The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

had taken them for a few laps around Everest as he’d requested of the flight attendant, but he was content. The peak wasn’t going anywhere and he was sure he would return there again some day. He thought about Qatar and where he might wind up next.

Sitting in the First Class lounge at the Doha Airport he felt frustrated. For the first time in a very long time, he had walked away from a crime without sufficient evidence or leads to pursue. Surely there was more there, he just ran out of time. Who could possibly have been that sharp to have gone into a frigid tent at that elevation, have sex with a stranger, shove an ax into his brain, and then be able to slide away into the night without leaving a trace?

What Baral, back in Nepal, and the woman who had committed the horrendous act didn’t realize was that Matt never gave up. The flight to Doha had given him the chance to clear his mind.

“Shit!” he shouted as he pulled his cellphone from his jeans pocket.

Two of the lounge staffers approached to see if he was in distress, or more likely, to admonish him for disturbing others. He quickly apologized and rushed out of the lounge to make his call.

Baral seemed surprised to hear from Matt so soon, let alone at all. In remote and transient places like Kathmandu, where thousands of tourists passed in and out of the city and to the mountains and temples, ignoring the third-world conditions of so much of his country, people kept moving and seldom looked back.

“Baral. Did your team check all the tourist visas at the airport?” Matt said excitedly into the phone.

Upon entry into the country through the Kathmandu airport, regardless of the time of day, casual visitors paid 2,800 rupees, essentially 25 U.S. dollars, for a 15-day tourist visa in Nepal. Passports were checked, and headshots were taken.

“Of course, Mr. FBI. That was one of the first things the CIB did. If we had found something, we would have pursued it.”

“Damn it!” Matt shouted again, only this time, he was in the open area of the airport on the departure side of security.

Two uniformed policemen had heard his outburst and started walking toward him. Matt knew better; he should have remembered, as a foreigner, to respect local customs and behaviors. In countries around the Gulf, like Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, shouting infamous four-letter words was not tolerated. It was regarded as offensive to the children, women, men, and the almighty.

“Hang up the phone,” the taller of the two policemen directed. Both were in the customary tan uniforms, young, fit, and in no mood for nonsense.

“Baral, sorry to have bothered you,” Matt said quickly.

“Hang up the phone, now!” the officer repeated.

“Call you later, my friend,” Matt said and then hit the end button on his iPhone and slid it into his pocket. He reached inside his black fleece Columbia jacket and handed his passport to the tall policeman and his FBI identification to the shorter of the two.

“I thought you were George Clooney for a moment,” the shorter officer declared.

“He’s older,” Matt replied.

“Where are you flying, Agent Christopher?” the officer asked.

“Not sure yet,” he replied.

“Strange that you do not know where you are going, don’t you think?”

“I’m on standby, waiting for instructions from Washington.”

“Where is your luggage?”

“I shipped my large suitcase straight through to D.C. I’ve been up on the mountains. Most of my gear was bulky or meant for cold temperatures. I won’t need it unless they send me back up there. The rest of my stuff – toothbrush, jeans, and such – are in my carry-on, back in the lounge.”

“Understood. But back to the matter at hand. Cursing in a public airport is something you do in America?”

Matt looked back toward the sliding glass entry doors to the QA lounge and frowned at the two attendants and customers who had chosen to watch the show.

Suddenly someone shouted his name. “Matt Christopher, you old son of a… gun! I was just talking to Claire about you!”

The short, stocky man with a British accent and better control of his expletives approached.

“Sir,” the tall officer said, “do not say gun in this airport, ever!”

“Oh, Christ!” the man responded and then quickly drew it back. “My apologies to you both,” the stranger exclaimed, looking about to the people who had stopped to watch or continued their journeys but were looking back at the growing scene.

Matt couldn’t help but laugh. Laurel and Hardy couldn’t have scripted this better.

“Well, this is awkward,” the man offered as he reached inside his travel-weary sport coat and produced his own identification. It was a U.K. passport, an MI5 identification wallet, and an airplane ticket on British Airways to London’s Heathrow Airport, expected to board in two hours.

The tall officer took control of Matt’s docs while the shorter one stood eye to eye with the Brit and reviewed what he had presented them. A third and fourth officer were now closing in. Matt knew if he and his old buddy from Britain, Charlie Chaste, didn’t finish this up fast, they’d both get sucked into a bureaucratic mess that would take hours to straighten out.

“My apologies again, officers,” Charlie said in his most sincere tone. “Jet lag and forgetting where I am is to blame for my bad behavior.” He placed his hand against his chest in a sign of respect. “My sincere apologies to you both and to your citizenry.”

*

These officers hadn’t just fallen off the back of a turnip truck, though. They were seasoned veterans and had seen and heard just about everything possible working for the Doha Police Department’s various districts, from dealing with the typical behaviors and related crimes of any large international city to the occasional forays by armed forces members working at or passing through Al Udeid Air Base. The U.S. Central Command’s Forward HQ and the Combined Air Operations Center were located just 20 miles from