War Lord

Author’s Note: The following story is a work of fiction, but it is based on true events. On May 12th, 2003, a group of terrorists really did bomb a group of American compounds located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The attack killed more than 30 people, and left many more injured. This attack was so significant that it inspired the narrative for the 2007 action thriller motion picture entitled, The Kingdom. I write these words because the person that oversaw those compounds was my uncle. He sent the pictures of the attack that would later end up on the evening news to my mom in the early hours of that day. I feel his amazing story deserves to be told.

Dean ball was pleased to inform you that he was kind of a big deal, thank you very much. He was what you could call a person of interest - a real high profile individual - and he not only knew it but he delighted in the fact. In the world that we find ourselves living in, we can observe that there is a group of a very select few who pull the strings and call the shots for the many, and Dean Ball was undeniably a part of the elite few. His entire adult life consisted of a list of accomplishments, each one more impressive than the last. The cross he was given to bear was a heavy one. Most people couldn’t handle the type of responsibility that the man was entrusted with. On a daily basis, Dean Ball made decisions that would ultimately effect our nations security.

A God fearing man before anything else, Dean Ball was blessed with a unique intelligence where he was usually the smartest person in the room most places he went. Whenever people talked about him - and he was the subject of many conversations - they never had to use any words that were synonymous with a persons smarts to acknowledge the fact that he was brilliant beyond men measure. The story of his life was all it took to say it for him.

Growing up impoverished and with humbled beginnings, Dean realized from an early age that the two main forces driving our economy were healthcare, or what he called sick care, and warfare. He authentically thought it was a pretty obvious pattern that whenever a people ran into a financial crisis, they turned to warfare to boost the economy. That’s what Rockefeller did after all, and he was one of Dean’s many idols. Upon this revelation, a single solitary minute hadn’t passed before he wrote it in his heart that he was going to be a major player on the grand stage of the world’s battlefield.

People would say that he had a very healthy ego. He just knew who he was. The type of kid that like to play games like Risk, Stratego, and Chess for fun, Dean never needed to take an aptitude test or apply for Mensa to know that he had a genius IQ. Sure, several doctors had recommended to his family that he try out for the group who’s name means table in German, as in a table of knowledge, but Dean ultimately thought it was a waste of energy. Besides, he thought that people that cared about what their IQ was were losers, and that most people who did weren’t as smart as they thought they were. He was above it.

Naturally, Dean received top marks in all of his classes growing up. Somewhat of a child prodigy, he received recognition in the small farm town of Missouri that he lived in that no one has ever heard of for a paper he wrote which theorized that if the United States were ever to be the subject of a nuclear attack, that we would probably be attacked in the Mid-West, because it would cut off trade between the East and the West. By the the time that he was eighteen, he even had a senator endorse him to attend at West Point United States Military Academy. It was the happiest day of his life when he tuned into the local news, where the broadcaster reporter that Dean Ball had been selected to attend the prestigious University.

It goes without saying that Dean graduated top of his class at the University that both Ulysses S. Grand and Dwight D. Eisenhower had attended. He lived a life that you only hear about in movies. His siblings looked up to him, and they all joked that he was like the real life James Bond before he ever put on an Officer’s uniform.

In his military endeavors, it didn’t take him long to rise the ranks. Having studied game theory and strategy at the university, Dean’s cunning intellect made it possible for him to secure his own office at the Pentagon before the age of thirty. To give you an idea of how important Dean was to this nation, let us just say that the plane that crashed through the Pentagon on September 11th, went straight through his secretaries office. You know that you’re not entirely expendable when you are the target of a terrorist attack. But all things considered, this doesn’t even account for the height of Dean’s impressive military career.

In the end, Dean Ball became a glorified war lord. Fluent in eight different languages, he was hand selected to be the President of what was formerly known as Raytheon in charge of the Middle East Division. Essentially, it was his responsibility to meet up with the leaders of the world and sell the weapons of mass destruction courtesy of Uncle Sam. He really felt like a modern day Rockefeller. Whenever he returned home, he loved to tell his family about the conversations that he had with the different princes and princesses around the world. The only thing that Dean loved more was going on these big tangents about who the real bad guys and enemies of the world were. He was even thinking of writing a book about it. God only knows he had the time to do so when he would go camping in the Rubicon Desert, which was his favorite hobby.

It was approaching noon on the scorching, blistering hot, sandy day in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ten o’clock in the morning to be precise. Dean’s alarm blared it’s obnoxious beep - beep - beep as his old fashioned alarm clock marked the top of the hour. He was supposed to attend a very important meeting in the middle of town at 1 o’clock sharp, so he decided to sleep in. He needed to be well rested, and alert for this important conference.

Still foggy from his deep slumber, Dean rolled himself over to the edge of his large California King sized bed, and adjusted himself so that his legs dangled over the sides as he rubbed the groggy sleep from his eyes. The eligible bachelor that he was, Dean was dressed in nothing more than a pair of all black silk Calvin Klein boxer briefs that had cost his two-hundred Saudi Riyal. They had cost him so much because everything that was American in Saudi Arabia cost an arm and a leg, much like the price of robbing someone in the country.

Dean was all alone in his massive villa located at the heart of Vinnell Corporation Compound, owned by the Virginia based defense contractor known as Raytheon that he was the President of, but if anyone would have been present, they would have made a remark about how incredibly in shape Dean was for a man of forty-five, about to be forty-six. Built like a body builder, even as he was slouched over you could make out his defined six pack of abs. Most men want to look strong, but Dean had the actual strength that can only come with military kinesthetics and lots of training.

Half asleep, Dean made an effort to curl up all of his toes as tight as he could, as if he was balling up his feet as one would do with their hands. Then he hopped up out of the comforts of the golden silk sheets that his bed provided him, and proceeded to pace back and worth the length of his master bedroom with his feet balled up as I have described. This was a habit he liked to do whenever he had just gotten off of a flight, and he had just arrived in the center of the Saudi peninsula the night before. This habit that he developed was a remedy for the fact that he absolutely hated flying, which was a surprise, considering he consistently averaged more miles flown in a year then most people see in a lifetime. The funny thing is he picked up this habit from watching Die Hard which he would in fact argue is a Christmas movie.

Dean then strolled over to the far side of the room and pulled back his damask curtains, revealing a double pane window that gave an excellent view of the compound that he was in charge of. He took in the deepest breath of air that he could, pleased with the way his life had turned out. There were still days - days like this - that he simply couldn’t believe that this was his life. It was like living a dream; it was all so surreal. Satisfied with what he saw outside his window, and the state of the compound, Dean very suddenly burst out some jumping jacks, as he started his morning working out routine of doing three sets of ten burpees, all the while looking out of his window as he did so.

When he was done with his morning exercise, Dean then made his way to his grand kitchen, where he stopped only when he reached the colossal granite island in the center of it. Usually, Dean was the type of person that liked a cuppa tea to begin his days, but on this particular day, he figured he would make some coffee. He had recently picked up some really strong Turkish coffee up from a market, and he had been wanting to give that a try. That, and he also had some pistachio Dubai Chocolate that he wanted to try with it.

Dean then made his way to the opposite side of the kitchen where the cabinets that held his coffee pot was located, whistling the melody of Traveling Soldier by the Dixie Chicks as he did so. He was in a contemplative state as he fished out the tin of coffee beans, and proceeded to plug in his coffee maker to the electrical socket on the wall. He was thinking of a recent slogan that had been coined to refer to this war of terror that they were all involved in as he poured the coffee beans into the center of the machine. Recently, a lot of people had started saying, “No more blood for oil,” which really wasn’t all that new when you stopped to think about it. The thing was that, most of Dean’s political friends said that this statement was an oversimplification to describe the situation in the Middle East, but from Dean’s perspective it seemed a pretty accurate way of describing the situation they found themselves. These were the thoughts on his mind as the mud brown water began to trickle into the pot.

Dean pursed his lips and was just about to sit himself down and take his first sip of coffee when there came a sudden thrilling buzzing noise announcing that someone was ringing his doorbell. He looked down at the watch on his right hand - a Rolex - and noted that he wasn’t expecting anyone for another forty-five minutes. Curious as a cat, Dean didn’t waste a moments hesitation make his way to the grand entrance of his abode to see who was at his doorstep.

“Good morning sir,” the man outside his door started once Dean had opened his door. It should be noted that Dead was still in nothing more than his boxer briefs. This is worth noting because he was a foreigner in a land where women were given brutal punishments if they didn’t cover their bodies and their faces, so this kind of thing would have been viewed as very taboo in the Arabian peninsula. The thing was that Dean didn’t particularly care. When you were in his position you could kind of afford to do whatever you wanted. Still, you could tell the man was perturbed by this, because he looked every which way except where Dean was standing, as if he had never seen a naked body before.

Dean knew the man that stood outside his door, but it was still odd that he was there. His name was Sameh, and he was Dean’s limo driver. The thing that was strange about this was that Sameh wasn’t supposed to be at Dean’s new place of residence for another forty-five minutes. That, and the other thing that Dean noted that struck him as very odd was the fact that Sameh looked to be extremely nervous, bordering on paranoid. This was evident in the way that he was fidgeting with the brim of his hat that complimented the black suit he wore that made him look the part of a little. But that was not the only indication that he was full of angst. He was also sweating profusely, and looking both to the left and to the right as if he expected something bad to happen any moment.

“Morning Sameh. Good to see you. Come in, come in,” Dean replied as he gesticulated with his hands for the driver to come in. “What Can I do you for?” Dean continued as Sameh crossed the threshold of the villa. “You’re just a little bit early don’t you think?” Dean finished, trying to use simple sentences, as he wasn’t quite sure how good Sameh’s English was.

“Sir, I am very sorry, but you need listen to me,” Sameh began in a tone of voice that was almost passionate. “Traffic today is very bad. You want meeting on time, we need leave now sir. It is most important. You must trust me.

Dean stared at Sameh wide-eyed in disbelief. Sameh was his driver contracted through Raytheon. In Dean’s position, normally, he should be telling Sameh when it was that they should leave, and that wasn’t for another forty-five minutes. But his mother had taught him to always trust his gut feeling. And right now, looking at Sameh and his overall demeanor, something about this situation made Dean intuit that he should listen to the driver. There is a saying where there is smoke, there is fire, and Dean didn’t believe in coincidences.

“Okay Sameh. Let me get dressed, then we can go,” Dean answered with some finality.

“Hurry sir. It is very important. I will meet you in the car.” Sameh repeated back at him with conviction.

Ten minutes later, dressed in his charcoal black Armani suit, Dean sat in the back of his limousine as Sameh approached the security blockade at the front of the American compound. They stopped at the checkpoint, and Dean rolled down his window so that he could show the guard his clearance badge that dangled on lanyard around his neck. Satisfied with the documentation the Arabian guard waved them through.

As soon as the obstacle in the way was moved, Sameh took off like a bat out of hell, driving like there was no speed limit. The unlikely pair had not made it two blocks down the street when a thundering pop, pop, pop, crackle, snap, rang out into the air. A minute had not passed since then heard the reverberating bangs when Dean’s Nokia 9210 Communicator cell phone began blowing up in his hands. He looked down at the screen, and to his surprise, it was as if everyone in his compound - everyone in the compound that mattered - were calling him all at once.

“Hello, this is Dean’s personal cell. How can I help you,” he asked with a tone of skepticism as he answered the phone for Captain John Price.

“Dean, it’s absolutely terrible,” the Captain cried in the phone, and Dean had to pull the phone away from his ear due to the static noise in the background. “It’s a God damn war zone Dean. It’s terrorists Dean. They drove into the middle of the compound and started making all these noises. It was a distraction Dean. The noises made everyone look out their windows and stop and see what was causing all the commotion, and then when they had our attention they set off their bombs. It’s bad Dean,” he finished.

“Well, I’m just glad that you’re okay John. Get somewhere safe, and we will rendezvous at headquarters tomorrow at 12,” Dean said in a complete state of disbelief.

“Like I said, very important,” Sameh began as he looked at Dean through his rearview mirror. “I take you to safe place sir. I take you to airport, and you get out of here for a while. Trust me,” the driver concluded with the same knowing look that had spoke to Dean’s guts earlier.

As they made their way to the small airport Dean looked helplessly out of his window feeling like he was watching the scenes of some bad movie passing by. He still couldn’t believe what had happened. He was starting to feel like he had some guardian angel watching over him. This was the third time he had had a very near run in with death. And he did have a guardian angel. Today, Sameh was that angel.

“Hey, thanks for everything Sameh. You’re a life saver. Really, thanks,” Dean said with a sigh of relief.

“Sir, a word of caution,” Sameh started after a few minutes of deafening silence. Then looking through his rearview mirror he said: “You should not have come here. Your people sir. You’re people are not welcome here, and I don’t think your people want to be here either,” he said in a flat tone that seemed to indicate that was the end of the conversation.

“Sameh, you have no idea.”

Written By Aaron M. Weis