AllFreeNovel
Share Us
51
The five milesfrom the Rimba Air Force Base to the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque was executed in matching current-model black-and-gold Mercedes-Maybach S 580 Coupes. Each came with its own driver and escort—the latter literally riding shotgun.
With only two back seats each, Susan was alone for the brief ride. The luxury was…fantastic! Over the top, but that’s what she needed in her current state of exhaustion. There was even a refrigerator and a built-in drawer for a pair of champagne flutes for the rear-seat passengers. Though, being Muslim, it was adrycountry and there was Evian to pour into the flutes—in four different sparkling flavors as well as plain. They had even provided a small bowl of water on the floor for Sadie.
It was too bad that being wrapped in her own private quarter-million-dollar cocoon of luxury would last so briefly. But the motorcycle police escort assured them of a very fast passage through the capital city ofBandar Seri Begawan.
The low sunlight of early morning made the city shine. It wasn’t a tall city, few buildings rose over five or six stories. Coconut palms were fewer than she’d expected and patches of dense trees more common. It was also a very flat and very clean city. In many places the empty two-lane roads were the highest elevation, raised to not interrupt the communities below.
With only twenty percent of the country’s half-million people living here in the capital, the city had an open, casual feel. It also had none of the odors she’d come to expect from crowded third-world cities, or first-world for that matter.
It smelled like…
Oh, now there was a good memory.
Early in her career, she’d been serving in Scott Air Force Base, way too far from an ocean for a Navy gal and twice too far for a Massachusetts one. In a bar she’d overheard that someone had lost her housemate. The woman in the bar was transferring to Hickam AFB in Hawaii, but her housemate had fallen for that fatal sickness: marriage and kids—fatal to a proper military career, especially back then. Susan had butted in and they’d hit it off. She’d put in for a transfer to the adjoining naval base at Pearl Harbor and spent two glorious years working and lounging in the Hawaiian sunshine, about the longest she’d been in any one spot.
Brunei was like that. It smelled of ocean, tropical jungle, sunbaked beaches…and oil. At Pearl it had been from the busy Navy and Air Force bases, here it permeated the land with the aroma of money. The economy of Brunei was oil, oil, and more oil. The tiny country sat astride such massive reserves that it was one of the first places Japan had invaded in World War II despite how far it lay from their home islands.
Brunei had also adopted a no-cut policy in their jungles years before to foster eco-tourism.
It felt both sanitized and comfortable. Susan preferred her life a little more rough-and-ready, but there was something to be said for living here. She could probably walk any street at three in the morning in safety. Though sex trafficking at the highest levels of government was a problem, despite the brutal punishments if caught, the streets themselves were incredibly safe.
Of course, she could also receive death by stoning if she ever had an abortion, even used the abortion pill, or was stupid enough to have an affair with a married man.
Overall, she’d take the much messier nature of the US. A place where Andi and Miranda were free to be together simply because they wanted to be.
They still puzzled her, though there was no way to see into someone else’s relationship. Miranda was problematic at best, yet her team worshipped her, especially Captain Andi Wu. She requested an update file on the latter, and received back a whole lot ofredactedandclassifiedresponses. However, one thing was clear, she’d been one of the top helicopter pilots ever created by the US Army, before leaving abruptly and joining Miranda’s team. Susan knew that was not the sort of woman who gave her loyalty lightly.
And maybe that worship wasn’t wholly misplaced. Miranda had certainly spotted the laser attack fast enough, within minutes of boarding theRoosevelt.Something no one aboard had noted in the prior twelve hours.
The car rolled to a stop in a tight convoy with the other three.
She checked on Andi and Miranda, but they were standing farther apart than even Director Reese and General Nason. Each acting as if the other was infectious. Good. Horrid that they had to, but they had listened.
Their group was escorted to the national mosque. A dazzling structure of white marble and what might be bronze paneling that glowed in the morning sun. The massive golden, at least she hoped it was golden and not actual gold, onion-shaped dome atop the structure was brilliant and perhaps the tallest structure in the city. A dozen smaller but equally golden minarets sprang from the structure.
Then she considered the wealth of this tiny nation and decided that it probablywasreal gold.
The honor guard provided lovely silk scarves for each of the women to cover their hair. She hoped that she would be allowed to keep hers, it was an artisan’s work in a vivid pattern of gold on dark green that was closely related to paisley.
They were led through a small park and around the building on immaculate paving inlaid in geometric patterns. The mosque itself was wrapped on three sides by an artificial lake crossed by several wide marble walkways. A sinuous one led to the middle of the lake at the end of which stood a massive golden barge half a football field long.
The honor guard addressed them again in his oddly stilted way. “His Majesty the Sultan offers you theMahligai Barge.It was modeled on the ship of Sultan Bolkiah, who ruled during the Golden Age of 1485 to 1524 by your reckoning. It is considered a particularly holy spot. He offers it for your exclusive use as long as you have need of it.”
Once they were seated in one of the peak-roofed gazebos on the stone barge, they were quickly served with a massive breakfast.
“What’s this?” Miranda peered at it closely.
“Nasi lemak,” a waiter answered. He began describing the rice, spicy sauce, and dried fish dish dressed with a hard-boiled egg. There were also bowls of fresh-sliced guava and mango.
All Susan cared about was the coffee, which was strong enough that she was surprised it wasn’t on the prohibited drugs list. Exactly what she needed.
There was the easy silence of weary travelers enjoying a fine meal. The setting on a bargefloatingupon an artificial but lovely lake, reflecting a magnificent mosque in the middle of Brunei’s capital, created a lovely ambience.
However, it soon shifted to the awkward silence of two nations who despised and didn’t trust each other.
Finally, Susan knew why she was here.
