“Gentlemen, this way,” Waleed directed.
They descended in a service elevator to the belly of the hotel, the space thick with the smells of garbage and vinegar.
Four sets of footsteps resounded through hallways lit with buzzing fluorescent lights, Crocker praying that somehow Malie was alive.
They turned left at a locked cage stacked to the ceiling with cases of expensive wines and brandies, into a darker corridor, to a door on the right.
“Here it is,” Waleed announced.
Bahrami opened the door with a yellow-tabbed key and threw the switch.
Crocker’s heart started to leap in his chest.
In the left corner behind the door stood a metal footlocker and the black hard-shelled suitcase, which were chained together and secured with a brass lock. Signs in English, Arabic, and Farsi warned the curious not to touch without signed permission from Oman’s interior minister.
Bahrami opened the lock with a red-tabbed key. Crocker leaned over and pulled the chain free. He was so juiced he was having trouble breathing as he felt along the little holes that been punched in the smooth front of the hard plastic suitcase.
“Wait,” the colonel barked. He produced another key, a little green-tabbed one this time.
Crocker laid the suitcase on its side and opened the lock. He dreaded what he was about to see so much that he turned his eyes away as he swung it open. The smell of sweat and piss met his nostrils.
The men behind him gasped.
“Dear God-”
“It’s the girl!”
“She’s dead.”
He had to will his eyes to focus on the awkwardly folded little body, knees at her chin, silver tape around her wrists and ankles and across her mouth. The skin on her arms a smooth yellowish gray. More mottled near her shoulders.
“Malie?” he whispered, fearing the worst.
Light blond hair like that of an angel.
It had to be her.
“Malie?”
He reached inside, along the cool skin of her neck, and tried to find a pulse.
The men breathed heavily behind him.
On his knees, his hand shaking, he prayed to his mother, God, and all that he held dear. He thought he felt a flicker of life under her skin.
Is it my imagination?
He waited and felt it again.
And a third time, before he looked up and said firmly, “Call an ambulance and an EMS team. Tell them to hurry!”
Chapter Nineteen
In the darkest night one can see the most stars.
– Persian saying
Miracles do happen, Crocker said to himself. He’d witnessed one. At least he thought he’d heard the hospital’s doctor say that Malie’s breathing, blood pressure, and heartbeat had stabilized and were returning to normal.
“The doctor said she’s going to pull through, right?” he asked Akil, who stood to his right.
“It was touch and go for awhile, but she’s improving, yes.”
He pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t in a dream.
Then he felt strong arms around him and saw Mikael Klausen’s beaming face. “Like Lazarus. It’s like Lazarus, the way she’s come back to life!”
“Yes. Yes.” Trying to remember how long Klausen had been there with him.
“The doctor said another hour, maybe less, and her heart would have stopped.”
He saw tears in hard men’s eyes. Felt the joy in their faces. American, Norwegian, Omani, French. There were over twenty people crowded into the little waiting area. Only three green chairs. The Filipino nurse who had helped him before was passing a bottle of Australian white wine.
The clock behind her head was approaching twelve. Midnight, he thought. It had to be midnight. In the worry and exhaustion he’d lost track of time.
Klausen looked up from one of the green chairs, where he was dialing a satellite phone. “Don’t go too far, Crocker,” he said, pushing strands of blond hair off his forehead. “The king will want to thank you personally.”
The American said, “I’ve got to do something. I’ll be right back.”
He felt the sudden urge to call someone, too. Hurrying down the pale green hallway he almost crashed into an African nurse cradling a dozen cans of Coke.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I need to place an international call.”
She had kind eyes and parallel tribal scars carved into her cheeks. “The second door on the right. There’s a telephone on the desk. The code is 352. Then enter the country code and number.”
The small, unexpected kindnesses of strangers. He wanted to kiss her.
“Thanks.”
Jenny answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, sweetheart. It’s your father.”
“You remembered.”
Remembered what?
A song played in the background as she said, “I was hoping you could be here, but I wasn’t really counting on it.”
That’s right. Her seventeenth birthday was the twenty-second. Was today the twenty-second? He’d promised to be home by then.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. With all that’s been going on here, I lost track of time.”
He flashed back to Malie’s half-dead face, and the stench thickened around him. Irony and guilt squeezed his head and throat. He’d risked his life to save a young Norwegian woman but forgotten his own daughter’s birthday.
What kind of father am I?
“No, Dad, it’s okay. I know you’re busy. I’m glad you called.”
“I should be there.”
Remembering all the birthdays and holidays he’d missed, he felt himself being pulled into a disorienting maelstrom of pain, flashbacks, moral ambiguities, questions about why he was doing what he was doing, and the realization that he was more than seven thousand miles from home.
“Jenny, I just want you to know that when it comes to the important things, like the fact that I love you unconditionally, I’ll always, always be there for you. No matter what happens.”
“I know that, Dad.”
“You do?”
He wanted to confess to her that he was a flawed man and knew it. Sometimes, maybe, he went too far to protect her. Sometimes he didn’t understand why he did the things he did.
But he stopped himself. Wouldn’t his honesty just confuse the seventeen-year-old, who was already flirting with cynicism as she struggled to find her way in her new life in Virginia?
“Dad, you sound tired. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. How are you?”
School was okay, she said. She’d met a couple of girls her age that she liked.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” he said, drifting back to the image of Malie’s yellow-gray face, her angelic expression. Thinking: So many times we forget the most important things in life.
One day he would tell his daughter about the Norwegian girl and her rescue, but not now. Akil appeared in the doorway.
“The king wants to speak to you,” he whispered.
Crocker took a deep breath and said, “I have to go, sweetheart. I wish you a very happy birthday. I love you. I’ll be home soon.”
He walked back to the waiting area, scolding himself for not speaking to his wife, too, and hoping she’d understand.
I’m going to be a better father and husband. I’m going to treat myself better, too.
The king of Norway sounded like a soccer coach exhorting his team after a late-season victory. “We shouldn’t forget that Malie is just one of thousands of young women who are victimized like this every year. But this is an important accomplishment, a message to people all over the world that the good will prevail and…”
“Yes, Your Highness. I agree.”
The king’s words sounded hollow. For all Crocker knew he could have been some preacher or motivational speaker from down the street.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I’m glad we were successful. Yes, I’d be honored to visit your country. But I have to spend time with my family first.”
The joy on the people’s faces in the waiting room was real. Jakob, Mancini, the red-haired man from the embassy, the ambassadors of Norway and France, Klausen, Bahrami, Waleed, Davis, the nurse and doctor, even Jim Anders and Claude Mathieu were all celebrating, congratulating one another, happy and open, in a way that said We’re all in this together.