The door opened. Basma stepped out. Sharaf watched through the binoculars as she looked around uncertainly. Something was wrong, he thought. Terribly wrong. But he wasn’t sure what until he noticed Basma’s spiked heels. Red. Stylish. The very pair that he hated most. Then he noted the polished gait of her walk as she started off down the sidewalk, like that of a confident young businesswoman.
“It’s Laleh!” he shouted. “My God, the stupid fool! It’s my damned daughter out there!”
“Shit!” Sam gasped. He, too, saw it now.
Sharaf reached for the door handle, then thought better of it, his mind moving in five directions at once. A door opened on the police van, and a cop in a khaki uniform stepped onto the street. Not Assad, but Sergeant Habash, for God’s sake. From around the corner at the far end of the block, an ambulance careened into view, red bubble flashing in time with Sharaf’s heartbeat.
“This isn’t right!” he shouted. “We can’t let this happen!”
Sharaf unlatched the door just as Sergeant Habash grabbed Laleh and shoved her toward the braking ambulance. For a horrifying moment Sharaf was certain Habash was going to throw his daughter beneath the wheels. Instead there was a screech of tires. Habash reached down and punched something into Laleh’s thigh. She went limp almost immediately.
Sharaf ran up the street as fast as he could, too winded to even shout her name. Rear doors swung open on the ambulance and Habash bundled Laleh aboard as arms reached out from the inside. The doors slammed shut. She had been swallowed whole. Sharaf was still in flight, footsteps heavy, head throbbing, like in a nightmare when you can barely move. Was this why he had felt so troubled all day? At some level had he known Laleh was planning this, but refused to acknowledge it? He could even imagine how she would have arranged it with Basma, and he was taunted by the sound of Laleh’s voice in his head.
And now the ambulance was speeding toward him, siren shrieking. All he could do was stop, staring and panting with his arms open wide, as if he might somehow enclose the whole thing with one grasping tackle and wrench his daughter free.
At the last second the ambulance swerved. The side mirror clipped his shoulder, spinning him to the ground, legs tangling as his rump struck the pavement. He let out a great sob. “Laleh!” Then the police van passed him, too.
Why were none of Mansour’s vehicles in pursuit? Sharaf looked back toward the villa and saw that Sergeant Habash was manning an impromptu roadblock with a barrier that must have been dumped out of the police van. Two of Mansour’s vehicles had emerged from their hiding places in garages farther down the street, but Habash blocked their way, gun at the ready.
Sharaf tried to stand, rising so quickly that his head swam. Fifty yards away he saw the BMW make a screeching U-turn to head off in pursuit of the ambulance—Sam Keller at the wheel, taking charge before they lost Laleh altogether. Thank God. Keller was already several blocks behind, but for the moment he was the only one with a chance to keep pace.
Sharaf reached for his phone, then remembered he had left it on the seat of the BMW. Keep driving, he thought. Stay with them. The young man was his daughter’s only hope. God help us all. Tears of fear and anger streamed down his cheeks. God help us all.
29
At first Sam tracked the ambulance by ear, turning left-right-left, then flooring it down a major boulevard as he listened for the urgent wail of the siren. By the time whoever was driving had the gumption to shut off the siren and the flashing red lights, Sam had spotted both the ambulance and the police van. For the first time he felt the stirrings of hope. A shaky hope, granted, but maybe he could keep pace. And when they stopped he could call in their location on Sharaf’s phone, which was there on the seat beside him.
It then occurred to him that he didn’t know anyone’s number—not Mansour’s, not Ali’s, not anyone’s—and a charge of panic branched out through his body like a lightning strike, from the back of his throat to the tips of his fingers.
Then, sweet relief. The phone rang. His one chance for reinforcements. He snatched it open, swerving dangerously in his lane as a car horn blasted. The ambulance was several hundred yards ahead and turning right, the police van right on its bumper.
“Keller! Are you there?” It was Sharaf, sounding just as you’d expect a father to sound when his daughter was being wheeled away to destruction.
“I’m in pursuit!” What a stupid thing to say, like he was playing at cops. “They’re heading for the expressway.”
“Sheikh Zayed Road?”
“Interchange three. They’re on the eastbound ramp toward the city.”
“We are coming. I am with Mansour. Just keep the line open.”
“Okay, but I’ve got to put the phone down.”
“Of course. Keep driving. Don’t lose them.” Sam pressed the speakerphone button and tossed the phone on the seat.
“Can you still hear me?”
“Yes. Good.” Sharaf’s voice was tinny and crackling, windblown. “Stay on them.”
Sam floored the accelerator up the ramp, merging onto the expressway. In a few hundred yards the dashboard alarm began scolding him in its mechanical monotone:
He kept sight of the ambulance and van about a quarter mile ahead, gaining a little ground as they cruised past
