House of Acerbi

below for signs of their destination field. Entering a coded radio frequency into his flight computer, he clicked his microphone switch once, and immediately a row of intense white lights along both sides of a long runway began switching on, revealing a glowing ribbon of paved desert that lay stretched out before him. Seconds later, at the approach end of the runway, another set of lights erupted in an arrow-like line of sequenced flashes that pointed the way to their landing spot. Pilots who were long on nerve and short on fuel referred to the running flashes of light as the rabbit, because it ran along the ground and pointed the way to safety when they were forced to make a landing at an unfamiliar field on a dark and turbulent night.

Circling down to land in pairs, the desert air was still warm when the planes whistled to a stop in front of a row of wooden WWII era hangars. The first men to emerge from the planes into the dry stillness could see bats flitting beneath the halogen lights by the hangars, while in the distance, a ring of dark jagged shapes rose from the desert floor, blotting out the star-filled sky along the horizon, a clear sign that this isolated base was encircled by a ring of tall mountains.

John stretched as he breathed in the warm, dry air. “Our ranch is a couple of hundred miles on the other side of those mountains. I suddenly have a craving for some Mexican food.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for some MRE’s until the cooks set something up in one of the hangars,” Lev said. “I heard they’ll be making a little foray into town in the morning to buy some extra supplies. I can slip them a special request if you care to make a list. I love Mexican food. Be sure to write down corn tortillas and skirt steak … oh, and lots of hot sauce … and cheese, lots of cheese.”

John was scribbling furiously as he made his list. “I can build a fire with some of the mesquite wood around here and we’ll be eating like kings tomorrow night.”

Lev pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a match. “We’ll use that hangar over there as our main base of operations. I want to hold our first briefing in an hour.”

“What about that?” John said, pointing to a mobile home parked beside the hangar.

“It’s worth checking out. I hope it has air conditioning. It’s supposed to be 107 degrees here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Just like the Negev Desert.”

Memories of the year before flooded their thoughts, but they were quickly drowned out by the sound of helicopters approaching over the desert-lots of helicopters.

The sudden appearance of so many helicopters at once looked surreal as they emerged from the darkness and passed over the lighted runway. One by one, they hovered into position and landed in rows in front of the hangars. When the last turbine engine whined to a stop, the Israeli soldiers watched as thirty American pilots walked out of the darkness into the glare of the hangar’s lights. A tall man wearing an olive-drab flight suit and a gray cowboy hat walked right up to Ben. Both men’s faces lit up as they hugged each other like long-lost brothers.

“Ben Zamir, you little Jew piss-ant.”

“Ed Wilson, you stupid redneck.”

“I take it you two know each other,” Lev said.

“I believe the cavalry has arrived,” Ben said, turning toward Lev with a grin. “Professor, I want you to meet Colonel Ed Wilson, the commander of this wing of the U.S. Army’s First Air Cavalry Division. We trained together in a joint training exercise at Fort Bragg last year.”

“Good to meet you, Colonel,” Lev said, extending a hand to a smiling man with a short military-style haircut and thin moustache. To Lev, the man looked just like Errol Flynn, the popular 1940’s era movie star. His tanned face crinkled around a pair of intelligent gray eyes-eyes that seemed to catch every movement around him.

“Where did you and your men come from, Colonel?”

“Fort Hood, sir … Texas. Please, call me Ed.”

“Then you better drop the sir and start calling me Lev.”

A big grin spread beneath Wilson’s thin moustache. “Ok, Lev. Where do we bunk?”

The two men looked around at the American and Israeli forces staring at each other across an invisible line on the tarmac. They looked like two football teams sizing each other up before a big game.

“Don’t worry, Lev,” Wilson said, still grinning. “These men will all be swapping war stories and showing each other pictures of their sweethearts an hour from now.”

“Good, because we’re just about to start our first briefing. Let’s get everyone inside the hangar.”

CHAPTER 51

Inside the cavernous hangar, young soldiers watched Leo and Lev as they took their seats at a long folding table beneath American and Israeli flags stretched overhead. The two men were seated between Colonel Wilson and Moshe on one side and Ben Zamir on the other. Sitting on the concrete floor with the troops, Alon and Nava were in the front row next to John and Ariella and the three Spanish scientists.

Lev stood and looked around at all the serious faces staring back at him. It was time to lighten the mood. “Good evening. It’s good to be in the United States, however I think it’s safe to say that we’ve just made the most spectacular illegal border crossing in American history.”

The sound of laughter echoed around the tall empty space of the hangar and filtered out into the night, making the sentries outside peer around the corner of the building to see what was so funny.

“I’ve been told that we scared the pants off some Border Patrol officers when we flew right over their heads. It appears that someone forgot to spread the story to them that there was a military exercise going on out in the desert tonight. Fortunately, this little bump along the road has been rectified, but due to future operational security, all local law enforcement agencies will be left out of the loop concerning our true mission. If the Mexicans catch even a hint that something’s coming their way it will make our job a lot harder.”

Colonel Wilson looked down the table at Lev. “Excuse me, Professor, but we haven’t been briefed on our objective yet.”

“I was coming to that.” Lev glanced over at Leo before looking back out at all the camouflage-painted faces of the young soldiers staring back at him. “What level of security clearance do your men have, Colonel?”

“Every one of my men are cleared for top secret missions … all the officers for ultra.”

“So are ours,” Ben said.

“Well then, Gentlemen, if both commanders agree, consider this your first classified operational briefing.” Lev paused for a moment, because he knew the impact his next words would have.

“Since time is running short, I’ll get right to the point. Tomorrow night, we’ll be flying back across the border to a ranch in the Mexican desert. We’re going there to kill a man.”

The hushed murmur of a hundred voices filled the hangar as the soldiers exchanged looks and wondered if they had heard him right. One man? Why had so many of them been sent for just one man?

Lev smiled. “On the surface, this might seem like a straightforward mission with very little risk, but I can assure you that it is much more. In fact, this may be the most dangerous mission any of you have ever faced. The man we are going after is responsible for the plague that has killed thousands of people around the world, and he has chosen his hiding spot well. He has surrounded himself with well-armed men inside the borders of a country that is overrun with vicious drug gangs, and he has hired one gang in particular to protect him. They’re a bloodthirsty group that rivals anything we’ve come up against in the Middle East, and they’ve adopted some of the terrorist’s tactics.”

“Sounds like an untrained rabble to me,” Ben said.

“Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth,” Lev said. “We’re facing a gang of hundreds of Mexican Ex-Special Forces soldiers that were trained in the United States.”

Colonel Wilson stood when he saw some of his pilots shifting uneasily on the concrete floor. “I’m afraid he’s right. I’ve heard stories about these guys. Some of our politicians still think it’s a good idea for our army to teach classified warfare tactics to people of questionable character from unstable countries. These people were originally hired by the drug cartels to protect their drug trade, but once they figured out they were the ones with the power,