"Flying out of here sounds good," Wymann said equably, "but what can we gain by keeping Karameh and his killers bottled up in this end of the tunnel?"
Elovitz nodded pensively. "I say fly to Jordan and be done with this entire business. We've been through enough."
Ben Solomon glanced at me and shook his head, a smile of superior amusement twisting the corners of his mouth. "We can't escape to Jordan until Mohammed Bashir Karameh is dead. Our friend Carter is an American intelligence agent and has a job to do. Isn't that right, Carter?"
This was one of those times when a half-truth could serve better than a full lie. "Hamosad wants the SLA destroyed at all costs," I said. "You are Israelis, aren't you? You don't have any choice. You must help — or stop calling yourselves men."
"You're with Hamosad?" Elovitz's tone and manner indicated that he didn't believe I was.
"If you want to know about Israeli intelligence, ask Risenberg," I snapped. "But you'll do it later. We don't have time at the moment for a round table discussion."
"We'll help," Solomon said quickly. "It's only that I don't see what the five of us can do against all of them. It was different when we had the tank. Then we had the firepower and were protected by armor."
"I've a plan," I said, "and I think the odds are with us."
Elovitz chuckled. "If you were Jewish, there are many in Israel who would call you a Lamedvovnik."
I didn't know whether I was being complimented or insulted. "And what is Lamedvovnik?"
A lilt to his raspy voice, Elovitz explained that a Lamedvovnik was a secret saint. "Ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that the very existence of the world depends on the righteousness of such men," he said, "and that their personal virtue stays God's hands from destroying the world."
I didn't have time to tell Elovitz that I was not a likely candidate for secret sainthood in any religion. Risenberg's voice bellowed back to us from the cab, "The SLA! They're coming out of the tunnel!"
I jumped to the platform on the left side of the hatch and pulled back the cocking knob of the Czech ZB30. I saw that five Syrians had run from the mouth of the cave and were halfway to the two helicopters, three of them swinging assault rifles around toward the carrier. I didn't even bother to line up my eyes with the ball sight in the center of the ring at the end of the barrel. I squeezed the trigger, the roar of the machine gun a fatal symphony, the last sound heard by the five terrorists who were knocked off their feet by the high velocity 7.92mm. Other SLA guerrillas, who were about to come out of the cave, jumped back inside, only seconds before I swung the ZB30 and chopped the sides and the entrance with a few hundred more slugs.
We were close to the two helicopters now. One was a Russian L-15, a twenty passenger job; the other, an L-17, was a gunship with rocket pods on each side and heavy machine guns mounted on both port and starboard. Maybe this was how Karameh had intended to finish us off. We couldn't have mounted any defense against rockets.
The four of us hung on for dear life as Risenberg turned the carrier sharply to the right. He stopped, then backed up and braked again. We were fifty feet in front of the helicopters and a hundred and twenty-five feet directly in front of the ragged mouth of the cave.
I saw a few heads pop out from one side of the entrance and fired a short burst, the big slugs striking the rock and throwing up clouds of chips and dust.
Risenberg came through the driver's rear hatch, wiping his face. I motioned for Solomon to take over the Czech ZB30. I stepped down from the platform and he took my place, careful to keep his head and torso behind the square armored shield mounted to the machine gun.
"We have that Mexican standoff," Risenberg said to me, tight-lipped. "We can't get to them and they can't reach us, at least not until Karameh wises up and goes back to get his carrier."
Wymann's voice was wistful. "It would be easy to throw off the canvas covering and fly out." His eyes, on me, were stern. "We heard you say you could pilot a helicopter."
"We'd never make it." I said. "They'd fill us full of slugs while we were lifting off. What we have to do is eliminate as many of them as possible before they have a chance to go back through the tunnel and get their carrier."
"There isn't any way we can go in after them," Risenberg said, "at either end of the tunnel. They'd cut us down before we could take a step."
"Solomon could keep them down inside with bursts of slugs," I said. "In the meantime, several of us can dash to one side of the cave."
The four Israelis stared at me as if I had grown a second head.
"That's no strategy, Carter!" Elovitz said angrily. "That's suicide! They'd put so much lead in us it would take a crane to lift our bodies. There's no way we can get inside that cave."
I didn't blame the Israelis for thinking I wasn't playing with a full deck. Charging the cave would have been an idiot method; it would have meant certain death.
"You're absolutely right," I agreed. "But I didn't say anything about going inside." I reached into my pocket and took out the tube containing Pierre.
"Then what's the point?" Risenberg asked.
"There's a tiny bomb in here. It's…"
"A bomb!" Wymann cut me off. "A bomb that size couldn't be more than a giant firecracker."
"Shut up and listen," I growled. "This isn't an explosive device. It's compressed hydrochlorsarsomasine, a very potent nerve gas that kills within seconds."
The Israelis looked disbelievingly at me. "So you get to the side of the cave and manage to toss the gas inside," Risenberg said. "One sniff and we're dead, too!"
"I think that some of the SLA will remain at this end while others go back for the carrier," I said. "The gas can't affect me. Before I left Tel Aviv, I was injected with a two-week long lasting antidote, a combination of atropine and tetrathiazide.
"That's just dandy!" Solomon's voice was next to venomous, but he didn't turn away from the Czech light machine gun. "What about the man who goes with you? What about the rest of us in the carrier?"
"The gas has a short life of only ten seconds," I explained. "The breeze is blowing away from us. The men in the carrier won't be harmed. But within the confines of a cave, with men grouped together just inside the entrance, they'd die within half a short breath."
I held up my hand for silence, seeing that Wymann was getting ready to interrupt again. "Whoever goes with me wouldn't stay by the side of the cave. He'd be forty feet up the slope before I tossed in the gas. I'd join him and we'd go across the top and drop grenades on the carrier. The rest we'd have to play by ear."
The four Israelis were skeptical of the plan. Down on his haunches, Wymann said, "What makes you think we can climb the side, get across the top and lob grenades into the carrier before Karameh reaches it? He's not exactly turtle-slow about such things."
"The fact that we beat him here tells me that the tunnel is a series of long twists and turns," I said.
"Yes, but they were on foot," Risenberg said. "We rode."
"Yet they were a thousand feet ahead of us," I said. "It's all academic. As I see it, our best bet right now is Pierre. Then we go across the top and attack."
I picked up a sack of stick grenades and put the strap over my shoulder. "Who wants to play hero with me?"
Risenberg picked up the Belgian CAL submachine gun and a long pouch of spare magazines. "I might as well tag along with you. Carter. I'd rather be on the move than sit here and wonder what was happening."
When I saw the pouch of eight extra magazines for the MP43, I strapped the pouch to my cartridge belt and picked up a West German Sturm Gewehr assault rifle. The StG was a superior weapon, not only because it was unlikely to jam, but because its long magazine held fifty-four 7.92 millimeter cartridges and could be fired either on full or semi-automatic.