The Scorpion’s Bite (10 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

Beyond Azraq and the Wadi Sirhan lies a basalt wasteland; beyond that, the flat gravel desert known as hamad; beyond that, to the east, Iraq, and to the north, Syria and the Great Syrian Desert. That was the way they headed, toward Palmyra and T3, two armored Jeeps bumping along in a cloud of dust with Awadh following, proud, on his horse. Glubb Pasha drove the lead car.

They had started at first light, before the sun was hot. But by late morning, the desert heat and the added humidity in the enclosed space inside the Jeeps made the ride unbearable.

Lily’s head pounded as she rode along in the second Jeep, boxed in by steel plates that reflected the sun. Water didn’t help much. Neither did the roiling dust that covered the windshield, kicked up by Glubb’s Jeep.

Gideon had tied a kerchief across his forehead to catch perspiration before it blocked his vision, but the sweat still poured down his temples and over his cheeks. In the back, Klaus sat with his eyes closed, almost comatose—his face red, his hands slack, his mouth open.

They had to stop twice, to sit outside in the shade of the Jeeps, wetting scarves they draped over their heads, and waiting for Awadh to catch up. For lunch, they ate cucumbers and watermelon, too exhausted from the heat for anything else, until Glubb insisted on handing out pickles. For the salt, he said.

“Only a hundred fifty miles to Palmyra from H3,” Glubb said by way of encouragement. His uniform was wilting. “A hundred fifty miles to a pipeline that leads through Syria.” He dabbed at his forehead with a linen handkerchief. “We’ll make it handily in one day.”

They stopped once more after they crossed the border to Syria, parking the Jeeps in the shadow of a wadi.

“Syrians aren’t too bright,” Jalil said. “You know what they say about Syrians?” He tipped his canteen over his kafiya to wet it and cooling water poured down onto his face. “When a Syrian goes into the desert, he always carries a door with him, so that when he gets too hot he can open the door and catch a breeze.”

They reached Tadmor by late afternoon, when the air was lighter and the bright desert sun sat large and low on the horizon.

They parked out of sight in a low declivity, and stood outside the Jeeps for a moment, stretching, taking deep breathes of the dry, clear air. Waiting for Awadh, Glubb directed Hamud and Jalil to unload the gear from the Jeep. At last, Awadh came galloping toward them, brandishing his rifle, his cloak flying behind him.

Awadh alit and patted the rump of Ghalib, his horse, lovingly. The horse whinnied.

“For God sake, shut up that horse,” Glubb said. “And keep low.”

“I will try. But my horse is like a handful of wind, too swift to grasp, and the song he sings is in Allah’s hands.”

Glubb took in an impatient breath. “Just keep him quiet.”

Awadh squatted on the ground next to the horse.

“You know how to handle gelignite?” Glubb asked him.

“I was with Lawrence from the Hejaz to Damascus.”

“Along the railway?”

Awadh gave him a broad smile.

“Can you take care of the pipeline?”

He nodded before opening the packet that Glubb handed him. “Only three blasting caps?”

“That’s all they gave us.” Glubb shrugged.

Lily had brought the training rifle. Just as she had seen Bedouin do, she slung it over her shoulder with the strap across her chest.

They unloaded the Jeeps, and at a signal from Glubb, silently, they clambered up the slope, setting the gear down as they climbed, edging up to it, then moving ahead again.

As they reached the top of the ridge, Glubb whispered, “Keep low.”

Gideon gazed across the two hills jutting out above the plain. “Palmyra. After the Romans discovered the course of the monsoons Palmyra replaced Petra as the entrepot for trade with China and India.”

He squinted into the sun. Before them, nestled at the foot of desert hills, lay the remains of once magnificent Palmyra. “It was wealthy, elegant, a prosperous city that commanded trade routes that linked Persia to the Mediterranean.” He gestured toward the remains of the city: a great colonnade with monumental arches, a theatre, a Temple of Baal, and, at the top of a hill, a medieval Arab castle. Scattered across the dusty plain, some tower tombs were still haunted by the souls of the dead.

“Underneath those hills lies ancient Tadmor. Silks and pearls, perfume and jewels once came through here,” Gideon said. “And now look.” Beyond historic Palmyra lay the collection of hovels that was modern Tadmor.

“And now, oil passes through here,” Glubb said, “on its way to the Axis.”

Glubb nodded to Jalil and Hamud. “The building on the hill on the right is the Foreign Legion outpost.”

He indicated a small square building surrounded by pillboxes, the whole compound enclosed in barbed wire.

Jalil and Hamud started toward it in crablike movements, staying close to the ground.

When they had cut the barbed wire and shimmied through, Glubb and Awadh began to set up the Hotchkiss guns.

Gideon started down toward what looked like a trench near where they waited. “You coming?” he said to Lily.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Glubb asked.

Inside the trench, a staircase led down to an elaborate carved door.

Gideon held out his hand toward Lily. “It’s a hypogeum, an underground tomb,” he said, and Awadh began to sing in his strange toneless monotone, just as he had in the Siq at Petra.

Glubb silenced him with a stare.

“They found it when they were digging for the pipeline,” Gideon said

Lily had heard of it, the Tomb of the Shattered Pillar. It was not as famous as the Tomb of the Three Brothers, or those in the Valley of the Tombs, but it was part of the necropolis. Thoughts of the darkness of a tomb, to be trapped in the bowels of the earth and never return, chilled her.

“I can’t go in there,” she said.

“Why not?

“Who knows?” She tried to laugh it off. “Maybe there’s a demonic ghula waiting inside. Maybe the hill could collapse and you and I and the Shattered Pillar, whatever it is, will be entombed together for eternity.”

She couldn’t muster a laugh that didn’t sound nervous.

“And maybe,” Gideon said, “You’re afraid of what happened the last two times you were in a cave.”

“This is no time for archaeological foolery,” Glubb said.

Lily bristled. “Foolery? These are some of the most important tombs of antiquity, famous for their frescoes and sculptures.”

“We’re here to take care of the pipeline,” Glubb said.

Gideon held out his hand to help Lily down. She couldn’t move, and her heart was pounding. What was wrong with her?

“We have to do a clean job and get out,” Glubb said.

Gideon stared at Lily and dropped his hand.

“Could be hidden armaments down there,” he said to Glubb.

“Of course there could. This is a military installation.” Glubb looked toward the Jeep. “We might have enough gelignite with us, but not enough blasting caps.”

Gideon looked astonished. “You want to blow up the tomb?”

“Isn’t that what you had in mind?”

“Not at all.” Gideon clambered out of the trench. “Not at all.”

Jalil emerged from the outpost, with Hamud following. “Seven of them.”

“All inside the outpost?” Glubb asked him.

“That’s all we saw.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t think so. But it may be too late. I think they spotted us coming and radioed Damascus.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Quickly, Glubb and Jalil mounted the Hotchkiss guns on small tripods and attached ammunition belts.

Glubb gestured to the others, whispered, “Get into the trench and stay low.”

With the guns in place, he and Jalil crouched down behind them, and waited.

They didn’t wait long. Three soldiers came out of the fort, rifles cocked, aiming at Glubb and Jalil, and behind them three more, aiming at the others huddled in the trench.

Jalil and Glubb opened fire. Lily watched them fan the guns on their mounts, raking the discharge back and forth. Blood erupted from the soldiers’ chests. Still, their legs kept moving until they fell, screaming, calling out. She felt dizzy and began to tremble, adrift in a miasma of the smell of cordite, bodies churning from the impact of shots, cries of the wounded.

“Oh God.” Lily scrunched her eyes closed and held her hands over her ears while the guns chattered ceaselessly, rifles cracking, machines guns blasting, halting, starting up again, kicking dust.

“Oh God, oh God.”

“One more, he’s coming out now,” Jalil said, and the Hotchkiss guns exploded again.

“That’s seven,” Glubb said into the sudden quiet. “You sure that’s all?”

Lily opened her eyes and stared beyond the barbed wire fence, littered with blood and silent bodies splayed over the ground.

Jalil nodded. “Seven. That’s the lot of them.”

Glubb, his sidearm in hand, strolled over toward the fort, clambered through the hole in the barbed wire, and one by one, he inspected each bundle of mute khaki.

He fired once at one of the bodies. “Poor bugger,” he said, and went on to the next.

Behind Lily, in the trench, the door of the Tomb of the Shattered Pillar, still on its ancient hinges, scraped open.

Ibrahim emerged from the tomb.

“We’ve been waiting for you, expected you yesterday.” He leveled a rifle at those in the trench just as the buzz of approaching aircraft sounded in the distance.

Chapter Twenty-four

They scrambled out of the trench. Ibrahim followed, aiming his rifle at one, then at another, as they scattered across the flat desert floor. All except Awadh, who hid the gelignite and blasting caps in a corner of the trench, then went after his horse.

The hum of aircraft grew louder. Two fighter planes cleared the line of low cliffs at the southwestern fringe of the oasis, firing as they came.

In the open field, Lily and the others were perfect targets. They sprinted across, making for the trench at the entrance to the Tomb of the Shattered Pillar, with Lily and Awadh trailing.

Ibrahim looked up at the planes and waved, smirking, watched the men skitter across the dusty plain, then turned to where Lily stood next to Awadh and his horse.

“Now they’re in for it.” He raised his rifle again and pointed it at Lily. “And so are you.”

The fighters, two hundred feet above the ground, dipped, roared down, fired at the Jeeps, climbed, banked away, and swooped again to fire another burst, shattering rocks into chips and flakes with a stream of bullets.

The aircraft tore overhead, engines roaring, machine guns spraying the area, whipping the ground into clouds of dust, coming in lower and lower, missing the trench where the others were huddled. Lily watched one fighter bank, fly toward the setting sun, fire at the ground.

“Can’t see us,” Lily heard Glubb say. “Sun in his eyes.”

Lily lifted her rifle and leveled it at Ibrahim. He swung around and aimed his gun straight at her.

She pulled the trigger, felt the kick. A cloud of dust and rock shatter burst on the plain below, then nothing.

The gun fell from her hand. Ibrahim was ready to fire. Lily plunged to the ground, hitting her arm against the Hotchkiss tripod.

The barrel was still hot. She jerked her hand away as if bitten, then grabbed the trigger end of the gun, figured the magazine belt held at least twenty cartridges. She swung the barrel around, pointed at Ibrahim, pulled the trigger.

The recoil threw her back; the battery of explosions deafened her. She had missed Ibrahim.

But the plane behind Ibrahim erupted in a blast of fire.

She watched the fireball fall. The roar and crash of the plane, the sharp odor of gunpowder, gasoline, burning flesh hurtled against her, as if she were struck by lightening.

What have I done?

Ibrahim grabbed for Awadh’s horse and pulled himself up into the saddle. He kicked the horse. It didn’t move. He struck it with the butt of his rifle, pulled the reins to the left and right, struck the animal again with his rifle. It still didn’t move. It whinnied and its ears laid back in rage.

Gusts of heat pushed against Lily. Flaming bits of fuselage dropped like leaves from the blooming inferno that hovered over the desert floor.

“May God consign him to hell fire,” Glubb said.

Ibrahim cursed, kicked, beat the horse with the reins, the butt of his rifle. The Arabian shied, lifted its forelegs into the air, took off toward the Tomb of the Shattered Pillar, tossed its head back to unseat the rider. The stallion lost its footing, tumbled into the trench. Neck awry, the horse collapsed, coughed, shuddered, and died. Ibrahim lay on the ground, trapped beneath the horse.

Awadh scurried down into the trench, rifle ready.

He shot Ibrahim point-blank in the chest and looked up at Jalil.

“He killed my horse,” he said, and shot Ibrahim again, this time in the head. “He killed my horse.”

The drone of the second plane drowned out his voice. It had banked and ran at them again, strafing as it came, the path of the tracers angled toward them, churning clouds of dust along its path.

Awadh shook his fist at the plane and raised his rifle. He threw off his cloak, climbed to the top of the ridge and began firing at the aircraft, shouting at the plane. His kafiya swept away in the wind as the fighter banked and returned lower and lower.

“Get down,” Glubb called, but Awadh kept shooting, aiming at the sky with a rifle.

The fighter dipped, fired a new volley, hit Awadh in his leg, his chest, his head, before it took off eastward toward Baghdad.

Awadh went down without a sound.

Hamud ran up the slope and Jalil followed. Tearfully, Hamud cradled Awadh’s lifeless body, rocking him back and forth.

“Sometime, we all must die,” Jalil said gently.

“He was a good, kind man,” Hamud said. “And a hero in his day.”

“If life were eternal,” Jalil told him, “The Prophet would still be alive.”

From below, Klaus looked at them. “In a war, people die.” His voice cracked. “Both the good and the bad.”

And Lily wondered why a pompous fool like Klaus had suddenly become sentimental.

They buried Awadh in a hastily dug grave next to the horse, hurrying to finish before the light faded, left Ibrahim lying where he had fallen, and prepared to go back south across the border.

Gideon lingered. “We can’t leave Ibrahim like that.”

“Don’t worry, the Ruwalla will find him and bury him.” Jalil said.

“How will they find him?” Lily asked.

Jalil pointed to a kettle of vultures, circling high above. “They’ll show the way.”

Lily shuddered.

“Carrion is carrion,” Glubb said with distaste. “He wasn’t one of ours. The Ruwalla can take care of their own.”

“And the others, the ones from the Outpost?” she asked.

“Vichy French,” Glubb said. “The fortunes of war.”

Glubb retrieved the gelignite and blasting caps from the trench and signaled Jalil to come with him into the pumping station.

“Be ready to go,” Glubb told the others. “We have only two minutes after I set the blasting caps.”

Gideon and Lily brought up the Jeeps and kept the motors running while Klaus helped Hamud dismantle the Hotchkiss guns.

By the time Glubb and Jalil darted out of the pumping station, ducked under the barbed wire, and jumped into their waiting Jeep, Lily and Gideon had packed the equipment.

They took off.

At the sound of the explosion, Lily looked back. A fountain of debris filled with black smoke erupted from the pumping station. Flames licked at puddles of crude oil that seeped from the pipeline.

As they sped away into the twilight, the eastern sky was already dark.