Some blocks down from Ein Sarah St. – 9:30 PM - IDT
“Great! They are here!” Eldad announced, walking to a van pulling into the back parking lot. “Some friends sent us resources for tonight’s incursion,”
Each Cherut agent put on black uniforms, a bulletproof vest, and grabbed a .22 LR before running into the dark, followed by the four Warriors. They crossed the road and reached the first layer of attackers. A few pawns fired their guns at civilians and soldiers from behind cars.
“Careful! Some look like they are weaponized teenagers!” Adriel, in his invisible form, alerted the others through the communication device each was wearing.
“Yes, I think they are some older teenagers here,” Bastian answered, unarming three young men. “Carefully relieve them from their firearms and send them home,” he said, turning to keep going and getting a few stones on his back in retaliation for the removal of their guns.
“They are shooting like this is some kind of video game,” Yana said, disarming a young man after another on her way up the street.
The agents kept moving, breaking through the layers of fighters growing in age and weapon sophistication. Although the team was shielded by the precarious light and their speed, their presence was beginning to be noticed and bullets began to rain down from rooftops and inside buildings. Cherut fired back without getting sidetracked, their mission wasn’t to stop there.
“The hospital is four blocks up. The radius will be heavily guarded,” Eldad alerted the team. “Mila, Ifat, and Sachapuyo, get to the hospital! We’ll join you shortly.”
“Got it!” Mila answered, running from building to building with Ifat in tow and the ancient Warriors shielding the women. They dodged bullets and fought with some terrorists who had been hiding in apartments and houses.
“I have a visual of the back entrance. Heavily patrolled area,” Mila whispered, eyeing Ifat and nodding in direction to some terrorists in their black tactical uniforms, holding their machine guns ready to shoot.
“These guys will shoot to kill,” Ifat whispered back, gripping her gun.
“And the others didn’t?” Mila whispered. She squeezed herself into the narrow streets out of sight, followed by the others moving nimbly like ghosts. Once safe, she glanced at everyone. It was amazing how the Sachapuyo could be inconspicuous despite their height and bulk. They seemed to operate under supernatural rules. She checked on Ifat who stood a few steps back. She held her weapon at the ready. “A Sig-Sauer?” Mila said.
“Yeah. Gift from a British soldier. It’s the same one I had the night of the confrontation three years ago.” Ifat sighed, appraising her gun. “Ready when you are!”
“Eldad, the hospital is on sight. It’s surrounded by gunmen, but they don’t seem to have been alerted of our presence yet. We could parkour our way up the walls and get inside that way.”
“Tov! Surprise is always the best tactic.” Eldad’s voice was heard in their earpiece. “However, be careful! There must be hundreds of civilians inside. We don’t know what their Plan B is, but what we know is that they won’t hesitate to use the people for whatever they need!”
There was an infant crying from the door from one of the homes where they were standing.
“We must not give them the opportunity!” Leo settled, nodding from his post to Mila. “The four of us will do the climbing of the walls and meet you inside.”
“Sounds good. We’ll enter through the main,” Mila said, knocking at the door.
The female voices inside seemed agitated and hesitant; they tried to hush the child. Mila knocked again. “Please, we need help. We are not here to hurt you,” Mila said in Arabic as softly as she could.
The door opened to reveal only a fraction of a face and head covered by a scarf. “We don’t have anything or have anyone in hiding here,” the woman answered, trying to close the door as the child behind her began to cry again and a girl tried to quiet him.
“Where is your husband?” Ifat asked and the woman stopped and looked at her.
“What happened to him?” Mila asked, understanding the lady’s hesitation and fear.
“You are Israelis?” asked the woman, her voice trembling.
“She is, I am not…” Mila answered, nodding in Ifat’s direction. “We are not here to hurt you or hurt anyone. We want to get to the hospital. People inside are in great danger. We want to stop those using the schools and hospitals as weapon storage before more people get hurt. Please, help us!”
“I only have my daughter and baby here. What could I possibly do to help you?” The young lady opened her door and let the women in. “By letting you in, whoever you are, my life is in danger.”
“We know and we don’t want to put you in harm’s way,” Ifat said, glancing around the modest home. The baby quieted, looking around with curiosity in his teenage sister’s arms.
“Maybe it wasn’t my best idea…” Mila whispered to Ifat, trying to catch another idea. “Where is your husband?”
“In the hospital on the Israeli side. He is recovering from surgery,” the woman answered, taking her baby back from her young daughter. “But you are right—they are sending missiles from the hospital’s roof. You must understand that not everyone here is happy about this group patrolling our streets with machine guns and training our children to hate.” She appraised them; they looked like regular women like her. “What could two women do?”
“What couldn’t we women do?” Mila answered with a smile. “Could we borrow some clothes?”
Mila and Ifat wore on top of their own clothing loose, ankle-length garments, with long sleeves that hid their hands and large scarves covering their heads and most of their faces. They approached the hospital emergency entrance, avoiding eye contact and sure of their need for immediate attention. They passed the several gunmen dressed in black, guarding the white, five-story building. It wasn’t the time for women to be out nor was it normal patient’s visiting hours, but it wasn’t a regular hospital, either. The perimeter was run down by misery as the terrorists had taken over the densely populated city and caged the inhabitants in. The citizens weren’t people but pawns to be used as props in a play for the international eye.
Ifat held on to Mila as they entered the emergency ward. The rebels’ eyes inspected them as they walked to the counter. They could be sent home or kept inside—or worse if their covert failed.
“My sister is not feeling well,” Mila said in Arabic. “She’s got a high fever…”
“Sit and wait to be called. It’s a hectic night, as you can see.” the nurse said as a few injured men were rushed in.
The lobby was crowded with people waiting to be treated. The women sat next to the busy hallway, inching their way inside. In a few minutes, when no one was paying attention, they would make their move.
First Mila, then Ifat, scurried along the halls, keeping their heads down and blending with the people coming and going in all directions. They descended to a lower level and peeked around the corner. There were six rebels patrolling and sending people away.
“All right, it’s showtime!” Mila whispered to Ifat, glancing back to the stairs and elevator.
“Rega, rega! Wait! First, what is the plan?” asked Ifat, sensing her gun in its holder on her leg.
“Impro. We make a plan as we go…” Mila glanced and winked at her.
“Nice plan!” Ifat whispered as a thin smile appeared on her lips. The woman she knew was still in there, despite her memory loss.
“Yep. The old fashioned way: trickery, fists and your 9mm Sig-Sauer; we take them down!” Mila murmured. “Echad, shtaim, shalosh!”
They entered the hallway looking like harmless and lost patients.
“There is no attention down here, go back up!” yelled a couple of the men approaching the women and urging them away with their machine guns’ barrels.
Ifat and Mila swiftly grabbed the weapons and pulled the men simultaneously hitting them on the face with the butt of their guns. The men dropped to the ground. The women jumped to the others still puzzled and unarmed them before they could shoot. Ifat’s army training kicked in, delivering elbows and knees to faces until the men dropped unconscious. Mila moved like a tornado taking care of three of the men who had regained their focus, to lose it again. Both women knew how to fight in narrow spaces. As they descended to the basement, they heard quiet gasps and men collapsing. The four ancient Warriors were fighting their way in, knocking unconscious every gunman standing on their way, silently and effectively.
“Perfect timing!” Mila said, delivering a friendly punch to Leo’s arm.
Leo smiled, checking the hallway and around the corner.
“We made it to the storage,” Mila announced, putting her communication device back in her ear and removing the coverings remaining.
“We are also in!” Eldad answered through the earpiece. “We are climbing to the launching pad on the roof. The faster we move, the less time they’ll have to react to our presence and cause more harm to these people!”
“Got it!” the group responded, stepping over the unconscious rebels’ bodies.
The place was suspiciously silent. They pushed open a door and found boxes of ammunition and weapons stocked up to the ceiling.
“They’ve been smuggling these weapons, preparing this attack for a long time,” Ifat whispered under her breath. She read the labels on the crates forming row after row, filling the basement-turned-warehouse. “But, how did they get all these here?”
“This might answer your question,” Leo answered from the back of the room. They all walked to see what he had found.
“The underground tunnels!” Mila said, cringing.
There was a whimpering behind them. They all turned to see a woman strapped with an explosive vest.
“Please, don’t shoot me!” cried the woman in French-accented English, looking directly at Mila and Ifat. “I’m a doctor!”
Amidor ran to check the entrance while Hadi evaluated the interior walls.
“We are locked in!” Amidor reported, coming back to the group.
“But I think…” Hadi said, studying the construction’s walls, ceiling and floor leading to the tunnels. “This building has been retrofitted.”
“Which means…?” Ifat snapped, standing closer to Leo and Hadi.
Mila approached the doctor, studying her white coat’s logo. “MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières?”
“Oui. S’il vous plaît, aidez-moi !” the doctor cried while sweat and tears rolled down her cheeks.
“We’ll try!” Mila answered, waiting on the ancient Warriors for instructions. The situation was critical. If the vest went off, the whole building would collapse with all the people in it.
“It means they prepared this building to withstand a possible explosion. You see these walls?” Hadi waved his index finger around. “All of them have a polymer coating to reduce blasting impact. The columns have steel jackets and the ceiling is covered by carbon fiber-reinforcing mats bonded to the top surface of slabs, which normally are made for the floor.”
“Which means…?” Ifat asked again, her stomach and heart getting tighter. She was about to go through another explosion.
“It means that if the bombs go off in here, the building won’t collapse. It will weaken the foundation, but there will be time to evacuate everyone to a safer hospital,” Hadi answered, appraising the situation and the vest on the doctor. “Now, we have to figure out how to remove the vest from her.”
“Why did they pick you to wear the vest? Are you one of their international young recruits?” Mila asked without hiding her disbelief. She had read about many doctors in the international organization who had been led to believe that Israel was the all-time inhumane aggressor.
“Cherut? Can you hear us? We have a bomb situation down in the basement,” Leo called the others’ help.
“Heading your way!” Svend answered, breathing heavily, running.
There was a commotion throughout the hospital and they could hear it loud through their earpieces. There had been an explosion on the rooftop. People were screaming; the few terrorists left in the building fought to take some lives as they were going down, but the agents fought back to get people out of harm’s way.
“So, MSF doctor, are you their lady recruit?” Mila pressed, getting closer to her.
“Far from it.” The doctor trembled, moved by instinct she took a few steps forward. The group didn’t move. “My parents left Israel when I was a child.” She looked around the rows of weapons and ammunition. “My father is Arab and my mother an Israeli Jew, but now, we are nationalized French citizens. I became a doctor to help people, but since my arrival here, they’ve never trusted me; they only saw me as a Jew.” She shook her head and took a deep breath.
The Cherut agents blasted the entrance door open and ran in. The doctor turned around and was relieved, despite the situation she was in, to see people rushing in to their aid.
“My guess is that you are not Tzahal; you aren’t Israelis. Who are you? Are you an international group?” The doctor rushed to plead for help. “Please, evacuate the people. There are many innocent people up there.” The doctor nodded to the tunnel entrance. She stopped shaking and crying; she mastered her fear, gathering her strength. She faced the agents. “I know you won’t tell me who you are, and that’s all right, we are running out of time. This vest will go off any moment. I’m sure this tunnel ends in the neutral zone. There is no other way to smuggle all these weapons and construction materials. You must leave now and bring help to evacuate these people. Run, run now! I’ll stay, this must be my fate.”
“We won’t leave you!” Mila declared, getting closer to look at the woman and the vest. “The countdown is down to five minutes, who will detach her from the vest?”
“That would be me,” Eldad answered, examining the vest. It was similar to the many bombs he had deactivated time and time again in crowded Israeli gathering places during terrorist attacks. “Cloud Warriors, fill the tunnel with the explosives from those boxes. The rest of you run out through the door!” commanded Eldad. He had already sent pictures of the rooftop launching pad to his government superiors, but now he was requesting evacuation for the people.
“But what about you? The doctor? The Warriors? We won’t leave you behind!” Mila countered, gripping Eldad’s arm.
“We are staying with Eldad!” Leo spoke on behalf of the other Warriors, planting themselves on each side of the doctor and the Israeli agent.
“We don’t have time to argue! We’ll be alright. Keep the people in the upper floors safe and tell them that evacuation aid will arrive as we speak,” Eldad urged the team to leave immediately. “Leo, do you have angelical deactivating power?” Eldad joked to ease the moment, getting the bomb deactivating tools from his backpack with tactical gear.