Shadow Soldier: A Military Thriller

by Roni Eliav

  We heard the sound of approaching helicopters. A round was shot in our direction, we fired back. The helicopters descended into the canyon from its far side. The two other soldiers and I suddenly realized we were a fair distance away. We shouted to one another and made a run for the makeshift landing pad. We ran across the canyon with full gear in pitch-black. We tripped, we fell, we hit the stones on the ground, but we kept on running. When we came within 100 yards of the landing pad, we saw one of the helicopters taking off and flying away. Some more rounds were shot, again missing their target. We kept on running. By the time we reached the landing pad, it was abandoned.

  We looked around at each other, petrified. We were alone, three officers in the heart of enemy territory. They had forgotten us, or left us behind to pull the main force out. As far as we were concerned, it made no difference. Above us, at the mouth of the canyon, we could hear shouting and gunfire. The terrorists were revving themselves up before descending into the canyon.

  Further down the canyon, about three miles down, there was another possible landing spot. None of us had a radio with us. We decided to run for it. Normally, three miles of open terrain was a piece of cake for us, but running downhill in a rocky, thorny, pitch-black canyon was an utter nightmare. Our throats closed up, our breaths grew shorter, we sweated bullets; we expected to feel bullets piercing our backs at any moment. We ran as if we were possessed. I hit a stone, tumbled over and fell, got up and kept running. My knee hurt, as did my elbow. I kept running. We realized we had passed the landing spot, because we suddenly found ourselves standing at the edge of a precipice. We stopped in our tracks, panting heavily, and headed back at a slower pace. We reached a crossing between two canyons — but it was too narrow for a helicopter to land. We sat down on a rock, completely out of ideas. We drank some more water. The shouting behind us was getting closer. We assumed we had no more than an hour before they reached us. We turned on our homing devices, and waited.

  Maybe they just forgot about us. I’m not getting captured, I thought to myself. I’ll save the last bullet for myself, just in case. Maybe a grenade is better, actually. With a bullet, I might miss. Yes, a grenade is better. But we’ll give them hell first. I examined my ammunition. My magazine was dented, probably from the fall a couple of minutes earlier. I changed it for a new one. I’d lost a grenade too, but still had one left. The shouting was getting closer and closer.

  And then we suddenly heard the sound of helicopter rotors approaching. A sweet, sweet sound— like your mother calling you to the dinner table. The two helicopters came in low behind us, and to our astonishment they flew right above our heads and past us. We shouted as loud as we could, turned on our flashlights, but nothing. “Those were Cobras,” one of the soldiers said.

  “Right,” we said with a sigh of relief.

  The choppers stabilized in the air, and laid down a carpet of fire over the rest of the canyon. The Cobra minigun sounds like demons out of hell, but for once—those demons were on our side. A Twin Two-Twelve arrived and shone a spotlight down; when it saw it had nowhere to land, it hovered as close to the ground as it could. One by one, we climbed onto its skids and the flight mechanic pulled us into the cabin. We took off and flew back home.

  The debriefing started early the next morning. I wasn’t really listening; I was busy thinking about an odd and enticing message Tal had left with the unit telephone operator. The only moment I was stirred back into attention was when someone mentioned that the booby-trapped radio had been taken back to the headquarters of the terrorist organization in Tyre, where it later detonated and razed the place to the ground. I have since bragged that I singlehandedly thwarted that organization.

  As soon as the debriefing was done, I went to the administrative company commander and asked to take out a car from the motor pool for three days. The only one they had for me was a Dodge D200, a semi-truck. I took it. That afternoon, I headed south. By 10 PM, I had reached Eilat; for the rest of the night, I was driving southbound down the Sinai coastal highway, along the shores of the Red Sea.

  I smoked a cigarette. The window was cracked open, and I was feeling drowsy. Suddenly I became convinced a group of Saudi Arabian soldiers had crossed the bay and set up an ambush for me. I shook my head and tried to focus on the road. But what if there really was an ambush? I drove on, fully alert now, but couldn’t shake off the fear. In Nuweiba, I stopped to get a couple of hours’ sleep. Later the following morning, I made it to Sharm El Sheikh.

  “Where is she?” I asked. No one was really certain. Finally, someone suggested she might be at the secluded beach. I got some directions and headed there. After scaling the last line of bounders before the sea, I discovered a beautiful, tiny secluded beach. Tal was sitting there, completely naked, looking out at the sea.

  I snuck up behind her and hugged her. She tried to turn around, but I wouldn’t let her. She struggled, but I easily overpowered her. She growled like a beast. Finally, she stopped resisting. I kissed the back of her neck, her body quivered. My hands roamed all over her body, caressing, grabbing, petting, squeezing… Our breaths grew shorter.

  When everything was done, I got back in the truck and drove home, still on the lookout for ambushes. There were none. To this day, when I drive at night, I look out for ambushes. More often than not, there are none…

  Chapter 17

  EREZ, TAL, AND EITAN’S STORY

  Tal enlisted a short while after Erez’s team did, and discharged a short while before them.

  When Tal was little, her nickname was Tiltul. As she got older, she grew to resent the name. For years, she tried in vain to shake off that childish nickname. When she was six years old, her parents relocated to Africa. Her father was a project manager at Solel Boneh, one of the largest construction and civil engineering companies in Israel. They lived in a large house, waited on by servants. Tal attended an American school; she liked the school, and the school liked her.

  Tal loved Africa. She loved the heat, the people, taking trips with her family in the great national parks, and the animals. She was one sister sandwiched between two brothers, and she acted as if she were the third brother. They had their own games that they invented, a treehouse, and a gardener who taught them the secrets of nature.

  When Tal was eleven years old, her family returned home to Kfar Saba, a small city near Tel-Aviv. She had a hard time: she was tall and awkward, and had the mannerisms of a white girl in Africa. She found herself constantly looking for the black cook and cleaner. Her English was good, but she made terrible grammatical errors in Hebrew, especially in writing. She didn’t fit in socially, and would often come home in tears. Her brothers, who also had a hard time at first, managed to fit in by excelling at sports. Not long after the family’s return to Israel, the Yom Kippur War broke out, plunging the country into despair; grief and loss pervaded every city and settlement. In that social climate, no one had any time for Tal’s difficulties.

  The next few years saw two processes that would change her life completely: she grew out of puberty and emerged a tall, beautiful young girl. Her body stabilized, and became feminine. The second process saw her father becoming a successful and very wealthy private contractor. They moved into a fancy house; she owned every ostentatious thing one could possibly want.

  Boys sought her attention, and girls followed suit. Almost at once, Tal metamorphosed from an “ugly duckling” into a beautiful and popular girl. Almost inevitably, Tal became vain and arrogant. Her relationship with boys grew increasingly asymmetrical, with her calling the shots like a queen bee.

  When she was sixteen years and two months old, Tal was raped. It happened almost by accident. She was at a beach party, and a guy she didn’t know took her to a dark, secluded spot. She was a bit intoxicated, and delighted by the stranger’s courtship. He kissed her and tried to touch her body; when she refused, he pounced on her, beat her, and brutally raped her. Tal tried to fight back, but was stu
nned by his aggression. She froze up completely. She felt like she had been hurled into another world, into hell. A world where she didn’t know the rules and didn’t know what to do. When he finished, he left her there crying and disappeared.

  Tal had a hard time settling back into her normal life. She couldn’t shake the feeling of humiliation and helplessness. She didn’t tell a soul about what had happened. She felt guilty without quite knowing why. Her social life slowly withered away, and was suffused with suspicion. Her studies deteriorated. She felt detached and defiled.

  The rapist’s anonymity made him a monster in her mind. She hadn’t known who he was before, and she never saw him again. Nor did she have an easy way to find out who he was. For those reasons, she could imagine that maybe the whole thing never even happened; she latched onto that notion. Slowly but surely, Tal pulled herself out of the abyss: she started going out again. Her relationships with the opposite sex became aggressive— she took what she wanted and made sure to give nothing in return. She let her family spoil her, lavish her with attention and gifts. They sensed that something had happened, but didn’t know what.

  A while later, she decided that since she was no longer a virgin anyway, she might as well explore the world of sex. She gave herself to a slew of boys and men, and increasingly started to enjoy herself as well. She had many lovers— some were utterly useless, some were not bad, and some truly taught her about pleasure.

  She started taking martial arts lessons and dedicated herself fully. At the age of seventeen, she got a nose job, adjusting her physical appearance to complement her style. When she got her driver’s license, her father bought her a red sports car. Kids her age were intimidated by her, so she befriended older boys and girls. Her interests became increasingly superficial, to the point of nonexistence.

  She graduated high school a mediocre student, well below her actual potential, but she couldn’t have cared less. In fact, she didn’t care about anything. Then, one hot afternoon, she filled a tub full of water, crawled in, and cut the veins of her left wrist.

  Her mother found her on the brink of death. She was rushed to the hospital, got emergency treatment, and made it out alive. Her perturbed and scared parents sent her to see a psychologist. The psychologist, a young man, allowed her to seduce him, thinking it would help her. Tal decided it was a waste of her time and quit therapy.

  Her parents then hired a well-known female psychologist, but her relationship with Tal became heated and contentious. The psychologist, in a decidedly unprofessional move, recommended psychiatric treatment and prescription drugs. No one touched the heart of the problem. Tal refused to reveal she had been raped.

  And then she met Eitan on the beach, by chance. She was sitting with a friend, and Eitan was sitting not far away from them. When two guys started pestering the girls, Eitan came over and sat next to them, driving the two guys away. Tal thanked him and teased him, telling him he did it only so that he could get closer to them himself. Eitan was a bit offended and clammed up. Tal found that cute.

  When they left, Eitan gathered up the courage and asked her out to a movie. He offered to pick her up— she told him that she would pick him up. That evening, she rolled up in her red sports car, and the two went to see the musical “Hair.” They agreed it was a fun movie with a sad ending. They loved the irreverence and rebelliousness of the movie’s protagonists, so far removed from their own lives.

  Later, they sat in a teahouse, the type that had been popping up like mushrooms after rain at that time. They talked for hours, and Tal felt like she could tell him anything. She spoke about her childhood, about Africa, and how hard it was to return. He told her that he had also been to Africa with his father, who was later killed as a soldier during the Yom Kippur War; he talked about grief and loss, and about his mother and brother.

  He seemed uniquely vulnerable to her, yet not at all sorry and miserable. He had an optimism and good will about him which conveyed calm, despite his large proportions. Eitan was tall and muscular, like a figure from Greek mythology.

  At the end of the evening, they kissed goodbye. For the first time in years, she felt truly alive. She wanted to throw herself in his arms. She did exactly that when they next met, at the beach. She later made him swim naked with her at night. They met again, and slept together on their third date. He told her innocently that it was his first time. For some reason, that struck a chord deep inside her. Despite Eitan’s inexperience, the sex was fulfilling. They met almost every day. Tal thought she might be in love.

  Eitan was big, strong, loyal, and affectionate. Tal welcomed the change with open arms. And then he told her he was enlisting to a top-secret elite unit. Tal didn’t like the idea that he’d be leaving her and that she’d only see him occasionally on weekends. But he refused to give it a second thought.

  They desperately tried to wring the last drop out of the time they had left together. Inevitably, though, the day finally came when Tal drove Eitan to the recruiting office. She didn’t cry; she hugged him and kissed him, and drove home. That same day, she comforted herself in the arms of another male friend. She was angry and felt betrayed and did what she always did: ruined everything. She told herself that was what she deserved. When Eitan first came home for the weekend, she told him it was over. She wasn’t one to wait.

  The process of her enlistment went on uninterrupted. The Ministry of Health hadn’t updated the army on the issue of her mental health; a cog in the bureaucratic machine was broken, and Tal enlisted before the army received any such information. She was looking forward to her military service, which she saw as an opportunity to start off with a clean slate. She was desperate to be stationed in the special unit Eitan was serving in. She called on every connection she had: her father, Eitan’s mother— who was well-known in the army, since her late husband had been a popular and beloved officer before his death— and through another cousin, as well.

  She enlisted, and managed to get through boot camp. She then got her wish, and was stationed to serve in Eitan’s unit. In the meantime, the systems finally synched up, and the army discovered she had an attempted suicide to her name. Due to the sensitive nature of her position, her mental health could be an issue; the army had a tough call to make. She was sent home and instructed to await their decision.

  Tal celebrated being free and home again, even if only temporarily. She went to see her old psychologist, and made her write a letter confirming she was no longer a threat to herself.

  The army caved, and she went on to serve in the unit. Eitan was there, undergoing a qualification course, the period of time soldiers are at their absolute least accessible. They worked their socks off day and night, and by the time the weekend arrived all they wanted was sleep. Eitan was a cadet in the team led by Erez— a certified nutjob, standing out even in such an extreme environment. So Tal hardly saw him, and even on the rare occasions she did, they hardly spoke.

  Tal had two affairs during this period: one was a short-lived fling with a senior-ranking married officer, and the other with a veteran combatant. After serving in the unit for a year, Tal ran into Eitan at a party at home over the weekend. Eitan had just completed one of the least taxing weeks in the qualification course, and was very energetic. He was the center of attention, encircled by friends and acquaintances who tried to squeeze any bit of information from him about the special, secret unit. He kidded around with everyone, but divulged nothing. At the end of the evening, Tal took him to her house without saying anything, and the two spent the night making passionate, desperate love. Eitan then fell asleep and Tal went out to the kitchen, where she ran into her mother.

  “I thought I heard Eitan’s voice before,” her mother said.

  “Yeah, it’s him. But he’s asleep already,” Tal replied.

  “Tal, don’t do this to him again…”

  “Do what?” Tal asked incredulously.

  “Break his heart,” her mother r
eplied. “Love him, dump him, torture him… He doesn’t deserve that.”

  “And what do I deserve, Mom? Do I deserve a guy who doesn’t have any time for me? A guy who prefers his team over me? Is that what I deserve?”

  “You deserve everything, Tiltul. But you already have everything. He has nothing.”

  “Mom, you have no idea what I do or do not have.”

  “Yes, I’ve come to understand that, dear. But maybe, just this once, do what’s right for you too, and stay with him.”

  “I can’t, Mom. A soldier in training is not a human being, he’s a warrior on a production line. Maybe one day, after the qualification course…”

  “It pains me to see this, Tiltul. It hurts me to see both of you like this.”

  “Me too, Mom. More than you know,” Tal concluded.

  Tal woke Eitan up in the morning, fixed him breakfast, and took him home. She didn’t respond to his attempts to meet up later. The following day, she saw him during the usual Sunday fitness session—a killer workout that every combatant, cadet, and officer undertook every Sunday. The girls would settle in and enjoy watching the ripped, half-naked young men busting their asses in an extreme strenuous workout. They were dripping wet, their muscles bulging; they were truly a sight to behold.

  Erez’s team always trained apart from the rest of the unit, with additional exertions like 2,000 sit-ups—because Erez’s girlfriend despised pot-bellies— or a couple of extra rounds of climbing a rope using only their arms— because Team Erez needed to be able to lift cars.

  Tal knew the car story. Everybody knew it. Team Erez had been driving in Tel-Aviv and entered a narrow street with the army truck. Cars were parked on both sides of the street and there was no way through. Erez ordered the team off the truck, and they went car by car, lifting them up from where they were parked and placing them on the sidewalk. Near the end, there was a couple inside one of the cars. The man, after being hoisted into the air inside the car and being unceremoniously placed on the curb, leaped out of the car in anger, ready to fight. His face turned when he saw the burly bunch of young men facing him. He tried to protest anyway, but Erez asked him a question which immediately became enshrined in unit folklore: “Hey, buddy, can’t you count?”