Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

“Sir,” he called in to the detail officer, “they've got them both right here! Caught them about an hour ago. Recognized ‘em from TV reports. They claim Jeza spent time with their clan once, and they're real unhappy about what happened to their Messiah. Say they're gonna peel Tamin and Goene alive.”

The sergeant gritted his teeth. “The hell they are! Call in the other choppers. I want two standard attack deployments behind that dune over there,” he began to order, but Feldman offered an alternative.

“Sergeant, if they watch TV, maybe they'll recognize me, too. They'll know I was a friend of Jeza. Maybe I can reason with them.”

Hunter elbowed Feldman hard in his sore side and whispered, “No! Let ‘em shred the bastards!” He was dead serious.

Feldman ignored his partner and the sergeant acquiesced.

Indeed, Feldman was immediately received with great ceremony and fanfare. The nomads knelt before him and touched the hem of his trousers, calling him “Apoutii,” or “Apostle,” as he was quickly informed by the military translator. Feldman found this most uncomfortable, particularly with Hunter recording the episode.

He learned that this tribe of Bedouins was also well acquainted with “Apoutii;” Litti, who'd spoken often and highly of Feldman. The tribal leader was eager to accommodate the famous newsman, bestowing several choice goats and camels upon him.

Provided with an avenue of exchange now, Feldman succeeded in trading on his prestige, goats and camels, for the persons of Goene and Tamin. The two were delivered, bound hand and foot, and gagged.

As all this transpired, Feldman, who'd been keeping a stealthy eye on Hunter, observed the big man moving menacingly toward the captured pair. Quickly darting out in front of him to block his path, Feldman grabbed the cameraman's shoulder. “No, Breck!” he warned. “You know I can't let you.”

Hunter stared at his friend as if seeing him for the very first time. Feldman could detect the battle going on within his partner, and for a time, couldn't be sure of the outcome. But at length, Hunter blinked.

Feldman stared hard into his eyes. “You take your revenge with your camera, Breck, not your fists. Swear to me?”

Hunter hesitated, turned his frowning face aside and scowled down at the ground. He finally nodded.

Only then did Feldman step aside. Hunter moved in with his camera to catch every humiliating particular as the former IDF minister and his general, now both dressed in civilian attire, were deposited unceremoniously in the dust at his feet.

Pressing in tightly on Goene's red, seething face, Hunter carefully documented the capture. “So nice to cross my pen with your sword again, General,” he gloated with smoldering hatred. “You sorry bastards are gonna look damn impressive on tomorrow's news, rollin’ around in the camel dung there!”

The instant his gag was removed, Goene lurched himself into a sitting position and appealed desperately to his former Israeli subordinates. “They have the microchips! This is all a conspiracy. Set us loose, it's not too late to recover the chips! The technology belongs to Israel!”

Hunter drew himself upright, shaking his head and glancing over his shoulder to Feldman. “Stupid to the bitter end,” he observed. As he turned back to the defiant general, Hunter's rage boiled to the surface. “When you gonna get it through that dense shit inside your skull that there are no chips. You let them shoot her for nothing, you bastard! And a hell of a lot of good those microchips would do you now, anyway. You turds are gonna spend the rest of your miserable lives makin’ little rocks out of big rocks!”

Tamin, his face as white as the full desert moon high in the clear sky above them, had nothing to say. The two prisoners were untied, immediately handcuffed, and then carted off to the waiting helicopter.

Feldman turned his weary, relieved eyes to his partner. “Feeling a little better now?” he asked, enjoying a smile of self-satisfaction himself.

Hunter did not return the smile. “Give me just a few minutes of personal ‘sensitivity training’ with those sons of bitches, then I'd feel better.”

Feldman and Hunter were allowed to ride back on the helicopter with the prisoners, who were manacled to the bulkhead. Two Israeli militia accompanied them, along with their pilot and co-pilot.

The Bedouins shouted and raised their rifles over their heads in victory as, one by one, the helicopters lifted straight up into the starry skies of the desert night. Feldman watched the celebrants recede quickly below him, and had just begun to settle comfortably into his seat when he was startled by a cry from the guard next to him. As he turned, a firearm discharged and the soldier slumped to the deck, a red splotch spreading next to the pouch of his empty shoulder holster.

Just as quickly, the second guard across from Feldman was hurtled backward against the bulkhead by a gunshot to the chest and fed lifeless next to his comrade. Goene- smoking revolver in one hand, uncoupled handcuff dangling from the other-confronted the two unarmed newsmen.

“Standard Israeli issue,” Goene smirked, dropping the cuffs. As the frantic co-pilot groped futilely for his sidearm, Goene coldly squeezed off another shot. The unfortunate victim bucked forward and crumpled against the cockpit. The pilot immediately brought the helicopter around, screaming a distress call into his headset.

“Hold it steady or I shoot you where you sit!” Goene shouted up to the pilot, who quickly complied. Tamin, still manacled to the metal frame, could only watch with wide eyes and rising spirits.

In smug vengeance, Goene turned on Feldman. “Now you!” he growled, motioning the reporter to his feet with the gun.

Hunter started from his seat, but Goene negated the move by grabbing Feldman and sticking the gun to his neck. The tough war veteran was powerful, maintaining a vise grip on the reporter's injured arm. Never removing the gun, and carefully monitoring the frantic Hunter, Goene pulled Feldman roughly to the door in the back of the cabin, releasing him only long enough to unfasten the lock and turn the handle.

“For God's sake, Goene,” Hunter pleaded, “he just saved your life back there. Those nomads were gonna slice you to pieces.”

Goene's response was to cock his revolver. Stepping back from Feldman, the general placed the muzzle between the reporter's eyes with a triumphant look. “You've crossed me once too often, my arrogant young upstart,” he hissed. “But now I shut your big mouth for good. No last prayers for you, I have the last word!”

With burning vindictiveness, the general kicked open the door, and Feldman, staggered by the violent rupture of atmosphere, grasped on to a rib of the fuselage with his good hand, bracing himself against the outrushing torrent. The wind howled around him and he stared down at the desert floor a thousand feet below.

“Now,” Goene declared with victorious finality, “I send you to join your false Messiah- in hell!” With the speed of a striking cobra, the general lashed out with his gun and struck Feldman hard on the temple. Instantly, Hunter launched himself for Goene, but was too late. The soldier spun and planted a foot hard into the semiconscious Feldman's stomach, propelling him out the door into the open sky.

Somewhere over the southern Negev Desert 9:44 P.M., Sunday, April 23, 2000

Shrieking in savage rage at the loss of his friend, Hunter unleashed the full fury of his hatred, driving the general's thick body violently into the bulkhead, jarring loose the revolver.

But the war-hardened soldier proved as resilient as ever. Recovering quickly, he began attacking Hunter with a punishing barrage of martial arts. As they pounded and heaved each other across the cabin, Hunter's most pressing concern, beyond flying out the open door, was to deny Goene his pistol. The gun remained at large, skidding and bouncing unpredictably about the deck, narrowly eluding Hunter's grasp several times as the pilot desperately plunged the helicopter toward the ground.