The Red Syndrome (38 page)

"Collective punishment?" I asked.

"It sounds like it," Arnon said. "Communities found guilty would lose
services such as water supply, electricity, gas, food, and communication."

"I see," I said. "So if Nasser is found guilty of anything they would disconnect the village's telephone line, broadband Internet connection, and
electricity, making their cable TV unusable. I guess they'd have to give the
village these services first so that they could disconnect them later."

"Maybe there is an opportunity here," said Oded pensively.

"Did you talk to Nasser about his connection to the Slaves of Allah?" I
asked.

"I tried," he responded, "but he refused to say even one word.
Apparently he fears them even more than he does Khadafi."

"Or maybe he genuinely supports them," suggested Oded. "I'm puzzled, though, why Khadafi allows these guys to roam free in his country."

"I can only speculate," I said. "I know that Khadafi is perhaps the only
dictator who openly and publicly urges his supporters to physically liquidate his political opponents. In doing so, he claims that their death sentences are fated by the will of the people and not his own, since he has no
position of authority in the country. His opponents, or `stray dogs' as he
likes to refer to them, have been targeted worldwide. That could explain
why he shelters terrorists. They carry out his dirty jobs outside Libya."

A woman came close with a bucket to draw water from the pond. We
ceased our conversation and slowly returned to the village. On our way
back we saw our guard, the local policeman Abdel Rahman, filling up a
small metal container with gasoline from a tanker just outside the village.
We exchanged looks. Gasoline.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked Arnon as we walked
away.

"The problem of getting out of here is transportation and supplies. If
we get his jeep, enough gasoline and water, we could make it to the
Egyptian border," answered Arnon.

"And then what? Cross the border?" asked Oded.

"There's only one official border crossing between Egypt and Libya, up
north in Sallum, near the Mediterranean Sea," I said, "but we'd have to
cross someplace else, because we can't go through the Libyan checkpoint
without passports. Since we're hundreds of miles south of the Mediterranean, we should still bear northeast. It's a longer route but it would
get us to the northwestern part of Egypt and away from Libyan control.
We couldn't just go east. Nasser told me that once a heavily laden camel
caravan tried to cross the high undulating dunes of the Great Sand Sea
to reach Kufra from the Dakhla Oasis. The conditions were too rigorous
and they were forced to turn north and travel in the dune lanes to Siwa in Egypt. We should try the same route," I concluded. "We should also
wonder why Nasser would tell me such a thing."

"Indirectly pointing us in the best direction for an escape?" suggested
Arnon.

"If that's the case, then we should develop our relationship with Nasser,"
I said.

"Can we trust him?" asked Oded. "If he turns us in, that could mean our
end, or at least put an end to our escape plans. If they didn't kill us, they'd
lock us up in some shit hole. We should be very careful. I wouldn't approach
him for help at all, unless there's an imminent danger." We all agreed.

Oded continued, "If we succeed getting into Egypt, any problems the
Egyptians are liable to give us wouldn't even come close to what we can
expect here. The Egyptians hate the Slaves of Allah and all their other
satellite fundamentalist organizations. Egypt has diplomatic relations
with Israel ... we'll be much safer in Egypt," he concluded.

"We should take into consideration another danger in the desert," I
said. "Land mines."

"Mines?" asked Oded. "Why?"

"The Western Desert of Egypt and its northern part, between El
Alamein and the Libyan border, are heavily mined and have been since the
fierce fighting in World War II between the British and the Germans."

"How can we avoid mines?" asked Oded.

"Avoid?" I said. "I'd rather find them, preferably before I step on one.
Where else can we get explosives?"

From my military training I knew that there are two types of antipersonnel land mines that detonate when someone walks close by. One
type is a blast mine, usually laid on or under the ground or scattered
from the air. The other is a fragmentation mine activated by a trip wire.
Then there is an anti-tank land mine designed to detonate when more
than 350 pounds of pressure is applied to it. "You need metal detectors
or metal prodders to find them. We don't have any," said Oded.

"We only look for anti-tank mines, not anti-personnel mines. Nothing
will happen if a person steps on them," answered Arnon.

"And how do we find them?" asked Oded.

"We'd start looking when we got closer to the border, next to the
defense lines that could still be standing sixty years after the war. The
wind and weather conditions may have exposed them," I said, "But I'd use
extreme caution even getting close to them. Anti-tank mines could be
harmless to us, but they could be surrounded by anti-personnel mines to
deter guys like us from even approaching."

"We could make some serious bombs if we need to defend ourselves.
But let's see if we get that far," said Arnon.

"For now, we need to find and store containers for gasoline and water.
The villagers have containers with which they haul water from the pond.
We should take a few, fill them up with water and gasoline, and when
we're ready steal Abdul Rahman's jeep." I waited for their response.

Oded was the first to react. "We would need to prepare the water and
the gasoline very close to the time we plan to leave. These people have so
few belongings. If a container went missing, they'd notice it immediately."

He stopped for a moment. "Now let's see, I calculated already that we'd
need at least thirty gallons of water, and twenty gallons of gasoline, if the
distance is up to two hundred fifty miles."

"That's a lot of containers," said Arnon. "Where in the jeep would we
put them?"

"On the backseat and on the roof."

"What would we do about food? We can't save any of it overnight in
this heat," Arnon pointed out.

"We could take a chunk of dates off the palm trees; they'll stay edible
for a long time, and we should also be able to find additional palms en
route. Their sugar content is high; it'll keep us for a few days," I suggested.

"So is this a plan?" asked Oded.

"I think so," answered Arnon.

"When is the next moonless night?" Oded raised his eyes to the clear
sky.

I followed his gaze. The moon was visible there during the day as well.
"I think the next moonless night will be in three days. That doesn't leave
us much time."

The following day we walked through the village and identified the best locations for stealing containers. A one-hour stroll gave us the
answer: the local grocery, which was also a makeshift city hall, police station, and barbershop. Behind it was a pile of plastic containers and military surplus five-gallon jerricans.

After a modest dinner, when everyone was asleep - including Abdel
Rahman, the snoring police force of one - I quietly left my hut and
walked to the outskirts of the village. I chose the hut on the very edge and
tried to open the door, but it was stuck. A thin layer of sand had accumulated and blocked the door. I pushed myself in. The one room of the hut
had been divided in half; the smaller space must have been used as a
kitchen. Just a guess because there were no kitchen implements or
cooking utensils to tell me that. The floor was full of debris, remains of
human habitation, including two dead birds. Villagers don't leave their
land voluntarily. Whoever lived in this hut had died without offspring, or
had perhaps been taken away for speaking against the regime. Maybe the
owners were the people Nasser told me about. Either way, it was clear
that no one had entered this place for some time. I thought it could be
suitable for our storage needs. To avoid attention, we'd need to carry one
container at a time. I returned to my hut.

On the following three mornings we repeated our routine of carrying
containers, one at a time, after receiving the grocer's consent. I guess our
explanation-that we needed them to store water to be slowly dripping
over the windows to cool off the heat inside-was plausible, because he
didn't hesitate for a moment. The containers were mostly used to store
sheep's milk and water. We didn't attempt to get the jerricans, which were
obviously used for gasoline.

"Tonight," said Oded as we sat with our feet in the pond. "No moon
tonight. We'll wait for you before midnight behind the storage hut. Come
with the jeep." He handed me his watch. "Use this. I'll use Arnon's."

That evening I sat nervously in my hut weighing all the options, which
weren't many; either we would make it or we wouldn't. Time was moving
more slowly than usual. I closed my eyes and thought of my children. I
ached. Karen was in graduate school, busy with studies and an active social life. With her slim five-foot-eight figure, honey-colored hair, and
green eyes, she was truly a beauty. Tom, the younger, heavier built but six
inches taller than his sister, was on his college football team. Accustomed
to my long absences, they would have had no idea I was in trouble.
Whenever I was away, I tried to call at least three times a week. But they
knew that if no calls came, it didn't mean I'd forgotten about them, just
that I couldn't call.

I thought of my late father, a diffident lawyer during business hours, a
researcher of Chinese wisdom in the afternoon, and a loving and caring
parent twenty-four hours a day. Twenty years after he'd passed away, I still
missed him. He had once entrusted me with a Confucian proverb: "Chi
Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would
have been quite enough."

At 1r:30 P.M. I opened the door of my hut slowly, hoping it wouldn't
squeak as it usually did. I looked for Abdel Rahman. He was nowhere to
be seen. Probably asleep, as usual. With neither moon nor electricity, the
village was completely dark; the twinkling stars were the only source of
weak light. Cicadas were buzzing and dogs were barking. The air was
warm and dry. I checked the wind direction; it was away from the village.
As I came up the hill closer to Abdel Rahman's house, I dropped to the
ground and crawled along the dirt road to avoid detection. I was
breathing hard and hoped the damn dogs wouldn't direct their barking at
me. As it was, luckily, their random barking masked the noise of my
approach toward the jeep, which was parked not far from his hut.

I got up off the ground, put my ear to Abdel Rahman's door, and heard
what sounded like an espresso machine foaming milk. A machine
without electricity? Then I realized it was Abdel Rahman snoring.

I opened the driver's door, which was unlocked. I took a deep breath
and slid in. I looked around to make sure all was quiet. No movement was
visible. On the backseat were two containers, one with water and the
other with gasoline. Rahman was probably preparing for a trip. In my
mind, I thanked him for the effort. I released the hand brake and got out;
after a light push with my hands the jeep began to slide down the hill,
slowly enough that I could jump in again. It stopped about a hundred yards away. I searched for the keys, which weren't in the ignition. I looked
on the floor under the mat, on the visor, in the glove compartment.
Nothing. That meant I would have to hot-wire it, something I hadn't
done since my Mossad training. I quietly opened the hood, holding the
jump-start cables that I'd found in the back. Now I had to locate the coil
wire in the dark. It knew it should be red, but I couldn't see the colors.

I heard noise-a sound of objects falling to the ground. I ducked
under the vehicle and froze, listening for the source. It was coming from
the far side of the village, two hundred feet away, to my estimate. I had
left the hood open, so if anyone came my way I'd be in serious trouble. I
waited two more minutes that felt like eternity. When the noises stopped
as suddenly as they had started, I returned to fiddling with the wires.
After much effort, I ran a jump-start cable from the positive side of the
battery to the positive side of the coil. Now the dash had power. Next, I
looked for the starter, following the positive battery cable with my hand.
I took the screwdriver that was in the glove compartment and crossed the
two wires. The engine started. In the quiet of the desert night, I was sure
its noise would wake the dead. Moving quickly now, I closed the hood
and ran to the driver's seat. To my horror, the wheel was locked. In desperation, I inserted the screwdriver into the top center of the steering
column and started pushing the locking pin away from the wheel. It
clicked, and the wheel was free. The temperature outside was getting
cooler, but I was sweating, and my heart was racing.

I drove to the dirt road half a mile away without headlights; I veered
off the road a few times and was lucky not to get stuck in the dune. As
Oded and Arnon heard the jeep approaching, they came from behind the
storage hut and waved at me. Once I'd stopped, they quickly and quietly
loaded the stored water. It took four long minutes. From there we continued to the tanker, where we filled four jerricans and a few plastic containers with gasoline, which spilled over onto our hands because the
tanker's spigot was wider than the mouth of the plastic containers. Again
we loaded the containers into the jeep and jumped in. It was cramped, but
we weren't going on a joyride.

"Was it difficult?" asked Oded who sat at the back, while Arnon sat in
the passenger's seat.

"What, taking Abdel Rahman's jeep or not getting caught?" I asked,
feeling much better as we drove away.

"Did anybody notice you?" asked Oded.