Richard Clarke's 'The Scorpion's Gate'

Oct. 24, 2005 — -- Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and current ABC News consultant, has taken his first stab at fiction writing.

In "The Scorpion's Gate," Islamic fundamentalists take control in Saudi Arabia and the United States may be headed toward another war in the Middle East. The book is set five years in the future, and although it is a work of fiction, Clarke said it is not impossible that some of the events could become reality.

"The book intends to raise these issues, but I'm not giving odds that these things will happen," Clarke said. "As a matter of policy, for example, our country advocates democracy in the Middle East. That could lead to the overthrow of the Royal House in Saudi Arabia. If that country did become a republic, it's not clear that the good guys would be in charge. So while I'm not predicting the fall of the House of Saud, I am raising questions that would emerge if that were to happen."

You can read an excerpt from "The Scorpion's Gate" below.

Manama, Bahrain

The waiter flew through the lobby café.

Behind him came a blizzard of glass shards, embeddingragged-edge daggers of shattered windows in arms, eyeballs, legs,brains. The concussion wave bounced off the marble walls with amule-kick punch he felt in his stomach. Then there was the deafeningsound of the explosion, so loud it surrounded him with a physicalforce, shaking every bone and organ in his body.

Brian Douglas dove for the floor, behind a tipped table. His responsewas automatic, as if muscle memory had told him what todo, innate reflexes from those terrible years in Baghdad when thishad happened so many times. As he flattened his body on the plushcarpet, he felt the floor of the Diplomat Hotel shake. He feared thefourteen-story building would collapse on top of him. He thoughtof New York.

Now there were long seconds of silence before the screams began,cries to Allah and God's other names, in Arabic and English. Onceagain there were the shrieking voices of women, painfully highpitchedand piercingly loud. Once again there were men moaning inpain and crying out as glass continued to shatter onto the flooraround them. An alarm rang needlessly above it all. Just a few feetaway from Brian, an old man wailed as the blood streamed downfrom his forehead and spilled across the front of his white robes, "Help, please! Help me, please! Oh God, please, over here, help!"

Although Brian had been through bombings, it chilled his bones,knotted his stomach, made his head throb, blurred his vision, andcaused him to choke, gasping for air. His eardrums were ringing andhe had a sense that he was somehow disconnected from the realityaround him. As he tried to focus, he sensed something was movinginches to the left of his head. With a chill shudder, he realized it wasthe twitching fingers of a hand severed from a body. Rivulets ofblood ran down the upended tabletop to his right, as though someonehad thrown a bottle of red wine against it.

Sofas, chairs, carpets, the palm plants in giant ceramic pots wereburning in the rubble of what had been elegant, the soaring lobby ofa five-star hotel. Then Brian focused on the overpowering scent, asmell that made him gag again as he struggled to roll over. Hecoughed and spit as he inhaled the vile, heavy stench of ammonia,nitrate, and blood. It was a retching smell he hated but knew all toowell. It was the stench of senseless death that brought back painfuldays of friends lost in Iraq.

Through the shattered glass that opened onto the driveway in frontof the hotel came another sound he recognized as automatic gunfire. "Brrrrt, brrrrt..." Seconds later a cacophony of sirens blared, the European-made ones going up and down in singsong, the American-made sirens wailing their imitation of space aliens landing.

Suddenly, Alec, one of Brian Douglas's bodyguards, was overhim. He wondered how long he had been down. Had he been out? "Does it hurt anywhere, sir?" Alec asked.