“Miriam was killed in the Yom Kippur War,” Tamir said. “Shoshana was six years old and they were at a kibbutz in the Huleh Valley. Have you been there?” he asked Matt. The pilot shook his head no. “You should see it, it is the jewel of Israel. But it lies at the base of the Golan Heights and the kibbutz was shelled by Syrian artillery. Miriam was rushing children to a bomb shelter … she never made it.” Tamir stared off in the distance, seeing something in his past. “Shoshana is so much like her.”
In the silence, Matt looked into Shoshana’s eyes and knew that he loved her. He didn’t fight or question it, he simply knew. He would tell her later when the moment was right.
“They shouldn’t be flying,” Tamir said, gesturing at two low-flying aircraft approaching the hill. Matt looked, picking out the two fighters immediately. He estimated they were flying at about five hundred feet when a long stick of a smoke trial reached up toward the aircraft and one disappeared in a bright flash. “My God …” Tamir whispered.
“MiGs!” Matt shouted. “Hit the deck!” He threw himself on the ground next to Shoshana and rolled on top of her. The lone survivor streaked over the cemetery as another Hawk surface-to-air missile streaked above it, this time missing. In the distance, air raid sirens started to wail and the retreating fighter skimmed over the housetops of Haifa. “Bomb run,” Matt said. He had seen four 500-kilogram bombs slung under the MiG-23. “Syrian markings,” he told them. In the distance, they heard the dull thuds of exploding bombs and saw pillars of smoke rise above the harbor. “They hit something. Got a secondary.”
Now they could see more aircraft in the sky. The crowd in the cemetery panicked and started screaming and running down the hill. “Stay here,” Matt ordered and pulled Shoshana to her feet. He pushed her against a tree and grabbed Tamir, dragging him with them. “We’ll be okay here,” he said. “The target’s Haifa, not us.”
From his vantage point, Matt watched the brief air battle over Haifa as the first wave of Syrian aircraft struck at their targets. The Israeli defenders were slow in reacting and he could only count two Hawk SAM batteries in action. Then the distinctive rhythmic beat of a Bofors antiaircraft cannon reached them. “Here comes the second wave,” he announced as more Syrian fighters roared over them. He was counting the attackers, timing the reaction of the Israelis, and trying to gauge the damage caused by the Syrians. “You’re getting a break,” he said. “They’re not concentrating on their targets, only jettisoning their loads indiscriminately over the city.” The first of two Israeli F-15s slashed down onto the attackers.
“This is a break for us? This is good?” Tamir was yelling at him. “Innocent people are down there …” Matt stopped him by pointing to a plummeting aircraft, twisting and failing out of die sky. A parachute was drifting, down above it. In the distance, they saw another MiG explode as the Israelis worked the attackers over.
“Yeah,” Matt said, his voice low and unemotional. “You got a break here. It was a well-planned surprise attack. Great timing and they penetrated your air defense system. But they blew it over the target area, and that’s where it all counts. Most of the bombs were off target. You had better hope it was the same all over.”
“But they killed people,” Tamir protested, “innocent women and children—”
“And they missed their targets,” Matt interrupted, determined to make his point. “You can still fight another day.”
“I have work to do down there,” Shoshana said, walking away from the two men. She stopped and turned. “Come. You can help me.”
The American swept the sky, looking for other aircraft. He could see the plan form of six F-15s established in a HICAP over the city. The attack was over. He followed Shoshana down the hill, toward the fires burning below.
“Where is the main threat?” Ben David demanded. He was deep within the concrete bunker that served as Israel’s wartime headquarters. The big situation map in front of him was etched on a clear glass plate and plotters wearing headsets stood behind, marking up information they received in grease pencil. Because they worked in the rear, they had to write backward.
Three large arrows out of Syria were pointed at Israel. One of the plotters moved the head of the arrow that represented the First Syrian Army coming down the Bekáa Valley from the north. The lead tanks were twenty-five miles closer to Israel and would soon cross the Litani River, the last major obstacle before they reached the northern border. The arrow for the Third Army pointed at the Golan Heights had not changed. But the arrow for the Fifth Army coming out of the Jebel Druze highlands kept inching its way southward, directly through Jordan and toward Jerusalem.
The minister of defense, Benjamin Yuriden, answered his question. “We are not sure at this time.” It was not what Ben David wanted to hear and he said nothing, barely controlling his anger. Ben David fought his natural inclination to vent his fury and yell at the men in front of him. They had been surprised by an enemy that they had thought of as cowardly, stupid, and technologically inept. And it shouldn’t have happened, not after the Yom Kippur War of ‘73. Ben David made a mental promise to destroy the career of the chief of military intelligence. Other heads would also roll if they got out of this.
What the Syrians and Egyptians had done was on the situation board in front of him. It was the reality he had to deal with and he didn’t like what it did to his self-image. The Arabs had snookered him, outfoxed him and his advisers by showing the Israelis what they wanted to see and believe. The retreating tanks on the northern border had convinced the Israelis that the Syrians simply didn’t have the will to fight, matching the cowardly image the Israelis had of them. All the while, a large part of the IDF was deployed opposite the Egyptians in the Sinai while the Israelis took a big sigh of relief.
And then the Syrians had pulled off an unbelievably complicated maneuver — they had stopped their massive withdrawal and reversed in place. That was something that had even Israeli tank commanders staring in wonder with their mouths open.
The evidence was plainly before him — they were facing a formidable enemy. Three voices assaulted him at once, each with a different opinion. Ben David stared at the board in front of him, somehow managing to listen to all three at once. Then he erupted in a series of questions.
“Do we have a blocking force at the Litani River?”
“Moving into position now,” Yuriden answered. “They are in contact with the Syrians.”
“How long can they hold?”
“Unknown. The Syrians have the mass behind them to force a crossing within hours.”
“Situation on the Golan?”
“Exchanging artillery barrages. The Syrian counterbattery fire is proving very effective. The Syrian tanks are not moving yet.”
“How far have the Syrians penetrated into Jordan from the Jebel Druze?”
“Forty-five kilometers and are opposite Nablus, still well within Jordan and headed straight for Jerusalem.”
“What are the Jordanians and Iraqis doing?”
“Nothing. But the Jordanians are evacuating their people and protesting in the UN.”
Ben David lowered his head for a moment. Then his decision was made. “Order air strikes against the tanks of the First Army trying to cross the Litani River and the Fifth Army moving through Jordan. If the Jordanian Air Force intervenes, destroy it.” Then another thought occurred. “Can we hit any of the headquarters commanding those three armies?”
Yuriden’s face was an impenetrable mask. He stepped onto the small stage and the stocky ex-air force general pointed at the Syrian city of Homs, north of Lebanon, just inside the Syrian border. “The headquarters for the First Army moving down the Bekáa Valley is located here, over two hundred kilometers behind to the rear.” At least this fit the Israeli image of the Syrians.