Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

“Happy to do it, no doubt.”

“And if Sergeant Habash was having second thoughts, he will realize now that he has to keep quiet about us, unless he wants to look like a fool.”

They shared in the household’s communal dinner, but to allow the women to feel at ease, the men ate in an alcove of the dining room, sealed off by a curtain. Neither of them ate much, and afterward they returned to the canteen to wait, flicking back the curtains every time a car passed out front. Three times the phone rang in the kitchen, jarring them to alertness. None of the calls were about Basma or Laleh, and none were from the police.

Finally, after two hours and forty-seven minutes, they heard a car come up the rear alley, followed by the opening and closing of the back door. Laleh walked up the hallway, fresh from her mission.

She was pale, subdued, and took a seat without a word. From her widened eyes, the set of her jaw, and the way she folded her hands, it was clear that something momentous had taken place. Her earlier signs of triumph and excitement had been replaced by something more sober and deliberate.

“So?” Sharaf asked, the policeman in him still just barely in charge. “What did you find out?”

“Far more than I wanted to. For the first time, I guess, I understand why you and Mom have always tried to shelter me.”

She then placed her hands on her knees, as if to brace herself, and told them the story of Basma.

“She came from the war in Iraq, the last of her family. Everyone else died in some explosion. She didn’t offer details, and I didn’t ask for them. But that was how it started for her, as a war victim. She was fifteen and alone. Easy pickings. Some militiamen found her wandering in her village. They raped her, of course. Many times. And she did describe that, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it had happened.”

Laleh paused to sip her tea. Halami had presented the steaming mug like broth for an invalid. That’s how shaken Laleh looked.

“For a week she was pretty much their slave, of course.”

“Laleh, please stop saying ‘of course,’” Sharaf said. “It’s not as if such things are inevitable, even in wartime.”

Halami stared him down like he was a dolt-a look Sharaf remembered from his tutors whenever he had mangled some obvious fact. Was this truly how the world worked when all control was removed? He’d certainly seen evidence to that effect before, but not to this degree, and he had hoped he would never have to. Too late now. He held his tongue. Laleh continued.

“They got tired of her after a while. She wound up near the border, then across it. She’s still not sure how that happened. A lot of truck convoys and aid people were involved, and in all the confusion someone took her to a village in Iran. An older woman who ran a restaurant took care of her, got her some new identity papers, and promised to help. Another jackal, of course.”

Sharaf cringed.

“This woman told her and the other girls that she knew people who could find them jobs in a beauty salon in Turkey, so all of them agreed. The next day they took the four girls away in a truck. Her memory of that part wasn’t so good. Not enough food and water, and hardly any light. She wound up at some kind of port, big ships everywhere, and they put her and another of the women into a freight container that had been outfitted with a pair of cots, blankets, water and bread, and a pot to piss in. There were holes for air that let in some light, but that’s all. She also remembers what else was in the container. Boxes marked with the name Pfluger Klaxon.”

She glanced at Keller, not in an accusatory way but as if to say she now better understood why he was on the run. He nodded back, a kinship that Sharaf envied.

“They were seasick, of course, but they survived. The voyage took two days, maybe three, before their container was unloaded. Then it sat in a lot for another night while they wondered if they would ever get out. She thinks now it was one of the freight yards at Jebel Ali, based on what others have told her since. The next day the container was loaded onto a truck, and when it was finally opened they were in the back of the Rand Hotel in Bur Dubai. Russians and Uzbeks were standing in an alley, men with guns who took them upstairs where a woman, this Tatiana woman-”

“Tatiana Tereshkova?” Sharaf asked.

“Basma didn’t know her last name. But yes, if that’s the Tatiana that Charlie Hatcher knew. She was Basma’s pimp, or at least some kind of boss, and she took the girls twelve stories up to a two-bedroom apartment. Fourteen other girls were living there, sleeping on mattresses, mostly Uzbeks and Tadjiks, and one or two others also from Iraq. One of the Iraqis had also come by container ship, only a month earlier.

“Tatiana got them cleaned up and fed, and gave them a place to sleep. Later she gave them dressy clothes, makeup, high heels and nylons, miniskirts, tights. The whole wardrobe they would need as whores, of course.”

Sharaf felt shamed. Not just for Laleh, but for human beings in general, for his country, and for his own inability to do something about it, year after year. He couldn’t look her in the eye as she continued.

“How long ago was this?” Keller asked, a question that should have occurred to Sharaf.

“Three months, maybe four. She couldn’t be precise.”

“Understandable. Sorry, go on.”

“They kept the girls locked in the apartment all day. All they did was watch TV, eat, sleep, and do their hair. In the evenings they went out, always with pimps and bodyguards, someone to make sure that they got their work done and didn’t run away. They were driven in vans to the York, or the Regal, or other places. They simply told her to start producing, as they put it. She was supposed to pick up men any way she could, for any kind of sex. Blow jobs, two-for-ones, whatever the men wanted.”

Sharaf stared at the floor. Such an education he was giving her.

“After a week she was beaten because she had hardly made any money. Some man lectured her for an hour on how to be more aggressive-more appealing, as he put it. A few weeks later three more Iraqi girls arrived from Iran the same way Basma had come-inside a shipping container. Tatiana told her it was all part of a test, and that the shipment of three was the last one.”

“A test?” Sharaf said, looking up, forcing himself back into the role of a cop.

“For the main event,” Laleh said. “Those were Tatiana’s words.”

“Just like the space program,” Keller said, shaking his head. “Mercury with one astronaut, Gemini with two, Apollo with three-working their way up to make sure they could handle the logistics of bigger loads. All of it practice for Monday. Payload of fifty.”

“And if that works,” Sharaf said, “who knows how many more will follow. It is just as I thought. The crackdown at the airport is taking a toll, so they’re shifting to sea lanes.”

Halami shook her head.

“Awful. Despicable. And right under your noses.”

“Why do you think we are here?” Sharaf snapped. “Why do you think I am risking my daughter, and everything about her future?”

Laleh intervened.

“No one’s blaming you, Father. I’m not, and I know Basma isn’t. She is hoping it can be stopped.”

“How did she get away?”

“With the help of Charlie Hatcher, and Tatiana. Charlie was one of her customers.”

“A customer,” Sam said, somewhat incredulous. “So I guess part of Nanette’s cover story was true. No wonder he was talking about atonement.”

Laleh shook her head.

“Not that kind of customer. He bought her for information, not sex. And when he came to the York he asked for her by name. That scared her at first, because she already knew what a ‘special request’ could mean. Usually something kinky, even dangerous.”