“So be it,” Zaid sighed. “Listen, little Scorpion, from now on you are a Bedu of the Mutayr, of the family of Zaid ibn Bushir of the al-Amash, son of Abdullah, the son of the great Sheikh Dushan. Do you understand?”
Nick shook his head and yawned again. It was very confusing.
“Well,” Zaid laughed, “Understanding will come when it comes.”
Later, Nick woke in the night. Everyone was asleep. He lay bundled in a camel robe, listening in the darkness. Outside the tent he could hear the wind singing on the sands. He wondered if it would blow the sand over his dad. Then he slept.
Moscow
THE DOSSIER LAY on the desk in a pool of light cast by the lamp. The top page was stamped in bold letters. It read:
TOP STATE SECRET
FOR POLITBURO ONLY
SOURCE: KGB DIRECTORATE 5
NO COPIES TO BE MADE.
It was a remarkable document, Svetlov thought. He wearily massaged his closed eyes with his fingers, blue-white spots swimming across the darkness.
Clipped to the top page was a deciphered telex. It confirmed the worst. Those bungling Arab scum had let the Scorpion slip through their fingers a second time. Now, after reading Directorate Five’s dossier he understood why. The Scorpion was no ordinary agent.
He picked up the report and studied it again for a few minutes. It was based on CIA records and provided an incomplete history of the American agent up to his recent gun-running episode in Afghanistan. The American record ended with the curious computer notation:
“Delete from Files.
Initiate Global Record Search and Purge.”
That meant that the CIA didn’t even want their own people to know about him.
He drummed his fingers nervously on the padded desk top. He had to assume that the Scorpion already knew about the planned assassination. The disposition of the Arab’s body in the department store toilet in Doha indicated that the American had had time to question him. Whether the Scorpion learned enough to interfere or not was debatable. On principle, he had to assume the worst. He had learned never to count on luck. As his grandmother used to say, “Roast pheasant won’t fly into your mouth.”
Question: Could the plan succeed without the element of surprise?
Like most Russians, Svetlov thought of the Arabs as Chernomazy (niggers). If there was a way of pissing in the soup the Arabs would find it, he thought.
What complicated the issue was that they couldn’t just send in KGB teams to terminate this Scorpion. Russians would be as conspicuous in Arabia as blackbirds in a snowfield. They would have to use Palestinians, he decided. Chernomazy.
They only had to delay the Scorpion for another seventy-two hours. If the Palestinians killed him, so much the better, he thought, pleased with the idea of a countermove to present to Fyedorenko to offset the news about the Scorpion’s second escape.
Although it was 2 a.m., Fyedorenko was sure to still be in his office, he thought, slipping the dossier into his briefcase.
Fortunately, Svetlov was in his office in the Great Kremlin Palace and not at KGB headquarters, that yellow monstrosity with the Stalinist wedding-cake façade on Dzerzhinsky Square. Svetlov had long ago learned the virtue of staying close to the Kremlin. Now, he didn’t have far to go.
He closed the door to his office located in a corridor off St. George’s Hall and headed towards the octagon-shaped Hall of St. Vladimir with its cathedral ceilings. At every door, silent Kremlin guards snapped to attention before opening the door for him. He went down the stairs and crossed Upper Savior Square. Despite the fact that it was June, the night was still very cool and clear. The stars burned with a cold white fire and his footsteps made the only sound. He felt very alone.
He entered the Terem Palace at the Front Hall Chamber entrance and passed through the Cross Chamber to the Throne Room, a gilded chamber with mosaic-tiled walls, its parquet floor covered with a thick wine-red carpet. Floor to ceiling windows stretched along the courtyard side of the chamber, where tsarist petitioners used to stand in line. Lamplight was reflected in the window panes. Where once the tsar himself had sat, Fyedorenko was at work behind a massive desk big enough to be used to land carrier jets, Svetlov mused. Fyedorenko looked up warily.
“Forgive the intrusion, comrade. I came to present the report personally,” Svetlov began.
Fyedorenko nodded. As always, his face gave nothing away. Svetlov stood uneasily before the desk like a schoolboy summoned to the principal’s office.
“The Arabs have bungled this Scorpion business again. We’ll have to move quickly. I’ve already sent a copy of the Scorpion’s dossier via our contact to Prince Abdul Sa’ad,” Svetlov said, placing the report on Fyedorenko’s desk.
“Send Marshal Orlov to me,” Fyedorenko said, his bloodless lips barely moving.
“Are we mobilizing, comrade?” Svetlov asked breathlessly.
“It’s time to move the pieces into position for the center-board game,” Fyedorenko said.
“I have to warn you about the Scorpion. According to the stolen CIA report, he spent his entire childhood studying the Arab culture,” Svetlov said.
Fyedorenko gazed at the fragmented image of the room reflected in the Petition window. When he finally turned back towards Svetlov, his eyebrows were arched and a ghostly smile hovered at the corners of his mouth.
“What did he do after the first twenty minutes?” asked an amused Fyedorenko.
Arabia, 1951
IN THE GRAY LIGHT of the false dawn that precedes the sun, Nick woke to the groans of the camels as they shuffled by outside the tent, their forelegs hobbled so they couldn’t stray. Iffat, a large pudgy woman with a voice like brass and good-humored eyes outlined by kohl, brought him a white cotton robe called a thaub and gestured for him to put it on. His shirt and pants were gone. He put on the thaub. It belonged to Youssef and was too big for him. She laughed and told him he would grow into it.
Outside, the boys were driving the camels to the nearest bushes for forage. Old Mohammed gave the call to prayer, his breath like smoke in the cool morning air:
God is most great.
I testify that there is no god but God.
I testify that Mohammed is the Prophet of God.
Come to prayer!
Come to Salvation!
Prayer is better than sleep.
God is most great.
There is no god but God.
Sheikh Zaid was by the water skins. They were made of goat skins and quivered obscenely on the sand like giant bloated leeches. Zaid was washing his face, hands and feet before prayer. Iffat gave Nick a twig to brush his teeth with. He watched as the men of the tribe smoothed the sand with their hands and lined up their prayer rugs and bowed their foreheads to the ground, reciting the dawn prayer in unison:
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Youssef came over and translated for Nick. Allah was God, he said. Allah was God’s name just as his name was Nick or “little Scorpion.” You made a ruku bow when you prayed. Formal prayer was called salat. You performed salat five times a day. First at dawn, then at noon. The noon salat was called zuhr. In the afternoon, salat was called ashr. The dusk salat was maghrib and the night salat was isha. Salat was one of the five pillars of Islam, Youssef explained. The others were the shahadah, the confession that there is only one God and no other and that Mohammed is the Prophet of God; the zakat, which is the giving of charity; the siyam, which is the fasting during the holy month of Ramadan; and the hajj, which is the pilgrimage to the holy Ka’aba in Mecca.
As the blazing sun rose into the sky empty of clouds, the women pounded coffee beans in a brass mortar, the pestle ringing against the mortar like a bell. Breakfast was pita bread and goat cheese with sweet tea called shay. Nick was still hungry after breakfast. Yet he noticed that even though the others must have been hungry they refused seconds. Later, he learned that food was often scarce and that the feast of the previous night was a celebration of their
victory over the Saar and to honor him because he was a stranger. A guest must always be offered hospitality, even if he is an enemy and you have to slaughter your last camel to feed him.
After tea, Faraj’s wife Jawhara, a fat woman wearing a black milfa veil over her face, served a very thick black coffee spiced with cardamon called ahwa. Each man was served in turn in order of precedence. Nick being the youngest was served last. Jawhara poured a thimbleful into a tiny cup. Each man slurped loudly as he drank. It was bad manners to drink more than three cups. Also, you were supposed to belch after you had eaten. Nick laughed at that, picturing Gran’s horror at all the burping.
After breakfast the boys went off to tend the camels, while the girls stayed to clean up and work at household chores. The boys rode the camels, shouting to each other in loud voices that could be heard for miles in the clear air of the desert. But there was no roughhousing. For one Arab to grab or strike another was unthinkable.
Nick tried to mount a camel. Grabbing a tassel hanging from the saddle, he tried to pull himself up as he had seen the other boys do. Sweat blinded his eyes and he fell off. Everyone laughed. His face burned and he kept trying, but couldn’t do it till Youssef helped him. Youssef was his friend.
All that day, Youssef taught him how to speak Arabic. In the days that followed, everyone he spoke to corrected him and taught him. He learned at an astonishing rate, as though his mind had been a car idling along in first gear suddenly pushed into overdrive. Even Sheikh Zaid remarked at his ability.
Arabic was very different from English, Nick learned. The most important difference was that everything was either masculine or feminine. The way you said something depended on the gender of the person saying it, the gender of the person you were talking to and the gender of the thing itself. Any word associated with a thing, such as an adjective or a number, was also modified to reflect the gender and number. Usually, if a word ended with “a” it was feminine.
“Why is everything male and female?” Nick asked Youssef.
“Look at the world and show me what is not male or female,” Youssef said.
“What about things, like rocks or tents?”
“That’s the hard part,” Youssef said with a laugh.
That afternoon, Safooq began to teach Nick how to hold a rifle. The old British Enfield .303 was bigger than Nick and he could barely raise it. Safooq held it for him as Nick squeezed off his first shot at a nearby tamarisk tree. The recoil bumped his chin and he began to whimper.
“Crying is not the way of men. If you cry, you should not shoot,” Safooq said and Nick choked back the tears. That evening he asked Sheikh Zaid if he wasn’t too little to learn to shoot. He was afraid everyone would laugh at him because he couldn’t lift the rifle. To be laughed at was a dishonor.
“You are Bedu now. All Bedu can shoot,” Zaid said.
“But why is it so important?” Nick asked.
Zaid looked down at the boy with some surprise. “A man who is not a warrior might as well be a woman.”
Youssef and Nick became inseparable. One evening after the maghrib prayers they swore to be brothers forever. Youssef gave Nick his khanjar dagger. The hilt was made of silver and the blade was shiny steel. Nick gave Youssef the only things he still owned, his Boy Scout knife and his shoes. The shoes were too small, but Youssef wore them unlaced and proudly hobbled around. From then on, Nick went barefoot like everyone else.
The first time he tried to walk barefooted on the hot sand, the pain seared his feet. It was like walking on hot coals. He hopped around like an awkward dervish and even austere old Mohammed smiled at the sight. He tried to keep up, but soon lagged further behind the others. Faisal offered him a pair of sandals, but the boy refused, his face screwed tight with pain and something else, something in his strange gray eyes that made Faisal back away. Faisal had seen the same savage glare in the eyes of his father’s falcon.
It was then that the legend began, because unlike any other kafir, the little Scorpion somehow managed to keep up, limping silently into camp. Iffat bathed his scorched and blistered feet with mineral water and looked at the child with wondering eyes. Eventually, his tender feet became calloused and impervious to pain. For the rest of his life, he felt uncomfortable wearing shoes.
Little by little he learned the harsh ways of the Bedu. He learned to be impervious to the pangs of hunger and thirst, to push his body far beyond what he ever thought his body could do. Weather no longer mattered. It was never discussed. He grew indifferent to the intense noonday heat when the sun baked down on the blazing plain as on a frying pan. He learned to sleep in his clothes in the icy chill of night, the darkness blazing with a million diamond chips that were stars, as the temperature plummeted by a hundred degrees in a matter of hours. Pain and discomfort were weaknesses to be mastered, even as the body’s pleasures were gifts from Allah to be indulged.
“The body is but a receptacle for the spirit, like the sheath for a shining sword,” Sheikh Zaid would say.
Sheikh Zaid gave him a thelul, a good riding she-camel. Her name was Jidha and she soon grew as faithful to him as a dog and would come when he called in his boyish soprano. Faisal taught him to ride. He learned to mount her and ride with his leg around the saddle pommel, how to spur her on with a cry and a touch from his whip and how to make her stop and kneel by crooning “Grrr” from deep in his throat.
Riding a camel at a walking pace, which was most common, was like constantly being jerked from a standstill on a sled resting on rough ground. There were many painful falls, but the bruised boy would always remount, his face set like stone. Faisal wondered at the Scorpion’s tenacity.
“It is as if the boy knows he is preparing for battle,” Faisal said to his father, after seeing the Scorpion climb back up the thelul’s neck and perch on the saddle, his leg hooked around the pommel like a monkey’s tail around a branch.
“He is Allah’s khalifah, God’s deputy, although he does not know it. Only Allah knows what is written for him,” Sheikh Zaid replied in a troubled voice. Silently they watched the Scorpion chase after the other riders.
Even harder was riding at a trot or a gallop. To preserve their bottoms from a terrible pounding, the Mutayr rode squatting, not sitting. The position required an extraordinary sense of balance and it took the Scorpion a long time to master it.
One day Youssef challenged Nick to a race. The boys spurred their camels to a gallop across a vast salt flat, blinding white as snow in the sun and rimmed by arad salt bushes, which were good forage for camels. Nick called to Jidha and the she-camel burst into the lead, her long neck stretched out. She held her head up elegantly, like a proper English lady’s pinky when sipping tea. The warm wind pressed against the folds of his thaub like an embrace. He felt a surge of exaltation, of wild freedom, a boy’s dream of heaven come true. When at last they reined in their camels, Nick’s face was flushed with triumph. He had never been so happy.
Faisal taught him to ride using only his feet and verbal commands to guide the camel, so that he would have his hands free for fighting. He learned to be a dead shot even while riding at a gallop. Safooq taught him how to feint, slash and thrust with the curved sword and the khanjar dagger. Soon while rolling on the ground he was able to throw the khanjar at a tamarisk tree from twenty paces and hit a spot no bigger than a man’s palm.
“Your enemy will attack you when you least expect him. You must always be ready, for there will be no time to prepare. And you must do the same when you attack him. In fighting, surprise is everything,” Safooq said. But learning to survive in the desert meant more than fighting.
He learned to navigate in the desert by the stars at night and by the position of the sun during the day; to always know where he was by distinguishing a thousand tiny landmarks in the almost featureless desert, until he could do it as unthinkingly as a westerner driving a car across town. He learned to see across the immense emptiness, so that he could tell by a barely visible puff of dust on the horizon who or what
it was, how many riders and from what tribe, friend or foe. He learned to find his way to distant wells hidden in the sands.
When the Mutayr broke camp and moved to find a new well or grazing, they could never be sure that they would find it or that it hadn’t run dry since the last time. And if they made a mistake, there was no second chance: the desert never forgave.
“In the desert the penalty for a mistake is death,” Sheikh Zaid would say. And yet, they never really feared. Everything was in Allah’s hands anyway. Almost every statement was accompanied by the phrase “Inshallah”—“God willing.”
He learned to track and hunt with the rifle and the falcon. A Bedu had to know the tracks of every desert animal and of every horse and camel. After a time, Nick could tell by the track of a camel whether it was wild or tame, male or female, whether it was carrying a rider, where it came from, how tired it was and even whose camel it was. Camels from the sandy Nefud had soft soles; those from the rocky plains of the Najd left smooth tracks, their soles polished by friction with the ground. From the droppings you could tell how old the track was, what the camel had been grazing on and when it had been watered last, and from these signs deduce where it came from and where it was going. And the dried droppings could be used for fuel. Nothing was ever wasted.
The desert gave little. It forced a man back upon himself simply in order to survive. Sheikh Zaid said that it was no accident that Allah had revealed himself in the desert. It was the desert’s very emptiness, its nothingness of stone and sand and sky, which mirrored the perfection of the Creator. Once Nick asked Sheikh Zaid how he knew there was a God. Zaid reined in his camel and outstretched an arm at the vast empty plain and burning sky.
“No defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of mercy,” Zaid declared harshly in the words of the Holy Koran. “Repeat the gaze; seest thou a single flaw?”
By then, Nick had grown conversant in Arabic. At first, he translated everything into English. Later, he simply thought in Arabic without ever translating. He realized he was fluent when he found himself dreaming in Arabic.
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