Scorpia Rising

grimace. “Please . . . ,” he whimpered. “Help me! Throw me a rope!”
    The salt climbed higher.
    Razim could feel the pressure crushing his stomach and chest. The salt pile was like some hideous creature, drawing him in, inch by inch, swallowing him alive. “You cheated me!” he screeched. “I was better than you. I should have won!”
    Alex did nothing. There was nothing he could do.
    With the last of his strength, Razim lunged for the gun, stretching his arm across the surface of the salt pile. His fingertips brushed against it. But he wasn’t close enough to pick it up. He gave up the struggle. His arm was dragged beneath the surface. The salt rose over his shoulders. Now only his head and neck were visible, as if he had been decapitated in the fight.
    “Don’t move, Alex!” One of the CIA men had reached the bridge and was crawling toward Alex. “We’re coming to get you.”
    Alex watched.
    Something horrible was happening to Razim. The salt had penetrated his skin, working its way through the pores. It was as if he was being cooked alive inside the huge pile. White foam began to bubble out of his mouth. It trailed out his eyes. Alex was reminded of a garden slug. He had heard it said that slugs died horribly if they were rolled in salt.
    “Alex . . .”
    It was Razim’s last word. His eyes were completely white. He managed to swallow one last breath, as if it would do him any good, and then he was pulled beneath the surface, disappearing altogether. For a brief moment there was a dent in the surface where he had been, then the salt poured in, filling it.
    “We’ve got you!”
    Alex felt hands grab hold of him.
    The fighting was over. Alex didn’t care. He was completely exhausted.
    As Alex was helped back down the stone staircase, he saw Arab guards lined up against the wall with their hands over their heads. There were bodies everywhere. Two Americans and a Triple Seven man had been killed, along with Blake Lewinsky. But most of the casualties were Razim’s people, lying stretched out in the bloodstained sand.
    Someone gave Alex a bottle of water. “Are you okay?”
    Alex nodded.
    “Stay here. We’ve radioed Cairo. It’s over now. There are more people on the way.”
    But ten minutes later, Alex had disappeared and at first there was panic among the special forces fighters as they searched for him, wondering what had happened. It was only much later that they found him, outside the fort, on his own, kneeling beside a burned-out car.

24

    DEPARTURES

    IT WAS TIME TO GO.
    Alan Blunt had reached his last day as head of MI6 Special Operations. He had spent the morning packing his personal possessions. It hadn’t taken him very long. In fact, they all fit inside a small shoe box that now sat in the middle of his otherwise empty desk. Of course, what he would really be taking from here would be his memories, and he certainly had enough of those. It had briefly occurred to him that he might write a memoir—it was very much the trend with politicians and departing civil servants. But of course it was out of the question. It was part of the job description that he should take his secrets to the grave. And if he tried to sell them, he might arrive there sooner than he had expected.
    He took one last look outside. It was going to be a hot summer. Liverpool Street was unusually bright with the sun flaring off the plate glass windows. There was a pigeon half asleep on the ledge outside. Do birds sleep? Blunt tapped on the glass and it flew away. He had once discussed with Smithers the possibility of using homing pigeons to listen in on foreign ambassadors. Homing pigeons with homing devices around one leg. The Covert Weapons Section had put in a feasibility study, but nothing had come of it. Blunt had seen Smithers a few weeks ago, after his return from Cairo. There had been a formal debriefing. The two of them had not said good-bye.
    Blunt went back to his desk and rested a hand on the shoe box. He was tempted to throw it in the garbage. There was nothing inside that he really wanted. Suddenly he just wanted to be out of here. In two days he was leaving for Venice, the first stopping point on a six-week tour of Europe. His wife was coming with him. It would be the longest time the two of them had spent together since the day they were married.
    The door opened and Mrs. Jones came in. The new head of Special Operations, just as he had expected. She seemed surprised to see him, but that couldn’t