14

“Prime Minister, I’ve just been handed a note,” the Ramatkal said.

“What is it?”

“General Kidron’s men have found a terror tunnel that was previously undetected.”

“Where?”

“The opening is close to the breach in the fence line.”

“And they’re only finding it now?”

“Kidron says it was well hidden behind boulders and under a great deal of brush.”

For the moment, Eitan did not reply.

But Levy did. “That would certainly explain why we’ve seen no evidence of the Americans or your nephew from any of our drones or other surveillance.”

“Has General Kidron sent his men into the tunnel in pursuit?” Eitan asked.

“No, sir,” said the Ramatkal.

“Why not? What’s he waiting for?”

“It’s too dangerous, sir. General Kidron has no idea who or what is down there. He’s sending in a robot instead, one equipped with cameras, microphones, and sensors to pick up explosive material. It will feed everything it sees and hears back to us in the Pit.”

“How long will it take for the robot to reach the end of the tunnel?”

“Too early to say, sir.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know how long the tunnel is or if it’s even passable, given how many bombs we’ve dropped in the area.”

Once again the prime minister felt himself becoming consumed by rage. He was sickened by the loss of his nephew. Mortified by the thought of having to inform the American president what had happened to two of his finest. Mortified still more by the thought of having to cancel the imminent visit by the U.S. secretary of state and the terrible message that would send Israel’s enemies throughout the region.

The notion that the IDF had somehow missed this terror tunnel had Eitan seeing red. How was that possible? Wasn’t the military spending hundreds of millions of shekels on ground-penetrating radar and other technologies to find these tunnels? They had already destroyed seven such tunnels on the Lebanon border and forty others on the Gaza border. How could they have possibly missed this one?

The implications went far beyond just these three kidnappings. Was it conceivable that Hezbollah had been infiltrating Israel’s northern tier undetected in recent weeks or months? If so, how many cells were active inside Israel’s borders? What kind of weapons did they have? What were their orders? How deep into the country had they gotten? Did they speak Hebrew? Did they have falsified Israeli IDs? On top of everything else, was the State of Israel about to face an unprecedented terror spree?

Despite the intel that Sheikh al-Hussaini had not ordered the attack, Eitan had little doubt that Hezbollah’s spiritual leader was indeed responsible. Perhaps the Sheikh had learned that Hezbollah’s communications systems—some of them, anyway—had been penetrated by 8200 and had decided to dribble out bits of disinformation specifically designed to reach Israeli intelligence and create confusion.

It was working.

Eitan wanted to order the entire Israeli Air Force into battle. He had the power to reduce the cities of Tyre and Sidon and Beirut to rubble with a single sentence. What’s more, he wanted to order the targeted assassination of Sheikh Ja’far ibn al-Hussaini and his inner circle. Then again, why stop there? Surely al-Hussaini was too young and too inexperienced to be starting a war of his own accord. The orders had to be coming from Tehran. Eitan had no proof, no bits of damning intelligence, no smoking gun. But was there any other explanation?

Saudi intelligence was still reporting that the Grand Ayatollah was in poor health and probably in his last days. Perhaps, Eitan thought, the old man had decided to go out with a bang—one last war to bloody Israel’s nose and sully its reputation and potentially scuttle its increasingly warm relations with the Gulf States.

Eitan pictured the three Israeli submarines lurking in the Persian Gulf, drifting silently along the Iranian coastline, just waiting for new orders. With a single command, he could end the wicked Iranian regime and melt down much of its capital. Condemnation of Israel would pour in from every direction. But who cared? Justice would have been served. The Iranian threat would be gone for good.

Yet none of that would bring home Yigal Mizrachi, Kailea Curtis, or Marcus Ryker. None of that would give him the moral high ground in the court of international opinion. To the contrary, it would kill innocent civilians and guarantee a massive new regional conflict Israel could not afford.

Eitan’s entire body was trembling with anger. He knew what he wanted to do. Yet he had made rash, impulsive decisions before and always paid a steep price for them. Hard, bitter experience had taught him to contain and control his emotions. The decisions he made in the next few minutes could shape the course of history for a generation to come.

A war with Lebanon was the last thing Israel needed. With the help of the White House—and despite numerous delays and distractions—the Jewish state was on the verge of a historic peace agreement with the Saudis. The relationship Eitan had forged with President Andrew Clarke, King Faisal Mohammed Al Saud, and Crown Prince Abdulaziz bin Faisal Al Saud—beginning with the summit in Jerusalem and in numerous secure phone calls and discreet correspondence over the course of the past eighteen months or so—was nothing short of miraculous. The satisfactory conclusion of such a comprehensive treaty had to remain paramount.

If Riyadh made peace with Jerusalem, the Bahrainis would likely soon follow. Then the Emiratis. Perhaps the Omanis would be next. Or maybe the Moroccans. Such breakthroughs would change the region and the world forever. This had been Eitan’s primary foreign policy objective since the extraordinary visit of the Saudi monarch and his entourage and through complex and delicate yet encouraging rounds of shuttle diplomacy by Secretary Whitney ever since. Was it any wonder that Tehran and their Hezbollah thugs were trying to sabotage the effort?

Anger was not the right emotion, Eitan told himself. Anger was the product of feeling powerless, unable to choose his fate or chart his destiny. And there was no reason to be angry, he decided. This new crisis was an opportunity. By doing the unexpected, he could radically shift the political dynamic. By not overreacting—by keeping a cool head and staying focused on the big picture—perhaps he could turn this crisis to Israel’s advantage.

Eitan finally stopped pacing. It was time to accept the fact that the three hostages were gone. Somehow—it no longer really mattered how or why—his sister’s son and two Americans had been grabbed in a firefight, pulled into a tunnel, and likely dragged deep into enemy territory. The activation of the Hannibal Protocol had not helped. But nor had it hurt. It had not triggered the Third Lebanon War.

Not yet.

But it still could.