Abdul walked up to the pilot, who he only knew as “Mohammed” and who he also knew had been selected personally by Farhad. Farhad had tried to convince Abdul that the pilot’s motives for wanting an end to the Saudi regime were even better than his, but Abdul was determined to see this through to the end, though he knew it was almost certainly a one-way trip.
Abdul had spent several frantic days making sure that the assault teams were in place to get both of the other two nuclear weapons to their targets. If this one worked, though, it would extinguish the Saudi royal family in a single blow.
Abdul had seen brave men lose their nerve in the face of certain death, and had tucked a pistol in his jacket in case Mohammed had a sudden change of heart. Of course, there was a brief delay built into the device’s detonation mechanism to give a plane time to escape the blast radius.
But they weren’t flying a plane, not even a turboprop. No, they were in an old, slow cargo helicopter. That would certainly have every missile and plane the Saudis had pointed at them once the weapon went off, even if the blast didn’t catch them. Assuming they waited that long to open fire.
So, Abdul wasn’t expecting to survive this mission, and if he had any sense neither did the pilot.
One thing Abdul did know from experience, though. People always instinctively struggled to survive. If Mohammed had a choice between a bullet from the man sitting in the seat next to him and outrunning both a nuclear blast and the entire Saudi military, Abdul was sure he’d pick the latter.
Walking up to the pilot, Abdul asked, “How long before we can take off?”
Mohammed looked up from his clipboard. “The cargo is loaded and is now being secured. I’ve already received our flight clearance, so we should be ready to go in ten minutes, which will put us right on schedule. So, you can go ahead and take a seat,” he said, pointing at a rolling staircase propped next to the open door on the helicopter’s copilot side.
Abdul nodded and headed for the stairs. Sure enough, only a few minutes after he’d figured out how to strap himself into the seat’s flight harness while being sure he could still reach the gun in his jacket, Mohammed’s head appeared on the opposite side. He said nothing, but just sat down and started to flip switches and levers, while the hangar doors opened and a motorized cart began pulling them forward.
Then Mohammed startled Abdul by leaning towards him and yanking on his flight harness at multiple points, until he was apparently satisfied and began putting on his own harness. Seeing that Abdul was puzzled, Mohammed laughed and said, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be doing maneuvers this old girl was never designed to perform. Having your body fly into my lap would probably interfere with that.”
The Chinook was now out of the hangar, and a few minutes later they were on a cargo runway. The cart detached, and once it was well away Mohammed started up the Chinook’s engines. Mohammed was pleased to see that the engine started immediately, and within seconds they were airborne and soaring upwards on a course that would quickly take them away from the busy airport.
Now Mohammed had to speak quite a bit louder due to the engine’s loud roar.
“I had a chance years ago to speak to a pilot who flew one of these Chinooks in Vietnam. He told me that the first ones to arrive were slow to start, and slow to build up power to takeoff speed. Pilots pointed out this was a problem in a combat zone, but nobody in authority cared. Until a lot of Chinooks started developing mysterious 'maintenance problems' that prevented their use. Finally, a senior officer got the company that made the Chinooks to send technicians to Vietnam, who quickly became guests on combat supply missions. Turned out one replacement part and a few adjustments did the trick.”
Abdul smiled and nodded. “Glad to see we’re in a proven aircraft. How will we launch the weapon?”
Mohammed pointed at a large switch in the center of the controls in front of them. “This switch lowers the cargo ramp. The weapon is secured in such a way that it won’t move in flight, but once I lower the ramp and angle the helicopter it will roll out.”
Abdul frowned. “You said we’re on schedule. Are you sure we have enough time to reach the target?”
Mohammed nodded. “Absolutely. We don’t have many Chinooks left, but this is the best one. It’s got parts from five other scrapped Chinooks in it, and I made sure personally that they were the best ones. It’s never failed me, and I know it’s not going to start today,” he said, patting the dashboard.
Abdul smiled and shook his head. He’d heard of pilots and sailors becoming attached to their craft, but hadn’t witnessed it before.
Abdul settled back and looked at the desert landscape passing by, and told himself to be patient. Success was only a short flight away.
Akmal Al-Ghars looked like exactly what he was — one of the thousands of dark-haired, whip-thin Yemeni laborers here in the region of Saudi Arabia bordering Yemen. Even with the war, there were still many jobs no Saudi would do, so Akmal was still here.
For years, Akmal had been working as a janitor at Jeddah’s railroad station, which was one of the busiest in the country. Then had come the announcement that experienced volunteers were desired who were willing to work at a new railroad station in Jaizan, which would be at the end of a new line near the Yemeni border. Further south from Jaizan the terrain came in two varieties- “hilly” and “mountainous.” Neither Saudi Arabia nor Yemen had seen it as worthwhile to spend the money necessary to overcome those obstacles with bridges and tunnels, so from Jaizan the only way south was still by road. Of course, those with money flew to Sana’a from one of the Kingdom’s many airports.
Nobody else was interested in making the move to Jaizan, not even the two other Yemenis working at the station in Jeddah. Both of them were single, and had no interest in visiting parents in a country torn by civil war topped with regular Saudi aerial bombardments. To be fair, Akmal thought, they probably thought their parents would prefer the money they sent to seeing their sons. Travel to Yemen wasn’t cheap.
Just like those other Yemeni workers, every spare bit of his salary went straight to his family in Yemen. Especially since the start of the war and the collapse of the already shaky economy, remittances were one of the few reliable sources of income available in Yemen.
With his job at the railroad station, Akmal was more fortunate than most Yemenis. He didn’t have to worry that his employer might refuse to pay him, beat him, and have him deported if he complained. He had worked hard and been reliable, so that he had been given more and more responsibility. Now he supervised the janitorial staff at Jaizan station, and had recently been trained to perform minor mechanical maintenance tasks at the station.
Akmal appreciated the higher salary and the benefits that came with the promotion. He appreciated even more no longer having to clean the station’s toilets.
Though Akmal was Shi’a, for many years he had not had any love for the Houthis fighting the Saudis. Like many Yemenis, Akmal had seen the Houthis as bearing much of the responsibility for the current disastrous state of his country.
Until a Saudi air strike had killed his brother and his entire family. Akmal knew that none of them had been involved in the war, and that their deaths were impossible for the Saudis to justify.
After he attended the funerals, Akmal had contacted the Houthi leader in his brother’s village and asked how he could help. He had been surprised when the man said to keep his true feelings about what the Saudis had done to his family to himself, and to redouble his efforts to convince the Saudis that he was a model employee.