A Hologram for the King (6 page)

Alan looked up. It was Yousef.

—The tour's moving on. You want to come?
Might
you want to come?

Sayed was standing at the end of the hall.

—Let's go upstairs, he said.

Two flights of steps and they found themselves above the city-in-the-making. The observation room afforded 360-degree views, and Alan paced along the windows. It was raw, yes, but from this vantage point the city was beautiful. Now it made sense. The Red Sea was turquoise, a light ripple from a gentle wind bringing the tide in. The sand was almost white, very fine. A tiled promenade snaked into the distance, dividing the oceanfront from the pink condominium and what Alan could now see were the foundations for at least a few more. Palm trees were planted throughout the development, and lined the nearest canal, sky-blue and clean, taking in water from the sea and cutting through the city, heading east. What had seemed like utter failure from the road into the city seemed, now, entirely on target. The place was bustling, workers everywhere in their primary-colored jumpsuits, the place getting built. Any investors seeing the project from this vantage point would be convinced that it was being completed with great taste and with what Alan, at least, saw as admirable speed.

—You like it? Mujaddid asked.

—I do, Alan said. Look at that. All cities need rivers.

—Indeed, Mujaddid said.

Yousef was looking through the glass, too, his face stripped of cynicism. He seemed to be enjoying the sight without guile.

Sayed and Mujaddid led Alan and Yousef to an elevator. They dropped down two floors, and when the doors opened, they were in an underground garage.

—This way.

Sayed led him to an SUV. They stepped in. It smelled new. They drove up a ramp and into the light again. A hard left took them toward the water, and seconds later, the car stopped.

—Here we are, Mujaddid said.

They had driven two hundred yards. Before them was an enormous tent, white and taut, the kind used for weddings and festivals.

—Thank you, Alan said, stepping back into the heat.

—So we'll see you at 3 p.m.? Sayed said.

At some point there must have been some mention of an appointment.

—Yes, Alan said. In the main building, or the welcome center?

—It will be in the main building, Sayed said. With Karim al-Ahmad. He is your primary contact.

Alan stood before the tent, puzzled. There was a vinyl door.

—My people are in there? he asked.

—Yes, Mujaddid said, his face without doubt or apology.

—In a tent, Alan said.

It seemed impossible. Alan was sure there had been a mistake.

—Yes, Mujaddid said. Your presentation will be made in the presentation tent. I trust you will find everything you need inside.

And he closed the door to the car, and was off.

Alan turned to Yousef.

—I'm sure you can leave now.

—You have a way to get home?

—Yeah, there's a van or something.

They settled on a price, and Alan paid him. Yousef wrote a string of digits down on a business card.

—In case you miss the shuttle again, he said.

They shook hands.

Yousef raised his eyebrows at the tent.

—Full steam ahead, he said, and was gone.

I
N THE TENT
, Alan saw no one. The space was vast and empty, smelling of sweat and plastic. The floor was covered with Persian rugs, dozens of them overlapping. About thirty folding chairs were spread around as if there had been a wedding here and the guests had just left. A stage stood on one end of the tent, where Alan's team would assemble the speakers and projectors.

In a far corner of the tent, shadowy and crouching, he could make out three figures, each staring into the grey screens of their laptops. He walked toward them.

—There he is! a voice boomed.

It was Brad. He was in khakis and a crisp white shirt, his sleeves rolled up. He stood to shake Alan's hand, and did his best to bend the bones within. With his short, stocky build, legs almost bowed, he looked like a wrestling coach.

—Hey Brad. Good to see you.

Rachel and Cayley rose. They had shed their abayas, and they greeted
Alan barefoot, in shorts and tank tops. The tent was air-conditioned but had not reached anything like a comfortable level. All three young people were glistening.

They waited for Alan to say something. He had no idea what would be expected. He knew these young people only glancingly. They had met briefly, three months ago, in Boston, at the insistence of Eric Ingvall. Plans were made, and duties explained, timelines and goals. They had been given papers to sign, waivers required by the Kingdom, stating that they would all abide by the rules of the KSA, and that if they broke a law and were convicted, they were subject to the same punishments as anyone else. The waiver pointedly listed execution among the outcomes for certain crimes, including adultery, and they had all signed with a certain giddiness.

—You guys doing okay out here? Alan asked.

He could manage nothing better. He was still trying to process the fact that they were all in a tent.

—It's fine, but we can't get a wi-fi signal, Cayley said.

—We get a faint one from the Black Box, Brad added, throwing his head toward the 7/24/60 office building that stood on higher ground. They'd already devised a nickname for it.

—Who put you in the tent? Alan asked.

Cayley answered. —When we got here, they said the presentations would be made here.

—In a tent.

—I guess so.

—Did they say anything to you, Rachel ventured, about why, you know, we're out here? As opposed to in the actual main building?

—Not to me they didn't, Alan said. Maybe all the vendors will be
out here.

Alan had expected a dozen or so other companies, busy with preparations, frenzied activity in anticipation of a royal visit. But to be out here, alone, in a dark tent — Alan couldn't figure it out.

—I guess that makes sense, Rachel said, chewing the inside of her mouth. But we're the only ones here.

—Maybe we're just first, Alan said, trying to maintain some levity.

—Just weird being Reliant and being out here, right? Brad wondered. He was a company man, a thoroughly competent young person who had likely never, in his life thus far, had to depart from the playbook he'd been given and had memorized.

—This is a new city. Uncharted territory, right? Alan said. You ask anyone about the wi-fi? he asked.

—Not yet, Cayley said. We figured we'd wait for you.

—And we did have a decent signal for a while, Rachel added. With that, she floated back to the far end of the tent, as if suspecting that the signal, now that it was being talked about, would reappear.

Alan looked at Cayley's computer, saw the signal's concentric curves, most of them gray, not black. For a holographic presentation they needed a hard line, and if not that, a massive signal, nothing faint or poached.

—Well, I guess I'll have to ask about this. You start on setting up the rest of the equipment?

—No, not yet, Brad said, wincing. We were kind of hoping that this was a temporary situation. The presentation won't work nearly as well out here.

—You've been here just looking for a signal?

—So far, Cayley said, now seeming to realize that they might have
been doing more.

From the darkness at the other end, Rachel chimed in. —We did have a decent one for a while.

—Right. About an hour ago, Cayley added.

T
HERE HAD TO BE
some reason Alan was here. Why he was in a tent a hundred miles from Jeddah, yes, but also why he was alive on Earth? Very often the meaning was obscured. Very often it required some digging. The meaning of his life was an elusive seam of water hundreds of feet below the surface, and he would periodically drop a bucket down the well, fill it, bring it up and drink from it. But this did not sustain him for long.

Charlie Fallon's death made the news all over the country. He stepped into the lake in the morning, fully clothed. Alan saw him only ankle-deep and thought not much of it. The Transcendentalist was getting muddy.

Alan drove on.

But Charlie stepped in deeper. He did it slowly. Other neighbors saw him up to his knees, his waist. No one said anything.

Finally he was standing with the water at his chest and Lynn Maggliano
called the police. They came, and the fire department came, too. They stood on the shore and they yelled to him. They told him to come back. But no one went to get him.

Later the police and firemen said that due to budget cuts, they hadn't been trained for rescues like this. If they went in after him, it would have been a big liability issue. And besides, they said, the man was standing up. He seemed fine.

Finally a high school girl paddled out in an innertube. When she reached Charlie Fallon, he was was blue and unresponsive.

She screamed. The police and firemen got their tools and dragged him in. They worked on his chest but he was dead.

—Alan?

Brad was looking at him, concerned.

—Yes, Alan said. Let's have a look outside.

He walked toward the entrance. Rachel and Cayley made a move to follow, but Brad stopped them.

—You shouldn't be seen outside dressed the way you are, he said.

They said they were happy to stay inside, where it was cool.

Alan and Brad walked out together. They squinted into the sun and heat, looking around for any evidence of a tower or cable apparatus.

—Over there, Brad said, pointing to the pink condominium, a small satellite dish attached to its side.

They walked to it.

—What are we looking for here? Alan asked.

Brad was the engineer, so Alan hoped to defer to him in matters of technology.

—I guess to see if it's plugged in? Brad said.

Alan glanced at Brad, to see if he was serious. He was.

It seemed to be plugged in. But it was about thirty yards from the tent and thus probably useless to them. Again they stood, squinted, looked around. They saw clusters of workers in jumpsuits, purple and red, installing bricks in the promenade or sweeping sand from it.

—Is that a tower? Alan asked. There was a two-story metal structure, something between an oil derrick and a weathervane, in the middle of the promenade. They walked to it, and saw no wires extending from it. Whether or not this meant anything to them was unclear. They walked back to the tent, no smarter than they were before.

Inside, Rachel and Cayley were now in opposite dark corners, again crouched over their screens, like mothers tending to infants.

—Anything? Brad asked them.

—Not really, Cayley said. Comes and goes.

—You get an email out? Brad asked.

—Not yet, Rachel said.

Alan needed to recover for a few minutes from the heat, so he took a folding chair and sat in it. Brad took the seat next to him.

—We've been trying to email Karim, our contact over here, Brad said.

—Where is he? Alan asked.

—Supposedly here at KAEC.

—In the building? The Black Box?

—I think so.

—You try walking over there?

—Not yet. I'm not going back out in that heat if I don't have to.

And so they continued to sit in the tent.

E
RIC
I
NGVALL AND HIS
stupid face. Sitting there at that long granite table, reading Alan's report with those ugly lips pursed. Alan had wanted to punch that face. Punch his smarmy face till it showed him some respect.

—I really need you to be organized on this one, Ingvall had said.

Ingvall was a renowned anal-retentive. When things were not presented the way he liked, his face cinched into a tortured pout. He was dissatisfied with Alan's report on KAEC. Alan had been asked to prepare something before the trip, a look at KAEC, what Reliant's prospects were, and Alan had done so. The report was finished early and was far longer and more detailed than Ingvall had asked for.

—But you leave so many questions unanswered, Ingvall said, his face pained. And that makes me uncomfortable.

Alan chuckled and said there were questions unanswered in the report because he hadn't been to Saudi yet and couldn't presume to know the lay of the land — much less the state of Abdullah's mind.

—This is sales, Alan said, smiling. You make estimates, you make a plan, then you go there, everything changes, but you make the sale.

Ingvall did not smile and did not agree.