נעם בלום / In Town |
1 April 19th. It's been three years. "Time just flies when you're having fun" David thought sarcastically. He couldn't even remember what it was like to have a life; what it was like to work, to hang out with his friends, to ride a bike, watch a movie, surf the web. He couldn't remember how to play his favorite song on the guitar, or what buttons caused a special killer move on his favorite video game. His entire mental process was geared towards one thing: survival. He used to think he couldn't live without a cell phone. He couldn't even trade one for food. He climbed to the roof of what used to be a large "McDonald's" branch in the center of Town. That was his special lookout sight. From there he could see most of the activity in Town. He could see troop movements or food deliveries. It gave him a good advantage. It helped him survive. To the east he could see all the way to what was once the old city, presently known as the Muslim sector. What was left of the gold dome glittered in the morning sun. To the south and to the west lay the ruins of the city. The battle left it mostly burnt and black. He wondered if he could spot his old house. No time for that now. There was troop activity alright. They were adding a new branch to the Town today. A new street was being annexed, and civil order was to be maintained. At all costs. "This is a pretty good lookout site" David thought proudly. He could see the soldiers clearly from here. Their blue uniforms and white helmets gleaming in the mid spring Mediterranean sun. He could even see the black letters on their helmets. He could hardly remember what 'UN' stood for... Soldier incursions into the Town were always a good chance to build strength: The resistance, better known as the FIDF, or Free Israel Defense Force, always managed to create enough of a commotion to acquire weapons and various military supplies. There was much talk about an impending counter strike against the Euros. He was approached a few times by the recruiting officers of the FIDF, some of whom were former IDF soldiers both enlisted and reserve, but he never considered himself a fighting man. At 24 he thought he was on the right track to a normal life when all this hell started. Now his life was lived from minute to minute, hour to hour, meal to meal, night to night. The square was secured from both ends by Hummers with machine gun turrets. A fence perimeter was set up and an officer with a loudspeaker was warning the crowd away. His feeble attempt at Hebrew made even the most fanatical protestors crack a smile. He made his way through the crowd to the front of the line. He could see that there were about ten soldiers guarding the perimeter fence. A couple were Italian, Some German, and a bunch of other flags; he always mixed up the French and Dutch ones. It didn't really matter; he couldn't speak French or Dutch. He watched as the brick laying vehicles were setting preliminary fences. Tomorrow they would bring in the prison laborers who would fortify them and make them permanent. This was a bad sign; it usually meant that more people would be shipped in. maybe from Be'er Sheeva in the south or Natanya in the north. There were even rumors of foreign Jews being shipped in from Europe. But those were probably just rumors. The Jerusalem Ghetto was the largest one in Israel. "The Town", as it was called, covered a large part of what had been central Jerusalem. It held close to a million Jews. It happened very quickly. It usually did. The Euro army did a good job of cleansing the ghettos of all ex-military personal with combat training. Good, but not perfect. Two grenades were tossed over the fence and snipers opened up on two sides of the street. Six of the soldiers were hit by one grenade. The other went wide and exploded near a wall, sending shrapnel and pieces of rock into the crowd. Panic ensued. The snipers took out one of the machine gunners but the other opened fire at one side, its 60mm caliber dual barrel machine gun ripping a hole in the building wall and sending the sniper crew five stories down to the square below. The second sniper crew changed position quickly and began to fire again. The ghetto alarm went off. David ran through the panicking crowd and hid inside a ruined building to keep watching the battle. A Molotov cocktail was thrown off a third roof and set the second Hummer ablaze. "Damn," He thought, "these guys are good." Then, suddenly, he saw his opportunity: the remaining soldiers were falling back to defensive positions until backup arrived. They left the supply truck and barricaded themselves behind one of the brick laying vehicles. He knew it took at least ten minutes for the reinforcement contingent to arrive in case of an insurrection. He waited until the Euros paused to reload and then he made his move: He dived out of the building he used for cover through the gaping hole in its wall, ran the 50 yards to the ruined perimeter fence and leapt over it. He ran as fast as he could, occasionally hiding behind a pile of rubble for cover and a chance to catch his breath. Finally he made the last sprint and jumped into the back of the truck. He worked quickly, gathering what he recognized and knew he needed. When he gathered all that he could carry, he paused and listened; the battle was still going strong. "Good," David thought, "the soldiers will have their hands full." He took a deep breath and dashed out of the van. But today, David ran out of luck. The Euros had anticipated an action and the reinforcements arrived quickly; he ran out of the truck and into the kill zone of the machine guns. He threw himself to the ground and rolled quickly to take cover behind an old burned down car. His mind worked fast. He could see that he was already quite close to a building on the opposite side of the square. He could make it. He waited for a pause in the gunfire and made a run for it. He was fifteen yards away. Ten yards. And then a riot guard hummer-mounted machine gun cut a swath across his back. The power of the shot burst sent him flying against the wall he was meaning to take cover behind. As he lay there dying, he couldn't help but find the comedy of it. After all, three years ago, he was a peace activist. He used to throw himself in front of bulldozers ruining the houses of suicide bombers. He would sabotage parts of the separation fence at night with his friends. He sat in a military prison for six months before being discharged from the army for being a 'pacifist'. Hell, a week before the war started he was protesting outside the prime minister's office with pictures of dead Arab babies. He realized then that death is the ultimate eye opener; it causes you to see the errors you've made, lays them out to you and laughs at your stupid choices, mocks you for the fool you've been, and welcomes you into its cold embrace. "Maybe there is a god," he thought as his world went black, slowly blocking out the sounds of the insurrection being depressed, "and maybe he's trying to tell his chosen people something..." "...wake up already." 2 Pierre was pissed. It just wasn't his day. He was supposed to be on leave, on a jet to France to see his family, but the annexing of a new street to the Town was rescheduled and the fear of an impending FIDF action caused all leaves to be canceled and all riot control teams to maintain high alert. "God damn Jewish bastards," he snarled under his breath, "They just can't take it sitting down, no, they just have to fight. Can't they see it's hopeless?" Pierre surveyed the scene through his mirrored glasses, from his perch in the machine gun turret of the Hummer he could see over the barracks walls and into the Town: as always, there was a silent vigil of protestors standing near the fence. By now they knew better than to cause a commotion. They didn't even carry signs anymore; they never knew when a slogan would be especially offensive to an officer. Officers from the rank of Captain and up had the executive right to hold instant field trails on counts of espionage, disturbance of the peace, and other forbidden criminal activities. And they usually looked the other way if an enlisted man took upon himself said responsibilities. Beyond the small crowd Pierre could see straight through avenue A of the north sector of the Town: building crammed together and built high up, boasting makeshift extension, hastily added to accommodate more residents, looking like diseased animals with tumors growing from them. It made him sick. "Serves those bastards right," he mused, "after all the pain and suffering they caused others, maybe if our great grandparents had done things right, we wouldn't be in this fucking mess, maybe I'd be back in Marseilles with my family. Maybe Europe wouldn't be crawling with Arabs if they could just come and live here; the Middle East: the cesspool of the world." Suddenly, a woman broke ranks and ran from the crowd toward the barracks gate. She was yelling something in her filthy sounding native tongue. The guard at the gate yelled at her in Polish and English to stay back, but she was still yelling hysterically. Then, a man came out of the crowd and got between the women and the guard. He was yelling in English at the guard, something about her baby being sick and needing immediate medical attention. The guard yelled at them to stand back and radioed the officer on call to come to the gate. Pierre couldn't understand why some of the soldiers gave these animals the time of day. The officer was a Major that Pierre recognized from the barracks; a tall, broad shouldered Brit. He spent a few minutes trying to understand what was going on and when he finally established a rapport with the man he asked that the child be brought to him. The man yelled something back at the crowd and two men came out carrying what, from Pierre's distance, looked like a pile of rags. The child was badly diseased, Pierre knew what would happen next and he smiled inwardly: The Major took one look at the child, drew his pistol, and shot him twice in the head. The crowd broke into screaming fits and most of them dispersed. The mother gave a yelp and fainted. The man who was with her just stood there dumbfounded as the Major spoke to him. Pierre knew what he was saying: the risk of infectious disease cannot be risked in the Town. The costs of treating an outbreak were much too high to spare. The Major finished talking, did an about face and was about to march back to the barracks when the Ghetto alarm went off. The ghetto alarm always reminded Pierre of old air raid sirens he heard in old war movies, only louder. Much louder. The Hummers radio crackled to life and Pierre heard the Town extension team give the mayday call, Looks like a large FIDF action was taking place, Heavy casualties, all riot contingents were to report to the scene ASAP. Pierre braced himself as the driver pushed down on the gas pedal and the hummer leapt out of the gate. He checked his ammo and cocked his double barrel machine gun to life and closed the visor on his tactical helmet: a marvelous addition to his unit which acted as a sight for his weapon, and provided real time information about targets. It made him a lethal killing machine. The Hummer raced through the Town's streets with its sirens blazing, many people were nearly run over, but orders stated that mayday calls were to be answered as soon as possible. No matter what. They arrived at the scene in less than five minutes and Pierre needed to asses the situation quickly: one of the hummers was on fire and the remainder of the squad was in a defensive position behind one of the brick layer vehicles. Pierre counted six uniformed bodies, or at least what was left of them, sprawled out across the square. The person who threw that grenade knew what he was doing. The barricaded soldiers were firing at two buildings on either side of the square, and sniper fire was hailing down on them. Almost immediately, fire opened up on Pierre's Hummer, and he acted with lightning speed, spinning around and ripping into one of the buildings. Three people fell to the ground with a crunching sound that Pierre never seemed to get sick of. He swung his turret back towards the center of the square, barrels smoking, when he saw a figure run out of the supply truck with his hands full of MRE's, and various other supplies. The soldiers opened fire on him, but he acted quickly, dodging behind the wreckage of an old car. Pierre hated the looters. Those bastards just wouldn't make do with what they were given would they? "Leave him alone," he said over the com channel, "he's mine." Pierre knew he was a smart one, but not smart enough. Pierre fired a burst at the car and then pretended to stop and reload and, as he expected, the kid came running out towards the wall. "Good night" Pierre said to himself and pressed down on the trigger, causing the gun to chamber 60mm rounds and fire them at nearly the speed of sound towards the looter. He took the burst in the in the back and flew the rest of the way straight into the wall. Pierre knew that he wasn't supposed to shoot looters. But hey, he was having a bad day: He was supposed to be on leave, and besides, who cares about some fucking Jewish looter? Pierre was so busy in self indulgence that he never saw the man with the rocket launcher standing on the roof of the building the looter just went crashing into. He heard the high pitched whistle and already knew that he was dead. The missile penetrated the Hummer through its bullet proof windshield and detonated, not before cutting the driver clean in half. The explosion ignited the Hummers fuel and the vehicle disintegrated, throwing Pierre a good thirty five feet across the square to land on his back. The fall broke most of his bones but he was alive enough to see the sniper on the roof opposite of him taking aim. "These fucking Jews," Pierre's dying thought was, "I'm supposed to be on leave..." He only saw the flash. He didn't even hear the gunshot that tore through his twisted brain. 3 The grenade was heavy in Dan's pocket. He made his way through the crowd that gathered along the perimeter fence. He pushed through to the front of the line and looked around. "Good," Dan thought, "the intelligence was correct." It sometimes filled Dan with hope that there were still Euros that knew right from wrong. He took out his lighter and lit a cigarette, making sure to catch the light with it and signal the rest of the team. Dan was nervous, he trusted his instincts completely, but there were some virgins on this one, and training them was getting to be quite hard. Dan took a few deep breaths and got himself in the right state of mind, his military training kicking in. He was combat trained alright, but his unit was so secret he was written down as a desk clerk in some base in Tel-Aviv, so when the military filtration began, he fell between the cracks. The officer on the loudspeaker was speaking in unintelligible Hebrew. "Geez," Dan thought, "they could at least pick one with decent language skills." But he knew that they didn't bother, they didn't care enough, in their eyes, worst case scenario is that they'll have to blow someone away as a result of a misunderstanding. It made Dan mad. He made a mental note to look up that officer in his gun sight later. Dan waited until the brick laying vehicle had to make a second pass to make his move; they tended to make a lot of noise and dust during a turnaround. He spotted his teammate in the crowd. A virgin. "Great," Dan said to himself, "I just hope he doesn't fuck this up..." The turnaround. The signal. Dan's grenade is good and takes out a handful of Euros, but the virgins goes wide and explodes near a wall. "Good enough" thinks Dan, as he runs to his second position, "the more chaos the better..." As Dan is rushing up the stairs he can hear the gunfire and as he reaches second position, the ghetto alarm goes off. "Shit," Dan yells, "Way too soon." He knows the riot crews are on alert and should be there soon. On the roof Dan finds his Molotov cocktail, lights it up, and tosses it down on the Hummer directly below him, the erupting fireball flashes heat all the way up to his position. No time to think, switch positions again. The dense formation of the buildings in the Town makes it easy to go from roof to roof and in twenty seconds Dan is at position three, picking up his rifle and looking for targets. Primarily that damn officer. He finds him. He's dead. Sirens. The riot crews are arriving. He has to cut his stay at position three short. He has a minute of running to get to position four. He throws down his rifle and sets off. He hopes the cleanup crew will do a good job getting rid of the weapons. Fingerprinting these days is a bitch. While Dan is sprinting on the rooftops he once again thanks god the choppers aren't allowed over the Town anymore, he is personally responsible for that order. It makes him proud. He can remember the choppers falling out of the air like a swarm of flies being sprayed with bug repellent. That was a good day. One they won't soon forget. Dan reaches position four and reassesses the situation: one Hummer burning, the other one immobilized, and the remaining team hidden behind the brick layer. "Good," he thinks, "I don't have to waste it on them; they're easy targets for the sniper crew." And then he sees sniper crew one on the square floor. He flinches, but only for a moment. "Can't get distracted now," he reminds himself. He ducks down to load the rocket launcher when he hears the distinct tearing sound of the 60mm machine gun; he looks over the side in time to see sniper crew two on the ground, taken out by a third Hummer on scene. "Bastards," Dan whispers under his breath, "that gunner is dead." Just then a man jumps out the back of the Euros' supply truck, hands full. "Damn looters, instead of helping us they just get in the way." Dan thinks the looter looks vaguely familiar. The machine gunner spots him as he ducks behind a wrecked car. Dan can see this gunner is toying with him and it just makes the anticipation of killing him greater. The looter thinks he outsmarted the soldiers and makes a dash for the building Dan in standing on top of, but the gunner's ready for him; a quick burst sends him flying against it's wall. Dead. "What a pointless death," Dan thinks as he's taking aim at the gunner, "to go out like a pathetic thief instead of a proud soldier." Dan pulls the trigger, but distraction gets the best of him and the launch sends him sprawling on his back. He can tell he got them though. By the sound. By the smell. No time to think, Dan jumps up and runs back towards position three, ignoring the sirens and sounds of screaming. He gets there in fifty seconds flat, "A new personal record," he thinks with a smile. Gun in hand, he again surveys the scene through his sight; the third Hummer's gunner is across the way on his back, dying. Dan gives him a nice, hollow point kiss goodnight and looks for more targets. Then, he hears the blades. The choppers are back in the Town. Dan acts on instinct; he drops his gun and runs like a maniac, away from high ground. But the nearest roof exit is too far away, and the chopper gains on him. The miniguns on the Euro choppers fire so quickly they make one continuous sound, like a high pitch humming. Dan can hear that humming, and it's coming closer. He has prepared for the scenario. He just hopes the chopper is close enough. Dan thinks of the repercussions against his fellow FIDF comrades. He hopes they'll be okay. He thinks of his wife. He says one final prayer. He detonates his bomb. The chopper explodes and crashes into the fourth Hummer on its way. All in all taking out fifteen Euro soldiers... ...it was barely mentioned in European newspapers the following day... |
היצירה לעיל הנה בדיונית וכל קשר בינה ובין המציאות הנו מקרי בהחלט. אין צוות האתר ו/או הנהלת האתר אחראים לנזק, אבדן, אי נוחות, עגמת נפש וכיו''ב תוצאות, ישירות או עקיפות, שייגרמו לך או לכל צד שלישי בשל מסרים שיפורסמו ביצירות, שהנם באחריות היוצר בלבד. |
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