Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [75]
My ears had perked up because I had been hunting for years and my familiarity with guns left no doubt that Sa’ad was right. Someone was firing a weapon and indeed a bullet had whizzed through the window and into the room.
By that time Sa’ad had lifted a cartridge from the floor and held it aloft between two fingers. “Teacher, it was a bullet. See, I have it here,” he stated proudly, for once being taken seriously.
Our teacher’s eyes popped as he exchanged looks with the other two instructors, who by that time had jumped to their feet. I’m sure they all realized simultaneously that we were under attack and that three scholars without weapons were in charge of the safety of Osama bin Laden’s sons. Before they could say anything, a barrage of gunshots reverberated around the guest house, with bullets zipping through the window. The younger boys began to cringe and cry.
I knew that we must move away from that open window, and so did our Moroccan teacher, who shouted, “Come, boys! Come!”
Our instructors hurried us out of the teaching room and into the hallway. Just at that moment, our Moroccan teacher let out a gasp. He had been shot! He stumbled at the powerful force that hit his shoulder, but kept upright, rushing us out of the back of the villa to a small building so close it could have been connected to the main structure. He yanked the door open, and all three teachers began pushing boy after boy to the center. The building itself was tiny, with room for only four or five people, but somehow our teachers crammed ten human beings inside. The teachers followed, pushing their bodies up against an unsecured door without a lock. Our instructors motioned for us to keep quiet, and the older boys began an effort to comfort the little ones so that their cries would not give away our hiding place.
There we were, squashed like sardines in a can, when we heard the gunfire coming closer. A thought flashed through my mind: If we were discovered, we would be the easiest target for an assassin. Stacked against each other like logs, one bullet could easily smash through several bodies. Any gunman could kill two or three of us at the same time.
Obviously those gunmen wanted to kill someone, and perhaps they had been told to assassinate the entire Osama bin Laden family. My dread increased when someone from the outside began to push his body against the unlocked doors. But we were so crammed we were like a big, immovable block.
Without uttering even a sigh, the teachers held their positions, knowing that they would die first if the gunman shot through the door. But after a few heart-stopping moments, we heard the assassin no more, perhaps because one of our father’s guards had rounded the corner giving chase. The gunfight continued for another thirty minutes or so, with the sounds of shooting slowly diminishing until all was quiet.
We wanted to rush outside, to dash home, to check on our parents and younger siblings, but our teachers refused to move from the door. Our legs and arms were numb because we could not move an inch in any direction. Thankfully, we soon heard a call from a member of our father’s security patrol who was hunting for the sheik’s sons, shouting that it was safe for us to come out.
Recognizing the man’s voice, we started to file out, then thought to check on the teacher who had been shot as we were scurrying away from the teaching room. To our relief, we found that the bullet that had struck him had been halted by the thick shoulder pads in his jacket. We had our first laugh, happy that our teacher was a smart dresser and the bullet had done nothing more than bruise his shoulder.
My brothers and I ran like rabbits to find our father, who we learned had escaped death only because he had stopped to talk to Abdullah on the way to our school.
My father had felt so secure in Khartoum that he had discontinued his usual precautions of alternating his schedule, becoming a man of habit. Obviously his enemies had discovered that fact. Each afternoon our father walked to the guest house to satisfy himself that his sons