Colonel Bahrami considered for a minute, then looked at his watch. “This will require permission from my superiors.”
“How long will that take?”
“Several hours at least,” the colonel answered.
“In the meantime, help me find the missing girl.”
Bahrami looked surprised. “But the Norwegian ambassador has already expressed his concern to our sultan, and our sultan told him he’s not convinced that this girl ever arrived in Muscat.”
Crocker sat up. “I’m almost certain that she did.”
“We’re not.”
“And I think I can prove it.”
“How?”
“I can show you, if you bring me my clothes and get a car to drive us to the Al Bustan Palace hotel.”
Crocker’s pants, underwear, and shirt, which had been washed and pressed, were still stained with blood. But he didn’t care. The three men exited the black Mercedes. It was lunchtime, and several groups of businessmen and tourists sat eating at metal tables overlooking the hotel’s lagoon and garden. They craned their necks to watch the big American with the badly bruised face and the pronounced limp pass. These well-heeled travelers hardly registered with the SEAL leader, who was hoping that his hunch was correct.
The head of hotel security-a short, stocky former ISI officer named Waleed-recognized Crocker and confirmed that yes, all entrances to the establishment and elevators were monitored by security cameras.
“I figured they would be,” Crocker said.
“We take pride in our security,” Waleed offered as he escorted them to a dark room behind the front desk. There, the men leaned forward to study grainy video footage from the passenger elevator that serviced the sixth-floor suite.
“It takes a special key to operate this particular lift,” Waleed explained.
“I rode in it,” Crocker told him. “I know.”
When the time signature on the bottom of the video registered 03:14:05 two mornings earlier, a corpulent man wearing a dishdasha and a black goatee entered with two large men in suits.
“There he is,” Crocker said pointing to the man in the dishdasha. “That’s Sheik Rastani.”
“Perhaps. But that proves nothing,” Colonel Bahrami replied.
“Wait.”
Approximately five minutes later, another group of passengers entered the same elevator on the ground floor, four men and two women in dark burkas. When the woman on the right side of the screen turned away from the camera, Crocker recognized Brigitte’s profile.
“Two girls entered. You see?”
He couldn’t make out the second young woman’s features, but thought he spotted strands of light hair sticking out of the hood of her burka.
“That’s Malie,” he said, excitedly. “There she is. There’s your proof!”
“That’s hardly proof,” Colonel Bahrami countered. “How do we know she’s not a servant, or some other sort of employee?”
Good question.
“Did anyone see this woman leave the hotel?” Crocker asked.
Mr. Waleed stuck his bottom lip out and shook his head. “We saw the sheik. We saw his men. At least, the ones who survived. But not this girl. No.”
Crocker asked the hotel security officer to fast-forward the tape. Images of a mostly empty elevator overlapped one another on the screen.
At around 08:42:23, according to the time signature on the bottom, Crocker saw his own image standing with two other men.
The events that had happened soon thereafter returned to Crocker’s consciousness, along with the stench of the smoldering body.
“Slow it down!” he shouted a little too loudly.
Waleed complied.
Crocker felt uncomfortable as he and the other three men watched his black-and-white image exit the elevator. It was like looking at one’s own ghost.
Roughly twelve minutes later, Sheik Rastani, wearing a white dishdasha, and several other men hurried into the tight space and started to descend. They seemed highly agitated, which made sense, because they were running away from Crocker, who had entered the suite.
They had left Brigitte in the bathroom, where he found her. But where was the second girl?
Another ten minutes of videotape passed before a group of armed Omani soldiers were seen entering the same elevator and going up to six.
“I didn’t see the second girl anywhere,” Crocker said.
Colonel Bahrami snapped, “Play it back.”
They reviewed the tape six more times, once so slowly that they were watching it one frame at a time, then viewed it again from 3 a.m. two mornings ago all the way to the present.
Two young women in burkas had gone up, but only one of them had come down, and that was Brigitte.
“What the hell happened to Malie?” Akil asked. “She couldn’t have just disappeared.”
Colonel Bahrami: “Maybe they took the second female down the stairway.”
The emergency stairway and all the exits were also monitored by security cameras. But none of them had captured the second woman either leaving the sixth floor or exiting the building.
All the men who had assembled looked perplexed.
“The suite was thoroughly searched?” Crocker asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
“And nothing was recovered?”
“Some articles of clothing. A pair of women’s shoes. Books, CDs. Mostly belongings of the sheik.”
“Anything else?”
“A suit wrapped in plastic. Some foodstuffs. A pair of sandals.”
“Where are these items now?” Crocker asked.
“They were locked in a room in the basement on orders from the sultan,” Waleed answered.
Crocker was reminded that the Sultan and Sheik Rastani were friends, both prominent members of the Ibadhi sect of Islam.
He suggested that they go up and inspect the suite again.
A scowling Colonel Bahrami gave his approval.
While Waleed went to fetch the electronic key that would let them in, Crocker recalled something else-the black pull suitcase he’d seen one of the men abandon as he was running out the door.
“There was also a large black suitcase,” the SEAL team leader said. “I passed it on my way out. It was to my left, near the door of the sixth-floor suite.”
“What suitcase?”
“A black pull suitcase. About this big,” the American said holding out his arms.
When Waleed returned, he admitted that he hadn’t personally seen the items that had been removed from the suite and locked downstairs.
The two Americans followed the Omanis to the lift. The experience of ascending in the elevator was strange for Crocker. So was retracing his bloody footprints on the carpet. But it wasn’t until they entered the suite and he was hit with the lingering smell that the muscles in Crocker’s neck and stomach tightened and he started to feel sick.
Leaning against the wall, the bitter taste of bile reached his mouth.
“Boss, you all right? You want to sit down?” Akil asked, noticing his leader’s discomfort.
“I’m good.”
Crocker lingered four paces inside, just far enough to scan the foyer/dining/living area and establish that the suitcase wasn’t there.
The other three men inspected the interior rooms of the suite and came out empty-handed.
“It’s completely clean,” Akil reported.
“Let’s go see the room in the basement.”
This required permission from the minister of interior, who was at his country club eating lunch. They waited in the lobby while Bahrami called.
The suitcase. The suitcase…
Pacing and looking at the clock, hoping that the items in the basement would provide some clue, Crocker sensed there was something else he should be remembering, but his mind was too exhausted and agitated to identify it.
Cups of coffee and tea were consumed and stories exchanged in the hour that passed before a black SUV stopped in the driveway and a tall functionary from the ministry jumped out and handed the colonel a set of keys.
“With the approval of the minister, who says we can look but not disturb anything.”