“Always see the target before you make your move,” Guy Raviv, Wells’s favorite teacher, had told Wells and the other eager beavers in his training class at the Farm. Raviv was dead now, and the class a lifetime away. “If you’re not sure about something, go back again. Once. No more. You don’t want them wondering who you are before you get there. And never spend more than fifteen minutes inside, whether it’s a home or an office. Five is preferable. Ten is trouble. Fifteen is the limit. People turn around, double-check that they haven’t left the air-conditioning on. Janitors change their schedules, work the floor you’re on instead of the one below you. Time is not your friend on these missions. Never. So do what you came to do, whatever that may be, and get out quick.”
Easier said than done, then and
now.
Miller lived in an area called Al Barsha South, closer to the gulf than Wells’s last stop. “Welcome to ABS,” a billboard proclaimed in English. “A great place to live. An even better investment.” But Al Barsha hadn’t escaped the bust. Its streets were named after European landmarks, Hyde Park Street and Trevi Fountain Drive, names that sounded even sillier in Arabic. Most houses were dark. On one lot, a blue tarp flapped over a Caterpillar earthmover, its treads sinking into the earth. A fence and “No Trespassing” signs blocked off an unfinished playground, complete with a slide that didn’t reach the ground, a half-remembered dream. East of the playground, the only evidence of life came from the distant headlights along the outer Dubai ring road.
Miller lived in Al Barsha’s wealthier western end, which had been built first and avoided the crash. Here, eight-foot walls protected concrete mansions. Miller’s house stood two stories tall and nearly filled its lot. The satellite photos from Shafer revealed that it had a small oval pool in its backyard, a bright blue tear. In Dubai, as in Beverly Hills, pools were closer to a necessity than a luxury. Wells rolled by slowly, peering through the bars of the front gate. In their last conversation, Shafer had told him that Miller had a girlfriend, or possibly a second wife, in Dubai.
“You don’t know?” Wells said.
“There’s some evidence in the records for both. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Point is, figure probably somebody’s home. The electric records show use consistent with an occupied house the last few months, even when Miller’s in Chicago.”
As usual, Shafer was right. As he passed the front gate, Wells heard the rumble of a garage door rising. He tapped the brakes, stopped long enough to glimpse the icy headlights of a luxury sedan inside the garage. Before the gate could swing open, Wells rolled on. At the end of the street, he turned left, onto the eight-lane avenue that connected Al Barsha South with the main Dubai highway. If the car was leaving the neighborhood, it would come this
way.
Wells pulled over, put on his hazard lights. He popped the hood and got out and pretended to fiddle with the battery. Ninety seconds later, a Lexus rolled by, nearly blinding Wells with its xenon headlights. A man drove, with a woman in the back. The lights stopped Wells from seeing her clearly. But she was Arab. She wore a long-sleeved gown and a loosely tied head scarf that let her hair flow freely, the uniform of the cultured gulf elite outside Saudi Arabia. The wife/girlfriend. She was having dinner with friends. Getting her nails done. Shopping. The malls in Dubai stayed open late. Wells didn’t care, as long as she stayed out at least a half hour.
He quickly made a U-turn and drove back to Miller’s house. He grabbed his man purse. In a perfect world, he would have had gloves, pliers, a grappling hook and rope. Maybe a knife or pistol. But Wells couldn’t pass up this chance to get inside. Once the woman got back, he didn’t know when she’d leave again. A stakeout would be difficult and conspicuous in this neighborhood. Anyway, Wells wasn’t too worried about leaving evidence. Let the Dubai police dust all they liked. Jalal Haq hadn’t been fingerprinted at immigration.
* * *
A DOOR WAS NOTCHED
in the concrete wall beside the driveway gate. It had a simple knob lock that Wells thought the picker would handle with ease. He reached for the buzzer to check that no one was home—and stopped as a car turned onto the road. It was a white Nissan sedan with a blue light bar across its roof. Neat Arabic script along the side of the car proclaimed, “Al Barsha Private Security.”
Wells willed the Nissan to drive by. Instead, it pulled over beside him. The driver’s window slid down. “
Salaam aleikum.
Excuse me, sir.” Wells stepped toward the car. Two men in blue uniforms sat in front. They had the dark skin of men from the Indian subcontinent. Wells decided being aggressive was the best play. Saudis demanded deference, especially from anyone from Pakistan or India.
“What do you want?”
“May we see your identification,
sir?”
“Is this good enough for you?” Wells pushed his Saudi passport through the window.
The driver paged through it. “Mr. Haq, sir—is this house yours?”
“
You’re
questioning
me
? I could buy this whole street if I wanted. Buy you, too, and put you in a suitcase and send you home tomorrow. Would you like that?”
The driver glanced at the other guard and back at Wells. “Sir. I don’t mean to disturb you.” His voice quavered a little. “We received a call that a strange car was driving around the area—”
“You speak Arabic like a dog. My language. You mangle it. And it’s not a strange car, it’s
my
car, and these people are friends of mine, which is why I have their key. Please, go ahead, call the police.”
“There’s no need—”
“No, perhaps you should. Real Emirati police. Let them see the way you treat Saudis. They’ll be impressed.”
“We’re sorry to have bothered you.” The guard handed over his passport. Wells snatched it back.
“You should
be.”
But they didn’t leave. As Wells went back to the gate, he realized he would have to open it while they watched. The passport and his fit had cowed them, but they obviously had to make a report. The longer he waited, the stranger his story would seem. They would wonder why he hadn’t parked inside. He couldn’t risk buzzing either. He’d told them he had the key, so why would he buzz? No, he’d just have to pick the lock and walk in. The house should be empty. The woman and her driver were gone. If Miller happened to be home, Wells would be happy to find
him.
Wells stood at the gate, so his body blocked the cops’ view of the keyhole. He took the picker from his pocket and lined it up with the hole. Three seconds later, the gate was open. The guards couldn’t have seen what he’d done.
Wells walked into the yard and slammed the gate. At the front door, he saw an alarm, its light flashing green. A lucky break. He wouldn’t have to fiddle with the disruptor.
* * *
HE HEARD FOOTSTEPS
and realized too late that he hadn’t been lucky at all. The alarm was off because someone was inside
.
Probably a housekeeper. Wells should have known. In a neighborhood like this, full-time housekeepers were practically mandatory. She’d heard him and was coming to investigate. He checked the doorknob. It was unlocked. He opened it, stepped
in
.
A woman stood on the staircase that rose from the front hallway. She was dark skinned and almond eyed. Ethiopian or Somali. She wore sensible black shoes and a white uniform that reached her ankles. She screamed and he ran up the stairs for her. She turned and took a step and tripped and he grabbed her before she fell. She punched at him wildly, like a child, but he wrapped his forearm over her mouth and pulled her down the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, he turned and dragged her down the first-floor hallway. The floor was polished marble and didn’t give her much purchase. She bit at him, her teeth scraping through his robe. He handled her roughly, squeezing her wrists, trying to make her understand his strength so she wouldn’t resist. He pushed open the first door he saw. A guest bathroom, with a toilet, sink, and fancy pink soap. He dragged her inside and felt her panic increase.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. He spun her so they were face-to-face, shifted his grip so his right hand was over her mouth, pushed her against the wall. Their eyes met and her head vibrated sideways in panic like a metronome on high. He raised a finger to his own lips and then lifted his hand off her mouth. She twisted her head, drew her breath to scream. Again he covered her mouth, her lips pressed wetly against his palm. He put a finger to his lips for the second time. This time, she nodded. He lifted his hand a few inches from her mouth.
“Please, sir,” she said in heavily accented English.
“I’m not going to hurt
you.”
“No rape.”
Wells’s heart clenched. No wonder she was terrified. “No rape. I want to . . .” He swung a finger around. “The mister? Does he have an office?”
“The mister not here.” She shut her mouth as if she realized she’d made a mistake by admitting she was alone.
“I need his office. His papers.”
She shook her head, her face uncomprehending. He grabbed her and turned her so she was facing the wall and reached into his bag for the flex-cuffs—the wide white plastic strips Shafer had sent. She started to scream, and he made a fist and belted her in the side of the head hard enough that her knees sagged. He twisted her arms tight and cuffed her wrists together. He grabbed a handkerchief from the bag, wound it over her mouth, tied it tight. He turned her around and sat her on the toilet. Their eyes met and her mouth worked on the kerchief. She couldn’t speak, but her eyes told him what she thought of
him.
I’m doing the right thing. I’m one of the good guys.
One day you’ll thank me. Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
Springsteen. Maybe he really was losing it
.
He’d have plenty of time to hate himself. Not now, though. Now he had to get on with the search.
He went to a knee beside her and pulled back her right ankle and used the second flex-cuff to tie her leg to the narrow pipe behind the toilet.
“All right,” he said. “Stay calm.”
He left her in the bathroom, took the front stairs two by two. He had to find whatever papers or computers Miller might have left. At least he didn’t need to worry about being subtle. Not anymore. Not with the evidence of his home invasion bound and gagged in the bathroom.
He opened doors along the second-floor hallway. Master bedroom, second bedroom, bathroom, closet. At the end of the hall, a locked door. Wells lowered his shoulder and ruined it, splintering the wood, tearing the lock from the frame. Happy for the chance to hit something instead of someone. The room was dustier than the rest of the house. Wells guessed the housekeeper wasn’t allowed in here. A shaded window overlooked the pool. A framed photo of the Chicago skyline dominated one wall. On a coffee table, a laptop and a legal pad. Wells grabbed them. He tossed the couch cushions and pulled books off a shelf beside the couch, looking for keys, flash drives. He found a miniature notebook, palm-size with a black leather cover, and grabbed
it.
All along, Wells heard the housekeeper thumping like an angry ghost in the bathroom downstairs. He didn’t think anyone outside could hear her through the thick concrete walls, but these homes were awfully close. He finished ransacking the room, looked once more through the rooms upstairs. From the bedroom, he grabbed a silver-framed picture of Miller.
Downstairs, he glanced through the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. Nothing. The worst search ever. Barely ten minutes after he’d entered the house, he walked out the front door. Guy Raviv would have been happy about his speed, if nothing else. He left the housekeeper locked up. He wasn’t worried about her. He would call the Dubai police in the morning and tell them to check on the place. But the cops were likely to find her long before. The lady of the house would be home in a couple hours. And the housekeeper might be able to beat the flex-cuffs even sooner. She was strong and angry and Wells hadn’t bound her very tight.
The private security car was gone when Wells emerged on the street. Good. He would have to leave Dubai on the first flight he could book. He had left a trail that even Mr. Magoo could follow. The Dubai police would call the local security guards as soon as they got inside the house. In hours, Jalal Haq would be a wanted
man.
So Wells headed for Dubai International. Along the way he made two phone calls, one to Air India, the other to Singapore Airlines. Getting out at this hour was easy. Most long-haul, fully fueled flights took off from Dubai after dark to avoid the desert heat. The airport was as busy at midnight as at noon. Reserving seats was no problem, once Wells explained that he would be happy to buy a first-class full-fare ticket.
At the airport, he dumped the Toyota in a short-term lot and checked into the one a.m. Singapore Airlines flight under his Jalal Haq passport. He headed straight for passport control. He’d left the house barely forty minutes before. Even if the police had already arrived and gotten Jalal Haq’s name from the guards, Wells couldn’t believe the immigration agents would have it yet. “You didn’t stay long, Mr. Haq.” The agent was polite, vaguely puzzled. Nothing more. Dubai was the ultimate stopover. Plenty of visitors stayed only a few hours.
“I’ll be back.”
“Please do.” Then Wells was through, down the escalator and onto the moving walkway that ran to Terminal 1. The place was as absurdly diverse as a Coke ad. Two blue-eyed Russian hookers in miniskirts stood next to a half dozen women in full burqa. An African man, tall and thin and ebony dark, towered over three Japanese tourists who were, yes, taking pictures of one another. A cliché in three dimensions.
The police would be looking for a Saudi in a robe. Wells stopped at a duty-free store and bought an overpriced button-down shirt—long-sleeved, to hide the bruises on his arm where the housekeeper had bitten him—and a pair of jeans and reading glasses and a blue baseball cap with the logo of the Burj Dubai. He found a men’s room and went back to being John Wells. At a newsstand, he bought a copy of Michael Connelly’s newest paperback. A trick from the Farm. Books hid their readers’ faces almost as well as newspapers, and were a far less obvious disguise.