Layover in Dubai

19

A few hours earlier, a Frenchman, a Belgian, and an Emirati in a white kandoura stood in an office frowning over the body of Sam Keller, a death watch of tame-looking strangers.

“What do you think?” the Emirati asked in English.

“I think you killed him,” the Frenchman said.

“Don’t say that! Besides, I’m not even sure it’s possible.”

“With halothane? Of course it’s possible. How much did you use?”

Laleh interrupted from across the room.

“Stop it! You’re only making it worse. Have you checked his pulse lately?”

The Emirati, apparently designated to handle the medical side of whatever it was they were up to, lifted a wrist and glanced at his watch—a huge Audemars Piguet.

“Weak, but steady. Like before.”

“How much longer, then?” the Frenchman asked.

“I told you, I’m not experienced with anesthetics. This is all guesswork.”

“You’ve established that quite clearly, but—”

“Please!” Laleh said. “He did the best he could. And my friend is safe.”

“Provided he ever wakes up. And if he does, will he walk and talk, or just lie there forever like a fallen tree?”

As if in reply, Keller’s body twitched, a spasm across the torso. Then his right hand lifted slightly. The fingers fluttered as if playing a trill on an imaginary piano.

“It’s alive!” the Belgian said, in his best Dr. Frankenstein.

The Frenchman giggled nervously. Laleh and her countryman held their tongues. All four watched intently for further signs of consciousness. Keller opened his eyes, and with a soft groan he slowly raised his head from the couch, sliding back his arms until he was propped on his elbows. He groggily scanned the room, seemingly as shocked as a newborn to suddenly find himself among the living. Time of rebirth: 4:47 a.m.

Laleh stepped nimbly between the Frenchman and the Belgian. She bent down and gently placed a hand to his cheek. Sam blinked slowly, then blinked again. Finally he spoke, his voice a croak.

“Where the hell am I?”

The others exhaled as one.

“My office,” Laleh said. “Welcome back.”

“I think now he will be okay,” the Emirati said in apparent relief.

“In your expert medical opinion?” the Frenchman asked.

“That really will be enough, Jean,” Laleh said. “And I can take over from here. Thank you. Thanks to all of you.”

The three men nodded, glancing back at Sam as they departed without a further word. With the drama apparently over, weariness was now evident in their posture. It was still dark outside the big window. The building, bustling by day, was silent.

Sam felt as if he had just climbed out of a deep hole of drugged oblivion. Considering his flash of panic during his last previous moment of consciousness, he was vaguely pleased to have awakened at all. As far as he could tell, he was still in one piece. No apparent bruises or savage wounds, except for the poultice still taped around the cut on his arm.

“That smell,” he said, remembering the hand clamping across his nose and mouth. “It was kind of sweet. What did they give me?”

“Halothane,” Laleh said. “On a handkerchief. From a brown bottle Massoud took from the hospital. He’s an orderly, not a doctor, but he thought it might come in handy. Then when he saw those men outside your room, I think he panicked. Plus the police were coming. Three cars that passed right by us on the way out of there. So I guess he decided it would be better if you came without a commotion. He probably used more than he should have.”

“Those men? Which men?”

She described them—three beefy Bengalis, two with clubs and one with a knife. They had been gathered uncertainly by the door to Sam’s room, as if awaiting a call to action. Fortunately they had been easily frightened off by the sudden appearance of Sam’s rescue party, which had strolled toward them seemingly out of nowhere just before midnight.

“Ali called me late last night to say that he had found my father. He was going to pick him up at the Central Jail. In the morning he was going to get you as well. But when I saw your e-mail it sounded too dangerous to wait any longer, so I rounded up a few friends and did what I could. Do you think the police found out you were there? Or maybe someone saw the Bengalis and phoned for them.”

“I’m not sure. With the Bengalis it was personal. Superstitions and grudges. The police? Who knows. Either way, it’s a good thing you came.”

Sam sat up straight, groggy but not in pain. He was on the couch in the foyer of Laleh’s office, out by the receptionist desk with the big window behind it. He seemed to have his wits about him, but his motor senses were enveloped in a thin fog. There was a slowness to his movements that was almost pleasant, as if some higher authority had granted him dispensation to dial things down for a while. He looked up at Laleh and smiled, aware that it was probably a goofy expression, as idiotically faithful as a dog’s. It seemed to please her, nonetheless, because she smiled back, and then sat beside him on the couch.

“Don’t you have a curfew or something?”

Laleh’s expression darkened.

“I thought my mother would strangle me on the way out of the house. She still doesn’t know where I am. I’ve never done anything like this before. When my father comes back home …” Her voice trailed off with a shudder.

“You said he was in jail?”

“They beat him up. Out cold, like you. I’ll call Ali after sunrise for an update. He said he was taking my father to the Minister’s house, for safekeeping.”

“So he’s still in hiding?”

“So are you. I don’t know where we’ll put you next.”

Laleh checked her watch and shook her head, frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

“My mother. She really will kill me. One of my brothers chased me halfway down the driveway. I was lucky to get away at all. And I forgot to bring my abaya, of course. That was probably the first thing she noticed.”

“Hey, calm down. I’ll vouch for you.”

In his relaxed state of mind he reached up and unthinkingly touched her chin to turn her face toward him. She didn’t flinch, but her eyes widened, which made him realize exactly what he was doing. He dropped his hand, embarrassed.

“Not that me vouching for you will do you any good, I guess. The crazed foreigner, with his libertine ways from abroad.”

She smiled.

“You’re still feeling the effects, aren’t you? You’ve never talked this way before. Not with me, anyway. You’re so relaxed.”

“Maybe halothane is good for me. Who were those guys?”

“I grew up with Massoud, the one from the hospital. He’s a friend of my little brother Hassan. Jean works in the building, a cameraman for French television. He shoots freelance video for us. The Belgian, Paul, is a friend of Jean’s. I think he works for Reuters.”

“I’m guessing Jean and Paul have never met your parents.”

“They’re part of the network my parents know nothing about.”

It wasn’t a boast, or a put-down. It was merely a statement of fact, a casual affirmation of her competence in having rounded up the necessary manpower for a rescue mission on short notice, as if such business was all in a day’s work. And maybe it was.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“Wait for morning.”

“Do you have coffee? Everything’s fuzzy, but I don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“I’ll brew a pot.”

She left for a moment while he stared dumbly through the darkened window into the pre-dawn sky. He heard running water and, soon afterward, the pop and gurgle of a coffeemaker. It reminded him of his first visit to Sharaf’s house, right before her father burst in on them, scolding and disapproving. She was right. Her parents would be furious. He smiled dopily.

Laleh returned with two steaming mugs. She again sat beside him on the couch—just as close as before, he was pleased to note. It was cozy, sipping coffee with her. Or maybe the anesthetic was still working its magic.

“So what will he do to you?” Sam asked.

“My father? Punish me, I suppose. The first thing he usually tries is to demand that I quit my job. When that doesn’t work he changes my curfew for a while.”

“Even earlier than ten?”

She shrugged.

“It’s hard to blame him. Not that I won’t. But I am so different from all the girls he grew up with. You really have no idea how far he has come.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Because it’s true. And he is under a great deal of pressure in his work. Even before they threw him into prison I was worried for him.”

“He tells you about his work?”

She laughed.

“He’d never tell me, or even my mother. But I hear things. I am a night owl, like him, and sometimes when he goes into his office, very late, I am still roaming the hallways like a ghost. So I hear him on his cell phone, plotting things out.”

“You spy on him, is that what you’re saying?”

She shrugged again.

“Maybe if I didn’t have a curfew, I wouldn’t be there to listen. So in that way he is getting what he deserves. But this case, the one about your friend, I think it is part of something much larger. He has even been to the palace to talk about it.”

“About Charlie?”

“Long before that. A few months ago he went to Sheikh Mohammed’s weekly majlis and asked for a personal audience.”

“You can do that, just show up at the ruler’s weekly audience?”

“Oh, yes. Hundreds of people do. They complain about everything. The lots the government gave them. The traffic in their neighborhood. And like a fool, Sheikh Mohammed actually listens.”

“Did he listen to your father?”

“All I know is that a week later my father met with some cabinet minister, and has been chatting on the phone with him late at night ever since. It’s about other policemen, I think. Bad ones, and the criminals they’re working with. So I’ve been scared for him, and that’s how I knew to be scared for you. And, well, it’s not as if I had anything else to do this evening.”

He was flattered, even honored, by her concern. It was wonderful. In fact, between his warm feelings about Laleh and the lingering effects of the halothane, Sam had achieved a floating bliss akin to mild drunkenness, leaving his inhibitions at a minimum. As he looked intently at Laleh’s face, he knew exactly how her lips would taste, a moist blend of salt and lip gloss, soft underneath. If she had been any other young woman he would have kissed her then and there. But even in his altered state he remained aware of the distance between their ways of doing things. He never would have presumed to touch her, as he had done moments ago.

That made it all the more powerful when Laleh made the first move, by taking his hand into hers and enfolding their fingers. Her eyes told him she was aware she was crossing a chasm, with many perils below. He sensed this even as her face leaned close enough for him to smell her lipstick. The anti-Nanette, he thought. Someone I could happily be brave for.

Such thoughts made for a somewhat solemn first kiss, a little tentative, with passions held in check. The second one lasted longer and ranged further afield, stirring him at a level he was more accustomed to in these situations. She then retreated slightly, as if to take stock.

“I am afraid that the only practice I’ve had at this is from watching movies,” she said softly. “Forgive my awkwardness.”

“You’re doing wonderfully.”

He was touched by the thought of her watching movies from the end of her bed, studying a passionate scene from an American film as if it were a manual of love. And in a way, this was new for him as well. Never before had he kissed a woman who thought of him first and foremost as someone who had survived against all odds, a risk taker in a foreign land. With Laleh, he was someone altogether different from the careful young auditor.

They kissed again, the best one yet. His right hand found the open space at the bottom of her blouse at the small of her back, and he slid it up her spine. She followed suit, pressing closer, skin to skin, their sighs on identical wavelengths. Her left hand slid across his thigh, and then the telephone rang.

It was her cell. She primly disengaged and sat upright, blinking fast. She smoothed back her hair and drew a deep breath before answering.

“Hello. Father?” She blushed and switched to Arabic, but even through the indecipherable rush of words Sam could tell she was flustered and trying to improvise. After a minute or two she calmed down. Then she turned toward him, handing over the phone with a solemn expression.

“He wants to speak with you.”

Sam took the phone, expecting the worst. He hadn’t felt this way since he was seventeen, when he had walked shakily to the door to pick up his date for the senior prom. He cleared his throat.

“This is Keller.”

“Please assure me, Mr. Keller, that nothing improper has happened between you and my daughter.”

“Nothing improper has happened, I assure you.”

“By your standards or mine?”

“By anyone’s standards.”

“Not anyone’s, Mr. Keller. In some Muslim families she would already be a scarlet woman just by occupying the same room with you—uncovered, no less, and at this low hour of the night. It also disturbs me that you are beginning to lie almost as skillfully as my sons, especially when I have come to regard you as a decent and honest man. Perhaps I should simply stop asking questions for which I really do not want to know the answer.”

“I, uh, don’t know what to say to that.”

“To business, then. Laleh told me what happened to you at the camp. I have not fared much better. So from now on we’re going to have to operate differently. More like spies, or undercover men. We will stay low to the ground and keep our exposure to a minimum. I am not sure yet where we will be staying, but it will not be at my house. Can you handle that? Or shall I have Ali drive you to the airport and put you aboard a private jet for, say, Canada, or some other neutral location, to work things out for yourself?”

“I can handle it.”

“Very well. Meet me later this morning, then, ten o’clock at Ibn Battuta Mall. It will not be safe for you to take a taxi, so unfortunately Laleh will have to bring you, much as I hate to involve her further. Ali will bring me, and we will meet inside the mall. It is the only way I will be able to tell if one of us is being followed.”

“Won’t it be too crowded for that?”

“Obviously you have never been to Ibn Battuta Mall. Beautiful place, but no one goes there.”

“Ten o’clock, then.”

“Park near the entrance to the Egyptian pavilion. Laleh will know. Bring her phone with you and tell her to wait in the car. Call me after you have entered the mall. I will be waiting inside. And Mr. Keller?”

“Yes?”

“I would like for you and Laleh to please leave her office building now. Drive around if you have to. Even eat breakfast if you must, but only if you are seated at separate tables. Do not risk any further temptations by remaining alone in an empty office. Understood?”

“Very clearly.”

“Now if I may please speak to my daughter again.”

“Of course.”

The father-daughter conversation lasted a few moments longer. Her tone was no longer flustered, but by the time she hung up, the earlier spell between her and Sam was broken. She smoothed her clothes and cleared her throat.

“I told him you had only regained consciousness a few moments ago. I don’t think he believed me, even though he wanted to. Apparently he’s not in much better shape. He said someone had hit him on the head.”

“Where is he?”

“On the way to Ali’s house. Ali refuses to let him work until he has had more rest and something to eat. That’s why he set your appointment for ten. I’m supposed to drive you there, but he didn’t tell me where you were meeting.”

“Some mall. Ibn Battuta.”

She smiled.

“Of course. Malls are his touchstone, his home turf.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Well, at least it’s convenient. Only a few minutes away. That leaves us plenty of time for breakfast.”

“He said we should eat at separate tables.”

“He also said that I have a new curfew. Nine o’clock. Do you see me rushing home to obey it? I am going to pay dearly for all this, so I might as well get my money’s worth. Meaning we will eat at the same table, side by side if you prefer. I know I do.”

They took the elevator to the main lobby. Sam was surprised to see that it was light outside. A few early birds were already arriving in the parking lot for lonely Saturday shifts. They stepped through glass doors into the coolness of a fine morning. The mist of a nearby sprinkler made a small rainbow in the low sunlight.

“So does this mean we just spent the night together?” he said, trying to keep the tone light.

“I’m sure that’s how my father sees it.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t joke about it.”

“No. It’s funny, actually. Another new thing for him to get used to, poor man. But it’s not like we removed any clothing.”

“Well that’s one thing to be glad for.”

“I suppose.”

She, too, maintained a lighter tone, and as they crossed the parking lot she reached across the gap between them and quickly squeezed his hand. Just as quickly she let go, and she didn’t turn to face him, or slow down, or offer any other opening that he might have exploited for a kiss or even a sidelong hug. Demure and defiant, all at once, and very much in control. It restored his earlier good mood, and left him intrigued and aroused.

But as Sam turned to open the door he saw the stubble of the Marina district on the far horizon. Cranes were already swiveling into action. The blue helmets were too distant to spot, but he knew they were in motion as well, with a long day ahead. It was a reminder of the world he was about to reenter, a hide-and-seek frontier with no margin for error, where those who disappeared were easily forgotten. Sharaf had warned him that from here on they would have to operate like spies, trusting no one. Frowning, he checked their flanks. All clear for the moment. With a sigh, he eased into the front seat of the BMW, back on the job.