NOW 15

Chapter Fifteen

It started innocently enough, with a demonstration of young worshippers at a Mosque in a small coastal town along the Red Sea. That it was the first day of 1964 was of no consequence and all it did was to make it easier for future historians. The demonstration was carefully orchestrated by men loyal to the priest and were outwardly oriented against the Government's inefficiency and corruption, and that was not that unusual in any of the countries in the region, except maybe in Palestine.

What was unusual was that they directly attacked the King, which was normally a taboo in a monarchy as autocratic as Saudi-Arabia. So within two hours the local police force was out with orders to disperse them.

There were enough genuine protesters in the demonstration to make sure that turning the situation violent would he harder than anticipated, but the Priest's men in the back and the middle of the crowd started hurling stones at the police when a standoff ensued and neither side would be provoked by the other's use of profanities and efforts to provoke. Both were laced with enough of the Priest's men to ensure that the situation rapidly escalated.

Shots were fired with predictable results.

Over the next six days similar incidents took place all over the country and a week after the first incident the simmering discontent under the surface of the country exploded. Chaos reigned.

Years of preparations then began to pay off. Their impatience nearly cost the plotters everything though.

The King was a weak person at heart and when one of the Colonel's associates offhandedly suggested that one might to be forced to rely on the Army.

The King agonized over deciding for more than a week all the while skilful ministrations by the Priest fanned the flames until in the third week of January something happened that broke the straw.

The four BTR-50 Armoured Infantry Carriers and three Sarazen Armoured Cars were going nowhere in particular but the impact of the first PIAT ended that anyway. The second BTR in line exploded, sending bits of men and machines all over the place.

The Brens of this group opened up and cut down the Infantry that was milling about in total chaos without taking cover.

“DEATH TO THE KING!” came through a megaphone at them and then the shooting stopped.

This attack was joined by dozens of others all over the country in the next week and they achieved what they were meant for. The King snapped and ordered the Army to the streets.

The Priest and the Colonel were monitoring the increasingly frantic wireless networks of the Government and the news broadcasts that came out of the TV and Radio stations.

Smiling at the Priest the Colonel said:

“It seems that we can move soon, Brother.”

The Priest nodded. “I leave these matters to you of course, Brother.”

The Colonel grimaced inwardly. The Priest was willing to leave everything to the professionals as long as things went the way he wanted them to go. So far that had always been the case, but now the most risky part of their plan was about to come into operation.

“Brother, I must point out that the Europeans and especially the British will already know that something is happening in our country and if anything happens to their embassies they cannot fail to react.”

The Priest waved this away. “The plan calls for the Foreign Embassies to be left alone at the moment, fear this not. We do need if not the support then at least the non-interference by the accursed British.”

The Colonel nodded. “I know this of course, Brother. But some of the more...spirited of our people on the streets might not see it this way, especially after this afternoon.”

Again, the Priest merely waved this comment away in the excitement of the moment.

“You can of course tell this to your Lieutenants.”

“I will do that.” the Colonel replied. “In any case, I have to leave for the station. Our people should have it secured by now.”

~**---**~

It started in a square in Ryiad not a mile from where the King and his closest advisers began to quietly plot how long it would take to drive an Armoured Car to the nearest airstrip. The man in command of the Guards detachment was a man carefully selected by the Colonel before he had been forced to leave the Army and it was this unit that had some of the best equipment in the Saudi Army. Conspicuously all of it was of British Origin.

For all his faults the Priest had correctly deduced that after his manipulations the populace would see the King as the source of the trouble and deaths in their country on the King. The man doing the 'field work' as it were had made sure that the Royalist Forces were always the most visible when a protest was crushed or a dissident was arrested, this latter part having been started months ago, and now everything was in place.

The Sarazen Armoured Cars and the men on the Landies[1] with the machine guns were not aware that they were pawns in a bigger game as much as the people in the square. As far as they knew they had been given orders by the King to disperse this protest at any cost.

When the crowd refused to obey orders to disperse ant leave every gun on the vehicles was turned on them. They hesitated for a second and then came on. The men pulled their triggers with the obvious results.

A few blocks away Her Majesty's Embassy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could clearly hear the automatic fire. The military attaché, a Indian Major and graduate of the Bombay War College turned on his heels at the door of his Office and ran up to the Ambassador's Office.

“Sir, something is happening and it's not good.”

The Ambassador had heard the gunfire and while he was one of the old school who was not convinced that the New Empire was something he liked he knew that the Officer wearing the Cap badge of the Peshawar Lancers was competent.

“We might want to put the guard force onto alert.” the Ambassador said and picked up the telephone. The Guard Force at the British Embassy wasn't made up of professional military men like their American counterparts but they were armed. The attaché nodded and collected his Navy and Air Force colleagues and together the soldiers ran up the staircase to the flat roof of the complex.

The sight that greeted them was horrifying. Fleeing crowds filed past the embassy, many clearly being wounded either by the trampling feet of their panicking neighbours or bullets and the gunfire at what had to be the square two blocks up the road as still continuing.

“What the blazes are these idiots doing?” the Major yelled. He was a Late Entry Officer and as a Warrant Officer had served in the chaos that was the northern Border area of the Republic of China where he had been part of the guard of a British diplomatic delegation that had tried and failed to sort things out without violence like this.

“Bloody hell.” the Air Force Flight Lieutenant said and pointed to the eastern edge of the city. “These madmen have mobilized the airbase!”

Two brand new Russian made Mi-8s with rocket and gun pods under their proto-wings and Machine Gunners in their open doors made their way to the square.

They had seen enough. As they made their way down the Major shook his head. China had been bad and he was glad to be rid of it, even though it had earned him a Queen's Commission in 1952 but this was bound to be even worse. In China at least in the end the threat of the British leaving the RoCs to their fate had made the Army back off and confine itself to things that were more within it's normal area of expertise[2]

“Do we report this in?” the Flight Lieutenant asked.

“Are you joking?” the Major replied and went off to the comms room where he was sure he would find the Ambassador. He was sure that all the embassies along the street, starting with the Polish one right next to this building to the German one down the road would today burn up the airwaves with communications. Saudi Arabia was at the brink.

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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

I started this story and thought up this plotline before the political turmoil in the arab world, so any similarities are coincidental.

[1] Shortening of Land Rover and TTL's equivalent of 'Jeep'.

[2] If you think of the mid-60s Republic of China think Taiwan before Chiang died with a slightly more powerful parliament.