The Sand Cafe by Neil MacFarquhar

Author:Neil MacFarquhar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2010-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

THINGS went well with the Saudi navy, the trip evolving into an interesting look at the cultural problems faced by a desert people trying to go to sea. Toward sunset, the Muslim call to prayer boomed out over the destroyer’s loudspeaker. About two dozen men, the ship’s wake churning behind them, threw their individual prayer rugs down across the ship’s fantail and bowed in prayer toward the invisible shoreline and Mecca. Angus had never seen Muslim prayers at sea before and that clinched the material he had gathered for a good, quirky feature.

Back at the Dhahran Palace, before sitting down to write, he went to grab a bite in the Dunes, hoping to bump into Thea or someone from CBN who knew where she was.

He found the entire press corps in an uproar. Everyone in the coffee shop seemed to be shouting at once. Angus saw Lydia sitting alone and went over to ask what was going on.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“Out with the Saudi navy,” he answered.

“Saudi navy?” Lydia giggled. “What? Is that a joke about camels, a border patrol on ships of the desert or something?”

“No. They really have a navy, destroyers and everything. But what’s happening here? Why is everyone so agitated?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Omigod!” Lydia shrieked, her eyes widening. “They offered us guns!”

“Who offered you guns?” Angus said, annoyed. “What’s going on?”

Lydia told him, barely pausing for breath. The Pentagon spokesman, Pete Williams, and a pack of colonels who directed public information had arrived from Washington unannounced, like a sudden gale marking the abrupt change in seasons. Last-ditch diplomatic attempts to avert war were gradually petering out. Everyone in the Dhahran Palace anticipated that war would change their lives, but not quite how. This visit was the first inkling; the Pentagon wanted to finalize the rules for combat reporting.

Lydia told Angus that a couple colonels dropped in on a press pool meeting, where the various news organizations dickered so ruthlessly over dividing up combat pool slots that it practically disintegrated into hand-to-hand combat. The meetings convened every other night to allow smoldering tempers time to cool, but the fights raged on like a fever.

“So this colonel steps in front of the room and tells us that among other things the military will issue us all 9-millimeter pistols!” Lydia said.

“What for?”

Quisburt, eavesdropping from an adjacent table, butted in. “So we could join in with the soldiers in defending our positions in the trenches. It’s a fine idea and I don’t understand how all you guys can possibly think of it as dangerous or weird. Any reporter with an ounce of common sense would want to carry a gun.”

Angus was taken aback. “Come on, Quisburt, reporters with guns? That goes against just about every neutrality rule in the book, doesn’t it?”

Lydia added, “Plus what could be worse than a bunch of unstable reporters stalking around the hotel with loaded weapons?”

Quisburt scowled.

“So did they put the choice to a vote or what?” Angus asked.

“The guy was almost laughed out of the room,” Lydia said.

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