"I'm fine, darling. You sound lovely and you're late for work, as usual".
"You're not calling from Greece just to check whether your favorite ex-wife is late for work. What’s up, Avri?"
"Listen, dear. I have a very important message for Danny. You’ll have to write it down and then find him, wherever he is. Now get a pencil and paper, I'll hang on".
"O.K." she said, slightly resentful that he didn't trust her to remember a message.
"What kind of pencil did you get?" he asked when she came back on the line.
"It's a plain old pencil, yellow, with a worn-out eraser at the other end. Why do you ask, is it important?"
"Yes, dear, it is," he said.
Ruth was lovely but totally undependable. Now he was sure that she would write it down, for if she hadn’t bothered to find a pencil she would have been more creative, a red pencil with golden stripes or something like that. Now he was sure she had a real pencil and he hoped she would write down his message.
"Now, tell Danny I am at Port Samos in Greece," he talked slowly, dictating carefully - "That's S-A-M-O-S. Tell him I am stuck here with a jammed plug".
He paused for her to repeat it. She got it right.
"That's good,” he said. "Now dear, please make sure Danny gets it as soon as possible, O.K.? This is very important, Ruthie".
"I'll do it right away, Avri, trust me," she said, and he smiled and kissed her over the phone and hung up.
He paid the taverna keeper three hundred and ninety Drachmas for the call and another eight Drachmas for a good cup of coffee.
Now it was waiting time. He could only hope that Ruth would not be distracted by anything. Not until she finds Danny, for all it takes is one small diversion and she’ll forget all about his call only to remember again when it is no longer relevant.
Danny was definitely the best solution to this problem. If he only gets the message, Avri thought, he can surely find a way to get the damn antenna off my hands and the Russians off my back.
There was nothing concrete, or even incidental to suggest that he was hunted by anyone, but he couldn't believe that the Russians, or any navy for that matter, would write off equipment like this. The least they would do is to find out what exactly happened to it.
Of course, he could have dumped the antenna way back in the Turkish waters and sail on to enjoy his vacation. Any normal, half-sane person would have done so. Then why didn't I? He asked himself. What is it that made me keep the antenna, hide it and hurry for the first phone to call that master spy for help?
There was the argument of national security. If the Russians are snooping in the area, eavesdropping on the millimeter wavelength, the Israeli authorities should be made aware of it. I cannot pretend it didn't happen. It's probably not too late even now. I could step over to the Galatea, dig up the antenna from behind the water tank, slip it quietly overboard and sail on for the rest of my vacation. It was like a bad dream, where one knows how to avoid a disaster, but does nothing about it.
And then, once he turns the whole thing over to Danny, will it really be over for him? Would he sail on, enjoying the rest of his vacation?
Danny would not let him down. That he was sure of. They had known each other ever since he could remember. They developed a bond that grew through childhood, was matured by adolescence and hardened by manhood.
Their paths of life diverged widely after they got out of the army. Avri went on to engineering school, marriage and a professional career while Danny drifted, disappearing on and off. At times dropping out of sight for months, before returning with no explanation. He would then take up odd jobs or go on army reserve duty for incredibly long periods. It was only years later that Avri discovered that his good friend was a high-ranking member of the Mossad. At one time Avri suspected this and asked his friend about it. Danny disregarded it with laughter. Avri raised the question again and again only to have it repeatedly denied.
In the middle of winter 1969, faith had crossed their paths again, adding yet another hue to their friendship.
*****
It was just past ten o'clock on a cold December night when a curt phone call from his military reserve office summoned him back to his army unit. Within a half an hour Avri was packed and gone, and, before midnight, he was shaking hands and swapping jokes with his long-time buddies of the Fourth Paratroop Company.
The next night they lifted a whole Egyptian radar station from Rass-Arren in the Sinai desert and brought it over to Israel. The company was a very unusual grouping of warriors and professionals and they pulled off a stunning, flawless mission. By now Avri was already one of the best antenna designers in the country. He was a great asset, and one which the Israeli Army took full advantage of, having trained soldiers who were skilled engineers and vise-versa. On this particular mission it proved invaluable.
Danny was there, too. He served in the same unit, but this was not the key reason for his inclusion. He had some special skills for dealing with Russians. They more than expected to find Russian technicians operating the radar station for the Egyptians. It was Danny's job to handle these Russians, to make sure they did not foul up the act, and still avoid an international crisis with the U.S.S.R.
They crossed the Suez Canal in two helicopters, fifteen paratroopers in each. They carried only light weapons, Uzis, hand grenades, a few rifles, but lots of engineering equipment. There were many toolboxes filled with a vast assortment of wrenches and cutters, hammers and saws, welding torches and power tools.
The plan was to split the station into four sections, to do it quickly and without damaging the equipment.
The helicopters landed in full darkness at the foot of a steep hill in a deserted region of the Suez Canal’s West bank. From takeoff to landing, their flight altitude never exceeded one hundred feet, and, most of the time, they were at thirty. The pilots had been briefed on every minute detail of the course, their navigation was within yards and they landed exactly on the spot.
The force had split into five groups. The main group, twenty soldiers in total, started a five-mile hike to the radar station. The other groups split according to their missions. Two detachments drove east to cover the back roads, two telephone technicians were assigned to produce a "routine” communication breakdown, and two soldiers moved to the Western road. The pilots and the flight crew took weapons and spread out to watch over their own helicopters.
The main force reached the Rass-Arren radar station ten minutes ahead of schedule. They regrouped and rested, while Zvika, the commanding officer, briefed them again, concentrating on the first five minutes of the assault.
Let's go, he signaled.
At 21:30 they moved in. The solitary guard at the rear gate never knew what hit him. A single shot from a silenced Uzi went unnoticed in the sleepy post. He was supposed to be the only casualty of the operation. The other Egyptians were seized and gathered in the mess hall with no resistance to speak of. Four paratroopers remained to watch over the thirty-two prisoners.
Danny and his team went to the only brick building in the compound. This is where the Russians stayed. According to Intelligence, there were five advisers. Danny was relieved to find them all in one room and utterly surprised. Their astonishment increased as Danny explained the situation in fluent Russian. It was obvious that they didn’t like what they heard, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, they were technicians, not soldiers. Danny led them out of the building into the open where one man could keep an eye on them and still help the main force should a situation arise. The operation was extremely Spartan in nature, and each man was valuable. Little did he know of the time bomb he had left breeding behind.
The domestic appearance of the Russians lulled Danny into neglecting to do a body search of each of his hostages. They just didn't look like soldiers. So now there was one nine-millimeter Russian automatic pistol out there in the field, its owner waiting for the right moment. It was a grave error, one that would influence Danny's career and almost cost Avri his
life.
The Russian with the gun sat there on the ground, along with his four comrades, not quite certain what to do. He was very nervous and it showed, yet the guard didn't suspect anything.
Zvika, the commanding officer, turned his head South, beyond the main structure, anticipating four transport helicopters to arrive any minute now. They were expected to appear beyond the sandy hills. Everything was right on schedule and going well.
Four three-engine heavy transport helicopters flew in at high-speed and very low altitude, barely clearing the compound's rooftops. The French-made Super Frelons circled the main court like cautious hornets before landing on the East field. As soon as they touched down, eager hands rushed to unload the equipment, handing it over to the awaiting groups. Everybody was on the run. Huge blades swirled above, raising a local sandstorm flashing red and silver in the chopper's beaming lights. The tools were all painted distinctively - red, white, yellow or blue, making it easy for each team to identify its implements. By twenty two hours, before the moon had risen on the West Bank of the Suez Canal, twenty Israeli technicians trained as paratroopers were swarming the two mobile shelters that made up the radar station like hungry locusts.
Everybody worked hard and fast. They only had a basic idea of the construction of the station and the equipment had to be disassembled as carefully as possible in order to be able to reassemble it in working condition back home. They had to improvise frequently as there were no instruction manuals at hand.
The radar station was designated QTR-70 by NATO, but nicknamed Goliath by the Israelis. It consisted of two mobile military shelters, one housed the control equipment, the second contained the transceiver. Each shelter measured 12' by 7'3" by 7' high. The antenna was also the on their shopping list. The control shelter was ready for the chopper well on time. Some items of equipment had to be strapped to the shelter floor. A table, chairs, a tea heater and personal items were unloaded and left on the ground.
The transceiver shelter was too heavy to be lifted by a helicopter in one piece so it was divided into two loads of approximately equal weight. The transmitter and the power supply modules were to be transported in one helicopter and the receiver module by the other. The antenna, which was mounted on a large rotating pedestal atop a thirty-foot tower, was the fourth piece of equipment to be moved across the Channel that night.
This was Avri's domain. It was obvious that the whole antenna system could not be carried home - it was much too heavy. So he decided to take the parabolic reflector and the RF feed only leaving the rotating pedestal behind. Disassembling the antenna system meant a lot of work. Moreover, there were only four of them to carry out the task and not much time to do it. In less than two hours they had to be airborne and out of Egypt. Like a team of well-trained surgeons they neatly disconnected power cables, disassembled waveguide sections, resorting rarely to conversation.
Three of the men reached the generator building on the Western slope of the hill. Their task was to shut down all power to the radar station so that the technicians would be free to handle the equipment without being electrocuted, yet to leave on enough lights in the compound so that work could be carried on easily. Of course, a darkened, deserted, base might not look too natural should anyone be looking that way.
The generator building was unguarded. Two large diesels roared steadily and a third one was silent on standby. The place was a real mess. The floor was a dark pool of oil, the walls blackened from the leaky exhaust systems. Oil drums, discarded parts, used oil filters and pieces of wires were scattered all over the place. On the wall to their right there was a ten-foot long power distribution cabinet. Originally it must have been an intricate masterpiece of switches, dials, gauges and fuses. Now it was more of a surrealistic version of the original.
Missing panels revealed bare wiring, frozen gauges with broken face glasses, handle-less switches and a wild maze of jumper wires. It was impossible to make any sense of that chaos - they would have to shut down both diesels and submerge the whole base into total darkness. So, with a last, hopeless glance at the mass of wires, they walked through the slush of oil to the generators, switched them off, abandoned the building, and climbed back to the camp.
The Russian technicians were sitting closely grouped on the ground watching the hustle going on at the station. They were in total disbelief. Those Israelis were not going to blow up the station - they were about to steal it. It was a robbery happening right before their very eyes. The Russian with the gun motioned to the others that he was armed. They didn't talk at all, after hearing Danny speaking Russian they were sure all the other soldiers did. By now they were ready to believe anything.
Some of the lights on the base turned off as the first generator had shut down. The young Russian was quick to realize that total darkness would follow soon and end his chance of doing anything with the pistol. The moment the generators were turned off, the guard’s attention was drawn to the dimming lights. The armed Russian took advantage at this last chance to aim. He drew his gun and held it tightly, using both hands. He brought the gun forward, sweeping a slow vertical arc through the horizon. For a short second the guard’s head appeared into the Vee of his sight. He maintained a steady sweep and when the chest emerged he squeezed the trigger. They saw the guard hit the ground, and then all the lights went out. They stayed for a while in a total darkness and in complete silence. It seemed like ages.
A few seconds later flashlights started appearing and the soldiers resumed their task.
Avri and his team of two stepped out of the control shelter toward the antenna tower. They each had a flashlight in one hand, a toolbox in the other and an Uzi slung over their shoulder. One of them stayed at the foot of the tower, preparing rope slings for hoisting the antenna. Avri and his comrade climbed the tower to disengage the antenna.
The Russian decided to take action. He ran in the darkness to where the guard lay motionless on the ground. He found the soldier's Uzi, and fired a short burst at the two flashlights he saw on the antenna tower. A stream of tracers rushed toward the lights. The flashlights went out immediately and he hoped he had hit them. He didn't know what to do now; he’d never planned that far ahead.
Avri experienced, simultaneously, a sharp blow on the left shoulder, the distinct sound of an Uzi burst and the muzzle flashes from the open area by the hill. He switched off his flashlight instantly, as did his partner. Softly, he called the man at the foot of the tower to get help. He felt fairly safe in the total darkness that engulfed the hill. From the direction of the shots, it was clear that something had gone wrong with the Russian group. This, and the fact that they were losing precious time, worried him the most as he sat there, on top of the radar antenna, inspecting his wound. It was a rather deep scratch. He could move his arm, albeit painfully, so he assessed that nothing vital was damaged. He, therefore, considered himself still in good working condition. The bleeding was mild and he ignored it completely.
Danny came running over within a minute. He had two men with him. They walked through the darkness like desert cats. Danny stopped at the far end of the tower, taking cover behind the structure as he called to Avri. Together they assessed the situation. They could not afford to halt the work much longer. The Russians had to be dealt with very prudently. One didn’t just go around killing Russian soldiers, especially not in the Middle East so they set out to disassemble the antenna while sensibly dealing with the Russians. One of Avri's men turned the antenna around, using the hand crank, so that the reflector faced in the direction of the Russians. This should give Avri a small measure of protection. That and a lot of luck. He lay low on the bare structure, turned on his flashlight and resumed his work, ignoring the Russians and the pain in his shoulder.
A second short burst was fired. Bullets hit the aluminum tie rods, ricochets whining everywhere. The Russian with the Uzi realized quickly that he was wasting ammunition and waited for a better target. The second burst had, however, helped Danny to pinpoint the source.
There was one last thing to do up there on the tower, they had to disconnect the main plug. Avri crawled toward the rear of the antenna. His hands reached down for the big, round plug which coupled the main cable. With both hands, he grabbed the large knurled ring and tried to loosen it with all his strength. Nothing moved. He waited for a minute and tried again.
He gave a second mighty heave, cursing aloud at the sudden agony that erupted in his shoulder. Nothing moved. His strength was ebbing away and further attempts seemed futile. He would have to use a large wrench and open it from below. Time was running short. Avri had to unscrew that plug now, regardless of the Russians.
He sat down on the aluminum structure and called to Danny below:
"I've got a jammed plug over here. You have to do something about this cowboy before we can finish it up here".
"Got you," came the answer from below. "Give me a few minutes and you'll be clear to work. Are you O.K. up there?"
"Yeah, we are fine. We'll wait it out".
Danny and his four guys moved out swiftly and silently. Two of them went around by the east side while the others covered the rear. They spread themselves out, flanking the Russians. Danny then called over, surprising them again with his fluent Russian.
"Good evening comrades," he said calmly, "you are completely surrounded by a group of very professional soldiers. We know that you are technicians, probably very good ones, but not very good warriors. You have one or possibly two guns in your possession. You have acted very bravely and I commend you on that, but now is the time to behave sensibly and not just bravely. If you keep on shooting you may hit one or two more of us. Yes, you may, and we wouldn’t like it at all, but this will not stop our operation. It would hardly even slow us down. The minute you start shooting, you'll be cut down by the soldiers around you and nothing will be accomplished".
He waited for a dramatic pause, letting them understand their situation.
The Chase: One Courageous Skipper Battling The Perilous Evil Out To Destroy Him. (Sea Action & Adventure) Page 7