We waited. We watched. We stared ahead in the direction of the engine noise. The driver of the carrier would logically take the path that offered the least difficulty. And the route below, between me and the two Israelis, was the only passable course at this end of the ridge.
I blinked. Had I seen a figure dash into the deep shadow of a rock a few hundred feet ahead? I wasn't sure. I stared at the shadow, not even daring to blink. I had been right the first time. A figure darted from the inky blackness and ran to the side of another rock, a man carrying either a submachine gun or an assault rifle. I hoped that Elovitz and Risenberg had also spotted the lone enemy.
Ten feet behind the first SLA guerrilla, I spotted two more men, their white kaffiyehs stark in the moonlight. Behind the first three terrorists came a fourth and a fifth, the last gunman hard to follow because he was wearing the dark robe of a Syrian Bedouin.
I watched the five Arabs run from rock to rock, their weapons at hip level. Suddenly the carrier loomed seventy-five to eighty feet behind them, its lights turned off. Right away I saw that my two friends and I were in trouble. If we waited until the carrier was close enough, the scouts would be behind us and we wouldn't be able to see them.
There was no way for me to contact Elovitz and Risenberg. I could only hope that they would spray the scouts with slugs at the very last moment and that when they did, the carrier would be close enough for me to use a makeshift explosive pack.
Glancing every now and then at the approaching scouts, I took three grenades from the bag on my shoulder and clipped them to my cartridge belt. I then proceeded to wrap the canvas tightly around the remaining eight grenades in the big, cut the strap in two on a sharp edge of a rock and tied the two lengths securely around the bulky package, leaving a foot of one strap dangle. The package was ready. I hoped to God that Risenberg and Elovitz were.
I picked up my German assault rifle and pushed the selector to automatic fire. Twenty feet below and in front of me was the first of the scouts, the Arab gunsel taking the point. Damn it, I thought. When the scouts stopped slugs, the personnel carrier would be one hundred feet out front. That was one helluva long distance. But there wasn't any other way. My high swing would have to carry the package of grenades close enough to get the job done. If not…
I couldn't wait any longer. I caught the first scout in my sights and my finger moved closer to the trigger. Elovitz, Risenberg and I could have been mentally wired on the same circuit because the instant my StG assault rifle shattered the stillness, their machine guns started to roar.
The Syrian who had taken the point was ripped apart by my dead center burst of 7.92mm slugs, the impact knocking him back a dozen feet before he sagged to the ground. The Israelis proved that they were old pros in the ways of a firefight. They ignored the first scout, assuming I had seen him, and directed their shots at the other four. I heard short cries of pain and deduced that the Israelis' slugs had killed the two Syrians I had lost in the shadows. My own muzzle flashed fire as I raked the darkness to the left of the rock. One of the two men must have moved because he fired back. A dozen high impact projectiles screamed all around me, one striking so close that several chips of rock struck me on the right cheek. I returned the fire during the man's lag time between bursts, the flashing from his own muzzle, etched in my memory, serving as my target. A very short shriek informed me that I hadn't missed.
Now Karameh and his people got into action. I waited for two or three seconds to make sure that Elovitz and Risenberg would do their job. They did! A terrorist stepped up on the gun platform of the carrier, tried to swing the armored shield into place and was instantly slammed into the next world by a stream of slugs from either Elovitz or Risenberg.
Another chain of projectiles raked across the front of the driver's compartment, the numerous ricochets sounding almost like some kind of animal screaming in pain. The two Israelis were taking no chances that any enemy might fire through the two vision slots of the compartment.
It was now or never. I picked up the package of grenades by the strap, stood up, measured the distance and threw the bundle as hard as I could, watching it arc in the moonlight as I dropped back to the ground and picked up my rifle.
The package hit the rocks six feet to one side of the vehicle, toward the front. I didn't hesitate. I fired a short burst into the canvas bundle and the eight grenades exploded with an earthshaking roar. A flash of flame, the sound of last minute shrapnel hitting ground, and it was all over. I stared at the carrier through the clearing smoke while Risenberg and Elovitz flooded the front of the cab with another wave of slugs, killing two more terrorists.
I sighed with relief; the eight grenades had done their job. The explosion had wrecked the carrier's left front wheel, twisting it on its mounting so that the vehicle was tilted heavily to the left. It would never move again. Neither would I or the two Israelis if we didn't change positions and get off the rocks. Elovitz and Risenberg had to take time to reload, which enabled two Syrians to reach the machine gun mounted to the rear roof of the cab, one pulling down the shield, the other grabbing the guide handle.
Just before the man opened fire, I wriggled back from the edge of the slab and saw that the guerrillas had piled out of the rear hatchway and were running to the rocks from both the left and the right sides. I felt a knot grow in the pit of my stomach. How could there be that many of the enemy in the carrier? Only one answer made sense: Pierre had not killed anyone. There hadn't been any guerillas in the mouth of the cave; they had all gone back to the carrier with Karameh. Furthermore, there wasn't any way to tell how many there were down below. If they had doubled up in the carrier, we could be facing as many as thirty-five or forty.
After shoving a full magazine into the StG assault rifle, I slid all the way back from the rock and began my descent to level ground. As I reached the bottom, I started to dodge and weave to my right. My present goal was to link up with Elovitz and Risenberg so that the three of us could form an internal sphere of defense. I heard the snarling of submachines sixty feet to the north of me — the two Israelis. There was more roaring in a wide arc to the west — the damned SLA.
They had spotted me! A bullet cut through my pants at the rear of my left thigh but it barely grazed the flesh. Another slug cut over the top of my head, jerking my hair in its hot passage. A third projectile tugged at the back of my collar, hit a rock several feet to one side of me and ricocheted off, missing my right cheek by only inches.
I dove into a small crater and slithered across on my belly, ending up twenty feet to the right of my original position.
High velocity projectiles splattered against the two chunks of granite, that were my cover, the advancing gunmen thinking they had me pinned down. I peeked out from behind the rock and saw six or seven of them running to one side, then to the other, pausing now and then to trigger off short bursts. I twisted my mouth into a smile. They were running straight into their own open air funerals.
Thrusting the barrel of the StG over the top of a rock, I fired in a swinging back and forth motion. Caught with their caution down, the terrorists didn't have time to turn their weapons toward me. My stream of swaged slugs ripped into them, the hollow-pointed lead tearing off tiny patches of cloth, then striking flesh. One of my slugs struck a grenade hanging on a man's chest, and he exploded.
Trusting that Risenberg and Elovitz were holding the area to the north, I took two of the stick grenades from my belt, pulled the pin from one and threw it west of me. I flung the second grenade twenty feet to the right of the first explosion, and again dropped flat, listening to the sound of stray shrapnel striking the granite. Screams and moans floated back to me from the west. One Syrian, his hands pressed tightly over his mutilated face, staggered toward me. Several other guerrillas, dazed by concussion, weaved drunkenly, not realizing they were totally exposed to my fire.