“She’d want us to do everything, anything, to get Alex back to her. Now.”
Natalie’s call to Mike was forwarded to his New York City office. Once he picked up, she related the airport scene. Even before their call ended, Mike was on his way back to Philadelphia. Natalie also would call both of their other brothers. Kevin, a short distance from Philly in Princeton. Patrick, farther away, in Las Vegas. Except for Patrick, they’d meet at Bryn Mawr Hospital to be there for Nicole. Natalie knew that all three brothers would go far, sweat blood, slay dragons, do pretty much anything to get Alex back to Nicole. As would she.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ALEX WAS SURPRISINGLY compliant as Ahmed led him by the hand up the steps and into the main cabin of the Gulfstream G5. They followed the uniformed attendant who motioned for them to take the two front seats, facing the cockpit. Very plush, so large that Alex was almost lost in the soft cushions. The boy pointed to the seats facing them. “Which one is Mom going to sit in?” he asked.
“We’ll see,” said Ahmed, wondering if Alex would ever forgive him for this treacherous lie.
Kids that age didn’t remember much, did they? He tried to remember back to when he was five. Merit, the bossy sister, and Jafari, two years older, who liked nothing more than beating him up. Sweet Neema, a year younger than he. And yes, he vaguely remembered, he was five when his youngest brother, Seth, was born. A wimpy kid, spoiled rotten by his parents. Except for Neema, Ahmed had no respect—let alone love—for any of his siblings. He leaned back in his seat. Yes, it would be good to see Neema. In fact, of them all, she’d also have the most objective take on whatever was happening in Egypt. The rest of the family were Mubarak yes-men to the dictator. Little more than sycophants.
The large attendant had now removed his jacket, put on a silly-looking apron, and approached with a tray of drinks. “Lemonade for the young gentleman,” he suggested in Arabic.
Ahmed felt a tinge of shame that he had not insisted on teaching his son the language of his father’s birthplace. Sure, the child knew a few words, but not enough to feel comfortable.
“Yes,” Ahmed answered in Arabic, “and I’ll take a Diet Coke.” He wanted a scotch, but realized he had to be on full alert to care for Alex.
Not until the big man returned with the tall glasses of liquid did Alex start to panic. Once the drinks were settled on the table in front of them, Alex asked again, more insistently, “Dad, where is Mommy?” He started to get up. “I want to get off and wait for her.”
When Ahmed walked into the cabin, he’d noticed that the back half had been outfitted with a hospital bed and medical equipment. So far, no occupant. Who was the patient? And what would Ahmed be expected to do, medically? He had no heart disease expertise. What if the guy had a myocardial infarction in the air? Threw a clot for a pulmonary embolism? Went into ventricular tach? Shit, he wouldn’t have a clue.
Alex proceeded to stand, knocking over his lemonade, spilling it all over his slacks. But that didn’t stop the kid from dashing to the open door of the aircraft, and almost halfway down the steps.
“Alex!” Ahmed bolted up to run after him. “Get back in here.”
The burly attendant chased after the boy. Alex had made it to within a few steps of the tarmac before the big man grabbed him. “Get back on the airplane,” he growled in English.
To Ahmed, the attendant said, “Get him under control.”
Alex started to cry as he struggled against the big man.
Ahmed forcefully took back his son, sat him back down, strapped him in his seat.
“Mom! Where is Mom?”
“Dr. Masud.” A voice in English from the cockpit. “The flight to Cairo will be approximately eleven hours. With the G5, we won’t need to refuel. Have a relaxing flight.”
Ahmed heard the jet engines starting up, sounding louder.
“What about the patient we’re transporting?” he asked the big guy still hovering in the aisle.
The response in Arabic, “No patient this morning. Plans changed. Our mission is to get you to Cairo. We’re about to queue for departure, then wheels up.”
“But I thought—”
Ahmed was interrupted by the pilot coming on in English, repeating the flight information.
“Daddy, no. We can’t go without Mommy. Please. Just wait for her. She’ll come. I know she will.”
“You heard the pilot, Alex. We have to go now.”
Even with Ahmed restraining him, Alex tried to unbuckle his seat belt, squirmed to get out of his seat, started to cry harder. “No, Daddy, please …”
Ahmed pulled out the syringe of ketamine he’d prepared for this possibility. He reached for Alex’s arm and injected a bolus of the drug into the child. Within minutes, Alex would be sedated. Not the ideal drug, nor the ideal delivery system, but better than having a kid screaming for his mother for eleven hours.
With Alex fast asleep, Ahmed had a scotch, thankful his family didn’t comply with the Islamic law alcohol prohibition.
How he would handle his son, he had no idea. He’d always considered himself a good father, but Nicole was the prevailing parent, as it should be, as she wanted to be. And now, it was all him—or was it? What role would his mother and the other women in the family play? Alex would have Egyptian cousins for company. Ahmed tried to count them, but his mind had become fuzzy. Merit’s twin sons were away at school—one at Oxford, the other at Alexandria University. Jafari had four sons and a daughter. All lived in the compound. The girl was about Alex’s age, the rough and tumble boys, older. Neema didn’t have children, and Seth’s two daughters were growing up in Belgium.
He wondered whether Alex—Wati—would be thrown in with Jafari’s kids …
Then Ahmed drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROB HELD NATALIE’S hand in the surgical lounge, every bit as anxious as those who were there to wait out their loved ones’ surgeries.
Earlier, Harold Templeton had left them in his office so they could make landline phone calls in comfort. Natalie called her three brothers. Mike and Kevin would be there any minute, and Patrick would leave Vegas on his private plane within the hour. Now all the Nelson kids knew about Ahmed’s abduction of Alex—except Nicole, the boy’s mother.
After Templeton had returned from checking on Nicole, they’d turned his office back to him. He’d reported that she was at the point in her procedure when the patient’s face was splayed out on the operating table, bones and muscles and arteries and veins and nerves exposed.
“Good progress with the big bones,” he’d said, “zygomatic arch wired into place …” A raft of other technical terms Rob did not understand. Rob was on the squeamish side—one of those dads who’d passed out in the delivery room when his daughter was born.
When Templeton left them with an estimate of several more hours before Nicole could leave the OR, Natalie tried to explain to Rob that the smaller bones in the face had to be reconstructed and pinned and glued and then all the muscles had to be reconnected and the nerves and blood vessels and then the skin sewn back into place. Her explanation reminded Rob of a construction project. All the infrastructure had to be in place for the finish work and then the decorative phase. Except he could leave a project when called out; Nicole could not.
“Since Nicole and Ahmed are the only reconstructive surgeons on the hospital staff qualified for this procedure, no other surgeon can step in,” Natalie explained.
“So we can’t just go in and tell her? Shouldn’t she know? The longer we wait to do anything, the—”
“Rob, what could she do now? If I thought it would make a difference … but Alex is on that plane. We can’t get him off. Mike told us that the Egyptian legal system will be no help to us.”
“I hope Mike can get our consulate in Cairo to meet the plane.”
Rob was sure that the American Consulate could intercept a child taken from a parent without permission, but Nicole’s brother Mike was a lawyer and he was not opt
imistic.
“I’m trying to put myself in Nicole’s place,” Natalie said. “Alex is her life, and Ahmed has taken him. She’s performing a complicated surgical procedure that can’t simply stop; there’s no one to step in for her. Even if we did tell her now, she can’t leave her patient. How could she focus on the surgery knowing Alex is gone?”
Rob nodded. They’d have to wait until the procedure was completed—Templeton had made that clear. By then the family would have assembled. All resources would be brought to bear … They continued to debate their limited options till Templeton stuck his head in the lounge.
“Kevin Nelson is here,” he said. “I’ve arranged for your family to take over our conference room. Phones, Internet, please use whatever you need.”
“Dr. Templeton,” Natalie said, as he led them to a room down the hall from his office. “Will you go back and find out Nicole’s progress?”
“Of course.” He checked his watch. “One twenty. She’s three hours in. Estimated six hours’ surgery—”
Just then, Kevin joined them, followed almost immediately by the attorney, Mike. Both of the Nelson brothers were tall, blond, with an athletic build. Kevin, an architect, drove in from Princeton, New Jersey, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. He was a year older than Natalie and Nicole. Mike, four years older, wore navy blue pinstripes, classic garb for a senior partner in large Philadelphia law firms.
Hugs and expressions of disbelief were exchanged, and then Mike took charge, contributing input from an international law perspective. “Legal recourse options are limited,” he told his grim audience. “Archy will have no problem getting into Egypt with Alex. An Egyptian citizen traveling with his own son. Alex has a passport. They’ve taken him to Egypt before.”
“But with Nicole,” Natalie said. “This time there’s no parental consent.”
“He’s with his father. No questions need be asked. As soon as that plane lands, he’ll be taken to the Masud compound or anywhere else Archy desires.”
“Maybe you don’t know this,” Natalie said, “but Nicole’s husband now wants to be known as Ahmed. No more Archy.” Natalie looked to Mike first, then Kevin. “Have you talked to Nicole lately?”
“Can’t say I have,” Kevin said. “With my New Orleans project, I’ve been remiss about keeping up with my sisters’ activities—”
“What’s going on, Natalie?” Mike interrupted. “I haven’t talked to her in a couple of weeks, was going to invite Alex to my house for a weekend sleepover.”
Rob watched his wife’s reaction. Of all the Nelson kids, she was the most sensitive, had a bit of an inferiority complex. Growing up with a dominant twin sister, two high-achiever older brothers, her younger brother a sports personality and married to the ultra-famous singer Monica Monroe. Sure, Natalie was a high-powered pharmaceutical doctor, but in her mind that never measured up. And whom was she married to? A bankrupt builder.
Tearfully, Natalie told Mike and Kevin that when she’d lunched with Nicole more than a week ago, her sister had shown up with facial bruises. She’d admitted that Ahmed had hit her.
Kevin jerked back his chair, pointing to Mike. “Did you hear what Natalie said? That piece of shit hit Nicole. Now, who was right? Always told you I didn’t trust that man.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mike asked Natalie, ignoring Kevin’s challenge. “You didn’t think it was important?”
“Look, she told me not to.”
“She told me not to,” Kevin echoed. “And now her son is missing? Your nephew? Our nephew?”
“That’s enough,” Rob said, sheltering his wife’s shoulders with an arm like a bodybuilder’s. “No use finger-pointing. Natalie felt she had to keep a confidence. Nicole can get very angry when she’s crossed, and she said quite specifically to tell no one.”
“She was ashamed,” Natalie said, touching her face, “and scared her marriage was failing … You know how competitive she is. Can’t stand the thought of failure.”
“And you did nothing? Jeez, Natalie, we’re her brothers. We’d always have her back. Yours, too. I’m just saying you should have told us.”
“We’re wasting time,” Mike said. In the Nelson family, Mike would be first to cut through emotions and jump into strategy. “I’ve already contacted the US Embassy in Cairo,” he announced. “They were totally pessimistic about any kind of intervention, but they will be at the airport to monitor the aircraft’s arrival with Alex and his father. Rob’s quick thinking got us the tail number and flight plan. Natalie, based on what you just told us, there must have been a lot of serious shit going down in Archy’s and Nicole’s relationship. So I think we can assume we’re looking at retaliation for something Nicole did that pissed him off.”
Rob held Natalie as she stifled sobs, absorbing Mike’s assessment. He knew how deeply her siblings’ accusations would hurt her. She had always been the most vulnerable of the five Nelsons, and for that, he loved her even more.
The family group continued to speculate about what had sent Ahmed flying to Egypt that Monday morning with Alex. Natalie called Alex’s school, at first encountered the confidentiality barrier, but finally was told: unexcused absence.
The Nelsons talked for a long time, about whether they should phone the Masud family compound in Giza, where the time was nine p.m.—six-hours’ time difference. What would they know about Ahmed’s travel? Odd, Rob noticed—they’d all stopped using the familiar nickname Archy, reverting to some stranger’s name, Ahmed—an emotional barrier, protecting them from him.
They’d been analyzing and reanalyzing every recent bit of intel about Nicole and her husband and son, when Dr. Templeton returned. The clock registered 3:20 p.m.
“Nicole’s getting to a point where I can step in and close for her,” he said. “I’ll scrub in, take over, tell her you’re here in the conference room.”
“She knows nothing?” Natalie asked.
“Probably getting suspicious that something’s up,” Templeton said. “Highly unusual that I’d be showing up periodically during her procedure, checking her progress. So …”
“How are we going to tell her?” Anxiety flooded Natalie’s face as she looked from Mike to Kevin and back again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WHEN THE TURBULENCE hit, Ahmed awoke disoriented. For a moment, he thought the plane had broken in two. His first instinct was to reach for Nicole. If he was on a plane, she would be beside him. Whether traveling for pleasure or business, they’d be together. They attended the same conferences, had the same professional interests. The cabin lights were off, the windows dark. As the plane continued its roller-coaster routine, he felt around on the console beside him for the reading lamp. In the pitch-black cabin, he fumbled to find the switch.
Only when he touched it and the small light illuminated the boy in the seat beside him did he remember. Nicole is not here. I left her in Philadelphia. I took Alex. I took her son from her. Alex—he had to start calling the boy Wati—was snuggled in his seat, oblivious to the forces trying to shake the aircraft out of the sky. Ahmed was not frightened by the turbulence, but Alex would be. Good thing he’d sedated him. He wouldn’t even remember this flight. But when the child awoke without his mom, well—
Another rock and roll and then the plane seemed to stabilize, and the flight resumed a smooth trajectory. A trajectory to Cairo. What time was it now? Ahmed checked his watch, a Patek Philippe that Nicole had given him for his last birthday. A fun day, the day he’d turned forty-five, surrounded by family—her family—a backyard cookout at Natalie and Rob’s. On that bright and sunny birthday last summer, he’d never imagined it would be his last with Nicole. Or was there still a way he could salvage their relationship? Could he make up something? He got word that his father’s condition had suddenly deteriorated? He was summoned, had to leave immediately? Couldn’t even wait for her to get out of surgery? Had to take Alex because he’d given Anna the day off?
Four thirty eastern standard time; eleven thirty a
.m. in Cairo. Seven and a half hours into the flight; four more to go. Soon they’d be flying over France and then over the Mediterranean Sea, to Egypt.
The big flight attendant/bodyguard approached, interrupting Ahmed’s magical thinking. “You want to get up, move around,” he said in Arabic. “Want me to turn up the cabin lights?”
“No,” Ahmed said. “I’d like my son to sleep all the way to Cairo.”
“As you wish.”
“I will go use the toilet.” Speaking in English, Ahmed wondered how long it would be until Arabic became second nature again. Last time he and Nicole had been in Egypt—two years ago—he’d used her as an excuse. This time the family would insist he revert to Arabic, even though each and every one of them was proficient in English, and most in French and German, too.
“I’ll watch your son.”
On his way to the back of the plane, Ahmed passed a fully equipped medical setup, complete with intravenous pumps, oxygen delivery systems, surgical instrument, and an array of medications.
“Why all that?” He nodded toward the back of the plane when he’d returned to Alex.
“A ruse, Dr. Masud, for the authorities, a backup, just in case. Turns out your documents and your son’s were sufficient for you to leave on the aircraft. So, not necessary for us to transport a patient under your care. Much easier this way.”
“Whose plane is this?” Ahmed asked. His family was wealthy, but did not own their own plane.
“Belongs to Gamal. He frequently loans it to friends.”
Gamal Mubarak, Hosni’s youngest son, the one supposed to step into his father’s power shoes, the target of the “no inherited presidency” movement. “You work for Gamal?” Ahmed asked.
“Yes. Security. In fact, I’ve flown with your father and your brother Jafari. Not lately, but when they were getting the textile firm transferred.”
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