Layover in Dubai (26 page)

“What charge?”

“Public profanity. I guess it was the first thing that popped into the policeman’s head. So of course the judge, some ignoramus from Syria, accepted his word as if it were God’s. He listened to me for five seconds and sentenced me to four months, just like that.”

“And your cousin?”

“The same. They put him in another cellblock. So we wouldn’t be able to keep our stories straight, they said. I don’t even see him at meals, or in the yard.”

“Sounds like they think one of you really knows something. Your cousin, maybe?”

Nabil was silent. Sharaf realized his remark had made him sound like a cop. Old habits were hard to break. But Nabil soon resumed his patter.

“Actually, I think Khalifa
does
know where our friend has gone. But that is his business. The missing fellow is from India, and his family runs Khalifa’s shops in the Gold Souk. I guess he is worried they would all be deported, which would ruin him.”

“Deported? The fellow must have done something pretty bad.”

“The police didn’t say. But he works at the Palace Hotel, so you can imagine. Even if it was only stealing, you know how the government is about crimes against tourists, especially wealthy ones.”

“The Palace?” Sharaf tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice. “The hotel at the Royal Mirage?”

“Yes. He is some sort of doorman.”

The one from Charlie Hatcher’s datebook, probably, the fellow named Rajpal Patel. Up to now Sharaf had assumed the man was missing because Lieutenant Assad—or some Mafia ally—had spirited him away. Instead it sounded as if Patel had gotten wind of his pursuers and bolted. Much like Sam Keller, wherever he was.

Stumbling onto one of Patel’s neighbors was enough of a coincidence to rekindle Sharaf’s suspicion. Maybe Nabil
was
a plant.

But he knew from experience that no more than a dozen or so new inmates were admitted each day to the Central Jail, and of those only a handful were Emiratis. Furthermore, the new arrivals tended to be grouped by nationality. The timing of his arrest meant the odds had actually favored just this sort of meeting. The pity was that Nabil’s cousin wasn’t his cellmate, since Khalifa was apparently the one who knew the whereabouts of the doorman.

Sharaf wanted to ask more, but Nabil was already gossiping about two fellows he had spotted across the room. Apparently they were also from his neighborhood. They had been arrested for buggery several months earlier and were now sharing a table, all smiles.

“I wonder if they also share a bunk,” Nabil said with a leer. “Now
that’s
where they should put our friend Obaid. Give him an education in sin he would never forget.”

Sharaf decided not to ask again about the doorman, lest he raise suspicion. There would be plenty of time later for that. Far too much of it, probably.

After breakfast the guards led them outdoors onto a thirty-by-thirty-meter slab of concrete—the so-called exercise yard. As if by rote, everyone began walking counterclockwise in a crowded parade around the perimeter. Sharaf joined in. Those who merely wanted to talk retreated to the corners. One or two Europeans tried to jog, weaving clumsily through the crowd. He wished it were warmer, but the sun wasn’t yet high enough to reach over the walls.

Amina and Laleh must be up and about by now, he supposed. He wondered if they knew where he was, and, if so, if they would be allowed to visit. Did the Minister know? More to the point, was he doing anything about it?

The rest of the day was more of the same. Two more meals. Two more trips to the yard, with plenty of time for worrying as each hour passed without word from the outside. And the next day was virtually identical to his first. Maybe Assad was counting on the boredom to break him. Sharaf didn’t have a single dirham, but fortunately the kindly Nabil let him borrow enough credit from his account at the prison store to buy socks and underwear. He also picked up an American paperback from the woeful offerings in the prison library, where most of the books in Arabic were religious texts and there was nothing in Russian. Nabil made no further mention of his cousin, and Obaid continued to punctuate every remark with “inshallah.”

Not long after dinner on the second day, when everyone had been locked down for the night, Sharaf settled into his bunk to read. The book was the worst sort of pulp, a high-action thriller that described weapons more lovingly than people. But it must have passed the time, because the next thing Sharaf knew he was awakening in the dark to strange noises overhead.

The bunks in his cell were silent, but the ceiling trembled as if cattle were stampeding on the floor above. Thundering footsteps receded, only to be replaced by a frantic howl, and then another. The distant noise of barking dogs chilled him enough to want to pull the blanket tighter. Then came more footsteps, a hoot of laughter, and silence.

Someone in the next bunk moaned and rolled over in his sleep. The cell door buzzed ominously. The lock clicked loudly and the door swung free, as if opened by a spirit. Sharaf quickly pulled on his slippers and slid from the bunk. Already he heard the mutter of voices from the unseen end of the corridor, low and conspiratorial, people up to no good.

He leaned forward for a glance. The first thing he saw was the clock—4 a.m. Then he saw the guards, maybe fifteen of them. Or he supposed they were guards, because they weren’t clad in their usual forest green. These fellows were dressed like burglars—black T-shirts, black pants, black balaclavas with holes for their mouths and eyes, and long black batons, like the one that had probed him during the strip search.

Sharaf pulled the door shut, but the lock wouldn’t catch. The guards began to shout. The men in black were rousting prisoners from their beds in the cells at the far end.

“Wake up!” Sharaf said. “They’re coming!”

“Shit!” Nabil said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I’ve heard about these raids. Not good.”

Obaid must have, too. He was already kneeling on the floor, offering a plaintive prayer of fear and woe.

“Deliver us, inshallah, most holy God our protector!”

“Out of your beds and into the hall!” It was a guard. His mouth, visible through the hole in his balaclava, moved like a pink sea creature. The inmates complied, but for good measure he whacked each passing man on the rump with his baton.

“Faster!” he shouted. “Unless you want more of that. Faster!”

Only Obaid remained in the cell, still kneeling. In a spasm of rage, the guard elbowed quickly through the doorway and struck a savage blow to the back of his bowed head. It resounded almost musically, as if the baton had struck hollowed wood. Sharaf cringed. Obaid went silent, and slumped sideways, still in a kneeling position. Blood trickled from his nostrils.

“That’s what the rest of you will get if you don’t move when I say. I don’t care what colors you’re wearing. Down the hallway, now!”

The men stepped briskly. No one said a word. Every other cell was in similar chaos—cries of pain and anguish mixed with the thumps of batons, although none were as gruesome as the blow to Obaid’s head.

Doors opened at the end of the corridor. Waiting on the other side was a receiving line of perhaps a dozen more men in black, except each held a German shepherd straining at a leash.

“Run!” their escort shouted. “Run past them if you can, all the way to the yard!”

A man ahead of Sharaf tripped. The nearest guard released his dog, which pounced as if someone had just flung a steak to the floor. The poor fellow shouted in terror and covered his head with his hands. Nabil, just ahead, nearly lost his balance as he slowed to dodge the fallen man. Sharaf grabbed his tunic in the nick of time and shoved him forward. A dog’s snout flashed out from the right, teeth snapping. Sharaf veered left and ran hard, finally reaching the far door just behind Nabil. They spilled into the yard, nearly collapsing onto the others who had already reached safety. No one had turned on the outdoor lighting, and it was eerily dark beneath the pale glow of a half-moon. From cellblocks all over the prison you could hear shouts and screams, and lots of barking. Sharaf’s tunic was soaked with sweat, and he was heaving for breath.

“My cousin, Khalifa!” he heard Nabil say. “There he is!”

Indeed, nearly every cellblock on their side of the prison was emptying into the yard. The space was filling rapidly. There must have already been two hundred men there, and more were coming every second from doors at both ends. Some were bleeding. Others were doubled over in pain. No guards seemed to be among them. Looking back through a large window on the side, Sharaf saw several of the prison’s ranking officers in khaki uniforms with gaudy stripes and epaulets. They were laughing uproariously and taking flash photos with their cell phones.

When Sharaf turned back around, Nabil had disappeared. Sharaf finally spotted him in a far corner chatting rapidly with a man who must be Khalifa. As shaken as he was, Sharaf realized this might be his one chance to ask about the doorman Patel. The problem was that he still needed to play it cool, even though he was buzzing with adrenaline, and the cousin would be as well.

He shoved his way through the crowd. Fortunately Nabil saw him coming.

“There he is!” Nabil said loudly, pointing at Sharaf. The earlier stunned silence of most of the prisoners had given way to relieved yammering and shouting, a collective release of emotions. “This is the fellow Anwar I was telling you about. He’s here for the same reason, except they didn’t even bother to charge him. Anwar, this is my cousin, Khalifa.”

Figuring time was limited, Sharaf got to the point.

“I think I know the policeman who is looking for your friend, Rajpal Patel,” Sharaf said. “I also believe I know why they are after him. And I know this because I am a policeman myself. If you will tell me where to find him, then I may even be able to help him, if and when I get out of here. My name is Sharaf, Anwar Sharaf, and I give you my word as an honorable man.”

Sharaf knew immediately he had miscalculated. Khalifa backed away and gave Nabil a puzzled look.

“Why have you told him about Rajpal?”

Nabil’s answer was swallowed by the cries of the mob. Guards were pouring in from both doors, some with dogs, others with raised batons. The men howled and shoved toward the center of the yard, raising their hands to their heads as the guards threshed their way through as if harvesting crops.

Sharaf held his ground as the guards moved closer. Nabil and his cousin did the same. One reared up a few feet away, raising his baton and then swinging it down like a saber toward Sharaf’s right shoulder. He was just able to deflect the baton with his right hand, knuckles smarting as the wood struck them in a glancing blow. He staggered back into Nabil and the second blow came too fast to avoid, smashing into his collarbone. As he lost his balance the baton then struck his head, a thump near the hairline that sent him to his knees as Nabil cried out in protest.

The last thing Sharaf felt was a boot pressing into his back as he collapsed forward, and then a ringing blow to the back of his head, which reverberated like a bell through every bone in his body.

After that, nothing. Nothing at all.

Just as Nanette expected, Sam Keller had sent up a flare. As soon as she had all the details, the hunt would begin in earnest. It was 10:12 p.m. in Dubai, and Gary Grimshaw had just phoned from Manhattan with the news.

“Damned if you weren’t right,” Gary said. “He went looking for help, just like you said.”

Nanette wasn’t interested in compliments. She wanted information, and right away.

“Who did he call?”

“One of my people. Stu Plevy, a coworker. Bit of a weasel, but I’ve gotta hand it to him, he reported it first thing this morning. Played it right by the book.”

“This
morning?
It’s what, two in the afternoon there now?”

“Well, I had to clear everything with my division head. And by the time he was back in pocket I was chairing a lunch meeting, so—”

“So I’ve already lost nearly six hours. And I’m betting from the timing of Plevy’s report that he took the call at home the night before. Correct?”

“Well, yeah. But—”

“Didn’t you give your department instructions for immediate notification?”

“I told you, he reported it first thing in the morning. How much more immediate do you want?”

Idiots. Like half the people she was working with here in Dubai. In Nanette’s experience, both in government and in the corporate world, you could easily fire about half the workforce and maintain the same level of productivity. If it wasn’t laziness, it was sheer stupidity, and Gary Grimshaw was amply supplied with both.

“Never mind. What time did Plevy take the call?”

“Uh, let’s see …” Nanette bit her lower lip as Gary shuffled papers. “Around two in the morning.”

“So 10 a.m. my time, meaning twelve hours ago. Christ, Gary, that’s half a day!”

“Sorry.”

“Did he leave a number, or any hint of a location?”

“No.”

Of course not. All the stupid ones were on her side.

“What did Plevy tell him?”

“Nothing. Just that everyone had heard he’d fucked up. He said Keller asked for help, but Plevy didn’t give him any.”

“Keller was probably angling for a way to access the system. Did Plevy say anything about a password?”

“He said Keller hung up as soon as it was clear Plevy wasn’t going to help. Like I said, he played it by the book. I was very clear on that with all my people.”

“Here’s what I want you to do.”

She thought fast, already assembling a checklist in her head. Fortunately she hadn’t swallowed a drop of alcohol since the moment she’d heard Keller was missing, and this was the very reason why—so her head would be clear when it was time to act. Two hours ago she had worked out on the treadmill in the Shangri-La’s fitness center, and now she was at peak energy following a shower and a room service salad with iced herbal tea. Add a fresh pot of coffee and she would be energized until 3 a.m. if necessary. By then all the pieces would be in place for what she wanted to accomplish next. She had no doubt that Keller would eventually be run to ground. Preferably sooner rather than later.