"That's what I had in mind," I said. I looked through the scope and listened to the bogie wheels turning and the tracks clanking. I caught the armored car in the «V» and pressed the firing button. The big gun roared and the L-59 Gronshiv became a ball of burning metal tossed up and down on jets of air as hot as the inside of a blast furnace.
There was a loud clanking to my right. Wymann had jerked open the hot breech and the used shell casing had fallen to the floor. Another clank as he shoved in a new shell and locked the breech. There wasn't any need for him to tell me when there was a shell in the chamber. The gun would not fire without the cam-lever being locked.
My hands spinning the azimuth wheel and the traverse control, I stared through the periscope which also served as the ranging scope sight. For the moment. I didn't have to swing the turret because there was a fourteen-inch left and right traverse to the gun, the movements independent of the turret.
This time I demolished a personnel carrier. The 140 mm cannon roared; there was a loud noise, and the carrier flew apart. Huge chunks of ripped metal, and parts of bodies burnt black soared upward and came down over a wide radius, much of it falling on other tanks.
I saw through the scope that two carriers and three armored cars had succeeded in surrounding Lomsky and Nierman's L-59 Gronshiv. Hurriedly, I zeroed in on one of the armored cars and pressed the firing button at the same time the three enemy Gronshivs, their cannons lined up on Lomsky and Nierman, fired in unison. The three shells hit the side of the vehicle only seconds apart from each other; this time, under the concentrated power of the three shells, the armor of Lomsky and Nierman's fortress on wheels caved in. The vehicle exploded with a monstrous roar, steel plates, engine and rubber tires flying in every direction. I saw the bodies of Martin Lomsky and Karl Nierman kicked up into the air, then fall like broken dolls to the burning rubble scattered below.
Bennie Solomon called out from the commander's chair, "Carter, one of the armored cars is headed for the building we were imprisoned in. Do you see it?"
I didn't, but, as I moved the 140mm cannon, I did see very clearly the two personnel carriers that had helped to execute Lomsky and Nierman. Very quickly I spun the elevation wheel, waited for the reticle pattern, got it and pressed the button. The big gun thundered, the AP shell leaving the barrel on a flat trajectory and slamming midcenter into the carrier. A moment later there was an enormous blast that became a giant burst of fire and force which flung bodies and slabs of armor tumbling to the heavens. The rear of the carrier must have been filled with a full compliment of men because several dozen bodies hit the ground, their tattered clothes blazing.
The other carrier rolled quickly to the east before I could swing the muzzle of the gun on it. I was about to rotate the turret and look for a new target when suddenly the tank tilted slightly upward, the bogie wheels going up and down on their concentric springs. We were moving over something, rolling over something large. The tank then dipped and came down heavily, bouncing ever so slightly on its torsion bar springs.
I yelled into the intercom, "Risenberg, what the hell are you doing? Can't you see where you're going?"
"Sure, I have twenty-twenty vision," he said easily. "I'm going to wreck their camp. I'm going to roll right through the tents and demolish their ant-hill houses. It's easier with a tank than using shells — faster, too."
I smiled to myself. "I'll see what I can do about the carriers and the ACs that are left. But listen: Do you know what that big goatskin tent is?"
"Al-Huriya's headquarters. I'm going to flatten it."
"No, you're not. I'm saving that tent for myself. You leave it alone."
"Ok, my American friend. But you're doing it the hard way."
Risenberg crashed the tank into the black goatskin tents. The extra-wide tracks, supporting ninety-five tons of steel, became a giant press which crushed anything unlucky enough to find itself under the links, including men, women and children who had thought they would be safe inside their simple dwellings.
As I moved the muzzle of the gun to the northwest, Hawk popped into my mind, a twinge of resentment coloring my thoughts. No doubt he was somewhere in Tel Aviv, in an air-conditioned room, calmly waiting for my report and smoking one of those cheap cigars he habitually carried. When his time came to die, he'd drop into hell with one jammed in his mouth. Would he miss me if I caught a fatal slug? Maybe as long as a few days. I didn't blame him; it was the nature of the trade we were in.
Rotating the telescope, I found the two Gronshiv armored cars parked close to the southeast end of the stone building in which the Israelis and I had been held captive. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like several men were carrying a recoilless RCL bazooka from the building to one of the tanks. Conceivably a modern-day bazooka could disable us, if not piercing the armor, at least wrecking the road wheels and the tracks.
Solomon, also seeing the Syrians, said nervously, "That's a.3.7 incher. If they have AP shells, they could wreck us."
Sweat pouring down my face, I consulted the graduation scale to the left of the scope and adjusted the calibration knob. We were about nine hundred feet from the armored cars and the stone building. At such a short distance, there was little need for me to judge range because my sight would be adjusted in line with the bore of the gun. The R-pattern appeared. The inverted «V» touched the right center side of the second armored car. I pressed the firing button, heard the 140mm cannon boom and watched the L-59 Gronshiv disappear in fire and smoke. The men who had been carrying the bazooka were on the ground, their bodies covered with orange and red flames.
Wymann pulled out an empty casing, inserted a fresh shell and closed the breech. Then that familiar sliding sound as he locked the lever. I hardly noticed, though, because I was too busy moving my gun to the left. I pressed the firing button and watched as the entire northwest side of the building exploded with a roar that seemed to shake the entire plateau, the force overturning the last armored car.
But where was Mohammed Bashir Karameh? And Miriam Kamel? Ahmed Kamel, and the rest of the top SLA trash? They could be dead. But my intuition told me that they were alive and not too far away.
The Tower of Lions? Miriam had told me that the lower part was used to store arms and ammunition. Had she lied? I'd soon find out. First I'd finish the job on the stone building. Within the next few minutes, I placed two more 140mm shells into what was left, and when the smoke had cleared only a part of the foundation remained.
"Carter, do you want to go to al-Huriya's tent?" Risenberg's voice came through the small speaker. I thought for a moment, listening to Cham Elovitz firing the Tokevski machine gun in the front hull.
"Yeah, after I put four or five shells in the bottom part of the Tower," I said.
"Why the Tower? It's only a pile of ruins."
"Miriam Kamel told me the place was full of arms and ammo."
"She lied," Risenberg said. "There's nothing in the Tower but rubble and memories."
"We'll see," I said. I then proceeded to lob four shells into the east wall of the Tower, the explosions partially crumbling the wall. But there wasn't any gigantic blast, no tremendous explosion that would have occurred had there have been cases of arms and ammo, especially grenades, stacked in the lower floor.
"Take us to the front of the Hawk's tent," I said in disgust to Risenberg. "Park us so that I can rake the tent with the topside gun."
"As good as done," Risenberg said.
The tank rumbled toward the huge black tent, the only one left standing. I got up from the gunner's chair and motioned for Ben Solomon to take over.