“We have no problem,” said the pimp. “You can just go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. This is what we’re gonna do.”
Nine women filed into the room, all of whom had been summoned by the pimp. Mark wasn’t sure what countries they were from, but based on their looks, he could guess — Russia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Ethiopia… Some were tall, some short, some young like Ivana, others in their twenties or thirties.
Mark sat on the couch as they lined up in front of him. The pistol he’d stolen from the bodyguard was hidden under his left thigh. He’d had the pimp drag the bodyguard into the bedroom and then clean up in the front room as best he could, using a towel from the bathroom and bed sheets. Even so, there were stains on the carpet that just wouldn’t come out.
The women didn’t seem to notice the stains, but they certainly suspected something was wrong, that much was obvious. They kept their heads down, and no one smiled. Mark supposed that anything out of the ordinary was cause for concern, but a mass summons from their boss — a summons that wasn’t clearly sexual in nature — was cause for real fear.
The pimp stood near the door to the bathroom, holding Mark’s iPod. His temples glistened with sweat.
“Start,” Mark said to the pimp.
The pimp lifted up the iPod. “I want each of you to look at this man, and tell me if he has ever been one of your clients. His name is Bandar bin Salman, but he might have used an alias.” When none of the women responded, the pimp thrust the iPod at the girl on the far left. “Do it. Translate what I said for the rest of the girls.”
The pimp’s hand trembled as the girl took the iPod. The girl looked at the image of Bandar, claimed not to recognize him, then translated the pimp’s directive into English and Arabic as she handed the iPod to the next girl.
She didn’t recognize Bandar either, but the sixth in line, an older woman with black hair and almond-shaped eyes, did. She only spoke Thai, though, so another Thai woman had to translate what she said into English.
“Maybe three months ago she meets this man. One night only.”
“Does she know where?” demanded the pimp.
“The Golden Tulip,” she replied.
The pimp breathed an audible sigh of relief. “The Golden Tulip,” he repeated to Mark.
“Yeah, you know, I heard. Give me your phone.”
The pimp handed Mark his smartphone, which Mark used to google Golden Tulip Bahrain. After finding the hotel website, he clicked on the Accommodations button.
“How many beds were in the room?” he asked.
The question was translated. The answer came back as one.
“A big bed? The biggest size?”
The girl confirmed that yes, the bed was huge.
Mark opened up three different tabs on the Internet browser. On each tab, he followed links to a different sample photo of the available room options. The first was of a standard room with a king bed, the second of a deluxe room with a king bed, and the third was of an executive suite with a king bed. The carpet, bedcovers, headboard, and furniture were the same in the standard and deluxe rooms, but different in the executive suite.
The girl only needed a moment to confirm that she was certain she’d met Bandar in the executive suite. She recognized the distinctive metal scrollwork on the headboard.
“Which room?” asked Mark.
She didn’t remember the room number, but she said she thought it had been one of the corner suites.
50
As Mark fled the Victory Towers complex via a fire exit stairwell, he wondered whether he’d been caught on any closed-circuit surveillance video. The likelihood that there’d been a camera in the lobby, or outside, was high. It was even possible that a camera had been hidden in the room itself, though he doubted it; he’d questioned the pimp at gunpoint, and the guy had insisted the room was clean. In the end, he decided that trying to track down and remove all evidence of his presence at the Towers would take too long and potentially just result in more violence.
Mark hadn’t gone into the complex intending to kill anyone — he’d done far too much of that already over his long career — and, in retrospect, he shouldn’t have, even considering the circumstances. He’d already disabled the bodyguard with the punch to the throat. The shot to the head had been gratuitous, a product of anger, or rather disgust, at a moment when he should have been focusing on the larger problem.
He also knew he shouldn’t have crossed the Russian mafia. They had long memories, and a well-deserved reputation for exacting revenge. If the killing had helped even one of those women escape from that life — he thought of the young Ivana — he wouldn’t have had any regrets. But he was certain it hadn’t.
He hoped that he’d get lucky on this one and that he hadn’t compromised the larger mission. Hoping to get lucky was a lousy way to pursue intelligence, though. He was too old to be making mistakes like that, too old to be acting out of anger.
File it in a dark corner of your mind and forget about it, he told himself. Compartmentalize it. It’s done.
He pulled out a prepaid cell phone as he ducked down a side road off Exhibitions Avenue. It was a little after nine, just over three hours since he’d last spoken with Saeed. He was past due to check in with Kaufman.
“You were right. There was a breech,” said Kaufman.
“No kidding. It was Rosten, wasn’t it?”
“Nope. Guy named Gregory Larkin. He’s been with us for nine years. I’ve worked with him, I thought he was solid.”
“Is he one of Rosten’s men?”
“No. He’s Africa Division. But he had the clearances he needed to pull your file.”
“Africa Division?”
“You ever hear of a guy named Rear Admiral Jeffrey Garver?”
“No.”
“He’s the director of naval intelligence in Bahrain. Turns out Gregory Larkin used to work in naval intelligence, got his start working under Garver. Anyway, I just got done talking to Larkin — he claims Garver called him yesterday all in a panic. Something about an imminent attack in Bahrain about to go down, bombs going off within the hour. Larkin claims that Garver said it was imperative that he be able to see your file, that you had intel that could stop the attack but there wasn’t enough time to make the request through normal channels.”
“That’s a load of BS. There’s something big going down here, but if I had intel that could stop some imminent attack, you or Rosten could have just asked me.”
“Larkin seems to think he was just doing what any patriot would, bending the rules in a time of crisis because he had to. He trusted Garver, they were friends.”
“How do you know that?”
“I told you, I just got off the phone with Larkin. He admitted it to me as soon as I confronted him. Honestly, I think he was shitting bricks about what he’d done. He said he never heard back from Garver after he transferred the file.”
“Garver handed parts or all of my file to the Saudis, and the Saudis are now using it as leverage against me. That guy Larkin better be shitting bricks.”
“But why?” asked Kaufman. “What would Garver stand to gain? Or, if he’s doing this on behalf of the navy, what would the navy stand to gain?”
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one yet. I figured I’d talk to you first. But I can’t let this breech stand. Larkin will be fired and Garver will likely be court-martialed.”
“Give me a day before you sound the alarms.”
“Why?” When Mark didn’t answer, Kaufman said, “Oh, I get it. You’re going to lean on Garver.”