Still, it should’ve been all right. After all, Macready was famous for his paranoia about security. There was even a joke that had once made the rounds at Maclean: “I overheard George calling his grandmother yesterday. Of course he ran an in-depth check on her first.” After Saigon fell, they didn’t tell it any more. Instead, it was “poor George,” or “that fucking Macready,” depending on the speaker’s politics. The Company had shipped him to Doha station hoping he’d resign. Qatar was the ultimate backwater in those days. But Macready had just hung on and on.

Harris must be pissed as hell to have to use Macready for something as hot as this, the Scorpion thought with a grim smile.

His eyes ran over the scene again. Besides Macready’s gray Chevy, there were three other cars parked outside the Sphinx. In one a couple of Qatari women sipped juice through the mouth-holes in their facemasks. Four Arab boys in a Cadillac next to theirs bobbed their heads in time to the whining amalgam of quarter-tones and rock that passes for pop music in the Gulf. The music blared so loudly it could have been used to mask jet takeoffs. The third car, a black Pontiac Trans Am convertible, was empty, the door open. Two Arabs in white dishdashas sat at the bar near Macready, as the Pakistani barman worked the electric blender. That was normal, too. The Pakistanis were cheap labor. They were to the Gulf Arabs what Mexicans were to white Californians.

That was all. Traffic on the Corniche was light and moving. There was no surveillance. Then he noticed Macready’s license plate. Damn! The idiot had used an embassy car. It was an amateurish mistake; the kind of thing Macready never would have done in Saigon. But that was another world, the Scorpion thought.

The Scorpion thought of calling it off, then changed his mind. He had to get the data and the film to Maclean. Besides, Macready had signaled the safe sign. And in his dishdasha and kaffiyeh, the Scorpion knew that he himself was fairly anonymous. To any but the most careful observer, he was just another Arab. Still, his sense of foreboding grew as he crossed the Corniche. He ordered a mishmish and sat next to Macready.

“Ya Allah, if it isn’t asayid …” the Scorpion began, smiling broadly.

“Smith,” Macready put in hurriedly. He placed the newspaper on the counter. “And you are Sheikh Ahmet’s cousin, dear Mister …”

“Abu ben Adam, may my tribe increase,” the Scorpion said drily. It was a game anyone could play.

“Yes, Mister ben Adam, of course,” Macready winced. “Perhaps you might be interested in a spare shipment of air conditioners. Very good price,” he added, rolling his eyes as if to suggest that the Qatari Customs would give their left nut to get their hands on it.