‘Shit,’ said Wilkes. He was taken a little by surprise but he knew he shouldn’t have been. The call could’ve come through at any moment and the moment was now. Out of habit, he had a quick look around the two-room apartment before stepping out, but there was nothing to take, except for maybe a waterbottle. He grabbed it and waited at the door for Monroe. The Shin Bet was responsible for counter-terrorism and internal security within Israel. They often worked with the Sayeret, the tough, nononsense Israeli special forces. Experience had taught these people how best to deal with an enemy occupying a building. And that was to snipe as many as possible from a distance before bulldozing the structure down on top of any possible survivors. That they hadn’t done so already in this instance was no doubt in reluctant deference to the CIA’s clout, and its own desire to catch Kadar Al-Jahani alive.
Monroe walked out of his room strapping on Kevlar body armour.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going, Atticus?’ asked Wilkes.
‘Listen, we’re not each other’s babysitter, okay?’ said Monroe, throwing a nickel-plated nine millimetre Ruger into his kitbag.
‘You’re mad, mate. You don’t know their tactics. They don’t even speak the same language, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I guess all that stuff about the SAS having big cojones is bullshit after all.’
‘It’s not that you’ll get yourself killed, Atticus, it’s that you might get others killed.’
‘That’s the idea.’ The American stuffed his M4 into his bag along with a stack of magazines. ‘You coming,’ he said, ‘or are there some TV programs on you don’t wanna miss?’
‘Okay…’ Wilkes said, capitulating. Atticus was right in one sense, he wasn’t the man’s babysitter.
Monroe stopped his frantic packing for a moment. ‘Look, Tom, sorry, but you weren’t at the embassy. You didn’t see what I saw,’ he said…It’s not your fault…not your fault… ‘Besides, you know what they say, if you want it done right, do it yourself,’ he said, zipping up the heavy Cordura duffel bag and swinging it over his shoulder.
There was no more time for argument. The distant hammering in the sky had grown persistently louder until it was almost deafening. And overhead. ‘Say goodbye to this as a safe house,’ Monroe shouted. Helicopters did not land on the rooftops of apartment blocks, even in middleclass Tel Aviv.
‘Where are they holed up?’ Wilkes yelled at Monroe’s back as they bolted up the fire stairs to the rooftop.
‘Beautiful downtown Ramallah,’ said Monroe as he pushed through the fire door into the dry, hot glare. A Bell 212 orbited the rooftop, its pilot no doubt assessing the safest approach in the fluctuating breeze. The 212 thumped its way into the wind, blades pounding the air. The pilot brought the helo to a hover a metre above the roof, just off one corner. Wilkes stepped across onto the skid and was helped aboard by the helo’s loadmaster. Monroe followed after passing up his kit. The two men sat on the hard checkerplate deck, their backs against a bulkhead. The loadmaster gave them the universal thumbs-up signal, which Monroe and Wilkes returned, and then handed them each a pair of headphones.
The Bell climbed until it was well clear of the surrounding apartment blocks and then dropped away, rotating one hundred and eighty degrees and picking up air speed. Wilkes looked out the open side door at a second helo that had taken up station barely fifty metres away, framed by the orange ball of the late afternoon sun. ‘That’s a Lahatut,’ said a heavily accented voice in his ’phones. Wilkes glanced at the LM. By law, the soldier had to be at least eighteen, but he appeared far younger. Wilkes wondered whether that was because at twenty-eight, he was getting older. Both men looked out at the Hughes helo. Wilkes was reasonably familiar with the Little Bird, as the US Army called the type. They used them extensively for reconnaissance, target acquisition and real-time battlefield management. The Birds were highly manoeuvrable and fast, and usually came with a six-barrel 7.62mm minigun, but not the aircraft in formation off their starboard side. A couple of TOW missiles hung from launchers mounted off its body. ‘Lahatut means “sleight of hand”,’ said the loadmaster. ‘A tank buster. One of those missiles can penetrate armour seven hundred and fifty millimetres thick,’ he said proudly, opening his arms wide to illustrate the point.
‘Do you get to bust many tanks around here?’ asked Monroe.
‘No, the Palestinians don’t have any.’ The Israeli added after a moment’s thought: ‘But they’re just as effective on bunkers, buildings, and you should see what they can do to a car.’
Wilkes was palpably aware of being in a country at war, which, of course, Israel was. He recalled the DIO briefing notes supplied by Graeme Griffin. Technically, it was still in conflict with its neighbour Syria who, up until the cease-fire that put the Six-Day War on hold in 1967, had owned the Israeli-occupied territory known as the Golan Heights. The two countries weren’t currently exchanging shots, but the neighbourhood wasn’t exactly welcoming. Then, of course, there were the Palestinians. They believed the Israelis had snatched away their land with the world’s blessing after World War II, leaving them stateless and homeless. As far as the Israelis were concerned, there were enemies inside and outside the gates. No wonder there was a siege mentality to the place, thought Wilkes. Any minute the Israelis expected to be either invaded by foreign armies or assaulted by desperados dressed in waistcoats stuffed with C-4.
‘You gonna…for us?’ The LM finished the question by holding an invisible carbine to his shoulder and firing a few rounds.
‘Bet your ass, kid,’ said Monroe, before Wilkes could answer that, no, they were just observers.
Wilkes shouted, ‘You’re one crazy son of a bitch, Atticus.’
‘You worry too much, Tom,’ Monroe answered, resting against the bulkhead.
‘You guys CIA?’ asked the Israeli.
That threw Monroe — the fact that the kid knew the score — but he recovered with his usual aplomb, mixing fact with fiction. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The name’s Bond…James Bond.’
The young soldier grinned.
‘007 is British,’ said Wilkes.
‘Whatever…’ Monroe replied, shrugging.
The helo began to descend rapidly towards a dusty light brown city the same colour as the dry countryside around it. Wilkes’s ears popped with the rapid change in pressure. ‘Jesus, that was quick. Not that I’m complaining,’ he added. They’d been in the air less than ten minutes; not enough time to get uncomfortable. Ramallah was barely forty kilometres to the south-west of Tel Aviv, but it was like stepping across a fifty-year time zone. Tel Aviv was a worldly city, and wealthy. The town they were approaching was a dense collection of low-rise flat-topped buildings with very little greenery, nothing to break the monotony. There were no modern buildings that Wilkes could see. It was a small provincial town, and a poor one at that.
‘We’re from Sirkin AFB,’ said the LM through the ’phones. ‘The unit you’re working with, they’re from Sirkin, too. These are tough times but they’re good soldiers — Sayeret. Special forces. Don’t worry, Mr Bond. They look after your ass,’ he said playfully. Monroe smiled in return, acknowledging the jibe.
The 212 approached a section of town that had been flattened in a previous action. Three Humvees with mounted machine guns were parked off to one side. Several army types stood squinting into the sky. The helo flared half a dozen metres above the dirt loading zone, kicking up a wall of grit that forced the onlookers to turn away and hunch their shoulders.
Wilkes and Monroe handed the LM their ’phones and the thunderous noise of the 212’s twin turbines assaulted their ears. Sand and dirt swirled briefly through the open door, stinging their eyes. They grabbed their gear and exited. The two men walked quickly to the vehicles as the pitch of the swooping blades deepened and the sandstorm erupted once again under the climbing aircraft.