plane departs with every freed Jew aboard or accounted for, the mission will be a success. The Israelis still in the airport will have to stand their ground, and put up a rearguard fight until the last plane leaves...
Half an hour later, as Aryeh and Yudi are helping stragglers up the ramp into the jammed Hercules which will carry the hostages to freedom, huge explosions rock the ground and fires blaze high into the sky.
"Now what?" Aryeh shouts to Yudi, who knows a lot more about all this than he does.
"That's what used to be the Uganda air force," Yudi exultantly yells back. "Our farewell compliment to Idi Amin."
The ramp closes. The Hercules crawls over the diagonal strip to the main runway, gathers speed and heaves up into the star-strewn sky, toward Lake Victoria. Mission accomplished. Is Yoni dead or alive? Aryeh saw the stretcher go by as the commander was carried aboard the second aircraft, which is now taxiing to take off. Whether he himself will get out of Africa alive, Aryeh Nitzan still does not know. If not, he will be no worse off than Yoni, who by what he has been hearing, will not live. If Aryeh does get away to live and tell the tale, and his gut says he will, it will be a tale of the long arm of Israel rescuing Jews in peril of their lives, and of his brave commander who fell to save them.
Max Roweh's lecture at the Library of Congress on the Bicentennial, "Proclaim Freedom," has earned him and Yael invitations to the "ceremonies aboard the aircraft carrier For-restal in New York Harbor, where a column of tall sailing ships from all over the world is passing in review before President Ford, to honor America's two centuries of independence. They sit with Ambassador Dinitz in the diplomatic section of the reviewing stand, all three bleary from staying up through the night to follow the fragmentary reports of the rescue at Entebbe. Rumors and news flashes of a rescue have kept coming, but the Israel government has blacked out all information, and whatever Dinitz knows, he is being close-mouthed about it.
President Ford is speaking before a battery of TV cameras when a bristle-headed marine sergeant comes to Dinitz and murmurs in his ear. He slips away, and returns to his seat in
a glow. "Okay, it's officially confirmed," he whispers. "Now I can talk. They've landed at Lod airport. All safe."
"Incredible, miraculous!" Yael chokes out the words and kisses him.
Commentators have been guessing that the rescue planes may still be in the air, or down somewhere in Africa refueling. Now the hard news of the success is beginning to spread aboard the Forrestal. Amid whispers in the diplomatic section, eyes are turning to the Israeli ambassador. Sitting directly in front of him, a black diplomat in colorful African garb faces around smiling and shakes his hand. With the brilliantly uniformed marine band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the tolling of a big bell - thirteen times for the thirteen original colonies of 1776 - the ceremony on the flight deck ends.
In the cavernous hangar deck, where a buffet lunch is set out to lessen the crush of departing VIPs at the ladder to the launches, Ambassador Dinitz is so beset with attention that Yael and Roweh become separated from him. But soon a marine colonel with golden shoulder loops is leading the diplomat to them through the mob. "Something has come up, my friends," says Dinitz with a delighted grin. "It seems the President has invited me to return to Washington in his helicopter."
The marine officer says to Roweh, "Yes, and if you wish, sir, I can see that you and your guest go ashore in the next launch without waiting."
"That will be most appreciated."
Dinitz says as the colonel goes off, "How about this? I've hardly spoken to President Ford since he took office, and now suddenly I ride in his helicopter."
"Enjoy your moment, Simcha," says Roweh.
In the launch he and Yael hear much excited talk among the packed-in VIPs about the rescue. The general tenor is that the Israelis have gone and done it again, and that America should be more like Israel in dealing with its enemies and with terrorism. One beefy man well over six feet tall, in an elegant cowboy hat, polished cowboy boots, a pin-striped suit and a western string tie, capsulizes the matter so: "I'm an unholy son of a bitch if those amazing fucking Jews haven't gone and fucking upstaged the Bicentennial!"
As they settle into the back seat of Roweh's waiting limousine, he remarks, seeing her twist a handkerchief in her hands, "It won't be long now, Yael. You'll phone from the apartment. Philippe, turn on WQXR."
"I'm sure Aryeh's special unit did it," she says, "that's their kind of mission. I'll call Kishote first chance."
"I wonder when the Arabs will at last suspect," Roweh says, speaking through a Mozart piano concerto as the car crawls in Battery Park traffic, "that in some strange fashion they may be doing the will of Allah. Nothing could have restored Israel's world position overnight in such a total stunning way - absolutely nothing, Yael - except this hijacking."
"Oh, come on, Max! It's not the hijacking, it's the rescue."
"My dear, exactly. Over and over the Arabs create these occasions, and the Israelis rise to them, thrill mankind, and compel very reluctant admiration."
The Mozart piano concerto ends. The first news bulletin is, "A report just in, not yet confirmed by the Israeli government. In the daring Entebbe rescue three hostages and one Israeli soldier were killed."
Yael turns scared eyes to Roweh. He takes her hand. "Yael, my dear, you don't know that that's true, you don't know that your son took part. And if he did, that he was that one soldier is very, very long odds."
She mutely nods, but her eyes remain scared. Back in his River House apartment, she tries and tries to call Kishote, and keeps getting the maddening high ding-a-ling that signals overloaded circuits. But she persists, figuring he will stay late, though by now it is ten at night there. At last comes the welcome bleep of a call going through. "Oh, Yael, hi!" Miriam, his longtime secretary sounds exhilarated. "He's speaking to the Ramatkhal. Can he call you back?"
"No, no, I'll hold. God knows when he'll get another overseas line. Miriam, how about Aryeh, is he all right?"
"Why not? He's fine. He was here in the office an hour ago." Yael gasps with relief. "Wait, here's the general."
Earlier that afternoon, on the outer fringe of the dancing, singing, cheering mob at Ben Gurion airport, Don Kishote
was watching and waiting for Aryeh. When he espied his son wearily descending from the Hercules, he darted over the tarmac and caught him in a fierce long bear hug. Haggard, hoarse, Aryeh gestured at the hundred raggle-taggle hostages coming down the ramp of the leading Hercules. "The question is, Abba," he said bitterly, "whether all of them are worth one Yoni."
"They're Jews, Aryeh," Kishote said. "Yoni thought so." Benny Luria and his son Danny, now a Phantom pilot, were also watching the jubilation. Towering over his father, his flaming red hair clipped air force style, Danny had searched for and found Luria on the thronged airfield, the Talmud volume under his arm. As they watched the hostages stream out on the tarmac to be rushed, embraced, and tearfully kissed by their families, Benny Luria said to his son, "Now I know why Dov died."
In the early days of cinema, a much-used comic device was to reverse the film. A diver would fly up out of the water and land dry on the board, or a collapsed building would rise out of its rubble and stand upright. With the Entebbe rescue, something like that happened to Israel's smashed Humpty-Dumpty image, as Cookie Freeman had put it to Don Kishote. The shattered egg pulled itself together, the shell fragments coalesced around the albumen and yolk, the cracks disappeared, the egg leaped up on the wall, and behold, there was Humpty-Dumpty again, smooth, whole, smiling. And the world now knew that whenever and wherever Jews were threatened because they were Jews, Humpty-Dumpty would have to be reckoned with.
39
The Peacemaker
November 16, 1977 Dearest Queenie -
As always, hearing your voice for a few minutes has brightened my day. I've just this minute hung up, and as promised I'm writing in more detail about the incredible Sadat development. By every indication th
e man is really coming. Not an hour ago, for instance, the Foreign Ministry notified me that poor sick Golda wants me to escort her to the airport to meet him. So I have to try on the uniform I've put on only once or twice since Rabin relented after Entebbe and let me retire. I hope it still fits.
You ask, what is the mood in Israel? I would say, "dumbfounded.'' The public can't believe that it's happening. Rumors and guesses are flying. At one extreme people say it's Messiah's time, at the other that it's only one more Arab trick before another surprise attack. I myself cautiously hope it's a real peace move, based not on Egyptian good will but on the bizarre shift in our politics that's put Menachem Begin into power after nineteen years. He's been our ultrahawk and perpetual opposition leader, and Sadat may figure that if anyone can sell our people a tough peace deal, Begin can.
You also ask what my work at Rafael is all about. Well, Rafael is the Armament Development Authority, and it produces advanced weaponry for one of two reasons: either to give us an edge in battle, or because our enemies have acquired stuff which no big power will sell us. I'm a political appointee, my lump of sugar for my long service as Rabin's military secretary. My dream of going back to biochemistry is forgotten, I can't make up those thirty years as a soldier. This is as near to science as I can come, but the genius and self-sacrifice of the scientists and engineers under me make me feel humble. I'm not in their class, and never could have been. Half of them could go abroad for two or three times the salary we pay them, but they love Israel. My brother Michael, may he rest in peace, was the scientist in the family. If he'd lived he might have been up for a Nobel Prize, and I'm an idiot by comparison. I did well to serve in the army, after all.
I must be doing this job well because Begin is keeping me on, though I've become a crusading dove, making speeches, signing petitions, organizing rallies. Was it Napoleon who said no king could sit long on bayonets? A democracy certainly can't. There must be a political solution to the historic bind we're in. I'm as suspicious about Sadat as any hawk, like my son Noah, but at least I'm willing to hear the man. Noah and I can't talk about the territories anymore. He would hang on to every square inch and make the Arabs learn to like it or leave, if it takes a hundred years. I would withdraw even unilaterally. I know we can't keep a million helots in perpetual subjection. So my rising sea commander and I don't talk politics, Nakhama and I delight in our two granddaughters, and all's well.
The big family news is that Galia's engaged at last to "Jackie," a rich American such as Israeli girls dream of, making good money in Haifa real estate. He's a distant relative of ours, and they've been going together for years. He lost an arm during the war, but that was more of an obstacle for him than for her. It's taken her a long time to convince Jack that she didn't just pity him. The cousin business also gave them pause, but it's
on, and Nakhama and I are happy about that. He's a good man. We're happy about Ruti, too. She's been hi Galia's shadow for years, but now that she's turning seventeen she's come to life, and the boys swarm. She's beautiful enough to be a model, and almost as tall as I am.
Yes, Queenie, I assure you Nakhama did love Paris. She still talks about it. She told me she'd never forget her lunch with you in the restaurant boat, but she's never said anything more about it. I know she came back to the hotel that day stone drunk. I presume that you were in a comparable state, and that you two ladies dissected me between you like an anatomy class cadaver. Anyway she's had some kind words for you since, which is all to the good.
(Pause while I try on that uniform. I'll give a truthful report.)
Guess what, it fits! Barely. No matter, I need it only on such ceremonial occasions. Unless, God forbid, another war comes along, then I'll be invited to stand around the War Room and give advice. Through four wars, I've smiled at those poor has-beens in their tight old uniforms. Now I'm one of them. So I pray to our old Jewish God that Sadat is serious, and that I'll never have to put it on in earnest.
Love always, Wolf
"She talked me into it," said Sam Pasternak, holding out his glass to Amos. His son had brought a full bottle of cognac to the maternity ward lounge, and it was now half-empty. The wall clock showed past 3 a.m. "She changed my mind."
"Eva talked you into it? Eva, your slave? Abba, Eva couldn't talk you into changing your shirt."
"Oh, no? Wait till you're married, my boy," mumbled Pasternak, downing cognac. He had been there alone on the shabby couch of the lounge since almost midnight, and Amos had come at half-past two. "Just you wait. You'll find out about these women who are your slaves. We had agreed on no kids. Then she wanted one. The doctor warned her about
a first baby at her age, with her pelvic problem. I said forget it, aren't we happy enough? No, no, she didn't feel fulfilled, so - Well?" A dark skinny young nurse was looking in. "What now, Sister?"
"She's doing better, but the doctor urges you to go and get some sleep, it'll be a long time yet. He has your telephone number, and-"
"What about the baby's heartbeat?"
"It's all right. False alarm."
"Look, Amos, just leave that bottle and run along," Pasternak said. "You've got your hands full with the Sadat business. I'm all right."
"You do believe he's coming, Abba?"
"Who, Sadat? Oh, he's coming all right."
"To address the Knesset in Jerusalem? You really believe that?"
"Why do you ask? Does military intelligence have contrary information?"
By habit Amos glanced around and spoke low. "Even if he's serious, and that's doubtful, he may be prevented. Of course his parliament applauded the speech, why, even Arafat did, but nobody there could conceive that his offer was serious, let alone that Begin would take him up on it. His Foreign Minister and Chief of Staff are threatening to resign. That's hard intelligence, Abba, and they've got the bureaucracy and the army with them."
"He's coming, all the same," said Pasternak, "I know."
"L'Azazel, Abba, what do you know about Sadat that army intelligence doesn't?"
Pasternak drank, and said with a mulish headshake, "Never mind. You'll find out about these women who are your slaves, Amos. Now, how are you getting on with Ruti Barak?"
"Why do you keep harping on Ruti Barak? She's cute, yes, but young, young. I happened to take Ruti to a movie once, you saw us there, and now you've got us engaged."
"Lovely girl, Amos. Great family. Sure, she's very young. But compared to that Parisienne yenta of yours-"
Amos held up a flat palm, and bit out three words, "No more, Abba."
"I'll put it to you short and clear, my son, you'll have to
choose very soon between the lady and your future. I told the lady herself that once, and-"
"Yes, I know you did, and you had your nerve."
"I'm your father. You've got an outstanding record, and an intrigue like this-"
"Abba, how about Dayan's intrigues, did they ruin his career?"
"Dayan's been a rotten model for a whole generation of army officers, and I was no model myself, but standards were looser in our time, and-"
The nurse came scurrying in. "Well, what do you know, things are starting to happen. Surprising, but good."
"Aha!" Pasternak jumped up. "And the doc wanted me to go home! How much longer?"
"You may as well stay. She's very brave, your wife, and very sweet. Gorgeous, too."
"You're telling me?"
As the nurse left, Amos baldly cut off the Irene Fleg topic by saying, "Abba, do you know that Motta Gur intends to speak out tomorrow to denounce Sadat's visit, call it a trick to disarm us?"
"So? Well, I love Motta, and it's his job to be suspicious and on guard. All the same, Sadat's coming to make peace."
"Is he? The Japanese were in Washington talking peace, remember, when they bombed Pearl Harbor. Egyptian deployments these days are damned disquieting, I can tell you that as a fact."
Pasternak fell silent, emptied his glass, and held it out for more. "Very well. I can tell you something,
too. Right now three people in Israel know what I know. The other two are Begin and Dayan. I'll make you the fourth, since I know you can control your tongue, if not your yetzer horah [sinful urge]."
In low tones, Pasternak described two trips to Morocco that he had arranged for Moshe Dayan, now Begin's Foreign Minister. The King of Morocco had invited Dayan, he had gone disguised in a beatnik wig, mustache, and dark glasses, and there he had met with emissaries from Sadat. What had emerged was that, if Begin was interested in exchanging the Sinai for a peace treaty, so was Sadat. But President Carter
Herman Wouk - The Glory Page 67