The Hunted

by Elmore Leonard

  The road was no more than four meters wide, narrow strips of patched and broken pavement tha t would end abruptly and continue as rutted track s of gravel for miles before the pavement would suddenly reappear, a roadway, some poured concrete and telephone lines, the only sign anyone had eve r been here. The rest was desert scrub and bleache d rock.

  Davis held the Camaro between sixty-five and seventy, both hands controlling the twists an d strains transmitted to the steering wheel. It wa s work, hot and with a high level of wind noise. Stil l half a tank of gas. He felt good, glancing at th e rearview mirror and at the red-brown mountains t o the east--they were the color of Mars--askin g Rosen if he knew why they called it the Red Sea , keeping him from thinking too much.

  Why?

  Because, see those mountains, the color? Like dull, dirty copper. They go all the way down int o Saudi Arabia and they say their reflection on th e water makes the sea look red.

  Within a few miles they'd come to a stone marker and a side road--not a road; a trail--tha t led east, toward the mountains. It wouldn't b e long. He remembered something.

  "Look in the glove box," Davis said.

  He'd forgotten until now Tali putting a handgun in there as they drove away from her apartment: a .22 Beretta Parabellum. Low caliber, but an effective, mean-looking gun. Rosen held it in his hands, studying it.

  "It's loaded," Davis said. "Keep it on you."

  The claymores were on the back seat, each wrapped in about three hundred feet of wire.

  He'd need a few minutes to set the caps and attach the wires to the car battery. The Mercedes would have to hang back, cautious, suspicious, an d give him time. They could do it, set up a bushwhack and invite the three guys to walk in. This was the place for it. They fought wars here, an d they hadn't seen another car or truck or donke y since Mizpeh Ramon. He didn't want to miss th e road marker or forget details talking to Rosen , keeping him occupied. He hoped the marker wa s still there. Once there had been a sign, Zohar ha d said, but now the sign was gone. The sign with th e name of the village was gone and the people wh o had lived in the village were gone. Driven out b y the tanks.

  Rosen said he had to take a leak. Davis asked if he wanted him to stop. He thought of Raymon d Garcia--seeing him in front of the Marine Hous e polishing his Camaro--and told Rosen to go on th e floor if he had to. Rosen said no, he'd wait. He kep t talking.

  He said, "Listen, you know what I was? I was a Storekeeper Third. I counted skivvy shirts, fo r Christ's sake. The war was over before I got overseas."

  "We don't have time to put you through Boot,"

  Davis said, "but you've had all the experience you need. How long you been driving?"

  "I don't know, thirty years. Longer 'n that."

  "Okay, you know how to start a car. That's all you have to do. I'll throw the switch if you want,"

  Davis said, "but then I'm not outside watching if something goes wrong."

  "I'll do it," Rosen said.

  "Just keep telling yourself those guys back there want to kill you," Davis said. "I'd think you'd b e anxious to have it done."

  "Anxious? Christ, I'm anxious, I'm scared is what I am."

  "Well, I am too," Davis said. "Those guys back there--everybody's a little scared, I imagine, nervous. But what can you do? Right?"

  They talked and Rosen asked about combat, what the feeling was like, people shooting at you.

  Scary. And about guys risking their lives. Were they crazy? You don't think, Davis said, you do it.

  That's what all the training was about. And medals--Rosen got on medals again. (Is that wha t he wanted?) What did you have to do to win different medals? Did you think at the time if it was worth it or not?

  It was a situation you found yourself in, Davis said. "Over there, a Bronze Star was like a goodconduct medal. Win a Silver Star, maybe you held off twenty gooks coming through the wire with a n M-16 and a bayonet. Navy Cross, you held off tw o hundred gooks coming through the wire with th e same thing. And a Medal of Honor, you held of f that many without an M-16 or a bayonet."

  "Were you decorated?" Rosen asked.

  "Silver Star and two Hearts."

  "Really? You were wounded?"

  "I got shot," Davis said.

  "Jesus . . . and you got a Silver Star? What'd you do?"

  The road marker was about fifty meters ahead on the left, coming up fast.

  "Hang on," Davis said.

  Rashad thought it was a gust of wind blowing sand across the desert. But then Teddy Cass saw it an d sat up, hunched toward the windshield.

  "He turned off. You see him? That's his dust,"

  Teddy said. "Val, is there a road here, going east?"

  "Nothing," Valenzuela said.

  "Maybe a kibbutz, or some kind of historic site," Teddy said.

  "Nothing's supposed to be there." Valenzuela held the map up, squinting at it.

  "Well, there's some thing," Rashad said. He could see flashes of green leading the column o f dust, sun reflections on the Camaro. And beyonds omething. It looked like a rock formation at first.

  Rashad slowed the Mercedes and turned at the stone marker, expecting a road and seeing onl y faint tracks through the sand and scrub ahead o f the car. The dust from the Camaro was thinning , blowing away. They could see the shapes of buildings now. Inside the Mercedes, moving at abou t twenty-five now to avoid the rocks and depressions, they were aware of the stillness, the silence outside. There was no sign of the Camaro.

  "He's making his move," Valenzuela said. His tone was like a sigh.

  It had been a village of immigrant Jews from India, a village of stone and cement houses with flat roof s built around a square where there had been a wel l with a dripping faucet. Ein Kfar. The village ha d appeared in the sights of Israeli and Jordanian tan k gunners in October, 1973, during the Yom Kippu r War, and had been shelled out of existence as a place to live. Fragments of the village remained: th e outline of the square, the dry faucet, walls pierce d by explosives, cisterns blown out of the ground , hollow buildings with open doors, rubble in th e desert sun.

  A year ago Davis had passed through Ein Kfar with Raymond Garcia and Zohar, and Zohar ha d told them about the tank battle: how his tank ha d been hit by a rocket, how he had lost his gunne r and loader and had been burned on his hands an d face and had lain for a day in the field hospital tha t was set up in Ein Kfar.

  Davis could still picture the village. He remembered a Coca-Cola sign lying in the rubble. He remembered thinking that Coca-Cola in Hebre w looked like Coca-Cola in English upside down.

  He remembered the square--it was the same--a nd the narrow street to the right of the squar e where the sign had been. The sign was still there.

  And the cement walls with windows and doors blown out.

  They would have to move fast now and hope that the Mercedes would hang back, not seeing th e green car, and approach the village cautiously. The y would have maybe five minutes.

  From the square, halfway down the side street, Davis pulled the Camaro into a space between tw o buildings. The way ahead was clear if they had t o run; they wouldn't have to back out. Okay, ope n the trunk. Get the shotgun first.

  He said to Rosen, "Ready?"

  "God," Rosen said, but he was out of the car. He walked out to the street, toward the square.

  Davis pulled the Kreighoff out of the trunk, loaded both under-over barrels, and stuffed a handful of shells in the right-hand pocket of hi s jacket. He leaned the shotgun against the side o f the Camaro.

  From the back seat he got his Colt automatic first, stuck it into his pants in front; the box of cartridges went into his left-hand pocket. Then the claymore mines.

  It took less than two minutes to attach the electrical wires from the claymores to the alternato r under the Camaro's hood, then unreel the wires , carrying the curved, green-painted mines one at a time out to the street, several houses down towar d the square, where Rosen was piling rubble in th e narrow street: old boards, hun
ks of concrete, piece s of furniture. Davis planted the claymores in th e rubble. When he brought the third one out an d buried it, he dragged the Coca-Cola sign over an d laid it across the heap of debris that now blocke d the street.

  Rosen looked at him, tense, his eyes wide open.

  He took out a pack of cigarettes and got one lit.

  Davis adjusted his cap, looking toward the square in the sunlight. There was no sound yet, no movement.

  "We're about ready," Davis said.

  They walked back to the Camaro and Davis picked up the shotgun. "I'll be across the street"-he nodded--"in that window. You stand by th e corner of the house. Right here. When they come , they'll see all that shit piled in the road. What're the y gonna think? We're trying to delay them. Mayb e we've got guns, they don't know. I imagine they'l l be careful at first. But when nothing happens--the y got to get out of the car to move all that stuff.

  When they do, when they're bending over the pile, you reach into Raymond Garcia's hot setup an d turn the key on."

  "You'll be right across the street," Rosen said.

  Davis nodded. "I'll be right across the street.

  Maybe all three won't get out. Whoever's driving maybe. I'll take that one."

  "You think the mines'll do it, huh?"

  "They got a punch. They'll do it."

  "Then what?" Rosen said.

  Davis looked at him a moment. "See if they're all dead."

  "Jesus," Rosen said.

  The Marine touched Rosen's shoulder and walked away with the shotgun. He walked acros s the street. Rosen watched him. He didn't hunch hi s shoulders or run, he walked.

  Davis looked back when he was on the other side, then stepped through a doorway, into a hous e with plaster ripped from the walls and only part o f a roof, a house he had been in before in Phu Ba i and Hue.

  Rashad pulled closer to the buildings on the right, still in the square, and stopped. His hand droppe d to the Beretta, 9mm, that was on the seat next t o him. Teddy Cass's Uzi submachine gun lay acros s his lap, the clip sticking down between his legs.

  Valenzuela had taken his Uzi out of the attache case and held it so that the barrel stub rested on the bac k of the front seat.

  "Go on a little more," Valenzuela said. "Up to the street."

  Rashad put the Mercedes in gear and eased it, creeping forward, past the building on the corner.

  They saw the pile of rubble halfway down the sidestreet.

  "What's going on?" Valenzuela said. "Okay, they went down that way. What're we supposed t o think about it? Does the street go somewhere else?

  You see any dust?"

  "Looks like a road way down there," Rashad said. "They could be gone by now."

  "Or they could still be here," Valenzuela said.

  "Maybe that's what they want us to do," Rashad said. "Waste some time."

  "Fucking Marine," Valenzuela said. "He's got no fucking business in this."

  Davis watched them advancing: the heavyset guy, Valenzuela, on this side of the street, and the thi n guy with the hair on the other side, both with Uzis , banana clips, thirty rounds each, both of them staying close to the walls of the houses, coming to doorways and windows and poking the machine guns in as they took a look. The Mercedes was creepin g along, staying even with them. Half a block, they'd get tired of it. They'd be anxious, realize soon the y were wasting time. Clear the stuff out of the roa d and get moving--look for the car, find the car first , that would be the way to do it.

  If he had an M-16 all three of them could be dead in the time he thought about it and picture d himself doing it. They thought they were bein g careful, but they didn't know shit about entering a village.

  Across the street, Rosen was watching them, pressed against the wall, inching his bearded fac e past the corner, then pulling it back. Twice Rose n looked over his shoulder at the Camaro, makin g sure it was still there.

  Davis held the Kreighoff cradled in his arms, his back to the front wall of the house, looking on a n angle through the open window. He'd have t o shoot left-handed. The shotgun had a nice balanc e and feel--the checkered walnut stock, the delicate , thin little gold-plated triggers. Twelve gauge: i t would hold a shot pattern two fists wide from th e window to the pile of rubble. Put both of the m through the windshield of the Mercedes as th e smoke cleared and go out with the Colt, if it wa s necessary to finish up.

  Rosen was peeking again, holding the Beretta at his side. The rear end of the Camaro was shin y though filmed with dust. Rosen was still watchin g them.

  They were about three houses from the rubble.

  The heavyset one, Valenzuela, was coming out into the street, in front of the Mercedes, saying something to the one with the hair. Now the one with the hair was coming over. Then Valenzuela motione d for the car to come on, follow them. They wer e walking toward the pile of rubble, tired of foolin g around.

  Walking into it. Davis watched them. Two houses from the rubble. He glanced over at Rosen , across the street. About thirty seconds more.

  Rosen was pressed to the corner of the building.

  No--he was turning away, moving quickly to the Camaro and getting in . . .

  Davis couldn't believe it. Not yet! Wait!

  . . . slamming the door.

  Actually slamming it. Christ, he could hear it across the street. They heard it too, both of them , down the street past the pile of rubble, looking up , raising the machine guns this way.

  The claymores went off as Rosen turned the ignition key--two of them did--with a hard, heavy, ear-splitting BA-WHAM-BA-WHAM, and th e Coca-Cola sign and the lumber and concrete exploded in gray smoke and fragments of junk and metal, fanning out in the arc-shape of the oval claymores, blowing the shit out of the pile of rubble but missing--Davis knew it--the two guys flat in th e street now and the black guy safe in the car. Shit.

  He brought up the Kreighoff and gave them both loads, knowing it was too far, knowing it was tim e to get the hell out--and ran across the street wit h the shotgun, digging the Colt out with his fre e hand, letting go at them, snapping shots as they go t up--one of them still on his knees--firing burst s from the Uzis, trying to catch him, spray him wit h the dry chattering sound, taking out cement fro m the corner of the house as he got past it and lande d hard against the trunk lid of the Camaro.

  When he got around to the side, there was Rosen behind the wheel, looking up at him.

  "I get 'em?"

  "Shit," Davis said. "You got shit."

  They drove out of there, straight out across the desert, bounding over holes and washes, tearin g through the scrub, beating the hell out of Raymon d Garcia's hot setup in a wide wide arc that shoul d bring them to the highway.

  "Well, for Christ sake," Rosen said. "A noise like that, Jesus, why didn't it kill them?"

  Davis hung on to the wheel. He wouldn't say anything to the man for a while. He'd be looking a t the rearview mirror again. Shit. He was tired o f looking at the mirror, but he'd be looking at it no w all the way to the Red Sea.

  THEY SAID TEDDY CASS, before he turned freelance, had done beautiful work in the precision application of explosives. He made destruction a work of art.

  With Universal Demolition, Inc., Teddy had torn down at least a dozen major structures. He'd tor n down, for example, the Broadmoor Hotel in Atlantic City, twelve stories, in less than twelve seconds, not even rattling the windows in a building twenty feet away--using, Teddy had once said, "a little dynamite and a lot of gravity."

  The pay had been good, but it hadn't compared to what he could make working contract jobs o n his own, and he'd done several for Val and Mr.

  Manza. (He'd gotten a grand for the first one: letting Val tie up a guy on the top floor of the Huron Hotel in Saginaw before he blew it down.) Thi s one, five grand plus expenses. Good wages. Probably a grand or fifteen hundred more than Clarence "Rashad" Robinson was making. But the contrac t hadn't said anything about taking on the fuckin g Marines.

  Teddy told Valenzuela--
in the Mercedes again going south--that it was time to renegotiate. He didn't mind discussing it in front of Rashad, because he knew Rashad would be on his side and it would be two of them Val would have to kee p happy if he wanted a job done.

  They were somewhere behind the green Camaro.

  They knew it hadn't doubled back north, they'd seen enough of its dust trail to be sure of that. Bu t the Camaro wasn't in sight now--even with Rasha d hitting ninety on clear stretches of blacktop--an d they didn't know what the problems would be locating the Camaro in Eilat or at points south.

  Valenzuela was not a man who became excited.

  He took things one at a time and looked at them.

  He said, "I agree, it's different than it was on paper. We told you Ross, Rosen, never packed but was likely to now. Or he might've hired somebod y who packed. But, no, we never saw something lik e this, a guy who carries fucking grenades in his ca r or whatever it was he used. So all right, you fee l you're entitled to combat pay, whatever you wan t to call it. Let me know what you want. Harry o r myself, we're not gonna argue with you. Harr y wants it done, so do I."

  Rashad, holding his gaze on the road and the sweep of desert, said, "Something you might consider. The man has money. He's living on something. And we know his lawyer come to give him some more. If we was to get our hands on tha t money and cut it up--" Rashad said. "Hey, sigh t unseen, I'd go for a share, not even knowing ho w much we talking about."

  "That's a possibility," Valenzuela said. "When you take Ross, I doubt we'll have time to ask hi m where his money is. But Mel, that's something else.

  I'm agreeable to, as you say, renegotiating. The thing is, if we keep after him we're gonna get him, I k now that. We're too close to blow it now and hav e to start over. We're gonna agree--whatever yo u want and think is fair. I just don't want to stop an d talk it over. The other thing--"

  Valenzuela looked down at his map. "Where they going? How far? Well, they could go to Eila t and try and hide there--it looks like a pretty goodsize place, a resort town, the Miami Beach of Israel--or they could keep going south, down t o the southern tip of the Sinai. Then what? Go bac k up the other side? They keep going they'll be i n Egypt. So I don't know where the fuck we're going.