THIRTY-FOUR

 

“WHERE DO YOU want me to drop you off?” Keur asked when they got back to the car.

Shepherd didn’t really know what to tell him. He had come to Dubai to lay low with Charlie only because Charlie had insisted on it. Charlie’s abrupt and mysterious departure had not only rendered that idea quaintly naive, it had left Shepherd homeless again. He could always check into a hotel, of course, but what would be the point of that? With Charlie in the wind, there was really no reason at all for him to be in Dubai.

So maybe he ought to just fly back home to Hong Kong. Okay, he thought, and do what after he got there? Shuffle papers while his client was on the run, perhaps even somewhere plotting to start a civil war? Sit around drumming his fingers while he waited for Charlie to call and tell him what the hell was going on? Watch CNN wondering if Kate would be the next Thai prime minister to be murdered?

Shepherd made a snap decision that didn’t really commit him to anything, which he thought under the circumstances was the best kind of snap decision to make.

“The airport, please,” he told Keur.

He could decide where he was going after they got there.

***

SHEPHERD LOOKED IDLY through the window as Keur drove out of Internet City and wound his way among dozens of medium-rise office buildings that all looked more or less the same. The grass was impossibly green and the artificial lakes were impossibly blue. Everything looked as if it had been colored with food dye. And for all Shepherd knew, it had. Eventually they emerged from the office park onto a busy road and followed it until it joined a yet even busier road. Then they followed that one too until they came to the massive Sheikh Zayed Road. SZ Road was a concrete arrow that ran dead straight through the desert for thirty miles all the way from the middle of Dubai to the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi. Keur eased into the heavy traffic and turned east toward the airport.

Shepherd watched the utterly flat and featureless landscape slide by. In less than a generation this desolate wasteland of sand and scrub had sprouted hundreds of soaring towers filled with offices and apartments, all connected together by massive coils of freeways and a glittering monorail system. At what must have been a staggering cost, vast stretches of desert had been laced with water pipes and carpeted with thousands of acres of deep, rich grass interspersed with full-grown trees flown in and arranged into complete forests.

In spite of all that, there was an unmistakable feeling of fragility to Dubai. Men could bring water to the desert, pave it with concrete, and set down spires of glass and steel that reached hundreds of stories into the heavens, but they still had not figured out how to put down roots in a place like this. Out beyond wherever they stopped building, there was always the sand. The sand simply waited and bided its time. There was too much of it, and it had been there too long. It would never be defeated.

They sped on down SZ Road, the car’s tires whirring hypnotically on the smooth concrete. Occasionally, stretches of the roadway dipped below ground level and the wide excavations through which it ran were lined on both sides with blue and white tiles that had been formed into the shape of huge waves. The whole effect was very much like driving at high speed through a giant men’s room.

After a half an hour they crested the Al Maktoum Bridge high over Dubai Creek and Shepherd saw the airport off in the distance. By then, he had decided exactly what he was going to do.

***

KEUR PULLED THE car to the curb outside the Emirates Airways terminal.

“Where can I reach you?” Shepherd asked.

“Does that mean that you’re going to help me?”

“It means that I might want to call you one of these days.”

Keur looked at Shepherd, unsure of what that meant, but he took only a moment to give up trying to decide. He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and scribbled something on the back.

“Use this number,” he said.

Shepherd took the card, glanced at the number written on it, and turned it over. A blue-and-gold seal was embossed in the upper left-hand corner. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, it said around the shield. Below it was an address in Washington and a telephone number.

“What if I call this number in Washington instead?”

“They’ll tell you I’m not there. They may even tell you I’m on medical leave, but maybe not. I’m not really sure what they’ll say. When I call myself I generally use the cell number I gave you. You probably ought to do the same thing.”

Keur got out and opened the trunk. Shepherd followed him around and retrieved his bag.

“Thanks for the ride.”

Keur nodded and tossed off a little salute.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he said.

***

INSIDE THE TERMINAL, Shepherd strode straight to the Emirates first class check-in desk… and then walked right past it.

He found a staircase that led to the arrival level of the airport, trotted down the steps, and went back outside. In five minutes he was in a taxi on his way to the Dusit Thani Hotel. If Keur or anyone else who had been following them had parked and come inside to see where he was going, they would be out of luck. And even if they eventually worked out that he hadn’t gotten on an airplane at all, a Thai-owned hotel was probably the last place in Dubai anyone would think to look for him.

The Dusit Thani had an executive suite available. Shepherd took it for one night and paid cash. The girl at the check in desk never batted an eye. If he had tried to pay nine hundred dollars in cash for a hotel room in New York, Shepherd figured the cops would probably have rushed in before he got his wallet back in his pocket, slapped the cuffs on him, and charged him with felony failure to use an American Express card. In Dubai, tossing out a big pile of cash was about as sinister as wearing a Rolex.

After the bellboy left, Shepherd went into the bedroom, got undressed, and took a very long, very hot shower. There were few conditions in life that couldn’t be improved with either a hot shower or a drink and, since it wasn’t even 10:30 A.M. yet, he chose the shower. Drying off and dressing in a fresh shirt and jeans, he opened the drapes and picked up his cell phone. He settled into a big upholstered chair in front of the windows, swung his feet up on the coffee table, and started dialing for dollars.

***

MAYBE SHEPHERD HAD caught a plane home to Hong Kong. Or maybe he had caught a plane to wherever General Kitnarok was. But Keur was almost certain he hadn’t done either.

Shepherd wasn’t a guy likely just to go home and sit around sucking his thumb until somebody called him. On the other hand, right now Keur was pretty sure Shepherd didn’t have any better idea where General Kitnarok was than he did. Keur had watched his face carefully when they talked about the general’s abrupt disappearance, and he had looked carefully for any sign that Shepherd was bullshitting him. He had seen none.

No, Shepherd didn’t know where Kitnarok was, but he did have ways of finding out. He would find him. Keur would make book on that. And he would lay even better odds that trying to find out was exactly what Shepherd was doing right at that moment.

Shepherd had doubled back through the airport, gotten in a cab, and checked into a hotel in Dubai. He had probably taken a shower, wrapped himself in the fluffy bathrobe that came with his expensive room, maybe ordered something from room service, and now he was sitting back in a big chair with his feet propped up on a coffee table making telephone calls. That was what Keur would have done, and he didn’t have the slightest doubt that was what Shepherd was doing.

That was why Keur was absolutely certain Shepherd would call him within twenty-four hours. Once he found General Kitnarok, what was he going to do? That was when Shepherd would realize that he needed Keur’s help and that was when he would call.

After that, he would be in. After that, it would only be a matter of time.

But what if he was wrong? What if that didn’t happen?

Keur guessed then that he would just have to start over. Maybe with Shepherd again, or maybe with someone else altogether. Either way, he was going to get this done. He had always accomplished what he set out to do and this time wasn’t going to be any different. General Kitnarok wasn’t going to be the first asshole to slip through his fingers. He just wasn’t going to allow that to happen.