"Mack Reynolds - North Africa 01 - Blackman's Burden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Omar checked and checked again with the instrument on his wrist,
asking and answering, his voice worried.

Finally they pulled up beside a larger than usual wadi and Omar ben
Crawf stared thoughtfully out over it. The one they had named Abrahim el
Bakr stood beside him and the others slightly to the rear.

Abrahim el Bakr nodded, for once his face unsmiling. "Those cats'll
come down here," he said. "Nothing else would make sense, not even to an
Egyptian."

"I think you're right," Omar growled. He said over his shoulder, "Bey,
get the trucks out of sight, over that dune. Elmer, you and Kenny set the
gun up over there. Solid slugs, and try to avoid their cargo. We don't want
to set off a Fourth of July here. Bey, when you're finished with the trucks,
take that Tommy-Noiseless of yours and flank them from over behind
those rocks. Take a couple of clips extra, for good luck—you won't need
them, though."

"How many are there supposed to be?" Abrahim el Bakr asked, his voice
empty of humor now.

"Eight half-tracks, two armed jeeps, or land-rovers, one or the other.
Probably about forty men, Abe."

"All armed," Abe said flatly.

"Um-m-m. Listen, that's them coming. Right down the wadi. Get going,
men. Abe, you cover me."

Abe Bakr looked at him. "Wha'd‘ya mean, cover you, man? You slipped
all the way round the bend? Listen, let me plant a couple quick land mines
to stop 'em and we'll get ourselves behind these rocks and blast those cats
half way back to Cairo."

"We'll warn them as per orders."

"Crazy man, like you're the boss, Homer," Abe growled. "But why'd I
ever leave New Jersey?" He made his way to the right, to the top of the
wadi's bank and behind a clump of thorny bush. He made himself
comfortable, the light Tommy-Noiseless with its clip of two hundred .10
caliber, ultra-high velocity shells resting before him on a flat rock
outcropping. He thoughtfully flicked the selector to the explosive side of
the clip. Let Homer Crawford say what he would about not setting off a
Fourth of July, but if he needed covering in the moments to come, he'd
need it bad.
 The chips were down now.

The convoy, the motors growling their protests of the hard going even
here at the gravel-bottomed wadi riverbed, made its way toward them at a