He waited for the grey, ghost-like thing to fly overhead once more. His eyes were watering, but not because of the glare this time. He couldn’t see his wife or children clearly anymore, their faces were fading like those on an old print, and it was this realisation that caused the tears to flow.
A slight movement in the sky caught his attention. Mushtaq knelt and placed the tripod supporting the barrel on the windowsill. He kept both eyes open behind the yellow shooter’s lenses of his glasses so that he could more easily catch the ghost-like craft in the ten-power scope. The wind at ground level was nil. What was it at five hundred metres, he wondered? The unmanned plane danced in the crosshairs. Mushtaq led it, guessing at its speed, matching it in his head with the known velocity of his bullet, mind, nerve and muscle making untold and minute calculations and adjustments. Instinct squeezed the trigger, his index finger exerting no more than a kilogram of pressure, and the weapon’s stock jolted into his shoulder. At last, Mushtaq was rewarded by a small puff of white on the aircraft’s underside. The HEAP round did its job. The wing parted from the body cleanly,just where he’d aimed, and the two sections began their uncontrolled spiral to earth.
Lieutenant Deborah Glukel lay slumped on the ground outside the building. Medics rushed towards her in slow motion. Something had hit her in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. The Kevlar plates in her body armour had done their job, but she couldn’t haul herself out of the firing line. She had just lain on her side, waiting for the headshot — there were no Kevlar plates protecting her face. The pain in her chest was intense and she guessed that several ribs and possibly her sternum were broken. Her platoon had done a good job. They’d stormed the building and killed all but one of the terrorists. She watched four men come and drag him away, unconscious. Those men were Shin Bet. They’d lock-tied the captured terrorist’s hands and feet behind him, blood streaming from his nose, ears and eyes. They dragged him across the broken pavement, threw him in a waiting black Mercedes and sped off.
‘Horah!’ said the medic kneeling beside her. ‘As your name says, you’re one lucky benzona, Lieutenant. You’ve lost your sergeant and two other men, with three others wounded, but you’ll live,’ said the medic, yelling in Glukel’s face while they worked on her. Glukel meant ‘lucky’ in Hebrew, but the lieutenant didn’t feel it. The two dead soldiers had been laid beside her. One was her brother, his eyes open, staring, accusing. She cried, not because they had died, but because she had lived.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Samuel Polski. ‘Who called in the fucking army?’ The man in his arms was dying. He cut the lock-tie behind the wounded man’s back, freeing his arms, one of which was broken. For years they’d been trying to infiltrate the Hezbollah. Finally, they’d managed the unbelievable only to have their own army come along, surround him and kill him. Beautiful! Kakat! Shit! The Mercedes dashed through the streets, heading for a Shin Bet safe house that contained a fully staffed OR with trauma specialists on hand. ‘Jacob, you kakat, hang on. Hang on!’ he screamed.
‘He’s saying something. What’s he saying?’ said Ahron Mandelberg, ripping open Jacob’s shirt, checking for chest wounds as the Mercedes bounced along.
‘They will vex us in the east,’ said Jacob as his heart gave out. He said it softly, almost in a whisper.
‘Jacob! Jacob! What did you say? Horah!’ Mandelberg placed his ear against Jacob’s chest. He slammed his fist against the man’s chest, cracking his sternum, trying to get his heart started.
‘He said, “They’ll vex in the east.” Does anyone know what that means?’ Mandelberg shouted, his ear close to the dead man’s lips. ‘Jacob! Where? East Jerusalem?’
‘Lie him down,’ called out Mandelberg as the car raced through the narrow streets. ‘Jacob! What did you say?’ yelled Mandelberg. ‘Is it some kind of fucking proverb?’
‘Forget it. He’s dead,’ said one of the other men. The concussion from a grenade had done its job well, shattering Jacob’s internal organs as completely as if a truck had hit him.
Baruch fingered the report of the operation. Two crack soldiers had died in the op, the platoon commander — one of his best — would be laid up in recovery for a month at least, and a Shin Bet agent working undercover had also died of his wounds. How the hell was he to know that one of the terrorists wasn’t a terrorist at all? The man ran with the enemy, fired on innocent people and then took on the army, for God’s sake. The whole fucking thing had happened so fast. And what would Shin Bet have done had it known one of their own was in that apartment building? Told everyone to pack up and go home? The icing on the cake was the loss of the UAV. It wasn’t one of theirs. It was on loan, on trial from the manufacturer in the United States, sponsored by the US military. And, of course, both were pissed about the disappearance of the multi-million-dollar toy, which meant his superiors were pissed at him too. Another excuse for them to hold back his promotion. A fifty-one year old lieutenant colonel in a young person’s army? Horah! Baruch snapped the folder shut.
The media had reported it differently, of course. They said it had been a great victory. Four senior members of the hateful terrorist group Hezbollah cornered, shot and killed. And this time, no civilian casualties to account for. He was a hero. Everyone was a hero. The unwinnable war was being won. What would winning it mean? Baruch had no real idea. He shook his head, trying to clear it of doubt. He buried the report under a pile of papers on his desk. There was a tight feeling in his chest. Stress. It would be another night of non-performance in the marriage bed, no doubt, staring at the ceiling.
Australian Defence Force HQ, Russell Offices, Canberra, Australia
Sergeant Tom Wilkes had been ordered to the briefing by the commanding officer of the regiment himself, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Hardcastle, the same Hardcastle who’d single-handedly destroyed two mobile Scud missile launchers in Iraq during Desert Storm, and rescued a downed American pilot in Bosnia, carrying the man on his back for four days across hostile territory. And yet, like many in the SAS, the colonel was hardly the muscle-bound matinee idol type. He was of average height and weight with short brown hair that was now greying slightly at the temples, and large, friendly brown eyes. His was the face that disappeared in a crowd, a kind of Everyman, yet he was fearless, sometimes ruthless, and always passionate about the regiment and its fighting traditions.
Sergeant Wilkes made his way to the Australian Defence Force HQ directly from the airport. He stepped out of the lift at the appropriate floor and was surprised to see the colonel seated on a leather chesterfield down the hall. The officer stood and walked towards the sergeant with a broad grin. Wilkes braced up, chest out, head back. Indoors, neither man was wearing a hat, so saluting was not required.
‘Stand easy, Tom. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Sulawesi. You and your men did a great job there.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Air Marshal Niven debriefed me fully on the op. I know how tough things were.’
Wilkes saw the colonel’s eyes flick to the red scar that curled across the side of his face, and he resisted the momentary desire to rub it.
‘Yes, sir.’ Wilkes had attended two funerals when he returned, for men who had paid the ultimate price. He took a deep breath and let the oxygen smooth some of the pain the memory brought to his chest. Wilkes’s troop was close-knit. The men lived and died together, and while death was clearly a hazard of the job, losing a mate was never an easy burden to bear, and the memories were still fresh.