Tracks (40 page)

Harley was satisfied with the
hiding place, but he quickly realized they needed a ploy to stop the
convoy.  They could not simply attack the convoy by foot and expect to
stop it even with the element of surprise on their side.

"Any suggestions how we
force the cars to stop?" he whispered to Lizzy, who was sprawled next to
him.

"We shoot the
drivers," the Scotsman replied without hesitation.

"We could miss you
know," Harley remarked.

"Then we shoot the
tires," Lizzy retorted.

"Too messy," Harley
observed.  "They could return fire and shoot Jack.”

"How about we throw down
some of these rocks and block the road," Rolston, who was positioned next
to Lizzy, suggested.

"I honestly don't think
we can push them far enough to reach the road but I agree we need to block the
road somehow," Harley said.

Everyone pitched in but it was
Robbie Frampton who came up with the best solution.

Robbie suggested they hijack a
vehicle shortly before the convoy arrived, and block the road with it. 
Fine tuning his idea they came up with a plan.  They would try and make it
look like an accident forcing the convoy to stop.  One or two of them
would hide in the hijacked vehicle, and strike from close range. The rest would
strike from above shielding the operatives in the car, terminating any
resistance, and reaching their objective.  Further tuning called for a man
on each end keeping any oncoming traffic from interfering.  That would
leave only six for the assault but Harley wanted to avoid surprises from his
flanks.  

Devlin and Lizzy were chosen
for the car.  Copeland and Long-John would mind the flanks.  Harley
would lead Rolston, Robbie, and Jimmie from above.

The sun was just clearing the
calm waters of the Gulf when the radio given to Harley by Kessler crackled into
life and they heard a faint female voice alerting them that the convoy was on
its way.  They convoy was traveling at an average speed of 50 Kilometers
per hour and would reach them in approximately two hours barring any unforeseen
stops along the way. The woman collaborator was to keep them informed.

What they needed now was a
vehicle to pass by at the right time so they could set the trap.

CHAPTER
THIRTY SEVEN

Lieutenant Hamoodi sat worried
in the back of the ambulance.  It was nothing in particular, just his
nature.

He fussed over his decision to
leave the woman alone.

They had apprehended the lanky
male nurse after he had met with her and learned the nature of her
inquiries.  But having learnt that she was given false information, he
decided to play out his scheme and make her think they were leaving a day late.

Had he apprehended her, he
might have caused a chain reaction which could play against him.  He was
sure she was not alone in this, and did not want to alert any co-conspirators
with an arrest.  He further hesitated to physically force her to
cooperate, concerned it would take time and focus away from his primary
mission, which was to bring the American "on time" to the trial which
was due to open at noon.

He had put a man on her tail
and figured he could grab her at any time if she somehow posed a threat. He
realized he was taking a chance, leaving her free, but he could not figure out
where she would get the help.  Once he reached his destination, the
prisoner would be heavily guarded, so he could not fathom what threat she posed
other than reporting their progress to someone far away.

He knew the Bedouins would not
dare engage Egyptian police or military, so he surmised there was no immediate
threat and he could postpone arresting her
until
after he delivered his package.

Just to be on the safe side,
he requested additional military escort
comprising
a Jeep with three armed
soldiers and two machine guns fitted in place of the front side doors.

The Jeep was now in the lead,
followed by the ambulance and Hamoodi's own men in a police Jeep in back. 
Hamoodi opted to sit in back with the prisoner, Chief Halil's threats still
ringing in his ears.  They were nine men overall including the ambulance
driver and Hamoodi's deputy sitting with him in front.

As they had moved out, he had
received a report from the officer following the Bedouin woman that she had
taken off with a rented car after the convoy.  Hamoodi ordered him to
remain on her tail a safe distance away and report her actions.  He also
instructed him to apprehend her the moment they reached Dahab.

He looked at the prisoner who
was propped up on the ambulance bed with his plastered leg raised high. 
His right hand was hand cuffed to a chain soldered to the floor of the
vehicle.  Hamoodi held the key in his pocket.

To Hamoodi he seemed either
asleep or delirious or both.  His eyes were shut but would occasionally
open almost in a panic and look around, then relax and shut again.  The
man was physically huge yet extremely vulnerable in Hamoodi's eyes.  He
knew that look of dejection when a prisoner accepted his fate and lost
hope.  He had seen it many times before.

There was a distraction up
front which caused the ambulance to slow and then to stop.  Hamoodi looked
over the side.  The military Jeep had braked by the side of the
road
and the soldiers were taking out their
kit for preparing a morning coffee.

Flustered by their behavior,
he looked around then at his watch.  Realizing they had already made half
the distance and it was only eight, he decided a
fifteen
minute
coffee break was not reason enough to get worked up and challenge the
soldiers.  He himself could use a hot drink and a cigarette.  
 

He ordered the ambulance
driver to move the ambulance forward where he could see the prisoner then
walked over to the soldiers and joined the circle around the gas stove which
was boiling the water for the coffee.  Taking out his box of cigarettes,
he offered the pack to everyone then lit one himself.

They had stopped in the middle
of a long straight stretch of road, quite close to the water.  Hamoodi
thought he saw far in the distance a glint of light reflecting off a glossy
surface of a car.  He strained his eyes to look for it but could not make
out the spot.  He radioed his man but received no answer.

Pulling hard on his cigarette,
he lit another when his radio came to life.  His man reported that he and
his object had stopped a fair distance away but could actually see the convoy.

The men were pouring the
coffee into small china cups pulled out of an old sock used to keep them from
breaking.  Hamoodi took a sip of the sweet dark blend and immediately felt
better.

This was not his first such
assignment in his fifteen-year career on the force.  He had started out in
Cairo where at the age of eighteen he volunteered to Police Cadet School to
avoid being drafted into the military.  A year later he was patrolling the
streets of Cairo, handing out parking tickets and chasing thieves.  Five
years later he was sent to Aswan as a young sergeant and spent the next five
years guarding the dam.  He was chosen for officer training back in Cairo
then was offered a choice between Dahab and Alexandria.  He chose Dahab
and quickly worked his way up to deputy chief.

Still single, Hamoodi came to
like the Sinai and appreciate the tourism which introduced him to all sorts of
pleasures.  At thirty-five, with the position he held, he could roam free
among the tourist facilities and attractions and play out some of his
fantasies. Hotel spas and saunas were wide open for any treatment he
wished.  Massages were performed free of charge.  He could detain
foreign women at the station or anywhere he chose to exploit his status. 
Excuses ranged from Hashish being smoked, bought or sold; routine check of
passports, visas, driving licenses; theft, burglary or domestic disputes. 
Foreign women were not as submissive as the locals, but would go out of their
way to stay on the right side of the law, so as not to ruin their
vacation.  The Deputy Chief of Police could get them out of most jams, at
a price.

A few even fell for him. 
A twenty-two year old German tourist who was charged with illegal drug
trafficking when she was caught selling Hashish to an undercover policeman, one
of Hamoodi’s own, spent a full month in his bedroom before he dropped the
charges.  When it was time for her to leave, she begged to stay, claiming
she loved him and had become addicted to his way of living.

He had to drag her to the bus
leaving for Cairo just so he could make room for a Swede who had been mugged
and wanted police protection.   

The soldiers were packing
their gear and getting ready to roll.  Hamoodi tossed the remains of his
coffee onto the sand, handed back his cup, and took his position next to the
prisoner in the back of the ambulance.

The convoy was back on the
road averaging fifty kilometers an hour on the
blazing
 asphalt
, the route steering away from the shoreline to get around
a mass of lofty cliffs descending down to the Gulf waters.  Twenty minutes
later, the steep incline began leveling then descending back down toward the
water.

Hamoodi felt the ambulance
slow down again then stop at the bottom of the long decline.  Looking out
over the side again, he saw the soldiers disembarking to appraise a car wreck
that was blocking the road.

Then all hell broke loose.

The two
soldiers
who had dismounted and were inspecting the crashed vehicle, suddenly flew onto
their backs, blood gushing from their chests.  The third who had remained
in the Jeep took a few seconds to realize what was happening.  As he was
attempting to aim the machine gun, he took a bullet to the head and remained
slumped in his seat.

Raw fear engulfed Lieutenant
Hamoodi as he jumped back to the cover of the ambulance and took out his
revolver.  His deputy, sitting up front, ordered the driver to flee but
before they could advance even a few feet, all four of the ambulances tires
flattened
, causing the vehicle to veer
violently and crash into the sand by the side of the road.

Hamoodi did not have time to
ponder.

His three deputies in the rear
police Jeep, their guns drawn, were desperately looking for cover.  Two
managed to jump off and hide behind their vehicle.  The driver slumped
over the wheel, apparently hit.

Hamoodi lay flat inside the
ambulance.  He saw several figures moving swiftly among the boulders
overhead, guns flashing without noise, toward the rear jeep.  He shot a
couple of rounds toward them and was nearly hit by a barrage of bullets which
hit the ambulance's roof. 

Then he heard someone begin to
return fire.  Both his deputy and the ambulance driver had fled the front
compartment and were shouting to one another.

He realized they had crawled
under the ambulance and were firing at someone from below.  Then something
blew up right in front of Hamoodi thrusting him back on top of the
prisoner.  He lost his bearing for a crucial moment then tried to crawl
back to the opening in back but was too late.

A figure jumped into the
ambulance and caught his arm before he could fire a shot.  He felt his hand
jerk to an impossible position, causing his gun to drop, felt a sharp pain,
then felt his mouth and nose being smothered and his lungs begin straining for
air.

Seconds later he was
dead
, his neck twisted and slit, the key in
his pocket taken, and the prisoner detached from his chains.

The soldiers and his deputies
were all dead as well.

*****

Harley was dying.  The
bullet had punctured both lungs, and he was deteriorating fast.  The
operation went smoothly until a stray bullet caught him in the chest.

They had sidetracked a
delivery van, parking it across the road minutes before the convoy
arrived.  The driver of the van was handcuffed and hidden among the
boulders.

Devlin and Lizzy, hiding in
the van, eliminated the two soldiers approaching to inspect while Harley fired
a shot from about twenty meters that put the military Jeep’s driver out of
action.

While approaching the
ambulance and police Jeep in the rear, a few desperate shots were fired in
their direction, but Jimmy and Robbie quickly disposed of the two policemen who
had managed to flee the police Jeep, flanking them from the back while Rolston
kept them busy in front. The Jeep driver had also been shot by Harley from
afar.

Approaching the ambulance,
Harley had launched a shock grenade and was about to follow when several shots
rang from beneath the vehicle and Harley was hit. 

Devlin and Lizzy, approaching
from where the lead Jeep was parked, were late by only a few milliseconds as
they disposed of the resistance from beneath and attacked.

Devlin jumped into
the
ambulance.  Lizzy went to Harley’s
aid.      

Harley was
incomprehensible.  Blood was oozing from his mouth as he was gurgling
words. Long-John and Copeland appeared, each with a stretcher which was quickly
laid open.  A
heavily
sedated Black Jack was laid on one of them.

Devlin and Lizzy were tending
to Harley, taping his chest to stop the bleeding,
sedating
him with shots of morphine.  There was no time to contemplate.

Both Jack and Harley were big
men.  The troop divided.  Four carried Jack, who was a bit
heavier:  Rolston, Jimmy, Robbie, and Long-John.  Three carried
Harley,
  Lizzy
in front by himself, Devlin and
Copeland in back. For a minute they debated whether to force the delivery van
driver to go along and help with the stretchers, but decided against it. 
This needed strength and agility and he would only slow them down.  They
fled into the creek that led to shore and their boats.

Kasuma saw it all.

It took no more than three
minutes.

She stopped a fair distance
away
and could not discern the exchange in
detail, but heard shots and could figure that the troop had been successful
when all became still and none of the vehicles moved.

Then she heard a car from
behind.  An unmarked police car stopped next to her.  A policeman
stepped out of the vehicle and approached her pointing his gun at her, ordering
her out. 

She did not budge.  The
officer approached her hesitantly, his finger on the trigger.  He opened
her door and pulled her out.  She did not resist.  He shoved her
toward his car and sat her in the passenger seat, next to him.

Then he began inching toward
the obliterated convoy.  Two civilian vehicles had arrived from the north,
their passengers in shock, staring at the carnage.

More vehicles were arriving
and more people were gathering around.  The policeman hesitated. In panic
he began sending menacing looks at Kasuma.  Then abruptly he turned and
drove back toward the south and Sharm. 

He was not going to take the
fall.

He stopped long enough to push
Kasuma
out
next
to her rented car, and fled the scene.  There were no records of his
exchange with Lieutenant Hamoodi.  No one but Hamoodi and his now dead
comrades knew he had followed the woman spy out of Sharm.  Yes, he had
caught the accomplice and could shed the needed light on the incident but if he
was to do that, they would pin everything on him, regardless.