I didn't exactly get a cheering welcome! There was pure hatred in the eyes of everyone whose stares I met; some of the men even shook their weapons at me. I saw that most of the men and women displayed the habitual mixture in dress, many were outfitted in Western garb with the traditional forms of headgear, while others wore strictly Arab clothing. Some of the women even wore the chadri, a light black garment, part of which was used as a veil.
Some dirty-faced children yelled obscenities at me as Miriam and her gun-toting aides marched me to a huge black goatskin tent and shoved me inside.
It was easy to spot Mohammed Bashir Karameh, although I had never seen a photograph of the man. AXE and Hamosad didn't know what he looked like. Unlike many other Arab terrorist leaders, Karameh reputedly had a passion for anonymity. We suspected that his real reason was more practicaclass="underline" as a precaution against assassination.
I figured the man positioned so confidently at the head of the large circle of men sitting on cushions must be Karameh. But I did recognize the man seated to al-Huriya's right — Ahmed Kamel, Miriam's brother.
Miriam went over to a table and placed Wilhelmina and Hugo in a wooden chest; then she hurried to Karameh and her brother and sat down on a cushion between the two men and began whispering to the SLA leader. Several of my guards shoved me roughly to my knees in the center of the circle, one remaining behind me, the muzzle of his assault rifle pressed against the back of my neck.
Karameh motioned to the man. "It is not necessary that you keep your weapon on him," he said in a well-modulated voice. "He's not in any condition to cause us trouble."
"My leader, this swine is extremely dangerous!" protested the guard. "He killed two of our comrades. Another man died before we could get him to camp. This man" — he poked me with the assault rifle — "is a devil."
Karameh stared at me for a moment, then turned to Miriam Kamel.
"It's true," she admitted. "He's Nick Carter, but he's not superhuman. As you can see, he's handcuffed, and I doubt that he can snap steel."
"In my opinion, he should have been killed on the spot," Ahmed Kamel growled. A roundish man with blotched skin, he was as ugly as his sister was good looking.
Karameh waved the guard away and looked at me with serious eyes. Dressed in dark green fatigues and wearing two pistols on his belt, he was muscular, with an intelligent, yet slightly-cruel looking, face. Well groomed, he had dark wavy hair, long sideburns and a neatly trimmed mustache. But instantly I spotted his weakness — vanity! It shone from his eyes and was evident in the tilt of his chin, held a bit too high.
"You are Nick Carter," he said, his voice crisp but not unfriendly.
"He'll deny it," Miriam snapped. "But he can't deny he's an agent of AXE. The AXE tattoo is on his inner right elbow."
I saw no reason to play games. "I'm Carter," I said in Arabic, smiling slightly at Karameh who sat ten feet in front of me. "And you are Mohammed Karameh, better known as the Hawk. Personally, I think chicken would be a much better appellation. You seem to be terrified of letting the world know what you look like."
There was an angry muttering from many of the men in the circle, one of them, short and stocky with traces of a black beard and deep-set eyes, warning me in a snarling voice, "Careful, pig. We will not tolerate any of your insolence!"
I assumed the man was Khalil Marras, since he was sitting next to Karameh. As for the Hawk, if I had insulted him, he didn't show it. His face remained pleasant and he only laughed a soft, long sound.
"Have patience, Khalil," he said, looking straight at me. "Mr. Carter thinks that by using foolish insults he can impress us with his bravery. Pay no attention to his braying. The camel does not bow before the jackass."
He smiled without amusement and when he spoke to me his voice carried more than a slight trace of annoyance.
"Yes, Carter, I am Mohammed Bashir Karameh. At the moment I'm curious as to how you must feel knowing that you have failed, to realize that we have outsmarted AXE and the Hamosad. It must be terribly frustrating to know there isn't anything you can do about it."
"I don't believe there ever was a plot involving any explosion on U.S. soil." I hoped that by taunting him, his own egotism would force him to tell me what I wanted to know. "I'll admit that you fooled Hamosad, but we in AXE were always skeptical about the liquified natural gas plot. The SLA doesn't have the sophistication of organization for such a complicated scheme."
Miriam and Ahmed Kamel glared at me. Khalil Marras sneered, his thick lips going back over his teeth in a grimace. Karameh, sitting cross-legged, leaned forward, peered intently at me, and put his hands on his knees.
"I had expected more from the famous Nick Carter," he said. "But all you have shown is an amazing lack of imagination. That's the trouble with all Western intelligence agencies. They are constantly underestimating us, thinking we Arabs are still living in the Middle Ages of ignorance."
"Listen, Karameh," I said in my most sincere voice. "I've failed and I admit it. But though I'm your prisoner, don't try to insult my intelligence by telling me fairy tales. If there was an actual LNG plot, Miriam never would have leaked it to AXE."
I could tell I was getting somewhere when Karameh smiled and seemed pleased with himself.
"We might have believed the story," I continued, "if you hadn't made the mistake of saying that the home port of the supertanker was the Soviet Union. That was a bit too much for us to swallow. There isn't any way you could slip any of your people on board a single vessel in the Soviet Union much less one of their supertankers. The Soviet Union is a very closed society and the KGB is very good, almost as good as AXE!"
Karameh beamed. I added quickly, "And don't tell me that the KGB is helping you. That would be even more absurd. The Soviets are too cunning to involve themselves in such a ridiculous scheme."
"You're a fool, Carter. However, you are right about the Soviets."
I reflected that his voice had taken on a different quality; not exactly defiance, but more like pride.
"You're wasting your time," I sneered. "I'm right, too, when I say the LNG deal was a false leak to cover up something else. AXE and Hamosad suspected the same thing. Too bad I won't be able to get back to Tel Aviv to confirm their suspicions."
"That is correct! You won't be leaving this base alive."
I detected savage pleasure in Karameh's voice, a kind of revenge.
"And because you are never going to leave here alive, I'll tell you the full truth. The liquid gas plot was not a smoke screen. Miriam merely lied about the facts. The supertanker doesn't belong to the Soviet Union. It's owned by Libya and will leave from Tripoli. Three of my men will be aboard the crew. It is they who will plant the explosive devices which will explode when the tanker is in the harbor of Galveston, in your state of Texas."
Miriam placed a hand on Karameh's shoulder. "Why tell him anything? Why give him the satisfaction of knowing our real plans."
"I agree," Ahmed Kamel quickly agreed. "Let us proceed with what we must do with the dog, then kill him. He is too dangerous to let live for any extended length of time."
I saw Karameh stiffen, almost imperceptibly. You should have kept your big mouth shut, bitch! I thought. You don't tell a crackpot like him what to do!
"I made all the decisions," Karameh said arrogantly, "and I want Carter to go to his death knowing that I, al-Huriya, am twice as clever as any Zionist in Hamosad or any American imperialist."
"If you ask me," I said, "you're treating Colonel al-Qaddafi pretty dirty. I can't buy it! Qaddafi's a Moslem the same as you and his Libya is still a paradise for every crackpot terrorist on the face of the earth. Yet you expect me to believe that you're going to blow up one of his two hundred million dollar tankers in Galveston!