‘How is the flying going, Michael?’ Yossi asked.
‘Very well,’ Michael responded enthusiastically. ‘By the end of next week I will have two hundred hours on the Mirage,’ he added proudly.
‘Do you think there will be a war, Yossi?’ Marian asked, dreading the thought.
‘I hope not. Going to war with the Arabs will not solve anything. I think it’s time both sides pulled back from this madness. It’s time we both tried to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes. Palestinians simply want the opportunity to work in peace and make a contribution, but a man without a country is a man without dignity and until we reach agreement on the Palestinian State, the killing will continue.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Michael said. ‘I think it’s about time we taught these lying Arab bastards a lesson, one they won’t forget in a hurry!’
‘Michael Kaufmann! I will have none of that language in this house.’ Marian had some clear rules when it came to swearing. Yossi suppressed a smile. The language in the officers’ mess would no doubt be a lot worse. Yossi was proud of his sons but he, like Marian, had often reflected on how very different their sons were. It was almost as if there was an old soul and a young soul.
Michael was the young soul; full of the enthusiasm and invincibility of youth, a zest for war and adventure without the wisdom to consider the consequences. All he had ever wanted to do was fly, and after graduating at the top of his pilot’s course he had been assigned to a conversion course for the Dassault Mirage III, dubbed by the Israeli pilots as the Shahak, the ‘skyblazer’. After achieving another graduation first, Michael had been posted to the Israeli Defense Force’s premier fighter squadron, the 101st, at the huge Hatzhor Air Base. Yossi knew that if it came to war the 101st would be the first into combat. David was the old soul. Partway through an archaeology degree at the Hebrew University at Mount Scopus, he too was in the Reserves as an infantry platoon commander. Yossi also knew from bitter experience that all wars were vicious, but for the infantry they were particularly so, especially if it came to hand-to-hand fighting.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ Michael continued, unabashed by his mother’s rebuke, ‘but the Arab scramble time is at least twice that of ours. We’ll have ’em on toast!’
‘What about you, David? Are you looking forward to teaching the Arabs a lesson?’ Marian asked.
David shrugged. ‘If we have to fight, we have to fight. But I don’t agree with Mikey. The Palestinians have lost their homes and their livelihood and I guess you’re right,’ he said, looking at his father. ‘They’re just as much a family people as we are. At the end of the day we took their land. They need a country, too.’
‘I always knew there was a reason I didn’t go to university,’ Michael retorted. ‘They’re Arabs, for hell’s sake.’
Marian sighed. Always it was war – race against race, white against black, Arab against Jew, Christian against Muslim, faith against faith, hatred over tolerance – a vicious and unbroken cycle of escalating violence. It was in man’s power to break it, but he had chosen not to.
Jerusalem
Lieutenant David Kaufmann knocked before entering Brigadier General Menachem Kovner’s office.
‘You sent for me, Menachem?’ David asked. Brigadier General Kovner looked up from a desk cluttered with intelligence reports filed in different coloured folders. The green ones were marked ‘Confidential’ and the red ones ‘Secret’; the one open on Kovner’s desk was crimson, marking it as a ‘Top Secret’.
‘Come in, David, and have a seat.’ Kovner, a wiry, fit-looking professional soldier, picked up the file and joined his much taller lieutenant at the small conference table that was jammed in one corner of his office.
‘What I’m about to tell you must not go out of this room. You are not to discuss it with anyone, except your battalion commander, who is aware of the task I’m about to give you. There is now a strong possibility that we will go to war with Egypt. If we do, the General Staff hope to restrict the war to the one southern front but that will depend on what the Syrians do in the north and what the Jordanians do in the east. It is the Jordanians that I want to talk to you about.’
‘Me?’ David was at a complete loss as to why a platoon commander could have any influence on the eastern front.
‘The Old City and the Dead Sea Scrolls are now in the hands of the Jordanians. The scrolls are being held in the Palestine Museum. When we went to war with Egypt in 1956 the Jordanians stayed out of it. The view in the Cabinet is that they will do so again, but I’m not so sure.’
‘You think the Jordanians will attack?’ David asked.
‘To put it bluntly, yes. Unlike November 1956, the Jordanians know that this time Israel stands alone. Neither the British nor the French will be there and the United States and the Soviets will try to stay out of it. The Jordanians have had your university and our small enclave on Mount Scopus under siege for nearly twenty years. They would dearly love to get it back. The most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed in the Rockefeller Museum.’ Brigadier General Kovner got up from the table and pulled down one of several maps that were held in a rollerblind cabinet on the wall. It was a map of Jerusalem and its environs showing the locations of Jordanian units. He opened the crimson file on the table and placed some aerial photographs and the floor plans of the museum in front of David.
‘The Rockefeller Museum is located on Sultan Suleiman Street.’ Menachem Kovner pointed to Kerem el-Sheik, a hill just outside the north-eastern corner of the Old City walls where the museum had been built. ‘Three months ago the Jordanians nationalised the museum.’
‘So it’s now Jordanian property?’
‘Correct. And whilst I’m not sure the Rockefeller family are overjoyed, in a way the Jordanian Government has played into our hands. If they attack us and enter the war, and if – and this is a big “if” – we drive the Jordanians out of Jerusalem, the museum and more importantly its contents will fall into Israeli hands.’
David realised very clearly what he was being asked to do.
‘You want me to capture the Dead Sea Scrolls.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
His Brigade Commander smiled. ‘Not single-handedly. From time to time your battalion commander and I will be taking an interest in your progress. Given your background and your knowledge of the Scrolls’ importance, it will fall to you to ensure these priceless antiquities are not lost to the scholarship of the world. To help you I have arranged for Private Joseph Silberman to join your platoon, but Silberman is a rather unusual recruit.’
‘Unusual?’
‘Up until a couple of weeks ago he was an inmate of Ramle, and other than teaching him how to shoot to protect himself, we haven’t had time to give him the normal military training.’
‘Ramle! What’s he done?’ David asked, intrigued as to why his platoon would need the services of someone confined to one of the harshest prisons in Israel. ‘Why is he coming to me?’
Brigadier General Kovner reached for a slim green file marked ‘Silberman’. ‘His service record, such as it is, and a short biography. He’s not dangerous and very intelligent. He is being assigned to you because he is a master safecracker, one of the best.’
‘You want him to crack the Rockefeller’s vault?’ David ventured quietly.
‘Precisely. The vaults in the Rockefeller are big and heavy and they would take a considerable amount of explosive to gain access. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, Mossad have not been able to get hold of the combination. I don’t need to tell you that the Dead Sea Scrolls are irreplaceable, and the world would be less than amused if they were damaged in the process of our blowing up the doors.’
‘A locksmith?’
Brigadier General Kovner shook his head. ‘There is no way of knowing how much time you will have. You might capture the museum, only to have the Jordanians put in a heavy counter-attack once they tumble to what we’re after. Silberman is used to working quickly under pressure. Besides, it’s in his interest to get the vault open.’
‘A pardon?’ David asked insightfully.
Kovner nodded. ‘A job working in Mossad for the good guys.’ Defining Mossad as the good guys was equal to assigning a degree of benevolence to the CIA, David thought, but he didn’t comment.
‘You never know, Silberman might be able to teach you a few things.’
‘I can’t imagine when I might next need to break into a safe, but I shall watch him with interest. Is the museum heavily guarded?’ David asked.
‘Heavily enough. Last night Jordanian infantry were deployed around the museum itself and there are more infantry and tanks deployed around the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.’ Kovner traced his finger around
