Upfall

Mossad agents posing as wealthy Gulf Arabs chartered a fast pleasure yacht in Cyprus. The boat met an Israeli submarine en route to Syria and llan transferred to the yacht with a suppressed SR—25 rifle. The agents plied the yacht nonchalantly along the coast, a few hundred meters off shore until Suleiman, as was his habit, entered his garden for a siesta. Ilan put a single bullet into his head, following the one- shot one-kill mantra of the Marine school. That exploit, unknown to everybody in the sayeret but Yatom, Mofaz and Shapira, got Ilan into the unit. llan wanted badly to tell Bolander—who got into the sayeret based on his own heroics, but kept his mouth shut.

"I'm still waiting for personnel to approve me for the Marine course" complained Bolander.

"They are not going to let you go, Bo" said Ilan, continuing in English. "You're a U.S. citizen. They figure you'll get to the States and never come back."

"C'mon—I'm in Israel since I was nine! I'm as Israeli as you are- and a fucking hero to hoot."

Ilan nodded and laughed because Bolander really was a flicking hero, and everybody knew it. A couple of years before Bolander joined the sayeret, like many conscripts, he was pulling guard duty on the Lebanon border. One night, while working as a designated marksman in support of an outpost of lazy reservists, he spotted a Hezbollah kidnap squad preparing to launch an assault. That was as far as the Hezbollah got. He gunned down the entire five man squad before the terrorists, or the reservists, knew what had hit them. That performance Bolander into Matkal, despite the fact he was American born— but Ilan knew that they'd never send him to the Marine sniper school.

Bolander was about to continue the argument when Roskovsky came over. Of all the stuff being crammed into the capsule, his was treated the most gingerly. In his various packs were claymore mines, EFPs—explosively formed projectiles capable of destroying main battle tanks—chunks of plastique, transmitters, detonators and priming cords.

"Careful with that!" called Ilan playfully as a technician hoisted a sack firll of two kilo blocks of C-4. The man almost tripped and Roskovsky shot Ilan a dirty look. "Sorry bro" said Ilan in English again. Roskovsky, almost a head taller than the diminutive sniper, gave him a wink and walked away.

Ido's extra medical packs went in easily enough including the IDF's unique folding stretcher assembly. Israeli troops practiced evacuating casualties religiously, and carrying those loaded stretchers caused no end of pain during training marches.

The last extra weapon was also the unit's biggest, a B-300 rocket launcher. Yatom decided to take the B-300 instead of a more powerful anti-tank rocket or missile launcher because of its simplicity and versatility. Israel made the world's most sophisticated portable anti- tank missile, called the GiI —marketed as the Spike —but it was a large two man piece of equipment. The IDF also had a simplier one man rocket that was somewhat more advanced than the B-300 called the Shipon. But the Shipon was heavy and disposable, which meant to get three shots you had to carry three launchers—also too much for the capsule. The B-300 was small, light and reusable. A B-300 with three rounds was more manageable than either a Gil or Shipon — and plenty deadly. Israeli-made, it was used by the U.S. Marines where it was called the SMAW—for Shoulder-launched Multi-purpose Assault Weapon. It could knock out most tanks or fortifications depending on the round fired.

It took a good hour to properly stow all the gear, with Feldhandler's technicians firssing and measuring their work along the way. When they were done Yatom told Mofaz to round up the rest of the men and give them a tour of the loaded capsule, so every man knew where and how his gear had been stowed. Then Yatom set off towards the canteen for more coffee.

Before Yatom had taken three steps Feldhandler popped out from behind the capsule and waved at him. "I don't need this" thought the tired commando, but he walked over to the scientist like he was on the parade ground and clapped the smaller man hard on the shoulder.

"That capsule is crammed tighter virgin's twat" snapped Yatom, hoping to embarrass the diffident scientist and make him go away. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Tov!" said the scientist, ignoring the commando's profanity and the awkward metaphor. "If you and the men are up to it, I would like to run some more drills tomorrow."

”Beseder" said Yatom. "We're just scratching our dicks anyway." Feldhandler blanched and the colonel walked off.