Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

Beneath the picture was a lengthy quote from her, highlighted in boldface type: “All of the wealth is very heady, but I sometimes wonder if in our rush to prosperity our elders haven’t embraced the new ways of doing business a little too readily. There is a certain sense of recklessness to the whole enterprise, which I think makes it a very good time to stay low to the ground.”

He wondered how dear old dad must have reacted to that-an implicit generational slam, yet a seeming endorsement of his more traditional values. An oddly appealing mix, he thought, especially from someone who looked so good in a short skirt. But he still couldn’t shake the sense that she must be something of a dabbler, a rich girl who had talked Daddy into forking over some start-up capital to give her an excuse to get out of the house.

Sam reminded himself he was there for business, not pleasure, and he turned his attention to Laleh’s desktop computer, a powerful HP with a liquid crystal monitor that flashed to life when he nudged the mouse. Viewing the desktop icons, he knew he was in luck. She had one of those broadband connections that was always active. When he clicked on her Internet icon, a Google homepage flashed to life.

At the same moment, an instant-messaging box popped up in the screen’s upper right corner, with remnants of an IM conversation from only a few hours ago. The screen names had been trading girl gossip. He guessed that “LaSha” was Laleh’s, and he blushed as he read her parting dispatch, a gloomy emoticon of a cartoon frown followed by “He may be leaving today.”

Both her friends frowned back, then everyone declared “GTG,” got to go.

Sam was surprised by how much it pleased him. He also experienced a pang of sympathy for Laleh, realizing what a departure from the norm his visit must represent in such a cloistered life. He X’ed out the messaging box, drew a deep breath, and refocused, typing and clicking his way to the Pfluger Klaxon homepage and its drop-down menu for cleared employees. A prompt asked for his password, and he obliged.

Access denied. Password invalid.

He tried it twice more, slowly, in case he had mistyped.

No luck.

Nanette had moved quickly. Discouraging, but also intriguing. He knew from auditing experience that whenever barricades began to appear there was usually something worth finding out farther down the road. She wouldn’t have blocked him otherwise. And there were other passwords out there, some with even better access than his. The question was how to get one.

It was time to use the telephone. A call to Manhattan from Sharaf’s house would be risky, especially if Nanette had sounded the alarm on him to Pfluger Klaxon. A transatlantic call could easily be traced through phone records. But that would be a minor problem as long as Sharaf found him a safer location by day’s end.

Who to call, then? Any supervisor would be too chancy. So would friends from other departments, who probably couldn’t help much anyway. That left his six fellow auditors. He quickly ruled out Ansen and Greenberg, who toed the company line even when it meant taking shortcuts with their work. Paar and Lukins were at the other extreme, but their reckless cowboy tendencies might do him more harm than good. Gupta, the newest hire, was the least known. With only two months’ experience he would probably be reluctant to stick his neck out for anyone, much less an official pariah. That left only Stu Plevy. An up-and-comer. A conniver even, with a reputation for playing every angle. His talents were such that he could hold a conversation with two people at odds with each other, and both would came away convinced that Stu agreed with them. Plevy would be looking out for himself, meaning he would almost certainly report any call. But if Sam could dangle the possibility of some kind of benefit, Plevy might also help, in his own sneaky fashion. Better still, it was 2 a.m. in Manhattan, meaning Sam could phone Plevy at home, where the line wouldn’t be monitored. Even if Plevy blabbed, Pfluger Klaxon wouldn’t learn of the call for another seven hours. By then Sam would be in a new location.

A brief Internet search turned up a home number at an address on the upper East Side. Sam moved to the phone in the kitchen to punch in the numbers. After two rings the receiver clattered as if someone had knocked it loose in the dark.

“Hello?” The voice was scratchy.

“Plevy? Sorry to wake you, but this is urgent. It’s Sam Keller, calling from Dubai.”

“Keller? What time is it?”

“Around two your time. Ten in the morning here.”

“Aren’t you in some kind of trouble?” Plevy already sounded eager and alert. Sam heard a drawer open, as if Plevy was retrieving something to write with. “Heard about the thing with Charlie. Terrible. There were also rumblings of some kind of sexual assault involving No No Nanette. By you, even? What’s up with that?”

So she had indeed poisoned the well. To hook Plevy he would have to lace the bait with some embellishments of his own.

“I was a dupe on the thing with Charlie. The assault charge is a frame-up to keep me quiet. From what I can tell, Nanette has some connections to a local hood. Between you and me, that’s what I was sent here to check out.”

“By Gary?” Their boss.

“Gary’s out of the loop. This goes higher. Meaning it won’t exactly hurt your career if you can help.”

“Sounds like you’ve already got plenty of backing. Why not just go to your sugar daddy?”

“Because this isn’t official, and we didn’t plan for this kind of contingency. So you can understand if I’m in a bit of a bind.”

Plevy paused, then said, “Especially if you’re blowing smoke out your ass. Even if you’re not, the whole setup sounds toxic. Where are you now?”

Fat chance he’d answer that.

“Working with some undercover people. Locals. I don’t need much, Plevy.”

“I heard some scuttlebutt about the babysitting assignment Nanette gave you. But I guess that could explain why they’d have picked you for an undercover job.”

“Very good. But keep it to yourself.”

“Did she give you one of her special phones?”

“How’d you know that?”

“She’s done it before, keeping tabs on naughty boys like Charlie. No disrespect to the dead, of course. They’ve got GPS tracking and she receives the signal, so she always knows where you are. Remember that veep she busted in Africa? Same deal. So if you’re still carrying, better ditch it.”

No wonder she got so upset when Sam switched off the phone. And when he switched it back on, the Russian thugs had closed in on the York within minutes. Fortunately, the phone was still back at the Shangri-La.

“Keller?”

“I’m here. Don’t worry, I ditched the phone.”

“Not that I don’t believe you, but you do realize that helping you isn’t exactly a risk-free proposition?”

“Go ahead and report this call, Plevy. I’d do the same. Cover your ass all you need. All I want is a Web site password. Mine’s blocked.”

“Whoa, now. You think I’m stupid enough to report you but let you go snooping around the database under my name?”

“Yeah, well…”

Sam didn’t have an easy answer, and his hopes faded. There was a pause of a few seconds with nothing but static, which Sam supposed was better than a flat refusal. Unless, of course, Plevy had grabbed his cell phone and was punching in the home number for one of Nanette’s assistants.

“You don’t need my password,” Plevy said at last. “I’ll give you Ansen’s.”

“How do you know Ansen’s?”

“I know yours, too. The whole department’s. Dumb-ass Gary left them up on his screen about a week ago. Seemed like the sort of thing a good auditor ought to file away for future reference. Not that it would do me much good, since we change them every month.”