Thunderstrike in Syria

Chapter Six

Dressed in khaki pants, matching shirt, and wearing walker boots, Miriam acted as though we were going on a long camping trip instead of a dangerous mission. As the hours passed and Damascus was far behind us, I tried to decide whether she was very brave, or an important cog in some machine of deceit and treachery. I was positive about one thing: She wasn't a fool. And she certainly wasn't an idealist, unless she was lying to me, but rather a very sensuous woman whose prime motivation was simple greed.

The van was everything she had said it was. In place of sliding bus-type doors on each side, there were regular doors that could be locked on the inside. In the rear were two bunks, one on either side, a built-in stove and a refrigerator, both powered by propane gas. A small metal table was bolted to the center of the floor and there was ample storage space in the wall lockers.

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.

By now my eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness and I could make out about a dozen on the ground. But three of the attackers were on their feet and very much alive. Thinking I was out of ammunition, they started running toward me, one screaming, "INFIDEL! WE KILL YOU!", another snapping off a shot with a pistol. But I had seen the man's movement and had ducked to one side, at the same time jerking Wilhelmina from her shoulder holster and thumbing off the safety. The enemy bullet zinged off the van, and I put one of Wilhelmina's Luger projectiles into the man who had fired. The 9mm Parabellum bullet struck the man in the chest, knocked him backward, and he went down at the same instant that I triggered off two more rounds. One 9mm smashed into an Arab's stomach, doubling him over; he quit trying to raise his rifle when another slug bored into his forehead. The third man jerked to his left and fired his carbine as I ducked to the right and twice more pulled Wilhelmina's trigger. The first slug struck him in the chest, the second in the stomach, the double impact of the HP bullets knocking him off his feet. Down he went, his burnoose flying.

I ran around the end of the van and came up on its other side in time to see another invader creeping toward the side door. Wilhelmina had exhausted her ammunition and I didn't have time to shove in another clip and cock the old girl. I twisted my right arm, freed Hugo from his chamois case and let him slip handle-first into my hand. The Arab, spinning toward me, did his best to blow me up with a rifle that appeared to be an old-fashioned bolt-action weapon.

I ruined his chances by tossing Hugo at him as I ducked to one side to avoid his bullet. The pencil-thin stiletto speared him in the throat, the surgical steel slicing through his flesh; the man's legs folded and he went down.

Quickly I shoved another clip-full of 9mm hollow points into Wilhelmina, cocked her and looked through the glass of the door, but I didn't see Miriam. Either she was down on the floor or in the rear of the van. I rapped three times and instantly her head popped up from beside the bucket seat next to the driver's. She unlocked the door and I stepped inside and relocked it.

"They're all dead, all of them?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I replied. "I'm going back out and make sure. Keep watch but stay in."

I went into the rear of the van, took the Czech Skorpion Machine Pistol and two magazines from the gun locker, shoved the two long clips into my waistband, and again went outside. Cautiously I checked around the front of the van; I could have gone out and inspected the perimeters but I wasn't an idiot.

I picked up the empty Bush master, crept around the rear of the van and went back to retrieve Hugo. Sighing in disgust because I knew I was going to have another sleepless night, I reached down, pulled Hugo from the dead man's throat and wiped both sides of the blade on the corpse's burnoose.

I rapped three times on the door and Miriam let me in. "We shouldn't spend the rest of the night here," she said right off, staring at me.

"We're not going to!" I went to the rear of the van, carefully placed Hugo in the tiny sink and returned the Bushmaster and the Skorpion machine pistol to the gun locker; I then hurried back to the driver's seat and sat down.

"I counted sixteen bodies out there," I said, turning on the headlights and starting the motor. "What will happen when the Syrian Desert Patrol discovers them?"

Still clutching her AK-47, Miriam sat down in the seat next to me as I started to move the van forward. "The border police won't even try to find out who killed the bandit trash," she said. "What we have in Syria is similar to what used to happen in your nation's South when anti-Negro organizations would lynch black men and women."

From the corner of my eye, I could see her peering ahead at the twin yellow beams of the headlights. We might as well have been on the Moon. "How far are you going to drive?" she asked.

"Five miles," I replied. "After we stop, I'll set up a new defense with the I.D.S., even though I feel that we're safe enough. The few bandits holding the camels would have to be crazy to attack us."

Several hours later, Miriam and I both felt more relaxed, especially after I had erected three perimeters of hair-thin wire, the farthest 180 feet from the van, the middle one 120 feet, the closest 60 feet. I set the beeper to maximum, cleaned Hugo and reloaded the Bushmaster and the machine pistol. A short while later, I placed the I.D.S. station close to my ear as I settled down in the bunk on my side of the van.

We pulled out the next morning when the sun was already high above the horizon. The van bounced over small rocks and rough, broken ground, the heavy-duty springs creaking in protest whenever the wheels rolled over slabs of broken skag and lava-rock. We were now close to the As-Suwayda Hills.

The plan for approaching Mohammed Bashir Karameh's main SLA camp was basically practical. According to Miriam there would be guards posted at strategic positions, all around the camp for several miles. These guards would be at the highest points available in order to detect anyone who might approach at a distance. Miriam explained that we would overcome this problem by driving through the Wadi el Mujib. At this time of the year, the deep ravine would be bone dry. All we would have to do is drove down the wadi, park the van and climb up one side, up a few hundred feet of slanting limestone. Once at the top, we would keep behind large boulders and from there see the camp, situated on a high plain, through powerful binoculars. We could even photograph it with a camera equipped with telescopic lens which Miriam had thoughtfully provided. On the surface, the whole deal was a snap. I'd draw a crude map, make the proper coordinates, take the longitude and latitude and gear the whole procedure for photomosaics and orthophotos. That is, for the aerial photography that would follow, conducted by a U.S. satellite which, two hundred miles overhead, would be diverted for that purpose.

Miriam and I would then return to Damascus where I would give the information to a Hamosad agent and later take the Josi-Dan Express to Amman, Jordan. From Jordan I would return to Tel Aviv. All very simple. At least in theory.

This third day was pure hell. The almost constant bouncing up-and-down of the van loosened a connection in the air-conditioning system, and soon Miriam and I were sweltering in the heat, our clothes soaked with perspiration. I removed my shirt and wrapped a towel around my neck; Miriam removed her shirt, and slacks, so that she was wearing only thin panties and a bra.

Toward noon it became obvious that we were off schedule and would not reach the wadi until the next day. I toyed with the idea of driving at night, but quickly decided that the risk would be too great. The glow of the headlights would be seen for miles and there was the chance that, in the dark, I would run the van over too large a rock and break a spring. The van was too precious; without it, Miriam and I would die.

"How about landmarks?" I asked Miriam. "If you have any doubts that we're off the route, now is the time to say so. You must be absolutely certain." I gave her a quick glance. "Well, are you sure or aren't you?"

"I've been to the SLA base four different times," Miriam said confidently. "I know where we are and we are on the right route." She paused to light a cigarette. "We passed one of the landmarks this morning. The Roman ruins were the remains of the Temple of Jupiter. The six columns are all that is left. As you know, Syria was once a province of Rome. We'll see more Roman ruins as we get closer to the wadi."

"Yesterday you mentioned something about a castle built by the Crusaders," I said. "How far away is it?"

"A long way yet," Miriam laughed. "The Tower of Lions is on the rise where Karameh has his camp. We'll be able to see it tomorrow."

I didn't press the issue. Not only did I not know the route to the SLA camp, but I wasn't even sure of our position in Syria, and I wasn't going to waste time by using the sextant to "shoot the sun" every half hour. The only certainty in my mind was that we were in an area totally unsuitable for human habitation. How the ancient Romans and later, the Crusaders, had managed to build anything in this hellhole had to be the eleventh wonder of the world.

As far as I could see, there was only desolation, tumbled rocks and the grotesque mounds that were the remains of ancient mountains which, over the many thousands of years, had been worn down by the wind carrying sharp grains of sand. There was scattered scrub vegetation, but in general the terrain was deeply scored and pitted by centuries of violent dust storms. Amidst this depressing landscape were stretches of gravel mixed with fine sand or chipped rock, the latter of which I avoided as much as possible, to save the tires of the battered van; and always there was the bright glare of the sun whose rays reflected savagely from the rocks. The Kalichrome sunglasses we wore helped a little, but still our eyes ached and watered.

Exhausted, sweat running down our bodies in rivulets, Miriam and I finally parked for the night in the center of a rectangular stretch of gravel covering bare granite. Desperately we wanted a shower, but we couldn't afford the water. To console ourselves we looked forward to the darkness when the heat would drift off into space and the night would quickly become chilled.

Stretching out the «alarm» wire from its big spool, it came to me that Mohammed Bashir Karameh had chosen his campsite well. God Almighty couldn't have given the terrorist a more inaccessible position — except from the air! Karameh had a lot of his supplies flown in by helicopter, practically all of the choppers coming in from around Damascus, proof enough that the Syrian government was closing its eyes to the tactics and terrorism of the SLA. Water was not a problem.

"He has deep wells up there," Miriam had said days earlier. "It was a good supply of water that was the deciding factor in al-Huriya's choosing the place for his camp."

"Al-Huriya?" I had said at the time.

"Yes, that is what his followers call Mohammed Bashir Karameh — 'The Hawk. »

I finished looping the wire around the van, thinking that I and the Israeli Air Force would shortly pluck the Hawk of all his feathers and turn him into a naked sparrow…