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.
The next ones I hit are standing up. The first two go airborne up over the roof. The third one hits the windshield and shatters the safety glass on the passenger side of the car. I roll over a few more and we start to lose speed.
“Pick it up,” says Harry.
I can feel the tires getting tangled in body parts. I pull to the right to clear the underside of the car and let the next few go.
Our reward is to be shot at from behind as I hear the flat thud of bullets pierce the trunk of the rental car.
“Everybody OK?”
“Good!” says Joselyn.
I look over.
Harry nods.
The strange thing is that none of the men I hit see us coming until the bumper is into their legs and they are bent sideways over the hood-deer in the headlights.
If it was a game for points, I’d have to take a handicap. They have no chance to get the muzzle of their rifles around. Most of them can’t even see us bearing down because the man standing next to them is in their way.
I pick up speed and plow back into the line. The first three I hit, the impact sends them flying over the sandbags. I floor the accelerator and take out some more. Two bullets pierce the back window from behind, shattering the glass. One of them takes a piece off the rearview mirror. The other goes through the windshield.
Harry smashes out the glass in front of him with the butt of the speargun so he can see. The whole time he’s doing this he has the spear aimed at the side of my head.
“Watch the point!” I tell him.
“Watch where you’re going,” he says. “You hit those sandbags we’re all dead.”
While we’re arguing, something whizzes between our heads leaving a vapor trail, a taste of aluminum in my mouth, and the smell of burnt rubber. I look at Harry and suddenly there’s an explosion somewhere behind us.
The next guy I hit lands up on the hood of the car. Rifle in hand he reaches inside the broken windshield. Harry shows him the business end of the speargun. The guy smiles at him and rolls off the right side of the hood. He bounces on the road away from the car and strangely enough lands on his feet as if nothing has happened.
Ben Rabin watched as the first body flew up into the air. It spun like a rag doll and fell to the ground. Three more suddenly followed. Then an entire line of bodies, like grass being clipped in a mower, flew over the roof of the moving vehicle, flailing arms and legs.
The car seemed to pull away from the line and gain speed, then plow back into the assembled riflemen behind the sandbags.
Ben Rabin wondered if the driver was drunk. If so, and if Uncle Ben survived the rest of the day, he was prepared to spring for another drink or an entire bottle if the driver wanted it. He shouted for his men to hold their fire. He didn’t want them killing whoever was at the wheel. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He picked up the wireless headset. “Rebel Two, this is Rebel One. Come in. Rebel Two, this is Rebel One. Come in, where are you?”
When the crackling headset in the Jeep sounded, Adin, Herman, and the wounded SAW man were sitting at the end of the runway making final preparations for a run at the building.
Adin grabbed the headset. “This is Rebel Two.”
“Where are you?”
“Far end of the runway,” said Adin.
“We need to move now,” said Ben Rabin. “Can you see what’s happening?”
“No.”
All of a sudden an explosion erupted behind the sandbags.
Adin looked up. “Is that you?”
“No,” said Ben Rabin. “They’re doing it to themselves. There’s a driver, ran a vehicle through them. Bodies flying everywhere. But we have to move now before they regroup.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Catch them in a pincer from their right flank,” said Ben Rabin. “We’ll squeeze from this direction.”
Adin grabbed a pair of field glasses from the glove box in the front of the Jeep and checked to see what was at the near end of the sandbags and the chain-link fence. What he saw was a small blockhouse with a slit in it, what looked like a light-machine-gun installation, protecting this end of the roadway leading to the front of the buildings.
“You got it. Give me thirty seconds to get in position.”
“Roger. Out,” said Ben Rabin.
Chapter Sixty-Three
By now the incoming volley of fire into the trailer and the area around the plane had died down. Ben Rabin looked up and winced at the smoldering tail section over his head. A few more minutes and the steel supports holding it to the fuselage would start to give. Half a ton of hot metal would fall on the overturned trailer.
“Take all the ammunition and grenades you can carry,” he told his men. “Get ready to move.”
They started stripping the trailer of anything they could reach, bandoliers of bullets, bags of grenades.
Ben Rabin grabbed two satchel bags filled with C-4, along with a roll of det-cord and two electronic and six pencil fuse detonators. He handed one of the satchels to his sergeant and draped the other over his shoulder. He looked at his watch. “Grab your weapons and follow me.”
