He sprang into a forward roll in the direction of the open grave, perhaps because that had been the last safe spot for him. He leaped over a stone ledge and circled a large mound. If he could just get far enough away he might lose them among the mounds, he thought, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He swerved as he heard them coming around the other side of the mound. As he turned back, he saw the rifle butt out of the corner of his eye and started to duck, but it was too late. He felt a terrible thud above his right eye and then the diamond-bright stars were sliding into darkness, as though the sky was a black velvet jeweler’s tray that someone had tipped to one side.
Sar
THE SMELL OF AMMONIA was thick in his nostrils and he watched an enormous hand recede and then it was back, slapping his face from side to side. He tried to slip back into the darkness, but they doused him with cold water and when he finally opened his eyes and tried to move, he found that he was tied to a chair. A round moonfaced image floated just out of focus and when it came closer it looked grotesquely flat and stretched, like a face painted on a child’s balloon. Then he heard a swish and he grunted involuntarily as his side erupted in pain. The balloon became a reddish moon and finally resolved itself into the piggish face of a giant Arab with a wrestler’s build and the dull mechanical eyes of a mental defective. The brute stepped away and the Scorpion could see a large rubber hose dangling from his huge hand. His sides ached as if a troupe of flamenco dancers had been using him for a stage floor and he wondered if any ribs were broken.
He could no longer pretend to be out and looked around. He was in a small room with blue walls, painted blue to ward off the evil eye, no doubt. The room was lit by a single naked bulb, dangling from a twisted ceiling wire like a gibbet. There were four of them, all Arabs. Except for the brute, they were all cut from the same pattern of slender builds, hawk noses and caramel-colored skin. Two of them were dressed in white thaubs. The one by the closed door covered with blue handprints to protect against the evil afreet spirits had an AK-47. The other off to his side had one of those cheap Italian automatics. The leader was a small, slim Arab with a thick moustache and a pointed parrot’s beak of a nose. He wore a shiny western suit and there was a swagger in his shoulders which suggested that he was more accustomed to wearing a uniform. His eyes were black and empty, like chunks of coal stuck in his face. The Scorpion recognized him as one of the men sitting around the campfire with Abdul Sa’ad and Nuruddin. The Arab sat on the edge of a crude wooden table scored with notches and the Scorpion tried not to think about how those notches got there, because as Harold Gallagher, the fat, bespectacled agent who had run the Phoenix operation in Nam, once told him: “The subject’s anticipation is the key ingredient in the interrogation process.”
Harold always looked like the kind of perpetual loser who might be found in an adult movie theater on a rainy night, but in fact he was a sadistic psychopath who had found his true vocation in Nam. He used to brag that he could get the most dedicated VC to give him Uncle Ho’s phone number in less than twenty minutes.
The Arab studied him carefully, pensively stroking his moustache. The Scorpion understood him perfectly. Torture created an almost obscenely intimate relationship between the interrogator and the victim.
The only other object in the room was a large iron cauldron sitting on the tiled floor. A strong chemical odor filled the room and suddenly the Scorpion’s pulse began to pound. He took a kiya breath to control his pulse rate, because he couldn’t stop thinking about what they had done to Chambers.
The only good thing was that they were amateurs. He knew it because they hadn’t done a complete body search. He could still feel the film cartridge resting uncomfortably in his shorts. That and the fact that they couldn’t identify him. He had only just arrived in Bahrain and, of course, he carried no ID. He was a professional.
“God is Great,” the Scorpion declared. The interrogator looked at him curiously.
“By the beard of the Prophet, this is a terrible mistake, asayid. I am Mahmud the potter, from Aali …” the Scorpion broke off, because the interrogator was laughing. The interrogator looked at the others and they too began to laugh. Just one merry band, the Scorpion thought, chagrined. He shrugged and they laughed even harder. Still, it had been worth a try. Anything was worth a try. He had seen too many men die because they had given up. The interrogator wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head.
“Truly, asayid Shaw. You are most amusing,” the interrogator said with a wide smirk. The shock of hearing his cover name rippled through the Scorpion like something indigestible. Your point, he thought and inclined his head to the Arab. “The interrogator’s objective is best achieved if he can convince the subject that he knows more than he really does,” Gallagher once told him. They were drinking at Madame Wu’s, that bar on Tu Do Street in Saigon where the MPs never came because according to the story, Madame Wu had once had “razor girls” service a squad of MPs. Razor girls were VC women who reputedly placed razor blades, edge out, inside the one part of their anatomy a male was most interested in. The Scorpion didn’t know whether the story was true or not. Personally he had always figured the MPs never came around because President Thieu got a cut of the profits. “Give the subject a tiny bit of information that he doesn’t think you know and you can get him to believe you know it all,” Gallagher had said, his wash and wear suit hanging gray and wrinkled like an elephant skin.
“By the beard of the Prophet …” the Scorpion began again.
“Enough!” the Arab screamed, his voice climbing into a register usually reserved for hysterical sopranos. “Do you think we are children, that you play with us?”
The Scorpion shrugged. It looked like the Arab was going to play Good Guy/Bad Guy all by himself. The Arab got off the table and stood before him. He looked even shorter standing up than he had sitting on the table.
“You will tell us please, who you are working for and why you were spying on us,” the Arab declared sharply, ominously slapping his leg with a swagger stick to show his impatience. He was an army officer, all right, the Scorpion thought. The kind of bullshit martinet who would’ve been a prime candidate for “fragging” in Nam. Prick the little Napoleon’s pride and something interesting might tumble out, he thought. It was essential that he identify the interrogator, who spoke Arabic with a Palestinian accent. But he had to be sure.
“I don’t talk to camel turds descended from a long line of pig slime mated with dog droppings,” the Scorpion said contemptuously.
“Your mother’s diseased cunt!” screamed the Arab, slashing the Scorpion’s face with his swagger stick. “I’ll teach you how to address a major in …” a sickly, embarrassed flush crept over the Arab’s face and the Scorpion smiled despite the searing pain streaking down the left side of his face. Drops of blood trickled down, staining his bisht with red spots that disappeared into the black cloth.
“Very good, asayid Shaw. Most ingenious,” the major said, shaking his head, as though the Scorpion had just scored with an impressive slam-dunk.
“All praise belongs to Allah,” the Scorpion said piously.
“Who do you work for? I assure you I will not ask again.”
The Scorpion muttered something unprintable, but this time the major (major in what?) restrained himself and ordered the big Arab to bring over the cauldron. The big Arab put on outsized heavy rubber gloves that reached all the way up his arms and a big rubber apron. Then he picked up the heavy cauldron and set it in front of the Scorpion. The cauldron was filled with a clear liquid. It looked like water and the Scorpion began to get a very bad feeling.
“Show him,” the major ordered. The big Arab pulled a piece of chicken from his pocket and tossed it into the cauldron, which began to bubble and hiss like a basket of snakes.
“Concentrated sulphuric acid,” the major remarked conversationally. “It will dissolve skin, flesh, even bone … but slowly. Not like Arabia where mercy is shown to thieves by using a sword. That is too qui
ck. For spies something slower is needed,” the major declared, his eyes gleaming. He snapped his fingers and the big Arab stuck his glove in the cauldron and fished around until he brought out the piece of chicken. All that was left were a few strands of white flesh and a partially eaten-away bone.
The bastards, the Scorpion thought wildly. They hadn’t cut Chambers’ arms and legs off, they’d burned them off! The bastards, he thought, his gorge rising up at the thought of it. He forced himself to take a kiya breath, because unless he could come up with something, and fast, he was next.
“Now I asked you in all seriousness and for the truly last time, who are you and who do you work for? I would hate to subject you to our little bath,” the major said sympathetically, using the old torturer’s trick of implying that he was being forced to do the dirty work against his better nature, only because of the victim’s pig-headed recalcitrance. He stroked his moustache, waiting as if he had nothing better to do. The Scorpion had to come up with something. Anything to delay that acid bath that made his skin crawl.
“My name is Carlos. I work with Dr. Habash of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” the Scorpion declared arrogantly. Switching sides to make the interrogator believe that you’re on his side is the surest way to confuse things.
“Impossible! Habash knows this is an Al-Fatah …” the major broke off in horror. Got you, you fucker! the Scorpion thought exultantly. The interrogator was a major in Al-Fatah, the striking arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization. That tied Prince Abdul Sa’ad to the PLO, Nuruddin and the Yemenis, who had also been at the meeting. The only piece missing was the Latin.
Except that it didn’t look like the information would ever do him much good, because the Palestinian major was glaring at him, realizing his error. Even if the Scorpion was the infamous terrorist Carlos, no one would fault the major for getting the truth out of him. And if he wasn’t Carlos, so much the better. The Scorpion shivered as he watched awareness dawn on the major. Either way, they would never let him leave this room alive. What was left of him, he mused bitterly.
“I don’t believe you,” the major said, a crazy glare in his eyes. “You are perhaps right-handed? Fine. It is your right hand that you will lose first. When you are screaming, then you will tell us the truth.”
“Your mother’s diseased cunt came from a syphilitic Zionist pig’s cock!” the Scorpion shouted, spitting at the major.
“First, his right arm … all the way!” screamed the major in that high-pitched voice. The huge Arab and the one with the automatic were galvanized into obedience. They were furious with him, which was what he wanted, because you don’t want your enemies thinking clearly.
The Scorpion’s eyes darted furiously, measuring angles, which were going to be critical. Everything depended on where the Arabs were standing in relationship to each other when he moved. The real problem was the Arab by the door with the Kalachnikov. He figured the Arab wouldn’t shoot with all the bodies tangled together, but even if it all worked perfectly, there would be a moment when he would have a clear field of fire and the Scorpion didn’t know what he could do about that. Underneath it all was the queasy question about why Chambers hadn’t put up more of a fight. What was the missing factor? But there was no time to think about that, about anything, because they were already moving. He began the rhythmic kokyu no henko breathing to clear his mind, remembering how Koichi would stand in the middle of the do-jang, oblivious to anything but the sound of his own breathing.
He got his answer about Chambers when the huge Arab grabbed his head in a choke hold with one arm and his right wrist with the other. The man was incredibly strong. The major cut his bonds with a gleaming stiletto. The Scorpion’s eyes never left the dagger as the major put it on the table. The Arab with the automatic put the gun away and moved closer to the cauldron to lend a hand as the huge Arab lifted the Scorpion out of the chair like a baby. That left only the Arab by the door with a gun at hand, the Scorpion thought, relaxing his legs so they had to half-drag him to the cauldron. He tried to move his right arm against the strength of the big Arab, but it was impossible. It was like pushing against the side of a truck and now he knew for sure why Chambers had bought it. It would have to be right, he knew. He wasn’t going to get a second chance. The major leaned against the table, smirking as they pulled him over to the cauldron.
He took one last breath, remembering how Koichi would lecture them in his pedantic oriental way, hardly raising a sweat as he tossed them around the do-jang. “The more stronger, the more better,” Koichi would say. “The essence is to use your opponent’s own strength to defeat him.” That was the theory, at least.
“Forget the others, concentrate on the one,” Koichi would say. The choke hold is one of the easiest to break, he remembered. All that is required is to jerk the head back in a line perpendicular to the plane formed by the opponent’s arm. It helps if you have a free hand to push against your opponent’s arm, as well. Except that he wished Koichi were here to test the theory against the big Arab instead of him, because his neck and right arm felt as if they’d been set in concrete. Instinctively he pressed away from the cauldron, the liquid darkened by their shadows, as they forced him to bend towards it. As he exhaled, the rage exploded inside him like a bubble popping. They were going to do it to him … to him! Even as his hand’s reflection in the acid almost touched his own flesh, he had begun his move.
He jerked his head out and jammed his right foot into the back of the big Arab’s knee, followed by a knee to the coccyx, breaking the Arab’s balance. At the same time he spread his fingers and yanked his right arm sideways in the same direction the Arab had been pushing him, their combined forces knocking the big Arab into the cauldron, which tipped over, splashing the acid on to the major’s feet. As the big Arab lost balance, pulling the Scorpion with him, the Scorpion kicked the other Arab in the knee, tripping him into the spreading acid puddle.
The major was howling as he hopped around the room in a bizarre jig, jerking his burning feet like a marionette. The Arab he had kicked was flopping on the wet floor like a fish and screaming as the Scorpion struggled with the big Arab underneath him who, despite the acid, still managed to jam his massive forearm against the Scorpion’s throat and hang on. The Scorpion pushed with everything he had at the big Arab’s arm, but this second choke-hold was solid. The Scorpion’s breath was gone and his eyes began to fill with light as he felt consciousness trickling away. With a last effort, he jammed his right elbow into the big Arab’s ribs. The Arab just grunted and held on. It was like hitting a solid wall. He tried it again, at the same time slicing with his left hand into the Arab’s groin. The big Arab screamed and he sliced again with the left, as he brought his right forearm around and smashed a back fist into the big Arab’s temple.
The Scorpion rolled free and grabbed at the table, knocking it over as the Arab by the door began to fire. He felt something stab his neck as he grabbed the dagger from the floor and whirling, threw it at the Arab with the gun. Then his balance was gone, as the big Arab grabbed at his leg. He fell in a heap, kicking wildly and rolled towards the door, where the Arab with the gun still stood, stupidly staring at the handle of the dagger sticking out of his belly.
The Scorpion sprang at the door, launching into a flying tiuchaki. From somewhere in the corner, he heard the sound of an automatic as the major fired, but that didn’t matter. He began the reverse kick in mid-air, feinting with the left knee, but as the Arab tried to weakly block with the AK-47, the Scorpion caught him in the neck with the ball of the right foot and they both crashed against the door. The Scorpion grabbed the Kalachnikov and shot the major in the head, then raked across the room killing the Arab crawling towards the automatic. The big Arab loomed like a truck as he charged across the room. The Scorpion fired point blank. Three obscene red flowers blossomed on the big Arab’s chest and he crashed at the Scorpion’s feet.
He heard the sound of shouts outside and backed against the wall near the
door as two Arabs, guns drawn, ran into the room. He shot them both from behind. One of them tried to turn and fire and as the Scorpion squeezed the trigger, there was only an empty click that reverberated to the bottom of his stomach. As the Arab struggled to aim, the Scorpion swung the butt at the side of the man’s skull, cracking it with the sound of a well-hit baseball.
The Scorpion threw away the empty AK-47 and grabbed the major’s Walther PPK automatic. Then he dropped into a two-handed firing position aimed at the doorway, but there was nothing else in the room except for the sound of his own labored breathing. He glanced down at his arms and saw that his left arm was covered with blood. His right arm burned with pain where the acid had eaten through. The side of his neck felt like someone was turning a corkscrew in it and he felt lightheaded. Loss of blood, he told himself stupidly. Got to get out of here, some part of his mind was screaming at him. He bent down and used one of the Arabs’ kaffiyehs to wipe off his arms, then he tore off a clean strip and tied it around his neck like a scarf. His hands were slippery with blood and he kept wiping them on his bisht, already growing stiff with drying blood. He heard shouts from outside, checked the clip and cocked the Walther. It was time to perform the classic military maneuver known as “Getting the fuck out of here,” he told himself.
He charged out through the doorway with a forward roll—luckily, as a bullet split the air where his head would have been had he been upright. The gun fired again from the center of the courtyard and he spotted the muzzle flash coming from inside a dark Ford Mustang. He snapped into the kneeling two-handed firing position, squeezing off three shots at the open car window. Without waiting for return fire, he ran to the car and opened the door. A body slumped out, its head shattered and pulpy, like a split-open melon. He pulled out the body, started the Mustang and slammed it into gear. He was already rolling as he pulled the car door shut, bullets buzzing into the wing like metal wasps.
Scorpion Page 6
