Soldiers on base capture the beasts and pit them against one another in fights to the death. This is a natural instinct in a war zone-to rig gladiatorial contests between bugs--and journalists have joined wholeheartedly in the blood sport. Scott Nelson, a freelance photographer and an adept spider catcher, has rigged a glass terrarium where spiders fight and die. The reigning champion in the press tent, a gargantuan spider with long legs and a triangular head, is called Nic, after CNN correspondent Nic Robertson.

Yesterday Scott captured a prize specimen with mandibles that are swollen like chipmunk cheeks and an indomitable will to kill. Regan (named after the AP correspondent on base) was dropped in the cage and promptly set about slaughtering every bug in the mini arena--a smaller camel spider, a moth, and a seemingly invulnerable black beetle. Nic hid in a corner while Regan went kill crazy in the enclosure (she is thought to be female because of her swollen abdomen-possibly pregnant).

Today Scott met a group of MPs who boasted that their pet scorpions, El Guapo and Zeus, could annihilate any camel spider on base.

"Let's just let this be decided in the ring," said Scott.

The main even is scheduled for 8:30 tonight, after the MPs finish their guard shift.

***

The stage is set. Bobby, a BBC technician, has rigged a pair of bright klieg lights on either side of a coffee table--really a long slab of wood supported by four brass shell casings from a 105 mm howitzer. In the center of the table, the empty cage sits on a dais of two-by-fours.

Nic and Regan have been removed from the cage so that the various species of bugs can have an even chance at each other. Regan has been dropped in a plastic Gatorade jar that is perforated with air holes; her legs scrambling furiously inside. Nic on the other hand, is listless and limp, and apparently dessicated--his abdomen is caved in, and there's a dent in his forehead, as if he's a scary inflatable pool toy that sprang a leak.

A crowd of 25 soldiers and reporters waits with anticipation for the MPs to show up with their champion scorpions. An unidentified reporter breaks out some beers, indispensable for stoking blood lust in a crowd of fight fans.

"Is there a spread?" a would-be bettor asks.

"You can't have a spread if you don't know the fighters' track records," Bill, the sage CNN technician says. "You could have a spread for the next fight."

Betting is off for the time being. But impatience runs high. It's a quarter past nine, and still no sign of MPs. Scott runs out to bring in the competition. The three tall beers provided by the reporter don't go far between the two-dozen blood-hungry fight fans in the crowd, who hunch around the ring on wooden benches.

Finally, a pair of MPs show up at half past nine in their PTs (exercise togs). They hadn't apparently realized that Scott was serious, which of course he was. They are roundly booed by the crowd of rowdies.

"We'll be back in ten minutes," one of them says, and sprints off into the night.

Bill's voice crackles over the two-way radio.

"The MPs came by and surveyed the situation," he says. "They've agreed to fight."

Half an hour later, the MPS show up in force--five of them, still in their PTs--carrying a rectangular plastic tub half filled with sand.

For the undercard, Zeus, a black-bellied scorpion with thin pincers and a brown tail, will go mano-a-mano with Nic.

"We've got to get rid of Nic anyway," Scott says. "He's not pulling his weight around here anymore."

A British officer grabs a naked light bulb that dangles low from the ceiling and uses it as a microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's fight night!" he says with a mock gravelly voice.

Zeus and Nic are tumbled into the ring; after a brief tussle, they retreat to their corners and stay there.

Scott, playing Don King for the evening, prods them with a stick toward each other. They don't want to fight. Nic scrabbles up the sides of the glass cage with his pedipalps, which are outfitted with amazingly effective suction cups. Scott jabs him back down into the pit of death.

After ten minutes of dancing, no one is satisfied.

"This is too much like a heavyweight fight," Bill says. "Give me some lightweights."

"Put El Guapo in there," an MP says.

"El Guapo just ate," replies another.

"He'll eat again."

"Two-on-two action. Let's skip the undercard."

El Guapo, a formidable, fat specimen of scorpian, and Regan the spider are tumbled into the ring with the other two bugs. El Guapo immediately coils his tail to strike. Nic takes his customary spot in the corner. Regan scrambles frantically around the ring. Her killer instinct seems to have been replaced by an elemental fear of death.

Scott reaches his stick into the cage and pushes the bugs together.

"They definitely don't like that."

"Somebody win; fuck, I don't care who now," Bobby says, at one time a devoted camel spider backer.

Regan, in a flash of eight-legged brilliance, starts climbing up Scott's jab stick. Scott shakes the stick to fling her off.

"Get back in there."

Regan falls back into the center of the cage. She runs to one side, smack into Zeus, who pinches his claws menacingly, and rears his envenomed tail. Regan turns and flees, directly into El Guapo, who is waiting on the other side of the enclosure. Caught like a base-stealer between second and third, Regan bounces back and forth between the two scorpions until she runs into a neutral corner.

The stalemate drags on. Other insects attracted by the bright klieg lights-a moth and a hard-backed winged beetle-are captured and dropped in the cage.

Scott crowds the bugs into a clump against a glass wall. Zeus flattens himself out; Nic, Regan and El Guapo tangle together on top of him in an unmoving mass. Any false move could result in a flash of death. The patient insects wait for someone to flinch.

"Scott, you've got to get them off the ropes," says Nic Robertson.

"Yeah, break it up," Bill says.

Scott separates the bugs. The scorpions freeze. Regan panics; she climbs the walls of the cage, drops back down and skitters back and forth across the floor of the cage until Nic bursts out of his corner and calmly buries his fangs into the side of her neck.

"Smackdown!" someone shouts.

"What an upset."

Regan bunches into a ball while Nic feeds on her insides. It looks like she's dead already.

"Usually when they do that--grab them by the belly and suck out whatever's in there--usually they live for a couple of days," Scott says.

Indeed after about ten minutes of feeding, Nic lets go his grasp on Regan, and she bounds away.

"Let's call it a draw," Scott says. The audience breaks into applause.

After the MPs leave with their scorpions, Bobby from BBC breaks down the lights.

"It's a disappointment that there was no death match," he says. "But at least they held their own against the scorpions."

"The scorpions wanted nothing to do with them," Scott says. "Pussies. All talk."

The unlucky moth, which has been bouncing against the walls of the cage, flies smack into Nic's waiting mouth. The spider's slashing fangs dispatch the bug, its wings fall to the sand floor of the cage.

"At least they didn't all live happily ever after," says Nic Robertson.

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