Earlier that morning, Sam Keller awoke to an empty house. All was quiet. The window shades were drawn against the sunlight.
Sam had been dreaming of his father, and as he opened his eyes he still heard the voice from some of his earliest memories; the old man telling him to live a little, to give it a try, to go ahead and see what happened and let the chips fall where they may.
Flipping back the blinds onto a view of a scorched courtyard, Sam tried to pin down exactly when he had stopped heeding that advice. Or maybe he had never paid it much attention to begin with. Such words-on the surface, at least-had always seemed pat, even trite, the sort of pep talk that any father might offer.
But now, after having been in the workforce for five years, he recalled the gray face of resignation his dad had always worn when he came through the kitchen door every evening at six-or more often at nine during tax season-looking frayed at the edges as he cracked open an ice tray to mix the ritual daily pitcher of gimlets to be shared with Sam’s mom. Paul Keller had hated his job, Sam realized, now that he could recognize the symptoms. Accountancy had paid the bills and then some, and the technical side had probably come easily enough for a man with such a mathematical mind. But what stood out now was all of the little ways in which his father had tried to steer Sam in other directions, not least by teaching him to sail at the earliest possible age under all conceivable conditions, even when the wind was up and skies were aboil. As if, by seducing the boy with a few thrills, he might guide him toward a more exciting vocation.
“You’re a good man in a storm,” his father always insisted, whenever the boy held the tiller firm against a fresh gust. But it was really the old accountant who had needed to get out on the waves, Sam realized, if only for a way to unbend his mind and let it play among the angles of wind and water, pushing the boat to its limits. More math, when you got right down to it, but calculated on the fly, with a face to the breeze, tiller in hand, the hull’s trammeled force straining beneath his grip with the quiver of a saddled horse.
Of course, when Sam’s aptitude had emerged along similar lines as his father’s-a head for numbers, a knack for analysis-the boy had inevitably begun tacking the same general course. His father had nodded stoically at the news that Sam would seek his MBA at that eggheads’ paradise, the University of Chicago. But the man hadn’t been able to bite his tongue when, on graduation day, Sam announced he had accepted an auditor’s position at Pfluger Klaxon.
To Sam the job had sounded exciting-loads of travel, an apartment in Chelsea. Wasn’t that bohemian enough? But perhaps his father had foreseen where that course would really chart, and Sam now recalled with sudden clarity a long-forgotten conversation. They had just emerged from a downtown tavern after sharing beers with his two best pals from grad school and their dads. His father turned to him in the afternoon glare on a busy sidewalk and said quite solemnly, “Promise me one thing, Sam.”
“Yes?”
“That if this position doesn’t suit you or, worse, if it’s starting to confine you, that you won’t be afraid to give it up, or even start over.”
“Dad, I’ll be traveling all over the world.”
“I know. But still.” He shrugged, ammunition spent. Or perhaps what his posture was really saying was, “Hasn’t my own life taught you anything? Haven’t you been paying the least bit of attention?”
But Sam hadn’t been able to read those signs just yet, so all he said in reply was, “Any job is taking a chance these days.”
“True enough.”
Now he understood, of course, because look at what all his careful behavior and painstaking work had gotten him-a reputation for dullness and rigidity, even as he slipped into a world of trouble, out here on the sharp glass edge of a barren land.
So why not start over, indeed, just as his father had advised? Except instead of taking a new job he would be assuming a new role geared strictly for self-preservation, the good man in a storm facing the stiffest winds yet. He would have asked his father for advice, but that was no longer an option. The old man had died three years ago, killed on the highway that he had taken to and from the office every day for more than forty years-all his safest calculations failing to beat the averages, after all. Sam’s mother had followed six months later, succumbing to a cancer that had seemed to come from nowhere, an actuarial anomaly given her family history.
But if Sam’s job had taught him one valuable thing, it was that he truly was a quick study, a whiz at problem solving. And that was where he would begin focusing his efforts this morning. With or without Sharaf’s blessing, it was time to take action.
The policeman had left a note for him just inside the bedroom door.
“I decided there was no need to lock you in my study today,” Sharaf wrote. The handwriting was neat, with European penmanship. “You must realize how foolish it would be to wander off on your own. By my accounting you are now being sought by the police, your employers, your embassy, and the criminal elite of two nations.”
“True enough,” Sam answered aloud. Even if he could show his face, he wouldn’t get very far without a wallet and a passport. Finding them was one of his priorities.
“You will be pleased to know,” the note continued, “that I am meeting someone this morning who should be able to find you more secure accommodations. Then we can start thinking about how to get you safely back home. I hope that you have slept well. There is coffee, bread, and yogurt for you in the kitchen. I should be returning for you by noon.”
Sam checked his watch. It was a little after 10 a.m. The extra sleep had done him a world of good.
Sharaf must have told his prickly wife that he was giving Sam the run of the house, because she had disappeared. He smiled, wondering what the conversation had been like around the breakfast table. Both of the elder Sharafs probably made damn sure that Laleh was safely off to her office before they dared to leave.
If Sam was to make himself at all useful in this investigation, he knew where he needed to begin, and having Sharaf’s house at his disposal was a plus. Would the Internet be available? Possibly. There was no computer in Sharaf’s hideaway, but Sam was betting Laleh had one. That would allow him to begin pursuing the questions uppermost in his mind, most of which involved Nanette.
Who was she working with? Liffey, obviously, and Lieutenant Assad. But was the policeman a full partner or just an errand boy? What had brought the threesome together? Did she have an alliance with the Russians? The Iranians? Both? Neither? And if the mobsters had decided that shooting Charlie was an error meriting the death penalty, did that mean they had wanted to let Charlie run free? Had Nanette wanted that, too, so that Sam’s surveillance could have led her-or all of them-to a more interesting destination than the York Club? To this woman named Basma, perhaps?
The nature of Nanette’s job meant that it would be difficult to find out much about her. People who made it their business to pry into the affairs of others were often skilled at keeping their own lives a secret. It was the age-old conundrum of espionage and detection: Who watched the watchers? Surely her work at Pfluger Klaxon was subject to an annual audit. The question was who had access to the information. The Internet offered a starting point. Pfluger Klaxon’s Web site had password-only portals for its globe-trotting employees, to allow constant access to encrypted information. And Sam, being an auditor, rated a fairly high security clearance.
He finished his coffee and went on the prowl. Laleh’s door was locked. No surprise, but no problem. He easily sprang the lock with the thin, flat edge of a kitchen spatula.
The room was a revelation, a museum of arrested development that clearly displayed her status as a businesswoman still confined by the rules of girlhood. In the far corner by the window were the relics of her recent past. The wall was plastered with torn-out magazine photos of pop stars and film idols. A set of shelves was crammed with books-English editions of all seven Harry Potter titles were lined up in a row-along with music CDs and loads of silly knickknacks, the kind that a girl might get as party favors at her best friend’s Sweet Sixteen. An iPod was docked in a set of Bose speakers next to a small television, the one he had heard blaring the other day. It was of modest size, but had an LCD flat screen.
The princess trappings grew sparser the farther you moved from the window, and the decor was correspondingly more mature-two prints of Matisse cutouts, professionally framed; an artsy color photo of a desert bluff at sunrise. The open door of her bathroom seemed to emanate her scent on a cloud of herbal shampoo and body lotion. Just inside the door, a blue towel was curled on the tile floor next to a shower cap and a loofah sponge. He tried not to dwell on how she must have looked when she dropped the towel to the floor.
By the time the view reached her desk, the transformation was complete. Here she was all business, having stacked and shelved thick hardback textbooks on marketing, accounting, and other entrepreneurial topics. A calendar that doubled as a blotter was marked with the month’s morning appointments. There were issues of The Economist and The Week, plus a few tattered pink sections from the Financial Times. Off to one side was a glossy page torn from UAE Business, a local magazine devoted to puff pieces on the region’s start-ups and commercial superstars. The story, only a few months old, profiled Laleh’s marketing firm, and the photo took his breath away. She was covered nearly head to toe in a black abaya, but it was her face that really got his attention-an ultra-sober expression nearly as stern as her mother’s had been at the breakfast table. She could have passed for thirty, and looked utterly, prudently competent. You would have trusted her with your last million.
Beneath the picture was a lengthy quote from her, highlighted in boldface type: “All of the wealth is very heady, but I sometimes wonder if in our rush to prosperity our elders haven’t embraced the new ways of doing business a little too readily. There is a certain sense of recklessness to the whole enterprise, which I think makes it a very good time to stay low to the ground.”
He wondered how dear old dad must have reacted to that-an implicit generational slam, yet a seeming endorsement of his more traditional values. An oddly appealing mix, he thought, especially from someone who looked so good in a short skirt. But he still couldn’t shake the sense that she must be something of a dabbler, a rich girl who had talked Daddy into forking over some start-up capital to give her an excuse to get out of the house.
Sam reminded himself he was there for business, not pleasure, and he turned his attention to Laleh’s desktop computer, a powerful HP with a liquid crystal monitor that flashed to life when he nudged the mouse. Viewing the desktop icons, he knew he was in luck. She had one of those broadband connections that was always active. When he clicked on her Internet icon, a Google homepage flashed to life.
At the same moment, an instant-messaging box popped up in the screen’s upper right corner, with remnants of an IM conversation from only a few hours ago. The screen names had been trading girl gossip. He guessed that “LaSha” was Laleh’s, and he blushed as he read her parting dispatch, a gloomy emoticon of a cartoon frown followed by “He may be leaving today.”
Both her friends frowned back, then everyone declared “GTG,” got to go.
Sam was surprised by how much it pleased him. He also experienced a pang of sympathy for Laleh, realizing what a departure from the norm his visit must represent in such a cloistered life. He X’ed out the messaging box, drew a deep breath, and refocused, typing and clicking his way to the Pfluger Klaxon homepage and its drop-down menu for cleared employees. A prompt asked for his password, and he obliged.
Access denied. Password invalid.
He tried it twice more, slowly, in case he had mistyped.
No luck.
Nanette had moved quickly. Discouraging, but also intriguing. He knew from auditing experience that whenever barricades began to appear there was usually something worth finding out farther down the road. She wouldn’t have blocked him otherwise. And there were other passwords out there, some with even better access than his. The question was how to get one.
It was time to use the telephone. A call to Manhattan from Sharaf’s house would be risky, especially if Nanette had sounded the alarm on him to Pfluger Klaxon. A transatlantic call could easily be traced through phone records. But that would be a minor problem as long as Sharaf found him a safer location by day’s end.
Who to call, then? Any supervisor would be too chancy. So would friends from other departments, who probably couldn’t help much anyway. That left his six fellow auditors. He quickly ruled out Ansen and Greenberg, who toed the company line even when it meant taking shortcuts with their work. Paar and Lukins were at the other extreme, but their reckless cowboy tendencies might do him more harm than good. Gupta, the newest hire, was the least known. With only two months’ experience he would probably be reluctant to stick his neck out for anyone, much less an official pariah. That left only Stu Plevy. An up-and-comer. A conniver even, with a reputation for playing every angle. His talents were such that he could hold a conversation with two people at odds with each other, and both would came away convinced that Stu agreed with them. Plevy would be looking out for himself, meaning he would almost certainly report any call. But if Sam could dangle the possibility of some kind of benefit, Plevy might also help, in his own sneaky fashion. Better still, it was 2 a.m. in Manhattan, meaning Sam could phone Plevy at home, where the line wouldn’t be monitored. Even if Plevy blabbed, Pfluger Klaxon wouldn’t learn of the call for another seven hours. By then Sam would be in a new location.
A brief Internet search turned up a home number at an address on the upper East Side. Sam moved to the phone in the kitchen to punch in the numbers. After two rings the receiver clattered as if someone had knocked it loose in the dark.
“Hello?” The voice was scratchy.
“Plevy? Sorry to wake you, but this is urgent. It’s Sam Keller, calling from Dubai.”
“Keller? What time is it?”
“Around two your time. Ten in the morning here.”
“Aren’t you in some kind of trouble?” Plevy already sounded eager and alert. Sam heard a drawer open, as if Plevy was retrieving something to write with. “Heard about the thing with Charlie. Terrible. There were also rumblings of some kind of sexual assault involving No No Nanette. By you, even? What’s up with that?”
So she had indeed poisoned the well. To hook Plevy he would have to lace the bait with some embellishments of his own.
“I was a dupe on the thing with Charlie. The assault charge is a frame-up to keep me quiet. From what I can tell, Nanette has some connections to a local hood. Between you and me, that’s what I was sent here to check out.”
“By Gary?” Their boss.
“Gary’s out of the loop. This goes higher. Meaning it won’t exactly hurt your career if you can help.”
“Sounds like you’ve already got plenty of backing. Why not just go to your sugar daddy?”
“Because this isn’t official, and we didn’t plan for this kind of contingency. So you can understand if I’m in a bit of a bind.”
Plevy paused, then said, “Especially if you’re blowing smoke out your ass. Even if you’re not, the whole setup sounds toxic. Where are you now?”
Fat chance he’d answer that.
“Working with some undercover people. Locals. I don’t need much, Plevy.”
“I heard some scuttlebutt about the babysitting assignment Nanette gave you. But I guess that could explain why they’d have picked you for an undercover job.”
“Very good. But keep it to yourself.”
“Did she give you one of her special phones?”
“How’d you know that?”
“She’s done it before, keeping tabs on naughty boys like Charlie. No disrespect to the dead, of course. They’ve got GPS tracking and she receives the signal, so she always knows where you are. Remember that veep she busted in Africa? Same deal. So if you’re still carrying, better ditch it.”
No wonder she got so upset when Sam switched off the phone. And when he switched it back on, the Russian thugs had closed in on the York within minutes. Fortunately, the phone was still back at the Shangri-La.
“Keller?”
“I’m here. Don’t worry, I ditched the phone.”
“Not that I don’t believe you, but you do realize that helping you isn’t exactly a risk-free proposition?”
“Go ahead and report this call, Plevy. I’d do the same. Cover your ass all you need. All I want is a Web site password. Mine’s blocked.”
“Whoa, now. You think I’m stupid enough to report you but let you go snooping around the database under my name?”
“Yeah, well…”
Sam didn’t have an easy answer, and his hopes faded. There was a pause of a few seconds with nothing but static, which Sam supposed was better than a flat refusal. Unless, of course, Plevy had grabbed his cell phone and was punching in the home number for one of Nanette’s assistants.
“You don’t need my password,” Plevy said at last. “I’ll give you Ansen’s.”
“How do you know Ansen’s?”
“I know yours, too. The whole department’s. Dumb-ass Gary left them up on his screen about a week ago. Seemed like the sort of thing a good auditor ought to file away for future reference. Not that it would do me much good, since we change them every month.”
“If I need anything more…”
“No, no, Keller.”
“Just as a hypothetical.”
Plevy paused, still calculating. “What kind of hypothetical?”
“I don’t know. Someone I could send up a flare to, if all else fails.”
“If you have to, shoot a message to my personal address. Better still, send it to my sister’s. Hold on, I’ll get it.”
Plevy returned a few seconds later and spelled out an AOL e-mail address.
“Put my name in the subject line, she’ll know not to look. Which means she’ll look anyway, so be as vague as possible.”
Like brother, like sister, Sam supposed.
“Thanks, Plevy.”
“Don’t says thanks. I was no help at all, officially and otherwise. Unless you turn out to be right, of course.”
Ansen’s password worked fine. The first thing he found was Nanette’s corporate bio.
She had been with Pfluger Klaxon for four years, having come to the job after six years with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the U.S. Foreign Service. Before that she had spent two years as a risk-assessment manager with Intermax, a global security consultant, right after graduating with honors from Brown.
Sam checked her Foreign Service postings. The first one was to Paris. The second was far more interesting: three years in Moscow.
The corporate bio was predictably glowing. Three particular programs were cited. The most intriguing was a 2007 project in Dubai in which Pfluger Klaxon, “in close cooperation with customs officials and local police,” had financed the formation of a special squad at the port of Jebel Ali to ferret out the shipments of counterfeits. Probably when she met Lieutenant Assad, just as Sharaf had guessed.
Sam scrolled back through archived press releases until he found the retirement notice for her predecessor. It mentioned that a search had commenced for his replacement, and a boilerplate job description noted, “Pfluger Klaxon’s chief of corporate security is a vice presidential position subject to an internal audit every four years by an outside consultant, reporting to the Chairman of the Board. Additionally, the vice president for security must file quarterly reports to the audit committee of the Board, with copies to the corporate legal officer, ethics officer, and audit officer.”
The audit officer was Sam’s boss, Gary Grimshaw. If Gary was lax enough to leave departmental passwords up on his screen, then a smooth operator like Plevy could probably easily find Gary’s copies of Nanette’s most recent quarterly reports.
Sam called up his personal account on Gmail and dashed off a message to the AOL address for Plevy’s sister, keeping it as vague as possible:
“Need N’s last five quarterly reports, copies filed to G.”
That would cover her time on the Jebel Ali project. He pecked around awhile longer on the off chance the audits were available online, but to no avail.
He then searched a State Department Web site for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Press releases were archived for the previous six years, long enough to include Nanette’s last two years on the job. Three stood out.
The first was an announcement of a meritorious honor award Nanette had won for “sustained excellence as a whistle-blower in identifying fraud and waste.” There were no specifics, but Sam knew from his own experience that this brand of “excellence” more often resulted in embarrassment than advancement. Sure enough, six months later she showed up in a press release outlining changes among the embassy’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security staff, when she was reassigned from investigations to consular affairs. Probably no pay cut involved, but her status and responsibility were certainly diminished. It made Sam recall a remark she’d made the other night. Even while she was taking pains to entrap him on the bogus sex charge, she hadn’t been able to resist an offhand complaint about her occasional lack of support from the board of directors. He wondered if being thwarted by higher-ups was a recurring theme in her role as a security cop. If so, resentment might have compelled her to take a few liberties of her own.
The third press release, toward the end of her tenure, was the most intriguing. It was an announcement of an import-export seminar for visiting American executives, organized by commercial attaché Hal Liffey. Five Russian companies had pitched in as local sponsors. One was RusSiberian Metals and Investment, the firm that was now providing business cover in Dubai for crime boss Anatoly Rybakov. The press release helpfully instructed anyone interested in participating to contact staff security officer Nanette Weaver, who was handling visa questions and security clearances. So there they were, comrades in commerce for the betterment of East-West relations. And now here they were in Dubai, perhaps continuing their fruitful cooperation. But to what end?
He checked the Web site for the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates and found a thumbnail bio of Liffey. His photo showed him smiling in front of an American flag. Liffey had been posted to the UAE two years ago. His previous postings overlapped with Nanette’s in Paris and Moscow. A long, productive friendship, no doubt.
All of it was promising, but it proved nothing. His last order of business on the desktop was to erase his Internet footprints from Laleh’s computer. Then he went looking for his wallet and passport. He searched the house room by room-every drawer, closet, and box, plus the pockets of Sharaf’s shirts, jackets, trousers, and kandouras, which were hanging all in a row like choir robes. An hour later, still unsuccessful, he even tried the refrigerator, unwrapping foil parcels in the freezer just to make sure. No luck.
He searched Laleh’s room last, then logged back onto her computer just long enough to check his Gmail account, on the off chance that Plevy had already sent a message. No luck there, either.
Sam then went to the kitchen, poured a tall glass of water and downed it at the sink while pondering where to look next. Perhaps Sharaf had taken the items with him. Glancing out the back window, he spotted another possibility-a storage shed at the rear of the carport.
Just then the phone rang, loud and jarring in the silence of the empty kitchen. He stared at the receiver, debating whether to pick it up. He supposed it could be Sharaf with new marching orders. But if someone in New York had already traced the phone call, it could also be Nanette, or the police, trying to verify his location.
He swallowed the last of the water and headed out the door while the phone continued to ring. Outside it was sunny and the temperature was already in the mid-eighties.
The shed was locked, so he circled to the back, where a small mullioned window offered a view into a dim chamber. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw that it was mostly a repository for gardening equipment and discarded household items such as an old television. Then he saw a corrugated aluminum tub, filled with water. Were those his trousers, for God’s sake? They were. His shirt was there, too, sopping wet, and if his passport and wallet were still in his pants pockets, they also would be sodden.
Now what was the point of this outrage, other than sheer maliciousness? His first instinct was to smash in a pane, unlock the window, and climb in. But he didn’t want to risk cutting himself, so he ran back to the house, his anger building, and grabbed the damp blue towel from the floor of Laleh’s bathroom. He returned to the rear of the shed, balled up his fist inside the towel, and took aim at the pane just above the window lock.
That’s when he heard the cars come roaring up the drive. He lowered his fist and peeped around the corner. Blue bubble lights flashed atop a police cruiser, followed closely by the same black BMW SUV that Assad had driven into the desert. Doors opened on the cruiser and four cops in khaki uniforms piled out. Two headed for the front door of the house, and two for the back. A fifth shouted orders from the driver’s seat. The door of the BMW opened, and Lieutenant Assad stepped into the drive, hands on his hips as he watched the search unfold.
It was a raid, plain and simple, and Sam was the quarry. He dropped the towel to the ground and backed away, using the shed for cover. Then he turned and ran for the rear wall of the family compound. It was about eight feet high. The first time he jumped, his hands slid off the top. The second time they held, and he grunted and pulled until he was in position to awkwardly sling a leg across the top. The baggy borrowed clothes hampered his movements, but the shouts of the policemen kept him going. Fortunately he was still screened from view by the shed. He dropped heavily to the grass on the other side of the wall, and found himself in an almost identical compound. It, too, had a wrought iron gate at the end of a driveway. Sam easily climbed over it onto a sidewalk that ran alongside a busy four-lane road. The median was a narrow strip of grass with an iron fence, and there was no opening in the fence for several blocks in either direction.
Traffic was light, so Sam darted across the first two lanes and scaled the fence as a passing driver slowed down to stare. He then bounded across the last two lanes to the far sidewalk and took stock of his surroundings.
He knew the police would soon realize he wasn’t in the house, and would probably begin patrolling the neighborhood. He was vulnerable out here in the open, and he was already sweating enough to soak his clothes. It was too hot to be wearing his suit jacket, but as the only item of apparel that fit properly it made him look a bit less ridiculous.
He had to find shelter. Looking east he saw nothing but more houses. A few blocks to the west there were some commercial buildings. Even if they were offices he could duck inside, so he took off for them at a dead run. After a block he thought better of it, figuring he was more likely to attract attention by running. Sweat was pouring down his face.
When he reached the buildings he was relieved to spot a sidewalk cutting between two of them to an inner brick courtyard. Inside was a small shopping plaza, tucked well out of sight of the road. A restaurant was to his right, a kitchen boutique was straight ahead, and a Coffee Bean café was to his left. He ducked through the smoked-glass doors of the café and took a seat at a corner table with his back to the wall. Sweat dripped onto the tabletop. The five seated customers-three teenage girls in one group, two women in Western business suits in another-stopped in mid-conversation and eyed him with a touch of apprehension. So did the two young men behind the counter. Sam smiled wanly and pretended to study the chalkboard menu as he wiped his face dry with a napkin.
In a few seconds conversation returned to normal. He glanced nervously toward the door, but no one was in pursuit.
For the moment he was safe. But where could he go next? He had no money, no phone, no charge cards, and no passport. For a few moments he verged on panic. Then he calmed himself and glanced again at the menu, if only for the benefit of the other customers. It was then that he remembered the one item he did have, tucked in the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
He reached inside and retrieved Laleh Sharaf’s business card.
Sam turned toward the two businesswomen, who were speaking English in British accents. He smiled in a way that he hoped was neither maniacal nor threatening, and launched his cover story.
“Excuse me. I just arrived this morning after an overnight flight from the States. They lost my luggage, which is why I’m wearing these ridiculous clothes, and now I’m afraid I’ve missed an appointment with a friend who was supposed to meet me here. I’d call him, but my cell phone is dead and the charger is in my luggage, and, well, I was just wondering if I might borrow one of your phones to make one quick call?”
“Certainly,” one of the women answered, although her eyes said she was anything but certain about Sam. She handed over the phone without leaning toward him an inch more than necessary.
“Thanks.”
He turned in the other direction and punched in the number. A receptionist answered in English, which he supposed was the language of commerce in Media City. He reluctantly offered his name, and she put him through to Laleh without a moment’s delay.
“Are you safe?” She sounded almost frantic, and he wondered why.
“Sort of. I’m at a café a few blocks from your house. The police came when I was out back, so I ran for it.”
“My father’s been arrested. I’ve been calling and calling the house, trying to reach you.”
“Arrested?” He glanced toward the door, already losing hope. The woman who had loaned him the phone narrowed her eyes. Maybe she was eavesdropping.
“My father’s friend Ali is making arrangements for you as we speak. Where did you say you were?”
“Some café-the Coffee Bean.”
“It must be the one off Jumeirah Road. Don’t move. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
She hung up. He wiped his sweat from the phone and returned it, feeling more like a fugitive than ever. The countermen seemed edgy again, and he didn’t have a single dirham to buy a coffee.
“I’m meeting a friend,” he said to one of them. He cleared his throat self-consciously and stared out the glass walls. Fifteen minutes later-she must have driven especially fast-Laleh strode briskly into the sunny courtyard. Sam was shocked to see that she wasn’t wearing her abaya. He stood quickly and met her just as she was coming through the door. They both looked around nervously, and neither spoke until they reached her car.
Already she was a different young woman from the one he had met at her house. She was neither the flirtatious girl on her home turf nor the confident young businesswoman in the magazine. You could tell she was uncertain in this new role, yet a little excited by it as well.
“I’ve spoken with Ali,” she said. “I’m driving you to Media City. One of my creative people is out on a call. You can wait in his office until Ali is ready to move you. You really should do something about those clothes, you know.”
“Speaking of clothes-”
Laleh blushed. “You’re not to say a word of this to my mother or father.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. And I’d be dressed better myself if your dad hadn’t put my clothes in a tub of water.”
“He what?”
She looked at him like he had lost his mind, so he didn’t belabor the point. Laleh pressed her key to pop the locks of the BMW. Then she paused, as if she wasn’t quite sure where to put him. He supposed she almost never rode anywhere with a male her age, not without an escort.
“Should I lie down in the back? It’s what your father had me do.”
“Yes.” She seemed relieved by the suggestion. “It’s probably best for you to stay out of sight.”
At least her car had plenty of floor space. There was even room to sit up. He wondered if this was going to be his mode of transportation from now on in Dubai.
When she turned the key in the ignition, music blared from the speakers. There was flustered movement up front as she switched off the radio.
“Sorry.”
“No problem. You can play it if you want.”
“That’s all right. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for coming to get me.”
She put the car in gear and eased away from the curb, heading west.
“Ali told me my father was desperate for someone to get you out of there, although I doubt it was me he would have preferred for the job, especially if it means spending time alone with you. Well, not really alone, but…”
“I know what you mean. Why was he arrested? Because of me?”
“Ali wasn’t sure. He just said they took him away in a meat wagon, the van they use for common criminals. It was clear they wanted to make a spectacle of it.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
A few minutes of stop-and-go driving passed in silence while Sam caught his breath. She had rolled up the windows and switched on the air conditioner. His sweaty clothes were clammy, but it felt good to be out of harm’s way. Laleh pulled onto a big, smooth highway-Sheikh Zayed Road, Sam guessed-and the BMW kicked into high gear.
In a few miles the silence grew uncomfortable. It was awkward enough trying to strike up a conversation from down on the floor, and he wasn’t sure what to say to a young woman who was probably just as nervous. He decided to break the ice with family talk.
“Your dad seems like a pretty reasonable guy. Except maybe where you’re concerned.”
“He’s come a long way even there, considering where he started. You should hear him talk about what things were like when he was a boy. A woman my age couldn’t even leave the house unescorted, unless she was married.”
“Wasn’t Dubai mostly desert then?”
“Yes, but he lived on the creek. When he was smaller his family lived in a shack built of palm fronds. Lots of people did. Then his father struck it rich and built a big house with a wind tower. Even then they only had electricity six hours a day, with one lightbulb per room. They had a well in their house, but it was salt water, only good for doing the dishes. Sweet water had to be hauled in by donkey, all the way from Hamriya, and it had worms. You had to wait until they settled to the bottom.”
“How’d his dad make his fortune?”
“Pearling, I think. And smuggling gold to India. Apparently pretty much everyone was doing it. Sort of like real estate today. My dad worked on his father’s boats one summer, but he never really talks much about that part of his life, except with old friends like Ali.”
“What made him want to be a policeman?”
“There is a story he tells from when he was a boy. A doctor they knew was the first man in the neighborhood with a TV, so everyone used to go there to watch while the electricity was on. There was only one station, run by the Americans at the Aramco oil company in Saudi Arabia. So the picture would come and go, and most of the programs were in English. Of course, my dad had already learned a lot of English from his tutors, so he would translate for everyone, especially during their favorite, the Perry Mason show.”
“I’ve heard of it. About a lawyer, I think.”
“Yes, a lawyer who always won. My father said he always felt like he was taking part in the victory, a partner of this man who solved every crime. I think he would have gone to law school if his father would have sent him overseas. But he didn’t, so…”
“Being a policeman was the next best thing.”
“Yes.”
“Good story.”
“If it’s true.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“I believe him. I just think there was something more. Something that he doesn’t talk about. His sense of justice is far too strong. He is adamant about it, even when it hurts his career. I don’t think you get to be that way just by watching a TV show.”
“Maybe not.”
Her remarks reminded him of something Charlie had said on the night he died, something about how easily people fell into predatory behavior. “Don’t you fall into that trap, old son,” he had warned. “Once you do, atonement is damned near impossible.”
He considered the implications of those words as the wheels hummed on the pavement. Soon afterward they exited the highway, and within moments Laleh had pulled into a parking lot.
“This is my building. We shouldn’t be seen entering together, so I want you to stay here while I go inside. Wait five minutes and then follow. Here are my keys.” She reached back across the seat. “My offices are on the fifth floor, suite 516. The receptionist will be expecting you. Give her my keys and keep going to the first office on your right. The door will be unlocked, and it will be empty. You might have to wait a few hours, but I’ll come and get you when Ali arrives.”
She got out and shut the door behind her. He listened as the sound of her footsteps faded. It was a trusting, even naive gesture. He could have easily driven back to the Sharafs’ house to see if the coast was clear, and then grabbed his soggy passport and credit cards for a trip to the airport. Buying a ticket would have been no problem, but he wasn’t sure he could have sneaked past the border authorities onto a flight home, especially if Assad had put his name on some sort of watch list.
But even if he had been inclined to try, he wouldn’t have felt right taking advantage of Laleh’s trust. Or of her father’s trust, either, now that Sharaf was apparently in trouble on his behalf.
So after five minutes he squirmed up onto the backseat, opened the rear door, and hopped out before locking the car. Only later, when he found out what a terrible destination Ali had arranged for him, would he regret the decision.