All eyes were on him and Lon Charles was a simple enough soul to enjoy his moment.
Bey rasped suddenly, “What’s in that can?” And Lon said, “Fission grenades. That can’s their supply of miniature fission grenades.”
XIX
FINALE
“Don’t be silly. There is no such thing.”
The former Green Beret ignored that and spoke to El Hassan. “There’s eight of them in that there can. We was going to lay them down in a pattern. It was gonna cover all of Fort Laperrine and Tamanrasset. Just about everybody’d go. But you and these people here was the ones that counted. Including Miss Isobel. That’s what stuck in my throat. I been a mercenary for a long time, and I done some pretty bad things, but they just didn’t care who all got it, just so long as you did.”
Homer looked at Meg McDaid. “You knew about this?”
Her hand was at her mouth, her eyes wide, as she stared at the negro sergeant. “No. No,” she said unbelievingly. “And Bryan’s with them. He wouldn’t…” She came to a pathetic halt and said to Lon, “Do they know you took the grenades, or whatever you called them?”
Lon Charles shook his head. “They were hid in a special compartment built into the chassis of one of the lorries. They probably still don’t know they’re gone.”
Isobel said to Homer, as though indignant that he had even asked the question, “Of course Meg didn’t know about it. If she had, she wouldn’t have come over to us. Or, otherwise, would have immediately reported the existence of these fission things. I assume Lon means some kind of miniature atomic bombs.”
Homer Crawford took a seemingly regretful breath and said to Isobel, “All right. You’re our Vizier of Information. Immediately get in touch with those reporters and TV men, in fact get in touch with all the delegations from the developed countries. We’ll have an immediate conference here and expose the whole scheme, with both Doctor McDaid and Sergeant Charles testifying.”
“Then what?” Bey said deliberately.
Homer sent his eyes to his military head. “Then we’ll take after them, complete with TV and photographer coverage.”
Isobel hurried off on her mission.
Bey turned to Guémamaa and snapped in Tamaheg, “Assemble the Camel Corps!”
Homer held up a hand. “No.”
Bey, Cliff, Kenny and Jimmy Peters joined Lon Charles and Meg in staring at him.
“What do you mean?” Kenny demanded. “You said we were going after them.”
Homer nodded. “But not with a thousand men. There’s only twenty-three of them. Twenty-three of us will go after them. El Hassan and two of his viziers, you Cliff and you Kenny, and Guémama and nineteen of his picked camelmen. It’s time we taught a lesson to such elements as these white mercenaries. Armed with superior weapons and advanced vehicles such as armored cars and even aircraft, they’ve been murdering, looting, raping and butchering up and down Africa for decades, against blacks often armed with no more than spears and bush knives. The message got out that a handful of whites were worth hundreds of blacks. We’ll prove otherwise and we’ll do it before TV and newsreel cameras.”
“Okay,” Bey said. “But it’ll be El Hassan and three of his viziers and eighteen of the camelmen.”
“You’re wounded.”
“But not so badly that I’ll miss this hoedown,” Bey said defiantly.
“Seventeen of the camelmen,” Lon Charles said. “When this cat defects, he defects all the way. I never did like that bunch of bums.” He looked at Meg. “Only Doctor McDaid.”
Homer drew over a chart from a pile of papers on the table. “All right. Let’s get the preliminary tactics laid out. Sergeant, do you know where they’ll wait for this helio-jet?”
“I ought to. I found the place.” He came over and pointed it out. “It’s a little less than two miles north of town. Good terrain for a stand.”
“How are they armed?”
Bey said, “Half automatic rifles, half submachine guns. Four heavy machine guns.”
“No mortars?”
“Not that I know of.” Bey looked at Lon Charles.
The veteran mercenary shook his head. “No mortars. We considered them but didn’t think they’d look right for bodyguards.”
Homer nodded at that and said, “That helio-jet. Is it armed?”
“I never seen it,” Lon told him. “The officers did, but I didn’t. But it’s big enough to carry the whole bunch, so it’s probably big enough to have a coupla guns.”
“Or bombs, for that matter,” Bey said, scowling.
“All right,” Homer said. “We’ll go in similarly armed. We could, of course, stay back and lob mortar shells into them. Or even bring up a couple of the field pieces we captured from the Arab Union. But that wouldn’t look so good to the TV cameras.”
“For that matter,” Cliff said. “We’ve got some light tanks and armored cars. Now, that’s the way I figure wars should be run. You dash around in a tank while the other guy’s got nothing but a rifle.”
Homer grunted at him. “We’ll take our two flac rifles in to counter their machine guns and anything that might be in the aircraft but otherwise we’ll be armed the same way they are. Bey, start getting it organized.” He looked back to Lon Charles. “How good a man is this Major Sean Ryan?”
“The best,” Lon said flatly. “I never fought under him but I know his rep. He’s probably had more experience than any fighting man alive. But we got one thing going for us, far as he’s concerned.”
“What?” Kenny said.
“I left four bottles of cognac in his jeep. He’s a rummy.”
At that moment, Sean Ryan took another pull at the bottle he held in his hand and eyed the twenty soldiers of fortune gathered before him and Raul Bazaine. “You know most of the story,” he said. “But not all. Our employer expected us to carry out this assignment thinking on our feet, pulling it off any way we could.”
A big German snarled. “We boshed it. We didn’t make our play. We should have rushed that building they were in.”
“Without arms?” Bazaine sneered.
“We could have seized arms from the wogs, taken them unawares!”
Sean Ryan held up a hand. “Saul Saidi knew something like this might develop, that we might not get a chance to cut El Hassan and his people down with standard weapons. So he gave us an ace in the hole. Captain, get those rifle grenades.”
Raul headed for the nearest truck.
Sean looked about the area they were in. It was almost like an arena, somewhat rectangular in shape. The perimeter was somewhat elevated, the center a depression in which the helio-jet could sink, out of line of fire while landing and taking off.
He said, “All right. Three men each on the machine guns.” He indicated: “We’ll spot them there, there, there and there, on each point of this rectangle. Dig in but good and keep improving your entrenchments until they come up on us. If this comes to a fire-fight, they might bring in mortars or even artillery. We’ve got to last until the aircraft gets here. Portion out all of the ammunition between the four guns. We’re not going to be able to send runners back to the trucks after the action’s been joined.”
He took another heavy slug from his bottle, ignoring the resentful, thirsty, longing looks on the faces of the men.
He said, “The other eight men will dig in, with their rifles, two to a side. So far as we know, they don’t even know we’re here. We’ll wait until we spot the helio-jet coming. Then we’ll use our secret weapon.”
“What secret weapon?” the Frenchman who had confronted Lon Charles back in Algeria said, obviously voicing the unhappy thoughts of them all.
“We have a way of knocking out Fort Laperrine and Tamanrasset, taking El Hassan and his gang with them. Now, get your equipment, including your canteens, and especially your entrenching tools.”