at PERIL in RIYADH

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Chapter One

It was an arid and alien land. The strangeness was not geographic, for the Saudi Arabian desert surrounding Riyadh looked like the Arizona of his youth, but the culture and the people were different, and David Larsen hid himself there, lost among the other foreigners living on the oil money.

David was no oilman. Though he had broad shoulders and large, strong hands, they were uncalloused, accustomed to surgical tools rather than wrenches, pipes, or chains.

By moonlight, he ran on the sand that covered the bottom of a wadi. In western America, he would be in an arroyo, a gulch, or a dry wash. Better than running on asphalt or concrete. He neither noted nor cared which way the dry bed twisted and turned. He did not like desolation, and only discipline brought him here each day. In olden times, there might have been desert lions or leopards, but now he feared only snakes.

He stifled a shudder as a memory intruded. When he was very young, older boys had pinioned his arms and draped a slithering, alien monster around his neck. They had not told him the gopher snake was harmless.

To suppress the pain of memory, David had long since slipped into a counting compulsion, and so he numbered his long, easy strides. Hardly winded when he reached two thousand, he climbed the banks of the dry streambed. The perspiration evaporated into the dry air as quickly as it formed; his shirt was not even moist. Such a run a few hours later could end in dehydration and collapse in the rays of the September sun. But, as in all deserts, the cold of night lingered, and there were goose bumps on his naked arms.

He stared to the east. His watch read twenty-nine minutes after five; the sky was almost light enough to tell the difference between a white and a black thread. Had Muslims of previous generations similarly identified the coming of dawn? The sounds from the city carried the mournful Muezzin calls from hundreds of minarets, not quite in unison and sounding like a series of small echoes repeated in a haunting minor key.

Allahu Akhbar. Allahu Akhbar. God is most Great. I testify that there is no God but God. I testify that Muhammad is the Prophet of God. Come to prayer! Come to salvation! Prayer is better than sleep. God is most Great. Allahu Akhbar! There is no God but God!

Like ghosts, wavering images appeared as the darkness began to vanish. Only the faint, bulbous tops of minarets relieved the stark rectangles of thousands of buildings. Most Arabs in the city would still be abed, and only a few of the faithful would begin the Morning Prayer, bowing and kneeling and prostrating toward the West, toward Makka, the Holy City.

With no interest in prayer, David turned away from Riyadh. A faint, silent breeze blew, but, upwind of the city, no smells reached his nostrils. He stared into the distance. He knew life was there—lizards, snakes, and birds. Among the low hills of broken shale, living plants existed—widely spaced scrub bushes in the shallow valleys, tufts of grass, and other camel browse, but not a tree in sight. Only a wasteland, as if God had furnished it with leftovers. He let the loneliness engulf him.

One hundred and fifty miles to the south lay the edge of the Rub al Khali, the Empty Quarter, an area as big as Texas, all sand dunes. He longed for such desolation where he could embrace complete loneliness. David tried to pray but could not do so coherently and rejected the memorized prayers of Muslims or Christians. Angry with God, he did not feel solace.

He turned again to the city. Riyadh was almost as desolate as this desert. If there were no oil, he and a million other foreigners would not have come to this place. Where might he have gone instead?

David thought of those who had betrayed him, who had driven him to this alien culture. His wife, now his ex-wife. His partners in the Mesa Plastic Surgery Center. What could he do about them?

As the red sun rose, he turned from the glare and clambered back down into the wadi. Counting his paces, he began his lope back to the city. He always tried to make the return number the same two thousand, but it never happened.

He reached seventeen hundred and sixty-three when he came around a sharp turn to find himself confronting a browsing camel. Startled, David swerved to the right, struck his shin against a boulder, and lost his balance. Reacting as he had in his football years, he broke his fall with a shoulder roll. The camel raised its head high in an aloof, regal posture. Chewing on its mouthful of grass, the beast slowly turned and sauntered disdainfully away, body swaying in an awkward gait.

As he clutched a bleeding leg, David shouted, "Damn you, you stupid camel! Why don't you look where you're going? And damn your careless master! What in hell are you doing out here?"

David cursed this barren country and its arrogant, aggressive inhabitants. He continued his curses, including people in general and his betrayers and enemies back home. And there were special words for the woman who had forsaken him. He damned all who had conspired to isolate him here, six thousand miles from home. And from Joshua, his son.

He seized a stone, writhed to his feet, and hurled it after the long-gone beast. Limping, he walked the rest of the way to his car.

By now, the sun stood halfway above the horizon, a splendor of red and gold. He drank water from a cooler, then bathed his injury. The pain of the raw abrasion lingered, as did his anger.

But then he threw back his head and laughed aloud as he realized the futility of cursing a camel. Well, at least he felt something. He had finished his run without counting, and, by God, without looking for snakes. Surrender had brought him to Arabia; he would use anger to get back out. Away from the emptiness surrounding him. Away from aggressive Arabs. Away from loneliness. Home. Back into the world of men he understood. And of women he did not. And back to his son.

In darkness, within a grove of date palms, Mansur sat in the driver's seat of a huge, rented dump truck, one hand on the steering wheel. He pulled a cigarette from the pack of Lucky Strikes and put it between his lips.

For five days, he had followed the dakhtar to this place. Saw him disappear into the wadi and waited for him to return. The man would always stop by his little Toyota, sit sideways in the driver's seat, and drink from a water bottle. Then Mansur would watch him drive away, back to his medical clinic. Now he knew the routine and was ready. Morshed, Mansur's man, had been instructed and would follow those instructions: "Maim or kill the dakhtar, but do not let him interfere with our plan." I will squash the little Toyota like a scorpion. He glanced at his watch. Any minute now.

Chapter Two

Many in Riyadh had first learned to drive in middle age and used ancient caravan rules, which meant racing to be first at the next waterhole. David found himself following the truck that had passed him. In the rearview mirror, a silver...