Layover in Dubai

17

By his second day on the job, Sam Keller could finally step to the edge of the thirty-first floor—no guardrail, no safety harness—without going weak in the knees, although his blood still rushed to his fingertips. Toward midmorning he even dared a glance at the ground. Blue helmets moved to and fro like jittery pixels on a video display. It made him dizzy, so he quickly looked away.

Sam hadn’t experienced these sensations since he was eleven, when he got stuck on the Swamp Fox roller coaster in Myrtle Beach, S.C., during a power failure that stranded him at the top for four hours. Rising fumes of corn dogs and cotton candy had turned a mild case of vertigo into a queasy ordeal that lasted past midnight. He remembered the rapt upward stares of the people below, openmouthed with anticipation, as if awaiting the next Hindenburg disaster. Here, at least, everyone was too busy to pay attention to his misery, so he went about his duties in silence, still drained and disoriented from the chain of events that had led him to this edge of existence.

The job site was in the Marina district, an entire cityscape rising from nothing. From his lofty vantage point Sam counted nearly two hundred high-rises under construction, laid out along canals and channels that snaked from a huge man-made inlet of the Persian Gulf. Cranes clung parasitically to the sides of buildings and were perched atop others. The newly paved streets were quiet, except for the occasional truck hauling in more supplies.

Out along the beach, a recently opened hotel held the area’s only current overnight inhabitants, tourists who seemed bemused to be vacationing at a construction site. One had gaped at Sam’s white face when he stepped off the bus with the other workers, pointing in amazement as if he’d spotted an albino in a stampede of wildebeests. But none of the man’s friends had seemed to notice. It was just like Ali had said. To the rest of Dubai, Sam was now invisible.

He had followed the long stream of men in dust masks and helmets to their work site several blocks away, where he boarded a steel-cage elevator that clanked its way up the side of the skeletal building. The view, while disconcerting, was spectacular. Ocean and sky. Desert and golf courses. And everywhere, more construction in vast housing developments and sprawling business parks. Yellow cranes bloomed like flowers in the wake of a sudden rain.

Where were the millions of people who would live and work here? Sam had no idea, although signs along the approaching roadway still boasted of quick sales—SOLD OUT IN 6 HOURS! SOLD OUT IN 4 HOURS! SOLD OUT IN AN HOUR! or, his favorite, SOLD OUT AT PRE-LAUNCH! It was the giddiness of a pyramid scheme nearing its pinnacle. And up here, where you got a better feel for the scale, he sensed an unsteadiness at the base, a Jell-O quiver beneath the weight of high-yield expectations. Or maybe he was just trembling from his fear of heights.

He was sore, blistered, and sunburned from his first day of labor. Up on the thirty-first floor, any exposed skin was soon burned and chapped from sunlight and the gritty wind. His first job was carrying hods of concrete. But Sam couldn’t keep pace with his stronger and more experienced coworkers, so today the foreman had assigned him to operate a freight elevator to haul up blocks and mortar from a landing five stories below. Workers down there filled the platform, then Sam raised it to stops on the intervening floors.

Like everything else at the job site, the elevator’s diesel motor and cable pulley were jerry-rigged, braced by a framework of scaffolding. Sam had to look down the side of the building to make sure the platform stopped at the right levels, which meant he had to lean out into thin air. He crooked his left arm around the scaffolding for support while operating a lever with his right hand. Not the greatest feeling, but he soon got the hang of it, and was no longer convinced he was about to fall to his death. He even grew accustomed to the gusting desert wind, which made everything groan and wobble. Probably the very sort of blast that had killed Ramesh’s friend, Sanjay.

Fortunately, the elevator job kept Sam far removed from Ramesh. But Vikram had told him of new trouble on that front. Ramesh had apparently convinced other workers from his home village of Sam’s guilt in Sanjay’s demise. This clique was now referring to Sam as the white jambuka, or jackal, an animal that feasted on the dead. For today at least, the foreman had assigned Ramesh and his pals to jobs on lower levels.

It was soon time for lunch. There was a jug of water handy, so Sam decided to eat right there. Everyone else, Vikram included, took their food to ground level. Some of the men liked to walk out to the beach in hopes of spotting Western women in bikinis. It was another reason the photography store sold so many disposable cameras. In the barracks Sam had seen revealing snapshots taped to walls and pinned to overhead bunks—fantasy photos that allowed the men to imagine the pleasures of an Angelika from Düsseldorf, an Astrid from Stockholm.

He ate quickly, enjoying the solitude while the sweat cooled on his back. He now felt comfortable enough to swing his feet off the side of the ledge. Looking toward the coast, he saw the distant banners of the government development firms—Nakheel, Emaar, and Tameer—flag after flag snapping in the breeze. Nakheel’s were the last ones you saw before exiting into the Marina district. From his seat on the bus the company slogan had seemed like a taunt: NAKHEEL: WHERE VISION INSPIRES HUMANITY.

Turning east he saw the chockablock shimmer of Media City. He tried without success to pick out Laleh’s building. Thinking back on the day in her office, he realized what a privilege it had been to listen in on her comings and goings as a boss, a planner, a thinker. Even her parents didn’t have that kind of access to the young woman she had become, and Sam believed it had given him an edge, a secret knowledge that might help bridge the gap between their backgrounds. She had hinted as much herself, telling him with a complicit smile, “Don’t ever mention a word about all this to my father.” By “all this” it was clear she meant not just her workplace habits or manner of dress, but also her air of relative freedom in a world that was more like Sam’s than the one her parents knew.

He wondered if she had yet replied to his e-mail message from the night before. He had sent it by paying a few dirhams to use the Internet on the camera store’s desktop computer. The store’s dial-up modem was maddeningly slow, but it had also allowed him to do some further online sleuthing.

Two messages from Plevy had been waiting on his Gmail account.

“See first 2 attachments,” the first one said. “N has been quite the traveler. Also note third one. You have officially attained pariah status.”

Sam frowned and clicked his way through the items. The first was the most recent audit of Nanette Weaver. The second was a compilation of her three most recent quarterly reports. Few things leaped out except, as Plevy had hinted, her extensive travels—most notably several trips to Dubai plus another to her old diplomatic stomping grounds in Moscow. He filed away the dates for future reference.

One oddity was a commendation for a project she had worked on nearly a year ago with none other than Charlie Hatcher, although further details revealed it to be nothing more than an effort to streamline and secure shipping routes from the Far East.

Plevy’s third attachment was a company memo announcing that auditor Samuel Keller had gone AWOL in Dubai following “a criminal complaint alleging an attempted sexual assault on a coworker,” which it said was part of “a pattern of reckless personal conduct that may have led to the death of a valued associate, Charles Hatcher.”

Outrageous, but the fuse for an explosion refused to light. Too damp from weariness and despair. Sam was in exile in a prison of dust and sewage, stranded among thousands of overworked men of other nations and tongues.

“Shit!” he shouted, more in despair than in fury. His curse drew the attention of the Punjabi shopkeeper, who checked his watch and exclaimed, “Your time is run out! Ten more dirhams, or vacate the premises!”

Sam was about to sign off when he remembered he hadn’t opened Plevy’s second e-mail, which had arrived only a few hours later. It was a shock.

“What did you do, asshole? I’m suspended w/o pay, so fuck off! You better hope N finds you first.”

So much for a lifeline. It probably also meant Ansen’s password was no longer operable. He thought about trying it, but his instincts told him to lay low for now.

“Ten dirhams!” the shopkeeper shouted. “Ten dirhams or you must go now!”

It was then that Sam thought of Laleh, the only person he could still expect any sympathy from. So, he paid another ten dirhams from his precious supply, pulled out her business card for her e-mail address, and told her about his first day on the job. He kept the location vague, figuring that by now someone might be monitoring his Gmail account. He probably shouldn’t have sent the message at all, but he told himself he was doing it because Laleh was a more reliable link to Ali than Zafar. The real reason was that he felt better just typing her name. He imagined her reading the message in her bedroom, with the teen queen posters at one end and the all-business stuff at her desk. He smiled and clicked SEND. Then the owner chased him out of the shop.

Sam was finishing lunch when he heard the lurch of the personnel elevator. A bit surprising for anyone to be returning this soon. Glancing toward the ground, he saw that no blue helmets were yet streaming back to the building. Maybe Vikram had come to keep him company. He heard the door clank shut and looked over his shoulder to see Ramesh briskly moving toward him, fists clenched.

Sam carefully swung his legs off the ledge and stood slowly, all too aware of being within inches of a four-hundred-foot drop. He sidled left and crooked an arm around the scaffolding of the freight elevator.

Ramesh stopped about ten feet away, breathing fast and watching him carefully, as if planning his next move. A gritty burst of wind gusted in from the desert, and the framework swayed and groaned. Sweat beaded down Sam’s back like the stroke of a fingernail. Ramesh broke into a grin and stepped closer. He was huge. If he got a firm hold, it would be only a matter of seconds before either Sam lost his grip or the shaky framework collapsed, so Sam let go and moved quickly to his right, staying on the balls of his feet in a slight crouch. The vague memory of a basketball coach telling him to slide fast and stay low flashed across his mind. Ramesh would reach him in another two steps.

Sam faked left, then dodged right as Ramesh lunged toward him. By the time the big man had recovered, Sam was on safer footing, away from the precipice. If he could beat Ramesh to the other elevator, he might be able to jump aboard and throw the switch. But Ramesh blocked his path and lunged again. He was agile for his size, and got a hand on a sleeve before Sam was able to twist free. They were both panting now. The wind gusted again, the grit stinging Sam’s eyes.

Ramesh, still grinning, now straightened to full height, arms akimbo. Then he muttered, “Jambuka”—jackal—just as a clanking sound announced that the personnel elevator was in motion, retreating from the thirty-first floor. Someone must have summoned it from below, cutting off Sam’s only escape route. Ramesh now knew he had mere minutes before others would be joining them. His grin disappeared and he lowered into a crouch, a wrestler ready to spring. Looking around him, he grabbed something from the floor—a crowbar, which he raised like a bludgeon.

He faked left, and before Sam could recover, Ramesh swung the crowbar in a wild arc. Sam raised an arm to fend off the blow as the hooked steel end tore through his jumpsuit and raked the meat of his upper arm, throwing him off balance. Ramesh’s charge took them both down in a violent tackle. The big man locked his arms around Sam’s knees as the crowbar clanged to the concrete.

Sam kicked for all he was worth. A boot heel connected with Ramesh’s chin, and there was a sharp clack like a dog snapping its teeth. Ramesh instinctively grabbed for his chin and Sam rolled free. Enraged, the big man bellowed as he sprang back to his feet. Sam ran toward the middle of the building. He then remembered belatedly that at the center there was an empty shaft for the elevators that had yet to be installed. He skidded to a halt, only managing to turn halfway before Ramesh plowed into him. They fell in a heap, the wind knocked out of Sam as Ramesh’s shoulder slammed his chest to the concrete slab. He heard the clank of the personnel elevator as Ramesh tightened his grip and rolled them over—once, then twice, a bear hug with a crushing weight against Sam’s chest and spine. He saw only a blur of concrete and of sky. They were headed for the empty shaft, and Ramesh seemed determined to take them both over the edge.

Sam flailed his arms, clutching for anything that might slow their progress. He felt sudden emptiness beneath his shoulders, then a sickening moment of weightlessness as excited shouts called out from behind. Someone grabbed his boots just as his upper body tumbled downward. His legs were hinged at the knees, with the dangling Ramesh still clinging to his torso, a millstone.

They were upside down now, the blood rushing to his head as Ramesh grunted and cried out, as if unable to comprehend why they weren’t falling free. Sam saw his helmet tumbling toward the ground like a rock down a well, then heard its faint clatter far below. Several people now held tightly to his ankles and boots on the floor above, although his legs were still bent at the knees, which ached as if at any moment they might come loose under the load of Ramesh, who was now screaming in rage.

Sam felt a steel rod rake his chest. Someone had taken a rebar and was poking from above, trying to pry apart the entwined bodies. Ramesh and he were like a pair of doomed acrobats, suspended from the precipice. Ramesh bellowed and flailed for the rebar with his right hand, but in gripping it his left hand slipped from Sam’s waist. Whoever was holding the rebar up above must have then let go, and Ramesh fell free with a great roar. Sam watched him drop like a giant from a beanstalk, the man still crying out in anger all the way to the bottom. The sound of his impact was like that of a huge, heavy sack, punctuated by the pop of his skull.

Sam looked upward, but all the faces gathered at the rim of the shaft were gazing past him to the bottom. Thank God no one had let go in all the excitement. They hauled him back up to the concrete floor.

Other workers were rushing forward, mouths open, just like all those people in Myrtle Beach when he was eleven. Except this time they indeed had a disaster on their hands, and you could see the horror in their eyes.

Vikram was one of the men with a death grip around his ankles.

“Come,” Vikram said. “You must come away from here. Some of his friends may still be around. We must take you to the ground. The slow way, my friend. By elevator.”

He stood on quivering legs, and after a few steps he stopped and heaved up his lunch onto the pale gray floor, a hot, chunky stream that stank of bile and fear. Vikram gently guided him to the elevator. Sam couldn’t bear to look out the side until they had reached the bottom. Nor did he look off to his right, where a handful of men with large flat shovels were wordlessly collecting what remained of Ramesh.

Someone with a depleted first-aid kit hastily cleaned and bandaged the slash across his arm. The foreman glanced at the torn sleeve and reminded Sam that he would have to pay if he wanted a new uniform.

Back at the camp that night a friend of Vikram’s undid the bandage and applied a wet cotton rag with a warm poultice of salt, turmeric, and lemon juice. Vikram assured him that this was the best possible remedy. The cut was painful but superficial.

“You should not shower tonight,” Vikram added.

“To keep the bandage dry?”

Vikram shook his head.

“Ramesh’s friends. They will be waiting. To their minds you have now killed two of them. Your legend as the white jackal will only grow. You should talk to Zafar. Perhaps he can move you to another camp.”

But Zafar was not in the blockhouse. Apparently he was out for the entire evening, and the sullen Charbak, whose English wasn’t good to begin with, didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned when Sam explained his situation.

“It is for Zafar to decide,” he said quietly, turning the page of a newspaper.

Sam washed up as well as he could at the outdoor spigot, escorted by several men from his room, who had taken up his cause after seeing firsthand the madness of Ramesh. Throughout it he was aware of a huddle of large fellows eyeing him from the entrance to the showers.

“This cannot continue,” Vikram muttered.

“I need to send a message after dinner,” Sam said. “Maybe some of you could walk with me to the camera store so I can use the Internet.”

He pooled his food with Vikram and two other men, and they shared a dinner of fish and okra, stir-fried in a large skillet. One of the others added some spices. It was his best meal in days.

“Let us go now to the camera store,” Vikram said. “We should not return until just before lights-out.”

There were no further messages from Plevy—not that Sam expected any—but he was thrilled to find a reply from Laleh, sweet in its concern. It made him vaguely hopeful, although for exactly what he couldn’t have said. He answered by briefly describing the day’s events and his current predicament.

“Please tell Ali,” he wrote, “Zafar is no help.”

He wondered if Nanette had posted any new alerts. Ansen’s password offered the only possibility of finding out, but he wasn’t at all surprised by the response.

Access denied. Password invalid.

What was surprising was that he was then unable to exit the page. Either the dial-up connection was getting even slower or something else was happening. He tried various escapes, but nothing worked. Only a reboot would do the trick, and even that seemed slow in coming. He had to press the OFF button for several seconds before the machine finally gasped and the screen went blank. This, of course, sent the shopkeeper into a rage.

“No turn off! No turn off! You pay ten dirhams, please, for losing connection.”

He paid it, scowling, and left the store, but couldn’t shake the sense that he’d blundered. And even with his impromptu bodyguards, he felt like a marked man.

They got to the room with only a few minutes to spare. All was quiet. To no one’s surprise except Sam’s, Ramesh’s empty bed had already been filled by a replacement worker, who was tucking in the corners on a fresh set of sheets. Maybe the angry Bengalis would come up with a conspiracy theory for him as well.

Everyone settled in for the night. Vikram nodded reassuringly from his bunk. Then the lights went out. Sam lay awake for a while, startled by every noise and creak. He kept expecting the door to fly open, and Ramesh’s friends to barge in with belts and kitchen knives, or whatever else they used around here. But he was so exhausted that he soon gave way to the rhythms of the night, and was sleeping soundly. Not even the mice and the bugs that scampered across his legs in the dark could rouse him.

He came awake only when a strong hand clamped firmly and moistly onto his mouth. He kicked out with both legs, and struggled to raise himself, or cry out, but to no avail. From a rush of night air he knew that someone had opened the door, and in the distance he heard the sound of police sirens, moving closer. Some sort of scuffle was in progress around him, and there were angry voices. He kicked again in an absolute panic, and wrenched a hand free.

Then a rag came down across his nostrils, smelling strongly yet sweetly of chemicals, and within seconds he was fading from consciousness just as more hands were lifting him into the air. Next came a dreamlike sensation of falling, the air so thick that it arrested the speed of his plunge. The concrete floors of the building in the Marina area flashed past him, one by one. He tried to grab at them, but the fumes kept pushing him downward, with a host of shadows in pursuit.

His last thought was to wonder if he would ever reach the bottom.