The men standing around Rashid were stunned as he shouted at them, “Here is your traitor!” He jabbed Nasser with the gun barrel again. “Not I. Soon, those of you who rise up with us will see and understand everything. When you see Tel Aviv and Haifa lying at our feet in ashes, the real revolution begins. Like a violent storm rising out of the desert, it shall sweep the filth of this nation into the gutter, where it belongs. Today is that day. By sunset, the entire Moslem world will rise up behind me.”
“You are mad.” Nasser finally spoke. “The world will never allow…”
“The world?” Rashid crowed. “The world? By tonight, our hands will be tightly wrapped around the oil valves of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Abu Dhabi, and Iraq. We shall control the natural gas pipelines in Libya and Jordan, and we shall close the Canal. The world? Do you mean your Russian lackeys, or perhaps the Americans, the British, or the French? They are realists. When we control their oil, we will control them and they know it,” Rashid shouted out triumphantly. “That is why they will do nothing. If they do, it will all go up in flames… all of it. Compared to that, what value do you think they will place on the lives of a few Zionists? No, Gamal, the world will do precisely — nothing!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The wind blew sand through the gaping hole in the Fiat’s windshield, lashing at Thomson’s eyes and forcing him to drive half-blind, bouncing up and down on the front seat as the Fiat raced across the uneven hard-packed sand. The car would bottom out on the rocks with a scream of tortured metal, only to scrape free, charge up the next hill, and soar over the top. Somehow, through it all, Thomson managed to keep the hood ornament of the Fiat pointed at the steel door of the blockhouse.
As he cut the distance in half and got a clearer image of his destination, he saw that he was not going to be alone when he arrived. There were two Egyptian soldiers guarding the blockhouse door, so Thomson reached beneath the front seat and grabbed the Uzi submachine gun he had hidden there. As he did, his mind flashed back to that slaughterhouse in the suburbs where he got it, complete with dead Israelis, that bastard Grüber, and Ilsa Fengler lying bleeding on the ground as he ran away. Regardless of what she told him then, Thomson knew he should have stayed there with her. With that grim thought in mind, he laid the Uzi across his lap and flicked off the safety. The bastards owed him. The collection agency was about to come knocking on their door, and it was time they paid up on some long-overdue bills.
The two soldiers had been watching the Fiat ever since it left the parking lot. They had had a clear view of his approach and more than enough time to make a plan. He saw them talking casually to each other with the nonchalance of two battle-hardened veterans. They pointed at him, slipped their automatic rifles from their shoulders, checked the magazines, and stood in front of the door, seemingly as unconcerned as if they were waiting for a bus. Finally, when the Fiat got within two hundred feet, the guard on the left turned and sprinted away, running about thirty feet before he dropped to his stomach on a sandy rise. He had chosen his ground well, placing himself in a perfect position on the flank to rake the driver’s side of the car as soon as Thomson was stupid enough to bring it into range.
The other guard chose to stand his ground in the center and protect the door. He had what looked like an old German Schmeisser submachine gun dangling from his hands, daring Thomson to keep coming. The other guard appeared to be Egyptian, but Thomson immediately recognized this one as Klaus, the bull-necked SS sergeant who had been at the gate two nights before when Ilsa talked her way past him. He no doubt recognized the car. Judging from the arrogant smirk on the man’s face, he recognized who was driving and could not wait for some pay back of his own. Like a matador with his sword drawn and cape ready, Klaus stood waiting for the last futile charge of the bull. He let Thomson drive within a hundred feet and then seventy-five without moving a muscle. Finally, when the Fiat crossed an imaginary line of fifty feet, Klaus jerked the barrel of the Schmeisser up and began firing on full automatic.
Thomson was waiting, too, but he almost waited too long. The German was surprisingly fast and damned good at this deadly little business. Thomson ducked his head as low as he could below the dashboard, while keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel with his left hand. He jammed his foot down hard on the gas pedal. The small car leaped forward just as a fusillade of bullets blew away what was left of its windshield. Thomson ducked even lower, but the only other thing he could do was pray that the speeding car was still aimed at the front door of the blockhouse, and at Klaus.
The second guard had no intention of allowing Thomson to get that far or of letting this drama play out without him. He began shooting and bullets slammed into the door panel and passed over Thomson through the open window. Close, but no cigar, Thomson thought, as the guard fired a second burst, riddling the car door from top to bottom this time, probing its interior again for the flesh and bones hiding there. He missed again, but the guard was too good a shot for Thomson to stay that lucky. Suddenly, Thomson’s left leg burned with pain. He raised his head and saw that one of the bullets had dug a bloody furrow across his calf.
Klaus was firing again, too, well aware that his first shots had missed; and the car was now getting dangerously close. Still, the German had more balls than brains and did not appear worried. He and the other guard had the small car trapped in a vicious crossfire, so he set his aim lower, going for the engine and hoping to cripple the car this time. Why not? Once he stopped the car, he could finish with the driver inside at his leisure. That was when a burst of heavy, 9 mm slugs bounced off the car’s engine block with loud clangs! Thomson heard them and felt them, as the Fiat shuddered from the impact of lead exploding on its working parts. The car was mortally wounded, but it had too much momentum to be stopped that easily and continued to bounce on toward the blockhouse unabated.
Perhaps Klaus had quick reflexes in 1945, but too much beer and wurst at too many Oktoberfests since had taken away a step or two. By the time he reacted to the on-coming Fiat, he was a split second too late. Thomson heard a panicked scream as the burly SS sergeant realized it, too. The car crashed into the wall and crushed Klaus between its bumper and the heavy steel of the doorframe. It did not do much for the Fiat, either. It hit the wall hard and the impact lifted its rear end off the ground, sending pieces of brick and metal flying off the bunker. Thomson dimly remembered that for every action, there was an opposite and equal reaction; but science had never been his thing in school. For all he knew, it could have been Sir Isaac Newton or The Three Stooges who said that; but the little car bounced back off the wall as hard and fast as it had come in. The hood flew up, the side doors sprang open, and a basketful of engine pieces and body parts popped straight up into the air. Then, like a wild gun-shot animal, the little car simply dropped back to the ground and died.
The multiple impacts tossed Thomson against the dashboard, bounced him back in the seat, and then deposited him in a dazed heap on the floor. His battered ribs were somewhere beyond pain, but at least he would not have any more trouble from Klaus. That evened the odds a bit, but it did not stop the shooting. Thomson was still too stunned from the violent collision to do much more than watch as the instrument panel above his head exploded from the impact of still more bullets. He scooped the Uzi and the Luger off the floor, crawled out the car’s passenger-side door, and fell on the ground, landing flat on his face. The white-hot sand burned his eyes and mouth, but even that pain helped snap him wide-awake. He managed to roll back underneath the car, Uzi at the ready, waiting. He knew the guard would not wait very long. His ego and his orders would dictate that he must attack, and Thomson did not have to wait long. When the man charged, all Thomson could see was legs from the knees down. When his shiny black tanker boots were barely ten feet away, Thomson extended his arm, pointed the barrel of the Uzi at them, and pulled the trigger. From Thomson’s experience, “close enough” always worked with horseshoes, government contracts, and a submachine gun.
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sp; The first shots missed, and the recoil pushed the back of Thomson’s hand up against the Fiat’s red-hot tailpipe. Still, he ignored the pain and the smell of singed flesh long enough to fire off an even longer burst, keeping his finger on the trigger until a bullet clipped the man’s shinbone and almost took his foot off. The Egyptian crashed to the ground on the other side of the car like a tall oak. Thomson watched as the man’s knees, his waist, his chest, his head, and finally his gun dropped into view, improving the odds even more, Thomson thought. Now, they were both lying flat on the ground with a bad case of the hurts. The guard was Army, appeared to be in top shape, and probably had the aging American CIA agent by twenty years. Then again, Thomson was the only one who still had a gun in his hand.
The guard screamed in pain, trying to grab his shattered leg with one hand and his AK-47 with the other, until Thomson gave a loud whistle. “Yoo-hoo!” he called out and shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The guard’s head twisted around, and his mouth dropped open as he looked beneath the car and saw Thomson’s smiling face looking back at him above the open sights of the Uzi. The guard decided to go for the AK-47 anyway, but he was too late — a lifetime too late. As Thomson pulled the trigger again, he saw the expression in the guard’s eyes. They were the same eyes he had learned to hate years before — those of a killer who had spent too much time at the other end of a gun and took great pleasure in using it to terrorize others. It was probably the last thing Jani and the old man had seen, but no one told this fellow that he might find himself in the same position someday. Now, his eyes were filled with equal measures of arrogance, shock, and cowardice, until Thomson squeezed the trigger and shot him in the chest. Thomson had never enjoyed killing. It made his stomach turn, but he had learned a long time ago that some men deserved nothing less.
Slowly, he rolled out from under the car and lay motionless on the hot sand. He took several deep breaths, one after another, to clear his head. Perper was right, Thomson thought. He was out of his league and should have known better. He ached all over, and the worst of it was coming from his head and his throbbing left leg. He looked down and saw the deep gouge from the German’s bullet and his own blood running onto the sand. That changed nothing. He reached up and found the Fiat’s passenger-side door handle. Using all his strength, he pulled himself up to his knees and leaned against the side of the car. Despite his intrepid attack by Fiat, the blockhouse was still standing, barely four feet away, looking every bit as solid and impregnable as it had before. It would take a lot more than a rusting Italian compact car to punch a hole in all that reinforced concrete. The Uzi dangled from his hand, but a light submachine gun would not do much to crack that thick steel door, either.
Putting his weight on his good leg, Thomson rose to his feet and leaned against the car’s front fender. Back by the reviewing stand and parking lot, the opposition was already forming. Armed Egyptian soldiers were running toward him on foot, and three jeeps mounted with large-caliber machine guns were following his tracks across the sand. Thomson had about given up all hope when he heard the Click! of a door lock. He turned his head back and saw the blockhouse door move… only inches, but it moved. Better still, in the gap between the door and the frame, he saw it was that bastard Grüber. The German’s expression turned to shock when he saw Thomson’s equally surprised face staring back at him.
“Thomson!” Grüber hissed at him. He held a Luger gripped tightly in his fist, and his arm was already coming up with plenty of time to take careful aim. Thomson tried to bring the Uzi up too, but his reflexes were too far gone. Grüber sensed it, too. He smiled, knowing he would get off the first shot. From the look in the German’s eyes, Thomson knew it would be the last. It would have been, too, if something or someone had not shoved the German from behind and knocked Grüber off balance. He squeezed the trigger anyway, but the shot dug in the dirt at Thomson’s feet and Grüber lost his edge. He tried to bring the barrel up for a second shot, but whatever hit him from inside had hit him again, and it was his turn to be late. By the time he found his target again, Thomson had the Uzi pointed at the doorway. The short barrel kicked in his hands, and Thomson managed to fire off a half-dozen rounds before the Uzi clicked empty. Those were the last rounds in the magazine, but they were enough. Grüber screamed as the bullets found the seam between the door and the wall, ripped into his arm and shoulder, and punched him backwards into the blockhouse.
Thomson tried to follow, limping in pain. What he wanted was inside, and he was determined not to let Grüber lock him out again. He reached the door and rammed his shoulder into it. The door flew open and Thomson burst in, waving the Uzi around the room. He need not have worried. No one inside was about to argue with him, not the way he looked — battered and bloody, his clothes shredded, with a crazed look in his eyes and an Uzi submachine gun waving about in his hand. The magazine might be empty, but they did not know that. Looking down the barrel of someone else’s gun, it was not something a sane man would ask.
Thomson turned and slammed the heavy door shut behind him, threw the bolts, and leaned back against its dented steel. It was all he could do to stand upright, his ribs aching and the blood oozing down his leg onto the floor. His eyes darted quickly around the room. Fengler and two of his German technicians, probably the two bastards who beat him up in the hangar, were sitting at their makeshift command console along the sidewall, mouths open in fear, gaping at him over their shoulders as they recognized him and saw the gun. Grüber had made it to the center of the room before he collapsed to his knees on the floor, head lowered, shattered arm hanging limply at his side, and bleeding badly. Next to him lay Ilsa Fengler. She must have been what hit Gruber from behind and the big German must have hit her back as he broke free. That explained his fortuitously bad aim. To make the picture complete, in the bunker’s far corner Thomson saw Kilbride’s tousled white mane cowering behind Collins. That position probably was not in the “Langley Handbook for Rookies,” because The Boy Wonder looked none too happy to be reduced to the role of shield.
“Thomson!” Kilbride beamed. “Holy Mother of God, am I glad to see you, lad. You were right all along, they were about to…”
“Oh, shut up,” Thomson cut him off, his eyes hard and angry as he watched Kilbride flinch and shrink back into the corner. He quickly turned back toward Fengler and raised the Uzi. “Get away from those controls, Papa. Back up against the far wall, or you’ll die right where you are. Now, move!”
Once Fengler and his two technicians were safely away from the console, he looked down at Ilsa. She tried to sit up but was still stunned. He wanted to rush to her right then, to forget about Fengler and the rockets, and take her in his arms; but he could not. He knew he would pass out if he took the first step. Her eyes met his and opened wide. That told him all he needed to know about what he must look like.
“Well, what did you expect,” he said as he smiled down at her, “John Wayne and the cavalry?”
“No, you will do just fine, Richard,” she answered quietly, her eyes filled with tears.
He leaned forward as far as he could and held out a hand. As their fingers touched and he took her hand in his, Grüber came alive. With his good arm, he shoved Ilsa into Thomson’s legs, while he lunged for the control panel. He shouted in triumph as he slammed his hand down repeatedly on a row of brightly colored buttons. Thomson lost his balance, and he and Ilsa toppled onto the floor. Since he was out of bullets, the best he could do was throw the empty Uzi at Grüber in frustration; but it was his turn for too little, too late. Through the thick concrete walls, Thomson suddenly heard a dull, basso rumble. The ground began to shake; and in seconds, the noise increased to a roar. It grew louder and louder until the walls of the blockhouse shook, too. In those agonizing seconds, Thomson realized that one of the rocket engines had just fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The electrical ignition inside the rocket’s engine exploded with a loud Pop! followed by a momentary flash of light
, drawing every eye in the reviewing stand toward the two dark-green trailers sitting on the desert sand. In that instant, the crowd forgot the grim struggle that was taking place next to them between their President and Colonel Ali Rashid. Somehow, it paled in comparison to the miracle of modern technology unfolding before their eyes.
For a second, there was nothing to be heard but a strained silence. The rockets stood erect on their narrow trailers, motionless, their tapered cones silhouetted against the blue sky. Suddenly, a shower of orange sparks cascaded from the base of one of them. The sparks splashed off the deflector plate, bounced onto the sand, and quickly burned away to gray ash. No explanation was necessary, since everyone in the crowd had seen the pictures. They should have known what to expect; but these were simple men, the sons of farmers and shopkeepers and this was right in front of them. Pictures were one thing, but actually being there and seeing it happen was something else. They were awestruck. They turned as one and pointed. Their mouths hung open, gaping at the powerful demonstration being unleashed just for them.
The sparks ceased to fly, but the rocket still had not moved. Inside, an explosive mix of ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen quickly filled the firing chamber until the swirl of vapors flashed and a withering blast of smoke and orange flame erupted from the rocket’s engine. A devastating fireball exploded outward in all directions. Even in the reviewing stand, the crowd could feel the distant rocket’s hot breath, hotter and louder than the most savage sandstorm. The noise was deafening, as smoke and flames filled the air, driving a gritty cloud of dust across the low, empty hills. Still, no one in the crowd could tear his eyes away.
That was merely the preface. When the rocket’s powerful main engine sprang to life, the steel frame of the reviewing stand shook and vibrated beneath their feet. It felt as if they were trapped in an earthquake. The flames danced across the sand in a mad, frightening rush of power, burning brighter and whiter than the harshest noonday sun. The rocket trembled and strained but was determined to lift its own bulk off the ground or explode in angry frustration. Slowly, by a seeming inch at a time and then a foot, it broke free of the trailer and was airborne. The smoke and flames billowed out in triumph, as the rocket quickly rose higher. For the first few seconds, it flew straight up. Faster and faster it went, soaring high into the sky, its power defying gravity until it began the faintest arcing turn to the right. Like a falcon, the fast-moving rocket had homed in on its target. With one voice, the crowd broke into wild, tumultuous cheering. Men hugged other men. They pounded each other on the back and began to dance, so caught up in the triumph of the moment that they were incapable of caring about anything else. This was the achievement of their generation — their pyramid, their Sphinx, and their Suez Canal.
Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers Page 102
