BURJUMAN MALL, DUBAI, UAE—16:50 / 4:50 P.M. GST
The Burjuman Mall wasn’t as new or fancy as some of the others in Dubai, but it was also not as big, and that was what mattered to Mahmoud. The Mall of the Emirates and the Dubai Mall were both huge and filled end to end with people. While that made it easier for him to get lost in the crowd if need be, it also made it more difficult to spot anyone who might be following him.
He still had an hour before his first meeting, so he took his time walking past the shops. Every now and then he’d stop and pretend to be examining something through a store window while using the reflection to see who was around him. So far everything seemed to be clear.
Up ahead, he saw one of the shops he wanted. He walked past the Montblanc store, then abruptly turned around and walked back. No one seemed to notice except the father of the Arab family behind him who had to dodge his sudden reversal. Mahmoud mumbled an apology and stepped in.
In a glass case, he found what he was looking for—a Montblanc Meisterstück Platinum-Coated Classique Rollerball. This would be a gift for the banker he was about to meet.
Mahmoud had uncovered a connection to a supply of specialized surveillance equipment. Right now, other than some preteen lookouts they paid two dollars a day, Hamas was essentially blind to the Israelis’ movements at the Gaza border, especially at night. If he could purchase this new gear, it would finally bring their monitoring and reconnaissance into the twenty-first century. Also included in the cache was state-of-the-art night vision equipment. Being able to see in the dark would open up a whole new set of possibilities for attacks on the Jewish border settlements through Hamas’s network of underground tunnels.
But the financial cost for this gear was very high. Mahmoud had tried to haggle the sellers down to no avail. They knew how much Hamas needed the equipment, which meant Mahmoud couldn’t bargain from a position of strength. That is what brought him to Dubai and to the banker. Spending five hundred dollars on this pen would be well worth it if it eased open the strings to the moneyman’s purse.
Mahmoud turned left out of the Montblanc store. Two windows down, he saw an olive-complected man looking into a storefront. His tight haircut and black T-shirt covered a muscular physique. He looked familiar to Mahmoud; he was sure he’d seen him before. As Mahmoud walked by, he side-glanced into the window, but the man didn’t seem to notice his passing. Still, his fox senses were tingling.
Crossing to the other side, Mahmoud walked another minute, then abruptly stopped to rummage through his Montblanc bag. Sure enough, the man was walking his direction, though still on the other side of the aisle. One store up was a Canali boutique. Mahmoud ducked in. He took his time trying on shoes, then settled on a pair of dark-brown calfskin Oxfords.
After paying, he walked out and spotted a bench. Setting the shoe bag on it, he consolidated the Montblanc pen into the Canali bag. Then he straightened up and stretched his back. This gave him the opportunity to see up and down the concourse. No muscular, olive-complected man wearing a black T-shirt. His fox senses began to calm, and a quick glance at his watch told him it was time to go.
As hopeful as he was about his first meeting tonight, he dreaded his second with one of his contacts in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was arranging a shipment of Katyusha rockets to Gaza.
The Katyusha was not a very effective weapon. The warheads were unreliable, and their aim was atrocious. But they were cheap, so Hamas bought them. If you launched enough rockets over the border into Israel, one of them was bound to hit something.
Thus, the purpose of the IRGC meeting was good; the man he was meeting, however, was not. All of the members of the Iranian military were obnoxious and condescending, and this particular colonel took those characteristics to the extreme. To make matters worse, he used being away from Iran as a license to partake of all the indulgences unavailable in Tehran. Because he wanted a partner with whom he could go dancing and drinking and womanizing, he would constantly pester Mahmoud to visit the many clubs in Dubai. It was like dealing with a bratty child, trying to get him to focus on his schoolwork when all he wanted was to go out and play.
It wasn’t that Mahmoud was a religious zealot; he was not above a little drinking and womanizing himself. But he kept the lines separate. You work during worktime, and you play during playtime.
His driver was waiting for him when he walked out, and he opened the door for him. A chilled bottle of water waited in the center console, and Mahmoud opened it and sipped. He was happy with his shoe purchase, one of the perks of his job. Now all he wanted was to make it through his meetings, then go back to his room and sleep.