Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

Sharaf tried to stand, rising so quickly that his head swam. Fifty yards away he saw the BMW make a screeching U-turn to head off in pursuit of the ambulance-Sam Keller at the wheel, taking charge before they lost Laleh altogether. Thank God. Keller was already several blocks behind, but for the moment he was the only one with a chance to keep pace.

Sharaf reached for his phone, then remembered he had left it on the seat of the BMW. Keep driving, he thought. Stay with them. The young man was his daughter’s only hope. God help us all. Tears of fear and anger streamed down his cheeks. God help us all.

At first Sam tracked the ambulance by ear, turning left-right-left, then flooring it down a major boulevard as he listened for the urgent wail of the siren. By the time whoever was driving had the gumption to shut off the siren and the flashing red lights, Sam had spotted both the ambulance and the police van. For the first time he felt the stirrings of hope. A shaky hope, granted, but maybe he could keep pace. And when they stopped he could call in their location on Sharaf’s phone, which was there on the seat beside him.

It then occurred to him that he didn’t know anyone’s number-not Mansour’s, not Ali’s, not anyone’s-and a charge of panic branched out through his body like a lightning strike, from the back of his throat to the tips of his fingers.

Then, sweet relief. The phone rang. His one chance for reinforcements. He snatched it open, swerving dangerously in his lane as a car horn blasted. The ambulance was several hundred yards ahead and turning right, the police van right on its bumper.

“Keller! Are you there?” It was Sharaf, sounding just as you’d expect a father to sound when his daughter was being wheeled away to destruction.

“I’m in pursuit!” What a stupid thing to say, like he was playing at cops. “They’re heading for the expressway.”

“Sheikh Zayed Road?”

“Interchange three. They’re on the eastbound ramp toward the city.”

“We are coming. I am with Mansour. Just keep the line open.”

“Okay, but I’ve got to put the phone down.”

“Of course. Keep driving. Don’t lose them.” Sam pressed the speakerphone button and tossed the phone on the seat.

“Can you still hear me?”

“Yes. Good.” Sharaf’s voice was tinny and crackling, windblown. “Stay on them.”

Sam floored the accelerator up the ramp, merging onto the expressway. In a few hundred yards the dashboard alarm began scolding him in its mechanical monotone:

“Ping . You are speeding. Please slow down. Ping . You are speeding. Please slow down.”

He kept sight of the ambulance and van about a quarter mile ahead, gaining a little ground as they cruised past the next interchange. For a while he thought they might be heading for the Shangri-La, but they kept moving as the traffic got heavier, and within another mile Sam was at a standstill in a massive backup, maybe thirty car lengths behind. Heat shimmered from the stalled rooftops of the vehicles between them. The gold light of dusk had begun to fade. The ambulance put its flashers back on, and the sea of metal grudgingly parted as it slid forward, car by car. Sam still couldn’t budge, and he pounded the steering wheel as he watched the ambulance easing into the clear.

“Shit!”

“What’s happening?”

“Traffic jam. They’re getting through by flashing their emergency lights.”

“We see them. You’re maybe a mile ahead of us now. Try to stay on them.”

Sam popped the clutch and tapped the rear fender of the car just ahead, setting off an angry blast of its horn. The driver lurched the car forward, then thrust his head out the window to shout in a language Sam didn’t understand. But Sam now had just enough room to slide into the right lane. He then squeezed over one more and finally onto the shoulder, where he floored it past a cement truck. This being Dubai, dozens of other drivers had already had the same idea, and Sam was soon locked into a hurtling caravan of Jaguars and Mercedes, surging forward on the shoulder within inches of a scarred Jersey wall. They skirted the smoking wreckage of the accident that had caused the backup, defying an angry cop who was trying to flag everyone down. Sam then eased into the clear as he searched the horizon for the ambulance.

He spotted it, well ahead. The van was still in its wake, and they were approaching the big traffic circle at the end of the expressway. Sam nearly collided with a dump truck, which blasted its air horn as he swerved in front.

“Where are you now?”

“Traffic circle, end of the line. It looks like they’re going off to the right. Yes! I see them now, definitely turning right. I think they’re heading for the Trade Centre. The U.S. Consulate, it’s gotta be.”

He immediately saw the logic of their choice. By being merely a consular office, and not an embassy, it offered a secure location after hours, meaning they’d have the place to themselves. But he also saw its limitations, and apparently so did Sharaf, who shouted back:

“If the Tsar’s people are along, or Hedayat’s, they won’t be able to take their guns upstairs through security.”

“What about Assad?”

“He’ll be allowed, as long as he’s in uniform.”

But how would they slip an unconscious woman past security? On a stretcher, Sam supposed, straight out the back of the ambulance. Unorthodox, but possibly workable. By the time the security people in the downstairs lobby began questioning the logic of taking a medical patient into a building instead of out of it, the elevator would be halfway to its destination.

Sam wheeled into the lot. The ambulance was double-parked alongside the police van next to the building. Both looked empty, doors shut. Everyone must already be on their way upstairs.

“I’m there. I’m going in,” Sam shouted. The Beretta bulged heavily in his pocket. Somehow he would have to get it through security.

“What floor?” Sharaf asked, voice strangled with desperation.

“Twenty-first. There’s a punch code on the elevator. You’ll need it for access.”

“Do you know it?”

Sam remembered it easily. In his mind’s eye he could still see Nanette punching in the number that evoked a national disaster, a date any American couldn’t help but remember, which is probably why some lazy consular officer had chosen it.

“Nine-one-one. Two-thousand-one.”

“You’d better wait for-no, never mind. Do what you can. We are a few minutes behind you. Good luck.”

Sam figured Sharaf had been about to tell him to wait for backup, as any policeman would, especially with a civilian leading the charge. But it was Sharaf’s daughter up there. Caution was a luxury, and so were the usual rules of engagement.

He ran to the glass doors and shoved through. The main lobby was empty, its café closed. At the far end, by the security station leading to the consular elevators, a bored man in uniform waited at the walkthrough metal detector. Sam tried to play it cool, although he was soaked in sweat. Four other countries had consular offices upstairs, and he might plausibly be headed to any of them, but he wondered how many visitors arrived dressed like him, more like a skateboarder than an off-duty diplomat.

As Sam approached, two big fellows stood up from a bank of chairs along the wall-a pair of goons, one Russian, one Iranian. Fortunately they didn’t seem to recognize him. The challenge now was to make it through to the elevators without giving up his gun. In a gray plastic tray by the security station were two ugly weapons that had been confiscated from the earlier arrivals.

Sam smiled and nodded at the security man like they were old pals. The fellow nodded back, keeping his seat as Sam breezed through the metal detector. The alarm blared shrilly. Sam shrugged and held up his cell phone with another smile, as if to explain away the alarm, but he didn’t break stride.