In fact, on the Saudi side there was no road at all.
At first, this had confused Hamid. Why have a road to — literally — nowhere? There were two main reasons. First, Saddam Hussein had built roads to Iraq’s borders at multiple points to give him options for invasion planning. As he showed with first Iran and then a decade later Kuwait, seizing his neighbors’ territory and resources was never far from Saddam’s mind. In fact, this highway wasn’t far from Kuwait’s border with Saudi Arabia, but for the actual invasion Saddam’s tanks had used a much more direct route. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Saudis reacted to that invasion by closing its border with Iraq during the years that followed, even after Saddam’s overthrow.
Since Saddam’s ouster successor Iraqi governments had maintained all of the roads leading to the Saudi border for a second reason — the hope that the border would someday be reopened. Trade was one goal. Another was that overland travel to Mecca and Medina would be far cheaper for Iraqi pilgrims than flying from Baghdad. For many, it would make the difference between being able to fulfill this religious duty and not.
There was a third minor reason. Smuggling. Iraq’s well-organized criminal gangs paid many Iraqi officials well to represent their interests, and smuggling drugs and alcohol to Saudi Arabia was profitable indeed. Roads to the border obviously made their work much easier. Of course, it was hard to say that during parliamentary debates, but ironically making the pilgrimage easier provided perfect cover for legislators with a very different agenda.
Finally, in 2019 the Saudis had opened a border crossing at Arar, at first only for pilgrims. The Arar border crossing had then been opened for trade in stages, and now nearly all of the Saudi military and police presence at the Iraqi border was concentrated at Arar.
Which was why Hamid’s forces would be crossing over five hundred kilometers away.
First, though, there was the task of refueling all of Hamid’s tanks and armored personnel carriers. The tankers, unlike the tracked armor, would not be able to go cross-country. The Iraqis had provided fuel for his tankers, and now Hamid’s force would be able to cross into Saudi Arabia with just enough gas to make it to Riyadh. As a safety margin, Hamid had two supplements.
First, Hamid had fuel drums strapped to every vehicle. Next, Iranian agents in Kuwait had leased tankers, filled them with fuel, and prepared shipping documents showing that they contained specially formulated aviation fuel destined for use by the Saudi military. The documents included the contact name and phone number of a real Saudi military officer, part of the Al-Nahda organization. He would soon learn whether they held up to scrutiny, or if he would risk running out of fuel before his forces could reach the Saudi capital.
Depending on whether or not the tankers showed up at the planned highway rendezvous, once his tanks and APCs had burned through the same amount carried in the drums, they would be emptied in the vehicles before they assaulted Riyadh. Obviously, it would not do to go into battle while carrying the fuel drums, or the results could be… unfortunate.
Once the tankers had been emptied and abandoned, another small group of vehicles appeared, one Hamid had been told to expect only at the last minute.
These included several large trucks, an R-330ZH automated jammer, and an unhappy looking technician named Arash Gul along with several assistants, who appeared just as unenthusiastic.
Happy or not, Hamid had to give them credit — they were certainly efficient. Working with his troops, in short order they had installed camouflage netting on all his vehicles that they claimed would make it difficult for anyone to see clearly what type of vehicles they were, or for any radar or infrared homing warhead to successfully lock on to any of his tanks or APCs.
Arash also carried orders from his commanding general specifying that he was to avoid highways in order to take full advantage of this camouflage.
Hamid shrugged, since he had already decided to do that, and had even mapped out an overland route to Riyadh. The only points where he planned to cross a highway were his rendezvous with the fuel tankers and when he had to cross Highway 85.
Hamid sighed when he reviewed the weather report, and shrugged. There were supposed to be high winds for the next several days, which would be perfect for his mission. The one thing camouflage couldn't do was hide the dust inevitably kicked up by the overland movement of dozens of tanks and APCs. High wind could, though, by kicking up dust everywhere so they could move south unobserved.
So, Hamid should have been pleased by the weather report. He wasn't, though, because experience had taught him that nothing in war ever went perfectly.
The only question was, just what would go wrong?
The fuel tankers Hamid was expecting to join him rolled up to the Saudi — Kuwait border crossing post at Raqa’i in the dead of night, and the driver in the lead tanker handed over papers and passports for all the tanker drivers. He could observe the reaction on the face of the very junior lieutenant who had been handed the documents for review, and it was exactly what he’d been hoping to see.
The lieutenant knew that if he questioned the documents he would have to call, and probably wake up, an unknown number of officers until he found one who knew what he was talking about. Of course, if he really had doubts he would be expected to go beyond calling the phone number on the documents.
Or, if he was satisfied the documents were genuine, he could simply allow entry.
The lieutenant had the cabs of several of the tankers searched. He also had two of the tankers discharge a small amount of fuel so he could confirm that was what they were carrying.
Everything was as it should be.
Finally, the lieutenant waved the tankers through, and went back to his office. Shaking his head, he thought to himself that he’d have to be sure to tell his commanding officer about the tankers when he came in that morning.
For some reason, he remembered an expression used by an elderly history teacher when he was a student — “coal to Newcastle.” He’d explained to a class even more bored than usual that coal had been mined near the British town of Newcastle in great quantities for years, so it would clearly be ridiculous to bring coal there from elsewhere.
The lieutenant smiled. The expression obviously needed to be updated.
“Gasoline to Riyadh” had a nice ring to it.
He was sure his commanding officer would see the humor.
Technical Sgt. Josh Pettigrew looked over the dozen students in his classroom, and casually asked, “Who’s ready to put hands on a Reaper?”
One of the first tasks Pettigrew had set himself was to instill what he thought of as basic classroom discipline in his students. To his mind, that meant first and foremost that students learn to raise their hands, rather than all trying to talk at once.
Pettigrew was pleased to see that his students didn’t make a sound. Instead, he faced a forest of raised hands.
Pettigrew nodded. “Very well. Follow me to the hanger next door.”
Two guards stood watch over the Reaper, which Pettigrew had armed and prepared for this session.
“Who would like to identify the weapon closest to the right side of the fuselage?” Pettigrew asked.
Once again, every hand went up.
Pettigrew said, “Mousa,” and nodded in his direction.
Mousa said carefully, “It is a GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb.”