Layover in Dubai

30

Anwar Sharaf watched in agony as the numbered lights flickered in sequence, floor by floor, as the elevator rose to twenty-one.

“Stay behind me when the doors open,” Mansour said to his left.

“Are you crazy? I’ll be the first one in if I have to kill you.”

The elevator slowed. Sharaf raised himself up on the balls of his feet. Just as the doors began sliding apart, two gunshots echoed sharply, and he cried out in anguish. He shoved through, banging his shoulders. The Tsar and Hedayat were stumbling toward him in an open doorway, looking confused and disoriented. Some goon was coming through in their wake. Sharaf didn’t even pause. He ran past them, gun raised as he looked wildly about him, trying to take in the whole scene at once.

Laleh lay on her back to his right, her eyes open. Keller was on top of her, faceup, eyes also open but horribly fixed and glazed. Assad was sprawled across a chair at the far end, blood gouting onto the long wooden table. He groaned, clutching his chest. The redhead, Miss Weaver, stood next to Hal Liffey by the windows in a far corner. Their hands were raised. Mansour rushed around the table to detain them. Sharaf dropped to one knee and grabbed Laleh’s hand.

“Laleh! Are you—?”

She pulled her hand free and struggled from beneath Keller, then raised herself onto her knees, gasping like an exhausted runner. Her clothes were bloody, but Sharaf realized joyously that the blood wasn’t hers. Then his relief turned instantly to shame as he saw that the blood was Keller’s. The young man still wasn’t moving a muscle. Mouth slack, eyes locked. Sharaf dropped his gun, but Laleh was a step ahead of him as she checked the American’s pulse.

“I think he’s all right,” she said.

“But he’s—”

“Out cold. His head hit the table as I was pulling him down. Assad was about to shoot. He’s been hit in the shoulder, but nowhere else. Call an ambulance.”

“We can use the one downstairs. What could you possibly have been thinking, Laleh?”

They embraced on their knees, and he felt her relax into a sob.

“Brave girl,” he whispered. “And a damned fool. If you think Assad was dangerous, wait until your mother sees you.”

They shook together in laughter and relief. And that was the scene that Sam Keller opened his eyes to, seconds later. Looking up sideways from the floor, he saw the blur of father and daughter embracing, yet kneeling as if in prayer. At first he was groggy enough to believe it was a dream.

Then Sharaf looked down at him and smiled. The man looked exhausted, grateful. Or he did until Laleh reached down and gently stroked Sam’s cheek, at which point the father frowned. Only then was Sam convinced that this must all be real.