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Apr 1, 2005

The Pakistan Connection - Part One

The story started a few years ago in Bangkok and yet I'll skip that part for now. I was travelling then a lot and it would be several weeks before I found myself back in Kuala Lumpur. It was an overcast day when I arrived in and I was glad to finally be back home and yet Im thinking I still had another hour cab ride before I finally arrived at my condo. I paid the taxi, grabbed my bags and the mail in my box before heading on upstairs. I set bags down, threw the mail on the table and went to go take a shower.

I came out feeling fresh grabbed the mail off the table and sat down to watch a bit of television for a while. No letters, mostly junk mail, a couple bills and then there it was, an invitation to an art exhibit being held in one of the local 5-star hotels in town the next day. Normally I might not go, but I had nothing else planned and I figured this gave me a chance to try out my new suit that I had picked up from my tailor in Hong Kong. After watching a bit of television and sipping a few drinks of duty-free Jack Daniels I finally went to bed and had a great night's rest.

The next day was pretty uneventful. I spent the morning cleaning out the refrigerator and throwing out the rotten milk and spoiled vegtables. At around 6pm I took a shower, got dressed and headed downtown for the exhibit.

These things are almost alway the same, grab a glass of champagne, mingle around with local celebrities, business people, diplomats and the "beautiful people " while the son of some local politician uses this opportunity to hawk his overpriced "art". It was there that I met Ms. N. and at the time I had no idea what was in store.

Ms. N was a Persian, tall and beautiful with auburn hair, nothing like what you can imagine from what you see on television of Iran. We spent the rest of the evening talking and getting to know each other. She had come to Kuala Lumpur a few years back with her husband an engineer from Isfahan and had only recently got divorced. We would meet at least two or three times a week after that, and always at my condo as she claimed that she didn't want other people to know what goes on in her personal life.

One night Ms. N called me around midnight, she was at the Regent Hotel reading coffee grounds in the bottom of a coffee cup for Ms. B and Ms. K and asked if I could kindly pick her up. I told her I would be around 20 minutes, and she asked me to hurry. I arrived at the lobby of the hotel, she quickly got in the car with an envelope that she was trying frantically to fit in her purse. I looked over an saw a giant stack of US100 dollar notes stuffed in a large brown envelope. Needless to say, I couldn't help but ask. Ms. N looked at me perhaps a bit distraught and said "Okay. Okay, we will talk, but right now lets go to your place."

Over the next few days, a drama would begin to unfold. A drama involving the Russians, the Iranians, Dr. Blix, Dr. Sobri and Dr. Khan.

to be continued...



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