Sandfire

by Andrew Warren

  He was not.

  “There is no medicine,” Mohammad exclaimed. “He needs medicine.”

  “I have money now,” Safiya said excitedly. She unhooked the goatskin bag from around her shoulder, and withdrew the riyals she had secured. “We can buy the vaccines he needs.”

  “There is no-one here who can sell us the medicine we need.”

  “Then I will travel to Al Abr. I’ve seen UN trucks in its streets before. I will get the medicine there.”

  “You will not. That is my role, as the head of this family… until father recovers.”

  Safiya realized too late that their voices were growing louder. Her younger son, Hussein, now sat upright and rubbed his eyes. The eight-year-old boy looked tired and afraid. He came to his mother and she hugged him tight. “Oh my love, I missed you so. God forgive me for being away too long.”

  “You’re back, Mother?” was all he said as he curled into her embrace.

  Mohammad remained stoic. His stares continued to be accusing. “The money will not be enough. Al Qaeda demand more and more for their protection. They will want that money.”

  “Oh, Mohammad, God favored us.” Safiya smiled, realizing in her heart that despite their arguing, she was pleased to see her sons again. She had feared they too might have been infected with cholera, but they had not. “When I was in the heart of the Rub’ al Khali, a plane fell out of the skies. It was burning as it did, falling like a comet. It was an American plane. One of the black-skinned Americans walked six kilometers before he died of his wounds. I was too late to help any of them, but I did find these.” She opened one of the saddlebags, producing three new American-made assault rifles and six shiny pistols. “These are not cheap Kalashnikov imitations. These are the real thing, American weapons. I will offer these to Al Qaeda for money. I will tell them where the wreckage is in return for our protection.”

  Mohammad’s eyes were drawn to the weapons. Safiya immediately sensed a boy’s fascination with the instruments of war. Ownership of a gun like these would make him feel powerful, stronger than he was. She did not like the cold joy in his eyes. She covered the weapons, breaking the spell that had gripped him.

  “You are not to touch these. Do you hear me Mohammad?”

  He looked at her, dumbfounded.

  “There are no bullets anyway,” she lied, “so they are useless to you.”

  Hussein stirred in her lap. “Why would Al Qaeda buy weapons without bullets?” His query was innocent, but Safiya worried why a boy so young would even know to ask such a pertinent question .

  She was about to answer when she heard the engines of many vehicles approaching the camp. She quickly covered her face so only her eyes showed and stepped outside to see who these visitors might be. Three black four-wheel drives and three trucks slowed to a stop. Men jumped from the vehicles. They were all armed with military rifles. While they wore the traditional and western garb of Yemeni people, Safiya sensed almost immediately that these were Arabs.

  With rapid military precision, the men encircled the camp. One fired a burst of bullets into the sky, lighting up the muzzle of his rifle like a flaming torch. The frightening noise was near-deafening in the tiny camp. Hussein huddled close to her and trembled.

  Safiya felt like she couldn’t breathe. Were these the rebel Houthis invading from the west? Local Al Qaeda fighters? Or some other rebel group with a political or criminal agenda? She could not know.

  “Run, my child,” she whispered, but Hussein would not relinquish his grip upon her robes. Mohammad stood frozen next to her. The boy seemed too afraid to do anything, again transfixed by the weapons the men brandished. She heard the noise of running water, only to realize Mohammad had wet himself in his fear.

  “Run!” she whispered more harshly. “Mohammad, take Hussein to the caves in the mountains. God willing, I will find you there when I can.”

  He turned to her, his eyes glazed over and unfocused.

  A tall, muscular man entered the village. “Everyone, out of your tents now!” the leader commanded as he strutted amongst his soldiers. “All Bedouin men, in the middle here, now!”

  Men and women cautiously stepped from their tents. Their children rubbed their eyes, or huddled low to appear small. Safiya turned and prepared to flee with her children, only to notice more of the soldiers advancing behind them. The camp was already surrounded. These were professional soldiers and there was no escape… They were trapped.

  “These two,” said one of the men close to her, marching to Safiya and pointing to her children. “These two in the circle with everyone else.”

  “No!” Safiya stood her ground.

  He slapped her hard. Her jaw shuddered and she tasted blood. He kicked several times until she fell prone on the earth. His boot pressed hard down on her head, grinding the left side of her face into the gravelly sand. “Not another word from you, or I will punish you like a whore.”

  Safiya sobbed but dared not move. “Please, my sons are innocent.”

  He kicked her in the gut. She cried out her pain. The agony was so intense she could not move, other than to curl into a ball. Then the foot returned to her head, pressing down to pin her.

  She watched, helpless as her sons were dragged with the men into a group in the middle of the camp.

  “One of you!” yelled the swaggering leader. “One of you saw something in the desert you should not have. Which one of you was it?”

  He circled the men and boys. Safiya turned as best as she could to get a better look at him. The man was tall for an Arab, with muscles that made his upper body bulge unnaturally. His head was shaved down to nothing, and his neatly trimmed beard was peppered with grey, though he didn’t look to be older than forty. A scar ran around the back of his scalp, no doubt from a war wound that had opened up and peeled back the flesh long ago. It had healed now, but the jagged edges where the skin had mended formed an angry red trail across his head.

  “One of you!” he shouted again. “One of you will tell me the truth.”

  No one spoke. Everyone was terrified.

  Safiya knew in her heart she was the ‘man’ who had seen the terrible incident. The fallen airplane, which no doubt had been shot out of the skies by these people. They were looking for it. She remembered the sand storm that had followed after she had rummaged around the burning wreckage, and found the scattered guns… The plane would now be buried in the endless desert. These men didn’t know where it was.

  The crack of a pistol shot was loud and unexpected. Everyone in the camp flinched at the same moment, including her. She stared with horror… The soldiers’ hulking leader had just put a bullet through the skull of one of the Bedouin men. A fountain of blood spurted from the wound as he fell into the dirt.

  “He is but the first,” the leader exclaimed. “He will not be the last. One of you. One of you will tell me the truth!”

  “Sir,” one of the soldiers said as he ran to the leader. He was carrying two saddlebags. He spilled out their contents. Three assault rifles and six pistols fell onto the rocky sand.

  Two more soldiers came up behind the first, dragging a limp, thin man between them. They dropped his emaciated form in the dirt before the leader’s feet. Safiya gasped.

  The man was Tariq Naaji. Her husband.

  The leader gave no sign of emotion as he put a bullet through the back of Tariq’s head.

  Safiya sobbed. Her whole life, and all hopes… everything was stripped from her in that moment. Her sons huddled in the crowd of men. She feared the soldiers would kill them all. No one would be spared.

  “One of you,” the leader announced again in his booming voice, “is now likely dead. His secret taken with him. But to ensure that no one speaks of what happened today, I am taking your boys with me. Anyone talks to anyone, and I will kill them all.”

  Safiya wailed between heavy sobs. The soldier with his foot pressed against her head grew tired of her distress. He kicked her again, hard in the head.

  Everythi
ng went black.

  Chapter Four

  Later in the night the convoy of trucks, flanked by the three four-wheel drives, crawled into the Al Qaeda training camp. The dark, mountainous terrain provided cover from casual observation, but it wouldn’t protect them from U.S. satellites. Nor would it hide them from the unseen drones prowling the Yemeni skies. If they were identified, or recognized for what they really were, swift death would fall from above, far too fast for them to know what hit them.

  But Colonel Sulieman Rashid had no intention of dying. He had plans for a future life, full of opulent comfort. Tonight was just one more step towards achieving that goal.

  Rashid was a career military intelligence officer of the Royal Saudi Land Forces. He had learned harsh lessons from his brutal past… If he and his men were not diligent, they risked not only their own lives on the battleground, but also threatened their standing within the Saudi community. If Rashid made even a single mistake on this mission and shamed his leaders, his very life would be forfeit. Many Saudi officers had been executed in the past for embarrassing the Saudi Royal Family, and many more would be in the future. He didn’t want to be one of those men, which could we ll be the case if this meeting failed to deliver what he expected it to.

  To ensure nothing went wrong, Rashid had strategized and meticulously executed every step of his plan. This was the agreed rendezvous point, and he had arrived not a minute earlier or later than the stated time. His contact would soon make himself known, so Rashid waited patiently.

  As Rashid expected, several Al Qaeda militants emerged from the darkness. The men carried AK-47s and old Russian-made RPG rocket launchers. Their weapons and clanking bandoliers of bullets and shells gave the insurgents a confident swagger. But Rashid knew they were no match for the Steyr AUG and Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles his men carried. To say nothing of the FN Minimi light machine guns and FGM-148 Javelin man-portable missiles hidden in the trucks. His loyal forces wore civilian garb, because a full display of a Saudi military force inside Yemen could be construed as an act of war. But that wouldn’t stop them acting as the soldiers they had trained their whole adult lives to be.

  No, Rashid wasn’t concerned about Al Qaeda. His concern was being exposed… dealing with a sworn enemy inside a foreign country where he wasn’t supposed to be. Al Qaeda lived and breathed to see the downfall of the House of Saud, the omnipotent power that Rashid ultimately reported to. If he was discovered making deals with this enemy, it would cost him his life.

  But war created odd alliances. The Houthi rebels advancing from the north were waging a ground war in the streets of Sana’a and other cities in western Yemen. They were a common enemy for both Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda. Neither side wanted these new upstarts changing the balance of power in this down-trodden country. A decade ago, the bombing of the United States Navy destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden had galvanized Al Qaeda in Yemen. They did not wish to lose the influence of terror they commanded here. Al Qaeda would work with Rashid willingly, at least for the time being. Their objectives aligned. No other reason joined them together .

  Seconds after the Al Qaeda insurgents appeared, Rashid’s men disembarked from their vehicles in a display of force. They brandished their sleek, modern weapons, ready to slaughter anyone who might think to threaten them. As an added contingency, Rashid had sent snipers into the surrounding mountains the day before. They remained in position, should their skills in distant assassination be required. Just because the two sides had agreed to a temporary alliance didn’t mean Rashid trusted Al Qaeda one bit.

  When Rashid felt his men had taken sufficient command of the area, he stepped from his four-wheel drive, standing tall and ramrod straight. The scar on the back of his head pulsed and itched in the heat. Long ago, a Mossad agent had plunged a knife into his skull. The blade had penetrated bone, and then brain tissue. The old wound throbbed.

  He ignored it.

  A man dressed in a thoob and futa skirt with an AK-47 strapped across his back stepped forward. The lights of the Saudi's trucks lit up the insurgent’s face. Rashid saw pockmarks like moon craters, shrapnel wounds, and burns that had healed as an ugly mess on the right side of the man’s face.

  Rashid knew from his intelligence briefs that this man had once been a bomb maker. He was responsible for many of the improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs, that plagued this country. He wondered if the terrorist had been wounded by his own handiwork? Did this man—who used fear as a weapon—still make his IEDs? Or was he too afraid to do so now?

  “As-salamu alaykum,” said the man. Peace be upon you.

  “As-salamu alaykum,” Rashid repeated, not that he cared for the wisdom of the Prophet anymore… not since his near fatal wound had changed him, numbed his very soul. He said the greeting only to appease the man before him. “You are Ahmed Khaldun, Al Qaeda Regional Commander here?”

  “I might be. ”

  “I’ve read your file. I’ve seen all the photographic records. Do not lie to me.”

  The man nodded, then bowed as his hands came together in prayer. “Praise be to God for the tasks demanded of me today.”

  “I do have a task for you,” Rashid said without emotion. “In these trucks, I have thirty-eight Bedouin boys.”

  Khaldun rolled his eyes as his mind calculated why this might be relevant to him.

  Rashid recognized the need to explain further. These were not educated men, Khaldun included. They didn’t see the bigger picture, beyond some fantasy of destroying the Americans, wiping the Jews from the face of the earth, and creating one pure caliphate across all the lands of Islam. “You need to secure these boys inside your training camp. Don’t kill them, or harm them too much. Train and convert them to your faith if you must, but I need them unspoiled. They will serve as leverage over a Bedouin tribe north of here. The risk for me to hold them is too great.”

  “Which tribe?”

  Rashid raised a questioning eyebrow. “Why do you need to know that?”

  The scarred man shrugged. He opened his palms and hands wide, suggesting he might believe he was as wise as the holiest Imam. “No reason. But the children will no doubt tell me anyway, after you are gone.”

  Rashid beckoned for one of his nearby soldiers to approach. “Corporal. Point your weapon at Khaldun. If my hand drops, shoot him.”

  “Yes sir,” barked the soldier, sweat running down his brow.

  The Al Qaeda insurgents raised their weapons, ready to retaliate. More Saudis stepped forward, their weapons ready to fire. Faced down by the sheer firepower and unwavering will of Rashid’s men, the insurgents backed down.

  “Khaldun, my friend,” Rashid said, as if no threat had passed between them. “Be aware that I provide you with weapons and funds only because you suit a purpose. I allow you to fight the Houthis for me, because they are a greater enemy to Saudi Arabia than you are. For now, at least. Nothing else keeps you in my favor. Therefore, you will hold these children without question, because I order you to do so. And don’t think you can deceive me. I know where all your hideouts are, who your friends are, and more importantly, who your enemies are. I know your biggest fear is the American drones. One word from me and the CIA's Predator drones will be over your camps before you know it. You will be blown back to Allah in a million pieces, your shit mixed with your souls.”

  Khaldun seemed to shrink into the shape of a smaller, older man. Finally, he understood he was completely at Rashid’s mercy, just as Rashid wanted it.

  “Good, then we have an understanding.” Rashid made another signal with his hand for the Corporal to lower his weapon. Then he signaled to the men in the trucks.

  One by one a group of six soldiers lifted the bound and hooded boys, and lined them up for inspection.

  Rashid’s Sergeant, Khalid al Aziz, his bushy eyebrows as thick as his oily mustache, snapped off a smart salute when the work was complete. “Thirty-seven Bedouin boys, Sir. One died from the head injuries he sustained resisting us earlier.�
�

  Rashid nodded. “No matter. Thirty-seven it is.”

  He watched the terrified boys, quietly sobbing, trembling or wetting themselves, as they were led away into the caves high in the mountains. Despite his warning, Rashid believed most would die. The ordeals they would face under Al Qaeda interrogation and indoctrination would be hellish. Those that did survive would likely become fanatical converts to the cause.

  The Bedouins whose lives he had interrupted were cursed. Any hope they had that their sons would be returned was false.

  Rashid watched the disappearing boys without a trace of emotion. He had a wife, and a family… two teenage sons and a teenage daughter, in a nice home in Riyadh. He tried to imagine how he would feel if they were held hostage in a similar situation? Rage? Terror? Distraught?

  The truth was he would feel none of those emotions.

  He would feel nothing.

  It was the Jewish agent he had battled in Riyadh four years earlier who had made him what he was. A Mossad cell had been identified operating in the Saudi capital. Rashid had led the raid to apprehend or kill the Israeli agents. Unfortunately, the Mossad agents were more proficient fighters than Rashid had anticipated. Three of his men had been killed and one of the agents had plunged a knife into the back of Rashid’s skull, piercing his brain.

  He should not have survived.

  He should not have recovered.

  But he had.

  But Rashid awoke with a secret, something he had not told any of his doctors, his Imams, his wife or any of his superiors. After his wound healed, he no longer felt emotions. He was empty inside. He did not experience hate, or love, fear, or happiness. He felt physical pain of course, but he wasn’t scared by it. He didn’t even feel the power of Almighty Allah anymore, of God watching over him.

  He felt nothing.

  Upon his recovery he passed all his medical and psychological assessments without a glitch… he knew exactly what his superiors wanted to hear. Soon he was back in the Army he had once loved. Perversely, his lack of emotions made him even better at his job. He could make dispassionate choices in any situation, without worrying about the moral or religious connotations of his actions. A world without emotions soon saw his meteoritic rise through the ranks. But it also deteriorated his relationship with his wife and children. Now he avoided returning home, unless he absolutely had to. He didn’t care for anyone, anymore. Not these Bedouin children and not his own.