The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran (24 page)

“Acquire torpedo’s position and track.”

“Acquired and tracked, Sir.”

“Fire decoy.”

“Decoy fired, Sir.”

Daniel watched the green dot moving from their position towards the flashing red blip.

“Increase to maximum speed, then gradually change to a northerly course.”

“Yes, Sir,” Michael replied.

Daniel and Ambesah watched the sonar monitor as the green dot collided with the flashing red blip, and then both marks disappeared. The Kilo that had been chasing them soon slid back off their radar.

Daniel looked at his watch. It was 0500 hours, about 26 hours since his ship was last able to ventilate and receive fresh air through its snort at periscope depth. They might need to start removing the carbon dioxide that had accumulated in the submarine through an artificial chemical process. Daniel looked for the atmospheric monitor readings on one of the 18 screens comprising the information and control center. He addressed the engineering department: “CO
2
meters are running a little high.”

“Shall we activate soda lime, Sir?”

“Yes.”

“Soda lime activated, Sir.”

There was still enough oxygen and most of the crew was sleeping at that time anyway, so there was no need to conserve oxygen by ordering more seamen into a low-activity state in their bunks. Barring some unforeseen incident, they would rise to periscope depth in the coming hours, Daniel thought to himself. He returned his attention to the sonar screen.

Their quiet adversary had disappeared from their midst, and the Dolphin had managed to stay on course the entire time. But Daniel had by now developed a robust paranoia about this chase. Over the next hour and a half, he would change depth several more times. Each time he did so, the captain would gradually reduce the Dolphin’s speed, to see if the Kilo reemerged.

Chapter 28: Back from the Dead

Zvi was lying down in a bunk immediately below Jacob, as they each rested from their firefighting ordeal. Both of them eventually drifted into a dream state. The horrendous experience waiting for Zvi was the very nightmare that he had managed to banish from his mind only after years of psychotherapy. The macabre vision about the darkest day in his life – October 4, 2003 – was back to haunt him, as if it had risen from the dead, like the people in it.

Zvi is an 11-year old boy, watching his father and older sister talking with each other while seated at Maxim’s, a Haifa restaurant of joint Jewish-Arab ownership and popular among both communities. Zvi’s mother is running a few minutes late but is supposed to join the two of them for a small, celebratory lunch before their daughter’s wedding the next day.

It is just after 2 p.m. and the restaurant is packed with dozens of diners when a suicide bomber from the West Bank, a 27-year old female apprentice lawyer, shoulders her way into the restaurant. She detonates herself using a bomb that is packed with ball bearings and shrapnel to ensure the maximum number of deaths. Because Zvi’s mother is running a bit late, when she arrives at the restaurant she is still far enough from the blast for her life to be savable.

The horrific aftermath of the explosion leaves some of the dead still sitting upright at their tables, while others, including children and babies, are slammed against the walls. Due to the force of the blast, all that remains of the bomber is her head. The intensity of the blast leaves dozens killed, including Jews and Arabs, two entire families, and four children. Scores of people are also wounded.

Zvi sees headless people trying to eat their meals, limbless waiters walking around like zombies, with blood splashed all over the tables. Then he sees his bloody, lifeless father and sister at a table, talking about their burials.

“We’ll have a perfect spot in the shade,” his father said, “so that the rest of the family doesn’t get hot when they come to put flowers on our tombs.”

“Dad, can I take Ephraim with me?” she asks, referring to the man she was supposed to marry the next day.

“No, honey, he can’t come with us because he didn’t join us for lunch today,” he explains. “Oh, here’s the ambulance. They’ve come to try to save us before taking us to our graves. You’ll see, we have a perfect spot in the shade.”

An ambulance arrives and the staff rushes to evacuate Zvi’s father, mother, and older sister to the hospital. Zvi is riding in the ambulance looking at them, as they helplessly writhe in their own blood, moaning, while the emergency medical team in the ambulance desperately tries to keep them alive. They finally arrive at Rambam Hospital and are taken to the emergency room, where his father’s protégée and friend, Jacob’s father, has the horrible task of trying to save the lives of Zvi’s parents and older sister.

Zvi watches as Jacob’s father and the rest of the emergency medical team urgently try to save the chief of their department and his daughter, but they are virtually dead on arrival. Too much blood has been lost. In the end, nothing can save them, and the best that the medical team can do is to save Zvi’s mother. The bomb blast leaves her sightless and paralyzed from the waist down.

The nightmare then moves to the news reports following the attack. Zvi sees the journalist on Israeli television reporting on the aftermath of the event: “An army investigation revealed that the bomber had passed the IDF’s security checkpoints by hiding in a Palestinian ambulance. The bomber’s father has declined all condolences, saying that he is proud of his daughter’s final act, and will accept only congratulations for what she has done.”

In Zvi’s dream, his memory of the news broadcast then morphs into a chilling omen. The reporter’s camera suddenly zooms in on the face of the father of the suicide bomber. He releases a heinous smile and says, “Our work is not finished, Zvi. I have many more sons and daughters for the job. And you are next!”

Zvi began hyperventilating and his torso shot up until his head banged up against the bunk above. The forceful bump woke up both Zvi and his best friend above him. Jacob extended his head over the edge of his bunk to see what happened.

“Are you OK, Zvi?” he whispered. Jacob could hear that Zvi was breathing heavily. He climbed down from his bed and stood next to Zvi, holding him. “It’s OK, Zvi. It’s OK,” he whispered. “I’m right here…Come on, let’s go where we can talk.”

Jacob led Zvi down to the battery room for another private chat. “What’s going on?” he asked, his face full of concern.

“It…It…It’s back.”

“The nightmare?”

“Y…Yes…I…I’m afraid, Jacob…I…I’ve been hearing voices…”

“What do you mean? Which voices?”

“V…Voices of the dead…Mm…My dad…Mm…My sister…”

“You mean in your dream?”

“N…No…During the last few days, b…but especially aa…after the ff…fire.”

“It’s OK, Zvi, calm down. I’m here. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. What do you think is going on? Why do you think this is happening?”

“Mm…Maybe because I…I almost killed everyone with…with that collision.”

“That’s crazy, Zvi. What are you saying? You helped to save everyone from that accident. You were a hero. You were fighting that fire with me. We have the injuries to prove it.”

“B…But I was driving…I crashed the sub into that – ”

“No, Zvi. No you didn’t. Your steering was fine. Boutrous made that mistake, remember? He was navigating. He gave you and Yisrael the wrong depth coordinates. That’s why you crashed.”

“Y…Yes, it was Boutrous. He…He caused the crash…Boutrous is an Arab...An…An Ar…Arab almost killed all of us.”

“No, Zvi, you can’t think of it like that. Boutrous is a good Arab. He’s one of us, Zvi. He’s totally loyal to the State of Israel and an important member of our crew. Please tell me that you understand this, Zvi. It’s really important. Tell me.”

“Y…Yes…Yes, Boutrous is one of us…He…He’s a good Arab…”

“And it was totally an accident. Human error from pure fatigue. Boutrous hadn’t slept enough the night before. You remember that, right Zvi? It’s a critical detail. You have to understand that he didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Y…Yes. It was an accident…Boutrous didn’t mean to do it.”

“And he was also the first volunteer to enter the weapons room and help Bao fight the flood there. He was a hero too. Do you remember that?”

“Y…Yes…I’m sorry,” Zvi said beginning to cry. “The pray...prayers aren’t helping me…I can’t, I can’t pray when I’m losing it, J…Jacob…I…I’m losing it.”

“No you’re not, Zvi. You’re not. I’m here for you,” Jacob said, embracing Zvi, who was sobbing on his shoulder. “You’re gonna be just fine. You’ve just been through a lot lately.”

“P…Please don’t…Don’t mention this to anyone.”

“Of course, I won’t.”

PART III: Doomsday

And I have come to enable you to understand what will happen to your people at the end of the days, for there is yet a vision for those days.

—
Daniel 10:14

Chapter 29: An Order to Attack

Finally, at 0630 hours, after reaching a position of 24.41"N, 58.64"E, Daniel concluded that the enemy submarine was no longer on their tail. He could easily have continued being cautious but such decisions involved weighing complex and often competing considerations. If they waited much longer to rise, Daniel reasoned, they would again be confronted with the heavy daytime traffic in the Gulf of Oman. In addition to obtaining an update from headquarters, they now needed to refill the vessel’s air supply. So at 0645 hours on its 26
th
day at sea, the Dolphin rose to periscope depth, behind an oilrig platform. The submarine’s snort looked like a small, dark blue pipe protruding from the sea, but it was large enough to be spotted by the naked eye from a distance of about 300 meters or, with the assistance of binoculars, from a few kilometers. Thus, in an area with so many commercial and military surface ships, it was best to find an oilrig, fishing boat, or other large structure to hide behind when rising so close to the surface in enemy waters.

While the Dolphin renewed its air supply, Daniel stood next to Ambesah in the closed communications room as he tried to establish high-frequency radio communication with naval command in Haifa, about 2,500 kilometers away, so that the captain could speak with them. Five minutes passed with no response. Ambesah’s expression grew anxious. When the nerve center doesn’t hear from one of its submarines for more than a few days, it starts looking for and trying to save the lost ship. But what happens in the reverse situation, when a crew hasn’t heard from headquarters? There was no way for the seamen to look for, much less save, their naval command.

“Establish a satellite link.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Moments later, the communications officer excitedly informed the captain that there were two messages from naval command. The Israeli Navy had developed a specially encrypted messaging system, akin to email, that enabled headquarters and naval vessels to send and receive written messages via satellite, thereby giving all parties the very latest update and any transmissions that preceded it. This system was intended to support complex judgments, by supplying a more detailed chronology and strategic context with which to understand unfolding events.

Ambesah’s team decrypted the messages and printed them out on a sheet of paper, which they handed to Daniel. The first message had been sent at 0900 hours on their 25
th
day at sea, about six hours after their last communication from headquarters: “Two and a half hours ago Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired two Fajr-3 missiles from Gaza, hitting residential buildings in Bat-Yam and Tel Aviv and killing about 150 civilians. Suspicious military movements of weapons systems in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon have continued. Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei just announced that the last Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, may reappear in the coming hours. Proceed as quickly as possible to position of strategic deterrence and prepare to attack. Expect an update within two hours.”

The next message was sent 90 minutes later: “Attacked on all fronts. In crisis management mode. Naval command hit. Communication difficult. Launch nuclear strike on preferred Iranian targets. If you’re too far away, then launch against secondary Iranian targets.”

Daniel and Ambesah looked at each other for a moment, their faces full of dread. But Daniel had to keep his cool. That’s what it meant to be captain.

“Is there a launch code with the message?” he asked, handing him back the printout.

“Yes, Sir…But it’s incomplete.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only the first ten characters are there.”

“So the last five characters are missing?”

“Yes, Sir. Like maybe it was cut off or something.”

Suddenly there was a knock on the door to the small, top-secret communications room. “Sir, there was a periscope sighting of an Iranian frigate approaching from the northeast.” Daniel turned on the intercom.

“Dive, dive, dive! Down to 150 meters while staying on a westerly course. Yisrael, Samir, and Bao, come to the communications room now.”

Within a minute Yisrael and Samir showed up. Bao, who looked somewhat recovered from the flood emergency, arrived about 20 seconds later. Daniel shut the door so that they could have some privacy.

“We’ve never had a situation like this, even in drills, so I wanted to discuss it with you, the most senior officers of the ship, before we involve the rest of the crew.” Daniel turned to Ambesah. “Show them the two updates.” Yisrael, Samir, and Bao nervously huddled around the printout in Ambesah’s shaking hand and read the news.

“My God…” Samir groaned.

“I can’t believe this,” Yisrael said, in shock.

“This is…I…I…” Bao couldn’t find words.

“Gentlemen, I think we have to proceed as if we had received a full launch code of 15 characters. The first ten characters match and the messages make it pretty obvious that a nuclear strike is warranted.”

There was a moment of silence and then Yisrael spoke. “I disagree,” he began. “Even if we had the full launch code, the naval code of ethics requires a nuclear strike authorization to be received no more than two hours before the time that a nuclear attack is launched.”