Quinn was still copying Adiba’s address when Scott called him with Rafiq’s fax number. “Go to the hotel’s business office, send the fax, then get back to your room. I’ll call you and conference Rafiq in.”
Ten minutes later, Rafiq translated the note for them over the phone.
“Doesn’t tell us more than the photo,” Quinn said.
“Tells me that Abdul is a brave young man,” Scott said with venom in his voice.
“Brave or foolish, either way, how do we get him home?” Rafiq said.
“What about the street address?” Quinn asked.
“I’ve pulled up a map. I can fax it to the hotel.”
“If you’d carry a laptop we could e-mail this stuff to you, damned Neanderthal!” Scott said.
Quinn slapped the dresser hard enough to make his hand sting. He shouted into the phone. “Okay… okay. Enough! Look, Scott. I get that you’re pissed off. But this isn’t helping.”
Rafiq spoke in a calm voice, “What are you going to do when you arrive at Adiba’s home?”
Quinn stared out of the window at the street below, still crammed with cars. “I’ll have to hope someone speaks English. I have a picture of her from Abdul’s dossier I can use. Scott, did Abdul fly straight home after meeting Ghazi?”
“No, I sent him to a press conference in Eilat.”
“That’s something. What then?” Quinn asked. The line went quiet. “Come on, Scott. This is like pulling teeth.”
“He had a private meeting with Nazar Eudon. He’s—”
“I know who he is. Was he in Eilat?” Quinn paced the room, stretching the phone cord to its limit.
“Yes, but Abdul went to his home in Aqaba, Jordan.”
“Great. That makes it easier.” Quinn’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“What about Adiba?”
“He didn’t mention her.”
“According to their emails, she was with him in Eilat,” Quinn said. “Okay, get me a contact number for Eudon while I visit Adiba’s folks.”
Quinn slipped a spare magazine for his Glock into his side pocket, put on his leather jacket, and headed for the lobby.
From the business center, he picked up Rafiq’s fax and showed the address to the doorman. He slipped the man a bill. “I need a driver who speaks English and Arabic.”
The doorman walked along the line of taxis outside the hotel until he found the one he wanted. He signaled, and Quinn got in.
When they pulled into traffic, Quinn said,
“You speak English?”
“A little.”
“What’s your name?”
“Caleb.”
“Pleased to meet you Caleb, I’m Quinn. I might need you to translate.” Quinn passed a fifty to the driver, who tucked it into his shirt pocket and grinned. Quinn, speaking slowly, explained he was looking for a girl. He couldn’t tell how much the driver understood — probably thought he was after a hooker.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a row of single-story white block buildings. The driver pointed to a paint-chipped door beside a small window with sun-bleached, wooden shutters secured behind iron bars. A lit bulb hung from bare wires next to the doorframe. The street was empty and quiet except for an overloud TV playing in one of the houses.
“This one,” Caleb said.
Quinn got out. “Wait here.”
With the photo of Adiba held high, like an ID, he knocked, then took a step back so his face and Adiba’s picture were in the light. The window shutters cracked open an inch and then slammed shut. As he went to knock again, a short, barrel-chested man with a three-day beard, wearing a white undershirt and baggy cotton pants opened the door. He looked from Quinn to the picture.
“My name is Steven Quinnborne. I’m with the British police. I need to speak with Adiba-bint-Tariq-bin-Khalid-Al-Qasim.”
The man yelled at him in Arabic. Quinn raised his other hand to indicate he wanted him to stop, but the man was screaming, red-faced, and waving fists as if to throw a punch.
Quinn signaled to the cabbie. “Hey. Caleb, a little help!”
The driver leaned across and shouted something from the open passenger window. Whatever he said caused the man to turn and bark an instruction to those inside, and the front door slammed shut. The man pushed past Quinn and started talking to the driver. Quinn tapped him on the shoulder.
“What’s he saying?” Quinn asked the driver.
“His two daughters have been taken. He wants me to tell him whether you are a kidnapper. He says his family has no money, but they want their girls back. Why did you take them, Mr. Quinn?”
Quinn pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the sweat beading on his face. “I’m no kidnapper. I’m looking for this girl.” Quinn pointed to the picture. The driver translated and again Adiba’s father began shouting at Quinn and shaking his fist.
“Ask him when he last saw his girls.”
The driver spoke.
This time, when the father answered, anger had faded from his voice.
“The youngest disappeared week; she never came home from school. The one pictured, Adiba, two days ago.”
“What’s his youngest daughter’s name?”
When the man heard the question from the cabbie, he turned back to Quinn. Tears streamed down his face. He dropped to his knees and grabbed Quinn’s trouser legs. Quinn didn’t need a translator to understand the man was begging for his children’s lives.
“Caleb, please tell him I am not a kidnapper. I’m a policeman, and I’m looking for his daughter. I want to help.”
As the driver spoke, Adiba’s father knelt in front of Quinn, staring up, imploring. Finally, he released Quinn’s legs, stood, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
Quinn pulled a pen from his pocket.
“Ask him to write down his youngest daughter’s name, and get me a phone number I can call if I find either of them.”
The man leaned on the taxi roof and wrote on the back of Adiba’s picture. Quinn handed it to the driver.
“Read it?”
“Lana-bint-Tariq-bin-Khalid-Al-Qasim, sixteen years old.”
Hearing her name spoken aloud, the man began crying again. Quinn heard the pain echoed in a woman’s voice from the inside of the home.
“I’ll look for them. I’ll bring them back,” Quinn said. He slapped the man on the shoulder and climbed into the cab. “Let’s get out of here.”
When he reached his hotel room, he called Scott and told him what had happened.
“Does Abdul know the sister, Lana?” Scott asked.
“She’s not mentioned in his e-mails, but she disappeared over a week ago. Maybe Ghazi wanted an insurance policy. Maybe he used her to get Adiba. Maybe the father was confused about dates. Who knows?”
“What now?” Scott said.
“I’m going to Eilat and try to meet Eudon. You said he’d taken a shine to Abdul. Perhaps he can help.”
Scott gave Quinn the contact number for Nazar Eudon’s office in Aqaba. “Keep me in the loop.”
“I will,” he said, and hung up.
Chapter 18
Kimberly Stevens took the elevator up fifty floors to the North Tower Grill in downtown Seoul, and, as promised, Firman was waiting for her. He kissed her cheek, took her arm, and guided her to a seat at the bar.
“Manhattan on the rocks, right?” The drink was waiting. “So good to see you again, Kim.” They chatted for twenty minutes until their table was ready. Firman spoke with a slight French accent and looked directly in her eyes. He wore a plain white shirt with two open buttons, gray jacket and slacks. The musculature of his chest and shoulders showed through the fabric.