Scorpion Read online

  “What shall I tell the congressman?” Harris asked quietly.

  “Tell him to call ‘Dial-a-Prayer,’” the Scorpion retorted.

  Harris sighed, like a high-school coach with a primadonna player.

  “Find the girl, Scorpion,” he said seriously. “Just find the girl.”

  “Is there a back way out of here?” the Scorpion asked.

  Harris nodded and glanced at the curtained doorway.

  “One more thing. You were our second choice on this. We pulled Chambers out of Istanbul last week. They found his body on the beach near Manama. Both his arms and legs had been cut off,” he added, his face bland and emotionless. All the CIA types were like that, the Scorpion mused. Always trying to show how cool and efficient they were.

  “You son of a bitch,” the Scorpion whispered. He’d liked Chambers, who’d had a bigger repertoire of corny jokes than Bob Hope.

  Harris grinned maliciously. He reminded the Scorpion of the Cheshire Cat. Then he shrugged, hands in pockets, like good old Jimmy Stewart, faithfully doing his job. “I just thought you ought to know, if you know what I mean.”

  The Scorpion knew what he meant.

  Bahrain

  THE GIANT houbara stabbed its beak at the sandy ground as though pecking, then raised its head back up and lowered it again and again. The giant zebra-striped image of the bird had been painted as a decoration on an oil pump. Actually, it was as much a piece of nostalgia as a New England weather vane. The bird itself, a wild migratory chicken that could outrun a Saluki dog on the ground, no longer existed in Arabia. It had been hunted to extinction by the Gulf Arabs. Now, Arabian falconers had to travel to Morocco and Pakistan to maintain the traditions of the hunt.

  The bird was but one of a bobbing zoo of brightly painted bustards and horses and giraffes that decorated the small oil field outside Manama. Against the glowing horizon, the silhouette of the BAPCO refinery looked like the gantry of Cape Canaveral. Electric lights strung along the oil derricks twinkled like Christmas decorations in the tangerine twilight. What with all the alien shapes and the strange-colored sky, he might have been in a space port on another planet. As the taxi turned from the Muharraq Causeway into traffic-jammed Government Road, the Scorpion could see beyond the oil field to the gold and turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf, called the Arabian Gulf in this part of the world. Beyond the molten surface of the sea lay the dark shadow of the Arabian mainland.

  The sheshbesh players had already settled in the green oasis of a traffic circle. Insects swirled thick as rain around the sodium arc lights, as the players banged their counters in the greenish glare, oblivious to the hurricane of evening traffic swirling around them.

  The humid Gulf heat draped itself around him like a steaming wet cloak. The whiny quarter-tones of an Egyptian love song blared from the taxi’s radio, the driver’s head bobbing like an oil pump in time to the music.

  The taxi itself was painted in an arabesque of colors, like a psychedelic dream gone wild, so that it was impossible to say what model it had been originally. The seats were red velvet; gold tassels hung over the windows and the flush interior resembled a fin de siècle brothel. The singer on the radio moaned that she yearned for him in the long empty nights and the Scorpion grinned. It was good to hear Arabic again. It was almost like coming home.

  The driver said something, but he missed it in the blare of the radio and the cars, the drivers pounding on their horns as if it was a contest to see who could make the most noise.

  “You want the fondok Gulf Hotel, asayid?” the driver repeated, turning his head and barely missing sideswiping a pink and white Cadillac aggressively driven by a young Bahraini with a peach-fuzz moustache.

  “Aiwa, min fadlak,” the Scorpion said.

  “You speak good Arabic, asayid. For a Giaour,” the driver added, using the contemptuous term for an infidel foreigner, but there was no offense in the words. All foreigners were infidels.

  “Shokran,” the Scorpion thanked him, “but I think you are also a foreigner in Bahrain.”

  “I am Palestinian, from Akko, near Haifa,” the driver said, slapping his chest proudly. “I am here only temporarily,” he declared.

  “How long have you been in Bahrain?”

  “Fifteen years, asayid.”

  Along Government Road, new concrete buildings had been thrown up almost overnight. They gleamed white as tombstones in the sodium-bright streetlights, block after block. Once, Bahrain had been a crowded souk of squat mud houses, the Scorpion mused. Now, crowded with skyscrapers and smart shops, it looked like downtown Anywhere. The driver was wrong, he decided. They were all exiles: the driver who wanted a homeland which wasn’t there, the Arabs hunting the extinct houbara, and him. There was no going home for any of them.

  “I think I go home pretty soon now,” the driver said.

  “Inshallah,” God willing, the Scorpion replied.

  The taxi swerved suddenly through a gap in traffic and turned into the driveway of the Gulf Hotel. As the porter took his bag inside, the Scorpion paid the driver, who glanced at him curiously. Then the driver smiled.

  “Inshallah, asayid,” he said and with a blast of his horn pulled away, fitting the taxi between two creeping trucks, like a piece in a moving jigsaw puzzle. The Scorpion watched the traffic flow by. There were no tails, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

  By the time he checked in, changed shirts and had grown accustomed to the asthmatic wheeze of the air-conditioner, night had fallen over the island. He took the elevator down to the long dark bar, where Braithwaite was already holding court.

  Everyone in the Arabian Gulf knows the Gulf Hotel bar. It’s an air-conditioned souk where everyone is either buying or selling, or usually both, where deals are made and broken in minutes over outrageously priced cocktails and where contracts worth millions are traded on the flimsy hope of a whispered “connection.” The bar was dense with tobacco smoke and murmurs of “agencies” and “consultants’ fee” in a dozen languages. A TV over the bar showed Sheikh al-Khatifa, resplendent in a gold-trimmed thaub, officially welcoming the airport arrival of Prince Abdul Sa’ad, the Saudi Deputy Defense Minister, on a state visit. No one paid any attention to the TV. As in the rest of the Arab world, all news here was carefully censored. Real information was passed by word of mouth in the souks.

  Near the middle of the bar two slim BOAC stewardesses sipped tall rainbow-colored drinks through straws and tried to ignore the perspiring Levantine businessman who kept offering to buy them drinks, leering as he put them through their paces in the X-rated movie of his mind.

  “Eileen’s miserable,” the stewardess with long blond hair noted.

  “I thought she was marrying Biff the Stiff,” the short-haired brunette replied.

  “She was, then he went off to the Bahamas with his secretary.”

  “It could have been worse. She might have married him,” the blonde said.

  “Perhaps you nice ladies would like cocktails. I have big expense account,” the Levantine said, flashing a thick roll of riyals.

  “Get stuffed, tubby,” the brunette snapped. The Levantine grinned widely enough for them to assay the gold in his teeth. He pulled out his wallet and flashed an accordion of credit cards.

  “I flew in with Fast Freddy. He told me all about it,” the blonde said.

  “You know why they call him ‘Fast Freddy?’” the brunette said with a mischievous smile. The blonde shook her head and the brunette whispered something that had the two of them cackling like the hags in Macbeth.

  “God!” the brunette exclaimed, sucking on her straw like a teeny-bopper.

  “Yes, Moslems are very religious peoples,” the Levantine breathlessly put in.

  The brunette glared at the Levantine crowding close to her. “Do you mind?” she snapped. He moved back a fraction of an inch, his face beaming with good will.

  “All the good men are taken,” the blonde said glumly.

  “The bastards!�
�� the brunette said and with a sigh told the Levantine she was drinking Singapore Slings, as the Scorpion walked by. They didn’t bother to glance at him. Apparently, the market in men had turned distinctly bearish. He elbowed his way to the bar and ordered a whisky and soda.

  “I’m getting the hell outa this here place tomorrow,” grumbled a big red-faced American in a tartan sports jacket to his left, in a drawl that reached back to East Texas. “I been in so many damn offices and paid so much ‘baksheesh,’” I plumb forgot who got what. And I’m still waitin’ on the lousy contract.”

  “You need a local agent,” an expensively dressed Arab said with oily sympathy. He was probably a Palestinian, the New Jews of the Middle East, the Scorpion mused.

  “Shee-yit, boy. That’s what I need here, shee-yit,” the Texan said, and ordered another bourbon and branch.

  “Things are different here, my friend,” the Palestinian put in. He had smooth skin and a thin moustache which made him look like the toy groom on a wedding cake. He was right, the Scorpion thought. A local agent knew who to pay baksheesh to and how much to skim off the top. Sometimes, they were even worth it.

  “I ain’t your friend, pard,” the American said indistinctly to his drink.

  The Palestinian’s smile never wavered, but it grew brittle.

  “The minister whose approval you seek is the nephew of my half-brother Achmet. That is a very sound basis for friendship,” the Palestinian said, his smile broadening, and the Scorpion knew the Palestinian had just mentally raised the price.

  “I might be interested,” the American muttered casually.

  When it comes to business, the Americans are children compared to Arabs, the Scorpion thought and nodded at Braithwaite, who had motioned for him to come over. Braithwaite was sitting with a Bahraini in a white thaub and kaffiyeh, who sipped coffee and calmly fingered his prayer beads.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr.—” Braithwaite called.

  “Shaw,” the Scorpion said quickly, supplying the name on the passport Harris had given him. In all the world, Braithwaite was the only man outside the Company who knew his real name and the last thing the Scorpion wanted was to hear it pronounced in a public place.

  “Ah yes, Shaw,” Braithwaite smiled wickedly, his red alcoholic’s face breaking into a spider’s web of seams and wrinkles.

  Braithwaite was tall and thin, his dark eyes beginning to blear with age, yet still retaining a keen, if sardonic, intelligence. He was wearing a loud yellow sportshirt from God knows where, open at the neck to reveal a scrawny gray tuft of chest hair, like a half-plucked chicken breast. He looked like one of those windy old farts who inhabit retirement homes and golf-club bars, but in fact, he was the last of the old British Arabists. His reminiscences were filled with names like C. M. Doughty, Wilfred Thesiger, T. E. Lawrence, John Glubb Pasha and Philby. “Old St. John Philby, not that young snake, Kim,” Braithwaite would stipulate. Once, when the Scorpion was still a boy living with the Mutayr, he had gone with Youssef on his first camel trek in the Nefud desert. They had become lost trying to find Wadi er Rumna and it was Braithwaite who rode out from Buraida and found them down to the last drops in their water bags.

  “Sit down lad, sit down. It’s been … ages … simply ages since we d-d-dipped a beak, eh?” Braithwaite said.

  “It’s been a while,” the Scorpion admitted. Braithwaite hadn’t changed. The old stutter was still there. As for the Bahraini, he had the smell of cop about him, as unmistakable as the scent of aftershave lotion, and the Scorpion was instantly on guard.

  “Sorry … Shaw, this is Jassim al-Amir,” Braithwaite said.

  “Salaam aleikem,” al-Amir murmured with a nod.

  “Aleikem es-Salaam,” the Scorpion replied.

  “Heard you were over in Vietnam,” Braithwaite said.

  “Ancient history,” the Scorpion replied.

  “How was it?” al-Amir asked, his eyes bright with curiosity. Say what you will, there was something about a war in an exotic place that fascinated men who had to get it second hand, the Scorpion mused.

  “It just was,” the Scorpion shrugged. What was there to say?

  “Not like the old d-d-days in the Ikhwan, eh?” Braithwaite said, rubbing his hands as he prepared to launch into one of those long reminiscences of tribal warfare that would end with the story of how he had convinced King Abd al Aziz to allow SOCAL into Arabia and never saw a penny of it.

  Looking at the red alcoholic’s face, the Scorpion wondered if Braithwaite was beginning to live entirely in the past.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said.

  “You are a soldier, asayid Shaw?” al-Amir inquired politely. He had trouble with a capital “O” for “Official” written all over him, and the Scorpion felt uncomfortable at his frank interest.

  “Was, past tense,” he replied, taking sanctuary in his drink.

  “Nasty b-business,” Braithwaite said, apropos of nothing.

  “How about yourself? What do you do?” the Scorpion asked the Arab.

  “I’m a policeman,” al-Amir said modestly, spreading his fingers as though to refuse food.

  “Nonsense, Jassim is too modest. He’s Chief of Police, the local bimbashi as it were,” Braithwaite said, his eyes narrowing as if warning the Scorpion off.

  The Scorpion acknowledged Jassim with a raised eyebrow, his senses completely alert. This was no casual meeting. It was a setup. He remembered Koenig, his instructor at the Farm in Virginia, telling them, “There are no coincidences in this business. None. The moment you smell something that even looks like a coincidence, you’ve been blown. Then the only question is, who are they working for … Them or us?” It really came down to a question of trust. Once Sheikh Zaid had told him, “If you don’t know the thing, you must know the man.”

  Still, Braithwaite had always worn a white hat, the Scorpion told himself. But it was no longer just a question of the girl. Women simply didn’t matter that much in the Middle East. What had Harris dropped him into this time, he wondered. If he had owned any life insurance, now was the time to start inspecting the policy.

  “How is it you speak Arabic so well, asayid Shaw?” al-Amir probed.

  “My father was an oilman. He brought me out to Dharan when I was still a boy.”

  “Those were the days,” Braithwaite muttered nostalgically.

  Braithwaite was taking his own sweet time getting to it, the Scorpion thought. What was the old man afraid of?

  “Were they?” the Scorpion said sharply.

  “Have a b-bit of the old single malt, habibi,” Braithwaite said, gesturing at the bottle of Glenlivet on the table.

  The Scorpion uneasily poured himself a stiff one. All this hail-fellow-well-met was making him nervous. What comes next? he wondered. The Good Conduct Medal and an engraved invitation to Buckingham Palace?

  “Prince Abdul Sa’ad’s back in town,” Braithwaite remarked mildly, glancing over at the TV. “He’s been over quite a bit, lately.”

  “The prince is an important man,” al-Amir remarked enigmatically. He rubbed his cheek and the Scorpion noticed a thin white trace of a scar there. He’d been making a mistake if he took the smooth, mild-mannered Bahraini for a cream puff, he told himself.

  “Maybe the bank forgot to stamp his deposit slip,” the Scorpion said and the two men chuckled. While the gleaming row of banks on Government Road had become the money center of the Middle East ever since Beirut had fallen apart, Prince Abdul Sa’ad could have one of his retainers do all the banking he needed by telephone from Riyadh.

  “I knew him as a b-b-boy … selfish little b-bugger,” Braithwaite remarked. The Scorpion looked at him curiously. It was a serious charge. A true Bedu would rather die than be labeled “selfish.” Everything belongs to Allah. To be selfish about possessions was to deny God what was rightfully his. Arabs judged a man not by what he kept, but by what he gave away.

  “They say he likes western women … very much western women,” al-Amir said, wrinkling his
nose with distaste. It was probably incomprehensible to al-Amir, who like most Arabs undoubtedly liked his women fleshy, functional and obedient.

  “So do I,” the Scorpion grinned.

  “Too skinny,” al-Amir sniffed. “They think they are men in disguise.”

  “That’s how we like them,” the Scorpion smiled.

  “You’re a Giaour. For you there is no hope,” al-Amir grinned back. It was like old home week, the Scorpion thought. Next they’d be discussing the World Cup finals.

  “Blondes,” Braithwaite put in, his eyes beginning to dull with the whisky.

  “What was that?” the Scorpion replied, putting down his drink. His eyes had gone icy gray, like winter frost. They were finally getting down to it.

  “They say he’s p-partial to long-haired blondes, habibi,” Braithwaite said, nervously glancing at al-Amir for support. The Scorpion’s eyes were cold as stainless steel as he glanced at the two men. No wonder Harris had warned him away from the station in Riyadh and told him to report through poor George Macready in Doha. He had known George in Nam and he supposed that they had posted Macready to a shit-hole like Qatar for the unpardonable sin of opposing Company policy in Southeast Asia and being proven right. He had thought at the time that Harris was doing it to protect his cover from a leaky embassy, but that wasn’t it at all. They were telling him that the snatch reached into the Saudi royal family itself. Of course they were running scared. It was political, after all. Nobody would want to touch it. As for the girl, nobody gave a shit about her … except maybe him, he thought.

  “Sheikh al-Khatifa is curious about Prince Abdul Sa’ad’s recent visits,” al-Amir said, playing nervously with his prayer beads.