The Hunted

by Elmore Leonard

  All I can tell you is, don't worry about the expense.

  Okay? Shit, we're this far. You got something else you'd rather do?"

  They passed army vehicles going north and a road that pointed west, to the Timna Mining Company. About three miles from Eilat, they approached a security checkpoint: a shed at the side of the road with yellow markings and two Israel i men in khaki clothes--though not army uniforms--w ith submachine guns slung over their shoulders.

  Rashad said, "Uh-oh."

  Teddy Cass pushed his Uzi under the front seat.

  Valenzuela's lay across his legs, beneath the open map of Israel. He put his hand on the weapon a s the car crept up to the two security men studyin g them, one with his hand raised. The hand move d then, waving them past. Rashad began to accelerate. Valenzuela said, "No, hold on. Stop."

  Rashad braked. One of the security men walked over to the open window on Teddy's side. "Ask hi m about a green car," Valenzuela said.

  "Yeah, say," Teddy said to the security man, who was middle-aged and weathered and ha d probably been in several wars, "did a green American car go by here a few minutes ago? Some friends of ours, we're supposed to meet them down here."

  The security man was nodding, saying yes and waving his arm, yes, it went by.

  "Thank him," Valenzuela said.

  They came to Eilat feeling better about their prospects--to the desert town on the side of a hill , a boom town of new houses and young trees an d children--young people everywhere--the tow n spreading up the hill from the gulf, down the sout h coast into the Sinai, with its airport right in th e middle.

  Valenzuela studied his map and made a plan.

  They dropped Rashad off at the airport to wait there, which was fine with him, get out of the ca r for a while. Teddy slid behind the wheel and the y circled around the airport to drive through th e parking lots of the half dozen hotels lining th e curve of the gulf that was called the North Beach.

  No green Camaro. Rosen and the Marine couldn't have taken the road east, because it didn't go anywhere. The road stopped at the border, at Aqaba, and you couldn't get into Jordan from Israel without a visa. You couldn't sneak in farther north because of the mine fields. There was nothing west but desert and mountains all the way to Suez.

  So they drove south, winding along the shore of the gulf, past the port facilities and oil storag e tanks, slowing down at a couple of motels, stopping at the Laromme to inspect the parking area, and then going on another five or six miles, between the mountains and the coral beaches on the edge of the sea--to another security checkpoint.

  Valenzuela, in the front seat now, said, "You wouldn't happen to've seen a bright green American car go by here, would you? With a white stripe?" A Z-28 Camaro? the security man wit h the M-16 asked. "Yeah, that's the one," Valenzuel a said. No, the security man said, he had seen that ca r one time and heard its engine and liked it ver y much, the sound, rrrrrrruuuuum, but he had no t seen it today. He wanted to know if the owner wa s a friend of theirs and how many liters the engin e was and if the owner wanted to sell it. Christ, discussing a hot rod, with the mountains of Jordan and Saudi Arabia over there across the gulf and a Bedouin going by on a camel.

  It was worth it. Rosen and the Marine were in Eilat.

  "Now what?" Teddy said.

  "We'll check with Clarence," Valenzuela said.

  He was thinking as he spoke. "We got to station ourselves somewhere, different places, but so w e can get a-hold of each other quick. You know wha t I mean? Say Clarence stays at the airport. You're i n town, or I'm in town. The other one drives around.

  You go to the checkpoints a few times a day, shoot the shit with the guy about cars, and find out if a green one happened to go by lately. That's what w e do, keep looking, ask around for our friends. Hey , you know a guy who drives a green Camaro? Prett y soon one of them's gonna go to the store for a sixpack. It's a matter of time," Valenzuela said, nodding, thinking about it. "That's all it is. Time."

  OFF THE SOUTH BEACH ROAD, a few miles from the Hotel Laromme, there was a place called Wad i Shlomo where pilgrim caravans from North Africa , on their way to Mecca, would come down out o f the high desert to the sea.

  Now, a trail followed the wadi, the dry wash, twin ruts that twisted through the hardpack fo r several miles--a mystery trail that offered littl e hope of leading anywhere--before coming withi n sight of the doctor's residence.

  There. A whitewashed adobe, a desert home with a low, flat roof. Not bad in Tucumcari, Ne w Mexico; a dazzler in the Sinai, sitting there with it s patio and carport, a bird feeder on a pole, windmil l and stock tank in back, the house edged with scru b trees and coarse grass, a low stone fence across th e front of the property with a wooden gate that wa s open.

  "They're not home," Rosen said. "Both cars are gone."

  Coming through the gate, they could see that the carport was empty. Davis drove slowly, lookin g around, staying in the ruts that curved up to th e house.

  "Well, I guess it doesn't matter," Rosen said.

  "There's supposed to be a key in the birdhouse.

  He's something; he goes off into the desert to take care of the Bedouins, he locks the house and tell s everybody where the key is. Says in case he and Fa y are gone, go in and have a drink, make yourself a t home. Reginald drinks some kind of Arab piss, rak i or arak or something. It's awful. But I know Fa y keeps a bottle of Johnny Walker Red in the cupboard over the sink."

  Rosen was talkative again, the nervous excitement gone out of him, high now on a feeling of relief. From Ein Kfar to Eilat he had kept shaking his head and saying shit no, hey, that kind of busines s was way way out of his line. He didn't have th e background to stand there and watch them an d wait for just the right moment. Christ, those guy s had machine guns. He could still hear it, the gunfire. He hadn't thought it would be that loud or affect him the way it had. He was sorry, he wasn't making any excuses, it just wasn't his line. Christ , all the time in the Navy during the Great War , Storekeeper Third, he hadn't fired a gun in anger , shit, he'd hardly even fired one at all except in boo t camp, and then the noise, the racket inside th e place on the firing range with the oh-threes goin g off, drove him nuts. Shit, he didn't even qualif y with the oh-three.

  Now he felt safe and could relax and tell Davis about the Bedouin doctor who lived in Eilat an d devoted his practice to the Sinai desert Arabs, goin g out in his Land Rover to visit the trailer clinics h e had established during the past twenty years. Reginald Morris and his wife Fay. Reginald very British and proper in his blazer and rep tie, with a sense o f humor as dry as his desert, a leftover colonial fro m the time of the raj, his own man, who grumble d about ineffective governments and saved lives. Fay , Rosen said, was sort of a nutty lady. He loved he r English accent. She chattered, and she could carr y an evening all by herself and keep you smiling. Sh e was comfortable while Reginald pretended to b e gruff. She accepted the desert in the fashion of a colonial wife, and when she felt a little down o r bored or lonely, she could always take a pull on th e Johnny Walker Red above the sink. Rosen had fel t good here, in their company. It was another reaso n he felt safe now--once they'd found a ladder to ge t the key out of the birdhouse and covered the Camaro, in the carport, with a canvas tarp.

  There was anything they wanted to drink, except bourbon; even cold beer in the humming refrigerator.

  No phone; but electricity, hot water, and a bathtub.

  Davis said he'd have a beer and walked through the rooms looking out the windows at the ston e fence and at the scrub growth and desert on fou r sides.

  The patio, with its umbrella table and oldfashioned striped canvas beach chairs, was on the left side of the house looking out. Coming i n through the sliding glass doors, the change wa s abrupt: from desert living to country English, a room full of heavy pieces--deep chairs and a sof a slipcovered in floral designs, dark wood tables, an d secretary with china figurines on the shelves.

  There was a low roof or ramada that ran along t
he front of the house to the carport on the othe r side. The two bedrooms and bath were on that sid e of the house. The kitchen extended across the back , with a heavy oak table separating it from the livin g room.

  The living room wasn't the place to be if they came from the patio side. The glass doors offere d no protection. Windows filled the front wall. The y opened out and gave a view of the yard and th e stone fence about fifty meters away. One of the m would have to be here, to watch the front and th e patio side of the house. The other one would hav e to be in the back bedroom, to watch the side, pas t the carport, and the whole backyard area. It wasn't a good place to defend.

  If they came, he'd have to get Rosen out of here and go up into the rocks, find some high ground.

  He'd have to take a look after a while. Rosen, sipping his Scotch now, saying, "Ahhhh," would argue and not want to go. They needed more guns.

  "Here are some pictures of them"--Rosen standing by a wall of photographs in the livin g room--"a good one of Fay. Here's Reginald in a Bedouin outfit. He's always Reginald, never Reg o r Reggie. Very formal guy on the surface."

  "Does he hunt?" Davis said.

  "You mean go hunting?"

  "Does he have any guns."

  "Well, I don't know if we should nose around in their personal things. Having a drink, well, he sai d to."

  "Let's look," Davis said.

  He found a Mauser safari rifle, 30-06, five-shot, in the front closet, oiled, in perfect condition.

  Rosen came out of the back bedroom with a heavy revolver that had "Enfield Mark VI" s tamped on the side plate. It was at least seventyfive years old, but it was loaded. He made another drink and watched Davis assembling the guns o n the oak table--three handguns now, the shotgu n and a good rifle, with boxes of ammo--and the n slipping on his shoulder rig and putting the Col t automatic in the holster.

  Rosen said, "Come on, sit down and rest awhile.

  They're not gonna find us."

  "Maybe not today," Davis said.

  "Fine, then we'll worry about it tomorrow,"

  Rosen said. "I'll tell you, the worst thing in any situation is not knowing what you're gonna do. But once you make the decision, the hard part's over.

  All you have to do then is do it. I'm not gonna fight those guys. I've got no business even thinkin g about it. So I'm getting out. Fuck the money. I'l l call Mel, have him deliver it some other time. I'm not gonna worry about that now. All I want to do i s get my passport and get out of the country."

  Davis said, "That's all, huh?"

  "I know, it's gonna take some juking around,"

  Rosen said. "But look, Edie's at the Laromme--t hey flew in, she got there even before we got here.

  The hotel's right down the beach. Cut across the desert, you could probably walk it in a couple o f hours."

  "If you don't get lost," Davis said.

  "I'm saying it's a possibility. And Tali'll be here tomorrow with the car."

  "Probably tomorrow."

  "A day or two doesn't matter now. I fly out of here or drive up to Ben Gurion and get the firs t plane to Athens, either way. I mean when we see it's clear, and that's where we--or I should say I--wil l have to do some finessing around first, I know that.

  But I'm going. You guys with the firearms, man, that's way out of my line. I'm not saying I haven't seen any of it before, don't get me wrong." Rose n paused and took a drink of Scotch.

  "I understand what you mean," Davis said. "We tried something and it didn't work. Only it isn't a question now of you saying okay, fine, let's forge t about it and go home."

  Rosen wasn't listening to him.

  "I'll tell you something," Rosen said. "The way I s tarted out, I could've easily been on the other sid e of the fence, I mean working for somebody lik e Harry Manza. Shit, I could've been Harry Manza.

  Years ago, the things I was into--but on the fringe, not all the way. I worked for a guy in the loan-shar k business. I was his bookkeeper. I worked for a gu y in the protective insurance business--listen, tha t hotel fire that got my picture in the paper. Yo u think it caught fire? That was the protection business. Even said it in the papers. That's the kind of shit they pull if you don't want to sign up and mak e your payments. They burn down the whole fuckin g hotel. I worked in a guy's office who was in tha t business. I was just twenty-three years old. I wa s with the Teamsters--that's a long story, I won't g o into it, but I was in Jimmy Hoffa's Local two-ninenine in Detroit, back in the Fifties, and you didn't have to go to the movies if you wanted to see som e action. I've had some situations since that tim e where you're dealing with people . . . well, yo u know, I told you about some of that. You get th e Justice Department on you, get squeezed betwee n the bad guys and the fucking good guys, the government lawyers, who don't give a rat's ass what happens to you, leave you standing there with you r yang hanging out. I know about dealing with al l kinds of people. I know what those guys eat fo r breakfast, and I also know when to pull my head i n to keep it from getting shot off. If it was a deal, w e were talking to those guys, shit, I could sell the m anything. How about some development land ou t in a fucking mine field between Israel and Jordan?

  They'd buy it. But if I can't get close enough to talk and know they're gonna listen, then, man, I wal k away."

  "I'm not arguing with you," Davis said.

  "What I am, what you see, is a retired businessman," Rosen said. "I'm getting a little too old for this kind of bullshit. Listen, I'll admit it."

  "I don't see that age has anything to do with it,"

  Davis said, "if they come to kill you."

  Rosen hesitated a moment. "You believe in God?"

  Then Davis hesitated. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "Well, I'll have to tell you what I think about the Will of God," Rosen said. "You might be interested. Mainly it's accepting things that happen t o you. But it doesn't mean standing there when yo u can move out of the way. I'm too old to be playin g guns," Rosen said. "But I'm not too old to run lik e a sonofabitch."

  AT DUSK, Davis took the Kreighoff and went on a recon, down the road that followed the wadi, for almost a mile, then came back and circled th e perimeter of Dr. Morris' house in the gray desert silence. He couldn't imagine people walking across this land, coming all the way from Egypt and th e Suez. He couldn't imagine the Bedouins living ou t there. The first Bedouin he had ever seen--on th e trip with Zohar and Raymond Garcia, west of her e at Um Sidra, the Wadi of Inscriptions--was a bo y of about fourteen; he'd worn a yellow sport shir t and black pointed shoes with thin soles and ha d seemed to appear out of nowhere with a guest register under his arm, asking for their signatures. Visitors, centuries before, had carved their names in the rocks of Um Sidra; now they signed a gues t book. Zohar had asked the boy in Arabic where h e lived. He'd pointed off somewhere at the empt y desert. Zohar had asked him where he got wate r and he'd pointed in another direction. Davi s thought of the tourists who came to the desert i n their hiking boots and safari outfits, and the guidebook warnings to keep your head covered in the sun; and then he thought of the Bedouin boy in hi s yellow shirt and pointy shoes and no hat.

  Maybe, as Rosen said, you could walk to the Laromme from here, approach the hotel from th e desert. That would be the way to do it. The y couldn't drive the Camaro. It would be better, too , if he went alone and Rosen stayed at the house.

  He'd wait for Tali and bring her back here with Rosen's clothes and passport. Maybe drive hi m down to Sharm el Sheikh. Fly out from there.

  He didn't see any high ground or good protection within a mile of the house. But if they came during the night it would be all right. He could sli p out of the house at night and if he located them h e could do some mean and dirty things.

  "On that kind of patrol," Davis said, "we'd be dropped in, all camied up, no helmets, equipmen t taped. We didn't even talk out loud. At night we'd sleep, everybody holding hands, with two guy s awake, and if they heard something we'd give eac h other hand signals. We never dug in or left any sig
n we'd been there. The time I got the Star we were i n there watching traffic on a supply trail and i t seemed like a whole battalion of NVA got on us th e first night."

  "What's NVA?" Rosen said.

  "North Vietnamese Army. The regulars, not the VCs."

  There were shadows outside on the patio, in a haze of moonlight; the living room was dark wher e they sat in flowered easy chairs: Rosen with a Scotch, Davis with a can of beer and the Kreighof f next to his chair.

  "See, sometimes we'd go in, we'd put up posters that said, 'The First Recon Marines are in you r area. Drop your fucking weapons and surrender.'

  But this one was a sneak-and-peek mission and I w as the patrol leader."

  "How many men?"

  "Twelve that time. We lost four. What we'd do, we'd radio our position before we settled in for th e night, give the artillery four coordinates--wha t was called a killing cross--with us in the middle.

  We'd key the hand set. Then later on, when the NVA got on us, we'd give our signal, like"--almos t whispering then--" 'Magic Pie Two, this is Swif t Scout,' then click twice and they'd know we neede d artillery cover."

  "What happens if they're off a little? The artillery," Rosen said.

  "Yeah, some fuck-ups smoking dope lay it on you by mistake," Davis said. "You get fuckin g killed is what happens. That time on the suppl y trail the cover was fine, but there were too many o f them. They kept trying to run over us, and ou r heavy stuff, our M-60 and our grenade launchers , were out, so we called back to let up on one coordinate and we slipped out that way and met our extract. That's the helicopter that pulls you out. I mean it yanks you out. They drop a cable an d you're wearing like a parachute harness with a rin g you snap on the cable and it jerks you out of ther e with everybody on the line banging into each other.

  But you're so glad to get out you don't care."

  "What'd you get the Silver Star for?" Rosen said.

  "For that. I was the patrol leader," Davis said.

  "We killed a bunch of the NVA, held them off, and I picked up an NVA field officer, brought hi m along. The guy was hanging on to me, he had a death grip around my neck all the time during th e extract, flying out of there. But you know what th e worst part of it was?"