Welcome to Dubai (The Traveler) (16 page)

“Thank you.”

Only Gary was not able to force his legs to move away.

“Where are you from in the States?” she asked him.

“Louisville, in Kentucky.”

She nodded. “Yes, the basketball team.”

That surprised him. “You know about Louisville basketball?”

“Kentucky, my cousin likes to watch them online.”

Gary smirked. “Oh yeah, it’s a big state rivalry between Louisville and Kentucky.”

Just as he had warmed up enough to think about asking her how old she was, Conrad Murymar called her away.

“Oh, excuse me,” she said as she left.

Gary could feel a strange cloud of loneliness in her absence. He hoped that she would return. And she did, but only for a second.

“Enjoy your stay in Dubai,” she told him with a smile.

“Oh, you’re leaving?”

She nodded. “Yes, I train again tomorrow or Sunday.”

“Okay, well enjoy your Friday night,” he said.

“I doubt it. I don’t live in a fun neighborhood,” she responded.

But before he could say anything else, she moved away to say her goodbyes to the other tourists, including the two Italian women. And as she walked toward the Jeeps in the dark, Gary took a deep breath.

Can’t have everything,
he thought.

“There you are, Gary. You disappeared for a while,” Sophie said with a flirtatious glee, swaying her hips and grabbing his arm. “We wanted to get some more pictures of you in case we don’t see you again. Where are you staying, by the way?”

Not even her sexy Italian accent could tempt him. He felt alone, staring in the dark at tourist tents lighted with fiery torches. His mind was definitely not with Sophie or any of the others on the tour.

“I don’t even know the name of the place. I’m just over here on a whim. I’ve been hanging out all night anyway.”

Sophie was ready, with her information written down on the back of a business card. “Well, in case you want to hang out again with us, here is the hotel and my phone number to contact me.”

When he looked down at the card, it was the International Suites,
again.

Chapter 16

Abdul sent his man Hakim to the Palm Deira district after work that evening to check in on the investigation of the recent murders. He wanted Hakim to find out whatever he could on his own and report back to him. Abdul desired all of the information that he could get and from as many different sources.

When Hakim arrived in Deira, he found the UAE police steadily combing through the area with random questions for some and detailed interrogations of others. With a mostly immigrant population who spoke several different languages, the police had their work cut out for them. And they were far behind what was already known by Abdul’s construction site overseer, as well as his private counsel and investigator, Tariq Mohammed. Both of Abdul’s men had an inside track on what to ask and who to look for.

A big Arab man with a neatly trimmed beard in casual street clothes, Tariq was an imposing and respected figure. He was also very sharp. He recognized Hakim, snooping around the crowd outside of the gray cement buildings, immediately. In his white garb, Hakim stood out amongst the uniformed workers like a sore thumb, but Tariq did not bother to speak to him.

As long as he doesn’t get in my way,
he told himself.

There were plenty of immigrant onlookers that night. They were all amazed by the three cold-blooded murders all in one treacherous night.

“This is impossible,” a young Indian worker commented with his hands to his lips in prayer. “Three murders in the same night, all within two blocks of each other. What’s going on?”

The crowds had gathered around a dozen police cars that encircled the area. UAE police officers and investigators were everywhere, with many of them attempting to control the crowds.

“Move back! This is police work!”

The crowd retreated reluctantly as Tariq flashed his special investigations badge on his way inside of the building. Hakim watched him from the crowd, while continuing to listen in on chatter from the streets and sidewalks.

“Why would someone want to kill two old men?” a bystander asked rhetorically.

Maybe they knew something they were not supposed to tell,
Hakim thought, particularly considering the details of the murders. Two slit throats of wise old men was obvious, even to a construction worker. They knew too much.

As Tariq walked into the five-story building to investigate the scene for himself, he listened in on a few of the police interrogations inside of the hallways.

“You did not see any strange men enter the building last night?”

“Not any who looked unusual, no,” a young laborer answered. He was still in tan uniform.

“What does ‘unusual’ mean?” the officers asked him.

The laborer shrugged. “Any man who would look ready to kill someone,” he answered. “Most of the men who live here are peaceful workers and laborers.”

“Where do most of them work?”

Tariq listened in as well.
How many of the immigrant men in Deira have worked for Abdul at one time?
he wondered.

“All over Dubai,” the laborer answered the police. “It is much cheaper to live here in a small room that is close to where we work. We only have to cross the main bridge back into Dubai.”

With the majority of the tenants working daytime shifts, the police had no choice but to ask the same questions of various residents as they began to arrive at home that evening. Not even a double murder inside of their building would stop them from getting up and heading to work. Work was the only reason for them to be there. Few immigrant laborers could afford to enjoy the luxuries of Dubai. The affluence of the United Arab Emirates only served as an opportunity to create a living for their families, many of whom lived far away in a dozen foreign countries.

Once Tariq had ascended the floor of the murders, he found more of the police asking questions of some of the few women who lived in the building.

“Did you hear any men fighting or screaming from inside your room last night?”

The young woman was a Somalian in her mid-twenties, with smooth brown skin and long braided hair.

“I was asleep,” she answered. And she was now irritated that three separate teams of officers had knocked on her door to question her.

“Are you sure you did not hear anything?”

The murders had occurred right across the hallway from her door.

“Yes, I am sure,” she snapped.

One of the officers began to peer into her apartment in curiosity. He asked her, “Who do you live with?”

“I live with my cousins, and they are all women. I told the police this earlier.”

The officers all looked at each other, suspecting prostitution.

“And what work do you do?” one of them asked suspiciously. There were four of them, all local Arabs.

“I work at the mall,” the woman answered. “I have today off.”

“In what store do you work?”

By that time, Tariq had heard enough. The woman did not know anything, and harassing her would only make it harder for them.

“That is enough,” the private counsel spoke up. “She does not know.”

Three UAE officers turned to face Tariq and immediately paused in a show of respect. But that didn’t mean they liked him butting in.

“We are only doing our jobs, as you do yours,” the lead interrogator piped up. They were all familiar with Tariq Mohammed and his experienced work, and they envied him.

“And your job should never be to harass innocent women.” Tariq liked to make strategic friends with any witnesses who could grow to like and trust him. It made his job as a private investigator and counsel a lot easier.

The Somalian woman took note of him and nodded. “Thank you.”

He nodded back. “It is my honor. How often do guests take the stairs instead of the elevators?” he asked. “These elevators appear to be slow and overused.”

The woman grinned. “They are slow. So we use the stairs a lot. It keeps you in shape.”

Tariq looked to the exit staircase to his left and decided to take another look. He had already gathered plenty of information during the day, including a look inside of the apartment of the double murder. But he did not want to compete with so many hands and bodies from the police force that had arrived earlier. The evening shift of police was lighter and more manageable, but they were also less experienced.

“We have already checked the stairs several times now,” the lead officer informed him.

“And now it is my turn,” Tariq responded.

The officer shook his head and breathed deeply, disturbed by the nuisance of the hired hand. Nevertheless, Tariq had served on the UAE police force for many years himself, as well as earned a law degree, which helped him to solve many high-profile cases in and around Dubai. So he had earned a great deal of respect from the police chiefs at the headquarters. Realizing as much, the officer stood down and allowed Tariq to perform his methodical investigation.

The lead officer nodded to the other men. “Let him be.”

“Thank you.”

Tariq entered the barren cement stairway that was without railings and studied the outside walls for fingerprints. More than halfway to the bottom, he found a small grease smudge in the middle of the outside wall. He leaned in and sniffed it before pressing the smudge with his finger to get a better whiff and feel.

“Fish oil,” he confirmed.

When he had visited the scene of the crime earlier, Tariq had discussed the dried fish oil with higher-ranking officers, but he had not yet studied the exit staircase. He wondered if the investigation team had found the small grease mark as well.

Tariq walked out of the building’s fire escape exit, where the police and bystanders remained abuzz out of the sidewalk and street. As they all watched him, he looked right and then left, imagining which way the assailants could have run. Then he spotted a tall brown trash can to his left. It stood waist high and toward the back of the sidewalk. As he walked over to investigate it, the police officers and the crowd all watched.

“We checked the perimeter of the building already,” one of the officers commented.

Tariq looked inside the trash can, searching for more fish oil.

“What are you looking for?” the officer continued to question him.

Tariq ignored him and found a plastic shopping bag with another grease stain on it. But as he searched for more evidence, he could not find the additional items that he anticipated—a mask, a knife or a pair of leather gloves.

“What is that?” the officer asked him.

Tariq shook his head and refused to reveal his thoughts or evidence.

He dropped the grease-stained bag back into the trash can and answered, “Nothing.”

One of the two men must have been ready to throw away the evidence and was told not to,
he assumed.
So there was definitely a professional and an apprentice involved.

Tariq knew more than the investigating officers. He then looked back out into the crowd of men.

Some of them know who did it, I am certain. But they are all silenced by fear,
he mused.

As Tariq looked out into the crowd, Abdul’s man, Hakim, continued to watch him while listening to the rumblings and speculation of bystanders.

“Who is he? And how long will they be here? Will there now be a constant police watch in Deira?”

Some of the men were concerned about their privacy. A heavy police presence in their neighborhood only drew attention.

As Hakim eavesdropped from the crowd and watched Tariq perform his work, Saleem, the militant Pakistani man, spotted Hakim amongst the mob of men, and he watched the construction overseer who watched the private investigator.

Not trusting Hakim’s intentions, Saleem backed away from the crowd and thought of checking in on Mohd Ahmed Nasir in the building up the street.
Would Mohd feel comfortable with so many UAE police officers combing through the area, where his armed men carry deadly assault weapons?
Saleem imagined not. As soon as he arrived at Mohd’s building, he had his answer.

Several men hustled the respected Egyptian leader into the back of a white moving van that had pulled quickly into the dark alley of the building. Saleem had arrived there with perfect timing to see it. But he was not the police, nor would he be a willing witness. In fact, he smiled and nodded to himself.

“The area is now too hot to handle,” he mumbled. “Even for me.”

He figured with Hakim snooping around, the police might have been swayed to interrogate him like they had done with many other laborers who lived in the area.

But where could I move to with no money?
he pondered.

“Saleem,” someone called him.

The Pakistani turned to his right, alarmed, and faced a stout Egyptian man who held a folded note in the shadows. Saleem immediately recognized him as one of Mohd’s men from the night of the meeting.

“Yes,” he answered calmly and stepped forward into the dark. It was an obvious conversation of privacy.

The man quickly handed him the folded note. “Mohd said to contact him there. And leave this area as soon as you can. It is not safe here.”

Saleem frowned and breathed deeply, thinking about his lack of income after quitting the construction job. He could hardly buy himself a good meal to eat, let alone move to a new place to live. But before he could open his mouth to explain his situation, the Egyptian man handed him a thousand
dirham.

“Use that to move your things tonight, and stay at a cheap hotel room downtown. And call the number first thing in the morning.”

Saleem stuffed the money and the note into his pants pocket as the man walked away and disappeared into the night. The Pakistani militant liked the Egyptian leader even more now. However, he remained baffled.

“I wonder what they have planned,” he muttered to himself. He knew that something was going on. There was too much unexplainable activity for there not to be a plan. A sound explanation was likely to be revealed in his phone call to Mohd that next morning. But at the moment, Saleem agreed with the urgency to vacate the area.