A Hologram for the King (20 page)

—We need wi-fi at least.

—I will have it fixed. What else?

—The air-conditioning doesn't work. My staff is suffering.

—It will be addressed immediately. What else?

—How do we eat? We've been bringing food from the hotel.

—Starting tomorrow, you will have catered meals every day.

Alan was feeling immensely powerful. He had no clue if any of this would actually happen, but it was fun to pretend. He went for the most important question of all.

—How long will we wait for the King?

—I do not know that.

—Do you have a ballpark?

—A what?

—An estimate on the timeline?

—No, I don't.

Now al-Ahmad was putting away the notebook.

—Days?

—I do not know.

—Weeks?

—I do not know.

—Months?

—I hope not.

Alan had nowhere else to go. The man had given him what he asked for, and he hadn't expected him to know anything about the King anyway. He was resigned to the fact that no one here knew anything about King Abdullah's movements. Satisfied and eager to bring all this news
back to the staff, he stood and extended his hand to al-Ahmad. As they shook hands, Alan saw a strange sight, far off in the canal below.

—Is that a yacht?

—It is. It arrived yesterday. Are you a sailor?

In minutes Alan and Karim al-Ahmad had been driven out to the canal and were being shown the workings of the vessel, a thirty-foot sport-fishing yacht, white and untouched. It had three miles on it. It was brand new.

—You've driven something like this? al-Ahmad asked.

The closest thing Alan had piloted was thirty years old and worth a few million less, but he wanted to try this thing out.

—Pretty much, he said.

—Excellent, al-Ahmad said.

The man taking care of the yacht, a wisp of a man named Mahmoud, had a brief Arabic conversation with al-Ahmad, during which, Alan surmised, al-Ahmad was convincing Mahmoud to allow Alan to pilot the yacht down the canal. It was the kind of privilege Alan was used to as an executive — or had become accustomed to back in the day. There were Aston Martins to test, there were prop planes to briefly take command of. But more than anything there was fishing. The Schwinn guys fostered a culture of fishing, on Lake Michigan and anywhere else. There were weekends up on Lake Geneva with the VPs, with a chosen few of the best retailers. Alan missed all that.

Al-Ahmad handed him the keys.

—I'm trusting you to captain us.

Alan put the key in the ignition and turned. The engine rumbled awake. Alan wondered what kind of speed or course would be prudent here, in a canal of unknown length. Did it extend to the sea at a depth where he could leave the city and motor onto the open water?

—As long as there are no hidden sandbars, we're fine, Alan said, and they both laughed, because the canal was as flat and clear as a swimming pool.

Alan pulled back on the throttle. They left the berth and were soon cruising down the turquoise waterway. There were no blemishes to any of it — not a dot of debris in the water, not a scratch on the floor.

The air, which had been stifling moments before, was now blessed by a wonderful wind, blowing back their hair. Alan turned to al-Ahmad, who was smiling widely, raising his eyebrows as if to say,
Did I set us up or what?
Alan loved the man, and loved the boat, and the canal, and this nascent city.

They passed the beginnings of more buildings on their right, and saw an overhead pedestrian bridge ahead. Al-Ahmad explained the plan for this part of the development.

—You lived in Chicago, right? he said.

It was to be a bit like that, he explained, a bit like Venice. Promenades on each side of the water, frequent berths, step-down restaurants, water taxis. It was an aesthetic thing, but an environmental choice, too. The air around Jeddah had a tendency toward smog, and there would be discharge from the plastics factories, so they were trying to reduce any and all emissions. People can kayak to work.

—Take a water-bike, hire a gondolier, anything, al-Ahmad said. Turn here.

The canal split off into a smaller tributary, Alan followed it, and soon saw the makings of the financial center, the place the American architect had been talking about at the embassy party. There wasn't much of anything there now, just an enormous disc of land in the middle of the water, but it was stunning nevertheless. Those glass towers, rising from and reflecting in this crystalline water.

Alan wanted to stay here. He wanted to watch the city grow, and he wanted to be a charter owner. Maybe in Marina Del Sol. What had they wanted for condos there? After this deal, he could afford it. And the deal, now, seemed well in hand. It was just a waiting game. Al-Ahmad liked him, and trusted him enough to allow him to pilot a gleaming white yacht through the pristine canals of the city. Alan was already part of the early history of this place. He circled the financial island twice, three times.

They were both happy men, men of vision. Alan felt, for the first time since he'd arrived, that he belonged.

Back at the tent, Alan burst through the door, finding two of the three young people awake and working on their laptops. Cayley was asleep in a corner. When he woke her and gathered them and gave them the news, they became, more or less instantly, the motivated and capable people Reliant had hired them to be.

Within the hour, the wi-fi was strong enough to work with. Al-Ahmad had kept his promise and proved to be, much to Alan's relief, a man who could get things done. Soon after, technicians were inside the tent, fixing the air-conditioning. By early afternoon, it was a cool sixty-eight degrees and the young people had set up all the equipment — the
screens, the projectors, the speakers. They'd taped down the marks on the stage, had done a brief rehearsal.

By four o'clock they were ready to test the hologram. They got in touch with the London office, the closest Reliant outpost that had the capability to do it, and by five o'clock, just as the shuttle arrived, they had completed two full run-throughs of the twenty-minute holographic presentation. It worked fluidly. It was astounding. One of their colleagues in London appeared to be walking around the stage in their Red Sea tent, could react to live questions, could interact with Rachel or Cayley on the stage. It was the kind of technology that only Reliant had, only Reliant could deliver for a price. Making the prototype in the U.S. had been catastrophically expensive, but they'd found a supplier in Korea who could build the lenses to their specs, at about a fifth of the cost in America, even cheaper if they shopped it out to a Chinese factory. Reliant would make a robust profit on any unit, but more than that, the telepresence technology was part of an overall Reliant juggernaut of baseline telecom abilities, the ability to wire an entire city, and on the higher end, this kind of astonishment. Alan was utterly confident that the presentation, when Abdullah arrived, would seal the deal quickly.

When the second demo was finished, Alan instigated high-fives all around, and the young people laughed at his enthusiasm. But they laughed with a newfound respect for him. He was a new man, a vital man. They knew he had gotten the job done. He'd fixed what needed to be fixed, he'd paved the way for their success, he was again captain of the ship.

T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS
passed like clouds. But on Wednesday, when they arrived at the turnoff to KAEC, it was bedlam. For the first time since Alan had been passing through the gates, there was traffic. There were ten vehicles in front of the shuttle — SUVs and trucks carrying palm trees, and a cement mixer, and a string of taxis and vans. Everyone was honking.

In the tent, young people darted around, arranging chairs, taping down speakers, testing the microphones.

Rachel saw him first. —Is this really happening today?

Alan had no idea. —Looks like it, he said.

Brad looked up from the projector. —We'll be ready.

Along one side of the tent, a vast table had been erected, easily forty feet long, covered in a white tablecloth and bearing dozens of silver heating trays. The catering had already arrived, a mix of hot and cold foods, Saudi and Western, everything from fava beans to risotto to shawarma.
There was an array of white couches, a team of Pakistani workers arranging them in rows facing the stage.

Alan left the tent, running to the Black Box to see if he could get any clarity about the timing of the visit. He heard a helicopter, and looked up to see two of them, flying low, landing somewhere near the welcome center. He jogged to the front door.

Maha at the reception desk, who had been so unhelpful before, was now eager to talk.
Blond!
She told Alan that the King's people, if the King were to arrive that day, would send word twenty minutes beforehand. Otherwise Reliant should be ready immediately and all day.

Alan returned to the tent. Brad was on the stage, sitting cross-legged, typing furiously into his laptop. Rachel and Cayley were standing below, talking on their cellphones. Alan approached Brad.

—We ready?

—Two minutes.

In two minutes, just after Brad announced that they were ready to test the holographic presentation with their team in London, a man they hadn't seen before entered the tent. He was Saudi, tall and wearing a white thobe, carrying a leather attaché. He stood in the doorway, as if reluctant to invade their personal space, and raised his hands to get the attention of all those rushing around inside.

—Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say that the King will not be here today. You have been misled. He informed them that there had been some miscommunication somewhere along the line. Someone in the King's communications department had given unauthorized and
incorrect information to someone at Emaar, and the news had been wrongly and widely disseminated. The King's schedule for KAEC was still up in the air but for now he was, in fact, in Jordan, and would be for the next three days.

The mood among the young people, at least for a moment or two, was something like despair. Alan had the feeling, looking at Brad's deflation, that this was among the bigger disappointments of his life. Rachel and Cayley, after a short period of mourning, went back to their laptops, and seemed happy enough now that there were couches in the tent, and food, and a strong wi-fi signal, so they sat eating contentedly while Brad lay on the stage, between the various projectors, his legs akimbo, like a toy bear.

Alan went outside, where he saw the same sort of activity as earlier, only in reverse. The delivery trucks were leaving, the taxis and vans were gone, the place was shutting down.

He wandered around the grounds of the development, noticing various improvements they'd made that morning. There was suddenly a wide moat of flowers around the Black Box. The promenade now was crowded with palm trees — maybe a hundred more had been installed that day. Far off he could see the fountains around the welcome center, now shooting bright plumes of water high into the air.

Standing at the bottom of the steps to the Black Box, he spotted a black SUV emerging from the underground garage. It stopped next to him and the rear window dropped, revealing a blond head, a smiling face. It was Hanne.

—Thrills galore, she said.

—I guess so.

—Sorry for the false alarm.

—No need. Probably good that we practice.

—I'm going back to Jeddah. You need a ride?

Alan thought about it. There was no need for him to be on the site. But he did not want to be alone with Hanne.

—I should stay with the team, he said.

—You okay?

—I am, he said.

She raised her eyebrows, some indication that she would pry if he had given her reason to think it would be welcome. He said nothing more, and with a wave she was gone.

Before he could move, he heard his name.

—Alan!

He looked up to to the Black Box. A familiar man was racing down the steps. Alan couldn't immediately place him. The face came into focus just in time. The man was upon him, extending his hand.

—Mujaddid. From the tour. Remember?

—Of course. Good to see you again, Mujaddid.

—A lot of excitement today, huh?

Alan agreed that it had been exciting.

—I've been looking for you, Mujaddid said. I happened to talk to Karim al-Ahmad, and he let me know about your trip down the canals, and how enthused you were about the development.

—I was very impressed. I
am
very impressed.

—Excellent. Well, as you know, I am in charge of private home sales, and I hope it's not presumptuous of me to think you might be in the
market for a home here in the King Abdullah Economic City.

Before Alan could protest, Mujaddid had explained the various advantages of having a second home — he used the phrase
pied-à-terre
— here at KAEC, especially for a man like himself, who was likely to be spending some time here implementing the IT plan. Hearing what seemed to be the near certainty in Mujaddid's statement, the strong implication that Reliant's grip on the IT sale was unshakeable, gave Alan a burst of confidence. He agreed to a tour of the condominium.