Thus the two made an appointment for the evening. Carina was supposed to come again to the shop shortly before dusk.
1990 - Rabea Akbar – A new hierarchy
It was October 1989 when Rayan left the mountains around Zarifa.
As he knew the mountainside, as well as the surrounding parts of the desert, like the back of his hand, it had been no problem for him to stride straight through until the next oasis. There he joined a caravan to Rabea Akbar. The city lay in the south of Zarifa and it was still part of the desert of Rub’al Khali.
Originally it was just a big oasis, but like so many other settlements it had grown over time and had become a real city. The leader of the caravan, who had three sons of his own at home, had sympathy for him and luckily accepted him as a "hanta“. Hanta was the local name for men who had to take care for the camels. They were mostly young lads just like Rayan, who wanted to work for their passage, due to not being able to afford a camel of their own.
At Rabea Akbar he strolled around for a while to scout out the environment. He had never been there before. He had only left Zarifa two or three times before to accompany the men to the surrounding oases for trading.
"Your English is good, go to Rabea Akbar to the Americans“, his grandfather had advised him. Before he met Rayan’s grandmother he had himself worked as a hanta and as a guide in the American base there.
"With the Americans you will be safe. There no one will care where you come from; and your blue eyes are not going to be anything special either. However, just in case you should change your name. Why don’t you call yourself Yasin? – that was my father’s name, so the name of your great-grandfather.“
For the second time Rayan was lucky: just as he arrived into Rabea Akbar at the beginning of 1990 – in the January – the guide, who the military normally had under contract, fell ill. This was most likely because of some poor quality water. Thus, the American sergeant responsible for the desert explorations needed an urgent replacement and, fortunately, he did not ask too many questions. Contrary to the former guy the tall boy seemed to be able to understand them quite well, which made conversation so much easier.
And just like that Rayan, who now called himself Yasin, succeeded in securing himself a small place to sleep, right next to the barracks of the soldiers.
He had no problem adjusting himself, but there was one aspect that was hard for him in the beginning: he was born as Prince of the desert and was used to the fact that servants had to bow to him. Even though he had been away from home for quite a while now, he had never had to serve someone else before. Now it was his duty to bow low before his American masters. This action offended his pride, especially as some of the soldiers showed great arrogance towards the natives, which made his blood boil.
Yet all that he could do was to fight against these feelings. He hurt himself intentionally in these moments by recalling that he no longer was the son of a king, but an outcast, a homeless, a traitor even.
He should be glad that the world thought he was dead. He had witnessed how traitors were branded before they were exiled.
Those men, in the lowest position of the hierarchy, were fair game to everyone.
Therefore he decided he had to be more content and, even though it was a difficult thing to do, he just had to get off his high horse.
2014 – Just outside of Dubai – On to adventure
When the caravan finally took off, Hatem asked himself for the 100th time if he was doing the right thing: he told himself that he could refer to the necklace that the woman was wearing. Anyway, wasn’t he just doing His Excellency a great favour? In the end he would insure that the woman reached her target in a good condition.
He found the leader of the caravan immediately after their conversation the afternoon before and spoke to him. Initially the man categorically refused to take a woman, who was all alone, with him– let alone a foreigner, who did not understand the language! His responsibility was with the whole group, he just could not afford to have someone that did not understand his orders in case of an emergency. Consequently Hatem quickly got himself involved with the adventure by closing his shop and arranging preparations for both of them.
As Carina had hoped, he firmly believed in destiny and that the ways of Allah were strictly defined. He could not believe that their acquaintance was coincidence. Could he really be a tool of Allah? He did not go so far as blaspheming … And anyhow, what could be the worst that could happen? It was most likely that the Sheikh’s group would be long gone by the time they arrived.
After all they had 24 hours head-start and their caravan consisted of 300 camels, they would be much slower in comparison to the horses.
They met one hour before dawn in order to line up the long row of camels together with the other riders.
At least the woman seemed to know how to ride: it was obvious that this was not her first camel ride, a most reassuring sign! It took quite a while until everyone had found their place and lined up – and then they were off!
They were already outside the city and therefore it took them only minutes to find themselves within the open desert.
1990 - Rabea Akbar - Clara
Whenever Rayan had some free time, he loved watching the soldiers on their exercises, especially the combat and weapon training.
He watched attentively in order to memorize as much as possible. Secretly, when he was unobserved, he mirrored what he had seen. As he had been trained by his father and the other warriors since he was very little, in all kinds of fighting techniques and weaponry, it was easy for him to learn the major part of the exercises just from watching. Then later he repeated them until the movements grew natural to him.
When it came to the weapons themselves, he had to manage with substitutes like sticks or stones. It was forbidden for native people to touch the weapons or to officially participate in the education.
From time to time the soldiers would make sarcastic comments, saying "look there is our little spy again, most likely he works for the sheikhs“ and "are you paying enough attention to see how it works?“ – "would you like to participate?“. There was one of them that even said to his comrades: "just wait a couple of weeks, then HE will show you how to do it right.“ And all of them were laughing loudly because they thought that was the most funny remark of them all.
In reality Rayan had quickly found out that the majority of the men did the training out of boredom or just because they had to. There was rarely any good fighters amongst them.
Most of them he would have overcome in spite of his young age or maybe just because of it, as in comparison to them he was burning with eagerness.
It was a completely different story with the training of the Special Forces though. They were deadly serious. They did not allow spectators and he had to be careful not to get caught.
Special Forces like that were the result of the First Gulf War between Iran and Iraq. They were put in place after some rioting in several remote areas, so they were able to have specifically trained troops in place right where needed in case of emergency.
One day when Rayan was getting away from one of the lieutenants he met Clara.
He had already seen her from a distance, especially on Sundays when she was on her way to the base’s church.
She was a tall, gawky girl, much too tall for her own liking. With 1,85 m she towered over all the other young women and, more awkward still, over most of the boys as well.
Additionally to being so tall she was thin. She was wearing her shining brown-reddish hair at shoulder length that she mostly braided backwards with a silver clip, which intensified her