Chapter 7.
“Your Highness, may I please remind you of your appointment this afternoon with the Ministry Production Council? We are within the two-hour window which you proscribed for us.”
Ahmadih, personal aide to Crown Prince Mujah of Syria was a very meticulous and punctual man. His responsibilities included scheduling all appointments for the prince and/or any member of his immediate family.
It seemed that everyone had a problem that they believed only the prince could handle. Every morning there would be a que of people waiting outside his office. Ahmadih managed to sort through the crowd quite efficiently without ruffling too many feathers. It was for this reason that he found such favor with the prince. He was able to maintain good relations with the prince’s subjects without causing much disruption of his finely tuned schedule. His loyalty to the prince and the royal family in general was without blemish.
He was still young for this kind of work. At twenty-eight, he had spent all of his adult life in service to the royal family. His father, who had died in service to the king only 2 weeks earlier, had been the example he had grow up with. He admired and strived to emulate him completely.
Ahmadih’s father had led him and the rest of his family through some very hard times during the days before the ‘Alliance.’ Whenever anyone in the family had voiced complaint, he had always been quick to remind them that staying close to the royal family would always be the most secure route for them to follow. It had been that way for Ahmadih’s grandfather, and great grandfather before him, so why should he believe anything should change?
Everyone in his immediate family was in service to the royals in one way or another, and loyalty ran high. Three generations of the Syrian aristocracy had received their education in Great Britain, and consequently many aspects of Social Democracy had become adopted by the Benevolent Dictatorship in the country. By and large, the citizenry was content.
The Syrian royals were descendants of nomadic chiefdoms, where everyone depended on having shrewd leadership and a strong army in order for a community to survive. For many generations these individual clans had struggled one with another. Many lives were lost and vendettas sworn before the majority of the tribes gave up on killing and opted for a cease-fire.
Ahmadih knew his county’s history well and had no interest in returning to those bad old days. However, when Abdullah came to power and began consolidating the countries of the middle east, pressure began to bear on the Syrians to join. The Syrian king had expressed his displeasure with the proposed alliance on many occasions. Consequently political pressure from Syria’s neighbors began to mount.
As the scheduled meeting of the Triumvirate drew nearer, rumors began to circulate that the king of Syria would abdicate rather than submit to the dictates of the Middle-Eastern Alliance.
Within only a few hours of that announcement, a raid was staged against his private residence. Ahmadih’s father and the king were in the process of composing his letter of abdication when the raid began. In the confusion, an unidentified suicide bomber, disguised as a servant, slipped into the room and detonated. Immediately after the explosion the raiding party withdrew and disappeared. No one had recognized who they were or where they came from.
A state funeral was held 5 days later. The following day Prince Mujah announced that Syria would be joining the Alliance.