Its lobby is empty of furniture but not of people. These are not reading the Jerusalem Post and drinking espresso, signaling waiters for another round or meeting business associates. Instead the cavernous hall is full of children squatting on the now-filthy carpeting in juryrigged classrooms whose walls are the box springs that until recently supported the mattresses moved to the beach. In the classic manner of educators everywhere, the volunteer teachers attempt to hold the attention of their students through a combination of charm and discipline. They use blackboards of all sizes and shapes, some merely framed prints from the guest rooms painted over in matt black. The children sit on the floor, some rapt, most allowing their gaze to widen at the entrance of Yigal and Misha followed by forty men, half of them in uniform, the rest in the telltale mufti of muscle shirts and gold chains. All are armed.
Yigal is surprised there is a clerk at the long front desk, quite as if there could possibly be paying guests now that almost all foreign nationals have been evacuated via special flights from Ben Gurion International Airport—now Yasser Arafat International, though no one in Tel Aviv can bear to utter the name.
The receptionist is not a Hilton employee but a dedicated civil servant, working of course without pay, because there is no one to pay him, and even if there would be, the money he receives will be worthless. A hand-printed sign is propped on the desk:
Misha tips over the flimsy cardboard with the barrel of his gun. “Where do you keep the government?”
The clerk is not about to argue. He points in the direction of a sign that has not yet been taken down to become the name of a tent neighborhood. Misha motions to four of his men to remain in the lobby.
The others follow their leaders through the makeshift school, some making funny faces at the children in the way of adults who never had a proper childhood themselves. The kids laugh, any break in the school day a delight.
In a moment, the armed men come to a conference room whose double doors are open for ventilation—all exterior windows in the Hilton’s public rooms are sealed. The entire ground floor is one big hothouse.
Around a long table covered in red cloth sit twelve men and women, their aides making up a second row so that altogether about forty are in the room. At midpoint around the table, his back to the entry, sits a sixty-year old bureaucrat named Uri Ben-Dov, who is so intent on his words, which are being inscribed for posterity by a stenographer—the hotel hasn’t the electric power to run a voice recorder—that he is unaware Yigal and Misha have entered behind him.
“Any ideas, then?” Ben-Dov is saying. He notices the eyes of the others are fixed over his right shoulder.
“I got one,” Misha says quietly. “Who’s in charge here?”
Like any politician, Ben-Dov is not pleased at the interruption, nor by Misha’s tone. “I am acting prime minister.”
“Not a very convincing act,” Misha says. “You’re Ben-Dov, then?” The acting prime minister looks beyond his two guests to the men in the corridor. “And who precisely are you?”
“What’s important is who this is.” Misha nods in the direction of Yigal.
“I know who Yigal Lev is. Mr. Lev, we met some time ago at a conference. In Caesaria?” Ben-Dov realizes he is not exactly displaying authority. He alters his tone. “Regrettably, this is not an open meeting, Mr. Lev. It is in fact closed to the public. A sign to that effect is posted downstairs at the—”
“Mr. Ben-Dov,” Yigal says. “We’re not the public. We’re the interim government. You’re being replaced.”
Ben-Dov stands, looking around him for affirmation from the seated group, then back to Yigal. “I am the single surviving member of the Knesset. As such I am authorized by the Basic Law of the State of Israel, which stipulates that in case of emergency the senior—”
“The Knesset doesn’t exist.”
“Israel is still a democracy, Mr. Lev.”
“Israel barely exists. Her only chance is to put herself in the hands of people who know what they’re doing. You don’t.”
“I vehemently protest.”
“Noted,” Yigal says, with a nod to the stenographer. “Let the record show that the former deputy minister for culture and sport protests.” He smiles at the woman, whose face seems at once to reflect confusion and relief. “You have that?”
“This is outrageous,” Ben-Dov says, his voice rising an octave. “In this room is the legitimate government of the State of Israel.” Misha pulls out his gun. “In this room is a lot of bullshit.” Ben-Dov suddenly recognizes him. “I’ve seen your face in the papers.”
“Misha Shulman, at your service.”
“The gangster. I will say this once and once only. Please leave. You have no place here. Not you, Mr. Shulman, nor you, Mr. Lev. The State of Israel has problems enough without—”
“You know who fought to the last man in the Warsaw Ghetto?” Misha asks conversationally, cocking his pistol. “Jewish gangsters.” The silence in the room is absolute. “Commander?”
“Okay,” Yigal says quietly, addressing the room at large. “In a moment, papers will be distributed to each person here. They are formal letters of resignation. Those who sign will be free to go.”
Ben-Dov’s voice goes up another octave. “And if we choose not to sign?”
“You don’t want to know,” Yigal says.
54
US MARINE AVIATION FORWARD Attack Base Wildcat does not appear on any publically issued list of American military facilities, officially because it is a temporary base leased from the Principality of Oman for the purpose of search and rescue. This is disingenuity of the highest order, but it permits Oman’s rulers to appear independent of the West and pure of desert heart should it be discovered that even so little as this twelve-plane squadron of F/A-18 Super Hornets exists, tucked as it is into an especially empty quarter of an empty sheikdom. The principality thus attempts to stay on the good side of groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, which have declared war on the royal families of Arabia, among other Middle Eastern leaders, for allowing non-Muslim fighting men (and women!) to set foot on the Arabian peninsula, upon which northeastern Oman sits like a sandy carbuncle. Though remarkably there is in Arabic no single word for Arabia, the very land upon which these feudal kingdoms sit is broadly considered to be holy unto itself: the Arabian peninsula is the home of Mecca and Medina; Arabia was the first conquest of the Prophet. To radical Islamists, that this first jewel in the crown of Islam should be occupied by the infidel forces of the Great Satan defies the deathbed injunction of Mohammed himself: “Let there not be two religions in Arabia.”
Thus the Pentagon and the Omani leadership came to an accommodation: Marine Corps Aviation is just passing through, and as a guest in the desert its personnel must be welcomed and the baggage of its caravan protected, especially since its official mission is humanitarian in keeping with the hadiths: “Protect the innocent, ransom the enslaved, save the lost.”