Backing out of bed, Dixon carefully negotiated the unfamiliar terrain of Jan's bedroom. As he was picking his way through the jumbled heap of clothes, sorting his from hers, he thought that he should feel at least a twinge of guilt or remorse for having slept with another woman. But he didn't. Perhaps, he thought, as he pulled his pants on, that comes later, in the light of day. Whether it came or not, however, didn't matter anymore. Standing at the bedroom door before leaving, Dixon looked at Jan one more time. He had enjoyed every minute of it and had no doubt that, given the offer again, he'd return.
Chapter 9
Hit hard, hit first, hit often.
"Come, come. You must come. Now."
Neboatov rolled over and tried to see who had woken him. But there were no lights on in the cramped bunker. Even though the Libyan was within arms distance, Neboatov couldn't even see the form of the man who had awakened him. But he could smell him. Until that day Neboatov had believed that no living creature on earth could smell worse than an Ethiopian soldier. The Libyans proved him wrong. Though he had never been close to a camel, Neboatov suspected he now knew what one smelled like.
His unseen comrade shook him again. "Come. You must come."
Pulling his arm from the Libyan, Neboatov grunted, "Yes, yes, I'll come," in Russian. Though not understanding, the Libyan let go of Neboatov's arm, scooted back, and said something in Arabic. Blindly Neboatov groped about, searching for his boots and field jacket. Still groggy from his odyssey from Ethiopia and less than three hours of sleep, he struggled to dress in the darkness. Once ready, he called out in English, "We go."
Again the Libyan called out, "Come, come."
Neboatov began to stand upright, forgetting that the bunker he was in was half a meter lower than he was tall. He hit his head on a crossbeam, resulting in a spectacular show of stars, followed by a stream of cursing in Russian. His guide, now visible in the entrance to the bunker, stopped, turned, and called something back in Arabic. Rubbing his head, Neboatov thought that the Libyan was no doubt warning him about the low ceiling. The Libyan waited at the entrance until Neboatov signaled that he was ready to continue.
Once out of the bunker and in the communications trench, Neboatov paused to see which way the Libyan had gone. He heard the crunching of sand under boots to his left and turned in that direction. As he moved along the trench, he was painfully reminded of the fact that he had only a vague idea of where he was and how this position was laid out. He had arrived only eight hours before, and he had spent all but one of them in either the command bunker or the bunker where he had slept. Though he had studied the diagrams of the old fort and the defensive positions that had been hastily dug in and about it, they followed no pattern and made little sense. That was what he was there for. His task was to advise a Libyan Revolutionary Guard infantry battalion and get the defenses of the old fort at Al Haria in order.
Upon reaching the command bunker, his guide stopped, opened a canvas cloth that covered the entrance to the bunker, and stepped aside to allow Neboatov to enter. The light of the command bunker blinded him. Instinctively Neboatov reached out with both hands and felt for the walls to either side of the entrance. Using them as a guide, he carefully felt his way forward and down with his feet, stepping down slowly every time he found a step. Even the steps were irregular, following no pattern. How, Neboatov thought, could he be expected to organize a proper defense with a unit that couldn't even build a set of simple steps?
By the time he had reached the bottom step, his eyes had readjusted to the light. In the dimly lit command bunker, he could see the commander of the battalion he was assigned to and several of the battalion's staff officers huddled about a small map pinned to the far wall of the bunker. Off to one comer was a young Soviet captain sitting next to a radio. There were three Soviet officers and two enlisted men with this battalion: Neboatov, two captains, and two radio men who also doubled as drivers. One captain and a radio man were awake at all times, manning the radio that was their link to the Soviet advisor group at the next-higher headquarters and monitoring what was going on. The Libyans did not like the idea of having foreigners in their headquarters, especially nonbelievers. They liked it even less since they had an independent radio net that they, the Libyans, did not control. Though it was standard Soviet practice to do so, it did little to diminish suspicions and promote trust.
Neboatov glanced over to the captain with a questioning look on his face. The captain responded to his major by shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head from side to side, indicating he had no idea what was going on. Unnoticed by the Libyans gathered arotind the map, Neboatov moved up to the rear of the group and stood there. He watched as one of the officers, holding a phone in his left hand up to his ear, marked several arrows on the map with a grease pencil he held in his right hand. The arrows, in red, were along the Libyan-Egyptian border and pointed west. He was obviously receiving a report from observation posts or recon units on the border.
The battalion commander, a skinny colonel named Efrat, with narrow, suspicious eyes, noticed Neboatov. In English, the only language that the two of them had in common, Efrat called out, "It has started. Egyptian recon units have crossed the border. They will be here by dawn."
The roar of his tank's engine and the muffled ear phones of Captain Saada's helmet blocked the screech of outgoing artillery rounds. Even their impact was hidden by the great clouds of dust thrown up by the tanks of the lead company. Though he wasn't exactly sure what the opening battle of the war should have been like, he was sure it would be different. Since leaving their forward assembly area less than two hours before, however, the operation had appeared to Saada as nothing more than another training exercise. It was not at all what he had expected. Even the radio transmissions were calm, routine and unhurried, almost as if the battalion commander and staff were bored. After some reflection, Saada decided that this was good. It meant that all their training had been good and had prepared them for this moment, this event. They were ready. He was ready.
Standing up in the cupola of his tank, Saada turned sideways, grabbing the hatch with one hand and placing his other hand on the periscope sight for his machine gun in order to steady himself. Like an old sailor on the deck of a ship, his body automatically swayed from side to side in order to maintain balance as the M-60A3 tank bucked and pitched across the uneven desert surface. He leaned over slightly and peered into the dark and dust. For a moment, he could see nothing, not even the tail lights of the tank to his front. Reaching up, he keyed the intercom switch of his helmet. "Driver, what is your speed?"
Without unkeying his own intercom, Saada listened. He heard the click of the driver keying his intercom. He knew it was the driver for as soon as the driver had keyed, the sound of the tank's tracks grinding could be heard over the intercom. Each crewman's station on a tank had its own distinctive noise. From the gunner's station the whine of small hydraulic pumps and the chatter of the thermal sight's cooling system could be heard when he keyed his intercom. The loader's intercom normally picked up the squeak of the track as it was pulled up over the drive sprocket and the roar of the engine. The sound of wind whipping across the tank commander's small boom mike told the rest of the crew when Saada's intercom was keyed.