"Carter, you'd better take this," Lev Wymann said and handed me a 9 millimeter Heckler and Koch pistol that he had taken earlier from a dead terrorist. "It's fully loaded."
I shoved the H&K into my belt, climbed the short ladder fastened to the brace of the platform and pushed inward on the lever that opened the hatch over the commander's cupola, on the right side of the turret. The hatch popped open and I got a whiff of burning cloth, goatskin and human flesh.
Gingerly, I poked my head above the hatch rim and looked around. In spite of the destruction, I could see men and women darting back-and-forth, running from one pile of wreckage to another. Risenberg continued to guide the tank toward the headquarters' tent, not that I expected the Hawk and the others to be there waiting for me.
I stepped up higher on the platform, pulled the DShK closer to me and opened fire, the big machine gun roaring. Now and then there were screaming ricochets when slugs hit close to me on the turret, proof that I had become a target.
Suddenly, two SLA guerrillas — one a woman — popped up only thirty feet to the right of the lank, both at such an angle that none of our machine gun slugs could reach them. Instinctively I ducked down as the man lobbed a stick grenade and the woman, her long black hair flying, triggered off a burst of AK-47 fire. The grenade fell short and exploded against the right panier plates. Bits of shrapnel rained down, a few chunks stinging my cheek. Otherwise I was unhurt. I pulled the H&K from my belt, switched off the safety catch and leaned over the right side hatch rim. The man and woman had dropped to the ground as soon as the man had thrown the grenade. Now they were scrambling to their feet, both easy targets for the H&K. The man, his chest decorated with three holes, cried out and fell backward. The woman, stark terror on her face, did her best to raise the submachine gun, but she caught a slug between her breasts and another one in her throat, and she fell beside the man.
Risenberg turned the tank and within several minutes brought the T-54 twenty-five feet from the front of Karameh's tent. The poles to the right had been torn loose and the goatskin hides were lying on the ground. The rest of the tent was intact and, as far as I could see, unmarred by bullet holes.
I grabbed the guide handle of the DShK and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Either I was out of ammo or the damned thing had jammed. I thought for a moment. Not a single shot had been fired from the tent. Was it empty? I was about to climb all the way out of the hatch and slide down the back of the turret when, feeling a tug on my left leg, I looked down and saw Ben Solomon looking up at me.
"Hold on. Carter. I'm going with you. There's no sense in your doing it alone."
Grateful for the help, I wasn't about to argue with him. I crawled out of the hatch and Solomon followed, a Mauser «Red-9» machine pistol in his hand. We eased down the rear of the turret, crawled hurriedly across the hot transmission and engine louvres and dropped to the ground.
"I think we're attacking empty space," Solomon said. "No one's in that tent. Al-Huriya would be crazy to stay in there and wait for us. He's a psycho but he's not a fool."
"We'll know in a moment. Are you ready?"
Solomon nodded.
"Then let's do it."
Chapter Eleven
Solomon and I charged the tent. We zigzagged through the wide main entrance, moved to the left and jumped behind a crate that was large enough to have held a refrigerator. For several moments we waited for our eyes to adjust to the gloom. Outside it was twilight; inside the tent it was almost dark. By the time we realized that we had jumped into a nest of terrorists, it was too late to turn back. They came at us from all sides, and we could only assume that they had hidden under rugs and had prepared themselves when they had heard the tank approach. Damn Karameh. He had planned it this way. He had assumed I would come back to the tent looking for him.
I killed two of the terrorists with the H&K, and Solomon gunned downed two more — one of his victims a woman — before they were all around us. Seven or eight, maybe nine or ten, one of them hissing, "al-Huriya wants them alive."
The two Syrians closest to me, young and built like barrels, rushed in from the front, both swinging hamlike fists. I gave one man a knuckle strike between the eyes; he was unconscious and falling before he had time to blink. I let the second attacker have apa-ko-hsia, my thumb and index finger jabbing into his throat, the terrible stab crushing both the left and the right jugular veins. I was certain of the damage because I know what I can do with Goju-Ryu karate.
From the corner of my eye, I could see that three men had rushed Solomon, coming at him from the front and from either side. He kicked one in the balls, chopped the second across the throat with a sword-ridge hand and ducked in time to avoid being hit in the head by the third man's pistol butt.
I had my own problems. I let a man coming in from the rear have an elbow smash that must have ruptured his stomach wall. Then I ducked in time to avoid a fist that would have shattered my jaw had it landed. It wasn't the fist that worried me but the brass knuckles covering the fist. I leaped high, spun and speared "Brass Knuckles" in the throat with a Nukite chop, aiming for his carotid artery and confident that I had smashed it.
I detected from the way the terrorists were beginning to act that they were about to give up the idea of capturing Solomon and me alive. A man pointing a Walther automatic in my direction proved I was right. I jackknifed to one side just as the man pulled the trigger and the Walther boomed like a cannon, vomiting out a 9mm slug. Before the big nosed Syrian could get off a second shot, I dove across the space with a flying drop-kick, my feet like two anvils as they crashed into the man's chest and face.
But I also saw that more terrorists were joining the fight. Either they had crawled in underneath the rear of the tent or else they had been hidden in that part of the tent that was on the ground. As they rushed us, I could see that Solomon was following up an elbow smash with a straight four-fingered rapier jab aimed at one man's big belly. The man jumped back and stumbled against me. I snaked my left arm around his neck, pulled hard and hit the back of his head with the palm-heel of my right hand. The man's neck snapped and he sagged. I spun around and used a Cho uke butterfly block to stop a slashing hand, knocking the man down with a sword-foot kick to his abdomen and finishing him off with a single piercing finger strike to his Adam's apple.
I glanced at Solomon and surmised that his attackers thought he would be an easy victory because of his average size. He was about five feet ten inches and weighed not more than one hundred sixty-five pounds. How the Israeli fooled them! One Arab rushed in and tried to grab Solomon's neck. Sol ducked, snatched the hood of the man's burnoose, jerked down his head and kneed him with such force underneath the chin that the man's teeth flew out in a spray of blood.
As I was preoccupied with the three terrorists in front of me, yet another jumped me from the rear. He applied a full nelson to my neck and shoulders and jammed his knee into the small of my back, the quick action pushing my midsection forward.
"Smash him in the stomach, Ghazi!" the man holding me cried out. "I have the dog!"
An evil-faced man in front of me, grinned, showed his blackened teeth and charged in. I grinned back and made his eyes roll in his head with a high snap-kick that caved in his face. Blood flowing out of his mouth, he sank to his knees, making himself a perfect target for my foot which crashed against his forehead and drove the frontal bones of his skull into his brain.