‘You sent for me, Menachem?’ David asked. Brigadier General Kovner looked up from a desk cluttered with intelligence reports filed in different coloured folders. The green ones were marked ‘Confidential’ and the red ones ‘Secret’; the one open on Kovner’s desk was crimson, marking it as a ‘Top Secret’.
‘Come in, David, and have a seat.’ Kovner, a wiry, fit-looking professional soldier, picked up the file and joined his much taller lieutenant at the small conference table that was jammed in one corner of his office.
‘What I’m about to tell you must not go out of this room. You are not to discuss it with anyone, except your battalion commander, who is aware of the task I’m about to give you. There is now a strong possibility that we will go to war with Egypt. If we do, the General Staff hope to restrict the war to the one southern front but that will depend on what the Syrians do in the north and what the Jordanians do in the east. It is the Jordanians that I want to talk to you about.’
‘Me?’ David was at a complete loss as to why a platoon commander could have any influence on the eastern front.
‘The Old City and the Dead Sea Scrolls are now in the hands of the Jordanians. The scrolls are being held in the Palestine Museum. When we went to war with Egypt in 1956 the Jordanians stayed out of it. The view in the Cabinet is that they will do so again, but I’m not so sure.’
‘You think the Jordanians will attack?’ David asked.
‘To put it bluntly, yes. Unlike November 1956, the Jordanians know that this time Israel stands alone. Neither the British nor the French will be there and the United States and the Soviets will try to stay out of it. The Jordanians have had your university and our small enclave on Mount Scopus under siege for nearly twenty years. They would dearly love to get it back. The most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed in the Rockefeller Museum.’ Brigadier General Kovner got up from the table and pulled down one of several maps that were held in a rollerblind cabinet on the wall. It was a map of Jerusalem and its environs showing the locations of Jordanian units. He opened the crimson file on the table and placed some aerial photographs and the floor plans of the museum in front of David.
‘The Rockefeller Museum is located on Sultan Suleiman Street.’ Menachem Kovner pointed to Kerem el-Sheik, a hill just outside the north-eastern corner of the Old City walls where the museum had been built. ‘Three months ago the Jordanians nationalised the museum.’
‘So it’s now Jordanian property?’
‘Correct. And whilst I’m not sure the Rockefeller family are overjoyed, in a way the Jordanian Government has played into our hands. If they attack us and enter the war, and if – and this is a big “if” – we drive the Jordanians out of Jerusalem, the museum and more importantly its contents will fall into Israeli hands.’
David realised very clearly what he was being asked to do.
‘You want me to capture the Dead Sea Scrolls.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
His Brigade Commander smiled. ‘Not single-handedly. From time to time your battalion commander and I will be taking an interest in your progress. Given your background and your knowledge of the Scrolls’ importance, it will fall to you to ensure these priceless antiquities are not lost to the scholarship of the world. To help you I have arranged for Private Joseph Silberman to join your platoon, but Silberman is a rather unusual recruit.’
‘Unusual?’
‘Up until a couple of weeks ago he was an inmate of Ramle, and other than teaching him how to shoot to protect himself, we haven’t had time to give him the normal military training.’
‘Ramle! What’s he done?’ David asked, intrigued as to why his platoon would need the services of someone confined to one of the harshest prisons in Israel. ‘Why is he coming to me?’
Brigadier General Kovner reached for a slim green file marked ‘Silberman’. ‘His service record, such as it is, and a short biography. He’s not dangerous and very intelligent. He is being assigned to you because he is a master safecracker, one of the best.’
‘You want him to crack the Rockefeller’s vault?’ David ventured quietly.
‘Precisely. The vaults in the Rockefeller are big and heavy and they would take a considerable amount of explosive to gain access. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, Mossad have not been able to get hold of the combination. I don’t need to tell you that the Dead Sea Scrolls are irreplaceable, and the world would be less than amused if they were damaged in the process of our blowing up the doors.’
‘A locksmith?’
Brigadier General Kovner shook his head. ‘There is no way of knowing how much time you will have. You might capture the museum, only to have the Jordanians put in a heavy counter-attack once they tumble to what we’re after. Silberman is used to working quickly under pressure. Besides, it’s in his interest to get the vault open.’
‘A pardon?’ David asked insightfully.
Kovner nodded. ‘A job working in Mossad for the good guys.’ Defining Mossad as the good guys was equal to assigning a degree of benevolence to the CIA, David thought, but he didn’t comment.
‘You never know, Silberman might be able to teach you a few things.’
‘I can’t imagine when I might next need to break into a safe, but I shall watch him with interest. Is the museum heavily guarded?’ David asked.
‘Heavily enough. Last night Jordanian infantry were deployed around the museum itself and there are more infantry and tanks deployed around the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.’ Kovner traced his finger around the remains of the temple the Romans had destroyed in 70 AD.
‘Think of it, David! We might just get it back. For the first time in two thousand years Jerusalem might again be our capital, and for the first time in nearly two decades Jews will be able to pray at Judaism’s holiest site.’
‘It’s been a long time,’ David agreed, aware of his superior’s strong Jewish faith.
‘Of course it all depends on whether Jordan attacks first, but between you and I, I hope they do!’
Menachem Kovner would not have long to wait.
In the Knesset in West Jerusalem, Israel’s Military Intelligence Chief, Brigadier General Yossi Kaufmann, was winding up his briefing to a divided War Cabinet. ‘Nasser will go to war to shore up his own position in the Arab League,’ Yossi concluded.
‘We have no choice, Prime Minister.’ It was the Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan. ‘If we wait for them to strike first we face the very real possibility of defeat. We are outnumbered by overwhelming Arab strength on the ground, in the air and on the water.’ Moshe paused and eyed each of his colleagues. ‘If we strike first, we will have the advantage of surprise, and that is a critical principle of war,’ he concluded, quoting the great war strategist Von Clausewitz.
The Cabinet fell silent. All eyes turned to the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Eshkol looked at the faces of his Cabinet ministers sitting around the table.
‘I am reminded of our ancient forefathers and Psalm 27,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘“Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.” We go,’ he said sadly, ‘and may God go with us.’
Once again the trumpets of the shofars, the ram’s horns, were sounded as they had been sounded so many times before. As they had done under Joshua and King David, the twelve tribes of Israel were once again going to war. This time, instead of the sound of swords being unsheathed, the chilling sounds of war would be those of 105mm Howitzer rounds being slammed into steel breeches.
Opposite the Gaza, in the Negev, and in the Sinai the big guns exploded with a roar of flame and smoke, jumping with the recoil. Before the shock absorbers could fully retract, young Israeli warriors, sweat already beading, sprang at the gun levers. Steel breeches clanged open and smoking brass casings bounced to the ground, to be replaced immediately with another deadly round. Like mini express trains, thousands of rounds roared into the night, each with an Arab life etched on the high explosive casing.