Firebreak

by Richard Herman

  “Mr. President”—the congressman was like a bulldog and would not let it go—“the choices you mentioned can only be made by Israel. Why should an internal matter for the Israelis affect our policies in the area?”

  The moment of truth had arrived. “Because, their choice will determine my policy toward them.”

  Melissa was in the hall when the delegation left. The junior congressman ignored her when he announced, “The oil interests bought him. Read all about it in the Post.”

  Matt was tired when he unzipped his flight suit and headed for the shower, shedding the rest of his clothes as he went. Furry was flopped out in an easy chair, unable to move. Occasionally, a groan would slip out. They had ended their sixth week of flying with Israelis and returned to their rooms after an early-morning flight. “I’m too old for this,” Furry boomed across the room as he reached for another beer. “My bones hurt from pulling all those g’s. But damn, we were good today.”

  “Yeah, we were,” Matt conceded. He had been surprised to learn that he could hold his own with the Israeli pilots and, in every one-on-one engagement, best them. Furry had repeatedly demonstrated the bombing accuracy of the Eagle’s systems on “first look” targets and impressed the Israeli observers no end. “They ain’t much to look at on the ground,” Matt said from the shower, “but once they strap a jet on, they are something else.”

  Furry pulled at his beer, thinking. And so are you old buddy, so are you. “Hey, you think they’re doing a snow job on us?” he called. “These pukes are supposed to be the best in the world.” Got to keep the boy humble, he thought. “We shouldn’t be rompin’ and stompin’ like this.”

  “Could be,” Matt allowed, as he stepped out of the shower. “But I doubt it. At least not in the air. Come on, get your bod in gear, Dave’s going to pick us up in a few minutes.”

  Furry groaned and launched his bulk from the chair. Dave Harkabi was going to take them on a long weekend when he went home to Haifa. He had apologized for not having room at his parents’ home and booked them into a hotel on the beach. Twenty minutes later, they were in Harkabi’s car, headed north for Haifa. They broke the monotony of crossing the Negev Desert by talking shop. “Your Eagle is most impressive,” Harkabi said. “We could use a squadron of E models.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, deep in thought, “the jet has definitely given us an edge we wouldn’t normally have.”

  Harkabi said, “You’ve had input into that advantage. You make the Eagle fly like a demon.”

  “We’ve been lucky so far,” Matt allowed. “Your pilots are on to us now and are going to start kicking some ass.”

  “You think so?” Harkabi asked.

  “Yep. You’re too damn good. Look at your combat record …”

  Harkabi laughed. “You’ve been reading our propaganda.” He turned and looked at Matt. “Yes, we are good. We carefully select our pilots and then train like hell. Every flight is a potential combat mission for us. Why do you think we upload all our birds with munitions after we land?”

  “Even ours?” Furry said.

  Harkabi took a deep breath and ignored Furry’s question. The Israeli major didn’t tell them that every night an Israeli aircrew had powered up their Eagle and had worked the systems. One night, they had even flown the bird. He changed the subject. “When you look at our combat record,” he explained, “always remember who we are flying against. Look at the Syrian Air Force. They have seven hundred fifty pilots. Of those, fifty are as good as any in the world. We know them by name, what they fly, and where they are stationed. The other seven hundred are turkeys, cannon fodder, worthless. We are fortunate because there are none in between.

  “We monitor their communications and use it against them. If any of those fifty good pilots take off, we know it. Because they fly like the Soviets and rely on ground control to vector their fighters, we know exactly where the ‘man’ is and—what do you Yanks say?—we double-and triple-bang him in an engagement.”

  “You mean you deliberately go after their talent and go three-on-one?” Matt was amazed.

  “Exactly. We will let their turkeys enjoy a temporary advantage while we concentrate on eliminating the real threat.”

  “Nice guys,” Furry mumbled.

  Again, Harkabi laughed. “What do you say? ‘A kill is a kill'?”

  When they were out of the Negev and into the heart of Israel, Harkabi gave a running commentary about the countryside, a perfect tour guide. He drove fast, telling them he wanted to reach Haifa before the Sabbath began. “Israel grinds to a stop at sundown,” he explained. “If you’re not religious, Haifa is the best place to spend the Sabbath.”

  His timing was perfect and Matt and Furry were deposited at the hotel as Dave sped away. Inside, they learned that their rooms had been paid for in advance. After a brief discussion, they told the clerk that they would have to pay because they couldn’t accept gifts from a foreign government. The clerk shrugged and quoted a very reasonable price, settling the issue.

  The next morning, Matt woke up at five-thirty and couldn’t go back to sleep. He wandered out onto the balcony and took in the sunrise before he pulled on a pair of shorts and his running shoes and headed for the beach, intent on a morning run. Two miles from the hotel, he saw a lone swimmer walking toward the water. A sense of déjà vu swept through him as he neared the woman who was now in the water—there was something familiar about the way she walked, her figure. He gave a mental shrug and ran on past as she swam directly out to sea.

  Then it hit him. It had to be Rose Temple, the Canadian he had met at Marbella and had lost to that Arab engineer. The coincidence was too much and he slowed, lost deep in memory. Then he buttonhooked and ran back down the beach until he was opposite her. She was swimming parallel to the shore, maybe fifty meters off shore. He kept pace with her, surprised at how powerful a swimmer she was. When she turned shoreward, he sat down on the sandy berm and waited. Any doubts vanished when she waded through the shallow water. The traffic-stopping figure, black hair, wide yet very feminine shoulders, the magnificent breasts and narrow waist could only belong to one person. But it was her eyes that he remembered best. Those dark pools of promise and beauty. It was Rose Temple.

  She ignored him and started to jog back down the beach. He pushed himself up and ran after her. “Rose,” he called. “Matt Pontowski. We met at Marbella in Spain.” There was no response at first and she kept running. He stopped, afraid that it might be a case of mistaken identity. “No way,” he mumbled to himself and started after her again. “Rose,” he called at her back, “please stop.”

  The woman halted and turned to face him and all his doubts vanished. She stood there in her black tank suit, not the flashy, half-naked come-on she had worn to entice Is’al Mana, but the same suit he remembered from the yacht party. Her skin was wet and glowing and her thick plait of hair shimmered in the morning sun as she stood there, waiting for him. “My name is Shoshana and I’m an Israeli, not a Canadian.” She turned and ran down the beach, leaving him dumbfounded.

  He headed back to the hotel, confused by the feeling of loss that held him tight. “What the hell,” he said, twisting to look back down the beach. Then he ran as fast as he could after her. It was not a case of mistaken identity. It had to be her. Who else would tell him that she was not a Canadian? But the beach was empty. He had lost her. Slowly he walked back to the hotel. Well, you know how you’re going to spend this weekend, he told himself. He was going to find the woman who now called herself Shoshana.

  Shoshana leaned against the back wall of a beach house, waiting for Matt to run by. She clenched her towel tightly, fighting back the tears that were threatening her. You have no reason to cry, she berated herself. He means nothing to you. That’s a lie and I’m finished with lies. Once I was attracted to him but now he’s part of a past that has nothing to do with my future. Again, she chastised herself for being so weak as to cry. She vowed never to cry again.

  When her breathing had slowed, s
he found her car and drove home to the safety of her family’s apartment on the hillside. She let herself in and called, “Father, I’m back,” surprised that her voice sounded normal. Avi Tamir came out of die kitchen, a worried look on his face. He nodded in the direction of the balcony and disappeared back into the kitchen. She walked through the French doors.

  Gad Habish was standing there, waiting.

  14

  “He wants to see you immediately,” the secretary said to Habish without looking up from her work. The “he” was the wizened curmudgeon who headed Mossad’s operations—the Ganef. Habish walked directly into the thief’s office.

  “Will she do it?” the Ganef asked.

  “I don’t know. Shoshana hates me and everything we do.” Habish waited for a reply. There wasn’t any. “Do we need her?”

  The Ganef gave a little snort. “Pontowski is the grandson of the President of the United States. Have you forgotten that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “This is a chance to establish a liaison we might turn to our advantage later. We don’t pass up opportunities like this.” He paused. The Ganef had carefully meshed the reports of Matt’s morning runs on the base with Shoshana’s morning swim. It was simply a matter of bringing them together. “Especially when it only cost us a phone call to Harkabi to bring him to Haifa for a weekend.

  “What about the hotel?”

  A line crossed the Ganef’s lips that Habish took for a smile. “The Americans are paying for their rooms, not Mossad.”

  Why am I doing this? Shoshana berated herself as she swam by die same part of the beach as the day before. She had been pulled and turned a dozen different ways by her emotions after Habish had left the apartment and still wasn’t sure what to do. A warm tugging feeling kept pulling at her, urging her to go to the beach. It was the same sensation she had experienced at Marbella when they had first met. Be honest, she told herself, you want to see him again. But a revulsion at the thought of working for Mossad turned her down dark corridors of self-loathing and disgust. She wasn’t the same person.

  Matt sat on the berm in the same spot where he had waited the day before and watched Shoshana swim in to shore. He caught his breath as she walked toward him and he remembered the Greek legend of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who rose naked from the sea. Now I know what the Greeks were thinking about, he thought as he watched her wade the last few feet toward him. “I’d always thought Aphrodite was a blonde,” he said, loud enough for her to hear.

  Shoshana said nothing and sat down beside him. “My name is Shoshana Tamir and when we met I was an agent for Mossad.” She forced herself to look out to sea and not to him. It was an effort that cost her dearly but she was determined to tell him the truth. “Do you know what Mossad is?” Nothing from Matt. “It’s our version of the CIA,” she continued. “My objective was to seduce and exploit Is’al Mana. And I did. He was my only assignment and I quit Mossad when I was finished. I’m training as a medic in Zahal and start nursing school next month.”

  “Zahal?”

  “A word we use for Zvah Haganah Le Israel—Israel Defense Forces.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Confusion and pain caught at his words.

  Silence. Then a slight shake of her head. “I don’t know. After you saw me yesterday, a Mossad case officer came to my home and asked me to make contact with you. They arranged for you to stay at your hotel, hoping we would meet.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  She stood, ready to leave. Matt reached up and touched her arm, not wanting her to go.

  For the first time, she turned and looked him fully in the face. She was on the verge of tears. “Don’t be naive. They didn’t tell me why. Your grandfather … They’re looking for a connection … the Israeli connection. I don’t know.” Despair ate at every word but there were no tears.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” She still wouldn’t answer the most important question. She couldn’t, for she didn’t know the answer.

  Shoshana pulled away from his touch and walked away, not understanding herself and the driving need to be free of lies and deceit. He followed her and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and turn around. “Why?” he demanded. Like her he did not understand what was driving him on and why he didn’t leave and get her out of his life.

  “Look at me!” Self-hate drove her words. “I’m a whore. I used my body to get what I wanted.” Her body trembled as she fought to control her ragged breathing. Then, almost a gasp: “I had to kill Is’al to escape.”

  He dropped his hand and freed her. Every rational instinct he possessed was shouting for him to disengage and run for cover. But this was not combat. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” she demanded to know. “I murdered a man and there is no punishment for me. Nothing.”

  “I was in a crash with another jet where three men were killed,” Matt said, choosing his words carefully. “They say it wasn’t my fault, but I was involved. If I had been a better pilot, maybe less aggressive—who knows? One was a good friend and another, well, after my grandfather, Jack Locke was the finest man I ever met. He had a beautiful wife and two small kids.” They stood inches apart, not touching, silent. His hurt matched hers. “Remembering is the punishment.”

  Only the sound of the surf washing at their feet filled the small space between them.

  The headlines shouted, EMBATTLED PRESIDENT STRUGGLES TO SURVIVE. Melissa looked around her office and didn’t see any struggling going on. In fact, it was business pretty much as normal. She read the lead story anyway to find out what should be happening around her. She almost chuckled as the reporter alluded to midnight conferences and the hint of a presidential cover-up. She looked up to see Bill Carroll standing in front of her, five minutes early for the intelligence update on the Middle East the President had requested. “You’re early,” she said. “Have a seat and I’ll show you in when the President is ready.” Neither gave the slightest indication that they had met before in a much more unprofessional manner when Carroll had first told her about his discoveries in the Middle East.

  Exactly on time, she escorted Carroll into the Oval Office where four men were with the President. Zack Pontowski was his normal unflappable self; three of the other men appeared at ease and only Fraser seemed agitated or worried. You do look a little ruffled, she thought, enjoying his discomfort. “Okay, Bill,” Pontowski said. “What have you got this morning? The PDB sounded grim.”

  So that’s what’s got to Fraser, Melissa decided. The President read something Fraser didn’t want him to read. She left them and returned to her desk.

  Carroll set his briefing charts on an easel so the group could see them, took a deep breath, and began. “Mr. President, gentlemen, the Syrians are moving their tanks and armored units in a way that constitutes an increased military threat to Israel.” He detailed how the Syrians were positioning three large armored corps in a forward position facing Israel. The northernmost force consisted of at least a thousand tanks in the Bekáa Valley opposite Beirut and anchored on the Syrian city of Homs. The tanks could move south down the Bekáa, cross the Litani River, and strike into the northern part of Israel directly at Haifa. The Bekia Valley was a dagger pointed at the northern border of Israel.

  The middle force numbered approximately eight hundred tanks and was moving into position on the Golan Heights right up to the Syrian disengagement line. The 1,250-member United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Area of Separation was getting edgy and had asked the UN for permission to reduce the number of their observers in case fighting broke out.

  But most ominous was the third force of at least fifteen hundred tanks clustered next to the Jordanian/Syrian border in the Jebel Druze highlands. A new highway linked the Jebel Druze to the Jordan River and allowed the Syrians to thrust directly at Jerusalem through Jordan.

  “Where did the Syrians get that many tanks?” Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, snorted.

  “Sir,” Carroll replied, “they b
ought them from the Russians.”

  The President ignored the exchange and studied the chart. “So the Syrians could launch a three-pronged thrust at Israel,” he said.

  Carroll flipped to the next chart of the Sinai Desert. “And the Egyptians have moved the location of their annual defense exercise, Desert Star, that starts next week.” He circled an area that extended from the Suez Canal into the Sinai.

  “Military maneuvers in the Sinai are a violation of the Camp David Accords,” National Security Adviser Cagliari said. “The Israelis would never let them get away with that, nor would the UN peacekeeping forces and observers stationed in the Sinai.”

  “Normally, sir, that would be a true statement,” Carroll answered. “But the Egyptians have invited observers to monitor the exercise and have even asked the Israelis to participate. The Israelis have ignored the invitation and protested the exercise. But they keep looking over their shoulder at all those Syrian tanks on their northern border.”

  Admiral Scovill, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, studied the map. “Any indication that the Iraqis are involved in any of this?” he asked.

  “None at this time,” Carroll answered. Burke nodded in agreement.

  “What’s the Israeli reaction?” Cagliari asked.

  “Apparently they are taking it very seriously and have declared state of alert Gimmel. There’s only two higher states of alert. As of now, all military leaves have been canceled and certain reserve units called up. If the Egyptians do go ahead with Desert Star, the Israelis will see it as a potential threat. They’ll have to mobilize and move forces into position in the Sinai and keep them there until the threat goes away. They simply cannot ignore a military exercise of that size so close to their borders.”