“How you doing, kid?” Swanson asked.
Now that the excitement was calming, Abdel was feeling the effect of his wound. He was pale and weak, leaning back against a wall as a doctor worked on him. “I am good, but it hurts.”
“He must go to the hospital,” the doctor said. “The wound is not serious, but the bullet is still inside. It needs to be cleaned out and properly repaired. He has lost a lot of blood.”
The police chief stroked his beard and examined the young man who had made this all happen. “Then let’s get him over there,” he said. “We’ve got things under control for now. We have our guns again and can go back to being policemen and protecting our citizens.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Abdel protested. A grimace of pain twisted his face, and the doctor prepared a needle and inserted it in the forearm. Abdel looked at Kyle; his eyelids fluttered and closed.
“He turned into quite a soldier,” Kyle said to the chief, who nodded agreement. “Not bad for an untrained man who rents jet skis to tourists.”
The chief laughed, then spoke in remarkably good English. “I understand that he reported a couple of jet skis were stolen from his business recently, the night the ship blew up in the harbor.”
“That right?” Kyle scratched his ear.
“Ummh. I’ve been meaning to get around to investigating that soon.” A wink. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep watch over him from now on. If I cannot persuade him to become a policeman, maybe he will be mayor or something.” He extended his hand, and Kyle shook it. “From what Abdel told me before the fight, your hand was on this rebellion all the way, sir. And I saw the way you handled your rifle.”
“A young man’s imagination. I was just hanging around, and now I’m going to check into one of those big hotels. I’m just a tourist, and I think it is best if I go home now.”
“Where is your home? Are you American, British?”
“Best of luck, Chief.” Swanson turned away and disappeared into the crowd that had come out at night, unafraid, to fill the city streets.
Colonel Naqdi was in a room that had been set aside for his use, surfing the Web on his laptop. His unfinished business with General Khasrodad would have to wait, but he had not forgotten the arrogant senior officer, nor the big sergeant major who had actually laid hands on him. Eventually, he would deal with them both.
The high-definition resolution on his screen brought the rebellion of Sharm right into his room. Every news channel was broadcasting pictures of the uprising, and the social media sites were alive with individual reports. Naqdi did not have to crawl back over to the general and beg for a report about the convoy of reinforcements, for its fate was there for all to see; any child anywhere in the world with access to a computer could watch the shameful, crushing defeat of the Iranians both at the execution park and later at the traffic circle. Elite soldiers had turned and run like cowards.
The one outstanding figure in the narrative and the photographs and news reports was a young man who apparently was the leader of the rebellion, a rather heroic-looking fellow who was now getting worldwide attention for his bravery. He was shown fighting, cheering his men on, talking seriously to older men, including one wearing a mask, and finally refusing to be loaded into an ambulance because he was wounded. His name, the reporters said, was Abdel El-Din, and he normally worked at his family’s seaside marina. The colonel studied the various scenes, clicked on several specific pictures, and downloaded them to a printer.
Naqdi finally turned from the computer, for the news was not going to change. Of more immediate concern now was his own survival. The general would do whatever he could to save the remainder of his command, but that was no longer the colonel’s problem. In fact, he was under a peculiar kind of arrest, for while no guard stood outside the door, the entire airport had become his prison. He went outside for a walk. Dawn was just about to break in the east, and that gave him the idea. He quickened his pace over to a hangar into which his own plane had been taken. He could fly out of here anytime he wanted! Get back to Cairo and find some levers of control, out from under the thumb of this failed general, and into the welcoming arms of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Several mechanics in stained coveralls were in the large building, and, since he was still in his military uniform, he had no problem ordering them to fuel the plane, do a preflight check, and move it out of the hangar to the apron, prepared for an immediate takeoff. While they did that, he returned to his quarters to gather his computer and civilian clothes. Should he tell the general he was leaving? Why bother? He would find out soon enough.
Naqdi came back outside and saw that the mechanics had been quick. The light tan plane was sitting there, waiting for him in the first glow of the new day. He would have the props turning in five minutes and be gone in ten, abandoning the failures of Sharm to the general.
Four stubby MiG-21 fighters bearing the red, white, and black rondels of the Egyptian Air Force kicked away from the military base at Hurghada on afterburner and headed across the Red Sea toward Sharm el-Sheikh only a little more than fifty-one miles away. The old but agile planes steadied up at 1,300 miles per hour, rocketing across the water and the ship-packed channel that led into the Suez Canal. The pilot of each plane started checking down his weapons systems immediately after takeoff, because they would be in attack mode in a matter of moments. Each had a 30 mm internal cannon and a pair of 500 kg bombs hanging on wing pylons.
They flew due east, then broke into two pairs as they began a low circle back west so they would come out of the rising sun. Radars all around, including at the airport, would paint them brightly, but that was immaterial this morning. This fight would be over in the blink of an eye, and the pilots would be back at Hurghada in a few minutes for the debriefing and a big breakfast.
The four MiGs dropped out of the sky like an aerie of hawks and came streaking over the runway in line, popping eight large bombs right down the centerline, then zoomed up, flipped over, and came roaring in again, emptying their cannons on any targets the pilots chose. The series of explosions followed by the booming chatter of the cannon fire and the shriek of the jet engines on afterburner stunned the entire Sharm airport, not so much for the damage inflicted but as a signal that the Egyptian military had made up its mind and was coming after the Iranians.
No one was more shocked than Colonel Yahya Naqdi as he was running toward his plane, only to dive hard onto the tarmac when the bombs began to fall. He was battered by the bomb blast concussion waves and watched helplessly when a strafing MiG zoomed directly overhead and chewed his little plane to bits.
31
Karam, the concierge, looked up from his desk in the refurbished lobby of the Blue Neptune and saw a man with a familiar face standing before him. “Mr. Kyle Swanson? Are you all right?” The visitor was dirty and unshaven, dressed in the clothes of an Egyptian workingman, and carrying a worn duffel bag.
“As you can see, I didn’t make the plane out before the Iranians landed, so I would like my old room back for a few days, if I can get it.”