Nir wasn’t sure how long he had sat in the dark listening to updates from the intel department on the secure line through his phone. He knew that hours had passed since he had shut everything down and turned off the lights. His intention had been to go home, but instead, he had found himself back in his chair. Now, he couldn’t bring himself to get up from the table. He felt like if he did, it would make the day’s events all real. But as long as he stayed where he was, Yossi and Adira would be okay. The families in the kibbutzim would be laughing and playing together. No one would have been kidnapped or tortured or murdered. All he had to do was remain planted in his seat.
The door opened, and a wedge of light entered the black room.
“Nir, you in here?” It was Efraim. Nir had silenced about a dozen calls from his friend over the past few hours.
“Yeah.”
“How about I turn on a light so that we’re not in the dark?”
“No.”
“Fair enough,” Efraim said as the wedge of light narrowed, then disappeared. Nir wasn’t sure if his friend had left or if he was still in the room. His question was answered when he heard the casters of a nearby chair roll back. Efraim settled in, and the two sat in the darkness.
But only for a minute. It wasn’t long until Efraim said, “Okay, this is weird.”
A light appeared, and Nir could see that it was coming from the flashlight on his friend’s phone. Efraim pulled a ring from the back of the case and propped the phone up with the beam pointing away from them. “That work? Gloominess without the creep factor?”
Nir’s gut told him that he wanted to be left alone right now. But a different voice, one coming from his heart, told him this was probably what he needed right now.
“It works,” he answered.
They were quiet a minute more. Then Efraim said, “I heard about Yossi. Achi, I am so sorry. I loved that guy. Such a free spirit.”
“Good lord, I hated that man bun. You’re a grown man. Get a haircut.”
“Brother, you’re just jealous. You grow your hair out, you’ll look more like monkey boy than Fabio. And his beard. Perfection. It’s no wonder you shaved yours off, having to get shown up by him every time you walked in the office.”
Nir nodded. “You’re right there. And the guy’s balance. I went out surfing with him a few times. With him is a relative term. I’d still be trying to paddle myself out and he’d already be on the waves. He was a natural. More graceful on water than on land.”
Silence filled the room again.
“Are the reports I’m hearing true? Is it really as bad as it sounds?” Nir asked.
“It is, and it’s only going to get worse the more we learn.”
Emotion filled Nir. He’d already had his unmanly cry earlier, but he could feel his eyes welling up. “I just don’t get it. It’s just so barbaric. It’s stuff you read about from olden times, like with the Mongols or the Huns. This isn’t how you act in the twenty-first century.”
“Undoubtedly. The stuff I’ve seen them doing. The cruelty…”
“Wait—the stuff you’ve seen them doing?”
“Oh, yeah. You haven’t heard? These animals livestreamed the slaughter. We’ve shut down the internet, but the videos are out there. Cold-blooded murder. Tossing grenades into roadside bomb shelters filled with terrified people. Families getting pulled out of cars and shot down in the street. Homes being invaded. The beatings. The torture. The rapes. The kidnappings. Oh, and do you know what makes this even worse? It wasn’t just Hamas doing it. They invited civilians on the border to come along. So you’ve got old Everyday Ali rushing through the fence, running into a kibbutz, and cutting people down.”
Nir’s eyes were drying, and he clenched his jaws. “We need to go in and level Gaza.”
Efraim shook his head. “How? Remember, we’re the ones who don’t kill innocents.”
“But you just told me there are no innocents. The civilians were part of it. They all joined in, so they should all pay.”
“They didn’t all join in. What I was saying was that some civilians joined Hamas in the butchery.”
“You can’t tell me, though, that the vast majority of Gazans weren’t celebrating the massacre.”
Efraim remained silent.
“Yeah, what I thought. So, how long will it be before they attack again? They surprised us once; they can surprise us again. It’s not like anyone in Gaza is going to warn us. They’re raised on hating Jews.”
“That’s true. But, seriously, it’s not everyone. It’s just like we see in every country—there are a few good ones amidst all the bad. It’s like Abraham with Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘Perchance there be ten good people?’ or whatever it is.”
“Well, if there are, then it sucks to be those ten good people, because we’ve got a job to do, and that’s to make sure this never happens again.”
Efraim leaned back in his chair. “And we will. Hamas is going to pay, but it’s going to take time.”
“Time,” Nir said derisively. “Don’t talk to me about time.”
More minutes passed as the men were lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Nir spoke. “It just seems so surreal. I remember wondering how Americans felt after 9/11. I know it brought the nation together, but only for a time. Now they’re back at each other’s throats again. This is so much worse. It’s so much more personal. It’s not just planes ramming into buildings and killing random people. This is hands on. It’s guns and knives and pipes and whatever weapons they could find. It’s shooting and stabbing and beating and beheading. It’s raping and torturing. Again, it’s just barbaric.”
“No doubt. What is the mindset that lets you torture and kill a child? A freaking child! It’s pure evil. It’s demonic. And, again, we still don’t know the half of it. The stories will come, and with each new report, the nation is going to be thrown right back into mourning.”
Rage was fully cycling in Nir’s mind. He wanted to lash out at someone, but he forced himself to calm down. The time for vengeance would come.
“You talk to your family yet?” Nir asked his friend.
“No. I can’t bring myself to call. I know everyone is okay, or else I would have heard.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“I don’t know, achi. I just feel like I let this happen. I wonder if I missed some piece of intel or some communication that would have tipped us off.”
“Join the club. While I’m sitting here in a dark, air-conditioned room in Tel Aviv, Yossi’s body is somewhere under the hot sun in the scrub of the Negev.” Efraim began to say something, but Nir cut him off. “And yes, I know in my brain that it’s not my fault that he’s dead. But a huge part of my heart is wondering what I was doing sitting in this chair while he was out there taking a bullet.”
In the ensuing quiet, the light from Efraim’s phone went out. Nir heard him lift the phone and tap it a few times, then curse Apple for the device’s lack of battery life.
“Just tell me that we’ll be going in hard,” Nir said.
“The prime minister is determined to make them pay. For now, everyone is on his side. But he’s going to have to do it fast. If he gets bogged down in Gaza, the same idiots who were trying to push him out of office will turn against him again.”
“Have we heard anything from Iran or Hezbollah? Are they in on it?”
“It’s too early to tell. Hezbollah sent rockets over the border, but they almost seem late to the game. It’s like there was no coordination between Hamas and anyone else. They launched, and everyone else was forced to play catch-up.”
“What about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank? Any word from them?”
Nir heard Efraim sigh. “Yeah, nothing from them yet. But if we don’t move fast, they’ll be emboldened, and we’ll find ourselves fighting in both Gaza and the West Bank.”
There was only a short pause this time before Nir responded, “Don’t leave me out of this, achi. You know what my team and I can do. Promise me you’ll put us to work. I need you to put me to work.”
“My brother, you know that I’ve never lied to you, other than in cards and my weight. There will be plenty of opportunities ahead for you to get your hands wet. You are always first on my list. So don’t force it. Just wait. I will call.”
“Thanks.”
“You got it. Now quit being a freak and sitting here in the dark. Go home and get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
Activating the flashlight on his own phone, Nir used it to find his way to his desk to grab his keys. Once outside, the two friends pounded fists and then parted.
It was a short drive for Nir to get to his flat. By the time he arrived, he was looking forward to some rest. But after walking through his front door, he made the mistake of turning on the news. Another eight hours would go by before his body finally shut down and he fell asleep on the couch.