Overview
Lawrence Kona is a retired UTDA operator and co-founder of Komodo in Komodo. He is an old friend of Basra Kusniqa Camden’s father and becomes Komodo’s tactical conscience during its early rise.
Lawrence is sixty-eight when Basra recruits him. He has grey-flecked hair in Basra’s childhood memory, an aging face with sun-dried creases, a slower gait than Basra’s, and later a severe cough that foreshadows his leukemia.
Role
Basra finds Lawrence playing cards in Tengara County and pitches him a deputized outworld peacekeeping outfit. He agrees on the condition that the company not become a private enforcement arm for banks and corporations. After retrieving a stolen wedding ring without bringing in police, he leaves with Basra in his red Fisher Firebolt, and Basra names the new company Komodo.
Lawrence helps turn Komodo from concept into practice. He works on its guiding principles, plays a role in the Scott Fossorius arrest, installs a radiotelemetry array on Komodo One, monitors Soltero Police Department traffic during the tritium-shuttle capture, and later serves as chief operating officer. He also continues the Handshake Initiative that brings the Hatset to the Unitary-Mahav peace summit.
Lawrence conceals his leukemia from Basra and stops shipboard treatment. When the disease advances, he dies by suicide in his sealed quarters rather than wait for a decline that would prevent him from caring for himself and others. His sealed letter to Basra remains unread until the final Mount Aket confrontation, where his insistence that she treat humanity with respect helps break through her final self-mythology.