Chapter 13

The main object of [Harry “Abdullah” Philby’s] foray to the east was to find the fabled city of Wabar. This was the abode taken over by the Jinn when, as the Koran says, God destroyed the peoples of Ad and Thamud. “If any man nears it they cast dust in his face and make him mad,” says Ibn Faqih al-Hamadani, possibly referring to sand storms. The place was inhabited, according to legend, by the Nisnas, inferior creatures with only one leg, one arm and one eye. The various sources which mention Wabar were so widely disparate in their descriptions of its position that, as Freya Stark says in her Southern Gates of Arabia: “With such evidence it seems quite possible for Mr. Philby and Mr. Thomas each to find Wabar in an opposite corner of Arabia.” Philby had, in 1918, heard of the fabled city and of the existence there of a piece of iron the size of a camel.

After several days of wandering, his chief guide to the area rushed back to him in great excitement, claiming to have a stone from the city walls. When Philby recognized the volcanic slag he says that he knew not whether to laugh or cry.

-- Leslie McLoughlin, “Abdullah Philby’s Crossing of the Empty Quarter,” Asian Affairs, Vol. 22, Issue 2, 1991.

            Annette Braverman asked Keller to meet her at the Consulate General. He drove over to the hilltop U.S. diplomatic compound. The Consulate was located close to Aramco’s headquarters, just beyond the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, an engineering institution that in part supported Aramco’s oil and gas mission. A virtual walled fortress made less stern by numerous graceful shade trees, the Consulate General occupied land originally donated to the Americans by Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdulaziz. When the king had first visited Aramco, he and his entourage had pitched their tents on that hill. It was prime land, and the Americans were grateful for it.

After passing through the initial security perimeter, Keller drove to the Consulate parking lot, left his Nissan Patrol and walked up a pathway to the next set of security checks. Once through the metal detectors, he headed to Braverman’s office.

“Well, Dan, it looks like you hit the jackpot on this one,” Annette said as she ushered Keller into her office. They sat opposite each other in chairs in front of her desk. Braverman looked stressed and worried.

“I’ve been formally told to ask for your help,” she said. “We need a direct Aramco connection, and it helps that you are security. The Secretary of State has already spoken with your CEO, and your involvement has been approved.”

Keller frowned, but said, “Tell me what I can do.”

“We need copies of your seismic data on the so-called anomaly in the Hima oil field. We need your reports on the deaths or disappearances of all company personnel involved in the development of that field. And we need you to fly to Najran, to work directly with a team we have on the ground there.”

Keller nodded. “I’ll arrange for the seismic data and the incident reports to be forwarded to you. When do you need me in Najran?”

“Thanks. By tomorrow morning, if possible. The situation is becoming more complicated by the minute. In simplest terms, the anomaly you discovered in the desert, which we also have located via satellite remote sensing, is apparently a stronghold or base for the aliens, or jinn, or as we call them, the interdimensionals. Our own experts now support the theories of astronomer and UFO expert Jacques Vallée.

“Vallée was one of the developers of the first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA. He also worked at SRI International as one of the creators of ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet. Today he’s best known as a UFO researcher, but he no longer believes the so-called aliens come from outer space. He now calls them ‘interdimensional visitors.’ And we think he is right. These are the beings the Arabs call jinn. We believe the anomaly at Hima is their base in our dimensional world, their stronghold. Until now, it has been kept a secret. But we’re planning a surprise party.”

Keller had read a lot since he last saw Annette. Her words were not so bizarre this time around. But the concepts still blew his mind.

He’d reflected back on his years with Aramco, to see if he could recall ever having an encounter that might be described as “jinn-related.” There was one incident – it was pretty silly, actually – that had occurred in his house in Dhahran, about eight years earlier. He was alone: Jennie and the kids were still out on vacation in the States – Aramco expatriates called it “repat” vacation, short for repatriation to their home country.  Dan had returned to work a few days early, and since the kids weren’t due back at school for another week, the family had stayed behind with relatives in Texas. Dan was in the kitchen of their Dhahran bungalow, making coffee in the early morning. The kitchen connected with a hallway that led to three rooms: the kids’ bedrooms on the left and the master bedroom on the right. As he turned to reach for the coffee can, some movement in the hallway caught his eye. He looked to his left and saw a shadowy human shape crossing the hallway and entering the master bedroom. The shape, or shadow, walked swiftly but confidently. Suddenly, the hair on Dan’s arms stood on end, a fear reaction, of the type he hadn’t had since he was a little boy. “Holy shit,” he whispered. He set the coffee can quietly on the counter and sprinted out of the kitchen and down the hall. There was nothing – or no one – in the master bedroom. He hadn’t thought about the incident for years. He was certain at the time that it had been his imagination, or a trick of light. But now, after all he had read, Keller conceded that the shadow man could have been a jinni. He had read that jinn sometimes appeared as dark human silhouettes – shadow people, some called them.

Annette’s voice brought him back to the present.

“There is one other problem,” said Braverman. Her face became stern. “It looks like the Iranians are on to our activities. They know about the anomaly, and they regard it as some kind of ancient city of the Muslims, if you will. They’re calling it the ‘Lost City of Iram’ and they say it’s guarded by jinn. Tehran doesn’t like the idea of the Americans poking around in their neighborhood, if you will, in the Arabian desert. The Saudis, by the way, don’t know what to make of the interdimensionals, and are adopting a wait-and-see attitude on this. They’ll let us take the lead for now. But the involvement of Iran is problematic. We suspect they have agents down in Najran right now. That area is a hotbed for Shi’ite fundamentalism, so we have our work cut out for us.”

Keller booked a seat on the Aramco flight to Najran for the following morning. But that evening, he tried to take his mind off the case. He drove into al-Khobar with several “bachelor-status” colleagues from Aramco: Dave Owens from Personnel and Marcus Felsen from Public Relations. Dave, an Australian, was married, but his wife and kids were in Perth. Marcus, an American, had a long-standing relationship with a woman back home in Tennessee but was officially a bachelor.

When the stars were properly aligned – about once a month – the three of them would head into town for some antique and gold shopping and the best shawarma sandwiches this side of Beirut. There was one particular antique shop, Abu Mulhim’s, run by a Saudi friend of Dave’s, where they often picked up rare items – old Arabic manuscripts, Ethiopian liturgical codices, ancient Greco-Roman coins and bronze statuary of murky provenance. The shawarmas – chicken meat roasted on a vertical, rotating spit and rolled into pita bread rounds with tart pickles, garlic sauce and French fries – were found at a place called Gilgamesh, in the old part of al-Khobar. It was a tiny place, with two tables and a row of stools against a counter, plus a few tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk. Gilgamesh was legendary, and did an amazing carryout business. A few customers ate inside, including Keller and his friends.

The three Aramcons wandered over to Eastern Paradise Jewellers, where they examined bangles, chains and rings of 18 and 22-carat gold. Dave bought a bracelet for his wife. Marcus made a payment on a layaway item for his sweetheart. Keller thought about having a sapphire ring designed for his daughter Marielle, but decided to postpone it for a while; he wouldn’t be seeing her until Christmastime.

They then headed to Gilgamesh, hoping to squeeze in some good eats before everything shut down for prayer time. The shawarmas, rolled in pita, were wrapped in white paper, and piled like small logs on a plate in the center of the table. Accompanying the food were banana and mango shakes, made from fresh fruit. Each man grabbed a sandwich and began unwrapping it. Marcus reached for the bottle of hot sauce. Keller bit slowly into the Arabic bread, savoring the taste of hot grilled chicken drenched in garlicky white sauce, accented by the tang of pickled turnip.

As they ate, Keller ventured into unexplored territory.

“Have you guys heard about that anomaly in the Hima field?”

“Anomaly?” asked Marcus.

“No,” said Dave. “What anomaly?”

“They found a strange structure beneath the sands during the seismic survey. An immense pyramid-shaped something. It has four slanting triangular planes that end in a common point. Actually it’s upside down.”

“Pointy end down?” asked Dave.

“Yeah.”

“Cool!” said Marcus.

“So what the hell is it?” asked Dave.

“They don’t know. I thought you might have heard something.”

“Is this connected with the deaths and disappearances?”

“That’s what we are trying to figure out.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with the lost city.”

“What do you mean?” Keller asked.

Dave looked serious. “There was this city in ancient times, called Iram of the Pillars. It’s also called Wabar or Ubar. People have been searching for it in the desert for centuries. It’s supposed to be under the sands, in the Rub’ al-Khali. Guarded by jinn, according to the legends.”

“Do you know anyone who’s an expert on this lost city?” Keller asked.

“Well, there’s always James Milton,” said Dave. “Teacher at the Aramco School. He spends most of his weekends out in the desert in his Land Cruiser, searching for lost cities and treasure. But since we’re in Khobar, maybe you should talk to my friend Abdullah first. He’s the guy who works at Abu Mulhim’s. He knows all about those old legends. He’s been telling me stories for years!”

After they ate, the first Muslim prayer time of the evening arrived, and muezzins’ voices could be heard from loudspeakers on minarets far and wide, chanting their haunting refrain, calling the faithful to come and pray. The three Americans and the other non-Muslims in the streets, including large numbers of Catholic Filipinos, spent the next twenty-plus minutes window-shopping and chatting until the shops opened up again.

Abu Mulhim’s was a hodge-podge of a shop, with everything from decorated Arab rosewood chests to Arabian fox skins to Bedouin swords to fossilized teeth to brassware from India and chessboards from Syria. The clerk Abdullah – a tall, reedy gentleman with eyeglasses and a graying goatee – was keen to speak about the lost city. “The legends are true,” he said. “I know people who have seen parts of ancient buildings that have risen from the sands, only to sink back again when the dunes shift in the wind.”

“Where do you think this city is?” asked Keller.

“Well, some Americans claimed years ago that they found Iram (they called it Ubar, which is one of its names) in Oman, close to the Rub’ al-Khali. But that was not Iram. It was only a tiny caravan station, with a stone fort, and not a single piece of treasure. And it was in the wrong location. The lost city of Iram is located in the Rub’ al-Khali, not near it, and the best authorities place the site in the western part of the desert. Abdullah Philby and Bertram Thomas looked for it in the eastern part of the Rub’ al-Khali. Needless to say, they did not find it.”

“What about the Hima area, not too far from Najran?” Keller asked.

“That’s possible,” said Abdullah. “In fact, it’s even likely. Some strange artifacts have been found by Bedouins crossing that part of the desert. In fact, I have something here that comes from Hima….”

Abdullah reached under the counter and pulled out what appeared to be a colored glass disk, about three inches across. The glass or transparent stone of the disk was burgundy-colored. The disk was rimmed by a finely wrought metal bezel that could have been silver or possibly platinum. There were tiny letters from some ancient alphabet around the rim. Keller took the object in his hands and studied it. He held it up to the light. He could see clearly through the “lens” of the disk. But it didn’t magnify. He couldn’t figure out what its purpose was.

“How old do you think this is?” Keller asked.

“’No one knows. It was found in the sands east of Najran. The owner asked me to sell it for him.”

“How much does he want for it?”

Abdullah shrugged. “A thousand riyals, I think, would be a good price.”

Keller smiled. “I’ll give you five hundred.”

Abdullah assumed a hurt expression. “Times are bad, my friend. We all need to make a living. I have seven children to feed.”

They eventually settled on 800 Saudi riyals.

Keller didn’t know what he had just bought. But if it truly came from the sands of the Najran area, it might be of value to the U.S. government team that he would be joining the next morning. He counted out a 500-riyal note and three 100’s.

When he returned home later that evening, he unwrapped the burgundy glass disk and examined it carefully. It felt strange in his hands, as if it had a life of its own. He could have sworn it was vibrating at some very low level. He looked through the lens and saw the furniture of his living room, painted dark red but otherwise normal. He thought at first that the writing around the disk’s rim was South Arabian. It was faintly suggestive of the script he had seen on museum stelae, but it was fundamentally different and … well, strange. One thing was certain: it was a very refined script, and whoever had engraved it was highly skilled.

“Hello?”

“Hi, James. This is Dan Keller. I don’t think we’ve met, but we have mutual friends. Dave Owens? Marcus Felsen?”

“Sure, how are you doing, Dan?”

“Great, thanks. I hope I’m not calling too late?”

“No, it’s fine. What can I do for you?”

“I’m with Industrial Security, and I’m doing a bit of research on what might sound like a strange topic. I’m trying to find out all I can on the lost city of Ubar, or Iram of the Pillars.”
            “Wow! It is a strange topic for you security guys. But it’s a fascinating one. I’ve spent a lot of time out in the dunes, looking for archaeological sites, and the lost city has come up quite a lot. The Bedouins like to talk about it. The Hajri and Marri tribes, particularly.”

“What do you think of the legend? Do you think there really is a lost city out there somewhere?”

“Well, the early Arab geographers were pretty insistent that it existed. Al-Hamdani for one. And Al-Idrisi. The problem is, the various accounts are not consistent about the city’s location, or even its general area. I’m sure you’ve heard about Philby’s efforts to find Ubar or Wabar, and Bertram Thomas’s as well.”

“Yes, I have. They came up with zilch. That’s what makes me think the story is a fable.”

“That’s what I thought too. I checked out some of the locations they visited. Also I followed up a Hajri tribesman’s story about ruins beneath the dunes south of Yabrin. But I didn’t find anything. So I went back to Al-Hamdani’s writings. He was a Yemeni by birth, and he places the lost city in the western reaches of the Rub’ al-Khali, north of Yemen’s Hadhramaut.”

“A pretty remote area.”

“No kidding! Absolutely no one lives in that sand sea, and it’s a hell of a long trip for a weekend explorer like myself. Even if I could squeeze out four or five days, it would be tough. It’s really slow going in those dunes, even for a Land Cruiser.”

“I can imagine.”

“I hear Aramco is doing some exploratory drilling down there. It would be great to visit one of their camps in that area….”

“I’m sure it would.”

“You know, that area south of the dunes, called Hadhramaut? In Arabic, it means, ‘death has come.’ According to legend, some of the survivors from God’s destruction of Iram ended up in that area. Looks like they brought death with them.”
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