Layover in Dubai

23

An hour after the police departed, Sam and Sharaf were back in the Beacon of Light’s canteen, staving off the jitters with snacks and soda. At dusk they watched through a slit in the curtains as a taxi arrived, the yellow Camry gleaming beneath the streetlamp. Laleh, wearing her abaya, stepped out from a rear door.

She had come straight from the office. Apparently she was more willing to brave the threat of surveillance than further doses of her mother’s wrath. Or so Sam had concluded after listening in on a series of family phone calls. Even through the language barrier the urgency and anger were unmistakable.

Sharaf was wrapping up a call to Amina as Laleh came up the sidewalk. He sounded exasperated as he hung up.

“I will be paying off this debt for years,” he moaned, snapping the phone shut. “The worst part is, I agree with her. Laleh is taking a great risk, even if only with her reputation. The way we are using her is unacceptable. I should bring this all to a halt, here and now.”

“What happened to the greater good?” Sam said.

“Yes, the greater good. Stopping a shipment of prostitutes will probably only make the price go up. Then they’ll send in another load. That is what passes for the greater good anymore in Dubai. All for the cost of a girl’s standing in her community. You can’t possibly understand how Laleh will be seen after this.”

“Like a hero, maybe? That’s how she’d be seen in most places.”

“This isn’t most places.”

“But I bet she’s all for it.”

“Of course. From listening to people like you, who will come and go before she realizes the damage she’s done.”

“Did you ever consider she might be smart enough to overcome it?”

“Please. Don’t lecture me on her intelligence. That’s what makes it tragic.”

Halami entered the canteen with Laleh in her wake. Tense excitement showed in the young woman’s eyes.

Sharaf sighed. It was just too much. No matter how logical, he couldn’t go through with this. He addressed her in English, so that everyone in the room would understand what he had to say, and why.

“I have decided this is not possible. It simply is not workable.”

Laleh’s mouth dropped open.

“I thought it was what you wanted?”

“What I want as a policeman is beside the point. As a detective I operate only on the basis of need, may God forgive me. As a father, I cannot agree to it.”

“Then maybe I’d better talk to the policeman. Although I have to say, the father’s behavior surprises me. Earlier he was so determined to remove his family’s shame, no matter what it took.”

Sharaf shot a sidelong glance at Halami, who was listening eagerly, and his next words emerged in an irritated tone.

“Please. Not in front of others.”

“Fine. But I really would prefer to speak to the policeman. Provided he’s still on duty.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Sharaf’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if somewhere inside he was engaged in a difficult argument. Finally he sighed and slapped a hand against the wall.

“Even as a policeman, I never let anyone act on my behalf unless they first understand all possible consequences.”

“And you think I don’t know them? Believe me, my entire upbringing makes me painfully aware of all that could follow. But what troubles me more is what will happen to both of us if we do nothing. I can live with disapproval from the outside. But from within? You should know better than anyone how unbearable that might become.”

Sharaf sagged, defeated. Or maybe he was also relieved, now that Laleh had shown him a way he might proceed as both father and policeman, no matter how contrived.

“You are sure, then?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Sharaf, I am sure.”

Her father smiled weakly and lightly placed a hand on her cheek.

“Then we had better get down to business before I change my mind.”

He pulled his hand away and shook his head, as if trying to put the moment behind him. Then he sighed yet again, sounding tired and grumpy.

“Everyone be seated. We might as well stick to English, so Mr. Keller can assist us. The practical question is how you’re going to handle this interview. These things are tricky, like sailing a dhow in a choppy sea. When the wind shifts, you had better shift with it, or you’ll wind up dead in the water. But I do have confidence in your abilities, Laleh.”

“I know. I have always known that, in spite of everything.”

“Good.” Sharaf nodded, a glimmer of pride in his eyes. The exchange was intimate enough to make Sam want to look away. Halami beamed at the old cop, her first sign of affection for him. She then left the room to let them carry out their business.

They worked quickly. Sharaf spoke for half an hour about what questions to ask, while Laleh took notes. Sam added a thought here and there. Then she was ready to go. A guard had been assigned to drive her, using not the battered blue van but a white Audi parked in the rear.

“We’ve checked the streets,” Halami said. “No sign of surveillance.”

“Not that you’re qualified to make that judgment,” Sharaf said.

“These men are. Trust me.”

“But can we trust them?”

Halami stared him down and put a hand on her hip.

“Sharaf?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up and let me finish.”

He said nothing in reply.

“It will take forty minutes, maybe longer, for Laleh to reach the secure location. The address is known only to the driver and two others of us here at the Beacon of Light.”

“You’re sure you’ve told no one else?”

“Only Charlie Hatcher. He visited her a little more than a week ago, on the night he arrived.”

Sharaf turned to Sam.

“Did you know this?”

“No. I went to bed early that night. We were both exhausted from the flight, or so I thought. I guess Lieutenant Assad was right.”

“He knew?”

“I don’t think so. He just believed Charlie could have gone out after I went to bed. He practically scolded me for not staying up.”

“Because he already knew you were working for Nanette, his business partner. You were their eyes and ears.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Please, gentlemen,” Halami said. “Do you want to hear the plan or not?”

“Continue,” Sharaf said.

“Assuming that Basma is willing to talk, Laleh may be there an hour, even longer. The return trip will take another forty minutes. So maybe two and a half hours in all. In the meantime, you gentlemen are welcome to join us for dinner, but I suggest that you make other arrangements for sleeping.”

“I’ll call Ali,” Sharaf said. “He is lining up accommodations.”

“Safe Houses R Us,” Sam said. “Hope it’s better than the place he found for me.”

Laleh stood to go. Sam expected a tearful farewell, but Sharaf seemed to deliberately avoid it by keeping his seat. He opened his phone in his lap and punched in Ali’s number. From the intent look on his face, the policeman was working overtime to block the father’s entry to the scene. Laleh smiled gamely, as if she understood. Then she mouthed a silent “good-bye” to Sam and was on her way. By the time she had disappeared down the hallway, Sharaf was talking to Ali as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Or maybe he was trying to drown out the sound of the shutting door.

Sam waited for the conversation to end, then spoke up.

“We should play the rest of Patel’s recording,” he said. “See what they said in Russian.”

“Not here. Not anywhere in this house. Mrs. Halami might be right about her government visitors. Maybe they did plant a microphone somewhere.”

“In which case we’re dead anyway.”

Sharaf frowned.

“Okay. Then I will tell you the real reason. I am too nervous. In my current state of mind I can only think in one language at a time. I would get half the translation wrong if I tried it now. Later, when we are at Ali’s safe house.”

“He found one?”

“Some golf course condo development where no one has moved in yet and, according to Ali, no one ever will. Four hundred empty units. Plus canals, of course. We will be sleeping in the furnished display model. Mansour’s Maritime Police will provide security, front and back. Which reminds me. Sam Keller is now officially dead. Mansour released the news to the media only an hour ago. He told Ali that Hal Liffey was on the phone to him within minutes to arrange for transport of the body.”

“Happy to do it, no doubt.”

“And if Sergeant Habash was having second thoughts, he will realize now that he has to keep quiet about us, unless he wants to look like a fool.”

They shared in the household’s communal dinner, but to allow the women to feel at ease, the men ate in an alcove of the dining room, sealed off by a curtain. Neither of them ate much, and afterward they returned to the canteen to wait, flicking back the curtains every time a car passed out front. Three times the phone rang in the kitchen, jarring them to alertness. None of the calls were about Basma or Laleh, and none were from the police.

Finally, after two hours and forty-seven minutes, they heard a car come up the rear alley, followed by the opening and closing of the back door. Laleh walked up the hallway, fresh from her mission.

She was pale, subdued, and took a seat without a word. From her widened eyes, the set of her jaw, and the way she folded her hands, it was clear that something momentous had taken place. Her earlier signs of triumph and excitement had been replaced by something more sober and deliberate.

“So?” Sharaf asked, the policeman in him still just barely in charge. “What did you find out?”

“Far more than I wanted to. For the first time, I guess, I understand why you and Mom have always tried to shelter me.”

She then placed her hands on her knees, as if to brace herself, and told them the story of Basma.