‘Lieutenant Colonel David Baruch, Sayeret,’ yelled one of the officers over the departing helo.
‘Major Richard Samuels, Shin Bet,’ said the other.
The newcomers quickly introduced themselves, shaking hands with the Israelis. Wilkes wasn’t usually welcomed in the field by high-ranking officers and felt like he should be saluting them, but he resisted the impulse.
The two Israelis were utterly different. Baruch, around fifty, had dark, almost Arabic features, whereas Samuels was in his early thirties with watery hazel eyes and fair, freckled skin.
‘We should go,’ said Major Samuels. He politely opened the rear passenger door of the centre Humvee, inviting the others to climb in. Monroe went first and opened the window. ‘I’d keep that closed if I were you, Mr Monroe,’ said the major. Monroe shrugged and wound it up.
The Humvee roared forward and Samuels began the sit-rep. ‘Technically, this is Shin Bet’s op, our op, but this one’s a little out of the ordinary,’ he said with a slight accent Wilkes picked as Russian. ‘The colonel’s people are familiar with this place so we’ve called them in. We don’t believe the terrorists know they’re cornered. When they do, all hell will break lose.’
‘We’re going to go with a helo insertion and extraction on the rooftop,’ Baruch said. ‘In and out hard and fast.’
‘How many terrorists are in the building?’ asked Monroe.
Baruch deferred the question to the major with a polite nod of his head. ‘We don’t know exactly, is the short answer,’ said Samuels. ‘We think maybe ten to fifteen, but it could be more.’
‘Or less,’ said Baruch.
‘Yes,’ agreed the major, ‘or less. Once the UAVs are airborne, we’ll have more definitive intel.’
Wilkes picked up on the tension between the two officers. ‘And Kadar Al-Jahani?’
‘Yes, he’s there. Positively identified by an informant,’ said Samuels. ‘There’s some kind of annual general meeting of terror going on inside. This is a real coup for us. And we don’t want to fuck it up,’ he said, glancing at the colonel, who was looking out the window. ‘We’ve got several high-ranking members of Hamas and Hezbollah all under the one roof.’ He frowned. ‘You know that taking prisoners is not going to be easy.’
‘Nevertheless, we have to take Kadar Al-Jahani alive. There’s a bigger picture here,’ said Monroe.
‘These people are fanatics,’ Baruch said. ‘With respect, I don’t think you realise exactly what that means until you’ve been confronted by it.’
‘I hear you, but that’s our mission.’
‘They will not come quietly,’ said Samuels, turning to look at Monroe, Wilkes felt, to see what kind of man he was dealing with. ‘They are not afraid of killing, nor of being killed. Death to them is an honour, especially if they are taking Jewish people with them. These are the men who strap explosives to their brothers and sisters, and send them into crowded movie theatres and bus stops. They are not soldiers, they are murderers. They rejoice in killing our grandmothers, our children.’
Wilkes saw the stress in the major’s face. Yes, indeed, they were a very long way from Townsville.
‘Shin Bet knows Kadar Al-Jahani, the man you want, well. He’s responsible for many deaths and much unhappiness in our country.’ Major Samuels cleared his throat again, something he appeared to do unconsciously when cutting to the chase. ‘I guess what I’m saying, gentlemen, is that I hope keeping him alive is worth the sacrifice. Good soldiers will die here today. For the sake of their families, I hope their deaths will be worth it.’
The major’s speech was sobering. It was patently obvious that he was against the operation to take Kadar alive. Wilkes wondered if that was the source of the tension between the two Israelis. There was nothing he or Atticus could say to reassure him.
‘Sir, I want to go in with your people,’ said Monroe.
‘That is not possible, Mr Monroe,’ said Baruch.
‘Sir, I think the CIA would want to know that this op has been done right. If things go wrong — not saying they will, but shit happens — it would be good to have an observer on the ground.’
An observer? An arse protector more like, thought Wilkes. Monroe certainly knew how to play the game.
Baruch considered the American’s request. The logic of it was flawed — his presence could be the cause of fuckups. But there was a certain appeal for political reasons. Baruch looked at Samuels. The major gave the slightest shrug. If the American wanted to die at the hands of terrorists, who was he to stop him?
‘I advise against it, Mr Monroe,’ said Baruch, ‘but I’ll leave the decision up to the unit commander.’
The Humvees zigged and zagged through the town, along streets that were alternately brightly lit by the sun and then darkly shaded. Wilkes saw small children shrink behind their mothers and men avert their eyes as the vehicles passed. A group of youngsters spat at them. Stones occasionally pinged off the vehicle’s bodywork, one striking the window by Monroe’s face with a bang that made the American jump. ‘See?’ said Samuels, vaguely amused. ‘Fresh air here can be dangerous.’
There was fear in this town, and defiance. This was a new experience for Wilkes. He’d only been involved in conflicts where an international force was seen as either stabilising or liberating — a ‘just’ force. From the looks on the faces of the people they passed, there was nothing liberating or just about their presence here.
The convoy slowed through a section of the town that had recently been flattened. Shell holes and blackened concrete rubble provided the executive summary of a recent action there. People picked over the piles of broken brickwork, hunting for valuables. They ignored the Humvees roaring past.
‘We fight against the Arab world, which says we have stolen the Palestinian homeland,’ said Samuels, providing a commentary to the scenery flashing past. ‘But did you know, before the Jews began to resettle this place, there was nothing here? It was all just dirt and rock.’
Wilkes didn’t answer. He was watching the children having a rock fight, hurling chunks of brick at each other, laughing.
‘The Arabs control ninety-nine percent of the Middle East. Israel is just one percent of the landmass. And still the Arabs want more. They want it all.’
Wilkes nodded, not necessarily because he agreed but rather out of politeness.
‘Britain, in particular, is losing patience with Israel. They say, “David has become Goliath.” And America says that we must accommodate a Palestinian homeland,’ the major scoffed. ‘But there has never been a Palestinian homeland. Never.’
The Humvee roared past row after row of basic low-rise tenements and shops. ‘Did you know that in 1917, the British were given a mandate by the League of Nations to create a Jewish National Home in an area that contained all of what is now Jordan and Israel, and all the land between?’
Wilkes did vaguely remember skimming through the written brief prepared by ASIS and the DIO and reading something like that.
‘And then Emir Abdullah had to leave the ancestral Hashemite lands in Arabia. So the British created a kingdom for him that included all the land east of the Jordan River. Our land. They took seventy-five percent of the land the world acknowledged as the Jewish national home!’ The history lesson was obviously something drilled into every Israeli, and from the major’s tone he was passionate about it. ‘Did you know that during the Second World War, the Jews who fought alongside the British were called Palestinians?’