Layover in Dubai

for a second with the keypad, then jammed in the right numbers and hit the button for twenty-one. There was shouting from the other side of the door, followed by the muffled bangs of two more shots. His stomach lurched as the car shuddered and rose, gaining speed, leaving behind all the noise and bother.

He was on his way.

The door opened with a sharp ping onto a view of two clones of the fellows he had left behind downstairs. They stood by the closed door to the conference room. One was just pocketing his cell phone and already stepping toward the elevator. Both instinctively reached inside their jackets before they realized, with matching expressions of dismay, that their weapons were still downstairs. Sam pulled the Beretta from his pocket, heavy and cool, and held it forward at gut level. The first fellow kept coming anyway until Sam shouted.

“Stop or you’re dead!”

His voice was high and tight, but for the moment it did the trick. The Russian was still eight feet away as Sam stepped off the elevator.

“Back up!”

They obliged. Terrified as he was, there was a certain giddiness to this brand of power. “Drop to the floor and give me fifty!” he felt like shouting, like one of his old gym teachers. But he knew that soon enough they would figure out he was clueless unless he came up with a way to get rid of them.

“Get on the elevator!” he said, in a burst of inspiration. He backed off to give them passage. “Now! Or I’ll blow your fucking heads off!” An adrenaline punch in every word.

They obeyed, nodding carefully to the whacked-out novice, perhaps as fearful of his hair-trigger nerves as he was.

“Back up, into the corner!”

They complied. He reached inside just far enough to hit the button for the ground floor. The doors slid shut, and he listened to the cables groan as the car descended. Unless they knew the security code, which he doubted, they wouldn’t bother him anytime soon.

Sam put his ear to the conference room door, but the oak was too thick and sturdy to make out anything but muffled voices. Just as well, or they would have heard all the commotion out here. Should he just burst in, gun raised? Or should he wait for help?

Then he remembered from the earlier meeting that there was a second entrance, a door at the opposite end, probably from the consul’s office. Sam worked his way through a suite of offices, heading back around to the left until he saw that, sure enough, an entrance to the conference room was at the end and the door was open. From this vantage point he could see only the end of the long room. As he edged forward, the conference table came into view. Laleh was seated at the head of the table, slumped forward in a chair, her head resting on the oak surface. Three or four voices were conversing casually in Russian, as if everyone was waiting for the real business to begin. Or maybe they were just waiting for the guest of honor to come to her senses.

Lieutenant Assad’s voice called out in English. “You said this would wear off quickly.”

“Don’t worry.” It was Nanette, cool and commanding. “We have a little something to speed her along. When she gets a jolt of it, she’ll be instantly alert. Then we’ll get what we need and take care of her.”

“Straight to the desert, with her pimp.”

“I was hoping this time you might find a less conspicuous location.”

Sam had to resist an urge to shout back. But at least now he knew he had some time to work with. And they still thought the woman in custody was Basma.

Another Mafia goon moved into view, holding a hypodermic needle in his raised right hand. Sam eased out of sight to the right of the door, but he was still able to see the needle jab Laleh’s thigh, right through her abaya. The man paused a second, then moved away as Laleh’s right hand twitched on the table. She raised her head, shook it slowly, side to side, then reflexively pulled her abaya off over her head, as if coming up for air.

She shook out her hair and opened her eyes, then gasped and put a hand to her mouth, seemingly astonished to find an audience.

Lieutenant Assad broke into laughter.

“I don’t believe it!”

“What is it?” Nanette asked. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been had! This isn’t the whore. Although she’s no better than one, the way she conducts herself. Except this time her own father is pimping her. This is Sharaf’s daughter, Laleh.”

“What do we do, then?”

“Cancel our delivery, of course. Instruct them not to even unload.”

“But what about her?”

“Kill her, before she becomes an even bigger problem.”

“Not here!” Liffey protested.

“All right, then. Choose some other place. But do it quickly. Sharaf will be looking for us for sure.”

Sam tensed at the door. His grip on the gun was slippery with sweat. Should he keep waiting or go now? As if to answer the question for him, Sharaf’s cell phone rang loudly in his pocket.

“Who’s there?” Nanette called out from the conference room.

“Boris?” a Russian voice said.

Sam stepped through the doorway and turned his gun on the others as he sidled toward Laleh. Sharaf’s prediction proved true. The Tsar, Hedayat, and the lone goon merely looked puzzled, even annoyed, but the other three—Liffey, Assad, and especially Nanette—stared in openmouthed shock. The dead man walked.