The food locker and refrigerator were well-stocked. I calculated that there was more than enough food for a five or six day journey, which meant that Miriam had packed enough for a return trip. Still, I was suspicious of her. In this business, «trust» is a word used only by fools.
Before we left, I had inspected the compartment where the firearms were stored, checking the Russian AK-47 assault rifle and the Czech machine pistol, relieved that there was plenty of ammo for both weapons, as well as for the two Spanish 9-millimeter automatics and the U. S. Gwinn Bushmaster. I felt like singing God Bless America when I saw the campsite intruder detection system, all neatly packed in its box.
During the night Miriam had told me that she and her brother had joined the Syrian Liberation Army for two reasons: because they hated Jews and "World Zionism," and because they were convinced that the «dispossessed» Palestinians deserved a state of their own. I had then asked her why, in spite of such honest beliefs, she and her brother were working not only for the U. S. Special Espionage Agency but for Hamosad, the worldwide intelligence apparatus of the very nation they hoped to destroy!
Miriam's answer had been prompt and practical — money. "One can't buy the finer things of life with political idealism," she had said, adding that, as she and Ahmed had analyzed the situation, all the Arab terrorist organizations were unrealistic, violent dreamers. Israel would never fall; the United States could not afford to let that happen. There was also Arab disunity, centuries' old hatreds which made it impossible for the Arab nations to work together.
Now, as I drove the van over the concrete road, I decided that maybe Miriam was telling the truth, and maybe she wasn't. I'd have to wait and see.
There isn't anything interesting about the Syrian countryside, the dominant feature being the Syrian Desert, an arid region that stretches between two fertile regions: the Mediterranean coastal lands on the west and the valley of the Euphrates River on the east. This desert comprises all of central and most of southeast Syria.
The Hamad, the south-central area of the desert, reaches almost to the foot of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in places. To the east of the Hauran district, in the southwest, lies the Jebel ed Druz, a plateau reaching its highest point in a peak of the same name at 5.900 feet.
The As-Suwayda hill region lies in southeast Syria, an inhospitable region of wind-swept rock and stony slopes dotted with buckthorn and tamarisk. There is little natural forest, only scrub Aleppo pine. Further up the slopes of the As-Suwayda grows steppe-like vegetation, and there is some grass around wadis.
We took turns driving, neither of us trying to break any speed records. Not only was the road a winding ribbon filled with camels, donkeys and ox-pulled carts, along with a sprinkling of cars and trucks of every make, but the hot concrete demanded that we go slow to protect the rubber of the Land Rover tires.
When we came to empty stretches of road, heat devils danced ahead of us, but the interior of the van was cool and comfortable, the air conditioner working at maximum. The nights would be far different. Once the sun had dropped below the horizon, the sand and rocks would quickly lose their heat and within a few hours the temperature would fall to the mid-fifties and we'd have to use the Primus Model infra-red heater to burn the chill from the air.
We reached the end of the road at 3:30 in the afternoon. One moment there was hot concrete, then only hard topsoil baked hard by the sun, and scattered limestone. Some of the rocks were the size of small boulders, but most of it was pebbly.
We bounced along until sunset, then parked and set up camp for the night. In case anyone in the distance was watching through binoculars, I waited until dark before setting up the intruder detection system.
Battery-powered, the I.D.S. was actually a very simple system consisting of a central station, about the size of a box of kitchen matches, and a spool of wire; it was geared to be set up in a two perimeter defense. All I did was stretch the ultra-thin wire around the camp, one end of the wire connected to the receiving station; should the wire be broken, a red light would flash and a beeper alert us.
I established two circular perimeters around the van — the first slightly over ninety feet from the van, the second at half that distance. If the wire of the second perimeter was broken, both red lights would flash and the tone would change to a pulsing beep. Luckily there were no intruders that night; Miriam and I were both exhausted from the day's driving.
The strain the next day was even worse because we had to find our own route and pick our way around large boulders and over slab rock. Yet we made good time; when daylight began to fade, Miriam said we were still on schedule.
Once more we parked the van under a ceiling of wide-open sky, with nothing around us but the uneven flow of worthless land. After I set up the two perimeter defense system, Miriam closed the fiber-board partition separating the driver's section from the rest of the van, while I covered the glass of the rear door with thick paper, hoping to make the van invisible from any lurking enemy.
We had finished our supper of canned beef, lima beans, mint tea and barasizk, a cake made with pistachio and sesame seeds, and were disposing of the paper plates when the I.D.S. alarm sounded. Along with the beeping, one red light began to flash on and off.
Miriam's eyes widened. "It could be some small animal?" she whispered, watching me open the arms locker and take out the Gwinn Bushmaster and the AK-47 assault rifle.
"Give me the AK-47," she said, a nervous edge to her voice. I handed her the weapon, then turned off the Primus lantern and pushed back the partition. Together Miriam and I looked through the glass of the wide windshield and of the two doors. The night was as black as the inside of a barrel of tar, the stars, in the clear air, shining like blue diamonds.
I unlocked the door on the right-hand side cautiously. "Once we're outside," I told Miriam, "count ten before you fire. That will give me some time to get around to the other side." She nodded quickly, but I sensed her apprehension. "Rake the west side in a semicircle. Then get back inside and lock the doors. I'll give you three short knocks before I come back in."
Easing the door open, the two of us stepped outside into the night. We heard nothing and saw only blackness, but sensed that we were not alone, that someone or something was less than one hundred feet away.
As Miriam pulled back the cocking lever of her AK-47, I crept quickly around to the other side of the van and, for an instant, let my eyes poke into the darkness. I couldn't be certain, but thought that I could detect shadowy forms moving very slowly toward the van.
I'll know in a moment. I told myself and opened fire with the Bushmaster at the same time that Miriam cut loose with the AK-47. The racket of both weapons made it seem as if the world had suddenly exploded.
The Bushmaster alone creates a deafening roar, as if someone was tossing scores of miniature hand grenades. Originally conceived as a U. S. Air Force survival pistol, the odd-looking autoloader could be fired on either full or semi-automatic, spitting out.223 caliber slugs from an M16 magazine inserted behind the pistol grip.
In a low crouch and keeping constantly on the move, I fired the Bushmaster on semi-automatic, spacing out the shots and swinging the weapon from north to south, from left to right, my reward being three or four screams of pain. I then lowered the weapon to rake the actual ground and swung it from the right to the left. In less than a minute, the 34-round magazine was empty.