Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [4]
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“But you wanted to go.”
Her eyes mirrored her hurt.
“I’m here.”
“Why?”
“I guess I was more scared of evacuating than I was of staying. I wanted to stick around for the raid, or the battle, or the war ... whatever the hell is coming.”
She turned acid. Unmistakable, vintage Natasha.
“You stayed because you weren’t going to show yourself to be a coward in front of the whole country. After all, everyone knows what a tough Marine you are. Your blessed novel is the bible of the army of Israel. Prophets don’t flee.”
“Come on, get off it. I’m here.” I reached out and touched that fine silky red hair of hers and brought her against me, this time softly. “Maybe I stayed for you.”
“For me? Why? I’m poison. You’ve told me I’m poison a dozen times.” She turned sharply out of my grasp and walked away, off the little path and into a wave of small dunes that formed part of the bluff. She relented for a moment as I put my arm around her shoulder and we stared at the unearthly emptiness below.
“So quiet around here now,” I said. “You okay?”
She sighed and leaned against me. “My head is spinning like crazy. It’s been chaos. Everything is crazy. Ben-Gurion fell sick last night. He got up out of his chair and just collapsed. Jackie Herzog set up a hospital room for him right in the cottage. It’s got twenty guards around it.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“I don’t know. He’s running a high fever. Two hundred people are trying to get to see him. He’s—he’s—throwing up. He’s sick like a dog. We’re spreading the story that he’s out of the country on a secret meeting. I’ve only got a few hours. I’ve got to get back.”
She suddenly shivered and walked away from me. Natasha could play deadpan for everyone but me. The color left her face and she bit nervously at her lip.
“Are we at war?” I asked.
Her lack of a reply was answer enough.
“When?”
“Tonight,” she managed shakily. “You can still leave. There’s an American destroyer heading for Haifa.”
I had known it was coming. Everyone had known it was coming. Yet it jolted me. That flash of fear that sends tingles throughout the body. You can’t divide fear up into halves and quarters, but I knew I was more afraid for Israel than for myself ... or Val ... or the girls. I was very afraid for Natasha.
“I want to go out with the troops,” I said.
“It’s been arranged,” she managed. “The Old Man himself gave approval.”
“Who am I going with?”
“The Lions. Your lucky outfit.”
“Where?”
“I shouldn’t say any more.”
“Okay, I’ll find out when I find out.” My mind checked out a number of possibilities over the Jordanian border. Maybe it was going to be a push to capture the West Bank and straighten out the borders along the Jordan River. Maybe Israel would try to capture East Jerusalem. That would be a dream.
“You’re going to make a drop in the Sinai,” she said abruptly.
“The Sinai! Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Mother of God, are you sure?”
“Yes, it’s the Sinai. All this rumbling and the threats against Jordan have been a decoy. Egypt has been the real target all along.”
“French and British involved in this?”
“Draw your own conclusions.”
The ramifications were staggering. These audacious Israelis were going to take the Sinai Peninsula while the Anglo-French snatched the Canal back. This was the whole ball of wax ... major, major.
“Where are we going to be dropped?”
“A place called Mitla Pass.”
I sat in the sand and with my finger drew a map. The Sinai was fairly clear in my mind. “Mitla ... Mitla ...” It was somewhere quite close to the Canal and, I think, near the Gulf of Suez as well. Something else occurred to me.
“Shit! I’ve never jumped out of an airplane.”
Her white teeth showed. “That’s very funny,” she said. “No matter. A lot of people here are convinced that nothing is too tough for you.”
“I jumped from a practice tower once. Scared the hell out of me.”
“Oh, I don’t worry about you, chéri. You’ll bounce right up like a ball. Shlomo says it’s easy, like pie. He’ll be right in back of you to push you out of the plane.”
“Jesus,” I said and dropped my head