Harvath had seen the same thing in many American political families. In a culture obsessed with likes, shares, and number of followers, politics had become the ultimate social media contest where a man like Abraham Lincoln could never get off the ground without a Guy Fawkes mask.
“As is typical for children who have no boundaries, the girls were constantly in search of where the line was. How far could they actually go before their parents stepped in and lowered the proverbial boom?
“The mother, a popular Israeli television star with a fledgling pop music career, was worthless. She was the one who set the bad example for the girls — liquor, drugs, and rumors of an affair with not one, but two of her co-stars. The family was a disaster. And then things got really bad.
“As the father was focused on his upcoming campaign and the mother on her new album, the girls were left with zero supervision. They fell in with an even worse crowd and got involved with harder and harder drugs in search of higher and higher highs. One night, they wrapped their father’s BMW around a tree. That should have been a wake-up call to everyone, right?”
Harvath nodded.
“Except it wasn’t,” Mordechai replied. “Their parents, Scotch-filled highballs in hand, hypocritically railed against the girls’ exorbitant lifestyles. As you might imagine, the brats returned fire. According to the put-upon neighbors, it was a battle of epic proportions.
“Desperate to find, as well as to exert, some vestige of his withering parental authority, the father opted to go nuclear. In a move that could only be appreciated by some feckless bureaucrat, he declared his daughters’ finances frozen.”
Harvath looked at him. “That was it? He didn’t ground them? He didn’t sign them up for forced labor at the world’s worst kibbutz? He just took away their credit cards?”
Mordechai shook his head. “Didn’t even take their car keys.”
“So basically, his daughters still went out on the town; they were now just dependent upon other people to help provide their fun.”
The Israeli nodded. “And guess who was right there ready to provide it?”
Harvath looked at the man flexing his hands and sensed the answer. “Hamas?”
Once again, Mordechai nodded. “The last thing they wanted was peace, and those drug-addled, self-important children provided them the perfect opportunity to knock it all off course.
“Inside the bowels of Hamas is a desk occupied by a little mouse of a man. We only have second- and third-hand accounts, but by all of them he is an effeminate Francophile who code-named his operation Colette. Are you familiar with Truffaut?”
“François Truffaut? The French filmmaker?” Harvath asked.
“That’s him. Hamas’s mouse named his operation after one of Truffaut’s films, Antoine and Colette. It’s an insipid French story about unrequited love between two attractive young teens in Paris. The mouse chose the name Colette for what is essentially a glorified Palestinian modeling agency.
“Unfortunately in Israel, there is no end to spoiled, privileged children looking to rebel against their parents. Our two Knesset princesses were no exception. When daddy cut up the credit cards, they turned to other means to fund their fun. Because they had developed such a dangerous appetite for getting high, they had also developed a dangerous tolerance for risk in the pursuit of reaching those highs. One night that pursuit led them out of Israel proper and into Gaza.”
Harvath’s expression must have said it all because Mordechai shared with him a heavy, sorrow-laden glance, and bowed his head and said, “The girls had been befriended by two extremely handsome boys, hand-picked by the little Palestinian Francophile.
“The boys provided a steady pipeline of drugs, and though they applied no pressure whatsoever, the girls fell into bed with them, eager to make sure the party train continued to roll.
“Then finally one night, with their trust and dependency secured, the boys informed them that they were zipping into Gaza to pick up more drugs and needed their help. Getting into Gaza wasn’t the problem, getting back through the Israeli checkpoint was. With the girls’ good looks, family name, and low-cut tops, it wouldn’t be a problem at all.”
It was amazing how many people in pursuit of the next high tossed all common sense aside and fell for this kind of bullshit ruse. It pissed Harvath off to no end, but the fact that the girls’ father wasn’t there to protect them from this pissed him off even more.
What kind of man doesn’t protect his children from wolves? Harvath didn’t care what the Knesset man’s greater aspirations for Israel were. If he couldn’t protect his own family, how the hell could he ever be expected to help protect his own nation?
For a moment, Harvath was thrust into the man’s shoes. Wasn’t this the exact thing he worried about? How could he ever protect a family of his own while he was a world away trying to protect his country from the next threat or terrorist attack?
“But when they arrived in Gaza,” Mordechai continued, “there were no drugs waiting to be picked up. It was an ambush. Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh’s men did unspeakable things to the girls, videotaping all of it and leaving their bloodied and defiled bodies on a road outside Nablus.”
“The father must have been enraged.”
“First he was in denial. Then he was in shock. Then came the rage, and it burned white-hot. Al-Mabhouh and Hamas had succeeded. The fighting would continue. The greatest instrument for peace either side had seen in a generation was now solely focused on revenge.”
“Which is where you come in,” said Harvath. “Correct?”
Mordechai nodded. “The atrocity committed by Hamas was unforgivable, and could only be repaid in blood. Even the doves of the Knesset wanted revenge.
“I was with Shin Bet at the time — the Special Operations Unit.”
“Yamas,” Harvath said.
“Correct. Our focus was to locate and eliminate terrorists inside Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. We had a reputation for being able get to them anywhere, anytime. We even carried out strikes in broad daylight. No place was safe for them.
“It took us a year to track down all of the men responsible. Once we did, we spent another three months training and planning the missions to take them out. The only operation that failed was mine.”
“You missed your target?”
“We got our target, but because of some bad intelligence my team zigged when it should have zagged. The three men with me were killed, I was captured. Al-Mabhouh personally oversaw my torture. As part of that torture, each one of my fingers was bent back until it snapped. Once the bones began to heal, they would repeat the process. The pain was unlike anything I have ever known.
“As if the torture were not bad enough, not being able to use my hands to feed myself or conduct other necessities was a demoralizing indignity.”
Harvath had heard some sadistic POW stories in his time and this one ranked right up there. “How long were you in captivity?”
“It was seven months before I was rescued.”
“That’s a long time.”
“At first, they weren’t even sure I was alive. But once they figured out I was, they worked day and night to get me back. Israel never once gave up on me.”
The Israelis were incredibly loyal to their warriors. It spoke to the character of their nation and was something Harvath had always admired. It was one of many reasons that explained the close kinship America and Israel enjoyed. As the only Democracy in the Middle East, Israel mirrored many of America’s values.