Chapter FIVE
72 Hours to Remove the Remains
February 18, 1989.
“Moss, drop whatever you’re working on Spend all your time around the clock if necessary to get Dills’ remains back to the States”.
It was a little before midnight as we were leaving the morgue of Riyadh City Hospital No. 1 when I received this direction from my boss, the Director of Human Resources for McDonnell Douglas Services. Just seven hours earlier I had come upon the body of Donald Dills, another MDS employee, on a dirt road less than 500 feet from our housing compound on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
At this time in my odyssey, I was Supervisor of Government Relations for McDonnell Douglas Services, working out of our headquarters in downtown Riyadh. I was on my way home from yet another day of arguing with my Saudi processors regarding their work ethic, or more appropriately, lack thereof.
It was early evening, just a little past 5:00 p.m. The sun was still baking the landscape, my car, me, and my passenger, Rick Stillman, another employee of McDonnell Douglas Services As usual, the air conditioning wasn’t working Turning off the main highway, I continued down the dusty road leading to MDS’ housing at the U.S. Air Force ROC compound.
I slowed the Government Relations-assigned 1980 Chevrolet Impala as I approached a crowd of about 30 Saudi males milling around the scene of an apparently recent automobile accident. I drove slowly past, not wanting to run over the Saudis who were nonchalantly crossing the road to the accident site, paying no mind to oncoming traffic.
My attention was drawn to the front bumper of the overturned car resting on a sand and dirt embankment to my left. On the bumper was the three-inch square yellow and green sticker which identified the car as that of a McDonnell Douglas Services employee and which allowed the car entry into our housing compound without any hassle from the Sri Lankan security guards posted there.
Pulling over to the side of the road, I turned off the ignition. We got out of the car and walked slowly over to the uniformed Saudi police officer whose actions indicated that he was in charge.
With my perfunctory Arabic ͞Min &adlac (͞Excuse Me ), I moved through the crowd until I was directly behind the man whose arm patch identified him as a traffic police officer. Beginning with my normal evening Arabic greeting of ͞Massa Al-Hahr (͞Good Evening ), I introduced myself and told him I believed the overturned car belonged to one of my company’s employees He looked quizzically at me for a few seconds. I guess my English had to be absorbed and then very slowly translated wit<