Flies and honey

"He's never met an evil maid like you." DREADFUL PENNY Ep. 2

Episode 1: Penny, alias Veronique, arrives in Dubai on the arm of her target, the CEO of KazPetro.

The helicopter headed back toward the water. It didn’t have far to go. Their destination: Burj al Arab, Arabian Tower but known by foreigners as the Burj. Only the incredible height of the Khalifa skyscraper could make the Burj appear petite. White sail-shaped struts girded its curvy glass body, making the Burj resemble a fantastic dhow prowling the coast. The hotel stood on a triangle of reclaimed land. One bridge, well policed, connected it to the city.

It was one of the most secure buildings in the world.

But not secure enough.

Stack and Lev were already there, registered as guests. She had worked with Stack before…well, maybe ‘conspired’ was a better word for it. She knew he was extremely capable but that didn’t engender trust. The opposite, maybe. Lev was new to the organization, a young black hat who had boasted about doing time in an Israeli jail but was coy about the details of his release.

“Welcome to our destination, Burj al Arab,” the pilot said. “It is the world’s tallest hotel, rising higher than the Eiffel Tower. It has been called the world’s only seven-star hotel. On behalf of the management, Mr. Chairman and guests, we wish you a most luxurious stay.”

The Eurocopter circled the hotel once before alighting on the green helipad that jutted improbably from the Burj’s crown. From there stairs zigzagged along the roof, all white save for a red carpet that rolled toward a door. Clambering up the final set of stairs to meet them was a dark-skinned man in a black suit, black tie, and white shirt with French cuffs.

“Your butler is here to greet you,” the pilot said.

The butler was soon joined by two more, also Arabs kitted out in black tie. Their movements and demeanor appeared impervious to the blistering sun.

As the passengers removed their headphones, Penny kissed Timur on the cheek. “That was wonderful. Thank you, darling. Rakhmet.”

Timur grunted amiably and moved past her to exit the chopper.

The butlers hauled out their luggage, including two huge Louis Vuitton steamer trunks upright on wheels. The sun imposed itself and Penny shielded her eyes. She indulged a final glance at the desert city standing proud across the narrow waters, shimmering in the heat; the spindly reaches of Burj Khalifa were lost in the haze. The wind snarled her hair into rebellious black asps and billowed the men’s suit jackets, revealing the holstered sidearm that Kasym Shokay carried.

He buttoned his jacket over the gun and made a pistol of his thumb and pointed finger, aimed it at her, and with a wink, pulled the trigger.

One week ago, Penelope Lee had stood on Fuad Chamoun’s terrace overlooking the lush, deep valley. The sun was descending beyond the mountain and the greenery was coming alive with comforting domestic lights. Smoke from the kebab grill scented the air with cumin and pepper.

“Here,” Fuad said, “have a glass of wine. It’s Syrian, Domaine de Bargylus. This may be the last case we’ll get for a while. The jihadis are closing in on them, poor bastards.”

She accepted the glass and raised it in salute to Fuad’s brother, Etienne, who was tending to the kafta. Their father had favored both Arab and French names. So: Fuad and Etienne. “To whatever you’re cooking that smells so good.”

Etienne replied with a shy smile as he fanned the kebabs with a palm leaf. He was the artist in the family, awkward but intense.

The wine was delicious and Penny drank more, looking over the darkening valley. “He’s going to Dubai.”

“We know,” Fuad said.

“How?”

He shrugged. Fifty-something with only a bit of paunch, his leonine hair going from black to pearl, he maintained the commander’s indifference.

“Physical security,” she began, “I need—”

“What happened to you in London,” he said, “has happened in this business many times before. Enough pointless talk.”

Let him think she had botched the job and paid the price, end of story. “A honey trap attracts flies, got it.”

“You should be glad, Penny. We are near the end. The hardest part is already done. You must get Timur to take you—not any of the others, just you—and we’re going to have him exactly where we need him. And you won’t be alone,” he said. “We’re sending Stack. He’ll be in position in two or three days’ time.”

Stack had been with her in London. He had told Fuad about the attack, ran the footage, and kept quiet about what had really come after.

“All right,” Penny said, non-committal. Stack was another subject she’d rather not get into with their boss. “When do I get my money?”

“Once my client confirms receipt of the data. Buribaev is meeting the Chinese in Dubai at the Burj al Arab.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Fuad nodded in the gathering dark. “It was confirmed this morning in Beijing. The meet is nothing official. There won’t be any minutes or records. Just Buribaev and General Liang, two men sitting down to dinner to see if they can do business together. But Buribaev won’t leave Almaty without a laptop. You’ve observed his security measures?”

“Biometrics on all the hardware. Fingerprint and retina scan. That laptop is practically glued to his fingers.”

“But he’s never met an evil maid like you.” Evil maid attack, hacker slang for physically accessing a computer while its owner was away—such as the apocryphal maid in a hotel, cracking the computer while the guest was absent. “There’s something else I want you to find out.”

The smoke from Etienne’s kebabs was making her mouth water. “Is this errand for your client,” she asked Fuad, “or for you?”

“I’d like to you to find out why the meet is in Dubai.”

“China’s hungry for energy supplies,” she reasoned. “Kazakhstan’s a producer. Dubai’s neutral.” She assumed Fuad’s client, the one that had bankrolled her for the past two months, was in the oil game, eager to understand or disrupt whatever KazPetro or the Chinese were up to. But Fuad never revealed client names to his operatives. “What’s it to us?”

“We’ve picked up chatter that the meet was originally to take place in Beijing.”

“And Dubai’s a party town.”

“The chatter,” he said, “involved a sudden burst of communications between KazPetro and Enimash in Moscow.” Enimash was an oil services company owned by a Russian tycoon pal of Putin’s.

“You think Timur’s going behind Russia’s back?” Which could mean a juicy opening for Fuad’s client…or extra intel for Fuad to sell to someone else.

“Maybe, or maybe doing Moscow a favor. See what you can find out.” The waft of spiced meat was irresistible. “Etienne, those smell ready. Are you hungry, my dear?”

They passed through Fuad’s kitchen, a surprisingly antique affair with a small wooden stove in the center. The Chamoun compound had been here for centuries and the kitchen’s medieval wooden counters and brick hearth preserved some of that memory. The rest of the house was indistinguishably modern, straight out of an American suburb.

Two of Fuad’s cousins, Jamal and Isa, were hustling to get the rest of the dishes out to the dining room. They came from the shorter and rounder branch of the family, Jamal sporting a shaven head and Isa a bushy mustache. These two were the muscles of the organization, the hands and feet, the fixers and handymen and odd-jobbers. Fuad’s spy ring was a family business.

Only his sister Daliyah was absent, and she never informed others of her comings or goings, and no one ever dared ask.

Fuad pulled out a chair for Penny at the table as his cousins covered it with one plate after another: mezzes, hot and cold, along with sausages, giant baked pita bread and, delivered by Etienne, the beef kafta. Etienne smiled at her as he placed his handiwork on the table.

“It smells wonderful,” she told him, and Etienne blushed with pleasure.

The men were convivial, and she relished the food after a month enduring clumsy chunks of boiled horsemeat and sour milk; despite his wealth, Timur’s culinary tastes didn’t stray beyond what his mother had raised him on.

She reached for the wine but got only dregs. That had gone fast.

“We must have arak,” Fuad said, pouring the liquor into everyone’s glass.

“Absolutely,” Penny said. She added water to her drink and it turned a milky white.

“For good health, fi sehatkum.”

Everyone clinked rims. The arak tasted like aniseed. It was good and she downed it in one, nodding her empty glass at Fuad to give it a refill.

“You drink like we’re in a saloon,” he said.

“Five weeks in Moscow and Almaty has a way of building a girl’s tolerance.”

“You’ll get fat,” Fuad said. “You already have some under your chin.”

She slammed the glass. “Pour, dammit.”

“I…I think you’re…” Etienne could barely speak to her without stammering so he turned to his older brother. “Fuad, leave her alone.” Etienne was endowed with the impressive Chamoun jaw, but a moonier face, pasty skin and ringed eyes. He was blessed with nimble fingers and a reservoir of patience. Even the CIA, the SRV and Mossad struggled with faking identities. In the digital age, it was becoming difficult and expensive to furnish passports, credit cards, online histories, legends. But Etienne pursued his craft in the family compound’s basement, a den of chemicals and materials and printers and dyes, serenaded by banks of servers humming in the cold dark.

Quasimodo to her Esmeralda, beast to her beauty—the poor sap.

Etienne’s comment elicited a look of anger and for a moment she thought Fuad might explode. He relented into a sneer. “When, little brother, are you going to talk to women like a man?”

Etienne looked at his precious hands as the cousins guffawed.

“For Penny, he’d have to get in line,” Isa said.

“There’s quite a queue,” Jamal added.

She’d been tolerating, even enjoying, these lame jokes for years, like some kind of valediction. But things had changed. London, she supposed—events she didn’t like to think about. The cousins’ banter about her supposed availability made her bristle.

Penny walked around the table and bent over Etienne and kissed him. He quivered like a man shot. The cousins crashed into silence. “You boys got something to say to me?”

“Enough,” Fuad snapped. “There are certain lines in this family, Penny, that you do not cross.”

“Sorry, dad.”

“There was a time, not so long ago, when you said I was just as good as a father.”

The jibe resurrected a sudden idea of her true father; the fierce feeling of protectiveness of his memory was a recent emotion. “You’re no father,” she blurted.

Fuad had filled the void of her vanished parents with a sort of rearing that for a time she had embraced, relished, devoured. If it was unconditional love she craved, though, she’d have to get a puppy.

Fuad saw her budding rage and decided to change the subject. He snapped his fingers at the cousins. “I think we could all do with something sweet.”

Jamal made for the kitchen.

“And espresso,” Fuad told Isa. Etienne moved to follow the cousins.

“Etienne.”

The brother cringed.

Fuad said, “Penelope should not have done that. Perhaps she cannot help herself. It is how she was born, how I made her, how she helps us. But I forbid you to touch her.”

She sneered, “Oh, now I’m some kind of witch?”

“You are an amazing human being,” Fuad said. “No agent of ours has gotten as far as you.”

“You mean survived.”

“Perhaps tonight’s dinner invitation was a mistake.”