Scorpion Winter (2 page)

Al-Baiwani started to get into the Land Rover when Scorpion grabbed him and instead pulled him toward the front SUV. There was an Abidah driver still in it, and Scorpion fired the M-4 as he ran, bullets spiderwebbing the windshield. Shots from the other SUVs and the buildings kicked up on the street around his feet.

Scorpion fired through the SUV window at the driver, killing him. Taking an Abidah
shaal
from a dead tribesman, he tossed it to al-Baiwani, who was climbing into the SUV's passenger seat. Scorpion grabbed the dead driver's
shaal
for himself, letting the driver's body tumble into the street, then climbed in. They drove off in a hail of bullets coming from the other SUVs and the roof of the safe house.

“Use this,” Scorpion said, handing the M-4 to al-Baiwani as he swerved around a man with a donkey. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw that the other two SUVs, filled with Abidah tribesmen, were in pursuit.

“What should I do?” al-Baiwani asked.

“Shoot through the rear window!” Scorpion shouted, making a sudden turn around a corner, then careened down the street toward the main road. Al-Baiwani fired on automatic, shattering the rear window.

The first SUV made the turn and sped after them as Scorpion, tires squealing, pulled around another corner and slammed on the brakes. He jumped out, rummaged for a moment in the backseat, then grabbed the M-4 from al-Baiwani and readied the M203 launcher and loaded a grenade as the first SUV came swerving around the corner. He aimed the laser at the SUV's windshield and fired, ducking behind his SUV and pulling al-Baiwani down beside him as the grenade exploded, the hot air ripping past them.

The blast killed everyone inside the other SUV. What was left of the chassis continued rolling till it bumped against a cart by the side of the road. Scorpion reloaded the launcher with another grenade and peeked around the corner of the building. The second SUV was no longer following them. It was stopped in the middle of the street, guns bristling.

He motioned al-Baiwani back to the SUV and got back in himself. Tucking the M-4 beside him, he headed toward the main road. On the outskirts of the city they saw a roadblock ahead. It was manned by AQAP fighters, their guns aimed at them as they approached.

“What do we do?” al-Baiwani asked.

“We're Abidah, remember?” Scorpion said, touching his
shaal
and slowing as they approached the roadblock.

Scorpion and, after a moment, al-Baiwani raised their fists and shouted,
“Alahu akbar!”
The AQAP fighters shouted back,
“Alahu akbar!”
several firing their guns in the air for effect as one of them waved them through.

They drove carefully through the gap in the roadblock, Scorpion waiting until he was at least a hundred meters away before he gunned the SUV. The roadblock receded in the rearview mirror, then the last mud-brick buildings gave way to desert. Al-Baiwani looked at Scorpion but didn't say anything.

Ten kilometers on, Scorpion pulled to the side of the road and stopped. They were in a sandy desert plain, the road an empty blacktop for as far as they could see in either direction.

“Why are we stopping?” al-Baiwani asked.

Scorpion pulled out the Glock. “Where's McElroy, the American?” he said, pointing the gun at al-Baiwani's groin.

Chapter Three

Jebel Nuqum

Sana'a, Yemen

A
s the SUV approached Sana'a, the road began to fill with battered cars and trucks laden with produce. In the distance, the silhouette of Jebel Nuqum, the mountain that loomed over the city, could be seen on the horizon. Scorpion was still shaken by what he had found in the farmhouse. His cell phone call to Peterman from the road hadn't helped.

“What happened?” Scorpion had demanded.

“What do you mean? The Predator?” Peterman said, his voice somehow both distant and on edge. Scorpion wondered where he was or what drug he was on.

“This is an open line, dammit! You really want to talk in clear?”

“Right, sorry,” Peterman apologized. He was always apologizing, Scorpion thought. He was the type who had a lot to apologize for. He could almost see the sweat on Peterman's face. “Did you find you know who?” Peterman asked, meaning McElroy.

“Yes.”

“Was he . . . you know?”

“Fortunately.”

“Fortunately?”

“What do you want, a diagram?” Scorpion snapped. There were no words for what had been waiting for him and al-Baiwani at that farmhouse. Even Scorpion, who thought he had seen the worst that human beings could do to each other, had bent over the primitive iron sink heaving at what they found.

“Allahu akbar,”
God is great, a stunned al-Baiwani had muttered over and over to himself, staring blankly at the wall to avoid looking at what was left of McElroy.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had brought a lot back from Afghanistan, including something the Taliban called “undressing,” which involved making incisions in the skin around the waist and up both sides, then down to the ankles on both legs before flaying and rolling up the skin to the neck and down to the ankles. It must have taken a week for McElroy, screaming in agony and covered in blood and flies, to die. Scorpion was glad McElroy was already dead, because otherwise he would have had to kill him.

Going through the farmhouse looking for clues was creepy. The rooms smelled of death, and in one of them, there were chains embedded in a stone wall and evidence indicating that McElroy hadn't been the first person AQAP had brought there. Scorpion knew that if AQAP ever got their hands on him, they would take great pleasure in doing to him what they had done to McElroy.

“Sorry,” Peterman said again. Tell that to McElroy, you son of a bitch, Scorpion thought savagely. “We should debrief. Meet me—”

“Shut up!” Scorpion shouted into the phone, to keep Peterman from saying the address on an open line. “I know where you live. Be there,” he said, ending the call. This guy was a disaster, he thought as he drove into Sana'a traffic from the roundabout on the Khawlan. At least Rabinowich had done his prep.

Scorpion knew that Peterman had an apartment on Wadi Zahr Road, about half a mile from the American embassy. Except Peterman wasn't in his apartment. Scorpion didn't get that far. Even before he pulled up, he saw the small crowd in the street. He got out of the SUV and pushed his way through the onlookers. Peterman was lying in the gutter, blood seeping from the back of his head. Scorpion looked up at the building. Either Peterman had jumped or been pushed from his fifth-story apartment balcony. Scorpion knelt beside him, and Peterman looked up at him, his eyes wide as if with wonder.

“Hollis . . .” Scorpion began. He wasn't sure Peterman even saw him, or if he did, whether in his fake beard and the Abidah turban from Ma'rib, he recognized him. Then a flicker of something.

“Run,” Peterman said, and Scorpion saw the light go out of his eyes.

“W
hen you're blown,” goes CIA doctrine, “it's time to perform the classic military maneuver known as getting the hell out of there.” By rights, Scorpion knew he should have been on the next plane out of Sana'a. With Peterman's death, he had to assume Alex Station was blown. That could mean AQAP knew about him too.

He eased back out of the crowd gathered around Peterman. NCS protocol was to clean the dead agent's site to make sure nothing fell into the opposition's hands. Except with the body of a Westerner in the middle of the street, the Yemeni CSO security forces were sure to be on their way already. Bad as things were, if Peterman had left anything incriminating behind, it was going to get a lot worse. He looked around. Attention in the street was still on the body. He decided to chance it, but knew he would have to move fast.

He slipped into the building and went up the stairs to Peterman's floor. The hallway smelled of something burnt. The door to Peterman's apartment was closed. Scorpion tried the handle; it wasn't locked. He took out the Glock and studied the walls and door. There was every chance the door was rigged with explosives. He needed to take the time to check it thoroughly and defuse, only there was no time. The police or the CSO would be there any second. The only thing he had going for him was that whoever killed Peterman might have been in a hurry too. His fingers touched the door handle as though expecting an electric shock. He took a deep breath. They had just shoved him off the balcony, he told himself. They needed to get out of there. He grabbed the handle and opened the door.

He went in fast, ready to fire around every corner. The apartment was empty, the door to the balcony still half open. Scorpion peeked out, then closed the balcony door. The smell of smoke was strong, and he spotted the cause: an empty can of SpaghettiOs and a blackened pot on the stove. Someone had turned the gas off, but the pot was still warm. The apartment hadn't been ransacked. Whoever had pushed Peterman off the balcony must've taken off immediately.

Scorpion moved quickly, going through drawers and shelves looking for anything incriminating. Peterman's laptop was still on the bed. Why hadn't they removed it? He thought for a second and it hit him. He removed the hard drive from the laptop and dropped it into his pocket. Odds were, it had Trojan horse software on it, in which case AQAP knew everything Peterman knew.

From outside, he could hear the klaxons of approaching police vans. They would be coming up the stairs any minute. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and did a fast wipe-down of everything he'd touched, then made his way down the stairs and out the back of the building.

The clock had started ticking the instant Peterman hit the pavement, Scorpion thought, making his way around the crowd in the street. In theory, he should've been able to make a call to Rabinowich on the way to the airport and let the Company handle it. Unfortunately, with all the ELINT in Sana'a, that could be a death warrant for everyone in Alex Station. What happened to McElroy could happen to them. He couldn't wait for Langley; he would have to warn them himself.

The CIA CP for Alex Station was a brick building on Al Quds Street in the Nuqum district. Because of Peterman, he had to assume that AQAP knew about the location too. It was now a red zone.

He caught a taxi at the corner. The driver made a face when he said “Nuqum.” Scorpion understood why. Nuqum was a
mahwa,
or slum, on the eastern side of the city, a dense maze of crumbling houses sprawling in the shadow of the mountain from which the neighborhood took its name. It was an odd location for a Company CP. The narrow streets and trash-strewn alleyways were crowded with carts and aimless young men chewing
qat
and looking for day work.

The people of the district were mostly dark-skinned Akhdam, the despised Yemeni lower class. The Yemeni proverb went: “Clean your plate if it is licked by a dog, but if it is touched by an Akhdam, break it.” As the taxi drove into the
mahwa
, prostitutes in
abayas
on street corners beckoned at passing cars, their hands fluttering like dark birds. Every car was a contest, the Akhdam women competing with the more recently arrived Somali women in their brightly colored
hijabs
who could be had for the price of a pack of cigarettes.

He told the driver to stop at a souk a few blocks from the CP building. He had to assume AQAP was watching the CP. The problem was how to get in or out without being seen or killed. He asked around the souk until he found a
qat
merchant with a truck. It took nearly an hour of haggling and making sure the merchant knew what he wanted, an hour Scorpion knew he really couldn't afford, but there wasn't much choice, not unless he wanted to end up like Peterman or McElroy.

“Ma'a salaama,”
he said to the merchant, touching his hand to his chest as he left.

“Alla ysalmak,”
the merchant said, smiling politely, but he looked at Scorpion as if he were crazy because of what they had agreed to.

Scorpion positioned himself outside a small rug store across from the CP building. He waited, putting a bulge in his cheek as though he were chewing
qat
. It's taking too long, he thought, anticipating a bullet coming his way any second. He was wondering if the merchant was going to cheat him when he saw it.

The truck loaded with thick bundles of
qat
turned the corner and rumbled down the street toward the building. When he saw the driver's face he nodded, and the driver nodded back. As the truck rumbled past, someone pushed a heavy bale of
qat
leaves out of the back, then the truck sped up, turned a corner and was gone.

Along the street, a group of young men stopped what they were doing and for a second everything was still, then the street erupted. The young men rushed the bale of
qat
, everyone grabbing handfuls of leaves and stuffing them into their clothes and the bags they made out of their
shaals
. People began to pour into the street. It was like an instant holiday, everyone grabbing
qat
and shouting for his friends to come, women screaming and ululating, children running between adults' legs to grab loose leaves and twigs. In all the commotion, Scorpion was able to slip unnoticed into the building.

A burly American with a military haircut sat at a desk near the front door, a pistol pointed at him. The man wasn't in uniform, but he had U.S. Marines or Special Forces painted all over him. Standing next to the desk, a Latino man leveled the business end of an M-16 at him as well.

“What do you want, Mohammed?” the American demanded.

“Have you ever been to Biloxi?” Scorpion said.

“No, but I've been to Gulfport twice,” the man replied, completing the sequence. “Who are you?” he asked then, not putting the gun down.

“Where's Ramis?” According to Rabinowich, someone new, Donald Ramis, was the CIA's Alex Station Chief for Sana'a.

“He's out. Talking with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” The American made a face.

“Who the hell are they?”

“Sorry. It's our little nickname for Ali Abdullah and his council,” meaning the President of Yemen.

“Take this,” Scorpion said, handing him the hard drive.

“What is it?”

“From Peterman's laptop. He's dead,” Scorpion said.

“Jesus,” the American said, the light beginning to dawn. “Are we blown?”

“What do you think?”

“Shit,” the American said. “Time to get out of this shithole.”

“Tell Langley be careful with the hard drive. Probably got malware on it,” Scorpion said, peeking out the front door. There were men loading donkeys with sacks of
qat
from the fallen bale. Squinting against the sunlight, Scorpion scanned the street and the rooflines. It looked all right, but odds were better than even somebody was watching.

“Hey, amigo! Thanks,” the American called out, already talking on the phone, but by then Scorpion was gone.

B
ack in Western clothes and minus the beard, on the way to the airport, he thought that however it turned out, his part in this was over. As his taxi turned onto Airport Road, he spotted a white Toyota Camry two cars behind them, switching lanes when his driver did.

“Make a U-turn,” Scorpion told the driver in Arabic.

“But the airport is this way,” the driver said.

“I'll give you a hundred rials. Make the turn now!” Scorpion said, taking out the money.

After a moment's hesitation, the taxi veered suddenly into the opposite lane. An oncoming car jammed on its brakes, the driver's eyes wide, cars and trucks honking from both directions as the taxi sped back toward the center of the city. Looking back, Scorpion saw the Camry make the same turn, drivers cursing and shaking their fists. Although at this angle he couldn't be sure, he thought that the two men in the Camry tied their
shaals
like Abidah.

He couldn't help it. He thought about McElroy in the farmhouse. He told the driver there was another two hundred in it for him if he lost the Camry. The man weaved through the streets, turning corners and darting through gaps as they neared the old city. Scorpion looked back. For the moment the Camry was out of sight. He spotted a taxi parked by a small hotel, facing the opposite direction. But he needed to change the image.

“U'af!”
Stop! “Give me your
shaal
,” Scorpion demanded, shoving rials at the driver.

They screeched to a stop. The man took off his turban and Scorpion put it on, grabbed his carry-on and jumped out of the taxi. He ran across to the other taxi, jumped in, and in seconds they were off.

As his driver made the turn toward the airport, Scorpion saw the Camry come barreling down the other way, the two Abidah men inside scanning the street like crazy, a farmhouse no doubt on their mind.