51

YIGAL AND MISHA FIND Major General Ido Baram sleeping on a camp cot in the shade of a eucalyptus outside the headquarters tent. It is clear this is headquarters because a small hand-lettered cardboard sign so designates it. Otherwise, zip: there is no sentry outside, no adjutant hovering just within to make sure military procedure is followed to the letter. It appears military procedure has ceased to exist. Aside from the fact that the men and women sitting around in the shade as though on vacation are in uniform, or some parts of uniform, Camp Yarkon, as it is called, could be any low-rent holiday retreat in any park on the bank of any polluted river in any starving city anywhere.

“Ido,” Yigal says quietly. “What the fuck?”

The general opens an eye. “Yigal?”

“Get up, man. We have to talk.”

“Talk, then. Me, I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. I couldn’t tell you what it was but I ate it.” He struggles to sit up. Once an icon of physical fitness in the Armored Corps, said to go to war with a set of barbells in his tank, Ido Baram is now little more than a bag of bones covered in loose skin, his uniform flapping around his torso like so much torn wrapping paper. When he lifts his head, it can be seen that his holstered pistol acted as a pillow. He straps it on. Even this, a compact Beretta 9 mm, seems far too big for him. Once ruddy, his face is pale with a curious yellow underlay that is reflected in the whites of his eyes, whose ochre cast is unmistakable, a sure sign of jaundice. Slowly, he stands.

“See that? On my feet like a proper general officer.” He peers past Yigal to Misha and the troop of big men in too-gaudy civilian clothes who keep looking around as if they expect to be arrested at any moment. “I can offer you water,” he says. “Just you, unfortunately. We rigged a solar still. Not Niagara Falls, but we get by.” He looks again at Misha’s crew. “Friends of yours?”

“I didn’t come for water,” Yigal says. “Can we come inside?”

“Sure,” Ido says, lifting a flap for them to enter. “But we’ll have to speak quietly so as not to disturb headquarters staff, who are diligently planning the counterattack. To your left is operations, field intelligence to the right, over there manpower, logistics, and supply, engineering at the rear. Liaison is in the far corner and of course next to that communications.”

The tent is empty.

“Oh, I forgot to mention medical. Just outside.” Ido laughs, a kind of burp of self-derision. “We’re not exactly staffed to the max, of course, because we have no tanks, no equipment, no ammunition, no planning, no personnel capable of fighting, much less walking around, no food and little water. Did I mention no air force or navy? Also no medical supplies, in case you’re here in search of an aspirin.” He pauses, as though unable to continue. Even to Ido, the joke becomes less funny the longer it continues. “Yigal, you haven’t introduced your friend.”

Misha offers his hand.

Ido pointedly ignores it, replying with a mock salute. “Misha Shulman, staff sergeant. I know you well. In fact, I tried to have you removed from the Armored Corps.”

“I knew someone did. I didn’t know it was you. What, afraid I’d steal a tank?”

“More like introducing hard drugs, selling military secrets, that kind of thing. Yigal, this is your friend?”

“You’re both my friends.”

“Yigal Lev,” Ido says, “As always, a man of many parts. Can we get to the point? I find standing for more than a minute wastes too much energy.”

Yigal squats on the ground. “Gentlemen, please be seated.”

The two look at each other, then squat as well.

“Actually,” Ido says, turning to Yigal. “You shouldn’t even be here. Him even less. This is a closed military area. You’re neither in uniform nor called up. In fact, if I remember properly, Yigal, I personally dissolved your brigade. In consonance with the rest of the IDF, it no longer exists. Also, if I recall correctly, Pinky wanted you court-martialed for disobeying a direct order on the battlefield. But as it happens he’s been busy.”

“Busy ordering a retreat,” Misha says.

“Does he have to be here?”

Yigal nods. “Yes, Reserve Staff Sgt. Misha Shulman does have to be here. And I suggest you treat Misha with a modicum of respect, not only because he is my friend but because if you keep at him he is likely to shoot you in the head.”

“I was thinking of the balls.”

“Yeah, well, stop thinking of fighting amongst ourselves. I’m here because I prefer fighting the enemy.”

“Over there,” Ido says, waving airily to the east. “About six kilometers. You can’t miss them. Arabs mostly, with a nice overlay of Iranians. Intelligence, when we had intelligence, also noted a Pakistani unit—imagine that, Pakistan—and a nasty group of rapists from Chechnya, of all places. What do you want me to do, Yigal, conjure up an army? You were sent home. Stay there.”

“Ido,” Yigal says. “I’m taking back my tanks.”

“What?”

“I’m taking back my tanks. That’s why we’re here.”

“Yours?” Ido says. “What did you do, buy them?”

“I don’t have to buy them. They were taken from me without reason.”

“Yours? Oh, I see. I thought for a moment you were sober. Very good. If I live through this I’ll tell my grandchildren. It’s like those an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Pole walk into a bar jokes. A capitalist and a gangster walk into command headquarters and the capitalist says—”

“The capitalist says he wants his tanks. Why is that funny? You’re not using them, are you?”

“Talk to the chief of staff. Pinky will be amused. He could use a good laugh.”

“You talk to Pinky,” Yigal says. “We’re reactivating the 112th.”

“That brigade is activated, Yigal. It’s just blended into something else, which you have no part of. Pinky took the map with him. When he comes back you can ask him to explain our disposition of forces, including your former tanks, all well dug-in in defensive positions.”

“Look, Ido. I don’t want this to be unfriendly. We’re taking our tanks.”

“You were relieved of command. The gangster too. You can’t just walk in and take tanks.”

Misha has had enough. It does not take much. He reaches behind him and removes the gold-plated .40-cal CZ pistol from his belt and levels it at Ido’s head. Firing at this range will leave nothing of it: torso, shoulders, neck—check. Head? None. “I changed my mind about aiming for the balls, Yigal. This piece of shit has none.”

“Oh, now I understand,” Ido says, showing no fear, a natural consequence of either hopelessness or constant hunger, perhaps both. Doubtless the jaundice does not help. “You’re going to steal the tanks.”

“You’re going to stop us?” Misha says, holding the pistol so level a ball bearing would not roll off.

“Just like that? No permission? No authority?”

“Misha, put down the gun. This is not a matter for guns. Ido, listen carefully. You’ve got a defensive perimeter as effective as a line of clothes hanging in the sun. Fewer than two hundred tanks, most of them immobile, covering a line a hundred kilometers long. On the other side there are a couple thousand enemy cans, maybe double that, maybe triple. To know exactly we’d need a satellite, and I doubt we’re in contact with those. The way we’re disposed, the enemy can break through at any point. You and I could do it with three tanks. We don’t have a defensive perimeter. We have an illusion.”

“We have the best we can do.”

Misha is still pointing the gun at Ido’s head, but now it wavers, perhaps from doubt, perhaps because it weighs almost four pounds. Even a hard guy like Misha cannot hold a weight like that steady forever. “Yigal, let me just put him out of our misery.”

“Misha, put away the gun. It’s an order. Ido is a military professional. He understands.”

“He understands this,” Misha mutters. But like a child deprived of a favored toy, Misha tips up his pistol, then places it in his lap.

“Very good. Ido, I’m taking my brigade back. But I need more. I need control of all the armor you command.”

“What is this, a coup d’état? We’re what now, Haiti? Liberia?”

“Yigal,” Misha says. “We’re running out of time. And I’m running out of patience.”

“Do you agree, Ido, that this defensive perimeter is a joke? I’m asking for your trust.”

“You’re asking for the keys to half the surviving tanks in the State of Israel.”

“I’m asking for all of them. Look, Ido, we served together over twenty years. There wasn’t a moment in that time, from officer’s training onward, that I didn’t trust you and you didn’t trust me. Comrades in arms to the end, right? Well, my friend, we have reached the end. The State of Israel barely exists, but with your help it will.”

“Yigal,” Misha says. “Let me just shoot the fucker.”

The look on Yigal’s face is no longer one of friendly persuasion. “Sergeant, shut the fuck up. When I agreed to this, it was on one condition. What was it?”

Misha makes a face. “That you command.”

“Exactly.” He turns to the general. “Ido, what is IDF doctrine when we are surrounded, outnumbered, outflanked, and down to our last ammunition and fuel?”

Ido laughs. “Attack!”

“Nu, mon general?”

Mon General sighs, then offers a wan smile. “It’s treason, you know. Pinky can have me shot.”

“I know.”

Major General Ido Baram glances up, now to Misha, then to Yigal. “Tell me what I need to do.”