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assault they released their loads of bombs and napalm, their accuracy
pinpointed in the glare of fires already started. The initial wave cleaned up
the airplanes by bringing up gear and flaps, swept around in wide, low
turns and came back for devastating strafing runs with cannon fire.
Behind them came a second wave with full ordnance loads. It was a
repetition of the classic strikes that had destroyed the Arab air forces on
the ground. This time the Israelis added several new touches. The Russian
aircraft were hit hard in their sandbagged and concrete-walled
revetments. Except for a group of a dozen fighters isolated near the far
end of the runway, with a taxiway leading from the revetments right to the
starting point for takeoff. Here the Israelis showed remarkably poor
marksmanship, and the group of MiG-27 fighters survived the sudden
holocaust. This particular point was, of course, completely missed in the
frenzy of continuing attacks. Also missed was a single small plane that
swept in to the south of the carnage, its run low over the ground unnoticed
by the battered defenders. The pilot flew barely eight hundred feet over
the local terrain, holding, one hundred ten miles an hour. He held his
course carefully, flinched when four fighters thundered by to his right,
north of his path of flight. The fighters brought the sporadic ground fire
still sputtering from the airbase to bear on their roaring strike. And held
the attention of almost everyone on the ground as they swept northward.
Far behind them two fjgures tumbled from the small, low, slow-flying
aircraft. A static line snapped taut and black nylon blossomed
immediately above the falling figures. Neither jumper wore an emergency
chute; there would have been no time for its use had the main canopy
failed.
Steve Austin and Tamara Zigon barely felt their chutes crack open
when the ground rushed up at them. The jump, like everything else this
night, was timed with split-second precision. They came to earth a
quarter of a mile south of a perimeter road to the airbase, rolled expertly
in the sandy ground and were on their feet at once. Steve gathered up his
chute and ran swiftly to where Tamara waited. "Any problems?" he asked
anxiously.
She shook her head. "Quickly. The chutes." He slipped out of his
harness, unfolded a trenching shovel, immediately began digging a deep
hole. Tamara opened Steve's pack, removed their uniform caps that might
have been lost during the jump. She dropped the pack in the hole with the
chutes. Steve pushed in the shovel and used his hands to fill the hole. In
the soft sandy soil it would be difficult, he hoped, to discover where the
evidence had been buried.
The northern horizon pulsed with light. They took another moment to
inspect one another. Their clothing was messed up and torn in several
places; the uniforms showed signs of oil and smoke, and they each had
facial bruises and cuts. Clear evidence of their having been in a truck that
was strafed by one of the Israeli fighters. Evidence they had barely escaped
with their lives. The truck? It didn't matter. If they were in the Qena
complex long enough for that story to be checked out in the midst of the
thundering fires and explosions, they would be in no position to go
anywhere.
"Let's go," Tamara urged. They started walking to the road they knew
lay several miles to the north. Steve checked his hip holster. The Russian
automatic with the stubby silencer was in place. Using the silencer was a
risk, but as they both knew, no one would stop to inspect their weapons
unless that inspection were compelled by much more dangerous suspicion.
Everything else on their persons, except the silencers, which could be
twisted free and thrown away, was the genuine article. Their papers,
undergarments, equipment, uniforms, wrist-watches, all of it, was
Russian, manufactured in Russia. Even the silencers had been obtained
from a Soviet security office. "If you're in the perimeter area," Shaul
Arkham told them, "use the silencers. It will let you eliminate opposition
while it is still not in direct physical contact with you. Use your advantage
until you must resort to something else." Good advice.
The road lay a dozen yards before them. Blood-red light glowed from
the north, fires reflecting from low clouds, the flames punctuated with
intermittent blasts and deep, booming thunder. They crouched behind a
mound. The immediate visibility was poor but their main interest lay in
what traffic might be on the road. The idea was to be spotted walking
along the road, not entering it from a field. They had, by now, oriented
themselves clearly. Relief maps, charts, reconnaissance photographs—all
had contributed to this segment of their training. They moved quickly
from the shallow ditch to the road. Steve bent down, felt it with his hand.
"Asphalt," he said. "Poor shape. Gets beaten up by the sun pretty bad. But
it's what we were told to expect."
They moved toward the northwest. They needed a lift, not only for
speed but for its effect in getting them into the heavily guarded base
complex, within the perimeter fences and guards. Their papers were in
order; their identification showed them to be members of an
electronic-maintenance and support organization. This gave them fairly
ordinary working requirements, but it also provided them with freedom of
movement throughout the entire Qena complex.
"Better have your torch handy," Tamara reminded Steve, speaking in
Russian, "in case something comes along the road. Better to signal them
than to have us appear out of the dark."
"Good idea." He held the Russian flashlight in his hand, glancing
occasionally behind them. They had walked nearly a mile, their concern
mounting at the absence of traffic, when Steve heard an engine behind
their position, around a bend in the road. They stepped to the side and
Steve snapped on the flashlight, moving it in a slow, wide circle. Truck
headlights brought their arms up to shield their eyes. Moments later the
driver flicked his lights on to dim side-runners and coasted to a stop. He
shouted to them in a tongue Steve found incomprehensible, but knew was
Arabic. "We're in luck," Tamara said in an aside. "No Russians with him."
She shouted back, using her own flashlight to study the truck cab. Steve
saw a look of surprise on the face of the driver as Tamara—identifying
herself with her papers and by voice as Captain Nina Tsfasman, and Steve
as Major Alexei Kazantsev—answered him rapid-fire in his own tongue.
The surprise became delight, and he turned to his helper with a sudden
tongue lashing, sending that worthy to the rear of the truck to make room
for the two unexpected passengers. They climbed aboard, the headlights
went on again, and they were rolling down the road at nearly fifty miles an
hour. Steve took every chance to study road features to the sides and
ahead of them, confirming his memory of the area, anticipating specific
structures or features coming up before them. Tamara spent most of the
time talking with the Arab driver, whose pleasure at a foreign woman's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]