Had there been anything in his phone conversation with Macready? He had called Doha from a solar-powered radiophone in the desert. Since the oil boom, there were radiophones in the remote areas. The conversation was guarded, cryptic. Macready had started by inserting the word “August” denoting the line might be bugged.

“Yes, it is hot, like last August, Mr. Ben Adam.”

“Things are warming up all over,” the Scorpion replied.

“I know. But you’ll be happy to learn that our parent company has agreed to your terms. The full amount has been paid in advance,” Macready said, his voice sounding nasal over the distance, as if he had a cold. Or else he was choking on the amount, the Scorpion thought.

Then the Scorpion told him what he wanted. Arms, communications all of it.

“That’s impossible,” Macready had sputtered.

“But you’ll do it,” the Scorpion had said and rung off.

At a word from the Scorpion, Youssef swerved off the dirt road and took to the sands, the wheels kicking up showers of sand like garden sprinklers. They would not return to the road until after they had traversed Wadi Haradh.

A sparse line of rimth scrub bushes too spindly to sustain even a camel marked the approach to Wadi Haradh. No doubt there was a trickle of ancient subterranean moisture deep beneath the sands. Youssef slowed the truck to a stop behind a rock outcropping. The Scorpion studied the terrain. Beyond this point they could be seen by anyone set up in the wadi.

The floor of the wadi was flat and sandy, its surface broken only by an occasional scrub bush. Probably mined, he thought. Low sandy hills lined either side and an uneven ridge ran along the hill on the left, near the crest. That would be a good place for them to hide, the Scorpion noted. On the right, the hill was rockier, steeper, the top flat. It was too visible for aircraft and it would require experienced troops to keep them in a cross fire and not wind up shooting at each other so they were probably dug in on the left side only. Still, maybe their commander was either very good or very stupid so he had to keep it as a possibility, he decided. In the center of the wadi, near the road, was a large arfaj bush near a sandy rise which might serve as concealment, if they were going to use an “L” ambush. The trucks would have to go alongside the right slope, if and when he found the mines.

He touched Youssef’s arm. They looked at each other and said nothing. Their faces were shadow and flame in the light of the setting sun, balanced between the two sloping sides of the wadi like a giant red ball in a bowling alley. The Scorpion nodded and then he was gone, slipping noiselessly from the cab of the truck.

All was silence.