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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 136: Kondor 303
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 116
The trio planned on leaving from Heathrow on a direct flight to Riyadh, the capital city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Wearing his desert fatigues as he made his way through the silly Kabuki theatre ‘security’ checks using his New Zealand Cho Bob passport identity, Kondor reflected that one might consider Saudi Arabia exotic because of its ‘Kingdom’, but he was also leaving from a kingdom. Amanda was with him, and presented her passport.
“Amanda Patil, huh?” he asked, still fishing for her real name.
“Cho Bob?” she responded, which silenced him on that subject.
Walking into the first class area, he stowed his bag, and with a smile took a roomy seat.
“Much better than that helicopter with that madman flying it,” Zeke, traveling as Stuart Slade, and said from across the aisle leaning his direction, referencing their shared flight aboard the Chinook with Komodo Dragon at the helm and tree branches visible just beneath the hull. Kondor nodded, and thought to himself that this was also better than the Army cargo plane. So much better to be an international man of mystery than a grunt foot-slogging through the mud. Of course, this got Amanda curious, but he put her off not sure how much he should reveal. She pretended to pout as she sat down next to him on the aisle, but then asked him about the other worlds.
He showed her his electronic book reader, and she got started reading about the history and art of Sardic. Meanwhile, he told her he wanted water, and then used the skill all soldiers have--that of falling asleep instantly. Waking, he drank a couple bottles and went back to sleep seeing that Amanda was nose deep in his book.
Something nudged him, and he woke, but only cracked his eyes open to see Amanda lean her head over him.
“It’s O.K., no terrorists,” she grinned. “We’ve arrived, sleepyhead.” Opening his eyes fully, he refrained from saying anything because he was not sure what to say. It was true he had deliberately cracked his eyes open just in case such was the case, but she was making fun of him for it. Grumbling to himself, he got up.
The flight had taken six hours, although with the prep time and the rolling time that had risen to eight and half hours. They had left at ten in the morning, and local time was three-thirty in the afternoon. Walking off into the moveable tunnel dock, he felt small drafts of hot air through leaks in the flexi-dock. The dry air was a pleasant change from London’s frequent rains, and mists, and showers, and storms, and occasional gales, but warned him that the heat outside might be in the triple digits. The humidity was not the arid hair blower sense he had expected, even if it was lower than London.
They took a taxi into Riyadh after clearing Customs with no trouble except for Amada who got ogled a bit. Still, Kondor felt himself on edge. He was a foreigner, secretly infiltrating a country that executed people in public squares with swords. Just by being here with an intent as a spy, he was breaking laws. What he and Zeke next did, which he was not sure what it would be, or how to do it, would definitely put him and Zeke and Amanda on a Most Wanted List. Ideally there had to be a way to do what was needed, derail the candidacy of the war criminal, without getting on such a list. The problem was Kondor could not see it. Right now the only really viable plan he had was to snipe the man and run for the border. This was a terrible plan. Hopefully Zeke would have some ideas.
They arrived and took three rooms, as he and Amanda were not married and adultery might get him into trouble, and sharing a room with Zeke might suggest homosexuality which might get him in more trouble. He also had been briefed back in London to keep his atheism to himself, and that Zeke should also keep his Christianity on the down low. It was not as despised. As a Christian, he was one of the People of the Book, and could live in peace in the House of Submission as long as he paid his jizya tax or tribute and was made to feel humiliated. Also, Christians were not allowed to rebuild churches or other things. No such ‘kindness’ extended to atheists. You could not simply kiss a Muslim’s boot and get out of being killed. No, for him, it was doom, no two ways about it. He resolved to keep his mouth shut even if it irritated him. So when the hotel clerk blessed him, he gritted his teeth, and forced a smile back as he took his room key.
His room was listed as a businessman’s suite, and so had a conference room and a small pit group for entertaining, with a separate bed chamber. He was pleased that the air conditioning managed to keep the temperature somewhere near eighty, as he told the others to get settled and then join him to confer.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
