Easily, she knows. She had seen it in the men — boys, really — she’d served with, some not even twenty years old. They were all strong, funny, smart, bright-eyed, with smiles that could cleave your heart in two — colorful, powerful life forces that were vibrant one moment, and dust the next. It isn’t hard to die. It doesn’t take much. That’s the worst part of it. There is a saying: “When one man dies, a whole universe dies,” and while the implications are obvious — the death of even a single soul is like destroying a world, that human life has profound value — dying is also routine, mundane, almost tedious.
Marc, the gorgeous soul in this photograph, is dead.
Happens every day.
She looks now at Trace standing next to Marc, hands on his hips, squinting into the sun. The stages of grief, she thinks. The anger one. She never admitted this to anyone, barely to herself even, but a small part of her had been bitter at Trace for, well, surviving. Trace breathes, Marc doesn’t. Simple and as awful as that. Trace had done the right thing on that day, according to everyone who was there. He listened to Marc. He saved lives doing so.
Maggie understood all that, but the anger stage of grief didn’t.
She clicks the right arrow. A seemingly blank page comes up. Maggie scrolls down to the bottom. There are two text input fields — one for a username, one for a password. After Marc’s murder, Ray had sent her an email offering his condolences and the one thing he could offer that no one else could: his art. He had taken hundreds of photos at the refugee camp that day and stored them online. “When you’re ready,” Ray had written, “you can access them with the username Thalalatha and the password Hududu.” Maggie understood. Thalalatha Hududu is an Arabic phrase that roughly translates to “Three Boundaries.”
That’s the Arabic name of the TriPoint refugee camp where Marc had been murdered.
She clicks into the username text box and types in Thalalatha. She tabs over to the password and types in Hududu. Her hands, she realizes, are shaking. Ray had written “when you’re ready” because he knew she wasn’t. She isn’t sure she is now. The pain is still so deep and raw. She doesn’t need to probe that wound.
But now there is a reason.
So with a deep breath, Maggie clicks the blue Sign In button.
Photo thumbnails quickly populate the screen, dozens of them, at least a hundred on the first page. On the bottom is one of those page count things. It reads:
1...17
Ray’s raw footage. This could take a while.
But it doesn’t.
Maggie doesn’t know exactly what she was looking for — but she finds it anyway.
Right there. On the bottom of the first page. She spends the next hour going through the rest of the thumbnails. Twelve photographs in total tell the story. When she finishes, she realizes that there are tears on her cheeks. She sits back. She has answered one question, but it just leads to deeper ones.
There’s a knock on her door.
Maggie closes her laptop, gives her tears a quick sleeve wipe, and says, “Come in.”
Bob opens the door and steps inside. “Hell of a view, right?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to see me?”
“I’m meeting a friend tonight at a club in the Burj Binghatti.”
He doesn’t like that. “What club?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Burj Binghatti is a residential building. It doesn’t have a club.”
“Not one that’s open to the public,” Maggie says.
“Oh, I see.”
“I need a ride or I can call an Uber or—”
“You’re doing surgery tomorrow.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re not here to go clubbing, Maggie.”
“And you told me this wasn’t a prison, Bob.”
“You’re being handsomely paid to be here.”
“I’m being paid to perform a service. I’ll perform it.”
Bob shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Don’t care,” she says. “I’m going.”
“And if I say no?”
“Seriously?” Maggie shrugs. She checks her watch. “Fire me then.”
Bob stands there for a moment, looking a little lost.
Maggie makes a shooing motion with both hands, palms down. “I need to shower and get changed. I plan on leaving in an hour.”
Not sure what else to do, Bob reluctantly leaves.
Maggie takes a shower and grabs a simple black dress and sandals out of the essentials Charles has given her. She checks her look in the mirror, trying her best not to be self-judgmental. She isn’t sure she’s ready for an exclusive Dubai nightclub, but then again, she supposes she never would be. She steps out into the main room. Bob is standing there.
“Wow,” he says when he sees her. “You look really nice.”
“Thank you.”
He gestures with his hand to the Bugatti still sitting in the middle of the living room. The rich can be so bizarre. “I’ll drive you,” he says.
“But you won’t follow me in.”
“If you say so,” he says.
“I say so.”
“I’ll wait downstairs.”
“I might be late.”
“I’ll be okay.”
The drive is a short one. Charles Lockwood had given her very specific instructions about how to get into Etoile Adiona. The Burj Binghatti is currently the tallest residential tower in the world. Like every skyscraper in Dubai, it is sleek, space-age, and shiny. The most notable feature is the diamond-like crown on top. Bob drops her off in the elevator below ground on the C level past a facial-recognition security station. Maggie steps into the opulent elevator with some kind of purple quartz, amethyst maybe, lining the walls. There is a burgundy leather love seat in case you feel the need to sit for the ride. Again, no buttons to push, no bouncing lights telling you the floor. Nothing. The doors close, and the elevator shoots you rocket-like into the night sky.
The ride up the Burj Binghatti’s hundred-plus floors takes less than a minute.
Not much time to use the love seat.
The entrance to Etoile Adiona is a shimmering portal, tucked away on the 110th floor. No sign announces the club’s presence — if you need to be told where it is, you don’t belong. Maggie steps out of the elevator and stands in front of a mahogany door. She knows there is a camera. A well-dressed man opens the door. He says nothing. Maggie sighs at the theatrics, but per Charles’s instructions, she whispers the password, “Roman Goddess,” before the well-dressed man steps aside and lets her enter. Silly, Maggie thinks, but it adds to the mystique, and places like this thrive on mystique.
The music assaults when you enter. No other way to put it. Maggie loves music, but she doesn’t understand the need for it to be this hostile. The main room pulses with frenetic energy. It’s a kaleidoscope of lights and mirrors and strobes. Nothing feels real, but that’s probably the point. She sees dancers packed so tight they can only hop up and down rather than actually dance — human pogo sticks with spring necks, sweat glistening on their faces. Everyone is dressed in black and white. Some partiers are wearing capes and those Venetian masquerade masks. The room rumbles from a custom-engineered sound system.
Maggie tries to swim through the sea of revelers. A man with a masquerade mask half grabs her and starts to dance. She pushes past him and looks up. Above her head, a retractable roof reveals the inky expanse of an Arabian night. Neon drones paint the sky via intricate aerial choreography. The spectacle is mesmerizing. The drones fly with marching-band-like precision. It reminds Maggie of the Christmas light shows her parents would take her to as a kid, only raised to the tenth power.
She continues to trudge through the dance floor. The DJ, a woman with a sleeveless top showing toned arms, is on a giant swing above. She’s rocking out loud while her platform sways back and forth, one hand on a turntable, the other pressing a single headphone to her ear. The bass gets into Maggie’s bloodstream, making her chest vibrate like someone had jammed a tuning fork into her heart.