81

SHE IS CORRECT. IN Yigal’s office on the fourth floor of the Isracorp building, the chief of staff’s spotters have already identified the ships steaming closer. Pinky is there, and Misha, who has taken to wearing a semi-automatic pistol on both hips. If he had a sheriff’s star, he would no doubt wear that. The two men seem to have reached a modus vivendi similar to that which appears to have become the rule in the ghetto now that there is a sense of order, if not law. They will never be friends, but they are allies, comrades in arms.

“We need to secure unloading,” Yigal says. “Hungry Jews get pushy at a bar mitzvah. These haven’t eaten properly for weeks.”

Misha looks offended. “What do you think we do all day? Already moving into place.”

“You knew the ships would get through?” Yigal asks.

“We plan for contingencies,” Pinky says.

“And I was going to shoot him in the nuts,” Misha mutters.

“Miracles have been known to happen in this neighborhood,” Pinky says. “Manna falling from the sky. A burning bush that isn’t consumed. The ten plagues—nobody expected that. And now...Kuwait.”

“This is going to work?”

“Yigal, their air force is just sitting there, sixty beautiful F/A-18s, barely used, low mileage, doing nobody any good.”

Misha snorts. “And they call me a thief?”

“So it’s a go?”

“I don’t have any other F/A-18s in my pocket,” Yigal says.

“In that case, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Minister of Police,” Pinky says, grinning for the first time in weeks. “The State of Israel is about to steal itself an air force.”