Read Online By the Rivers of Babylon by Nelson DeMille - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nelson DeMille
Tags: Fiction
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net of Israeli Intelligence not so long ago, and it had quivered. They had spotted him not in Paris but in the countryside. Strange. Once in Brittany and once in the South by the Spanish border. Why? Suddenly, the thought struck Hausner that there was a weak link in this whole security chain somewhere, and he didn’t know what or where it was. A chill ran down his spine.
There was a psychological profile of Rish on file, plus a standard identikit. He’d get them out. And he’d place a call to the French SDECE. Hausner looked around. Everyone was still conversing in small groups. He rose. “If no one needs me any longer, I’ll get back to my job.”
No one answered.
“Madame Deputy Minister?”
“Don’t let us keep you,” said Miriam Bernstein.
“I won’t.” He looked around the room. “Please feel free to use my conference room as long as you wish. Excuse me.” He turned and walked to the door, then looked back.
“Shalom,”
he said sincerely.
4
Captain David Becker, pilot of El Al Concorde 02, sat in the Operations Room next to his First Officer, Moses Hess. Across the long table from Hess sat the flight engineer, Peter Kahn, an American Jew, like Becker.
On the walls were maps, charts, and bulletins. One wall was a large window that faced out onto the airplahe parking ramp. The two Concordes sat beyond the partially shaded ramp in the harsh sunlight.
On the other side of a glass partition in the Operations Room was the Dispatcher’s Office with its teletypes and weather maps.
On the far end of the long table, in the Operations Room, sat the flight crew of El Al Concorde 01. There was Asher Avidar, the pilot, a hot-headed Sabra whom Becker considered much too young and impulsive to fly anything but the military fighters that he had formerly flown. Next to Avidar was Zevi Hirsch, the First Officer, who Becker thought would have been the pilot except for his age, and Leo Sharett, the flight engineer, who also counterbalanced Avidar’s brashness.
Avidar was speaking to his crew, and Becker strained to hear and understand the rapid Hebrew. This was a very carefully planned flight, and Becker wanted none of Avidar’s lone-eagle antics. He had to follow Avidar on the long trip, and fuel was a critical factor at Mach 2.2.
Becker checked the most recent weather maps for the flight while he listened to Avidar briefing his crew.
Becker was an exceptionally tall man, and for that reason he had been denied fighter training in the American Air Force when he entered service at the start of the Korean War. In ROTC, they had failed to point this height limit out to him, and he found himself ferrying troops on C-54 transports. Eventually, he partially satisfied his lust for combat by joining the Strategic Air Command. He waited patiently through the 1950s for his chance to vaporize the city in Russia that was assigned to him, though he knew he would not see the destruction. The city was Minsk, or, more precisely, the airport to the northwest of the city. His bomb would have also incinerated Teddy Laskov’s hometown of Zaslavl, which was a coincidence that neither man had become aware of during their chance conversations.
Eventually, with age, his aggressive tendencies waned, and with the coming of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, he found himself in cargo planes again. Then came Vietnam and he was put back into a B-52. He vaporized lots of people there, but he had long since lost the appetite for it. During the 1967 War, he volunteered for the re-supply flights to Israel. His enlistment ran out on his last flight to Lod, at the same time that his twenty-year marriage did, so he stayed and married the Israeli Air Force girl who always gave him a hard time about the shipment manifests.
The Israeli Air Force did not have nor need anything like the huge long-range bombers he knew so well, and there were only a few C-130 military transports in the Hel Avir, the Air Corps. But he really didn’t
There was a psychological profile of Rish on file, plus a standard identikit. He’d get them out. And he’d place a call to the French SDECE. Hausner looked around. Everyone was still conversing in small groups. He rose. “If no one needs me any longer, I’ll get back to my job.”
No one answered.
“Madame Deputy Minister?”
“Don’t let us keep you,” said Miriam Bernstein.
“I won’t.” He looked around the room. “Please feel free to use my conference room as long as you wish. Excuse me.” He turned and walked to the door, then looked back.
“Shalom,”
he said sincerely.
4
Captain David Becker, pilot of El Al Concorde 02, sat in the Operations Room next to his First Officer, Moses Hess. Across the long table from Hess sat the flight engineer, Peter Kahn, an American Jew, like Becker.
On the walls were maps, charts, and bulletins. One wall was a large window that faced out onto the airplahe parking ramp. The two Concordes sat beyond the partially shaded ramp in the harsh sunlight.
On the other side of a glass partition in the Operations Room was the Dispatcher’s Office with its teletypes and weather maps.
On the far end of the long table, in the Operations Room, sat the flight crew of El Al Concorde 01. There was Asher Avidar, the pilot, a hot-headed Sabra whom Becker considered much too young and impulsive to fly anything but the military fighters that he had formerly flown. Next to Avidar was Zevi Hirsch, the First Officer, who Becker thought would have been the pilot except for his age, and Leo Sharett, the flight engineer, who also counterbalanced Avidar’s brashness.
Avidar was speaking to his crew, and Becker strained to hear and understand the rapid Hebrew. This was a very carefully planned flight, and Becker wanted none of Avidar’s lone-eagle antics. He had to follow Avidar on the long trip, and fuel was a critical factor at Mach 2.2.
Becker checked the most recent weather maps for the flight while he listened to Avidar briefing his crew.
Becker was an exceptionally tall man, and for that reason he had been denied fighter training in the American Air Force when he entered service at the start of the Korean War. In ROTC, they had failed to point this height limit out to him, and he found himself ferrying troops on C-54 transports. Eventually, he partially satisfied his lust for combat by joining the Strategic Air Command. He waited patiently through the 1950s for his chance to vaporize the city in Russia that was assigned to him, though he knew he would not see the destruction. The city was Minsk, or, more precisely, the airport to the northwest of the city. His bomb would have also incinerated Teddy Laskov’s hometown of Zaslavl, which was a coincidence that neither man had become aware of during their chance conversations.
Eventually, with age, his aggressive tendencies waned, and with the coming of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, he found himself in cargo planes again. Then came Vietnam and he was put back into a B-52. He vaporized lots of people there, but he had long since lost the appetite for it. During the 1967 War, he volunteered for the re-supply flights to Israel. His enlistment ran out on his last flight to Lod, at the same time that his twenty-year marriage did, so he stayed and married the Israeli Air Force girl who always gave him a hard time about the shipment manifests.
The Israeli Air Force did not have nor need anything like the huge long-range bombers he knew so well, and there were only a few C-130 military transports in the Hel Avir, the Air Corps. But he really didn’t
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