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Nissim as lookouts. Kobi and I began digging a trench. The top layer of sand
was easy to remove. But then, just a few inches down, our shovels struck
something hard. Maybe it was a sheet of rock. Maybe sand packed tight over the
millennia. But it resisted all our attempts to break through.

We had to find a way to get far enough beneath the surface to install the
equipment. I called back Oded and Nissim from lookout duty. All four of us
attacked the subsoil with every tool in our backpacks that could conceivably
help. It took nearly three hours in all. But we finally managed to carve out a
trench that seemed as if it might just do the job. It wasn’t as deep or as wide as
we’d planned. But we were approaching a point where we would have to give
up. We couldn’t risk any more time digging, and still leave time to attach the
intercept unit, cover our tracks and make the rendezvous with the helicopter to
take us back into Israel.

Achihud and Nissim cramped themselves into the hole and got to work, like
surgeons in an operating theater, silent except for the faint hum of the intercept
equipment. Within a little less than an hour, they’d finished the main part of the
work. During our training exercises, we’d factored in a fall-back plan, a way of
ensuring we got the unit installed but without additional equipment to extend its
battery life. Since we were still behind schedule, I was tempted to stop while we
were ahead. But having come this far, and knowing the potential risks of a
further mission to refresh the power unit and replace the batteries, I told them to
keep going, and also to take the extra few minutes needed to make sure the
equipment was functioning.

We had to be out of Egypt by first light, and we were now left with more
than an hour’s less time than we had reckoned on to make it back to the
rendezvous point. There was another problem, too, which I at first sensed more
than saw. A bank of fog was closing in. It had come in patches at first, but was
getting denser. We had the same radio we had taken on to the Golan. We’d
worked out codewords for each part of the operation but otherwise agreed to
break silence only if absolutely necessary. Now, I had no choice. If the fog
continued to thicken, it would block any chance of the helicopter getting in. I
radioed the command post and said as calmly as I could: “The milk is coming.”
It wasn’t elegant. But “milk” was our codeword for fog. The chopper would
now try to bring us out within 30 minutes.

Moving more quickly now that the cart was nearly empty, we made our way
eastward. As conditions worsened, I radioed again with a short series of
numbers: directions for a new pickup point. Even that seemed like it might not

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