The Omega Scroll (20 page)

His announcement was greeted with a loud cheer. As in the time of King David, the Israelites were preparing once again to take back their ancient capital. The modern equivalent of King David’s warriors were the crack paratroopers of the 9th Airborne Brigade, all of them Reservists.

When the applause had died down Brigadier General Kovner outlined his plan. If successful, the results of the battle would be broadcast in minutes, not only to Israelis, but to Jews in every corner of the world. If they failed, they would not be forgiven lightly.

‘Because of the holy sites, not only Jewish, but Christian and Muslim as well, there will be no artillery or air cover over the Old City itself. It will come down to hand-to-hand fighting,’ Menachem Kovner said, ‘but we have one advantage. We are experts at night-fighting, and for that reason we go tonight.’

Crump. Crump. Crump. The night sky over Jerusalem lit up as the Jordanians pounded it with artillery and mortar shells.

Death to the Jews.

David and the rest of his platoon took shelter in doorways and around corners as a sudden burst of machine gun fire crackled across the deserted road. When viewed from behind, the lines of green and red tracer seemed surreally graceful as they ricocheted off the old stone walls and climbed into the night sky, but on his platoon’s side of the road it looked decidedly ugly and David ducked as the bullets cracked and thumped around him.

‘Above the Gate! On the ramparts!’

‘I see him!’ One of his section commanders raised an M79 and took cool and deliberate aim.

‘Grenade!’ The shoulder-fired grenade snaked across the road and exploded on top of the Damascus Gate. The machine gun fell silent.

Death to the Arabs.

‘Cover me!’ David dashed forward another 45 metres to the next alleyway. Centimetre by centimetre, metre by metre, grenade by grenade, the platoon fought their way up Sultan Suleiman Street towards the Rockefeller Museum. The small-arms fire was sporadic now but again David asked for cover as he ran towards the corner of Haroun al-Rashid and Suleiman. Suddenly the world exploded and he was thrown to the ground. Dazed, he shook his head and crawled into the nearest alleyway.

‘Shit!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Fucking tanks!’ He felt his right cheek. Blood. And a lot of it. Another flash appeared from the bottom of the Mount of Olives and David hugged the cobblestones as the round exploded 45 metres in front of his position. Obviously the 6th Brigade had been unable to dislodge the Arabs.

Lieutenant Michael Kaufmann forced himself to relax as he waited to roll. The radio silence was eerie. They had done it before in practice but this time it was for real. He scanned his instruments again, looking for the slightest sign of a mechanical problem but all the warning lights were out, and the Mirage had an advantage over normal aircraft. Even if rotation and the point of no return was reached, Michael could still deploy his braking chute and bring the aircraft to a stop in the wire barrier at the far end of the runway. Once the nose wheel was up and he had lift-off, however, any engine failure could be catastrophic. Despite his thirst for battle Michael had no desire to join the select few who had survived an ejection during take-off.

Trims neutral. Booster pumps on. Afterburner cock on. Hydraulics normal, switch down. Canopy locked. Like a well-oiled machine, he routinely ticked off each taxiing check. Again he tested the controls for freedom of movement. A tongue of flame exploded from the rear of the first Mirage on the runway. His Commanding Officer was rolling. Michael was fourth in line and when his turn came he followed the other aircraft onto the ‘piano keys’ and checked his gyro against the runway heading. At the same time he applied the foot brake and quickly ran the engine up to ‘full dry’. The rpm needle spun around rapidly and when it reached 8500 he released the brakes and lit the after-burner. Checking for ignition, Michael pushed the throttle forward and was almost immediately pushed back in his seat as 6200 kilograms of thrust from the Snecma Atar 9C turbojet blasted out of the exhaust and the fully laden Mirage accelerated down the long runway. At the rotation point Michael eased the stick back and launched after the three glowing orange flames that were already well above him. Afterburners. They increased the aircraft’s climb rate to over 1500 metres a minute. The undercarriage lights went out abruptly and Michael checked his rudder trim. He quickly levelled out and closed on the three points of orange light in front of him. Out over the inky blackness of the Mediterranean towards the navigation turning point, selected to give the Israeli pilots an attack vector from the north from which the Egyptians would least expect them.

The launch of the fighters and the rest of Israel’s precious one hundred and sixty combat aircraft had been timed so that each would arrive over the seventeen Egyptian air bases at 0745, when the Egyptians would be at their mandatory breakfasts. To avoid the Egyptian radars the run in to the target would not be above 20 metres. It called for some very precise navigation and flying from the Israeli pilots.

Across the Suez Canal the Egyptian pilots and their ground crews slept peacefully. At the big Abu Suweir Air Base the main radar was turned off for repairs, the unconnected cables and technicians’ tools still strewn around the building. As Lieutenant Michael Kaufmann and the rest of his squadron streaked low across the Mediterranean towards the Nile and Cairo West, many of the Egyptian aircraft still had their protective covers on and were parked wing tip to wing tip.

At 0743 Michael followed Benny Shapirah as they climbed and turned on their final bombing run, bracing himself for the Egyptian anti-aircraft fire he felt sure would come soon. He watched as Benny dropped the specially designed 150-kilogram runway-piercing bombs right over the runway in front of him and then Michael held them in his bomb sight as the parachutes deployed, slowing the bombs down. The retro-rockets fired, burying the bombs deep in the runway concrete. As the runway erupted in front of him, Michael calmly screamed towards it and added two more bombs to the destruction of the strip.

In an instant they were past the airfield and climbing. Back to their base to refuel and then out over the Mediterranean where they would provide the combat air patrol high above the turning point, just in case the Egyptians woke up to the Israeli navigation plan.

That didn’t seem likely, Michael thought, grinning behind his visor as he watched the Mirages behind him streak in to strafe the Egyptian planes lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Lieutenant Michael Kaufmann couldn’t have been more wrong.

Two more flashes from the Mount of Olives and seconds later the road in front of Lieutenant David Kaufmann erupted with a deafening roar. Red hot pieces of flying metal tore great chunks of stone from the ancient walls of the Old City while David and his platoon hugged the ground. When the shrapnel had shrieked past, David held his hand up, thumb towards his ear and little finger towards his mouth, the sign to summon his radio operator from further down the alley. Ignoring the blood streaming from the wound to his cheek, David focused his binoculars on the general area of the flashes. Slowly and deliberately he scanned the foothills of the Mount of Olives on the other side of the Valley of Kidron. Desert camouflage did not blend well with the greenery in an olive grove and it was not long before he picked out the first of the Jordanian tanks. Tanks usually operated in troops of three and David scoured the hillside until he had found the other two. Sliding his compass from the side pocket of his trousers he took a bearing and did a quick mental calculation to convert the magnetic bearing to a grid bearing on the map.

‘Two this is two two, over.’

‘Two, over.’

‘Two two, fire mission battery. Grid 950619, direction 285, three tanks dug in, over.’

‘Two, roger. Wait, out.’

Thank God there were no restrictions against artillery targets on the Mount of Olives, David thought, not fancying his chances of getting into the museum with the cross-hairs of three 105mm guns watching him from a little more than 1300 metres away. More importantly, his superiors would not be too pleased if the priceless scrolls were blown into any more fragments than they were already in.

‘Shot, over.’

‘Shot, out.’

The Israeli guns supporting David’s brigade were about 6 kilometres back in the Rose Park, not far from the Knesset. A muffled and distant crump was followed by the hollow roar of an express train as the 105mm armour-piercing round whistled overhead, but it missed its target, exploding further up the hill from the tanks and to the right. David remained unperturbed. Close he thought, but not close enough. In any case it was rare to score a direct hit with the first round.

‘Left 100, drop 100, fire for effect, over.’

‘Left 100, drop 100, fire for effect, out.’

David watched the Mount of Olives explode in brilliant flashes of orange. A bigger explosion and the unmistakable shape of a tank barrel rose briefly through the smoke. One down, two to go, but then first one and then the other tank broke cover, throwing large clumps of dirt and broken olive trees behind their tracks as they withdrew at high speed towards the safety of the next hill.

David turned his attention to his own target. He positioned a machine gun so that it had a good view of the foyer of the museum and he broke cover.

‘Let’s go!’

The first section followed their young leader towards the entrance. With just 45 metres to go a burst of fire from the gardens around the museum tore into his signaller running beside him. Once again, a grenade arced towards the Arab position and the score was settled.

‘Grab the radio!’ David yelled. He checked for a pulse. There was nothing that could be done other than to press on with the attack. His signaller had been married a week. Angry, David doubled forward to the wall beside the museum entrance where he paused. He then leapt into the foyer and sprayed the courtyard with a sustained burst of fire. Two goldfish in the pool were added to the casualty list. The Arabs had fled.

Wall by wall, corridor by corridor, room by room, Lieutenant Kaufmann and his men cleared the museum. When David was satisfied that no Palestinian or Jordanian forces remained, he posted sentries on the roof, then headed unerringly towards the vaults in the basement, taking three men and Joseph Silberman with him.

If Private Silberman had been shaken by being in the thick of a fire-fight with only a few days military training behind him, there was no sign.

‘This is it. Think you can crack it?’

Silberman smiled. ‘It’s 1930s technology. Fifteen minutes. Twenty at the outside.’

David watched, fascinated, as Joseph took a stethoscope from the little black bag he had over his shoulder, plugged in the earpieces and placed the diaphragm against the combination dial. First, he spun the big dial to the left to clear the tumblers and then he turned it one revolution to the right.

‘Twenty-five,’ he announced as his stethoscope picked up the distinct click of the cam and lever mechanism engaging. ‘Last number.’

David wrote it down in his notebook. In the short time Joseph Silberman had been part of his platoon he had actually come to like the little Israeli from ‘the other side of the tracks’. Silberman had offered to show David how to break into a safe and pick a lock with the special tools he kept for just that purpose. Out of curiosity, David had found time to understand and practise Joseph Silberman’s illegal craft on a wall safe and a padlock. Now he was watching the master in action.

Silberman continued to turn the big silver dial with its hundred black gradations. When he was satisfied that the old vault had only three tumblers, Silberman started to rock the dial back and forth, advancing one or two gradations each time. Suddenly he stopped.

‘Eighteen,’ he said as the soft ‘nikt’ of another tumbler slot being lined up sounded in his stethoscope. Silberman was better than his word. Ten minutes later he turned the big wheel on the vault door and the huge retaining bolts slid noiselessly from their recesses.

‘After you, Lieutenant,’ he said, stepping back with a satisfied grin on his face. The challenge of breaking in. Nothing gave Joseph Silberman greater pleasure.

‘I’m glad you’re on our side,’ David said as he stepped past Silberman and into the vault. The Mossad agent had not been mistaken. Rows of small black trunks were coded and stacked in racks that reached to the ceiling. Two were stored separately from the others and David opened one of them and stepped back in awe.

The Isaiah Scroll. Up until now, the oldest known text of the complete Book of Isaiah had been the Ben Asher codex from Cairo which had been dated to 895 AD. David knew he was looking at leather from Qumran that had been inscribed at least a thousand years earlier. Had he had time to open the trunk next to it the world might have been a different place. The Omega Scroll held the clues for civilisation to avert the final countdown. David was jolted from his thoughts by the sound of running footsteps. One of his section commanders burst into the vault.

‘David! They have reached the Wall!’

For twenty years the Old City of Jerusalem had been part of the border between the Arabs and the Jews. No Jew had lived in the city’s Jewish Quarter since the Israelis, mostly elderly rabbis and their students, had been forced out when the Arab Legion stormed through the narrow streets in May of 1948. The most holy of Jewish cities had been turned into a tangle of blocked alleyways and barbed wire. Today the concrete barricades, twisted wire and rusted tin had been stormed by a different legion. The 9th Airborne Brigade could now add ‘street fighting’ to their list of skills. House by house, alley by alley down the Via Dolorosa where Christ had laboured with his cross on the way to Calvary, past the Mosque of Omar where Muhammad had ascended to heaven. With grenade after grenade, sniper bullet after sniper bullet, the Israeli paratroopers had fought their way to the Wall. As the sun rose above the Old City, battle-hardened veterans leaned against the ancient stones erected by King Solomon and wept. The chaplain to the Israeli Defense Forces, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, raised the
shofar
to his lips and the discordant blare of the ram’s horn rose above the intermittent sniper fire and the heavier sound of distant artillery. Rabbi Goren opened his old Torah.