Automatic fire turned the rear windshield into a dense white spider’s web. He ducked his head and hit the gas, aiming for the locked steel courtyard gate. As he smashed through the gate he heard a roar behind him as a big white Mercedes started in pursuit. The road was a narrow black tunnel, the hot air roaring through the windows. Insects spattered against the windshield like brown rain as he tore through the darkness.
He risked a glance out of the window behind him. The house where they had held him was floodlit, a giant white marble slab that looked like a modernistic tomb, and he shuddered. Nuruddin’s? He wished he knew where the hell he was. The Mercedes was closing up fast, sparks of light popping from the side window like a series of flashbulbs, and he floored the accelerator. The Mustang’s transmission whined and then surged into high gear. He glanced at the tachometer and the fuel gauge. It was half full, which gave him a little added lightness, yet provided him with enough fuel to go around the island twenty times, if he knew where he was going. Then out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the lighted gantry that was the BAPCO refinery and the reflection of the big dish of the Earth-satellite station far off to the left, so he knew he must be somewhere near Awali. Unless he could get away soon, he would find himself on the beach at the end of the island with nowhere to go. He glanced back again, almost swerving off the road. The Mercedes was only a few yards behind.
He was edging up to 100 on the speedometer, but it wasn’t doing much good. The Mercedes was faster and heavier and all they had to do was bump him anywhere off-center to send him careening out of control. If the road wasn’t a straightaway, driving skill could come into play, but it was straight and he was running out of time. He memorized the road ahead and flicked off his lights, making it a little harder for them to aim and follow him. A single bullet in his gas tank or one of the tires would finish it right then and there.
There was a loud cracking sound, like a frozen river breaking up in spring, and the rear window disappeared. A roar of rushing air blasted through the Mustang as it surged forward, the air resistance suddenly reduced. Now he could see the headlights of the Mercedes instead of a white film in the rear-view mirror. It was a wonderful break, except that the Mercedes was only inches from his rear bumper. He flicked on the headlights and watched the front end of the Mercedes swerve and recede as the driver braked to avoid what he had assumed from the rear lights to be the Mustang’s sudden braking. The driver should have realized that braking, given the Mercedes’ heavier mass, would have been suicidal, the Scorpion thought. But it hadn’t bought him much. Even worse, the Mercedes was coming up again on his left side and it wasn’t a trick you could use twice.
The two cars sped like bullets through the night. Ahead, he spotted a fork, one road curving off to the right to Zallaq, the left twisting into Sakhir all the way down towards Ras al-Barr at the southern tip of the island. Left, he decided, perhaps because it was a longer road. He needed every edge he could get. His Walther was virtually useless against the AK-47 in the Mercedes and it was all wrong, anyway. Something kept nagging at him and then he had it. They’d used his cover name! They’d known all along.
The glare from the Mercedes’ headlights filled the rear-view mirror and he felt the bump on the left side, like a gentle push from behind, and he lost control. The headlights raked across the side of the road as the Mustang slid on to the dirt shoulder. He turned the wheel to the right, fighting the skid, and the front of the car rocked forward and back like a metronome. A palm tree loomed on his right, seeming as wide an obstacle as a mountain and then he was flying off the road on to the mushy sand surface of the desert, just barely grazing the tree. If he stuck in the sand, he was a dead man.
He used the momentum to throw the Mustang into a diagonal skid back towards the road. The Mercedes had dropped back to watch and now it came on again as the Mustang buckled over rocks and slammed back on to the concrete in a series of small bounces, like a stone skipped across a lake. Just ahead were other cars moving sedately through the narrow main road of Sakhir. He could see people on the pavements, and lights from the cafés and dars along the street. The street was too narrow to pass the other cars. He was plugged like a cork in a bottle.
He hit the horn and bounced up on the pavement, honking savagely as he weaved through the pedestrians who were jumping for dear life. He smashed through the tables and chairs of a sidewalk café, the scream of metal grinding against the bumper, then swerved back on to the road to avoid smashing into a telephone pole. He floored it again and when he checked the rear-view mirror, the Mercedes had fallen about a hundred yards behind. A number of cars ahead were making a right turn and he angled off the road to cut them off, bouncing like an old flivver on the bumpy track. He saw lights ahead and suddenly found himself on an old abandoned air strip, filled with cars slowly wheeling in a giant oval pattern.
It was the après-dinner promenade, Bahraini-style, a kind of Middle-Eastern Van Nuys Boulevard complete with Egyptian music blasting from the car stereos. All the young blades in their shiny American and German cars were driving around the giant circle to spy the girls, many of whom were daringly unveiled. The girls came in giggling groups, or with a somber-faced male relative. There were lots of smiles and waves, but any real conversation or dating was unthinkable. In some of the men’s cars, faces were lit by the flickering blue light of a television, a further advertisement of affluence. In a way, with its buzz of engines and the headlights, the promenade reminded the Scorpion of the mating flight of fireflies.
The Scorpion weaved in and out of the lanes, the Mercedes right behind. He figured that with so many influential young Bahrainis around, they wouldn’t dare to shoot. A dark-haired Bahraini girl in a red Caddy waved seductively at him and she was so lighthearted he almost waved back. The Mercedes had dropped back a few feet and now he could see that there were two men in the car. The AK-47 was out of sight.
The Scorpion suddenly turned into the empty center of the oval and hit the gas. He tore down the runway as though he were taking off. The Mercedes’ lights flashed in the rear-view mirror, coming fast behind him. As he neared the inevitable collision at the end of the oval, he spun the car 180 degrees and headed back. Behind him he heard the gratifying sound of tearing metal as the Mercedes ploughed into the front end of a white Buick. Driving away, he heard the sounds of furious arguing, as the Bahraini from the Buick pounded his wing and called upon Allah to witness the perfidy of German cars. The Scorpion was grinning as he turned up the road to Manama, while behind him dozens of angry fists were shaken at him, cursing his descendants for a hundred generations.
Manama
BRAITHWAITE LIVED IN A TINY FLAT in the old Arab Quarter, near the arches of the Bab al-Bahrain which had once been the gateway to the ancient walled city. It was in a small stone house on a narrow street, hidden in a warren of adobe houses and shops. The Englishman was well known in the quarter and he would spend hours at a small dar next door, sipping tea and smoking his pipe, its stem gnawed away as though by a rat, while the men of the street would puff at their narguilehs and discuss the latest gossip. Although it was almost midnight and the dusty street was dark and empty, the Scorpion wasn’t surprised to see a light in Braithwaite’s curtained window. He could hear the sound of the BBC’s Overseas Service on the radio. The announcer was saying something about a meeting in San’a between the representatives of North and South Yemen, mediated by the Russians. The Scorpion knocked on the door and the radio was turned off. When Braithwaite saw who it was, he just stood there blinking in frustrated confusion, the way a tennis player who’s completely missed the ball looks at his racket.
“Nicky … My G-G-God! What happened?” Braithwaite said, using a name the Scorpion hadn’t heard in a long time.
“It was a rough party,” the Scorpion shrugged as Braithwaite led him into the room and closed the door. Braithwaite’s worried face seemed bright, almost festive as he bustled around the sink, fetching a basin, antiseptic ointments and bandages. His
color was high and the Scorpion could have sworn that the old rogue had applied rouge to his cheeks and outlined his eyes with kohl. The effect on his wrinkled skin was grotesque, like lipstick on a corpse. Passing a mirror, Braithwaite paused to smooth his hair and flick a speck of lint from his white thaub, like a girl primping for a date.
The room was crowded with enough antique junk to have enabled Braithwaite to open a shop on Portobello Road. A long cobra coiled on a low coffee table raised its hooded head to glare at the Scorpion with its unblinking gaze. Braithwaite hurried over and affectionately picked up the snake. He stroked the head with his finger.
“Naughty Zahabi … Nicky’s our friend, isn’t he?” the old man clucked. “If my baby’s hungry, he should have let D-D-Daddy know,” he cooed and placed the snake next to a saucer of milk by its reed basket. He came over to the threadbare divan where the Scorpion was sitting and began fussing over his wounds.
“D-d-don’t mind Zahabi. He’s just c-c-curious about strangers,” Braithwaite said, his false teeth rattling like a metal chain.
“I’m glad to hear it,” the Scorpion said, wincing as Braithwaite bandaged his neck. When he finished, Braithwaite brought out a bottle of cheap Scotch and filled two glasses. One of the glasses had a chipped decal of the Queen that read “25th Jubilee British Railways SR” in white letters.
“Cheerio, lad,” Braithwaite said.
“Cheers.”
Braithwaite leaned forward, his kohl-accented eyes shiny with concern. In the corner, the cobra’s long tongue fastidiously lapped at the milk, its tail wagging like that of a cat.
“What h-h-happened, lad?”
“I almost died of snakebite,” the Scorpion said, using an old Beduin expression for treachery.
“Now, now. You’ll hurt Zahabi’s feelings,” Braithwaite said winsomely, then turned towards the cobra. “Nicky didn’t mean you, p-p-precious,” he told the snake.
“It was a setup,” the Scorpion said.
“P-p-perhaps you were spotted. It’s been known.”
“I wasn’t spotted,” the Scorpion declared flatly. “Give me some credit.”
“Of course you weren’t,” Braithwaite said placatingly, implying that of course he was. For a long moment they sipped their drinks.
“Why’d you do it, Ralph?” the Scorpion asked quietly.
“I d-d-don’t know what you mean, lad,” Braithwaite said, glancing nervously at the door. The Scorpion slammed his drink down, sloshing whisky on to the coffee table.
“For God’s sake, Ralph! There’s no time to play footsie. They’re after me. I’ve got to get off the island.”
“What makes you think it was me?” Braithwaite blustered.
“They knew who I was. They called me ‘Shaw,’ for Chrissakes. The only ones who knew me were al-Amir and you and he could have arrested me any time he wanted. It was you, Ralph. Just you.”
“Oh Nicky,” Braithwaite shook his head sadly and gulped his drink, his hand trembling with what could have been the palsy of age, or just fear.
“Who were you all tricked out for, Ralph? It wasn’t me.”
Braithwaite straightened his thaub self-consciously, with the fussy mannerisms of an old bachelor who has lived alone for too long.
“It’s no one, Nicky. R-r-really.”
“Tell me, goddamit,” the Scorpion shouted. In the corner, the cobra stirred uneasily. Braithwaite’s lower lip trembled nervously, its painted surface rippling like a fleshy worm.
“It’s Amair. He’s a Shiite,” Braithwaite explained. Shiite Moslems were a despised minority in most of orthodox Sunni Arabia.
“He’s a handsome lad, a bank clerk,” Braithwaite offered with an odd defiance. “It’s no good you’re t-t-telling me he’s just an empty-headed clothes-horse, or that he’s just using me. I c-c-can’t help myself, Nicky. Love’s not so easy, you know. It c-c-costs so bloody much … the price in self-respect alone … don’t you think I know?” Braithwaite pleaded, his eyes watery and unfocused.
“Jesus, Ralph. At your age …” the Scorpion began.
“At my age …” Braithwaite snapped. “At my age, it’s … why it’s like a m-m-miracle … The last burst from a star. For God’s sake, Nicky … don’t you understand? Romance is a f-f-farce, a stupid bedroom joke … but it’s the only answer … to death, don’t you see?”
“Look around you,” Braithwaite gestured at the junk-filled room. “The odd bits and tag-ends of a life. Once …” he mused, his eyes misty as he gazed down the corridors of time. “Once, I crossed the Empty Quarter with the Beit Kathir all the way to the Hadhramaut, where only Philby and Thesiger had gone before. I saw places that no white man had ever seen b-b-before and met Bedu who had never seen a Christian. There were nights in the sands bright as day from the stars. I became a Moslem, Nicky. I made the hajj to Mecca. I circled the Sacred Ka’aba and walked the sa’y between Safa and Marwah. I performed ‘the standing’ at the Mount of Mercy, praying on the blazing plain of Arafat. I served, Nicky. I have ridden with p-p-princes, boy. I have walked with kings. All gone …” his voice trailed off.
“Don’t ever get old, Nicky … they’ll just throw you away, like trash. Don’t you see? Before Amair, there was n-n-nothing … nothing except … Oh God, Nicky … I was so bloody lonely,” the old man finished in a wheezy quaver.
They sat silently for a long time. In the corner, the snake slept.
“You do believe me, don’t you lad?” Braithwaite asked at last.
“I believe you, Ralph. Nobody ever lies about being lonely.”
“Amair said if I didn’t t-t-tell … he’d leave me. He swore they wouldn’t harm you,” Braithwaite said pathetically. The Scorpion poured himself a drink and took a long, slow swallow, trying to delay what was coming. When he was a boy, the crumbling ruin before him had been someone to reckon with, someone who had ridden out from Buraida into the Nefud to bring him water.
“They tried to torture and kill me,” the Scorpion said quietly. Braithwaite shook his head and looked down at his feet. His head hung awkwardly from his neck like a broken fixture.
“I’m sorry,” Braithwaite said.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Ralph,” the Scorpion growled. “This is Company business. They don’t play by Queensberry rules. According to the book, I’m supposed to bring you around the corner,” using the intelligence slang phrase for killing.
“I don’t give a d-d-damn about your bloody Company rules, Nicky. I don’t give a damn about the bloody Yanks, or the bloody FO and their rotten little pension. I don’t give a bloody hoot for the UK and Watney’s Ale and thatched villages and shepherd’s bloody pie. Here is where I belong, Nicky.” Braithwaite looked up, his eyes gleaming. He pulled a snapshot out of his pocket and gazed at it longingly, then showed it to the Scorpion. A smooth-faced Arab with brown puppy-dog eyes stared soulfully out of the photo.
“Amair?” the Scorpion asked.
Braithwaite nodded. He glanced again at the photo, put it in his pocket and straightened a little.
“You d-d-do what you have to, Nicky,” Braithwaite said.
“God, Ralph,” the Scorpion breathed, leaning forward.
The two men stared at each other, then Braithwaite closed his eyes and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a fishing float. The Scorpion drew closer, the edge of his right hand tingling. A single slice to the temple and he’d have covered his ass. Braithwaite’s lips moved silently. Perhaps he was praying.
“Aw, fuck it,” the Scorpion muttered. He slumped back on the divan and sipped his drink. Braithwaite opened his eyes and squeezed the Scorpion’s arm with bony fingers which trembled like a high-tension wire. Through the whisky, the Scorpion saw the room as amber shadows.
“Did Nuruddin sell the girl to Abdul Sa’ad?” the Scorpion asked.
“I don’t know. But there have been stories about Nuruddin d-d-dealing in white females … and everyone knows about Abdul Sa’ad’s … appetites,” Braithwaite shrugged.
“Y
es, tell me about Abdul Sa’ad’s appetites,” the Scorpion murmured, almost to himself.
Braithwaite opened a tin of Dunhill’s and stuffed the tobacco into his pipe. A strand of tobacco fell on the floor. He picked it up and placed it carefully back in the tin. He lit up and puffed until he was wreathed with smoke.
“When Abdul Sa’ad was a baby it was rumored that he was born with t-t-teeth, so that it was almost impossible to find a wet-nurse who could bear the p-p-pain. What made it even w-w-worse was that he was such a greedy little eater that a s-s-single wet-nurse wasn’t enough for him,” Braithwaite said.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Who was at the m-m-meeting?” Braithwaite asked. As he puffed, his sunken cheeks made his face look almost skeletal.
“Abdul Sa’ad, Nuruddin, the PLO, Yemenis and a European, probably a Latin,” the Scorpion ticked them off on his fingers. Suddenly, he straightened.
“They talked about a hit. It’s a coup, isn’t it?”
“The m-m-man who would be k-k-king,” Braithwaite murmured.
The Scorpion put down his drink and stood up, casting his shadow across Braithwaite’s face. He took a deep breath and the smell of the eucalyptus tree from the tiny courtyard filled his nostrils. He put his hand on the old man’s bony shoulder. It was like holding a broom handle.
“So long, Ralph. Salaam.”
Braithwaite looked up, his eyes red and teary.
“What are you g-g-going to do about me, Nicky?”
“I’m turning you in once I get to Arabia. You’ve got about twenty-four hours’ head start. Hide, Ralph. Just don’t let them find you.”
“Where would I go, Nicky? God, I love this place … the souk … the dar … the women veiled like ghosts, the men puffing at their narguilehs … Amair. I love the bloody wogs and I think they l-l-love me too,” Braithwaite said breathlessly.
Scorpion Page 7
