The Pirate (44 page)

“That’s all of us,” the corporal answered.

He turned to the Yemeni captain. “Rear guard posted?”

“Yes, sir,” the captain replied. “Four men with automatic rifles ought to keep them occupied for a while. We’re not to wait for them. They’ll backtrack and we’ll pick them up in our original landing place in a few days.”

Ben Ezra nodded. That was good soldering. “How many casualties?”

“One dead, a few superficial wounds—that’s all.”

Ben Ezra turned to the Israeli.

“Two dead.”

“We were lucky,” the general said grimly. “We caught them with their pants down!” He looked out on the road. The captives were in the midst of a joyous reunion. The men of the flight crew were in good shape and so were the women. They huddled together in a tight group, all trying to talk at once. “Better get them started,” Ben Ezra said. “It won’t take our friends very long to figure out how few of us there are and then they’ll be coming after us.”

The Israeli started off. Ben Ezra called him back. “Did you see the Syrian?”

The soldier shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since we first went in after the rockets were fired. He was in front of me and then he just disappeared.”

Ben Ezra was puzzled. It didn’t make sense. Unless the man had been killed and was lying undiscovered somewhere. But, no, that wasn’t possible. The Syrian was just too good a soldier. He would turn up sooner or later. Ben Ezra turned and started down the road after them. He looked at his watch. Three o’clock. Right on schedule.

Now, if the helicopter made it on time, they would be having breakfast at the Prince’s palace in the morning.

CHAPTER 17

Dick Carriage moved slowly through the camp. Through the open gate, he could see the others going down the road on their way to the airstrip. But he wasn’t ready to leave yet. There was still some unfinished business for him to attend to.

The sporadic sound of rifle fire came from the various corners of the camp. The Yemenis were doing their job. Slowly, carefully, he opened one cabin door after another and still there was no sign of him.

Yet the man had to be there. He could not have gotten out before the attack. No one could have left the camp without being seen. Besides, he had heard Hamid report to the general that he had seen him fifteen minutes before the attack had begun.

He turned to look back at the command cabin. In front of it were three burned-out jeeps. Thoughtfully he turned and walked back to it. He had already gone through the cabin once but maybe there was something he had overlooked.

Cautiously he approached the door again. His automatic in his hand, he stood to one side and pushed it wide. He waited for a moment. There was no sound from inside.

He went through the doorway. The first room was a shambles. The rockets had torn gaping holes in the sides of the cabin. Papers and furniture were scattered around the room as if a tornado had struck.

He went through into the other room. Slowly he looked around. It was impossible. There was just no place for the man to hide. He started back outside then stopped.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. The man was here. His instinct told him. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t find him. The man was here.

He turned and slowly looked around the cabin again. Nothing. He stood very still for a moment and then went over to the bench beside the washbasin where he had noticed several oil lamps.

Braking them open, he quickly scattered the oil around the room. Then he took a chair and put it in the outer doorway and sat down on it, facing the room. He took a book of matches from his pocket, struck one, held it until the book erupted in flames then threw it into the room.

The fire raced rapidly across the floor, reaching, then climbing the walls. Smoke began to fill the room and still he sat. The heat grew intense, but he did not move.

Suddenly there was a faint sound from inside. He tried to peer through the smoke but saw nothing. Again the sound came, a creaking sound, as if a door were opening on rusted hinges. But he could see through to the other room and there were no other doors.

Then something on the floor moved. He got to his feet. Part of the wooden floor seemed to be shifting. He moved toward it on catlike feet.

He stopped at the side of the floorboard. Now he took out a handkerchief and held it over his nose and mouth to protect himself against the smoke. Suddenly the floorboard was flung to one side and a man sat up, coughing.

The Israeli agent nodded to himself in satisfaction. This was the man he had come to get. It was never the idealist who had to be feared, only the man who corrupted the ideal. This man was the corrupter. Slowly, deliberately, before the man even realized he was there, Dick emptied the clip of his automatic into him.

Then he turned and without even a backward look walked out of the cabin toward the road, leaving the dead Ali Yasfir lying in his fiery coffin.

He was a quarter of a mile down the road when he came upon them. He had just walked around a curve as they emerged from the forest. They stopped, staring at one another.

“Leila!” he said.

Hamid turned to her. He saw the strange look on her face. He remained silent.

“Dick,” she said in a strained voice. “I—”

The sound of a rifle shot interrupted her. A look of intense surprise suddenly appeared on Dick’s face. Then a strange bubble of blood appeared in the corner of his mouth and he slipped slowly to the road.

Hamid reacted immediately. Throwing Leila to the ground, he flung himself on his belly, facing the direction from which the shot had come. A moment later, he saw the man between the trees. Carefully he lined the sights of his automatic rifle between the two trees where the man would pass. He waited until the man was dead center then he squeezed the trigger. The automatic rifle almost cut the man in half.

He turned back to Leila. “Come on,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s get out of here!”

Dick moaned.

“We can’t leave him here,” Leila said. “He’ll die!”

“He’ll die anyway,” Hamid said callously. “Let’s go.”

“No. You’ll have to help me get him to the others.”

“Are you crazy? Do you know what will happen to you if you go back? If they don’t hang you, you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail!”

“I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Hamid looked at her and shook his head. He gave her the rifle. “Here, carry this.” He bent over, picked Dick up and slung him over his shoulders. “Let’s go. There’ll be others behind that one in just a few minutes!”

***

Ben Ezra checked his watch. It was almost four o’clock. “Where’s that damn helicopter?”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the sound of the plane came from the distance. He peered into the sky, but now that the moon was gone, he could see nothing but the blackness of the night.

Ten minutes later, the sound came from overhead. A moment afterward it passed the crest of the mountain and disappeared.

A crackling of rifle fire came from the direction of the road through the forest. The Israeli corporal came running up. “They’re coming down the road after us!”

“Keep them busy. The helicopter should be down any minute.”

But the gunfire grew more intense and still the helicopter did not come down. Occasionally the sound of the engines could be heard, but then it would vanish.

The Israeli corporal returned. “We better make it quick, general,” he said. “They’re coming down with some real heavy stuff now.”

“Get back there!” Ben Ezra snapped. He peered up at the sky. “You know what I think? I think the damn fool up there is lost and can’t find us in the dark.”

“Maybe if we light a fire,” Baydr suggested. “It would serve as a beacon for him.”

“Good idea,” the general said. “But we’ve got nothing to make a big enough fire. It would take us an hour to gather enough branches and they wouldn’t burn anyway. Everything’s too damp from the night moisture.”

“I’ve got something that will burn.”

“What?”

Baydr gestured to the 707 under the camouflage. “That would make a hell of a fire.”

“You wouldn’t?” Ben Ezra’s voice was questioning.

The sounds of the fighting grew closer. “I came to get my family out of this and that’s what I’m going to do.”

He turned to Captain Hyatt. “Andy, how would you go about setting it on fire?”

The pilot looked at him.

“I’m not joking, Andy,” Baydr snapped. “Our lives depend on it!”

“Open the wing tanks and fire some incendiaries into it,” Hyatt said.

“Open them,” Baydr ordered.

Andy and his copilot ran to the plane. They climbed up into the cabin. One ran to either side of the plane. In less than two minutes they were back.

“We’re ready now,” Andy said. “But you better move everybody down to the far end of the strip just in chase she blows up.”

Ben Ezra bellowed his orders. It took almost five minutes to get them all down at the other end of the field. “Get down, everybody,” he said, giving the signal to the riflemen.

The automatic rifles set up a screaming chatter. A moment afterward there was a strange hiss, then a groan as the giant plane blew. A geyser of flame climbed a hundred feet into the air.

“If you don’t see that, they’re blind,” Hyatt said sadly.

Baydr saw the look on his face. “Don’t feel bad. It’s only money,” he said. “If we get out of here, I’ll get you another one.”

Hyatt smiled half-heartedly. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed, chief.”

Baydr’s eyes were grim as he scanned the sky. Behind them the sound of gunfire came closer. He moved toward Jordana. “You all right?”

She nodded, the boys clinging to her. They all searched the sky.

“I think I hear it!” Muhammad yelled.

They listened. The faint sound of the rotors came toward them, growing louder with each passing moment. Two minutes later it was overhead, reflected in the glare of the burning plane. Slowly it began to descend.

The flashes of gunfire were almost at the side of the airstrip now as the soldiers fell back according to plan.

The helicopter touched down. The first man off the plane was Baydr’s father. The two boys ran to him. “Grandfather!”

He scooped them up in his arms as Baydr and Jordana came toward him. Everybody began to converge on the helicopter. The boarding was swift, just a few men still in the field holding off the guerrillas.

Baydr stood at the foot of the ramp, next to Ben Ezra. “Everybody on board?” the general asked.

“Yes,” Baydr answered.

Ben Ezra cupped his hand around his mouth. “Bring them in, corporal!” he yelled in a stentorian voice that could be heard all over the field.

Another fuel tank blew on the 707, bathing the entire field in a daylight glow. Baydr could see the soldiers backing in from the edge of the field, their guns firing into the forest.

A moment later they were almost at the foot of the ramp. The first of them turned and started up the stairs. Ben Ezra swatted him on the behind with his sword in an approving gesture.

The yellow light from the burning plane reached the edge of the forest. Baydr, watching, thought he heard someone calling him. Then suddenly he saw her, running from the forest. Behind her was a man carrying a body across his shoulders.

Automatically a soldier swung his rifle toward her. Baydr struck at the gun so that the barrel pointed at the sky. “Hold it!” he yelled.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Leila cried.

Baydr ran toward her. “Leila! This way!” he shouted.

She turned, making a straight line for him, and ran into his arms. A soldier came dashing up to him. “We’ve got to get out of here, sir!”

Baydr gestured toward Hamid. “Help him,” he said to the soldier.

He turned and with one arm around his daughter went up the steps into the plane. Hamid and the soldier, carrying Dick between them, were right behind them. Ben Ezra came up the ramp and stood in the open door.

Already Hamid and the soldier had placed Dick on a cot, and Dr. Al Fay and the medical team hooked up the plasma and glucose. “Take it up!” Ben Ezra yelled.

As the big rotors began to turn sluggishly overhead Hamid went back to the general. Behind him, Hamid could see the guerillas running onto the field. “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you, general,” he said respectfully.

“Where the hell were you all night?” Ben Ezra shouted angrily as the helicopter began to lift heavily.

“I was merely obeying your orders, sir,” the Syrian said with a straight face. He gestured toward Leila, who was kneeling beside Dick. “I was making sure that no harm would come to her.”

“You were ordered to stay at my si—!” The anger faded from the old man’s voice and was replaced with a note of surprise. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. The scimitar fell from his suddenly nerveless hand. He took a tentative step toward the Syrian, then began to fall.

Hamid caught him in outstretched arms. He felt the old man’s blood gushing through the soft Bedouin robes. Hamid lurched and almost fell as the helicopter seemed to leap into the air. “The general’s been shot!” he yelled.

Baydr and his father were at his side almost before the words had left his mouth. Gently, they moved Ben Ezra to a cot. Dr. Al Fay rolled him on his side, quickly cutting away his robe.

“Do not bother, my friend,” the general whispered. “Save your time for the young man there.”

“The young man will be all right!” Samir said almost angrily.

“So will I,” Ben Ezra said softly. “Now that I have seen my son, I am not afraid to die. You have done well, my friend. You have raised a man.”

Samir felt the tears blur his eyes. He knelt down and placed his lips close to the old man’s ear. “For too long I have allowed him to live a lie. It is time for him to learn the truth.”

A faint smile came to the dying soldier’s lips. “What is the truth? You are his father. That is all he needs to know.”

“You are his father, not I!” Samir whispered vehemently. “He must learn that it was your God who brought him into this world!”

Ben Ezra looked up with rapidly glazing eyes. His gaze turned to Baydr, then back to the doctor. His voice was faint as he summoned all his strength into this last breath. He was dead the moment the words had left his lips.