The rotors continued to spin. El Aqrab ran across the hill and dove directly into the waiting open door. Without pausing, the helicopter jumped into the air, nervous as a grasshopper. It slid across the hill, regained transitional lift, and hurtled up into the sky.
Chapter 25
Rifkin continued to monitor the countdown as he worked. He had already removed the outer casing of the console but he could still see the LED display, the numbers flashing constantly in red. Gal Baror held the casing a few centimeters above the device as Rifkin looked beneath. A Medusa’s tail of fine wires dangled from the shell. He tried to pick them out, to distinguish them in the bright halogen and LED light emanating from the Black Diamond headlamp on his head. He slipped a tiny dentist’s mirror underneath. He looked about. There was the ground. Those, over there, were hot. He peeled back the plastic coating of each wire in his mind, feeling their temperature, testing them for charge against the tongue of his imagination. He followed them as they snaked around the chassis, as they seemed to come to life, wiggling like intestines, like the insides of so many of his friends and colleagues blown to smithereens. “… nineteen, eighteen, seventeen… ”
Rifkin picked up a pair of wire cutters and used the dentist’s mirror to separate two wires underneath the casing. “Please resist the urge to pull the casing away,” he mumbled to Gal Baror. Gal eased the casing down a hair. “Thank you,” Rifkin said. There were two wires, side by side, beside the flat head of the dentist’s mirror. One was green. The other was blue. “… eleven, ten, nine… Are you still there, Raven?”
“Yes, we’re here, Eagle One,” the Major’s voice responded. It echoed through the confined space of the tunnel, reverberated against the cistern. “We’re with you.”
“… six, five, four, three… ” Captain Rifkin insinuated the wire cutters underneath the casing, the shiny metal blades around the light blue wire in the mirror, and snipped. “… two.”
The numbers froze: 02. The digits simply sat there on the bright red LED. Motionless. Petrified. Rifkin found himself breathing. He had closed one eye unconsciously. He opened it again, very slowly. The display still read 02.
“Raven, come in. This is Eagle One. The sequence has been terminated. Do you copy?”
“Copy that. Congratulations, Captain.” Major Ben-Ami turned toward the driver of the APC and raised his hand. The Zelda slowed to a crawl, then stopped. “Come in Sparrow One,” he said. A moment later he was connected to the pilot in the lead Apache helicopter. “This is Raven,” he began. “Commence immediate retrieval.” He peered out through the bulletproof window and scanned the far horizon with a pair of powerful binoculars.
El Aqrab’s helicopter grew smaller by the second. In a moment it would be across the Blue Line into Lebanon. The air above the APC vibrated as the Apaches swiveled north in hot pursuit. They blazed across the hill, thundered along the valley floor. They closed the distance and although they could have fired upon the fleeing helicopter, could have incinerated her with rockets, they punched to a hard stop, flared at around a hundred feet, and hovered like a gyre of eagles above the invisible Blue Line.
“She’s gone, sir. Raven, do you copy?”
“Sparrows, return to base.”
“Sir?”
“Return to base,” the Major repeated. “Under no circumstances are you to cross the Blue Line into Lebanon.”
The Apache helicopters turned and headed south. Major Ben-Ami lowered his binoculars and watched with the naked eye as El Aqrab’s helicopter faded slowly into the pale blue sky. That’s when he saw the Lebanese Army gunships — five desert camouflage Apaches. They materialized from nowhere. Once again, the Major picked up his binoculars. There they were, in a flash of light. He steadied his elbows on the rim of the APC tower. El Aqrab’s helicopter was hemmed in on every side. No matter how she tried to feint or dodge, she could not gain the altitude required to outrun her pursuers. It was only a matter of time. They pressed the air about her, pushing her down. El Aqrab’s ship was forced to land atop another hill, beside an orange grove, less than a mile within the Lebanese border. She’d barely hit the ground when the helicopter was surrounded on all sides by the five Apache gunships. Commandos streamed out across the hill, between the fruit trees, surrounding the green chopper. Then someone pulled the door open, and dragged the pilot and co-pilot from the ship.
“Come in, Falcon. Do you copy?” Major Ben-Ami said. The radio remained silent. “Do you copy, Falcon?” he repeated. “Do you have the package?” He squinted through his binoculars. It was hard to see the pilot and co-pilot despite their crimson flight suits. They were surrounded by the Lebanese commandos. He adjusted the focus but it didn’t seem to help. “Do you have the package?” he repeated. “Come in, Falcon.”
“That’s a negative. We do not. Just the pilot and co-pilot. I repeat. We do not have the package.”
Major Ben-Ami hung his head. It was a ruse. El Aqrab had never boarded the green helicopter. Or, if he had, it had only been for a moment. Then he’d slipped away somehow. The Major spun about and looked back up the hill. “Go back,” he shouted with frustration at the driver. “Back up the hill. Now!”
The armored vehicle turned around and charged back up the lane. A few minutes later, the APC popped out from behind the cypress trees. It shuddered to a stop. The commandos hit the ground, fanned out across the hilltop. They streamed beyond the original perimeter. They scoured every bush and tree and stone, and still they found no trace of El Aqrab. The terrorist had vanished, as suddenly as the morning dew.
“Come in, Raven,” the radio crackled. “This is Eagle.”
Major Ben-Ami stood almost at attention by the APC. Without even turning, he lifted a hand, snapped his fingers, and the communications officer handed him the microphone.
“This is Raven. Go ahead, Eagle.”
“Sir, I’ve got bad news,” said Captain Rifkin.
The Major ran a hand back through his close-cropped hair. He sighed and said, “Report, Eagle.”
“The casing was hot, sir. We measured RADs. But now that we’ve had a chance to open it, well… it’s empty, sir. There must have been some HEU inside the fuel chamber at one point. But it’s no longer there. Do you copy, Raven? The device is empty.”
“Copy that, Eagle. Understood. Thank you. Return to base.”
Major Ben-Ami felt himself age fifteen years in the space of those three words. Return to base, he repeated to himself. His mouth felt dry as Sinai. He hung his head. That’s what will happen to me now, he thought. I will return to base, and never leave again… as long as I live.
Warhaftig had set up a communication link with an Israeli security officer in Beersheba, some guy named Seiden, who was standing by. Acting Chief Seiden was in contact with the local Beersheba Bomb Squad in the cistern below. Decker, Warhaftig and a host of other agents were packed inside Warhaftig’s office, listening to the radio transmissions on the speakerphone.
“So much for your prediction,” Johnson said to Decker.
“It isn’t six AM yet in Beersheba.”