He was almost within arm’s length of one of the guards and briefly debated taking him out. It wasn’t worth the risk, he decided. The slightest sound would be suicidal. He went around the mound until he glimpsed the campfire again. The ground was flat and without cover from here to the fire. He could get no closer. He silently sank to one knee, because the eye of an observer would tend to look for a face at full height. Another edge was that their night vision would be reduced by the firelight. They were about fifty feet away and he could just make out the soft murmur of conversation. He cupped his hand behind his right ear to help catch the sound and pointed it towards the fire. The right ear was preferred because it fed a fraction more directly to the left hemisphere of the brain, which processes all sound data.

“His death will be the signal,” the Latin said. “Unless he dies immediately …” the rest was unintelligible.

So it was a hit, the Scorpion thought. But who was the target?

One of the Arabs said something about the “Israeli dogs” and he saw Prince Abdul Sa’ad dismiss the notion with a wave of his hand.

“Can their ground forces cross the Nefud?” Abdul Sa’ad said and there was a murmur of agreement from the others mingled with a few chuckles at the insanity of any land force attempting to strike across the hundreds of miles of sand dunes that were the Nefud desert.

The Scorpion stiffened, unable to believe what he was hearing. It was the craziest thing he had ever heard. What on earth could ever make the Israelis want to cross the Nefud? To go where? Riyadh? And for what purpose? To get to the Nefud, the Israelis would first have to conquer all of Jordan and a good chunk of the Middle East besides! Not even the most fanatic religious nut of the right-wing Israeli Likud party would ever even conceive of the idea. Yet, here were powerful intelligent men actually discussing the bizarre notion. It was crazy!