Hesh Kestin - The Siege of Tel Aviv

Kicking aside the chocks, Alex clambers onto the wing, enters the cockpit, surveys the instrument panel, and begins flipping switches. Ordinarily, no IAF pilot would take up a plane without running through a checklist, but there is nothing ordinary about these circumstances. As if to underscore this, a siren sounds, and then gunfire. Alex fires up the twin GE turbo-fan engines.

They roar to life. The plane moves forward.

“Such a relief,” Alex sighs to no one as she locks the canopy. “Just like getting my period.”

Now the gunfire is one blanket of explosive noise.

In the 717, cameraman Buddy Walsh kneeling beside her, Connie Blunt leans out of an emergency exit, describing into a hand mic the scene before her as it transpires.

About twenty Kuwaiti airmen, most still in their underwear, are on the ground, returning fire, with more gunfire pouring forth from the barracks’ second-floor windows. This is answered by blanketing 50 cal. machine-gun fire from the commandos.

From the other side of the runway, a lone marksman at the base of a Kuwaiti Air Force service shed fires freely until he is silenced by an RPG.

The shed shudders, then collapses as the last group of F/A-18s takes off.

The 717 captain has his head out the window. “Colonel!” he shouts. “For Chrissake, Boeing didn’t make this aircraft to fly with holes. Swiss cheese don’t fly!”

A bullet whizzes by his ear. He ducks back in.

Col. Lior enters the cabin. “Two minutes to takeoff, captain.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” He tosses off an easy salute.

Col. Lior looks at the man. He could be sixty-five, maybe older, too old to fly an American flag aircraft, his red hair faded to white at the temples and thinning on top. “US Navy?”

“Three tours Vietnam. But I ain’t never seen nothing like this!”

Col. Lior returns the salute, crisply.

Under cover of machine gunners already aboard, the remaining commandos scramble up rope ladders. As the 717 begins to taxi, the slides hanging from the aircraft are slashed off.

“Neither have I. Captain, you are cleared for takeoff.”

“Not exactly,” the captain says quietly.

Through the windshield, he has seen them coming as the 717 gathers speed: two Kuwaiti Air Force Apache Longbow helicopters rising directly ahead.

Immediately Col. Lior slides open the side window, pushing the captain against his instrument panel as he leans out, firing his Tavor rifle in studied desperation.

In the first Apache, its pilot has just enough time to tell his wingman, “Mohammed, on my signal” before the helicopter explodes, debris flying over the field like so much metallic trash, its forty-eight-foot main rotor spinning off of its own momentum as in an instant the second Apache disintegrates in the air.

Through the flying debris and smoke, a lone F/A-18 seems to be headed directly for the 717 when it zooms up and over it, avoiding a collision by little more than inches.

No one on board can see it, but the pilot of the F/A-18 rising over the airliner at what seems to be an impossibly steep angle of ascent is at the same time reaching into his external vest pocket. In lipstick, he draws two bright red X’s on his windshield.

Kuwait Air 201 has just begun to level off when it is joined by first one and then a second F/A-18 riding shotgun on either wing.

Its radio comes alive. “Tower to Kuwait 201. Tower to Kuwait 201. What the hell is going on out there? All I can see is a lot of smoke. Kuwait 201, you are not cleared for takeoff. You are on a military runway. Turn your aircraft around and return to Kuwait International. You are cleared for Runway Two. Kuwait 201, do you read me? Over.”

“Tower, I read you loud and clear.” The captain looks over to his Israeli co-pilot and navigator. “Regret Kuwait 201 is no longer operational. Over.”

“Tower to Kuwait 201. Bullshit. I have you on radar. Hell, I have you visual. Turn your aircraft around. Over.”

The ex-Navy pilot is enjoying this more than any flight he has commanded since Vietnam. Flying a commercial airliner is no different than driving a bus. This is different: it brings back memories. Pressing a button, he suppresses voice on the radio. “Where the hell we going, colonel?”

“Ben Gurion International Airport. You know it?”

“I know it’s been Yasser Arafat Airport for a month. We get close, them Gyppos’ll shoot us down.”

“Captain,” Col. Lior says quietly in the brusque whisper that is his trademark, “as you call it, negatory on that.”

The 717 captain shrugs, then flips on his mic. “Tower, this is former Kuwait Air 201. Over.”

“This is Tower. What the fuck do you mean, former? Over.”

A flight attendant squeezes into the cockpit. “Captain…”

He raises a forefinger. “Tower, I am pleased to report this aircraft is now designated El Al 201. Over and out.” He turns to the flight attendant. “Peggy?”

“Captain, they won’t return to their seats. And they’re smoking.” He chortles. “They sure are, baby.” He hits the announcement switch. “Attention passengers. This is your captain speaking.”

He turns to look back into the cabin through the open door. The commandos are carousing, spritzing beer and chasing each other around first and business as the cabin crew tries to settle them down.

“It appears you people are out of control back there. Such behavior is contrary to regulations of the International Air Transport Association. But since none of us gives a shit, let me further announce that this is a smoking flight, and that if you’ll give the cabin crew half a chance, they’ll rustle up some breakfast. One more thing. The bar is open and drinks are on the house. Cabin crew, y’all take good care of our passengers. We’re bringin’ em home.”

THROUGH THE DUST OF his office window, Yigal sees the first wave of F/A-18s flash across the morning sky over Tel Aviv, then head out to sea before turning back to cross the city once more. There are fifty-eight. In twenty-five minutes, two more will appear, escorting what is now El Al 201. For the less well-informed citizens of Tel Aviv, who are aware that an attack on the city is inevitable, the planes spark resigned panic, very similar to the reaction of Londoners during the Blitz, who moved quickly to the shelter of Underground stations in determined desperation.

But there is no subway in Tel Aviv, and though by law each apartment house must contain a below-ground shelter, in total these are designed to protect the population of the city, not the entire country. Still, chaos does not ensue: like the residents of wartime London, the people of Ghetto Tel Aviv hurry, for the most part stoically, to previously chosen locations as though they are simply late for a date: the lee of abandoned buses and trucks; the underground shelters of public parks and office buildings; beneath the city’s trademark white apartment buildings, which are built on pillars so as to provide parking spaces; within cafés and shops whose doors were forced by the endless flood of refugees seeking shelter and anything they might barter for food.

By the time the waves of Kuwaiti aircraft double back over the city, there is no one on the streets but Misha’s police force, together with medical teams already well distributed in first aid stations across the city. There is no other way to deal effectively with the huge numbers of expected wounded; no vehicles are available to bring the victims to the city’s hospitals. In groups of three, doctors and nurses are stationed where the wounded are expected to be.

There are no wounded.

One by one, the city’s residents poke their heads out from their hiding places as the F/A-18s return east.