I said to Solomon, "When you hear me give the world, rake both sides, but not more than a foot to either side. We'll go to the right of the front of the carrier. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Solomon said.
I glanced briefly at Risenberg; then, hunched over, I moved to the rear of the carrier. Risenberg moved behind me, carrying the CAL chatter box.
My hand was on the latch to the hatch in the rear of the carrier when Cham Elovitz said matter-of-factly, "Count me in, too. Three can do a better job than two. Ben and Lev can handle things here."
"We can hold them," Lev Wymann said, "but sooner or later the gun will run out of ammunition. If the three of you haven't done your job by then, Ben and I won't be around to see the sunrise."
The SLA on this side will be dead in less than ten minutes," I said. I shoved open the perpendicular hatch, eased myself through the opening, dropped to the ground and slung the StG across my back by its sling-strap.
I took out tiny Pierre, pulled the small red tab and very carefully returned him to his container. Now, any severe jar would cause the little devil to pop and release the deadly nerve gas.
Elovitz and Risenberg, who had crawled out behind me, watched with fascination, each man holding an automatic weapon. In addition to the two submachine guns, each man had a Russian Stechkin machine pistol in his belt.
"Any time you're ready, Carter," Risenberg said.
"Remember, to the right. Move to the right," I reminded him and Elovitz. Keep nine or ten feet away from me. When you reach the slope, start climbing. I'll catch up."
Both men nodded. I called out, "Get the show on the road, Solomon."
Instantly the light machine gun began throwing out slugs, each 7.92mm projectile a tiny rocket of death that hit the granite around the mouth of the cave's opening which was wide but low.
The three of us moved out from behind the rear end of the personnel carrier, I slightly in the lead, Risenberg and Elovitz to my right. Legs pumping, I shot straight across the moonlit space, my two companions racing at an angle that, by the time the three of us reached the face of the rock, would put them twenty feet to the right of me.
All the while the ZB30 roared, the rim of the entrance ahead screaming with ricochets. Darting to a point that would put me eight feet from the right side of the entrance, I hoped Solomon would stop firing the moment I reached the rock.
I doubt if the wild sprint took more than fifteen seconds. Suddenly I was against rough rock, panting, and the cave entrance was only seven to eight feet to the side of me. I pulled Wilhelmina from her holster, switching off the safety lever, then put my left hand into my pocket and let Pierre roll from the tube into my palm. A short distance behind me, I could hear Risenberg and Elovitz climbing up the slope, loose rocks tumbling beneath their feet.
I moved closer. Solomon had stopped chipping each side with slugs, but now and then he sent a three and four round burst directly into the mouth of the cave. Several feet from the right edge of the cave, I flipped Pierre around the rock and through the black opening. He must have soared twenty-five feet before falling and striking the ground. I heard the faint pop and knew that Pierre was spewing out the deadly nerve gas. Strangely, I didn't hear any sounds of panic, not a single gasp.
Was it possible that we had been tricked, that all of the SLA terrorists had already departed for the other entrance and at this very moment might be getting into their carrier?
Frustrated because I didn't dare poke my head into the cave, I moved ten feet to the right and began to climb the slope.
My only concern at the moment was that if I got smeared with slugs, I might die before I could take Mohammed Karameh with me.
Him and Miriam Kamel…
Chapter Fourteen
With the hot northeasterly wind blowing against us, Elovitz, Risenberg, and I moved across the top of the ridge. The route was a chaotic mess of loose ground rock and grotesquely shaped sandstone structures sculptured by windblown sand. The surface itself resembled some Normandy battlefield, the terrain a patchwork of ruts, crooked channels and ribbed craters. But a personnel carrier could cross the top at this point. Ten to twelve yards to our right it was possible to drive a large vehicle forward by moving it carefully between boulders and enormous masses of granite, slabs arranged into natural stepping stones.
Another danger we had to face was the possibility that Karameh, if he and his people were returning to their carrier, might have anticipated our strategy and sent scouts ahead on foot. Consequently, the three of us proceeded with the utmost caution. We watched each big rock, our eyes probing the black shadows, our ears tuned to the slightest noise.
"You can't be sure that your gas bomb got any of them?" Risenberg asked again. "No sounds of strangling, nothing?"
"Five minutes from now my answer will be the same," I replied. "No, I didn't hear anything. I…"
I jerked up short, cocked my head to one side and held up my hand for silence. Elovitz and Risenberg stopped, a frozen expression on their faces.
We could hear the faint sound of an engine up ahead, the noise growing louder with each second. Karameh had reached his personnel carrier and, judging from the deep throbbing of the engine, the armored vehicle was slowly moving up the slope. We couldn't be positive, but we estimated the top of the slope to be three hundred and fifty feet ahead. From the sound of the engine, the carrier would come over the edge at about a hundred feet to our right.
"I think we have a big problem!" Risenberg muttered. When he saw that neither Elovitz or I was amused at his attempt at humor, he added coldly, "We'll have to gauge the route of the carrier and plan accordingly."
"God help us," Elovitz muttered resignedly.
I swung to the right. "Come on. We have to move in a hurry."
"Where?" asked Elovitz.
I didn't bother to answer. We hurried past boulders, jumped over crooked cracks and ran around the side of craters, at times stumbling on loose gravel. When the sound of the engine was immediately in front of us, we stopped and looked around. Other than boulders, there were monumental basalt and granite slabs all tumbled into each other, some forming tremendous stepping-stones to a height of thirty feet. Between these structures there was ample space for a carrier to proceed forward, the ground itself being fairly level.
Elovitz and Risenberg turned and looked at me, their stares asking. Now what?
"I'll get up on the rocks to the left," I told them. "The two of you take the right side. Hopefully the carrier will pass between us. I'll lob down grenades. You two machine gun anyone who might escape the grenades."
Elovitz came right to the point. "What about the scouts? AI-Huriya would be a moron not to have four or five men on recon ahead of the carrier."
Risenberg thrust in, his voice sharp, "We don't dare let the scouts get behind us. If we get sandwiched between them and the carrier, we'll have had it."
"Yeah, and there'll be a man on the machine gun on the cab," Elovitz said. "I wasn't sure, but it looked like a SDhK job."
"In that case, you two take care of the scouts and the man on the DShK," I said. "I'll use grenades against the carrier. Four or five of them should blow off one of the front wheels.
Risenberg sighed. "Yes, if our luck holds."
In position, the three of us waited. I lay flat to one side of a chunk of jagged-edged granite. Forty feet away from me, across the gap, Elovitz and Risenberg were concealed in boulders at the top of an enormous pile of stepping-stones. In the bright white moonlight we could see everything clearly.