For an instant, he thought he was in a Parisian hotel, trussed to the bedposts by a prostitute he’d hired, his body pinioned while she pleased him in unimaginable ways. He could hear her soft call as her long hair caressed the area between his legs. He moaned at her touch, then suddenly the whore sank her fingernails into his chest and he cried out. The pain was like steel spikes mincing his flesh.
As he came more awake, Rufti found just enough strength to raise his head off the ground and saw a tiny creature standing on him, its noble head looking off into the vacant desert, its wickedly curved beak arrowing down toward his prone form. He knew what was going to happen to him, and the thought sent a new, keener jolt of fear through him.
“She’ll go for your eyes first, Hasaan,” Khalid Khuddari said as he came into Rufti’s view. “As I understand, they are the easiest to get at and one of the more succulent parts of the human body. Once she’s plucked them from your skull, she may rest for a while, digesting until she’s hungry enough to go after your genitals, another easy target. I suspect Sahara will be able to sever your testicles easily, but she may have to eat your penis while it’s still attached.”
Khalid whistled, and his saker falcon lifted off Rufti’s bloated body and alighted on the glove covering Khuddari’s left fist. He stroked the bird’s chest, whispering to her softly, reassuring the raptor and praising her beauty. The falcon responded to the gestures happily, preening on his arm and giving him a kweet kweet of contentment. Although she wanted to hunt, she would be just as satisfied eating the banquet laid before her.
“I can think of a great many horrible ways to die, Rufti,” Khalid continued. “But I believe being eaten alive must be one of the worst. If Sahara has a mind to, she can make this last for a few days. I suspect you’ll be dead long before she finishes her repast, but you’ll still have plenty of time to think about what you’ve done and beg for forgiveness from me and the Crown Prince and Allah Himself. I guarantee that we are so far out into the desert that your pleas will never be heard. By all means, you bastard, scream your lungs out. Sahara will enjoy her meal that much more if she knows it’s alive.
“Killing you won’t bring back the planeload of people you killed in London, or the priest or the little girl in the airport. It won’t ever avenge the death of Trevor James-Price. Nor will it forgive you for trying to assassinate me or causing the environmental damage to the United States or attempting to overthrow my country. Your death won’t even be a warning to others, because no one will know how you died. Killing you is only to satisfy my desire to feel a little safer at night, to know that there is one less madman in the world. I’ll think about your ravaged corpse when I drift off tonight, Rufti, and I’m going to smile.”
Khalid waited for a response, but Rufti’s spirit had already died. He lay there docilely, not having the strength to even whimper. Khuddari eventually turned away and let Sahara fly from his arm to streak up into the clear sky before swooping to strike at her meal.
Back at the trucks, a hundred yards from where Rufti lay staked to the ground, Khalid addressed Bigelow and Mercer. “This is going to take the rest of the afternoon. He may even live into the night. I want to be here to make sure he’s really dead, but you two don’t need to wait with me. Why don’t you go back to Abu Dhabi and enjoy yourselves? I’ll join you for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Mercer was tempted. After all the death he had seen in the past week, Khuddari’s version of desert justice was almost too much to bear. However, he demurred, wanting to witness the end of Charon’s Landing. The Bedouins built a second fire, erected a sunshade, and brought out a cooking pot for the evening meal. They boiled water for continuous cups of tea. The three men talked desultorily through the afternoon, ignoring the screams from beyond the banks of the wadi.
“So what happens next?” Mercer asked Khalid as the sun dipped below the horizon, turning the sky a rich bloodred before the beginning of twilight.
“I’m taking a few weeks off to recuperate. I’m going to London for a funeral, and then I’ll probably go to the south of France or maybe Malaga in Spain with my secretary. I think we both deserve it,” Khalid replied with a candor that surprised Colonel Bigelow. “What about you?”
“I was hoping to take your secretary to the south of France or maybe Malaga, but that’s out of the question now,” Mercer joked to mask his emotions about losing Aggie Johnston. “During my layover in New York, I checked my voice mail and discovered I had a rather intriguing message from the State Department, so I suppose it’s back to the mines for me.”
Hasaan bin-Rufti stopped screaming just after the desert settled under a blanket of darkness lit only by a sliver of moon and the coldly distant stars. Khalid’s falcon rejoined the men a few minutes later, her tight little body speckled with gore, her entire head covered with Rufti’s blood.
Mercer, Khalid, and Bigelow spent the night in the Bedouin camp, laughing until well past midnight thanks to the Colonel’s wildly exaggerated war stories. Sahara flew off once during the night to continue feeding. None of the men felt she had done enough mutilation of Rufti’s corpse. At sunup they returned to the city, leaving Rufti for the jackals and buzzards that had gathered in the night. Khalid left later that day for an extended vacation with a blushing but joyous Siri Patal while Mercer stayed in the country for another few days, resting himself and testing Bigelow’s boast that he could drink any man under the table.
Bigelow won all their competitions, but Mercer would have loved to see the Colonel go up against Harry White. The English-man wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Arlington, Virginia
Mercer swung open his front door, reveling in the feeling of being home. He stood motionless for a few minutes, watching the sunlight that played through the three-story atrium. The air was crisp; a sudden and unexpected chill had Washington in its grip, and his furnace was still off. Thinking of such a minute domestic chore as relighting the furnace pleased him more than he thought it would. Everything was finally getting back to normal.
On a table in the little-used living room was a large manila envelope addressed to him. Curious, he opened it and withdrew a single piece of paper and probably the most coveted perk in Washington — a pair of diplomatic license plates. The note read, “A gift from the people of the United Arab Emirates. Park wherever you want to and speed as much as you dare,” and was signed by Khalid Khuddari.
Mercer laughed delightedly as he twisted up the spiral staircase. When the telephone rang, he raced up the last few steps, rushed through the bar, and snatched up the handset.
“Thank God you’re there.” Harry White sounded desperate. “I forgot to buy this morning’s paper, so I couldn’t check yesterday’s crossword answers. Nine down, ‘Seduced by Zeus’?”
“Harry, I just got back,” Mercer complained, walking behind the bar and noting the four empty liquor bottles in the trash can that hadn’t been there when he’d left.
“I know, I know, but you’ve gotta help me. It’s been driving me nuts. Seduced by Zeus? Come on, you know who I’m talking about,” Harry wheedled.
“Leda?”
“No, not her, the other one. Zeus came on to Leda disguised as a swan; the one I want was seduced by a golden shower.”
Mercer laughed until his chest ached. “Shower of gold, Harry, not a golden shower. There’s a big difference, trust me.” He pulled a beer from the bar fridge, spying the half-filled wine bottle standing next to the stacks of Heinekens. Harry must have had female company. Further proof was the cigarette butts in the ashtrays. They weren’t Harry’s brand.