Saeed smacked the back of his right hand into his left palm. “No!”
“This transfer will take place at seven in the morning — five hours from now. As for Muhammad, I’ll likely give him to Kalila Safi. Assuming her brother hasn’t been lying to me, like everyone else has.”
“And how would you determine whether he’s lying? You know nothing of that family. Nothing.”
“I have a few ideas. But when and if I do reunite Muhammad with Kalila Safi, under no circumstances will I disclose how and when this transfer will occur.”
Saeed took a step closer to Mark, towering over him. “We will stop it.”
“I’m giving you half of what you want here. If it were up to the CIA and the Shias, Muhammad would grow up with some middle-class family in Central Asia, never knowing who he really was. Bahrain would never know what really happened to him. By giving him to Kalila, I’m doing the right thing by the kid, but also giving you and Bahrain’s prime minister an opportunity. If you want Muhammad back in Bahrain, you’ll have to bargain with Kalila and her family, not with me.”
“She comes from a family of Shias, Sava! Do you know this? Kalila Safi became a Sunni when she married, but she comes from a family of Shias. Her brother, who she stays with in Dubai, is a Shia. You are condemning this child to be raised by Shias!”
If there was one thing Mark was sick of hearing about, it was the Sunnis and the Shias.
“Kalila Safi has been caring for that child since he was born and she’s legally entitled to care for him now. End of story.”
He started walking toward the embankment behind the parking lot.
“My men will shoot you.”
“Go for it.”
He didn’t think the Saudis would really do it. Shooting him wouldn’t get them Muhammad, and it might mean the death of a Saudi prince. But he couldn’t be sure. People acted in irrational and self-destructive ways all the time.
Mark heard a few lonely cars speeding along King Faisal Highway. He reached the embankment and began to climb, ignoring the armed man at the top. A suppressed shot spit out and a little bit of dirt kicked up by his left foot. He kept climbing.
“Stop!” The shooter spoke in Arabic-accented English.
Mark didn’t stop. He didn’t even look up. Two more shots spit out. He didn’t notice where they went.
He reached the top of the embankment, crossed a small road, hiked up another embankment, and then stepped over the guardrail that marked the edge of King Faisal Highway. Larry Bowlan was waiting for him on the shoulder of the road, in his rented Lincoln sedan, about a hundred yards down the road.
“Airport,” said Mark.
“We going to have problems leaving the country?”
“No. They’ve already decided to let us go.”
59
Mark stood on the tarmac just outside the Executive Flight Services terminal at Dubai International Airport and watched as a Gulfstream jet landed on the shortest of the airport’s three long runways and then taxied slowly over to the executive flight parking area. The early morning sun was pleasantly warm on his face. A light breeze blew across the runways. The sound of massive jetliners landing and taking off mixed with the rumble of tow tractors hauling trailers packed with luggage.
He and Bowlan had arrived on a commercial flight two hours earlier. They’d been deposited at terminal three, a Quonset-hut-like building whose claim to fame was that it was the largest structure in the world when measured by floor space. After using his British passport to procure an on-arrival visa, he and Bowlan had caught a shuttle to the Executive Flight Services terminal — a section of the airport reserved for private flights. It was tiny in comparison to Terminal 3, except when judged by the volume of wealth and power that regularly flowed through it.
Directed by an aircraft marshaller, the Gulfstream came to a stop about fifty feet in front of the executive flight terminal, between two other private jets. A minute later, the fuselage door of the plane opened.
A man dressed in blue hospital scrubs walked partway down the air steps, reached out his arms to receive one end of a hospital gurney, then helped lift the gurney off the plane, extend its collapsible legs, and set it on the tarmac. Rad squinted in the bright sunlight.
Mark called to his brother. “Over here!”
Rad looked groggy and confused. He slowly lifted his head, glanced around, and finally saw Mark. “Marko?”
A tall black man with a stethoscope draped around his neck, a clipboard in his hand, and a satchel hanging from a strap on his shoulder — Mark assumed he was the doctor he’d insisted accompany his brother — limped off the plane and over to the two men in scrubs.
Right on his heels were three Saudi intelligence officers whom Mark recognized from the shack in the desert where he’d last seen Rad. One of them was the older Saudi he’d first encountered in Kyrgyzstan.
Mark approached the doctor.
“Wait,” commanded one of the Saudis. He pushed himself between Mark and the doctor, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed a series of numbers, and then handed the phone to Mark.
Mark put the phone to his ear.
“The prince,” said Saeed.
“Go to the Golden Tulip Hotel.”
“That’s where you kidnapped him.”
“And that’s where he still is.”
“We have videotape of you leaving with — oh, I see. He wasn’t in the suitcase.”
“Room 432.”
“Give me fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
The older Saudi remained standing near Rad. The other stood near Mark. Behind them, positioned just outside the executive flight terminal but still well within sight, was Larry Bowlan. Next to Bowlan stood three large Arabs — cab drivers Bowlan had paid an inordinate amount to stand around looking tough. The real plan, if things turned violent, was for Bowlan to call airport security. Which wasn’t much of a backup plan, but was better than nothing.
Ten minutes passed. A cell phone rang. The Saudi standing next to Mark took a step back, as though guarding himself against the possibility of a physical assault. Then he slipped his left hand into his jacket and pulled out the ringing phone. His right hand was up inside his jacket. Gripping a pistol, Mark assumed.
The phone had barely reached the Saudi’s ear before he lowered it again and handed it to Mark.
“If you don’t deliver that child to Kalila Safi, if you try to cut some side deal with the CIA or the Shias, I’m coming after you.”
“Nice doing business with you too, Saeed.”
As soon as Mark handed the phone back, the three Saudis started walking toward the plane. After ten steps, one of them called back to the doctor and the two men in hospital scrubs. Although Mark couldn’t understand what was said, the man’s tone was sharp and insistent.
The two men in hospital scrubs started off toward the Saudis.
“Hey, wait a second,” said Mark to the doctor. “What’s his condition?”
The doctor gave a theatrical French bof and a shrug. In French-accented English, he said, “His condition is he’s an asshole who attacks those who try to help him. Beyond that, he suffers a bullet wound to his left shoulder. I have cleaned and dressed this wound. Because the bone was not hit, the main danger of course is infection. I gave him an intramuscular shot of antibiotics last night, and I give him a second dose now along with a booster shot of morphine. After that, he takes these.”