Adrian D'Hage - The Omega scroll

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.

‘Praise the name of the Lord!’ His voice echoed around the Temple Mount. ‘Trust in the Lord Israel, for He is thy strength and thy shield. He has heard thy supplication. He has become thy salvation. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His steadfast love endures for ever.’

The Israelis were back.

Brigadier General Kaufmann was in the Command Centre when the news was received. He had never witnessed anything like it. Loud cheers echoed around the room and generals and sergeants had tears streaming down their cheeks. It was a memorable day amongst the many in the long battle-scarred history of the Jewish nation.

Elsewhere the war was going better than any Israeli could ever have dreamed it would. Nearly half the Egyptian Air Force had been annihilated in the first few minutes of the war. The surprise had been complete and absolute. The news came in that David had captured the Scrolls and Yossi silently thanked his God for his son’s safety, adding a prayer for Michael.

En route to the navigation turning point the two Mirages were just passing through 3000 metres when Michael’s earphones crackled.

‘Ilyushin-14, 900 metres. Cover me!’ Benny yelled. The need for radio silence had long since disappeared. Without waiting for a reply, Major Benny Shapirah rolled into the attack and dived on the unsuspecting Russian Ilyushin-14 transport.

Michael scanned the skies and then he saw him, coming out of the sun at about 6000 metres.

‘MiG-21 on your tail,’ he reported quickly.

‘Got ’im. Let him come,’ Benny replied.

Michael watched, almost mesmerised as Major Shapirah broke off the attack on the Ilyushin and allowed the MiG-21 to close on his tail. Benny slowed his aircraft, forcing the Egyptian pilot to overshoot, a manoeuvre that would not be found in any textbook on dogfighting. It required nerves of steel and Benny, one of Israel’s aces, had spent many hours perfecting it. As the hapless Egyptian shot past Benny’s Mirage, Benny loosed off three short bursts of cannon fire. Seconds later the MiG-21 disintegrated in a ball of flame as the 30mm cannon found its mark.

Michael recovered his vigilance just in time to sight the second Russian-built MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’ coming in below him and lining up for an attack on Benny’s Mirage.

‘Second Fishbed on your tail, am engaging,’ he reported nonchalantly as he rolled into the attack behind the second Egyptian. The Egyptian had made the mistake of allowing his focus to remain on his target to the exclusion of everything else. By the time the Egyptian pilot realised he wasn’t ‘clean’ it was too late. Michael held his sights on the now twisting and turning MiG until he had closed to less than 200 metres. He depressed the trigger on the joystick repeatedly, slowly and deliberately, and short bursts of cannon ripped into the fleeing Egyptian. It exploded in front of him as the cannon found the high-octane starter fuel tank that the Russian aeronautical engineers had inexplicably positioned beside the pilot’s oxygen bottle. For a moment Michael was blinded as he flew straight through the black pall of smoke.

‘Michael! On your tail!’ A third MiG had joined the fight.

Instinctively Michael broke hard right, then left, but his aircraft was already shuddering as the Egyptian’s cannon found its mark. Michael rolled, broke left again and pulled up hard in a desperate bid to shake off his pursuer. Another burst of cannon shattered the canopy, shrapnel hitting Michael in the neck. As the Mirage spun out of control, throttle still fully forward, Michael tried to reach for the ejection handle, his arm strangely heavy and unresponsive.