Gold pointed at Matt. “I think the Israelis want to keep you here and would like nothing better than for you to buy it. Think about it, the grandson of the President of the United States killed while flying a mission for the Israeli Air Force. Some headlines.”
“Then we’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Furry said. “And quick.”
“Maybe not,” Gold said. “Two can play this game. The price the Israelis pay for you staying here is information, useful information. I’m going to see if I can get you two assigned to my office as official observers with diplomatic status. But no more flying.”
“Can we learn that much?” Matt asked. “Is it that important?”
“Oh yeah,” Gold answered. He bowed his head and stared at his hands. “I think Israel is going to get its ass kicked bigtime and the U.S. has got to know exactly what’s going on if we’re going to stop this shitty war.”
Moshe Levy was standing in his hatch with a death grip on the turret as Halaby hurtled their tank at full throttle up the coastal road. Like most Israeli tank commanders, he preferred to stand in the open hatch because it have him an unrestricted view and to his way of thinking, that was the difference between being a target and a tank commander. It bothered him that during their first three engagements, many of the Syrian tank commanders were doing the same and not buttoning up until the last possible moment. Ahead of them, he could see and hear a battle going on.
A sharp bump threw him against the hatch ring but his Kevlar flak jacket cushioned the blow. He thought about telling Halaby to slow down to a more reasonable speed but the urgent commands coming over his radio wouldn’t allow that. Levy estimated they were moving at forty miles an hour, much faster than the design speed of the American-built tank. Israeli engineers had modified the tank by increasing the engine’s output from nine hundred to over a thousand horsepower and taking the governor off.
A bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the front slope of the tank, a good indication they were getting close. Probably a sniper sent out to pick off tank commanders, Levy thought. He estimated the shot came from the front left and swung the machine gun mounted in front of him in that direction. Another ping. Now Levy had the approximate position of the sniper’s hide. He raked the area with a short burst of gunfire. The sergeant did not expect to nail the sniper, he only wanted to drive him to cover until they were past.
The radio squawked again, telling him to hurry. Even though it was dark, Halaby didn’t slow down. They had been up this road once before and the mix of Halaby’s natural instincts and excellent memory for terrain gave them a decided advantage. Levy was thankful that the loader, Amos Avner, was keeping his mouth shut about the ride. Avner blamed everything that went wrong on Halaby. Levy readjusted his night vision goggles. He hated night operations.
The action Levy and his crew were joining was part of the “ongoing battle to stem the Syrian advance coming out of Lebanon. The Israelis had been forced to give ground as the Syrians consolidated on the southern bank of the Litani River and launched a southward thrust toward Haifa. But as the Syrian armored units crossed the northern border of Israel, they moved out from under their protective umbrella of SAMs, artillery, and counterbattery fire and ran into the main force of two Israeli armored divisions, fully mobilized, dug in, and determined not to yield another inch.
Israeli artillery fire had reached out and suppressed the Syrian SAMs, and the Israeli Air Force had at last been able to pound at the advancing tanks. No longer were the Syrians able to keep moving forward but had to contend with Israeli tanks bunkered down in prepared positions and supported by artillery. Israeli infantry had moved into position and dismounted from their APCs, ready to cover their own tanks and take on the advancing Syrians. The Syrians had finally come within the grasp of Israel’s combined arms.
Slowly, the Syrian advance ground to a halt and the battle swayed back and forth, turning into a slugfest as the two forces punched at each other.
A shielded light blinked at Moshe Levy and the tank commander ordered Halaby to stop. A soldier scrambled up the front of the tank to the turret and quickly gave him directions to his new position, pointing at a map and gesturing to a nearby hill. Then he was gone and Levy told Halaby to leave the road and head for the hill. Near the top, they found a bulldozer scraping away at a little fold in the terrain, turning it into a wide cut that led to the top of the hill. It was a prepared position a tank could hide in. When the combat engineer was satisfied with his work, he backed his bulldozer down the hill and disappeared into the night, heading for another spot to repeat the drill. Halaby nosed the tank down into the fresh cut.
A man appeared out of the dark and identified himself as their new platoon commander and quickly briefed Levy and his crew on their situation. Before he left, the second lieutenant gave them new tactical frequencies for their radios, their only link beyond the small world of battle that would soon engulf them.
The radio crackled with commands and Levy recognized the voice of the lieutenant he had just spoken to. Numerous tanks supported by armored personnel carriers were advancing up the slope toward the platoon’s position. Levy counted them lucky that there had been no artillery barrage and spoke into his intercom. “Take her forward, Nazzi. Hull down.” The driver inched the tank forward up the rut. Now the turret was clear of the rut but Levy still could not see over the crest of the hill directly in front of him. The sharp crack of a tank’s main gun to his immediate left deafened him. Incoming whistled over them and exploded behind them on the lower slope.
“Go to the berm,” Levy ordered. Halaby gunned the engine and shot the tank forward right up to the crest of the hill. The ‘dozer driver had done his work well and now Levy had an unrestricted view of the slope in front of him with only his tank’s turret and half of its hull exposed. Coming up the slope in front of him were at least twelve tanks in a rough V formation with eight or nine tracked armored personnel carriers — Levy identified them as BMPs — spread out among them. The point of the advancing V was off to his left and a Russian-built T-72 tank was twenty-five hundred meters directly in front of them.
He dropped down into the turret and banged the hatch closed over him, buttoning them up and yelling at the same time. ‘'GUNNER — IMI — TANK FRONT!”
He had just warned the crew that they were engaging, that he wanted Avner to load with an antiarmor round they called the Imi, and that the target was a tank in front of them. Before he could get his eye to the sight at his position, Avner had rammed a round into the British-designed 105-millimeter gun the Israelis had mounted on the old M60 and the breech had slammed closed. Automatically, Avner moved clear of the recoil and made sure the safety was off.
“UP!” Avner shouted.
Less than five seconds had elapsed since Levy had seen the tank. The gunner, Dave Bielski, had reacted on pure instinct and had traversed the turret, aligned the cross hairs of the thermal sight on the tank in front of him, and mashed the laser range finder switch as Avner loaded. He could see the T-72's turret swinging onto them. The computer solved the ballistics problem in milliseconds and aimed the gun. Three quick yells echoed through the tank that sounded like one word, the syllables shouted by a different voice: