The Nylon Hand of God

by Steven Hartov

  “She will live with the memory of a dead hero, but not with the shame of a living coward.”

  He was worthless, except for his reduced weight in exchangeable flesh.

  And now, if only there were a way to be sure that Mahdi would take place unopposed, Asawi would somehow postpone the prisoner exchange, for he was convinced that he was sailing to his own death. As a removed tactician, his plot for a double deception had seemed brilliant, although now he was sure he had indulged in unnecessary machinations. Yes, the insertion of Martina Klump into the picture had been brilliant, the Americans and Israelis chasing after her like hornets from a trampled nest. And of course he could not be certain, until it was all over, if their misguided focus had indeed kept Mahdi safe. Yet he cringed at his own stupidity, for there was no way to recall the woman, to order her to stand down. She was out there somewhere, still determined to destroy this symbolic bridge of peace between old foes. And he, an intelligence guru whose focus was the acquisition of a nuclear warhead, had neglected to install a fail-safe mechanism to save his own life!

  He almost laughed at the irony of his predicament, then immediately felt his knees buckle as he remembered the morning’s grim revelation. As they set sail from Praia, Tafilli had escorted him on a tour of the Wologisi, as if the disgusting vessel were the flagship of a Greek cruise line. Aside from the Portuguese crew, who were highly paid to ignore their armed passengers, thirty battle-hardened Hizbollah roamed the decks and passageways. They swaggered about with assault rifles and miniature Korans, bathed in the blessing of a fatwa issued by Fadlallah himself, enjoying the temporary delusion that the Party of God now had a navy.

  In the engine room, Asawi had first noticed the stack of green ammunition crates, which did not seem particularly unusual for this party, except for the strange snake of white cable that wandered off from them to another part of the ship. In a narrow passageway just outside the locked brig in which Sarel was trussed, he had seen another pile of such crates, and again the white cable. And finally, in the wheelhouse, he had been introduced to Tafilli’s second in command, who perched upon a third pyramid. Between the man’s legs the cable came to an end, crimped into a trigger housing secured only by a brass safety ring.

  Asawi’s breath quickened as he recognized the “electrical cable” as primacord, but he asked about the crates’ contents anyway.

  “Oh!” Tafilli smiled at the Iranian’s sickened expression. “Many, many kilograms of TNT. Should the Jews fail to deliver Sheik Sa’id, or attempt to board us beforehand, or afterward, we will of course martyr ourselves and as many of them as possible. Allah would so will it. Don’t you agree?”

  But Asawi did not respond, for his inner ear chose that moment to react to the motion of the boat, and he fled to his quarters.

  He had lain there gasping on the bunk, stunned by the fact that this woman Klump did not need a sophisticated missile to destroy the exchange. A properly placed rifle bullet would do the trick or, God forbid, the carelessly discarded cigarette from one of these fools! He hoped that if Klump survived to set her sights on the exchange, she would be able to tell the difference between an Israeli missile boat and a tuna trawler. But he was quite unsure that she would care; she might indeed make her selection with the toss of a coin.

  The engine noise changed as the Wologisi set a new course and drove with the wind toward Gibraltar. Asawi gripped the railing harder as he looked up at the roiling sky, a gathering rain adding insult to injury. He had served the revolution with dedication, but his sacrifice was not limitless, like the blind passion for Paradise of these violent primitives. Yes, he had traveled the world in style, tasted foreign wines and infidel women, but that was all essential to his success. He prayed when he could, but of course he did not self-flagellate on Ashura, for when in Rome one did not face the senators with a bloody forehead. He treated his wife with the respect due a Moslem woman, spoiled his six children when he saw them, made sure to lavish gifts upon both his mistresses. He was almost of a royal caste. He owned a horse farm and rode English style. And now his greatest passion, that for secrets shared by few or none at all, could wipe it all away in a horrible flash.

  For no one but Omar the Palestinian was aware of Asawi’s double deception. He had not even informed Larijani of this brilliant end run, letting him believe that the exchange alone would be enough to mask Mahdi. He had planned to reveal it only if Klump managed to destroy the exchange, which would have set the Revolutionary Council to dancing in the president’s reception hall. And they might yet dance after all, while his carcass was nibbled by the fishes.

  He found himself praying that the Israelis and Americans would succeed where he had failed to anticipate. . . .

  Near the stern of the vessel, where the galley hatch opened onto a deck covered by coiled hawsers, Omar Bin Al-Wafa sat near the port rail in a metal folding chair. His diminutive elderly form was swathed in a blue woolen blanket, and rivulets of rain ran from his beret, over his spectacles, and into his mustache, but all in all he appeared to be enjoying the ride. The heels of his shoes were locked against a cross-spar, and as the ship rolled he occasionally thrust out his arms for balance, smiling as he remembered accompanying his grandchildren on a roller coaster.

  Omar had also not volunteered for this trip. Ali-Hamza Asawi, raging in near incoherence from somewhere in Tehran, had ordered Omar to accompany him. Apparently, the doctor was projecting his own frustration, blaming Omar for an impossible predicament, though the old man had merely followed his orders to the letter. It was Omar who had voiced reservations regarding the command and control of Martina Klump, while Asawi had waved his concerns away. Perhaps the Iranian was finally understanding that manipulations bred their own monsters, and deception had a price tag.

  Yet Omar had his own secret, a private one that could easily have been read in his expression, had any other fool been on deck to witness it. He was happy, perhaps more so than he had been in years. For once again he was a young foot soldier on the front lines, though he faced the risks with the relaxed enjoyment that accompanies the old age of courageous men.

  The fact that Iran would finally join the nuclear club did not please him, but it was an inevitable event with or without his participation. What did please him was the fruition of this exchange, for regardless of its motivation, he believed that every such act would create converts to the possibilities of peace. Yes, he served his masters in their fundamentalist zeal because he had no choice, but his deepest secret hope was that inevitably his Palestinian brothers would find their way home, and he knew that that would not really be accomplished by obliterating the Jews. Peace, although still far away, was twinkling on the horizon. And each time enemies took each other’s hands across a table, for whatever reason, it became much harder to snuff it out.

  Unlike Ali-Hamza Asawi, Omar was not convinced that Martina Klump would succeed here. He had watched her eyes, and they were not the windows to a fanatical soul but the confused and blurred lenses of a lost child. She would err, because her will was impure, and no doubt her opponents would take advantage of her weaknesses, poor girl.

  Omar bent forward in his chair, grasped the rail, and peered forward along the deck. He wiped his spectacles with the soaked end of his scarf and clucked his tongue at the distant figure of Asawi hunched over the rail. He pitied the young man, for there was no strength in a hollow heart. Omar was a modest man of God and could accept any fate that might befall him. Asawi was a shell of political platitudes that quickly fled, leaving nothing with which to face Allah’s judgment. The Iranian adored only power, and here in the stormy cauldron of a might much greater than man’s, his love appeared to have failed him.

  The Wologisi had an ancient ship’s bell that hung from an iron arm somewhere above the galley. The Portuguese cook rang it to signal meals, and it bonged heavily now, its steady voice a comfort above the sea roar and the thrum of the engines.

  Omar snapped open his pocket watch. Yes, it was lunchtime, and he was
hungry. As he struggled up from his chair and turned toward the galley, he stopped and slowly shook his head in empathy.

  Asawi’s back was bucking uncontrollably as he vomited into the sea.

  Chapter 23: Amanouz

  A slim pink strip of the failing sun lingered like a smile in the wake of a pretty woman, then slowly faded behind the distant crest of Sidi Moktar, and as with all deserts everywhere, the night came on quickly and the earth surrendered its warmth. From the darkened plain of Amanouz the lights of Marrakesh were a soft yellow halo on an umber blanket, yet they were enough to silhouette the black bird that rumbled onward through the sky, and as Benni Baum’s men bent beside the dusty road to ignite their oil beacons, they stared in wonder at its familiar form.

  In an age when none of humankind’s mechanical fabrications was built to last, by rights no Douglas C-47 should have been airworthy. Yet the awkward transport planes called Skytrains by the Americans, Dakotas by the British and Israelis, and Gooney Birds by one and all still flew, hauling medical supplies across African mountain ranges just as they once had over the Chinese Hump, dropping skydivers over Florida just as they had delivered paratroops over Sicily, Normandy, and the Mitla Pass.

  It was a craft that had not been manufactured for over forty years, and whenever it settled onto a tarmac, it brought with it the shapes and sounds of another time, long gone, a time when the corners of flying machines, the wingtips and canopies and engine nacelles, were smooth and fat and round. In the year of this Dakota’s birth, it would still have been acceptable to refer to an airplane as a female, and she would have been a Rubens model, full bodied and lazy looking, with big twin props that angled up when her rump settled, and fat, bouncy cartoon tires that squealed as the rubber sprayed up waves of sandy pebbles.

  Baum’s men had come to expect that Shaul Nimrodi would deliver the goods. They had anticipated a Twin Otter, hoped for an Israeli Arava. But this was not merely an airplane. It was a time machine, an amulet of airborne success.

  The Dakota pilots were grateful for the landing zone markings of the primitive illumination cans and set down just before the first guznik. And as the camouflage-mottled hulk roared past the flickering flames, Jerry Binder placed a boot over his soup can, smiled widely, and said, “Nimrodi, you wonderful sonuvabitch.”

  The Dakota’s tail wheel dragged up a stream of dust and its brakes reined it in fifty meters past the last beacon, and as it sat there with its big Pratt & Whitneys rumbling, the men snatched up the cans with gloved hands and sprinted for it.

  They had slung their parachute bags like knapsacks and then the camel rucks above, so that the blackened hides bounced against their necks as they thundered down the shoulders of the road, converging toward the cargo door on the port side near the tail. Sadeen and Schneller hustled with the carpet-swaddled moped between them, looking like contestants in an absurd game show relay race.

  As the men neared the airplane, Shaul Nimrodi’s face poked from the door. He had dropped a small hook ladder from the opening, but it did not nearly reach the ground, and O’Donovan, who was first to arrive began to shuck his gear.

  “No!” Baba shouted as he stretched out his hands through the dark hatch. “Come! Up!” The small colonel set his feet astride the doorframe. O’Donovan, who was squinting in the dust of the prop wash, got a boot tip onto the bottom rung and was stunned to find himself yanked up and into the fuselage. Everyone and everything was inside the ship within ninety seconds, with the exception of Baum, who stood below the ladder and wriggled out of his gear, hurling it up to Nimrodi like a shot put. Horse stood beside him on the road, his hands jammed into the pockets of Binder’s huge white alpine jacket, which had been temporarily entrusted to his care.

  Baum made a fluttering hand motion to Nimrodi as the engines revved higher. Nimrodi ducked back inside, quickly counted heads, and popped out like a jack-in-the-box. “Yallah! Let’s go!” he yelled.

  Benni leaned close to Horse’s ear. “Okay,” he shouted. “Get in.”

  Horse snapped his head back, his eyes bulging. He had fully expected to stay behind, sweep the hotel rooms again, drive the Mitsubishi back to Casablanca, and then find his way home. Maybe by ship.

  “What about the truck?” he yelled back feebly.

  Benni put a hand around the little man’s neck and pulled him close. “You think I’m going to leave you here to a friendly interrogation?”

  “But Benni.”

  “Get in! That’s an order! You’ve been suspended, not discharged.”

  A flicker of headlights appeared on the road from the direction of Had Abdullah Rhiate.

  “Nu?!” Nimrodi shouted as Baum slammed Horse on the back and knocked him against the ladder. The analyst scrambled aboard, and then Eckstein’s hands appeared, thumb-locking with Benni’s as he pulled him in. Nimrodi reached out for the ladder, hauled it up, and slammed the hatch.

  The men had expected a respite while the Dakota turned and taxied back to set itself up for takeoff. They were slumped on the green steel benches, slowly doffing their gear and catching their breaths. But the pilots were already facing into the wind, and even though the track to Amanouz made a forbidding left turn only a thousand meters ahead, they stood on their brakes and committed their throttles.

  The men had no chance to properly position themselves or use the crash belts dangling from the troop benches. As the Dakota gathered speed and its tires bucked over ruts, they reached out for something metallic, and hung on. The thunder of the engines and the battering of the undercarriage set up a din like a motorcycle trapped in a barn, and the forward momentum tumbled O’Donovan sideways onto Binder’s lap.

  “You know what I hate about this life, Jerry?” he yelled up to his partner as the big man gripped him by his jacket front.

  “Tell me.” Binder grinned.

  “No adventure.”

  Then the tail of the airplane lifted from the road, leveling the fuselage. And seconds later, she roared into the night sky with the cliché sound of a cinematic airplane, the run-up thunder easing to a fading drone as if the classic craft were actually flying away from the men, rather than with them in her belly.

  “I’m gone,” she purred. “I’m gone. . . .”

  Nimrodi pushed himself away from the aft bulkhead, where he had been held against the lavatory door by the takeoff G’s. The airplane was climbing steadily now, for the lower slopes of the Atlases rose quickly after Amanouz, and he struggled forward inside an oversized green parka like a man wading through a rushing river. The Dakota bucked against the updraft from the ridges below, and he reached out for a cross-spar to steady himself. As in most military cargo planes, the interior offered hundreds of handholds, for it was built as a skeleton of vertical ribs and horizontal spars covered by a metal skin. Bundled winch ropes hung down from pulleys, and the short ends of cargo straps swung from pins like the grips on an old subway train.

  This Dakota had first served the British Royal Air Force in operations over Arnhem, then the Israel Air Force, and it was now leased back to Akorda, the company that ferried for various African nations while serving the interests of AMAN. On the outside it displayed no insignia but an international call sign, and all the interior Hebrew instructions had been painted over. Yet the original warnings in English remained, stamped in white between the ribs: EMERGENCY, DON’T STEP, and NO REST, as if a picayune graffiti artist had been at it with a stencil set.

  Nimrodi placed a hand on the shoulder of Didi Lerner, who was seated in the closest port position to the cargo door. He bent to a narrow window, peering through the scratched Perspex.

  To the north, the flat plains of the Bahira lay like a massive brown carpet dotted with the star clusters of Tamelelt, Dar Ould Zidouh, and even the distant El-Borouj. But the lights of the towns were beginning to blur as Atlas mist swept past the Dakota’s thick wings, and below, the black copses of trees began to show feathers of snow. Nimrodi pushed away from Didi and stepped carefully along the floor.

>   Along the left-hand bench, Lapkin, Nabbe, Eckstein, and Baum had spaced themselves out at comfortable intervals. On the right, Horse, Sadeen, Schneller, Binder, and O’Donovan had done the same. The men had quickly recovered from the takeoff melee, and although they knew that their flying time would approach three hours, they sought refuge from the tension by fussing over equipment. The parachute bags were arranged, the large camel rucks set between their feet and opened for reinspection. Sadeen and Schneller sat with their boots on the Motobecane, considering whether to lash it to the deck.

  Nimrodi pulled himself past the empty radio-operator and navigator stations and on into the cockpit. The two men who sat in the left and right seats were past middle age, but they handled the oversized wheel yokes with the relaxed confidence of youthful fighter jocks. The pilot had been born in South Africa, the copilot in Zimbabwe, yet each had served a full career in the Israel Air Force and then found himself unable to stay earthbound. No longer restricted by military convention, they wore white roll-neck sweaters, heavy leather flying jackets, and peaked caps, from which their gray hair bristled.

  The copilot turned his head as Nimrodi braced himself in the doorway. In Mauritania they communicated only in English, and he did so now out of habit.

  “We just radioed Menara. Claimed a miraculous recovery and thanked them for their understanding.”

  “Good,” said Nimrodi. “Now they will leave us alone for the rest of the night.”

  The pilot pulled his headphones down around his neck and grinned. “Who did you get to now, Baba?”

  “The base commander.” Nimrodi bent to look through the narrow cockpit windshields at a pair of jagged white peaks that seemed anxious to serve as the Dakota’s grave. “He thinks it is his national duty.”