The plane had no sooner taken off than it was landing. He feared it had turned around and gone back to Kish at the call of the police or customs officer. But no, this was a smaller airport and this was not an island. Bump. Landing like a ton of bricks. No this was not Iran again, this was Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. And so the sign said over the customs and immigration booths. Welcome to the United Arab Emirates.
“You will have to come with me, Mr. Avery,” the immigration officer was saying. He had run the passport under an optical scanner.
“What? It’s Dalton. Mr. Dalton. Avery is the first name, you see,” he stuttered.
“We have no record of this entry visa having been issued. It is not in the database. It will just be a moment. This way, please.”
The door had one-way glass and a sign that said “Police” in English and Arabic. Inside, however, it was bright and comfortable. “Please have a seat, sir.”
“Might I use the phone for a local call? Maybe I can clear this up. Thank you so much.” He froze for a moment, trying to recall the number. Then it came to him.
“British Consulate, Dubai,” the woman seemed to sing in a rising lilt on the other end.
“Exchanges Office, please,” Avery/Wallingford/Dalton/Manley/ Simon managed to get out.
“Exchanges Office. May I help you?” the South London — accented man grunted.
“It’s Brian Douglas. I am from Bath,” he said using the station’s own clear code for Require Assistance. “I am with the customs or the immigration police at the Sharjah Airport. Some problem with my papers.”
There was a brief pause on the other end as the officer recalled what being from Bath meant, and then as he realized that the head of station for the entire Gulf was not in Bahrain but twenty minutes down the highway from Dubai, being held. “We will be right there to pick you up, sir, and will call the local service boys in parallel.”
It was Avery or someone who had called, but Brian Douglas who hung up the phone. He turned to the young immigration official and said in Arabic, “Might I have a cup of hot tea?”
12
“You were the one who told me we could not trust the Chinese to be here,” Abdullah bin Rashid said, “and now you want me to trust the Americans?”
“Not all the Americans. Some of them. They are not all imperial warmongers. Many of them are like the Canadians,” Ahmed tried. His brother looked at him, unconvinced, but he continued. “My point is just that we do not want them acting against us based on false assumptions about whether we have nuclear weapons or not. And there are some Americans whom I think we can talk to.”
Abdullah picked up a folder and handed it to Ahmed. “Read this. A pack of lies. It’s a summary of the American media reaction to the crash of their Navy plane off Kuwait. It’s full of speculation that we shot it down.”
“Did we?” Ahmed asked, scanning the papers.
Abdullah paused, irritated at the question. Finally he replied, “No. No, we did not. Our radar showed nothing near the aircraft and no missile fired at it.”
Ahmed passed the folder back to his brother. “So it just blew itself up in midair?”
“So it seems, Ahmed. First they try to blame us for the attack on their Navy base in Bahrain — which you prevented! Now they try to blame us when one of their aircraft blows itself up. They are looking for an excuse, Ahmed, can’t you see it?” Abdullah walked back behind his desk.
Ahmed placed his palms down on the other side of the desk. “What I see, brother, is a need to calm things down, to open a channel with the Americans so that we can prevent misunderstandings like these.”
Abdullah gathered up files from the desktop. “You want to see what I’m dealing with? How hard it is to convince my fellow members of the Shura that we should be moderate? Come with me, now. The Council is meeting here today. Because they think we need to meet in a highly secure location. The public cannot attend, but you can attend as my aide.”
Ahmed bin Rashid followed his brother, the Director of Security of Islamyah, down corridors to a small conference center within the former palace. The room was filled with men in white robes, many with long beards, loudly chattering in small groups before the meeting. In the middle of the room was a large oval-shaped table with a microphone at each place. Abdullah pointed out the Interim President of the Republic, Zubair bin Tayer, a cleric who had spent most of the previous decade in Damascus, Tehran, and London. Bin Tayer was moving to the seat from which he would chair the meeting.
Electronic bells sounded in the room. “In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate…” bin Tayer started to pray into a microphone. The prayer continued for several minutes and was followed by three readings from the Holy Koran. As soon as bin Tayer stopped and was seated, a man on his right began reading a resolution. Ahmed finally determined that the subject was the appropriate punishment for a group of college students who had been detained by religious police for protesting against the extension of the religious law, the Sharia. The punishment was to be public flogging in a square in Riyadh.
“Does the Shura concur?” the man on bin Tayer’s left droned into his microphone.
Abdullah leaned forward and touched a button below his microphone, causing a green light to come on in front of him. “The religious police are supposed to enforce religious practices, not to enforce the civil law.” The room went still. Abdullah continued, “I am in charge of law enforcement and security, by decision of this Shura, not the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Publicly dissenting from proposals before the Shura, including those having to do with Sharia law, is not a violation of our religious practices.” A chorus of voices disagreed. “These men did nothing to warrant their arrest, let alone their flogging,” Abdullah concluded, and he hit his microphone button again to shut it off.
The chorus of disagreement grew louder. A man in cleric’s robes across the table repeatedly pounded on his microphone button. “So what does the director of security propose we should do with these boys who have done haram, prohibited acts? Give them sweets?”
Abdullah straightened in his chair and slowly leaned forward to press his microphone. “It is not what I propose, it is what I have done. In the rightful exercise of my legal authority, I have released citizens who were being illegally held, citizens who had violated no law.” The room erupted. Ahmed was pleased to see that his brother had supporters who could also scream and point their fingers, wave their arms in the air.
Bin Tayer hit his microphone button and began to speak. “Minister Rashid. Why do you think we fought this revolution, to let the decadence continue that the al Sauds did in private and overseas? To allow anyone to pretend to be a Koranic scholar? To allow Muslims in other lands to practice deviant strains of Islam? To give power to the infidel kafirs and to women? No, it is the mission of government to end such jahiliyah, such ignorance. Those who violate the laws must be punished!” More commotion followed.
Finally, Abdullah responded. “First, Zubair, I did not notice that you did fight at all.” Cries of outrage followed. “Munafiqeen!”
Over it all, Abdullah continued, “Second, those of us who did fight did so to change our country, not to impose something on others elsewhere. Third, it is not the job of hakimiyah, of those in governance, to force Salafism or any other school of thought on our own people. The Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, accepted the Jews and the followers of Jesus as children of Abraham. For centuries, Muslims have chosen their own paths. Some choose to be murtadeen and live a secular life, but very few choose the ways of Taymiyyah or Wahhab, or the Salafists. We who fought did not do so to change the ninety percent of our Muslim brothers who disagree with you, Zubair.”