had an excessively firm handshake. “Welcome aboard,” he said and stood up. I gathered my papers and stood up as well. “You did the right thing.”
“I hope so,” I said, taking my papers and turning to leave.
“Mr. Valentine?” Anders, the big guy, said as I opened the door. I turned and looked back at him. “If you fail to arrive at the deployment location at the appropriate time, we will come get you. It’ll be best if you’re punctual . ”
“I get it,” I said and closed the door behind me. What the hell did I just do?
LORENZO
Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara
January 20
The marketplace was busy, the large Sunday crowds nervous. Change was coming, and the people could feel it. I made my way through the bustling place, gray and incognito as usual, dressed like the locals in a traditional white thobe and checkered headdress. In my line of work, you never stick out. It keeps you alive longer.
There were three sections of Zubara City (Ash Shamal, Umm Shamal, and Al Khor). Each was a narrow sliver of land extending into the Persian Gulf for a couple of miles. Half a million people were packed on those three little peninsulas, mostly Sunni, some Shiite, a mess of imported workers, and I was spending my day in the poor, dangerous one, Ash Shamal.
Nobody used the country’s official name, or the abbreviation CGEZ. The Americans or Europeans who ended up here usually called it the Zoob. The rest of the world just referred to the tiny country as Zubara.
I got to the entrance of the club fifteen minutes early so I could survey the area. This neighborhood was one of the oldest in Ash Shamal, but there was much new construction underway. It was also one of the more traditional. It was interesting to note the fundamentalist graffiti that was popping up in many of the alleys, and even more interesting was that the local authorities hadn’t bothered to cover it up. Either there was too much of it to keep up with, the official government types didn’t bother to come into this neighborhood, or the cops actually agreed with the message. Either way, it was a grim omen.
Zubara was a relatively modern state, dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by the current monarch. Bordered by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the tiny nation wasn’t nearly as rich as its neighbors but was relatively clean, organized, and, by Arab standards, efficient. Zubara was one of the jewels of the Persian Gulf, but that appeared to be changing with the current power struggle, and my specialty was to capitalize on the inevitable chaos that would result.
I had spent my entire adult life in various third-world countries. I’d seen revolutions, famines, wars, and the utter collapse of societies. I made my living on the fringe of mankind. I didn’t know what was going to happen here yet, but I knew something was coming.
Zubara would be just another job, just a little more difficult than normal, or so I tried to convince myself. It had been six months since I had been drafted for this job. Six months since Eddie had brutally murdered one of my crew just to let me know how serious he was. Half a year of preparation and groundwork to pull off an impossible mission. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I prepared for this meeting.
I walked around the block to scope out the back entrance, just in case. There was some construction going on across the street, but the workers all looked like the normal Indonesians and Filipinos that did all the grunt labor in this country. I saw no indications of a trap. Making my way back to the front, I leaned against the corner of a building and watched the club. The man I was supposed to be meeting would probably be running late, like pretty much everything in this part of the world. I couldn’t spot anyone else surveying the place, so it was either safe or they were really good.
Waiting gave me time to think, which was unfortunate, because right now thinking about what I was doing just
“I hope so,” I said, taking my papers and turning to leave.
“Mr. Valentine?” Anders, the big guy, said as I opened the door. I turned and looked back at him. “If you fail to arrive at the deployment location at the appropriate time, we will come get you. It’ll be best if you’re punctual . ”
“I get it,” I said and closed the door behind me. What the hell did I just do?
LORENZO
Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara
January 20
The marketplace was busy, the large Sunday crowds nervous. Change was coming, and the people could feel it. I made my way through the bustling place, gray and incognito as usual, dressed like the locals in a traditional white thobe and checkered headdress. In my line of work, you never stick out. It keeps you alive longer.
There were three sections of Zubara City (Ash Shamal, Umm Shamal, and Al Khor). Each was a narrow sliver of land extending into the Persian Gulf for a couple of miles. Half a million people were packed on those three little peninsulas, mostly Sunni, some Shiite, a mess of imported workers, and I was spending my day in the poor, dangerous one, Ash Shamal.
Nobody used the country’s official name, or the abbreviation CGEZ. The Americans or Europeans who ended up here usually called it the Zoob. The rest of the world just referred to the tiny country as Zubara.
I got to the entrance of the club fifteen minutes early so I could survey the area. This neighborhood was one of the oldest in Ash Shamal, but there was much new construction underway. It was also one of the more traditional. It was interesting to note the fundamentalist graffiti that was popping up in many of the alleys, and even more interesting was that the local authorities hadn’t bothered to cover it up. Either there was too much of it to keep up with, the official government types didn’t bother to come into this neighborhood, or the cops actually agreed with the message. Either way, it was a grim omen.
Zubara was a relatively modern state, dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century by the current monarch. Bordered by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the tiny nation wasn’t nearly as rich as its neighbors but was relatively clean, organized, and, by Arab standards, efficient. Zubara was one of the jewels of the Persian Gulf, but that appeared to be changing with the current power struggle, and my specialty was to capitalize on the inevitable chaos that would result.
I had spent my entire adult life in various third-world countries. I’d seen revolutions, famines, wars, and the utter collapse of societies. I made my living on the fringe of mankind. I didn’t know what was going to happen here yet, but I knew something was coming.
Zubara would be just another job, just a little more difficult than normal, or so I tried to convince myself. It had been six months since I had been drafted for this job. Six months since Eddie had brutally murdered one of my crew just to let me know how serious he was. Half a year of preparation and groundwork to pull off an impossible mission. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I prepared for this meeting.
I walked around the block to scope out the back entrance, just in case. There was some construction going on across the street, but the workers all looked like the normal Indonesians and Filipinos that did all the grunt labor in this country. I saw no indications of a trap. Making my way back to the front, I leaned against the corner of a building and watched the club. The man I was supposed to be meeting would probably be running late, like pretty much everything in this part of the world. I couldn’t spot anyone else surveying the place, so it was either safe or they were really good.
Waiting gave me time to think, which was unfortunate, because right now thinking about what I was doing just
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