The wind blew over the Dead Sea, smelling vital and alive to him. Perhaps even it would live again with the coming of the morning. Perhaps Moses had not performed the last miracle at all.
What Rasin was about to do proved that much at least.
“Well, old friend, can we pull it off?”
Hiroshi’s attention was so entrenched in Wareagle’s map of Masada spread over the crates in the tin Bedouin house that he barely heard McCracken’s question. Without speaking, he moved to a rip in the house’s metal that served as a window. In the desert land just beyond the camp, bathed in the spill of floodlights powered by portable generators, Hiroshi watched two dozen of his finest men assembling and preparing the incredible stores of equipment they had transported from Japan. A jet transport had managed the flight in eight hours, landing in a private field in Egypt where a pair of commandeered Israeli Sikorsky troop-carrying helicopters were waiting. The equipment was transferred and the flight to the Bedouin village negotiated without incident, arriving just after midnight.
“It can be done, Fudo-san,” Hiroshi replied finally without turning back. “The idea is brilliant, but …”
“Yes?”
“The elaborateness of it confuses me. A strafing run aimed at obliterating the stronghold would seem a far more logical strategy.”
“Too random,” McCracken explained. “If Rasin dies or makes it off Masada in all the confusion, we lose our chance of getting the Gamma cannisters back. That’s priority one.”
“I understand, Fudo-san, but the fact remains we’re going to be dropping into heavily fortified positions with little or no cover behind us.”
Blaine looked at Wareagle. “Leave that to the Indian. I’m more concerned with how we’re going to stop the soldiers at the base of the mountain from calling in the cavalry once they realize what’s going on.”
“Leave that to me,” Hiroshi said.
The flat desert plain beyond the Bedouin camp lay bathed in a darkness broken only here and there by the floodlights. The only sound breaking the still cool of the night was that of the Sikorsky armored troop carriers warming their engines as the moment of takeoff approached. Hiroshi was kneeling, hands on knees, facing his troop of samurai warriors who knelt before him in a straight line. All had dressed in black tops and black baggy skirtlike bottoms called hakama. Though most would be outfitted with modern automatic weapons, their focus now was rooted on the sheathed swords lying before them. On Hiroshi’s cue, they grasped the ancient weapons and pushed them through their belts, the collective motion eerie in its singular calm. McCracken stood nearby, reviewing once more the details of Johnny Wareagle’s plan.
“You can call me a schlemiel,” Isaac said, suddenly by his side, “but I thought you said dropping out of the sky was suicide.”
“I said parachuting down was suicide. This is different.”
Isaac humphed. “It’s still the sky.”
“And you?”
“I’m leaving now to pay Isser a visit. He won’t be able to dismiss me after what Eisenstadt told us. We don’t want you to succeed at Masada only to be killed by the real army.”
“The thought had crossed my mind, but you’ll have to reach him first.”
Isaac winked. “I got my ways. It’s just like checkers and now it’s our move. The enemy might have more pieces, but we’re the ones doing the jumping. Have a nice flight.”
“Shalom, you old devil.”
The Sikorsky helicopters streaked through the night sky at a routine altitude, making no effort to disguise themselves from either radar or visual contact.
“Two minutes to showtime, Indian,” McCracken said to Wareagle in the cockpit, the floodlit expanse of Masada growing as they drew closer. “Time to join the others in the back.”
Wareagle took a deep breath and Blaine noted the slightest smile force its way onto his features. “The hellfire, Blainey. Once again we join it.”
“You sound almost glad.”
“No, nor am I sad. I have learned that all exists to provide scale. The hellfire lends definition to who we are and were. The spirits are closest in times like these. They rise into the chaos, but to feel them you too must enter it. Never are their words clearer. Never do I feel closer to my ancestors.”
“Just so long as you don’t pick tonight to join them, Indian.”
Major Ben Shamsi, commander in charge of the security force deployed around Masada, lifted the walkie-talkie to his ear.
“I read you, Corporal.”
“Sir, I have a pair of troop carriers approaching from the south.”
Just then Shamsi’s ears picked up the familiar wop-wop-wop of two Sikorskys and he could see the flashing lights marking their path through the night.
“Lieutenant,” he called to the man behind him, “are we expecting reinforcements?”
“Not that I’m aware of, sir.”
The troop carriers dipped out of sight from the officers’ viewing angle at the mountain base station on the eastern side of Masada.
“Raise them on the radio,” Shamsi ordered. “Let’s find out what—”
“Sir!” came the frantic voice of the corporal based on the southern edge. “One of the troop carriers has released objects over Masada!”
“Objects?”
“Bats, sir, they look like huge bats!”
The guard Lace had posted on the southern wall of Masada had actually raised his hand to wave at the lead Sikorsky passing overhead when he saw the black figures plunge out and soar instantly over him. He ducked out of instinct the way one does from a swooping bird. The guard was still fumbling for his walkie-talkie when the first poof! sounded from the northern flank of Masada. When he turned back, the entire sky seemed filled with the black shapes spilling out from the guts of the Sikorskys.
The motorized hang gliders had been the centerpiece of Wareagle’s plan from the beginning. They were the only vehicles both quick and maneuverable enough to permit approach to Masada from above. Hiroshi had happened upon this lot by intercepting a shipment originally bound for Delta Force at Fort Bragg. But since he steadfastly refused to deal with the only market for them — terrorists — they had remained in his warehouse until now.
The gliders were truly a magnificent creation, far more technologically advanced than those used by Palestinian terrorists in raids over the Israeli border with Lebanon. Their black wingspan was barely six feet, and the weight of the small motor that propelled them was easily dispersed across the middle. Maneuverability was permitted in all directions, as well as rapid drops and climbs.
In the last moments before the initial drop, McCracken considered the strategy they were employing and how it had been arrived at. He and Wareagle had assumed from the start that Rasin would have lookouts posted all over Masada, not just to the north where his forces were concentrated. This ruled out making their way over by glider from a nearby ridge and necessitated an air drop from the Sikorskys.
“My greatest concern is the lights,” Hiroshi had warned from the outset. “The problem is double-edged. If we shoot them out, my warriors will have nothing to guide their landing. If we leave them as is, we’ll make inviting targets in the sky.”
“What about dropping gas ahead of our approach?”
“More problems.” Hiroshi shrugged. “First we must consider the possibility that Rasin’s troops will have gas masks, and even if they don’t, gas might work against us by supplying camouflage for our enemy and, again, obscuring our landing zones.”