The eight fighter-bombers flash over the deep blue Gulf of Aqaba and the barren Saudi coastal range, then drop to ground-hopping level to evade radar. Brown desert sands race backward under his wings, and the words return to haunt him. His first combat mission is in fact as hazardous as anything his brother ever did. Within two hours he is going to draw even with Dov or die. He drove himself to qualify for the F-16 so as to measure up to his dead brother. Hence the blurt, no omen but the truth, one way or the other.
Excellent weather, a bumpy ride through the thick hot air, above the sunbaked sand, the escorting F-15s in sight, flying along in line with the eight F-16s. So far everything on the mark, but the departure started badly. In the leader's plane all electronic systems failed just before takeoff, no explanation, and he had to leap into a backup F-16 he had never flown. There was an omen, a bad one! Malfunction in one of these single-engine mechanical wonders, on a three-hour attack mission over enemy territory, is almost as grave a hazard as enemy opposition. The most fanatical maintenance and checking by ground crews cannot forestall a crump fated to happen.
And the probable enemy opposition is hazard enough. The force is running the gamut of Jordanian, Saudi, and Iraqi radar. The Iraqis, at war with Iran, have to be on highest radar alert, for Iranian planes have already ineffectually attacked the reactor. A single radar report, or a secrecy leak in Israel, and the attack on arrival will touch off a volcanic eruption of
SAM-6 missiles and AA fire, and a scrambling cloud of MiGs from three nearby air bases. That is why the F-15s are along, to patrol over those fields, two for each field, to hold off the Iraqi air force...
The first operational hazard: time to discard the two detachable wing tanks, each snugged up against a two-thousand-pound bomb. American doctrine for the F-16 prohibits such loading, but the IAF is chancing it, as the only way for the planes to get to Baghdad and back. The risky arrangement has not been tested, no detachable tanks to spare. Danny's eye is on the leading plane of his foursome, off to the left in echelon with Mussa. There! The tanks are tumbling away. Now there go Mussa's. He trips his release, feels the jolt, feels the new lightness of the plane. B'seder, one big hurdle passed. Now for the job ahead. Review, review, review the approach plan. In radio silence there can be no orders, no calls of correction, the whole attack has to run off as rehearsed, come what may
Okay. When the objective is sighted, turn on the radar jammer of the SAM-6s and pray it works. Accelerate to throw off the mobile ack-ack, which sprays heavy shells like an Uzi but loses accuracy as targets speed up. Remember, every minute of afterburn adds risk of flameout on the way home, so watch it. Up to five thousand feet. Pair up with Mussa for the bombing dive. Fix the bomb-fall line in your sights on the white dome over the reactor. It's just a concrete vacuum chamber for radiation leaks, the target itself is buried thirty feet underground, but there's where your bombs go in, that's all in the computer. When the "death dot" on the line merges with that dome, hit the bomb button. Be ready with flares and chaff if the radar warns of incoming SAM-6s. Go to afterburner again, pull four G's on a fast climbing turn and activate IFF identifier. We'll be coming out of the setting sun. We don't want our own F-15s shooting us down for MiGs...
And still the sand flies past a few yards below and the plane jolts on in the heated air, needing hands-on flying all the way with the right-side control handle instead of the old joystick between the legs, a bit strange yet, even after so many months in the F-16. Plenty of time left to think. Too much. Roar,
roar, roar of the engine... Longest hour and a half of my life... Random thoughts...
... The hollow jocularity of the flight leader after the briefing, passing around a plate of dates, "to get you used to the Iraqi cuisine." The rumor that he refused to distribute Iraqi money to the pilots: "Money won't help a Jew falling into Iraqi hands." The rumor of a high-brass decision against using "smart bombs." The F-16s could have stood off beyond SAM-6 and ZSU range and released those superaccu-rate guided bombs at the reactor. Why not, then? "Because you need smart bombs with a dumb plane, not smart bombs with a smart plane." The supersmart F-16 can drop its dumb bombs with greater accuracy than any smart bomb could achieve. Greater risk for the pilots? Zeh mah she'yaish.
Ah, is that the lake at last or a mirage, that shimmer of blue ahead beyond the brown desert? By my life, the lake, bigger than described. The crucial landmark. Great navigation by the flight leader. Baghdad buildings, as in the photos. So this is it, and sure enough there's that big cursed white dome, slightly pink in the low sun. In minutes they'll cross into the zone of AA fire. So far, not a sign of enemy action; the winding Tigris glittering off to the right, the Baghdad high-rises far ahead, not a MiG in the clear sky, and there go the F-15s, climbing to circle high over the airfields. One of the great things about the F-16 is the visibility; you sit in a bubble atop the hurtling machine and see everything, everything, in all directions...
Slow down and drop back four miles, so as not to dive into the first unit's bomb explosions. All this was calculated long ago and cranked into computers for visual display on the transparent screens. And there goes the first unit, popping up two by two for their dives...
Worked out long ago to a hair, the strike plan is a balance between least time over the target for the whole force, and enough time between dives to avoid blowing each other up with bomb fragments. Solution: diving in pairs at intervals of thirty seconds. Four pairs, a half-minute for each pair; total time of the bombing attack, two minutes. For those two minutes, these pilots - and their backups who are not flying - have drilled and drilled for months, not informed of the target until just before the aborted strike. Yet they have guessed it
long since, from practicing six-hundred-mile bombing runs. A circle of that radius on the map, drawn around Israel, shows only one target...
Ahead and below, concussions, flame, smoke.
Danny and Mussa are the last attacking pair, most likely to catch the heat from a surprised defense. Yet their plunge at the dome, which already looks like a broken eggshell, is all but unopposed; a few white AA puffs, nothing more, no SAMs in sight, no SAM warnings on the buzzer. Death dot crawling down the pipper toward the smashed dome. Ein-steinian ballistic calculations, reduced to a simple picture for a pilot to follow and obey. Dot on dome. Okay, bomb button. Heavy jolt, plane instantly lighter, turn and climb on afterburner, pull as many G's as possible and -- Ow! OWW!
Terrific pain shoots thr6ugh Danny's head and neck. The G suit is working, but he bent his head when he turned instead of bracing it against the headrest, and he has taken the murderous G's in his neck muscles. Never mind the pain, it will pass, he is conscious. Zoom up into the sky, form up with those F-16s in plain sight overhead, trapping the last red rays of the setting sun on their white Stars of David. God, what an exciting sight! Behind and far below, smoke billowing up from the smashed egg. Next question, have they all made it?
"This is Knife Edge! Report!" The flight leader somewhere up there, breaking silence.
' 'Knife Edge Two, b 'seder.''
"Knife Edge Three, b'seder."
' 'Knife Edge Four, b 'seder.''
Voices of friends, all recognizable, young, excited, charged up.
"Cluster One, b'seder."
"Cluster Two, b'seder."
"Cluster Three, b'seder."
Silence.
The leader: "Cluster Four, are you there? Cluster Four, Cluster Four, report!"
A moment of worry for Danny, through all his neck agony, about the fate of poor Cluster Four. Oo-ah! He is Cluster Four. The code names were given just before takeoff, the pain
made him forget it. He shouts, "Cluster Four, b'seder," but makes no sound, his vocal cords still strangled.
"Cluster Four, answer up, Cluster Four!" Pause. "Danny, are you there, are you all right? Answer, Danny!"
With all his might, Danny strains and croaks, "Cluster Four, b'seder!"
"Carbon, Carbon, from Knife Edge One. CHARLIE. I say again
, CHARLIE." Thus the leader exultantly reports all planes safe, to the command plane circling many miles in the rear.
"What are the results?"
"Target appears totally destroyed according to plan."
The eight F-16s are already formed up as they climb steeply at thirty thousand feet in the lilac evening sky, four by four as in a parade flyby.
"Return to base, good luck."
The voice of the flight leader, brisk and cheery: "Knife Edge and Cluster, go to forty-two thousand feet, head for home, make six hundred knots."
The pain in Danny's throat, head, and shoulders is subsiding. He turns off the microphone to shout in his bubble as the aircraft soars, "Dov, Dov, we did it. Now let's see what those mamzerim, the politicians, can do with ten years!"
The strike force races home through the thin upper air, scoring contrails against the stars, breathing through oxygen masks, consuming mile by mile a fraction of the fuel they burned going in, lighter by two tons of bombs, the detached tanks, and most of their fuel. Even so, they land one by one on the illuminated Etzibn runway almost dry. The ground crews greet them with joy, having no idea of where they have been, but sensing that they have done something momentous. Danny runs and embraces Mussa as he steps off the ladder from his bubble. "Well, we did it."
"That's what we're paid for," says Mussa, and he walks off into the darkness.
Benny Luria comes out of the gloom at a trot, wearing a knitted skullcap, most unusual for him while on duty. He fiercely hugs his son, puts his hand on his thick red hair, and says in a choked voice, "Repeat this: 'Blessed are you, O Lord, Ruler of the Universe, who grants favors to the unwor-
thy, and has granted me supreme favor." It is the blessing on deliverance from danger. Danny knows the words. Without sharing his father's growing religiosity, he repeats them from the heart. "Abba, Dov flew with me all the way."
His father squeezes an arm around his shoulders. ' 'I know. Mission fulfilled, and all pilots Charlie! A great feat, Danny, a feat for the generations. Highest professionalism, plus the hand of God."
Epilogue
"And He Stall Reign"
April 1982. Deadline for all Israeli forces to withdraw from the Sinai and seal the Camp David peace.
In the media, and in many governments including the American, much skepticism has prevailed as to whether the Israelis would not in the end, find some pretext to stay put. What, leave behind their networks of modern roads, their airfields, their many military camps and underground command bases, constructed at such enormous expense? Give up the oil fields they have developed, which have made them energy-independent and balanced their national budget? Abandon the vital Sharm el Sheikh naval base, the great Etzion air base, the beautiful coastal town of Yamit? Meekly hand all these priceless installations over to the Egyptians, who tried and failed to recover them by force of arms? Just wait and see.
The Israelis are indeed full of surprises. As they surprised the world in the Six-Day War, and at Entebbe, and in the Reactor Raid, so they now surprise the world by hauling down their flags and quietly departing from the last of these irreplaceable assets. That is not to say the departure is a gladsome business. Moving day even in private life tends to be lugubrious; how much more so, in the life of a nation.
The dismantling is over at Sharm el Sheikh. Everything of military use has been removed or blown up, and only the ransacked buildings remain standing. The base commandant, Noah Barak, is having a last look around his rubble-strewn office when his father walks in. "Hi, I came down with the admiral. In case you're not feeling bad enough, I brought you this. Remember it?"
He hands the commandant a framed snapshot of a skinny boyish lieutenant in shorts and a helmet, raising the Israeli flag over a building by the sea.
The commandant nods. His beard is flecked with gray, and he is far from skinny. "I remember more than this, Abba. I remember you bringing me here in '57 when we gave the base back to the Egyptians," Bitterly he adds, "For the first time, that is."
"Remember by chance what you said way back then?"
"Do I?" Noah shifts to a childish treble. " 'Abba, why do we have to give it back? We won the war!' And you said" - Noah puts on a deep voice - " 'We're doing it for peace.'
"Good memory. You also said, 'We'll get it back. I'll take it back!' " Barak gestures at the picture. "And you kept your word."
Noah puts on his white dress-uniform blouse and his cap. "Yes, and here we go again, doing it for peace. Maybe this time it will work."
As the blue-and-white flag slowly comes down, green-clad soldiers on the parade ground, and navy girl soldiers lined up on the wharf in their pretty white uniforms, stand at attention singing "Hatikvah," tears pouring down the girls' cheeks. Zev Barak tries to sing, but cannot bring out a sound. Six Dabur patrol boats are leaving the wharf in a column. As the anthem ends, they sail in a tight circle round and round, their sirens wailing.
At Etzion air base Egyptian officers and soldiers wait to take over, keeping a discreet distance from the parade ground. Danny Luria has come from Ramat David for the ceremony, and now wishes he had not. The spectacle of the wrecked hangars and blasted facilities is bad enough, but not since Dov's death has he seen his father so brought down. Yet Benny Luria goes stiffly through the flag-lowering, singing
"Hatikvah" with the ranks of aviators and ground crew. The ceremony over, he exchanges salutes with the much taller, heavily mustached Egyptian general in resplendent dress uniform who approaches for a low-toned colloquy. Then Benny Luria comes to his son, takes his arm, and murmurs, "Blessed are you, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, the True Judge," the blessing on evil news, usually spoken at a death. "Amen," says his son. "Let's go home, Abba." "Amen!" Benny's voice turns loud and hard. "Back to the Promised Land."
At Yamit (Seaside) on the Mediterranean, the ghost of Moshe Dayan hovers over the dismantling. Yamit is not a military base at all, but a beach and farming town constructed just across the Sinai border after the Six-Day War; as Dayan then put it, "to create uvdot [facts] on the land." Several such "facts" were strung inside Sinai in a strip along the borders. In the end they almost wrecked the Camp David talks, for Sadat demanded, in return for peace, every last inch of the Sinai. So Dayan sadly reversed himself and agreed to the uprooting of the uvdot, including prosperous Yamit, his crowning fact. Before concurring, Begin telephoned Arik Sharon, the toughest of the tough, for his approval to give up Yamit. Now Dayan is gone, and the uprooting is for other hands. Whose but Arik Sharon's?
"Kishote, I have to evacuate and bulldoze Yamit." Early in April, Sharon, a civilian minister, is talking to the chief of planning branch in the Kirya. "We can't leave a town on the Sinai border for the Egyptians to move into. That's asking for trouble. We can't leave ruins for terrorists to hide out in, either. Every stick and brick we can't remove, we'll have to plough under. It's heartbreaking, but not one stone must remain on another."
"I can see that."
In a grating tone Sharon goes on. "Then there are the townspeople. They're getting a dirty deal. We induced them to come and make their lives in Yamit, and now they have to give up their homes, their schools, everything. The diehards won't go quietly. There'll be protests, women lying down in front of the bulldozers, and so on. As usual with the charming jobs, I've got it. I need a deputy. Will you take it on?"
"All right."
"So quick? It doesn't bother your conscience one bit, Yossi, evacuating settlers and razing a settlement?"
"Yamit isn't a settlement, Arik. Planting those people inside the Sinai was a strategic brainstorm of Dayan's, and a misguided one. It doesn't bother my conscience, no."
"It does mine, and mark my word, it'll haunt us as a precedent."
"For the Holy Land? Show me in the Bible, Arik, where God promised Abraham the Sinai desert," says the chief of planning branch.
"Okay, Don Kishote. Draw up a plan for the evil day."
There is no flag-lowering at Yamit, only the crash of the bulldozers i
nto crumpling, walls, the yells of protesters, the sirens of police vans coming to take away the violent ones, the swelling murmur of crowds of onlookers. Some shoving, shouting, wrestling, a lot of camera work, and the people are out. It becomes a protracted long day of monotonous eradication of wreckage.
The crowds fade away. April 25 is the last day for Israel's compliance with the Camp David Accords, and the chief of planning remains there to the last, to assure that all happens in full compliance with the treaty. As the sun sets on the place that was once Yamit, its dying rays slant down on level sands, departing bulldozers, and the lone figure of Don Kishote, surveying the patch of desert that was once Yamit.
The Lebanese War starts as a triumph and becomes a controversial bog, but it is the making of Danny Luria. After scoring six victories in the air battles, to his father's bursting pride, Danny becomes a leading instructor in F-16 combat. He speaks no more of disenchantment. He speaks very little altogether for a long while after the elegant Hilton wedding of Amos Pasternak and Ruti Barak, a sort of feudal festivity for the top management of Rafael and Kivshan. At the wedding Danny is as jocund as anyone, kisses the abashed bride on the cheek, and leaves early.
Herman Wouk - The Glory Page 73