Heavy enemy troop movements, Amos, on the Sinai and Syrian fronts. Supposedly war games, but the estimate is that these may
not be games.”

“Let them start something,” said Amos, aroused out of his fatigue. “It’ll be a slaughter, and then maybe there’ll be peace.”

Pasternak kept to himself, secrecy being second nature to him, that in the innermost government circle a state of highest
alert already prevailed for a possible enemy surprise attack on May fifteenth during the Independence Day parade; code name
for the crisis,
BLUE/WHITE
.

Amos and Noah snapped to attention with the other raid leaders and missile boat captains, all in dress uniform, as the Prime
Minister entered an anteroom of her office where a few select onlookers waited, including the Minister of Defense and the
Ramatkhal, who had just concluded with her an urgent conference on
BLUE/WHITE
. Sam Pasternak had been invited to see his son honored, and Zev Barak came in with Golda, for he was now her military secretary,
probably his last army assignment.

When upon his return, she had asked him face to face to take it on, he realized that sector command had gone glimmering. He
had been away too long. So close to power, though wielding none, he figured that he could at least speak the plain truth to
Golda Meir whenever asked, and that too would serve the Jewish State. For from his Washington-acquired perspective, the truth
about his euphoric country’s situation was somber. Perhaps that was why she had chosen him. She had already dubbed him Reb
Ma’azik, Mr. Alarmist. Anyway, how could he have refused the Prime Minister?

On his visits home during his attaché years it had sometimes struck Zev Barak that Israel was a sort of asteroid, floating
somewhere near the earth but not quite of it. Now that he was back from America for good he was recovering his roots, sinking
into the Israeli frame of mind, enjoying the sense of being truly home at last, but the outlook of his Viennese boyhood still
caused him to look about askance at the complacency prevailing in the little land. When all was said and done, he was a transplant,
and perhaps that had given him his fatal skill at “handling Americans”; if there really was anything to that image, which
had shaped and in effect closed down his army career. Still, he was back in the bosom of the family he loved, walking the
soil of Zion he loved, and there stood his son, a hero among heroes, about to be honored by the Prime Minister of the Jewish
State. Good enough. He had no complaints against the old Jewish God.

“It’s a hard thing, my dear young heroes,” Golda was beginning hoarsely, “that the brave achievements of the elite services
can’t be publicly recognized. Some of your boldest feats may have to go unsung for a hundred years. By then my generation
and yours will all be dead, and forgotten from men’s hearts.”

The stately sentences rolled as though they had been written out for her. But Zev Barak, whose eyes moistened at seeing Noah
in his dress whites, knew that the words were extemporaneous, since he now drafted most of her written utterances.

“However, when the records are opened at last, the world will learn what great deeds young Jewish fighters like you performed
in the early years of our struggle to survive. Then with God’s help we will be living at peace with our Arab neighbors. Perhaps
then, even they will join the world in saying,
‘This was a Jewish generation like Joshua’s.’
For now, speaking for the Jewish people, I can only humbly thank and bless you.” One by one she shook hands with all of them
and trudged off into her office, followed by the ministers and generals.

Zev Barak stopped to shake his son’s hand. “Kol ha’kavod.”