Scorpion

by Andrew Kaplan

  Close to half a million onlookers pressed against the barrier of rope strung between empty oil drums along the entire length of the twenty-two-kilometer course. Members of the Saudi National Guard, easily spotted by their red-checked headcloths and the gold crossed swords-and-palm-tree emblem on their headbands, were stationed at twenty-foot intervals to keep the crowd from spilling onto the course.

  The greatest crowding was near the starting line, where bettors gathered to see the camels. Over five thousand camels, their riders and attendants were already assembled in the starting area. Another large mass of people had gathered around the royal reviewing stand near the finish line. From afar, it looked like the Costa Brava in summer, the families packed together like sardines under colorful umbrellas unfurled to protect against the relentless sun. Just beyond the TV cameras and vans, green silk pennants flew over the Saudi royal pavilion, densely guarded by Guardsmen carrying loaded M-16s. Veiled princesses, concubines and serving girls mingled freely inside the roped-off women’s enclosure, visiting each other’s tents.

  Only the black-and-white striped tent of Prince Abdul Sa’ad, near the far corner of the royal enclosure, was unvisited. It sat closed and silent, like an abandoned house. A fat eunuch with a curving scimitar stood guard by the tent flap.

  At the gate to the royal pavilion the jewelers had set up their stalls. The women were permitted to shop there under the watchful eyes of the Guardsmen, without having to officially leave the enclosure.

  “You are robbing me blind! The angel Gabriel is my witness! From Muscat even to Damascus, all know of Abdul and the quality of his gems. But for a princess royal, who can deny anything?” loudly proclaimed a one-eyed jeweler, slapping his hand to his chest as a gesture of sincerity.

  He was a short fat man, lavishly dressed in a gold and silver silk robe. His face was round as the man in the moon and radiated good will. He grinned constantly, like a cartoon chipmunk, not unaware that his teeth were his best advertisement. Every one of his teeth was inlaid with gold. Diamonds, rubies and other precious gems twinkled in the sunlight from his gold caps. He wore a platinum patch encrusted with diamonds over a scarred right eye and rolled his good eye at the sky, that Allah might vouch for the value of his wares.

  “You’re a rare scoundrel,” a veiled elderly woman muttered, a glint of amusement in her dark eyes outlined with kohl to hide the wrinkles. “It’s not worth twenty thousand, much less fifty.”

  “Behold the value, mistress and let Allah guide you. Offer what you think is just, no more,” the little man said, holding a gold and diamond bracelet so that it caught the sunlight. “Behold!” he declared.

  The diamonds were like sunlight, too bright to look at.

  “I’ll give you thirty thousand and good riddance,” the woman snapped and gathered her robe as if to leave.

  “Done!” the jeweler cried boisterously and with a flourish, he handed over the bracelet.

  The woman pulled an Hermes purse from beneath her robe and took out a wad of thousand-riyal notes which needed two hands to hold. She whispered something to the jeweler, then counted out the notes with the speed of a bank teller. The jeweler made another bow and in a twinkling he had whisked the money into his sash and was suddenly gone in the direction of the canvas enclosure used for the men’s public lavatory.

  The urinal was a trough in the sand. The plump jeweler with the multicolored silk robe made an astonishing contrast to the grim image beside him. He stood next to a desert-lean Bedu with eyes the color of smoke. An ancient musket with an inlaid stock slung across the Bedu’s back marked him as one of the riders in the race. The Bedu wore the black robe and face veil of a Saar tribesman.

  “Then it’s true,” the Scorpion whispered to the little jeweler from behind his black face veil.

  “The American female is of a certainty in the far tent of Prince Abdul Sa’ad. There are many whisperings among the families. The prince’s royal wife is installed at the tent of her sister-in-law, Princess Fatima, second wife of Prince Sultan. They say that she would return to the house of her father, but that Abdul Sa’ad won’t let her. Of the other concubines, she cares nothing. But the American female is not unknown and it is becoming a scandal,” Abdul replied.

  “And what of Prince Abdul Sa’ad?”

  “Who can speak of Abdul Sa’ad?” the jeweler said, flipping up his bejeweled eyepatch and looking anxiously over his shoulder to be sure they weren’t overheard.

  “Abdul Sa’ad is always surrounded by armed guards, especially the evil-eyed one. He of the Mutayr,” Abdul said.

  “Bandar,” breathed the Scorpion.

  “He rides today on Bashum, last year’s champion. Yes, it is an odd name, isn’t it?”

  “Truly,” the Scorpion replied.

  It was odd. It was as if Abdul Sa’ad couldn’t resist announcing his intentions by calling his camel by the word that means “sinister,” he mused.

  “There are many who hesitate to contest against him for fear of what he might do,” Abdul added.

  “And Abdul Sa’ad?” the Scorpion asked.

  “He is with his brother, the king, at the royal tent. There are many whispers. But no one speaks out loud against Abdul Sa’ad. Some say he has become a religious mystic, a sufi master, even.”

  “And Salim?”

  “The king, may Allah guard him, loves and trusts his brother. He will listen to nothing against him.”

  “But that the American female is in the far tent is certain? There can be no mistake on this,” the Scorpion insisted.

  “So the women say. Trust the wives to know where the she-wolf is. Besides, who posts an armed guard over an empty tent?” shrugged the little man.

  “Anything else?”

  “Only that you are watched even now,” Abdul remarked, glancing towards the tent flap out of the corner of his eye.

  “I know. They’re all over me like fleas. And they’re not bothering to hide, either. Something’s come unstuck,” the Scorpion said.

  “Perhaps it has something to do with the bombing in Qatar last night,” Abdul suggested. He looked anxiously around as a tall bearded Arab came up to the trough. He was dressed in western clothes and had the look of a modern Riyadhi.

  “What bombing?”

  “It’s on the radio,” Abdul said nervously and glanced significantly at the bearded Arab. He shook himself and turned to leave.

  “I have to hurry. I’m thinking of betting ten thousand riyals on Bashum, ridden by Prince Abdul Sa’ad’s man, Bandar. What do you think?” Abdul said loudly.

  “Save your money. I doubt he’ll go the distance,” the Scorpion said, an odd gleam in his eye.

  As he turned to leave, the bearded Riyadhi caught at his sleeve.

  “A thousand pardons, asayid …” the Riyadhi began.

  The Scorpion’s reaction was instantaneous. He splayed the fingers of his hand and rotated his wrist clockwise, then continued in a circle, gripping the Riyadhi’s hand between both hands and forcing him to his knees. The Scorpion winced as he twisted, his sides still aching from last night’s fall in the desert fight.

  “Who sent you? Macready?” the Scorpion hissed through clenched teeth, and applied pressure on the trapped hand. The Riyadhi groaned in pain.

  “Meester Harrees …” the Riyadhi began in English.

  “Where is he?”

  “At the tent of the fortuneteller …” the Riyadhi began and then blinked in disbelief. The Scorpion was already gone.

  The fortuneteller’s tent was blue and decorated with gold and silver stars, a crescent moon and signs of the zodiac. A sign advertised visions of the future, promises of great wealth, happiness and cures for arthritis, backache and a variety of liver and stomach ailments. Circumcisions were also available. Another sign, hand-painted on the tent flap, indicated that the tent was closed for prayers and the duration of the race.

  Inside, the Scorpion found Harris seated at a wooden folding table, playing a hand of solitaire. He smiled as the
Scorpion entered and gestured as extravagantly as an Arab merchant for him to sit down.

  “A thousand welcomes, O honored guest,” Harris insolently grinned, leaning back. Who else but Harris would wear a silk ascot at his throat in the middle of Arabia? the Scorpion thought. Harris wore a beige tropical jacket over his shoulders as if he’d just finished playing a polo match. The empty sleeves hung like lifeless limbs as Harris dealt the cards.

  “Cut the shit, Bob,” the Scorpion snapped angrily.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Are you running an op or a Marx Brothers comedy? You’ve got amateurs tripping all over me. If you wanted to blow me, it would have been more inconspicuous to use a neon sign. I feel like I’m wearing a bull’s eye on my chest,” the Scorpion snapped.

  “There wasn’t time to set it up properly. You know how things can get at this stage,” Harris said defensively. He placed a red ten on a black Jack with a little snap of the card to show his annoyance and pretended to concentrate on the game to show he wasn’t worried, which meant, of course, that he was.

  “If there’s a screw-up, I’m surprised you aren’t already blaming Macready; everybody’s favorite whipping boy,” the Scorpion remarked impudently.

  “Macready’s dead. Car bomb in Doha. Surprised you hadn’t heard about it on the radio,” Harris said complacently.

  So that’s what Abdul the jeweler had meant, the Scorpion thought. He remembered the last time he had seen Macready, in the alley behind Hamid’s. “Why’d you wait so long?” Macready had asked, still trying to get it right as if it was Saigon again, while insects smashed against the streetlight.

  “Is that all you have to say?” the Scorpion asked.

  “What did you expect? Taps at Arlington? Macready is history,” Harris shrugged.

  “What was he up to when he got hit?” the Scorpion asked, a metallic taste in his mouth that might have been regret—or fear.

  “Who the hell knows? The incompetent son of a bitch didn’t leave any messages behind,” Harris snapped irritably and turned up three cards.

  He needed a black six and the six of clubs came up as the second card. He surreptitiously switched it with the third card and placed it triumphantly on a seven of hearts, glancing at the Scorpion to see if he had noticed.

  “It shouldn’t have happened,” the Scorpion mused, almost to himself.

  “Of course, it shouldn’t have happened, We never should have used him in the first place. Of all times to get stuck with a fucked-up has-been,” Harris fumed, throwing down the cards in disgust.

  “No, I mean there was no reason for it. I was the target. The action had shifted away from Qatar, unless …”

  “Unless what?” Harris snapped. He reached into his jacket and took out a tiny battery-powered fan. He turned it on and aimed it point blank at his own sweat-slick face. “Christ, doesn’t it ever cool off here?” he muttered irritably.

  “This is the cool time here,” the Scorpion remarked. “Wait till late afternoon, then it warms up.”

  Harris snapped off the fan for a second and looked at him as if the Scorpion was a waiter who had served him soup with a fly in it. “Macready was a pathetic shit and I’m here to see that things go right for a change. I don’t give a damn about how hot it gets and I don’t need any smart-ass bullshit and most of all I want my questions answered. Now—did Macready get careless or was he terminated before he could get a message to us?” Harris rasped.

  “Yes,” the Scorpion replied.

  “Yes, he got careless, or yes, he was terminated?”

  “Yes, it’s true what they say about you,” the Scorpion shrugged.

  “What’s that?” Harris hissed, his eyes as bright and murderous as a reptile’s.

  “Macready wasn’t careless. He was famous for his paranoia,” the Scorpion said, ignoring Harris’ question, knowing it would eat away at Harris later on. The way things were shaping up, that might be the only satisfaction he was going to get out of this assignment.

  It felt all wrong, but he didn’t know where the problem was. Everything was too straightforward, too convenient. The girl, the assassination attempt and his enemy, Bandar, all here in one place. And the eunuch dead and the ambushes a failure, so Abdul Sa’ad knew he was here and that he knew about the coup, yet did nothing, leaving Bandar and the girl in the open for him to get at them. The path to the target was straight ahead, the gate left open and inviting. It was all there, but where was the mistake? What was it Macready had learned that made it essential to eliminate him, the Scorpion wondered.

  “Forget Macready. The whole ball game depends on you being able to stop the hit,” Harris snapped.

  “Where was Macready hit? How’d it happen?” the Scorpion insisted. There was a key there somewhere. There had to be. He owed Macready that much, remembering George and his Vietnamese girl inviting him over for lemon chicken dinner at their little apartment around the corner from the Caravelle. All of them high on 33-beer and Buddha grass and singing “FTA.” Fuck the Army, celebrating because George had managed to postpone getting DEROS’d back to the States so he could stay with—what was her name, anyway?—and in the distance they could hear the soft thumping of Delta Tango rounds fired into the bush, but so far away it could have been the beat of a rock band.

  “What difference does it make? Listen—” Harris said, waving his hand as if to brush away a fly.

  Suddenly, the Scorpion grabbed Harris by his ascot and lifted him off the ground. “It makes a difference to me. Where was George when the bomb went off, goddamit?” he demanded.

  “In his—car—the Corniche—it exploded—a grenade tossed in the window—motorcycle—no ID,” Harris managed to gasp.

  “Which way was the car headed? North or south?”

  “I don’t know! South! … Jesus,” Harris shouted.

  The Scorpion shoved Harris back into the chair. Harris winced and rubbed his neck reproachfully. But the Scorpion ignored him, for a moment staring blankly at the tent wall.

  “Jeez, if I’d known it was that important …” Harris began.

  “South … back towards the airport. But he had just come from the airport. He’d just returned from Riyadh. And he left no message, right?” the Scorpion asked, looking at Harris.

  Harris nodded slowly. Comprehension dawned in his eyes. The Scorpion was obviously onto something.

  “That meant he wasn’t about to take a flight out, or he would have signaled. He had to—he was my case officer. He wouldn’t have just gone off. Not with the whole damn Indian Ocean fleet, the RDF and the Marines waiting somewhere offshore.

  “And it wasn’t to send a signal either. He’d have gone either to the embassy or the safe house for that, even if security had been breached,” the Scorpion said.

  “So why did he leave his post?” Harris asked.

  “Because he saw something—or someone,” the Scorpion said, his eyes wide as saucers. “Someone on his way to the airport,” he breathed.

  “Who could it be?” Harris asked, mopping his face with the ascot and rearranging the table, which had been knocked over during their struggle.

  “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  Harris looked suspiciously at him. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you? Not telling me for your own reasons?”

  “Of course not. Any more than you’d keep something from me,” the Scorpion replied.

  The two men smiled at each other.

  The Scorpion carefully lowered himself into the chair like someone entering a steaming hot bath. Harris took in his bloodshot eyes and unshaven cheeks.

  “You look like you’ve been through the mill. Are you going to be able to pull it off?” Harris said sympathetically.

  “Do I get a choice?”

  “Not at these prices.”

  They shared a quiet chuckle.

  “The president asked me to convey his personal regards and confidence in you. We’re all counting on you,” Harris said
, his voice resonating with manly sincerity.

  “Save the half-time speeches, Bob. The only thing the president’s counting on is for me to save his political neck. And that’s not Number One on my list of Things to Do Today.”

  “What about the girl?” Harris prompted.

  “Which comes first, stopping the coup or the girl?”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do,” Harris snapped peevishly and moved the little fan back and forth across his face like a windshield wiper.

  He stared at the tiny whirring blades in fascination. A dreamy look came over his face. “You know, it’s like living a little piece of history. Like being in Sarajevo in 1914, or Berlin in 1939. There’s an appalling amount of misery in store for humanity if you miss,” he said in a philosophical tone, as if he were about to brush a blackboard with tweed-covered elbows.

  “Thanks Bob. That’s just what I needed right now. More pressure,” the Scorpion remarked wryly.

  Harris leaned forward with a worried look. If Harris let that much worry show through, then the Scorpion knew he himself probably had the life expectancy of a rare butterfly at a convention of lepidopterists.

  “Don’t miss,” Harris said earnestly.

  “How bad is it? Can you tell me?” the Scorpion asked, glancing around the tent as if to search out any bugs.

  Harris leaned forward to whisper. “We have independent confirmation from both the Israeli Mossad and the Egyptian Moukhabarat of a PLO strike at Sea Island, which would shut off the oil. The Russian fleet is stationed off the Straits of Hormuz and there have been a number of bow-scraping incidents between them and our Indian Ocean fleet. The RDF and the 82nd Airborne have been committed and are en route to Masira Island. The Russians have the Caucasus Red Army Group poised at Yerevan. And the Cuban military advisors and Palestinians have suddenly disappeared from the streets of Aden. Just how bad do you want it? I’ll tell you, friend, anyone who bought oil futures is going to make a killing,” Harris said, then bit his lip as if he had said too much.

  “We’re not friends, Bob. We just share the same lifeboat,” the Scorpion said quietly.