“Rule number two is that if an atomic weapon is used against Israel, our weapons are to be used, immediately, against the capital city of the country that attacked Israel. And rule number three is that if any devices remain unused, they are to be safeguarded and removed for future use.”
“Of course, we know all that,” said Colonel Hazama “What we don’t know is who is responsible for the Tel Aviv bomb.”
The soldiers ached for revenge. Uncertainty about the target for that revenge left them too frustrated to act. The irony that Debra Reuben prodded them to use the bombs, in some way—in any way—was a miniscule component of the desperation of Israel’s dying days.
“The country is overrun with Arab soldiers. Palestinians are slaughtering our people. Tel Aviv and who knows how much of the rest of the country is a radioactive wasteland. And you, the lions of Judah, the last remaining arms of the nation, can’t decide whether to strike back,” she scolded Colonel Hazama.
Reuben was near hysterical from lack of sleep and too much coffee. From the nightmare that decades of Jewish dreams were coming to a tragic conclusion. And that she alone was responsible for Israel’s final act.
“One serious attack on our airstrip and any chance to deliver these weapons will be lost,” she said. “Another day, maybe two, and we’ll all be Egyptian prisoners. Or dead. I am now the government of the State of Israel. As such, I order you to load two devices onto aircraft and drop them on Damascus and Tehran. The planes are to leave in one hour.”
Reuben rose from the table and walked across the room, gesturing to one of the pilots, the man who had remained silent throughout the lengthy arguments, to walk with her. She spoke with the man in whispers for several minutes, then she returned to the conference table where Colonel Hazama waited.
She sat, rested her head in her arms. She wanted her father to tell her what to do, her mother to rub her back and say that whatever she did was right. Instead, she fell asleep.
The colonel looked at the two air force commanders. “You, Damascus,” he said slowly, as if he were pronouncing their death sentences rather than that of millions of others. “You, Tehran.”
And the last one, the little one, we’ll hold onto for now, just in case we need it later, Colonel Hazama thought. He left the room to supervise the loading of the weapons.
One hour later he placed his hand on Reuben’s shoulder and shook her awake.
“The planes are in the air. May God forgive you. May God forgive us.”
Reuben rose from the conference table, feeling removed from herself, as if she were watching from a far corner.
“Let’s load the other device into a truck and get the hell out of here,” Colonel Hazama said. “A boat is waiting in Elath. Where it will take us I have no idea, but I have a feeling we are two Jews who will have few friends in the land of Israel for a long time to come.”
The two jets took off, one north, toward Damascus. The southbound Israeli pilot, who had not said a word, skimmed just feet over desert dunes until Red Sea waves reached up for its belly, flying ten feet above the water’s surface. Rather than turning eastward to cross the Arabian Peninsula, he continued south, following Reuben’s whispered instructions.
“Israel will need this weapon later. Later, when we are ready to fight for our land. Not yet, though,” Reuben instructed him. “One bomb is enough to use for now,” she’d said. “There are still Jews in Ethiopia who will guard Israel’s treasure.”
The United States Sixth Fleet, with the battleship New Jersey and the carrier Lyndon Johnson, rounded up its sailors from the streets and brothels of Tripoli, cutting short its courtesy visit to the latest Libyan government. The fleet steamed east, breaking out its never-used radiation decontamination equipment, preparing its sick bays. Doctors on board hurriedly read the manuals on treating radiation victims, knowing that by the time survivors would be carried on board the ships, the burn and blast victims would already be dead.
America was on the way, if only Israel could hold out for a few more days.
Damascus was obliterated before the Sixth Fleet arrived. The Tel Aviv bomb horrified the world; the Damascus bomb disgusted it. Israel went from receiving worldwide empathy and support to being demonized.
A dozen organizations jostled to claim credit for bombing Tel Aviv, but no one boasted about bombing Damascus. No one needed to claim credit. No one but Israel would have or could have done it.
American Jews made little effort to justify Israel’s conduct. The Damascus bomb was seen an act of desperation, a drowning nation seeking to take an enemy—any enemy—down with it.
Hearts hardened. It was one thing for a crazy religious fanatic suicide terrorist to use an atom bomb, but another for a government to choose to do so. Even American Jews conceded that Israel went too far this time.
Tel Aviv no longer existed by the time the Sixth Fleet arrived. The fiercest fighting was between the Syrians and the Egyptians, each claiming sovereignty over what had been Israel. Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank emptied as four million people thanked Allah for the miracle and rushed to claim what was theirs by divine right. Or at least as much of it as did not glow in the dark from radiation.
The Sixth Fleet was met by an Egyptian patrol boat whose nervous captain politely informed Admiral Jameson Barons on the Lyndon Johnson that the situation was well in hand, that the best medical teams were on the scene and that while the American offer of help was appreciated, the situation was not nearly as serious as first thought. So many armed groups were on the scene, however, that it would be best for the fleet to withdraw before a tragic accident took place.
Admiral Barons, who had lost his son, a Marine lieutenant, in Afghanistan, and his daughter, a Navy SEAL, in Yemen, waited for orders from Washington. He was commanded to exercise restraint and to act in his best judgment based on the local situation.
Enough young deaths, Barons thought. Enough Americans dying in wars where we can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. The Americans withdrew.
CHAPTER 2
The white glider banked steeply, its forty-five-foot, carbon-fiber right wing pointing at Plymouth Rock 6,000 feet below. Ben Shapiro lay under the blue-tinted canopy nearly flat on his back, craning his head for the telltale wisp of forming cloud that indicated a thermal, warm air rushing upward, that would float his engineless aircraft higher yet.
Good lift over the shore would make this flight a special one. Shapiro needed a special flight to take his mind off the events in Israel.
He’d spent the morning sitting in front of the television monitor in the conference room in his Boston law office, staring at coverage of refugee ships forced out of harbors in Greece, Italy and Albania. Europe had learned that once such refugees enter, they never leave.
From Israel itself there was no coverage. Newscasters speculated about what was happening when four million vengeful Palestinians backed by three armies swarmed over the sick and dying remnant of those Jews who had neither the will to resist nor the strength to flee. The total ban on foreign journalists—for their own safety—by the occupying powers fueled the worst fears. Al Jazeera’s Damascus coverage showed children’s burned corpses, block after block of leveled buildings, demolished schools and hospitals. In contrast, it reported that bomb damage to Tel Aviv, although serious, was miraculously limited to Jewish neighborhoods. Troops provided relief aid to the Jews who had wisely chosen to remain in Palestine.