see their failings in myself. That’s the hardest part, seeing how I’m like them. I know what it is to surrender to a powerful idea or personality. We all may imagine that we have strong moral bearings, but those same instincts that lead us to do good in the world may be bent toward the vilest actions.”
* * *
—
HENRY AND MAJID CONTINUED to exchange intimate philosophies across the whole span of the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, the convoy came over a rise of red sand hills, and before them, gleaming in the slanting rays of sunset, was the vast Ghawar oil field, the largest in the world. Pumping jacks stretched endlessly across the desert floor, and gas flares like street lamps illuminated the storage tanks. Henry noticed another piercing light in the sky, just above the horizon, like a low-flying comet, which was hard to account for. At first, Henry accepted it as another feature of this exotic landscape.
Suddenly, Majid braked hard, holding up a stopping hand to the convoy behind. “Missile!” he cried.
As Henry watched, a series of antimissiles were launched from the Saudi defenses against the incoming Iranian rocket, leaving smoky trails as they bent to meet their target. A huge orange fireball ignited like a sun, followed seconds later by the thunderous sound of the explosion. Another missile appeared from a different spot on the horizon, and another, eliciting dozens of antimissiles. Smoke from the first explosion drifted toward the convoy, enveloping them in an acrid cloud.
Majid radioed the commander in the Humvee behind him. “Spread out!” he demanded. “We’re slow-moving targets on this road.” One of the Iranian missiles broke through the oil field defenses and struck a storage tank, setting off an enormous conflagration.
Henry was transfixed by the tableau before him, splendid and forbidden, and he understood at once the lure of combat. Then he noticed another missile skimming just above the desert coming directly at them, maneuvering, searching for them through the fumes. The instrument of death was fast and intelligent and would not be denied, and yet Majid kept his foot on the accelerator, as if he were rushing to meet it. A sound was coming out of Henry’s mouth, but he couldn’t hear his own voice. Suddenly Majid swerved into the sand and the missile exploded in the roadside just behind them. The shock rocked the jeep, but Majid immediately turned back onto the highway. “We’ll be safer when we get past the oil field,” he said. “That must be protected at all costs. But we are expendable.”
It was dark now, and the lights of Dammam flickered in the distance. As Majid barked orders on the radio, Henry could see the refinery at Ras Tanura glowing on the eastern horizon, a city made for machines, absent of beauty or comfort. The missiles found their targets or exploded in the sky. Storage tanks and wellheads burned with vivid intensity, the blaze changing from red to orange to yellow to white as it got closer to the fuel source, until finally, at the bottom, the fire was as blue as a glacial lake. The horizon in the south was blackened by the fires at Abqaiq processing facilities.
“Henry, I have bad news,” Majid reported. “The causeway to Bahrain has been destroyed. I can get you to the seaport at Dammam. That is as much as I can do.”
Henry nodded. The idea of getting home, or even living another day, seemed increasingly moot.
The military convoy continued toward the garrison at Ras Tanura, while Majid and Henry broke off and drove alone into the empty streets of the freshly destroyed industrial city of Dammam. They passed an apartment building that had been sliced apart as cleanly as if a knife had gone through it, exposing kitchens and bedrooms and closets with clothes still on hangers, reminding Henry of a dollhouse he had made for Helen years before. Majid pointed to a pile of rubble. “That was our main desalination plant on this side of the peninsula,” he said, then fell silent as the implications sank in.
When they arrived at the seaport, the wharves were deserted, the massive supertankers having retreated to open waters. There was no one in the guardhouse to raise the gate, and no ships in evidence. “I cannot leave you here,” Majid said, his mouth set in a hard line. “And I cannot take you with me.”
“I’ll find a way,” said Henry. “Bahrain is not far, is it?”