“Well I have to say that watching you two together, I don’t know.” David shook his head and then took a sip of port wine. “You are a lucky man. I wouldn’t let her go if I were you.”
“So far, so good.” Amit raised his glass in salute to the thought and then took another sip.
“Are you religious?” the general asked. “I have always heard that Mossad is a great bastion of secularism. I am guessing that the secular thinking goes out the window about the same time it does for fighter pilots — when the shadow of death is stalking your aircraft.”
“I suppose Mossad is similar to that. Not too many men seem to be torn between attending rabbinical school and joining Mossad. But if we are being honest, then the fact is that we all turn religious when, as you put it, death is stalking. But do I regularly attend synagogue? No. If that is the measure of my faith, then I guess I am a secular Jew. But in my heart I do believe in my faith even if I am not strictly observant.”
“I think we are very similar, Amit. I always think of the term ‘silent majority,’ which was a hot phrase when I was in college. We are they.” David Schechter had attended Ben Gurion University of the Negev, starting there in 1975 as he went through the IAF two-year pilot training program. He had been recruited while in high school to attend the gibush, a weeklong selection to pick the smartest and most physically appropriate Israeli males to receive flight training upon entering the IDF at the age of 18. Because he chose one of the hardest degrees offered, mechanical engineering, he continued his studies even after being assigned to an active fighter squadron. He had finally earned his BS degree in 1981.
“You are not driven by religion,” Schechter continued. His statement was an observation. “So what motivates you? Why join Mossad?”
Amit slowly sipped his port wine, taking the time to think about a response. He suddenly felt as if he was in a job interview. The last time he had been asked questions like these was when he being interviewed for Mossad. It dawned on him how similar were the personalities and traits of those who joined Mossad and those who became pilots for the IAF. “Probably no different than you, just a later realization. I attended business school in the States at Duke…”
“So did I,” said Schechter, smiling.
“Oh, yeah? Duke?”
“The IDF sent me to Harvard, the Executive MBA Program. I spent a year working on it with very little flying. Not sure what it did for me, but looks good on the resume. When I got back, the 69 Squadron was reactivated with F-15I fighter-bombers. I was named the commander and kept going up the chain from there.”
“Very nice.” Both Amit and David forgot the question that had led to this mutual revelation of business school experiences. But now each man realized the many things they had in common. For Schechter in particular, this was unexpected. The thought entered David’s mind that Amit was exactly what he hoped his sons would grow up to become. The connection was set. The bond was real.
15 — Olympus
Spring months quickly merged into the Israeli summer of 2010, hotter and drier than average. General David Schechter restructured the Yahalom Group. Only the navy officer and one of the two ground force officers were retained. All three IAF officers were dismissed from the group, replaced by General Schechter and two combat veterans. The new officers represented all of the areas of expertise necessary to make Esther’s Sling a real operational battle plan. One of the new air force officers was considered the top logistics expert in the IDF, having previously commanded the airlift and aerial refueling assets of the IAF. The other new air force officer was a man Schechter had worked with over the years. He was a helicopter pilot who earned his reputation under fire in Lebanon and had since become known for his ability to turn a conceptual plan into the actual steps necessary make that plan a successful reality. Finally, on the suggestion of Amit Margolis, the dismissed ground forces officer was replaced by a special operations veteran and senior officer, a legendary commander in the IDF who knew and understood intimately the capabilities of all of the IDF’s growing special operations groups.
Yahalom Group moved shortly thereafter to an underground bunker beneath the Campus in downtown Tel Aviv. Its computers were joined into a small network but cut off from the outside world. Two separate computers were set up for any internet research activity, their search activities routed through a series of servers outside of Israel that were maintained by Unit 8200 and that made the searches impossible to trace back to Israel. These two computers had no USB ports or ability to connect to the computers used for detailed operational planning. They contained no microphones and no video cameras. No one could use them to quietly eavesdrop on the activities in that room as Israel and the U.S were doing in Iran at that very moment. Any virus that made it through the various firewalls maintained by Unit 8200 would end on those two computers. Signs maintained on the wall behind the two computers warned any user to never, ever conduct any personal activity on the computers. No checking on email accounts. No banking. No visits to a personal Facebook account. All of these instructions were to ensure that no user of these two computers could be identified by any outside intelligence agency that somehow defeated the firewall and routing safeguards set up by Unit 8200.
Only the seven members of the group had access into the bunker room where maps and grease boards soon occupied all available space on the walls. Each man in the group knew he had two leaders. As Eli Cohen had predicted and David Schechter had ensured, Amit Margolis, the youngest member of the group, was respected by each of the six career military officers, both for his brain power and as the clear co-leader. Schechter reinforced this by having Amit lead morning status meetings. The thoughts and ideas were materializing into a methodical plan that, step by step, would culminate into what the politicians like to call an actionable operation.
On Tuesday, September 7, 2010, a meeting was held in a conference room on the Campus. Nine months had passed since Prime Minister Cohen had invited Amit Margolis to join the Yahalom Group at the start of the year. The outlook for Esther had evolved from a frustrated stalemate into a plan that now excited everyone in the small circle privy to it.
Outside, the gathering morning light struggled to pierce through low hanging clouds over Tel Aviv. Inside, the most powerful group in Israel assembled to make a fateful decision. General David Schechter wanted sign-off and authorization to move forward with Project Block G as an operational plan. He wanted it in writing and signed by the prime minister, the defense minister and the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces. He needed a working budget and real funds to begin acquiring all of the required assets and pay for the training and preparation to enact the plan. And he explicitly wanted the concept of Esther’s Sling to be authorized — he would not be the scapegoat if something went wrong with a concept that would, after it was used, alter international relations.
Amit Margolis and General Schechter entered the conference room a little before 10 a.m. as requested. As they walked in, they realized that a meeting had been underway between Prime Minister Cohen, Defense Minister Avner, Chief of Staff Natan Fishel, Yavi Aitan and Danny Stein. Eli Cohen was in a side conversation with Danny Stein, who had been tasked by his prime minister with finding the funds to pay for Project Block G. Stein, the minister of industry, trade and labor, would act as the negotiator and intermediary with the Ministry of Finance. An elaborate cover story had been constructed to justify the request for up to $300 million, a sizable amount in the tiny nation, to pay for items that could not show up on the IDF budget.