the Hunted (1977) (19 page)

THREE HOURS SOUTH OF JERUSALEM, somewhere i
n the Negev, they were keeping the green Camaro i n sight: four hundred yards, whatever it was, ahea d of them, a speck, a dot on the road. Sooner or late r the Camaro would falter or run out of gas or try t o hide and they would have them. Rosen and the Marine. It had to be the Marine driving.

Valenzuela would stare at the road--pas
t Rashad and Teddy Cass in the front seat--at th e two-lane highway that could have been drawn wit h a ruler and seemed to extend into infinity, throug h flat desert landscape, colorless or dry brown an d tinted in washed-out, dusty green. Dead land, wit h the Dead Sea somewhere to the east, left behind.

Valenzuela would look from the road to the ma
p that lay open on his legs.

They'd have them pretty soon.

There were only two roads south. One that followed the Jordanian border, and this one that linked the cities of the Negev. Eighty-five kilometers lined with young eucalyptus trees to Beersheba , where they had twice almost overtaken the Camar o scrambling through traffic, running red lights o n the boulevard and out past the Arab market. Another twenty-seven miles to Dimona, the gray Mercedes continuing east past the mills and potassium works to follow the highway; then not seeing th e Camaro and turning abruptly, realizing the Camaro had taken a secondary road due south out of Dimona, and finally seeing its dust hanging in th e air on the way to Mizpeh Ramon.

They were now two hundred thirty-seven kilometers south of Jerusalem, about one hundred fortyfive miles. According to Valenzuela's map, there were no through roads, nothing, no destinatio n south of Mizpeh Ramon except Eilat, the Israeli por t on the Gulf of Aqaba. Valenzuela liked the way i t was working out, but he was getting anxious.

He said, "This would be a good place, alon
g here."

Rashad raised his face to the side. "On the pavement this thing don't have it. Now it's hard to steer around the holes."

"Needs a tune," Valenzuela said. "The chea
p fuck, all the money he's got."

"No, the way it was with medals," Davis said, "i
t was something you thought about after. You didn'
t go out to earn one, get decorated, unless you wer e pretty gungy, or crazy. In Vietnam, for instance , some guys were grabbing all the medals they coul d get. But, see, there was an inflation of medals there.

NCOs and field-grade officers were writing the
m up for each other and you couldn't really tell th e value, you know, unless a guy dove on a grenade , something like that. You see a lance corporal with a Silver Star, a major might've done the same thin g and gotten the Congressional Medal of Honor. It'
s the way it was."

Rosen was half turned, looking back over th
e seat rest to the rear window. He was nervous an d excited and had been talkative.

"I think they're gaining a little."

"I see them," Davis said. "We're all right." H
e was staying approximately five hundred meter s ahead of the Mercedes, bringing them along, making sure they didn't get lost.

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 an
d 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? Lik
e 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 ston
e 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 handgu
n 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, eac
h 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 i
f 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 yo
u 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 al
l you have to do. I'll throw the switch if you want,"

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

"I'll do it," Rosen said.

"Just keep telling yourself those guys back ther
e 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 i
s what I am."

"Well, I am too," Davis said. "Those guys bac
k 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 the
y crazy? You don't think, Davis said, you do it.

That's what all the training was about. An
d 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, Davi
s 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 ahea
d on the left, coming up fast.

"Hang on," Davis said.

Rashad thought it was a gust of wind blowing san
d 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 histori
c site," Teddy said.

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

"Well, there's some thing," Rashad said. H
e 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 th
e 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. Hi
s 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 Kfa
r 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 door
s blown out.

They would have to move fast now and hop
e 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. H
e 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 automati
c 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, hunks 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 squar
e in the sunlight. There was no sound yet, no movement.

"We're about ready," Davis said.

They walked back to the Camaro and Davi
s 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 drivin
g maybe. I'll take that one."

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

"They got a punch. They'll do it."