I arrived in Amman two days later around midnight on a late flight via Frankfurt. At the top of the escalator leading down to passport control, a tall man in his midthirties walked up to me.
“Excuse me, sir, are you Mr. Daniel?”
“Yes. Who are you, please?”
“I am Fuad. I work in airport security. Please follow me.”
“May I ask what this is about?” I had not given anyone in Amman advance notice of my visit and didn’t expect to be met by any person, and certainly not by airport security. In a flash, I imagined that Anas and his friends had somehow gotten wind of my arrival and alerted a contact at security to intercept me. But I dismissed this thought since no one other than Khalid knew about this trip. Still, a certain trepidation did linger.
“Do not worry, sir,” Fuad said in a no-nonsense tone. “I’m here to take care of you.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Fuad,” I said, “but how did you know I was arriving in Amman, and why are you taking care of me?”
“It seems that you have an important friend,” Fuad replied. “My boss told me that Sheikh Khalid had called and asked us to take excellent care of you during your stay in Amman.”
Good old Khalid! His reach was truly impressive.
“Pardon my question, Mr. Fuad, but I don’t think I shared my flight details with Khalid. I mean Sheikh Khalid. So how did you find me?”
“Sheikh Khalid told us that you would be arriving today and sent us a picture of you. Blue eyes, no hair, Semitic nose. You were hard to miss.”
I laughed. “That pretty much sums me up. But tell me, how long have you been waiting here?”
“Since eight in the morning.”
“That’s over sixteen hours! I am so sorry!”
“It’s no problem, sir,” Fuad said amicably. “It is our pleasure to do anything for Sheikh Khalid. It is as if His Majesty the King asked us for something. Now, may I please have your passport?”
“Don’t I need to purchase a visa?”
Fuad shook his head and stretched his arm out in my direction. “Please.”
I handed him my passport, and he cut to the front of the line straight to the immigration officer who immediately barked at the family standing before him to scoot to the side in order to accommodate us. The family had the appearance of ultraconservative Muslim Salafists—the man’s beard was long and wild, dyed with reddish-brown henna, and his upper lip was clean shaven in homage to how the prophet Muhammad is purported to have worn his beard fourteen hundred years ago. His wife was dressed in an all-black abaya cloak with a niqab veiling her entire face other than a narrow slit for her eyes. She was rocking a sleeping infant in her arms while trying to comfort another child crying in a stroller. The man was holding the hands of their two sons. He muttered something under his breath as he backed up to let me pass. I followed Fuad guiltily, avoiding the resentful stares of this man and the other travelers in line. The immigration officer stamped my passport without looking and handed it back to Fuad. We walked toward the exit and out of the terminal. A car was waiting for us, and we both got in.
“Sheikh Khalid informed us that you would be staying in the Four Seasons,” Fuad said. “Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Good. This should not take too long at this time of the night. No traffic.” He told the driver to get going, then handed me his phone. “This is a secure phone. Sheikh Khalid asked that you call him when we’re in the car.”
I dialed Khalid’s number. “Masaa al-khair, habibi, good evening.” He answered in a jovial mood, as if this conversation on some Jordanian security officer’s phone was the most natural thing in the world.
“Masaa al-noor, Khalid, good evening to you. Why didn’t you tell me that you would arrange to have me picked up?”
“Well, you did not share your flight plans with me, so I did not share your arrival plans with you. Let’s call it a draw.”
I laughed. “Your logic is impeccable as usual. Anyway, thanks for looking out for me.”
“You’re welcome. There’s some information I wanted to share before you try to find those guys in the morning. First, there is a chance that Anas left Amman this evening. Bassel’s contact is not sure. His mobile phone signal still originates in Amman, but he sent an email from a Dubai IP address late last night. In any event, one of his partners, who goes by the name Mike, seems to be at the Four Seasons every morning at ten for breakfast. He is the ugly fellow next to the skinny guy in the picture I sent you after we last spoke.”
“Yes, I received the picture, thanks,” I said. “Where is this Mike from? Is he also Syrian?”
“No, Mike is from Dearborn, Michigan, but originally his family is Palestinian. His real name is Malik, but he has Americanized it to Mike. Apparently he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed and not very pleasant either.”
“I look forward to meeting him.”
“I’m sure you do,” Khalid said. “Thugs can be so entertaining, after all—especially those called Malik, as we found out in our last go-around.”
“I really hope I didn’t miss Anas,” I said, ignoring his reference to a nasty and dangerous experience Khalid and I had endured a few months earlier with a Lebanese wannabe gangster called Malik in Istanbul. It had been a case of mistaken identities and intentions: Khalid and I were trying to acquire a key piece of information on a member of the Assad family, while this Lebanese fellow thought we were trying to purchase drugs. Khalid and I ended up spending most of the night driving through Istanbul in separate cars in order to confuse and shake this Malik off our tail. Only at six in the morning, as the sun was rising, did he give up and drive to the airport to catch a flight out of town. Khalid and I returned to the Kempinski hotel for a sumptuous breakfast. We still laughed about this crazy adventure, which had a slapstick feel despite its perilous nature.
“I also hope you did not miss Anas,” Khalid said. “But just in case you did, Jamil expects to get the contact information for Anas’s ex-wife who lives in Dubai. Apparently she’s no longer all that fond of Anas, so she might be willing to help you find him just out of spite.”
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”
“One more thing, Daniel,” Khalid said. “I know you are a fully grown man who can take care of himself. Still, some of these fellows are a little rough around the edges. And the nice ones are usually disingenuous. So don’t trust anyone. At the same time, don’t allow your outrage to trip you up.”
“What do you mean?” I asked a little defensively.
“These people are sharks. Remember what I told you in Doha many years ago. When a shark does something aggressive, when a shark attacks people, it makes the shark neither good nor bad. It’s not about morality. It’s stupid and nonsensical to get mad at a shark because he tries to eat you—it’s what a shark does! So now that you know that these guys are sharks, brace yourself and stay cool and calm rather than angry and incensed. Try to get what you need out of each person you’ll meet. Above all, always remember that you are either controlling the narrative or you are allowing it to happen.”
“I understand.”
“Good luck. And please don’t treat your stay in Amman like your clandestine flight. Keep me posted on what’s going on, so that I don’t have to keep troubling my friends in security.”
“I will. Good night, and thanks again for your help.” I handed the phone back to Fuad.
We arrived at the hotel a few minutes later. As we approached the driveway leading up to the entrance, we had to meander around large cement barriers and multiple security checkpoints, which had been set up after the deadly simultaneous bombings in 2005 of three Amman hotels that killed and wounded many people, including a large group attending a wedding. Despite the calm and orderliness of the Jordanian capital’s commercial center, these massive cement impediments were a grim reminder of the region’s violent reality.
I stepped out of the car and was greeted by a loud sound of chirping crickets. The evening was surprisingly chilly, and I shivered in my thin shirt. Floodlights illuminated the entire parking lot and hotel entrance, leaving me with that same eerie sensation that I had felt after landing in Beirut a week earlier. Two armed guards were standing at the main door, pointing with an impassive motion toward the metal detector and the conveyor belt at the entrance. Before I walked inside, Fuad gave me his phone number and asked me to call him if there was any problem or if I needed anything. He promised to stop by the next afternoon to check on me.
As I lay in bed, Khalid’s words kept spinning in my head—either I would be the one controlling the narrative or someone else would do it for me. There seemed to be so many factors beyond my control, so many unpredictable plot twists. I lay awake for hours contemplating all possible scenarios should I succeed in meeting Anas, as well as backup possibilities in the unfortunate event I had missed him. The more scenarios I could think of, the more anxious I became. I finally fell asleep at seven in the morning.
When my alarm clock went off at nine, it took me a long time to figure out where I was. During my travels, I try to keep my eyes closed when I wake up in some hotel bed until I become fully aware of the place I am in—my small pre-exercise exercise routine on the road. This morning, I just could not figure it out. I was completely disoriented. I struggled to open my eyes; they felt like they had been pasted shut. I had a massive headache and felt groggy. It took me three cups of coffee and some Advil before I finally regained my bearings.
I stepped into the breakfast area a few minutes past ten and immediately spotted two of Anas’s partners from the picture Khalid had sent me—the one he had identified as Mike as well as the other, rather thin person—sitting at a corner table with two men I did not recognize. Mike looked as unappealing in person as he did in the photograph. The two unfamiliar men were wearing black suits, white shirts, and black ties, pulp fiction–style, trending toward Middle East–inspired Blues Brothers, while Mike and the other man from the picture were sporting fashionably torn jeans and tight polo shirts with raised collars. To my great disappointment, none of the men was Anas.
There was something unkempt and repulsive about Mike. He was chubby with thinning, greasy curls, and he had a permanent grin with a dull, unintelligent expression under an uneven stubble. As I approached their table, Mike grabbed the apron strap of a waitress as she passed by him and held on to it until the bow opened and the apron fell to the ground. As the waitress bent over to pick up the apron, Mike lifted her skirt and let out a loud belch-like grunt. The waitress mumbled something under her breath and dashed off.
Anas’s other partner from Khalid’s picture seemed to be the polar opposite of Mike. He was short and wiry, clean shaven with dark, penetrating eyes that exuded an intense energy. I took a seat at the adjoining table, ordered some coffee, and placed my phone against the plate at an angle that allowed me to take a surreptitious picture of Mike, his partner, and the two pulp fiction mannequins. I then turned the phone to flight mode and started recording. One of the dark-suited fellows was checking me out, then mumbled something to Mike, who looked at me. I nodded casually and got up to help myself at the buffet. I spotted a beautiful classic Patek Philippe watch on Mike’s wrist, which seemed a little out of character, given his boorish appearance. By pure chance, it was the very same watch my friend Riad had bought in Zurich last time we met, and I had to smile as I remembered Riad’s proud exuberance when he showed me his trophy acquisition. I decided to use Mike’s watch as an icebreaker when I returned to my table.
“Pardon the interruption. I couldn’t help but notice your gorgeous watch,” I said. “One of the nicest ones Patek has ever made. In my opinion, the most exquisite specimen of its Grand Complications.” Silently, I thanked Riad for his extensive horological explanations, which might have been a little tedious at the time but sure came in handy now.
Mike’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t you join us?” he asked as he motioned for the two dark suits to scamper. Even though Khalid had told me that Mike was from Michigan, I was still surprised by his broad midwestern accent and the high pitch of his voice, which did not match his large frame.
“Thank you, that’s very kind,” I said, and claimed one of the seats that had just been vacated by what I concluded were his bodyguards. We shook hands, I introduced myself, and Mike introduced the other man as his friend Imad.
Mike reeked of cologne. The sweet smell was nauseating, especially since I was still nursing the remnants of that nasty headache. A waiter came and moved my coffee to their table.
Mike was chatty, especially once he heard that I lived in New York. He was obsessed with American sports, and he followed the Detroit teams with childlike enthusiasm.
“Man, the Lions suck something fierce,” he exclaimed. “God damn it, do they fucking suck! I mean, those guys blow some serious chunks. Seriously, dude, ever since Barry Sanders retired, I have nothing to look forward to other than draft picks at the end of the season. I have the NFL package downloaded on my iPad, and nobody is allowed to talk to me on Sundays and Mondays during the season—not that the fucking Lions ever play on Monday night football! You will not believe the places I end up watching the games on my iPad!”
“Really? Like where?” Mike’s sports talk was hard to bear.
“Man, you have no idea!” Mike said, his voice raised in excitement. “In the most desolate areas near the Iraqi border, in no-man’s-land driving through Oman, in some stinking shithole in Egypt, or when I’m crossing from Turkey into Syria.”
As he spoke the last words, I saw Imad glare at him. Mike winced and stopped talking for a moment but quickly recovered.
“It’s not just the Lions,” he continued, without giving me a chance to zero in on his mention of Syria. “Don’t even get me started on the Detroit Pistons.” Enunciating the basketball team as the “Deee-troyt Peees-tens,” he sounded like a sports announcer stirring up the crowd. “Man, I miss the Bad Boys days. I was in middle school at the time. And the Fab Five at Michigan—I’m still trying to recover from C-Webb’s time-out brain freeze! Good times, man, good times!”
Mike stopped talking for a moment. This was my opening. I tried to come up with the most inconspicuous way to ask Mike what had brought him to such a dangerous place as Syria. Even though I had run through this kind of scenario countless times in my head just a few hours earlier during my sleepless night in the hotel room, an adrenaline rush blocked the words in my throat. Before I had a chance to regain my composure, Imad turned to me. “What brings you to Amman, Daniel?” he asked as he looked straight in my eyes. Imad’s features had an unusual, powerful intensity, and when he spoke, his expression exuded spartan efficiency and calculation. His jaw and cheekbones suddenly had hard, angular edges. Not a single gesture was redundant.
“I was hoping to meet someone,” I answered warily.
Imad looked at me suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘hoping to meet someone’? You flew all the way over here without a confirmed meeting?”
Clearly, Imad’s senses were a lot more attuned than Mike’s. His English was perfect, with a slight French accent.
“It’s a complicated story,” I said, choosing my words cautiously. “I don’t want to bore you with it.”
Mike was grateful for the opportunity to turn the conversation back to sports. “Tell me, Daniel, which New York team do you root for?” he jumped back in. “Giants? Please don’t say the Jets! God damn it, they fucking suck!”
Before I could reply, Imad looked at Mike with that same harsh glare. “Hold on, Mike,” he said sharply, “I’d love to hear Daniel out. Besides, I’ve had it up to here with your American sports!”
“But—” Mike tried to object.
“Halass!” Imad hissed. “Enough already, Mike!” Turning to me, he asked, “So, Daniel, what’s the story?”
“Well, to keep it short, a friend of mine asked me to help him find a young man, the son of a friend of his, who seems to have disappeared in Syria.”
Now both Imad and Mike were listening intently.
“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” Mike asked.
“Vanished, without a trace,” I said. “Or, rather, almost without a trace.”
“Where did he vanish?” Imad asked.
“Apparently somewhere in northern Syria, after crossing the Turkish border,” I said.
“When?” Imad wanted to know.
“About two and a half months ago,” I answered.
“Where was he heading?” Imad continued to grill me in a tone that sounded more like a demand.
“To Aleppo, I believe,” I said, “though he never made it there.”
“You said that he vanished almost without a trace. What do you mean, ‘almost’?” Imad seemed completely focused, and I vowed to myself never to underestimate this man. His alertness reminded me of Jamil in Beirut.
“Well, they were a party of three,” I started carefully. “Two of the three vanished, but it seems that one is still around. This third person is the little I have of a trace.”
Mike was about to say something, but Imad stopped him immediately by putting his index finger in front of his lips.
“So, this third person, is that the one you were hoping to meet here?” Imad asked.
Before I could answer, Mike blurted out: “This has to be Anas!” As my heart beat in excitement, Imad stared at Mike with a look of abject contempt. Mike winced, realizing that he had just made a very dumb mistake. I resisted the urge to check that my phone was still recording.
“Why don’t we move to a quiet spot in the lounge?” Imad suggested. “Mike, settle the bill and join us in a few minutes.”
Mike sulked but did as told. He tried to get the attention of the waitress whose skirt he had just lifted, but she turned her head away in disgust. As another waiter rushed over to Mike, Imad and I walked to the lounge and found a discreet sitting area.
“Well, was that the person you were trying to meet?” Imad asked as soon as we sat down.
“Yes, that is the name of the person,” I replied. “Do you know him?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“That also depends,” Imad said.
“I don’t understand. It depends to the second power?” I asked.
“Something like that.” Imad smiled. “First, it depends on whether this is the same Anas. And second, assuming—just as a hypothetical, of course—that it is the same Anas, it depends on who is asking, why this person is asking, and how much it’s worth to the person who is asking.”
“Wow, that’s almost to the fourth power.”
Imad laughed. “You’re right. So, if we stick to pure hypotheticals, if it happened to be the same Anas, and if we work on the assumption that you are the one asking, let’s move straight to the third power, to use your line of thought: Why are you asking?”
I hesitated for a moment. Imad was clearly suspicious. His mind worked quickly and precisely. A mistake now, even a slight miscue, and Imad would probably walk away, causing this door to be shut for good. I needed to give Imad enough information with a satisfactory answer of why I was asking about Anas, so that I could clear this threshold and move to the last stage—the fourth power—and allow Imad to name his price. In my thoughts, the tactical steps seemed straightforward, but there were minefields all over the place. I decided, for now, less would be more.
“It’s exactly as I said earlier,” I began, “no hidden agenda. A friend asked me for help in locating this young man, because I have some decent relationships in the region.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re stalling, Daniel. Besides, in this region your decent relationships are not going to do you much good. It’s the indecent ones you will need if you want to get something done in this godforsaken part of the world.”
As if on cue, Mike joined us at the table. Imad motioned for him to take a seat and keep quiet.
“I figured as much,” I said after Mike sat down. “Which is perhaps why I am trying to connect with this Anas gentleman.”
“Tell me, Daniel,” Imad said, ignoring my subtle jab at Anas, “was this missing person a government employee?”
“No.”
“A journalist?”
“No.”
“A doctor or an aid worker?”
“No, not to my knowledge.”
“Then tell me, my friend, why the hell was he traveling to Syria? It’s not exactly high on the list of most sane people’s travel destinations.” Imad’s tone was harsh. “Did he have any relationship with a person or group in Syria, or was he going there for any specific purpose?”
“Not that I am aware of,” I said. “As far as I know, this was more of a self-discovery adventure than anything else.” There was a piercing quality to Imad’s questions, like a drill that penetrated deeper and deeper in tight, circular motions. I had hoped to wrest from Imad valuable information about Anas, but instead Imad was interrogating me.
“For most people, a trip to Syria ends up being a one-way journey,” Imad said. “That’s one hell of a self-discovery! It had better be worth it.”
“I am just doing this as a favor to someone who wants to help one of his closest friends. That’s all there is to it,” I said, trying to transition to level four of Imad’s challenge.
“You are doing this for free?” Mike jumped in. Again, Imad stared him down, but this time Mike refused to be silenced—too preposterous was the idea that I would do this without a financial incentive. “Seriously, dude, for free?” he repeated, and shook his head with a look of revulsion when I nodded. “God damn it, what a sucker!”
“Thank you for your invaluable insights, Mike,” Imad said, then turned back to me. “Now that Mike has done all he can to help you lower the price for our fourth power level, let’s talk about it.”
“Huh?” Mike grunted.
“It’s okay, Mike, just try to follow,” Imad said patronizingly. “It’s a little easier if you only listen and don’t talk. We’ll make an effort to speak slowly.”
Mike looked completely lost. “I don’t get it. What do you mean?”
“I mean shut the fuck up!” Imad replied in a raised voice.
I hesitated to say anything for fear of getting caught in the middle of their spat. Mike’s face had a vapid expression. Finally, he sighed loudly and shrugged his shoulders. This did not seem to be the first time Imad had spoken to him this way.
“So, Daniel, now that we’ve cleared the first three levels—in other words, it’s the same Anas, you’re the one asking, and you’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart,” Imad said sarcastically, “let’s talk about what this is worth to you.”
This was the tricky moment I had been dreading. “It’s important to me,” I said, “so by that measure I suppose it’s worth a lot.”
“Dude, seriously,” Mike jumped in again. “We’re not in the favor business. Imad means how much money! Cash!”
“Thank you, Mike,” Imad said, then turned to me. “So beyond the emotional or even spiritual importance of this quest to you, are you ready to discuss a price?”
Imad’s directness made it hard to avoid this topic, and stalling would have been an insult to his obvious intelligence, so I decided to be equally direct. “I’m afraid there is no payment on the table for this information, Imad. And even if there were—which is not the case—I could not name a value without knowing what I am getting. I’m not really big on sight-unseen deals.”
“That’s clever, especially in this part of the world,” Mike interjected.
“Once again, Mike, thank you,” Imad said. “You’ve been an inspiration to us all. The patron saint of all negotiators.”
Mike got up in a huff. “I’ve got to take a piss,” he said as he stormed away.
“Please forgive Mike,” Imad said. “He doesn’t know that he’s an idiot. Then again, if he knew, he would not be one.”
I tried in vain to suppress a smile.
“Now that we’ve got that dull instrument out of the way,” Imad continued, “I’d say our foreplay has lasted long enough. Two words: How much?”
His bluntness stung. “Look, Imad, I appreciate your direct style,” I tried to hedge. “As I said, money is not on the table. It cannot be—not for any information on the missing person, just like I cannot be compensated for my efforts.”
“Actually, Daniel, you’ve got this all wrong. This is the one stage of this process where money can be on the table. If we agree on the terms, and you get the information you need, you might end up being able to locate the young man you are looking for. At that stage, you will want to free him, right?”
I nodded, though I had frozen the moment Imad mentioned “the young man.” I had never divulged Paul Blocher’s age. Was this a slip of the tongue and an implicit admission that he knew about Paul, or was it just a generic description of a person that held no special meaning? Or was it a subtle way for Imad to insinuate that he had the goods while preserving full plausible deniability if pressed on this point? My bet was on the latter.
“Daniel, stay with me, please. Focus!” Imad said tersely, noticing my distracted state. “You want me to give you the information on Anas and then presumably for Anas to give you the information on how to find this young man, right? Assuming, of course, you are not looking for Anas so that you can spend an evening philosophizing on the horrors of war and the dark side of human nature. It’s this young man you are trying to find, right?”
Again, “this young man,” twice more. I nodded.
“Well then,” Imad continued, “up until that point, there is nothing that would keep you from offering money for information. It’s not illegal, not illegitimate, not even unethical, assuming you even give a shit about that. Am I missing something?”
I shook my head, weary of doing or saying anything that could be construed as consent. I was also aware of my phone recording this potentially compromising conversation about money changing hands, even just for information, and even if everything was carefully constructed to avoid the appearance that the payments had been made for this purpose. I had to chuckle at my own predicament.
“Good.” Imad chuckled back. “Now, it’s once you have all the information that your problems really kick in.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s assume I connect you to Anas. And let’s assume you meet Anas and he directs you to the place where this young man is. Hypothetically, of course,” Imad added with another smile.
“Of course,” I said. “Maybe that’s why it’s called an assumption.”
Imad’s smile vanished. “Well then, since you’re so quick on the uptake,” he said, “you will also readily appreciate how illegal it is to pay any kind of ransom to release someone in captivity in Syria. Unless, of course, you can get the Qataris to pay the ransom for you, the way they do for most of the kidnapped Americans, Brits, and Frenchies—you know, wink-wink, with all those fake denials! But if you can’t finagle that, then paying a ransom puts you knee-deep in illegal shit. Are you following?”
I understood. I remembered Huby’s repeated attempts to pay me for my efforts as well as our walk in Paris, when he told me about the government official who had warned him that he would be prosecuted if he offered to pay any ransom for Paul’s release. And this warning was not an isolated instance, as I knew from personal experience. Imad’s words brought back painful memories. Nine months earlier, during a search for another person who had gone missing in Syria, a Lebanese American middleman demanded an extravagant fee for arranging a ransom payment, without offering any proof of life, let alone any evidence that he was in communication with the missing person’s captors or that he had the ability to get him released in return for the ransom payment. I refused and severed my ties to this shady go-between, thinking that this would be the end of it. A week later, I found out that he had tried to sell these same ransom services to an American intelligence official in Beirut and was warned in no uncertain terms that he would be arrested and prosecuted if he tried to do this again. The middleman vanished, as did any trace of the missing person. I had never stopped thinking about that experience and kept obsessing over the conundrum of giving in to ransom demands. As much as it pained me to admit it, I realized that Imad was right—the only time it was not illegal to make a payment was now, when all I was seeking was information.
Imad seemed to read my thoughts. “I can see that you might need a moment to think this over, maybe even call your friend,” he continued in a softer tone. “If it helps you wrap your mind around it, think of it as a foray into Islamic finance.”
“Islamic finance?”
“Sure. Let me walk you through this,” Imad said, clearly pleased by the prospect of schooling me. “We might as well have a little fun and learn something new while we get to know each other. As you probably realize, Sharia law places strict prohibitions on interest payments, right?”
I nodded, even though I had no idea where he was going with his lecture.
“Good. So some clever person has come up with these ingenious structures to get around the prohibitions, you know, sukuk bonds and all that, which place some asset or property in the investment so that the payments can be called ‘rent’ instead of ‘interest.’ And when the sukuk expires, these rent payments miraculously expire with it.”
I nodded again, even though I still did not know why he was telling me all this. Imad’s entire discourse on Sharia-compliant bonds seemed utterly out of context. I was very confused.
“My point is that an interest payment still needs to be made, but one has to find a legal way, or rather a way that is not strictly illegal, to make it. Satisfy the letter of the law, and ignore its spirit, if you follow me.”
I was beginning to understand.
“I can see that you are starting to see the light,” Imad said. By now, I had convinced myself that this shrewd man was able to read my mind. I wondered whether I could perhaps trick him with a fake thought, like a red herring. It was the same kind of absurd tactical trick I would use as a child when trying to hide a bad thought from God. It failed then as thoroughly as it would fail now with Imad. “It’s the same concept here,” he continued. “You can make a payment to be connected to Anas and then from Anas to the young man. A slightly inflated payment, perhaps, because the inflation will also have to cover a possible consideration for those who might be holding this young man. Without calling it a ransom payment, of course. The principles of Islamic finance—but made in order to be circumvented, like all religious laws.”
I got it. Again, I remembered the delicate fact that my phone was recording our potentially incriminating exchange. This guy was quite brilliant but also the type of person who would never respect someone who surrendered too easily. “That assumes, of course, that you and Anas would pass on the inflation value, or that this is not just a ploy to increase the price and there is no further step after Anas,” I said. “What if the young man is no longer alive? A dead end, in every respect.”
“Well, my friend, that’s a risk you’re just going to have to take, isn’t it?” Imad said callously. “Remember, you’ve approached us empty handed. A beggar at least has a cup, yet you come with nothing. We have the information, which, in war as in peace, is everything. Information is gold, so to speak.”
“Okay,” I said carefully.
“And I assume you know the golden rule, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I answered. “Which golden rule?”
“He who has the gold rules. Or, if you prefer, he who has the gold makes the rules—that golden rule!” Imad replied triumphantly. “As I said, the information you are seeking is as precious as gold. Give it some thought, then let me know. I’ll be back in the hotel this evening. If you want to talk, you can find me at the bar. If you don’t show up, I’ll have my answer, and you’ll never see me again.”
Without another word, Imad got up, turned his back to me, and walked away. No handshake, no niceties. Gone was all the playful fourth-power and Islamic finance banter of a few moments earlier. As he moved toward the hotel entrance, he spotted Mike and signaled for him to follow. Once they were out of earshot, I pulled out my phone and stopped the recording.
I tried to retrace the past minutes in my mind. I had been unable to slow down the conversation with Imad to a point where I would have enough time to consider the repercussions of my words. It was evident that Imad and Mike knew Anas and were in a position to connect me to him. They presented it as a business negotiation—information for cash. There seemed to be little room to move this into something softer—information for information, information for a favor, or information for the vague assurance of a relationship—the smallest carrot I could dangle before them. While Mike seemed slow on the uptake, Imad was clearly sharp as a tack and utterly unsentimental. There was no way he would give me something for nothing, and he was hardly the type to be easily fooled into doing so unwittingly.
Back in the room I paced back and forth. I feared that a failed negotiation with these fellows would prompt them to warn Anas not to meet with me in the event that I might be able to track him down by some other means. This trail would go cold immediately. It was the only one I had, and I had to find a way to take advantage of it. I needed to clear my mind. The hotel had a lovely pool, and I decided to go for a swim.
To my relief, there was not a soul in the pool, and the water felt soothing as I sunk in. The conversation with Imad was playing in my head as I swam lap after lap. It occurred to me that Imad might actually possess the same information I was hoping to get from Anas, but since he had not offered that in our last conversation, he was unlikely to do so in our next one—even if for no other reason than that the addition of the Anas layer would also mean another opportunity to demand a higher price. There would be no stalling Imad. By the evening, we would either come to terms, or this door would close for good. Even though I kept telling myself that I had done everything in my power to find this Anas, I struggled to come to terms with my failure, which was looking more and more likely with each lap.
Twenty minutes into my swim, as I was about to turn for another lap, I saw two men in suits near the edge of the pool. As they approached me, I recognized them. They were the pulp fiction characters from the breakfast area, the same two whom Mike had forced to vacate their seats to make room for me. I stopped swimming.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Our boss wants to talk to you,” the smaller one answered.
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Here?”
“Here.”
“Would you mind if I swim a few more laps? I’m almost finished, just five more minutes.”
“Now,” he repeated, leaving little room for debate.
I got out of the pool, dried off quickly, and wrapped myself in the hotel bathrobe. Only then did I spot Mike sitting at the other corner of the pool deck. I walked over to him, escorted by my two new black-suited friends.
“So sorry to interrupt your swim,” Mike said with a conceited smirk.
“It’s all right, Mike, what can I do for you?”
“I feel like we never had a chance to finish our conversation and really become friends this morning,” Mike said. “Imad was quite rude, actually, and I wanted to have a chance to get to know you better. It’s only right, given that we’re in business together.”
“We are?”
“Yep, that’s the plan. Anyway, you were looking good in the pool. Did you swim in college?” Clearly, Mike could not stay away from his beloved sports for very long.
“Afraid not,” I said. “Both because I never went to college in the US, and also because I am not such a good swimmer.”
Mike gave me a pitying look. “That’s too bad. Michigan has an amazing swim team. One of the best, like most sports programs at U of M.”
“Good to know,” I said, a little annoyed that I had to end my pool session early for this idle chitchat. “So, Mike, what is it you wish to talk about?”
“Straight to the point, I like that,” Mike said. “Well, I felt like we parted on a bit of a sour note this morning. As I said, Imad can be rude, a little rough around the edges, and I wanted to make sure that his abrupt style did not leave a sour taste in your mouth.”
“No worries,” I said. “I’m glad he didn’t beat around the bush. At least I know where I stand.”
“So, where do you stand?” Mike asked.
“Now?” I asked. “You want an answer now?”
“Why not?” Mike said. “There’s no time like the present.”
“I thought I would have until this evening. At least that’s what Imad said.”
“God damn it, I’m not Imad.” Mike raised his voice. “Fuck him. You’re dealing with me now.” All of a sudden, there was a dark threat in Mike’s tone. Unlike my earlier conversation with Imad in the hotel lounge, where my main worry had been that I might make a mistake that could end my chances of ever finding Anas, the interaction with Mike suddenly carried the possibility of a violent confrontation. The two suits moved closer to us, as if they might need to interfere. Mike waved them away.
“I’ll try to be as clear as Imad, since that’s the way you like it,” Mike continued. “Either we come to terms now, or we never come to terms. The price I will give you here and now will be far below what Imad would have asked for this evening, so if we cannot shake hands now, there will be no need for you to have a drink with Imad this evening.”
While Mike lacked Imad’s quick wit and finesse, he had no difficulties getting his point across. I concluded that my best hope was to extract some information from him without giving him a firm commitment of a deal—something I would never be able to pull off with Imad.
“I hear you, Mike, I really do,” I said. “But before we discuss price, how do I know that you have the goods? I have no evidence that you know the Anas I am looking for.”
“You’re right, you have no evidence,” Mike said. “But I get to dictate the terms here.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“For the same reason dogs lick their balls,” Mike said gleefully. “Because I can.”
I laughed, hoping Mike would be pleased that his joke had been so well received.
“Anyhow, don’t you trust me?” Mike asked, still very satisfied with himself.
“Sure I trust you, Mike, of course I do. After all, we’re old friends,” I said. “But from one sports enthusiast to another, how pathetic would it be if I just surrendered and agreed to a price without any proof that you have what I’m trying to buy. I’d be negotiating with myself. Very unsportsmanlike.”
He took the bait. “You’re right, Daniel, we sports fans have to stick together. Anyone who can appreciate the greatness of Barry Sanders and my beloved Wolverines is my brother.”
As ridiculous as Mike’s sports obsession was, it provided me with a fortuitous opening to bond with this bizarre person. I happened to know just a little bit about the Detroit teams because Laura was a proud Detroiter and a former colleague of mine used to be a rabid Lions fan. When Barry Sanders, the team’s star running back, retired in 1999 at the peak of his career, my colleague was stunned and depressed, as many in the American football-loving world were. This was my opportunity to show off the little sports knowledge I did possess. I went for it.
“Yeah, Sanders was great.” I laid it on thick. “The day he retired was one of the saddest days of my life. It still hurts.”
Mike’s eyes lit up. “You’re the man!” he shouted. “Give me a hug, brother!” He stood up and gave me a bear hug. My bathrobe flew open, and I was standing there bare-chested, enveloped by this large man.
“Man, I cannot tell you how good it feels to talk to someone who knows Barry Sanders, let alone recognizes greatness when he sees it,” Mike said. “Barry was a beast! If he had been able to run behind a decent offensive line, it would have been game over in the greatest-ever debate. I mean, God damn it, just think about it, if he’d had the Cowboys’ offensive line . . . can you even imagine that! Emmitt fuckin’ Smith, my ass! Barry would have shattered all the records. The dude ran for a hundred and fifty yards in his sleep! Man, I am so damn happy to be able to share this stuff with someone who can appreciate it. I almost want to cry. It’s like being banished to the desert out here—nobody has a clue about the NFL. All they care about here is soccer, man. Soccer!”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it,” I said.
“No kidding,” Mike sneered, completely missing my sarcasm. “Anyway, back at the ranch, where were we? Oh yeah, how do you know that my Anas is the one you are looking for? Maybe this will help,” he said as he pulled out his iPhone. Which reminded me that I had forgotten to record this conversation. Instinctively, I put my hand in the right pocket of my bathrobe and considered taking out my phone, but there was no way for me to start recording now in a safe, inconspicuous way. Mike scrolled though some pictures, then held up the screen for me to see. “Does this dude look familiar?”
The man in the picture was Anas. The same one as the very large person in the photograph Khalid had sent me. There was no doubt. I tried to hide my excitement as Mike kept scrolling on his phone. “You want to see more? Here, this is me and Anas, somewhere in Idlib. Man, that was crazy, bombs everywhere. And here’s one with both of us and Imad in Raqqah. Talk about nasty! But boy, did we make a lot of money there! Just raked it in, man. Fucking raked it in! And here’s an old one of Imad and Anas from the wedding.”
“Whose wedding?” I asked, amazed that Mike was sharing these pictures.
“Anas and Loubna’s wedding in Damascus, many years ago,” Mike said. “They’re divorced now—it got ugly. What a dumb shit, our boy Anas! Loubna is one smoking-hot chick! Smoking, I tell you! Who leaves someone like that?”
Mike seemed to have forgotten the reason for our meeting and was showing me pictures as if we were old friends sharing family photos, including pictures of his brother and sister and some other friends. He was in a zone, and I decided to press my luck.
“So this Loubna, where does she live today?” I asked in as flat a tone as I could muster.
“In Dubai of course,” Mike said, as if I were a complete fool for asking such a preposterous question. “She used to be involved in our operations there, you know, the girls and all that, but then she and Anas had some huge motherfucking fight, and she kicked him out of the house.”
“What happened?” I asked, hoping Mike would say more, perhaps also about “the girls” he had just mentioned.
“She caught him several times banging other women,” Mike said. “But the final straw was when she walked in on him humping her own sister in their bed.”
“Lovely,” I said.
“I know, right?” Mike said, laughing. “I mean, who does that? You don’t screw your wife’s sister in your own house. You do it at the sister’s place. Duh!”
I kept quiet as Mike continued to scroll through the pictures on this phone. “Here’s one more: Anas and I near Kobane.”
“Who’s the third guy?” I asked, pointing to the other man in the picture.
“Some Kurdish dude called Alan,” Mike replied.
I held my breath. Alan—the same name Huby had mentioned in Paris, the one confirmed by the Sheikh in Beirut. Alan was from a village near Kobane. It had to be the same person.
“Anyway, enough of these pics,” Mike continued as he put his phone back in his pocket. “I assume you’re convinced by now that I have the goods.”
“Yes, thank you.” I said. “By the way, is Anas in Amman?”
“You missed him by a day,” Mike answered. “He left for Dubai late last night. Tough luck, brother. Bad for you, good for me. So, let’s get down to business, shall we?”
Just then, my phone vibrated. It was Khalid. I pressed the volume control button to stop the vibration. I thought about turning on the recorder now but reconsidered. If Mike noticed, it would certainly jeopardize his astonishing eagerness to share information and pictures of Anas.
“So, here’s my price,” Mike continued without waiting for my answer. “One million for me to connect you to Anas.”
“One million what, Syrian pounds?” I asked, hoping to insert some levity into the situation and also trying to buy myself some time to come up with a strategy for the inevitable money conversation I was facing.
“Yeah, right, that’s like five thousand bucks!” Mike said, clearly not amused. “No dude, one million dollars. US dollars. One million bucks. Bones. Greens. However you prefer it, so long as it’s cash. And I don’t take IOUs or credit cards.”
“That’s quite a bit of money for an introduction,” I said.
“Not just any introduction,” Mike said. “My introduction. And remember, it’ll be a lot more if you wait till this evening to speak to Imad. You’ll get a sense of inflation, Syrian-style.”
“Still, a million dollars just to connect me to Anas,” I said, trying to squeeze some more information out of Mike. “Surely, for this price you can throw in a little more.”
“There’s nothing more to throw in,” Mike barked.
“Then let’s discuss the price, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“God damn it, dude, do I look like I’m negotiating? I don’t think you get it, there’s nothing to discuss,” Mike scoffed. “It’s a take it or leave it kind of thing. And every hour, the price goes up by ten percent. Think of it as a war premium.”
“A war premium?”
“Yeah. The guy you are looking for got lost in Syria. Syria is at war. War is a business. And business is good!” Mike stretched the “good” like a used car salesman would in a cheesy TV jingle.
Before I could answer, a hotel guest entered the pool area. Mike shouted across the pool: “Sorry, closed for a private event.”
The guest seemed unimpressed. He ignored Mike and took off his bathrobe.
“Sir, the pool is not available at the moment!” Mike shouted a little louder.
“Excuse me, but who the fuck are you?” the guest shouted back.
Mike looked at his two goons. “Go explain to this cocksucker who the fuck I am.”
They walked over to the hotel guest, and one of them handed him his bathrobe while the other blocked the access to the pool. The guest looked at the two men, shook his head, and muttered something under his breath. Without a word, they escorted him out of the area. “Try the gym,” Mike shouted after the guest. “I hear it’s real nice.”
Mike turned back to me. “Asshole. Okay, where was I before we were so rudely interrupted? Oh yes, the price. It’s not negotiable.”
There was no way for me to stall any further. I would probably not get any more free information out of Mike, and a payment of this magnitude was not in the cards. I had managed to find out that Anas was in Dubai and had received confirmation of Paul Blocher’s Kurdish handler, Alan, as well as Anas’s wife, Loubna, who lived in Dubai. It was a lot more than I could have hoped for and one hundred percent more than I could have expected to receive for free. “Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass,” I said.
“That would be a mistake,” Mike said. “This might be your only chance of finding that lost dude.”
“That’s a risk I’m just going to have to live with,” I said. “But I do appreciate the offer.”
For a brief moment, I considered jumping back into the pool to finish my swim but decided that it might send the wrong signal, especially after the scene I had just witnessed with the other hotel guest. I stood up and shook Mike’s hand. “Thanks again for your offer, Mike. Go Blue!” It was the battle cry of the University of Michigan sports teams. Mike did not react. As I turned to leave, Mike’s two goons returned and retook their position behind him. “See you around,” I said.
I had taken a few steps when one of the goons came up to me. “Our boss would like to talk to you.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
I turned around and walked back to Mike. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Have a seat,” Mike said.
“Here’s the deal,” he continued as I sat down again. “Rumor has it that you’ve been paid ten million bucks to find this missing dude.”
“Come on Mike, that’s nonsense.”
“Oh yeah, ten million!” Mike said with a hearty laugh. “In fact, rumor has it that you asked for twenty but only received ten. And now you’re too cheap to spend one of those ten to find the guy and maybe save his life. You’d rather pocket it all and fuck that lost dude.”
“Seriously, Mike, what’s this about? We both know this isn’t true.”
“Yeah, I know it’s not true, and you know it’s not true,” Mike said with a wink. “But it’s what I’m going to tell the world. This is how rumors get started, my brother.”
“So you’re going to spread lies about me just because I didn’t accept your offer?”
“Yep, that pretty much sums it up,” Mike replied with a huge smile, visibly pleased with himself.
“Why?” I asked. “So we didn’t come to terms on the price. So what? No harm done. We just part ways, perhaps to meet another day. Why would you do this?”
“Because this way, everyone else will know better than to reject my offers. Nobody messes with Mike, right guys?” Mike looked at his two companions, who both nodded robotically. “Think of it as the Keyser Söze rule. You know, from The Usual Suspects—my favorite movie, by the way. Destroy the first one, even if he’s family, and word will spread.”
“So you’re telling me that you will make this stuff up just to send a message to anyone else you might possibly negotiate with one day?”
“That’s exactly what I am telling you. Clever, right?”
I was completely cornered. My only option was a convincing bluff. “Well then, I suppose it’s a good thing that I recorded this conversation on my phone,” I said as calmly as I could.
“You what?” Mike blurted out incredulously.
“I recorded our conversation, just in case,” I said as I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my bathrobe. “Looks like ‘just in case’ just happened.”
Mike suddenly turned pale. His jaw dropped, and little specs of saliva appeared in the corners of his mouth.
“I started recording our conversation when I pulled out my phone a few minutes ago, remember?” I continued, thinking of Khalid’s call that I had silenced. “It’s the beauty of these modern smartphones: you can start recording with two quick taps on the screen. Very practical.”
“No w-way! I d-don’t b-believe you,” Mike stuttered in a weirdly high pitch. All his bravado seemed to have vanished. He had the look of someone who had just been abandoned by his date at the high school prom.
“Well, this one’s a risk you’re going to have to live with,” I said as I stood up. I decided to leave before Mike had a chance to recover from this setback or before he could get his goons to grab me or my phone. “Pleasure meeting you,” I said as I walked away without turning around. I heard no voices or footsteps behind me.
As soon as I reached my room, I locked and bolted the door and sat on the edge of the bed. The adrenaline rush of my bluff with Mike, fueled by the fear of getting called on it by this thug and his two bouncers, started to drain from my body. My shoulders slumped, and I slowly slid from the bed to the floor. I closed my eyes and tried to regulate my breathing until I regained my composure. I needed to get my act together quickly and contemplate my next steps, so I sent Khalid a text message, asking him to let me know when he was available to Skype. Five minutes later, Khalid replied that he was ready. He picked up in a good mood. I told him about the events of the day, from the breakfast encounter and morning conversation with Imad to the pool meeting with Mike a few minutes ago, and why I had not been able to answer his last call. When I finished, Khalid laughed.
“All in all, I’d say it has been a fairly productive day,” he said. “You’ve received a fair amount of free information, though now your reputation is in tatters. We’ll have to find a way to fix that. Ten million dollars! You could have at least offered to share some of that plunder with me.”
“Very funny, Khalid,” I said, not quite as amused as he seemed to be.
“Oh, take it with a sense of humor,” he said. “This Mike guy sounds too dumb to see through your recording bluff. I would have been more worried if this had happened with the other fellow, Imad. But, then again, he sounds too smart to threaten you with that silly rumor to begin with.”
Khalid’s words were balm for my soul. “So what do we do now?” I asked. “After the pool scene, I’m starting to feel a little paranoid.”
“Remember, it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you,” he said with a chuckle.
“Thanks, Khalid. You’re in rare form today.”
“Relax. It seems that you have accomplished everything there is to accomplish in Amman,” Khalid said. “Time to skip town, the sooner the better. Try to move up your flight to Dubai. I’m sure there’s one every few hours.”
I was relieved that Khalid was too much of a gentleman to bring up the fact that I had missed Anas because I hadn’t traveled to Amman quickly enough. He reminded me to call Fuad before I left so that he could take me to the airport and through security. I promised Khalid to keep him posted.
I called the airline and rebooked my scheduled flight to Dubai to one that would leave in just over two hours. Cutting it close, perhaps, but feasible with Fuad’s help. I rang the front desk to inform them that I was checking out early. Then I called Fuad, who told me that Khalid had just texted him. He would be at the hotel entrance in ten minutes. I hopped in the shower, barely dried off, packed my bag, and left the room. On the way to the elevator, I received a text message from Khalid letting me know that Fuad was already downstairs and also informing me that he had another passenger in his car—someone whose appearance might shock me and that I should brace myself. I was in too much of a hurry to pay much attention to his strange forewarning.
As I stepped out of the elevators, I spotted Fuad walking toward the reception desk.
“You’re all set with the checkout,” he said. “Let’s get going. One more thing—there is someone in the car, whom I had not intended for you to meet. But I had no time to drop him off at home when you called ten minutes ago, so he’ll have to come with us to the airport. I apologize for that.”
“Of course. Not a problem,” I said, confused by Fuad’s apology on the heels of Khalid’s ominous alert a few moments earlier.
As we left the hotel, I saw a black SUV with tinted windows speed up to the entrance and screech to a halt. Just in time, I managed to step behind a column next to the main door in order to avoid being seen. Out the driver’s side of the SUV emerged Mike, who demonstratively threw the keys to the valet. Out the other door came Imad, who was berating Mike with some choice words. It was evident that the two were in the midst of a heated argument. Two pigeons were madly bobbing their heads, trying to get out of Mike’s way as he approached the main entrance. One pigeon managed to escape, but Mike’s kick caught the other one with all his might. The unfortunate pigeon smashed with a thump against a glass door, with feathers flying everywhere. “Fucking rats with wings!” Mike cursed loudly as he entered the hotel. I made sure I remained concealed by the column as I turned around and hurried toward Fuad’s car.
“They did not see you,” Fuad said, reading my thoughts. “But let’s get out of here. I’d rather not push our luck by dillydallying, as much as it would be fun to watch these two lovebirds fight.”
I got the sense that Fuad was fully aware of my interactions with Imad and Mike, either from Khalid, or because he had found another way to witness them.
Right away, Fuad confirmed my intuition. “The good news is that Mike’s either too stupid to realize that he gave you all that free information earlier today or too embarrassed to admit it to Imad, who would skin him alive if he found out.”
Fuad motioned for me to get into the backseat on the passenger’s side. In front of me was a young man, probably a teenager, wearing a baseball cap. The skin on the back of his neck was completely discolored and bore huge scars. Still, I was not prepared for what I saw when he turned around to mouth a soundless hello as Fuad started the car. I was looking at the face of a completely disfigured young man who had suffered massive burns. One eye shut or missing, I could not tell. He was also missing most of his nose and the left side of his mouth. His expression and body language signaled the most severe pain and exhaustion. He was hard to look at, and impossible not to. I was instantly struck by an overwhelming fleshy smell emanating from this young man, like raw meat that was about to go bad. It was the smell of immeasurable sadness. For a few seconds, I choked up, unable to say a word. Finally, I mumbled that I was pleased to meet him, and he turned around again.
“This is Saif,” Fuad said as we drove off.
“My goodness, what happened to him?” I whispered. I was instantly ashamed of my reaction and hoped that Saif had not heard me.
“You don’t have to speak so softly,” Fuad said as he looked at me through the rearview mirror. “Saif is deaf in one ear and almost deaf in the other. He got caught in one of the chemical attacks in Syria, then in a cluster-bomb explosion as they tried to evacuate the victims. His entire family was wiped out. All of them. Mother. Father. Three older brothers and his young sister. How he survived is beyond me. It seems that God still has plans for Saif, as cruel as that may be. In his young life, he has suffered more than any human would be able to endure.”
I sat in frozen silence. “Why is he with you?” was all I could muster after a minute.
“My wife wanted to adopt a Syrian refugee,” Fuad replied as he calmly navigated the last remnants of Amman’s rush hour. “We don’t have any children of our own, which has been very hard on her—and on me, too. So one day we drove to Zaatari.”
“Zaatari?”
“Yes. Zaatari is the refugee camp in the north, close to the Syrian border. Since the war began, it has grown into a full-size city. Actually, it’s a hellhole, not a city. It’s like a city that had an abortion that lived.”
Fuad spoke these words with palpable emotion. As we drove, I could not stop myself from thinking about Paul Blocher and what might have happened to him in Syria. Had he been injured like Saif; was he maimed or disfigured? Saif seemed to embody the war’s atrocities and horrendous suffering—a human reminder of all that had gone wrong with humanity. Even though I told myself that I was just reacting to Saif’s frightful appearance and that there was no particular reason to assume the worst for Paul, I could not shake the sinking feeling that he had suffered a similar fate. Fuad pulled me out of my thoughts with a heavy sigh as he observed me through the rearview mirror.
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” he continued with a mournful voice. “There is such loss and destruction, entire generations that will never come back, children who will never, ever have a normal life. Look at Saif. Imagine the sadness. Even a heart of stone will break.”
I just shook my head and looked to my right out of the car window. I was worried I would tear up if my eyes met Fuad’s in the mirror.
Fuad continued. “So my wife spotted Saif sitting by himself. ‘I want him,’ she said as she nodded in his direction. I asked her whether she was sure. She gave me the death stare and declared, ‘We are not leaving without him.’ This is how Saif came to live with us. That day, I became an old man. Saif has been with us for one year. And my wife has never been happier.”
Saif looked at Fuad and uttered something. It sounded like a low-pitched groan, and I could not make out the words. Fuad nodded and put his right hand on Saif’s shoulder.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He wanted to know if you are my friend,” Fuad said. “Saif is terribly fearful every time he meets a stranger. He thinks he will be taken away from us. Every night he wakes up screaming. These cries are unlike anything I have ever heard. Deep, guttural sounds from a dark, dark place. Like an animal being slaughtered. It takes us hours to calm him down and get him to fall asleep again.”
“How old is Saif?” I asked.
“Fifteen,” Fuad replied.
“You and your wife are doing something incredible,” I said. “I admire you. It must be so hard.”
We had arrived at the airport. “Actually, it’s the exact opposite,” Fuad said as he pulled up next to a police car parked on the side of the terminal. “Saif saved us, saved our marriage. My wife is unable to have children because of a condition in her uterus. She had been in a deep depression ever since she found out only a few months after our wedding. I even worried that she was suicidal. One of her sisters has seven children, the other one has five, which her parents are kind enough to mention whenever they have a chance. But since Saif has entered our life, my wife has found a purpose, and so have I. Saif has been our blessing, our salvation.”
Fuad got out of the car and waved to a man a few feet away. I could not hear what Fuad told him, but the man got in the car and sat in Fuad’s place next to Saif.
“Is it okay for me to say goodbye to Saif?” I asked as I got out of the car.
“Of course,” Fuad said. “And my colleague here will stay with him until I get back. Saif knows him, so he won’t be scared.”
I went to Saif’s door and waved. Fuad opened the door. “Don’t be shy,” he said with a smile.
I stretched my right hand toward Saif, who gave me his left hand. Only then did I realize that he was missing his right hand. His left hand had only two fingers remaining, which were curled, giving the impression that he was pointing at something to the right of his body. Saif’s wrist was mangled and twisted sideways. I held his hand with my left hand as gently as I could and shook it. I tried to detect some sign of emotion in Saif’s expression as I wished him all the best, but the muscles in his face were completely rigid.
“Thank you for shaking his hand,” Fuad said as we walked into the terminal. “Most people are too frightened to look at Saif, let alone touch him. And those curved fingers scare everybody away.”
Fuad asked for my passport, and we walked to the check-in counter. As soon as we received the boarding pass, Fuad took me to a colleague at security who waved us past the queue.
“Your flight is boarding, let’s hurry up,” Fuad said as we speed-walked toward the gate. “I apologize for surprising you with Saif.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said. “I am sorry to be such an imposition. You have been so kind to take such good care of me here. Besides, I am honored to have met Saif.”
Fuad beamed. “No person who has the courage to touch Saif remains untouched. An angel.”
We arrived at the gate. Almost all passengers had already boarded. I gave Fuad a hug and thanked him once again.
“Good luck, Daniel,” he said. “I hope you find the person you are looking for.”
On the plane, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but the impressions of the day kept me awake—from Mike and Imad, for whom the war was nothing but a lucrative business, to Saif and all the unspeakable suffering he had endured. I ended up staring out of the window for most of the three hours we were in the air. Finally, the pilot announced our approach to Dubai, and I could see the city’s bright skyline and the mammoth Burj Khalifa skyscraper with its sparkling lights.