by Fritz Galt
He hung up less certain than he sounded. He was wary of anyone who could elude him for so long.
He dialed his lieutenant’s extension. “Dean Wells is at the Four Seasons. Order our car and a handful of plainclothesmen.”
He had several men stationed nearby the Four Seasons and got them on the radiophone.
“Stake out all exits to the Four Seasons,” he said. “Wells is staying there under a false name. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“What do we do if we spot him?”
Malek didn’t want to take any chances. “Use caution. He may be armed. But apprehend him at all costs.”
He looked at Dean Wells’ photo lying on his desk. Wells was a well-built man with short blond hair and square features. He shouldn’t be too hard to spot.
“Do you have a physical description?” he asked the patrolman at the Four Seasons.
“We have a photograph.”
“Good,” Malek said. “Find that man.”
He should feel confident, but with the foreign ministers relaxed and in a partying mood, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something massively embarrassing was about to happen.
Chapter 67
The taxi taking Rachel and Bruce after the burglars was beginning to misfire.
“That doesn’t sound good,” she said.
The driver tapped the fuel gauge. The needle was stuck at the bottom of the red zone. How perfect. They were about to be stranded in the desert.
The red cab was turning off the main highway onto a smaller road that led into the mountains.
“Follow them!” she said.
“Wait,” Bruce said. “We just passed a bunch of dune buggies. Maybe we can get gas from them.”
He got the driver to turn the car around. They headed for a group of Bedouin renting out “quads.”
Several tracks led into the wilderness. Apparently adventure seekers enjoyed kicking up sand between the mountains.
Rachel had never seen such a motley collection of vehicles. The bikes seemed cobbled-together by people who had never seen a motor vehicle before. But the builders had lots of parts and ample imagination.
Bruce ran up to a robed man who presided over the operation. “Do you sell gas?”
“No sell.” The man waved both hands. “Rent.”
Bruce turned to Rachel. “He’s not selling gas. What d’ya say we rent one of these babies?”
She stared at the four-wheeled contraptions. There were no safety features: no roll bars, no window screens, not even headlamps. It was just the rider and engine perched on blimpy wheels.
She looked down the road where the red cab had turned. Maybe she and Bruce could cut them off using the bikes.
So she took hold of one. She straddled the seat with her yellow shorts riding up her thighs. “Hand me a helmet.”
The Bedouin stared at her.
“Helmet,” she repeated.
It appeared that the word wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“A shell,” she said in Arabic. “For the head.”
The metaphor didn’t work.
She spun a hand around her head to demonstrate. It made her look like a mental patient.
Bruce leaned close to her. “I don’t think they do helmets. Try this.” He handed her a checkered scarf. “Wrap it around your nose and mouth.”
It smelled like garlic, but Bruce insisted. He paid the cabbie and the Bedouin man, who had suddenly lost all interest in money and was watching her on the bike.
She found the choke knob and pulled it all the way out, then gave the ignition key a turn. Her knees up as high as the handlebars, she squeezed the clutch lever and stood up to kick into neutral. She pushed the Start button with her right thumb and smoke belched into the Bedouin’s face. The engine fired up louder than Rolling Thunder on the National Mall.
She kicked the four-wheeler into gear and popped the clutch. The wheels ground up sand and spat gravel across the highway. The Bedouin stood back and laughed as she took off in a cloud of dust.
With the scarf around her face, she felt like Lawrence of Arabia heading out on a caravan.
The land seemed to be an ancient seabed with former islands protruding from the flat ground. She could see miles in all directions. And no one was there.
At that point, Bruce pulled up next to her and gave her a thumbs up.
It was only the two crazy Americans on vehicles straight out of Mad Max. Bruce had a fiendish look on his face. Maybe he really was Australian like the character portrayed in the movie.
Spinning around the base of a cliff reminded her of a computer game. But the experience was real.
The setting sun dodged in and out of the towering, pyramid-shaped mountains. She squinted to see in the shadows. There was no red cab or road anywhere on the horizon. So she increased the speed, fueled by blind anger more than reason. She wanted her codex back.
The roar of their unmuffled engines bounced off the mountains as the canyon they were entering squeezed tighter.
She checked her equipment for a light switch. Of course, there were no headlights. Nor was there a fuel gauge.
Driving in the dark was pure insanity. They were chasing headlong into the middle of a desolate landscape with no way of knowing if they could find the burglars or get back. She threw a desperate look at Bruce.
He gave a worried look at the sky, a narrow band of red visible only between mountainsides.
She slowed to a fraction of their former speed. They were getting somewhere, but she had no idea where. She was steering more by feel than by sight.
Finally, when the only objects visible were the stars directly overhead, she cut the engine and rolled to a stop. Bruce did the same and the two sat in silence. It would take hours to regain all her hearing.
She felt like a modern-day prophet, lost in the wilderness.
She removed her scarf and shook out the sand. Her skin felt like fine grit.
Just then, she saw two lights low on the horizon. The lights were moving.
“Someone’s coming,” Bruce said.
Rachel was already chilled to the bone, but the thought of thieves in the night gave her goosebumps. “Let’s run.”
“No. Wait.” He put a protective arm around her.
The lights turned out to be lanterns. They illuminated two men in robes.
“Sa’ida,” one of them called sternly.
Rachel wasn’t familiar with the term, and whispered, “Is that a greeting, or are they taking us captive?”
“It’s a greeting,” Bruce whispered back.
That was a relief.
“Sa’ida,” Bruce returned in a friendly voice, then switched to standard Arabic. “Where are we?”
“You have reached our camp,” one of the men said. “Ahlan wa sahalan feekum baetuna baetukum.”
A warm feeling crept into Rachel. They were using a common greeting that she understood. It translated to, “Our home is your home.”
She was stranded and they were taking her in.
Bruce asked something in dialect, but the men shook their heads.
“Sahha,” Bruce said, as the men led them into the dark.
She poked him. “What did you ask?”
“I asked if they saw a taxicab come through here. They didn’t.”
Rachel and Bruce would have to resume their search the next day. Maybe the cab would run out of gas like theirs had.
“What was that word you used to thank them?”
“Sahha. It’s like saying shukran.”
He had a strange accent. “Where did you learn your Arabic?”
“In Algeria,” he said.
She was impressed. “So that’s how they speak in Northern Africa?”
“Aiwa,” he said. “That means ‘Yes’ in Egypt.”
“Interesting.” She might learn a few things from him after all.
She wasn’t sorry to leave her quad behind. They followed the two robes around a hill and saw a glowing light. Flickering campfires dotted a hi
llside and revealed a large tent city.
They would be welcomed into the Bedouin homes, eat their food and share their gossip. They would admire their camels and appreciate their pillows. She didn’t want to let Bruce go, but he was led off to dine with the men.
If eating was gender specific, then surely sleeping arrangements would be, too.
She was overwhelmed by the hospitality and the taste of the food. All the while, she wondered if they were selling her something. But she told herself to be grateful. She could have been freezing, starving and lost in the desert.
At last, she lay under a sequined blanket beside giggling women in what might be called a harem.
Chapter 68
Dean and Ari stood in the elevator lobby with a group of Saudi diplomats. The men were in good spirits anticipating the United Arab Emirates party on the eighth floor.
Dean stood out in his blue suit. Ari had discreetly persuaded his Saudi intelligence counterparts to let him join their entourage. He blended into the group wearing a three-piece headdress and flowing white robe. To be safe, Ari let the red-and-white checkered scarf dangle around his face.
The elevator chimed and the door opened. Dean had to move fast to cram in. Ari wielded a briefcase to wedge in at the last second.
Dean had spent the afternoon with him avoiding the streets of Naama Bay. They had tried to relax until the evening when they would spring into action. When Dean saw on television that Omar had been rushed to a hospital, he feared they would have to call the evening’s operation off.
While diving, Omar had been stung by a stonefish. The venom had a paralyzing effect, but he was able to return to the surface before running out of oxygen.
By late afternoon, television news reported that the hospital detected no permanent damage, and Omar was free to participate in the activity scheduled for that evening.
Dean knew exactly what that activity would be. He heard it and smelled it as soon as the elevator dropped them off. He walked with the Saudis down the hallway and toward the ballroom.
Prominent United Arab Emirates businessmen threw the bash and paid for it with private money. The Dubai notables in attendance ranged from the respectable who had built the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, to those freewheeling fund managers who, at the same time, nearly buried the government under a mountain of debt.
Among the unsavory sponsors, there was Rashid al-Qasimi, the man behind al-Qaeda in Palestine. A developer and speculator who had played fast and loose with the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, Rashid had siphoned off enough money to create an empire in real estate. Dean was struck when he first saw Rashid. He looked like a younger version of Omar al-Farak. A tall man in Western dress with a fierce expression, largely due to low and dark eyebrows, he greeted visitors at the door with traditional cheek-kissing. He seemed to know everyone invited, from foreign ministers to their deputies.
On other occasions, Rashid might entertain them on his yacht. But this evening, he and his fellow businessmen had paid for the entire floor of the resort hotel and decked it out as a Las Vegas-style casino. Western-looking cocktail waitresses, hostesses and escorts with ultra-tight skirts and low-cut tops greeted the men. They offered drinks, hookahs, cards, roulette, oscillating torsos and scintillating conversation.
Dean and Ari slipped in without a kiss from Rashid.
Dean glanced around the room at the delegations already there. He spotted a cluster of Libyans sipping gourds of camel milk in front of a flat screen television playing “The Golden Girls” reruns.
That looked exciting, but he moved on. A belly dancer weaved her ample assets around tables of rummy-playing Egyptians. The finance minister appeared to be cleaning up while the others were mesmerized by the belly button.
Dean slid past that scene and found the cool Kuwaitis discussing oil prices before a nighttime view of Naama Bay. Below, thousands of decorative lights illuminated open-air restaurants where clients sat on pillows and drank cheap local beer. The Kuwaitis opted for mocktails and a slender blonde at each elbow.
He and Ari came to a stage and dance floor where a Thai band tested the sound system and dancers paraded around in the strobe lights. A group of Arab Leaguers had gathered on the periphery in eager anticipation. If he guessed right, Dean would find Omar al-Farak there before long.
Nearby, the Iraqi delegation was in fierce debate with the Jordanians over whose World Cup team was better. The banter was light, but the feelings ran deep.
A heavy cloud of rich-smelling tobacco emanated from the Arab version of a head shop. Two men and two women shared the four tubes of a shisha. Their eyes were half-closed as if they were about to climax. Nearby, herbal incense drifted through a group of Russian women who demonstrated restraint devices with aggressive hand motions.
It was there that they found Omar. He was watching a young Thai man apply oil to his own body. The purpose was medicinal, but from the engrossed look on Omar’s face, Dean suspected his imagination strayed elsewhere.
The man dribbled oil into the palms of Omar’s hands and faced away from the Palestinian. Omar sized up the slender but muscular back and rubbed the oil between his hands. He was a gaunt man, made more noticeable by an ivory dinner jacket with peaked lapels and padded shoulders. He would have looked urbane in Monte Carlo, and certainly took the prize for sartorial splendor that evening.
Omar slowly worked the oil into the man’s shoulders and gradually down his back. Dean positioned Ari between them for cover, but he had a direct view for his buttonhole camera.
The male model gave Dean a wink, leaned over and dropped his pants, revealing only a red thong. That left Omar applying oil to his lower back. His fingers slid down to the man’s buttocks and applied oil there. Omar looked upward in a dreamy fashion.
Click. Dean took a picture.
Several compromising poses later, there were enough photographs to fill a spread in a raunchy gay magazine.
The Thai music was beginning to pulsate, and the near-naked man led Omar onto the illuminated dance floor. Other dancers had gathered there. Bare-shouldered women led hesitant men out of the throng that lined the walls.
Dean wedged into the tangle of arms and legs and squeezed off a few shots of Omar bumping and grinding with the oily man. Omar’s suit coat had come off and his shirt was open down to his belt. The tableau was good for a whole new photo exposé in a tabloid.
Bruce Johnson had prepared the young Thai dancer well and Omar had fallen for his every move.
Soon there were so many limbs and bare midriffs and shaking booties that Dean couldn’t line up a good shot. It was time for Ari to get into position.
At a table just off the dance floor, smokers had abandoned one of the two-tube shishas. The vertical pipe was a beautiful Khalid Mamoon creation, one of the best-crafted water pipes in Egypt.
Smoking a pipe with another man was common in the coffee houses of Egypt and throughout North Africa, the Middle East and even the Far East. It offered a bonding experience in countries that outlawed alcohol, effectively replicating the camaraderie of a pub.
Ari positioned himself in one of the two chairs, and Dean lined up a shot. A young Kuwaiti man insisted on having a smoke with Ari, and the two of them sucked on the water-filtered fumes.
The cloud of smoke partially obscured the image Dean would soon capture. But it also allowed him to move closer to the table.
His head spinning from the intoxicating vapors, the Kuwaiti refused to budge. At last the Thai man came to the rescue. He called over one of the female dancers in short shorts and cowboy boots, and she wrapped her arms around the smoker and enticed him onto the dance floor.
The Thai man eased Omar into the vacant seat, and by habit Omar put his lips on the end of the shisha tube. Ari removed his headgear, which revealed his balding pate and prominent nose.
Click. Omar was captured smoking with an Israeli agent.
The pipe had a narcotic effect and Omar wouldn’t leave the table. A pack of charcoa
l in aluminum foil sat atop the molasses-flavored tobacco, which floated in a glass bowl. Bubbles percolated downward through the water and into his hose.
Dean took a series of pictures from various angles in order to show Omar smoking shisha in the company of the Mossad agent. Meanwhile, Ari’s face looked greener by the minute. Clearly, he was no match for the Palestinian. Would Omar ever stop?
Dean ceased taking pictures and had to fend off a number of women who made advances. They drew their perfumed scarves over his face and thrust their pelvises at him. The music was low and synthesized and the lyrics so graphic they would make a rap artist blush.
At that moment, he wondered if there was a vice squad in Sharm el-Sheikh. The Egyptian police were known to pose as gay men in chat rooms and round up, sodomize and imprison homosexuals. But would they raid a party attended by the mightiest political forces in the region?
Most attendees probably felt protected by the security bubble around the cluster of hotels, but that didn’t make flirting with the law any less thrilling.
Too bad Dean would blow the whistle.
He leaned toward a young Qatari who was grooving with a buxom bunny. “The vice squad is here,” he whispered.
The rumor spread like wildfire as a look of horror passed around the room.
Ari was at the ready. He opened the briefcase on his lap and whipped out a black burqa. Omar might have been the last person to realize what was happening, but once the burqa was thrown over his head, he knew exactly what it was meant for.
Dean reached for his lapel and snapped a series of pictures of Omar struggling into the outfit.
The burqa was made for a short woman, and Omar had to crouch to hide his long legs. He eased the narrow slit over his eyes and made for a door that led to the restrooms. Dean signaled Ari and the two followed his escape route, straight into the women’s room.
Several escorts applying makeup at mirrors screamed at the sight of the two men. But they let Omar cower in the corner.
“Are you from the vice squad?” Omar’s voice trembled from the mass of black fabric. He drew the hood back and the women let out an even louder scream.
