The Jerusalem Inception - By Avraham Azrieli Page 0,124
playing around.”
Breathing in relief, he resumed his descent.
At the bottom, he used a door on the east side of the building, out of view for anyone in the courtyard. He peeked around the corner of the building. Across the courtyard, two gate sentries sat on white plastic chairs and smoked. He adjusted his blue cap, shouldered the duffel bag, and started across the open area.
A moderate incline toward Antenna Hill formed the east grounds of the UN compound. He looked up and saw the enormous radar reflector rotate atop the concrete station like a giant sail, curved in with a good wind. He kept a calm pace, resisting the urge to run. Anyone walking in the courtyard, sitting at an office window, or guarding the gate, could see him carry the duffel bag toward the radar station. He imagined eyes following him, and his back felt as if ants were crawling all over it.
Across the open area, he approached Antenna Hill without anyone disturbing the sounds of normal activity at the UN headquarters, with which he had grown familiar.
The radar station was half-sunken in the ground. A tall wall of sandbags surrounded it, and the entrance formed a narrow zigzag, barely wide enough for one person. As Lemmy reached it, already panting from the hike, a gray-haired man in UN uniform appeared in the passage. “Good morning,” he said, his g and r throaty.
Lemmy swallowed hard and saluted. “Good morning,” he said, struggling to say it with the same accent. But he had not spoken to anyone in two days, and his words came out hoarsely. He forced himself to smile and repeated, “A very good morning, sir!”
The UN officer paused, blocking the narrow entrance, and measured Lemmy up and down.
Still smiling, Lemmy prepared to drop the duffel bag and reach behind his back to draw the Mauser.
The officer said, “X. Y. Z.”
Lemmy hesitated. What did it mean? He began to lower the duffel bag. There was no time—the whole IDF air force depended on him!
“X. Y. Z,” the officer repeated.
“Weiss!” Tappuzi called from across the parking lot. He stood at the entrance to the IDF command center, tapping on his wristwatch. “Noo?”
Elie shrugged. It was 7:13 a.m. More than two hundred heavily armed fighter jets waited in multiple airstrips across Israel. Any delay meant missing the window of time when all the Egyptian pilots were eating breakfast while ground crews fueled their planes after the early morning sorties. He had seen Abraham’s son emerge from the rooftop shed on Government House two minutes behind schedule and disappear in the south stairwell. The rest of his route to Antenna Hill was not visible from where Elie stood, more than three miles away, but the partial view of the courtyard showed no unusual activity, the UN observers going about their business in customary leisure. Had he been stopped inside the building? Had he been exposed?
General Rabin had said he would go forward with the strike even if Elie’s operation failed to disable the UN radar. But that meant a UN alarm, communicated to the Egyptians, who would have enough time to scramble their planes into the air and hone their anti-aircraft batteries. In other words, it meant the lives of countless Israeli pilots, the failure of Mokked, and possibly the loss of the war before it had even started.
“Weiss! Talk to me!” Tappuzi sounded desperate. The UN radar, once connected to the Jordanian anti-aircraft guns, meant a free range for their cannons and tanks. Such an artillery barrage would result in wholesale slaughter in West Jerusalem, whose defense was Tappuzi’s responsibility.
Elie kept his eyes glued to the binoculars. He could see the radar reflector rotate in defiant laziness. He spat the cigarette and said out loud, “Come on, Jerusalem Gerster! Blow it!”
The UN officer repeated: “X. Y. Z.” He was wearing an array of brass symbols on his shoulders and an assortment of war decorations on his chest. A chrome nametag said: O. Bull
Lemmy was desperate. Were the letters some kind of a UN code? What was the appropriate response? He reached behind his back, digging under the khaki shirt for the Mauser. To stall for a few more seconds, he said, “A. B. C.”
“Ya! Ya!” The officer laughed, pointing at Lemmy’s crotch. “X. Y. Z. Examine. Your. Zipper.”
“Oh!” His face burning, Lemmy zipped his fly, saluted, and grabbed the duffel bag. He entered the narrow passage through the wall of sandbags and heard the officer chuckle while walking away.