“All right,” the president relented, biting his lower lip as he often did when agitated. “What counter measures have we taken so far?”
“The Nimitz is standing by, monitoring the Russian fleet. We’ve placed the RDF and the Marines on DEFCON Yellow and we’re mobilizing transport now,” General Baker reported. Defensive Condition Yellow was the highest military ready status except for DEFCON Red, which meant war.
“What about the ‘Contingency Plan’?” the president asked.
“It’s on its way,” Baker replied. The Pentagon had sets of contingency plans drawn up for every possible military situation, up to and including the potential invasion of the South Pole by Hottentots.
“We might want to send SR-71 Blackbirds and AWACs to overfly Arabia and keep us posted on what’s happening out there,” Secretary of State Wallace put in, lighting another cigarette from a still burning butt.
“We might want to send a few to overfly Russia, if it comes to that,” Harris said with a smirk.
Allen quickly turned to confront Harris. His eyebrows were raised in wordless fury. They formed a single ridge across his forehead, giving him the appearance of an angry Neanderthal. Then he apparently thought better of it. Harris, as the Scorpion’s senior case officer, was indispensable right now—and the son-of-a-bitch knew it too, Allen thought.
“Just re-establish contact with this Scorpion of yours,” Allen snapped.
“What do I tell him?” Harris asked.
“We’ll have to pay him out of the CIA budget,” Allen said.
“A million dollars! Who the hell does he think he is? John Wayne?” Wallace muttered.
“He thinks he has us over a barrel, Mr. Secretary,” Harris said.
“Does he?” the president asked.
“Yes sir, I think he does,” Harris replied softly.
“Gary …” the president looked up at Allen.
“I think if he can pull it off it’s a bargain, Mr. President,” Allen replied.
“I thought we had lots of oil,” the president began peevishly, rubbing his hand against his stubbled cheek.
“We have lots of oil because Arabia wants us to have lots of oil. Abdul Sa’ad and the Russians could change all that, Mr. President,” CIA Director Page said.
“Well, why can’t we send in our own security—or maybe get King Salim out of the country?” the president asked brightly.
“Might make things even worse. King Salim has to be in Arabia as a focal point for the tribes to rally around, Mr. President,” Allen replied.
“All right, suppose they cut off the oil. What’s the bottom line?” the president demanded angrily.
“It would make the thirties look like boom times, but it would never get that far,” Page answered.
“Why not?”
“Because we couldn’t allow the Russians to get away with it,” Wallace said.
“In other words …” General Baker began.
“In other words ‘World War Three,’ General,” Wallace snapped.
The president slumped back in his chair. Suddenly, he looked very frail.
“What shall I tell the Scorpion?” Harris asked softly.
The president glanced around the room. It was so still for a moment he imagined he could hear the dust settling. “I see no alternative. Tell him it’s his mission,” he said, his voice sounding old and tired.
“Using any means?” Harris inquired.
“I have no interest in details,” the president angrily snapped.
The soft burring of a telephone on the ornate end table was somehow as jarring as a fire alarm. Allen quickly picked it up, listened intently for a moment and hung up, after a “Thank you” muttered in a strangled voice. Everyone looked at Allen as though he were a doctor about to pronounce a life-or-death verdict.
“That was the Air Force Recon Office. They’ve just received SAMOS photos showing extensive military activity among the Caucasus Army Group along the Iranian border,” Allen said.
The edges of Harris’ mouth curled up with an I-told-you-so maliciousness. Evidence from one of the SAMOS spy satellites was conclusive.
Each twenty-two-foot satellite was capable of picking up all radio transmissions in its area on all known frequencies and had cameras which could photograph the lettering on a golf ball on a green from a hundred miles up, even through dense cloud and fog cover.
“Does that mean what I think it means, General?” the president asked, fixing Baker with the steely glint which had been known to cow a roomful of political bosses into uneasy silence.
“Yes sir, it means the Russians are mobilizing,” Baker said.
The president stood up and ran his fingers through his sleep-touseled hair. The others also stood, at once together and apart in an uneasy, silent group, like people in a lift.
“All right, let’s get those spy planes up,” the president ordered.
“Russia too?” Page prompted.
“Russia too,” the president said, looking around the room. For a moment he gazed at the sad homely face of Lincoln in the portrait over the fireplace. He was another president who had seen his worst fears come true, he thought.
“I want a full-scale alert, gentlemen. And I want a complete press blackout. God help the son-of-a-bitch who leaks even a hint of this,” the president declared, and started for the door. Then he turned back for a moment.
“How many Americans are in Arabia now?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“About forty thousand,” Harris replied crisply.
The president shook his head. “God help us,” he said. He put his hand on Allen’s shoulder. It was at once a friendly and a somehow pathetic gesture. “What do you think, Gary? Can this Scorpion pull it off for us? One man alone?” he asked.
Allen thought for a moment. When he looked at the president there was a faint trace of the young Yale undergraduate in his eyes. Allen shook his head.
“Does any man know what awaits him in the desert?” he said.
PART THREE
And when the unbelievers plot to shut thee up or to kill thee or to drive thee out they plot, but God plots also, and God is the best of plotters.
—The Koran
al Hofuf
THE NIGHT WAS FILLED with stars. A new-minted crescent moon balanced like a metal shaving on a shelf of light which was the Milky Way. Beyond the red glow of the campfire the desert sands stretched endlessly, snow-white in the ghostly light of distant worlds. All was silence, except for the tinkling of camel bells which seemed a kind of star music.
The Scorpion sipped a thimble-cup of cardamon-flavored coffee and passed the cup back to his brother Youssef, who refilled it from the long-stemmed coffee pot seated directly on the embers. Youssef refilled the cup and drained it with a loud slurp.
Youssef had changed, the Scorpion thought. Once lean as a saluki, he had acquired a sleek successful look. He had married Farah, Safooq’s daughter, and had two boys. As was the custom, he had changed his name from “son of Zaid” to “father of Faisal,” his eldest son. No one spoke of Aisha.
Youssef leaned closer. His face glowed like burnished copper in the campfire light. For a moment he seemed ancient, like someone from another time.
“Much of what you say is true, my beloved. These are dangerous things. But what Prince Abdul Sa’ad says is also true. The West corrupts our soul. The noise of the auto salesman grows louder, but Allah’s voice is harder to hear every day,” Youssef said.
“Now the camel rides in the back of a Yapani pick-up truck as if it were a man. Is that not an oddity, my brother?” said Faisal, Zaid’s eldest son.
“Abdul Sa’ad has spoken against this insanity of educating females. In Riyadh women ride buses with men and even work in banks,” Safooq said in a peevish tone.
“What women want is what they have always had,” Sheikh Zaid said. His shiny new false teeth gave him the peculiar look of someone who smiles for a living.
“What is that, my father?” asked Faisal, an
air of amusement hovering at the corners of his mouth.
“Their own way, of course,” Zaid wheezed triumphantly and they all laughed.
“Still, something must be done. We don’t want an Iran in Arabia,” Faisal put in seriously as the laughter died down.
“Allah forbid!” muttered Zaid.
“Let the royal family fight it out among themselves. What is that to us?” Safooq grumbled.
There were murmurs of approval from some of the other tribesmen gathered around the fire.
“But with Abdul Sa’ad comes the Roosees,” the Scorpion said softly.
“And with King Salim the Americani. Which is worse? It is still dog and master,” Faisal said, holding up his little finger when he said “dog” and his fist when he said “master.”
“In Riyadh it is said that when America sneezes the king gets pneumonia,” Youssef said.
“Sa, it is even thus,” Zaid grumbled.
“These giaour treat us like strangers in our own home. They are like lice. No matter how you scratch you cannot get rid of them,” Safooq snapped irritably.
“What would be so bad about the Roosees? At least they support the Falastin against the Jews,” someone called out.
“The Roosees are atheists,” the Scorpion murmured.
“Abomination,” a voice rumbled in the darkness. The Scorpion thought it might have been old Turki, father of Safooq.
“I too have heard this said of the Roosees,” Faisal said.
“What sort of men are they? To think all this is an accident—and meaningless besides?” Sheikh Zaid said, gesturing at the starry sky.
“What does it matter to us what the infidels believe? Are the men of the Mutayr to fight because the great powers covet Arabia as they always have?” said Muhammed of Heikal, elegantly tossing the tail of his headcloth over his shoulder, like a woman with a fur piece. A wealthy merchant of the Rualla, he had married one of Zaid’s daughters. Although new to the Mutayr, his free-spending ways had given him influence. He knew of the Scorpion only by reputation.
“It will matter. I have been in Afghanistan, where the Roosees have rained poison gas on the moujahadin. And there is no oil in Afghanistan for the Roosees to covet. The land of the moujahadin is utterly desolate,” the Scorpion replied slyly, his heart beating.
Now they could be turned with the slightest touch, he knew, the way fingertip pressure on a wheel can turn a great ship. In some secret part of him he was shamed at using them. For whose benefit? he wondered. Theirs? The Americans? or his own?
He felt like a hypocrite playing them by Company protocol. “You don’t have to teach ’em to hate. They already know that. You just have to aim it in the right direction. Xenophobia—it works every time,” Koenig used to say. And now the darkness was coming again, the Scorpion thought. He could sense its relentless approach, like the dark wall of clouds which heralded the monsoon back in Vietnam. Abdul Sa’ad would bring the darkness with no one to stop him, except for his own desperate plan predicated on two pretty shaky legs: the single-shot theory and Bandar’s vanity in his marksmanship. And if the eunuch had lied about how they planned to assassinate King Salim, the darkness would swallow them all.
Because Arabia was the flashpoint between America and Russia, he thought. Oil was to the great powers what water was to the Bedu. If Abdul Sa’ad succeeded, there might be another world war. The last. “Assuming you could do it and you knew what was going to happen, would you have assassinated Hitler in 1939?” was the question his philosophy class had debated in college. Back then, he had argued that survival outweighed ethics. The majority of the class had disagreed, he remembered.
“So now we are to prepare for battle on the mere word of a foreigner,” Muhammed drawled insultingly.
At this Youssef started up, his khanjar already half out of its sheath at this insult to his brother.
“You dare!” Youssef hissed, his eyes like coals in the light from the fire.
The Scorpion put a hand on Youssef’s shoulder to restrain him. After a tense second, Youssef squatted back down, his hand still on his khanjar.
“It is said, ‘Beware of the smile of the infidel,’” snarled Muhammed. He glared defiantly across the glowing embers at the Scorpion.
“It is also said, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” the Scorpion replied.
“That is so,” Sheikh Zaid said.
Muhammed started to reply, but changed his mind as Faisal, trying to ease the tension, clapped his hands twice sharply to call for more coffee. As another thimble cup was again passed around, Faisal moved around the fire to sit next to the Scorpion. Faisal squatted and put his hand on the Scorpion’s shoulder, making sure that all saw him do so. A faint wind stirred whispers of sand on the dunes.
“Why have you come back to us now, truly?” Faisal asked.
To find something I lost, the Scorpion thought. He looked into Faisal’s eyes, opalescent in the flickering light, and groped for the words.
“There are no accidents in this world,” the Scorpion said, holding out his hand as if to catch a falling star. “My coming is no accident, either. Arabia stands poised between greatness and slavery like a spinning globe balanced on the tip of a juggler’s finger. My kismet has brought me back now, at this dark hour, to do the thing that I was born to do.”
“Like Antar of ancient days,” Faisal mocked gently, as if to remind the Scorpion of his youthful hero worship.
“Yes, like Antar,” Youssef said boyishly. “Why not?”
The Scorpion smiled sadly, remembering his childhood enthusiasm. He wondered if the boy he had been would recognize anything of himself in the icy agent he had become. He doubted it. “No, not like Antar. Like the Scorpion, the oldest of land animals because it has learned best how to survive,” he said, looking around the fire at their faces.
“What is it you need of us?” Sheikh Zaid asked.
“A fast mugathir, your best, to ride in the King’s Camel Race. Allow the Americans to air-drop a radio, a technician to man the radio, and weapons. None need join me. I seek no help from anyone and no harm to the tribe. And let there be no blood feuds to arise out of what I do,” the Scorpion replied, ticking the items off on his fingers,
“And we are to do all this, for the Saudi family?” Muhammed sneered and looked pointedly away.
“We risk more by doing nothing. If all we do is sit and talk like women, there will soon be civil war. And in the days after that there will be Roosees in the Hasa Desert. Allah has given us this foreknowledge even as he gave us the oil, for his own reasons, not ours. I have come to act, not talk,” the Scorpion said.
“So now you are Allah’s agent. This borders on blasphemy!” Muhammed growled, holding his hands up to heaven in exasperation.
“All men are Allah’s agents, whether they know it or not,” the Scorpion retorted.
“Truly,” Sheikh Zaid said, clapping his hands on his knees in approval. There were murmurs of “ya Allah” from some of the others.
“So—we are to do this thing for the Saudis,” Youssef declared, rubbing his hands together like a merchant about to close a lucrative sale.
The Scorpion shook his head. “Neither for the Saudis, nor the Americans, whatever they think. We do this for the Mutayr. The Hasa, its oil and water, belongs to us,” the Scorpion said. He stood in a fluid motion and drew his khanjar from its sheath. The steel blade reflected the red firelight like a tiny sun.
“I will kill anyone who tries to take it from us,” he declared.
A deep-throated cry went up from the assembled tribesmen. Many raised their camel whips and flailed the air. Rifles were fired skyward as everyone rose and shouted. The ululating cries of the women, the trilling to frighten off the zars of the night, echoed in the darkness. “Allah!” the men chanted. “God is great!”
As the shouting subsided, Muhammed stood and faced the Scorpion. The corners of his mouth were drawn down as if he had tasted something sour. “To involve ourselves in such intrig
ues is dangerous—not to mention bad for business. If it is the will of the tribe, I shall not interfere; but neither shall I support such adventurism,” he declared. He turned his back on the others and strode away towards his lavish RV van.
“Beware—such a one may betray you,” Faisal whispered in the Scorpion’s ear.
“It doesn’t matter. The enemy already knows of my presence, but I still have a trick or two up my sleeve,” the Scorpion whispered back, his lips scarcely moving. His eyes were flames in the fire glow.
Everyone was silent, waiting for the old sheikh to speak. Zaid motioned to Faisal who came over and helped the old man to his feet. How frail he had become, the Scorpion thought sadly. His hands were crooked and brittle as winter twigs. When he was a boy, those same strong hands had lifted him so easily into a saddle.
“Muhammed is entitled to his view. As for myself, I plan to be at the King’s Camel Race, as always. Something tells me that it’s going to be particularly exciting this year,” Sheikh Zaid declared.
As the Scorpion rose, Youssef plucked at his sleeve.
“Come, I have something to show you.”
Youssef led him to a cluster of pick-up trucks by the edge of the camp. The trucks were parked in a circle, serving as a makeshift corral. Now he could see the hobbled camels clearly in the pearl-gray light of the stars. As always, they began to roar and snarl whenever men approached.
“What do think of her?” Youssef asked proudly, gesturing at an unusually large honey-colored she-camel, her nostrils flaring as they came up to her.
The Scorpion ran his hands along her flanks and pinched her thighs, taking care not to stand at an angle where she could kick him. She turned her great head towards him and hearing her snarl and gurgle, he just managed to dance aside to avoid being sprayed by slimy green cud.
“May the raiders get you,” the Scorpion snapped goodhumoredly. He grabbed her head-rope and kicked her sharply in the stomach to gain control of her.
“Good! You must master her spirit right from the start,” Youssef said, his eyes sparkling with delight.
“Is she as fast as she looks?”
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