On Fire by Thomas Anderson
At that moment Sa’d is enjoying happy hour with a few members of his staff, about five miles South of the Dubai business district and the Burj Khalifa. They are off Sheikh Sayed Road at Al Marabea Street, in the Times Square Center, an upscale shopping mecca that includes the Chill Out Café. The Chill Out interior is covered in ice, dropping the temperature to twenty degrees inside, a major contrast from the ninety’s to be found on the other side of the front door.
The staff thinks it’s a fun place, but Kadin likes the cold environment because it makes ordinary eavesdropping difficult. The customers and wait staff are dressed in parkas and mukluks with ear flaps, which also make for pretty good disguises. There is but one gentleman here wearing the traditional keffiyeh. The crowd in the place is, for the most part, a bunch of loud, bundled up against the cold, western tourists, getting soaked in more ways than one.
Kadin’s driver picked them up at his office building, driving the five miles or so down Sayed Road to the restaurant. Sayed is a meticulously overbuilt eight lane boulevard lined with palms and blue on white skyscrapers, and could not be more impressive. The tall buildings are designed in every conceivable and inventive way, all of them together creating a better, cleaner, if somewhat more megalomaniacal, version of Los Angeles. Certainly the air is a lot hotter than LA. Here the skies are impeccably, drily azure, spotless and pure. The streets are as well. They contain not a single billboard or other sign of advertising. For a modern world city, it is at once pristine and overtly sanitized.
Kadin appreciates the enforced orderliness of Dubai, as he seeks that same order and control in his own life. It helps that his is a life worthy of being envied, giving him every conceivable resource that might be needed to create such an illusion.
A waitress in an especially lumpy set of over clothes steps up to take their drink orders, her hands briefly exposed in order to make note of their requests, her face partially concealed by the hood over her head.
“Welcome to the Chill Out Café. May I take your orders?” she asks in what Kadin is sure must be an Eastern European accent.
Angela Hadad, the chief analyst for Kadin’s CFO, and Samira Veena, Kadin’s personal assistant, have been in considerable discussion about their orders. However, after all that, they both order hot chocolate. Connor Kalil, Kadin’s ivy league Operations overseer and head of personal security, diffidently asks for black tea.
“Vodka and coffee, no ice,” says Kadin and they laugh.
Everything in the room is made of ice, from the seating and tables to the ice sculpture bar. Along one wall is a miniature diorama of Dubai showing the city’s main architectural prizes, the Al Arab, the Emirates Towers, and many more. Everyone sits on plastic cushions rather than the ice itself, but Angela and Samira have appropriated sheepskin throw rugs for further protection. A chandelier made of thick ice blocks hangs behind them and is lit with blue and pink LEDs. The room glows eerily as the various lights change.
“It feels like we’re in a submarine!” declares Samira gleefully.
“No, like a big freezer!” says Angela.
Connor laughs at both of them.
“You think this is fun, but cold like this can be a deadly enemy. If this were Siberia, you wouldn’t be so thrilled.”
“Bet you got cold in Cambridge then, didn’t you?” pokes Angela. Single and seeing somebody, she takes pride in giving the also single Connor a hard time whenever possible.
“Get a room you two,” Samira says peevishly, ladling hot cocoa into her mouth spoonful by spoonful, trying to catch tiny marshmallows.
Kadin is inwardly amused. He can listen contentedly to their patter ad nauseam and there have been occasions when he has. These people work interminable hours for his benefit and have become like family to him. Really, they are family. He has bought condominiums for all three of them.
The man with the keffiyeh sits alone. He glances Kadin’s way.
“Excuse me a moment,” Kadin says to the others, “I see a friend. I’ll just be a moment.”
He gets up, takes his vodka and moves across the room. He pulls down a sheepskin from the back of the seat and sits across from the man in the keffiyeh.
“You couldn’t stand out any more.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that. But I have to be somewhere after this.”
“Let me guess.”
“No. Don’t.”
“What are you so sensitive about?”
Kadin sits back. He grins and tilts his head, making a question of his gesture.
“Adnan,” the older man with the red and white checked keffiyeh states flatly.
“Is there a problem?” Kadin knows the name. Adnan is the leader of UNK. Or, he was.
“The bodies have been recovered from the ocean where the plane crashed.”
“Then all goes according to plan. The authorities think the leader of UNK is dead, but he is not dead. We have only made them think he is dead,” Kadin Sa’d says.
“But they have a body that they think is Adnan.”
“Of course. By the way, you knew Adnan’s brother died recently?” Kadin asks.
The man in the red and white head scarf has a sudden epiphany. He looks sideways at Kadin.
“No way,” he says in disbelief.
“Way.”
“You placed your uncle’s remains in the underwater wreckage of your father’s plane?”
“My father did. It should be a close enough match for his DNA.”
“You must be crazy. They will be watching you, thinking you have taken on a larger role.”
“You’re right. I have never had to be more careful.”
Kadin states this heavily, as if encumbered by a great wool coat many times bigger than the one he is actually wearing.
Chapter 43
The staff thinks it’s a fun place, but Kadin likes the cold environment because it makes ordinary eavesdropping difficult. The customers and wait staff are dressed in parkas and mukluks with ear flaps, which also make for pretty good disguises. There is but one gentleman here wearing the traditional keffiyeh. The crowd in the place is, for the most part, a bunch of loud, bundled up against the cold, western tourists, getting soaked in more ways than one.
Kadin’s driver picked them up at his office building, driving the five miles or so down Sayed Road to the restaurant. Sayed is a meticulously overbuilt eight lane boulevard lined with palms and blue on white skyscrapers, and could not be more impressive. The tall buildings are designed in every conceivable and inventive way, all of them together creating a better, cleaner, if somewhat more megalomaniacal, version of Los Angeles. Certainly the air is a lot hotter than LA. Here the skies are impeccably, drily azure, spotless and pure. The streets are as well. They contain not a single billboard or other sign of advertising. For a modern world city, it is at once pristine and overtly sanitized.
Kadin appreciates the enforced orderliness of Dubai, as he seeks that same order and control in his own life. It helps that his is a life worthy of being envied, giving him every conceivable resource that might be needed to create such an illusion.
A waitress in an especially lumpy set of over clothes steps up to take their drink orders, her hands briefly exposed in order to make note of their requests, her face partially concealed by the hood over her head.
“Welcome to the Chill Out Café. May I take your orders?” she asks in what Kadin is sure must be an Eastern European accent.
Angela Hadad, the chief analyst for Kadin’s CFO, and Samira Veena, Kadin’s personal assistant, have been in considerable discussion about their orders. However, after all that, they both order hot chocolate. Connor Kalil, Kadin’s ivy league Operations overseer and head of personal security, diffidently asks for black tea.
“Vodka and coffee, no ice,” says Kadin and they laugh.
Everything in the room is made of ice, from the seating and tables to the ice sculpture bar. Along one wall is a miniature diorama of Dubai showing the city’s main architectural prizes, the Al Arab, the Emirates Towers, and many more. Everyone sits on plastic cushions rather than the ice itself, but Angela and Samira have appropriated sheepskin throw rugs for further protection. A chandelier made of thick ice blocks hangs behind them and is lit with blue and pink LEDs. The room glows eerily as the various lights change.
“It feels like we’re in a submarine!” declares Samira gleefully.
“No, like a big freezer!” says Angela.
Connor laughs at both of them.
“You think this is fun, but cold like this can be a deadly enemy. If this were Siberia, you wouldn’t be so thrilled.”
“Bet you got cold in Cambridge then, didn’t you?” pokes Angela. Single and seeing somebody, she takes pride in giving the also single Connor a hard time whenever possible.
“Get a room you two,” Samira says peevishly, ladling hot cocoa into her mouth spoonful by spoonful, trying to catch tiny marshmallows.
Kadin is inwardly amused. He can listen contentedly to their patter ad nauseam and there have been occasions when he has. These people work interminable hours for his benefit and have become like family to him. Really, they are family. He has bought condominiums for all three of them.
The man with the keffiyeh sits alone. He glances Kadin’s way.
“Excuse me a moment,” Kadin says to the others, “I see a friend. I’ll just be a moment.”
He gets up, takes his vodka and moves across the room. He pulls down a sheepskin from the back of the seat and sits across from the man in the keffiyeh.
“You couldn’t stand out any more.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that. But I have to be somewhere after this.”
“Let me guess.”
“No. Don’t.”
“What are you so sensitive about?”
Kadin sits back. He grins and tilts his head, making a question of his gesture.
“Adnan,” the older man with the red and white checked keffiyeh states flatly.
“Is there a problem?” Kadin knows the name. Adnan is the leader of UNK. Or, he was.
“The bodies have been recovered from the ocean where the plane crashed.”
“Then all goes according to plan. The authorities think the leader of UNK is dead, but he is not dead. We have only made them think he is dead,” Kadin Sa’d says.
“But they have a body that they think is Adnan.”
“Of course. By the way, you knew Adnan’s brother died recently?” Kadin asks.
The man in the red and white head scarf has a sudden epiphany. He looks sideways at Kadin.
“No way,” he says in disbelief.
“Way.”
“You placed your uncle’s remains in the underwater wreckage of your father’s plane?”
“My father did. It should be a close enough match for his DNA.”
“You must be crazy. They will be watching you, thinking you have taken on a larger role.”
“You’re right. I have never had to be more careful.”
Kadin states this heavily, as if encumbered by a great wool coat many times bigger than the one he is actually wearing.
Chapter 43