The devils shepherd, p.32
The Devil's Shepherd, page 32
Rina moved her mouse, zeroed in on her target, and clicked twice. The screen blurred for a moment and then the image reappeared, but this time it was just the corner of the eye and some skin and the black dot, about the size of a chocolate chip. The mark was strange, for it was not uniform and had sort of a swirl to it, as if it had been made with a felt pen.
Horse restrained his hope from taking wing, but he could not stop his heart from beating a bit faster and he felt the prickle of sweat on his balding head. “Mack,” he whispered without turning. “Tell me again. It’s not in the photo from Uri’s file.”
Marcus hopped back around the central table to the cork board. “Negative,” he said after a moment. “It’s not in the top one.”
Rina worked her keyboard and a glowing green line swept across the image like a beach wave. “It has no altitude,” she whispered. “So if it’s a mark, it was made on the original, before it was copied.”
“And if it’s not in our Shabak file photo,” said Badash, “then it has to have been added afterward, to this group picture.”
“Unless it’s just a spilled drop of something,” Simkovich guessed. “Or it could be something that grew on his face, like a sun freckle.”
“It can’t be a birthmark,” said Yudit. “You’re only born once.”
“No. It cannot be a birthmark,” Horse whispered, yet his voice was very strange now and everyone turned to look at him. “But it was deliberate.” He was trembling all over and sweat had beaded on his brow, and as he turned and looked across the room at Mack Marcus he held on to Yudit’s elbow to steady himself. She winced with the power of his grip.
“What do you call such a thing, Mack?” Horse prodded, even though he already knew the answer and that was why he trembled so.
And Marcus, who had now gone quite pale, faced the entourage and placed both hands on the central table to support himself. He nodded and shook his head all at once as he tried to control his voice.
“In English, my comrade?” the American-born officer said. “You call it a mole . . .”
19
Almahel
May 10
MAJOR EYTAN ECKSTEIN and Colonel Benjamin Baum ran, for their own lives and for the lives of those they led.
The two men should have been in a recovery ward at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, for between them they shared more than ninety years on earth, yet less than a total of seven hours sleep over the past three days, and their sustenance level and calorie intake was far below that required of middle-aged adults, let alone field combatants on a brutal African mountain sprint. They had been exposed to stress levels that would cause a Formula One racing driver to pull into the pits and quit, and their brains had long ceased to function at the required tactical levels and their bodies had passed the stages where pain should be heeded as an alarm indicator. The only thing that kept them going was their own egos, for they were Israeli intelligence officers and special operators, and to complain or fail was simply not in their lexicon.
Eytan and Benni loped along on point, focusing hard in the dark to keep from falling over ambushes of jagged rock and thorny brush as they led their enlarged troupe of ten adults and sixty-eight children. The four Mat’kal commandos had quickly watered the children with sips from their canteens and fed them with energy wafers supplied by the IDF medical corps, and then the column was off, rapidly descending from the summit at Abu-Mendi and into the western valleys toward the Sudan. Benni had warned that this would not be enough sustenance to carry them far, but the young commando officer had only smiled and led the troup briefly off its course. His parachute drop had included a large supply container, which he and his men had secreted in a rock cluster before engaging the OLF rebels, and when it was found and opened the orphans and adults fell upon it like Mexican revelers on a Christmas piñata. And then they were on the run again.
With renewed strength and hope, they hurried down and into the wadis before the ridges that would rise again and challenge them at the border of Sudan. The appearance of the commandos had brought more than food and water, it had delivered faith and optimism, and even the most damaged leg muscles could pump out a few more impossible kilometers on that kind of ethereal fuel. However, the commandos also carried a timetable that could not be scorned, for already a second aircraft was en route to its designated landing zone in the no-man’s land between the Sudan and Ethiopia, and if its crew did not immediately spot the proper designator on the ground it would not even circle once before returning for home.
The Mat’kalniks always prepared meticulously for any mission, and knowing that their cargo would include sickly children, they had brought along collapsible aluminum poles and modified parachute gear containers. Now the two pair of commandos jogged along sequentially, the poles stretched between their shoulders. Beneath the poles five of the most sickly children lay sleeping in the suspended gear bags, swinging like trussed lambs en route to a county fair. The commandos, used to hauling full stretcher loads of wounded comrades and all of their combat gear, barely grunted under the strain of a few kilos of slim bones and flesh. The rest of the children snaked along in a wavy line, guarded on the flanks by Manchester and Debay and prodded by Krumlov, with Dominique weaving between her bleating little patients and constantly counting heads.
The presence of the commandos had lifted Eytan’s spirit from his flatline of despair, their strength and grins a challenge to his age, a reminder of what he had once been and needed to be again, just for a few more hours. He himself had been a fine paratroop officer, but these boys were of another ilk altogether. Their unit was an ultrasecret force of anonymous warriors, answering only to the chief of staff himself. Their “ancestors” had pulled off the Entebbe Raid, the elimination of Black September terror masters in the heart of Beirut, and the kidnapping of Hizbollah’s Sheik Obeid from his living room in Lebanon’s Jibjit. Yet the names of their heroes and the details of their exploits were never mentioned in the Israeli press, and the army psychologists considered them all to be semi-psychotic. No matter how long they lived—and many went to their graves without seeing their twenty-fifth year—they would never speak of their adventures to a single soul. What sort of man chooses a spectacular profession, the details of which he can share only with a mirror?
The Mat’kal officer, a captain called Karni, was indeed the son of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. He was tall and lean, with skin, the color of Nutella, a small sharp nose, black eyes that glittered with mischief, and the gnarled hair of a Rastafarian. His first sergeant was a blond kibbutznik who had obviously had his hair and eyebrows died black for this mission, and the two additional sergeants were both Yemenite Israelis with dark features, fluent Arabic, and a healthy knowledge of Amharic. Eytan liked them all instantly. They were just like him, yet without the despair of too much age and experience, and their infrangible strength was infectious.
Karni beckoned Manchester to him and gestured for the healthy Brit to briefly take his aluminum pole while the commando jogged forward to speak to Eckstein and Baum. They were all churning up quite a racket with their tramping boots and the complaints of the children, so a breathless conversation was not going to make a difference. Besides, no one had any illusion that the rebels might have lost track of them; they had most probably regrouped and were hard on their heels.
“Eckstein.” Karni addressed Eytan with typical IDF informality as he caught up to the major and loped along beside him. “We have less than four hours to set up a landing zone and markers on the other side.”
“Thank you,” Eckstein offered sarcastically as he huffed and puffed. “Until that bit of news I was completely unmotivated.”
“Well, just wanted to remind you of the good parts.” Karni grinned, sharp white teeth in a mahogany face. “We’re headed for a soft spot in the border. Should be no problem to cross it.”
“According to what genius?” Eckstein asked.
“A Mossadnik working in a refugee camp on the other side. And your commander really twisted the air force’s arm to send in another C-130.” He tore back the olive Velcro cover from his watch. “It’s been in the air for over an hour now.”
“Knowing Itzik,” Benni commented, “he’s probably got the plane picking up a load of used sneakers in Kenya on the way back.”
Karni smiled again and jogged in silence for a moment. Then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and lowered his voice.
“You know, Baum, that Czech back there. I understand he’s not supposed to make the flight.”
Eckstein and Baum glanced at each other, and Eytan realized that the Mat’kal mission was twofold. If he and Benni failed to “remove” Krumlov from the flight manifest, the commando officer had been ordered to finish him off himself. Eytan tripped over a dry stick of fallen acacia, and Benni snatched at his arm to prevent him from falling.
“So I suppose,” said Benni to Karni, “that as of your jumpoff, no one had yet identified the shtinker back home.” He used the Yiddish expression for traitor.
“Affirmative,” Karni replied. “Which means . . .”
“Which means,” Eckstein interjected soundly, “that Benni and I are in command of Sorcerer and we’ll execute it as we see fit. You boys just do what you do best, run fast and shoot straight. At the enemy.”
“Ken, hamefaked. Yes, commander.” Karni cocked his head and fell back to his own men. When he was out of earshot, Benni grunted to Eckstein.
“There is going to be trouble.”
“You mean, this isn’t trouble?”
“Don’t be dense,” said Benni. “We’ll have to kill Krumlov, just to keep him off the plane. He’s a born-again Jew with a mission, and to be honest, I understand him.”
“And what about your suspicions, Benni? If we let him on the plane, and he turns out to be dirty?”
“And what about your faith? If we truss him up and leave him behind, and he turns out to be clean?”
Eckstein had no immediate answer to this conundrum. Finally, he sighed through his hoarse gasps.
“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kill us all at the border.”
“You always manage to look on the bright side.”
Eckstein just grunted in reply. He wanted to conserve his last reserves of energy, for the sweat was pouring off him and he knew there was precious little liquid left in his body.
“Hullo, Colonel and Major.” Manchester had suddenly appeared, taking Eckstein’s flank and clipping along seemingly without effort. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“Carry on, Manchester,” said Eckstein in his best British upper-class.
“Right. Well, one of your young blokes back there has a set of NVGs.”
Benni twisted his head around briefly, and indeed one of the Mat’kalniks was wearing a head brace with a pair of night vision goggles pulled down over his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Well, sir,” said Manchester. “I don’t understand your native jibberish, but I’d say he’s spotted the rebels off to the south there, tagging along.”
“Did you expect them to just run off, Manchester?” Eckstein asked. “Tails between their legs?”
“Not bloody likely, sir. But maybe we ought to hunker down here and fight it out. We’ve got your complement of superboys with us now.”
“I think we’ll just race them for it, Andrew,” Benni said. “You’re not having trouble running, are you?”
“Good god, no sir! I could run those wankers straight to Southhampton!”
“Good man,” said Eckstein, and as Manchester faded back he knew full well that the merc was preoccupied with Bernd’s death and simply wanted revenge, and as much of it as possible.
The running slowed considerably as the troupe ascended a long dark razorback ridge, and both Eckstein and Baum were forced again to use their hands on their thighs and pump. They finally stopped on the ridge, gasping hard and bent over, and the follow-on line of adults and children slowly began to gather close, but the Mat’kalniks went around and made everyone squat so as not to offer silhouette targets on the ridgeline.
Benni straightened up partially and looked across a long dark valley that flowed from south to north. Above, the black sky was full of the whispy milk of crowded stars, and to the north the moon had risen behind a thin fog breathing off the mountains. Straight across the valley was another long razorback ridge, the mirror to the one they had crested.
“That’s it.” Karni had appeared again and was pointing off to the far mountains. “Maybe three kilometers, and it’s not very high.”
“When you’re your age,” said Eckstein, “nothing seems high.”
Krumlov staggered up the crest, followed closely by Debay. But none of the Israelis would look at the Czech, and he knew why.
“Like Moses looking into the Promised Land, eh, Colonel?” Krumlov commented to Baum. “But I tell you now, this Jew will not be kept from his milk and honey.”
Karni slowly turned his head to look at the Czech, then his wide eyes found those of Benni.
“Did I hear him right, Baum?”
“Yes.”
Eckstein felt strong fingers on his elbow, and he found Dominique standing just below him on the ridge, her eyes glowing with challenge and her hair glistening at the brow with perspiration. She pulled him down to her and whispered.
“Jan told me that you do not want him to come to Israel. That you want him to stay in Ethiopia.” Eckstein said nothing in response, and she went on. “Not that it should matter to you, Eytan. But I cannot go with you if he does not go. It would not be fair. I could not live with it.” The last thing Eckstein needed at the moment was another ultimatum, and he simply sighed and nodded.
Karni had turned fully to Krumlov and, with the arrogance of his youth and stature as an Israeli spartan, challenged him openly.
“You say you’re a Jew, Mr. Krumlov?”
“That is Colonel Krumlov to you, boy.” The Czech straightened his weary shoulders. “And yes, I am a Jew, although dropping my trousers will prove nothing, because I came to it late.”
“You came to it late,” Karni repeated with cynicism.
“Yes. But I am a quick study.”
“You don’t say?”
Just like most intelligence and commando officers, Karni was certainly a skeptic when it came to the claims of probable impostors. His thin smile was hardly camouflaged as he turned away again and squinted across the valley.
But Krumlov stepped through the group and came to his full height on the ridgeline, and Karni made to pull him back but Eckstein in turn snatched at the commando’s battle vest and held him still. Alone, the Czech watched the black sky as it began to take on the navy blue of a heralding dawn, and he stood there looking at the border of the Sudan and whispered, in perfect synagogue Hebrew.
“Gahm kee ilech b’gai tzalmavet, lo irah rah, Kee Atah imadee . . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For Thou art with me . . .”
Rolf Feldheim drove his white United Nations command car along the crackling bed of a slim wadi, squinting in the glow of a red operations bulb at a detail map and inhaling deeply on the beginning of his third pack of the day. Mobote had summoned him to this godforsaken corner of the Gojam by radio, giving over the precise coordinates for a rendezvous, but it was like trying to find a black agate in a pool of motor oil.
The rebel leader had obviously lost faith in the mission, and with good reason, for his own incompetence had resulted in unnecessary casualties while failing to stop the Jews and their orphans and their prize Czech traitor. You simply could not teach blacks the subtleties of military tactics, diversions, ambushes, or encirclements. They went about everything like the bulls at Pamplona, straight down the alley, heads bent and flaring nostrils snorting. They obviously needed some direction from a European officer of high caliber, and he would give it to them, after sufficient beratement.
The wadi thinned further, then ended in a ramp of dried winter wash, and Feldheim coaxed the command car up the grade. He peered upward through the windshield and smirked when he saw the signal, a small green bulb flashing about 200 meters straight up a wide hill.
He gunned the engine and began to drive forcefully, already demonstrating his aura of command and control and his impatience with incompetence. There was a narrow path apparently used before by other vehicles and he followed it directly on, and it was only after some meters that he realized the path was flanked by a double line of Mobote’s men, hunkered down with their weapons and waiting. At least they knew the basic procedures for night marches in the field. When your commander stopped, you crouched low and waited for orders.
At the top of the rise, just below the summit, Mobote stood with his fists on his garrison belt, the pearl handle of his .45 gleaming in the weak starlight. Feldheim stopped the command car, stepped out, and smoothed his uniform blouse. Then he slapped the map under one arm, stuck his cigarette in his mouth, and strode uphill.
“I see that you have no prisoners,” Feldheim snapped as he stopped before the rebel leader. “So I assume that you summoned me for help.” He looked Mobote up and down, noting smears of glistening blood on his camouflage jacket. But the African appeared unwounded, so the Austrian assumed it was the blood of someone else.
Mobote did not immediately answer, and a noncom approached him and spoke quickly in Oromigna and the rebel leader gestured at Feldheim’s command car. Feldheim turned, and it was then that he saw the wounded men being helped to their feet, some slung over the shoulders of their comrades.
“I do not need your help, Major Feldheim,” Mobote said as he shook his head. “But I do need your vehicle. We have buried our dead in the mountains, but the wounded must be taken to hospital.”
Feldheim frowned deeply, and he glanced back at his vehicle again, where already the rebels were opening the rear cargo doors and gently laying their comrades inside. It would take weeks to get the blood and urine and stink out of his precious car.
