A few minutes later, Haney came back, leading his wife. “I found her in the dressing room.” The young woman had obviously been sick. “Too much of a good thing.” Shouts from the fireplace caught their attention. “Oh, oh,” Haney said. “Time to split. Like now.” Barbara was climbing the chimney. Halfway up she stopped and kicked off her shoes before climbing again. At the top she patted the beam. Then she reached behind and unsnapped her bra, dropping in onto the faces below her. The shouting grew louder and more encouraging.
Matt turned to Haney looking for help, but he was gone. Standing in the doorway were two policemen, staring at the ceiling. Matt followed their gaze. Barbara was still up at the top of the fireplace, kicking off her panties.
“We got a noise complaint,” one of the cops said, not moving his eyes from the beam. “Your party?”
Tamir found a place near the back wall with the others who had been called in to watch the exercise. “The prime minister has heard about your little bit of excitement yesterday,” the man standing next to him said.
“News does travel fast,” Tamir allowed. His eyes moved over the room, searching. Finally, he found the short, bald-headed, newly elected prime minister, Yair Ben David. “Has he ever been down here before?” Tamir asked. They were crowded into the command room of a concrete bunker buried two hundred feet in a hill outside Tel Aviv. The warren of tunnels, blast doors, and rooms that made up Israel’s wartime headquarters was the most restricted and well-guarded complex in Israel — even more than the underground nuclear facility at Dimona where Tamir spent much of his time.
His neighbor shook his head. “Few have. I think our new prime minister Ben David is going to have his eyes opened this morning.”
“Ben David knows we have the bomb,” Tamir said.
“But not how many or the way we control it,” the man replied. Tamir could hear cynicism in his voice, an indication of what he thought of politicians.
For the next three hours, Tamir stood silently, making notes as a possible wartime scenario was spun out for Ben David. Finally, they reached the stage where the Syrian forces opposing them in the north resorted to the use of chemical weapons. The Israeli civil defense sectors continued to report in, detailing civilian casualties to both blistering and nerve agents. One computer display showed how the stockpiles of gas masks, protective equipment, antidotes, and medical supplies necessary to counter gas attacks were scheduled to be distributed. Another computer with a war-gaming program listed breakdowns in the distribution net due to the confusion and destruction of war. Reported civilian casualties started to skyrocket.
Ben David stood up and turned to the generals surrounding him. “Stop this nonsense. You have taken this scenario too far. The Iraqis never used chemical warheads and I seriously doubt the Arabs will ever use chemical weapons against us. They understand how we would respond.” He was a tough old man who had lived his life on the edge of conflict and had definite ideas about his enemies and how best to deal with them.
The minister of defense, Benjamin Yuriden, stood up beside him and placed a hand on his prime minister’s shoulder. “Yair,” he counseled, “a war does not stop. We will not be prepared if we refuse to consider worst-case scenarios. That’s why we’re here.” He gestured at the order of battle board that listed the enemy units facing them. “We know the Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans, all have chemical weapons and are trained in their use. It is logical that when they are losing, like in today’s scenario, they will use them against us.”
“Are you saying,” Ben David shot at Yuriden, “that we are victims of our own success? We cannot win a decisive military victory because the Arabs will retaliate with chemical weapons on our people?”
“It is a situation we must consider,” Yuriden answered.
“Then my answer is simple.” Ben David’s blocklike hands cut through the air, his combative instincts in full play. “They use chemical weapons and we escalate. We’ll continue with the exercise. Stand down from combat the aircraft we need to upload all our nuclear weapons.” The prime minister’s jaw was rock hard and his lips were compressed into a tight line.
The minister of defense took the decision calmly. This was an exercise. “Are you sure you want to upload all our aircraft-delivered weapons at this point. We are winning the ground war.”
“I said all.”
“Standing down that many aircraft will seriously hurt our conventional offensive operations.”
Ben David glared at the general. “How many aircraft does that require?”
“Eighty-seven.”
Ben David’s knees gave out and he sat down. “We have that many atomic bombs?”
“That’s only aircraft-delivered weapons,” Yuriden told him. “We also have thirty-five tactical nuclear weapons that can be fired from one-hundred-fifty-five-millimeter howitzers and fifteen warheads for our Jericho Two missiles.”
Then a strange calm came over the prime minister. He wanted details. “Which are the smallest?”
“The artillery-delivered weapons — two kilotons.”
“The largest?” Ben David was fascinated. Like all Israeli politicians, he knew that his country was a nuclear power, but until now, he had no idea of what that meant in the harsh reality of making war.
“The aircraft-delivered weapons — thirty kilotons.”
“We may not be able to win,” Ben David said, “but then neither can they. I want to see how this scenario plays out. Order one of our largest bombs dropped on Damascus. Have our ambassador at the UN relay the warning that we will use more unless the gas attacks stop immediately. We will not be driven into the sea.” Then another thought occurred to him. “What casualties can the Syrians expect?”
“Approximately a thousand times the number of ours from gas attacks,” Tamir said quietly from the rear of the room. The stunning announcement drove a wedge of silence across the room as his estimate was repeated to those who had not heard.
The prime minister spun in his chair and glared at Tamir. “Too high.”
“No, probably too low.”
Ben David knew Tamir. “How can you be so sure?”
“I tested the weapons.” It was a simple statement of fact, the expert telling what he knew.
“Then we will use a smaller weapon to demonstrate our resolve,” Ben David announced. “The Arabs understand power that comes from a sword.”
“The destruction on a city will still be terrible,” Tamir said. “I don’t think Israel can live with the political consequences.”
“You’re now an expert on political consequences?”
Tamir lowered his head and spoke quietly. “Syrian civil defense is a shambles. They do not have the rescue or medical facilities to handle the casualties even a small weapon will cause. They will throw open their country to every reporter imaginable and let them record the destruction for the world to see. The facts will condemn us.” Tamir raised his head and his voice. “It is a major escalation, a holocaust of our making. The Soviets and the rest of the Arab nations that have stayed out of the war will enter against us. The war will become an uncontrollable fire that will consume us.”
“You assume too much, Tamir,” the prime minister said.
“I tested the weapons,” was his only reply.
Ben David turned his back on Tamir. “What is our smallest weapon?”
“Two kilotons,” came the reply.
“We will drop one such weapon on Damascus.”
Tamir left the room, sick to his stomach. In the corridor, he leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths. This is only an exercise, he told himself. “I never thought …"he whispered to himself, barely audible, “never believed”—his despair was growing and twisting inside of him—“that it could go this far.”