Game of silence, p.12
Game of Silence, page 12
The gate opened wide. Yaron began riding into the base, and I was about to go after him. Instead I stopped, and asked the two cadets standing at the gate: “Tell me, who’s your team commander?”
“Ben Nun,” they replied.
“Excellent,” I said, “He was my soldier. If I hear from him that you have spoken about what happened here tonight– you’re done. Beware, get it?”
They contently smiled about the forbidden party they were allowed to take part in, placed their finger with a twist on their sealed lips, and tossed a virtual key into the darkness of the night.
“And you,” I pointed in a threatening tone to the cadet standing next to me. He looked at me in surprise. “What can I say – nice job. I see she gave you her telephone number.”
He returned a proud smile and saluted in a friendly gesture.
I started the motorcycle and stopped next to Yaron. We parked and began walking towards the fighters’ barracks. “Look at the mess you’ve made,” I hissed at him. No reaction came. I knew that this is exactly how it always starts. The funny banter that provokes this upside-down logic, bites and fans itself only because it creates laughter. “Tell me, why do I always have to wait for you? You drive like an old lady! Do you want to know what the police officer told me on the side? He only wished to give you a reprimand for driving too slow on the left lane. That’s all.”
Yaron smirked and continued to ignore me. After a few moments, when we had already gone our separate ways into our rooms, he said to me, using that same humor I inherited from my father: “And it’s only thanks to you that I got out of it, right? Thank you very much Mr. Levin, I thank you for finding me worthy to ride along side of you.”
The unit was in turmoil; the lights that were turned on in all of the wings testified what was going on. When we reached the center of the division’s square, we were greeted by Moria, the division commander’s clerk. “At zero hour forty-five, there will be a briefing by the Flotilla commander in the auditorium,” she announced, “get it together and don’t be late.”
Gathering around her were a few veteran reservists. The meeting, which included a round of hugs, the usual banter and an excited commotion, gave the scene the sense of a joyful social gathering rather than an urgent military operation.
“Look who’s here!” I called at Tzach Sasson, a friend from the team. “Did your wife come to her senses and finally throw you out of the house?” I jumped on him wildly, as testimony to my true happiness of meeting all of the faces who had become an integral part of my life.
We had twenty minutes left until the beginning of the briefing. Yaron and I parted from everyone and quickly turned to our rooms, which were located on both sides of the hangar. “Okay bro, I’ll see you in the auditorium,” he said to me, whereas I told him, wearing a completely serious expression: “You do understand that they have mobilized the whole unit because of you, yes?”
For a second there, he looked at me in an inquisitive look, while a skeptical smile was creeping in, and I continued very seriously: “In order to have an inquiry into how slow you drove all the way here!” and I laughed out loud, dodging the unidentified flying object which flew at me from his direction and miraculously missed my head.
When I got to my room, I noticed that Yoav Michaeli’s gear was placed on the extra bed in the room. One of the greatest benefits of being a veteran combat soldier is the privacy – the privilege of being in a room alone, just by yourself, with an extra bed that no one was allowed to sleep in except Yoav. Although he was an accounting student ever since he was released, Yoav purchased the exclusive rights to the bed with the two thin mattresses that were placed in my room, thanks to the hundred days of reserve service a year in active duty and plenty of sweat.
I got organized, and quickly went to the auditorium which was located in the main building of the unit’s headquarters. There were close to a hundred and twenty combat soldiers there, from all units. When I entered, I was surprised to see that the Flotilla Commander, Mike Ben Nachum, was huddling at the side of the hall with his deputy and three division commanders waiting for the last fighters who were delayed arriving from home. In these types of briefings, they used to enter only after everyone was already seated. It would seem that this time their body language projected an unusual alert anticipation.
The time was 00:35. I scanned the hall searching for Yoav, and in a quick glance I noticed he stood next to one of the first rows in the auditorium. I signaled to him, he approached me and we hugged for a while, like only two friends who were forged together could. There was no significance to the duration of our meetings and the period of time that had passed between one meeting to the next – in each encounter between us the energy was the kind that always flowed between two brothers, the kind that time and reality did not keep apart for even one moment.
“Say, ugly, what do you know of this mobilization?” He asked.
“As of this moment, I don’t think that anyone here really knows,” I replied.
“Aside from war, what else could it be?” said Yoav partly serious and partly kidding.
“In twenty minutes we will find out,” I said and immediately changed the subject, “tell me man, how’s married life? You realize that since I held the pole of your Chupa at your wedding we didn’t get to see each other even once?!”
“But you haven’t changed, it’s alright, you stayed as ugly as you always were,” he burst out laughing, which got louder when I caught him in a friendly bear hug. “And I – stayed married. For now,” he added and started another round of laughter as we moved away to the side of the auditorium, distancing ourselves for a conversation which was meant to try and catch up on a two month gap in the ten minutes left before the briefing starts.
Yoav’s wedding was considered the most outrageous one in the history of the unit. Sahar, when she was still only his future wife, told her father about the marriage proposal, and he dropped everything and hurried to come to Israel from his place of residence in London, and during a prestigious dinner at the ‘Taizu’ restaurant, he tossed the couple a revolutionary idea: “how about having the wedding at the Seychelles? I was there a little while ago, and instantly thought that on the day you decide to get married, I will charter a private plane for three hundred people, and we will have three days of celebrations in the middle of the Indian Ocean, at one of the most beautiful resorts I have ever seen in my life.”
Yoav looked at him in embarrassment and astonishment. “Does that include my entire team?” He asked.
“Of course,” replied the father of the bride.
Sahar was ecstatic. Yoav, on his part, sought to lay low, but it didn’t help him. In the period prior to the wedding, the Seychelles was one of the most talked about topics between us team members.
And so, on the morning of a steamy summer’s day, we took off, three hundred guests and production personnel, to the Island of Mahé, the largest of the Seychelles Islands. More than that, team “Eliad” were all there, nineteen friends who occupied the area closest to the back galley and the bathroom, and what’s more - close to the flight attendants.
The flight was so removed from our daily reality, that we couldn’t stop smiling for a second, even when we tried – without much success – to maintain a civil composure for Yoav’s and Sahar’s aunts who were sitting in the middle of the plane. And inside all this mayhem, a solo operation orchestrated by Bruno was forming.
In every team there’s one person, who has the tendency to attract all the glances towards himself, the one whom women are attracted to like moth to a flame. With us it was Gal Brunowvsky. In the team we nicknamed him “Bruno”, as an abbreviation of his last name, but also because he had the rugged look of an Italian, drop-dead sex appeal and a bewitching charisma.
His body was muscular and tanned, magnificently built, his eyes large and sparkling, with his head adorned by black hair that perfectly matched his chiseled facial features. In the center of his face was a large “broken” nose – a ‘gift’ from one of the operations, which inexplicably only enhanced his masculinity.
Bruno was pushed to do a solo operation, at the applause of his friends, as he approached the back galley in a carefully scheduled time – one hour after meals and coffee, when the flight attendants were resting. The operation was pronounced a huge success, when the three flight attendants agreed to come to the stag party we threw for Yoav, on a neighboring island.
Before the flight I had a long talk with Yoav, about the stresses that a dramatic event such as a wedding may bring, and more specifically regarding the objection that Sahar had about his stag party. Sahar was a control freak. She was worried about what could come out from an alcohol-saturated stag party. That is why she made sure that we have this manly party on Silhouette Island – a secluded island surrounded by thick tropical vegetation, which only had a luxury hotel and a small sleepy village populated by fifty local residents. “Don’t worry bro, after the wedding she will let loose and everything will be alright,” I reassured him during our talks, even though I was secretly worried that it might not be so.
Yoav’s princess didn’t really know Bruno and the team. She mistakenly thought that if she sends us on exile to a secluded island at a calling distance from her, we could mark as “done” regarding a desolate stag party.
While we received updates from Bruno about the success of his solo operation, a twist in the events occurred which seemed could lead to trouble: Nir and Eyal, who went to the front of the plane and sat down with five of the bride’s girlfriends, came back enthusiastically to tell us of their achievements – they would all come to the party on the neighboring island. They only overlooked two small details: the first – Bruno’s three flight attendants already confirmed their arrival to the party, and the second – that the five spinster girlfriends they invited were planted like Trojan horses inside the stag party, and were sent with the encouragement of their friend Sahar.
After a six hour flight we landed at the tiny airport on the Island of Mahé. As we were landing, we found it hard to contain our amazement at the colors of the ocean, the range of blue, turquoise, and light blue, bordered by the white sands of the beach.
The rooms we received were in fact small villas built inside the thick jungle which surrounded them from every direction, and looked as if designed with an artist’s hand just a few meters from the water. The suites were lined in a row along the lagoon bay which was dazzling in its beauty. Yoav received the presidential suite, overlooking the cliff towards the bay and the lagoon and which was comprised of a complex that had a swimming pool, lawn, and a bar. We arranged to meet for the party after precisely two hours, just as the sun was setting.
We gathered at the designated time in Yoav’s suite, in the area of the bar next to the pool, and lay around in the seating couches. Yaron was in charge, as usual, of the chill-out music coming out of the speakers. Alcohol, music, best friends, five extremely beautiful Trojan horses and three flight attendants full of youthful spirits – some moments are there to make it clear to you what being at the top means. There was no need for anything else.
However Bruno decided that there was. He exchanged a few words with Yaron and the music became more up-beat, Latin. We all jumped into the pool and began dancing. It was also the opening shot for Bruno’s next move, which included the abundant flow of alcohol for everyone present and making every possible manipulation, until he finally managed, using his notorious charm to convince one of the flight attendants, Shira, to act as a stripper. In exchange for her consent, he promised her that “by doing this deed, she will gain a place reserved just for her in the married men’s heaven.”
In anticipation of the beginning of the strip show, we turned off the lights, only to have a new wonder revealed to us.
The darkness which slowly crept to the already dark island, revealed a sky full of stars and a mesmerizing reflection of them at the bottom of the pool – blue porcelain which was adorned by dozens of dainty spots of light which looked themselves like little stars. The moonlight illuminated the bay that spread ten of meters under the cliff where the suite stood, and the pool seemed to spill over the cliff in a natural waterfall straight into the sea.
Shira the flight attendant kept her word. To the sound of the Latin beat and manly shouts accompanied by clapping and a few glasses of alcohol, she started the show. She very slowly removed the robe she was wearing, and using a part of the bar as a stage, she removed the rest of her bathing suit in amusing theatrics. The alcohol contributed its share to remove the last obstacle from her body, on her way to becoming totally naked.
Now came the wildest part of the party. We began dancing in a frenzy, and while the alcohol levels in our blood were reaching the red levels of tolerance, we too got rid of our bathing suits and the last of our inhibitions. It seemed to me that this wasn’t exactly what Yoav’s Sahar had in mind when she sent her friends to watch over a stag party on a desert island.
At dawn the scene looked particularly ”improper”. Young men and women were lying naked on top and with each other, fast asleep. Two of Sahar’s friends who had drunk on an empty stomach, threw-up violently and fell asleep on the grass next to the pool. Bruno, who for the better part of the night focused on Shira the flight attendant, found himself waking up with her and another flight attendant in Yoav’s bed, who was forced to sleep on the couch in the adjacent guest room.
“So, what? I understand that as of now you are still married?” I teased Yoav, while waving at one of the combat soldiers standing on the far side of the hall.
“There’s no telling what will happen, but I think that we’re done celebrating for the near future,” Yoav replied in acceptance. “I decided to go for it anyway. You know that now we also have this business with London.”
Yoav’s business with London had begun already a few months before his wedding. He seriously considered to relocate with his new wife to London and to accept the position of an analyst in a foreign investment Bank. He’s already in the midst of the process, elegantly evading his father-in-law’s suggestion to integrate in the management of the real estate empire he founded. Yoav apparently did not assess the paternal tenacity of his future father-in-law, who since his divorce had relocated the center of his life to London and leveraged his real estate company to heights of wealth unknown to their family until then. The success left the father with a bitter taste of emptiness, without the closeness of his only daughter, and so he tried in every way possible to convince the young couple to come take shelter under his auspices. Eventually, Yoav, too, was convinced to try their luck in the British capital, however he insisted on doing it himself and in his own way.
And so, Yoav landed a job offer for a position as an analyst in an investment bank in London – the wet dream of every accountancy graduate.
It was no coincidence that eventually it was the same bank which consolidated most of the father’s business activities in Britain. Only later on, Yoav found out that the father had devised a simple plan, and Yoav stepped straight into it. The honey-trap.
“I can’t believe it, you’re really moving to London!” I said.
He nodded, and I could see true joy in his face.
“Amazing. A new wife, a new country, a new life. I am so happy for you,” I said and gestured raising a glass for a toast, “Here’s to new beginnings.”
I was truly happy for him, but at the same time I felt a pinch in my heart. Less from jealousy of his new London life, but rather from the expected severance of our intensive relationship.
“I am positive I will be in Israel every month or two,” he said optimistically, as if he was reading my thoughts, “and there’s no way that I would arrive here and we won’t get together every night more or less over a beer or something.”
“Oh, Yoavi, we both know that once you board the train to London, life will take a different path,” I patted him on his shoulder, not without a slight expression of sadness on my face. “But you know what? Whatever will be, will be. I am thankful for what we have accomplished. Seven years is a large chunk of our time on our short journey here. Go on, have a wonderful family, and even if it’s in London and not in Tel-Aviv!”
Yoav remained silent. The auditorium was packed with combat soldiers called in from their weekend leave, and after a few short moments, we heard the voice of the Flotilla Commander, Mike Ben Nachum, who ordered us to sit down for the beginning of the briefing.
“This morning, an F-16 aircraft of the Air Force was shot down in Syrian air space,” Mike opened, “the unit was given the privilege of going on a retaliatory operation as early as tomorrow night. As of now, I am unable to give you the precise number of fighters who will be participating in the operation, however probably everyone in this room and even more. Due to the complexity of the situation and how unusual it is, the details of the operation are still being processed.
“In a couple of hours I will be having a meeting about the details of the operation with the Special Operations’ commander and the Chief of Staff.
The operation will integrate additional forces of the Chief of Staff Commando Unit and the paratroopers. This time, we will not have the time to fully practice on a model, but it is precisely for this purpose that we have been training all these years. Unlike other operations you are familiar with, this time we are required to perform a shortened battle procedure, in a difficulty level that borders a suicide mission.”
Mike paused for a moment, enabling the enormity of the event to sink in. An operation of this magnitude was indeed unprecedented. “This is going to be a high instinct operation, and it’s because of operations like this, that we are called the 13th Flotilla. The State of Israel is counting on us to execute a clean and quality operation as only we know how. The eyes of the entire top brass will be on this operation, and I expect you to maintain the highest standards, the kind that will show the guys upstairs that if they want to release the assault hounds – in any weather and under any kind of deterrence, they call the Flotilla combat soldiers.”
