The Scorpion’s Bite (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

“There is an oasis near the Jebel Druze,” Hamud said the next morning. “Near enough to Damascus, but hidden and secret. If they hide Faisal, it could be there.”

“We can try it,” Gideon rubbed his face and blew out his cheeks. “Nothing to lose.”

“Nothing but time,” Jalil said.

They loaded up the Jeep and left, going north past the pipeline road and passing the border into Syria before noon.

They drove along faint tracks through a bleak Syrian countryside scattered with forbidding black lava cones, past Druze villages where woman in colorful garb stood gossiping in the streets, past fields worked by black-robed Druze with white turbans who saw them and looked away. The grim black massif of Jebel Druze hovered over them. They skirted east of it, coming at last to a dark plain beside a fetid overgrown waterhole.

Two camels stood hobbled on the plain. And perched on the shadowy cliff above them, black and foreboding, stood the remains of a castle, walled and turreted, with tumbling basalt ashlars.

“A castle of the Assassins,” Hamud said in a choked whisper, as if afraid of awakening their ghosts. “Even the great Salah edh Din feared them.”

He rumbled on in an anxious murmur, his hand on the hilt of the dagger at his belt. “Anyone who tried to take an Assassin castle was dead before nightfall. Anyone who spent the night there would have his throat cut before morning.” He took a tentative step forward, gripping the dagger. “Drunk on hashish and avarice. They killed or they were killed. Never captured.”

He moved forward again, and began a cautious climb up along the fallen stones of the castle. Jalil and Gideon followed. Lily clambered after them, searching for footholds, clutching the edges of rocks.

They finally reached an archway and the remains of a vaulted tunnel and moved inside, along a debris-strewn passage reeking with the stench of animal dung and stale urine.

The tunnel opened out into a roofless room filled with rubble. Matted hair plastered against his face, a grimy Bedouin dressed in rags and a greasy sheepskin cloak sat in the center of the room leaning against a fallen rock.

Hamud took a step back. “He’s from Ahl al Jebal, the people of the mountain.”

The grimy Bedouin reached for his rifle, aimed at Hamud, shouted “
Wesh entum
? What tribe are you?”

Before Hamud could answer, the Bedouin fired point-blank. Hamud staggered backward. Silently, he dropped to the ground. His eyes, still wide with astonishment, had turned dull.

Jalil fired back. “He killed Hamud,” Jalil said, and fired again. “He killed him.”

Blood seeped from the grimy Bedouin’s mouth, his nose. He collapsed onto the pavement and his riffle clattered on the stones.

Lily felt the color drain from her face, moved unsteadily toward Hamud’s body. Gideon bent down to feel for his pulse, looked up at Lily and Jalil and shook his head.

“We’ll take him back,” he said. “Bury him in the military cemetery at Azraq.”

“You think they’re holding Faisal here?” Lily asked in a hoarse monotone.

Jalil looked down at the dead Bedouin, rolled him over with his foot. “Not these people.”

“For ransom?”

Gideon stood up. “No harm in looking. You go that way,” he said to Jalil, indicating the turreted area. “Lily and I will look there.” He pointed toward what might have been the castle keep, its walls with courses still standing and reaching upward toward barrel ceilings.

Lily and Gideon set out into the maze of ruins. They found nothing but trash and tumbles of broken basalt blocks in weed-grown room after room, and over all, the reek of mildew and animal waste.

Once they heard a rifle shot, then another. They paused and looked at each other. “Jalil,” Gideon said, and they kept going.

They found Jalil approaching them from inside a long corridor, carrying Hamud over his shoulder, fireman style.

“No one here,” he said. “Just the two Ahl al Jebel.” He shifted Hamud on his shoulder. “I took care of the other one.” He moved forward again. “Let’s get back.”

They climbed down to the Jeep carefully, Gideon and Jalil carrying Hamud between them, Lily sliding down part of the way across the larger tumble of basalt blocks. Jalil carried Hamud to the back of the Jeep and covered him with the tarp.

Gideon started the motor and they drove over the basalt field, past the hobbled camels that brayed in their wake, back toward Azraq. Jalil looked back at the castle, craning his neck until it was out of sight.

““Ahl Al Jebel, the people of the mountain,” Jalil said from the back seat. “They raid and steal and are against every man, every tribe, but mostly the Beni Sakhr. They killed Hamud.” He lowered his head, ran his hand back and forth on the tarp. “He’s dead and we lost another day. Lost, without finding Faisal.”

“Hamud survived the scorpion’s bite, to live a little while longer,” Lily said.

“You see,” Jalil said and shook his head. “There is no escape from what Allah has decided. And what has Allah decided for Faisal?”

Was that also the way with Qasim, Lily wondered, with Klaus? Was there no escape from the fate that Allah has decided?

Even for Ibrahim?

The thought of Ibrahim made her shudder. She remembered Palmyra, remembered Ibrahim emerging from the tomb, remembered the plane that inexplicably took off for Baghdad, not Damascus.

“I know where they are hiding Faisal,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-nine

While Jalil waited outside, pacing back and forth next to the Jeep, Gideon arranged for Hamud’s burial, answering the objections of officers stationed at Azraq, arguing that Hamud had died in their service.

“Finally,” Jalil said when Gideon emerged from the fort, and they set out, squinting into the morning sun.

They bounced along the pipeline road, through the basalt wasteland, until they reached the pumping station at H3, forty-five miles from the Iraqi frontier. They turned north and drove toward the mountains into Syria, through the Badia, the Great Syrian Desert, flat and treeless and blowing with dust.

They saw the palm groves and the mountaintop castle of Palmyra first, appearing in the distance like a magical mirage, and sped toward it, the motor groaning as they sprang over ruts and bumped across the rocky terrain.

Closer to Palmyra, Gideon slowed, and parked in the declivity where they had parked the last time.

“Palmyra again,” Lily murmured, and shivered involuntarily.

Everything had changed since she saw it last.

She stared at the ruins of the pumping station: a tumble of burnt rock, crazed and baked brick-red from fire and smudged by smoke; jagged remnants of the broken pipeline; the ground, greasy and dark from burnt oil; a mound of ash where the horse had lain. And over all, the pervasive odor of gasoline and burning oil.

And, when the wind shifted, a whiff of burnt flesh and hair.

Into the silence, Gideon whispered, “I will make your cities a waste, will bring your sanctuaries into desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.”

And Lily shivered again.

“Rashidi,” Jalil said, pointing with his chin at some Bedouin on the ridge and climbed out of the Jeep, and reached for his rifle.

Four camels, couched and grunting, sat at the top of the ridge over the pile of ash where the Vichy soldiers had fallen. Nearby, two Bedouin were seated at a campfire sipping coffee. A third seemed to be sleeping, his head resting on a camel saddle.

Where had they found fuel for a campfire in this God-forsaken landscape? Ashes of the fallen horse, swirling above the ground in tiny eddies with the breeze, looked as if they had been picked through for bones, and Lily turned away.

At the sound of the motor, one of the Bedouin at the campfire had turned. His eyes widened at the sight of a member of the Desert Patrol from Trans-Jordan coming toward him.

He leveled his rifle at Jalil. The blasts from Jalil’s and the Rashidi’s weapons seemed to be simultaneous but Jalil must have fired first. Jalil’s gunshot hit the Rashidi squarely in the head, but the Rashidi’s caught Jalil in the leg. Jalil’s knee buckled. He collapsed on the ground, straightened his right leg slowly, recovered his rifle, rolled over on his stomach, positioned himself to fire.

Gideon scurried from the Jeep, dashed toward Jalil. The other Bedouin at the campfire headed for Gideon, pulling a dagger from his belt as he ran.

Jalil fired again, this time at the Rashidi by the camel saddle who was reaching for his rifle. Jalil hit him squarely in the chest.

Gideon tangled with the Bedouin with the dagger at the top of the ridge near the trench.

No way for Jalil to get a clear shot of the Rashidi struggling with Gideon. Lily could see that. The Bedouin struck Gideon’s arm, his thigh.

Churning with anger, Lily grabbed her training rifle, clambered out of the Jeep.

Blood spread across Gideon’s sleeve, along his trouser. He thrashed, kicked, clutched the Bedouin. They fell into the trench together.

Gideon grunted, twisted away, lifted his forearm against the Bedouin’s raised dagger as unutterable rage propelled Lily into the trench.

She held her rifle by the barrel, swung it like a baseball bat, hit the Bedouin, swung backhand, hit him again. His head ricocheted. Anger bubbling from her throat, she hit him again and again, heard a crack, and kept swinging. Blood poured from the Bedouin’s nose, his cheek swelled, and she kept swinging until he crawled out of the trench, keening, and loped toward the camels.

Lily turned. Gerta Kuntze loomed in front of her, feral as a hyena with her thatch of red hair and speckled face, brandishing Klaus’ knife.

Lily swung the rifle, hit Gerta once, hit her twice. Gerta grabbed the butt, pulled on it, jammed the barrel into Lily’s chest, knocked her down.

She attacked Lily with the knife, hit her sleeve, her arm. Lily grabbed Gerta’s hand, bent it back until the knife fell, kicked it away.

Lily heard Jalil shout from behind.

Gerta grasped Lily’s hand, opened her mouth, snarled, and bit into Lily’s wrist. Lily screamed, shoved Gerta away.

Gerta grabbed Lily’s hair, yanked her head back and forth.

Jalil yelled, “Lily, out of the way.”

Out of the way, how? Her neck hurt, her wrist was sore.

From behind her, Jalil shouted again, “Out of the way, Lily.”

Lily braced herself, pulled up her knees, jammed her feet against Gerta’s hips. She pushed outward with her feet, threw Gerta back toward the door of the tomb.

Jalil fired. Gerta’s mouth opened in surprise, blood sprouted on her chest.

Jalil fired again. The scatter of Gerta’s freckles stood out like wounds against a whitening face. A fountain of blood poured from her neck.

An artery? Jalil hit an artery?

He fired again, this time hit Gerta’s forehead. Her eyes clouded over. The fountain of blood from her neck pulsed, faded, pulsed again, trickled, then stopped altogether.

Further along the ramp, Gideon stirred with a low groan.

“You all right?” Lily asked.

“I’m okay. Just can’t get up.”

She stood her gun upright, barrel down, next to Gideon for support. “Here, hold onto this.”

He put one hand on the rifle butt. She bent down and he placed his other hand on her shoulder.

Her neck still hurt.

He pressed his arm against her shoulder as she rose slowly, ignoring the twinge in her neck, hoping to haul him upward. He stumbled, fell, flinched.

“This doesn’t work,” Gideon said.

She caught her breath and they tried again.

“You need help?” Jalil called.

“Go see to Jalil,” Gideon said. “I’ll figure something out.”

Jalil sat up and tried to stand. “It’s my leg.”

She held out her arm to help him and wavered under the pressure of his weight as he brought himself upright and braced himself on his rifle.

She went back to the Jeep, drove it closer to Jalil and Gideon. By the time she brought it around, Gideon had managed to edge up the ramp.

Leaning on Lily, Jalil got into the back of the Jeep. Both helped Gideon as he struggled onto the running board, heaved himself into the back seat breathing hard with the effort.

He rested a moment. “Without Klaus and without Gerta,” he said, his voice thin and halting, “we’ll never know where Faisal is hidden.”

“I’m not so sure.” Lily looked back to where Gerta lay. “Gerta came out of the tomb.”

So did Ibrahim, she remembered. She started down the ramp. Klaus’ knife lay on the ground where she had kicked it. She bent down and picked it up, wiped it off on her sleeve, folded it, put it in her pocket, and went further down the ramp.

Eyes averted, Lily skirted Gerta’s body splayed across the trench and continued down, down the flight of stairs that led to the Tomb of the Shattered Pillar. She reached the elaborate carved door and hesitated.

She tugged at the door. It took all her strength to drag it open.

She took a deep breath, and stepping carefully, she entered the darkness of the tomb.

Chapter Thirty

Lily went down into a fissure in the earth as deep as midnight, past sarcophagi on either side topped with headless reclining figures, and then deeper into the blackness. The air was heavy, fetid with mildew and the odor of neglect. In the dim light, she could make out remnants of portraits of dead men carved into living rock along the walls; faint remains of frescoes, pale and peeling—portraits and gods, columns and vines; and a beehive pattern on a vaulted ceiling.

She edged deeper still, into the bowels of the earth where time rumbles through eternity, and heard a stirring in the far corner. An animal? A cat? A rodent?

Deeper into the abyss, into the stillness. She distinguished a bundle of clothing on the far corner and kept going. Closer, she saw it was a child, eyes wild with fear, a gag wrapped around his mouth, hands and feet tied behind his back.

She took the knife from her pocket, and he jerked back, his eyes exploding with terror.

“It’s all right.” She crept closer. The child cowered. “It’s all right.”

She cut the ropes that tied his wrists and feet with Klaus’ knife, and untied the gag. She massaged his wrists and ankles and helped him up.

Staggering, he stood and pulled himself to his full four feet.

“I am Faisal, the King of Iraq,” he said, with an imperial thrust of his chin. “Take me to my mother.”

She took his hand to lead him toward the light. They stepped into the outside air and moved up the steps to the ramp. Faisal cringed and tightened his grip on Lily’s hand as they passed Gerta Kuntze’s body, and he wiped his cheeks and nose with the edge of his sleeve. Lily found a clean handkerchief in a pocket and handed it to him.

He took it, dabbed at his eyes, swabbed his cheeks, blew his nose.

“Kings are not permitted to cry,” he told her, and gave her back the handkerchief.

***

They rode south toward the Trans-Jordan border, with Lily’s right arm draped across Faisal in the passenger seat, to hold him in place when they hit a bump. She drove carefully, avoiding ruts in the road to prevent jarring Gideon and Jalil in the back of the Jeep, and glanced at Faisal occasionally to see if he was all right. Once, she handed him back the handkerchief. He blew his nose and Lily drove on.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Gideon said to her.

“I’ve been thinking.” She put both hands on the wheel. “When we went to Palmyra with Glubb, it was the first time I saw people killed in a war.” Her voice trailed off as she drove around a boulder in the road. “The machine gun raked human beings across the middle as if they were cardboard.” She lifted both hands from the steering wheel, wiped her face. “Unfeeling. Anonymous. Detach along the dotted line. I was horrified.”

“Baptism of fire. That’s natural,” Gideon said. “It happens to every one. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But today was something to be ashamed of.” She gripped the wheel with both hands. “When I struck that Bedouin, I couldn’t stop.” She hit a bump in the road, her arm shot across Faisal to keep him from bouncing and she heard Jalil and Gideon gasp in the back seat. “The worst of it was, I felt a bizarre exuberance. Exhilaration. And I kept battering him.”

“That was your adrenaline working,” Gideon said.

“Adrenaline?”

“Fight or flight hormone. A basic instinct. Keeps us alive.”

“It’s a part of me I don’t want to know about.”

“Today you were a hero,” Jalil said.

Hero? Lily drove on, carefully skirting boulders and furrows in the road, unable to overcome the feeling of self-betrayal. Once, when she hit a rut she couldn’t avoid, she heard Gideon moan.

She glanced in the rearview mirror.

“All right,” he said. “You convinced me. This is no job for a girl like you.” She hit another bump and, in the rearview mirror, saw Gideon wince and grow pale.

“But you do it so well,” he said.

“You certainly are difficult to kill,” she said to Gideon after a while.

Gideon shrugged. “It works for me.” The wind blew his hair. He pushed it back from his forehead, tossed his head and grimaced. “I laugh at death.”

“Hah,” Jalil said.

They reached the border before dark. After they crossed into Trans-Jordan, Jalil reached for the portable case to radio Glubb.

“They’re sending two helicopters,” he told them. “They’ll meet us at H3 along the pipeline.”

And now, at H3, she could hear the faint beat of the helicopters roiling the air. She looked southeast, and saw two dots approaching from a distance, growing larger, churning little dust storms in their wake.

The specks came closer, looking like a strange species of giant mosquitoes, their blades whirling against a cloudless sky. They flew closer still, and Lily could make out the Trans-Jordan flag emblazoned on the body: black and white and green strips overlaid with a red triangle and white star.

The helicopters landed in a flurry of wind and dust and noise, whipping up the ground and sharp, black lava pebbles.

“And then God answered from out of the whirlwind,” Gideon said. “And said, gird up thy loins now like a man.” He tried to get out of the Jeep. Breathless, he turned to Lily. “You’ll have to help me out of here.”

She reached into the Jeep for him just as two members of the Desert Patrol emerged from one of the helicopters and began to lead Faisal toward it. He looked back at Lily, blinking away tears. She nodded. He continued toward the helicopter and scrambled inside, assisted by the two Desert Patrolmen.

They came back for Gideon.

“Kings are not permitted to cry,” Lily said to no one in particular, and she turned to help Gideon from the Jeep.

“I can’t,” he said. “Can’t move my leg.”

The Desert Patrolmen lifted Gideon from the Jeep. Gideon suppressed a groan.

“We’ll meet you in Azraq,” he said after he caught his breath. “You know the way? Just follow the pipeline road to H5, then take the track to Azraq.”

The pilot stood in the open door of the aircraft and maneuvered Gideon aboard. She went back for Jalil. Jalil limped along, hopping on one foot, one arm across Lily’s shoulder, the other carrying the closed suitcase that held the radio. At the door of the helicopter, the pilot took the suitcase and helped Jalil inside.

She watched as they took off, one helicopter eastward toward Baghdad, the other westward toward Azraq, and then she started the Jeep.