Charon's Landing

The United Arab Emirates

The dry desert heat beat down with the intensity of a blast furnace. Great downdrafts of molten air stirred the dust of the open rocky plain into whirling spirals that grew so large they collapsed under their own weight, vanishing as quickly as they formed. The sky was a cerulean blue dome over the barren earth, hazed only to the west where the far edge of the Rub’ al Khali, the great Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert, met the waters of the southern Persian Gulf. The landscape was as desolate as the surface of the moon. There was little vegetation, only a few camel thorn trees and sparse sage. Rocky outcrops were baked so fiercely by the sun that many were split apart like overripe fruit.

The land was a thousand shades of color, from the blinding white of the sand dunes that marched in waves to the distant horizon to the deepest black of the Hajar Mountains across the border in Oman, yet much of the sand was stained pink by iron oxide. It was as if the desert were rusting. The late afternoon temperature hovered above one hundred and ten, and even with the coming evening, it wouldn’t dip more than a few degrees.

The khamsin, the scorching summer wind that tore across the land, was still strong this late in the year. It raked the surface of the earth, gouging it, shaping it as it had for a hundred million years. It forged an uncompromising environment that supported only the most hearty species.

Prince Khalid Al-Khuddari stood proudly in the open desert, the brutal heat raising only a thin layer of sweat under the thin cotton of his bush shirt. He was a creature of the desert, as hard and uncompromising and starkly handsome as the land around him. He was naturally light-skinned, but the time he spent in the desert had darkened him, turning his face and arms a dark mahogany. His high cheekbones and strong, hooked nose made him look like an American Plains Indian, his thick black hair and dark eyes only adding to the allusion.

He was tall, just over six feet, and he held his body erect and alert. In the open V of his shirt, his chest was smooth and hairless, almost like that of a boy, but the muscles stood out sharply. His belly was greyhound thin yet rippled like a streambed. He held his left hand at chest height, his elbow crooked so he could regard the creature perched on his gauntleted wrist. If any animal captured the essence of Khalid Al-Khuddari, it was the saker falcon gripping him so strongly with its talons that he could feel their needle tips piercing the leather of the falconer’s glove.

The saker, the second largest of the species falconidae, stood just over nineteen inches, with a reddish brown body and a neat pale head. Its beak, so sharply curved that it almost touched its breast, was as deadly as a scimitar, while its eyes were arguably the keenest in nature. The bird was known as one of the finest hunters in the world, with a determination and courage that were the basis of legend.

Used for falconry since generations before the horse was domesticated, the saker had the longest history of coexistence with man of any animal except the dog. Considered a sport of the noble elite of Europe since they learned of it during the Crusades, falconry is as much a part of the Arab culture as the five Pillars of Islam. In decline in the West because of an emotional animal rights movement, falconry thrived in the Gulf States. It was a pastime of both the wealthy and the poor. In fact, Khalid had learned it from a desert Bedouin, an elder of one of the tribes that had wandered the Arabian Peninsula since before the Prophet heard the word of God.

This falcon, a female named Sahara, was quiescent, calmly listening to the soothing words of her master, her head covered by an ornate leather hood so that she would not take flight until Khalid was ready to hunt her. Leather jesses tied around her tarsus, the naked part of her legs above her claws, leashed her to Khalid’s glove. He stroked her wings and the bird responded with a quiet kweet kweet, a sure sign of her contentment, much like the purr of a tabby cat.

“Are you ready, my darling?” Khalid asked the raptor, his face so close to the bird that his breath made her shift her weight. The tiny bells around her ankles chimed softly.

Though he felt alone with his falcon in the great desert, Khalid was not. Behind him, under a dazzlingly white bell tent, forty guests watched him from the tables laid specifically for the hunt. He and his guests had just finished a late lunch of lamb grilled over open fires and strong cheeses and dates, washed down with French champagne. Many of the assembled felt that they were emulating their early tribal history. Used to the air-conditioned comfort of Abu Dhabi City, they thought that the afternoon in the open country was a great adventure. That the tent had been set up for them and that a small army of servants ensured that their wineglasses never emptied was lost on them. Their roots had been yanked up by the Western influences that had poured into the country since oil was discovered in 1958.

Khalid looked behind him. Beyond the tent, the road was hidden by a small dune, but he could see the top of the two Daihatsu trucks that had brought the men and equipment for the outing. He knew that there was a fleet of Mercedes limousines near the trucks, their drivers waiting patiently while their pampered charges enjoyed themselves. He did not blame his guests for their wealth and privilege, for he was one of them, but he felt a twinge of disappointment that none of them shared his love of the land that had given them the lifestyle to which they had grown overly accustomed.

The land. Khalid turned back, ignoring the waves of greeting from a few of the women. The land. It gave no indication of the wealth it stored.

The United Arab Emirates had known three great periods of prosperity, once as one of the great pearl-producing areas of the world, once as an active piracy coast, and now as the home of one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. The fact that there were thirty-two billion barrels of oil trapped beneath the coastal plain and shallow offshore shelf of the UAE was not lost to Khalid Al-Khuddari. He knew that the open market price of Brent light sweet crude closed up a dollar and a half the day before, which translated into $750 billion buried in the desert. That wealth was spread among the Emirates’ two hundred thousand citizens, giving them the second highest per capita income in the world.

Khalid tracked these numbers and knew what they meant because he was Abu Dhabi’s Petroleum Minister, the UAE’s official representative to OPEC. Even though all seven of the autonomous Sheikdoms that made up the United Arab Emirates now had Petroleum Ministers, only Abu Dhabi, with the lion’s share of the oil, had the clout to join OPEC. After Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the UAE possessed more oil than any other nation within the cartel and thus wielded a great deal of power determining oil policy and prices. This power and responsibility were newly laid upon Khalid’s shoulders following the untimely death from lung cancer of Abu Dhabi’s previous Oil Minister.

His elevation to such a position of authority was highly unusual, not only because of his youth — Khalid would turn forty in two years — but also because he was not a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family. He wasn’t even part of the same tribe as the Crown Prince Shaik. Khalid’s people were the wanderers of the open desert, the Bedouin who knew no border but the ones their herds of goats and camels established. They owed no loyalty or allegiance to any but their own and the Sharia, the law of Islam.

Khalid’s father may not have owed allegiance to any man, but the ruler of Abu Dhabi owed the Al-Khuddari family a great debt because of the support they had given during the early years of the UAE’s independence from Britain. Because of this, Khalid was given a European education, Eton, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics, and when he returned to his homeland, his sharp mind and keen negotiation skills launched him on the fast track within the Emirates’ Oil Ministry.

The death of the previous Minister, following so closely after the American President’s announcement to suspend oil imports, had thrown the Ministry into chaos. Old guard clashed with the new generations of technocrats who had grown up with the affluence oil had brought, never knowing the poverty that had gripped the region prior to World War II. In the end, it was decided to turn the job over to someone outside of the ruling family and thus disassociated from the familial infighting.

Khalid realized that the debt to his father had been paid and that he himself was now beholden to the royal family of Abu Dhabi, a responsibility he took seriously, not only as the Oil Minister but also as an ad hoc family member. It was in this last capacity that he’d called this hunt, not to allow him an afternoon pursuing one of his great passions, but as a demonstration.

“Gentlemen,” he called over one broad shoulder while stroking the breast of the hooded falcon. “Why don’t you join me for a much better view.”

The twenty or so men around the long table got to their feet, tossing crumpled linen napkins on their chairs and generating a polite wave of laughter from their wives and girlfriends at their parting comments. The Oil Minister of Ajman had to be levered up from the table by two brawny escorts. Hasaan bin-Rufti weighed five hundred pounds at least, his body a shapeless, bulging mass. His neck was hidden by layers of fat that hung from his chin like the dewlap of an ox. His hands resembled surgical gloves that had been inflated to the bursting point, and despite his Semitic complexion, Rufti’s skin was whitened by the internal pressure of adipose tissue. The sweat and fat on his body gave him a maggoty sheen, and his white suit looked almost as large as the tent. As he labored across the loose sand, his body quivered like some gelatinous dessert.

Khalid noted that Rufti’s pet psychopath, Abu Alam, wasn’t present. His sources had told him that Alam had been out of the country for some time. Because Khalid’s spy network was strongest in Europe and they couldn’t find the French-born Algerian who tried to pass himself off as a Muslim fanatic, he suspected that Alam was somewhere in the United States.

As the men approached, Rufti taking up the rear as he wheezed across the desert, Khalid held up a hand to stop them about fifteen yards away. Any closer and they would distract his falcon.

Sahara was an eyas, a bird taken young and raised by hand, long before she had gone through her first molt and learned to fly. Khalid had several birds that he hunted, most of them haggards, falcons taken as adults and thus more difficult to train, but Sahara was his favorite, not only for her brave heart and unbounded loyalty but also because she was the first bird Khalid had trained after his return from school. Though she was getting old, almost too old for the hunt, she still possessed a special place in his heart.

One hundred yards farther out in the desert, in the thin shadow of a desiccated tree, two assistants waited by a large plastic and steel cage. Inside was a bustard, a huge game bird with a gray body and black tiger stripes across its broad back. It was a European bird, especially brought to the Middle East for the hunt. It was much larger than the indigenous birds of the Gulf, with nearly a seven-foot wingspan.

“Just so you’ll know what to expect,” Khalid addressed his guests in English since several Westerners were present as well as UAE citizens, “when I signal my clansmen at the cage, they will release the prey and it will fly straight for us. Don’t be alarmed by its size — it will never reach us. Are you ready?”

They nodded eagerly. They might have lost some of their heritage, but the spark of their ancestors’ way of life still burned within them. It could be seen in their eyes and the alert carriages of their heads and shoulders. Wealth had not quite wiped clean the slate that hundreds of generations of desert living had etched onto their spirits.

Khalid shifted his gaze and saw that Hasaan Rufti looked bored, his piggy eyes darting back to the food left on the table.

No one saw the hand signal — it was just a discreet wrist flick — but all at once the cage opened and a massive shape flew from it, lifting itself off the desert on huge outspread wings. Its flight kicked up dust until it reached a height of about fifteen feet. Despite its size, everyone knew immediately that the hunt wouldn’t be a contest, for the falcon’s speed was legendary and the bustard was merely lumbering through the air like an overloaded cargo plane.

The bird did not see the motionless men, or chose to ignore them in its desire to get away from the cage. It flew directly toward Khalid and the small falcon perched on his arm. Khalid had devised a system to unhood his falcon and slip the jesses in one motion so he could marvel at the swiftness with which she acquired her target and lifted to give chase. Faster than any human could react, Sahara saw the bustard and was gone, her lunge aloft pushing Khalid’s arm to his side.

Khalid had timed the intercept perfectly. The bustard wheeled in the air as soon as it saw the falcon, its ungainly body seemingly turning inside out in its desperate attempt to flee as Sahara rocketed toward it. The birds were thirty yards from the men, who were tensing for the inevitable collision with morbid fascination. A couple of them actually cringed when they saw the two bodies meet in midair. But there was no strike.

Like owls and other birds that had been the prey of falcons, the bustard had a few moves left, and just as Sahara torqued her body to strike with her talons, the bustard flipped itself in the air, twisting and lifting just the few inches it needed to ensure that the raptor missed. Like a combat pilot, the bustard began driving for altitude, pounding the air fiercely. Sahara turned the instant she realized that the bustard was still in the air and started her pursuit.

This was the type of hunt that all falconers dreamed of, the hunt that had thrilled countless ages of men who had watched their birds spiral upward, circling their slower prey so as to overtake without drifting away from their masters. As he watched Sahara dissolve into the sky, Khalid felt a special kinship not only to his ancestors but to the bird itself.

The falcon quickly caught up with the fleeing bustard and continued beyond, flying upward until she was invisible from the ground. At the apex of her spiraling parabola, Sahara winged over and stooped, tucking herself into a deadly bomb aimed at the lumbering bustard, special flaps in her nostrils protecting her lungs from the 180 mph force of her fall. She was one-fifth the size of her target, rocketing downward with the courage that was her breed.

The strike was inaudible, but those on the ground saw it happen. Sahara knifed into the bustard, breaking its back so surely that its wings folded completely in on themselves. The large bird began to fall, cartwheeling to the earth in an untidy pile of shattered bones, blood, and feathers.

Khalid didn’t need the lure in the pouch around his waist to bring Sahara back to his arm; she flew to him even as the bustard was falling, alighting on his arm gently, dissimulating the power and fury she had just shown. He slipped the hood back over her head and reattached the jesses as soon as she’d finished rearranging the long feathers on her wings.

The men burst into applause, and behind them, the women added their acclamation. Sahara preened and called quietly, as if she knew the ovation was for her.

“I will be a while. Why don’t you all rejoin the ladies and start off to my house at the Al-Ain oasis. I shouldn’t be more than half an hour,” Khalid called to his guests.

The entertainment was over, so the men were now anxious to leave. None of them offered to stay and assist Khalid while he finished his work with the falcon. This was the new way, he supposed, the way taught to them in America and Europe, instant gratification coupled with attention spans shorter than young children’s.

“Minister Rufti,” he said, his gaze locked on the corpulent minister from Ajman, the smallest of the Emirates. “Why don’t you walk with me?”

Hasaan bin-Rufti realized that Khalid’s invitation was more of an order than a request, but he tried to demure anyway. “No thank you, my friend.” The pressure of fat against his vocal cords made his voice unnaturally high. “In fact, I must take my leave now and depart for Ajman. There is an important meeting tomorrow with our Crown Prince that requires my attendance. I must decline your gracious hospitality.”

“Walk with me.” Khalid’s voice cracked like a whip.

“Of course, of course.” Rufti struggled miserably.

Khalid considered the majority of the people attending this outing to be friends or at least business acquaintances, with the sole exception of Hasaan bin-Rufti. No man represented more of what Khalid hated about what had become of his country. Rufti was slovenly, greedy, and ambitious to the point of fault. It was Rufti’s greed that prompted Khalid to invite him along. This little informal chat was the whole reason for the weekend hunt.

He waited for Rufti to waddle to his side and then turned and walked farther out into the desert, near where the two assistants were waiting by the cage that had held the bustard. As if sensing a tension in the hot air, Sahara constantly craned her head around. Though she was blinded by the hood, she seemed to be scanning the horizon for new prey.

“That bird of yours is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” There was a nervous edge to Rufti’s voice as he tried to dispel the heavy silence with words.

Khalid was withdrawn until they’d joined his assistants, not even turning to acknowledge the struggling figure beside him. From a smaller cage that had been hidden from view, one of the robed aides retrieved a large gray pigeon, the type found in city parks all over the world. The bird was not so big as it was fat, its breast almost sagging and its head movements sluggish.

“I thought that you would appreciate another demonstration of my falcon, one not so genteel as the earlier hunt.” Khalid turned to Rufti with a knowing smile. “What you saw earlier was toned down because of the ladies, but we are both men, yes? I think you will enjoy this rather more… graphic hunting style.”

Rufti relaxed at the words. Tension ran out of his shoulders so that an avalanche of fatty tissue seemed to roll down his arms and back. He laughed nervously but tried to act worldly when he responded, “I knew that falconry was a true blood sport and that you had held back.”

Khalid laughed with him, sharing a moment between mutual men of the world. “How would you like to release the pigeon?” He saw the look of distaste on Rufti’s face, so he added quickly, “It’s an honor, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” Rufti agreed despite his reluctance. “What should I do?”

The assistant placed the pigeon in Rufti’s hands, making sure that his sausage-sized fingers were wrapped securely around the fat bird. The pigeon’s body was pulpy, so soft that his fingers sank deeply before meeting the resistance of bone. Khalid pulled the hood from Sahara but kept the restraining jesses in place. The raptor locked its depthless black eyes on the pigeon, its gaze hammering the bird like a physical blow.

“Pigeons are actually intelligent birds.” Khalid wasn’t looking at Rufti as he spoke, but his voice was as riveting as the falcon’s eyes. “They eat only as much as they need to survive. Occasionally a bird will glut itself if a supply is available, and there are no predators in the area. We actually had to force-feed this one. Obesity seems to be a trait found only in humans.”

A pallor crept into Rufti’s face. He had been nervous when he had agreed to join Khalid, and now he was terrified. He had made the connection between himself and the bird as soon as his host had started to speak, but there was nothing he could do. The last of the limousines had pulled away a moment ago, taking with it his only chance of escape. All that remained were the two large trucks that would bring Khalid and his aides to the party he was throwing at Al-Ain.

“I think that—”

“Not a word.” Khalid whirled so that he faced Rufti, the falcon nearly losing her perch on his arm. “It is time for the hunt. I believe the poor creature can still fly, but we shall see.”

Rufti looked unsure, scared. He pulled the fat bird close to his chest as if its survival meant his own. “I don’t think I want to see this.”

“Release!”

Without thinking, Rufti did. The pigeon rose sluggishly from his hands, heaving itself into flight with sheer force of will. Khalid immediately loosed the jesses, and Sahara took to the wing.

The normal technique of a hunting falcon is to gain altitude and use its devastating dive to take down its prey, but Sahara ignored her instinct. The pigeon was so slow and lethargic that she came at it from behind, her amazing speed closing the distance in only a few beats of her wings. The pigeon didn’t have the strength or the ability to alter its course as it felt the falcon closing in for the kill.

Sahara raked her legs forward, drawing her talons up so she struck with her claws. At the instant of impact, she twisted slightly, tearing the pigeon into two bloody halves that she dropped immediately, contemptuously. The chase had taken seven yards. Three and a half seconds.

The two globs that had been the pigeon landed on the desert with a dull thud, spraying bright blood that soaked into the parched sand. Sahara fell onto the dead bird, tearing at it with beak and talon, stuffing her crop with strips of flesh as quickly as she ripped them from the carcass. Khalid ignored her, letting her eat her fill. He turned to Rufti, who was visibly shaken by the slaughter.

“Even a man of your limited intelligence should see significance in this situation. There are no witnesses right now; my assistants are members of my clan and would say nothing of what occurs here. Don’t think that I won’t kill you where you stand.

“I may be new to my job, Rufti, but I take my responsibilities far more seriously than you can imagine. I’ve taken the time to learn every facet of the UAE’s oil business. I’ve met hundreds of employees, from the managing directors down to the derrickmen in the field. I see all and I’m beginning to know all as well. I’ve been getting reports recently, disturbing reports of money being funneled into this country in the form of oil exploration grants, yet no work is ever done. I’ve seen entry and exit visas for men who do not exist, and I’ve heard rumors about a compound in your native Ajman, deep in the desert where no man has a reason to be.”

Khalid watched Rufti carefully and he noticed a spark of defiance burning behind the fat man’s eyes. His true character could be seen in that spark, for though he looked the fool there was true strength at the heart of that fleshy body. Maybe not now, not under these circumstances, but Hasaan Rufti was a very dangerous man.

“Eleven months ago, just a short time after the American President’s announcement, you were seen in Istanbul meeting with a man named Ivan Kerikov, a former high-ranking member of the KGB. Not long after that, money started flowing through Ajman’s Oil Ministry as if you’d just struck it rich. We both know that Ajman has no oil, but your department now has a budget of thirty million dollars in untraceable funds. Where did that money come from, Hasaan? You are too stupid to think an original thought, so I want to know who is bankrolling whatever it is you’re doing.”

Rufti opened his mouth to speak, but Khalid cut him off instantly. “Shut up. Don’t say a word. Whatever you say right now will be a lie, so save your breath.

“Because of your position within the government and the uncertainty of the times, we both know I can’t mount an official investigation, but you’d better believe that I’m not going to let this end here today. Now more than ever the UAE and OPEC have to show the world a united front. I want you to know that I will fight you, Rufti. I will fight you as the Minister of Petroleum for the UAE, I will fight you as a friend of the royal family, and I will fight you as a man who believes in justice. Consider yourself warned. Whatever it is you’re scheming, will not succeed.”

Khalid whirled away but turned back to the startled Rufti.

“We’re leaving now, my two cousins and I. When we reach Al-Ain, I’ll send a truck back to take you to that important meeting in Ajman. The truck should return in about an hour. It will be the longest hour of your life. Use the time wisely. Think about what I said, because if I don’t like your explanations next time we speak, there will be no truck to come to your rescue.”

Khalid’s parting words were spoken over his shoulder as he and his clansmen were striding across the hardpan toward the trucks. Rufti tried to follow, but his tremendous bulk slowed him to the point of capitulation. He stopped, watching the rapier figure of Khuddari gliding across the desert, the falcon on his arm, flanked by the robed Bedouin.

Rufti stood still for many long minutes after the sound of the departing trucks had been swallowed by the emptiness of the desert. When finally his rage abated to the point where he could think, a sickening smile piled up skin and fat atop his cheekbones. “You are too late, Khalid Al-Khuddari. Charon is already at his landing and ready to cross the River Styx with the soul of the United States as his passenger. You’ll never know who paid the toll, because you are going to be the first to die.”