“Generalities,” he said, waving dismissively. “Everything vague and careful, all of it useless for our purposes. Your Mr. Liffey speaks very good Russian, I will say that. The Persian as well. Probably why he was chosen for this meeting, an act of deference to the Tsar.”
The voices droned on, pausing only when the waitress stopped to take orders for a fresh round of drinks.
“Too bad Assad was not with them. I’d like to have heard if he would have ordered a vodka,” Sharaf said. “Hypocritical infidel. Two-faced bastard.”
“Tell me again about those pork ribs you ate as a boy, Anwar,” Ali chimed in.
“Enough,” Sharaf said. “Let me listen.”
More Russian, more noncommittal grunts from Sharaf. Then he sat up straighter in his chair. He reached across the table to switch off the recorder, backed it up a bit, then listened again, eyes narrowed.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Some sort of alert on Charlie Hatcher, I’m guessing. Your Miss Weaver seems to have forwarded some instructions, which Liffey has duly repeated.”
Sharaf played it back for a third time, translating as Liffey spoke.
“‘Your organizations should be advised that our corporate sponsor has reported a possible security breach. Here is a photo and a few particulars for internal distribution, although for now our corporate sponsor would prefer to handle this matter from her end, with possible assistance from our law enforcement element.’”
Sharaf paused the recording. “He means Assad, of course.” He switched the recorder back on and resumed translation.
“‘She requests that your people be on standby for assistance. But she is adamant that there be no unilateral action by anyone. As she has previously indicated, she is well aware that your usual way of dealing with threats is immediate action. While that is bluntly effective, it is also inefficient. She points out that in the corporate world they first learn what they can from the source of the trouble—through briefings, interrogations, surveillance. In this way, potential debits can be turned into assets. Even then, liquidation occurs only after full consultation by all interested parties. She insists we proceed in a similar fashion. Any objections?’”
Both men grunted their assent. Sharaf again stopped the recording.
“Arzhanov’s death warrant,” he said. “He violated their security protocol. I suppose he panicked when he lost the GPS signal from your phone, especially when they saw where Mr. Hatcher had gone when you switched it back on.”
“Meaning that if I hadn’t switched it off, Charlie might still be alive.”
“No, no. You heard her advice about eventual ‘liquidation.’ They still would have hauled him in, probably the moment you left for Hong Kong. He would have died, but only after a full and thorough interrogation, meaning Basma would probably be dead by now as well. Your Miss Weaver would have insisted.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, wishing he was as certain.
“Absolutely,” Sharaf said. “You’re just going to have to believe that.”
“Why would a bunch of thugs let Nanette handle security?”
“I suspect she was a compromise choice. Neither the Tsar nor Hedayat would have trusted each other to provide it, not on a joint venture.”
The recording continued for another ten minutes, followed by silence. Sharaf frowned and switched it off.
“Instructive,” he said, “but still not helpful. Not for our immediate needs.”
“Which means we have what,” Sam asked, “about twenty-two hours?”
“Yes. We’ll intercept the shipment, of course. Mansour’s men can manage that.”
“And then they’ll be free and clear to rework their logistics and pick up where they left off.”
“Probably. Unless some great idea strikes me like a lightning bolt while I sleep.”
“Any clouds forming on the horizon?”
“Nothing but cobwebs. I am exhausted.”
“Same here.”
Both said little more before heading off to bed, discouraged. They left the recorder sitting in the middle of the kitchen table like an untapped secret. Sam showered, slid beneath the display coverlet onto a bare mattress, and was asleep within seconds.
Anwar Sharaf, however, couldn’t relax. Maybe it was the bump on his head. It stung under the harsh stream of the shower, and throbbed afterward from the heat. He climbed into bed and flipped off the lights, but he could only toss and turn.
Why so restless? Despite the conundrum of the case, he had plenty of reasons to finally relax. Laleh was back under the same roof, even if it was someone else’s. The American, Keller, was now safe, at least for the moment. And by this time tomorrow, fifty distraught young women would owe their salvation to his efforts.
Even the Minister would be mildly satisfied. The threads Sharaf had gathered might be too flimsy for a court of law, but in the right hands they could still be woven into enough dirty laundry to embarrass the Minister’s top rivals for months to come.
He was also exhausted, and had a full stomach.
So why couldn’t he sleep?
Sharaf sighed and threw back the covers. He switched the light on and trooped down the hallway to the kitchen, where he snatched the sweating bottle of camel’s milk from the otherwise empty refrigerator. He intended to take only a swallow or two, but the cool, velvety taste felt so good going down his throat that by the time he set the bottle down there was nothing but white coating on the sides of the glass.
He licked his lips, then belched with satisfaction. Just what he needed. He picked up the copy of Crime and Punishment and took it back to the bedroom. Half an hour of reading and he would be sleeping like a baby. Thank God for Amina, knowing just what he needed, even as she must have cursed his name and his infernal job.
Sharaf propped two pillows against the creaky headboard and opened to his bookmark. Too bad Amina wasn’t beside him, showing the curve of her back. He wouldn’t even have minded hearing her complain about how he was leaving the light on too late and disturbing her sleep.
He began to read, while trying to recall where he had last left the story. The guilt-ridden Raskolnikov had committed two murders many pages ago and was still on the loose. The young man’s fevered torment was growing tiresome, but at least now a detective of sorts had come onto the scene, an examining lawyer named Porfiry. Sharaf read with growing appreciation as Porfiry interrogated Raskolnikov, using an indirect approach that was clever and disarming—the very way Sharaf might have done it. This fellow Porfiry even looked like him, Sharaf thought, as he read Dostoevsky’s description: “‘God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in other people,’ Porfiry said. ‘A buffoon.’”
Perfect.
Sharaf began to relax. A few more pages ought to do the trick. Raskolnikov grew more agitated as the interrogation proceeded, especially when Porfiry began describing how he always lured guilty suspects to their doom, particularly the smart ones:
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep circling round me.… He’ll begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself to death! What’s more he will provide me with a mathematical proof—if only I give him enough interval.… And he’ll keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then—flop! He’ll fly straight into my mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he!
Sharaf put the book down and looked up at the ceiling, suddenly giddy with insight.
He had it, his bolt of lighting, the tool they had been seeking, not only to stop the delivery but to bring its architects into the basket and up from the deep. With a little help, they would be able to pry loose the biggest pearl in the ocean, sharks be damned.
It was time to wake everyone in the house.
26
Laleh, Ali, and Keller sat before Sharaf at the kitchen table. They were in a grumpy stupor, and still wondering why he had awakened them so urgently at ι a.m. The recorder remained at the cen
ter of the table—silent, waiting. It was to be the main prop in his presentation.
Waking Laleh had been the hardest part. Thinking like a cop, he had dashed to her bedroom first, knowing she would have to play one more role in this final move. But at her doorway he hesitated, overwhelmed by a burst of fatherly emotion. Light from the hallway cast a shadow across her face. He stepped to the bedside and brushed back her hair the way he had once done when waking her for grade school.
“Laleh?” he whispered. “Laleh?”
A flutter of eyelids.
“Yes?”
She was almost instantly alert. He then realized that for all the exertion and emotional strain, a part of her was immensely enjoying the cloak-and-dagger aspects of the past twenty-four hours. She was a player in the arena, out where decisions affected lives. He smiled in spite of his worry, admiring how easily she had taken to this new role, even though he still would have preferred to have kept her out of it.
“I need your help, one last time.”
She sat up, propped on her elbows.
“What time is it?”
“After midnight. But this can’t wait. We have to begin planning now, all of us. So get dressed and come to the kitchen.”
She nodded, obedient. He went to wake the others. And now there they were, looking at him like he had lost his mind.
Sharaf began his spiel.
“Good news. Lightning has struck. We have found the candle to attract our butterfly. All five of our butterflies, in fact, if I’m reading things correctly.”
“Butterflies?” Ali rubbed his eyes. “Anwar, what in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say I know now how to bait the trap in a way that might well produce instantaneous results. Here, listen to this part of the recording again.”
Sharaf hit the PLAY switch, and Hal Liffey’s voice began speaking in Russian.
“He is saying that in the corporate world they first learn what they can from the source of the trouble—through briefings, interrogations, surveillance. In this way, potential debits are turned into assets. Even then, they only liquidate after full consultation by all interested parties.”
He switched off the machine.
“So?” Ali said.
“Don’t you see? Interrogation, debriefing, and full consultation. If we can present them with an immediate and serious threat to their operation, that’s how they will respond. And given the timetable for delivery, I’m betting they’ll respond right away.”
“What kind of threat?” Keller said.
“Basma. At the first hour of business tomorrow she will telephone the police department and ask for their ranking authority on vice. She will of course be referred to Lieutenant Hamad Assad. She offers to share with him a most interesting tale of a human-trafficking operation using a new means to smuggle goods into the country. But she is worried, very worried, about her own safety, so she will only meet him on neutral ground, at a place of her choosing. Of course, that is the very sort of location Assad will prefer. The last thing he would want is to have her show up at the police station.”
“And you think he’ll rally the troops?” Keller said.
“Does he have any choice, seeing as how all the troops are here in town? Especially after what happened to the last fellow who decided to handle things on his own?”
Ali nodded.
“That part is plausible,” he said. “Even at 1 a.m., with kebabs rolling around my stomach. But what will the location be?”
“I was thinking you could provide one. A place with actual neighbors, so the watchers can blend in with the scenery.”
“Yes. I can arrange that.”
“We’ll have Mansour’s men wire the place, and we will stake it out from every angle. Every possible entry and exit, fully covered. Then, when all the players have arrived and had time to fully implicate themselves in the course of their debriefing, we’ll spring the trap.”
The only one who hadn’t spoken up yet was Laleh, and they turned to her now. She would have to play the most crucial role, and she didn’t look pleased.
“I suppose you want me to talk her into this,” she said.
“In the morning. After you’ve slept.”
“Well, I can already tell you that she won’t agree to it. Nor would I let her.”
“Oh, so it is up to you to decide for her now?”
“No. But it is her life that will be at risk. It’s one thing for you to do something stupid on your own. Quite another to ask someone else who won’t even know the real danger.”
“Oh, Laleh, come on. We’re talking about one person helping hundreds, maybe thousands. The greater good, Laleh!”
“It’s easy to say ‘one versus thousands’ unless you have to face the one.”
Sharaf sighed and regrouped.
“Right now, Laleh, even as we sit here, fifty girls just like Basma are locked inside cramped steel containers on the pitching deck of a ship at sea, probably vomiting their brains out. And you’re going to let that happen over and over again, just because the fate of a single young woman is in your hands? You’re the one who wanted to participate, Laleh. Well, participation comes with a cost, and the cost is responsibility. For Basma, yes. But also for those fifty young women, and however many more will keep coming if we fail.”
Laleh frowned and shook her head, almost a shudder. Sharaf hated pushing her, but it was a lesson she needed to learn. This was the hidden reality of the heady life in the arena. Remember this feeling well, my daughter, because the burden never lightens.
“I will ask her,” Laleh said. “But I won’t push. Write out your argument, and all your justifications. I will present it in your own words as you wish. But I won’t be an advocate, only a messenger.”
“Fair enough.”
It was settled, then. They discussed a few other arrangements and then went back to bed, where Sharaf supposed he might finally be able to sleep.
But he couldn’t, of course, not a wink, because now his plan seemed all too shaky, and riddled with holes. What if they didn’t take the bait? What if everyone didn’t show up? Or, worst of all, what if they simply sent an assassin to kill Basma? At this late date, who knew how they might really react, no matter what Liffey had said about contingencies?
Six hours later he was standing by the front window with a cup of coffee, stomach fluttering as he peeped through the blinds into the early-morning sunlight. Out by the curb, Laleh was climbing into a taxi. His girl, heading off on her mission to talk another poor girl into hers.
Shaky or not, it was all they had. The taxi pulled away from the curb. Their operation was under way.
27
Nanette Weaver lined up her supplies in front of the hotel mirror, a general preparing for battle. Arrayed before her were moisturizer, foundation, concealer, blush, shadow, eyeliner, and lipstick—all of it in demure little tubes, vials, and bottles, plus a chic mini-cube of molded Lucite.
Once, in a rare moment of budgetary curiosity, she had totted up the dollar value of this arsenal and had been mildly appalled by the result, especially once she added shampoos and conditioners. Despite the micro sizes necessary for travel, the damage had come to $271.
But excess in the defense of finesse was no vice, and today it was more important than ever that Nanette achieve just the right look. Because now was the time to take command, marshal the troops, set disarray back in order. Proper leadership was what they had been lacking, and at this crucial final hour she aimed to provide it.
A ruse lay in wait for them, of that she was certain. She had already foreseen its likely hazards, even when Assad hadn’t, and she had adjusted their plans accordingly. If she continued to have her way, then by day’s end the board might well be wiped clean of opposition.
As always, she would be relying more on wits, timing, and experience than on her makeup. But Nanette was the only woman in their dire little assembly. And her years of navigating the male channels of commerce had taught he
r that words and actions, no matter how compelling, were never enough. When a woman was presiding, men were just as likely to be swayed by a significant glance, a narrowed eye, even a flash of ankle. Or, in this part of the world, practically anything to do with hair, the very beacon of Islamic sexuality.
She applied moisturizer first. A dab and a swirl, then another. Clinique, as standard for the job as an AK-47 was for Third World insurrections. Next came the foundation, a pricey discovery from Saks called La Prairie Cellular Treatment. Imbued with sunblock, it was suited perfectly for Dubai, with shades calibrated by the number—3.4 for her. It even felt luxurious. At $70 an ounce, it had better.
Was the need for these preparations regrettable? Of course. But so was the need for going rogue, so to speak—meaning illegal in her case, when you got right down to it. Years ago she would have been appalled to even consider participating in such a scheme, much less designing it from top to bottom. But that was before she learned how little you accomplished playing by the rules. In government work they even demoted you for it. It was one reason she’d moved to the corporate world, where surely the meritocracy of the profit motive and the competitive ideal would finally reward her aboveboard way of doing things.
No, it hadn’t. Not when she had gone after the wrong targets. And if well-placed, well-paid executives could squirm free to such obvious self-benefit, then why couldn’t she? So she, too, crossed the line. Except she was the rare woman in a roomful of boys, meaning appearances still mattered.
Fitness, fashion, and grooming—that was the ridiculous state of play for a businesswoman with brains, the libidinous lie at the base of all corporate manners and mores. Glass ceiling? Certainly, but only so they could peek up your skirt once you climbed above it.
She opened a micro-bottle of concealer. Two light touches. For adding color she might have relied on her usual workout at the hotel fitness club. But any flush of genuine vitality always disappeared within an hour, so she opened the Lucite cube of blush—a cream, not a powder. Dior. A mere fifth of an ounce for $31.
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