The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott

by Jonathan Lowe

  it’s unlikely they’d be able to shoot down any drone aircraft,

  even with radar tracking. Not only is such a target small,

  but at the tower’s base are 19 other residential towers, a lake,

  9 hotels, 30,000 new homes, and the Dubai Mall. Still, they

  should be able to identify the take-off site if it happens again,

  and/or jam the controller’s radio signal. Otherwise, do

  you know how many acres of plate glass are still waiting

  to be shattered? –Ted

  To: TL418, United Arab Emirates

  From: DS672, Hoover Building

  Decrypt 641TR

  5 PM EST Progress report attached. Summary: no red flags

  regarding home grown terrorists or WTC companies.

  Fourteen leads and follow-ups near dead end. Procurement

  of aircraft parts judged to be secondary surplus aftermarket.

  Confirm your conclusion that engineering profile shows

  high level of sophistication, requiring CNC machine shop

  and significant investment. Confirm drone construction

  indicates private engineering based on early military prototype.

  The respondents were identified as Don Sherman, FBI, and Terence Lefcourt, CIA. "Heads are going to roll on this one," the anchor commented, with a dry laugh.

  "Which heads, theirs or ours?" the pretty female co-anchor shot back, before realizing both comments had been ill advised.

  Dribbling spinach, David shook his own head, then opened the drawer of his night table in search of tissue more absorbent than his silken napkin. What he found, next to a copy of the Koran, was an Arabic-English dictionary and thesaurus. Curious, he flipped through the pages, found the word drone, and read the second set of entries under listed synonyms. Beyond hum, buzz, and whirr, was parasite, leech, passenger, and bottom feeder.

  15

  Sunday in America, he knew, meant visiting churches that were mainly identical steepled red-brick edifices with aisles patrolled by gaunt-faced deacons. Sunday in Dubai, by contrast, meant the beginning of the work week---the first or second day of which depending on whether one was a practicing Muslim or not. In American churches, after the requisite hymns and sermon, most participants in the social and spiritual exercise crammed into local restaurants before returning to their own red-brick shrines to the gods of sport, just as Gregg Swann had said. There, they slumped onto couches to watch their favorite coaches railing against rulings, and while they consumed the chips, sodas and ice cream which had vaulted the land of the free to first place among nations in number of heart attacks.

  Meanwhile, in the new phoenix mecca of Dubai, the rich went shopping.

  Getting out of a cab in front of the Dubai Mall, David was arrested by the immensity and grand vision of its design. Here, at the largest shopping center in the world, it was possible to buy almost anything, if one believed the advance publicity. A virtual shrine to consumerism, bigger than any ten churches or mosques, the structure spanned an area greater than any sporting stadium operated or proposed by the NBA or NFL Dioceses. When it was too hot to sand-ski the desert dunes, there was snow skiing here. When weather or hassle precluded snorkeling, there were multi-colored Gulf fish, rays, and sharks on display in a walk-through Plexiglas aquarium. For those seeking fashion or Thai fusion cuisine, there were innumerable upscale shops and restaurants next to luxury car dealerships with the latest models ready to test drive on site. Wines from the cellars of the best chateaus in France were available, too. No indulgence was discouraged, however profligate, including the wish to be a foolish American for an hour. For those brave souls, fast food from McDonald’s and Burger King awaited, although a Whopper cost eight dollars here.

  After a walk of almost ten minutes, David arrived at last at the center of a vast promenade, a huge circle of Venetian marble inlaid with mother-of-pearl forming the symbol of the Emirates. Beneath a massive chandelier--like an upside down and golden three-story Christmas tree--he wondered if there were any ancient secrets to be divined in such a place, other than the secrets of worker exploitation hidden by the builders and architects. He sat on a nearby bench, and stared upward in awe at recalling that this was not the only mall in Dubai, either, and that there were also others, almost as big, like the Bur Juman and the Shopping Festival.

  He watched the shoppers around him. Mostly women, some wore shaylas decorated with gold chains, and sashayed happily between soaring marble columns that supported three levels of paradise. Many clutched shopping bags bearing the emblems of Gucci, Fendi, Yves Saint Laurent. For others it was Godiva or Parfumerrie. The women smiled, eagerly accepting their role. By contrast, Arab men stolled leisurely, or confidently, according to their inclinations. Not smiling, but still oblivious to the larger world of financial anxiety and job pressure known by those who paid higher prices for gasoline and the resultant costs of manufacture and transportation.

  He imagined being one of them. The life he would have. The particular walls he would inhabit. Perhaps his residence would be in Jumeirah Village, next to Dubai Sports City or the Media Production Zone. What kind of thoughts might be his, in such a case? Being one of them, on vacation in America, might he feel invisible? No. He'd probably be gawked at, instead. Even wearing nothing but a sheet. Especially then. Women would ogle him. Men too. It was why so many people wanted to be rich or famous--so they wouldn't feel dead by comparison.

  He looked down at his watch. He took it off and held it in one palm. Then he closed his fingers around it, squeezing. He turned his hands and stared down, finally, at both closed fists.

  Guess which one, he thought.

  He glanced up, half expecting someone to notice. But no one had. No one had ever noticed his little games. He was just wasting time again. If there was such a thing as time, or wasting it. That was a mystery, at best.

  He looked down at his watch. At the Timex.

  Time x plus Time y equals Time z?

  Such things were relative. Like Spacetime, as Einstein had imagined it. At the edge of a black hole's event horizon, time slowed to a virtual stop. So what was it, then? And in a world without the competition of social contact, like the world he had come to inhabit, what was more fundamental than the pulse beneath the skin, the whisper of air in the nostrils, the quiet sigh in the dark?

  He thought about the mall, next. The entire city, he realized, had been built on illusion, with the top one percent of wage earners and inheritors in mind, along with those who envied them and paid to be near them, if only for a week. Many corporate CEOs like those who'd absconded with his mother's nest egg at Lehman, had all noticed what was happening here. And he knew the real reason for the development and construction, too, regardless of the human cost. . .

  "Ego," he heard himself answer, aloud.

  There was that word again. But was it his key piece to the puzzle? His inner eye was still veiled to the mystery, unable to parse the light into its constituent elements. His inner voice resisted the question, too, as though it was not allowed. As though it was like asking about the nature of God: all powerful, all knowing, eternal, and that's all you need to know. Just get down on your knees. Only ego didn't want to get down. It wanted to avoid death, at whatever cost. It wanted blind obedience, no questions asked.

  He opened his palm, and looked down at the watch again. He remembered his mother telling him fables about Satan, falling from heaven long ago, due to pride, arrogance, and the rare chance at expression of free will in resistance. It was the ultimate sin, abusing this gift, she'd said. The mother of all sins, with Ego as its source. Of course Dubai's city planners, disclaiming any dispute, would claim they were following the precepts of the ideal society, laid down in the Koran--an Islamic culture modeled after the best of the west, while forbidding the sins of indecency, homosexuality, and abortion. Still, theirs was an idyllic capitalist utopia on steroids, an experiment performed to its ultimate climactic coda. That it made people jealous was a
clue. That it made others angry bordered a proof.

  He laid the watch on the bench beside him. Gently. He didn't need the illusion anymore, he decided. He would leave it here, along with his ego, if he could. A clue to the mystery of identity and blindness.

  He looked up, and for a now indeterminate interval watched people passing by, both citizens and tourists. He listened to their words, vigilant of their gestures. After a while, he felt a strange peace settle over him like an invisible veil. He did not need to be here at all, he realized. But the fact that he was here seemed manageable, somehow. He did not try to fight it. He did not become angry or sad, as expected.

  He smiled, and for the first time noticed the little girl, across the way, on the bench opposite him, on the other side of the patterned circle. The little girl, sitting next to her mother, smiled back. A shared awareness. A secret connection.

  Then he noticed the man, standing behind her, back against the wall. It was a man he'd seen before. The policeman from the Epic Cafe in the Trump Tower, now wearing an undercover white dishdash, his head almost completely hidden as he leaned back and pretended to watch a nearby fountain.

  David rose, feeling his epiphany fade as he walked toward the man. In passing the little girl, though, he said, "Hey."

  "Hi," the girl replied, smiling up at him sweetly.

  Her mother frowned, and tugged at her arm. In that second he saw her withdraw, back to a smaller, more closed-off world, gone. He with her.

  The man beyond, against the wall, glanced up and suddenly turned away.

  "Hey," he repeated, louder, looking directly at the man now, afraid to turn his focus away for fear he would vanish too.

  The man walked briskly in the opposite direction.

  "Hey, you!" David said, and quickened his pace.

  16

  They sat on padded wrought iron chairs, a tiny bistro table between them, outside a mock French cafe on the mall's third level, under an opaque skylight. The man persisted in playing him, but David grew weary of the game. After only a first sip of espresso, he became insistent. "Really, all I want is my passport back," he said.

  "I wish I could help you," the man in the white dishdash replied without emotion.

  "I know who you are," he said. "We saw you at the Epic. You've been following us since we left the police station. Although I'm not sure how you picked up my trail again after our visit to Baloum's, unless you were watching the whole time by binoculars."

  The man took another sip of his coffee, but said nothing.

  Did he need proof?

  "I'm not involved in this," David reiterated, almost in defense. "Dr. Etherton isn't either. I'm just a tourist."

  The man smiled at this revelation, finding it wryly amusing. "Tourists," he said, "don't generally visit billionaires unless there's something else going on."

  "You're right, of course. And in this case it's called soliciting for donations to aid research at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the University of Arizona."

  "Which is why Gregg Swann joined you there?"

  Taken aback, David felt one of his eyes twitch as he watched the man's blank face in surprise. "You know about that?"

  An extended hand. "Paul Vaughn," the man said.

  David took the hand, then shook it weakly. "Vaughn?"

  The man leaned closer, lowering his voice. "C.I.A."

  David recoiled back against the hard metal chair, absorbing the confession. Then he forced a smile. He chuckled. "I can't believe this," he said, the words leaving his mouth feeling scripted. "Is my life a movie, now? I mean, look, I know I'm an engineer, and I arrived on the same day as this thing happened, and I was staying with the friend of a friend of one of the victims. But that's it. There's nothing more."

  "We know that now," said Vaughn.

  "Then why--"

  "Because," the operative replied, holding up an index finger for him to be patient, "we'd like you to find out a few things about Shakil Nasheed for us."

  "Nasheed? You mean you suspect--"

  The finger again. "We have reason to believe that Shakil is a secret friend of Victor Seacrest."

  "How did you. . . what reason?"

  "Phone call records. Recent."

  "But that--"

  "And. . . and he's not in China. He's in Ajman."

  Digesting this, David took a second sip of espresso. "Go on."

  "I'd like you to invite me over tonight."

  "Where?"

  "To his condo, of course."

  "For what purpose?"

  Vaughn smiled sardonically. "Because if you invite me in, it's legal."

  "I see."

  "I'm not sure that you do. If Nasheed is implicated in this, your friend could also be jailed. You too could be interrogated, and sent to prison in the interim. Here in the UAE, you are considered guilty until proven innocent. It is much more efficient that way." He paused, finishing his coffee, then folded his hands. "Bear in mind, we don't know yet if Nasheed is involved. It's just a theory, one of several."

  "Etherton has the same theory."

  "Do you know what clued him?"

  "A Chinese girl hanging around the building. He'd seen her with Seacrest."

  "Can either of you identify her, if she appears again?"

  "Sure. But you should know, Swann knows about her too."

  Vaughn nodded, thoughtfully. "Then we better go now."

  They rose. David paused. "Wait a minute. What do I tell Doug when I introduce you?" he asked.

  The C.I.A. operative either winked or merely blinked one eye. "Tell him I'm a new friend you just met."

  17

  Paul Vaughn parked his white Escalade in the visitor section of the Swann Tower garage. David took out the card key Doug had given him, and used it to access the private condo elevator. They began the ride up to level forty-eight. Before realizing his watch was no longer there, David looked down at his wrist to check the time. He pulled out his cell phone to verify.

  "No," Vaughn said, putting a hand over his. "Let's not spook him."

  "If he's there."

  "If he's not, all the better."

  "I don't like this," David said. "I just want my passport back."

  Vaughn studied him. "Once we clear Shakil," he said.

  The elevator opened. They stepped out into the red carpeted hallway. Of the four doors on this level, they moved to the one on the far left. David wondered if he should knock first. Vaughn shook his head.

  He inserted the card into the electronic lock, and pressed a four digit code into the keypad. The tiny red glowing light turned green. He pushed down on the handle, disengaging the lock, and let the door swing open.

  "Doug?" he called.

  There was no answer.

  He took out his cell phone again. "I should let Doug know I'm here," he said.

  Vaughn looked displeased, but with David's body rigidly blocking the entranceway, he finally nodded. David punched the speed dial number. The phone rang at the other end.

  "David?" Etherton's voice sounded concerned.

  "Yeah," he said, turning into the room.

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm at Nasheed's condo. Just got here."

  "Get out," Doug said. "Now."

  "Why?"

  At that moment a white hot flash of infinite pressure pulsed across his skull, wiping away all senses except the brief feeling of being stretched downward into the black, spiraling event horizon below.

  ~ * ~

  He woke in stages. At first it was like being drunk, a hangover already active, head remotely pounding like a rush of water through a narrow pipe. He seemed to float in a bath of warm water, turning as if rising on the bursting pinnacle of an immense fountain. Then the pain sharpened. He forced his eyes wider, lifting his hand toward the reflection of himself staring back from above. Was the room turning, or was it only in his head? And what was that in the middle of his forehead?

  He squinted up into the mirror above him, but couldn't make it out.
He closed his eyes as he sat up, jagged bolts of pain leaving searing contrails through his back half of his brain. When he opened his eyes again he began to focus at last on the room around him. It was turning. No, not the room. The bed itself was turning.

  He looked up again, still trying to focus in the dim light. The mirror above him was round. He could tell that much. The bed was also round. It was a massive king-sized waterbed built on tracks, with bedposts stretching up to a canopy framing a circular mirror six feet in diameter.

  He tried to stand. Seasick, he braced himself against one of the bedposts. When the bedpost pushed him back, he almost tottered and fell. Arms pinwheeling, he then stepped warily, frugally forward, toward the wall. When he reached it, he fumbled for a light switch there, and punched it on.

  He was lit with blinding light from one of a dozen recessed spots overhead. When his gaze found the mirror over the dresser before him, he froze in disbelief. There he stood in a lipstick stained dress shirt, nude from the waist down, a very distinct and visible red kiss directly in the middle of his forehead. His hair awry, he looked like a besotted Lothario caught in a Star Trek transport beam.

  Now he heard a sound that terrified him. The entrance door being opened in the other room. He looked around him in distress. His pants were missing. He rubbed at his forehead with the back of one hand, smearing the lipstick there. He staggered toward the far wall, to where a large ebony armoire, doors agape, beckoned the safety of seclusion. Before he could reach it, though, he heard a voice.

  "David?" Doug Etherton called.

  18

  "We should get you to a clinic," Doug insisted, applying an ice pack to his head in Nasheed's bathroom. "He might have cracked your skull. Quite a knot here."

  David clutched at the purple silk bathrobe that now covered him, wincing at the pain. "Just get me a pair of pants from the guest room. I'll be fine."

  "You sure about that? Could be a hairline fracture, with brain swelling to follow. There's drugs to prevent it."