Hesh Kestin - The Siege of Tel Aviv

“But what’s going to happen?”

“Dunno. Maybe they’re waiting for your press friends in the chopper to run low on fuel and leave the scene. Maybe they intend to ram us. I haven’t been briefed.”

Blunt is losing it. “Ram us? We could drown! Captain, I need for you to contact the press helicopter and get us evacuated immedia—” A tremendous boom cuts her short, followed by a series of smaller booms as the helicopter’s aviation gasoline explodes along its fuel lines.

“What was that?” Blunt shouts. It’s as if she needs someone to confirm what she sees. “What’s happening?”

She barely completes the phrase before hot steel and flaming plastic begins raining down to starboard.

Captain Frank sticks the cigar in his mouth. “What was your alternate plan?”

“Oh my God. Oh my God! They’re going to attack us! You have to get us off this ship!”

“Sister, that was my thinking first time I laid eyes on you.” He picks up the loud hailer, carries it out to the deck, and turns on the waa-waa-waa. “Attention, crew of Star of Bethlehem . This is Captain Levine. All hands into lifeboats. Repeat: get your sorry asses into those lifeboats now! To all hands. We are abandoning ship!” He steps back inside.

“But where will we go?”

The captain is rather busy at the moment. He picks up the radio mic. “To all masters, to all masters. This is Captain Levine. We are abandoning ship. We are abandoning ship. According to Uniform Code of Naval Procedure, I cannot order you to do the same, but strongly suggest it. Those trigger-happy Gyppos seriously don’t like us. Don’t take it personal. Just get your people into those damn boats.”

He has not signed off when the ship is engulfed in a rolling boom that comes out of the east and then seems to head up and away as the thunder of three low-flying jets echoes across the sky.

“Holy shit,” Blunt’s producer says. “It’s an air attack!”

Captain Frank picks up the handset. “Attention all masters, attention all masters. This is Captain Levine. Revised orders. Continue to man those lifeboats, but do not deploy. Just stand by. I don’t know what the hell just happened, but those planes are friendly. We’re being buzzed. Stand by for further information.” He picks up the hailer. “To all crew, to all crew. Hold fast those lifeboats. Repeat: don’t bother getting your asses wet. All that hymn singing seems to have had an effect.”

“What?”

“F/A-18s.”

“What? Speak English, for shit’s sake!”

The captain shades his eyes. “Super Hornets. Pink ones.”

THE THREE AIRCRAFT LEVEL off at twenty-eight hundred feet, sufficiently out of range of the frigate’s sea-to-air missiles to take evasive action should they be targeted. Likely that will take time. Israel’s air force is known to be destroyed—the Egyptian Navy is not prepared to defend from aerial attack.

Jimbo: “Stan and Chris, fore and aft. I’ve got the superstructure. We’ll deal with the small fry later. Ourah! Over.”

Chris: “Copy that, Jim. Ourah! Over.”

Stan: [Muffled.]

Jimbo: “Stanny, come in. Over.”

Stan: “I’m just crying, you big schmucks. Over.”

Chris: “Jew-bastard. Over.”

Jimbo: “Clipped-dick sissy. Over.”

Stan: “You ladies wanna stay the fuck out of my way. Permission to solo. Over.”

Jimbo: “Roger that, Jewboy. Chris, let’s give David some room to tickle Goliath. Party on. Ourah! Over.”

TWO PINK FIGHTERS CLIMB as the third swoops low over the Egyptian frigate, its 20 mm. cannons blazing at five hundred feet before it loops to come right back, sending two AGM Harpoon missiles into the Egyptian vessel’s superstructure.

It collapses like tinfoil.

On the frigate, the crew dives for cover, abandoning the very guns that are its only defense.

On her bridge, the admiral is both surprised and incensed. “What is that?”

His executive officer is already on the squawk box. “All hands, defensive posture. All hands, defensive posture. We are under aerial attack!”

“By whom?” the admiral shouts above the tumult. “Who has pink Hornets?”

“Super Hornets, excellency.”

“The fucking gays have an air force?”

ON BOARD CV STAR of Bethlehem , Connie Blunt, abruptly aware she is out of danger, scrambles to the bow for a stand-up. She is in full professional mode, except that absent her French sailor hat her hair is blowing the wrong way as the freighter plows thirty degrees to port to avoid the conflagration ahead. Having turned one way and then the other, Blunt gives up on attempting to have her hair stream behind her and simply holds it back as she prepares to describe the action into a hand mic that will avoid picking up ambient noise, of which there is plenty.

“Hurry up, Buddy!” she screams to her cameraman, who is having trouble keeping his footing on the slippery deck as the freighter hits a swell. “Come on! I’m going to win a Peabody!”

Her producer grabs the cameraman by the waist, stabilizing him sufficiently. “Hooked up to satellite!” he shouts. “Three, two…”

“Damian, this is amazing! You are watching a live attack by unidentified jet fighters on the Egyptian battleship that was bearing down on this humanitarian aid flotilla. Just a moment ago, an Egyptian naval rocket destroyed a BBC-chartered press helicopter, which exploded in midair, almost certainly leaving no survivors. No one on board the Star of Bethlehem has any doubt that this was to be our fate too, as well as that of the other five ships behind us bringing much-needed food, water, and medicines to the beleaguered city of Tel Aviv.”

A boom.

She turns.

“Life boats on board were about to be lowered after our captain gave the order to abandon ship, when literally out of nowhere there appeared a squadron or whatever you call it of three so far unidentified warplanes, F-16s or F-18s or, and you can quote me on this, F-U’s, that have literally saved the day. Behind me, a lone pink—yes, pink!—jet fighter is single-handedly pounding the bejesus out of that enormous Egyptian battleship, which—”

She turns again.

“—which omigod, it is sinking. I repeat, the Egyptian battleship is apparently sinking right in front of us live on CNN. Can you get this, Buddy? Buddy, get the camera off me. Forget what I said! Get the battleship!”

A double boom.

“Omigod, Atlanta, two other pink warplanes have now descended and are apparently taking on the two smaller vessels, which may or may not be destroyers, both of which have been hit by missiles.”

At CNN in Atlanta, with the screen behind him filled with the scene five thousand miles away, Damian Smith cuts in. “Connie, we have confirmation the large ship is a frigate, the two smaller vessels corvettes. All three seem to be stopped dead in the water. Connie? Connie?”

On the screen behind him, the three pink jets regroup and come in low directly over the Star of Bethlehem . Connie dives for the deck. Her cameraman is already there, with her producer on top of him. On the studio screen, there is nothing but deck, then sky, then deck again, and then sky blacked out as the jets buzz the freighter, dipping their wings.

“Omigod, I think they’re about to attack us! I never signed on for this! F(bleep) this sh(bleep)!”

Smith comes in. “Connie, take it easy. It looks like they’re just saying goodbye.”

Blunt regains her feet. “You think so, Damian?” She turns. “Yes, you’re right. The three warplanes are leaving the area, beautiful double plumes of smoke streaming behind them.”