The Scorpion just smiled. It made Macready shiver. In the spotlight, Fatima was rotating her hips in a way that few vertebrates could match. The tempo began to build. Macready wiped his face and made ready to leave. He left a wad of riyals on the tray.

“Come on, I’ll show you the back way,” the Scorpion said. He timed their exit to Fatima’s routine. No one noticed the two shadows make their way between the tables towards the men’s toilet. All eyes were glued on the dancer quivering in her grand finale. They started down a dimly lit corridor, the throb of the drum masking their footsteps. About halfway the Scorpion yanked Macready into what appeared to be a broom closet. They went through an old curtain which concealed a dark foul-smelling passage that led to the brightly lit kitchen.

Hamid was swearing amiably at his perspiring cooks and waiters who bustled about clanging dishes and sweating over steaming pots. The fat proprietor caught the Scorpion’s eye, but said nothing except to look significantly over at the television blasting unwatched in the corner.

The TV announcer was a dark young man with a moustache so thin he must’ve measured it with a micrometer. Something he said froze the Scorpion in his tracks. Macready almost bumped into him, but the Scorpion just stared at the screen, which showed a rerun of the King’s Camel Race from last year. The race had drawn over four thousand contestants. This year, it was expected to draw more than six thousand riders and half a million spectators. The prize, the announcer declared, his eyes gleaming, was a purse of fifty thousand riyals and a solid gold khanjar dagger to be presented to the winner by His Majesty, King Salim himself.

What the Palestinian had said flashed in the Scorpion’s mind. The hit was supposed to be “public—a demonstration.”

It was perfect, the Scorpion thought. The King’s Camel Race, where the king was honor-bound to show up whether he heard about a plot or not and where the eyes of all Arabia would be glued. The race was the Arabian version of the Kentucky Derby, the Superbowl, the World Series, the Masters and Wimbledon all rolled into one.

The king would be there, all right. Not to mention the crowds, thousands of riders and camels, a vast course in the open desert; an impossible security problem for the royal palace guards. The Scorpion shook his head in admiration as he led Macready to the kitchen’s back door. It was a beauty.

“What was that all about?” Macready said irritably, stumbling over a tin in a back alley behind the restaurant. Suddenly a steel hand grabbed his lapel and pulled him close.

“Shut up and listen,” the Scorpion hissed. “I have a hunch about the hit. If I’m right it’s going to be in three days.”