TC04

TC045: From her collective farm at Yad Mordechai it took a scant half hour for  Judith Margolies  to reach  the home  of retired major general Ariel Sharon. His ranch was just east of Sderot, the nearest Israeli  town of  any  size. Judith was driven  by Colonel Yehoshua  Saguy, the  chief intelligence officer  of the 143rd Reserve Armored Division. He was the first stepping stone in a bridge Judith hoped would lead to the  Prime Minister. She had exhausted every other avenue and approached desperation.

TC046: Neither Judith nor Saguy  were in uniform, as  they were not in a duty status, but the country verged on catastrophe and they both knew it. Their Class B field uniforms were folded away in duffle bags stored  in the  boot of  the colonel's  car. The colonel was in casual  attire but  Judith chose  not to  wear a long-sleeved  mini-dress  of  the sort  she  normally  affected. Instead she was dressed to properly meet a married military man who was her superior in rank and her own age in calendar time.

TC047: The Sycamore  Ranch had  the olfactory  ambiance of  any sheep farm, but Judith did not even crinkle her nose. After all, there was  livestock at  Yad  Mordechai  too. The general  was expecting them. He was sitting on his porch sharing tea with his wife Lily when  Yehoshua drove  up, and  he rose  to greet  his visitors. Despite their non-duty status  both the  colonel and lieutenant colonel Margolies saluted the general out of respect, then Yehoshua drew near to shake his superior officer's hand.

TC048: Sharon said, "Yeshi, you brought arm candy with you, and you never spoke of her!"

"It is nothing like that, sir," the colonel said with a slightly embarrassed grin. "This is Sgan aluf Judith  Margolies and what she has to tell you and show you is the reason we have come."

Judith bowed her head to affirm what the colonel said.

Lily Sharon came down from the  porch to join her  husband, who said, "I have seen photos but I assumed they  were from the '56 War. How youthful you still are!"

TC049: "You know how it is, sir, with time travel."

Judith said it with a completely straight face, and  just for a moment Sharon believed  her. Then he decided it was a delicious joke and broke into his characteristic laugh. There would come a day when she couldn't make that joke even if she tried.

"Lily," he told  his wife,  "we  are to  entertain a  celebrity today." Such was Judith's fame as an academic, a soldier, and a Nazi  hunter that  Lily could  only remain  silent and  stare in genuine awe.

TC050: More soberly now, Sharon said, "Whatever you have come to tell me is for the ears of Lily also. If not, then you might as well leave now."

Yehoshua assured him,  "Sir, nothing  we have  is from  Israeli intelligence,  because  Israeli   intelligence  has  practically nothing. That, in fact, is precisely the problem."

Judith hefted the briefcase she  was carrying. "If we could go indoors, sir?"

In the general's spacious home Judith saw a  large dining table under an ornate chandelier. Perfect.

TC051: With the  general's permission  Judith began  laying out documents. As she did  this, Sharon, his  wife, and  Col. Saguy seated themselves. Judith began to speak while she worked.

"I think, general, that despite the fact that you were born here and I came from Britain, we are very much alike. We are patriots who have fought hard for the continued existence  of our little country, and we  both have voiced the opinion that  lately it is led by idiots."

She did not even offer a wry grin at that.

TC052: "Within twenty-four hours you, I, and Colonel Saguy will be in field dress and the country will be at war."

Judith paused to take in the reaction of the general to that. He seemed to be as startled as Saguy had been.

"Aman has nothing like this, sir, because the Egyptians have put the canal under a SAM umbrella that makes aerial reconnaissance quite  perilous, and  besides, the  belief that  Egypt will  not attack  has taken  on the  dimensions of  religious dogma  among Israeli intelligence.

TC053: "There what is the source of this information?"

"The B'nei Elohim Historical Institute, sir."

"The ones with the crazy white horns? They are religious nutters themselves."

"Nutters, sir, perhaps, but they grounded most  of the Egyptian air force on the first day of the Six Days."

Sharon saw the photographs were mostly white with the Suez Canal running through them as a gray band. And there were tiny black shapes that he immediately recognized, Soviet-supplied T-55 main battle tanks.

TC054: To the untrained eye the photographs  resembled a sketch done in  ink by  an  atavistic  child,  but Sharon  knew  every kilometer of the Suez Canal. They were clearly genuine.

Colonel Saguy said,  "We counted  thirteen hundred  tanks, sir, T-55s, some T-62s,  all nearly flush on the western  bank of the canal. That  is far  more than they've  ever brought  forward in exercises before, even last May."

"Thirteen hundred? That's their reserves as well. But I've never seen photographs quite like this."

TC055: Judith supplied an answer. "It's a negative of a thermal image taken from  a B'nei  Elohim aerial  platform that...well, sir, it would not do for it  to be seen by day. These images are from two nights ago.  No one in Zahal cares to  have a look, but the entire  Egyptian Second  Army is sitting  on the  canal from Qantara  to  Deversoir,  and  the  entire  Egyptian  Third  Army likewise  is parked  from Suez  City north  to the  Great Bitter Lake."

Sharon knew there were no roads to Israel north of Qantara.

TC056: Certainly our  own  high-altitude reconnaissance  planes would have seen something," the general said.

No sir," said Judith. "Everything is  under camouflage netting, so you can only catch them  after dusk with infrared,  and when you use thermal  you need  to fly  under a  thousand meters  to resolve the  gun barrels. They've been getting all  this ready since August. But Eli Zeira preaches that Egypt isn't confident about going to war and Sadat is doing everything in his power to feed that belief."

TC057: "How will they breach the sand berm we've piled up along the east side of the canal?"

"With four  hundred fifty  water  cannons,  sir," said  Judith, "powered by  petrol and  drawing  water  from the  canal.  Then they'll deploy ferries and throw over pontoons. The B'nei Elohim say the Egyptians will start at  1400 tomorrow and have at least five bridgeheads punched through the berm by dusk. They'll bring SA-6 and 7 air cover across  the canal with them, not to mention self-propelled triple A."

TC058: "I believe her," Saguy said. "This is no exercise. When the Egyptians break  through our poor fellows  garrisoned on the Bar-Lev Line will be taken from behind."

Sharon asked, "Why  do your  religious kooks  think Sadat  will start a war he knows he cannot win?"

"My kooks say Sadat needs this war just to  stay in power. They say the Six Days was so humiliating even losing another war will be acceptable  if he can win  back a little piece  of the Sinai, maybe enough to open the canal again."

TC059 Sharon said, "If Sadat and Assad are tempted to cross the borders of the country things are  different now than in the Six Days. Golda Meir  could send Cairo and Damascus up  in clouds of radioactive smoke."

Judith said, "Yes sir, and the Soviets would retaliate by taking out Tel Aviv and  Haifa. The  Americans would  count themselves lucky things  ended there. But  it would  be like the  Shoah all over again, for us."

In the silence that followed the general's wife blurted, "Never again!"

TC060: In the silence that followed the general's wife blurted, "Never again!"

Sharon was on the verge of a decision. He said, "Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. The National Religious Party  in the Knesset  who would never assent to a mobilization on our highest holy day."

Judith replied, "Tomorrow is also Ramadan, sir, a high holy day for Egypt. Sadat is apparently willing  to set it aside to start a conflict.  The only question is  do we take our  own religious principles to be a suicide pact?"

TC061: Ariel Sharon's face grew stern, as though he had switched from a retirement mindset to his  old ways as a  commander with the flick of a switch. He said, "I am calling you both to duty status as of this moment, on my own authority. Are your uniforms on hand?"

"Yes sir," they both said together,.

"Take this intel to Major General Gonen at  Southern Command in Be'er Sheva. By  the time you arrive I will  have already spoken to him by phone." He looked directly at Judith and continued.

TC062: "You have proceeded correctly to go from Yehoshua to me. By hook  or by  crook I will  persuade Gonen to  send you  on to General Elazar. At best we can  get a preemptive strike on Syria and Egypt overnight. The next best would be a general call-up of reservists at dawn  tomorrow, which would give us half  a day to get ready. At worst, someone in the chain from Gorodish to Golda will put  your photos in  the round file.  But you have  to try, because as my wife just said, 'Never again!'"