Layover in Dubai

of her desk. The desk itself resembled a command post—three-sided, with two phones, a PC, and a Mac. The Mac had a flat-screen monitor bigger than the television in her bedroom.

The view through her smoked-glass window looked out across Jumeirah Beach Road toward the palms of the Royal Mirage resort and beyond, across the emerald waters of the Persian Gulf. Off to the right, you could see the glittery archipelago of the huge Palm development, with its beehive of new villas and hotels.

From his hiding place in the office next door, Sam had listened for more than seven hours as phones rang and people came and went in the corridor. Some were her employees, others were clients. All sought her advice, and everyone spoke English. Once or twice he overheard animated discussions in which Laleh’s point of view sometimes yielded ground but always prevailed. Not by fiat, but by persuasion. The prevailing attitude among her employees seemed to be that Laleh Sharaf knew what she was doing, and you had better as well if you wanted to keep working there. Not once in those seven hours had Sam heard the call to prayer. Either no one had yet built a mosque out this way or the nearest muezzin wasn’t amplified enough to overcome the insulated walls and the constant sigh of air-conditioning.

Sam realized he had judged Laleh unfairly from all the trappings in her bedroom. No matter how she’d come up with the money to start her business, this was no dabbler or hobbyist. She was a young woman with a plan, a dedicated professional.

The question now was what to make of this fellow Ali, who frankly seemed a touch too slick to be a confidant of a rumpled old pro like Sharaf. His white kandoura was pressed and spotless, which made it seem as if he was gliding with every step. He wore a spicy scent and had an enormous watch and three rings on his fingers. From his smooth English and his familiar and comfortable manner it was clear he was accustomed to dealing with people of every nationality from all walks of life. Maybe that was why Sharaf and he were a match—Sharaf supplying the spit, and Ali the polish; the cop keeping his own counsel while his pal played the bluff extrovert, forever ready to make a deal. Or so Sam hoped, now that he was about to entrust the man with his life.

“My apologies for taking so long to arrive,” Ali said. “But your father’s arrest necessitated stronger measures and more careful preparation. I thank you, Laleh, for keeping Mr. Keller safe in the meantime. I know that your father would thank you as well, even though he would blanch at the whole idea of your involvement.”

“Is he all right?” Laleh asked.

“All I have been able to find out is that he has been arrested. I know he is not being held at police headquarters, and he is not at the courthouse. That troubles me.”

It troubled Sam, too. He hoped Sharaf didn’t become Daoud’s latest find.

“Let us go, then, before they find you as well,” Ali said. “I will drive you myself.”

“I’m coming, too,” Laleh announced.

“Really, my child, there is no need. And you know that your father would not permit it.”

“But my father is not here. And although you’re his friend, I am still acting on his behalf.”

Ali seemed genuinely affronted.

“Do you not trust me? Can you not do that on your father’s behalf as well?”

“Of course I trust you. But don’t you think it’s safer if more than one of us knows where Mr. Keller is being taken? What if something happens to you?”

Ali examined her carefully. He slowly shook his head, and with a measure of apparent affection said, “You are too much like your father. He, too, believes that everything will fall apart unless he is there to personally supervise. So on his behalf I will indulge you.”

“Where am I going?” Sam asked.

“We’re taking you off the grid. Not just Dubai’s. The world’s.”

Sam envisioned some Bedouin encampment deep in the dunes, a shadeless purgatory among goats and sand fleas.

“The desert?” he asked.

“What, to live with the Bedouin?” Ali laughed, a bit too heartily under the circumstances, Sam thought. “I would not even consider entrusting you to them. I could pay one of them to protect you, of course. But the moment another one learned you were being hidden he would turn you in for a bounty. And it is far easier to find one isolated man in all that emptiness than here in the city. Safety in numbers is better. You will be hiding among a hundred and fifty thousand people, at the Sonapur Labor Camp.”

Laleh put a hand to her mouth.

“Labor camp?” Sam said. “Like a prison?”

“Worse, I’m afraid. In prison, your confinement has a limit. Serve your sentence and go free. At Sonapur everyone is supposedly free from the moment he arrives. But in practical terms it is a life sentence. All those men you see in hard hats, building everything? There are half a million of them in Dubai, and they are all living in camps like Sonapur. Entire cities without a single woman. They rise before the sun and return after nightfall. And when they die, no one even bothers to count them sometimes. So you see? It is the perfect place for you to be lost for a while, and you will be one of the lucky few with a prospect for departure. A speedy one, I hope.”

“Will I have to work?”

“Of course. All the better for keeping you camouflaged. You will be high up on some new tower, where the only way someone can reach you is by industrial elevator or by climbing onto the arm of a crane.”

Sam felt queasy thinking about it. He may have been a daredevil on the water, but he had never been comfortable with heights. Ali slapped him companionably on the back.

“Come. Best to get you settled before dark.”

They piled into Ali’s roomy Mercedes with tinted windows. Sam sat up front next to Ali, with Laleh in the back. They headed south and east, and soon were driving through industrial parks and freshly graded tracts awaiting development. The traffic was heavy, with a preponderance of dump trucks, cement mixers, and flatbeds carrying backhoes and bulldozers. Sam also noticed battered buses filled with men in hard hats. He saw Laleh watching