The Sands of the Two Queens: A Novel of Yemen

By Jess B Nunnelee

The Sands of the Two Queens is a novel set in Yemen in 1993. It is the story of a group of expatriates - Americans, British and Irish - who work at an oil and gas production facility in the desert near the ancient city of Marib. The facility and producing fields are located in the midst of bedouin territory. The bedouins are loyal only to their tribes and recognize no government from any country. They are constantly at odds with the central government in Sana'a who try to control their activities. The bedouins have been smugglers since time began and when the government tries to interfere with their smuggling operations the bedouin tribes fight back. The expatriate oil and gas workers are caught in the middle and are used by the bedouins as bargaining chips to obtain concessions from the government.. Bedouins hijack the oil company vehicles, disrupt the operations and even kidnap the expats to hold for ransom. The irony is the bedouins do not hate the expats. In fact many bedouins are actually are employed by the company. They treat the expats as guests while they are in custody. They look upon the expats and the production facility as a gift from Allah. The expats are their friends and were sent here by Allah, the merciful, the benevolent, to be used by the bedouin tribes as is their wish.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Jul 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662910029

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The five o’clock prayer call pierced the quiet of the pre-dawn cool mountain air throughout the ancient city of Sana’a. The stentorian, metallic chanting invaded every niche of the city, calling the faithful to the first prayer of the day. To the small group of expatriates sleeping in the camp at the edge of the city, it penetrated through the alcohol-induced veil of their unconsciousness and abruptly pulled them out of their near-comatose state. The sheer volume that shrieked down upon them from the mosque just behind the camp could not be ignored and, even if they had missed the persistent odor of raw sewage when they had deplaned the Lufthansa flight a few hours earlier, it was a sure reminder they were back again, once more.

Most of them could not, nor would they ever care to, comprehend the Allahu Akbar and the La Allah, La Allah, La Allah ella Allah wa Mohammedha Rasoulaha pouring forth in great volume from the minaret. Most had arrived in a typical state of near-complete inebriation. At least one would get a letter of reprimand sent to their company by the customs authority, for trying to illegally import pornography in the form of Playboy and Hustler magazines into the country. To a man, they each brought in the legally allowed two liters of alcoholic beverages. Many would also bring in large mouthwash bottles full of gin or vodka that had been colored with food dye.

The flights which had brought them all to this place had all been long, coming mostly from the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, and Ireland, both North and Republic. The odd man came from Australia, Hungary, the Canary Islands, Romania, and there was one lone exiled Brit who resided in Thailand. It was typical that at least one of them per trip, usually an Irishman or Brit, would be detained by the authorities in Frankfurt or Amsterdam for refusing to obey airline regulations. Such things as smoking in a non-smoking seat while being drunk and disorderly were not tolerated, especially in Frankfurt, and the German police with their lime green uniforms and Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine guns would stoically escort the offender away for a night of sober reflection in the calaboose.

The camp where they were sleeping consisted of a collection of portable buildings on concrete piers, located inside a high-walled compound with a guard at the entrance gate. Each building contained two beds and a small bathroom. The heavy metal entrance gates to the camp stood perpetually open. The hinges on the gates had rusted from infrequent use, and a great effort and quantity of lube oil were required to close them, so no one ever bothered. The gate guards were local Yemeni men who utilized the small shack as a mufrage, to drink tea in the morning and chew qat in the evenings, rarely paying notice to those coming and going through the gate. The entire ground inside the camp was covered in several inches of coarse, light grey limestone aggregate, which clicked out tiny blue sparks when walked across at night. The largest building was the chow hall where breakfast was already being prepared.

The expats were slowly coming into a conscious state. The tiny minority of light or non-drinkers had been awake for hours; jet lag and the high altitude had precluded sleep for them. But for most of the crew, the trip had been 24 to 36 hours of heavy alcohol consumption, little food, and no sleep. They now began the process of recovering. They arose from the sleeping bunks which had been uniquely odorized by hundreds of different bodies, to shower (or not) in the undrinkable Sana’a water, dress in coveralls or jeans with cotton shirts, and make their way across the gravel yard, hopefully without falling face-first into it, to the chow hall.

The cook was a portly Yemeni with the given name of Hassan. He had been the cook at the camp from the beginning, when it was built to serve the crew constructing the main oil pipeline which ran from the desert across the mountains and down to the coastal plain, ending at the tanker terminal in the Red Sea. It was still referred to as the mainline camp, even though work on the pipeline had concluded years before. Years of cooking for the diverse group of expats had taught Hassan how each preferred his breakfast. For the rig hands and field men from Louisiana and Texas, it was scrambled eggs, bacon, soft white biscuits, sliced jalapeños with picante sauce, and white cream gravy slathered over it all. For the Brits, Irish, and Scots it was stewed tomatoes, bland sausage, fried or poached eggs, toast, muffins, and pork and beans, with barbecue sauce or maybe chutney on the table. Of course, the main prerequisite was a large percolator of coffee brewed to Texas specifications and definitely not to Louisiana specifications. Texas-style coffee seemed to be preferred by all nationalities.

The men filed inexorably inside, unshaven for the most part, with the general appearance of experiencing intense, possibly terminal pain. Inevitably one came through the door arm around the shoulders of another and showing very recent signs of the pox.

See you caught the pox, mate. Sly grins appeared feebly throughout the room. Must be careful, lad. That nasty pox will fly up and smash you in the face in an instant.

Hit took me and Bubba both to pull his sorry ass up. He swan-dived from the top step. Gravel stuck to his face like shit on a sharpshooter. Weak laughter ensued with no one yet having the required strength for a good belly roll. The pox victim sidled into the lavatory and viewed, through bloodshot eyes, his face pockmarked where the gravel had impinged the flesh, as he flicked off the last sharp-edged pebble.

Slowly they continue to file in, order their food and get their coffee. Gradually the hatchet buried between the eyes, the ice pick stabbed through the ear, the razor blades in the stomach, and the concrete churning in the bowels begin to ease a bit. They had not seen each other for 28 days. Slowly they looked around the tables and started to take the roll.

Where’s the tin man, lad?

The tin man?

Aye, the tin man.

I guess he’s with fucking Dorothy in the land of Oz, Mick.

No, no, the tin man. Name escapes me.

What the fuck are you talking about, Mick? The tin man…. Oh! You mean Sharply, the rig mechanic.

Aye, the tin man you always travel with.

Yea yea, Mick, he’s still asleep—drunker’na waltzin’ pissant. I’ll have to pry his sorry ass out of bed. ‘Tin man,’ you crazy fucker. It’s ‘thin.’ With a ‘th.’ Th, th, thin, not tin.

Tha’s what I said mate. Tin.

With the first wholesome food in their bellies in at least 24 hours, and with the coffee beginning to take effect, the headaches and pain began to ease a bit. As they finished eating, cigarette smoke began to fill the hall and the mood lightened a little. Do you Texans know the difference between an orange and an apple, mate?

Whaddya’ll mean, Mick?

You heard me, mate. Give it a go.

Huh?

You’ve never heard anybody say ‘you apple Irish bastard.’

The Brits and the Irish laughed uproariously; the Texans and the boys from Louisiana were much slower on the uptake.

"Ya’ll should’a seen dumbass Ronnie on his first trip over. Laid over at Heathrow. Went for breakfast and ordered biscuits and gravy. That English waitress looked at him like who’da thunk it and said ‘did you say biscuits and gravy, sir?’ ‘Yes ma’am, biscuits and gravy.’ She kept lookin’ at him lak he was dummer’n’a cedar post. Ronnie said ‘Ma’am, don’t you have biscuits?’ ‘Aye,’ she said. ’And gravy?’ ‘Aye,’ she said again. ‘Well, that’s what I want!’ So she brought him out a plate of cookies and a bowl of beef broth."

As the expats continued to struggle into the chow hall in ones and twos, they were reunited with their comrades. Keyf Hallak, you bastard, was heard more frequently, and the mood and laughter continued to increase gradually.

In the Arabic language, there are many sounds which no foreigner can ever learn to pronounce correctly. One has to be born in the land and grow up with the language to ever be able to sound it properly. They say the Hebrew speakers come the closest of any foreigner, but even they never get it quite right. Even the Egyptians and the Saudis cannot speak the language in its purest form as spoken by the Prophet, peace be upon him. It is said throughout the Arabic-speaking world that the purest and most correct pronunciation of the language, in general, can be found in High Yemen. Scholars from around the world come to Yemen to study the language in its purest form.

The expats were back again in the land, the ancient land, the land of the Queen of Sheba, of King Solomon, and the hoopoe bird.

They were back in Yemen.

* * *

Jake Hixom noticed that three of his charges had still not yet appeared for breakfast. The big tool pusher, Clerius Kay, was busy eating a gigantic breakfast. Kay was a non-drinker, one of the very few, and a good thing too because he was a behemoth of a man. Not all that tall but thick and solid throughout, with a gigantic protruding belly that did not sag over his belt. Fully bearded with an XXXL t-shirt and Dickies blue work pants, he rarely spoke. He was the quintessential North Louisiana redneck. His main passion in life was hunting, mostly deer, rabbits, and squirrels. He came from a region that cooked their squirrels with the heads attached, and squirrel brains were a delicacy. During deer season on his return home, his wife would meet him at the airport in Monroe with his rifle and cartridges in tow. She would drop him off at the deer stand on the way back to their house. He had tried repeatedly to convince her to meet him at the airport in their van with a mattress in the back. That arrangement would allow him to satisfy his most primal need first once they reached the seclusion of the deer lease and then proceed directly to meet his second-most primal need of hunting deer. His wife balked at the request. She would gladly bring a deer rifle and cartridges to meet him at the airport, and gladly deposit him at the deer lease, but she was definitely not going to bring the van with the mattress in the back, and most definitely not going to accommodate his most primal need until after he had come home and properly bathed. Kay was one of the strongest men Hixom had ever seen. Clerius had established the home run record on the desert production softball team, with more than 50. The next closest man had five. In his younger and slimmer days Kay had been an athlete of some distinction, and still held the Louisiana high school record for the javelin throw. A full-ride football scholarship to Louisiana Tech had resulted in a badly blown-out knee, thus ending a promising career. Kay saw no point in continuing his education if he couldn’t play ball, so he dropped out and went to work in the oil fields.

It was the other three members of the rig crew Hixom was worried about—Harry Sharply the rig mechanic, and the drillers Jay McGloughlin and Ronald Rice. On the trip over Sharply had bought a bottle of vodka in Frankfort. He consumed half of it surreptitiously on the flight from Frankfurt to Cairo, not wanting to deal with the frosty stares of the Lufthansa stewardess when he asked for yet another drink. The more he drank, the louder he talked. Hixom continually whispered shut the fuck up or they’ll take you off in Cairo to little effect. Mercifully, about 30 minutes before they landed, Sharply passed out and slumped in his seat into a contorted, near-comatose state, mouth wide open. Hixom breathed a sigh of relief. He later regretted not confiscating the remains of the vodka, because upon arrival in Sana’a Sharply revived and proceeded to finish off the entire bottle with Rice and McGloughlin’s help. Hixom struggled to get them all through customs without insulting the Yemeni agents and finally got them to the camp. This morning he learned from Kay that the three of them had somehow procured a second bottle of something and continued drinking long into the wee hours of the morning until they all passed out. All three were from Palestine, Texas, which locally is not pronounced the same as its Middle East namesake, but with a distinctive and accented ‘teen’ as the final syllable.

Hixom finally found all three in the same portacabin. He was surprised they were all awake. Apparently, the intensity of the morning prayer call and the powers of jet lag had overwhelmed even the effects of excessive alcoholic inebriation. Sharply had just completed a session of regurgitation, resulting in the dry heaves leaving the distinctive odor of brown bile on his breath. McGloughlin and Rice both looked like they would make it, although both could barely stand.

Goddammit, guys, we need to go, said Hixom. Get your asses over to the chow hall.

Upon exiting the portacabin, Sharply executed a magnificent dive face-down into the gravel, resulting in yet another pox victim. The other two somehow avoided the same performance.

At long last, after having breakfasted and all been accounted for, they gathered around the flag pole in the middle of the camp, atop which the tri-colored Yemeni flag flew, snapping in the breeze. The buses came at nine o’clock. They all boarded and settled in for the ride back to the airport. As the buses coursed through the streets of Sana’a most of the expats went back to sleep, succumbing yet again to the effects of the long trip and excessive alcohol. Most had seen all these sights before and were indifferent to them now.

The buses proceeded slowly through the chaotic traffic of Sana’a, down Old Airport Road past the viewing stand where President Ali Abdullah Saleh reviewed the parade each Independence Day (both North and South), and on into the heart of Sana’a. They drove on toward Al Tahreer Square just past the Taj Sheba hotel. Traffic slowed to a crawl. Women in black hijabs and beggars with horrible deformities approached the buses, asking for donations. None of the seasoned expats gave anything. A first-time Westerner might give away all his cash at the sight of a horribly burned young girl with no hands, and upon doing so he would be counseled. The experienced expats would tell him that if it was a badly burned disfigured young woman with no hands who gathered the most money, then the next trip there would be a badly burned and disfigured young woman on every corner along the bus route. And if the collection of badly burned disfigured young women with no hands continued to command the lion’s share of the donations, then there would be two and even three badly burned disfigured young women with no hands along the route for subsequent trips. The same was true of young boys with cleft palates that parted their upper lip well up into their noses, exposing horribly disfigured teeth. Also included were young baby-faced boys with spinal deformities which required them to wear plastic flip-flops on their hands to crawl around in the dirt and filth, because they were unable to stand at all. If one looked closely enough, he would see that the income collected by these beggars would be collected from time to time by a Yemeni man with a cheek full of qat, driving a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser and contemplating the purchase of his second, third or even fourth wife.

The buses proceeded onward through the streets of Sana’a. Most aboard were oblivious to the architecture of the overhanging second floor, and the endless blue metal doors of the shops. The occasional pharmacy was identified by a white metal door. The whys and wherefores of this system of business door coloration were never fully comprehended by even the most seasoned expats of many years and many trips through Sana’a. They passed by the herds of sheep and goats browsing through the offerings of the overturned dumpsters. The normal cycle of trash dumpsters in Sana’a consisted first of being filled to the brim with refuse of every description. Next, it was overturned into the street for the livestock to pick through. And finally, it was set on fire, emanating the acrid stench of burning plastic. Then the dumpster was uprighted and the cycle began again. There was no official trash collection service in Sana’a in those days. The sight of pale blue Hadda water bottles, and the green translucent plastic bags that were used to sell qat, were coined as the national flowers of Yemen. This was the Sana’a of 1993.

The buses weaved through the heart of the city and proceeded toward the airport. They entered an area in northern Sana’a which distinguished itself by the raw sewage running freely in the creek bottoms. The odor was a reminder of where they almost were themselves, so in a way a welcome back.

The buses stopped at a heavy sliding steel gate at the entrance, which led to the heliport at Sana’a International Airport. The gate was flanked by geranium plants taller than most men, and decorated with 50 or 60 bright red blooms. A Yemeni Army soldier, all of about 15 or 16 years old, boarded each bus carrying his AK-47. He wore a black beret, dark green Army fatigues, and a Chinese made canvas harness which was a lighter shade of green, and had several pouches filled with 20-round magazines of ammunition. The typical Yemeni soldier was a teenager slightly over five feet tall and weighing slightly more than a hundred pounds. Next to most of the expats they looked like children, but the AK-47 set them apart and they carried it with an air of bravado.

It was bag inspection time. The desert camp was advertised as being a dry camp, so before any expat could board the helicopter, he had to subject his bags to inspection, normally by a Yemeni soldier. The veteran expats knew how to get through this, and always schooled the first-timers before going through. Each expat carried one bag, carry-on size, that he carried back and forth each trip. Most avoided checking a bag with the airlines because it slowed them down and was subject to being lost. It was legal to bring two bottles of liquor, wine, or beer into Yemen, and most expats brought in two bottles of spirits normally purchased at the layover in Frankfurt at the duty-free. Even the few non-drinkers brought in the requisite two bottles to give or sell to their friends. But alcohol was officially prohibited by the company in the desert camp.

Putting bottles of booze in your bag and trying to sneak it through this bag inspection was not the way to get booze into camp. There were other ways much safer, once you had the connections. Some expats still brought in booze in their bag, in the form of pure grain alcohol died with food coloring and poured into giant bottles of mouthwash or lime juice, but some of the guards were wise to that trick and would unscrew the lids and take a good sniff, always sticking their nose as far into the bottle as possible.

The old hands knew to let the young, arrogant AK-47 wielding Yemeni soldiers do whatever they wanted with their bag. Don’t object to the search and don’t make a fuss, they would say. Open the bag up wide for him, let him poke through to his heart’s content, and pay him proper obeisance. If you do try to sneak in a bottle of mouthwash liquor and he catches it, just hang your head and say how sorry you are and tell him to keep it. He can sell it for a few rials on the black market, or maybe drink it himself, and nothing more will be said. There was almost always one expat per trip who refused to heed the advice of the more experienced hands and raised bloody hell at the sight of some no-good filthy Yemeni kid soldier rifling through his bag. Chances were that he had a bottle in the bag, and when the soldier produced it with a flourish the expat would fly into a rage. This would cause a report to be filed with the company representatives, leading to the recalcitrant expat being quickly terminated and sent home on the next flight.

The heliport consisted of a small metal building with a concrete landing pad nearby, located at the edge of the taxiway at Sana’a International Airport. Upon the concrete pad perched a well-maintained Bell 212. The mechanic and pilots were mostly Canadian, with the odd American. The company contracted to provide the chopper service was registered in Abu Dhabi. For years the Yemeni government had been pressing the company to lease a Yemen military helicopter to provide this service. For years the company had resisted. Flying over Sana’a Airport, one could view the Yemen Army Air Force fleet. There were the remains of several awkward Russian-built helicopters in varying stages of incompleteness, having been scavenged for spares. ‘Preventative maintenance’ was a phrase unknown in the Yemeni vernacular. The Yemen position was if a thing worked it worked, and if it didn’t work you needed a new one.

Hixom and Kay guided the pale, haggard Rice, Sharply, and McGloughlin toward the Bell 212. These five were on the first flight. It would take three roundtrip flights of the Bell 212 to ferry all the expats to the desert camp 100 miles (as the hoopoe flies) east from Sana’a. Rice, Sharply, and McGloughlin struggled to climb inside and took seats in the middle of the canvas benches. Seat belts promptly clicked and eyelids promptly closed. Most were still in a state of pain, nausea, and general misery, albeit somewhat improved. Kay and six other expats piled in, leaving Hixom the copilot seat in front, next to the pilot.

Mohammed, tall and lanky, who had been accompanying these helicopter flights as a Yemen Army security representative, stood outside and was the last person to board the 212. Known to the expats as Chopper Mohammed to differentiate him from the many other Mohammeds in Yemen, he knew all the expats by name. He also had the authority and the tendency to search the expat’s bags a second time if the notion struck him, or if one of the expats made the mistake of insulting him. Chopper Mohammed’s English was just good enough that he could understand all the profanity and insults that might be directed his way. Hixom always made a point of surreptitiously passing several packs of Big Red chewing gum or Red Hots to Chopper Mohammed to stay on his good side. Yemeni loved any sweet with cinnamon in it, and the hotter the better.

"Meester Jake, marhaba, keyf hallak, habeebe."

"Alhamdulillah, marhabateyn, keyf anta, Mohammed," replied Hixom.

"Alhamdulillah, responded Mohammed, holding his hand to his heart. Your family good, Meester Jake?"

Good, Mohammed. And yours?

"Alhamdulillah."

Hixom climbed into the copilot seat and Mohammed took a seat in the rear of the helicopter, along with his ever-present 9mm Makarov automatic pistol and copy of the daily Al Thora newspaper. The pilot started the twin turbos on the Bell 212.

After repeated calls over the radio to the control tower at Sana’a International, the Canadian pilot swearing between attempts, a human voice in heavily accented English was finally raised. "Gulf Tango