Chase handed her his duffle bag, which she in turn placed on a roller. She slid it behind the front desk. He then followed her down a hallway covered by a high arched ceiling with gold trim. The Hendricks Bar was inside the hotel, at the end of the hallway.
Dubai law had a wonderful loophole that allowed alcohol to be served at hotels. It was banned almost everywhere else. All of the bars, and most of the best restaurants, were co-located within their finest resorts.
They arrived at a fifteen-foot-high wooden doorway. A dark interior lay beyond it. The pudgy doorman in a grey suit retracted a purple felt rope from gold stanchions. They walked in, and Chase thought that the word bar didn’t quite do this place justice.
He was used to working-class watering holes. Places with names like The Greasy Spoon. The Rusty Nail. This was not one of those places. This was something else entirely.
The Hendricks Bar had high ceilings and rich mahogany walls. There were no beer taps. The world’s most expensive liquors lined the single shelf. Magenta cushions adorned each of the bar stools, and a five-foot vertical wall of light surrounded the bar like an enormous lampshade, illuminating the room with a soft yellow glow. Miniature candlelit chandeliers seemed to float down from the high ceiling. The walls were lined with expensive-looking canvases.
The servers were all skinny Asian women who wore tight purple dresses. Their attire matched the décor of the room. Each of them was very pretty. Chase was reminded of an article he’d read that had said the Emirates Airline was one of the few in the world that, due to an apparent lack of legal or political constraints, hired its flight attendants primarily based on looks. Political correctness be damned, Chase had to hand it to the UAE — they sure knew how to make things aesthetically pleasing.
The hotel hostess that had brought Chase to the bar took him toward the rear corner of the room, then politely nodded and left.
Chase found himself staring at a tall Arabic man in a dark suit. The man stood next to the corner table, half-hidden by a set of decorative curtains. They eyed each other as Chase approached. He had a hard look about him. He must be security, Chase realized as he saw another man sitting at the curtained table behind him. The security man moved to block Chase from getting any closer.
Then the man sitting at the corner table said something in Arabic, and the security man took a few steps back towards the wall. The man at the table rose. He wore a white button-down shirt with a dark blue suit jacket. No tie. The top button was undone and there were sweat stains under his arms.
“You are Chase Manning?”
Chase nodded and shook the man’s hand. “Yes. Mr. Waleed Hajjar?”
“Please, call me Waleed. You have good pronunciation. Have you taken Arabic?” His grip was firm, and he shook for about two seconds too long before letting go.
Chase said, “A little.”
“But you do have an accent. Did an Iraqi teach you Arabic?”
Chase smiled. “Yes. I spent some time in Iraq. And my teacher in the US was from Baghdad.”
“Ah. I have a good ear, I think. Now, please have a seat.”
Both men sat at the table. One of the pretty waitresses came over and used a long-stemmed match to light the wooden table’s lone candle. Waleed said something to her in Arabic that Chase couldn’t understand, and she walked away.
For a moment, neither man said anything.
Waleed began. “Mr. Jackson told you why you are here?”
Chase looked to his side before speaking, trying to see if anyone was in earshot.
Waleed said, “You are worried about privacy? Don’t be. No one will hear this conversation. I come here often for business meetings. My security team is watching the other patrons of the bar closely. We know the names of everyone in here. And the host knows not to seat anyone near my table.”
He pulled the curtain over the table entrance and they had the illusion of being in a large tent.
Chase said, “I’m told that my company has had unexpected outflows of information, and that recent events require action on our part.”
“The Iranian that came to your consulate… he asked for you.”
“That is what I am told.”
“Do you know why?” He raised an eyebrow.
Chase shook his head. “I do not.”
Waleed rubbed his chin and said, “Interesting.”
The waitress came back with a wheeled cart. She removed a large bowl of hummus and a plate of steaming-hot pita bread from the cart and placed it on the table. Then she laid a plate of falafel next to the hummus. Next she placed two old-fashioned glasses on the table and poured a double scotch into each.
Waleed asked, “I assume you drink alcohol?”
“I suppose one wouldn’t hurt.”
Chase thought that while regulations might not specifically call for it, it would probably be insulting not to have a drink with Waleed. Plus, he hadn’t had a drink in several months. He wondered about the whole Muslim-no-alcohol thing, but decided not to ask. Just like every religion in the world, people had different levels of practice.
The waitress left the bottle of scotch on the table. Macallan. The bottle had sharp angles. It looked very modern and expensive. Like everything else in this city.
Chase grabbed a piece of the pita bread and dug in. He hadn’t eaten in hours.
“Tell me, Mr. Manning, what do you know about the history of Dubai?” Waleed sat back in his chair, taking another sip from his glass.
“It is a relatively young city. It grew very rapidly over the past two decades. And it is one of the more… progressive… cities in the region.”
Waleed smiled. “Yes, we are the liberals of the Middle East. But that is sort of like being the fastest turtle. An impressive thing… but only among other turtles. Compared to America, Dubai is quite strict. I know. I’ve been to America. I liked it very much.” He raised his thick eyebrows as he spoke. His face was very expressive. “But you are right, we are also a young city.”
Chase nodded politely. “I have also read that the population and real estate growth here has been incredibly impressive.”
Waleed seemed to consider what he would say. He said, “Let me ask you something. Do you know why Dubai grew so quickly? Do you know what the catalyst for growth was?”
“I assume it was oil money.”
“You would be wrong. It is a common misconception. Many Westerners think this. However, the true reasons for Dubai’s growth are these two things — our airport, and the aftermath of the September eleventh attacks on the United States.”
Chase cocked his head. “I have not heard that before.”
“Most people haven’t. Most Westerners think that, like many of the other kingdoms in this part of the world, we are rich from our oil. Not quite. We discovered oil here in the 1960s. But compared to some of our neighbors, it wasn’t a huge find. In the early seventies, Sheikh Rashid tasked the then-young Sheikh Mohammed with building an airport. He brought in experts from the West — an old British Airways executive would help found what you now know as Emirates Airline. Have you flown it before?”
Chase shook his head. Most of his flights had been on Air Force transports or Army helicopters. “No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“It is a truly world-class airline. In the 1980s, both the airport and the airline opened the door to tourists. By the 1990s, we had built tax-free zones for shopping and dozens of extravagant hotels. It was the only place like it in this part of the world. And with the airport, it was now accessible to a great many people. Businesses began to see that in a region of war and terrorism, there was a shining beacon of peace and prosperity.”