Spy for Hire

by Dan Mayland

  Her eyes darted to his face. She looked confused, and suspicious.

  Mark said, “Hold on.” He pulled a twenty-dinar note out of his front pants pocket, and placed it on the end table, next to the burning incense. “A tip. I’m searching for someone. Any help you can give me would be appreciated.”

  “No Saudis, mostly Americans. Soldiers. Sailors.”

  “Saudis never come here?”

  “Not usually. Only with Americans, not alone.”

  “Ever hear of a guy named Bandar bin Salman?”

  A long pause, then, “No.”

  “If I were from Saudi Arabia, where would I go for an extra-special massage? The kind where I could get anything I wanted?”

  The masseuse waited a second, then said, “Hoora. But this is not a nice place.”

  “Where in Hoora?”

  “It is better to get an extra-special massage here.”

  Mark pulled another twenty-dinar note out of his wallet. “Where in Hoora. Please, I’m searching for someone. Someone I want to help.”

  “Exhibitions Avenue,” she said. “All the Saudis go here. For drink.” She paused. “For special massages.”

  “Where on Exhibitions Avenue?”

  “All over.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “I don’t go.”

  “If you were from Saudi Arabia and wanted a special massage?” When she didn’t answer, Mark said, “Please. Your best guess.”

  “Maybe Victory Towers. I hear many Saudis go there.”

  “Is it a hotel?”

  “Apartments. But you can rent them for one day. You rent them, someone gives you a phone number, then you can call someone for your extra-special massage.”

  “Thank you.” He slid off the table and headed for the door.

  “But you already paid,” said the masseuse.

  “Your lucky day,” said Mark. “I forgot, I have to be somewhere sooner than I thought.”

  49

  Bahrain might have been on the verge of revolution, with nightly street battles being fought in the poor suburbs, but little of the tension that was gripping the country was visible on Exhibitions Avenue in downtown Manama. The sidewalks teemed with people who had come to patronize all the electronics shops, nightclubs, and bars. Police patrolled the traffic-clogged streets in SUVs with windows protected by metal grates. Young men, some wearing white robes, roamed the streets looking and sounding a little boozed up as they chattered away on their cell phones, occasionally laughing a bit too loud. When Mark passed a woman loitering on a street corner, decked out in a short skirt, sky-high heels, and a spangly top, he knew he must be getting close.

  Victory Towers, a complex of relatively new seven-story sand-colored buildings, was located not far off the main strip. Mark entered the front lobby of the building nearest the street and was greeted by a pasty-faced receptionist with a pencil-thin mustache, pencil-thin sideburns, and slicked-back hair. He stood behind a granite-topped counter, in a clean and freshly painted—but unusually spare—lobby. No pictures hung on the beige walls. There was nowhere to sit.

  When Mark said he wanted to rent a one-bedroom apartment for the night, the receptionist, smiling with an unctuous false deference and speaking with a Russian accent, indicated that the cost would be eighty dinars.

  Probably Russian mafia, Mark guessed. He knew they controlled many of the prostitution rings in Dubai and guessed the same was true in Bahrain.

  “Does that price include companionship?”

  “No. You want escort, this cost you negotiate with escort service.”

  “And you can provide me with the names of some suitable escort services?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Mark paid cash and was given a form to fill out that asked for his name and address and passport number. He made everything up, figuring he could get away with it in a place like this—and he was right. The receptionist didn’t ask for any identification.

  His room was on the fifth floor, and looked down on a busy roundabout below. There was a single bedroom, with a bed that had been made up with clean sheets. Across from the bed was a flat-screen TV and media center. A reasonably new-looking blue couch was the only object in the main room. Nothing else.

  He pulled out the business card that the receptionist had given him. It read EXOTIC ENCOUNTERS and listed a phone number, which he called.

  Another Russian answered. Mark explained that he needed a woman who was used to catering to Saudi tastes, but who spoke Russian or Turkish or English. He was alone, but some Saudi friends might be joining him soon. The woman had to be comfortable with that.

  Not a problem, he was assured.

  “Tonight I’m at the Victory Towers, but tomorrow I’ll be at the Sheraton Hotel. If I like her, would it be a problem for her to come there?”

  That too was not a problem. Exotic Encounters serviced all of Manama.

  When the woman knocked, Mark opened the door and gestured she should sit down on the couch. She did so without making eye contact with him. He’d left a hundred dinars—the agreed-upon price—on the center cushion. She picked up the money, rolled it up, and put it in a pocket inside her short skirt.

  She was depressingly young. Around sixteen, Mark guessed. Her bare arms and legs were too thin, her cheekbones too pronounced. Because she was so young, she was still beautiful, but it was the fragile, waifish beauty of an anorexic, or an AIDS victim.

  “What is your name?” he asked in English.

  Mark didn’t have any problem with prostitution, at least not in theory, when both parties entered into the negotiation willingly, when both parties were adults and the woman—or man—was adequately compensated. The problem was that that was rarely the case.

  She didn’t answer him, so he tried Russian. “What country do you come from?”

  Hesitation, then in barely audible Russian, “Bulgaria.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Ivana.”

  “Thank you for coming, Ivana.”

  She still hadn’t looked him in the eye.

  Mark said, “I want you to look at a picture.” But the moment he said it, her head dipped lower, and he knew he’d erred. “Not a bad kind of picture. Just a picture of a man’s face. I’m searching for someone. That’s why I’m here.” Just in case she didn’t get it, he added, “I’m not here for sex. You’re a beautiful girl, it’s just that I’m trying to help someone I care a lot about, and this man…”

  Mark took out his iPod and pulled up the photo that Bowlan had sent him. “His name is Bandar bin Salman. He’s a Saudi.”

  Ivana took the iPod reluctantly when Mark offered it to her. She glanced at it, then shook her head.

  “He comes to Bahrain often. Maybe some of your… friends, maybe they would know where he stays, where I might find him. He might have come to a place like this, or he might have had a woman come to him.”

  Ivana just shrugged. And then put the iPod down on the couch.

  “It’s worth a lot to me. A lot of money. I’d be happy to share that money with you. And your friends.”

  She didn’t seem enthused by the prospect. Mark wondered whether she’d even be able to keep extra money if he gave it to her. Or whether she was searched after each assignation.

  “I have to ask my boss,” she said. “Maybe he can ask the other girls.”

  “OK.”

  “So you want me to go now?”

  “Will you bring your boss?”

  She shrugged.

  “Yes. Please. See if anyone is interested in making money. One thousand dinars to the person who can tell me where to find this Saudi man.”

  Ivana stood up. As she was leaving, Mark said, “Are you OK? Do you need help?”

  She just walked out the door.

  His question had been stupid, Mark thought, as he waited in the empty room. Of course she wasn’t OK, of course she needed help. The problem was, the kind of help she needed wasn’t the kind of help he was prepared to g
ive. Or maybe even could give.

  He imagined she’d been lured away from a bleak life in a small village with the promise of adventure and money—waiting tables in some fancy restaurant halfway across the world—only to discover, once she got there, that the people who’d promised her the world had been lying.

  Mark considered just handing Muhammad over to the Saudis and instead trying to do something to help Ivana.

  It was a silly idea, he knew. The world was drowning in pain, more than any individual, or even any single nation, could deal with. Whether it was kids losing their mothers, or girls being sold as sex slaves, or the millions that died of hunger every year, it was futile to react to every suffering individual just because you happened to witness their pain. If he knew about the widespread existence of a particular atrocity and had done nothing to help stop it before, then why should seeing a real-life example of such depravity make any difference to him?

  It shouldn’t.

  Dammit, thought Mark. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to refocus his thoughts. You’ve got your brother and Muhammad to deal with. And you’ve got very little time. Put this awful place out of your mind and concentrate.

  But concentrating on his brother and Muhammad didn’t do him any good either; until he got intel on the Saudi, he was stuck.

  Five minutes later, the door opened and a tall blond man with a crooked nose entered the room. He wore black jeans and a silk short-sleeved collared shirt that he’d left open at the neck, exposing a gold necklace. Behind him stood a tank of a man who wore a sport coat that did a poor job of hiding the bulge of a pistol holstered under his left arm.

  Typical, thought Mark. These Russian mafia guys were caricatures of themselves. He’d dealt with them in Azerbaijan, in Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan. No matter what country they turned up in, the front men were always the same. Young and aggressive, with just enough life experience to be good at being an asshole, but not enough experience, or education, to be good at much else. He studied the guy with the gold necklace. He had small eyes and teeth that—while not rotten—could have benefited from some orthodontia. As a pimply fifteen-year-old kid growing up in the slums of Moscow, he would have been pitiful. As a guy in his mid-twenties, pimping in Manama, he was easy to detest.

  Mark stood up.

  “Sit down,” the pimp ordered in Russian.

  Mark remained standing. “Did Ivana tell you what I need?”

  “I said sit down.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather stand.”

  The pimp glanced behind him and nodded. The bodyguard was older than the pimp, and looked meaner. Mark detected a spider tattoo on the man’s neck, possibly indicating that he was, or had been, a thief. There were also tattoos on the guy’s hands and fingers.

  The bodyguard closed the distance between himself and Mark in a few swift strides.

  Mark saw the punch coming but didn’t counter it; he wasn’t there to get in a fight. He did turn, so that the blow grazed the top of his head instead of hitting him right in the nose, but the guy was strong and the punch still did real damage.

  Mark blacked out for a second as he fell back into the couch. The pimp walked over and slapped him hard in the face.

  “When I say sit, I mean sit.”

  Mark hated having his head hit like that. He’d already taken a lot of physical abuse over the years. He didn’t want to wind up like one of those punch-drunk boxers who’ve taken too many hits and wind up losing their minds at fifty. On top of all that he was tired, pissed to hell at the Saudis for what they’d done to Rad, and bitter about not having helped Ivana or anyone else escape from this loathsome place.

  He rubbed his head. “You didn’t need to do that. All I need is a little bit of information. And I’m willing to pay a lot for it. I’m asking to do business with you. You’re a businessman, aren’t you?” He tried to affect a submissive attitude, but he was too pissed off to pull it off.

  “You come here,” said the pimp. “You buy a beautiful girl. One of my best. And then you reject her. You are a fucking faggot?”

  Mark pulled out his iPod. “I’m just looking for information about this man.”

  He extended the device to the pimp, who smacked it out of Mark’s hand.

  “Dude. I’m not here to fight.” Mark’s voice had an edge to it now. “I’m here to make a deal.”

  “Are you police?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” The pimp slapped Mark hard again on the face. Then he turned to his bodyguard. “Beat up this piece of shit, take his wallet, take all his money, find out who he is, and then throw him in the trash.” The pimp turned back to Mark. “If I ever see you here again, I’ll kill you. I don’t care who you work for or why you are here. We don’t give out information about other clients. Understand?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to—” Mark stood up again as the bodyguard approached. He put his hands up as he backed away. “Hey, hey, hey! I’ll just leave! You don’t have to—”

  Mark wasn’t a big guy, but he’d always been fast, and willing to fight dirty.

  He started backing up into a corner, as though scared, but as soon as the big Russian’s hand came up, Mark jabbed his own fist right into the bodyguard’s throat, aiming for the windpipe in the hopes of collapsing it. A half second later he kicked the guy in the balls, jabbed a thumb in his eye, reached for his shoulder-holstered pistol, saw in that split second that the safety was off, and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet traveled up into the bottom of the bodyguard’s head and out through the back of it, splattering blood, bone, and brain onto the carpet and the wall directly behind them.

  Without pausing for even a second, Mark raised the pistol—a Makarov, he noted—aimed for the pimp’s head, and said, “Nyet.”

  The pimp froze, but Mark had seen his eyes dart toward the door.

  “You go for that door, you’re dead,” Mark warned. He spoke with authority. The pretense of fear was gone.

  Mark could hear the pimp’s breathing. It had turned loud, as though he’d just finished sprinting down the street and was trying to catch his breath. He was staring intently at Mark.

  Mark was breathing heavily himself. His gun hand was rock steady, but his mind wasn’t.

  He’d acted out of instinct. His fight-or-flight reaction had kicked in and the verdict had been fight. But had he really needed to kill the guy? There had been other options. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Get off the shrink couch, he warned himself. You’re in a dangerous place. Just act.

  “We have no problem,” said the pimp. “You can just go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. This is what we’re gonna do.”

  Nine women filed into the room, all of whom had been summoned by the pimp. Mark wasn’t sure what countries they were from, but based on their looks, he could guess—Russia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Ethiopia… Some were tall, some short, some young like Ivana, others in their twenties or thirties.

  Mark sat on the couch as they lined up in front of him. The pistol he’d stolen from the bodyguard was hidden under his left thigh. He’d had the pimp drag the bodyguard into the bedroom and then clean up in the front room as best he could, using a towel from the bathroom and bed sheets. Even so, there were stains on the carpet that just wouldn’t come out.

  The women didn’t seem to notice the stains, but they certainly suspected something was wrong, that much was obvious. They kept their heads down, and no one smiled. Mark supposed that anything out of the ordinary was cause for concern, but a mass summons from their boss—a summons that wasn’t clearly sexual in nature—was cause for real fear.

  The pimp stood near the door to the bathroom, holding Mark’s iPod. His temples glistened with sweat.

  “Start,” Mark said to the pimp.

  The pimp lifted up the iPod. “I want each of you to look at this man, and tell me if he has ever been one of your clients. His name is Bandar bin Salman, but he might have used an alias.” Whe
n none of the women responded, the pimp thrust the iPod at the girl on the far left. “Do it. Translate what I said for the rest of the girls.”

  The pimp’s hand trembled as the girl took the iPod. The girl looked at the image of Bandar, claimed not to recognize him, then translated the pimp’s directive into English and Arabic as she handed the iPod to the next girl.

  She didn’t recognize Bandar either, but the sixth in line, an older woman with black hair and almond-shaped eyes, did. She only spoke Thai, though, so another Thai woman had to translate what she said into English.

  “Maybe three months ago she meets this man. One night only.”

  “Does she know where?” demanded the pimp.

  “The Golden Tulip,” she replied.

  The pimp breathed an audible sigh of relief. “The Golden Tulip,” he repeated to Mark.

  “Yeah, you know, I heard. Give me your phone.”

  The pimp handed Mark his smartphone, which Mark used to google Golden Tulip Bahrain. After finding the hotel website, he clicked on the Accommodations button.

  “How many beds were in the room?” he asked.

  The question was translated. The answer came back as one.

  “A big bed? The biggest size?”

  The girl confirmed that yes, the bed was huge.

  Mark opened up three different tabs on the Internet browser. On each tab, he followed links to a different sample photo of the available room options. The first was of a standard room with a king bed, the second of a deluxe room with a king bed, and the third was of an executive suite with a king bed. The carpet, bedcovers, headboard, and furniture were the same in the standard and deluxe rooms, but different in the executive suite.

  The girl only needed a moment to confirm that she was certain she’d met Bandar in the executive suite. She recognized the distinctive metal scrollwork on the headboard.

  “Which room?” asked Mark.

  She didn’t remember the room number, but she said she thought it had been one of the corner suites.

  50

  As Mark fled the Victory Towers complex via a fire exit stairwell, he wondered whether he’d been caught on any closed-circuit surveillance video. The likelihood that there’d been a camera in the lobby, or outside, was high. It was even possible that a camera had been hidden in the room itself, though he doubted it; he’d questioned the pimp at gunpoint, and the guy had insisted the room was clean. In the end, he decided that trying to track down and remove all evidence of his presence at the Towers would take too long and potentially just result in more violence.