THIRTEEN
OUR FLIGHT FROM LONDON arrived Wednesday afternoon. Debbie and I came in as colleagues on visas speedily arranged by the Ministry of the Interior—headed up by the guy who owned the stone we came to ‘check’. The contact we used told Debbie to not declare her Jewish ancestry on the paperwork, lest she not be admitted into the country. She didn’t.
There was a stuffiness to Riyadh airport. Even though signs everywhere proclaimed No Smoking, the smell of old cigarette smoke lingered in areas where the ceilings were not as high. This was certainly not Dubai International. Except for the addition of high tech biometric scanners at passport control, it had the feeling and look—shaggy carpets with zany patterns in different shades of brown—of an airport from a seventies movie. There was
