Desert Storm:

Seems a long time ago when I was doing business in Saudi Arabia. I had flown in to Riyadh and spent several days there, with the plan to go to Dhahran when business was concluded. I was working with a British businessman named Michael, a guy that I had actually met a few years earlier and had worked with him on previous projects and his schedule was the same as mine. Dhahran was next on the itinerary.

Michael asked what I thought of driving between the two cities, since he was able to procure a car. I had never driven through the desert, and quickly agreed that I would enjoy the adventure. He arranged the car, a nice new Cadillac, and we made our plans to leave at night for the 250 mile journey, to avoid the heat of the day. The night we left, there was a beautiful full moon over the desert, and the night was nearly magical with a beautiful sky and millions of stars, the temperature pleasant. The road was the equivalent of any Interstate in the US of A, and almost no cars on the highway at all. We would travel long periods without seeing anything but sand and sky. It was nice.

The Caddy sailed along smoothly, Michael pleased to be driving. Michael was a highly competent businessman, and I suspected him of being part of the MI6 spy network; intelligent, articulate, handsome with dark black hair and steely blue-grey eyes, lots of white teeth in an All-American smile, muscularly built and had actually been on the British Olympic team a few years back. Married with children, his wife was a barrister in Britain.

After a couple of hours or so, we encountered a checkpoint along the highway, seemingly an unnecessary barrier since there was no way to travel the desert other than camel or car, but there it was. We showed our passports and visas, but as is typical in that part of the world, there was much flutter and discussion and we were stalled and not waved through. One of the armed soldiers pointed for us to pull off to the side within the small military compound, and we were ordered to get out of the car. This was not good news and though both of us were experienced international travelers, there was an odd foreboding about this. It was not the routine that we had expected. Neither of us were frightened but we were both annoyed and irritated with the situation. Games.

Inside a small windowless room, quite warm even though a generator was chugging away for air conditioned comfort, we were both questioned for an unduly long period, and the questions were tiresome and repetitive. The soldiers were clearly simply amusing themselves on a boring night and we were the objects of their amusement so it seemed. Simply a situation to be endured, we both sensed that. When they searched us, and frisked us, for about the tenth time, both of us objected with loud words of protest. The mood changed slightly and became more tense, and we were ordered to strip. The game had taken an unexpected turn.

Both of us stopped the strip show with the underwear, but that did not suit them. We had to get naked. Then we were separated, and Michael was led away, and we both exchanged words of encouragement to each other along with a