“Save your money. I doubt he’ll go the distance,” the Scorpion said, an odd gleam in his eye.

As he turned to leave, the bearded Riyadhi caught at his sleeve.

“A thousand pardons, asayid …” the Riyadhi began.

The Scorpion’s reaction was instantaneous. He splayed the fingers of his hand and rotated his wrist clockwise, then continued in a circle, gripping the Riyadhi’s hand between both hands and forcing him to his knees. The Scorpion winced as he twisted, his sides still aching from last night’s fall in the desert fight.

“Who sent you? Macready?” the Scorpion hissed through clenched teeth, and applied pressure on the trapped hand. The Riyadhi groaned in pain.

“Meester Harrees …” the Riyadhi began in English.

“Where is he?”

“At the tent of the fortuneteller …” the Riyadhi began and then blinked in disbelief. The Scorpion was already gone.

The fortuneteller’s tent was blue and decorated with gold and silver stars, a crescent moon and signs of the zodiac. A sign advertised visions of the future, promises of great wealth, happiness and cures for arthritis, backache and a variety of liver and stomach ailments. Circumcisions were also available. Another sign, hand-painted on the tent flap, indicated that the tent was closed for prayers and the duration of the race.

Inside, the Scorpion found Harris seated at a wooden folding table, playing a hand of solitaire. He smiled as the Scorpion entered and gestured as extravagantly as an Arab merchant for him to sit down.

“A thousand welcomes, O honored guest,” Harris insolently grinned, leaning back. Who else but Harris would wear a silk ascot at his throat in the middle of Arabia? the Scorpion thought. Harris wore a beige tropical jacket over his shoulders as if he’d just finished playing a polo match. The empty sleeves hung like lifeless limbs as Harris dealt the cards.

“Cut the shit, Bob,” the Scorpion snapped angrily.

“What’s the matter?”

“Are you running an op or a Marx Brothers comedy? You’ve got amateurs tripping all over me. If you wanted to blow me, it would have been more inconspicuous to use a neon sign. I feel like I’m wearing a bull’s eye on my chest,” the Scorpion snapped.

“There wasn’t time to set it up properly. You know how things can get at this stage,” Harris said defensively. He placed a red ten on a black Jack with a little snap of the card to show his annoyance and pretended to concentrate on the game to show he wasn’t worried, which meant, of course, that he was.

“If there’s a screw-up, I’m surprised you aren’t already blaming Macready; everybody’s favorite whipping boy,” the Scorpion remarked impudently.

“Macready’s dead. Car bomb in Doha. Surprised you hadn’t heard about it on the radio,” Harris said complacently.