Firebreak (36 page)

“Joe,” Samir radioed, “say position.”

“Lagging at your eight o’clock.” Johar was behind him, following the fight as the Israeli and Samir engaged in a flat scissors maneuver, barely five hundred feet above the ground. “Press and come off to the right.” He was telling Samir to keep the pressure on the Israeli for a few more seconds as the two planes slowed, each trying to get behind the other. When it looked like Samir was going to reverse, he was to turn to the right and separate. Johar would be in a position to fall in behind the F-16 and take a missile shot. The two Iraqis were herding Harkabi around the sky, working him close so as not to lose him in the moonlight, and not letting him disengage, keeping him down on the deck.

“I’m off,” Samir radioed.

“I’m in,” Johar answered. As expected, when the Israeli saw Samir pull off to the right, he rolled out and stroked his afterburner, climbing straight ahead, trying to disengage. Johar fell in behind him and squeezed his trigger. The Archer he had ready leaped off the right outboard rail and tracked the F-16, its cooled seeker head ignoring the flares popping out behind the doomed aircraft. For good measure, Johar launched a second Archer, but there was no target for it to home on.

Matt sat on a small table against the back wall of the command post at Ramat David Air Base. His hands clutched at the edge, knuckles white. The command post was mostly silent as mission reports filtered in; two F-16s lost, two safely recovered. Then Ramon’s operations report came in; Dave Harkabi last seen engaging two Flankers, his wingman reported hit and ejecting. “Damn,” he muttered. Matt had liked the Israeli major.

“Have you seen enough?” the colonel asked.

He nodded and stood up, ready to leave. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “You never told me your name.”

The woman looked at him. “Harkabi.” Matt was stunned, not knowing what to say. But the woman was too young to be Dave’s mother and too old to be his wife. “David is my nephew,” she said. “I’ve got to tell his mother.”

Outside, Matt took a breath of cool night air and looked up at the scattered cloud deck scudding across the sky. Damn, Dave, he thought, you were good. I know. I flew against you enough times and you should’ve been able to disengage from two ragheads. And the Flanker isn’t any better than the F-16.

Then another thought hit him. Or was it?

His first stop after he left Ramat David was Shoshana’s apartment in Haifa. He was disappointed but not surprised when she wasn’t home. “Lillian, will you please see Shoshana gets this?” He handed Shoshana’s aunt his Nomex flight suit. Lillian looked at him, not understanding. “It’s fireproof,” he explained, “like a tanker’s jump suit. Her fatigues aren’t and this might protect her.” He was thinking of the burned-out tank and the charred body he had seen.

Lillian nodded and took the flight suit. “Matt, take care and come back. She needs you.”

Matt gave her his lopsided grin. “I know. I’ll be back.”

“Shalom.”

The road south to Tel Aviv was clogged with trucks and vans of every description. Northbound traffic had priority and it took Matt five hours to cover the sixty miles to Ben Gurion. He used the time to take extensive notes, counting the number of trucks and types of equipment. He took pride in the number of new tanks and Bradleys that were moving forward, their United States insignias freshly painted over. MAC was moving cargo. Then he noticed the troops. Many of them were women, some still girls, wearing combat gear and carrying weapons.

He found Colonel Gold asleep in a makeshift office, his head plunked down on a desk, and Matt was reluctant to wake him. Gold’s head snapped up at the sound of his name. He grunted, shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and took a drink from the cup of steaming coffee Matt handed him. “I’m living on this stuff,” he grumbled.

Matt handed Gold his notes on what he had seen at Ramat David and on the road south. The air attaché scanned them, shaking his head. “Right now, it’s touch and go,” he said. “If the Egyptians come in …”

Matt nodded, filling in the colonel’s thought. “It will be over in hours.”

Gold’s lips compressed into a grim line and his head shook back and forth in tight little jerks. “No. It won’t be over in hours. The Israelis will go nuclear.”

“Oh my God,” Matt whispered, stunned by the sureness of Gold’s prediction. In his preoccupation with the loss of Dave Harkabi, he had forgotten about the Israelis’ “withholding” their Jericho missiles. He quickly filled the colonel in.

The air attaché picked up one of his phones. “I’m laying on a helicopter to fly you to Ramon. Get out of Israel soonest. I Ve got to get a message on the wires.”

The corridors of the command bunker were eerily quiet, as if the inhabitants were holding their collective breath, waiting for something to happen. Avi Tamir followed the guard down to the third level, surprised that he was being escorted. “Two people cracked under the strain,” the guard explained. “One of them got violent and attacked the prime minister.” The people they were passing in the hall were not dirty or wounded but mental strain and emotional danger had made them haggard and gaunt-looking. The guard held a door open for the scientist and stepped back. Yair Ben David was waiting inside—alone.

“Do we have a thermonuclear weapon yet?” he rasped, coming directly to the reason for Tamir’s summons to the bunker.

“No,” Tamir answered, “not yet.” In spite of his misgivings, the scientist had been working furiously on the weapon, driving his staff relentlessly.

“How long?” Ben David demanded.

“Two, maybe three weeks.”

“You’ve been stalling!” Ben David shouted.

“Have I?” Tamir shouted back. “You have no idea.… Get someone else to finish it.”

The prime minister sank into a chair. “I’m sorry, Avi. I didn’t mean that. Please forgive me. But the situation is … critical. We’re barely holding on in the north … Iraq is pouring three fresh armored divisions into Jordan, two into Lebanon … I’m pulling our last reserves out of the Sinai. … We might be able to hold them. But our latest intelligence reports say the Egyptians are moving more tanks into the Sinai. If the Egyptians attack, I will have to use our nuclear weapons.”

“But why do we need a hydrogen bomb?” Tamir protested. “Surely, the nuclear weapons we have—”

“You don’t understand Arabs,” Ben David snorted. “A tactical nuclear weapon on a battlefield means nothing to them. But if the Egyptians attack, I will repay them for their treachery. One bomb, that’s all, one bomb and Cairo no longer exists. Then the Arabs will listen to reason.”

“Is that a step we want to take?” Tamir asked. He was thinking about the danger when a war leaps a firebreak, crossing the barrier that separates the use of conventional and nuclear weapons.

“Do we have a choice?”

Furry was waiting for the helicopter when it landed at Ramon Air Base. He motioned for Matt to hop in the mini pickup he was driving. “Got to hurry,” he said. “We’re coming under a Scud attack about every twenty minutes and we’re out of Patriots.” He gunned the engine and raced for the squadron’s bunker. “They’re trying to keep the base closed. Ain’t working so far. The civil engineers here do miracles but I don’t know how much longer they can do it.” He slammed to a halt and the two men ran down the ramp to the safety of the underground bunker.

“How’s the jet?” Matt asked.

“It’s ready,” Furry answered. “Our troops did some miracles too. It was damaged more than we thought.”

“You got an extra flight suit handy?”

“Yeah,” the wizzo said. “The captain wants to see us before we split.”

They found the captain packing a mobility locker, getting ready to move. She was dressed in fatigues and moved with near exhaustion. Matt decided that in spite of the weariness that drew her face into a tight mask, she was still one of the most beautiful women he had ever met. “We’re deploying to an emergency operating location,” she said, “a highway strip in the Negev.”

“That bad?” Matt asked.

She nodded and sat down. Slowly, she laid out the entire war. It matched what Gold had told him and painted the same grim picture Avi Tamir had just seen. But she left out all mention of nuclear weapons.

“Why are you telling us all this?” Matt asked.

“I was told to,” she said. “You’ve got to make people understand.”

“Meaning my grandfather?”

Again, she nodded, her brown eyes filling with tears.

“I doubt that I’ll even see him,” Matt said, being totally honest. “But we’ll write an after-action report on what we saw here and I’ll see that it gets to the right people.” He turned to Furry. “Time to go.”

Her soft voice stopped the two men before they left.
“Shalom.”

Matt turned to look at her.
."Shalom,”
he replied. Then they were gone.

The Ganef sat at his desk, fingering the glossy black-and-white photo. He dropped the photo and pushed his glasses back onto his forehead, rubbing the bridge of his nose, making himself think of other things.

So much, he thought, riding with one young man. Have I played it right? Will the message reach the elder Pontowski and convince him just how desperate we are? God, I hate this nether world of lies, deceit, and indirection I live in. Why can’t we just say to the United States, “Look here, we need your help if we’re going to survive"? No, we have to feed them information, let them discover for themselves what reality is. And for this, I play with people’s lives.

Do I have the Pontowski right? Do I understand the President of the United States? Few people do, he is so clever and complex. Was it pure luck that his grandson was here when the war broke out? And why did the President leave him here? He must know we are feeding information to him, letting him “discover” the reality of our position. Was using the Tamir girl wise? Was it too obvious? The way we held the young Pontowski here and let him see the war through her eyes? Is reality nothing but questions?

The old man pushed his reading glasses back into place and picked up the photo again—a reality frozen in black and white. He looked at the last picture of the only person he felt close to, the nearest thing he had to a family. He closed his eyes, the image now frozen in his mind—Gad Habish hanging by his neck from a rope in a public square in Cairo—swinging in the harsh wind of his memory.

The reputation of Brigadier General Leo Cox had preceded him into the White House’s Situation Room, but not a single member of the National Security Council had been expecting the fierce intellect and mastery of facts that made his briefing on the current situation in the Middle East so convincing. Zack Pontowski was more than satisfied with Cox and made a mental note to move him permanently from the DIA to the NSC’s staff and get him promoted. The President pulled into himself as Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, tried to poke holes in Cox’s conclusions. The general was most tactful and respectful of Burke’s position, but the result was the same—Cox was eating him alive. A polite form of cannibalism, Pontowski thought. Perhaps we need more of it around here. He made another mental note to thank Melissa for her recommendation.

“General,” Burke sputtered, “I simply refuse to accept your conclusion that the Egyptians are going to enter the war.”

“Mr. Burke,” Cox said, his cadaverous face making his words more ominous, “I want to agree with you, but that contradicts what we’re seeing and hearing.” Cox then proceeded to swamp him with facts, all tied together and supporting his analysis. “The only response then available to the Israelis,” he concluded, “will be to escalate—”

“Damn it, General”—Burke was losing his temper—“and just how will they do that if they’re getting their butts kicked like you’re saying?”

Cox bowed his head before he raised his eyes and drilled the DCI. “They’ll go nuclear, sir.” Burke sank back into his chair and a heavy silence came down. They all believed him.

“We must stop that from happening,” Pontowski said, breaking the silence. “How do we do it?” For the next twenty minutes, the options open to the United States were examined.

Finally, Pontowski leaned forward and started giving orders. There was steel in his voice that most members of the NSC had never heard before. “I want immediate action on three fronts, diplomatic, logistical, and military. State”—he gave the secretary of state a hard look—“press for a ceasefire on all fronts. The Hot Line to the Kremlin is still down and their ambassador recalled. But there has got to be a channel open somewhere. Find it. I don’t care who you have to talk to. Logistics, get whatever the Israelis need to them—now. Put the Rapid Deployment Force on alert. If I have to, I will unilaterally reinforce the peacekeeping troops in the Sinai and force the Egyptians to attack through us. Call the Egyptian ambassador in.”

Pontowski stood. “When I say immediate action, I mean within the hour, not this afternoon.” He moved toward the door. “General Cox, would you please join me?” Outside, the two men walked slowly down the hall. “Leo, how good are your sources?”

Cox hesitated before answering. He knew the President was moving fast, based on the facts he had presented. “Sir, there is always ‘noise’ in intelligence: the information that doesn’t fit, the deliberate misleads the opposition plugs into the system. Most of the time, the very mass of information we deal with is the ‘noise’ that masks the true picture. But the reports we’re getting from our military attachés and observers inside both Israel and Egypt all support what satellite and aerial reconnaissance is telling us—the Israelis are losing and will go nuclear if Egypt comes into the war.”

“How reliable are the attachés and observers?”

“Very,” Cox answered. “One of the reports was from Captain Pontowski.”

“Where’s Matt now?”

“Out of Israel, sir. Back with his unit in England.”

“I’d like to see his report.” The relief in Pontowski’s voice was obvious.

“I’ll get it to you within the hour.”

Pontowski stopped before entering his office. “What happened to Bill Carroll?”

Cox allowed a smile to crack his grim face. “We restored his security clearance, gave him a letter of reprimand for an unauthorized contact with a foreign government, and sent him to an operational unit. He asked to go back to his old wing, the Forty-fifth.”

“He’s a good man,” Pontowski said. “I’m glad you protected him.”

The general could only stare at his commander in chief. My, God! he thought, he figured it out. He knows that I used Carroll to short-circuit the CIA and get the intelligence I thought was critical to him.

“Mr. President”—it was Fraser—“the Egyptian ambassador will be here in two hours.”

“Thanks, Tom. That’s fine.” Pontowski held open die door to his office and motioned Cox inside for privacy. “Leo, there’s something I need you to do right now. Do you know Egypt’s air attaché?”

The two pilots stood at attention in front of General Mana’s desk. They were surprised that the general was wearing a flight suit, even though it had obviously been tailored for him. The general’s aide minced in and handed him a folder. The general smiled at the twenty-year-old lieutenant colonel, thanking him. Johar and Samir kept their eyes rooted on a spot above the general’s head.

Mana thumbed through the folder, throwing pictures of two crashed F-16s onto his desk, in front of the two pilots. “By not following orders,” Mana said, “you two denied me the kills that were rightfully mine. Please explain yourselves.”

“Sir”—it was Johar—“I’m not sure we can. Everything happened so fast and, and we were just there. “ Samir nodded vigorously in agreement. “The only way I can explain what happened is that”—he was thinking furiously, knowing Mana could be very dangerous and they were, after all, nobodies—“that your aggressive airmanship drove the F-Sixteens right into our feces. It was night, you knew that the Israelis would turn away from us, back towards you … But it was all very confused and we managed to get off two missiles. The shots were … pure luck.” He had almost said “The shots were golden BBs” but that would have been too much of an Americanism and a mistake.

Mana rolled a letter opener between his thumb and forefinger, examining its blade. “It is encouraging that you understand what happened. But it does not change the result.” He drove the tip of the letter opener deep into his desk. “Those were my kills.”

“Yes, sir,” Johar said. “We know that.” Samir nodded vigorously.

“Then you will understand why I am receiving the credit for them. Please, this was not my idea. The other pilots who were there are insisting on it.”

“That is how it should be,” Johar agreed with Samir, who was still nodding.

Mana smiled. “There will be reporters and TV cameras on base today to report my victory to our people. I think it would be wise if you two were not here.”

“Thank you, sir,” Johar said, “for your understanding.”

“Dismissed.”

The two pilots beat a hasty retreat. Outside the headquarters building, they glanced at each other, an unspoken comment that they had been lucky. But that was life in Iraq’s air force.

The Egyptian ambassador was the model of diplomatic propriety. His distinguished reputation, polished appearance, carefully tailored dark suit, and expensive hand-tooled leather briefcase all marked him as a member in good standing of the Washington diplomatic corps. Pontowski stood and extended his hand when Matsom Hamoud al-Dasud was ushered into his office. “Mr. President,” Dasud murmured. He was acutely aware that they were alone with no interpreters. Normal diplomatic protocol required translators even though his mastery of English was well known. It was his first danger signal.

“Mr. Ambassador,” Pontowski said, his face dead serious. “Thank you for coming on such sort notice, but a critical problem has arisen.”

“We are aware of the situation and my government has told me to be at your service.” For the next few minutes, the two men exchanged formal courtesies as they sparred.

When they had reached the appropriate moment, Pontowski came to the purpose of the hastily called meeting. “Mr. Ambassador, it is my intention to reinforce the UN peacekeeping forces in the Sinai while my ambassador to the United Nations pursues a cease-fire in the Israeli-Syrian war.”

Dasud’s right eyebrow arched. “That is not necessary. The intentions of my country remain as before, committed to peace and regional prosperity.”

Pontowski deliberately glanced at his watch—another signal. “We are running out of time to stop this war before it escalates.”

“The war is not of our making, Mr. President.”

“Then why do you refuse to stand down your forces from your military exercise in the Sinai? Why are you moving up reinforcements as the Israelis withdraw their forces to meet the new threat from Iraq?”

“Mr. President, you must remember the troubled history of our two countries. While we remain committed to the peace treaty with Israel, there are many political factions in my country that demand we maintain a strong defensive posture at this time.”

Pontowski decided it was time to pull off the velvet gloves of diplomacy. “Mr. Ambassador, my analysts tell me that Egypt is preparing to attack Israel.”

“Your analysts are mistaken.”

“I hope so, because if they are correct, I will consider our relationship with Egypt in a totally different light. I will embargo your country and close the Suez Canal. All foreign trade with your country will cease until the status quo is reestablished.”

Dasud’s face paled. In diplomatic terms, Pontowski had told the ambassador that if Egypt entered the war, he would seal Egypt off from the outside world, forcing her to survive on her own resources until the fighting had stopped and Israel’s borders were secure. In practical terms, he was saying that Egypt would not be able to import the food it needed. The ambassador immediately understood all that. It was his job to inform his government that the United States was playing hardball and start immediate damage control.

“Surely, Mr. President, you realize such action would mean an oil embargo and worldwide condemnation in the United Nations.” No response from Pontowski. He tried another tack. “If there were other options open to my government that the United States could support …” Pontowski nodded and Dasud relaxed. There was room for accommodation.

“The role of Egypt as a peacemaker is well known,” Pontowski said. Now they were back to polite diplomatic exchanges.

“It would be helpful if I had something positive to cable my superiors,” Dasud ventured.

“Rather than see Egyptian military maneuvers in the Suez,” Pontowski replied, “I would like to see discussions on increased agricultural aid and more trade credits.” No response from Dasud. Pontowski upped the ante. “And if Egypt was to present a cease-fire initiative to the United Nations, my ambassador would back Egypt’s claim to the Gaza Strip.”

The ambassador understood-perfectly; Egypt gets its forces out of die Sinai, starts taking an active role in stopping the fighting, and in return gets the Gaza Strip and more foreign aid. It was doable. Besides, his air attaché had received an intelligence report from a source in the DIA on Israeli nuclear capabilities and intentions minutes before he had left his embassy. The source was, he knew, unimpeachable.

“Mr. President, please let me relay your comments to my government. I know they will be carefully studied.”

Pontowski stood. The diplomatic formalities were over. “Matsom, again thanks for coming so quickly.” He shook the man’s hand warmly; they were old friends. “I need action quick. Otherwise all hell is going to break loose.”

“I know, Zack. I’ll do what I can.”

As usual, Colonel “Mad” Mike Martin, the deputy for operations of the 45th Tactical Fighter Wing, felt an overpowering urge to get involved, get to the bottom of the problem, and crunch a few heads. But this particular dilemma did not call for such a violent reaction. Mike Martin was a contained and highly directed individual who controlled his natural combative urges and found acceptable channels for his energies. Martin shambled around his office at RAF Stonewood, his six-foot bulk shaking the floor, his round face brooding. His massive head of black hair and hairy arms made the man sitting in his office think of a gorilla or a Mafia hit man. But he knew what was beneath the surface—a consummate fighter pilot and brilliant combat leader, not happy in peacetime operations.

“Carroll,” Martin growled, “you got your ass kicked off the National Security Council and you ask to be reassigned here. Why?”

“The Forty-fifth is my old unit, sir,” Bill Carroll answered. “I thought I could do some good as your chief of intelligence.”

The answer satisfied Martin. “Have you read Pontowski and Furry’s report on how the Israelis are getting their heads kicked up their collective asshole?” Martin never spent much time on any one subject.

“Yes, sir. Other intelligence supports what they saw.”

Martin grunted something unintelligible and jabbed at the buttons on his intercom with a stubby finger. “Get Furry and Pontowski in here,” he barked. Seven minutes later, the two men were walking through the door of his office.

Furry ignored his DO and shook Carroll’s hand. “Good to see you, Bill. Been a long time.”

“Not since Operation Warlord.” Carroll smiled.

Martin did not interrupt the reunion between the two old friends. He knew he had two of the veterans of the 45th under his command. Two men who went back to the legendary Muddy Waters. “You two done kissing?” he said, his voice warm and friendly. “Good. Let’s get down to business. I want to kill some ragheads.”

“Sir,” Matt said, “That’s not going to be easy.”

“I know that, Fumble Nuts,” Martin snapped, reverting to type. “That’s why you three are in here. I want to know if there’s any way, time, or place we might get involved in that pissing contest you got to play in?”

Matt’s face turned hard. For the first time, he fully understood what it meant to have your “fangs out.” “Kirkuk.”

“Thanks for the clue, Meathead,” Martin growled.

“Charming fellow,” Carroll mumbled under his breath for Furry to hear.

“He calls everybody that,” the wizzo said.

“Captain Pontowski, are you talking about the nerve gas plant and storage bunkers outside of Kirkuk?” Carroll asked. Matt nodded.

“Mind talking to me?” Martin barked.

“Sir,” Carroll said, “the Iraqis have built a large new nerve gas plant and arsenal twenty miles west of Kirkuk replacing the one we destroyed during the Kuwait war. The Israelis tried to hit it but couldn’t fight their way through Iraq’s air defenses. Your ‘ragheads’ learned some valuable lessons in ‘91. It’s a mission the F-Fifteen E was made for.”