“Wake the king,” the president said, “or there are going to be serious consequences.”
A few minutes later a sleepy King Abdullah came on the line. Once the president explained, he reached for another telephone and called the head of his air force.
“Have them escort them out of the country but do not take hostile actions,” he said in Arabic.
Returning to the open line with the president, he said, “Mr. President, if your secretary of state does not supply a proper answer to what is happening, your citizens will have a very cold winter.”
“Once you hear what happened, I think we’ll be good.”
“I look forward to the meeting,” King Abdullah said and disconnected.
REEVES LANDED THE C-17A, then turned around and faced the opposite direction.
“Drop the door,” he said to the flight engineer.
The Ford pickup was already making its way across the sand as the door slowly lowered. When the truck pulled up, the door was fully extended down, making a ramp. Edging forward through the sand, the driver reached the end of the ramp. Then he gave it some gas and drove inside the cargo bay.
Opening the door, the driver ran forward to the cockpit. “We’re in, sir,” he said.
“Door up,” Reeves said.
As the door was rising, Reeves ran the engines up to check the operation. Everything looked good, so as soon as the light on the control panel went green, indicating that the door was locked in place, he pushed the throttles forward and raced down the patch of sand.
Two minutes later they were airborne again.
“Ninety miles to the Red Sea,” he shouted back to the rear, “five minutes or so.”
“I have two fighter jets inbound,” the copilot said.
“Prepare countermeasures,” Reeves said.
But the jets never turned on their firing computers. They just stayed off the wingtips until the C-17A passed over the water. Then they peeled away to head back to their base.
“WE’RE OUT OF Saudi airspace,” Reeves yelled to the rear, “two hours to Cutter.”
Kasim walked to the rear of the pickup and pulled back the tarp. “Okay, men,” he said, “we did it—we’re going back to Qatar.”
The cheers filled the cargo area of the C-17A.
“Take over,” Reeves said to the copilot.
Reeves walked back into the cargo area. “I would have brought you a cooler of beer but I understand you men don’t drink. So I had the mess hall prepare a cooler of iced soda and some food in case we did have to come get you. There are some hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and such. It’s been a few hours, but they packed it in those silver insulated bags so it should still be warm. Enjoy.”
Reeves headed back to the cockpit.
“Okay, men,” Kasim said, unzipping a silver padded bag, “dig in.”
EPILOGUE
THREE HOURS BEFORE sunrise on January 10, U.S. military crews working with Saudi military and intelligence officials finished complete sweeps of all three mosques. Any explosives found were removed and destroyed, and the area was deemed safe for the hajj.
Saud Al-Sheik stared down at the courtyard as the last of the aging prayer rugs were being fitted into place. He wished he’d found the new ones but they’d disappeared into thin air—so he had the old ones dug out from storage and used again this year.
Behind the curtain surrounding the Kaaba, Abraham’s Stone awaited the faithful.
At sunrise, a sea of white-robed pilgrims began to fill the holy spots.
The hajj would go off without a hitch.
January 10, 2006, dawned clear with a light wind blowing from the east and temperatures in the low seventies. Nearly a million pilgrims crowded into Medina, where they visited the tomb of Muhammad and then boarded the large open cars on the Hajaz Railway for the 280-mile trip to Mecca.
As the train drew nearer to the sacred city where the Kaaba was located, the pilgrims disrobed and dressed in aprons with pieces of cloth over their left shoulders. Once the train pulled to a stop, the first group climbed off and began walking toward the mosque. Once inside they began the Tawaf, or circumambulation. The pilgrims started to circle the Kaaba seven times in a counterclockwise direction then, when finished, entered the Kaaba to kiss the Sacred Stone of Abraham.
As the first group filtered out, thousands more were already entering the mosque.
During the next few days, the pilgrims would drink from Zamzam Spring, have a ceremony where they stoned the Devil, and take walks to the other sacred places nearby. Hundreds of thousands would do a route from the mosque containing the Kaaba to Mina, the Mount of Mercy, Mount Namira, Muzdalifah, and Arafat.
The areas around Mecca and Medina would swarm with white-robed pilgrims.
The days would be spent with prayer and meditation, contemplation, and the Koran. At the hajj, each person would find a meaning. And all would remember it the rest of their life.
Today was just another day of many, with thousands more to follow.
