"I've heard of being armed to the teeth, but this is ridiculous," said Nat Dickstein, and they all laughed. The message from the Coparelli had altered his mood. At first he had been shocked. How had the opposition managed to learn so much of his plan that they had been able to hijack the Coparelli first? Somewhere he must have made terrible errors of judgment. Suza ... ? But there was no point now in castigating himself. There was a fight ahead. His black depression vanished. The tension was still there, coiled tight inside him like a steel spring, but now he could ride it and use it, now he had something to do with it. The twelve men in the mess room of the Stromberg sensed the change in Dickstein and they caught his eagerness for the battle, although they knew some of them would die soon. Armed to the teeth they were. Each had an Uzi 9-mm submachine gun, a reliable, compact firearm weighing nine pounds when loaded with the 25-round magazine and only an inch over two feet long with its metal stock extended. They had three spare magazines each. Each man had a 9-mm Luger in a belt holster-the pistol would take the same cartridges as the machine gun-and a clip of four grenades on the opposite side of his belt. Almost certainly, they all had extra, weapons of their own choice: knives, blackjacks, bayonets, knuckle-dusters and others more exotic, carried superstitiously, more like lucky charms than fighting implements. Dickstein knew their mood, knew they had caught it from him. He had felt it before with men before a fight. They were afraid, and-paradoxically-the fear made them eager to get started, for the waiting was the worst part, the battle itself was anesthetic, and afterward you had either survived or you were dead and did not care anymore. Dickstein had figured his battle plan in detail and briefed them. 'Me Coparelli was designed like a miniature tanker, with holds forward and amidships, the main superstructure on the afterdeck, and a secondary superstructure in the stern. The, main superstructure contained the bridge, the officers' quarters and the mess; below it were crew's quarters. The stern superstructure contained the galley, below that stores, and below these the engine room. The two superstructures were separate above deck, but below deck they were connected by gangways. They were to go over in three teams. Abbas's would attack the bows. The other two, led by Bader and Gibli, would go up the port and starboard ladders at the stern. The two stem teams were detailed to go below and work forward, Bushing out the enemy amidships where they could be mown down by Abbas and his men from the prow. The strategy was likely to leave a pocket of resistance at the bridge, so Dickstein planned to take the bridge himself. The attack would be by night; otherwise they would never get aboard-they would be picked off as they came over the rails. That left the problem of how to avoid shooting at one another as well as the enemy. For this he provided a recognition signal, the word Aliyah, and the attack plan was designed so that they were not expected to confront one another until the very end. Now they were waiting. They sat in a loose circle in the galley of the Stromberg, identical to the galley of the Coparelli where they would soon be fighting and dying. Dickstein was speaking to Abbas: "From the bows you'll control the foredeck, an open field of fire. Deploy your men behind cover and stay
there. When the enemy on deck reveal their positions, pick them off. Your main problem is going to be hailing fire from the bridge." - Slumped in his chair, Abbas looked even more like a tank than usual. Dickstein was glad Abbas was on his side. "And we hold our fire at first." Dickstein nodded. "Yes. You've a good chance of getting aboard unseen. No point in shooting until you know the rest of us have arrived." Abbas nodded. "I see Porush is on my team. You know he's my brother-in-law." "Yes. I also know he's -the only married man here. I thought you might want to take care of him." "Thanks. Feinberg looked up from the knife he was cieaning. 'Me lanky New Yorker was not grinning for once. "How do you figure these ArabsT' Dickstein shook his head. 'They could be regular army or Fedayeen." Feinberg grinned. "Let's- hope they're regular army-we make faces, they surrender." It was a lousy joke, but they all laughed anyway. Ish, always pessimistic, sitting with his feet on a table and his eyes closed, said, "Going over the rail will be the worst part. We'll be naked as babes." Dickstein said, "Remember that they believe we're expecting to take over a deserted boat. Their ambush is supposed to be a big surprise for 'us. They're looking for an easy victory-but we're prepared. And it will be dark---- The door opened and the captain came in. "We've sighted the Coparelli." Dickstein stood up. "Let's go. Good luck, and don't take any prisoners."
Chapter Sixteen
The three boats pulled away from -the Stramberg in the last few minutes before dawn. Within seconds the ship behind them was invisible. She had no navigation lights, and deck lights and cabin lamps had been extinguished, even below the waterline, to ensure that no light escaped to warn the Coparelft. The weather had worsened during the night. The captain of the Stromberg said it was still not bad enough to be called a storm, but the rain was torrential, the wind strong enough to blow a steel bucket clattering along the deck, the waves so high that now Dickstein was obliged to cling tightly to his bench seat in the well of the-motorboat. For a while they were in limbo, with nothing visible ahead or behind. Dickstein could not even see the faces of the four men in the boat with him. Feinberg broke the silence: "I still say we should have postponed this fishing trip until tomor row. - Whistling past the graveyard. Dickstein was as superstitious as the rest: underneath his oilskin and his life jacket he wore his father's old striped waistcoat with a smashed fob watch in the pocket over his heart. The watch had once stopped a German bullet. Dickstein was thinking logically, but in a way he knew he had gone a little crazy. His affair with Suza, and her betrayal, had turned him upside down: his old values and motivations had been jolted, and the new ones he had acquired with her had turned to dust in his hands. He still cared for some things: he wanted to win this battle, he wanted Israel to have the uranium, and he wanted to kill Yasif Hassan; the one thing he did not care about was himself. He had no fear, suddenly, of bullets and pain and death. Suza had betrayed him, and he had no burning desire to live a long life with that in his past. So long as Israel got its bomb, Esther would die peacefully, Mottie would finish Treasure Island, and Yigael would look after the grapes. He gripped the barrel of the machine gun beneath his oilskin. They crested a wave and suddenly, there in the next trough, was the Coparelli.