To The Stars

Ben-Haim watched quietly as, one by one, the engines of the massive planes burst into rumbling life. Exhausts spat tongues of flame that quickly died away as their throttles were adjusted. The first craft was already moving, picking up speed, faster and faster until it hurled itself into the air. The others were just seconds behind. Both runways were in use; a steady flow of rushing dark shapes that suddenly ended. The thunder of their engines diminished, died, and silence returned. Ben-Haim’s pipe was dead; he tapped it against his heel to knock out the ashes. He felt neither sorrow nor elation, just a great weariness after the days of preparation and tension. It was done, the die cast, no changes were possible now. He turned to the car.

“All right. We can go home now.

Out of sight in the sky above, the flight of planes circled out over the ocean as they gained height; the airspace over Israel was too small for such a maneuver. There was no concern about radar detection here, but there were settlements and towns in the adjoining countries where people might hear and wonder what all the planes were doing up there in the night sky. When they crossed Israel again they were over six miles high, their engines inaudible on the ground below. In a formation of two stepped vees they turned southeast, flying down the length of the Red Sea.

Grigor looked out of the window of the plane and made tsk-tsk sounds with his tongue.

“Dvora,” he said, “what I see is not strictly kosher.”

“A drove of pigs?”

“Not even with my eyesight from this altitude.”

Grigor was a mathematician, very absentminded, possibly the worst soldier in Dvora’s squad. But he was a sharpshooter who never missed his target no matter what the pressure; an asset to be relied upon. “It’s where we are going. We’re supposed to be attacking Spaceconcent in the western United States — I know, don’t get excited. A big secret with the name removed from all the maps. A child could tell. Anyway, the North Star was very clear back there when we turned. So now we are going south so I wondered, something not quite kosher. Or these planes maybe have big fuel tanks to get to America by flying over the South Pole?”

“We are not taking the most direct route.”

“You can say that again, Dvorkila,” Vasil, the heavy weapons gunner, said.

They were leaning toward her from the seats in front and in back, listening.

“No secrets now,” another soldier said. “Who can we talk to about it?”

“I can tell you about this part of our course,” she said. “But no more until after we refuel. We are going south now, staying over the sea, but we’ll be turning west very soon over the Nubian desert. There is — or rather there was — a radar station in Khartoum — but that has been taken care of. It was the only one we had to worry about since there is not another one all the way across Africa, not until we get to Morocco…” Her voice died away,

“And then?” Grigor urged. “Something maybe to do with the big black cross I found on the side of this plane when I helped to tear the paper off it earlier tonight. Sailing under false colors like pirates?”

“It’s top secret…”

“Dvora, please!”

“You’re right, of course. It can’t do any harm now. We have, what you might call, agents placed high up in the UN government.” Or maybe they have us, she thought to herself. No doubts now. Even if this was a trap they had to go ahead with it, right to the bloody end. “So we know that German troops are being sent to help hold the space center in Mojave. We have their identification and their markings on our planes. We intend to take their place.”

“Not so easily done,” Grigor said. “I assume that there are other things that you are not telling us…”

“Yes. But I can add just one thing more. We are flying just one. hour ahead of the German planes. That’s why the delay on the takeoff. Exact timing is very important, since once we’re airborne we’re out of touch with the ground. From now on everything happens by schedule. So take some rest while you can.”

The dark map of Africa moved past slowly and steadily beneath them. Most of the men slept in the blacked-out planes, only the pilots were alertly awake and watching their instruments, monitoring the operation of the automatic pilots. General Blonstein, a qualified flyer himself, was in the pilot’s seat of the lead plane. From this height he could make out clearly the darkness of the Atlantic Ocean, coming into view beyond the pale deserts of Morocco. The receiver rustled.

“Rabat tower to Air Force flight four seven five. Do you read me?”

“Air Force flight four seven five. I read you, Rabat tower.”

The radio contact was just a formality, The ground station had already activated the transponder in every craft, completely automatically, which had returned all the recorded data including identification, route and destination.