The following day, right after the fajr prayer, Rafiq and his companion began their journey from the mosque of the Holy Prophet. Around nine in the morning, they ate their breakfast at a roadside restaurant and then resumed their long journey. The grey desolate landscape of the Arabian Peninsula created an impression in Rafiq that the entire country was like that. It was two in the noon when they reached Riyadh. In Riyadh they passed their afternoon watching the buildings and other important places. Having spent the night at a local inn, at dawn they resumed their journey towards Taif. While heading for Taif, Rafiq received a message from Su. After reading the message Rafiq was thinking what he should do.

“Suddenly, why are you so quiet?” Solimulla inquired.

“The Rohingya rebels have been planning to attack Minbya, within a few days. They are being used as assassins. Someone who has been designated as LBSM, is going to be killed.”

No conversation took place between these two travelers during the next five minutes. Quite attentively Solimulla kept driving. Abruptly he broke the silence and asked, “Who do you think this LBSM might be?”

“At the end, if it didn’t have the M, I would say General Lee Bu Sun. Because of that M, we can’t really be sure who this LBSM is.”

“Where did you say the rebels have been planning to hit?”

“Minbya.”

“Perhaps they have a plan to kill Lee Bu Sun in Minbya.”

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“But Lee is in Sittwe.”

“He might be planning to visit Minbya, is it impossible?”

“Yep, that’s quite possible. Let me see what Su has to say.”

Later, in another message, Su said to Rafiq that after being informed farther about it, she would let him know. In the meantime, Solimulla’s four-wheel drive reached the suburbs of Taif. Flabbergasted Rafiq speechlessly stared at the green fields, groves and orchards of Taif. He muttered to himself what man could not do. The use of technology had done a marvel to this land. It was hard for anyone to tell that Taif was once a desert city. They stopped at Rawafed Resort for lodging. The next morning, they would start for Mecca.

Before entering the premises of Masjidul Haram, Rafiq memorized the especial supplication for the first-time visitors of the Qaba Sharif. For the first few minutes, without blinking, Rafiq stared at the Qaba, while whispering “Labbaik Allah humma labbaik.” With a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his tears. They came out of the mosque after performing the Zuhr prayer with congregation. In the afternoon, they finished their lunch at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Mecca. The hotel where they were to lodge was only walking distance from the mosque. Hence, they performed rest of the mandatory prayers with congregation at the Masjidul Haram. Next morning by ten, they were at the gate of the Port City of Jedda. They left behind their luggage in their hotel room before heading for the port area.

The port had two container terminals. Baitul Omar’s twenty containers were kept in the new container terminal located at the northern end of the port. At the terminal, Baitul Omar’s representative Faisal was waiting for Solimulla’s arrival. Faisal was from Yemen. For many years he had been living in Jeddah. Hence, he could speak fluently in Arabic and English.

At five in the evening, the red and white containers of Baitul Omar would be loaded onto a vessel named Al Walid from a neighboring Arab state. The captain, a British man named Hawkins, would inform Faisal, prior to transferring the containers from the terminal as to exactly where the containers would be kept inside the vessel. At the time, Faisal was to hand over to the captain the list of cargo inside those containers. Solimulla came to the port to monitor the entire procedure. He looked at the four-digit ownership number, the code and the registration number of the containers and checked whether they matched with what he had in his list. He circled the spot where the containers had been kept, awaiting shipment to the vessel. From every possible angle he scrutinized them. The doors of the containers were secured with reliable bolt seals. One by one, painstakingly, he checked the ID numbers over the bolt seals. He couldn’t find any anomaly anywhere.

Then he smiled at Rafiq and asked, “So, how do you feel?”

“There’s so much hassle in this kind of work.”

“Hassle is just another name of life. Let’s go for lunch. What would you like to have?”

“Since I don’t have to pay the bill from my pocket, just about any food will do, as long as it is halal.”