“Keep your eyes on the north and northeast,” she whispered again. “That’s where we think the attack will come from.”
“Syria and Iraq?” I asked.
She only nodded.
The time display ticked off the seconds, and I noticed there wasn’t a sound in the room. Finally, when the clock displayed 24:00, I heard a collective intake of breath. But nothing happened that we could see. The seconds ticked by and I could hear whispered comments. “I told you so . . .” I heard someone say, and then Esther’s nails bit into my hand. “There!” she said, pointing at a tiny orange-red arrow rising from the desert north of Israel. Then another and another blossomed. At first each one appeared almost to stand still, but then they began to arc over and fly south. More arrows lifted off from the northeast.
“Holy shit,” someone exclaimed, “those bastards really did it. There must be over two dozen of them.”
“Probably Scud-D’s,” another voice speculated.
Now the flaming arrows were past Jerusalem and coursing over the Dead Sea. Someone had put a marker with a timer on Dimona, and it was evident even to my untrained eye that it was the target. This was like watching a disaster in slow motion: I didn’t want to watch yet I was mesmerized, unable to turn away.
Suddenly, new flashes appeared all around Dimona, and then there were new arrows of light rising into the air. Time seemed to a crawl and the oncoming arrows never wavered until I was sure that our antivirus had failed and the Patriots had missed. Then a large yellow blossom appeared in the night sky almost directly over Dimona, and almost immediately the darkness was filled with fiery flowers that glowed and then seemed to flutter away.
Then Esther flung her arms around me and was kissing me wildly. “You did it! You did it!” she cried. As I hugged her back I could hear cheering from the people in the room. Then a voice said, “Situation report from Dimona: one missile got through.” Esther jerked around and we both stared at the screen. “Missile was apparently knocked off course and hit south of town; only minor damage is being reported.” There were more cheers.
Suddenly I gasped for air and I realized I’d been holding my breath throughout the entire attack. But before I could say anything, the display showed a new series of launches, only these originated from within the State of Israel.
“What’s happening?” I asked in confusion, but when I looked over, Esther was staring intently. “Patriots are not the only missiles we have,” she said, never looking away from the screen. “Those are Delilahs, ground-launched cruise missiles carrying cluster munitions. Our radar will have tracked the path of every Scud and calculated the reciprocal course. Now we return fire.” She turned to me and her face had a wolfish look. “You didn’t think we would allow them to attack without retribution, did you?”
Even as I watched, the telltale lights were heading north and east. But this time, I realized, there were no Patriots to defend against the oncoming death. I did look away then.
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