"Nothing on the radio," Elmer said. "If he was just scouting us out,
he'd report to his base. But if his orders are to clobber us, then he
wouldn't put it on the air."
The plane was turning in the sky, coming back.
Cliff argued, "Well, we can't fire unless we know if he's just hunting
us out, or trying to do us in."
Elmer said patiently, "For just finding us, that first pass would be
all he needed. He could radio back that he'd found us. But if he comes
in again, he's looking for trouble."
"Here he comes!" Bey yelled. "Kenny-Cliff ... the rifle!"
Isobel suddenly dashed out into the sands a dozen yards or so from the
vehicles and began running around and around in a circle as though
demented.
Bey stared at her. "Get back here," he roared. "Under one of the
trucks!"
She ignored him.
The rocket-plane was coming in, low and obviously as slow as the pilot
could retard its speed.
The flac rifle began jumping and tracers reached out from
it--inaccurately. The Tommy-Noiseless automatics in the hands of Bey
and Elmer Allen gave their silenced _flic flic flic_ sounds, equally
ineffective.
On the ultra-stubby wings of the fast moving aircraft, a row of
brilliant cherries flickered and a row of explosive shells plowed
across the desert, digging twin ditches, miraculously going between
the air cushion lorries but missing both. It was upon them, over and
gone, before the men on the ground could turn to fire after.
Elmer Allen muttered an obscenity under his breath.
Cliff Jackson looked around in desperation. "What can we do now? He
won't come close enough for us to even fire at him, next time."
Bey said nothing. Isobel had collapsed into the sand. Elmer Allen
looked over at her. "Nice try, Isobel," he said. "I think he came in
lower and slower than he would have otherwise--trying to see what the
devil it was you were doing."
She shrugged, hopelessly.
"Hey!" Kenny Ballalou pointed.
The rocketcraft was wobbling, shuddering, in the sky. Suddenly it
burst into a black cloud of fire and smoke and explosion.
At the same moment, Homer Crawford got up from the sand dune behind
which he'd stationed himself and plowed awkwardly through the sand
toward them.
Bey glared at him.
Homer shrugged and said, "I checked the way he came in the first time
and figured he'd repeat the run. Then I got behind that dune there and
faced in the other direction and started firing where I _thought_ he'd
be, a few seconds before he came over. He evidently ran right into
it."
Bey said indignantly, "Look, wise guy, you're no longer the leader of
a five-man Reunited Nations African Development Project team. Then,
you were expendable. Now, you're El Hassan. You give the orders. Other
people are expendable."
Homer Crawford grinned at him, somewhat ruefully and held up his hands
as though in supplication. "Listen to the man, is that any way to talk
to El Hassan?"
Elmer Allen said worriedly, "He's right, though, Homer. You shouldn't
take chances."
Homer Crawford went serious. "Actually, none of us should, if we can
avoid it. In a way, El Hassan isn't one person. It's this team here,
and Jake Armstrong, who by this time I hope is on his way to the
States."
Bey was shaking his head in stubborn determination. "No," he said.
"I'm not sure that you comprehend this yourself, Homer, but you're
Number One. You're the symbol, the hero these people are going to
follow if we put this thing over. They couldn't understand a sextet
leadership. They want a leader, someone to dominate and tell them what
to do. A team you need, admittedly, but not so much as the team needs
you. Remember Alexander? He had a team starting off with Aristotle for
a brain-trust, and Parmenion, one of the greatest generals of all time
for his right-hand man. Then he had a group of field men such as
Ptolemy, Antipater, Antigonus and Seleucus--not to be rivaled until
Napoleon built his team, two thousand years later. And what happened
to this super-team when Alexander died?"
Homer looked at him thoughtfully.
Bey wound it up doggedly. "You're our Alexander. Our Caesar. Our
Napoleon. So don't go getting yourself killed, damn it. Excuse me,
Isobel."