The Red Syndrome (43 page)

"Here's the form," I said. "They want to know what the passport's
intended use is. What should I write?"

"I want to be able to travel without interruption," said Issam.

I AM AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSMAN, I typed looking at Issam for
his confirmation, and when he nodded I continued, AND I WANT To BE
ABLE TO TRAVEL UNHINDERED AND WITHOUT INTERRUPTION.

"Where should they send the brochure?"

Issam thought for a moment. "Post Office Box Two-Two-Five, Sana'a,
Yemen."

"I suggest you give a name, just any name, or even better the name of
a company; it will impress them with your ability to pay their fees."

"Company name?" He scratched his head. "Just make up a company
name," he finally said.

"Okay, is `Snap Dogfood Importers Limited' acceptable?"

"Whatever," he said. I typed it on the form and hit SEND.

"What do you want to see next?" I asked. We were rolling.

"We're done for now. Here is your first reward." I was taken to a different cell and allowed to take a cold-water shower. A barber was brought in to
shave my beard and trim my hair. A long white galabiya was given to me.
I felt like a bridegroom on his wedding night, although I had a feeling that
in the end, I'd be the one to get screwed.

As I returned to our cell, Arnon and Oded looked at me suspiciously.
They were dirty and bearded.

"What did you tell them to get so manicured?" asked Oded, with more
than a tad of suspicion in his voice.

"They were actually relatively civil to me," I said, adding quietly, "they
also threatened to execute you unless I helped them."

"I hope you proved your expertise?" said Arnon, touching his throat.

"Of course. Once it was clear that I was a professional asset protector,
they must have realized that I was probably captured by mistake," I said
with a wink.

I could see him pick up on my hint.

"I just showed them what I know best: how to shield assets. Maybe
they could test your scientific knowledge and see that you are indeed scientists. That wouldn't be difficult, would it?"

"I wish they would," said Oded. Arnon said nothing.

But nothing happened. We had a measly dinner and went to sleep.
When I woke up, I saw Oded and Arnon in the corner of the room. Oded
was cupping something in his hand.

"What are you doing?" asked Arnon, looking at Oded's hands. "Be
careful, those things bite."

Oded looked at him reassuringly. "I know. I've handled hundreds of
them before." He brought his hand closer to Arnon. Oded was holding a
spider between two twigs. "Isn't she a beauty?"

"That's a far cry from anything I'd call a beautiful ... and how do you
know it's a she?" said Arnon, stepping back.

"Years of experience," said Oded. "Let me introduce the black widow."

"The one that eats her male after she has sex with him?"

"That's the one," he answered, holding it with the twigs.

"That's ungrateful. Why is she doing it?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to hear him snoring afterward."

"I didn't know you could find them here. I thought they were only in
North and South America."

"Well, there are only two species of black widow that are common in
the Middle East, Latrodectus pallidus, which occurs from Libya to
Azerbaijan, and this one, a Latrodectus hystrix, from Aden and Yemen."

"And do they bite like their American cousins?"

"Sure. It's rarely felt, but the area will swell with two visible spots
appearing where the fangs have entered the skin."

"So the bite isn't painful?" I asked.

"On the contrary, the bite isn't painful, but the poison is very much so.
You can also get a shock, fever, nausea, headache, and elevated blood
pressure. You may have difficulty breathing and perspire heavily."

"And then you die?" asked Arnon.

"Not unless you're very young or very old, or already suffer from a heart
condition. If left untreated, heart and lung failure could result in death."

"And everybody else?"

"Recovers completely within two days, except for a rare side effect," he
said with a grin. "Some men find it difficult to maintain an erection and
become impotent for several months."

"Let it go," said Arnon in disgust. "I mean, step on it, I don't feel like
being bitten."

"I have other plans for her," said Oded voicelessly, just moving his lips.
"The venom of the black widow spider is fifteen times as toxic as the
venom of a rattlesnake. All spiders are venomous, but the venoms of most
are too weak or minute in quantity to have noticeable effects on humans."

"So what do you have in mind?"

"If we had a cobra, one would be enough. But the next best thing, which
happens to be available, is the female black widow. Ten to twenty of these
ladies would be enough to take our guards out of commission for hours. I
don't think we should sit and wait for our execution; I don't want to be a
sacrificial lamb," he whispered.

Silence.

"Okay," I said, keeping my voice low, "so we need female spiders? How
the hell can you tell which is which?"

"The female is easy to identify: It has two red spots on the dorsal surface of the abdomen."

"And what do we do with them? Plant them in the guards' clothing
hoping they'll bite?"

"No," said Oded, "we can't leave anything to chance. I could extract
enough venom from them to cause our guards to run for help, and leave
us behind. We could sharpen twigs to toothpick size, dip them in venom,
and prick the guards. The venom causes severe pain in the abdomen, to
the muscles, and in the soles of the feet. They will also sweat profusely
and have swollen eyelids. A spider's venom blocks specific channels in the
brain. We'd be the least of their concerns."

"Twigs?" I asked. "Where would we get twigs?"

He pulled out a few long sturdy straws from his pocket. "I picked them
up from the room where we slept our first night here."

"We'll be executed if they catch us again, and certainly if we kill our
guards," said Arnon, barely moving his lips.

"No, nothing of the sort. It'll be really painful, but they'll live."

"Okay, I'm convinced," I said. "Now go convince the spider to give you
its venom without biting you. How do you milk these creatures?"

"In the lab we mist them with carbon dioxide gas to numb them. Then
we hold the spider under a microscope, and use electrified tweezers to
give it a short electrical jolt. That causes the spider to spew venom from
its fangs."

"How much venom do you get out of one black widow?"

"You need six or seven hundred milkings to get one drop," said Oded,
"but in the lab we can milk about ninety black widows in an hour. But we
don't need production like that. One drop is a lot of poison. All I need are
three black widows to neutralize one guard."

"I don't see a microscope or electrical tweezers in our cell," I said. "So
how are you going to milk them?"

"We could get the venom either by milking or extracting it from dissected glands. If we don't kill the spider, we need to make it feel danger.
When in the threatening stance, tiny droplets of venom can be seen at the
tip of each fang. Using suction, a glass pipette connected to a vacuum pump collects the venom droplets at the end of the chelicerae, the first
pair of fangs near the mouth that they use for grasping and piercing."

"Oded, we're not in a lab here. Sorry I have to remind you."

"I know. Milked venoms are generally preferred because they do not
contain extraneous materials extracted from the glands and tend to be
more consistent and easier to work with. However, that is for medical and
pharmacological purposes. Here we could use gland extracts because they
do not require so much equipment."

"So why the hesitation?" I asked. "Just kill it."

"Not so fast. This one is the first one I caught, so I need to keep it until
we have several more, or keep on milking this one."

"So you just smash it?"

"No, look what I'm doing," he said as if I were one of students. "I'm
opening the venom apparatus, which includes the fangs and paturons, the
basal portions of the upper fangs, the glands, the venom ducts, and the associated muscles." He used a half-inch stone that he chipped from the wall,
with a three-inch piece of straw.

"That's too much entomology for me, I give up." I said. "And what do
you do for milking equipment?"

"Since I don't have a glass pipette I'm using straw, and we have plenty
of that here."

"But how do you pump the venom? You're not going to suck it," asked
Arnon.

"No, I saw that Yahye, our guard, uses a dropper for his eyedrops. If you
steal it, I'll do the rest."

"We're locked in this crummy cell, and he's behind the door, so how
exactly do you propose we steal it?" asked Arnon.

"We could lure him into giving it to us," I ventured. "Does it matter
why he's using the eyedrops?"

"He has trachoma," said Oded.

"How can you tell?"

"I'm a doctor," said Oded patiently. "Besides, if you were to look at him,
you could also tell. You don't have to be a doctor for that."

"His eyes do look terrible."

"I'm not surprised he has it," Oded said. "The highest incidence of trachoma is in the dry, hot, dusty climatic zones. In some rural villages almost
everyone has either active trachoma or scars from an earlier infection."

"What causes it?"

"Chlamydia trachomatis. It's a microorganism that spreads through contact with eye discharge from the infected person on towels, handkerchiefs, or fingers, and through transmission by eye-seeking flies. After
years of repeated infection, the inside of the eyelid may be scarred so
severely that the eyelid turns inward and the lashes rub on the eyeball,
scarring the cornea. If untreated, the condition leads to blindness."

"Is there a cure?"

"If used early on in the infection, oral antibiotics can prevent long-term
complications. Our guard, had he been treated earlier, could have taken
erythromycin or doxycycline and solved the problem. But now it seems
that he'd need eyelid surgery for his lid deformities."

"So the eyedrops he uses aren't helping him? Maybe that could be our
angle."

"I don't know what he uses. I didn't get a close look at the label. But
whatever it is, it can't treat the advanced stage of his disease."

"Good," I said. "Let's try this." I banged on the door.

Yahye opened it. "What do you want?" he responded in a menacing
tone. His eyelids looked so awful, I had difficulty keeping my gaze on him.

eyes. "Yahye, I don't know if I told you, but this person here" - I pointed at
Oded - "is a very famous doctor. He might be able to help you with your

The expression on Yahye's face changed. "Really?"

"Yes," I said, "he has helped many people."

Gingerly, Yahye entered our cell.

"Why don't you examine him to assure him you are indeed a doctor?"
I suggested.

"I can't touch him, I have no gloves, but let's see what we have here,"
Oded said as I translated. After examining his eyes closely, Oded concluded, "It's chronic trachoma, a bad case, no question about it. Are you
taking any medication?"

Yahye nodded.

"Why don't you let the doctor tell you if you are doing the right thing,"
I suggested.

Yahye left our door open and ran to his desk a few yards away. He
returned holding the bottle.

"Let me see that," said Oded, pointing at the small bottle.

Yahye handed him the bottle suspiciously. Oded looked at the label.
"That's a steroid," said Oded, shaking his head. "It doesn't help your condition and is likely to cause serious side effects such as glaucoma and
cataract." He turned toward Yahye, signaling with his hands, Don't use it!

"What's wrong?" I asked, not knowing whether Oded was playing our
game of social engineering or adhering to his ethics as a medical doctor.

"Seriously," he said. "He could lose his eyesight. It contains hydrocortisone. That's a steroid that could turn him blind."

I told Yahye what Oded had just said. "He's a doctor. You should listen
to him."

Yahyelooked confused.

"Ask him who gave him the bottle."

I asked. "He said he saw a foreign tourist using it in the market, and he
stole his bag from him."

"That medication was probably prescribed for another condition. See if
you could persuade him to leave the bottle in the cell."

"Leave this bottle with the doctor," I said to Yahye, "and the doctor will
try to fix something for you."

Yahye hesitated but finally handed me the bottle and hesitantly left our
cell.

"First stage successfully accomplished," I declared. "Now what?"

"Now I try to milk this lady," said Oded. "Here, give me that straw."

handed him the straw I had picked off the dirty floor. Oded gently
milked the spider, restraining it with the two small twigs he kept in his
pocket. I stood next to him, amazed.