Arachnosaur

by Richard Jeffries

  “The Arabs were trading vanilla long before there was a United States,” Key pointed out.

  Daniels’ face twisted in displeasure as the two men reluctantly retreated to the air-conditioned safety of the place, which, although spotlessly clean, well-appointed, and relatively upscale, seemed somewhat tacky compared to the glossed-up excess of the rest of the city. Daniels was openly startled by the array of choices: Johnny Rockets, Burger King, Baskin Robbins, or an Arab, Lebanese, and even Chinese eatery.

  After a few agonizing moments for the sergeant, they were seated at the former, with Daniels poking a chocolate malt with a straw like he was trying to assassinate it.

  “You know I was lying through my teeth before, right?” Daniels muttered as Key sunk his teeth into the best mall hamburger that oil money could buy.

  “Which part?” Key inquired.

  Around a mouthful of beef and bun he replied, “If anything goes wrong, I’ll swim out there if I have to and kill everyone I can get my hands on.”

  Chapter 22

  Outside, while the thing did indeed resemble a massive tortoise. Inside it looked like virtually any convention center Gonzales had ever been in. Even so, he expertly judged it to be at least three hundred thousand square feet, or, about three hundred times bigger than his Thumrait workshop. Given the relative rush and the logistics, he figured no one had time to create anything other than a cavernous, but basic, shell, no matter how much money, or how many migrant workers they had to throw at it.

  It was the latter reality that held the mechanic and chauffeur-of-all-trades in good stead. The harried, exhausted, even seasick, blue-garbed workers really didn’t have the time, strength, or interest in questioning the appearance of an obviously Arab and Hispanic interloper—no matter how hard they tried to obscure their facial skin with hard hats and scarves. They acted like workers, they dressed like workers, and they looked like workers. In other words, they had darker skin. So, if they were offering help, it would be accepted with only the slightest of raised eyebrows.

  Gonzales thought that they might have to pickpocket a pass or two, but the rush to finish the exhibits had obviously gotten so pressing that the door guards were just frantically waving small mobs of workers through with hardly a second glance. By the look on the face of the one Gonzales and Faisal saw from the center of the throng they had sidled into, the previously conscientious safety personnel had, sometime in the recent past, had their asses handed to them by some folk who really knew how to do it.

  Nothing like power-mad, glorified party planners to reduce power-mad, glorified drill instructors to quivering masses of yes-people, Gonzales thought as he searched the aisles and skies for any sign of American presence.

  It wasn’t easy. US companies had dialed back their official attendance at such trade shows in recent years, but the tenacity of Islamic radicals had called for smarter, stronger approaches. Both Gonzales and Faisal peered amongst rows and rows and rows of booths boasting air, ground, and naval armaments, as well as supposedly cutting-edge tech, from more than a thousand companies from every corner of the world.

  Yes, Gonzales thought, echoing Key’s sentiments, using The World to launch SADE did display a kind of genius. A kind of genius Gonzales would have to channel to accomplish anything useful here. He sought to find it in what he soon realized was about six miles worth of militarized enticements.

  As he struggled to deal with the sheer volume of this different kind of input, he felt a tap at his arm. He turned to find Faisal nodding his head toward two exhibitions festooned with very specific iconography. One was red, with dragons and calligraphy. The other was red, with hammers, sickles, and Cyrillic script.

  Gonzales placed his hand firmly on Faisal’s shoulder. Seems his genius was not only fixing things, but choosing friends. As soon as Gonzales had laid eyes on the massive Chinese and Russian pavilions, the logic galvanized him. If Captain Logan was there, or was coming, to circumvent, or redirect, the sale of arachnosaur-based weaponry, his main competition would be coming from Eastern Europe and the Far East. America certainly had other competitors and enemies, but none with pockets as deep. So it was in, and around, those booths where the most useful intel might be.

  Gonzales and Faisal shared a glance, then separated, the former toward the Russian exhibit and the latter to the Chinese. Language would be no greater an issue there than it had ever been, since the only ones they really needed to comprehend were the migrant workers and their angry managers, who spat demands in a bastard mix of Middle and Far Eastern doggerel.

  Both men soon found a blue-swathed group slaving on some section of the Soviet and Asian displays who welcomed their assistance. As Gonzales helped his new team assemble a complicated video wall, Faisal aided the men he joined to erect a multi-jointed, flying dragon between the top of the exhibit and the ceiling. It wasn’t a weapon, but this show was half-merchandise and half-showmanship.

  Despite the pressing schedules and slave-driven commitment to finishing the work, soon everyone within sight was turning to watch the dragon begin its slow rise into the upper airspace of the exhibit hall. Gonzales, however, was immune. He didn’t need any undue attention by slacking on the job. But that changed when he felt the walkie-talkie vibrate in his pocket. It was the prearranged signal between the two infiltrators.

  He turned his attention in Faisal’s direction, and was instantly rewarded by an intense stare from the young man. Gonzales struggled to interpret the look, but came away with only the instinct not to turn. Instead Gonzales saw that Faisal had positioned himself at the head end of the dragon. He was yanking on a wire that brought the slack-jawed monster’s fire-breathing skull upward.

  Then Faisal twisted his own eyes down and around until Gonzales saw that he was glaring at the dragon team’s manager, a swarthy man in dirty khakis and a sweat-stained, short sleeve, sport shirt. He was shouting at the hauling team in an impressive mix of Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi, and Urdu, urging them to be faster and stronger.

  As Gonzales watched, Faisal moved his eyes from the manager to above him. Gonzales followed Faisal’s gaze, to see that the man was under the dragon’s head—the dragon’s head Faisal was controlling.

  Gonzales was already running when Faisal cried out, stumbled back, and let go of the rope. The rest of the dragon lifters fell back, but gripped their guidelines tighter. The dragon’s ass shot up to nearly smack the ceiling, as the head plummeted directly toward the bellowing manager—who still had no idea he was about to be crushed by a dragon’s jaw.

  The cries of “look out” in more than six languages seemed to bounce around the floor like dropped tennis balls. The manager finally looked up just in time for the dragon’s head to completely fill his vision. He started to screech in fear, but his cries were cut off as Gonzales leaped into him with a flying tackle.

  The two men crashed to the floor just as the dragon’s head hammered the carpet where the manager had been. Gonzales kept embracing the swarthy man as they finally rolled to a stop under the dragon’s haunches. He looked with well-faked concern at the manager’s shocked face. The manager looked back in amazement, clearly comprehending what had happened, then twisted his body to pinion whoever had dropped the dragon’s head.

  Faisal was nowhere to be seen.

  “Are you all right?” Gonzales asked, in both Arabic and Hindi. It sounded to him as though the manager’s words in those languages had been his strongest.

  “Yes,” he said, gasping. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “No,” Gonzales said with certainty and command. “No, you’re not.” He started to help the man to his feet by pulling the manager’s right arm across his shoulders. “You’ve suffered a shock. Take a moment.” He was already walking the manager to the nearest exit. “It will be best,” Gonzales assured him. “It will inspire your team. They will not lose time.”

  The manager opened his mouth, but Gonzales cut him o
ff by snapping at the remaining workers. “You know what to do! Do not fail! Make yourselves proud!”

  He continued hustling the manager away. He waited for any resistance, but it did not come. Not even when he nodded at the security guard by the side exit door, who, kindly, opened it for the shaken manager and his noble rescuer.

  Gonzales turned into the light so the manager would be first to see the outside, then followed him. But the last thing he noted inside the convention center was that a short, slim, blue-garbed worker had replaced him at the Russian exhibit video wall, a worker who looked and acted just like Faisal.

  * * * *

  “You will finish on time, I know you will,” Gonzales said in the mix of Arabic, Hindi, and English he had rapidly become adept at. He handed the manager a small, warm, plastic bottle of Zamzam, a locally manufactured soft drink, as he hunched down beside him.

  SADE Island was beautiful from this vantage point outside the turtle-shaped hall. Surrounded by aqua-jade waters, which were dotted with white-pimple-colored artificial islands, it was all lit by a blue sky and glowing sun.

  “In fact,” Gonzales said, “I think you will finish early.” He held up his own can of Cherry Vimto, another soft drink, like Zamzam, whose company had delivered cases of the stuff since Coke and Pepsi were still kicking their asses in the local markets. “I will even bet you on it.” He held up the can, and was pleased when the manager tapped it with his Zamzam bottle in a sort of halfhearted toast.

  At first the manager, a half Arabic, half-Indian man named Khalifa Al-Alam, had been reluctant to stay. “I must get back,” he kept insisting. But after just a few moments of Gonzales’s friendly, seemingly honest, warm, certain approach, he began to relax into a low-level depression that seemed to be his general comfort zone.

  Gonzales completely understood as soon as he learned the manager’s name. As a hajin—half-caste, with a Arab father and Indian mother—he would never be allowed to rise any higher than he already was. Even so, Gonzales continued to use the soothing, calming vocal technique his father had taught him years ago. It was a form of hypnosis that Gonzales had originally rejected, but the more he tried it, the better it worked.

  “I know I will,” Al-Alam said quietly. “I must. There is no other choice.”

  “Of course you will,” Gonzales assured him, then knowingly added, “No matter how many obstacles they put in front of you.”

  He was instantly rewarded when Al-Alam silently snorted, his slumped body jerking like a fetal pig. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. From the very beginning. After just a few hours, I thought I was working on the French exhibit, not the Chinese.”

  “French exhibit?” Gonzales echoed. He tried to keep his voice unintrusive as well as encouraging.

  Apparently he succeeded, because Al-Alam stared off toward the horizon, shaking his bottle like it was a dice cup. “Yes. Stupid frog. Suggestions, always suggestions. Never to me. Always to the Chink rep. ‘Why don’t you do it like this? Why don’t you try it like that? It will be more attractive this way. You will get more sales that way.’”

  Gonzales took up the offence for him. “Who is this almutataffil, this ghusedanevaala?” he asked with quiet outrage, using the Arabic, then Hindi, word for intruder.

  “Some frog.” Al-Alam sniffed. “Some frog weapons big shot. The chinks treated him like royalty, like their emperor.”

  “Ha,” Gonzales said dismissively. “What did they call this ibn il-hommar?” He used the Arabic phrase for son of a donkey. “I will look out for him. Maybe a dragon’s head could fall on him too!”

  Al-Alam made a bitter, mocking sound. “Yes,” he said, obviously relishing the thought, before carefully making a strange accented sound. “‘Zon Baa Nard. Zon Baa Nard,’ they called him. ‘I am Zon Baa Nard. I know everything. I will make you change and change and change things until you drop.’”

  “Insane,” Gonzales commiserated. “Unfair—”

  He would have said more, but just then the exit door slammed open and an Asian man in a silk suit appeared, his face tight and angry.

  “Mudir!” he spat, mangling the Arabic word for “manager” with what Gonzales recognized as a thick Shanghai accent. “You do not have break! What—”

  Gonzales interrupted by grabbing his own knee and rocking in pain. “Oh thank you, mudir,” he moaned loudly. “I’m sure I’d be crippled if not for you. Please, go back to work. Thank you for helping me. I, too, shall return soon. Thank you, thank you…”

  Al-Alam was already bowing and backing away, kowtowing continually to the Asian, who, stymied but still suspicious, moved back into the exhibit hall. But he continued to chastise Al-Alam even after he slammed the door after them.

  Gonzales stopped moaning and rocking, then stabbed at the walkie-talkie in his pocket. Faisal responded with a grunt.

  “Anything?” Gonzales inquired tightly.

  “La,” Faisal said. No.

  “Then let’s go,” Gonzales advised tersely, “as fast and in any way we can.” Then for Key’s benefit he added, “If I know mudirs, we don’t have much time.”

  Chapter 23

  Gonzales was only partially right. They didn’t have any time.

  “This is what I think happened,” he said quickly into the walkie-talkie as the motorized inflatable raft he was clinging to bounced like a rattle swung by an unhappy baby. “Migrant worker managers have notoriously weak spines. As soon as Al-Alam got inside, he told the Chinese what happened. Well, he revealed as much as he could without risking deportation. Which he probably will be anyway, if he doesn’t wind up in a landfill. Over.”

  Key was driving as fast as he could east along Beach Road without drawing a fleet of police super cars on his tail. Daniels was beside him, seemingly doing push-ups off the SUV, his fingers deep in the dashboard, as if trying to shove the Renault faster.

  “How close are they now?” Key asked. “Over.”

  Gonzales turned entirely around to look beyond Faisal, who was manning the outboard motor, to the swath of sea between them and SADE Island. Bobbing on the water, coming fast right at them, was a grey speck.

  “About a hundred yards,” he reported. “All we could get away with was a four-man inflatable with a eight horsepower motor. By the looks of it, they’ve got a fiberglass eight-man boat twice as powerful. Over.”

  “Shit.” And twice as heavy, Key thought. “Can you see how many are coming after you? Over.”

  Gonzales wished he had Key’s binoculars. He did the best he could with the lurching spray slapping his face. “At least four,” he said. “Maybe more. But I’m pretty sure Al-Alam is leading them. Over.”

  “Who gives a fuck?” Daniels grunted. “There are only two I care about, right?”

  Key agreed, but didn’t comment directly. “How soon do you think they’ll reach you? Over.”

  “Can’t tell yet. Will let you know. Over.”

  If the walkie-talkie doesn’t get water-logged first, Key thought.

  “Aim for Jumeirah Beach,” Daniels yelled over him, jabbing in that direction. “It’s the closest.”

  Key peered at where Daniels was pointing, recognizing the area from his research during the drive from Muscat. “Go west of the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club,” he said. “Your raft won’t stick out there. Everybody will think it came loose from one of the cabin cruisers. Over.”

  “Gotcha,” Gonzales answered. “Over and out.”

  The Hispanic Mechanic had been peeling off his workman’s blues when Faisal had appeared out the same exit door Gonzales had taken. He followed his friend’s lead by pulling off the blue overalls to reveal the kandora beneath. The two hastily had shoved the worker’s uniforms under the sand and moved quickly west, around the back side of the tortoise-shaped structure.

  By the time they were in eyeshot of the arrivals docks, they had pulled the ghutrah head scarves and agal headband
s out of their pockets and obscured their faces with them as much as possible. Faisal slowed, his expression changing to as much innocence as he could muster, but Gonzales had gripped him by the arm and pulled him along.

  “We’re not workers anymore,” he had reminded Faisal. “We’re sheiks now, who don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, right?”

  Faisal had nodded, and the two had kept their heads up, noses in the air, until they had spotted a small inflatable, motorized, raft floating far enough away from notice.

  “How much time?” Daniels asked Key through clenched teeth.

  “Maybe enough,” Key replied, scouring the area as he took a hard left, heading toward Jumeria Street. “Maybe not.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Daniels yelled, pounding the dashboard. “They’re as good as dead, aren’t they?”

  “Not yet,” Key told him. “Think, Morty. Why send anyone after them at all?”

  “You think!” the sergeant countered sharply. Then, compelled by a fast, hard glance, he reluctantly did as Key asked. “Why? Why? Because Al-asshole blabbed about some frog, and now they want Speedy dead.”

  “Maybe, but definitely not in a way that will alert the authorities. They don’t want that fleet of super cars after them any more than we do.”

  Daniels looked out the windshield, his wolf’s snarl turned to a wolf’s grin. “So we got a chance.”

  “Always,” Key said, nearly squealing the Renault’s wheels onto 2C Street. The beach loomed large out their left windows. “They’ll want it to look like an accident, not premeditated murder. They’ll try to sink or scuttle them, not shoot or even stab them. If Speedy and Faisal can just get to shore—”

  “There, there, there!” Daniels interrupted, stabbing at the windshield.

  Key followed the sergeant’s gaze and saw what he did: a sign at the western egress of the Sailing Club that read Dubai Ride Jet Ski Rental.

  Daniels was out the passenger door and running almost before Key had even started to slow.