To calm his mind he sat cross-legged, Bedu-style, on the mossy banks of his pond and contemplated the goldfish gracefully flitting in the cool green depths like sparks of living sunlight. He liked looking at them. They reminded him of women: beautiful, but without souls; useful only for ornaments.

When he had been younger he had allowed his harim women to frolic with him in the grass. He felt himself harden as the memories teased him. Later, when that grew boring, he used the naked women as footstools, resting his feet on their soft buttocks as they knelt before him; or as living statues frozen in erotic poses, sweat beading their exquisite skin as they struggled to remain immobile.

But that was before he had heard Allah’s call and knew that he was the Chosen One. Although, even as the Prophet, he still enjoyed the delights of women, he no longer defiled himself by entering them. Now he preferred to enjoy his garden in solitude.

That was something those Russian kulaks would never understand. They thought to use him, to make him their puppet. But they understood nothing of kismet, of the wave of destiny sweeping across the world under the flowing green banner of Islam. The Arab world was awakening after a sleep of centuries to a new dream.

To be king was nothing. He would be caliph, even sultan! Except for the weapons the West was so good at making, the House of Islam would be purified. Then nothing would resist their armies. What had happened in Iran was nothing. Merely the puff of hot wind which presages the sandstorm yet to come.

As for the Russians, they could be bought with rubles as easily as the West had been corrupted by petrodollars.

He knew it was inevitable that his brother Salim would catch wind of a plot, so he had sent a Palestinian fanatic to assassinate him at a public majlis and then made sure that the Palestinian was caught and killed by his own zealous Royal Army guards. Salim now trusted him more than ever. The king had been reassured enough to indicate that the ceremony would go forward as scheduled.

Only the Scorpion remained as a problem, he mused, stroking his beard. If you want to destroy a scorpion, you don’t chase after him and stick your finger down into his sand burrow. Instead, you lure him to you.

He doubted that the Scorpion would try to attack him here at al Aramah. It would take an army to penetrate the electronic defenses, minefields and guards surrounding what appeared to be a simple desert estate.

No—the Scorpion would undoubtedly try to learn when and where the assassination would really take place and then try to intercept. That was how to bring the Scorpion to him, Abdul Sa’ad decided. And just to make sure of the Scorpion’s appearance, he would set a lure the Scorpion couldn’t resist.