It felt like he was a kid and the sun was going down to start the first day of Hanukkah. He had to force himself to keep from jogging to CARL. Why do I want this so much? Of course, there’s the competition, which is awesome. Gives me a chance to prove I belong among this elite group. But it’s more than that. This big play of finally taking out Iran’s nuclear program? I’ve been harping on it for years. I can’t just sit idly by and watch it get done. I need to be part of this.

As he approached CARL, he spotted multicolored streamers fluttering over the open door, creating a crepe paper curtain. He groaned.

Another birthday. Why today of all days?

Inside, the analysts were all sitting around the conference table, each wearing a pointy paper party hat. Except for Dafna, who reigned resplendent with a plastic silver birthday crown. A large, decorated sheet cake sat in the center of the table, and at his place, a party hat waited for him.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” He slid the offensive headgear aside as he plopped into his chair.

“Told you,” Liora whispered to everyone, then began to quietly sing. “Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you…”

Nir had no time for this stupidity. And he was about to shut the party down when he remembered who this band of misfits were and how they operated. This team comprised cut-ups and cast-offs. They didn’t fit the Mossad mold, but they were too good at what they did for the higher-ups to let them go. So they were assigned to him, and somehow he’d pieced them together so they were the best team of analysts in the building. But he had to let them be them.

He began singing a different song. “Ha’yom yom huledet, Ha’yom yom huledet, Ha’yom yom huledet le Dafna…”

After the first two words, the whole team joined in the birthday song. Across the table, Nicole was looking right at him with a big smile. Apparently, he’d made the right choice. He hoped that smile also meant everything was okay between the two of them. They sang the verse, then the bridge, then the verse again, ending with a loud “Hey!”

“But I’m still not doing the hat,” Nir said.

“Sababa,” said an ecstatic Dafna as she stood to cut the cake. “It would look weird on that bizarre hair tuft you have growing on top of your head.”

He’d begun to grow accustomed to his marine cut. “I like my hair tuft.”

“Okay, Boomer,” Liora said.

“Don’t start with the Boomer stuff again. It makes no sense.”

“It’s shtuyot bamitz—nonsense in juice,” Nicole announced with great flourish, and everyone cheered her Hebrew.

They laughed and joked for the next 15 minutes while they ate cake and drank sodas.