'Bob!' she called.
Then in unison: 'I've seen him!'
'Where? When?' she asked, hurriedly. She had been running and was trying to catch her breath.
'In the U.N., not more than half an hour ago! He passed within inches of me. I could have reached out and touched him! But, quickly, where did you see him?'
'Only moments ago, on Second Street, in front of One Dag Hammarskjold. He was with a man, getting into a cab. I tried to… ' Alice Bernley dropped the rest of her sentence as she watched the smile on Milner's face grow broad with the excitement of a promise fulfilled. Only then did she come to fully appreciate the significance of this moment. For a moment they just looked at each other.
'We've seen him,' she said, finally.
'We have seen him,' he confirmed. 'Just as Master Djwlij Kajm promised!'
Chapter 12
Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
Tel Aviv, Israel
Tom Donafin sat on the edge of his bed in Tel Aviv's Tel-Hashomer Hospital adjusting the strap on the new camera that Hank Asher had sent him as a get-well present. Outside Tom's window, a performance of major proportion in the night sky was made surreal by the glow of fires from the ground. The sparkle of anti-aircraft artillery painted narrow stripes across the sky as now and then the bright flash of an explosion added terrifying color to the canvas. Tom had captured it all, beginning only moments after the first shots were fired. He had even photographed a dogfight between a squadron of Libyan MIG-25s and Israeli F-15 Eagles.
Tom walked back to the open window and scanned the horizon for action. Like most of the other lights in the city, the lights of the hospital had been extinguished to avoid drawing the attention of enemy pilots – a condition which, coincidentally, also allowed for better night photography. Behind him Tom heard a knock on his hospital room door and turned quickly, a little startled.
As Tom turned in the darkened room, the person at the open door suddenly found himself facing a barrel pointed directly at him. Instinctively he ducked, but even as he did, he realized that the sinister barrel that seemed at first to be some type of small bazooka or shoulder-held anti-tank weapon was, in fact, only the telephoto lens of the American's camera.
'I'm terribly sorry!' Tom said, lowering the camera as he hurried to offer his hand to help his unexpected visitor up from the floor. 'Are you all right?'
'I'm fine,' the man muttered in a British accent through his embarrassment, while brushing himself off. 'Are you Donafin?'
'Yeah, I'm Tom Donafin,' Tom responded, offering his hand again, this time in greeting. 'Who are you?'
'I'm Polucki from the British Embassy,' he said formally. 'On behalf of Ambassadors Rogers and Hansen I'm here to offer you the assistance of His Majesty's Government in expediting your evacuation from the State of Israel. Please accept my apologies for not notifying you earlier. We attempted to alert you to the situation but the telephone lines are down. At the direction of Ambassador Rogers, I've taken the liberty of inquiring of your doctor regarding your fitness for travel. He entirely agrees that, under the present circumstances, your full recovery would be facilitated by your immediate departure from the area of present hostilities. Besides,' he added less formally, 'they'll be needing the bed for the wounded.'
'Where exactly do you plan to take me?' Tom asked.
'My instructions are to drive you to the British Embassy where you will be provided for until suitable arrangements can be made for your departure on the next U.K., U.S. or U.N. flight or vessel. If you prefer, I am to deliver you to the U.S. Embassy, where similar arrangements will be made.'
Tom had been anxious to get out of the hospital, so he eagerly accepted Ambassador Roger's offer. In ten minutes they were on their way out the front door. There were no lights in Tel Aviv that night except the fires of burning buildings, which reflected against the smoke-filled sky and shrouded the city with an eerie glow.
'Polucki,' Tom said, as his young British escort slowly drove the Mercedes through the abandoned streets, turning his lights on only when absolutely necessary and only for a few seconds at a time. 'What's your first name?'
'Nigel, sir,' Polucki replied.
'Polucki is a Polish name, isn't it?' Tom asked. 'Yes, sir. My grandparents escaped to Britain at the beginning of the Second World War. They were part of the Polish government-in-exile which the British officially recognized as the true government of Poland.'
At that moment the air around them began to rumble and convulse, finally culminating in the sound of an explosion, followed almost immediately by the screaming whine of a disabled Israeli jet as it careened in a tight spiral toward the ground. From inside the car it was impossible to determine what the sound was, but from the unearthly noise that shook the ground around them, it sounded like the gates of hell were opening.
The pilot was already dead as the jet slammed headlong into the side of a six story office building just two blocks away from where Polucki had brought the car to a screeching halt. His foot was planted firmly on the brake, and his fingers were locked around the steering wheel, but it did little to steady his shaking hands.
Tom was shaking too, but he grabbed his camera and jumped out of the car to get a shot of the destruction. 'Wait here,' he told his young escort. Nigel didn't argue – he needed a few minutes to steady his nerves before he would feel ready to drive again. Tom had walked only about thirty yards when again he heard the roar of jet engines. To his left, the horizon was filled with the wingspan of an oncoming Libyan MIG.
Flying just above the rooftops, the plane's engines swallowed up huge gulps of air as it passed directly over Tom's head, followed a moment later by a second jet, an Israeli Eagle, in hot pursuit. The MIG maneuvered sharply to the right and the Israeli followed. The Libyan went left, but the Israeli was right behind him. Then, as Tom recorded the images of the duel on his digital camera, the Libyan made what Tom thought was a fatal mistake: he started to climb. Tom knew the MIG could never match the Eagle in climbing speed. The Israeli closed on his target. As the two planes streaked skyward, the Eagle released a sidewinder air-to-air missile, just as Tom expected.
The missile closed in for the kill and Tom readied his camera to capture the moment of impact. But at what seemed the last possible second, the MIG rolled into a dive. It was a good maneuver, but it had come an instant too late. The heat-seeking missile had caught his scent and turned with him. Downward the MIG sped, racing for its life against the single-minded sidewinder. Soon the pilot would have to pull up, and when he did the loss of speed would allow the missile to overtake him.
Closer and closer he came to the ground, maintaining his course as long as possible in order to build speed. A few seconds more and it would be too late to pull up; the MIG would crash into the earth, followed by the unrelenting sidewinder.
The flyer made a valiant attempt, but as he passed the point at which Tom thought he must pull up, it seemed all had been in vain. Tom readied his camera to record the crash as, finally, the pilot raised the plane's nose. It's too late, Tom thought, but to his amazement the pilot raised the machine in a tight arch that missed the tops of buildings by less than fifty yards. The plane shook violently at the demanding effort but the pilot held its course, streaking directly overhead. The missile began to follow but was unable to fully make the radical course adjustment.
As Tom searched the sky for the trailing missile it suddenly came into full view. It was headed directly towards them. As the missile pierced the metal roof of Nigel's Mercedes it exploded in a sun-bright flash, killing Nigel instantly as his body disintegrated into minute particles and joined the wash of other charred projectiles flying in all directions at cyclone speed. Before Tom could even blink, small shards of steel and glass cut painful, bloody paths as they sank deep into his face and eyes, followed an instant later by the car's hood, which knocked him violently to the street.
