Barracuda 945 by Patrick Robinson Read Free Book Online

together.
    Outside the blasts continued, and Ray sensed the Israeli tanks were finding their range, shelling the street. Shakira went to the downstairs cupboard and came back with a full-length white robe ( hobe ), and a white-and-black patterned headdress ( ghutra ), complete with the double-stranded cord ( aghal ).
    Ray ripped off his Israeli combat jacket as she wrapped bandages around Ray’s cut thigh. He pulled the robe over his head. Shakira fitted the headdress and arranged the cloth around his neck in such a way he could cover the lower half of his face if necessary.
    Then she found a clean robe for herself, and said quietly, “We must go now, before the Israelis come.” And she took his hand, murmuring “ Insh’Allah, ” as God wills, leading him to the back door of her devastated home.
    They ran through the yard, leaving behind them five bodies in the house. They could see smoke and rising dust in the street to the rear, but in front it was all clear.
    “Should we take the car?” asked Ray.
    “I don’t think so. We must get to the headquarters of Hamas. My brother Ahmed will be there. They will take care of you.”
    “You sure they won’t kill me?” said Ray, tightening his grip on his MP5, and running hard on his wounded leg to keep up with Shakira.
    “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I don’t want you to die, and that will be good enough.”
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
    A steel cordon of Israeli tanks now surrounded the entire area where the battle of the Jerusalem Road had been fought the previous Friday. With hard-eyed efficiency the IDF troops had evacuated the area, moving Arab families temporarilty farther to the west while they searched the rubble for casualties and bodies.
    They brought in heavy lifting equipment and bulldozers, and avoided another flare-up by announcing they were also searching for Palestinians and would provide medical treatment for anyone found alive.
    This of course gave them ample opportunity to conduct a search for more weapons and bomb-making facilities. In three days the area would be as “clean” as it could ever be; even though everyone knew the wily Arabs had been moving military matériel to safe houses on the edge of the city ever since Saturday morning.
    Shakira’s house had formally caved in after dark on Friday, burying all five bodies under several tons of debris. They were all unearthed on the following Tuesday afternoon and taken to the morgue in the Israeli section of the city, where thirty-eight IDF troops already lay.
    The Palestinian dead, more than sixty-two men, women, and children, were later removed to a converted schoolhouse just west of the Bir Al-Saba Road.
    The bodies of Sergeant O’Hara and Sergeant Morgan were the only known casualties among the SAS troops, though Major Ray Kerman was currently listed as missing in action.
    As the Commanding Officer of the SAS force garrisoned in the Negev, this was regarded as a most serious matter, as indeed were the deaths of two top NCOs from the Regiment. Hereford Headquarters was immediately informed, and the response was fast.
    “Transport Sergeant O’Hara and Sergeant Morgan’s bodies immediately to Israeli Army HQ in Jerusalem, for initial postmortem. Inform soonest any ransom demand for Major Kerman.” The latter order was routine. Members of the Regiment rarely, if ever, are taken prisoner. They would fight to the death.
    Two days later, there was still neither sight nor sound of Major Kerman, but the new SAS Commander in Israel, Acting Major Roger Hill, wore an extremely quizzical look as he read the report of the IDF pathologist.
    “Sergeant Charles Morgan died as a result of five bullet wounds, fired from point-blank range into the right side of the head, a straight line of hits, stretching from a point two inches above the temple directly downward to the lower jaw, which was shattered.
    All five bullets penetrated right through the brain, the upper four exiting