The Red Room

14

“Nee-hao.” Knox speaks over the phone’s earbud wire to retain his peripheral vision. His feet are tired, his belly empty; he’s back down the hill in Jabal, the nearest thing Amman has to a historic district. With each conquering army, one civilization has replaced the next, going back millennia. While the Jabal neighborhood is arguably also the most modern, these contemporary edifices are built cheek-to-jowl alongside ancient ruins. It’s a human stew of body odor, food scents and fossil fuel. Livelihoods are made on the streets, other lives are lost on the streets, and still others repair the streets.

Now they are teeming in the evening hour.

“Nee-hao,” Grace answers.

“Can you change a FedEx delivery address for me?” He speaks Shanghainese, a specific dialect of Mandarin. Of all the words, only “FedEx” is in English. It stands out like a black sheep.

“Are you sender or recipient?”

“Recipient.”

“Must be sender.” Grace’s tone is deliberate, professional.

“Electronically? Can you hack it?”

“I could check with Data Services, see if we have that capability. I would guess it would come down to timing.”

“Immediately.”

“No. I would think not.”

He hesitates. Victoria turned him in to the police, who will have located the shipment using her address as the point of origin. He’s counting on FedEx being so fast that the Harmodius is already in the air, or perhaps landed in Istanbul. The trick is to move it while the Jordanians debate how much to share with the Turks, and if they come to terms, the Turks set up surveillance to trap the recipient — Knox. Given the bureaucratic tangle likely to ensue, he can’t see either side anticipating the delivery location changing; it’s his one chance to steal the piece back before they seize it. And him.

Grace informs him that the sender can change the delivery address for a small fee.

“Can you impersonate the sender?”

“I am no expert on this. I would imagine there are safeguards. The sender must call from the phone number listed on the air bill. Something like this.”

“Shit.” Knox put Victoria Momani’s number on the air bill.

No names. No small talk. No locations. He and Grace haven’t spoken in several months. He likes hearing her voice. It’s an unexpected reaction.

He ends the call, knowing no offense will be taken.

From a second-story stairwell window across the street, Knox keeps watch on the cars — mostly European subcompacts — and pedestrians outside the apartment building across the street. It’s a residential area with no cafés or coffeehouses or galleries to hide in. It’s going on one A.M., yet swarms of youth and pairs of both men and women fill the sidewalks. Oddly, there are few couples over thirty seen together; the Jordanians in this neighborhood separate by gender when out for the evening.

Knox takes note of every twitch of every tree leaf. Nothing escapes his eye. He spots no solo surveillance, though the complexities of spotting team surveillance that combines mobile and pedestrian remains. He gives himself an extra twenty minutes to make damn sure. The success of the op depends on the next hour. If the Obama bust is studied in depth by Jordanian authorities, if it should end up confiscated, Dulwich’s plan is compromised.

He wraps a white scarf bought from a street vendor in an open-air market around his head to fashion a turban. Angles his chin low as he descends the stairs and crosses the street. Enters the apartment building and climbs to the second floor.

Knocks. Waits. Knocks again.

Victoria Momani opens the door. She wears a large scarf like a robe. “Go away,” she says. “I was asleep.”

“It can’t wait.”

“You have been hurt.”

Knox hasn’t gotten to a mirror. The scuffle in the van, he assumes. “It’s been a busy evening.”

She checks the hall before she admits him. Once the door is shut: “Are you out of your mind?”

“Regularly.”

“I could be watched.”

He shakes his head.

“Who are you?” She waits. “I knew you people would not stop.”

“Stop what, Victoria? I told you: you got me wrong the first time. I am as I represented,” he says, still weighing his options. “Why else would you have let me in? You believe me. That’s important to me. To us both.” If only Grace were here, he thinks. She could make this smoother. “But let’s stay here for a moment: who do you think I am? What have these people done?”

She appraises him. Shakes her head.

“‘You people,’” he repeats to her. “Organized crime?”

She is incensed by the suggestion.

“Police? Special police?” he asks.

His ignorance is winning her over. Her second evaluation of him is more forgiving.

“Are you police?”

She coughs up laughter. Doesn’t know what to do with him.

“Innocent bystander,” he says. Her eyes go glassy, contradicting her outward confidence. He’s a dentist with a pick.

“I need a favor,” he says.

“Because we are such old friends.”

“What caused the split with Akram?”

Impressively, she manages to keep her obvious emotion from her voice. “It is not yours to consider.”

“His brother,” Knox says. “Mashe.”

It is as if all the air is let out of her. As she contracts, she finds a chair to sit upon while she coils inward. “I knew it.”

“I am neither what nor who you think. I am, in fact, as I told you, a merchant. But I am helping others, as I know you would, were you able.” He stares her down; he’s reached her.

“You think me so gullible?”

“I think you’ve been hurt. Lied to, more than likely.”

“And you are the great purveyor of truth.”

Her command of English suggests he should avoid talking down to her. He regroups.

“I fashion the truth as needed,” he says. “I lie about another’s beauty, my own politics, my vices. But not about this.” Having little to no idea of what he speaks, he says, “Mashe Okle is trouble. He can be stopped. I am offering you that chance. The crate contains a piece of legitimate art. I promise you that. But, believe it or not, it’s important to my effort. I do not work for any government or police. I am a merchant enlisted by others — neither government nor police, nor any kind of criminal effort — to help expose the man for what he is. By now the Jordanians have alerted the Turks to monitor my package when and where it is delivered in Istanbul.”

“I do not believe you. It is a bomb. Something like this. I will not hurt Akram or have him involved in hurting Mashe, no matter what I think of the man. I will not be part of this.”

“It is not any kind of weapon or device, nor can it be used to make a weapon or a device. It is as I said.” He considers her. “Very well.”

He makes for the door, a gamble that causes each stride to seem artificially long and slow. Has he judged her incorrectly? Since when?

“Wait!”

He works to hide the smirk. Successful, he turns.

“A phone call is all. One phone call,” he says.