So Patel told them all he could remember, which was considerable. His account dated back to a slow evening at the Kasbar three months earlier, when Charlie Hatcher had first appeared at the roped-off entrance. He had approached Patel with a conspiratorial grin and a folded hundred-dollar bill, and as Patel related the details Sam could almost hear his old colleague’s voice supplying the dialogue along the way, right down to the offhand language Charlie would have used to pitch his diabolical offer:
“Name’s Charlie Hatcher, old son. I’m with Pfluger Klaxon. Technically that allows me entry on our corporate membership, although I’m afraid you won’t find my name in your big red book. So this token of my appreciation will have to do instead, provided you’re free for a little conversation once I’ve settled in with a drink, yes?”
He handed over the bill. Patel pocketed the money and returned the smile.
“Of course, sir. As long as no one is needing my services for a few moments.”
“Absolutely, old son. Wouldn’t want to jeopardize your career in hospitality management.”
By the time Patel slid into the booth, Charlie was ready with a proposition.
“First off, I have some photos for you.”
He laid a sheet of paper faceup on the table with five Photostat images. Three were in color—one of a man with an American flag in the background, one of a woman with striking auburn hair, attractive in a stern sort of way, and one of a rather beefy man on a busy sidewalk. The other two, in black and white, seemed to have been copied from newspaper photos. One was captioned in Arabic, the other in the Cyrillic characters of Russian. Both were men, and one was a cop. No names had been typed in for any of the five.
“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like for you to keep an eye out for these people, and make a note of whenever one of them visits. What time, how many in their party, plus the name used to make the reservation. You’d be generously compensated, of course. In addition, next time you get a spare moment I’d appreciate it if you could look back through your reservation book for, oh, let’s say six months, and let me know of any previous appointments made under the same name. Especially if that name matches one of these.”
Charlie slid forward an index card. Five names were typed in a neat column.
Patel frowned and fidgeted. Customers occasionally asked for his help in acquiring the temporary services of women, and he was always ready with a few leads. In one or two lucky instances he had later received a small percentage from the beneficiary. But this request seemed more serious, and much riskier.
“I am very sorry, sir, but the privacy interests of our guests require that—”
“Please, old son. Hear me out. I’d very, very much like to make this arrangement work to your advantage.” Charlie slipped a second hundred-dollar bill onto the table. “And this would only be the beginning—let’s say, one-tenth of your total compensation package? So consider this a down payment on your loyalty. Besides, one of these people is even a coworker of mine. All you’re really providing is a little enhanced corporate security. If you prefer, just think of yourself as a Pfluger Klaxon consultant.”
Patel’s frown deepened. He rubbed his palms on his knees and glanced toward the entrance to make sure no one was awaiting entry. Then he leaned across the table and lowered his voice.
“I see your point, sir. Perhaps it would not be such a serious breach of our policies if I was to, as you say, participate as a consultant.”
“That’s the spirit. One more item, then, and we’re done.”
Charlie produced the transaction’s pièce de résistance from a briefcase. It was a small blue ceramic bowl, virtually identical to the ones the Kasbar’s waitresses always brought to the table for their patrons, except Charlie’s wasn’t filled with the requisite helping of pistachios and smoked almonds. Moving as deftly as a magician, Charlie turned the bowl upside down just long enough to reveal a small silver item implanted in the bowl’s recessed bottom.
“Did you happen to see that, old son?”
“What was it?”
“Digital recorder. Smaller than an iPod, but easier to operate. Keep this bowl of ours in some safe and handy place until you need it. Your locker, for instance, where you change into that fine-looking uniform. You have a locker here, don’t you?”
“Yes. In the back. But—”
“Excellent. The next time any of these people walk in, all you have to do is retrieve this bowl, flip the switch, then slip a twenty to some waitress so she will deliver it to the table. Along with the usual refreshments, of course. Like so.” He set the bowl down with a solid thunk, then took an almond from their own bowl and popped it in his mouth. “That’s the real beauty of our arrangement, don’t you see? Only one part of it is dicey, and a waitress handles that for you.”
Patel knew by then that he was in over his head, but the idea of making a thousand dollars in only a few minutes of work had taken hold of his imagination. So he sighed and fretted, and again rubbed his hands on his knees. Then he nodded, as if to seal the deal, even though he never mustered enough courage to actually say yes.
“Very good. Of course, if the recorder comes back blank, your compensation will be adjusted accordingly. Results, old son. That’s what you’re being paid for, just as with any consultant. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Until next time, then? Say, a month or two, or maybe even longer, when, if you have everything waiting for me, I’ll pay you in full?”
“Yes, sir. A month or two. I will try to have your results.”
Charlie stood up from the table and departed the Kasbar, not to return until the night he showed up with Sam Keller at his side.
“Those photos,” Sharaf said, “and this list. Did you keep them?”
Patel nodded.
He reached into his pocket. They were creased and folded like old money. Sharaf took the page and the card and smoothed them out in his lap while Sam leaned closer. The color photos of Nanette Weaver and Hal Liffey seemed to have been printed straight from the Internet, from the State Department and Pfluger Klaxon Web sites. The color shot of Iranian mobster Mohsen Hedayat was clear enough, but looked as if it had been taken with a cell phone, on the sidewalk outside the Iranian Club, a thriving social club in the Oud Metha area of Dubai. The photos of Anatoly Rybakov and Lieutenant Hamad Assad had been copied from newspapers. All five of their names were typed on the crumpled index card.
Sam could tell Sharaf was trying to rein in his excitement.
“These people,” Sharaf said, as calmly as if he were asking about Patel’s family, “I take it that they all met at some point later, and you were able to tape them?”
Patel shook his head.
“No. Just one.”
“One? How can only one person hold a meeting?”
Patel shrugged, as if that wasn’t his concern.
“There were three people, but only one was from those pictures. His name was on the list. Mr. Hal Liffey.”
“Who were the other two?”
Patel shrugged again.
“Mr. Liffey did not include their names with his reservation. All that was recorded in the book was that he had requested a table for three.”
“So it might have been two of the others, then, but you’re just not sure?”
“No. I am sure. It was not the woman, and it was not any of the other three.”
“But you taped them anyway?”
“Just as Mr. Hatcher said, except I had to give the waitress a fifty. She said those people were too scary, especially the Russian.”
“One of them was a Russian?”
“And one was Persian. The waitress said the Russian was Mafia, but she says that anytime a rich Russian comes here. But it made her scared. That is why I had to pay her a fifty, and when I began to think about it later I was scared, too. So I took the recorder home. I did not want to leave it anywhere around the hotel where it might be found, especially not in my locker. My only worry was what I
would do when Mr. Hatcher came. He would expect delivery, and I knew I would not be paid unless he could be sure I had results.”
“So that’s why you memorized the information for April fourteenth, to assure him you had the goods?”
Patel nodded again.
“Why that part?”
“On the tape, it is the only time they are speaking English. The rest of the time they are only speaking Russian. I don’t speak Russian.”
“Is that why he paid you in the lobby, but took nothing in return?”
“Yes. Five hundred dollars. Half the total. At the moment I mentioned April fourteenth, he seemed very happy. He said he would pay me the rest when I gave him the recorder.”
“No wonder he was short on cash when we got to the York,” Sam said. “But he had already mentioned the date earlier that night, at the Alpine bar. That’s when he called it the day of reckoning.”
“So he knew it was important, but perhaps not why. Or not exactly why,” Sharaf said. “This recording, sir, when did you deliver it?”
Patel shook his head.
“I took it to work with me the next afternoon. Mr. Hatcher was supposed to come pick it up. But when I reached my locker, the bouncer from the earlier shift told me a policeman was waiting for me at the rope. When I looked through the door I saw he was one of the men from the photos.”
“Lieutenant Assad?” Sharaf said.
“Yes. I knew I was in trouble, so I left by the back. There was a police van with four more men in the main drive, so I crossed the hotel grounds to the beach and walked a mile along the water before cutting back to a bus stop on the main road. When I got home my family said the police had been there as well. That is when I came here, with Khalifa’s help.”
“Did you bring the recorder with you?”
Patel eyed them carefully. Sam held his breath.
“It is hidden,” Patel said. “It is what cost me my job. And if you want it, you must pay the other five hundred dollars that was promised.”
Patel folded his arms to indicate that his offer was final. Sharaf glanced at Sam.
“I’ve got a few hundred dirhams,” Sam said, “but that’s about it.”
“Nonsense. We’re not paying this little crook.”
Sharaf stood suddenly, then caught himself, swaying as he had before, which only served to make him angrier. Steadying himself, he pointed a finger at Patel.
“Here is how it will work,” he said evenly. Patel sat impassively, arms folded. “You will bring us the tape, here and now. In exchange, I will not tell Lieutenant Assad where you’ve gone. That is even more valuable than five hundred dollars, don’t you think?”
Patel unlocked his arms and lashed out.
“But you promised Khalifa!”
“Yes. But I, too, am a policeman.” Sharaf flashed his ID and flipped open his cell phone. “And with a single call, sir, I can summon an entire squadron to this doorstep within five minutes. So you will retrieve the recorder or else I will phone my colleagues. It is your choice.”
Sharaf began punching in numbers, each beep sounding like a tiny alarm bell.
“Stop!” Patel rose from his chair. “All right, you will have it, then! I will get it for you now!”
“We will accompany you.”
Patel flung up his hands in exasperation.
“As you wish, jackals!”
It was in the next room, stored behind a baseboard panel, which Patel loosened with a table knife. He sulkily handed it over.
Sharaf studied the buttons a moment, then pressed play. There was a rustling sound, then the clicking of footsteps, followed by a jarring thump as a woman’s voice said in English, “Some refreshments for you. And your drinks, of course.”
There were three light thunks on the table. Ice clinked in a glass as someone took a thirsty first sip.
“Thank you,” a man said in English.
“Hal Liffey,” Sam said. The mere sound of his voice made him angry.
The footsteps of the waitress receded, and Liffey got down to business.
“Two items, gentlemen. And I’d appreciate if both were reported promptly and precisely to your superiors. The first and most important is that our corporate sponsor informs me that the details are complete for the first major transaction, set for four-fourteen. No more dry runs, this one’s for real. Ready for the particulars?”
There was a pause, followed by a muffled sound of movement and a few stray beeps.
“I don’t believe it,” Sam said. “They’re getting out their BlackBerrys.”
Liffey spoke clearly and slowly enough for everyone to log the details. He said exactly what Patel had repeated in his recitation:
“Payload of fifty, I-M-O, nine-zero-one-six-seven-four-two. Jebel Ali terminal two, gate six, lot seventeen, row four. Should I repeat that?”
Two muffled voices answered, “No,” then Liffey spoke again.
“More people are coming into the bar. British, I think. Perhaps we should conduct the remainder of our business in Russian. Partly, of course, in deference to the man who helped bring us together. A toast, then, to the Tsar.”
There was a clink of glasses. The next voice was an outburst of Russian from one of the others. Sharaf checked his watch, switched off the recorder, and popped it into his pants pocket.
“We will listen to the rest later, when I have time to translate. For now we’re due at the Beacon of Light, where, if my guess is correct, we’ll find out more about their payload.”
“Fifty women,” Sam said, “and they’ll be arriving like livestock in two days. We better move fast.”
22
Among the high-wattage villas of Dubai’s Al Safa neighborhood, the Beacon of Light stood out more like a guttering candle—three stories of smudged stucco on a shaggy lawn, with a dented blue van at the curb.
The neighbors’ bigger gripe was the procession of sullen men who regularly cruised past or, worse, parked in the rear alley, idling their engines with the windows up while waiting for runaway spouses to show their faces at the windows.
The shelter regularly employed a guard, but on this particular afternoon Sharaf was surprised to see two of them lurking beneath the drooping palms, and both were heavily armed. They shouldered automatic weapons like island defenders awaiting an amphibious assault. Sharaf heard the unmistakable click of a safety as Sam and he approached.
“Easy,” Sharaf called out, showing his hands. “We’re friends.”
He seemed to be saying that everywhere lately. “We’re expected,” Sam added.
A guard patted them down and escorted them up the steps. A woman of uncertain nationality answered their knock. Looming behind her was a third armed man.
“We have an appointment with Mrs. Halami,” Sharaf said.
“Wait here.”
On the way over from Deira, Sharaf had tried to prepare Sam for the local phenomenon known as Yvette Halami. She was a Frenchwoman who had married an Emirati and moved to Dubai during the early years of the economic boom. A converted Muslim, she covered her head but never held her tongue, especially on the issue of how women were treated in Dubai.
She chain-smoked, knocked back espressos all day, conducted much of her business in English, and was forever answering a cell phone that rattled and rang like one long emergency. Her combative nature generated like-minded press coverage. Depending on which local paper you read, she was either a selfless advocate for the voiceless or a grandstanding loudmouth whose main goal was to embarrass men in general, and Emirati men in particular. Several of Sharaf’s colleagues couldn’t utter her name without cursing.
Almost any native-born woman would have long ago faded into the background against that kind of opposition. She seemed to revel in it, which only infuriated her enemies more.
Sharaf had largely been won over to Yvette’s cause by Laleh, and also by the assault victims he had interviewed over the years at the shelter. He had seen firsthand what happened when violent husbands, unpunished, we
re allowed to reclaim their wives from the law simply by signing a form promising they’d never do it again. He knew of one man who had done this eight times; he had seen all eight copies of the form—but no criminal convictions—stored neatly in the fellow’s police file.
Sharaf was ambivalent about Halami herself. He believed she was one reason his daughter had become so rebellious. For every hour Laleh volunteered at the Beacon of Light—preparing meals, manning phones, directing media strategy—she seemed to emerge that much sharper around the edges.
Halami appeared from around a corner, cell phone in her left hand, cigarette in her right. Her greeting was typically abrupt. No names, no salutations, just a blunt question in a burst of cigarette smoke.
“Were you followed?”
“If we had been, we’d be in custody by now,” Sharaf answered. “What’s with all the security?”
“You wouldn’t ask if you’d seen some of the goons who’ve been coming around. And I’m not talking about husbands. Pimps and their muscle. A very bad business.”
“Does this have anything to do with—?”
“Please. Don’t mention her name here. Follow me.”
She led them past her office to a makeshift canteen, where one woman was reading and another was taking popcorn from a microwave. Halami spoke to them in Arabic, and they exited without a word. Then she lit a fresh cigarette and responded to a beep by checking a text on her phone.
“Some flunky from the Ministry of Health was in my office yesterday asking about the same girl. Immigration came the day before that. Same name. Basma, Basma, Basma.” She moved her right hand like a yakking puppet. “For all I know, one or both of those fellows planted something near my desk to listen in, so I figured it was safer talking here. Any idea who’s behind all this interest?”
The heads of both agencies were allies of Assad’s, and rivals of the Minister, but Sharaf didn’t want to get bogged down in politics.
“The same people who are making life miserable for us, I’d imagine.”
“You know, it’s a good thing you mentioned Charlie Hatcher, or I’d have suspected you were one of them.” She gestured toward Sam. “Who’s this one?”
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