We step outside into an atmosphere only a few degrees shy of combustion. I actually stop. I can’t believe how hot it is.

Dana, who seems to take the furnace blast in stride, is telling Manning that she realizes he and I are jet-lagged. She advises us strongly to remain awake till our normal bedtimes. We’ll adjust faster that way. Priority one from this moment, Dana says, is hydration. She will be monitoring us and enforcing compliance.

DANA

Carry a minimum of two quarts at all times. If you must choose between a weapon and water, take water.

Our Humvees wait at the curb under the guard of four other paratroopers. The vehicles are dun-colored, desert-camouflaged. All three are armored and topped by turrets mounting .50-caliber machine guns.

A male sergeant standing by one of the Humvees holds up the vehicle’s radio handset and calls something to Dana in Hebrew.

Ben-David is on the line for Manning.

Manning takes the phone.

Ben-David apologizes for being unable to meet Manning at the airport in person. He promises to make up for it. He tells Manning he has ordered Dana to stop en route at an IDF armory.

BEN-DAVID

It’s a candy store. Take anything you want.

Exiting passengers flow past our little convoy, heading for taxis, Ubers, and shuttles. I can’t stop my eyes from searching every face and shadow.

Manning catches me.

MANNING

He’s here. I feel him.

27

ZOMBIE KILLERS

ON THE WAY TO EIN GEDI, we stop as promised at an IDF armory at a satellite base in a suburb called Ramat Gan. The site is a converted high school. Israeli-made Merkava battle tanks are parked in rows under camo covers on what used to be the soccer field. The tanks are not for war, Dana says, but to control migrant clashes and civilian water riots.

The armory itself, the locked and guarded weapons repository, is down two flights in a bombproof bunker.

We prowl, watched over by military police, through locked-down rows of assault rifles, heavy and light machine guns, even vehicle-mountable anti-tank and antiaircraft systems.

Manning inquires of Dana what Ben-David has told her of our weapons requirements.

DANA

He said to equip you for fighting in tunnels.

The armory commander appears. He’s a stocky fellow, about thirty, with a shaved skull topped by a knit kippah, a skullcap, that he somehow manages to keep in place even when he bends over. He greets Manning with a handshake and me with a curt bow.

ARMORY COMMANDER

You were not here. You saw nothing.

The commander leads Manning and me behind a security partition and down an additional flight of stairs. We pass through another secure door and cross another floor stacked with weaponry.