The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (best thriller books to read .TXT) 📕

a large pool to pick from, isn’t there? the deputy director chuckled.

Yes, Tamir said. But if we assume, for now, that the thing about the engines is the story we already know of…

Which is completely uncertain at this point, the deputy director emphasized.

Right, Tamir concurred, and still, if that’s the case, then who is Muhammad?

You’d have expected them to say Ahmed, right? Ahmed Jibril.

What’s the thing that ties the Iranians to Lebanon? Tamir thought aloud.

The Revolutionary Guard.

Right… And Hezbollah. Mohammad… Mohammad! Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.

I’ll be… the deputy director mumbled. But, he quickly added, that is still begging the question.

Right, Tamir agreed, surprised to hear philosophical terminology employed by a veteran army man such as the deputy director.

Well, even if we assume that the Iranians are collaborating with the seaborne unit, the deputy director said, then who are the gnats? How did gnats come into this story all of a sudden?

I’d say they are probably some sort of airborne factors, Tamir replied. Do you remember that thing Raspberry said, about a collaboration between brothers? We thought it might have referred to Jibril’s two sons— the commanders of the airborne and seaborne units. We don’t know how credible that report is, but…

I see. Do you know of any previous collaboration between them?

No.

In short, we still don’t know what the hell is going on. And what do you make of Big Mother?

A bigger ship? Iranian?

You mean a link-up? A joint Iranian-Palestinian attack? The Iranians attacking Israel from the sea? With what, missiles? That sounds a bit far-fetched, even for them. That would mean all-out war. What do they need a war with Israel now, after the Iran-Iraq War? They’re still licking their wounds. It doesn’t stand to reason.

No, Tamir admitted. He rarely raised his nose up from the scattering about of Palestinian and Shi‘ite organizations in Lebanon, and was new to such sweeping strategic reasoning.

So, we don’t get it, the deputy director repeated. Anyway, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. Okay, we’ll issue another notice of priority for intelligence and a general warning about the possibility of Iranian activity in the area with an emphasis on support of a Palestinian organization, specifically Front/Jibril. All in all, not much progress from where we were before, eh?

Tamir remained silent.

Binder!

Yes.

Stay on your toes, eh?

Yes.

We don’t want this thing blowing up in our faces.

No.

Okay, if any idea pops into your head, don’t be a stranger.

Tamir put down the red receiver and stared at the jittery letters he had scribbled down on the sheet of paper. He asked himself if he should report this to Moti. If he reports this, it’ll probably score him some loyalty points. On the other hand, if Moti’s supposed to know, he’ll know. That’s none of Tamir’s business. Why should he pass on a report from Brass Serpent that he received in confidence?

You seem perturbed, Ilay remarked.

Yes, it’s just thoughts cluttered in my head, that’s all.

Try to think about it like a Buddhist, Ilay said. All these clutters revolve around the ego. But what is the ego, really? An illusion, a fictitious construction.

And what’s all this around us? Tamir gestured indignantly to the halls sprawling around them, to the building, to the base— what’s all this? What exactly are we protecting here? The homeland? Where exactly is this homeland? Isn’t that a fictitious construction?

Could be, Ilay replied unmoved, but keep it down. You don’t want Moti to hear you talking like that. He’s already certain that we’re just a bunch of disloyal leftists as it is.

k. A Kite Aflame

Yes? Tamir answered the phone.

Hi, uh… I was put through to you…

Who is this?

Meital Schuster from Hatzav.

Hatzav? Tamir wondered.

Yes, open-source intelligence…

I know what Hatzav is.

We received a notice of priority for intelligence about a matter concerning aircrafts and watercrafts in regards to Palestinian and Lebanese factors?

Yes, Tamir said, remembering that he had asked that the notice of priority for intelligence be applied to open-source intelligence as well.

So, I’m not sure this will be of interest to you, Meital from Hatzav continued, but there was a poem published in the literature section of the Lebanese newspaper Al-Hadaf.

A poem?

Yes, a poem. Is that irrelevant?

No, it might be relevant, Tamir replied, remembering what Haim Gouri once said about a conversation he had had with the Egyptian intellectual Dr. Hussein Fawzi. Fawzi had told him that the biggest mistake Israeli intelligence made after the Six Day War was not reading poetry written by the other side. If you had read our poetry, he said, you wouldn’t have been taken by surprise during the Yom Kippur War.

It’s a poem about a kite, Meital Schuster said, but the word tayyara, means both kite and…

Airplane, Tamir finished her sentence.

Right, that’s why I thought it might be interesting. Is there any way I can send it directly to you, or should I send it out to the usual distribution list?

No, fax it to me, he said, and gave her his fax number.

Alright. How’s your literary Arabic?

Not bad.

You guys at army intelligence usually aren’t great at it.

I actually wanted to serve in Hatzav.

Really?

Yeah. It seemed like a very relaxed place to be.

Do you regret not having come here?

Uh… I don’t know. I’m not sure.

I believe that the most important thing is trying to take the positives out of whatever situation we are in, and not get hung up on what-ifs, Meital Schuster phrased a sentence which sounded to Tamir like she had read it in her weekly horoscope, but nevertheless rang momentarily in his ears as insightful.

About a minute later, the fax machine beeped and printed out the excerpt from the literary section of Al-Hadaf. Tamir read the poem and wrote the translation down on a piece of continuous form paper he tore from the fax machine, trying to overcome the shaking that gripped his hand as soon as he saw the author’s penname:

al-Darija

A Kite Aflame

When I was a little girl, I used to love kites.

The breeze from the sea was meager, they could hardly take flight

and when I ran