Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

He tried to guess at the number of troops firing back and estimated their force to be at least three times the strength of the Shayetet. Normally that might give an enemy almost even odds except for the fact that the Israelis had lost the element of surprise and were now stranded out on the naked runway.

What they needed was some way to close the distance on the building under the large saucerlike dish. But the seventy yards of bald concrete between the burning plane and the building was a killing zone. Two of his men had already died trying to cross it. Without cover, the withering fire raked the surface of the concrete all the way across the runway and into the brush five hundred meters away on the other side.

The enemy kept bouncing rounds into the upturned bottom of the trailer. Sooner or later they would hit something hot inside and the entire ammunition train would go up, along with it most of his men. Ben Rabin needed something to turn the tide; otherwise they would all die here on the tarmac.

“What are they doing here?” asks Harry.

“I don’t know, but Herman I couldn’t miss,” I tell him. “I’m sure it was Sarah on the ground next to him. I only got a glimpse, but I could tell it was her.”

“Doubt if there would be another duo like that,” said Harry.

“Who would bring them down here?” asks Joselyn.

“I’ll be sure and ask the minute I catch up with them,” I tell her.

“They must have been on the plane,” she says.

“That’s what I am thinking.”

The sky in front of us suddenly erupts in a billowing black cloud. A second later the shock wave jolts the car.

“Shit!” says Harry. He peers through the windshield with an expression of fright.

We race along the road, my heart pounding as we speed toward the runway down on the flat about a half mile away.

“I’m going to stop up ahead and let both of you out,” I tell them.

“No, you’re not,” says Harry. “You want, you can let Joselyn out, that’s fine.”

“Screw you,” she tells him.

“No sense all of us getting killed,” I say.

“What are you going to do?” asks Harry.

“I’ll know when I get there.”

“You don’t even know what’s going on,” says Harry.

“It’s easy enough to tell friend from foe when they’re shooting at your daughter,” I tell him.

“You don’t have a gun.”

“No, but I have a rental car,” I tell him. “I’ll drop the two of you off and you can tell Hertz that I’m sorry.”

“You’re not listening. We’re not getting out,” says Joselyn.

“You’re crazy,” I tell her.

“So are you,” she says.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” I tell her.

“Then shut up and drive,” she says.

“Listen to the lady.” Harry is busy stretching the band to load up the speargun.

“What are you gonna do with that?” I ask.

“At least I can harbor the illusion I’ve got something to shoot back with.”

“Do me a favor.” I glance back over the seat at Joselyn. “If you’re not getting out, at least get down flat on the floor behind the front seat.”

On this point she does not argue.

I press on the accelerator and we rocket past a line of parked vehicles along the side of the road, all of them empty, security pickups and small sedans with light bars overhead.

“I guess we can assume that all the occupants are out there trying to kill the people on that plane,” says Harry.

“That would be my guess.”

Harry tries to scrunch down into the footwell on the passenger side.

I check my seat belt, pull it tight, and brace myself.

“Don’t you think you’re going pretty fast?”

“You’re the only woman I know who would be worried about speed when a firing squad is about to shoot us.”

“You’re still going too fast,” she says.

“Momentum is our friend.”

A glance at the speedometer tells me I’m clocking a hundred and ten kilometers an hour, something just south of seventy miles per hour.

“Try not to hit anything solid,” says Harry. “The secret is to keep moving.”

“I know.”

“The minute we stop they’ll riddle the car with bullets and kill us all.” Harry’s happy thought for the day.

“It sounds like you’ve done this before,” I tell him.

“Little old ladies in crosswalks,” he says.

We rocket through an open gate. We are by it so fast that I can’t tell if there is a guard in the kiosk or not. Up ahead I see the smoking plane, billows of flames as the entire fuselage is now engulfed. Bullets are flying. There is no sign of Sarah or Herman. With all the smoke I can’t see a thing on the other side of the plane.

My eyes focus on the firing line ahead of me, soldiers in uniform kneeling behind a row of sandbags. There is so much noise and commotion they don’t even see us. Their eyes are riveted on the victims out on the runway.

“Hang on!” I yell.

The oil-laden smoke now lay like a pall across the runway. Herman picked his location carefully, then stomped on the accelerator and drove the Jeep headlong into the drifting black cloud. As soon as he cleared it, he spun the vehicle around, turning to the right. This gave Adin with the recoilless rifle a clear shot from the back end as the man with the squad automatic weapon laid down covering fire from the left side.

The second the Jeep stopped, the SAW opened up. The gunner stitched. 30-caliber rounds along the top of the sandbags seventy meters away.

Two of the guards who didn’t get down fast enough ended up taking bullets in the chest and the head. The others ducked.

Sarah covered her ears with her hands in an effort to keep the explosive rattle from the machine gun from blowing her eardrums.

The covering fire gave Adin the time he needed to zero in on the large parabolic antenna.

To blow a hole through the massive reflecting dish wasn’t enough. Adin wanted to nail the smaller boxed antenna that contained the high-end electronics where the radio waves were concentrated and received.

He took careful aim as bullets snapped by his head, then pulled the lanyard and watched as the round streaked across the distance, exploding as it struck the apex of the metal frame holding the antenna in front of the huge concave dish.

Sarah saw a series of sparks spit from the shattered black box as the recoilless round fried the electronics inside. “Go!” Adin dropped to his knees and slapped the side of the Jeep over the back wheel well. He smiled at Sarah and held up one finger. “One more to go.”

Herman popped the clutch and raced back through the smoke to the relative safety behind the smoldering plane. He didn’t stay there long.

Hirst quickly reloaded. He was now down to two rounds. The gunner in the back changed out his triangular magazine under the machine gun.

Herman looked over his shoulder. As soon as he got the all-clear sign from Adin, he circled back. This time he popped out of the smoke at a different location. In less than a minute they took out the other antenna, but not before two rocket-propelled grenades streaked past them.

The guards were beginning to take notice, zeroing in on the Jeep. Both Adin and Herman saw them coming down the line carrying boxes of grenades and shoulder-fired launchers. They knew if they could take out the only remaining vehicle, the Israelis on foot could be chopped up at will.

Instead of heading back toward the burning plane, Herman drove toward the far end of the runway beyond the range of the RPGs. They stopped and checked their ammunition: a single recoilless round and one more magazine for the SAW. They loaded up and debated how best to use them.

The first two or three I blindside while they are still down on one knee. We roll over them like speed bumps. The car barely slows. In the rearview mirror I can see the bodies writhing on the ground behind us.