Schechter was surprised, immediately wondering if he had been underestimating the auburn haired beauty in front of him. The story had been given to the press to cover Schechter’s removal from his operational duties in order to head up Yahalom Group. “I’m glad to see that our youth are keeping up with current events. I thought that no one cared about the news anymore,” Schechter said. He smiled at Enya. “Yes, I was recently asked by the prime minister to act as his personal advisor on military matters and serve as a liaison between the IDF and the Americans. It’s an important role and I am honored to serve the prime minister.”
“I think Amit is somehow related to this,” Enya pressed, her tone slightly accusatorial.
“Well, you are not supposed to know this, but Amit will be consulting with me on budget priorities for the entire IDF.” Schechter looked at Margolis and reached over with his right hand to clasp Amit’s left shoulder. He looked back at Enya. “You have a very important man here, Enya. Please take care of him. I will need his budget advice over the coming months.” Schechter squeezed Amit’s shoulder and abruptly released his grasp.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Enya said, as she looked into Amit’s eyes. “I will take care of him and make sure he is very happy.”
“Hey, hey,” joked the general. “Now don’t wear him out. I need him to be focused in the office.” Schechter laughed and brought his wine glass up to his mouth. Across the table, his wife rolled her eyes.
“Amit tells me you are a war hero,” Enya stated in a voice that Schechter interpreted as seductive.
David Schechter returned his wine glass to the table, its contents a little lighter. He suddenly longed to be a single man, if only for an evening. “Is that so?”
“The general is one of our leading aces,” Margolis added, clearly feeling honored to be at David’s table.
“I got lucky a couple of times,” Schechter said finally. He was thinking more of the many women he had bedded than the unlucky Syrian pilots who were his victims.
“Lucky?” Margolis blurted out, looking at his girlfriend. “This man shot down eight Syrian fighters.”
Schechter smiled and started to shake his head. “No, no. One of those was a Hezbollah UAV. That definitely doesn’t count.” He laughed the laugh of false modesty.
“Wow. I am eating with a war hero,” Enya cooed.
Orah was not happy as she watched the smile on her husband’s face. It was a smile she recognized. It was her husband on the hunt. This visitor to her right was making her feel like an old woman.
“Do you still fly?” Enya asked.
“Yes, but not on combat missions anymore. I fly to maintain my rating and be ready in the event of… well, let’s just say that if the country needed me at this point, we would be in a serious situation.”
Amit Margolis found the banter amusing but kept an eye on Orah Schechter. On the one hand, he assumed this dinner would be a one-off event. On the other hand, he figured that there was never a reason to have an enemy on the home front. He turned to his hostess. “I must compliment your cooking. Everything has been wonderful.”
Enya, to her credit, was quick to add her voice. “Yes, Orah, I loved the salad. You have to give me the recipe.” She had spoken only out of a sense of politeness. She was oblivious to Orah’s growing feelings of inferiority because she had no attraction to the general. To her, he held only the fascination of an accomplished fatherly figure.
The next fifteen minutes was a discussion of cooking and children that centered on Orah. David Schechter observed Margolis the entire time, impressed with the young man’s ability to change his wife’s mood.
14 — To the Drawing Room
Another quarter hour later and the men had retired to the general’s office, which was swept periodically for listening devices by IDF internal security. The room was in the center of the home and had no windows. The walls and ceiling were made of reinforced concrete poured just over a foot think. This room had a triple role. In addition to serving as an office, it was the home’s shelter in the event of war, a building code requirement born of unfortunate necessity in Israel. It was also a safe room for the general and his family in the event that he was targeted by any of the country’s many mortal enemies. A gun safe in the corner held a small arsenal, enough firepower to arm every member of the family. Back in the kitchen, the women engaged in conversation with the Schechter’s 16-year-old son, who blushed whenever Enya spoke to him.
In the office, David Schechter walked over to a cabinet, opened it and pulled out a bottle of Fonseca Porto 10-year-old tawny port wine and two dessert wine glasses. “You will love this port. Perfect complement to any grilled meat.”
Amit Margolis sat down on a leather sofa against one wall. David turned to deliver a small crystal glass to the Mossad agent. “You know your girlfriend is a real knockout.” Amit nodded and smiled as he took the glass of port wine. “Reminds me of the fun days of my youth. Enjoy these years, Amit. Before you know it, you have a family and a mortgage and you are spending every weekend driving your children to football matches.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” replied Margolis, raising his glass in a toast to his new partner. “L’chaim.”
“L’chaim,” replied Schechter. “To a successful operation.”
Margolis took a sip. “Mmm. Excellent. Your knowledge of wines is impressive, General.”
“Okay, let’s get over the first important hurdle right now. There is a tradition in the IDF. Peers call each other by their first names. You may not accept it yet, but as far as I am concerned, we are peers. I have already developed a real respect for your mind, Amit. And I already like you a lot. Okay?”
“Okay, David.”
“Better. Now you call me David in every setting. Especially when we are in meetings with the Yahalom Group or at the Campus or any IDF facility. I want everyone to know that we are peers. We are partners in this endeavor. If this ever goes operational, you will be at my side. This is going to be our baby and we will either succeed or go down together.” Schechter extended his right hand to Amit.
Amit shifted his glass to his left hand and reached out to Schechter with his right. They shook hands firmly. “Agreed.”
“So be it, Amit. So be it.” Schechter sat down on a chair that was perpendicular to the sofa, a small coffee table now the resting place for the open bottle of Fonseca. Around the walls were photos of Schechter in front of various aircraft, mostly F-15s, or standing next to each prime minister of Israel since the early 1980s. Margolis was struck by the fact that in each photo, the prime minister was the more excited of the pair. On the desk were a number of photos of Schechter’s kids and a handful of Orah Schechter. Margolis noticed that there were two photos of Orah alone and both were probably a decade old, when the woman was at least thirty pounds lighter.
“You and Enya seem to be in love. Are there wedding plans in the future?”
Amit was shocked back into the moment. Neither he nor Enya had yet said those fateful three words to each other. But it hit him at that instant that he was falling in love with her. He had been ignoring the feelings and she had been doing the same. But she had recently started joking with him about what she would do when her lease expired in the summer — joking about moving in with Amit. As the man that was quickly becoming famous for his analytical abilities sat and pondered his personal life, he realized that he had simply been denying what was happening between him and Enya. “Oh, no. We have only been dating a few months now. We met on New Year’s Eve — Gregorian new year, not Rosh Hashanah.”