Free December Ultimatum by Michael Nicholson Page A

seams of his trousers with the palms open and the fingers splayed wide open. When he spoke his voice was almost lost in the hiss from the air- conditioning duct above him.
    ‘An hour ago, I spoke to General Volney-Wagner at Macdill airbase. I asked him if he was ready. I quote him word for word. “I’m ready for anywhere, for any place at any time. You tell me where to put the x on the map and tell me what’s under the x and I’ll tailor my force and go there.’’ Gentlemen, I’m putting that x right bang on those oilfields. I mean to get that oil . . . before the Soviets go in and get it themselves.’

December 21st



RIYADH
    ‘But his soul goes marching on’
    Fires were still smouldering in Riyadh, five hundred miles west of the Okinawa’s position in the Gulf, but the gunfire and the explosions of grenades and mortars no longer echoed through the narrow streets of the Saudi capital. There were still hundreds, possibly thousands, dead, but one by one, as their families claimed them, they were carried away in the half-light of dawn, sprawled across a camel’s back or stretched out under a cloth in an open donkey cart. Makeshift flags of the new Islamic People’s Democratic Republic had been quickly sewn together from remnants of red and black cloth and they hung limp from shuttered windows in the still cold morning air. Other bits of the same coloured rags had been hurriedly nailed to doors and on to the mud walls of the small squat houses.
    At twenty minutes past five the sun rose above the desert horizon and shutters were carefully opened and doors were just as cautiously unlocked. The survivors of Saudi Arabia’s first civil war nodded to each other, brought out their prayer mats and went down on their knees to touch the sand with their foreheads and thank Allah for their salvation. Loudspeakers on top of the minarets carried the same thanksgiving across the flat roofs and far away other muezzins relayed the message until all in Riyadh were down on their knees and elbows facing Mecca and thanking the God of Islam they were still alive to do it.
    Within minutes of their prayers ending, as they washed their hands and feet again and boiled water for their coffee, they suddenly heard other loudspeakers proclaiming a message not of God. They went back to their doorways and windows and watched Land Rovers turn the corner and come slowly down the street in convoy. The windscreens and sides of the vehicles had been smashed and ripped with bullets and youths stood in the back, holding rifles high above their heads, strips of red and black cloth streaming from the barrels. On a signal from the leading driver, the Land Rovers stopped. A man with a megaphone began a new flow of propaganda, the youths in the vehicles jumped off and on walls and doors and shop windows they began spraying the initials of the new government IDPR, and the name Rahbar.
    The youths shouted and danced and screamed abuse of King Fahd and spat phlegm at the ground. The people in the shadows of their doorways and those standing back from their windows watched silently for they knew with a simple wisdom that it was foolish to show commitment so soon. After all, today was only the third day in the week, and on the first day King Fahd had been their divine ruler. Was it not possible he might be again by the seventh? If he was not, then, and only then, would it be time to join hands with these young men with their Land Rovers and rifles and their magic paint, who shouted obscenities at the King and spat on the ground where the prayer mats had been only minutes before.
    As the convoy accelerated away to other streets and other shy spectators, women went to their stoves to prepare the meal of the day and their men went to their Koran for guidance, astonished at Allah’s ways.
    Franklin was ordered into the open truck with fifteen other foreign nationals. Eleven were fellow Americans, all oil men, two were British computer technicians, there was a