Twenty minutes later, Pinky and twelve of his most senior officers—minus Major General Ido Baram, who is under guard in a tent at Camp Yarkon—pull up to the office tower that headquarters Isracorp, formerly the nation’s most successful corporation, now just a brass plate outside a bank of elevators stalled in their shafts.
The lobby desk holds a familiar sign, with one alteration:
The desk is manned by a white-bearded old-timer in a skullcap reading Psalms—the study and discussion of biblical texts has become a common pasttime in a city with no newspapers or magazines, even among the secular, many of whom now crowd Tel Aviv’s once underused synagogues. “Peace be unto you,” the receptionist says. Now in wide use, the once casual greeting has taken on a kind of bottomless urgency.
The chief of staff’s adjutant, a colonel, has no interest in pleasantries. “Where’s Yigal Lev?”
“Has the distinguished officer an appointment, sir?”
“This is the chief of staff, you fool. Tell us where Yigal Lev is or I’ll shake it out of you.”
Before he can grind out another threat, the very compelling sound of multiple guns being cocked echoes in the two-story lobby.
As one, the officers look up and around them. From doorways on the same floor and from the circular balcony above, a collection of Misha’s gangsters point their firearms like accusing fingers.
The man at the desk stifles a bemused smile. “Please allow me to try the prime minister’s secretary.” He picks up a pink battery powered walkie-talkie bearing the insignia My Little Pony. “Alona? Mendel downstairs. The Chief of Staff is here. Shall I…?”
In the silent lobby, the voice on the other end is tinny and laden with static. “Yigal has been expecting him. Please send him up.”
The receptionist turns to the visitors. “For the moment, our elevators are in a state of rest. Fourth floor. Kindly leave your firearms in the basket.”
Pinky raises his hand to his officers, then places his Tavor, Israel’s standard-issue rifle, into the large straw basket to his left. One by one, the officers follow suit.
“Please, gentlemen,” the receptionist says. “Side arms as well.”
Moments later, the group exits four floors of emergency stairs onto an office floor buzzing with people on computers. Alona Yarden, Yigal’s longtime secretary, whose husband may or may not be a prisoner of war in one of the victorious army’s detention camps, greets them. Like the families of some 400,000 IDF personnel not heard from since war broke out, she has no idea whether her husband is a prisoner or dead. “General, so nice of you to stop by. The prime minister will see you immediately. Let me show you to the cabinet room.”
Pinky gives her a look of exasperation, but follows, his staff in tow. Their entrance to the floor causes some to look up, but otherwise the room continues its work. Alona opens a door to a conference room where a dozen men and women sit around a table strewn with papers. She stops. “Your officers will wait outside.”
The chief of staff nods, enters.
Yigal stands. “Pinky! I knew you’d come. Let me introduce you to my—’
“Yigal, what the fuck is going on?”
“Well, right at the moment we are allocating electricity for the next ten days, by which time hopefully we can get some coal delivered to Reading 4—the turbines? We scrounged up some coal dust.”
“I know what Reading 4 is. You have electricity and the army doesn’t?”
“Put in a request. Pinky, this is Rochele, minister of power. We’re looking for a minister of defense. So far it’s fallen to me. Rochele, Pinky used to be the world’s best tank commander. Now… it’s hard to say.”
“Yigal,” the chief of staff blurts out. “Who made you prime minister?”
“I did. Winston Churchill was not available.”
Pinky is now staring at the man to Yigal’s right, who is also on his feet. “Do I know you?”
“Misha Shulman, staff sergeant, IDF reserves. You fired me along with Yigal and Noam here.” He points to a thin man of thirty wearing a single gold earring. “Funny how things work out. One day this bastard is operations officer in a tank brigade. Now he’s head of the Mossad.” Pinky’s eyes roll. It has finally dawned on him. “You’re Misha Shulman!”
“I told you that.”
“The hoodlum!”
“Currently minister of police.”
Misha is having too much fun to quit. “In Hebrew, everything’s backwards. Other places the police become crooks. Here crooks become the police.”
Yigal has let this go on too long. “Pinky, have a seat.” As space is made, the new prime minister works his way around the table, introducing his staff. “Most of the people in this room have worked with me for a while, so I know them and trust them. Roberto here got our computers running. Only he knows how. Something to do with car batteries. Limited access to the outside world, but that only means the outside world can’t tap our lines. Pinky, Sharona—minister for food. We don’t have any yet, but we’re working on it. The children have no milk.”
“Tonight we’re sending out our first patrol to bring some back,” Sharona says. “Tell your boys not to shoot us.”
“You’re sending people behind the lines to steal milk?”
“Milk?” Sharona says, as though talking to an imbecile. “We’re bringing back cows.”
“You’ve got six million people. How many cows can you steal?”
“With all due respect,” Sharona says, “they’re our fucking cows. We’ve got 2,300 children between newborn and eighteen months. They need milk. About half the mothers are just dry.”
“How do you know how many children?”
“We counted,” Yigal says. “We’re also starting a program for mothers with sufficient milk to suckle a second child whose mother is not so fortunate.” He points. “This guy with the glasses, Tzvi, is minister for logistics. Somehow he knows how many of everything we have, including pistols, rifles, and shotguns.”
Tzvi seems shy. Eventually he begins. “Tw-tw-twenty-s-s-seven thousand, six h-h-hundred and t-two.” He smiles in relief. “As of y-yesterday.”
“Ronny is our minister of health. Used to be my cardiologist.”
Cardiologists everywhere come in two formats: excessively fit and trim, and soft and overweight. Herzberg is the latter becoming the former. He likes to say the population of Israel has lost more cumulative weight in the past several weeks than the total tonnage of the population of Rhode Island, a fact no one questions but which, in a moment of medical bravado, he made up. “Outside of the military, three thousand doctors, twelve thousand nurses. We’re reopening Assuta Hospital tomorrow.”
“You want to know how much antibiotics?” Yigal asks. “Ronny can tell you. For three days, we’ve been inventorying every possible medical asset.”
The chief of staff is confused. “Why?”
“So we can move to phase two.”
“Which is?”
Yigal laughs. “Counterattack.”