by Tyree, Omar
Tariq shrugged. “He may have left earlier, at the same time that your men chased and killed the innocent laborer.”
A few of the lower-ranking police officers fidgeted in embarrassment, but Tariq owed them no allegiances or kindness. They were men in need of more seasoning.
“It was a perfect diversion.”
Before Ali could argue his point otherwise, someone cracked the door up the hallway. Tariq and Ali both looked and spotted a small Muslim woman inside the hall.
“He left,” she whispered tersely in English. “He and his men.” She then pointed at his door, shaking with fear.
Understanding the woman’s bravery, Ali nodded and signaled for her to close her door back. She had said enough, and she did not need to make herself a target.
“Shukran jazeelan,” he thanked her in Arabic.
When the woman closed her door back, the chief went immediately into action.
“Okay, break it in,” he told his men.
Three eager policemen prepared to smash down Mohd’s apartment door with force before Tariq stopped them.
“What if there was an explosion behind the door?”
The men stopped in terror and looked toward Ali.
Ali took another look at the door wedge and assumed that everything was normal. Then he sniffed the door and smelled nothing peculiar.
Without another word to anyone, the police chief pulled out his pistol and kicked the door open, using his right foot with the force of a mule. His young policemen drew back, as if expecting a bomb to go off. But with no big boom of explosion, Ali aimed his gun inside the room before entering.
Tariq walked in behind his fearless veteran friend, followed by the shaken officers.
The apartment was empty with only scented candles on the floor. They were equally placed around the room. The chief continued to sniff around the premises, picking up the hovering aroma of hard steel and gunpowder. He knew the cold metal smell and ammunition of high-powered artillery without a need for dogs.
Even Tariq could smell it.
He nodded and stated the obvious. “They tried to cover up the scent with candles.”
Ali placed his gun back inside of his hip holster. “I guess we have our man. But this looks like a lot more than just knives.” He thought about it and stated his own obvious conclusion. “Something much bigger is being planned.”
The police chief looked back at Tariq, expecting another big idea from him.
The private investigator and counsel concluded, “It’s all about the workers. This entire area is filled with nothing but laborers. And those who were killed obviously knew too much.”
Ali paused. “Well, now we need to find out who else knows and see what they’re after,” he commented, “and quickly.” He eyed Tariq and asked him, “How many hours of sleep do you need?”
At first Tariq hesitated. Then he answered, “None. Let’s just keep working.”
Chapter 20
Tariq sat inside Ali’s unmarked police vehicle so he could tell him in private all that he knew about Mohd Ahmed Nasir and his vendetta against Emirati builder Abdul Khalif Hassan. He figured their dispute from years ago could now elevate into a much larger national concern.
Ali listened to it all while sitting in the driver’s seat of his parked car, and he nodded. “Interesting. Indeed, I admit the Emirati practice of using so much cheap immigrant labor for construction has caused many issues with fair employment and wages. Even these man-made islands from the Nakheel Properties have been built from nearly all immigrant hands and have created new real estate and tourism for mostly foreigners.”
“Precisely. And how much of this is enough?” Tariq questioned. “How much of the population of Dubai is even local to the Middle East?”
Tariq’s own family was from the neighboring Muslim nation of Oman.
Ali shrugged and asked, “So what do you think Mohd and his followers are up to? You think he wants a workers’ revolt or an uprising against Abdul and his properties? How many men do you believe Mohd has?”
Tariq thought about it and answered, “A few dozen men with assault weapons would be more than enough.”
Both of them understood the strict gun and firearms laws of the United Arab Emirates, but where there was a will there was a way. Desperate men found ways to break laws all over the world.
Ali asked, “You think he has that many men?”
“He could very easily,” Tariq answered. “If he has a dozen men here in Deira, a dozen in Sharjah and a dozen somewhere else, they could easily reach fifty.”
“With weapons? And then what? Shut down Abdul’s new construction sites?”
“Apparently, they have already begun to shut down Abdul’s sites. Many of the men have quit since last week. But the guns now confuse me. That would lead me to believe that it is more serious than that,” Tariq commented.
Ali paused before asking the unthinkable. “You don’t believe Mohd and his men would try anything to harm Abdul’s wife or his family, do you?”
A wife-for-a-wife proposition was not out of the question. However, Tariq shook his head immediately, doubting that extreme.
“That would be highly unlikely,” he answered. “And I am sure that Abdul has already prepared for it. His wife and child are both very young.”
“And his wife, from what I have heard, is also very outspoken,” the police chief added.
Tariq grinned and thought of his own wife and young daughter. “They will all be that way very soon. It is the natural influence of the world. Women are regarded much more highly than they used to be. But where do we start now—in Sharjah? We need to go find him.”
Tariq wanted to return to the business at hand with Mohd, but Ali looked very weary behind his wheel. He exhaled and was ready to rest for the evening.
“Since you are now able to pick and choose when and what you work on, you can also choose when you would like to rest. But I do not have that choice, and I have already been called out of bed tonight. So if you are determined to drive out to Sharjah this evening, I can have some of my men go with you there, and I will have more the first thing in the morning when I arrive. But as of right now …”
Ali looked at his watch again. It was closing in on two o’clock in the morning.
“I pray to Allah that they don’t try anything tonight. But I seriously doubt they will. And we will have a few full days to figure out everything starting tomorrow.”
Tariq considered the time as well. He had been working on sheer adrenaline all day long, but maybe it was best to rest up and think things through for the next day.
“I hope you are right. And we’ll both go to bed then and start things off fresh tomorrow.”
“That would be best,” Ali assured him. “We can only do so much in a day.”
The two men shook hands as Tariq climbed out of the chief’s car and walked across the street in the night to his own, a black Saab. Once he sat inside behind the wheel, Tariq called his wife.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m on my way home now.”
His wife told him to drive safely, and Tariq started up his engine.
*****
As the early morning sunlight began to rise that Saturday, airplanes landed and took off from the airport, trucks and cars made their way in out and around Dubai, and the early shift workers began to arrive at work, while the night shift left, particularly at the countless hotel buildings.
Trucks with fresh food, new sheets and towels and boxes of cleaning utilities with bathroom supplies would pull up early and often. Supply trucks in downtown Dubai were perfectly normal. So no one became alarmed when the two trucks from the warehouse in Jebel Ali drove into the loading areas at the back of the International Suites. However, instead of a driver or two to unload supplies, the trucks were full of armed men. They backed into the loading gate, where the security guards and storage workers had been tied up and locked into a small bathroom from the early morning and the night before. The hotel’s surveillance ro
om, filled with dozens of security camera monitors, was the first thing they had sabotaged. That allowed Heru’s men to watch everything going on in and around the hotel, including the movements of the United Arab Emirates police force.
“Hurry up and move into place,” the men were told in several languages as they filed out of the two trucks, all dressed in hotel staff and technician uniforms. Several different groups of men split up and hurried to the hotel stairs to enter the building. Another group of men entered the electronics room to disable the phones, Internet and satellite communications systems, all when ready.
Back at the loading gate, the same soldier from the warehouse the evening before had a private conversation with the lead organizer.
“Heru, your father asked us where you were last night, and he did not seem so eager to move forward with our plans.”
Heru was taller and younger, with a slight beard, and he was much more rugged than his father. Now in his early thirties, Heru’s fierce brown eyes hinted that he was more capable of intense violence as well. He had already shown his lethal combat skills and speed with his knife the night before in Deira.
“That’s because my father is still a man of reason. He is completely broken from his tragedy, yet he remains peaceful. As for me, I have not been blessed with the gene of peace. And I assume that my father asked for a private moment to pray.”
The soldier smiled and confirmed it with a nod. “You know your father well.”
“Of course I do. And my father also knows me. That is why he began to pray. He knows that there is no turning back from this. And we will make our presence felt today.”
*****
At the warehouse near the foot of Jebel Ali’s industrial park, Mohd awaited a call on his cell phone. A half a dozen men were still there to protect him, while Mohd remained upstairs in his small office, running out of valuable time. Time was of the essence.
“May Allah choose to be merciful,” he mumbled to himself.
I fear we may need a miracle to stop my son from his misguided madness, he thought.
*****
Back at the Hilton downtown, Gary began to stir from his sleep. His cell phone was buzzing louder and louder from the nightstand to wake him, but he tried his best to ignore it.
Gary rolled over and slapped it with his hand to shut it off, as if it was an old-school alarm clock. But the cell phone continued to buzz.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
He grabbed the phone to view the call. It was Jonah. Gary checked the local time before he decided to answer. He had no choice. “Okay, what time is it over there, eleven o’clock at night?”
“Wow, you’re good. Are you looking at the time translations off your phone?” she asked him.
“No, I’m guessing. But it’s only seven in the morning over here, and I’m dead tired. So what is it?” he snapped.
“Actually, I just wanted to call and make sure you still had your phone on you.”
“Didn’t you hear my snoring?” he joked.
“Actually, no. From what I’ve been able to hear, you’re a pretty quiet sleeper.”
Gary shook his head and still couldn’t believe that he was being tracked like an animal, even halfway across the world.
“Do other people know about phones like these?”
“Those who need to know.”
“Yeah, so I guess I get to be one of the first guinea pigs.”
“Actually, your father just wanted me to check back in on you, and I told him that I would.”
“Oh, it’s him again. I guess you told him I’m in Dubai.”
“Of course I did. I can’t lie to him. But he considers Dubai to be pretty safe. He’s been there himself a few times. He believes you’ll get into less trouble with the women there.”
Gary thought about that and grinned. Had he still been a wreckless dating man, there was plenty of trouble he could get into with the foreign women of Dubai.
Jonah laughed at the idea herself. She said, “I know, right. I still don’t think your father understands how incredibly hot you are to the young women out here, even when you’re not trying to be.”
“Yeah, I bet the old man had his ways with women too,” Gary said. “After all, he did score with my mom.”
“Ahhh, I’m not gonna touch that,” Jonah commented.
“So when am I gonna meet him? Ever?”
Jonah sighed, noticeably. “You dad decides when the time is right. I have no control over that.”
“You’re right. It’s too early in the morning for this anyway. So just tell the old man that I’m fine. If he wants to know anything more, you tell him to ask me himself.”
For all Gary knew, his father could have been around him countless times at ball games and events without making himself known, perhaps even at Gary’s graduation from Louisville. Nevertheless, the cat-and-mouse game between them continued.
Jonah admitted, “You have a lot more patience than I would have. If my father were still alive, I would have pressed the issue five years ago.”
Gary heard her out and paused to think.
“Ah, let me not put any ideas in your head,” Jonah responded, backtracking.
“Yeah, it’s too late for that. You tell the old man I need to see him as soon as I get back from Dubai. You’re right. I should have nipped this in the bud a long time ago. And I’m assuming that you’re tired of it now too.”
“That didn’t come out of my mouth,” Jonah told him.
“Actually, it did. But don’t worry, I won’t tell him you said anything. You just let him know that our little game of charades is over. I need to see who he is.”
Jonah paused again to compose herself as a show of seriousness. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you said that,” she promised.
“Thank you. Now let me get back to sleep.”
The problem was that Gary had left his blinds open while staring out at Dubai’s skyline the night before, so the sunshine was already blasting through the windows that morning. On top of that, with a sudden growl of his stomach, he was hungry. And the combination of sunlight and hunger forced him to stare up at the ceiling, wide awake.
“I guess it’s time for room service,” he commented. And he climbed out of bed.
Chapter 21
Ramia was overjoyed that morning. She had a lot on her mind and was already ironing her clothes to perfection—a lime-green, orange, yellow and brown floral sundress to wear with brown leather sandals. She even had a matching brown leather purse.
Basim opened his eyes in bed and wondered what was going on with her, moving around so early. It was barely after seven in the morning. They would not be leaving out for more than another hour. He had never seen her prepare so early.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m getting my clothes ready to get dressed.”
“This early? It’s only seven o’clock.”
“Yes, and you still have to drop me off at the hotel before you make it to work on time.”
“But why are you so consumed by your dress? Are you meeting someone?”
It was the right question, but Ramia planned to dodge it.
“No, I just want to look my best and to look for a second job at the mall. They want nice girls working at the malls,” she gushed.
“I thought you wanted the job at the hotel.”
“Yes, I do, but if I don’t get it, I have to look my best for the jobs at the mall.”
Basim stretched his arms and legs and climbed out of his bed to begin getting ready himself. His young cousin had been a constant issue of concern, yet her enthusiasm for life energized him. He wanted to do better in his own life because of her. Ramia made him think of experiencing more and setting higher aspirations for himself. Maybe he could go to the university and learn a profession as well. Why should he settle for store shopwork if he could do more?
Basim’s young and wired cousin made him consider options that he had not thought ab
out before. Several new considerations crossed his mind as he walked into his tiny bathroom to shower that morning.
Ramia will make someone a great wife if they could ever manage to keep up with her, Basim mused.
But the young man had no wife of his own, afraid that he could not afford to offer a woman a home.
What kind of life is this for any man? he thought. We spend all of our days and nights in this place to provide a playground for the wealthy of the world, and what do we get out of it? A few hundred dirham a week to spend on ourselves or to send home to our families. Then what?
While taking his shower, Basim’s mood swung from optimism to gloom in a matter of minutes. Higher aspirations could do that to a man—make him feel how far away he was from achieving them. Sometimes it was easier to think of nothing.
When Basim was dressed and ready to leave for work in his uniform of a yellow shirt and tan khaki pants, his mood had turned completely sour, but he was not willing to reveal it. He was determined to show his cousin nothing short of complete faith in Allah. But all humans had their doubts. Why should one man feel blessed over another? Was it all by design? Basim began to question everything.
In near silence, he led the way out of the building and into the guarded streets of Deira. Ramia followed closely behind him as they reached his modest blue sedan to head downtown and to work, as he had done for the past two years. Before he owned a car, he had caught the bus to work. And although it was not much to brag about, at least he now owned his own means of transportation.
Noticing his cold silence, Ramia asked, “What’s wrong?”
Basim shook it off as he opened the passenger side door for her.
“It’s nothing. I’m just trying not to be worried about you.”
Ramia grinned and slapped his shoulder. “That is something. Stop being so worried. I’ll be fine.”
She climbed into the car and strapped on her seatbelt.
Basim nodded and walked around the car to climb behind the driver’s seat without arguing. That struck Ramia as peculiar as well.
“Is it really bothering you that much that I want to walk around downtown?”
