Casca 16: Desert Mercenary (10 page)

The voices outside had come together in a mass. Cries of anger and confusion were closer. Egon and Mamud could hear them clearly. The dull thumps of the grenades in the tunnel told them they were about to get into deep shit. If the Tuaregs boxed them in at the mouth of the cave they would be trapped.

Roman's mouth grew dry and sticky. He looked at Abdul, his black face oily in the dark. They knew that their waiting for action was about to end. Abdul smiled gently at the Spaniard as if to say, "It is in the hands of God."

Sunni Ali heard the muted gunfire. Rising from his bed he rushed out of his tent, calling his men to him. He had no doubt as to what was taking place. From their slumbers confused men gathered clutching their weapons.

"To the caves!" he cried. "They are after my hostages. Go! Run! They must be stopped."

Tuaregs swarmed in the dark running, Sunni Ali whipping them on. This was no time for tactics. He didn't care if his men ran into an ambush as long as they slowed up the raiders. He yelled to his senior radio operator, "Reach all you can. Have them on alert and ready to ride!" Then he raced after his men, jacking a round into the chamber of his SMG. He was only fifteen seconds behind them.

The first ragged group of eleven
Tuaregs entered the light of the campfire. Roman took up the slack. Between the rapid fire of the machine gun and the Mats 49s of Sharif Mamud and Egon, they all went down.

Carl came out of the cave dragging the girl behind him. Her husband bent over to take a weapon from a dead
Tuareg. Carl saw. A good sign this, the young man was ready to fight. Turning the hostages over to Egon and Sharif Mamud he told them, "Get them away. We'll slow things up here." Sharif Mamud led the way past Roman and Abdul, taking them into the dark and removing their Tuareg robes as they went.

Carl gave the rest of the team their orders.
"Into the shadows by Roman. Form a perimeter. Let the main body get into the light by the cave. Wait for my orders to fire." He knew it wasn't likely that the next body of Tuaregs to reach them would take off blindly into the dark. They would wait for someone in authority to tell them what to do.

Carl could hear them coming. "Get grenades ready and pass the word to the others," he whispered to Gus. Pins were straightened out and the small bombs set where they were easy to reach.

Sunni Ali came to the entrance of the cave. He didn't have to go inside. He knew his captives were gone. The bodies of the dead did not concern him. What he wanted to know was which way had they gone and how many were there. To his men he cried out, "Spread out and search for their trail!"

Carl couldn't let them do that. He sighted on the man giving the orders and took up the trigger slack. As the last thousandth of an inch was reached, a
Tuareg warrior ran in front of his leader and took five rounds meant for Sunni Ali. Carl cursed his luck. When he fired, the rest of the team came in with rapid fire, no fancy shooting. It didn't matter whether what they hit was killed or wounded as long as it stopped them from being able to follow.

"Grenades.
Now!"

While the bombs were in the air he told Roman and Abdul, "Take your guns and move out. Set up in the canyon where you can give us cover fire at first light. We'll be right behind you."

Confusion was on their side. The rapid fire from the submachine guns gave them an edge they used to its maximum effectiveness. The sole surviving Tuareg moved away from the glow of the campfire.

Sunni Ali burned up two magazines firing at the ring of boulders. He thought he'd hit one. Whoever it was in the rocks, they were good. They had waited for him to be in an exposed position with his men, when most would have just taken their prize and run for it.
To his lieutenants he ordered, "Take men, spread out, and keep firing. There can't be too many of them."

Mamud
led the way back into the rocks. Then he turned to cover a section of rough ground, leaving a trail which, if they were lucky, the Tuaregs would think they had taken.

"Let's do it!" Carl yelled as loud as he could over the increasing crescendo of gunfire. "Leapfrog it out by twos and threes."

The rest of the team was doing good, steady work, giving each other cover as they withdrew. When the first men passed Kitchner he started dropping rounds down the tube. He placed the first rounds on the far side away from Carl and his men, then started walking them in to the front of the cave.

Sunni Ali ran into the mouth of the cave to take cover. He knew the fire wouldn't last long. The one advantage he had was time. The raiders could not stand and fight. They would have to run, and that was when he would catch them. But right now he had to check on his vehicles to see if they had been damaged or destroyed. His men would pick up their trail and stay on them the rest of the night. With dawn he'd know which way to move and have a better idea of how many of the enemy there were to deal with.

With Gus on his heels, Carl was the last to break contact when the mortar rounds started coming in. The Tuareg went into instant panic and confusion. They weren't used to that kind of firepower coming at them. But Carl didn't fool himself by thinking this was the end of it. He knew they had a long way to go.

When they reached
Kitchner dropping shells down the mortar tube, Carl yelled out, "Pack it up, blow the rest of your ammo, and get gone!"

Kitchner
dropped a grenade down the tube, then another by his remaining rounds; no sense in leaving the enemy anything that might be useful and took off after Langer and Gus.

They pushed it hard for an hour. Contact was broken with the
Tuaregs but he knew it wouldn't stay that way long. When dawn came the nomads would be after them.

"Take five," Carl ordered. "Dominic, set out some trip wires on the back trail. The rest of you spread out where you can rest and still see what's going on. Let's not get careless now.

"Egon, get Sims on the radio. Tell him to move out. We'll be at the rendezvous point by 1100 hours and we'll check in again with him at 0900. Then have him relay the info to Monpelier. Got it?" Egon repeated the message, took the radio, and began to send word.

Sunni Ali was relieved to see that at least the raiders had not gotten far enough back in the tunnels to find his vehicles. They would be needed shortly, but first he had to do some thinking.

Retiring to his tent, he took from a mahogany case his own maps of the region. Time and movement were the keys. Once he had the direction of the enemy's route confirmed, then he'd be able to plan. Logic was now needed. Eyes poring over the map, he checked it against his mind and memory.

The raiders were on foot and had gone back into the mountain. They must have transport waiting for them somewhere. Their commander must know that if they stayed even one day in the area they would be found. Their job was to get in and get out as fast as possible with their prize. Therefore they must be heading to a place where they would be retrieved by either ground transport or aircraft.

Considering their rate of movement and the maximum distance they could travel in a given period of time, and he would give heavy odds that he was right about the time factor, it was inconceivable that the raid
ers would plan on spending more than twenty four hours in his land. The options would be severely reduced once he had their direction confirmed. There could only be so many places from which to leave the mountain and reach a site where transport could pick them up. When they arrived there, Sunni Ali would be waiting for them with his own armored cars and heavy weapons.

The lone
Tuareg moved between the ancient boulders. For a brief moment his eyes rose to the distant horizon. That was his mistake. The trip wire was broken and a grenade blew his left leg off at the knee. Sunni Ali had his direction.

While he was waiting for such info
rmation, he had given orders that the Hanamogs and American jeeps be made ready. Their crews stood by. These men he had trained as carefully as the panzer crews had been trained in Germany during the early days of the war. They knew their jobs.

On his map Sunni Ali made a check mark where the
boobytrap had exploded. Soon he would have another mark on his map and with each one he would be closer to reclaiming that which was his. His radiomen had been given the order to contact all outposts. They were put on the alert for any ferengi in the area and were told to stop all forms of motor transport. Nothing was to go through or get out.

Sims was pushing it. Three times he'd had to stop and pull one of the Land Rovers out of sand traps. Wiping his goggles clean he stared hatefully at the mass of Mt.Baguezane. The great bloody thing seemed to go on forever. Graves pulled up alongside of him, yelling out through his window, "Hey limey, did you see them?"

Wearily resigned to such verbal abuse, Sims responded sardonically
,, "Of course I saw them, you great bleeding clot. Do you think I'm blind? What's bloody more important, I'm sure they saw us also. And if they did, we could be in for a real pisser, what?"

Shifting into low to climb the side of the
wadi Graves yelled back, "So what do you say we forgo this bit of pleasantry and try to reach our destination on time?"

Langer had moved to the rear. The explosion of a grenade had been clearly heard. It had echoed off the stones for miles. He wished they'd had more time to leave a false trail or take better efforts to conceal their movements but they didn't.

Ma
mud joined him. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looked back the way they had come. "They are there and they are getting closer."

Langer
nodded. "I know. How are the kids holding up?"

Mamud
inclined his head down the trail they were taking "They are doing well enough. The boy is strong and eager, and the girl has a good heart but her legs are weak."

Carl wasn't too concerned about that. If necessary he would have Gus carry them out on his back.

"I'm getting a bit worried about the time, Sharif. It would be best if we could slow up the pursuit a bit."

Mamud
knew what he was thinking, that the time could come very soon when someone would have to stay behind and fight a delaying action so the others could escape. That would, of course, be their last resort. But it was not yet necessary for such a thing to be done. They still had some time left.

He didn't tell
Langer he had seen the figure of a man on their trail in the distance and another to their left flanking them. Langer had enough on his mind and there was nothing he could do about it anyway. Both were at least three kilometers away.

Sunni Ali took the lead half-track, which held his radio, and began to move out to the north, flanking the mountain. He had to make a half circle to reach clear ground before he could straighten out his angle and run parallel. He didn't push it. To rush was to make mistakes.

He had another call from his scouts on Mt.
Baguezane. The raiding party was still heading north. They had come across several other booby traps, but these had been avoided now that they were aware of them. Half an hour later another call came in from one of his scouting parties to the north, and he knew he was correct. Three Land Rovers had been seen heading south. From the route of the Land Rovers, the direction of the raiding party, and the few places at which they would come together, Sunni Ali began to reduce his options one by one.

Moving to the back of the
Hanamog, he stood up behind the machine gun mount. An MG 34. It smelled of new oil. For a few minutes his heart sped up. He had a sense of
deja vu
, a taste of those great days when they'd first fought the British in Libya. The Afrika Korps had performed brilliantly. Though outnumbered, and with thin supplies, they had pushed the English back across the desert to the borders of Egypt.

It was good to feel the vibrations of the war machine beneath his feet again.
To be on the hunt for the best of all game, men. In front of him, scouting in a fan, were his three American jeeps, useful little things which could go almost anywhere, but it was the half-tracks which were his babies. With him were twenty of his best men who, though they wore the robes of the nomad, had the discipline of the Afrika Korps instilled in them. They would follow orders to the end.

It was good: hot wind on his face, clear skies, and a hunt. He was almost thankful to whoever they were that they had come. He needed this kind of challenge to set his blood moving and to test himself. He would meet the challenge head on.

Carl had not missed the
Tuaregs trailing them. He turned to Mamud. "Let's go, old friend. We have a way to travel yet before we can rest."

They trotted till they caught up with the small column. The girl was weakening. It occurred to Carl for the first time that he had not taken a good look at the couple. Now that he had them, they were less important than before. The girl stumbled. A huge paw helped her gently to her feet. Carl called out to Gus. "If she falls again, carry her."

Carl moved up behind the young woman. She looked over her shoulder at the man who had rescued her and her husband from the cave. Timidly she attempted a smile, which failed. Even under the coating of dust the man's face had a quality to it, a detachment which frightened her somehow. Not that it was threatening; she didn't feel that. It was just... something.

Carl passed her, going up to the head of the column. As he did, he looked carefully at each of his men. They were breathing hard. Sweat streaks on their faces had cut through the dust, giving them an aged appearance.

Overhead he saw a pair of hungry vultures riding the air currents. "Not today, if I can help it. You'll have to look elsewhere for food," he remarked.

Mamud
went to the point again, guiding the men through the labyrinth of turns. Twice more Langer saw distant figures. This time one of them was on his right flank, standing on a crest. Men to their left, right, and rear. He didn't like that very much at all.

Taking advantage of the fact that he had no one to avoid, Sunni Ali was able to make good time. Coming to a small plain near the base of the mountain, he called a halt. It was time now to make yet another move on this vast checkerboard.

He took the radio and made calls, sending the signal out to the desert. At his command, bands of men began to converge. From his men on the mountain Sunni Ali knew he had the
raiders right where he wanted them. He would keep the pressure on. He gave his people strict orders not to do any shooting unless it looked like the raiders had a chance of making good their escape. The fleeing prisoners were much too valuable. He wouldn't take chances on a stray bullet ending their usefulness to him. No, this was the time to begin channelizing them. He would present enough subtle yet viable obstacles to force them to move in the direction he wanted.

Sims saw them too. He didn't need Graves' nervous finger to point them out.
Riders on the horizon. Through his binoculars he saws there were at least twenty mounted men on horses with each party, one coming behind them from the north and the other to the west. They were making no effort to close in. The riders kept their distance, moving steady but unrushed. Sims didn't like it. He wished that he could have taken some evasive moves but there wasn't time. If he was to be at the rendezvous on schedule, he had no choice but to go on. At the 0900 check in he would tell Langer what was going on. Maybe he would have some strategy that would help.

Carl placed the mike back on its hanger. To the others gathered around him he said flatly, "Looks like we're in for a bit more shit. This Sunni Ali knows his stuff. He's channelizing us. For those of you who haven't noticed, we have had company for the last couple of hours – Tuareg trailing us on three sides, leaving us only one way to go. Now it looks like he's doing the same thing to Sims. He's boxing us in. From here on out it's double time. Take nothing but ammo and water; drop everything else. Every second counts if we're going to get out of this in one piece. Gus, the girl is your responsibility."

He turned to her husband. "How are you holding up? Can you go the distance? We have another two hours, maybe less, till we're supposed to meet with the Land Rovers. Can you keep up that long?"

"I can make it," the youth assured him. "I know what's waiting for me back there. Just give me something to shoot with. It'll make me feel like I'm doing something, and I do know how to shoot."

Langer
liked the way the young St. Johns spoke, and he did have an extra weapon. "Dominic, give him Foche's piece and an extra magazine."

The men around him were beginning to get that special look of uncertainty around the edges of their eyes. No one liked to run. It was always easier to attack than defend.