Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Micha set up a tour company for us and hired four jeeps and three speedboats. This immediately attracted a large number of tourists to the office which he opened by the shore. We also rented two rooms in hotels overlooking the airport which at least partially covered the target area. We hoped that this would close most of the opportunities for firing anti-aircraft missiles at the plane but I knew that that too was to a large extent a matter of luck.

On the day the Sun D’Or flight was due to arrive our jeeps patrolled the upper reaches of the mountain overlooking the airport while the speedboats criss-crossed the narrow sea lane parallel to the fields and the shorelines of the islands closest to its runway. The jeeps and speedboats were equipped with mini-Uzi submachine guns. In each of the hotel rooms were two sniper rifles to be taken out of their hiding place only moments before the landing. Our beefed-up team worked nonstop for hours on end prior to the landing, during the time the plane was on the ground, and continued their labours until it had taken off and disappeared over the horizon. Though we had covered the possible launch sites, the terrorists were nowhere to be seen.

I pressed for permission to return to Israel before the next Sun D’Or flight was due, but HQ insisted that we stay for at least another week. For me this meant losing one ovulation but since the office had been so accommodating over the previous few years I couldn’t really object. I called Orit. She said nothing and it seemed to me that I could hear the sound of sobbing. I was left with no option but to curse myself. At the same time I couldn’t avoid being angry with her: did she not realize that the fate of three hundred passengers travelling on an Israeli plane hung in the balance?

I deployed my people to the two other bigger islands, Praslin and La Digue as well as to the smaller ones within firing range of the airfield. There they looked for possible suspects and between searches relaxed beneath date palms and coconut trees, stroked sea turtles and sunbathed on the white sands with their granite rock formations. The diving aficionados reported that the coral reefs were superb.

I stayed with Micha and Levanon on the island of Mahé. We went north to Victoria, the small capital city, and set ourselves up there. I used the many hours of tropical rain repeatedly to go over the various scenarios with my colleagues and spent the rest of the time looking for suspects in town. We went to bars, toured the colourful markets, combed the wooded mountains overlooking the airport and strolled through the artists’ town in the southern part of the island close to the airport but saw no suspects. I wondered how reliable the intelligence that had brought us to this place really was, and who among the seemingly apathetic Creole natives–a people formed from European, Chinese, Indian and African migrants, a majority of them Catholics–could possibly have a hand in helping to organize a terrorist attack of this kind.

Towards the time of the next flight’s arrival we again went over the drill. Previously I had chosen to be in the jeep because of a feeling, which turned out to be wrong, that we would find the terrorists hiding in foxholes overlooking the airfield, perhaps somewhere on the fringes of the woods. This time my instinct told me to be in the Raff Hotel to the north of the airfield.

I closed the shutters in my room save for one thin panel, placed the bipods of the sniper rifle on the table which I pushed up against the window, secured the room’s door, and waited. Pierre, a professional sniper who’d joined my team, did the same in the second hotel overlooking the airport.

Moments before the plane approached, Micha called on the transceiver to say that he had spotted a suspicious-looking group at the northern entrance to the airport. He drove up to them in the jeep, asked for a cigarette, and was able to confirm beyond doubt that this was a group of four Arabs. The jeep drew away, but Micha kept them within sight. I dispatched Levanon’s jeep to the spot as a reinforcement.

Now it was my turn. A quick check revealed that the group was on the slope of the mountain, sitting in the shade of the large bushes about 100 metres from the airfield’s perimeter fence. I pointed the gun’s scope at them. They were about five hundred metres away from me and could be seen very clearly through the telescopic lens.

Sun D’Or’s security officer, on the line with us, announced that the plane was entering a circling mode and would land in approximately two minutes. I instructed Micha and Levanon not to approach the area. I mounted the silencer, cocked the rifle, opened the safety-catch and locked in on the group. I myself didn’t see the plane but the four Arabs apparently did. I noticed movement among them as they dragged an elongated sack from either under the ground or a hiding place in the bushes. A moment later the long launcher of the small but deadly Strela SA-7 missile could be seen being shouldered by one of the Arabs. I spotted another member of the group picking up the missile which he was about to slot into the launcher.

Though I had accumulated dozens of hours of experience in training as a sniper since returning to my role in the service, I wasn’t sure of a direct hit with the first bullet. I knew that if I aimed at his body and not his head I would certainly strike him and that he would merely be wounded, not killed. That was enough for me. I aimed at the torso of the man standing with the launcher on his shoulder, went over to automatic and fired a short burst. The noise deafened me, my eyes filled with smoke and, after a moment that felt like an eternity, he fell to the ground.

His friends, who hadn’t heard the sound of gunfire, couldn’t understand what had happened and tried to pull the man up. At any moment one of them could get hold of the launcher and still manage to hit the plane. I aimed at the one still holding the missile and fired another short burst. Again, a terrible noise, searing smoke, and a man falling after a brief eternity.

The other two in the group, seeing the blood on their friends’ clothing ran for their lives. I had no time to deal with them. The chances of hitting them were slim and in any case I didn’t want to do that. But because I had forgotten to radio instructions to the others to withdraw, Levanon took it upon himself to close in on the remaining duo. His jeep made a short detour and blocked the path of the two escapees. Before they had time to realize the extent of the danger they were in, both were shot dead by short bursts of fire from Levanon’s mini-Uzi.

Someone was knocking on the door of my room. Despite the silencer the shots had, of course, been heard, and one of the hotel staff had apparently been sent to find out what had happened. The disassembled rifle, already in its travelling case, was back in my bag which had been packed and readied prior to the shooting. I thought about how to overpower the hotel worker at the door–or deal with two of them if that is what I had to do. I breathed deeply and opened the door.

God damn it, it was a woman. A tall, buxom, black woman. I invited her in and very reluctantly struck the nape of her neck, gagged her, tied her hands and feet and placed her, unconscious, in the bathtub. I yanked out the inside door handle and locked the bathroom door.

Over the communication system I announced that I was leaving. Micha’s jeep picked me up at the entrance to the hotel and shot off to the speedboat. We were then ferried to the yacht which, in keeping with our getaway plan, was anchored about a mile from the shore. Our two other speedboats picked up the rest of the operatives who’d pulled back in haste leaving behind them three jeeps perfectly parked at the entrance to the company’s now closed-down beachside offices.