The Shield: a novel (8 page)

“
Major,” yelled Wilson, “please come in.” They had just moved their HQ to a village several miles west of Damascus. The intercom and field telephone were still being installed.  In the meantime, he relied on his loud baritone voice to do the job.

“
Sir!” The adjutant was ready to take orders.

“
Please send the following message immediately:

From: General Maitland Wilson, commanding Syrian Expeditionary Force

To: General Gad Yaari, Chief of General Staff the Israel Defense Forces

I appreciate your great assistance in our c
ampaign. As I assume you know, we are at the gates of Damascus and expect a formal surrender of the Vichy forces within a day. I would like to meet you and your staff in person in order to better express our gratitude and to discuss future cooperation.”

The major saluted and left for the radio room, somewhere in the general mess of the new headquarters.

***

Gad Yaari finished meeting with the full contingent of the General Staff. According to the latest situation reports everything was quiet, even the West Bank seemed to be less restless than usual, probably they were also stunned by the Event.  Preparations for Operation Moses were in full swing, as were the other much smaller assignments the Israel Defense Forces had from the government.

Liat Cohen, interrupted his reverie: “Gadi, we have a message from General Wilson.” She was smiling.

After reading the short
communiqué, the Chief of General Staff thought for a moment before issuing his orders.  “Immediately send a copy of this to the Minister of Defense. Let the Commanding General of the Northern Command know that his part starts in about one hour.”

***

By now General Wilson was almost used to the efficiency of the Israeli command structure and wasn’t much surprised by how quickly he received
a response:

From: General Gad Yaari, Chief of General Staff, Israel Defense Forces

To: General Maitland Wilson, Syria Expeditionary Force

It is my pleasure to accept your invitation to a meet. I hope this will lead to greater cooperation between our two countries.

Please come to the town of Naqoura at 21:00 on Sunday, June 22. You will be escorted to Tel-Aviv and dine with myself along with several of our ministers and the British Ambassador to Israel.

If you agree, please radio me and instruct your forces in the area to hold their fire in order to prevent unfortunate incidents.

Wilson looked at his watch. It was late Saturday afternoon. He had plenty of time to get to Naqoura on the Mediterranean shore just north of the Israeli border positions and even to rest before the meeting.

***

On Sunday morning B Company of the 927
th
Israeli Army infantry battalion was deploying just south of the intersection of the Israeli, Egyptian and Gaza Strip borders. It was a short truck ride from their previous position at the Gaza fence to the north. They had arrived on Saturday and spread out along the section that had been assigned to them. Now they were deploying in an orderly fashion, including infirmaries, kitchens and latrines. Lieutenant Noam Shaviv, the new company commander, had explored his area of the border a couple of hours earlier in a Jeep. The sector was long, much longer than he thought was possible to seal hermetically as his orders called for, with the 270 people he had. Though the company was reinforced by 90 reservists from several “retiree” units, he was still skeptical of his ability to do what he was supposed to do. The retirees were veteran infantry reserve members who were older than 42. They could do the guarding and observation as well as his younger guys.

The ten kilometers he was supposed to seal were only a fraction of the more than 200 kilometer long border with Egypt. He had no idea why his company was assigned such a long section of the border, especially as this was one of the few sections not protected by the  sophisticated border fence.  The answer arrived in the form of a Combat Engineers captain: “I
am here to do your job,” the captain joked.

“
And how will you do that?” Noam inquired.

“
The same way we did it in other places, like Gaza where you came from just now and most of the Egyptian border, only less sophisticated,” the captain responded. “We’ll put in poles, string wire over them, connect the whole mess to a couple of computers and from that point on your only job will be to catch the poor animals that trigger your alarms. Be merciful to the camels.” The Engineer became serious: “It’s not going to be a long-lasting structure, nothing like the Gaza, Egyptian or West Bank security fences, but we were told that it needs to last for less than a month.

“
With your permission, we’ll get to work. I need you to tell me exactly where you want this fence to be located.”

They went for a drive along the border, with No
am’s platoon commanders accompanying them. He wanted his officers familiarized with the terrain they were responsible for as soon as possible.

***

In the early afternoon of Sunday, June 22, 1941, the Israeli Cabinet was in session again. Most of the ministers looked somewhat frazzled. It had been an exhausting couple of days, even more exhausting than a full scale war would have been. When the country was at war, most of the ministers didn’t have much to do. What use was Tourism, or Absorption, or even the Housing Ministers during a war? It was different now.

The head of the General Security Service was reporting: “Generally we have fewer bombings and other terrorist activities than usual. The news of the Event probably had something to do with it, plus the fact that all the terror organizations lost some of their leadership – those that were outside our borders when we activated. I do not expect this lull to last very long. We have reliable information that at least one faction, headed by the Grand Mufti’s great nephew, is trying to contact the Germans with modern day information.”

“How do you know that?” asked the Foreign Minister.

“
You know I won’t disclose specific sources. Suffice it to say that it’s extremely reliable and that not all Palestinians believe in infinite war. Catching those attempting to transfer the information is a different matter, but we’re working on it.”

“
I remind you that the government decided just an hour ago to change our policies in the territories: no more leniency towards the perpetrators or their controllers. We will use the full power of the emergency laws with no mercy,” interrupted the Minister for Internal Security.

After several more questions and clarifications the head of the Security Service was excused.

Amos Nir usually looked quite mild, except when it was necessary to exert his authority.  Now he assumed his Prime Ministerial persona. “I would like each one of you to report to the government on your progress to date.”

The Infrastructure Minister spoke first. “We are setting up the temporary c
amps. Contactors have been engaged, and planning is progressing as we speak. I think that we’ll be ready to receive the first group in about two weeks. I also started a workgroup on electricity management. We will have to find additional sources of power somewhere. It’s not as urgent as housing but will become critical within a year. Same goes for fresh water. The problems we had back in the future are now somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Syrians and the Jordanians are not pumping as much water from the Jordan River and its tributaries as they used to.”

When the Defense Minister’s turn
came, he pulled out a number of diagrams and maps. “Our borders will be sealed within the next couple of days. We are calling up some reserves and preparing for the next phase.” He paused. “Now to another issue, though they are connected.  All of you are aware of the general outlines of Operation Moses. We’re finishing the planning of its first three days. It will be a complicated operation, obviously.  We expect the negotiations to be concluded successfully, though the price the other party will pay before they are completely convinced is uncertain.”

“
As far as I know we have no means of striking the eastern part of Germany, let alone Poland or the Soviet Union. How can we accomplish this without one way trips?” the Finance Minister asked.

“
You are correct. The weapon systems we have can’t go there and back.  We are going to use aerial tankers to refuel our jets, with a couple of escort planes to keep them safe. I’ve also arranged for spy satellites to let us see what’s going on in the areas of interest.

“
The extermination phase will begin on Monday, June 23, and last for a day or two. We are still conferring with historians as to the exact position of the targets and will verify them when the satellites start reporting, which should be by tomorrow evening. In any case, we should not expect a 100% success rate. Some of our targets will survive, and we will, probably, strike some unrelated units. This is inevitable in such a complex operation, especially as the targets are intermingled with the rest of the forces in the area.”

Next
came the Foreign Minister’s turn. “We are meeting with the British General tonight at their embassy in Tel-Aviv. Our emissary will be ready tomorrow and I expect that the Brits will provide transportation by Tuesday.”

The meeting dispersed after another hour discussing details.
Amos relaxed. He anticipated an argument about the means by which the Nazis will be compelled to agree to Israel’s demands. It was a relief that he didn’t have to argue with his own cabinet members.

***

General Henry Maitland Wilson arrived at Naqoura. The Australians had an HQ in town and he was the guest of a Major John Cummings. The General was deep in thought, sipping the mediocre brandy offered by the Major. Earlier, he had spent a couple of hours in conversation with the young Palmach commander, Moshe Dayan, who was mentioned in the first message from the Israelis, but it seemed that the Palestinian was as uninformed about these strangers as Wilson himself.

The General was trying to anticipate how the Israelis would conduct this first meeting and trying to decide how he should handle himself. It was important to him that he show them none of the wonderment he felt about their military ability. A British “stiff upper lip” seemed to be the best approach. On the other hand, he wanted to appear as friendly as possible. The Empire could not afford alienating these people, whoever they were. The Prime Minister made that clear in his message to Wilson. Churchill also made it clear that he had doubts about the time travel story and asked Wilson to keep his eyes open and report back directly.

Promptly at 21:00 the sentries outside reported a vehicle approaching. General Wilson didn’t need the announcement; he could see the vehicle’s bright, bluish lights illuminating the drive through the window. These people were not concerned about blackouts, it seemed - either a sign of negligent arrogance or supreme self-confidence. Wilson decided it was self-confidence, supported by power and technology he did not understand.

The vehicle stopping by the front door was big and squat, the engine purring quietly. A uniformed man jumped out a front door. He was obviously an officer - either a lieutenant or a captain. Wilson couldn’t tell. The rank insignia would have marked him a captain if he was
American or a lieutenant if he was British; who knew what it meant to these people.

Wilson pulled down the blackout curtain and moved away from the window. There was a quiet exchange outside the door. After a knock, the guard sergeant entered the room, saluted stiffly and reported, “Sir, Lieutenant Mosinson of the Israeli Defense Forces asks for permission to see you.”

“Very well, Sergeant,” Wilson responded.

The soldier who entered gave a crisp but relaxed salute, nothing like the sergeant’s. “Lieutenant Abrah
am Mosinson at your service, sir.” Wilson was surprised by the accent, which sounded American. He returned the salute.

“
With your permission, sir,” the officer said, “please accompany me to the vehicle and I’ll take you to your meeting.”

“
How far are we going?”

“
Only a couple of miles, to our border post at Rosh Hanikra and from there to Tel-Aviv,” the Lieutenant said.

“
I would like my adjutant to accompany me.”

“
Sorry, sir. My instructions were to bring you alone. I understood that was the agreement.” The lieutenant smiled apologetically.

“
Indeed it is,” said Wilson. He chose to interpret this as a positive sign: the Israelis seemed to say what they meant without equivocation.

The interior of the vehicle was comfortable. It was clearly a military command vehicle, judging by the number of communication sets the General could see in the front. The lieutenant picked up a microphone and said something in a language Wilson did not understand but which sounded like the s
ame language the Palestinian units of his command spoke – Hebrew. The communicator squawked back incomprehensibly.

They arrived at the Israeli position in less
than twenty minutes. The young lieutenant jumped out first and, after a short hesitation, opened the door for the British General. He led Wilson to a low building and opened another door for him.