by Zoë Ferraris
“And how is it that you got them into Miriam’s purse?”
“I couldn’t risk being caught with it at the airport, and I knew Miriam was coming back from the States. I figured I’d use her.”
“How did you know when Miriam was coming back?”
“Eric told me.” Mabus scowled in frustration, as if Osama should have figured this out himself. “I realized she was coming back around the same time that I would be flying back from New York. I knew I could use her to get the documents into the country. I was going to make it look like a coincidence. I’d slip the card into her purse and get it back from her once she went through customs.”
“So you arranged to sit next to her on the plane?”
“Yes, yes.” Mabus waved his hand in annoyance. “I arranged everything. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.”
“I’m just wondering, Mr. Mabus, why you thought it was a good idea to put these documents in the possession of Eric’s wife? What if he’d found out?”
“I did appreciate the irony of the situation, yes.”
“Irony? It seems a bit spiteful to me, considering that you knew how Eric felt about your work. It also seems like an enormous risk. Because if he had found out about these documents, and he was indeed the one who had exposed you, who knows what would have happened if he found out you were using his wife as a mule?”
Mabus exhaled slowly. “Like I said, it was an opportunity.”
“And how were you planning to get the materials back from her?”
“It didn’t matter. I’d steal her purse or something. What mattered was that the card was safe, and I knew where it was.”
Osama sat back, regarding Mabus with disgust. “You didn’t intend for her to take the memory card home?”
“No! But after she got out of customs, she got pulled into security, that special room they have for unescorted women, so I didn’t have a choice. Eric would have to get her out of there, and he wasn’t there. I waited outside the airport until I saw Eric going in. I followed him and Miriam home. Right after they got home, Eric left again, so I went upstairs. I had to get that memory card. It was more valuable to me than anything else in the world. I knocked twice, but no one answered.”
“So you kidnapped Eric to get the memory card back?” Osama asked.
“No.” Mabus ran a hand through his hair. “No, he came back just as I was leaving. He caught me on the stairs and freaked out. He thought I was going for his wife or something. I swear to God he was a loose cannon. He threatened to call the police.” Mabus said this with complete disbelief and a touch of self-righteousness. “He still thought I had something to do with Leila’s disappearance.”
“And that’s when you hit him?”
“It was an accident. We were on the landing outside his apartment. He was a strong guy, and he was grabbing my shirt.” Mabus motioned to his chest. “He threw me up against the wall and started threatening me in a soft voice, like he was going to kill me right then. I didn’t know what was happening. I really thought he was going to kill me. I was trying to talk some sense into him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Abruptly, Mabus shut up. He sat back and crossed his arms. Osama knew that he wanted to say more, but this was the part where—in Mabus’s mind at least—he would be admitting to murder.
“So you hit him back,” Osama said.
“Yeah, I hit him back.”
“How?”
“I waited until he released me, then I sprang at him. Knocked him backward. I didn’t see what I was doing, I just wanted to get him out of the way so I could get to the stairs. I was hoping to knock him out, but I accidentally knocked him toward the stairs. He fell down them. He must have hit his head on the concrete steps. I heard a crack, and I knew immediately that it was bad. I went down, saw that he wasn’t breathing. He was staring at the ceiling. He was dead.” Mabus looked around in confusion, as if he still couldn’t grasp how quickly a man could die.
“So you tried to rouse him?”
“He wouldn’t wake up. He was dead, I’m telling you. I was going to leave him there, but I knew that if anyone had seen me, they’d be able to identify me too easily.” He gestured pathetically to his blond hair. His hands were shaking. “I had to get him out of there. So I picked him up and put my arm around his chest. Trying to make it down the stairs. None of the neighbors noticed. I doubt they even heard it, it sounded like everyone was watching TV. I got him down to the street and I put him in the front seat, like some passed-out friend. Then I took off.”
“And you took him to the desert.”
“He didn’t wake up,” Mabus said urgently. “I kept telling myself he’d come to, this was my stupid panic, but I drove around for three hours and he didn’t wake up.”
Osama suspected that Mabus, in a situation like that, would not have needed three hours to come to grips with his mistake, if that’s how long it had really been.
“I took him to the desert,” Mabus went on more calmly. “I had to get him out of there. So I started driving. I didn’t have a plan, I just had to get him somewhere where no one would find his body. I kept stopping on the freeway, thinking I would dump him somewhere, but nowhere seemed safe, and before I knew it, I was at the house in Qaryat. Nobody was going to come looking for him out there.” Mabus threw himself back against his chair. “I’d had a bad feeling from the beginning. I should never have gotten involved with that guy.”
“So you hid his body in the shed?” Osama asked.
“I didn’t have time to bury him. The only guy who goes out there is the camel keeper, and he had already gone that week. And anyway, he never goes to the house. He goes to the stable and leaves again. Just to be safe, I locked the shed. I had to get back to Jeddah to get the memory card from Miriam, but by the time I got back, I couldn’t find her.” His voice was rising again, his whole body rippling with angry heat.
“You went to her apartment?”
“Yes. She wasn’t home. I had a key to the place, obviously, so I let myself in. It looked like she’d left. I couldn’t find the memory card. I figured she had it on her. I didn’t stay in the apartment that long, but I waited around outside on and off for two days.”
“And how did you catch her?”
“I was heading back to my house in the city, and when I got out of my car, I saw a woman going in my front door. I wasn’t sure who it was, so I followed her.”
“And you kidnapped her?”
“I just needed to get her somewhere quiet where I could ask her about the memory card.”
“Where did you take her?”
“A hotel near Abha. She told me she’d already given the memory card to the police.” Mabus paused, clearly still angry about the loss. “I didn’t have a choice then but to take her to the desert house. If I let her go, she’d have gone straight to the police.”
“I see,” Osama said. “And what about Eric’s car?”
“Yeah, I had to get rid of that, too. I had to make it look like he ran away.”
“How did you find it? According to Miriam Walker, it was parked a few blocks away from the house.”
“Yeah, I know. But I figured he couldn’t have parked it too far away, and I knew what it looked like. He’d driven it to the desert.”
“And how did you get the keys?”
“From Eric. He’d had them when he fell down the stairs, so I put them in my pocket.”
Osama nodded. “Mr. Mabus, you are responsible for the deaths of Eric Walker and Jacob Marx,” he said. “The courts will decide your sentence, not me.”
These words seemed to have no effect on Mabus. He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. “I told you it was an accident. And I had nothing to do with Leila’s murder. That was you.”
Nayir exited through the hospital’s sliding glass doors, feeling foolish with his arm in a sling. Somehow in the desert escapade, he’d fractured his shoulder. The air outside was a blast of gagging heat, but i
nside him a chill remained from spending six hours in the ward. He shuddered involuntarily and looked around for Samir. Instead, he saw Osama leaning against a patrol car parked by the curb.
“Salaam alaikum,” Nayir said.
Osama greeted him with a happy look and opened the car door. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the hog rally’s left town.”
“My uncle is supposed to meet me,” Nayir said.
“I told him I’d pick you up,” Osama replied. “He was happy not to have to take a taxi.”
Nodding, Nayir got into the car. The first question that surfaced in his mind—how is Katya?—disappeared with a pop. He didn’t want to know whether Osama actually knew the answer. Despite feeling admiration for, and now gratitude to, Osama, Nayir still couldn’t bring himself to approve of the fact that Osama saw more of Katya than he did.
“How is Miriam?” he asked. He knew she had been taken straight to a hospital in Qaryat al-Faw. After learning that she was going to be all right, Nayir had come back to Jeddah, hitching a ride with one of the Qaryat police.
“I’m taking you to see her,” Osama said.
“Where is she?”
“She arrived in Jeddah last night.”
Nayir wondered if Katya knew any of this. She must have heard about what happened in the desert. No doubt the police officer from Qaryat had described the sandstorm, which meteorologists were already calling one of the worst of the century, and the discovery of two people in a tent above a buried car. What would Katya be left to surmise from that? Would she think Nayir had been heroic? Stupid? Deceitful?
“We caught Mabus,” Osama said. “Eric Walker and Jacob Marx are dead.”
Nayir listened as Osama described what they’d discovered and filled in the backstory of Eric’s disappearance.
“Do you think Mabus killed Leila?” Nayir asked.
Osama chewed this over for a while and then answered in an uncertain voice. “No.”
Nayir’s cell phone rang and he fumbled to answer it.
“Mr. Sharqi?”
“Yes.” Nayir didn’t recognize the voice, but it was American, and that alarmed him.
“Mr. Sharqi, this is Taylor Shaw from SynTech. We spoke a few days ago about Eric Walker.”
Had it been only a few days ago? It felt like weeks. “Yes, Mr. Shaw.” Nayir’s mind was racing. He glanced at Osama, who gave him a quizzical look. If his right arm hadn’t been in a sling, Nayir would have used the pen and notepad affixed to the dashboard to write out a question: Does Eric’s boss know that he’s dead?
“I’m calling because we’ve located that missing surveillance equipment,” said Mr. Shaw. “Apparently, the box had been stored in the wrong place.”
“Ah,” Nayir replied. “So it wasn’t stolen after all.”
“Well, we’re still not sure. There were a few things in the box that didn’t belong there. We do still suspect that Walker took the equipment, but I think he left something behind. I’ve tried calling the police, but they won’t tell me how to get in touch with Eric. I was hoping you could help.”
Nayir sucked in a deep breath and shot a searching look at Osama. “Mr. Shaw, I’m afraid I must tell you that Eric Walker is dead.”
This was met by silence. Finally, Shaw cleared his throat. “God. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I’d be glad to come by and collect his things,” Nayir said quickly. “I’m sure his wife would like to have them.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Shaw seemed stunned. “I’m sorry. Was it an accident?”
“Yes.” Nayir didn’t feel like explaining. “Will you be in the office later this afternoon?”
They agreed to meet the next day, since Shaw had a meeting in Riyadh that afternoon and wouldn’t fly back until later. Nayir thanked him and got off the phone.
“That was Eric’s boss,” he said. “He was trying to get answers from the police.”
Osama shook his head, obviously upset. He gave a resigned sigh. “Good of you to tell him.”
Osama pulled into a parking garage across the street from a hospital, and they got out of the car. “Miriam’s still in the hospital?” Nayir asked, trying not to sound panicked.
“She’s just resting,” Osama said. “She didn’t want to go back to her apartment.”
When they reached the street, Nayir felt like racing into the building, but they were distracted by a loud argument some twenty feet away. A woman was standing in front of a small clothing shop with her teenage son, shouting loudly at what appeared to be a religious policeman. She wasn’t wearing a headscarf, and her face radiated moral outrage. The mutawwa was wearing the predictable shin-length white robe. He kept his gaze on the ground, looking up once to shoot the woman’s son a silent plea.
“This is not the Najd!” the woman was shouting. “This is not Riyadh! Do you think I have to listen to you? Do you?” She was holding a brown shopping bag and shaking it at him with every sentence. Its contents rattled and clinked.
The mutawwa looked as if he was barely controlling his temper. “It is sinful for a woman to be seen without a hijab.”
To Nayir’s dismay, Osama walked briskly toward the scene.
“Excuse me,” Osama said, flashing his badge. “What’s going on here?”
The mutawwa turned to him gratefully. The woman, on the other hand, seemed to regard Osama as another mutawwa, and she flew into a fury. She ripped open her shopping bag and dumped out its contents. A pair of brightly colored children’s toys crashed onto the pavement. Then she pulled the shopping bag over her head and shouted, “There! Are you satisfied? Are you?” She turned in a circle, arms outstretched, mimicking a blind man. “Ahmad? Is that you? Can you take your poor mother’s hand and guide her home, since she can’t see a damn thing?” Nearby pedestrians who had stopped to watch the scene were now chuckling. The mutawwa was looking angrier every second. “Are you sure you’re Ahmad?” the woman said. “What if you’re only saying you’re my son? You see, I can’t tell. You could be anyone!”
Finally losing his cool, the mutawwa grabbed the woman’s arm. “You are under arrest,” he said, but the woman lashed out with her fists and everyone stepped back. Her son was looking mortified.
Osama nudged him, and the son took his mother’s arm, whispered something, and began leading her away, not without protest. Halfway down the block, she jerked him to a halt and said something. The boy ran back for the toys. As he collected them, the woman snatched the bag off her head and shouted back, “Filthy mutawwa!” The son reached her just in time to drag her away.
Nayir had the impression that the religious policeman would have done much worse to the woman had he not been exposed under Osama’s stern gaze. Osama finally returned his badge to his pocket, still glowering at the mutawwa, then motioned for him to leave. Disgruntled but intimidated, the mutawwa slunk off, and Osama’s threatening gaze followed him. Osama wore a look of deep disgust, of anger and frustration, that Nayir would never have expected from a cop in this situation. In fact, he had often seen police officers accompanying the mutaween on their rounds.
“This isn’t Riyadh,” Osama muttered once the man was out of sight.
Nayir’s thoughts preoccupied him as they walked into the hospital. Osama was clearly not strict about the law. Not that this surprised Nayir exactly, but it seemed unusual that in the handful of times Nayir had been around Osama, the latter had twice gone out of his way to intervene in a dispute, and both times he had made a decision that went against the law. Nayir felt an uneasy combination of admiration and dismay. He agreed with Osama’s decisions, but he didn’t like to condone the breaking of religious law. This may not have been Riyadh, but it wasn’t America either.
On the ward, Osama spoke to a nurse about Miriam, and the reminder of Nayir’s reason for being there made him cringe inwardly. How could he justify his disapproval of Katya’s relationship with her boss when here he was, visiting Miriam? When he had driven around the city with her, alone? When he had taken her to
his uncle’s house and spent an evening with her that—he had to admit it—he had enjoyed. Katya would have every right to be angry at him.
Osama left him alone in Miriam’s room. Nayir sat down quietly next to the bed, glancing furtively at the door despite himself. Even in sleep Miriam looked anxious, her brow furrowed, the edges of her mouth turned down. Her face and hands were spotted with tiny cuts, but nothing that looked serious. When she woke, would the sight of him trigger her worst memories of the desert? Things she was trying to forget? He had an instinct to leave while he still had the chance, but the thought of her waking up alone, looking around for comfort and finding none, filled him with sadness. He looked at her hand. An ugly purple bruise circled her wrist where she’d been bound. The hand looked so vulnerable draped over the side of the bed that he wanted to hold it, squeeze it, but he satisfied himself with drawing the coverlet over her shoulders and arms, and shutting his eyes to pray.
47
Nayir tapped on the door. No one responded, so reluctantly he pressed the bell. A second later, he heard scuffling and the door opened, revealing Ayman’s youthful, somewhat goofy face.
“Oh, hey!” he said. “Come on in. Katya’s here. So’s my uncle.”
Relieved to hear this, Nayir let Ayman escort him to the men’s sitting room, where he perched himself on the edge of a sofa and waited for Ayman to summon Katya’s father.
Five minutes later there was a tap on the door, and Ayman came in looking exasperated. “You’d better come in. Abu-monkey is out.”
“What did you call him?”
Ayman looked sheepish. “Abu-monkey.”
Nayir stood up, saying as he did so, “You shouldn’t speak ill of your uncle.”
“Well, actually, it’s not my uncle who’s the monkey,” Ayman replied. Nayir was in no mood to debate the finer points of the name. “Abu-monkey. Father of the monkey,” Ayman said. “Katya’s the monkey. She’s being a grouch.”