The Shield: a novel (53 page)

This time it was an Italian cruiser that had the bad luck of approaching
Tobruk. The missile boat fired
twice. Both anti ship missiles hit their targets. The two enemy ships disappeared from the radar display about 15 minutes later. The Gabriel sea to sea missile, though old and almost obsolete was extremely effective, especially if the enemy didn’t expect it and had no countermeasures.

***

Oren was trying to figure out what to do. He was one against five, but this was not as hopeless as it looked. If he was fast he could shoot all of them within seconds. The question was whether to shoot the radio he saw in the back of the open Fiat. If he did, he was giving the soldiers a chance to do something, but he was also making sure they couldn’t contact whoever sent them and call for help. His other problem was shooting people who had done nothing to him and were just sitting there talking and eating. Being a veteran pilot Oren had a lot of combat experience, but never face to face. Now he discovered that it required some determination to kill a person you could see and hear.

In the meantime, he got ready: he carefully moved the Ta
vor to a ready position in front of him and put a spare magazine by its side. He waited. If the group finished their meal and kept driving along the bottom of the small valley, they would be out of sight in a couple hundred feet. Or they might decide to go back the way they came.

The sergeant got up and walked in Oren’s direction. He stopped not more than fifteen feet from Oren next to a sizeable boulder, opened his fly and started pissing. At this moment Oren’s radio
came on – it was set to vibrate for just such an occasion – the pilot was startled enough to twitch, which dislodged a stone near his foot. The stone rolled down the slope. If the German wasn’t so close he probably wouldn’t have heard the noise. Even now he didn’t seem alarmed. He buttoned up his fly and called to the others. Oren knew no German, but it was clear what the order was: they jumped up and started climbing in his direction.

He shot the four soldiers first – they were farther away and if alerted by gunfire were likely to take cover
among the rocks. They were also armed with rifles, which Oren thought were more dangerous than the pistol the sergeant was pulling out of its holster.

The sergeant tried to rush him – it was a short distance. He almost succeeded. When
Oren finally hit him, he fell almost on top of the pilot.

After
it was over the Lieutenant Colonel shivered for several seconds – the effects of a sudden adrenalin rush. When he felt steady, he inspected his radio and then carefully climbed down to the Fiat. The radio seemed Okay but was dead again. Since it had showed signs of life, though at an inopportune moment, Oren decided to open the cover and see what was wrong with it. There was a dent in the battery cover and on closer inspection he saw that the dent was in fact a puncture. The cover and the battery behind it had stopped a fragment of the shell that killed his aircraft. If it hit an inch higher or lower, he would have had to deal with a bleeding wound in his left side. Oren wasn’t sure that this wouldn’t be preferable to being stranded with a dead radio and an apparently inoperative beacon, even if the radio had come to life for a couple of seconds. There was nothing he could do about it now so he looked at his only alternative.

It took him almost half an hour to figure out the workings of the radio in the Fiat. It wasn’t capable of broadcasting in the frequency range of his emergency radio, but he could try to send a message on a short wave frequency that the Air Force was monitoring.

“Zebra, this is Zebra 5. Please respond.” He repeated the English message four times before a response came:

“
Zebra 5 this is Zebra. Are you safe and can you keep transmitting?”

“
I’m fine. Do you want to know where I am?”

“
No, don’t tell the world where you are. We have you now. Can you stay where you are until dark?”

“
I’m not sure. The people that contributed the radio may send somebody to collect it.”

“
Okay. We’ll come for you at 7:15. In the meantime go to map grid 7253. It is not too far. Give us the usual signal when you hear us.”

“
Good. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

He shut down the radio, changed it back to the German frequency and started walking. He had ten miles to cover in less than six hours – no
t as easy as it sounded. The terrain was getting more and more rugged and, though some grasses and dry bushes were growing here and there, it was becoming sandier.

Oren arrived at the rendezvous point with an hour to spare.

The helicopter arrived on time. On the way back they had to fly very high – the skies very again lit up by explosions and heavy anti-aircraft fire. This time the jets attacked from high up, spreading cluster bombs and incendiaries. By four in the morning there were no worthwhile targets left.

***

When Oren got to his base he was met with a barrage of questions, even before his formal debriefing. Apparently he was the only pilot to be shot down in Operation Quicksand.

He was slightly embarrassed, though he knew that it wasn
’t his fault – just bad luck.

“
What happened to the plane?” he asked his commander who debriefed him.

“
Believe me,” the Colonel answered, “it was much more of a headache than you were. After you called in, it was a simple operation to extricate you. We would have found you anyway – you were clearly visible on satellite images. The plane was another story. We had to send two cargo helicopters and a crew to cut the damn thing up and cart it back home. A real pain. And by the way, you hid the ejection seat real well. If its beacon wasn’t running we would have never found it. Why didn’t you stay in the cave next to it?”

***

“Oren, I always knew that you were a hothead but endangering your life like that? What if you were killed? My only brother has no common s
ense at all.”

Noam Shaviv paused for breath, “You had no thoughts about Ziva or the boys? You’re a squadron commander and not so young. I mean what is a Lieutenant C
olonel in his thirties doing flying such a mission. What if the Germans took you prisoner?”

Oren waved his hand at his younger brother, “But nothing happened. I’m here in one piece. So don’t get all excited.

“First, you know that I had to fly this mission. What kind of a commander would I be if I only sent others into danger?

“Second, I’m way too young to be flying a desk. This mission wasn’t really dangerous. I just had a bit of bad luck.
The chances are higher to be killed crossing a street than flying a mission like that.

“And third, look who’s talking. I know for a fact that you’re always in front of your troops and never pass on a chance to participate in an action.”

Noam smiled, “I’m not a Lieutenant Colonel so I’m allowed.”

“Sure. And, Noam, when you get to be one you’ll start leading from behind.
Right?”

The brothers were enjoying their after dinner coffee at Oren’s house in Beer
Sheba. It was less than a week since Oren came back from his mission. He wasn’t too annoyed by his younger brother’s rant. In fact he got a much worse talking to from his wife, Ziva, who also mentioned their three sons. He told her the same thing he told Noam, but she didn’t accept his explanation and made him promise to avoid volunteering for dangerous missions in the future. Oren wasn’t sure whether he could avoid dangerous missions but he was going to try for his marriage’s sake.

***

Later the same day a heated argument took place at the Israeli General Staff meeting.

Zvi Kaplan, the chief of Military Intelligence, was finishing his summary: “Both our aerial surveillance and radio intercepts indicate that Rommel’s forces suffered a serious setback. He radioed Berlin for urgent reinforcements and complained about the lack of air support. It seems that our air raid last night was quite devastating. Rommel has practically no operational tanks and very little fuel. He is also running low on
ammunition. The move towards Cairo and the Suez was canceled and, we think, he is retreating and digging in.”

“
I recommend another strike tonight,” said the Air Force commander. “We can finish them militarily and let the Brits just walk to the Tunisian border.”

“
Not so fast.” responded Yaari. “You can’t win a war from the air and even if we could, we need to decide whether we should. There are a number of considerations that go beyond the immediate fate of Rommel and his army. Zvi, please go on.”

Zvi Kaplan turned on a projector and brought up a diagr
am: “You can see from this that the Germans and Italians suffered serious losses in armor, trucks and fuel. Their infantry was also beaten up, but not as badly. This is understandable: the numbers are large and they are dispersed over a significant area.

“
If you just count the materiel losses it seems that they should be on the verge of collapse. This is an illusion. The Germans have demonstrated an exceptional ability and willingness to fight. It is evident even now that they are regrouping in an orderly and disciplined fashion and are not about to run.”

“
This supports my idea of another air strike tonight,” insisted the Air Force general. “This is our opportunity to finish them off. We may be able to bring them to the verge of collapse and remove their presence from North Africa. The British army will have to do its part, but after a third night of bombing it shouldn’t be difficult.”

Zvi Kaplan was ad
amant: “I don’t agree. Just take a look at our history. The battle for Stalingrad that didn’t happen here yet and may never happen is a good demonstration. Even when surrounded and starved, the Germans continued to fight until given the order to surrender. Rommel is a gifted tactician and a good leader of men. His troops trust him and will do whatever he asks of them. He may or may not be a Nazi but he is a typical German officer who will obey orders and do his best to win. He will not surrender or run.

“
There is another consideration we must take into account: one of our jets was shot down last night.”

“
Just bad luck. It happens,” interjected the Air Force commander. “We did recover both the pilot and the plane, so no harm was done.”

“
I agree.” Yaari responded, “but we don’t know what will happen if we attack tonight. There’s no doubt that the Germans and the Italians, will be prepared for an air attack. What if we lose a plane and are unable to recover it?”

The Air Force commander shrugged: “An army that is afraid of losses has already given up its chance to victory.”

Yaari was exasperated: “It is not the Army’s problem. Don’t you see that if the Germans suspect that it wasn’t the Royal Air Force that caused last night’s damage they will figure out that it must be the Caliph? The consequences will be dire for our people in Europe.”

“
True,” responded the Air Force general, “but you are assuming that they’ll figure it out and draw certain conclusions. I think that the risk is miniscule.”

“
Are you ready to bet the lives of a million people on this?” Yaari asked.

“
We can always nuke them again. That will persuade them to be reasonable.”

“
So you are proposing that we kill some more German civilians and risk the lives of a million Jews for a dubious advantage?” Yaari asked calmly.

“
Not really.” The Air Force man responded. “It just galls me to miss such an opportunity. You are probably right.”

Zvi Kaplan smiled: “You know, I almost agree with you. The chances that something will happen to connect the Caliph to all this are really small. There is another consideration though.

“The Brits got themselves into trouble in the first place because of overconfidence. They may have learned that lesson, but they still have only a foggy idea of how to fight a modern war. If we take the risk of exposure and pound on Rommel some more we will be doing the British Army a great disservice. They’ll never learn and will either pay a terrible price when the fight moves to Europe or will require us to do their fighting. With all the respect to the Air Force and the other branches of the IDF” he nodded to the assembled generals, “I can’t see us winning the war against Nazi Germany all by ourselves. We probably could leave a number of German cities glowing in the dark but I have no certainty that the crazy Nazis would surrender even then. I also can’t see us nuking cities to win this war. With all the talk of civilians being part of the war machine, I can’t see our society agreeing to mass murder.”

***

The next day, Friday, in the early afternoon, Dan got a call from the reception clerk: “Sir, there is a Mr. Sam Dubliner here asking for you.”

S
am handed Dan an envelope and left without saying a word.

The note in the envelope said:

Dr. Brown, please present yourself at the southern entrance to the White House at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 19. Bring your medical bag.

Clara

Snyder called Jonathan’s room several minutes later: “Hi, Jonathan. I’d like to invite you and Dan to a meeting of the local Labor Zionist chapter. You know, some food and a schmooze about Palestine. It’s not that often that we have visitors from there.”