Layover in Dubai

20

Ibn Battuta Mall looked more like a theme park than a place to shop—yet another Dubai monument to slapdash ostentation. Its vast and elaborate courtyards had been built to resemble the fourteenth-century glories of China, India, Persia, Egypt, Tunisia, and Andalusia—the onetime destinations of Ibn Battuta, the Arabic Marco Polo.

Sam pushed through the door and gazed at the painted-on skies, the massive colonnades, and the elaborate fountains. Disney or Vegas? Both, he decided. But the striking facades concealed pretty much the same retail offerings you’d find in Indianapolis—Borders, the Sunglass Hut, a twenty-one-screen multiplex, and so on.

He dialed up Sharaf on Laleh’s phone.

“Look around you,” Sharaf commanded. “Are you alone?”

“Far as I can tell. It’s like you said. Hardly anybody here.”

“Where are you now?”

“Somewhere in Tunisia.”

“I am in China, at the Starbucks. Why don’t you come and meet me. If anyone follows, I will be able to spot him.”

“See you in a minute.”

A Starbucks loomed around the next corner, but it was in Persia, situated beneath a huge dome painted in magnificent colors. It was like those splendid tiled ceilings you saw in the world’s most beautiful mosques, although the aura of holiness was somewhat diminished by a lingerie shop, its window filled with mannequins dressed in gauzy items you never would have seen on the streets of Persia, ancient or modern.

Sam forged onward through India until he finally spied the China Starbucks near a massive replica of a shipwrecked junk with a split hull and red sails. The ship appeared to have run aground by the food court.

Sharaf lurked at a table near the back, watching carefully. Sam almost didn’t recognize him at first because he was wearing gray slacks, a navy sport coat, and a button-down blue shirt, and everything was a few sizes too small. Not that Sam had room to criticize, since he was still wearing the oversized clothes borrowed from Sharaf’s son.

“Interesting place,” he remarked, taking a seat.

“Do not get comfortable. We will be heading straight back to Laleh’s car, but by a different route. I just had to make sure there was no surveillance.”

“Where’d you get the clothes?”

“They are Ali’s.”

“We make quite a pair. Good thing we’re not worried about standing out.”

“Would you have preferred I wore my police uniform?”

“It was a joke. Sorry.”

“Jokes were not what I was hoping for when I agreed to let you help me.”

“Then how about some information?”

“You have some?”

Sam told him first about what he had learned from his coworker Plevy about the phone Nanette had given him, with its GPS tracking device.

“Didn’t you say you turned it off for a while?”

“Then I switched it back on, just before the Russians showed up at the York.”

“No wonder Arzhanov panicked. He must have realized where you’d gone and felt like he had to act immediately. Anything else?”

He told Sharaf about how Nanette’s and Liffey’s careers had crossed paths in Moscow, and the press release that linked them both to RusSiberian Metals and Investment, the company providing cover for Rybakov in Dubai. He mentioned the dates of Nanette’s most recent trips to Moscow and Dubai, and her cooperation with police on the anti-counterfeiting task force.

“Now if we just knew what was going to happen on the fourteenth,” Sharaf said.

“What are Rybakov’s rackets?”

“The usual. Drugs, gambling, money laundering. Through real estate, of course, or this wouldn’t be Dubai. But being a former KGB man, his first love has always been porn and prostitution. The business of choice for ex-Soviet spies, or so I heard from an old hotel man in Bur Dubai. Years ago when there was still a Soviet Union, he did lots of business with Rybakov, renting him conference rooms for visiting Soviet commercial delegations. It was long before anyone had even heard of the words ‘Russian Mafia.’”

“Conference rooms? I thought Rybakov was KGB?”

“There was very little here for those kinds of people to do back then. No one from the West to spy on but a few oilmen, or the occasional banker. So Rybakov would help out the commercial attaché in his spare time. Part of his cover, I suppose. And then, of course, the whole Soviet system collapsed. Poor fellows like the Tsar weren’t even getting their paychecks on time. And that was when my hotel friend first caught him stepping out of bounds. Rybakov rented a suite of rooms, supposedly for some visiting oil and gas engineers. But when my friend happened to drop by to make sure everything was to the customer’s satisfaction, he found a film crew and three naked women, with Rybakov directing.”

“He was making a porn movie?”

“He’d been doing it for weeks, apparently, in hotels all over town. It was the only way he could get paid. So by the time all those construction workers began flying in, the Tsar must have seen them as a ready-made market for the naked women he was procuring.”

“The perfect capitalist, adapting his product to the market.”

Sharaf nodded. Then he slowly stood up from his chair, looking a bit wobbly.

“Where to?” Sam asked. They began walking, easing back through China toward Persia.

“Our first stop is an address in Deira, to see our doorman and bouncer from the Palace Hotel. I know a route that will allow us to elude anyone in pursuit. Next stop, the Beacon of Light women’s center. The director returned my call while I was in prison. I finally reached her an hour ago, but when I asked about this Basma character from your friend’s datebook she refused to say anything over the phone. I decided to take it as a promising sign, if only because nothing else seems very promising right now. In fact, we may run out of time even before we run out of leads.”

“Monday the fourteenth, you mean?”

Sharaf nodded.

“It gives us less than forty-eight hours. And even that may be optimistic. The Minister, who has been backing me, is losing patience. I kept him from shutting me down only by convincing him that you are dead. Meaning we will have to hide from our friends as well as our enemies.”

“Dead? Wasn’t that a little extreme?”

“There were moments when I believed it. It is why I am pleased to see you in one piece, even if you did spend the night with my daughter.”

“I was pretty much out of it the whole time.”

“Yes, that was her story as well.”

Sam didn’t belabor the point, and neither man said a word as they exited the mall from a corridor in India.

The father-daughter reunion wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. Sharaf called out gruffly to Laleh as he approached the car. She was seated at the wheel, her arm resting on the window frame.

“Here, take this and put it on.”

It was an abaya he must have procured somewhere along the way. He was speaking English, as if to make sure Sam understood as well that he was restoring order to this world gone mad.

“Now hand me your keys. Mr. Keller and I need your car. I am going to drop you at the taxi stand, over there with the tourists. If you need transportation for the rest of the day you can use my Camry. Ali had it delivered to the house. But I suggest that first you had better make peace with your mother, assuming that is even possible after what you have done. Not that I don’t appreciate the valuable service that you’ve rendered.”

Laleh didn’t budge.

“And good morning to you, too, sir.” She, too, spoke pointedly in English. Sam felt awkwardly like he was witnessing a formal debate, and that he would soon be consulted for his judgment on the winner. “I’m gratified to see you’re okay, but this is my car owned in my name, and I am driving. Please sit in the back. Or up front, unless it makes you uncomfortable sitting next to a woman driver.”

“Laleh, this isn’t a game.” He glanced around the parking lot, as if nervous about remaining exposed. “I don’t let women drive me around. Not your mother, and not you, especially not after your behavior last night. It’s as simple as that.”

“You do when it’s not your car. Please, get in before someone sees you.”

“I paid for this car, Laleh. And I’m losing patience.”

He reached for the handle, but Laleh was quicker, shooting the lock and rolling up the window. Sam, trying to stay out of the line of fire, crossed to the opposite side and got into the back. He buckled up and braced for the collision.

Sharaf, cursing under his breath, walked stiffly around the front of the car. He slapped the hood sharply with his palm and made his way to the passenger door. Laleh unlatched it, and Sharaf threw it open. He paused briefly, as if deciding whether he could really endure this. Then his policeman’s need for safety prevailed, and he slid into the seat, slammed the door, and gazed straight ahead, jaw rigid.

Interesting strategy, Sam thought. Apparently Laleh had concluded that the best defense was a good offense, and she had seized the initiative in the battle of wills. Whatever sanctions her parents had in mind, it was obvious that in Laleh’s mind the game had changed forever, and henceforth she would press for every possible advantage. He was impressed.

“Buckle up, please,” Laleh said. “You know how terrible the drivers are here.”

Sam watched the skin above Sharaf’s collar turn a deep red, but the man didn’t say a word. Considering the trouble Laleh was already in, Sam wondered what her new curfew would be now. Sunset, probably, with no television and no Internet. Or maybe her father would simply dispatch her to some secluded finishing school for naughty young Islamic ladies.

“Where to?” Laleh asked, continuing to address her father in English.

Sharaf emitted a deep, guttural sigh but said nothing. He turned to gaze forlornly into the parking lot.

“All right, then,” Laleh said brightly. “I’ll head east, since there really isn’t anything much to the west except Jebel Ali. Just grunt when you want me to turn.”

The skin above Sharaf’s collar was now livid.

Laleh pulled the BMW into the eastbound lanes of Sheikh Zayed Road and floored it, expressing her anger with the gas pedal as the acceleration pushed Sam deeper into his seat. When she hit 120 kilometers per hour—about 75 miles per hour—there was a loud, high ping, and then a mechanical voice spoke up from the dashboard: “You are speeding. Please slow down. Ping. You are speeding. Please slow down.”

“Most people have that disconnected,” Laleh said to Sam. “My father did in his car, and my mother did in hers. But of course in my car they would not permit me. So there you go. Just like in a taxi.”

Her tone was controlled, but her foot pressed harder on the pedal, and the voice kept issuing its warning.

“Nice, isn’t it?” she said brightly. “Especially when you’re running late for an appointment and everybody else is flying past you anyway. Not that any of my appointments really matter.”

Sam cleared his throat.

“All right,” Sharaf said, breaking his silence. His voice was surprisingly under control. “You’ve made your point. But before I say anything more, you have to slow down. There is no hurry.”

Laleh eased up immediately, having won the first round. Sam wouldn’t have thought it was possible.

“But just what is your point, Laleh? That is one thing I would like to know. Are you simply trying to impress your friend here?”

“I’m doing it because, one, you need to see firsthand, here and now, that I am a thinking, resourceful person who, occasionally, can actually make judgments for herself. Two, that I’m scared for you, for both of you. And I figured the only way I’d have a chance to talk some sense into you was if I, well, sort of kidnapped you for a while, or at least got to drive you around. I’ve seen the precautions you’re taking, the risks you’re willing to endure, and the damage that both of you have already suffered. And, yes, Father, I’ve even heard you on the phone late at night, talking to the Minister about how terrible this might all be. If you want real privacy you should go outdoors, or better still, let me go outdoors. So I guess what I’m really saying after this awful and exhausting night is that I don’t want you to risk your life over some stupid investigation. You’re not just a detective, you’re a father and a husband, and Sam here is a young man who, with any luck, will also be a father and a husband. So maybe you should both reconsider.”

Sharaf seemed taken aback, but not in a bad way. The color of his neck had faded to medium rare.

“Laleh, you’re only going eighty now. If you really are worried for my life, then please concentrate on your driving or we’ll be rear-ended by some idiot doing two hundred.”

Right on cue, a Mercedes whizzed past on the right, blaring its horn and blinking its brights. Laleh sheepishly eased to the right amid more honking, and brought their speed back up to a hundred.

Sharaf took a deep breath, which seemed to calm him further. Laleh had disarmed him as only a daughter can disarm a loving father—with her care and concern.

“All right,” he said finally. “I see what you’re doing. And because of how you feel I can almost excuse what you did earlier this morning. Almost. And, by the way, have you phoned your mother? Does she have any idea where you are?”

“I was going to do that later.”

“You’ll do it in the next five minutes, even if we have to pull off the highway. And that is not negotiable.”

“Okay.” Demure voice, ceding ground she knew she couldn’t hold.

“Or maybe fifteen minutes would be better, because I can see now that it is going to be necessary for me to tell you a very old story. And to hear it you’re going to have to take this next exit, because I won’t tell it while you’re driving.”

She looked over at her father as if not quite believing him.

“Well, do you want to hear it or not?”

She took the exit, the one for Emirates Mall.

“Pull into the parking deck,” Sharaf said. “A lower level, where we’ll be out of sight.”

She circled downward and squeezed into a space between two other BMWs. They sat in silence for a few seconds while the color of Sharaf’s neck continued to fade down the spectrum. He turned toward Sam.

“This is a private story about my family. I am afraid I must tell it in Arabic so that only Laleh will understand it.”

“Sure. Okay.”

“No,” Laleh said, employing her new favorite word. Sam figured she hadn’t used it this much since the age of two. He braced for Sharaf’s next explosion.

But the older man contained himself. Maybe he realized he was dealing with a strange new phenomenon of defiance, a force of nature every bit as unstoppable as a sandstorm, or a plague of locusts. Whatever the reason, he asked his next question in English, and in a tone that was calm and reasonable, if somewhat puzzled.

“Why do you say ‘No’ to me now, my daughter? Are you overly tired? Or is it because, as all of those ridiculous Western television programs designed for ladies like to say, that you are suddenly feeling ‘empowered’?”

Laleh seemed to hold back a grin.

“My reason is more practical. If you really are about to explain why you can’t possibly turn back, then doesn’t Mr. Keller deserve to hear it as well? Now that your destinies are shared.”

Sharaf considered her words a moment, then nodded, apparently relieved to find himself back in territory where he at least understood the logic.

“A valid point. Very well, then. If Mr. Keller has the patience, then he, too, may hear the story of our family’s disgrace.”

“Disgrace?” Her resolve seemed to waver.

“Yes. ‘Disgrace’ is exactly the right word, as you will see. It is the foundation upon which our wealth has always been based. Do you still wish for a stranger to learn why?”

There was a pause, followed by a small nod and a very quiet “yes.”

“Then I will tell you. It is the very reason I became a policeman, or more to the point, an honest policeman.”

“It wasn’t because of that television show, Percy Mason?”

“No, my dear. And it’s Perry, not Percy. Although that story is real enough. I really did feel like a shining knight of justice whenever I translated his triumphs for our neighbors. But that came later, when I had tutors and was learning English. By then my father could afford to pay for such things. The real reason came earlier, when I was twelve. It was summer, the year before Ali and I would put to sea. My family was not really poor, no more than anyone else. But our house was not as grand as it would become, and our pleasures were simple. One of mine was that on the night of every full moon I enjoyed sneaking down to the banks of the creek, because that was when the women and girls liked to swim. They went into the water in their dresses, of course, even after dark. But, well, you know what water does to dresses. It was the only way a boy of twelve could ever expect to see such things.”

“I’m shocked,” Laleh said. She was joking, but Sharaf hadn’t even noticed. From his eyes Sam could see he was swept away on a current from his past.

“So there I was, lying in the reeds, swatting at mosquitoes and trying not to make noise, not that I had to worry about that because the girls were laughing so loud. Then I heard footsteps coming up on the path behind me. I froze. I was sure it was the father of one of those girls, who would swat my head and turn me over to an imam on Friday for a lesson in proper behavior.

“But no. Nothing like that. It was my own father, and he wasn’t looking for me. Even in the moonlight you could see right away by the glitter of his eyes that he was a man on important business. Maybe that was why I decided to follow him. To see what was afoot.”

“So even then you were a detective,” Laleh said.

“Or maybe I just didn’t trust him. I never had. He was always trying to swindle someone in the souk, or cheat a boat captain out of his cut. So I moved out of the reeds and tucked in behind him, walking as quietly as I could. He went a few hundred yards more until he stopped at a small walled lot behind the house that belonged to his brother, Abdullah. That seemed especially odd, because Uncle Abdullah had died only a week earlier, and the family was still in mourning. He climbed over the mud wall and moved toward a palm tree in the middle of the lot. Then he turned to face the creek—I had to duck behind the wall—and he took several careful steps straight toward me before stopping. He then turned directly to his right and made five more strides, counting them as he moved. Then he stopped again.

“I saw then that he was carrying something, one of those small folding shovels like the British soldiers used to have. He must have picked it up surplus, or maybe he stole it off one of their trucks. But he began to dig, right there by the light of the moon, and in only a minute or two he struck something. It sounded like metal hitting a clay pot, and at that moment I knew what he was doing, and what he had found, and I was scandalized.”

“What was it?” Laleh said.

Sam, just as eager to find out, leaned forward from the backseat.

“Well, in those days, especially if you made your money from pearling, no one ever put their money into banks. You collected your savings in old silver coins called Maria Theresas. You’d put them into a big clay pot, stopper the top, and bury it somewhere handy, in a secret place that only you knew. And this pot my father had dug up must have belonged to Uncle Abdullah, because I had heard his wife at the funeral only days earlier, complaining to the other women that her husband had died before telling anyone where their fortune was buried. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence then, especially when men were lost at sea. Their families were left with nothing unless someone could find the pot. But apparently my father, whether by sneaking around, or threats, or whatever means, had known the location all along. And he had waited until the first full moon to go and dig it up.

“There must have been a lot of coins, because the pot was very heavy. He could barely carry it, especially with the little shovel tucked beneath his arm. But he made it home without anyone seeing him, and when he reached our garden he dumped the contents into a sack. He broke the pot into little pieces and took them out to the creek, where he scattered them on the water. Then he made a fire and put the coins into a cooking pot with water and dried lemons. People did that to remove the tarnish, because the dampness underground always made the coins turn green.

“The following week my father bought three new boats to add to the one small pearling boat he already owned. Then he bought new engines for all four. That summer he needed so many new crewmen that he had to put me to work, and he hired the two older boys who became my friends, Ali and Mansour. Two of the new boats were even seaworthy enough to make the crossing to India, so he was also able to enter the gold-smuggling trade as well, once the pearling season was over. It made his fortune. And of course his wealth was then passed down to me, and, in turn, to you and your brothers. All of it accomplished by an act of theft against his own brother’s family.

“He took care of them in his way, buying them things from time to time, and making sure they were never wanting for necessities. And of course he let them think of him as a kind and magnanimous man. But I always knew the truth, and always hated him for it. And that is when I decided that I would do something in my life—as a lawyer, a policeman, whatever the world offered—to make sure that people like him would always be found out and punished.”

“Is that all?” Laleh asked, as if expecting some further revelation.

“What do you mean, ‘Is that all?’ Is that not enough?”

“Well, yes, it’s terrible. Inexcusable. But it was your father, not you.”

“It was a matter of our family’s honor, Laleh. Or its utter dishonor. Maybe some of those grasping people you work with would simply see it as the clever act of an opportunist, so why not make the best of it? But he stole from his own flesh and blood. It was a shame upon all of us, and by keeping his secret I became a part of that. With every tutor his money bought, I was tainted even more.”

“Your father’s right,” Sam said before he could stop himself. “I understand completely.”

Sam also understood that the age-old conflict between the values of the old and the young was playing out on the seat in front of him, here in a land where the new got newer by the minute. Not that Laleh wasn’t appalled by her grandfather’s actions. She simply didn’t see it as a binding stain upon later generations, or even her father. And while Sharaf had undoubtedly spoken too harshly of the people she worked among in Media City, she probably had grown a bit jaded from the ambition so often on display in the workplace. Sam certainly had, even if he had realized that only during the past few days.

Laleh was silent for a few moments more. Then she nodded.

“All right, then,” she said. “I understand why you have to continue. I also understand—finally—why you built our cousins a house on the family lot, so maybe you should tell Mom as well. But if, as you believe, our entire family shares this shame, then shouldn’t I also share the burden of removing it, if only by driving you to your next destination, maybe? Or making inquiries in places where you or Mr. Keller would be recognized?”

Sharaf rapidly shook his head.

“You see?” he said to Sam. “This is the folly of revealing family secrets, even to those you love. Now she will always have a wedge to involve herself. And she—”

The phone rang before he could say more, and when Sharaf saw the number he answered immediately. The conversation was in Arabic, but Sam could tell from the tone that it was welcome news. By the time Sharaf hung up, his mood was transformed.

“Laleh, I have a bargain to offer you.” He snapped the phone shut. “If I were to tell you that I know how to guarantee Mr. Keller’s safety for the rest of his stay in Dubai, and that you could even play a role in this action, would you agree to let me take the wheel?”

She tilted her head, as if trying to determine if this was a trick.

“All right. I’ll agree to that.”

“Good. In forty minutes, my old friend Mansour from the Maritime Police will be stopping by our house. I will drop you off a few blocks away so that you can be there to meet him, because I cannot afford to be seen there myself. If you then follow my instructions, by this evening he will be able to announce to the world that Mr. Keller here has been found dead in the waters of Dubai Creek. Mansour will even have a body to prove it, complete with Mr. Keller’s clothing and all the proper identification.”

“But—”

“Just say that you agree.”

“I agree.”

Sam was dumbfounded. Then his auditor’s brain began to assemble the pieces, and he smiled as they fell into place. Death, he decided, was going to be a pretty good thing.