“It’s nothing, Master. Only harim gossip,” he whimpered. “Who pays attention to women’s babbling?” Nasir tried to shrug it off, man to man.

“Tell me, you camel slime,” the Scorpion growled.

“It is whispered that the prince is so debauched that he can only have pleasure by watching a woman using—devices,” the eunuch said, a snigger in his voice at such a delicious piece of gossip, despite his fear.

“Bastard,” the Scorpion breathed.

“She is only a woman,” Nasir muttered placatingly, then comprehension began to dawn and his bulging eyes grew even wider. “She is of your khamsah,” he whispered in horror. The word khamsah was derived from the number five and defined the five patrilineal generations of a person’s immediate family. A man was bound to blood vengeance for any dishonor committed against any member of his khamsah.

The Scorpion nodded. In a way it was true. After all that Kelly had gone through, he felt as though he had somehow adopted her. He felt a kind of kinship between them that had little to do with them both being Americans. After all, Washington didn’t care about her any more. They had bigger fish to fry. No one cared, except him. There was something special about her. He had seen it in the photograph. The mission was no longer business, he admitted to himself. It had become personal. Very personal.

“Did you ever touch her?” the Scorpion asked quietly.

Nasir nodded, his chin trembling like a child about to cry. Who could lie to such a fearsome demon?

“Only once. She was stubborn so my master ordered me to whip her with a riding crop. But it was only that once,” he blubbered.

The Scorpion made a sudden move and the eunuch’s body thrashed on the bed with jerky motions, like a puppet gone haywire.

“You also only die once,” the Scorpion said. He stood up and wiped the khanjar on the bedclothes. He had to contact Macready. It was imperative to get the data to Washington.

On the bed, the eunuch gasped his last desperate breaths as the blood gurgled out of his severed throat.

Washington

Washington

ALLEN WAS RIGHT. The president was furious at being woken up in the middle of the night for the second time in a week. The chief executive’s face was hard and his jaw set, and the others crowded in the room uneasily glanced away. They were meeting in the Lincoln Sitting Room in the southeast corner of the White House, because Allen had suggested that they avoid showing any lights in the Oval Office, which might alert the press corps. The room was the smallest in the mansion, barely thirteen by sixteen feet. It was furnished like a Victorian sitting room and portraits of President Lincoln and his family hung over the marble fireplace.