Dan Fesperman: Layover in Dubai

Sharaf chuckled dismissively.

“Doubtful. The Minister, at least, is happy. I suppose that will always be worth something.”

“Wasta?” Sam asked.

“Oh, major wasta . Perhaps a lifetime supply. As for the police, well, you never earn much credit by bringing down one of your own.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You, at least, can always go to work for the competition. Not an option for me, unless I want to end up like Assad. Ah, here comes Laleh.” He scraped back his chair and stood. “I will say good-bye, then, and let her say her own farewell in private. She demanded that of me before we came, and you have seen how powerless I have become in refusing her demands. That is what always becomes of fatherhood, I suppose. Eventually no one pays any attention to you at all.”

“If that means she has learned to think for herself, then you’ve raised her pretty well.”

It wasn’t clear from Sharaf’s uncomfortable expression whether he considered that a compliment or not.

“So long,” Sam said, holding out his right hand. Sharaf took it, and again turned it into a hug, and he whispered quickly into Sam’s ear.

“I will forever think of you as I think of my oldest friends, those who dove the deepest waters with me.”

Sam felt two meaty slaps across his back, then Sharaf released him and departed without a further word.

Laleh made her way past the other tables to his side. They remained standing. It was clear to Sam that she didn’t plan to sit.

“I won’t be able to hug you like him, you know. Not out here in the open.”

“I know.”

“So I guess all I can really do is say good-bye.”

“You could say, ‘See you in New York.’”

She smiled.

“My aunts and uncles will be watching me like hawks. So give me at least a week to make them feel secure. Then we’ll see what we can arrange.”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

“We always have.”

She fleetingly touched his hand, then turned to go. Over her shoulder, Sam saw Sharaf watching intently from beyond the tables, with a hint of a smile playing at his lips. The old policeman called out to him one last time.

“One more thing you should know about me, Mr. Keller. In addition to speaking five languages, I am also an expert at reading lips.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh. Fortunately, Sharaf joined in.

Like any city that has grown up fast and lives at top speed, yet still conceals a core of slower and more traditional culture, Dubai is not an easy place to get to know in a hurry. But during my visit there for a few weeks in the spring of 2008, many people were generous with their time, experience, and insight in helping me to at least make an attempt, and I would like to thank them.

At the top of the list is the courageous and irrepressible Sharla Musabih, founder of the City of Hope shelter for battered women. Ms. Musabih and her work are such irresistible forces that it was probably inevitable that she would inspire my portrayal of the fictional Yvette Halami, and her Beacon of Light shelter. Thanks also to City of Hope caseworker Yeshi Riske, for offering a wealth of anecdotes and information about the lives of imperiled women in Dubai.

Thanks also for the many observations on daily life-from both locals and expats-offered by Ahmed Al Attar, Zeyad Al Majed, Doug Cousino, Dhruv Dhawan, Elizabeth Drachman, Nancy Mahmoud, and several others.

For insights into Dubai’s legal system, I’d like to thank Jack Greenwald and John Dragonetti, who also shared their observations on the sleepier way of life in pre-boom Dubai. The fascinating Dubai Museum also helped me shape portraits of the past. But I owe a special thank-you in this department to the invaluable Telling Tales (Dubai: Explorer Publishing, 2005), a fine collection of Dubai oral histories from all walks of life, compiled by journalist Julia Wheeler and photographer Paul Thuysbaert.

Building Towers, Cheating Workers , the exhaustive Human Rights Watch report on living conditions in Dubai’s camps for construction workers, was quite helpful, as were the interviews I was able to conduct with workers living in the Al Qusais and Sonapur labor camps-that is, until I was chased out of both areas by image-conscious security personnel.

Thanks to the affable and interesting Bill Trundley, vice president of Corporate Security and Investigations for GlaxoSmithKline, for patiently explaining the duties and challenges of a security chief for a major pharmaceutical firm.

And thanks as well to Bert Tatham, the Canadian aid worker unjustly imprisoned in Dubai for several months in 2007, for offering his descriptions and observations on the sometimes harrowing living conditions inside the Dubai Central Jail in Al Aweer.

Last but not least, thanks to friend and colleague Sandy Banisky for advising me on how to best equip Nanette Weaver for battle, cosmetically speaking.

Dan Fesperman’s travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won the association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller. The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.