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  In memory of my parents, Pnina and Yeshaiahu Nir -

  pioneers who fulfilled their dreams.

  Clarification

  All the characters in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity between any of them to men or women living in Israel or somewhere else is strictly coincidental, and the responsibility rest with the reader’s imagination.

  What is written in this book and intended to be associated with governments or state agencies or services, in Israel or elsewhere, whether expressed or implied, is the product of the author’s imagination alone. Do not attribute or assume any approval, consent, negation, or reliability of these agencies to what is written in this book whatsoever.

  * * *

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  The Critical Offer

  Yitzhak Nir

  Copyright © 2019 Yitzhak Nir

  All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Translation from the Hebrew: Ronna Engelsberg and Tal Keren.

  Contact: [email protected]

  Contents

  Full Moon

  Rites of Passage

  Reschedule

  Outside Kid

  A Smell of Home

  Falafel

  What Is Seen From a Distance

  Adam

  English Beer

  Coexistence

  Year of the Dragon

  Stuck

  Decision-Making

  “54 Purple”

  Bone Glue

  Sabbath’s Delight

  A Steel Seagull

  Broken-Hearted

  Morning Coffee

  What Is Love?

  A Diagnosis

  Guanxi

  The Light Beyond

  What Is to Be Done?

  Vector

  An Evening Facing the Sea

  An Offer That Can Be Refused

  Self-Defense

  A Hard Day’s Night

  The Heat Will Break Tomorrow

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  A note from the author

  If you will, it’s not a legend …

  But if you don’t will - everything I have told you is a legend, and a legend it will remain.

  (“ALTNEULAND” (1902) Dr. Theodor Herzl).

  Full Moon

  August 28th, 1985

  White fluorescent light flooded the briefing room, and he was listening intently. His life depended on it.

  He glanced at the shining Omega watch he wore proudly on his right wrist: in fifty minutes, he’ll take off on his night flight: His first time ever on a jet fighter.

  It was a hot summer evening in Tel-Nof Air Force Base, some twenty miles south of Tel Aviv, and the year was 1985.

  “A pretty simple flight,” the squadron commander concluded the briefing. “Overall it is a simple self-navigation drill at medium altitude and with full moonlight over the Negev desert to Eilat - and back home. Just so you can feel the taste of darkness at night.”

  He looked at his six rookie pilots, his gaze moving slowly from one to the other, and continued: “I’m stressing again the main points: we’ll take off in three-minute intervals from one plane to the next. Once we’ve concluded the navigation drill, we’ll descend direct to Runway 36 and land. That’s all.” Then he raised his voice, half-educating, half-scolding his small audience, “Keep in mind! This is nighttime! No one will save you from collision if you fail to maintain time intervals and altitude separation, but above all, if you lose eye contact. Is that clear?!”

  He lifted his chin a bit, narrowed his eyes, and stared at his pilots, looking like a harsh and stern father, and shot, “Any questions?!”

  The buzz of a desperate butterfly trapped in the neon-lit housing could be heard. But no one asked. No one spoke. They just looked at him, waiting...

  None of them noticed that outside, like in the middle of every month, nature had set its grand spectacle into motion: in the west, a reddish, dusty sun was dipping behind the hills of the destroyed village of Al-Mag’har, setting the eucalyptus tops ablaze. On the other side, to the east, a full moon was slowly floating out of the purpled-bluish haze above the darkening hills of Jerusalem. Its soft, surreal light was spreading slowly across the lowland plains of Israel.

  The old Skyhawk was waiting. Dark and silent, like a winged, three-legged predator - its translucent canopy bouncing off the last reddish sparks of the dying sun.

  These aged planes were the first hurdle he must pass in order to advance to the modern frontline jet fighters, in which, he hoped, he too will shoot down enemy planes.

  And when I’ve shot down my first Mig… he encouraged himself during those long nights at flight school, then I’ll finally have shown you, you bunch of arrogant bastards…

  He finished the course five years older than his friends. His rank and experience as an officer in the paratroopers and armored corps contributed nothing to his experience as a pilot, which was similar to those he graduated with: second lieutenants, with only two hundred flight-hours to their names and fabric wings sewn to their chests.

  After graduation they were sent to the operational training unit, to this squadron of old Skyhawk jet fighters.

  But his ironed uniform, tall stature, and the stripes of a major on his shoulders, his thick hair and square jaw, the scar above his right eye, his deep voice and radiant smile à la Sam Shepard - all these had nearly been enough to trick people into thinking, “Here stands a promising future commander in the air force.”

  But now, the scar that was reddening and pulsing along with his pounding heart and the sweat stains spreading from his armpits despite the powerful air conditioning gave away his anxiety.

  “Rimon formation will take off first,” added the squadron commander. “I’m Rimon One, Adam Ben-Ami is Rimon Two, and Major Gershon Shalit - Rimon Three,” he concluded and glanced at him, weaving in his smile a transparent mockery at his high rank, which did nothing to contribute to his meager experience in the cockpit.

  Gershon blushed slightly. Some of his fellow rookies chuckled, perhaps masking their own fears…

  * * *

  “Rimon Three, clear for takeoff!” the controller voice sounded in his earphones when it was his turn.

  “Roger!” he replied instantly. Then he aligned his craft on the runway centerline and clicked the stopwatch.

  To his east, he was able to see Rimon One and Two, passing like fireflies against the shiny-silvery moon disk, on their way to the south.

  He forcefully pushed the throttle to its stop, gaining takeoff power, and at one hundred and sixty knots, he left Mother Earth behind.

  * * *

  The moon was a third of its way across the skies when his Skyhawk descended to the north, passing over the lights of Kiryat Gat on its way home.

  “Rimon Three, wheels are down and locked. Request permission to land.”

  “Rimon Three, you are clear to land.”

  “Roger, clear to land Rimon Three.”

  And then, just before landing, as the lights of Runway 36 were winking at him, he heard the tower controller screaming in his helmet’s earphones:

  “Rimon Three, go-around! Rimon Two has got a flat tire, and he’s stuck in the middle of the runway!”

&
nbsp; He then noticed that the flashing red-white-green lights coming from Ben-Ami’s plane had stopped moving, rather than continuing to the end of the runway as he’d expected.

  “Can’t argue with that,” he muttered aloud to his mask and began canceling the landing procedure.

  “Rimon Three, going-around!” he announced through his mike and pushed the throttle all the way to its limit, with a single decisive motion. The engine came to life and the acceleration pressed him back into his seat. He aimed the Skyhawk at the night sky and was already planning the circling route he would take to attempt his second approach to land. With two fingers, he reached out and flipped up a small handle, folding the wheels back in.

  A sudden, violent shuddering took him by surprise. His helmet smacked against the transparent canopy, scratching white markings into the clear plexiglass, and slammed back at an odd angle on his nose, crushing it painfully against his oxygen mask. The hard, crunching rattle of metal being shredded was coming from behind his ejection seat. The dust filling the cockpit glowed and glittered in the moonlight.

  Has my engine failed?!

  A large flame surged at him through the side mirrors, dyeing the wings a menacing yellowish-orange. The light on his engine fire panel was flashing red and threateningly.

  Just don’t make a mistake now. Don’t fuck this up! His throat was dry and raw, and his heart was pounding.

  “Rimon Three, my engine’s blown!” he found himself yelling in a shrill voice very different from his usual low, confident one.

  He instinctively slammed down the throttle to cut off the disloyal engine, but the wire responsible for the “cease-engine-fuel” command had already been burned. The vibrations grew fiercer, and the fire mocked him. He squinted through the narrow gap between his slumping helmet and the oxygen mask and urgently headed west, raising his nose to the starry night sky, taking the burning Skyhawk as far as he could from the ground and its inhabitants.

  He waited for no one’s approval when he decided, one hundred and fifty feet above the dark ground, to abandon his burning plane and hoarsely yelled, “Rimon Three, ejecting!!!”

  He reached above his head and pulled the black-and-yellow ejection lever with both hands.

  The scratched canopy blew off first, and the ejector rockets catapulted his seat into the sky like a strange, large firework. The engine spewed a long flame into the night sky as he separated from the plane that had betrayed him.

  His chute opened with a hard snap. He swung wildly from side to side, trying to better his grip on the straps, but all of his paratrooper’s experience seemed to amount to nothing. The black earth was quickly approaching him.

  What is this?!

  The ground slammed into him with stunning force. He could not move. The chute ballooned like a sail and started dragging him forward, on his stomach. The oxygen mask tore off, dry clods of earth scraped his face, his hands were bruised and his watch was shattered. Dirt packed into his mouth.

  “Wake up! It’s just a bad dream!” he tried to yell, but his voice betrayed him. He was dragged helplessly, in blind brutality, toward the barbed wire fence surrounding the base, and fainted.

  He woke to the sound of fire truck sirens coming toward him.

  “Shit! I have to get this chute off of me!” he tried to yell again. Then, without warning, a terrible pain tore through his lower back.

  Suddenly he realized that he could no longer feel his feet in their heavy pilot’s boots.

  * * *

  The air had cooled.

  A soft wind gently ruffled the eucalyptus canopies, and a radiant moon hung in the starry sky. To the west, among the ruins of Al-Mag’har, the wreckage of his plane burned for a long time, accompanied by the distant sounds of exploding ammunition.

  In the future he would learn that several of his vertebrae had been smashed together, crushing the nerves of his arms and legs.

  And when he lay in the orthopedic department, his legs hanging in the air in casts, he could not stop thinking: …I’ve missed all the wars. I’ll never fly again, nor will I run. I hope I’ll walk again, at least…

  Later, when eventually he’d crammed himself into his wheelchair, a tall Philadelphia collar constricting his throat and his face glowing with pain and indignation, he’d drone to himself, to the rhythm of his arms pushing the wheels down the halls of the rehabilitation department, “But-I’ll-show-you-all..! I’ll-show-you-all!”

  Rites of Passage

  February 26th, 2025

  The gray rain clouds in the west spoke of a storm approaching Tel Aviv’s coastline. A cold wind churned up dust into a heavy cloud formation that swirled above the dusty pine-covered hill outside his office window. He gazed at the shore, where a row of palms were struggling against the fierce wind. Further west, he noticed that the sea was leaden and filled with turbid waves. Nature was heralding a storm, and that troubled his spirit.

  Four years previously, after he had resigned from the service for good, he surprisingly agreed to accept a directorial role. His predecessor’s accident and the tight timetable imposed on the system had rendered him a natural candidate.

  He shifted around on his couch, trying to ease the persistent back pain that had accompanied him ever since he abandoned his plane, and placed his head between his hands. His reasons for accepting the position or not were no longer influenced by the impetus to “show them all” that had driven him through life, but rather by his daughter’s murder and his grandson’s subsequent fate due to a deliberate car crash perpetrated by a Palestinian terrorist.

  Colonel (ret.) Gershon Shalit, a man of principle, eloquent, cold-blooded and level-headed, had surrendered to a primordial human impulse: revenge. After many years of concealing the truth as a matter of operational necessity, he had no difficulty in convincing everyone that it was his powerful sense of duty that had brought him out of retirement and caused him to accept the proffered position. He mentioned revenge to no one.

  No one but Adam Ben-Ami.

  The sight of his daughter dying in the trauma ward never left him all these many years, her matted golden hair under the bandages wrapped around her head, which had taken the full brunt of the stolen Toyota’s bumper, and the blood stains on the once-sterile white gauze. Her body lay covered by a sheet and a thin summer blanket with the blue logo of Hadassah Hospital. For two full days her father and her twin sister had remained by her side, until the indifferent monitor flatlined and released a long, monotonous, stomach-churning wail. He could not even kiss her goodbye, as the bandages and the oxygen tube protruding from where her mouth had been, rendered it meaningless.

  “I’ll kill you bastards for this,” he yelled, as the head of the trauma center took him by the arm and escorted him and his still living daughter out of the room.

  * * *

  His time in office would come to an end the following autumn. “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint...” The troubling biblical quotation entered his mind. Slowly and gradually, the head of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations - Mossad - was losing faith in the prime minister and her policies. But, he mused, as long as I’m heading this organization, the fate of my men and women and the success of the missions I have assigned them lie on my shoulders, and mine alone, and I will always have their backs...He would repeat this to himself like a mantra, when times were especially rough, as they often were.

  He glanced at the files lying on his desk awaiting his attention. Many fates hung in the balance: those who would live and those who would be eliminated to ensure other’s security. In the gray silence of his office, the dull pain in his lower back suddenly flared loud and clear, permeating his consciousness and sharpening his perception: My lack of faith in the prime minister is the kind of headache that won’t go away by itself...Maybe now’s the time, while things are relatively peaceful, to take early retirement?

 
The official imposition of Israeli sovereignty over all the settlements in the West Bank, and the annexation of the large settlements clusters, had made the potential disaster of civil war more imminent than ever. It appeared to him that the threat loomed even larger that morning. The few months that he had left in office now seemed endless and ill-omened...

  At the age of sixty-four, Gershon Shalit felt that he might have struck a bad deal.

  He raised his head from between his hands and, as was his habit, his fingers traced the ancient scar. He glanced at his wristwatch, noticing the brown liver spots on his hands that had recently increased....Those years in the Jezreel Valley carelessly exposed to the sun...He whispered to himself. A thin, nearly imperceptible mist covered his face and faded away into the silence of the room.

  He returned to the file regarding Operation Clear Skies that involved eliminating Syrian agents impersonating refugees to Canada, who were suspected of smuggling components of precise navigation equipment for Hezbollah’s precision missile project. The urgent need to eliminate this project had troubled his mind for many days and as many nights.

  ...Today’s foes might be tomorrow’s allies...My men aren’t finished making arrangements and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service might inadvertently get in the way...He drummed his fingers absently on the edge of the desk, recalling a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If we get it right, the PM will get all the credit, but if we don’t, I’ll carry the blame - vicious, ignorant schadenfreude…

  He hesitated for a long while, reluctant to approve the recommendation in the file, but the potential danger of the new precise navigation technology and the very narrow window they had to safely neutralize the threat made it a matter of urgency. And it was this urgency that finally overcame his uncertainty.