One of the first things Jonny told Tamir when he first arrived was that it’s important to stay on good terms with the producers, otherwise it screws up the job. Tamir noticed that when Jonny would make any kind of remark about a producer’s work or send a summary back to be reworked, he would always do it in a fraternizing manner, including all sorts of pats on the back and phrasings that Tamir felt were phony. He could never speak that way. In fact, when he would send back summaries to be corrected, even he himself thought that he sounded like an uptight schoolteacher. He hated himself for that, but never managed to find a different way to express himself. After one particularly exhausting night in which Tamir felt that he was fighting both Hezbollah and the producers at the same time, a night which ended with three casualties for the South Lebanon Army and a sense of failure and general sullenness in the bunker, Zaguri approached Tamir and said in a threatening voice: Listen, get off their cases, they’re working hard enough as it is. Tamir opened his mouth to respond, but Zaguri muttered angrily, don’t test me, and left the room. Tamir left as well, dragging himself back to his room at 4:30 in the morning. He collapsed on his bed and fell asleep, sinking into a dense abyss— an impenetrable black canvas of electromagnetic flickering and Lebanese grunts.
It was 2 p.m. when he finally awoke. Tamir vaguely recalled that it was Friday. He ambled his way to the barracks bathroom, took a quick shower, scarfed down three chocolate-chip cookies his mother had packed him, and made his way to the bunker. Harel and Jonny were on leave and he was the only one there, but he assumed that since no one came to wake him, nothing important must have happened. The other, rather disconcerting possibility was that something had happened, but nobody realized it was going on. Whenever he overslept, he would feel burdened by an anxiety that he had let some terrorist attack slip under his fingers, and that all he would be able to say to the inquiry committee was that he simply slept through it. As he walked into the bunker, Tamir briefly greeted the Syrian IAO with a nod of his head, and similarly acknowledged the intelligence analyst and the translator who was sat hunched over a conversation she must have found amusing, judging by the broad smile on her face. He quickly fixed himself a coffee, and slumped into his chair at his desk.
There was a hefty pile of summaries waiting for Tamir on his desk. He started going over them. To his relief, they were mainly concerned with administrative matters. The Amal network confirmed that a delivery of mattresses had made it to Nabatiyeh. The Democratic Front’s network reported of a new quartermaster who had been stationed in their base in the Lebanon Valley. The al-Sa‘iqa network, which usually communicated nothing but radio checks, discussed a need for heavy coats ahead of winter. He continued going through the material until one particular summary, intercepted from a networked which the computer that assigns names for networks named Sironit, caught his attention. The network belonged to Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, summarily referred to as Front/Jibril. Tamir’s eyes followed the abbreviations jotted down by the producer in rather sloppy Arabic:
From: A/U, BB
To: al-Mazra‘a
Regarding: Provisions
Your last shipment lacked the following items: camouflage sweaters (10), wool hats (ditto), Kalashnikov ammunition (at least 10 ammunition crates), daily-use hygiene products, including one female set. Regarding the latter, requesting permission to purchase myself in town and charge the bill.
Salutations,
Nasser al-Hindi
Tamir knew that A/F stood for the Front’s airborne unit, based out of Baalbek in the Lebanon Valley. Everything about that unit was interesting, even though the intelligence community was more interested in the Front’s naval unit, concerned that the organization might launch a seaborne attack, either storming the beach or trying to strike Israeli Navy ships and/or strategic facilities and ports. They were instructed to be particularly minded of that possibility. The Front had recently attracted a lot of attention, since unlike most Palestinian organizations, it collaborated with Hezbollah in staging operations and seemed to be supported and instructed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This collaboration worried the ‘consumers,’ as Harel called the security-forces personnel to whom Tamir’s annotated work was directed.
Tamir reread the summary and scratched his head. He looked at the producer’s signature and saw that it was Ophira. That was a name he wasn’t going to forget any time soon. He checked when the summary was produced. Not a long time ago. She might still be here. He got up from his seat, walked over to the reception room and was relieved to see Zaguri wasn’t there. Of course, he always goes home over the weekend and doesn’t come back before Monday, even Tuesday. The current shift manager seemed pretty laid back. Tamir greeted him with a slight nod, quickly scanned the room with his eyes, and located Ophira. There didn’t seem to be any activity in her station. He approached her. She raised her brown saucer eyes up, which once again reminded Tamir of warm, thick, mellifluous muddy earth. He presented her with the summary, and asked to listen himself to the part about daily-use hygiene products, including one female set. She looked at him in wonder, and asked: You’re interested in female hygiene now?
Yes, he smiled.
She punched a few keys in her panel, found the recording, took off her headset, and handed it to Tamir. Her hand fleetingly touched his hand. It was much warmer than his. He put the headset on which was warm as well, practically blazing, and
