Prologue for The Scorpion and the Bear

Thomas Sebastian Scott held the canteen to his mouth and sucked out the last drop of water to cool his parched lips. High noon in the desert. No shadows on the scorching hot sand. No movement. No sound. Nothing alive, neither flora nor fauna. 

“Hello,” he said in a mournful voice. “Anyone?” 

He knew better. He had been alone since daybreak, walking toward the glistening horizon many miles away. Or had he walked in circles? How could you tell in the desert?

Freshman chemistry. Silicon. SI. Atomic number 14. Microchips. Solar cells. Transistors. And fifty billion tons of sand. 

He looked into the sun and quickly jerked his head away. He hadn’t been blinded as he had once been told. And didn’t see the face of God. Nothing but concentric rings of color. And wisdom. Yes, he was suddenly imbued with wisdom. And memory. Faces long forgotten. Poetry once memorized. And formulas scrawled on a blackboard. 

Then it came in a flash. The young woman he had tutored a decade ago. The woman who had excelled as an analyst at the NSA. Rachel Sullivan—whose deafness has accentuated her other senses. He hadn’t seen her for years, but now, under the desert sun, he recalled her brilliance, her strength, and her uncanny instincts.

For a moment he saw her in the distance, holding a parasol, buried in sand up to her waist. She’s gripping a pistol and listening to a waltz from The Merry Widow. He rushed toward her, but fell as she disappeared from view. A mirage? Or a memory? 

Scott struggled to stand. After retirement, he had imagined a peaceful life. Relaxing on a swing on his front porch in West Virginia. Sitting beside Kierkegaard, his faithful six-pound papillon. Admiring the woodland flowers he so loved, picking out a favorite tune on a five-string banjo, rereading the classics, and enjoying the company of friends.

Why had they sent him to this desolate spot? And left him alone? 

The highest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 degrees. Where had that come from? Of course, from the depths of his restored memory. Even hotter today in this godforsaken patch of sand. His feet blistered from the heat rising through the soles of his L.L. Bean boots. 

Scott slapped his forehead when he sensed movement in the lifeless desert. A three-inch mottled-green lizard scampered away. He wasn’t alone. 

He smiled at his good fortune and trudged forward. After several minutes, he suddenly stopped, startled by the sight of a small biplane in the distance. “Help. I’m down here.”

The plane came lower. Had the pilot seen him? Could he land in the desert for a rescue? Closer still, Scott made out the RAF insignia and recognized the plane as a de Havilland Tiger Moth. Curious, not in production since World War Two.

It circled overhead, descending to what Scott guessed as four or five thousand feet. Then it burst into flames. “Merciful God. Help!”

The aircraft plummeted toward the earth as a parachute opened. Gently, in the still air, it glided toward him. His prayers had been answered. 

The plane crashed to the ground, ablaze in fire and shrouded in smoke.

The parachuted figure continued its slow descent. A woman waved. Could it be . . . ?

A halo appeared above her head. A fiery halo. She hit the ground with a thud, her long hair on fire. Scott rushed to rescue her and doused the flames with water from his empty canteen. A miracle! 

“Rachel. You’re safe.”

She caught her breath and pushed her wet hair from her face. “Scott? You? In the desert?”

He nodded and stepped closer. “Are you okay?”

She forced a laugh. “Not exactly, but still alive.”

The lizard returned, stopped in front of Rachel, and moved its head up and down. A nod of approval. 

Scott glanced at the burning wreckage of the biplane and then back at Rachel. “Were you in the plane alone?”

Wiggling out of the parachute straps, she rolled her eyes. “Of course. There’s only space for the pilot.”

Scott shrugged. “Forgive me, but I’d forgotten. Also, I forgot you have a pilot’s license.”

She tilted her head. “Pilot’s license? No way. But I had no choice. Had to be in Amman with my team to upgrade the servers in the data center. I couldn’t get a seat on a commercial aircraft, so I just grabbed this baby.”

He turned toward the aircraft at the sound of a massive explosion. She remained still, never distracted by an explosion or a footstep.     

Following the jolt of his body, she swiveled her head in time to see the total destruction of the aircraft. “Lucky,” she said, turning back to Scott. “And doubly lucky to be rescued by you.”

“Me? I wish. My only role was to watch you slowly return to earth.”

“And extinguish my ‘hair on fire,’” she added.

“With never-ending water from an empty canteen.” He unscrewed the cap and turned the flask upside down. “Empty again.”

“Do you know how far we are from Amman? It’s mission critical to be there by—”

A bone-chilling scream interrupted the quiet in the noonday desert. Scott covered his ears before being rudely thrown to the ground. He opened his eyes and squinted at the light. Where was Rachel?

The screaming ended. It had come from him. He was lying in his four-poster bed drenched in sweat. 

A dream? A nightmare? 

He sat up, but didn’t move for several minutes. Amman? Yeah. The postcard from Rachel.

He rubbed his eyes, pulled himself up, and sat on the edge of the bed. On the nightstand, he found the evidence. A dog-eared copy of The English Patient in which the protagonist barely survives a fiery crash in the desert. He’d used Rachel’s post card as a bookmark. He reread the words she had written in tiny cursive.

Hi Scott, Guess what? I’m being sent to our embassy in Amman with two techies. They’ll be upgrading our gear in the data center, which I am to supervise. Hope they know what they’re doing. I sure don’t. However, I’m so eager to visit Jordan and have already planned a weekend at the ruins of Petra. Hope all is well with you. Ciao, Rachel

Lucky gal, he thought. He recalled Jordan’s former King Hussein piloting his own plane. Even outside of the dream, he could see Rachel flying solo half way around the world.

Still in his pajamas, Scott followed Kierkegaard down the creaking stairs of his century-old home. Breakfast time for both of them. Last night’s leftover steak for his best friend and a bowl of Cheerios for him, along with the finest coffee brewed anywhere north of Berkeley Springs. He might have lost his touch as an NSA veteran, but not as a connoisseur of Arabica coffee. Beans roasted and ground by him and then brewed to perfection.

Kierkegaard devoured the steak in less than a minute while Scott took his first gingerly sip of the hot black coffee.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Still disturbed by the dream, suddenly a Saturday matinee at the Ice House community theater came back. Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, where Winnie greets the day trapped in a mound of sand up to her waist. 

“Another heavenly day.”