euphoria of jet-powered flight.
They levelled out at a little under forty thousand feet avoiding even
altitudes or orderly flight patterns, and David placed his machine under
the Brig's tail and eased back on the throttles to cruising power, his
hands delighting in the familiar rituals of flight while his helmeted
head revolved restlessly in the search routine, sweeping every quarter
of the sky about him, weaving the Mirage to clear the blind spot behind
his own tail.
The air had an unreal quality of purity, a crystalline clarity that made
even the most distant mountain ranges stand out in crisp silhouette,
hardly shaded with the blue of distance. In the north the Mediterranean
blazed like a pool of molten silver in the sunlight, while the sea of
Galilee was soft cool green, and farther south the Dead Sea was darker,
forbidding in its sunken bed of tortured desert.
They flew north over the ridge of Carmel and the flecked white buildings
of Haifa with its orange gold beaches on which the sea broke in soft
ripples of creamy lacework. Then they turned together easing back on
the power and sinking slowly to patrol altitude at twenty thousand feet
as they passed the peak of Mount Herman where the last snows still
lingered in the gullies and upon the high places, streaking the great
rounded mountain like an old man's pate.
The softly dreaming greens and pastels delighted David who was
accustomed to the sepia monochromes of Africa. The villages clung to
the hill-tops, their white walls shining like diadems above the terraced
slopes and the darker areas of cultivated land.
They turned south again, booming down the valley of the Jordan, over the
Sea of Galilee with its tranquil green waters enclosed by the thickets
of date palm and the neatly tended fields of the Kibbutzim, losing
altitude as the land forsook its gentle aspect and the hills were riven
and tortured, rent by the wadis as though by the claws of a dreadful
predator.
On the left hand rose the mountains of Edam, hostile and implacable, and
beneath them Jericho was a green oasis in the wilderness. Ahead lay the
shimmering surface of the Dead Sea. The Brig dropped down, and they
thundered so low across the salt-thickened water that the jet blast
ruffled the surface behind them.
The Brig's voice chuckled in David's earphones. That's the lowest you
are ever going to fly, twelve hundred feet below sea level. They were
climbing again as they crossed the mineral works at the southern end of
the sea, and faced the blasted and mountainous deserts of the south.
Hello, Cactus One, this is Desert Flower, again the radio silence was
broken, but this time David recognized the call sign of command net.
They were being called directly from the Operations Centre of Airforce
Command, situated in some secret underground bunker at a location that
David would never learn. On the command plot their position was being
accurately relayed by the radar repeaters.
Hello, Desert Flower, the Brig acked, and immediately the exchange
became as informal as two old friends chatting, which was precisely what
it was.
Brig this is Motti. We've just had a ground support request in your
area, he gave the coordinates quickly, a motorized patrol of border
police is under sneak lowlevel attack by an unidentified aircraft. See
to it, will youz, Beseder, Motti, okay. The Brig switched to flight
frequency. Cactus Two, I'm going to interception power, conform to me,
he told David, and they turned together on to the new heading.
No point in trying a radar scan, the Brig grumbled aloud. He'll be down
in the ground clutter. We'll not pick the swine off amongst those
mountains. just keep your eyes open. 'Beseder. David had already
picked up the word. The favourite Hebrew word in a land where very
little was really okay.
David spotted it first, a slim black column of smoke beginning to rise
like a pencil line drawn slowly against the windless and dazzling cobalt
blue of the horizon.
Ground smoke, he said into his helmet microphone. Eleven o'clock low.
The Brig squinted ahead silently, searching for it and then saw it on
the extreme limit of his vision range. He grunted, Rastus had been
right in one thing at least. The youngster had eyes like a hawk.
Going to attack speed now, he said, and David acked and lit his
afterburners. The upholstery of his seat smacked into his back under
the mighty increase in thrust and David felt the drastic alteration in
trim as the Mirage went shooting through the sonic barrier.
Near the base of the smoke column, something flashed briefly against the
drab brown earth, and David narrowed his eyes and made out the tiny
shape, flitting swiftly as a sunbird, its camouflage blending naturally
into the backdrop of desert, -so it was ethereal as a shadow.
Bandit turning to port of the smoke, he called the sighting.
I have him, said the Brig, and switched to command net.
Hello, Desert Flower, I'm on an intruder. Call strike, please. The
decision to engage must be made at command level, and the answering
voice was laconic, and flat.
Brig, this is Motti. Hit him? While they spoke they were rushing down
so swiftly that the details of the little drama being played out below
sprang into comprehension.
Along a dusty border track three patrol vehicles of the border police
were halted. They were camouflaged half tracks, tiny as children's toys
in the vastness of the desert.
One of the half tracks was burning. The smoke was greasy black and rose
straight into the air, the beacon that had drawn them. Lying
spreadeagled in the road was a human body, flung down carelessly in
death, and the sight of it stirred in David a deeply bitter feeling of
resentment such as he had last felt in the bullring at Madrid.
The other vehicles were pulled off the track at abandoned angles, and
David could see their crews crouching amongst the scrub and rock. Some
of them were firing with small arms at their attacker who was circling
for his next run down upon them.
David had never seen the type before, but knew it instantly from the
recognition charts that he had studied so often. It was a Russian MIG
17 of the Syrian airforce.
The high tail plane was unmistakable. The dappled brown desert
camouflage was brightened by the red, white and black rounders with
their starred green centres on the fuselage and the stubby swept wings.
The MIG completed its turn, settling swiftly down and levelling off for
its next strafing run upon the parked vehicles. The pilot's attention
was concentrated on the helpless men cowering amongst the rocks and he
was unaware of the terrible vengeance bearing down upon him on high.
The Brig lined up for his pass, turning slightly to bring himself down
on the Syrian's tail, attacking in classic style from behind and above,
while David dropped back to weave across his rear, covering him and
backing up to press in a supporting attack if the first failed.
The Syrian opened fire again and the cannon bursts twinkled like fairy
lights amongst the men and trucks.
Another truck exploded in a dragon's breath of smoke and flame.
You bastard, David whispered as he levelled out behind the Brig and saw
the havoc that was being wrought amongst his people. It was the first
time he had thought of them as that, his people, and he felt the cold
anger of the shepherd whose flock is under attack.
A line of poetry popped up in his mind The Assyrian came down like a