The Phoenix Affair

by Paul Clark

  *****

  Mohammad’s little caravan and six men drove into the hot, dusty town of Buraydah around ten-thirty. They found a small café where they drank water, juice, and had some bread for a late breakfast, and sat relaxing while they waited for the noon prayer, which would come around eleven-thirty on this day. After prayer they would have lunch and find some kind of hotel or boarding house, or if there was not one they would go to one of the larger mosques and ask for a room for the night. Their meeting with Khalid’s men was not until tomorrow, so they would have the rest of today to relax.

  On the long drive from Riyadh it’d occurred to Mohammed that the plan with Khalid was not all that good. It would have been better to have met here today, and then to have gone on to al-Ha’il today so that the team could do a reconnaissance of the compound, get the lay of the town, plan their attack and escape routes. As it was they would have little time to do any of that, and some of what they did have might be at or after dark.

  “Jabreel, my friend,” Mohammed said, seizing an idea. “Please go to the Nissan and bring me back the map, Brother.”

  He did, and when it was on the table Mohammed studied it. The drive from here to al-Ha’il should take a little over an hour, maybe ninety minutes at the most if there was a lot of traffic. The road was good. It would be an easy thing to drive there after zohr prayer at noon, take a look around, perhaps find hotels or someplace where he could put the thirty men in smaller groups. He would try to find the compound, maybe drive by, and if there was time he would watch it for a while, to see who came and went, how the gates worked, maybe how many people were inside. On the way back, they could plan two or three routes out of town, maybe take a look at this road that left town to the north rather than south—perhaps they would split up to make their escape. Mohammed folded the map and said to his five companions, “after salat id-zohr we will go and make a reconnaissance, but we’ll be back here tonight. Let us see what we can find for a hotel for tonight now, before the prayer, and then we will be ready to leave as soon as it is done and we have eaten.”