Feldhandler and Perchansky still hung from their seats moaning, but Yatom ignored them. The exit hatchway was now overhead. Yatom reached up, popped the hatch and planting a foot against another emergency handhold, grabbed onto the door frame and pulled himself out Yatom’s team followed, then Mofaz and his men. Yatom’s squad formed on one side of the capsule, Mofaz on the other. Shapira’s team climbed out last.
Inside the capsule Feldhandler came to his senses, and managed to swing down from his seat. Perchensky was barely conscious and mumbling. He carefully undid her harness and let her fall on him, knocking them both onto the roof of the capsule. They both moaned and lay there.
Outside the commandos crouched around the capsule, Tavors at the ready. Without their primary weapons, Roi and llan drew their pistols. Roi looked at Yatom. “Colonel, can I retrieve my weapon?”
“Go!” said Yatom. “Unload the capsule.”
Roi leaned back into the capsule, finding Perchensky and Feldhandler at the entrance. He pulled the pair out. Then the machine gunner, followed by Ilan, and Rafi dropped back into the capsule. The three men started handing out olive green sacks and cases with their extra equipment, including the mysterious extra crates stowed by Feldhandler. These were quite heavy.
Yatom ignored the unloading and looked around. It appeared to be early morning. The area near the capsule looked like a tornado’s aftermath. They were in a forested area, but at least a half-dozen large trees, and many smaller ones, had been uprooted or knocked over by the capsule. The wrecked trees provided excellent cover, and with a few hand signals from Shapira and Mofaz, the commandos swarmed over them, setting up weapons, and looking for targets. But there was nothing to shoot at except birds and fleas.
Yatom rested his Tavor on a large uprooted tree with a rough whitish trunk—a birch. “What the hell” he thought. He didn’t know why they were not back in Dimona, but if they were anywhere else, he expected it to be in Israel or Lebanon. He’d seen birches in Germany and the U.S. but not Israel or Lebanon. He pulled out his GPS. The unit came on but indicated no signal. Yatom looked over towards Mofaz who was also fiddling with his GPS, and then Shapira, who was doing the same.
Yatom trotted over to his deputy, and motioned Shapira to join them. “Does anybody have any idea what’s happened, or where we are?” he said quietly.
They shook their heads.
“Is everybodys’ GPS down?” asked Yatom. The two other officers nodded. All three men prided themselves on their ability to think and act quickly, but they were so obviously befuddled that Yatom just put on a disgusted expression. At least the men were doing their jobs, alertly guarding the landing area, but they were clearly awaiting some guidance.
Yatom, with nothing else to do or say at the moment looked up to see Feldhandler leaning against the capsule, his chest still wet and covered with little pieces of vomit. Perchensky stood nearby, looking a baffled as he felt. The professor attempted to wipe himself down a bit, then stood up and started to search around the area, until he recognized one of the extra crates he’d stowed. The commandos had set it aside but not bothered to open it. Feldhandler started fumbling with the clasp.
Some of the men looked over at the scientist and Yatom gave his first order since arrival. “Eyes front!” he hissed. They looked away and continued scanning for unseen targets. He took a few steps toward Feldhandler, who had finally gotten the long crate open.
“Need a hand professor?”
“I’m fine” said Feldhandler, pulling olive green canvas sacks from the crate.
“You don’t look fine” said Yatom evenly. Feldhandler ignored the comment and reached into one of the green bags. To Yatom’s astonishment the doctor pulled a large assault rifle, an Israeli Galil ARM. The Galil ARM was a heavy, expensive and unpopular assault rifle issued by the IDF in the 1970s and progressively run out of service over the years by the M-16 and it variants, and now the Tavor. Some gun enthusiasts called the Galil the best AK-47 ever made, as it had many of the more famous weapon’s assets and flaws. It was rugged and reliable, but heavy, and while more accurate than the AK it was less precise than the Tavor or the M-16. The ARM was a multipurpose version of the weapon, with a built in bipod, a heavy barrel, and the option to launch grenades from the muzzle. In the hands of a modestly trained soldier and set on full automatic it could do some real damage.
Feldhandler set the rifle aside and continued to pull equipment out the crate. This included a unified ceramic flak vest like the rest of the sarayet wore, but with a couple of large pouches on the front designed to hold big 50 round magazines for the Galil, in addition to the usual 30 round pouches.
Feldhandler busily stuffed these and auxillary pockets with magazines, grenades and other gear pulled from yet another bag. The back of the vest had four cylindrical pockets into which he stuffed canisters containing muzzle loaded rockets for the rifle. Finally, Feldhandler hoisted the heavily laden vest and put it on, finishing his dress with a standard IDF hehnet and radio headset. It occurred to Yatom that with his Galil and bulky gear, and slight pot belly, Feldhandler looked like an out of shape reservist about to fight the 1982 Lebanon War. Not pretty, but then again, those guys had done pretty well.
Finished equipping himself, Feldhandler walked back to the capsule and glanced at Perchensky before stooping to examine another nearby crate. Perchensky hadn’t puked on herself, hut otherwise looked disheveled and shaky. Perchensky examined herself in her olive fatigues as if she’d never seen the outfit before. Then she instinctively felt along her legs and backside for wounds or blood. Finding none, she resumed her perplexed look, saying nothing.
Feldhandler pulled duffle from the second crate, and removed from that a black flak vest, like the kind police officers use. Strapped to it was an older style IDF harness loaded with 9mm magazines for an Uzi machine-pistol, plus canteens, a radio, and a first aid packet. He stood and handed this he handed to Perchansky without a word. She took the rig but didn’t put it on. Then Feldhandler pulled an Uzi submachine gun from the crate and offered it to Perchansky as well. She balked at this, and stepped away from the scientist.
“You know how to use one of these, don’t you?” he asked her.
“Of course I do” she said suspiciously.
“Well then take it” Feldhandler insisted. “You will probably need it.” Yatom stepped toward the two civilians and noticed that inside the crate were several more Uzis lined up in a neat row and next to them bandoliers stuffed with extra magazines for the weapons. Ignoring Yatom, Feldhandler pulled out an extra bandolier and offered this to Perchansky too.
This finally roused Mofaz, who like Yatom had been staring at the scene as if it were a kabuki performance.
“Why will she need it Doctor?” asked Mofaz sharply.
Not waiting for Feldhandler to answer Yatom broke in. “Where the hell are we? Do you know what happened?”
“Wait” said Feldhandler. “Open the other crate. There are spare batteries, ammunition and food. That’s for you.”
“What is going on?” pressed Yatom.
“Come with me” said Feldhandler as he began to walk beyond the makeshift perimeter. He motioned for Yatom, Mofaz, Shapiro and Perchansky to follow.
The commando officers hesitated but went along, automatically sighting through their Tavors and moving in a crouch as took a few steps into the surrounding woods.