by Bobby Adair
“What can I do for you today?”
“What is the value of my father’s portfolio?”
“It will take me a moment to pull up that information on my computer.” Degen walked back into his room and sat at his desk. His laptop sat open where he’d left it. In a condescending tone, Degen added, “You are aware that you can access this information from your computer.”
“As can you.” Najid was used to the way many Europeans still talked to Arabs, as if they weren’t educated at the same schools. “Tell me the number when you have it.”
Najid heard the sound of fingers on a keyboard, a pause, and then Degen’s voice. “Seven hundred and thirty-seven million in US dollars. Do you need the exact amount?
“I need you to liquidate the portfolio.”
“Mr. Almasi. I don’t think—”
“Stop.” Najid said it harshly enough to cow Degen immediately. “Before you go on, you are aware that I have complete control of my father’s portfolio?”
“Yes.”
“You are aware that I may do whatever I see fit with this portfolio?” Najid could be very abrupt when he wanted something—when he needed something.
“You are the client, Mr. Almasi. Whatever you wish. However, as your financial advisor, it is my duty to advise you in these matters.”
Najid’s patience was already worn thin by previous conversations. “In this matter I do not need advice. I need expeditious action to follow my instructions.”
“You do understand that liquidating your portfolio will result in losses on some of your investments. If you’d allow me some time—”
Najid was tiring of the interaction. Degen’s was one of a dozen calls he had to make. “I do not have time today to convince you to do what I ask you to do. Will you do it, and do it now?”
Degen didn’t answer immediately. He was evaluating his options, or so Najid figured. Either Degen would do as Najid wished, or his superior at the bank would. “I can liquidate most of it. Some of your father’s portfolio is traded in foreign markets and cannot be liquidated until those markets open.”
“I understand.”
“Shall I leave the proceeds in your account or transfer them to another bank? You understand that for transfer, it is not necessary to sell.”
“That is not my purpose. How much of the portfolio can you convert to gold and silver?” Najid had already thought the problem through and had a plan to financially position his family well for the expected outcome.
“Gold stocks are on the upswing, with the Ebola epidemic in Africa driving—”
“You misunderstand, Mr. Degen. Listen carefully. Convert the entire portfolio to cash. Retain thirty million in cash in the account, as I will be drawing on that amount in large transactions. I’ll expect that those transactions will come through you personally, and you will see that they are paid as quickly as possible.”
“And the rest?”
“Convert it to physical gold and silver—I want at least seventy percent in gold. The gold and silver are to be delivered to my father’s compound by noon, three days from now. Earlier if possible. Precious metals that cannot be in my father’s compound by that deadline, do not purchase.”
Degen gasped. “I understand that you fear the Ebola outbreak, Mr. Almasi, but this step is not necessary.”
Najid thought about scolding the man, but chose another tack. “My father is an old man. He doesn’t understand the modern world. This is his wish. Like you, I carry out his instructions without question. Without question.”
“But the losses—the expense of physically transferring all of that gold?”
“Pay what is necessary to get the gold to my father’s compound before noon, three days from now.”
“It will be expensive.”
“I understand. You will also raise a hundred million in cash, or as much as you can by selling in-the-money call options. I want American-style options that expire in ninety days.”
The breath flowed out of Degen in an audible rush.
“You will make commission on this?”
“Yes, Mr. Almasi,” replied Degen uncomfortably.
“You will make an enormous sum, will you not?”
“I will.”
Najid said, “Then smile when you look in the mirror, as you profit from the ignorance of a man with too much money.”
Degen wondered which ignorant man Najid was talking about, himself or his father? “Mr. Almasi, may I speak for a moment?”
“Quickly.”
Degen took a moment and proceeded in a calm, measured voice. “Despite the epidemic, the market has been bullish all year. Selling these call options means that as the prices of the underlying securities rise over the next three months, your losses will mount. The analysts at our firm assured me on a conference call just this morning that the trend will remain positive. With the losses you’ll take in converting the accounts into physical gold and silver bullion, and the potential losses that you’ll incur in a rising market, your father’s total portfolio could sink to a fraction of its current value.”
“Mr. Degen, thank you for your counsel. One thing we must both keep in mind as we carry out my father’s wishes is that this is his fortune. You do not have a fortune. You have not earned one. Neither have I. My father did, through shrewd choices. Perhaps it is you and I who are being foolish by questioning his judgment.”
“My apologies, Mr. Almasi.”
“I’ll leave it to you to select the specific financial instruments you sell. Your goals are to raise as much cash as possible and to convert that cash to gold and silver bullion that you will deliver to the appointed place by the appointed deadline.”
“As you wish.”
“I will call periodically for updates.” Najid hung up the phone.
In the next call, Najid bribed the right people to get two shiploads of food aid bound for East Africa redirected the relatively short distance to his father’s compound on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Arms dealers were next on the list.
Chapter 28
One woman in the back of the ward had been bleeding so severely through her nose for the last few hours that she no longer had the strength to hold the towel to her face.
Dr. Littlefield stood beside Austin in the center aisle watching. The woman in the next bed over had been groaning softly with what was presumably the last of her energy. She started to spasm, vomited black, and the bed around her pelvis turned red with her blood.
Dr. Littlefield didn’t move. But in a soft, clinical voice said to Austin, “The lining of her stomach died. Her body sloughed it off. That’s something you don’t normally see except in corpses that have been dead for a few days. That’s why it’s black.” Dr. Littlefield looked at Austin and his eyes were as hopeless as the people dying in row upon row of mats and beds. “Most of these people will die just like that, and there’s nothing we can do—not one goddamned thing.”
Austin looked around. Faces were slack as though people wore emotionless masks of themselves. When they weren’t vomiting and defecating clotted blood into their buckets and beds, they were bleeding out of their gums, ears, noses, and every other orifice. They stared at nothing—dolls or corpses with raspy breaths. Some cried. Most didn’t have the energy for that.
When the dying started, Dr. Littlefield had to press their captors to allow the bodies to be removed from the ward. After that, he and Austin were charged with the task of carrying them outside and stacking them beside the pit where Austin had been dumping waste buckets.
Najid’s men, still in their yellow Tyvek suits, kept their distance. A few held their places inside, a few in front of the hospital, a few out behind the building—all with weapons they apparently didn’t have any qualms about using.
Chapter 29
The thing that struck Salim the oddest—as he sat in a contoured plastic airport chair, looking across an expanse of shiny terrazzo flooring in the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore—was how much it looked
like any airport in America. Only the clothes were different. Of course, some people wore Western clothes. Many wore what looked to Salim like pajamas.
Jalal sat in the chair beside Salim, looking out the tall windows at the airplanes, probably speculating about where they were going, what they’d be doing.
A hundred yards away, Salim was watching Zameer. Probably not his real name, but that’s how everyone referred to him in whispers. He didn’t know the man’s title or position and never asked. Those weren’t the kinds of questions to ask when one wanted to keep his head—literally. Salim did know—or suspect strongly—that the guy was in charge.
Salim had seen this man before. He had been through their small camp on three separate visits. Each time, the trainers were nervous and deferential. On one occasion, Zameer berated the trainers loudly, and with more than one slap and a kick to get his point across.
But now, Zameer—short-tempered as he was—stood nervously, shuffling his feet, checking the clock, looking around.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Jalal asked in a soft voice that was easily lost in the noise of the airport.
“Far away,” replied Salim.
Jalal looked at Salim, disappointment on his face. “We’re at an airport. We’re in the clothes we wore when we arrived. We have our passports. C’mon Salim, I don’t think that guess took a lot of effort.”
Salim scanned the terminal again. He was good with faces, and he knew he saw at least two others who had been in the van the day they all arrived in Lahore. Now they were all being sent somewhere internationally. The passports, returned to them with the rest of their possessions, assured that. “We’ll know when they give us our tickets.”
“We’ve been waiting for three hours.” Jalal’s impatience was starting to show.
“Does it matter how long we’ve been waiting?”
Jalal stood up. “I’m going to the loo.” Occasionally, his English dialect seemed out of place.
“I’ll be right here when you get back.” But as Jalal started to walk away, Salim reached up and caught his sleeve.
Jalal stopped and looked down at him, a question on his face.
Salim asked, “Have you seen any of the others here? I think I’ve seen a few.”
“Who?” Jalal asked.
“Some from the van, the day I arrived.”
Jalal looked around. “Good. We’re off to do something, I reckon.” Jalal spun and hurried off.
Salim went back to watching the formerly important Zameer wait on somebody more important. Salim started to wonder whether he’d see one of the familiar faces from the newscasts back in America—one of those high-profile terrorist targets. Now, there was a temptation. What if he did see such a man, with a two million dollar price tag on his head? Was his faith in jihad strong enough not to find a telephone and call in a tip? Was his hatred of America strong enough to keep him from doing it?
Being honest with himself, he didn’t know.
Two million dollars would put Salim in a different world. He wouldn’t be a powerless middle-class nobody anymore. Perhaps the world looked different when you were the one standing on the backs of the poor, rather than being stood upon. And that’s how Salim felt—stood upon, powerless, another of the faceless billions under the boot of America’s greed.
But to have America’s greed working for him as he sat on a beach, luxuriating in the dividends that two million dollars’ worth of that greed could provide—that might feel pretty good.
The powerful man shuffled some more, walked in a circle, checked his watch, and checked the clock on the wall again.
Jalal sighed as he walked up. “It’ll be good to go back to London.” He stretched. “I miss the fog.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Salim shook his head to emphasize his remark. “Fog?”
“No. I’m not kidding. I might be the only Englishman who likes it. I don’t know why. But I do.”
Salim asked, “How long did you live in London?”
“All my life.”
“And your parents?”
“From here. Both from Lahore,” answered Jalal.
“How come we never talked about this before?” Salim asked.
Jalal shrugged. “How come you never asked?”
“Such questions are discouraged,” Salim answered sadly.
“I know.” Jalal grinned. “When your CIA is waterboarding you, you can’t tell them what you don’t know.”
“Seems pointless now.” Salim looked for the important man. He seemed to have disappeared.
“How’s that?”
“Now that we’re off to go somewhere and actually do something. For all we know, we’ll be dead tomorrow.”
Jalal dropped back into the seat beside Salim, and exhaled a long, slow breath. The gravity of their choices had stopped being a romantic adventure. Youthful self-righteousness was turning into something with real consequences. Jokes about torture at the hands of the CIA might soon stop being funny.
Still unable to see the important man—unable to contain his curiosity, and definitely wanting to keep his options open on that two million dollars—Salim reached out, stretched his arms, and stood up in an attempt to get a better view down to the other end of the terminal.
Where did Zameer go?
Damn.
Zameer had vanished, probably off somewhere with his contact.
Salim thought about walking down to the other end and looking around. That was a gamble. He didn’t know if Zameer was meeting anyone of consequence. He did know that to walk away from where they’d been told to wait was a punishable offense. He shuddered to think what that punishment might be.
So he sat down and peered through the sparse crowd, searching the faces he could see.
A man walked up—young, like both of them. “Salim? Jalal?” he asked.
Jalal looked at Salim with the same question that was on Salim’s mind. Yes or no?
Before Salim had chosen how to answer the question, Jalal looked back at the standing man and said, “Yes.”
The man extended an envelope to Jalal, turned, and walked off.
“Instructions?” Jalal asked, looking at Salim.
Salim shrugged.
Jalal opened the envelope, reached in and pulled out two tickets. After taking a moment to look at them, he announced, “We’re going to Nairobi.”
“Nairobi?”
“Our flight leaves in fifty minutes.”
Chapter 30
The layover in Dubai was long enough to distract Salim from staring at the back of the seat in front of him, but barely long enough for anyone to get off the plane, except for a few women in black burqas and their chaperones.
Before long, the big jet was back in the air, carrying Salim, Jalal, and possibly others like them, southwest toward Nairobi. Where they were going after Nairobi was a mystery. They had cryptic instructions about taking a cab to some address and waiting on a street corner until they received further instructions.
Salim didn’t think they would arrive at the street corner until two or three a.m. And there they’d be, foreigners standing on a corner, in a country neither of them had ever been to, in the middle of the night. If the local police took an interest, how would they explain their presence? They couldn’t. Lying would be their only option and lying was pointless. They didn’t know enough about anything in Nairobi to construct any kind of plausible lie. They might as well say they’d been abducted by aliens.
Salim was depressed.
He knew it was a matter of faith and discipline—getting on the plane, not knowing where he’d end up, let alone what he’d be doing. Of course, he assumed some jihadist activity awaited him, although at the same time, he felt just as powerless as he always had in America. An outsider. Untrusted. A grunt.
And he started to think that everything had been a mistake. He had the heretical thought that he might not be fighting America to change the world, but fighting simply to put a new repressive authority in power, jus
t one with a different name and different set of corrupt values.
Salim asked Jalal, “Did you like living in London? I mean, besides the fog.”
Jalal gave the question some real thought before answering. “Mostly. Did you like Denver?”
Salim nodded. “I think when you can see past the lie that everyone is equal, then yeah, it wasn’t so bad. Better than living in the mountains and sleeping in a tick farm.”
Chapter 31
Jalal had run out of energy, while walking what seemed like miles across the airport in Nairobi, and he had all but stopped talking. Salim found a cab driver that spoke English. But finding one that spoke English and would take them to the street corner where they needed to go—apparently in a less-than-desirable part of town—was another trick.
Nevertheless, by four a.m. they’d been standing on the corner for nearly an hour. Well…Salim stood. After fifteen minutes of waiting, Jalal sat down, leaned against a wall, and dozed off.
Salim wondered if Jalal had doubts about his choice to go to Pakistan and become a jihadist. He realized that the closer they got to wherever they were going, the less certain he was of his course. But here he was in Bumfuck, Africa, with a passport, a backpack, some clothes, toiletries, and enough traveling money to maybe get a meal and a cab back to the airport.
What then? A call to his dad, who suspected—but didn’t know—his intentions when he’d disappeared to go to Pakistan? The old man had been furious and broken-hearted. His mother cried. And what was he going to do, get a ride back to the airport? Beg his dad to fly him home? With what? His parents lived paycheck to paycheck to support an outwardly upper-middle class life. They had no savings and a ton of credit card debt. They bought wholeheartedly into the new and improved American Dream—permanent debt that ended in a reverse mortgage, so you couldn’t even leave your children the one asset you thought you owned.
Even if Salim could somehow find a way to talk himself into calling his dad—if he could convince his dad to forgive him for his disobedience—there was no way his father could come up with the thousands of dollars on short notice to pay for an expensive last-minute flight back to the US.
