by Hesh Kestin
The lieutenant kicks him away. It is not a symbolic kick.
In a moment, the two Bedouin lead their donkeys onward, mounting only when they turn out of sight.
“Abed, how could you debase yourself like that?”
“How would you have wished me to debase myself?”
“There were only six. We could have reached into our packs and killed them all.”
“And the sharpshooters above would have cut us down on the spot.”
“What sharpshooters?”
“The ones you did not see, Cobi. The ones you are not supposed to see. For a month I have been watching such bastards as these, all the same, trained alike. They never operate without cover.” He raises his index finger. “Pay attention: brain, not strain, brings gain.”
“Old Bedouin proverb?”
“No,” Abed says. “But it sounds good.”
68
ABOVE THE SIX SHIPS on a collision course with an Egyptian frigate and two trailing corvettes, a helicopter marked PRESS in Arabic and English hovers like a buzzing witness, a video camera pointed out one window to record what is expected to be a major news event.
On the bridge of the frigate, an Egyptian admiral—the English word is itself derived from the Arabic amir al-bahr, ruler of the sea—lowers his binoculars from the press helicopter to focus on the line of six freighters. His executive officer stands by his side and just sufficiently behind, also with binoculars.
“Firing short, excellency?”
“Firing straight on,” the admiral says.
“Civilian vessels, excellency.”
“My orders are clear. Firing straight on.”
The exec speaks into the squawk box. “Bridge to Fire Control. Closing on target. Establish range.”
The admiral places one hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Yussef, do this once and done. Then no others will come.”
As he speaks, the ship’s five-inch 54 cal. guns swing slowly around.
69
ON THE DECK OF CV Star of Bethlehem, the hymn singing reaches a fever pitch as the members of its motley crew stare straight ahead at the approaching Egyptian warships.
From the bridge, Captain Frank depresses a button on the loud hailer that is his only means of communication with the ship—the waa-waa-waa of the amplified device stops the singing in mid-note. “Yo! Below! This is the captain speaking. Will one of you sopranos hoist the flag per instruction, or do I have to go below and do it myself? For fuck’s sake, the Lord seems to be occupied elsewhere. Raise that goddamned flag!”
70
ON THE BRIDGE OF the Egyptian frigate, a white flag can be seen rising to the top of the communications mast of the first freighter. One by one, the next five ships follow suit.
The executive officer lets hang his binoculars. From this distance, they are no longer necessary. “Begging your pardon, excellency.”
“Don’t even say it, Yussef.”
“But excellency, Law of the Sea—”
“Yussef, who will know?”
The exec points above, where the press helicopter has dropped to hover above the fast-closing Egyptian warships, video camera pointed out its window.
“Take it out,” the admiral orders.
“Excellency, I protest. The helicopter is clearly marked. It is a noncombatant. As are the six vessels. These are civilian vessels flying the white flag of surrender.”
“Yussef,” the admiral says with a mixture of kindness and authority. “Do you wish to spend your naval career scrubbing toilets in a brig in Alexandria harbor?”
The exec switches on the squawk box. “Bridge to fire control. Hold steady on target awaiting command to fire. Repeat, steady on, awaiting command.” He pauses. “Bridge to sea-to-air battery. Sea-to-air, come in.”
An affirmative noise responds.
“Sea-to-air, acquire spinner at two o’clock, range three hundred meters, altitude one hundred meters and holding.”
Another noise, this one longer, and clearly not affirmative.
The executive officer turns to the admiral. “Excellency, sea-to-air battery reports target is clearly marked Press.”
“A Jewish trick,” the admiral replies.
“Excellency?”
“Shoot it down. Then order gunners to take out all marine targets dead ahead starting with...” He raises his binoculars. “Star of something.”
“Star of Bethlehem, excellency.”
“Indeed, the star. What did I tell you, a Jewish trick.”
“Excellency?”
“Yussef, Yussef. Tell me, what is the symbol emblazoned on the Jewish flag?”
“With all respect, excellency. The ships fly the white flag.”
“Never mind. The Jewish flag, what is its well-known emblem? The cross? The crescent?”
The exec sees where this is going, but can do nothing other than give the required answer. “The star, excellency.”
“The star is correct, Yussef,” the admiral says. “The Jews’ star. Now do your job without further delay. We are in battle.”
71
FROM THE EAST, THREE pink F/A-18 Super Hornets cross from the Sinai Desert and are now over open water heading due west at almost twice the speed of sound. In the lead aircraft, Jimbo opens communications, until now suppressed lest their electronic signatures be picked up by US signal-monitoring satellites overhead. “In four to engage. Reducing to attack speed. How you ladies doin’? Over.”
Stan: “Reducing speed. Guys, not too late to turn back. My war. Over.”
Chris: “Shut your pie hole. Over.”
Stan: “I’ll never forget this. Over.”
Chris: “Ain’t happened yet. Over.”
Jimbo: “Happenin’ in two. Ourah! Over.”
Stan: “Roger that. Ourah! Over.”
Jimbo: “We have tally. Repeat, we have visual at nine o’clock. Careful of them cargo tubs, ladies. Ourah and shaalome!”
72
ON THE DECK OF CV Star of Bethlehem, the singing continues with a kind of resolute hopefulness, less fervent than earlier but with a good deal more affirmation. If something very bad is about to happen—and there is every indication it will—the mostly Christian crew clearly wishes to die pronouncing words of faith, not fear. They have just broken into “Rocka Ma Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” when Connie Blunt, her producer, and her cameraman scramble up the ladder leading to the bridge and burst in.
“We’re flying the white flag. Don’t they see it?”
Captain Frank is circumcising a large cigar with a small, very sharp knife. He does not look up from his work except to gaze out at the approaching fleet. “At this range, they sure do.”
“Well, what’s going to happen?”
“Like I said, sister, there’s no telling. I’ve been Morsing we’re unarmed, but they don’t reply.”
“But what’s going to happen?”
“Dunno. Maybe they’re waiting for your press friends in the chopper to run low on fuel and leave the scene. Maybe they intend to ram us. I haven’t been briefed.”
Blunt is losing it. “Ram us? We could drown! Captain, I need for you to contact the press helicopter and get us evacuated immedia—” A tremendous boom cuts her short, followed by a series of smaller booms as the helicopter’s aviation gasoline explodes along its fuel lines.
“What was that?” Blunt shouts. It’s as if she needs someone to confirm what she sees. “What’s happening?”
She barely completes the phrase before hot steel and flaming plastic begins raining down to starboard.
Captain Frank sticks the cigar in his mouth. “What was your alternate plan?”
“Oh my God. Oh my God! They’re going to attack us! You have to get us off this ship!”
“Sister, that was my thinking first time I laid eyes on you.” He picks up the loud hailer, carries it out to the deck, and turns on the waa-waa-waa. “Attention, crew of Star of Bethlehem. This is Captain Levine. All hands into lifeboats. Repeat: get your sorry a
sses into those lifeboats now! To all hands. We are abandoning ship!” He steps back inside.
“But where will we go?”
The captain is rather busy at the moment. He picks up the radio mic. “To all masters, to all masters. This is Captain Levine. We are abandoning ship. We are abandoning ship. According to Uniform Code of Naval Procedure, I cannot order you to do the same, but strongly suggest it. Those trigger-happy Gyppos seriously don’t like us. Don’t take it personal. Just get your people into those damn boats.”
He has not signed off when the ship is engulfed in a rolling boom that comes out of the east and then seems to head up and away as the thunder of three low-flying jets echoes across the sky.
“Holy shit,” Blunt’s producer says. “It’s an air attack!”
Captain Frank picks up the handset. “Attention all masters, attention all masters. This is Captain Levine. Revised orders. Continue to man those lifeboats, but do not deploy. Just stand by. I don’t know what the hell just happened, but those planes are friendly. We’re being buzzed. Stand by for further information.” He picks up the hailer. “To all crew, to all crew. Hold fast those lifeboats. Repeat: don’t bother getting your asses wet. All that hymn singing seems to have had an effect.”
“What?”
“F/A-18s.”
“What? Speak English, for shit’s sake!”
The captain shades his eyes. “Super Hornets. Pink ones.”
73
THE THREE AIRCRAFT LEVEL off at twenty-eight hundred feet, sufficiently out of range of the frigate’s sea-to-air missiles to take evasive action should they be targeted. Likely that will take time. Israel’s air force is known to be destroyed—the Egyptian Navy is not prepared to defend from aerial attack.
Jimbo: “Stan and Chris, fore and aft. I’ve got the superstructure. We’ll deal with the small fry later. Ourah! Over.”
Chris: “Copy that, Jim. Ourah! Over.”
Stan: [Muffled.]
Jimbo: “Stanny, come in. Over.”
Stan: “I’m just crying, you big schmucks. Over.”
Chris: “Jew-bastard. Over.”
Jimbo: “Clipped-dick sissy. Over.”
Stan: “You ladies wanna stay the fuck out of my way. Permission to solo. Over.”
Jimbo: “Roger that, Jewboy. Chris, let’s give David some room to tickle Goliath. Party on. Ourah! Over.”
74
TWO PINK FIGHTERS CLIMB as the third swoops low over the Egyptian frigate, its 20 mm. cannons blazing at five hundred feet before it loops to come right back, sending two AGM Harpoon missiles into the Egyptian vessel’s superstructure.
It collapses like tinfoil.
On the frigate, the crew dives for cover, abandoning the very guns that are its only defense.
On her bridge, the admiral is both surprised and incensed. “What is that?”
His executive officer is already on the squawk box. “All hands, defensive posture. All hands, defensive posture. We are under aerial attack!”
“By whom?” the admiral shouts above the tumult. “Who has pink Hornets?”
“Super Hornets, excellency.”
“The fucking gays have an air force?”
75
ON BOARD CV STAR of Bethlehem, Connie Blunt, abruptly aware she is out of danger, scrambles to the bow for a stand-up. She is in full professional mode, except that absent her French sailor hat her hair is blowing the wrong way as the freighter plows thirty degrees to port to avoid the conflagration ahead. Having turned one way and then the other, Blunt gives up on attempting to have her hair stream behind her and simply holds it back as she prepares to describe the action into a hand mic that will avoid picking up ambient noise, of which there is plenty.
“Hurry up, Buddy!” she screams to her cameraman, who is having trouble keeping his footing on the slippery deck as the freighter hits a swell. “Come on! I’m going to win a Peabody!”
Her producer grabs the cameraman by the waist, stabilizing him sufficiently. “Hooked up to satellite!” he shouts. “Three, two...”
“Damian, this is amazing! You are watching a live attack by unidentified jet fighters on the Egyptian battleship that was bearing down on this humanitarian aid flotilla. Just a moment ago, an Egyptian naval rocket destroyed a BBC-chartered press helicopter, which exploded in midair, almost certainly leaving no survivors. No one on board the Star of Bethlehem has any doubt that this was to be our fate too, as well as that of the other five ships behind us bringing much-needed food, water, and medicines to the beleaguered city of Tel Aviv.”
A boom.
She turns.
“Life boats on board were about to be lowered after our captain gave the order to abandon ship, when literally out of nowhere there appeared a squadron or whatever you call it of three so far unidentified warplanes, F-16s or F-18s or, and you can quote me on this, F-U’s, that have literally saved the day. Behind me, a lone pink—yes, pink!—jet fighter is single-handedly pounding the bejesus out of that enormous Egyptian battleship, which—”
She turns again.
“—which omigod, it is sinking. I repeat, the Egyptian battleship is apparently sinking right in front of us live on CNN. Can you get this, Buddy? Buddy, get the camera off me. Forget what I said! Get the battleship!”
A double boom.
“Omigod, Atlanta, two other pink warplanes have now descended and are apparently taking on the two smaller vessels, which may or may not be destroyers, both of which have been hit by missiles.”
At CNN in Atlanta, with the screen behind him filled with the scene five thousand miles away, Damian Smith cuts in. “Connie, we have confirmation the large ship is a frigate, the two smaller vessels corvettes. All three seem to be stopped dead in the water. Connie? Connie?”
On the screen behind him, the three pink jets regroup and come in low directly over the Star of Bethlehem. Connie dives for the deck. Her cameraman is already there, with her producer on top of him. On the studio screen, there is nothing but deck, then sky, then deck again, and then sky blacked out as the jets buzz the freighter, dipping their wings.
“Omigod, I think they’re about to attack us! I never signed on for this! F(bleep) this sh(bleep)!”
Smith comes in. “Connie, take it easy. It looks like they’re just saying goodbye.”
Blunt regains her feet. “You think so, Damian?” She turns. “Yes, you’re right. The three warplanes are leaving the area, beautiful double plumes of smoke streaming behind them.”
“Contrails,” Smith says quietly.
“Yes, absolutely, Damian. They are disappearing to the—well, I can’t really tell what direction, but they’re becoming tiny dots on the horizon.”
“Connie, does anyone aboard the Star of Bethlehem know whose warplanes came to the defense of the aid flotilla?”
Her answer is drowned out by Captain Frank’s waa-waa-waa and then his amplified voice. “Attention all hands, attention all hands. This is Captain Frank. Belay all lifeboats. Repeat, belay all lifeboats. Crew, make fast all boats.”
CV Star of Bethlehem steams past the listing Egyptian frigate as its corvette escorts burn and lifeboats pick up survivors.
“To all hands: good job all around. Return to normal stations. Repeat: return to normal stations. Next stop, Tel Aviv!”
76
HAVING RETURNED FROM A three-day leave, in her quarters at USMA Forward Attack Squadron Wildcat Lieutenant Colonel Iris McKendrick, her hair in curlers, stubs out a Marlboro, then drains her shot glass. On the television screen before her, a CNN cameraman is panning CV Star of Bethlehem as its crew makes fast its lifeboats. Over the sound of the freighter’s ancient engines and the pounding of the waves can be heard the joyful song of the miraculously saved. As angry as she is, she cannot help but join in:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Amazing grace, how sweet it is...
&n
bsp; 77
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MCKENDRICK IS not alone. The song, a staple of the Christian hymnal since it was composed in 1772, will become so popular that everyone from mezzo-sopranos to rap artists will cover it in the weeks ahead. Existing versions are already playing on radio stations while the soundtrack of the crew singing loops over and over again whenever television news reruns footage of the aid flotilla, which every television station outside the Muslim world does with great frequency. The song seems to have touched a nerve even with Russian and Chinese media, which up to this point have shown a sincere lack of interest in the tragedy unfolding in Tel Aviv.
That no onsite reportage emanates from the ghetto itself goes unmentioned even among the most sympathetic news outlets, which hardly wish to flaunt their impotence: so little news gets out of Muslim-controlled former Israel because news personnel find it impossible to get in. Journalists are summarily turned back at their home airports when they attempt to fly into Yasser Arafat International Airport, and the entirety of former Israel is sealed off from access by sea. Without a functioning Internet connection and no electricity to power short-wave broadcasts, Ghetto Tel Aviv is effectively cut off.
Only those governments with satellites have any idea what is going on in Tel Aviv or in the country’s huge prisoner of war camps. Primary among them is Washington.
78
IN THE WHITE HOUSE operations room, the president finds himself impressed by the day’s events in the eastern Mediterranean.
“Flo, didn’t I tell you those Israelians have an ace or two up their sleeve?” he says, tapping his foot to the sound of Amazing Grace playing on CNN. “Will you look at that footage. Our flyboys couldn’t do it better.”
“Should we not be concerned, sir? We had no intel. And still don’t.”
“Maybe not. But if IDF’s got three planes, they’ve got more, which means those Jews could deliver nuclear. We’d better give ’em that airlift. Anyhoo, there is no more Egyptian blockade.”