He knew that the answer to the girl’s disappearance was in Riyadh and he could just slip away now, pass the photos on to Macready and let all the IA computer types in Langley analyze the pictures to death. That was the smart thing to do. The only thing stopping him was the thought that he was the Scorpion, a professional. He could just picture Koenig’s incredulous glance and hear him say, “You mean, they were all right there and you didn’t try to get closer? You just fucking stood there and snapped photos like some little old lady from Iowa on the Capitol steps?” He would have to get closer. We are all the prisoners of our own self-images, he thought as he opened the camera and slipped the film cartridge into his jockey shorts, where it rested uncomfortably next to his groin. As Koenig used to say, “It’s the safest place. That way they’ve got to jerk you off before they can take it away.”

He hid the camera and binoculars under the jumble of dry bones. There was no need to hide a gun. He hadn’t brought one. It was better that way. There were too many guards to outgun and if they did nail him he would have a chance to lie his way out of it. Packing a camera and a gun was an amateurish giveaway, like wearing a trenchcoat. Besides, guns tended to limit the conversation. When the Mutayr were first teaching him to shoot with those old British Enfield .303s, Sheikh Zaid had told him, “Words are better weapons than guns, little dhimmi. The Prophet conquered Arabia with a book, not a sword.” Still, it felt pretty damn antsy jumping into the middle of an armed camp packing nothing but a film cartridge in his jockey shorts, he thought. He rolled over the stone ledge of the grave and, crouching, moved on cat feet through the shadows.

He played tag with the shadows, moving silently from mound to mound. Armed guards carrying AK-47s formed a ragged defense perimeter that gazed outward from the campfire and the Scorpion had to remind himself that they didn’t know he was there and that he was virtually invisible in his black bisht. He moved slowly in a careful zig-zag pattern, wondering if they could hear the pounding of his heart that sounded so loudly in his own ears. They’d cut off Chambers’ arms and legs! Don’t think about that, blinking the sweat from his eyes. Think about the next step.