Scorpion

by Andrew Kaplan

  “Don’t ever say that! Ever! Life is everything, death is nothing,” he snapped, his voice like a whiplash. He had to jolt her out of it. And it was time to see what she was made of, he thought.

  “I’m sorry … I … well, you’re stubborn. I’ll give you that,” she admitted.

  “Stubbornness is a survival characteristic. One of the two key characteristics,” he said, remembering the gospel as Koenig used to expound it in that Quonset hut hidden in the green Virginian countryside.

  “What’s the other?”

  “Intelligence.”

  “When do we get to the intelligent part?” she asked, forcing him to smile again.

  “We’re already there. Help is probably already on the way. I’ll be sure once I check my transmitter.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked.

  “You—to untie my hands,” he said.

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll cut you loose,” she said brightly.

  “You have a knife!” he exclaimed.

  “Sort of. It’s an old stone thing I found in the sands down here. It’s sharp enough,” she said, showing him a flint chisel, its edges chipped and serrated, perhaps left behind by some ancient workman, aeons ago.

  “It’s perfect,” he said.

  “Before they threw you in here, I was thinking of using it on myself,” she added softly, then caught herself. “I don’t know why I told you that,” she said.

  “I think it’s the darkness. It’s like a confessional. In here, appearances can’t get in the way of our true selves. There’s no image to pierce or hide behind,” he said.

  “I’m not that brave. I’ve always used my looks. Maybe there’s no substance to me at all. Maybe my appearance is me.”

  “No one’s that brave. And if all you were was a pretty female, they’d have turned you into a house pet by now,” he replied.

  “And you, Mister—whatever your name is …”

  “Nick. Call me Nick. You’re one of the only people in the world to know it,” he said, his voice thickening as if he were catching cold.

  “And you, Nick. What’s your secret?”

  “Untie me first,” he said.

  “I’m afraid of you,” she said, her voice small and little-girlish.

  “Look where we both are, Kelly. What do you have to lose?”

  “Well, that’s the damn truth,” she admitted and began groping in the dark, feeling for his hands, still bound behind him. He felt a tugging as she sawed at the knots and then his hands were free. He unwrapped the cords from his wrists and rubbed them hard. His hands tingled painfully and he was sore in a dozen places from the shot and the fall. He tried to stretch and winced at the pain. His back felt as if it had been used for karate practice.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just thinking about how attractive almost any other line of work looks right now,” he said, listening to his vertebrae cracking like walnuts as he stretched. Thank Allah for the sand. It had cushioned his fall. Now it felt smooth and cool as he felt his way around the well in the darkness.

  The mound of sand sloped down on all sides from the center and the well had a diameter of about six feet. The walls were rough sandstone. If only he had a light, he thought.

  “I wish we had some light,” he said.

  “We do. I have a lamp. Abdul Sa’ad’s orders. I put it out when I heard them opening the stone,” she said, flicking on a gold and diamond Dunhill lighter and lighting the spout of an old oil lamp. Her face was gold and shadowed in the flamelight, like a face on a renaissance church panel. She was even more beautiful than her pictures had suggested and it was all he could do to keep himself from grabbing her. Having come so close to dying, the life force surged inside him and at that moment, he had never wanted a woman so badly. He felt himself coming so sharply erect it was almost painful. But she had been so badly used by others, he told himself bitterly. She was fragile and wounded and the last thing she needed was another man just grabbing at her.

  She held the lamp up to see him better.

  “You have an interesting face. Not a pretty face but one can see something in it. I can see why there have been whispers about you,” she murmured almost to herself.

  “In the desert a whisper is only the sound of the wind on the sands,” he said.

  “No it’s more than that. You’re a kind of legend. Some of the soldiers said you were a demon. Others said you were an assassin. What will they say now if you return from the dead? … that the Scorpion is a kind of god.”

  “Ignorant people always try to make good men into mediocre gods,” he said impatiently. He could smell the closeness of her. There was a clean sweetness about it, like the desert at dawn.

  “What else have you got?” he asked, clenching his fists to keep from taking her in his arms.

  “I don’t know. There’s an old stick in here. It looks like it might have been part of an ancient spear,” she said.

  “What else?”

  “That’s all there is … except for me,” she said. She was very close. They were almost touching. The tips of her breasts grazed the bulletproof fabric wrapped around his chest.

  “The transmitter!” he shouted suddenly, bringing them both out of a trance. They hurriedly unwound the dense plastic mesh from around his chest.

  He brought the lamp close to check the transmitter. Even protected by the bulletproof plastic, the bullet had still managed to smash the metallic casing. The transmitter had saved his life, but it was useless now.

  “No help,” she said, crestfallen.

  “Not necessarily,” he said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “If you were tracking somebody and all of a sudden the transmission stopped, where would you look for him?” he said grinning.

  “The last place the signal came from,” she said brightly.

  “It’s a bit of a stretch, but I think even those room-temperature-IQ geniuses in the CIA can figure out that much.”

  “But can they find you from that?” she asked dubiously.

  “The signal from this is designed to be picked up by a receiver in an SR-71 flying too high to be seen or heard and bounced back to a RAVEN on the ground. I think our side knows exactly where we are,” he said confidently. It sounded good, he thought. With a little luck, it might even be true.

  But he’d already had a lot of luck. Too much, he thought. In battle two mistakes are not permitted, Sheikh Zaid used to say. But they’d need every bit of luck, because unless an overflight had picked up his last signal as the bullet smashed the transmitter, they’d had it. Because even if he could somehow get them out of the well, he couldn’t take on all of Abdul Sa’ad’s men single-handed. They’d need an army of Scorpions to do that, he thought.

  “How does it feel to come back from death?” she asked, her voice sounding odd in the shadowy light as she fingered the smashed transmitter. For a moment, the odd note confused him and then he recognized it. She was beginning to hope again. The life force was surging inside of her too. His pulse began to throb in his temple like a drumbeat.

  “It feels like I’ve been blind all my life and suddenly opened my eyes on a magnificent sunrise,” he whispered. She came up to him and rested her silky head on his shoulder.

  “It’s like electricity,” she whispered, her fingers dancing lightly down his chest. Every place she touched tingled with a feeling that had no name. He had almost forgotten how special it could be.

  He felt himself being drawn to her like an iron filing to a magnet and then he couldn’t stop himself. His arms wrapped around her. He could feel her body trembling against him and their lips found each other. They were so soft and salty, because she was silently crying and then they were grabbing desperately at each other like survivors from a shipwreck. Their mouths sought each other out, tongues exploring and they shared the sensation of floating in the shadows of space.

  “Oh God, I want you. Make me feel. For the first time in so long, make me
alive,” she cried, her hands groping at his clothes, tugging him free as they sank down to the soft cool sand.

  He felt the quickening gathering inside him as he explored her naked body in the flickering light. He pressed his mouth against the soft mounds of her breasts, grazing her erect nipples with his lips, then down to the dimple of her navel and on down to the soft skin of her belly while his hands caressed her silky thighs and the moistness between them.

  “Tell me your secret, now,” she whispered, pulling him to her, guiding him to her center and wrapping her long legs around his hips.

  “You’re my secret,” he gasped, feeling the old, familiar yet almost forgotten excitement as he entered her.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she cried and then her words were no longer words as they began the ancient rhythm. Their shadows moved and intertwined in the light of the flame like fingers … from the dawn of time.

  He must have slept … for a few minutes, because when he awoke, cradled in her arms, he thought he was with Tuyet and the child that last night on the sampan. He remembered how the sentries had refused to let her into the embassy compound to catch the last choppers evacuating the city at the last minute. He had left the embassy and had raced through the city streets, the pounding of the heavy guns drawing nearer as the North Vietnamese prepared to enter the city. The sound of Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” came from a hundred radios along the way. It was supposed to be the evacuation signal and it became a kind of theme as he ran and he knew he would never be able to hear it again without remembering Saigon and that endless day. It was MACV’s last foul-up because they’d had to shut down Tan Son Nhut airport and there weren’t enough choppers to ferry out anyone who wasn’t American.

  They made their escape by sampan that night, with the city full of North Vietnamese regulars and the water red with the reflections of flames along the shores of the Saigon river. Then the VC gunboat opened fire and Tuyet grunted with surprise as a white-hot round passed through her and the baby.

  “Does it hurt?” he had asked.

  “Titi,” which was pidgin for “a little” she had replied, and then they were in the water because the gunboat had rammed them … and he was flung out into the burning river.

  “You’re so quiet …” Kelly said, her voice tender.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” he said.

  “Are we ever going to get out of here?” she asked, her voice little-girlish again.

  “We have to. World war may erupt if we don’t,” he said.

  “How did you get into this line of work?” she asked.

  “I went back to the States. Dropped out of Harvard. Got drafted and sent to Vietnam.”

  “That seems so long ago. I was just a schoolgirl,” she said.

  “Oh yes. Vietnam is ancient history. Hardly worth talking about,” he said, his tone offhanded.

  She stroked his hair with her hand, as if he were a feverish child.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said finally.

  “I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” he lied.

  “What was it like? Really?” she asked.

  “What? Nam? If you survived, it was a kind of Lost and Found Department of the Soul.”

  “What did you lose?”

  “My innocence. It was common enough in those days,” he shrugged.

  “What did you find?”

  “My profession. I found I had a talent for this kind of thing,” he said, feeling the sweat break out all over his body, remembering the Ashau Valley. He remembered how the dewdrops clung like strings of pearls to the concertina wire along the perimeter that morning and how the mist boiled up from the stream to the treetops, wisps of fog tangled in the branches like spider webs. He remembered how still the fields were, the only sound the faint tinkle of a tin can against the wire. And then how they found his buddy Cool’s body. The VC had left him slumped over his M-60; blood still spilling out of the place where his head used to be.

  That night, Nick volunteered for a LRP patrol. Carrying nothing but a combat knife, a bicycle chain covered with black tape and a Colt .45 he stayed out for eight days and nights straight. When he finally came back to the laager, the VC had fled the area, amidst whispers of a hundred headless bodies strewn across jungle trails.

  The legend of the Scorpion had been born.

  “Did you work for the CIA?” Kelly asked.

  “At first. But working for ‘the Company,’ as it’s called, required a bit more spinal flexibility than this particular vertebrate is capable of. So I became a freelancer.”

  “You sound so matter of fact about it.”

  “Sorry. Like I said, Vietnam is ancient history.”

  “Is it? Is it truly?” she demanded.

  “No,” he said.

  He rested his head on her breast. He heard the pounding of her heart in his ear.

  “So you’re a kind of modern-day knight errant,” she jeered gently.

  “That’s making it a lot more romantic than it is,” he said. He felt her stiffen, then will herself to relax.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Did you mean what you said … just before we made love?”

  He thought for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Because I feel I should tell you. I mean it seems silly now, but …” she hesitated and he wondered if she was thinking of another man. “It’s just that being together now, so close to death … it didn’t seem to matter so much,” she said lamely, a catch in her voice.

  “Everything matters,” he said, wondering what had gone wrong.

  “What happened just now was magic,” she said, placatingly.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “I just want you to know that whatever happens, what happened between us mattered. It mattered a lot.”

  “This isn’t the Girl Scouts, Kelly. You don’t have to play by somebody else’s rules. Why don’t you just say what you mean?” he said, certain she was thinking of someone else. He wondered why Harris never told him there was another man in her life. It wasn’t like Harris to have missed something that crucial. It wasn’t like him at all.

  “Suppose there was someone else; someone far away,” she began.

  “Right now far away sounds like a good place to be,” he said.

  Ascent

  “HOW ARE WE EVER GOING to get out of here?” Kelly asked, her throaty voice echoing in the hollow silence.

  “There’s only one way out of a well,” the Scorpion replied, looking upwards as he marched around the sides of the well. He held the lamp high above his head, examining the rock walls in the dancing light of the flame with the careful attention of an archaeologist in an ancient tomb.

  “How are you going to get up there? By flying? Not to mention that it takes at least two men to move the rock sealing the opening,” she said, unable to conceal her disbelief.

  “We’re going to climb out,” he said, scrutinizing every detail of the rock. He stopped and held the lamp as high as he could so that the light from the flame was cast high up the side of the well. He studied the rough face, the cracks and crevices in the worn rock on one side for several minutes, calculating distances. Even fractions of an inch might make all the difference, he thought.

  “I hate to mention this, but I skipped boot camp this year. The highest thing I’ve climbed since the fourth grade is a bar stool,” she said.

  “It’s never too late to start,” he grinned and tore a long strip off his headcloth. He wrapped the cloth around the handle of the stone-age chisel and tied it tightly. He squatted down and after a moment’s hesitation, began chipping at the rock at a spot about two feet above the sand. At the first blow, tiny chips flew and a small white dimple appeared in the stone. The handle twisted in his hand on the next blow and he tightened his grip. He stabbed again and a large chip flew past, barely missing his leg.

  The Scorpion stood up, inserted his toe in the depression and stood for a second, balanced on the toe like a clumsy ballerina. Then he
came down on the other leg. He grunted with satisfaction. The sandstone cracked fairly easily. That was crucial. Otherwise, the attempt was impossible. As it was, it would take every last drop of strength and skill he possessed to even come close.

  He turned and studied the mound of sand. Without a word, he moved to the center of the mound, got down on his knees and began to shovel handfuls of sand at the base of the rock face under the depression he had just made. All the while, Kelly watched him with the kind of pained, yet polite expression reserved for madmen.

  “I could use some help,” the Scorpion said, glancing over at her.

  “I can see that,” she said carefully.

  “I want to pile the sand over there to cushion that area in case I fall,” he explained. Without waiting to see her response, he went back to work. He shoveled mound after mound with his bare hands towards the rocky face. After a moment’s hesitation, he felt her working beside him.

  When a small mound had been built on that side, they collapsed against the far wall to rest.

  “You’re really serious,” she said, when she finally caught her breath.

  The Scorpion wiped his sweating brow against his forearm, gritty with sand. Then he caught her by her shoulder and held her tightly.

  “Listen to me. Twenty-four hours from now, you’ll be sitting in an air-conditioned lounge somewhere and this will all seem like a bad dream,” he whispered intently.

  “Please don’t lie to me. I don’t want to live on false hopes. Before you came I’d resigned myself to death. Don’t tease me,” she whispered, her lips buried against his hard-muscled shoulder.

  “I’m not lying. I’ve climbed out of worse places than this,” he said, remembering the tunnels near Dai Loc, and thought that it was true. “Besides, the only dying that’s going to happen will be done by Abdul Sa’ad and Bandar,” he said quietly.

  She shuddered. It was utterly clear that he meant it.

  She straightened up and wiped the tears from her eyes. She brushed the sand out of her hand with her fingers and the gesture touched him more than anything she had said.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked, her voice calm and resolute.