He touched Youssef’s arm. They looked at each other and said nothing. Their faces were shadow and flame in the light of the setting sun, balanced between the two sloping sides of the wadi like a giant red ball in a bowling alley. The Scorpion nodded and then he was gone, slipping noiselessly from the cab of the truck.
All was silence.
The Scorpion scuttled on all fours in sudden starts and without noise, like a lizard. He remembered Sheikh Zaid’s teaching of long ago that a true Bedu can hide in full view behind a rock that wouldn’t conceal a jird. Like the tiny sand rat, he moved unseen, almost without disturbing a grain of sand. At each pause, his eyes and ears searched for the slightest hint of anything unnatural, his heart pounding desperately.
Something made him glance up. He rolled carefully onto his back. High above he could barely make out the distant silhouette of a falcon sailing effortlessly on a thermal. He scanned the shadows along the slopes searching for an outline or a glint of metal, but there was nothing but the deafening sound of his own pulse and the blink of sweat in his eyes.
This was what it was all about, he thought. All the years and schemes. All for these few minutes when you were tested to the uttermost and the penalty for error was death. He searched desperately for some indication of mines in the dusk light which was turning the sands first to honey and then to a channel of blood between the hills.
They had undoubtedly mined the road and probably a line of mines off the road as well. But there was nothing but millions of choppy little wavelets of sand.
Suppose he was wrong, he wondered suddenly. Suppose there was no ambush and he was just acting out of fear? How would the Mutayr look at him then? Would they still follow him? And then, if Abdul Sa’ad came at him in some other place, surprise would be total. What was it Koenig had taught them? “In combat, you don’t get a second chance,” Koenig used to say, his eyes narrowed as over a gun sight as he stared them down in the Quonset-hut classroom.
But still he saw nothing. Maybe it was all a mistake, he thought, feverishly wiping the sweat from his face on his sleeve. They had to be here, he thought, a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he took out a curious object from his sleeve; a broken car radio antenna which he opened like a telescope.
He crept forward, flowing imperceptibly from one depression in the ground to the next, his fingers dancing along the surface of the sand like spider legs. He poked the car antenna gently into the sand, using it as a probe for mines.
And then he saw it. A single print of a combat boot perpendicular to the angle of his approach, heading towards the left slope. The Scorpion crouched even lower to the ground, almost certain he hadn’t been spotted. In his black bisht he was no more than a shadow in the dusk, a time of shadows. Stealthily, inch by inch he probed the warm sands, sweat causing grains of sand to cling to his fingers. He froze, the sweat stinging his eyes. The antenna had hit something.
Carefully he dug a tiny depression until his fingers barely grazed what he had been seeking: a slender tripwire which connected a line of mines, designed to set them all off once it was tripped or any one of them blown. Now he worked quickly.
He drew a coil of wire, fine as spider thread, from his pocket and carefully looped it around the tripwire. He chewed a piece of gum and balled it around the juncture of the two wires, before reburying the wire in the sand. Then he retreated towards the left slope, silent as a desert zar and as unseen. As he moved he paid out the wire from the coil, maintaining the slack and at intervals burying it under clumps of sand. When he reached the left slope, he began the slow cautious ascent.
He heard them before he saw them. They were off to the right and above him somewhere. He saw the red glow of a cigarette tip and then someone hissed and the red glow was extinguished, but it had given him the chance to pinpoint them. They were along the ledge below the crest, as he had suspected. He would have to get above them, he thought, already moving up and to the left.
Climbing, he had to make sure of each handhold and step, so that there was no sound. There were several problems to be considered. How many of them were there? Was there an L and where was its blocking leg? Or were they on both slopes to set up a cross fire? His thoughts were interrupted by a dislodged pebble clattering down on to the rocks below. He froze, his pulse pounding in his ear like the sea.
“What’s that?” a nearby voice said.
The Scorpion gave a hyena cough once, then again.
Silence.
“It’s an animal,” another voice said.
“Be still,” snapped a third.
The Scorpion waited twenty minutes without moving a muscle, then carefully continued his painstaking ascent.
He might have blown it all at the crest had the sentry not chosen just that moment to relieve himself. The faint ammonia smell rose in the Scorpion’s nostrils as the drops pattered a few inches from his face. Instantly the Scorpion dropped the wire coil and struck, heaving himself over the crest in a single fluid motion as he stabbed upwards under the rib cage, twisting the khanjar viciously while his left hand choked off the cry that never came. The urine mingled with blood as he let the lifeless body sink down into the sand.
He studied the body for a moment. The sentry had worn a black bisht for concealment, but it was an Arab all right. Not a café-au-lait-colored Yemeni; either a Palestinian or a Shiite. He couldn’t be sure. He had been right about the arms, though. The sentry had carried an AK-47. For the moment the Scorpion left it lying on the ground. He wiped the blood from his hand and the khanjar on to the sentry’s robe.
He slid closer to the edge. If anyone had heard him or happened to look up as he peered down, he would be trapped with no way down. Had there been a faint clink as he had eased the sentry’s body to the ground? He couldn’t remember. But he had no choice. He had to see their position.
The Scorpion rolled over to the wadi edge and peered down at the lengthening shadows which covered almost all of the wadi. The sun was almost below the horizon that blazed fire-red as if a war was going on beyond the edge of the earth. Then he spotted the enemy on the ridge below him and his heart sank.
There were at least thirty of them. Far too many for him to kill without catching it himself. Worse, it had grown too dark for him to spot whether they were set up by the arfaj down in the wadi. He studied the crest of the opposite hill carefully, scanning it inch by inch. If it was a two-sided ambush that was where they would be, he thought. And if it was a two-sided ambush his plan wouldn’t work. Then what? he wondered. Don’t think about that, he answered himself. Just deal with what is.
He studied the men below him. They were only twenty meters away. He could hear them clearly, stirring, breathing, the occasional whisper. Someone struck a match to light a cigarette, the flame suddenly bright as a flare and an officer’s voice snapped hoarsely for the camel slime to put it out. That was something, at least, the Scorpion thought. They were ordinary soldiers, not professionals.
He saw nothing stirring on the far side. They couldn’t be there, he decided. Troops as sloppy as these would have given away their position with some movement by now. The officer had decided to play it safe, relying on the line of mines, the block at the arfaj bush and his own entrenched troops, combined with the element of surprise to pull it off. He probably didn’t anticipate a well-armed resistance from a few Bedu in trucks and didn’t want his fairly green troops shooting at each other.
Allah be with us, because even so thirty is too many, the Scorpion prayed. But he would have to do it, because there was no way around the wadi, he decided, taking a deep breath.
Moving carefully so as not to make the slightest sound, he placed a rock near the edge. Then he propped the sentry’s body against the rock with the AK-47 in a firing position, as a decoy. Next to the body, he placed a white phosphorus grenade with a two-minute delay fuse. With luck, they would be firing at the decoy after he had faded into the darkness.
He prepared four fragmentation grenades in position to be roll
ed down the slope and set up the wire coil still connected to the tripwire below. He anchored a coil of climbing rope to a rock and silently paid it out down the face of the cliff, away from the ledge where the Arabs crouched. Then he laid out the flare pistol and clicked off the safety of the XM-203. When everything was ready, he wiped the sweat from his eyes and took a last look around.
He zeroed the XM-203 on the distant arfaj and studied the opposite slope carefully, but he could see nothing. If he was wrong and it was a cross fire setup, then he was sending Youssef and Zaid and the Mutayr to their deaths. Below him he could hear the restless moving of the Arabs strung out along the ledge.
The sky was purple and black and the wadi was filled with shadows. It was the time of the maghrib prayer, the time of poorest visibility. As always, the instant before combat was like the instant before you jumped out of a plane. His mind returned to something Sergeant Walker had said during airborne training.
“The thing is—once you’ve jumped, you’re committed. Parachuting down isn’t bad, but the moment before you jump is just pure shit!”
The Scorpion took a grenade in each hand and pulled first one pin and then the other. Hoping for maximum confusion, he rolled one down towards the far right position and the other towards the far left. As the grenades pounced down the rocky slope like dislodged pebbles, he heard a voice from below. Then he yanked on the tripwire.
The wadi erupted as the mines detonated one after the other like a string of firecrackers. The Arabs started to pour fire blindly down at the orange flashes before the two grenades exploded among them. Screams of pain and confusion echoed from the ledge and the firing grew even wilder and less directed. An officer screamed orders and pointed towards the crest near the Scorpion, but his voice was ignored in the screams and noise of firing.
Just before ducking behind the crest the Scorpion had seen what he’d been looking for: flashes of muzzle fire coming from near the arfaj. And there were no shots from the far side, he thought, his pulse racing. It was an L ambush after all.
A chip of stone flew near his cheek. He’d been spotted!
He rolled on to his back and fired the flare pistol straight up into the sky. Then he scrambled to another position on the crest, shading his eyes to prevent momentary blindness as the flare exploded high above the wadi with a loud pop. Bright white light blazed as the flare floated down, turning the sand to light gray. The Scorpion froze, his eyes closed. Wrapped in his black bisht he looked like just another rock on the crest.
Something inside was screaming for him to move, but he forced himself to stay still until the flare went out. Blue-green tracers from several AK-47s began to float towards him like streams of fireflies homing in. They had sent a squad to the crest.
Just then he heard the sound of horns blaring as the Mutayr trucks, their headlights blazing, raced into the wadi near the far slope. But it was too soon, he thought, a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t neutralized the arfaj ambush yet and he was pinned down by the squad at the crest, only thirty meters away judging by their muzzle flashes.
He felt a tug at his sleeve and had to force himself not to move as the bullets splattered on the rocks around him. Ya Allah, but that was close! Now the rounds were moving away from him. Shadows danced as the flare dropped below the level of the crest and down towards the floor of the wadi and still he waited, every nerve in his body screaming, as the convoy of Mutayr trucks raced through the heavy fire towards the deadly arfaj. He would have to do something no matter what the risk, he decided.
He was about to switch the XM-203 from the grenade to automatic fire position when his ears rang from a deafening explosion nearby. His trap by the body had gone off. White phosphorus smoke poured over the squad which had been moving towards him. He could hear their screams as the burning smoke touched their flesh. As they stumbled and fired in blind confusion, he zeroed again on the arfaj. He couldn’t afford to miss, he thought, and fired the M-60 grenade. Before the recoil was over, he was reloading; he fired again.
Without waiting to see where the grenades landed, he rolled two more fragmentation grenades down the slope towards the Arabs firing from the ledge. Then he switched to automatic and began firing down along the line of the ledge.
As the Arabs on the ledge began to realize he hadn’t been neutralized and started firing back at him, he ducked back behind the crest. In the distance he could see orange muzzle flashes from the arfaj aimed at the lead Mutayr truck. Jump! the Scorpion prayed for Youssef. Please jump, he prayed.
The two M-60 grenades exploded around the arfaj and he could hear faint screams, like insect chirping, then all was shadow, followed by the almost simultaneous blasts of the grenades down on the ledge.
“To the crest, upwards,” screamed the Arab officer and the firing began to intensify around the Scorpion’s position. He leaned over and fired another long burst down at the ledge. He saw two shadows crumple before he had to duck back again.
He was just about to make a run for the climbing rope when two Arabs appeared out of the smoke. They were almost on top of him. As they exclaimed in surprise and lowered their muzzles the Scorpion struck. He swung the XM-203 at the legs of the nearest Arab, knocking him off balance just as he fired. The bullets ricocheted on the rock inches from the Scorpion’s head. There was no time to aim at the second.
The Scorpion sprang up at him and the two men tumbled and rolled on the ground, grappling blindly for a handhold. The Arab’s hands found the Scorpion’s throat and began choking him. The Scorpion jammed an elbow into the Arab’s ribs, breaking at least one, but the Arab hung grimly on. Meanwhile, he could feel the other man trying to grab his feet, cursing between harsh breaths.
He was choking; his need for air desperate. As spots of light began to dance before the Scorpion’s eyes, he managed to kick out, knocking the clutching Arab away for an instant. His fingers felt desperately for his khanjar sheath but it wasn’t there! The other Arab started to aim at both squirming bodies and the Scorpion gave a desperate heave, rolling them over.
As they rolled, his hand touched the khanjar. In an instant he had it in his hand and struck savagely, slicing the Arab’s belly open from the pubic area to the sternum. The man’s grip relaxed instantly. His scream was terrible as his insides cascaded out in a slippery mass.
A blast sang almost at the Scorpion’s ear, a bullet barely missing his head. He rolled on the ground and almost without taking aim, as he had during the long years of practice, he threw the khanjar at the second Arab. The flashing blade caught him in the chest and he went down like a log.
Suddenly out of the waning smoke on the crest came a line of shadowy figures firing at him. The remaining Arabs had come to the crest. That meant the Mutayr must have broken through, the Scorpion silently exulted. But what of Youssef?
The firing was coming closer now and he had no weapons left at hand. He rolled on the ground towards the climbing rope and as soon as he found it, grabbed hold and kicked himself over the ledge.
He could feel the skin burning off his palms as he rappelled down the face of the slope in an almost sitting position, left hand holding the rope above him, right hand under his hip. Bounce. He kicked away from the face. The clatter of bullets sounded around him and he could hear shouting above in the darkness. Bounce. The shouting became fainter and the shots wilder, further away. In his black bisht among the shadows, he must be almost impossible to see, he thought. Bounce and then he was at the end of the rope and still falling.
He curled himself into a ball, his hands over his head to protect it and tumbled down the incline among the sharp-edged rocks. He took what felt like a hundred blows. It was like being savagely beaten by a gang with clubs. And then he was lying face down, like a shipwrecked sailor on the still-warm sand.
It felt so good not to move. He just wanted to lay there, wherever he was. He somehow managed to roll on his back. The first stars of evening hung over his face, just out of reach like silver grapes above the st
arving Tantalus. Was it the blind sufi at Mazar-e Sharif who told him that tale, or had he heard it at college? he wondered drowsily.
Almost as an afterthought, he realized that he wasn’t breathing. The wind had been knocked out of him. His body began to ache unmercifully in a hundred places. He tried to breathe and couldn’t. He tried again and again, but still couldn’t. Close to panic, he tried desperately, his fingers clawing at the sand and managed a slight breath mingled with a groan. The next breath came easier and soon he was breathing again. He was very tired; almost asleep. One by one, the stars began to come out, blinking on like window lights in a distant city.
Then he heard them, clattering slowly down the slope. What was he about, lolling on the sand as if he were at the beach? he thought, horrified. He had to get going.
He somehow managed to roll over and on to his hands and knees. Sweat poured off his face into the sand. The effort made him dizzy. He heard voices. They were much closer. He had to go on. There was nowhere left to hide.
He began to move on all fours in odd, jerky movements. Like a wounded crab, he scuttled silently into the shadows.
Riyadh
THE WORD OF GOD was heard all over the souk, the muezzin’s voice echoing from a thousand transistor radios like a tinny chorus of magpies. Cries of vendors and the tinkling bells of the water sellers could be heard amidst shouted wagers on the race and the ear-splitting howls of motorcycles churning up fountains of sand, as teenaged dirt-bikers weaved through the crowds. Bedu tribesmen leading silky saluki hunting dogs or holding their favorite falcons on leather gauntlets mingled with fashionable Arab city dwellers whose closest contact with the desert came from watching reruns of Bonanza on television. Thousands of canvas market stalls had sprouted overnight like mushrooms on the sands outside Riyadh where the race was to be held.
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