Decisions by Carl Douglass

Author:Carl Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publication Consultants

Chapter Ten

KJO Hospital [Al Khafji Joint Operations Hospital], Ras al-Khafji, Saudi-Kuwaiti Neutral Zone, January 13-15, 2016

Agent Tom Haggerty’s wound began to fester on the second day of travel across the soft sand. Traction was difficult which made the going slow. Every jouncing bump caused the tough campaigner to groan. Chris Stevenson’s body was beginning to ripen despite the layers of covering placed on top of him. They had not seen nor heard any activity on the part of the regular SA armed forces nor from the rebels who were so determined to find and destroy them. The only human activity they saw were tribesmen moving from Saudi Arabia towards Kuwait, Trucial Oman, Muscat, and Oman. As they began to come to the fringes of the Rub al-Khali, the traffic became busier as the nomads freely drove their animals back and forth over the undemarcated borders.

Mac, Ed, and Sybil had a conference that night.

“Look, you guys, Tom is going to get into real trouble if we don’t get him to a hospital pronto. He’s feverish and sometimes confused. We’re not all that far from the KJO Hospital in Ras al-Khafji, which is a pretty up-to-date center. I’m not a big risk taker, but we haven’t seen any SA military traffic since we left the vicinity of Al-Ahsa and Dammam. My bet is that they have either decided we are not important, or they just can’t find us. I suggest that we get to the highway ASAP and take our chances.”

There was a brief discussion, but Tom’s progressing condition trumped other concerns. They hid in a small date palm grove through the day then left on a north-east course across the sand towards the junction of Highway 95 and King Fahd Causeway, which connects the Kingdom across the Bay of Bahrain to Bahrain. Two helicopters hovered over them for about half an hour and fired a few desultory rounds in their direction, but the darkness was too deep for them to get a good fix on the two HMMWVs headed for the highway.

“We’ll have a couple of hours of cover from darkness once we get to 95; but, after that, we will be visible,” Ed said.

“How bad it gets will depend on whether or not we get into significant traffic. I can’t see the rebels strafing a bunch of Saudi and international citizens in the hopes that they can take us out, too,” Mac said, “but once we see light hitting that highway, we are going to have to fly like a bat and hope to outrun their poor aim. Everybody agree?”

The battle council vote was unanimous, and they plowed through the sand and onto the highway just north of the intersection with the causeway. There was skimpy traffic; so, they put their vehicles into high gear and flew as fast as they could north, incurring the wrath of more sensible drivers. At nine-fifteen a.m. on the morning of the fifteenth, they were 45 miles from the Saudi-Kuwaiti Neutral Zone going almost 90 miles an hour.

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