Cohen smiled broadly as he enjoyed his cigar, the first puffs always being the most satisfying. “We will have to see, but I appreciate your point. Secrecy is everything and it will be difficult to maintain. I want the commitment from everyone here to not discuss this outside of this room or the Yahalom Group.” Cohen went around the room and looked each man in the eye as they committed to him personally. “Thank you all.”
Zvi Avner now added his thoughts. “I have been thinking about Yahalom Group since my discussion with Margolis last week. I don’t like the dynamics on the team. The six members other than Margolis are all career staff officers. They don’t respect… ah, that’s not the right word. They don’t accept Margolis in the team. He is the newcomer and the outsider. He’s not a military man. It says a lot to me that he was not willing to disclose or discuss his concept with any of the other men he’s supposedly been working with for the past ten weeks. That bothered me as I thought about it over the weekend, but now I’m glad he hasn’t said a word to them. I want to shake up the team. I have a man in mind to come in and I think Margolis should be the co-head of Yahalom Group along with this new officer.”
“Who?” Cohen asked.
“David Schechter.” General David Schechter was the Head of Operations of the Israeli Air Force. He had earned his reputation as one of the IAF’s first F-15C fighter pilots and earned respect as the first commander of 69 Squadron, the “Hammers” — the IAF’s sole wing of F-15I Ra’am fighter-bombers that would lead any attack on Iran. He had become an ace over Lebanon and Syria during June 1982 by shooting down three MIG-21s and two MIG-23s over a 72 hour period. He was only 25 years old at the time.
Cohen turned to Raibani. “Ben, you know General Schechter well.”
“Yes, I do. He is a first rate commander. He is a leader. He is fearless in combat. If we are talking about the man to take this from planning to operation, then I agree with Zvi. Great choice.”
“If Ben likes him that much, then I have no objection,” said Cohen. “Who else do you want to add?”
Avner thought for a moment. “I have some thoughts, but the right answer is that we get David and Amit Margolis together to bond first and then let David decide who he wants to bring onto the team with Amit’s involvement… and my oversight, of course.”
“Of course,” replied Cohen with a smile. “When can you meet with General Schechter?”
“Whenever you have the time to come to Tel Aviv. I think you should be with me.”
“Okay, we can check my calendar after the meeting.”
Aitan interrupted. “I think we need a new codename now that this is moving towards an operational phase.”
Cohen exhaled a plume of cigar smoke. “What’s wrong, you don’t like Esther?”
“No sir. I think the name is too obvious and suggestive.”
Cohen started to bob his head up and down. “Okay, I can see that. Have something in mind?”
“Yes sir. Something innocuous. Project Block G.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“That’s the point, sir. We should use a codename that has no tie to Iran. Project Block G simply sounds like we are talking about another weapon upgrade cycle.” Aitan looked at Avner. “I suggest you decide who will be part of the new Yahalom Group. Obviously Amit Margolis, hopefully General Schechter. Whoever else you and they agree on. The new team will use Project Block G going forward and tell the guys who don’t continue on that the Esther project is dead for now.”
Cohen took a puff on his cigar and looked to Avner, who returned his gaze. Avner nodded his head. Cohen then looked at Raibani. Raibani nodded his head. “Done,” said the prime minister. “God be with Project Block G.”
13 — Lunch with Friends
Almost a month had passed since Project Block G became official at a Kitchen Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. General David Schechter had enthusiastically accepted his new assignment as the head of Yahalom Group. More importantly to Cohen and Avner, Schechter had reacted to Esther’s Sling the same way that every member of the Kitchen Cabinet had done. He was on board, but the wheels of IDF bureaucracy turned slowly — even when the grease was being applied by the prime minister himself. Schechter had only met with Amit Margolis twice and the agenda for each of those meetings had been to decide upon the new members of the planning team now charged with developing the concept of Esther’s Sling into a real battle plan.
David Schechter had done something to endear himself to Amit Margolis. As his first official act as head of the Yahalom Group, he cancelled the pair of bodyguards that had been assigned to watch over Margolis. Both men agreed that the presence of two bodyguards simply turned Amit Margolis from an anonymous Israeli citizen into a target. When Margolis asked the general if countermanding the bodyguard orders, which had come from Zvi Avner, would create problems, the simple answer was “Let me worry about that.” This single action created instant respect by Amit for David Schechter.
General Schechter was a career fighter pilot who discovered only later that he also possessed the skills to plan, organize and lead a professional fighting force. He had a style, and that style was a unique blend of the traits that made him a great fighter ace as well as a career Israeli officer. He was a great judge of character and a quick thinker. He wanted to know the people he was commanding on a personal level. He wanted to understand their strengths and their weaknesses and their motivations.
The edge that made him a ruthless fighter pilot in his youth had admittedly dulled a little, the result, he told himself, of marriage and fatherhood. He had enjoyed his twenties, a period of time occupied by a long list of women when he wasn’t flying F-15s. Life had been simple and he used his hero status to full advantage in the bars and discos of Tel Aviv. Change for him came in the most unlikely manner. When he was 29, like many young IAF pilots, he went to see Top Gun when it was released in Israel. He identified immediately with Tom Cruise’s character, not only because of occupation, but also because Schechter looked a lot like Cruise. When his friends started calling him “Maverick,” he realized that he was uncomfortably close to a character that, to Schechter, had as many flaws as attributes. The movie made him see a reflection that he was not satisfied with. He matured quickly over the next few years, a process that was capped when he married at the age of 33. Marriage, in turn, helped his career migrate from legendary fighter pilot to professional commander — a man that other men wanted to follow into combat.
Now twenty years later, David Schechter had four children along with his wife. At home in Raanana, he led a suburban life that would fit perfectly into any bedroom community found anywhere in the world. In the office, he oversaw the operations of an air force that had to be ready to fight every moment of every day — a perfectly tuned instrument that was the guarantor of Israel’s survival. Every senior military commander in the world knew that as long as the IAF remained unchallenged in the Middle East, Israel would prevail over its enemies. Lose that edge and the death of the state would follow. For David Schechter, this knowledge informed his every working day. On his shoulders rested the fate of a nation. The only threat to that strategic reality was — God forbid — the use of nuclear weapons against Israel. And now, Schechter was given the responsibility to ensure that such a possibility would not come about. For him, it was business as usual.
On this night, however, the weight of that responsibility would take a back seat to getting to know Amit Margolis, a man nineteen years his junior who would now be his partner in the single most important endeavor in either man’s life.