Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [162]
Swallowing his horror, Al Mishari saluted respectfully and said, “Of course, General, and I apologize for my indiscretion. I let my emotions get the better of me. You were absolutely right to correct me.” He knew all the right buttons to push to calm the general’s wrath. But as he did, a thought rose from the depths of his heart: You’ll pay for this with your life, you contemptible little worm.
“You are forgiven, Aabid, but don’t ever let this happen again.”
Al Mishari had left the room that day shattered by his failure to prevent the grisly event that would soon end his beautiful young niece’s life. As the law decreed, she would be buried up to her waist before a cackling crowd of bloodthirsty citizens. She would soon thereafter feel the sharp sting of rocks pelting her body. He hoped in his heart that an early sharp blow to the temple would render her unconscious, but few of the condemned were that lucky. He knew, as he left Ali Jabar’s office, that he would be better off not knowing.
His niece’s death two days later opened his eyes to the brutality of the Mustafa regime, and his hatred and disillusionment focused on Ali Jabar. In the months since her death, Al Mishari had led two lives. In public, he was General Ali Jabar’s loyal chief of intelligence and inspector general of the RSAF. Inside, he cherished his vow to punish Ali Jabar and the brutal regime he represented. He would avenge his niece’s death and at least make her life count for something.
A methodical person, Al Mishari plotted his course carefully. Through his intelligence rank (and Ali Jabar’s thoughtless boasting), he had access to the secrets of the regime. He was one of four people in the kingdom with precise knowledge of the dirty-bomb emplacements, their dismantling protocols, and the code frequencies needed to detonate the bombs out of the central command in Riyadh. Later, using the information supplied by his intelligence network, he had made contact with the underground, and through them he hatched his plan.
Now, as dusk fell, he called the flight line to order his F-15 SA gassed and ready to go in thirty minutes. He loved his plane, with its “Saudi Advanced” SA designation. The F-15 had been delivered by the Americans in 2015, and he had logged over seven hundred hours in it thus far. He used it for all of his inspection tours and, in the process, maintained his rating and prowess as a fighter pilot.
A knock on the door interrupted his fond reverie; his ride to the flight line was there to pick him up.
“Good evening, General,” said the flight line duty officer as he hefted Al Mishari’s personal kit bag and special-delivery “package.” “I understand you are on your way to Dhahran.”
“That’s right, Captain; the end of a long day. Out of Riyadh this morning, inspections in Taif and Jeddah wrapped up, and now here as well. Am I ready to go?”
“Yes, sir, you are, and tower knows you’ll not be filing a flight plan,” replied the alert young officer, aware that Al Mishari often made covert inspections.
Al Mishari carried out his routine preflight inspection with consummate precision. Satisfied that his aircraft was fit to fly, he climbed into the cockpit with the help of a husky sergeant. He carefully tucked away his special package in a stowage space next to his ejection seat, strapped in, and smartly saluted the sergeant before latching the canopy shut.
He taxied into position and, cleared for immediate departure, fired up the mighty dual engines for takeoff. Once airborne, he climbed quickly to his assigned altitude and set a course of zero-niner-zero degrees that would take him over the Gulf. Upon reaching the Gulf, he reached down and opened his special package: ten pounds of high explosives. He activated the timing mechanism, set to detonate five seconds after he pushed a button atop it. Upon reaching his rendezvous checkpoint, he throttled down and set a course of one-eight-zero degrees for Dhahran before descending to an altitude of three thousand feet.
Flying low and slow, he was now established on a Mode I ejection trajectory. He was