The Critical Offer

by Yitzhak Nir

  Luckily they had fallen in open areas. That’s strange. Did their launchers purposely cancel the guidance and fuse systems? My pressure to prevent an attack at Al-Dumayr, even in face of the prime minister’s and chief of staff’s objections, might have had its effect… at least most of the civilians survived. Maybe a new possibility to negotiate has opened up? In the long run, we will be forced to co-exist with the Syrians for many years to come…

  Whatever the outcome, his head felt as though it was going to explode.

  * * *

  At nine in the evening he called to Dahlia, “We’re leaving the office!” and ordered her to turn out the lights in all the rooms whose occupants had already gone home. But only when he himself had arrived home, showered, eaten leftovers from the fridge and lay down on the green couch, did he return to himself. His headache had slightly abated and his thoughts returned to Li-Lan.

  He hadn’t heard from her since she had left for Beijing with her father. He missed her more and more, although he had not yet solved the riddle of her and her father’s true identity. “But still, and after all, he’s a man after my own heart,” he said aloud. “And her I love,” he added in clipped military fashion. Afterwards he verbally requested of the multi-media system to play Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and closed his eyes. From the first movement he was swept away by Yitzhak Perlman’s angelic tones and slowly sank into slumber.

  At one-seventeen in the morning the phone rang on the secured line:

  “Hello. Who’s this?” he fired off in a somewhat annoyed voice, not exactly sure where he was.

  “Chief, it’s Dahlia.”

  “Yes?!”

  “Sima, the prime minister’s bureau chief, just phoned me.”

  “At this hour? What happened? Did someone do something stupid?” he asked, not yet collecting himself.

  “Gershon, listen! Nothing’s happened and nobody’s done anything. Wake up, wash your face and listen to me, The prime minister demands that you appear before her tomorrow before the special government meeting, no later than six-thirty a.m. Did you get it?”

  “Yes. Did she tell you why?”

  “No, but she, Sima, sounded pressured, aggressive and impatient. I told Shauli to prepare your cars. In order to leave a security margin, you should leave by five-thirty.”

  “What?” his voice sounded hoarse and labored.

  “What’s happened, Chief? You sound ill.”

  “Nothing, Dahlia. I had a terrible headache all day yesterday because of the Hamsin. Now, when it’s finally faded and I can get some sleep, you phone me.”

  “I understand. I apologize, but there was no choice. The country must be run and it’s your job to protect it from people with evil intentions.”

  “You know everything, Dahlia. What would I do without you?” He had already come to his senses and was wide awake.

  “You’ve managed quite well until now. Right, so good luck tomorrow. I’m crossing my fingers. They need someone like you there, as Adam says. Good night, Chief!”

  “Good night. Thanks for everything you’re doing. Someday you’ll be lighting a torch in recognition for your good work at our central Independence Day celebration at the Wailing Wall...”

  “Enough of that, kid! Go back to sleep. You don’t have much time left...” and with that she hung up.

  “Good coffee, a teaspoon of whisky and some Melatonin pills will arrange the rest of night for me,” he said out loud. Despite his tiredness, he got up and swallowed two 20-mg. Melatonin capsules. Afterwards he took a half-empty bottle of Chivas Regal, a gift from Adam, from the fridge and contentedly prepared himself a cup of black coffee. After having poured some of the whisky into it, he positioned himself on the green couch and gulped down the mixture slowly and intently. The bitterness of the brown, searing drink mixed with the bittersweet flavor of the yellow alcoholic beverage slid on his tongue and glided down his throat.

  A pleasant heat spread pleasantly through his body, dulling his senses. He woke up twice due to sensing that the cup was about to fall from his fingers. Afterwards the headache became bearable, and he started losing touch with the familiar domestic reality surrounding him.

  When the empty cup finally fell down near the carpet, he started fastening the parachute’s straps to the gray torso harness, over the gray-green heavily zippered pilot’s overall.

  “I’ve got to take off in another seven minutes! Adam is already heading for the runway… but where’s the moon? And I can’t hear anything on my communication system!” he attempted to scream in a hoarse voice into the oxygen mask affixed to his face. But the cockpit was dark and unfamiliar and he couldn’t see the instruments. The engine starter is to the left… but it’s impossible to see a thing! Why don’t I have any electricity?!”

  Again he tried to locate the switches, but didn’t find anything among the mass of switches, clocks and levers. The old fear rose up from his stomach. He opened the canopy and with his hand wrapped in a fireproof glove struck the aluminum ledge, trying in angry panic to call the ground crew. Nobody approached the plane and he almost started descending the ladder back to the concrete floor - when he discovered to his astonishment, “I don’t have a ladder!”

  “Guys,” he tried to shout, but the jet fighter’s concrete plaza was empty and he couldn’t hear his own voice.

  Suddenly a grayish, double-tailed F35 plane rolled into the concrete plaza, its jet engines growling and its full landing lights and wing-tip’s navigating lights flashing, creating a blinding audio-visual show, galloping in his direction without restraint.

  “You’re colliding with me! You’re crashing into me! I’ve got no electricity!!” he attempted to call towards it. But the stealth aircraft’s canopy opened and Professor Joe Yang jumped out smiling, wearing a red frock coat and swinging an incense lamp at the end of a yellow rope. White, fragrant smoke rose from it and filled the concrete plaza.

  “You and I are moving to the Tibetan Plateau, where we’ll drink only Chinese tea with Chivas Regal. We won’t allow any coffee in our place!” he shouted and sat down on the cold concrete floor, opposite the fighter’s shelter dome.

  The night was thick and dark when a huge explosion shook the earth. Four barrages of missiles fell, opening up deep muzzle-holes in the air base’s runways, through clouds of smoke and dust throwing clumps of asphalt and clods of earth towards the night skies.

  His neck hurt as he looked up at the northern sky: hundreds of red, burning tails of missiles returning from outer space to the atmosphere pierced the dark heavens on their way downwards towards the runways. From the south, too, more and more flaming tails cut through the gloomy night skies. They came down low, burned out and precise, and at the top of each, was a load of a thousand pounds of shattering explosive.

  “Professor, what are you doing? Why aren’t you in Tibet?” he shouted, his voice mute and his knees shaking. He collapsed helpless and choking into the cockpit. “My parachute is missing! I’ve got no parachute!!” he screamed.

  “We’re drinking coffee with Dr. Marwan Sultani on the rooftop!” Joe Yang shouted at him calmly in English.

  He attempted to straighten up and force open the plane’s canopy. Clods of smoky earth flew up and landed on his head, causing a dusty scratching in his throat. Paralysis gripped his feet and a dark vacuum filled his brain.

  He sat down on the green sofa on the rooftop of the Golden Crown Hotel in Nazareth. Joe Yang in his gray suit and rimless glasses was already waiting for him sitting cross-legged eastern-style, wearing black lacquer American-style shoes. On his lap sat Li-Lan in an orange monk’s robe, shaven-headed and with a ring in her nose. She wore Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and in each hand she held a disc-on-key and was clicking them together like monks’ cymbals.

  “All is going according to plan, Jerry! Everything is according to our plan, you know. Arabs are destroying your air force bases
, afterwards United Nations making ceasefire!” She got up and jumped off the roof. He wanted to save her, but there was no parachute in the Skyhawk. Now he could no longer identify anything due to the dust and the darkness. He tried calling to her with all his might, but he couldn’t hear any sounds emerging from his throat. Dr. Marwan Sultani sat down next to them, setting down a copper tray with small cups of coffee and a plate of baklava.

  “Gershon! Look down at the valley below, do you see the smoke?” He laughed as some coffee spilled onto his green surgeon’s uniform that was stained with congealed old blood.

  He made an effort to look, but his eyes were stuck together and painful and his nose was clogging up. He could hardly make out the long, brown, plowed fields, the dirt roads, the expanses of stubble and cypress tree avenues running through the Jezreel Valley towards Kfar Baruch Lake. To the west, heavy, black mushrooms of smoke rose from Ramat David’s runways. In the distance, on Mount Carmel, hundreds of fires burned and were spreading rapidly down to the valley.

  “Doctor, what is this!?” he shouted, but only a dry croaking sound emerged from his throat. His bald head gleaming, Marwan Sultani only smiled at him.

  The giant container ship rapidly neared the Gaza coast. The tall mosques with their flashing green lights could be seen above the horizon. Barrages of rockets rose up constantly, their trajectories moving eastwards towards the air force bases. Dozens of Iron Dome air defense missiles took off towards them, but were outnumbered by hundreds of enemy missiles and rockets...

  “Adam!” he groaned, attempting to free himself from the gray pilot’s overall. Adam disembarked from the ship and approached through Gaza’s orange and olive groves.

  “Hey, Gersh, what’s happening? You’re covered in dirt!”

  “It’s from the ejection! The missiles are hitting the base and I have no parachute!” His sense of choking gradually increased. A huge anxiety gripped him, crawling up from his stomach to his throat, to his devastated mouth and dry tongue. “Who’s boarding your ship, Adam? Are its rockets strong enough to be fired and to take off from here?” he tried to ask with bulging eyes

  “I’m going home, Gershon. There’s nothing more for me to do here. We’re flying to Manchester to watch a soccer match. My ship has run out of fuel; it will be turned into an artificial island opposite Tel Aviv!”

  He was stopped at the gate of the intelligence base headquarters: “You can’t go in! There’s an emergency situation and no electricity; call Dahlia!”

  “Dahlia, Dahlia! Open up. They’re not letting me in! There’s a war on! I have to get to my office. I’m the commander!”

  “There’s no entry today. Everybody’s gone home. Dr. Zimmerman’s tests have arrived: you have to drink from a green test tube in the morning and from a red one in the evening! There’s tons of dust everywhere here; I’m choking!” She suddenly faded away and his office evaporated into thin air.

  “Adam, where is everybody? Why isn’t the air force taking off? Adam just snickered, “All the runways are full of craters and the Arab earthworks contractors refuse to come and repair them…”

  A choking-hot day had begun. Thousands of fires that had been deliberately started in fields, forests, buildings and along the roads joined together into one huge conflagration. Hundreds of thousands of cars were stuck in endless traffic jams, their drivers hopeless honking. The country’s roads were totally clogged up. Heavy smoke rose and floated on the eastern wind towards the gray sea that was as smooth as a mirror. Flashing their lights furiously and with sirens howling, fire trucks couldn’t proceed forward. Firefighting planes circled like drunken mosquitos that had been sprayed above deserted railway, from which a black smoke was rising heavenwards.

  Adam shouted, “In the panic and chaos of the fires and missiles, Hezbollah has managed to break into five settlements! There are huge numbers of dead and wounded! Two hundred twenty-three Israelis have been taken hostage from two of our settlements; do you get it, Chief?!” But Gershon stared in horror at the Arab doctor. “Marwan, what is this? Why are they launching missiles? You told me that the Arabs had come to terms with us…” he attempted to whisper with dry mouth and clogged nostrils.

  “The Arabs aren’t fools, Gershon. They will only hit all of your runways! Not a single plane will be able to take off! He laughed. Your Arrow and Sling of David won’t stop thousands of missiles per day. It’s exactly like what you did to us in the Six-Day War!”

  “But where is your team, Dr. Sultani?” he asked voicelessly.

  “They were all given instructions via the internet to start fires! Now the whole state is burning! But we’re not damaging infrastructures and houses. We’re just trying to teach you a lesson…” he said laughing. Dressed in the orange overall of a firefighting pilot, Adam was eating falafel. “Gershon, the Russians are patrolling and not allowing anybody to fly. Thanks to you, the Syrians are also launching Scud missiles towards us.”

  “Airbases and fires, and the Zionists are lost!” Nasrallah shouted over Lebanese TV. “We learned from you to do a Moked Operation. Ha-ha! Now we’ve tied you on the stake, you stupid Jews! Go now to the United Nations and cry, Cease fire! Cease fire! He chuckled maliciously. Allahu Akbar!” he shouted and disappeared.

  And then, jumping up lightly, wearing only shorts and an undershirt, he took off above the old wooden hut near Kibbutz Giv’on’s ancient swimming pool. He swam slowly and pleasantly through the air barefoot and with a broad majestic breast-stroke above the old grain silo tower. From there he rose spectacularly to the hills above Givat Hamoreh Mountain and joined Adam Ben-Ami, who was mounted on his giant white swan. The swan stared at him with its open eye and asked pitifully, “Please pull the arrow out of me. Pull out the arrow…”

  “Impossible!” He wanted to shout. “It’s forbidden! If I pull it out you’ll fall down!” But his voice was muted. Adam laughed and waved his hand and they climbed up and disappeared into the dark heavens.

  He landed on his bare feet near the old wooden hut that he had shared with Nehama. The smell of rotting green slime rising from the swimming spool indicated that he had arrived home.

  Terror gripped him as rounds of heavy machine gun fire accompanied by strong explosions shook his green couch. “I’m choking! I’m choking! I can’t breathe! This isn’t a dream! My parachute is dragging me along and I’m being buried in the earth! I’m choking…”

  The Arab workers had begun their daily labors of renovating his neighbors’ house on the other side of the wall. The banging of their heavy hammers and the rat-ta-tat of their electric drills shook the air above the sleepy street. He at once threw aside the large pillow that was smothering his face and gulped air like a drowning man who has just been rescued. His body was covered in sweat and the headache pounded in his temples.

  An orange sun rose lazily above the neighboring houses into the gray, dusty sky of another sweltering day.

  The Heat Will Break Tomorrow

  March 24th, 2025

  They drove quickly and silently along the wide road going up from the plains to Jerusalem. The road, with its new intersections and tunnels, had long-ago forgotten the Bab-el-Wad armored cars and 1948’s young fighters that had broken through the blockade on the besieged city. Only the aged pine trees stubbornly clinging to the mountaintops and glowing golden in the low morning sunshine still remembered, even as a rapid electric train dived noisily into the tunnel carved in the mountain.

  Last night’s nightmare still troubled him. The possibility that the air force could be brought to a total halt and that life could be completely disrupted by deliberate fires ordered over the social media suddenly seemed to him a frightening possibility.

  We must look into this. Upon my return to the office, I’ll set a date with Ze’evik to play a war game. I’ll also raise again the issue of our attack missile corps. The artillery corps, as well-armed, modernized and powerful as it may be, cannot fire
and hit targets in fighter plane range. We must immediately set up that attack missile corps… If the meeting with the prime minister doesn’t last too long, I’ll pay a visit to the Miss-Hit Company, which deals with disrupting GPS satellite signals used for ballistic missiles. Even if we don’t yet have a missile corps for counterattacks, we can at least try to divert their missiles from their targets…

  He continued thus to drift in his imagination to the start-up incubator functioning under the auspices of the Libertad Company that had been set up by the Mossad before his time.

  It would be interesting to know how they are progressing in constructing the air defense high-powered gas laser cannon system, Skyguard. What a pity that we hadn’t begun building it earlier. Maybe we’ll still manage in time…

  “But what in the world is the meaning of the swan that Adam was riding on…?” he mused to himself aloud, his nose pressed to the glass and his eyes following the stone walls lining the roadside on the last stretch of highway up to the capital.

  “Chief, have you arrived? It’s already six-twenty…” Dahlia cut the air with a secure call.

  “Affirmative, Dahlia. We are already approaching the government buildings.”

  “Excellent. Drink lots of water. The Hamsin is going to continue. They’re waiting for you.”

  “Thanks, Dahlia. See you!”

  “Chief, wait! Have you seen this morning’s headlines on the internet?”

  “No. For a long time now I’ve stopped reading newspapers and jerking off on those garbage networks. What I need to know I learn from the proper sources.”