I didn't press the issue. Not only did I not know the route to the SLA camp, but I wasn't even sure of our position in Syria, and I wasn't going to waste time by using the sextant to "shoot the sun" every half hour. The only certainty in my mind was that we were in an area totally unsuitable for human habitation. How the ancient Romans and later, the Crusaders, had managed to build anything in this hellhole had to be the eleventh wonder of the world.
As far as I could see, there was only desolation, tumbled rocks and the grotesque mounds that were the remains of ancient mountains which, over the many thousands of years, had been worn down by the wind carrying sharp grains of sand. There was scattered scrub vegetation, but in general the terrain was deeply scored and pitted by centuries of violent dust storms. Amidst this depressing landscape were stretches of gravel mixed with fine sand or chipped rock, the latter of which I avoided as much as possible, to save the tires of the battered van; and always there was the bright glare of the sun whose rays reflected savagely from the rocks. The Kalichrome sunglasses we wore helped a little, but still our eyes ached and watered.
Exhausted, sweat running down our bodies in rivulets, Miriam and I finally parked for the night in the center of a rectangular stretch of gravel covering bare granite. Desperately we wanted a shower, but we couldn't afford the water. To console ourselves we looked forward to the darkness when the heat would drift off into space and the night would quickly become chilled.
Stretching out the «alarm» wire from its big spool, it came to me that Mohammed Bashir Karameh had chosen his campsite well. God Almighty couldn't have given the terrorist a more inaccessible position — except from the air! Karameh had a lot of his supplies flown in by helicopter, practically all of the choppers coming in from around Damascus, proof enough that the Syrian government was closing its eyes to the tactics and terrorism of the SLA. Water was not a problem.
"He has deep wells up there," Miriam had said days earlier. "It was a good supply of water that was the deciding factor in al-Huriya's choosing the place for his camp."
"Al-Huriya?" I had said at the time.
"Yes, that is what his followers call Mohammed Bashir Karameh — 'The Hawk. »
I finished looping the wire around the van, thinking that I and the Israeli Air Force would shortly pluck the Hawk of all his feathers and turn him into a naked sparrow…
Chapter Seven
At exactly 10:38 the next morning, we saw the vital landmark: the two Roman milestones sticking up crookedly from one of the slopes to the right, the two tall stones marked with ancient Latin words.
I stopped the van and Miriam and I stared at the stones.
"We're only eight or nine kilometers from the Wadi el Mujib," Miriam said. "After we enter the wadi, we'll have to go a few more kilometers before we begin to climb. For now, just drive ahead." She glanced at the compass mounted on the dashboard. "We're headed in the right direction."
Without making any kind of reply, I merely looked in disgust at the surrounding countryside. Other than a bird flying in the distance, nothing moved, the air itself as still as death. Ever since sunrise we had picked our way through rocks that had gradually grown into hills, hills that had become larger and larger, until now there were huge masses of granite and limestone on all sides, the slopes covered with loose rock and blue-gray shale, the heights of such that many places were secure from the blast furnace of a sun. This explained why the area was crisscrossed with deep black shadows.
Time crawled by and so did the mileage. Gradually, meter by meter, we closed in on the wadi and finally the oversized tires were pressing into the dry riverbed filled with various sized rocks polished smooth by the water that flowed during the very short rainy season. On either side the high slanted walls of the wadi loomed over us; yet I could see that neither side would be difficult or dangerous to climb. There were plenty of rocky projections and numerous foot and hand holds.
Slowly and carefully I drove the van down the wadi, now and then thinking of how easy it would be for an enemy on the slopes to ambush us, either with a sub-gun or a well-aimed grenade. The hell with it; risk was part of the business. Anyhow, this was still better than going sheeplike through life listening to your arteries become brittle.
At length Miriam said, "Do you see where the river bed curves up ahead? Just beyond the bend you'll see an old rusted jeep. Stop there."
"What's a jeep doing there?"
She must have detected a note of suspicion in my voice, for she replied half-angrily, "How should I know? It's been there for as long as I can remember. Someone drove it up there years ago and the motor quit. How else could it have gotten there?"
I edged the van forward, ignoring the sweat running down my face, and tried to calculate how far we were from the Syrian-Jordanian border. But it was impossible to know the exact distance; there had been too many twists and turns. I estimated that we had about twenty miles to go. I also sensed that Miriam was giving me quick sideway glances.
I said, "Is this the route you always used when you visited the camp?"
"Several times," she said. "Other times we used the shorter route. Several miles from here, to the north, there's a road that leads up onto the high part where the camp is."
"Are you saying that the route we're on is seldom used?"
"Almost never, as far as I know. The SLA uses the other road."
"Then why did you use this route those other times?" I gave her a brief glance and saw resentment flashing in her eyes.
"So that's it! You don't trust me!" she said angrily. "That's why you're asking me all these questions. Damn you! I don't have to answer them!"
"Then don't blame me for having doubts! I snapped and speeded up over a stretch of sunbaked clay. "You and your brother are double agents. To me that means it's a toss-up whether you're double-crossing AXE or the SLA!"
Detecting that Miriam was not only infuriated but taken aback by my bluntness, I slowed the van when we came to the beginning of the bend in the riverbed.
"It just so happens that a landslide blocked the other road," she said, obviously trying to control her voice. "It took months to clear the rocks; all the work had to be done by hand. It was during that time that we used this route."
I still wasn't convinced, but I said, "You should have told me that in the first place, even if you can't prove it."
"And since we're having this little chat," she went on, "I know that 'Joseph Allen Galloway' is a cover name. You're Nick Carter! Now tell me I'm wrong!"
I merely chuckled and kept my eyes straight ahead. "What makes you think I'm Nick Carter, whoever he might be?"
"Come off it, Nick," she half-sneered. "For a mission of this magnitude, AXE would send only the best. And it's common knowledge in certain circles that one Nick Carter is the best AXE has to offer. Conclusion: You have to be Nick Carter."
A nod to a blind man is as good as a wink. If I neither confirmed nor denied my identity, she would still have to have a one percent element of doubt, not that it made a damn bit of difference at this stage of the game.
"You can call me by any name you want," I said. "My only interest is in getting to the top of one of the walls and pinpointing the location of the Hawk's camp."
"There's the jeep up ahead," she said, "right where I said it would be. And just in case you're wondering how I know the way to the top, I climbed the left face with Ahmed once while we were out here looking for ancient artifacts. Of course, you don't believe me."
I ignored the nails in her voice, which may have been the reason she added, "Well, do you or don't you?"
"Whether I do or don't" — and I had my doubts — "we're here," I said, trying to sound cheerful.