Vengeance is a true story that reads like a novel. It is the
account of five ordinary Israelis, selected to vanish into "the cold" of
espionage secrecy -- their mission to hunt down and kill the PLO
terrorists responsible for the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at
the Munich Olympics in 1972.
This is the account of that secret
mission, as related by the leader of the group -- the first Mossad agent
to come out of "deep cover" and tell the story of a heroic endeavor
that was shrouded in silence and speculation for years. He reveals the
long and dangerous operation whose success was bought at a terrible cost
to the idealistic volunteer agents themselves.
"Avner" was the
leader of that team, handpicked by Golda Meir to avenge the monstrous
crime of Munich. He and his young companions, cut off from any direct
contact with Israel, set out systematically to find and kill the central
figures of the PLO's Munich operation, tracking them down wherever they
lived.
The mechanics, the horror, the day-by-day suspense of what
they did surpass by far anything John le Carre or Robert Ludlum could
imagine, as they themselves were tracked in turn (and some killed) by
PLO assassins, changing identities constantly, moving from country to
country, devoting their young lives to the brutal task of vengeance.
Vengeance
is a profoundly human document, a real-life espionage classic that
plunges the reader into the shadow world of terrorism and political
murder. But it goes far beyond that, to explore firsthand the feelings
of disgust and doubt that gradually came to torment each member of the
Israeli team, and that in the end inexorably changed their view of the
mission -- and themselves.
Vengeance opens a window onto a
secret world, a book that at the same time inspires and horrifies. For
its subject is an act of revenge that goes to the very heart of the
ancient biblical questions of good and evil.
