Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [180]
Ali Jabar was too petrified to answer. The coin seemed to hover in the air, and he reached for his gun a split second before the coin actually hit the table. Nonetheless, Ali Jabar’s last earthly sensation was that of a bullet exploding through his head. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Back on the east side of Riyadh, King Mustafa and Prince Bawarzi hunkered down in a makeshift firing pit, watching the approach of what looked like an Arab armored column. This can’t be, Mustafa thought as the column got closer and closer. He picked up his binoculars again and couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Bawarzi, quick, take a look at the lead tank and tell me what you see.”
Prince Bawarzi stared, then shook his head in wonderment. “Your Highness, unless my eyes are deceiving me, it looks like Prince Khalid ibn Saud. Can this be?”
“I don’t know, Bawarzi. Let me look again.” His high-powered binoculars confirmed the truth. “It is him. Issue orders for everyone to hold their fire. We will allow them their moment of triumph, and when his tank gets a few meters closer, I will personally destroy him before he can deliver our country to the infidels.” Bawarzi gave the order and then brought Mustafa a shoulder-launched antitank weapon.
“Closer, closer, closer,” Mustafa chanted as he relished the thought of wiping out this apostate.
Prince Khalid, a former military officer well-versed in armored warfare, spotted the sun reflecting off a metal object about 150 meters southwest of his tank. There wasn’t enough time to turn and aim the 155 millimeter tank gun for a shot at what was probably an antitank weapon, so he immediately opened fire on the suspected target with his twin mounted .50-caliber machine guns. Whatever it was, Khalid thought, it’s gone now.
Prince Khalid ordered a halt to assess the damage. As the platoon approached the target, seven grenadiers from the 15th Armored Brigade moved slowly out to meet them, their hands raised in surrender. They started to shout, “You killed the king! You killed King Mustafa!”
Astonished, Khalid ordered his tank columns to continue on while he jumped off the tank to investigate the prisoners’ claims. One of the prisoners, flanked by two soldiers, led him to the remains of the firing pit where he found the corpse of Prince Bawarzi. His chest oozed a deep crimson red; it was obvious he had died immediately.
A few feet away, near several spent shell casings, he spotted another body, face-down on the ground. He flipped the bloody mass of humanity over and was flabbergasted by what he saw. Mustafa. Can this really be? How could I ever have been so blessed as to kill this vile man?
He was more astonished to see that Mustafa was still alive, gasping for breath and bleeding heavily from a gaping wound to his stomach. As Khalid leaned down to get a clearer look at the man he had long dreamed of killing, Mustafa suddenly opened his eyes. Anguish and horror filled his eyes; his lips moved silently as blood ran out of both sides of his mouth. He took two or three more labored breaths and then died with an astonished look on his face.
Riyadh fell quickly as the Saudi loyalists laid down their arms and surrendered en masse. As the wary citizens of Riyadh slowly came out of their shelters, they were surprised to see Prince Khalid ibn Saud at the head of a column of Saudi tanks, flanked by Arab soldiers. Cheering, the throng greeted them as liberators.
66
The Situation Room
10 April 2018
Clayton McCarty delighted in the euphoria filling the Situation Room this morning. So often the scene of unimaginable anguish, today the room hosted a debriefing on the event ending much of that anguish: the fall of the Mustafa regime. Clayton mused, as he watched the