“You’re sandwiched between the first and second floor.” The old man was still behind him. “The second floor collapsed onto the first. Feel it shake? It’s all going fall into the basement in a few minutes.”
“Then you better get out of here, pops.”
Matt could hear scrambling and puffing behind him. He pushed aside some plaster and framing and inched his way forward, still looking for a way into the basement. Then he heard the soft whimper of a child. A crashing sound deafened him and dust and smoke washed over him. He coughed and choked, trying to breathe. The old man was back and handed him a red bandanna. “Here, tie this over your face.” Matt did as he was told. “You’re going to have to break through the floor.” Matt felt the head of the crowbar being pushed up beside him.
The collapsed floor inches above his head shook as a tremor rippled through the building. Another whimper. Now Matt was certain he had the location of the girl pinpointed as he crawled into what had been a stairwell. The building shook again. “You had better hurry,” came from behind him.
“Would you get the hell out of here!”
What looked like the heavy joists of a subfloor barred his way. He shoved the crowbar into place and tried to pry a wooden beam aside. No luck. “Look up, schmuck.” The old man was still behind him.
Matt did and saw an opening above him. He reached up and pulled himself up and over, dropping down to the other side. He found himself on the edge of a ten-foot drop into the basement. He reached for the flashlight in his coat pocket and shined it around the basement. Directly below him, he could see the hole the bomb had bored as it fell through the building and burrowed into the earth. “Where are you?” he yelled. Nothing. Then he heard the old man yell in Hebrew from behind him, on the other side of the heavy beams. Softly at first, barely audible, he could hear the girl’s voice. It was coming from behind a pile of debris that filled most of the basement.
“Go get a rope,” he yelled to the old man. He threw the crowbar into the basement and inched his body over the edge backward and hung by his hands. When his feet were planted firmly against the wall, he pushed off and jumped into the basement over the hole made by the bomb. He fumbled for the flashlight to help him get his bearings. He could smell something burning. He sniffed again and followed the pungent odor to the bomb. He directed his beam down the hole. Fifteen feet below him he could see the tail assembly of the bomb. The smell was stronger. “What the hell?” he mumbled. Did the Syrian bombs use some sort of acid fuse for a time delay? He couldn’t remember.
Panic was eating at him now and he rushed over to where he thought the girl was buried. “Where are you!” he shouted. Again he heard the girl cry. He started to push the rubble aside, using the crowbar as a digging stick. Out of frustration, he turned around and started pushing with his feet. Finally, he broke through and could see an opening under a collapsed wall. He twisted around and crawled under, shining the light in front of him. Now he could see the girl. “Come on, honey,” he said, reaching for her. Then a small hand was in his and he gently tugged, feeling the girl come free. He pulled her into his arms.
“Now where are you when I need you?” He shined the flashlight up to the ledge he had jumped off. A rope came tumbling out of the opening, obviously tossed from the other side of die heavy beams. He jerked at it.
“Wait a minute,” came from the other side. “I’ve got to tie it down.”
Matt shifted the girl to his back. “You’ve got to hold on and ride piggyback,” he said. He could feel her start to slip when he let go of her legs. For a moment, he didn’t know how he was going to get the girl up to the ledge and then himself without help. The old man would have to wiggle over the beams and joists that had barred the way. No way he could to that. “Think!” he raged at himself. He ripped the bandanna off his face and tied the girl’s wrists together, her arms around his neck, but her weight wasn’t enough to choke him. She started to cry and he grabbed the rope and pulled. It was secure. Hand over hand, he pulled himself out of the basement.
On top of the edge, he yelled for the old man to reach up as he shoved the girl over the beams. He could hear the old geezer make soft cooing sounds as he cuddled the girl. Then he pulled himself over and dropped down beside the two. The old man handed the girl to Matt. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Matt said. “I smelled burning coming from the bomb.”
“Go!” the old man shouted, frantically pushing them forward.
Once outside. Matt shouted for everyone to run for cover. Shoshana jumped into the van and started the engine, waiting for them. Matt jumped in, still holding the girl. The old man crashed in behind him as Shoshana sped away. A loud explosion ripped the building apart behind them.
“So they don’t use time delays?” the old man yelled at Matt.
The direction officer at Ramat David Air Base scanned the big plot board in front of him. Everyone in the room was quiet and only the gentle hum of electronic equipment could be heard. A keyboard operator typed a message into her communications computer and then stopped. In a darkened alcove at the rear, the greenish glow of three radar scopes could be seen, lighting the faces of their operators. The tactical director sat at the middle scope and noted that Harkabi’s four F-16s had reached their turn point far out over the Mediterranean and that the two F-4s were in position. He notified the direction officer, who keyed his mike and transmitted a go to the aircraft.
Over the Mediterranean, Harkabi copied the go and lifted his aircraft up to two hundred feet off the deck and did a com-out turn with his wingman, turning directly toward the coast. Farther to the south, the second pair of F-16s did the same. High above them, a specially modified Boeing 707 turned on its electronic countermeasures gear and sent a mass of false signals out. The two F-4s that would challenge the air defenses around Homs so Harkabi’s strike package could get in crossed the Lebanese border and ran up the coast toward Beirut. They were using the coastal face of the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range to mask them from the Syrians who were moving down the Bekáa Valley on the other side.
Syrian early warning radar operators started talking to each other, confused by the mass of targets now appearing on their scopes. A young Syrian captain, recently returned from a year’s training, called it correctly and sent out an attack warning to all stations. He warned that they had multiple targets but that only a few were real aircraft. They just didn’t know which were the false targets. Then heavy strobes blanked out the Syrian radars. The 707 was now actively jamming.
The air defense commander of the four SA-11 Gadflies surrounding the Syrian First Army headquarters at Homs ordered his men to battle stations. On each of the tracked vehicles, the antenna for the Flap Lid radar slued toward its predetermined sector. Then he performed a radio check with his ground observers, who formed a spider web of observation posts around the headquarters. The observation post farthest to the southwest reported a visual sighting of two F-4s heading directly toward Homs. The turntables on top of two Gadfly transporters turned toward the reported threat.
Harkabi coasted in one hundred feet off the deck and at 540 knots airspeed when his tactical electronic warfare gear came alive, sending him urgent warnings of hostile radar activity. He was four and a half minutes out. His radio crackled with commands from the two F-4s ahead of him as they ran straight at the target. The lead F-4 detected radar signals coming from the Flap Lid radars and launched two homing antiradiation missiles. At the same time, the Syrians launched two missiles at each of the F-4s. The Gadfly missiles used semiactive homing, which meant the Flap Lid radars had to stay locked on the F-4s for the missiles to guide. It was a shootout in which the winner had the fastest missile or had launched first.