March 25, 1998, 4 a.m., Southern Lebanon, by the Litani River
Ben Abraham's Merkava Tank was parked at the edge of a charred olive grove, with something still hanging on the tracks from last night's passage—black and indistinguishable, whether soil or something else.
He didn't go down to check.
"Brigade commander, the scouts are back." The voice of the adjutant crackled in the headset, with that distinctive hoarseness from three days of battle, "Two kilometers ahead, Hiam Town. The ZZD people are transporting things into the town, looks like rockets."
Ben Abraham said nothing. He raised his night-vision binoculars, looking north through the gray morning fog.
The silhouette of Hiam Town slowly emerged from the darkness: a few bombed-out buildings, a mosque with its minaret still standing, and the moving black shadows outside the town.
At least two hundred people.
