Hatchet

by Israel Levy

  She checked her map. The marked spot was at a distance of about five kilometers from the camps and she set out running.

  Their first few days focused on GPS navigation, choosing the best location for a hidden observation spot, and learning to disguise themselves in the field. She found the camouflage lessons fascinating, getting familiarized with the various pieces of equipment used to disguise a lookout point and learning how to cover her tracks.

  “We won’t be going out on field practice today. Tomorrow we’re starting our summation drill. You’ll split into pairs and each pair will be given a target within a twenty kilometer range from camp. You’ll decide on your arrival route individually and establish an observation point with a secure internet connection. A force of two teams will roam the field in an attempt to find you and disrupt your communications. You should evacuate after twenty four hours, avoiding the search team. Take your equipment now, including a laptop, satellite radio, telescopic binoculars with on-line connection and all the rest. You leave at dawn. Good luck. From this moment you’re on your own,” Yaron concluded, before getting into the Hummer and taking off in a thick cloud of dust.

  Ziv and Naomi retreated to the side as did the other pairs, got their gear from the equipment tent and sat down to study their coordinates.

  Ziv, an experienced Matkal operator, memorized the navigation route, while Naomi studied the verification points along the route.

  The afternoon brought a slight breeze that helped to cope with the desert heat. Some of the soldiers retired to bed early for a decent pre-drill sleep.

  “Ziv, how are you feeling? Are you really very tired?” Naomi asked him.

  “Not especially. Why? What are you thinking?”

  “Look, I think the ‘enemy’ teams will spread out early in the morning and try to hunt us down on our way there. I’d just leave now and get to our position early. They’ll search for us on the estimated arrival route and by the time they realize we’re nowhere near, we’ll be done setting up the post.”

  Ziv was taken back by her suggestion.

  “You know what, you’re sneaky, but you’re right. But it means we’ll have to exit camp as soon as possible. If I know Yaron, he’ll have us watched. Let’s wait till twilight and make a detour.”

  They started getting ready to leave under the cover of the descending darkness while everyone else retired to bed. They loaded their large backpacks full of equipment onto their backs and began to move swiftly.

  Every now and then they would kneel to a crouching position and check their verification points, trying to listen as intently as they could to the sounds of the night.

  Their eyes were by now used to the dark and walking was replaced by a light jog. After an hour or so Naomi stopped and motioned to Ziv to freeze in place and listen. They heard the sounds of slipping stones and hid next to a rock in the shadow of the nearby hill. Two minutes later several soldiers passed them by in a quick march (“Those sneaky bastards from the hunting squad left early too”). Once they disappeared behind a bend in the valley, Naomi and Ziv gestured to each other and kept moving, listening as closely as they could to any sound that might disturb the night’s peace.

  After four more hours of quick hiking, both of them panting, Ziv stopped, motioned at Naomi to put down her gear and together they crawled up the hill by their side. Behind it, at about a hundred meters or so, were two tents, two trucks and two Hummers, one of them Yaron’s. Ziv made a gesture with his hands to mark the position of the lookout post but Naomi shook her head no and motioned for him to follow her back down the hill.

  “Ziv, if you set up post there we’ll be right in their search radius. They’re clearly not expecting anyone at this hour. I say we sneak even closer, as close as twenty meters from the tents. If I remember the map correctly there’s a cistern there. Let’s check it out.”

  Once again Ziv was surprised and impressed by Naomi’s unconventional thinking. He agreed and they scaled the hill with their night vision goggles.

  A rock and some well-watered desert shrubbery marked the cistern. They made their way across the seventy meters to the spot crawling on their bellies, arriving at the rock, and without using shovels, uncovered the cistern. Naomi threw down a rock. There was no splash which meant that the pit was empty. She descended carefully so as not to fall to the bottom in the thick darkness. She tried not to think of the snakes and scorpions that might lie inside, hiding. A ledge in the pit seemed like a good place to set up their observation spot and Naomi and Ziv went to work. They set up the binoculars and digital camera, opened their laptop and hooked up to the satellite. It took them about three hours in total.

  They were no more than twenty meters away from the tents. Ziv barely had time to cover their tracks and get back into the pit when people started moving about the camp. It was early morning, the break of dawn, and they saw three pairs of soldiers head out to lookout points on the surrounding hills, on guard for Naomi and Ziv’s arrival.

  But they were already set up and broadcasting satellite images back to base.

  They roasted under the camouflage net in the heat of day. A snake, angry at the intruders that invaded his hiding place, slid away from the pit in a hurry. Prickly ants swarming around a dead desert mouse (“The snake’s breakfast no doubt”) were even more annoying.

  By afternoon the heat became slightly more bearable, but they were both sweating profusely, worried that the cloud of mosquitoes hovering above them might give away their location.

  They noticed the search teams becoming more and more agitated, leaving their lookout spots and searching the foot of the hill. Evening descended and darkness covered the desert plain, the chill of the desert night quickly following. They kept transmitting images via satellite and filling in their computerized observation log when all of a sudden a soldier emerged from one of the tents and walked in their direction. Naomi turned off the computer and she and Ziv both fell completely silent, trying to hold their breath.

  “Careful you don’t fall into a well,” someone cried after the soldier. He lit a flashlight that shone through the night’s darkness and walked straight up to the well opening. Naomi and Ziv flattened themselves against the walls as best they could. The soldier unzipped his pants and peed directly into the well. Naomi quickly moved the laptop aside to prevent it from getting wet and got a stream of urine directly in her face. She didn’t make a peep. The soldier finished his business, zipped up and returned to camp.

  Ziv had a rag round his neck and he took it off and threw it to Naomi. She wiped her face in disgust, trying not to vomit. Then she switched the computer back on and they continued their satellite transmission of the images taken using their starlight enhancement device.

  Twenty hours passed. Naomi and Ziv agreed in whispers to stay on beyond the twenty four hours instruction. At morning the soldiers began to pack up camp and by six a.m. were gone without a trace.

  Slowly, Ziv and Naomi emerged from the pit, stinking to high heaven. They brought out their gear and started a quick march, moving swiftly thanks to the light of day. The search parties had already left the area.

  “There’s no question about it, you smell unbelievably bad, but you’ve demonstrated some extremely out of the box thinking. We’ were pretty amazed by the quality of data you managed to gather,” said Yaron at the debriefing, which the deputy Matkal unit commander also attended.

  “I hope,” he said, turning to the young soldiers, “that you learn from these old timers. They managed to outsmart enemy forces that knew they were out there, transmit excellent communications, kept changing frequencies so that transmissions couldn’t be interrupted, kept their cool and made decisions in the field that varied from the initial orders they had received, while assuming personal responsibility. Very well done.”

  Naomi couldn’t hide her pleasure.

  They spent the next few days in an air-conditioned classroom,
a refreshing change after being in that well. They practiced operating the satellite computer, locating and tracking objects using a laser marker, and Naomi honed the skill of listening, translating and typing simultaneously.

  The month was over.

  “Everyone in the briefing room.”

  After several minutes all Hatchet members had arrived. Aaron, Gila, Yaniv and Keren sat down next to Naomi and Ziv, patting each other on the backs, happy to see their friends who had trained apart from them.

  Then Gilad, Adam, Peter and Udi, the navy Seals men, entered with another series of pats on backs. Naomi and Ziv introduced them to the rest of the team and several long minutes passed with each one of them trying to share with the others their experiences during the past month. Naomi learned that Aaron and Gila trained with the IDF computer unit, studying code cracking techniques, log-in procedures to Swiss banks and hacking into the banks’ computers.

  “Naomi, I’m telling you, we can become millionaires now without anyone noticing,” Gila laughed.

  Yaniv and Keren spent their month working on means of arrival and retreat and had already visited the Arab country, preparing the groundwork for the Hatchet action.

  “I’m sorry guys, but we’ve been told not to say anymore until after our briefing today.”

  Naomi and Ziv spoke of their month’s experiences and everyone cracked up when Naomi told them about the peeing incident.

  “It’s a good thing all he had to do was pee…” said Gilad, sparking another round of roaring laughter.

  Chapter 10

  The room was silent as the IDF Chief of Staff entered, followed by the Matkal unit deputy commander, the navy Seals commander and a man in civilian dress. Naomi recognized Abraham, of course, but said nothing. Everyone rose to their feet.

  “Have a seat.” the Chief of Staff began.

  “We are gathering the final intelligence needed before embarking on a combined action of IDF forces and the Mossad. You all know each other here but only a few of you know Abraham. He is from the Mossad and will take over the briefing from here.”

  Abraham rose, smiling briefly at the Hatchet men and women.

  “Turn on the projector please.”

  The lights were dimmed and an image of a bombed out bus appeared on the screen.

  “Since the year 2000, hundreds of Israeli citizens have been killed and injured in terrorist attacks, some executed by suicide bombers who blew themselves up on buses, in hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, and other civilian locations, with the single purpose of killing as many people as possible.”

  Naomi’s heart cringed, knowing Abraham’s wife had been killed in such an attack.

  More images of suicide bombings flashed on screen. The room was completely silent. The images were harsh, uncensored, things they would never see on television - mangled bodies, injured and dead people, gurneys, ambulances, funerals.

  “The organizations that propagate these acts of terror against Israel and its people are sustained by funds from various sources, including oil tycoons, hostile governments and drug trafficking.

  “For years we have tried to isolate the hub of control that wields the power over these organizations’ activities and our efforts have led us to one terrorist cell - one closed, separate, highly compartmentalized and isolated group which is in fact the core cell that coordinates all the terror activities and is the oxygen allowing Palestinian terrorism to thrive. We knew these organizations communicated and coordinated operations between themselves but here we have discovered the actual overall command, in terms of strategy, funding, operational means, and politics. This indicates an organized structure and unification of forces that could turn the Palestinian terror into a real strategic threat for the State of Israel. We simply cannot let this happen.

  Despite significant intelligence efforts, we failed to insert an undercover agent into the cell. Three of our people were identified while trying to infiltrate the cell and killed in various stages of operations.

  A diagram on screen showed the various organizations and the financial connections between the cell and the benefactors.

  “However,” Abraham paused for a moment, giving every one of them a searching look, “despite all the setbacks, we have succeeded, after a several years of hard and risky operations, in inserting an operative who goes by the name ‘Gadiel’, the name of one of the twelve spies Moses sent to the land of Israel.”

  Everyone present exchanged looks, understanding they were being introduced to one of Israel’s best kept secrets.

  “With a meticulous cover story, Gadiel was placed in prison a few years ago, following a highly publicized trial. He was sent to a facility where terrorists with blood on their hands are serving their sentences. After a long period of testing by the terrorist leaders to ensure that he was ‘kosher’, situations which often forced him to face extremely difficult ethical questions, he succeeded in establishing contact with commanding elements within the organizations. Again, long months passed while he identified a particular target and developed a personal relationship, establishing trust. This terrorist was part of an extremely militant family who eventually led us to the cell. The information was then cross-referenced with material we received from a different actor. Gadiel proved his credibility and loyalty and with the help of his terrorist friend was brought into the central control organization. It took another year before he was able to sit with the cell commanders and take part in the planning of several attacks, some of which were successful, others not. He was released from prison eight months ago in a deal we concocted and joined the cell of the militant family. They now refer to him as their cousin.”

  This ranked with those legendary stories of the Mossad with which everyone present was familiar (“My god, his time inside terrorist organizations amounts to years!!”).

  “Working undercover all these years, Gadiel had almost no contact with our people so as to prevent any chance of exposure. He is with security guards from the organization twenty four hours a day. However, we found a way to establish communication and after receiving his intelligence reports, one of our European teams traced the cell and exposed their plan to execute an attack on El Al passengers in Rome.”

  On screen they now saw images from the Rome airport and footage of the El Al counter.

  “Three owners of major banks, Italian and Swiss, were on that flight headed to a conference in Israel. The violent takeover was meant to take the lives of several passengers but its main intent was to negotiate with the banks to release large sums of money which would have been transferred to the cell (“Interesting… they never even shared that detail with us. This compartmentalization can be mind boggling sometimes”). Some of the funds would have been used for one of the biggest attacks ever orchestrated, carried out for the first time by strategic cooperation between all these organizations.

  “Using a joint team of Mossad and El Al security, we managed to stop the attack and take out several of the terrorists.”

  Photos of the dead cell members appeared on screen, lying on the ground near the boarding gate. In the background were the faces of hysterical passengers, some flat on the floor, others running around frantically, and Carabinieri officers with their weapons drawn. Naomi spotted several of the people who had worn yellow hats.

  “But, the main success was the capture of the terrorist known as Aisha. She is the daughter of the militant family I spoke about earlier. Aisha was led through a long and extensive cycle of interrogation. At first, she did not crack. But then we presented her with photos of her family - her brother who had recently committed suicide, her other bother who is here in Israel, and the cousin, one of the cell leaders, whom she had no idea we knew about. Finally, when we played a recording of a conversation between her and her mother, she caved. She has turned into a fountain of information and has supplied us with the details to complete the puzzle. Here is the organizatio
nal structure.”

  Abraham continued, pointing to the screen. “The organization is under joint control of Syrian, Libyan and Iraqi intelligence, with cooperation of the Palestinian organizations. These form an executive board that convenes according to necessity or once every three months. This ‘board’ appointed a single commander with vast autonomous liberties and authorities as head of the organization.”

  A photo of Faris now appeared on screen.

  “This is Faris. He was the head of the organization and Aisha’s fiancée (“I didn’t know that either, dammit”). He was killed by our people in Rome and instantaneously replaced by one of his deputies, a man who had been his friend and confidant.”

  A silhouette appeared on screen.

  “We have his photo, but at this point we do not wish to reveal it. We have our reasons. What we can reveal is that he is Aisha’s cousin. Part of the deal with Aisha is that we keep him alive. For the past year he’s been moving back and forth between the Libyan base and living in Israel. He speaks Hebrew fluently and looks just like one of you.

  “Under him are three deputies. The first, an expert in field intelligence.”

  They were shown a photo of a man in his thirties.

  “The second, in charge of recruiting suicide bombers.”

  They saw the image of a bearded Imam.

  “And the third, in charge of finances.”

  On screen was the face of the man Naomi had met at the Belgium palace. Her stomach turned at the mere sight of him. Abraham continued describing the cell as the photos of its members appeared on screen, with Faris’s face and those of others already deceased marked with red crosses.

  “The sixth member is Aisha, whose face we will not show at this time,” a black silhouette appeared in lieu of Aisha’s image.

  “Any questions so far? I will now move on to describe the camp they’re working from.”