After a decent interval for small talk, Harawi probed Horner about events in occupied Kuwait and the other countries (many of them unfriendly) that bordered the Kingdom. What was happening in occupied Kuwait? Who’d gotten out and who’d gotten killed? What were the Iraqi forces doing? Would they attack or not attack? What was going to happen in Yemen and Sudan? On the adjacent seas? Like most Saudis, Harawi’s primary source of information was rumors; the entire Kingdom lived on rumor. Information there was on very close hold, which meant that accurate information was truly valuable, and having such information gave the possessor great power. Even a two-star general such as Harawi was not in the top-level information loop, which meant that he had access to more rumors than news.

News was particularly important, because, unlike Americans, who think of threats from far away, Saudis thought of threats from a tight, immediate circle—Iraq, Iran, Yemen, or even Sudan. Their sensitivity was very acute, their fears very immediate.

Practically, in his capacity as Saudi AWACS commander, Harawi needed an accurate assessment of Iraqi intentions. His AWACS aircraft were maintaining twenty-four-hour coverage over the northeast. His immediate problem was that the single E-3 they had airborne (out of the five they owned32) could cover only a small sector at any one time (approximately one-fourth of the border), and the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was very long. This left gaps in the low-level radar coverage. If the Iraqi air force came south anywhere but in the east, the RSAF would have to depend on ground-based radar to pick up the attack. Harawi was worried that the Iraqis would take advantage of this weakness and make an attack on the kingdom—and Riyadh Air Base was a prime target.

After Horner had filled him in as best he could, and assured him that enough E-3s were on the way to fill his gap, the two friends said their goodbyes; then Kaufman, Yeosock, and Horner packed into a waiting car for the trip to MODA (the Ministry of Defense and Aviation) and a meeting with the heads of the Saudi military forces and their chairman, General Muhammad al-Hamad. Hamad, the Kingdom’s only active-duty four-star general, was Colin Powell’s counterpart.

Horner had known the tough but amiable soldier for well over three years, and made sure to call on him first thing whenever he visited the Kingdom. Their previous encounters had always been friendly, yet challenging. He wondered how this one would turn out.