She leaned over and blew more air into Andrea's mouth, but the swelling in her throat was hindering the pa.s.sage of air into her lungs. If Harel didn't treat the shock straight away, her friend would be dead.

And it'll be your fault, for being such a coward and climbing up on the table.

'What the h.e.l.l happened?' said the priest, running to the cabinet. 'She's in shock?'

'Get out,' Doc screamed at the half-dozen sleepy heads peering into the infirmary. Harel didn't want one of the scorpions to escape and find some other victim. 'A scorpion stung her, Father. There are three in here right now. Be careful.'

Father Fowler flinched slightly at the news and moved carefully towards the doctor with the epinephrine and syringe. Harel immediately injected five CCs into Andrea's naked thigh.

Fowler grabbed a five-gallon jar of water by the handle.

'You take care of Andrea,' he told the doctor. 'I'll find them.'

Harel now turned all her attention to the young reporter, although by this point all she could do was observe her condition. It would be the epinephrine that would have to work its miraculous effect. As soon as the hormone entered Andrea's bloodstream, the nerve endings in her cells would start firing. The fat cells in her body would begin to break up the lipids to free extra energy, her heart rate would increase, her blood would carry more glucose, her brain would start producing dopamine, and most importantly, her bronchial tubes would dilate and the swelling in her throat disappear.

With a loud gulp, Andrea took her first breath of air on her own. To Dr Harel, the sound was almost as beautiful as the three dry thuds of Father Fowler's gallon jug that she had heard in the background as the medicine continued to work. When Father Fowler sat down on the floor next to her, Doc had no doubt that the three scorpions were now reduced to three stains on the floor.

'And the antidote? Something to deal with the poison?' asked the priest.

'Yes, but I don't want to inject her just yet. It's made from the blood of horses that have been exposed to hundreds of scorpion stings so that eventually they become immune. The vaccine always carries traces of the toxin, and I don't want to risk another shock.'

Fowler watched the young Spaniard. Her face was slowly starting to look normal again.

'Thank you for everything you've done, Doctor,' he said. 'I won't forget it.'

'No problem,' replied Harel, who was by now all too conscious of the danger they had been through, and began to shake.

'Will there be any after-effects?'

'No. Her body can fight against the poison now.' She raised the green vial. 'This is pure adrenalin, it's like giving her system a weapon. All the organs in her body will double their capacity and prevent her from choking. She'll be all right in a couple of hours, although she will feel like s.h.i.t.'

Fowler's face relaxed a little. He pointed to the door.

'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'I'm no idiot, Father. I've been in the desert hundreds of times in my country. The last thing I do at night is make sure all the doors are closed. In fact, I double check. This tent is more secure than a Swiss bank account.'

'Three scorpions. All at the same time. In the middle of the night . . .'

'Yes, Father. That's the second time someone has tried to kill Andrea.'

49.

ORVILLE WATSON'S SAFE HOUSE OUTSKIRTS OF WASHINGTON, DC.

Friday, 14 July 2006. 11:36 p.m.

Ever since he had started hunting terrorists, Orville Watson had taken a series of basic precautions: making sure he had telephone numbers, addresses and postal codes under different names, then buying a house through an unnamed foreign a.s.sociation that only a genius would have been able to trace to him. An emergency hideout in case things got ugly.

Of course, a safe house only you know of has its problems. For a start, if you want to stock it with supplies then you have to do so on your own. Orville took care of that. Once every three weeks he would take to the house cans, meat for the freezer, and a stack of DVDs of the latest films. He'd then get rid of anything that was out of date, lock up the place and leave.

It was paranoid behaviour . . . no question about it. The only mistake Orville had ever made, other than letting himself be followed by n.a.z.im, was that the last time he'd been there he'd forgotten the bag of Hershey bars. It was an unwise addiction, not only because of the 330 calories per bar, but because an emergency order to Amazon might let the terrorists know that you were inside the house they were watching.

But Orville hadn't been able to help himself. He could've done without food, water, internet access, his collection of s.e.xy photos, his books or his music. But when he'd entered the house in the early hours of Wednesday morning, thrown the fireman's coat into the garbage bin and looked into the cupboard where he stored his chocolate and saw that it was empty, his heart had sunk. He couldn't go three or four months without chocolate, having been totally hooked ever since his parents' divorce.

I could've had a worse addiction, he thought, trying to calm himself. Heroin, crack, voting Republican. Heroin, crack, voting Republican.

Orville had never tried heroin in his life, but not even the overwhelming craziness of that drug couldn't compare to the uncontrollable rush he felt when he heard the sound of foil crackling as he unwrapped his chocolate.

If Orville were to go all Freudian, he might have decided that this was because the last thing the Watson family had done together before the divorce was to spend the Christmas of 1993 at his uncle's house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As a special treat his parents took Orville to the Hershey factory, which was only fourteen miles from Harrisburg. Orville grew weak at the knees when they first entered the building and absorbed the aroma of the chocolate. He was even given some Hershey bars with his name on them.

But now Orville was even more worried by another sound: that of breaking gla.s.s, if his ears weren't playing tricks on him.

He carefully pushed aside a small pile of chocolate wrappers and got out of bed. He had resisted touching the chocolate for three hours, a personal record, but now that he'd finally given in to his addiction, he planned to go all out. And again, if he'd gone all Freudian about it, he would have worked out that he had eaten seventeen chocolates, one for each member of his company who had died in Monday's attack.

But Orville didn't believe in Sigmund Freud and his head trips. For a case of broken gla.s.s, he believed in Smith & Wesson. That's why he kept a .38 Special next to his bed.

It can't be. The alarm is on.

He picked up the gun and an object that sat next to it on the night table. It looked like a key chain, but it was a simple remote control with two b.u.t.tons. The first set off a silent alarm at the police station. The second set off a siren throughout the estate.

'It's so loud it could wake up Nixon and get him tap dancing,' the man installing the alarm had said.

'Nixon's buried in California.'

'Now you know how powerful it is.'

Orville pressed both b.u.t.tons, not wanting to take any chances. On hearing no siren, he wanted to beat the s.h.i.t out of the cretin who had installed the system and sworn that it was impossible to disconnect.

s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, Orville swore to himself, clutching the gun. What the h.e.l.l do I do now? The plan was to get here and be safe. What about the mobile . . .? What the h.e.l.l do I do now? The plan was to get here and be safe. What about the mobile . . .?

It was on the night table on top of an old copy of Vanity Fair Vanity Fair.

His breathing became shallow and he began to sweat. When he'd heard the breaking gla.s.s - probably in the kitchen - he'd been sitting in his bed, in the dark, playing The Sims The Sims on his laptop and sucking on the chocolate still stuck to the wrappers. He hadn't even realised that the air-conditioning had stopped a few minutes earlier. on his laptop and sucking on the chocolate still stuck to the wrappers. He hadn't even realised that the air-conditioning had stopped a few minutes earlier.

They probably cut the electricity at the same time as the supposedly foolproof alarm system. Fourteen thousand bucks. Son of a b.i.t.c.h!

Now, as his fear and the sticky Washington summer drenched him in sweat, his grasp on the gun became slippery and each step he took felt precarious. There was no doubt that Orville had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

He crossed the dressing room and looked out into the hallway of the top floor. n.o.body there. There was no way to get down to the first floor other than the stairs, but Orville had a plan. At the end of the hall, on the opposite side to the stairs, there was a small window, and outside a rather puny cherry tree that refused to bloom. No matter. The branches were thick and near enough to the window to allow someone as nonathletic as Orville to try to descend that way.

He got down on all fours and tucked the gun into the tight elastic band of his shorts, then made his large body crawl the ten feet across the rug to the window. Another noise from the floor below confirmed that someone really had broken into the house.

Opening the window, he gritted his teeth the way thousands of people do each day when they are attempting not to make any noise. Fortunately, their lives don't depend on it; unfortunately, his most certainly did. He could already hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

Abandoning all caution, Orville stood up, opened the window, and leaned out. The branches were roughly five feet away, and Orville had to stretch right out even for his fingers to graze one of the thicker ones.

That's not going to work.

Without thinking twice, he put one foot on the window sill, pushed off and made a leap that not even the kindest person watching could have termed graceful. His fingers managed to grab hold of the branch, but in jumping the gun slipped into his shorts, and after a brief, cold contact with what he called 'little Timmy', it slipped down his leg and fell into the garden.

f.u.c.k! What else can go wrong?

At that moment the branch broke.

Orville's full weight landed on his rear end, making quite a bit of noise. More than thirty per cent of the cloth of his shorts didn't survive the fall, as he later realised when he saw the bleeding cuts on his behind. But at that particular moment he didn't notice them because his only concern was to get that same behind as far away as possible from the house, so he headed for the gate of his property, some sixty-five feet down the hill. He didn't have the keys to the gate, but he'd chew his way through it if necessary. Halfway down the hill, the fear attacking him inside was replaced by a sense of accomplishment.

Two impossible escapes in one week. Suck on that, Batman.

He couldn't believe it, but the gate was open. Reaching his arms forward in the dark, Orville headed for the exit.

Suddenly, from the shadows of the wall surrounding the property a dark form emerged and crashed against his face. Orville felt the full force of the blow, and heard a horrible crunching sound as his nose broke. Whimpering and grabbing at his face, Orville fell to the ground.

A figure came running down the path from the house and placed a pistol at the back of his neck. The move was unnecessary since Orville had already pa.s.sed out. Standing next to his body was n.a.z.im, nervously holding the shovel with which he had hit Orville after a.s.suming the cla.s.sic stance of a batter facing a pitcher. It had been a perfect swing. n.a.z.im had been a good hitter when he played baseball at school, and in an absurd sort of way he thought that his coach would have been proud to see him make such a fantastic swing in the dark.

'Didn't I tell you?' said Kharouf, between gasps. 'The broken gla.s.s works every time. They run like scared little rabbits wherever you want them to go. Come on, put that down and help me get him into the house.'

50.

THE EXCAVATION.

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN.

Sat.u.r.day, 15 July 2006. 6:34 a.m.

Andrea woke up feeling like she had been chewing on cardboard. She was lying on an examination table next to which Father Fowler and Dr Harel, both in pyjamas, were dozing off on chairs.

She was about to get up to head for the bathroom when the zip on the doorway opened and there was Jacob Russell. Kayn's a.s.sistant had a walkie-talkie on his belt and a pensive frown on his face. Seeing that the priest and the doctor were asleep, he tiptoed over to the table and whispered to Andrea.

'How are you?'

'Remember the morning after the day you graduated?'

Russell smiled and nodded.

'Well, the same, but it's as if they subst.i.tuted brake fluid for the booze,' Andrea said, holding her head.

'We were very worried about you. What happened to Erling, and now this . . . We're having a lot of bad luck.'

At that moment Andrea's guardian angels awoke simultaneously.

'Bad luck? That's bulls.h.i.t,' Harel said, stretching in her chair. 'What happened here was attempted murder.'

'What are you saying?'

'I'd like to know too,' Andrea said, shocked.

'Mr Russell,' Fowler said, standing up and going over to the a.s.sistant, 'I'm formally requesting that Ms Otero be evacuated to the Behemoth Behemoth.'

'Father Fowler, I appreciate your concern for Ms Otero's welfare, and normally I'd be the first to agree with you. But doing that would mean breaking the rule about the security of the operation and that's a huge step-'

'Listen-' Andrea broke in.

'Her health is in no immediate danger, is it, Dr Harel?'

'Well . . . technically no,' said Harel, forced to concede.

'A couple of days and she'll be as good as new.'

'Listen to me . . .' Andrea insisted.

'You see, Father, it wouldn't make sense to evacuate Ms Otero before she's had a chance to accomplish her task.'

'Even when somebody is trying to kill her?' Fowler said tensely.

'There's no proof of that. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the scorpions got into her sleeping bag but-'

'STOP!' Andrea screamed.

Astonished, the three turned towards her.