Esther's Sling (16 page)

On the same day, 7,500 miles away, the weather was sunny, what Americans like to call “Chamber of Commerce” weather. The temperature just before noon was 73 degrees Fahrenheit and the high for the day would get only a few degrees warmer. Located on a high plain of the Sonoran desert and surrounded by mountains, Tucson, Arizona, has an average annual humidity under 40%, one of the lowest in the United States. The heavy rain that falls every year in July and August evaporates so rapidly that little trace is left of its brief passage through time.

In a command building located on the corner of Miami Street and Wickenburg Avenue, an email arrived from the new civilian director of the 309
th
Maintenance Wing of the United States Air Force based at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The email was opened by the civilian deputy director of the 309
th
Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, known as AMARG. The email contained orders to activate fifteen KC-135 Stratotankers for return to the fleet. An estimate of the time required to meet this command was due back to Hill AFB by the next day.

AMARG runs a unique facility on the grounds of Davis
Monthan Air Force Base, which is located on the southern edge of Tucson. The facility, known as the “Boneyard,” is home to more than 4,000 mothballed aircraft of the U.S. government, an air armada that would be the second largest air force in the world if all of the aircraft were in flight condition. Many of the aircraft are in various states of dismantling, their carcasses being permanently disabled to comply with arms limitations treaties. For these aircraft, which had served their country proudly, the future held only a slow dismemberment, their various parts now being scavenged to extend the life of other aircraft. But most of the planes parked on the desert floor, which has a layer of clay under the topsoil that is as hard as cement and known as caliche, are in short-term or long-term hibernation, remaining available for call-up to active duty – no different than the aging reservists who await recall to every major army on the planet in the event of crisis.

On the day of this request from higher command, 60 KC-
135s were parked on the desert floor, aligned neatly in seven rows in a triangular portion of the AMARG facility. With more than 800 Stratotankers delivered to the USAF between 1957 and 1965, the four engine variant of the Boeing 707 remains the backbone of the USAF’s global aerial refueling capacity to this day.

The deputy director picked up his phone and dialed the three digit code to reach Eduardo Suarez. Suarez, the senior mechanic on the many multi-engine Boeing aircraft residing on the facility, had joined AMARG after a two
-decade career with Continental Airlines. Like most of the employees of AMARG, he was a civilian contract worker. He picked up after a single ring. The men exchanged pleasantries before the deputy director got to the point.

“We need to activate fifteen of the KC-
135s as soon as possible.”

“Which tail numbers?”

“It’s at our discretion. They want the fifteen best planes we have that can be quickly operational.”

“Hmm. That is unusual. But, hey, no problem. Let me review the files and I will let you know which ones I like.”

“Can you let me know timing, please.”

“To flight worthiness certification?”

“Yes.”

“Can do.”

“Thank you, Eduardo.”

“No problem.”

Three and half hours later Suarez called the deputy director back. He was in a good mood. “I have the tail numbers. I will email them to you after the call.”

“Timing?”

“Good news there. All of the 135s are here on ‘Flying Hold.’ They are all in pretty good shape and we have twenty-six that are within two thousand flight hours of their PDM.” Suarez was referring to the program depot maintenance overhaul that is scheduled for aircraft that have 15,000 hours of flight time on the airframe. He meant that these particular planes had already undergone their PDM and their airframes should be in very good condition. “I picked fifteen from that group. I think we can have the first FCF for all of these aircraft within two weeks.” FCF is the acronym for a functional check flight, during which the systems of a plane are checked out and reviewed in flight. “We will trouble shoot and have the second FCF for all aircraft within another week. Give me a week of slack and I will commit to one month from now.”

“That works.”

“Okay. I will have crews out tomorrow removing the spraylat.” Spraylat is a product that is used by AMARG to seal aircraft going into storage. The first layers used are a black rubbery substance. The final layers are a white insulation that helps moderate the inside temperature of each stored airplane. “We should be able to start towing planes to the flight line tomorrow afternoon.”

“Great. You’re the best Eduardo.”

“Talk to you soon.”

On December 20, 2010, the first of fifteen KC-135 Stratotankers lifted off from runway 30 at Davis
Monthan AFB in Tucson. After 93 minutes of flying almost due north, the 52-year-old plane landed at Hill AFB in Ogden, Utah, 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. Over the next several days the remaining fourteen planes made the same flight, all being lined up on the apron to await the arrival of USAF crews.

On the same day that the first KC-135 arrived in Utah, in a room that occupied less than 200 square feet of the 3.7 million available inside the Pentagon building, paperwork was signed by the deputy general counsel of international affairs, representing the Air Force Material Command. The document transferred ownership of all fifteen KC-135 Stratotankers from the U.S. government to a company named Rhinestone Leasing, Inc., a Delaware corporation. The Treasurer of Rhinestone executed the transfer documentation along with a number of other documents that made clear that the transfer was pursuant to a military aid program administered by the Pentagon that had been established under the authorization of the State Department and funded by Section F of the Fiscal Year 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act passed by Congress and signed into law a year earlier. The next document executed by the men in that office was an agreement by the USAF to deliver the planes, at
U.S. taxpayer expense, to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The final document signed was a lease and operating agreement that allowed the USAF to lease back and operate the aircraft at the direction of Rhinestone. Six sets of originals had been signed.

When the half hour process was finished, the Pentagon attorney kept three original sets
. The Treasurer of Rhinestone took the other three and exited room 4C756. He walked the long distance to exit into the south parking lot. After getting into his government-issue car, he made a fourteen minute drive to the west until he passed a sign that read “George Bush Center for Intelligence CIA FHWA Next Exit.”

Back in his office in McLean, Virginia, in an unincorporated area known as Langley, the man who was Treasurer of Rhinestone Leasing now signed documents that transferred ownership of the fifteen KC-135 tankers from Rhinestone to a company called AS-3 Air Lease Limited, an Isle of Man registered company. AS-3 was, in turn, owned by a bearer share corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands. The same man served as Corporate Treasurer for each entity. Anyone attempting to find the real owner of these airplanes would run into roadblocks and frustration – and anyone looking for the Corporate Treasurer of Rhinestone Leasing or AS-3 Air Lease Limited would come to the conclusion
that the man just didn’t exist.

On December 25, 2010, a crew of four Israelis, consisting of a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and navigator, boarded an Il-76TD90 with the new tail number 4X-CGE. The plane was pulled from the hanger by a tug. It was only the third time it had been pulled out of the hanger since it arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport on November 22. The prior two times had been to test its newly installed PS-90A2 high-bypass turbofan jet engines. This time, the newest certified member of the El Al cargo fleet taxied to take off on runway 30 on its first flight under its new Sun d’Or II Air Operator’s Certificate. The empty plane reached its rotation speed of 130 mph using only 1,740 feet of runway and was airborne another 165 feet further on, barely utilizing the more than 10,000 feet of available runway. The local time at takeoff was 10:07 p.m.

The plane continued west, climbing rapidly into the pitch black sky over the Mediterranean Sea. The scheduled flight plan called for the plane to land in Palermo, Italy
, to pick up cargo after three hours of flight time. Once the plane, now at its designated cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, had flown some 320 miles and was in a radar and Air Traffic Control gap, an Israeli Air Force KC-707 that had been orbiting in the vicinity made contact with the crew of the Ilyushin. The big cargo plane maneuvered to come in behind the KC-707, an airborne gas station that could refuel the plane in a matter of minutes. However, there was a problem – the Ilyushin was not equipped with either a refueling probe or receptacle and there was no way to transfer fuel from the KC-707 to the Ilyushin. But anyone listening in on the radio communications between the two planes would have had no way to know that.

After several minutes of maneuvering to bring the big Ilyushin behind and slightly below the IAF refueling tanker
, and another couple of minutes of formation flying, the two planes bid each other farewell over the radio, marking an end to their wireless communications. The KC-707 turned east to return to its home field at Nevatim Air Base in the Negev desert ten miles to the east of Be’er Shiva. The Ilyushin 76 dropped back slightly and then turned off its transponder and its nighttime navigation lights. The crew of the big cargo plane put a small infrared strobe light on the cockpit window, its suction cups sticking to the cold glass in the same way as a highway toll transponder. The big plane then maintained its position behind and slightly below the KC-707, following the air tanker home to Israel and a landing at Nevatim a few minutes after midnight – the timing having been determined to avoid the prying gaze of all scheduled overhead reconnaissance satellites. The Ilyushin landed on runway 07, turned right after deceleration and taxied 3,350 feet to enter one of two large hanger buildings on the southern edge of the airfield. The KC-707 airborne refueler they had been following had pulled up at the last minute, circled the airfield and came in for a landing a few minutes after the big Ilyushin.

The Il-76 crew shut down all four engines as a tug hooked onto the large four wheel nose gear assembly and pulled the plane forward the final one hundred meters. The crew deplaned as the hanger doors were quickly closed behind them. As they walked down the port side exit just aft of the cockpit area, they were greeted by Amit Margolis, the man who had briefed them earlier in the day after they had returned from India. They had undergone an intense month-long training program for the Ilyushin 76 that El Al had paid a steep price to fund. Margolis’ briefing had been the first indication that they were learning to fly the cargo plane for a purpose other than routine cargo flying for El Al. The men had all been recruited from El Al and all had previously been distinguished pilots
or flight engineers in the IAF.

The entire team would return by helicopter the next day to Ben Gurion Airport where the men would be free to return home for a week of rest. Margolis told them that they would repeat this same process with the other Ilyushin 76 about ten days later. When the men asked for some reason as to why they had just conducted this unusual secret mission, Margolis told them that the two
Ilyushin’s were being converted at Nevatim Air Base into aerial refueling aircraft. He then admonished them to never discuss what they had just done and what was happening at Nevatim.

Amit Margolis pulled onto Highway 20 and headed south toward Tel Aviv. The time was 8:45 a.m. and the worst of morning rush hour was easing rapidly. But the co-head of Olympus kept going past the
Campus and continued onto Highway 1 headed toward Ben Gurion Airport. Minutes later, he turned into the Industrial Zone of Yehud, just on the north edge of Ben Gurion Airport.

Margolis parked in one of the guest parking spots near the entrance of the headquarters of Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd, or IAI, in Yehud. He walked into the lobby and asked for Hillel Meir. Mr. Meir was Vice President of Aerospace Systems and was expecting Margolis. Within ten minutes
, Margolis had a guest pass and had been escorted into the Vice President’s office. As a government-owned defense contractor, the offices of IAI reflected the Spartan utilitarianism of their parent. Amit looked around and thought that the furniture, such as it was, had to be left over from the days of British rule over then Palestine.

The pair shook hands. They had spoken on the phone a number of times, but this was their first face to face meeting. The date was January 12, 2011. After several minutes of introduction, Margolis focused on the topic t
hat brought him here.

“What do you think? Can we get this conversion done?”
he asked.

“You know, when I was called into the CEO’s office in early December and walked in and found Defense Minister Avner sitting there, I was very nervous. The defense minister asked if I was willing to put my career on hold for the sake of Israel, swore me to secrecy and then described what the project was that he wanted me to get done. When he had finished, he asked how long I thought it would take. I said at least one year. He told me I had to get it done in six months. You are my boss on this project and I want to be honest with you. This will take longer than six months from today.”

“First, let me hear whether or not we can actually do it.”

“We can do it.”

“Okay. Now give me your honest opinion about how long.”

Meir looked down at his desk top, which was covered in notes and printed reports. Margolis followed Meir’s eyes and noticed a set of drawings of the Ilyushin 76. The engineer exhaled and pursed his lips. “This is tough. I have to work with this guy from El Al.”

“You mean Marc Leizman?”

“Yes. I don’t know him. I hear good things, but I don’t know him.”

“Assume he is as good as we have both been told.”

Meir looked at Margolis. “If I can add a few more key people to my team, I think we test fly sometime this summer.”

“When this summer?”

“Oh boy. You know engineers are conservative by nature, right?” His entreaty to Margolis went unanswered. “If you put a gun to my head, I will say mid-July.”

“Do your best to shave a month off of that. This conversion needs to be operational by the fall.”

“The one thing I can promise you is that you will have one hundred percent of the effort of me and the team. The commitment will not waiver.” Suddenly a question popped into Meir’s conscious. “What is the status on getting hold of a simulator?”

“Marc Leizman is working on that now. The Indian Air Force can supply us with one.”

“No. I know what they have. I talked to one of the El Al pilots that went through the training. Those are Level A simulators. They are glorified computer games. They are fine for getting an experienced crew up the learning curve quickly on a new plane, but I need a Level D full flight simulator. I don’t even know if they exist for the seventy-six.”

Margolis looked concerned and somewhat confused. He was not a pilot. This was the first he had heard of the need for a Level D simulator and he had never thought of the difference in simulator types. He had not even heard the terms before. He quietly cursed the IAF officers that had helped him plan all of this out, but he realized that they were not engineers.

Meir could see the confusion on the face of his new leader. “A Level D simulator has all of the mechanical flight systems that are found in a real cockpit. The seventy-six has the added complication of having the separate navigator station in the nose. But a well
-built Level D simulator by a company like CAE has about a year’s worth of programming that ties the mechanical systems to the simulator. I need that programming. Without it, this is much more difficult to pull off.”

Amit Margolis processed this new information and began to analyze options as he always did in times of stress. “What if there are no Level D simulators for the Ilyushin seventy-six?”

“That is not good. I will need more resources and more time.”

“What type of resources and how much time?”

“More software programmers. If I have the Level D software as I assumed, then we can leverage that software. Without it, we start from scratch. As for time, I am guessing at least another six months.”

Margolis did not want to hear that answer. “There are hundreds of these planes in service around the world. There has to be someone who has a Level D simulator. We will find out soon enough.”

“I hope so.”

Amit realized that nothing more could be decided until this
problem was fully explored by Leizman. He decided to change the subject. “You do know that you and your team will need to set up inside Nevatim?”

“Yes. My wife is not happy that I am relocating for a while.”

“I understand. You can come home on weekends.”

“At least my children are grown up and out of the house. I can’t say that for some of the team.”

“Hillel, what you are working on is the most important thing Israel has done militarily since the opening moments of the Six Day War. Every member of the team should understand that and embrace that. Anyone who hesitates in his commitment is not suited to participate.”

Hillel Meir’s face turned angry. “You know, you are twenty years my junior. I fought in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. I have this to remind me.” Meir lifted up his right hand and
pulled his collar away from his neck, leaning his head to the right. On the side of his neck, the normal line of the trapezius muscle was interrupted by a gouge about an inch wide and half an inch deep. Scar tissue surrounded the gouge. “This, Mister Margolis, is the reminder I carry every day of my life. It reminds me of the comrades who died in the Sinai by my side. It reminds me of the price I have paid personally for the country I love. I have spent my life working and sacrificing for Israel. The people who will work on this project are the same. We don’t need you to lecture us about commitment.”

Margolis looked Meir in the eye. His mind could think of two ways to proceed. One was to apologize and the other was to appreciate. He choose the latter. “How did you get that?
”

The question was natural but caught Meir by surprise. “I was in the armored 401 Brigade. But I arrived early in the Sinai before our tanks were there. I was thrown in against the Egyptian 19
th
Division as infantry. We were west of the Mitla Pass along the Bir Gafafa Road. We arrived around noon on October ninth and dug in. The Egyptians hit us late in the day. I defended a foxhole with two other men. We held off an Egyptian squad as the sun set. I got hit by an AK-47 round and the guy on my right was killed. We would have been overrun and killed but, thank God, a couple of A-4 Skyhawks showed up and dropped napalm a hundred meters in front of us. I don’t think they knew we were there, but they had the Egyptian units spotted. I can still feel the heat and smell that aroma of petrol and burning flesh.” Meir was reliving the moment again – telling the story for only the third time since the war ended. “A little while after that I passed out from blood loss. I was evacuated out that night and spent the next couple of months getting patched up.”

Both men sat silently for a moment, the time ticking slowly. Margolis finally spoke. “I am honored to be working with you on this project.”

Meir shifted his gaze out the window of his office. “I apologize.” The words were directed to Amit but were spoken into the stagnant air as if Meir were apologizing to the men who died in the Sinai 38 years before. Meir turned back to face Margolis. “You have my commitment and my loyalty, Mister Margolis.”

“Please call me Amit.”