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This time Amad came to the US with two and a half million dollars available to him. His last trip to the states was for four years of college and a graduate degree in chemical engineering, but his father had called him home after his education was completed. He returned to his native Libya to an arranged marriage and then some additional time of militia training in Afghanistan in order to refresh the skills gained in his youth. Only then could he return to the states to begin his first job as a chemical engineer.
It wasn’t long before he was a first class marksman again and updated his munitions skills. He trained in the art of survival under the worst of circumstances. He wasn’t satisfied. He was able to ingratiate himself with some of the religious zealots that he had trained with in his youth. By this time his goals had diverged from the goals his father had set for him. These religious zealots respected his father, and they assumed that the Amad had the same aspirations. It wasn’t as if he had any strong religious feelings as a lifelong Muslim, it was more the purpose he had for himself. He wanted to make a difference in the world – A difference in a very subtle way. Sitting in a mountain cave in Afghanistan was no way to capitalize on his chemical engineering degree. There was no question in his mind that he was so much smarter than these men; his time could be far better spent planning how he would implement his ambitions. He was slowly developing a plan. He wanted to keep it to himself, but he needed their money to finance it. Devising a scheme to placate them, would have them begging him to take their fortunes in order to assure that Muslims would control the world. He didn’t care how he got the money as long as he could be the undisputed one at the helm.
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Abby and Amad whispered to each other before they fell asleep, ignoring the other boys. Each of them felt comfort in the fact that they had become close friends in that instant when they introduced themselves at the ship railing. They both needed that!
Mohamar woke them early in the morning as he had suggested that he would. The boys took turns using the bathroom and then they all went to the galley together to have a small amount of food before they started their day. Mohamar explained, after they went upstairs to the deck, that the ship was still in the Gulf of Suez, but that they would be entering the Red Sea for a short time, and then the Gulf of Aqaba. Looking over the railing they noticed a housing settlement on the water’s edge with guard towers and jeeps patrolling the outskirts of the settlement. They saw a few small ferry boats crossing the water from one settlement to another on the other side of the Gulf of Suez. Suddenly the shoreline opened up in front of them as the Gulf of Suez flowed into the Red Sea. Mohamar explained that this was the Red Sea in front of them. Other ships were visible to them, and they could see the activity on the shore. Soon they felt the ship make a sharp turn. Mohamar had told them to expect this as they turned north into the Gulf of Aqaba where they would be passing the port of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt and several hours later they would be arriving at their destination of Haql in Saudi Arabia. There they would be met by Qasim who would take them on a five hour road trip to the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. The boys were very excited to find out that they would be flying in an airplane, even though they did not know their destination at this time. They chattered among themselves as they watched the settlements along the shore as the ship sailed onward. Mohamar stayed with the boys, but occasionally he spoke with some of the crew members that he seemed to know deliberately whispering so the boys could not hear. There was so much enthusiasm for the trip that awaited them, that the boys did not notice or were not concerned.
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