Chapter Eleven
The next two days passed in a blur, and with Ben alternately looking on with great interest, playing his games and learning more about Shajae, Laurel could feel herself getting into the rhythm of what their lives could be. They were still all resting up from their time in Elsiin, but when that next Monday rolled around, they were ready for what came next.
Bassam returned to his work with his family's financial obligations, and Ben was enthusiastically accepted into the summer program, a thing that Laurel suspected had more to do with the director's friendship with Bassam than with any generosity on the program's behalf.
For Laurel, it was her first day on the job, and she was prepared for it to be as dull as any other puff piece she had written. Perhaps it would be a women's luncheon where nothing got done but some snarking at each other's clothing, or some kind of grand opening, but then she was startled to see that she was going to be taken to one of the refugee centers in the country.
When she asked Bassam about it, he shrugged. "I figured that sending you to something like a museum opening wouldn't be a good fit for your talents. This seemed a little more up your alley. Or am I wrong? Should I get you to the museum after all?"
Though she could see the glint in his eye that told her he was joking, she shook her head violently. "No, not at all. This...this is perfect."
Almost hesitantly, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
Ben, who had been watching just before the shuttle bus to the program picked him up, gagged a little.
"Gross," he complained, and giggling, Laurel hugged him.
"Someday you'll understand," she told him, and then he ran to the elevator. She looked up to discover that Bassam was looking at her curiously. "What?"
"That was the first time you've kissed me in front of Ben," he said, and she wondered at the guardedness of his voice. "I had thought we were...I don't know, perhaps shielding him?"
"From what?" she asked with a shrug. "I want to make sure he knows what he is ready to know. He's ten, and he can deal with the fact that his mother occasionally kisses people. Well. At least that she kisses one person that she likes a great deal."
Bassam grinned at her. "Likes a great deal?"
“I do," she said, blushing a little. "God, don't tease me about it! See if I ever tell you anything personal again."
She turned away to put up her breakfast dishes, but then he spun her into his arms. A car would be arriving to pick up each of them, and it felt like there were still dozens of things to do, but Bassam swept her up in his arms, planting some decidedly more passionate kisses on her face. She only struggled in surprise for a moment; after that, she melted into him, returning the kisses as passionately as he gave them to her.
When their phones buzzed to tell them that their cars were here, she pulled away reluctantly, looking down at her slightly rumpled dress in raw blue silk.
"How do I look?" she asked nervously. "I don't want anyone to think that I don’t respect their issues by showing up looking as if I don't care."
"You are beautiful, but I admit I am prejudiced. For me, the more rumpled you are the better."
"Well, you can rumple me all you like...just later on tonight," Laurel said with a blush on her cheeks.
"Promise?" he asked as they descended in the elevator together.
"I do," she replied, and it felt like something slightly more than what it was somehow.
***
If Laurel had ever wondered if being an investigative journalist was right for her, the hours she spent at the refugee center told her in no uncertain terms that it definitely was. The moment she saw all of the people there, frightened and displaced, wary and nervous and still in shock over what had happened to them, she could feel a need come over her.
Laurel knew she needed to tell their story, and for the next four hours, she did nothing but. She met an entire family that had lost everything, she ran into a businessman who looked coldly above it all until he revealed that he had no idea where his wife was or whether she was safe. So many people, each with their own stories to tell and messages to send.
She spoke with the aid workers too, who felt forgotten and triumphant and frightened themselves by turn. There were many forces at work here, and almost instinctively, Laurel could feel that she had a part to play here.
There was an intensity to the refugee center that made her want to retreat after a few hours, and she was beyond grateful for the opportunity to do so. She was luckier by far than the people who could not leave and did not have anywhere to go. She made her way out of the center to the small coffee shop across the road where she could finally sit down and rest her frazzled brain for a bit. She opened her phone for the first time since coming to the center, smiling a little at the encouraging text from Bassam and the picture of the World War I plane from Ben.
She ordered a glass of limeade and a small roll with roasted chicken on the side, ready to take a little nourishment, the first she’d had since that morning. She had been able to use a recorder this time, but she pulled out a pad of paper, plotting out the article she was going to write. Perhaps it should be a series, focusing on the different needs of the people at the center, what their plans were, what their dreams had been before life had turned them all upside down.
She was deeply involved in her notes when a dark shadow cast itself over her. Laurel looked up in surprise and then frowned.
The man who was standing in front of her small table was utterly forgettable. He looked like any other Shajae bureaucrat that she might have seen at the government offices, perhaps like a regional manager who stepped in to see how a branch was doing. For some reason that she couldn't understand, she felt a certain antipathy for the man straight away, and she had worked with people long enough to know that she should always trust her instincts.
"Excuse me, but do you need something?" she asked, frowning. Usually that tone, half bitch and half school teacher, made men realize she wasn't interested, but this one only smiled all the wider.
"As a matter of fact, I do, Miss Garibaldi. Thank you so much for asking."
His English was perfect and colorless. She couldn't peg where he came from, and that made her nervous. She usually could. He took a seat before she could tell him not to, and his smile, just a little smug, made her hackles rise even more.
"If you don't get lost, I am going to pitch a fit," she said evenly. "I have no problem yelling my head off and crying until someone decides that you are harassing a woman on her own."
"Oh, I think that the less people who observe you making a fit, the better, Miss Garibaldi. After all, you're not someone who wants a lot of attention called to yourself, are you?"
She could feel the unease inside her start to grow, and she stood up.
"I don't have to take this—" she began, but the next words out of his mouth felt like someone clapping a steel manacle over her wrist and snapping it shut.
"You can get up and leave, but then I think news about a certain Mr. Wilbur Owain would start to surface, wouldn't it?"
She froze. It was as if her blood had turned to ice. She sat down, and for a moment, she had to breathe steadily so that she would stop seeing spots.
"Calm yourself, Miss Garibaldi," continued the man with a smile. "Take a sip of water. Nothing is going to happen here. All that is occurring today is that you are being offered a choice, yes? As I understand it, America is the land of choices, so you should feel very comfortable about all of this."
"I'm American enough to know a real choice from one that isn't one at all," she retorted, and his smile dimmed a little before it came back. It occurred to her that this man was more than slightly dangerous, and she told herself that the best way to deal with this was to be very calm and to remember that she was not helpless. She wasn't. She had told herself that she would never be helpless again, and that was the truth.
"Of course. Well, I know that you are a busy woman, what with your son and your new affair with the sheikh..."
He subtly checked her for a reaction, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. She kept her face as still as a stone and made an impatient gesture for him to get on with it. If he was disappointed, he did not show it, and only continued.
"So with that in mind, I will be blunt. We know about Owain. We know what you did to your son's father, and we have the proof. We are sure that this information would be of great interest to the sheikh himself and to the papers both here and in the United States if they came out, and it is not too great an exaggeration to say that things could be very bad for you if they did..."
"So blackmail," she said bluntly, and his smile got a little wider.
"That is not a word we like to use. We are not monsters, after all, simply men who have interests that we would like to further."
"What do you want from me?"
"Just a few things. The sheikh is a powerful man, and we are very interested in what he is doing."
"I am not going to hurt him," she snarled suddenly, feeling as if something had triggered a switch in her. Before she had been afraid and underneath it, angry. Now the anger had poured forward, as if her entire body lit up with rage.
It was startling enough that the man fell back slightly before sitting forward again, an irritated look on his face.
"No, no one is getting hurt. We simply need a certain amount of information. Right now, it is very simple. We only need to know whether he received a call from a company known as Pacific Global tonight, and whether he spoke for very long. Easy, right? Harmless in the grand scheme of things."
Laurel knew better. She knew how blackmail went. She knew how it started, and she had seen how it could end. They started small, and soon the things they made you do were blackmail material in and of themselves.
She nodded, the tiniest tilt of her head. Even so, she felt as if she were breaking, as if some kind of integrity she had held deep inside her was at least cracking.
"Good. We will send you an email about a story you had written about food fraud a few years ago. We will say that we would like to interview you about it. Answer yes if he spoke to Pacific Global, and decline the interview if he hasn't. I think that is perfectly clear, don't you?"
"Yes," she said, and his face turned dark. He looked like an entirely different man for a moment, and her mind started to scream that this man was dangerous, this man was going to hurt her and she should get away.
"Be very clear, Miss Garibaldi. This is not a game. We are not going to suffer mistakes or malingering. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she forced herself to say, and he was back to his terribly empty smile.
"And of course one more thing."
"There always is," she said archly, and he smiled again, making her shiver.
"Warm the sheikh's bed if you like. Do whatever it is you do that makes you into his siren, say whatever it is that you want to say to keep him so enraptured. But remember that there are more of us than you might want to believe, and we are always watching.
"We are the future of Shajae, and whether your sheikh understands it or not, we are on his side. Do not think that you have a chance with him. Do not let things progress to where we have to step in."
"Step in?" she asked, her voice thick with confusion and dread.
He smiled. "Yes. It could be just as bad for you as it was for poor Mr. Owain. The sheikh deserves a bride of pure blood and pure soul. You are neither."
The words hurt worse than she thought they would. The message was loud and clear, and a part of her felt sick for it. The man studied her closely then nodded.
"Good. Well, that was all that I needed for today," he said, his voice absurdly cheery. "We will be in touch as needed, Laurel."
He disappeared into the crowd going by on the street, leaving Laurel staring and with an empty feeling deep inside her. She looked down at the notes, which had been so important to her just a moment ago. Now it all looked like scribbles from a life before. Time had been utterly divided between what had come before the man arriving to sit down at the table across from her and what had come afterward. Now she was living in the wreckage of what came afterward.
***
That night, she listened with half an ear as Ben talked about the museum they had gone to and all of the things they had done there. She smiled as Bassam talked about problems in his company, and he smiled, telling her that it was a relief to talk to her about these things.
They asked Laurel about what she had done as well, but they understood when she could only provide surface level observations about the refugee center. There was still a great deal of work that had to be done, after all, and Laurel needed to sort things out in her own time. Bassam and her son were both understanding, even if a part of her wanted to scream, to tell Bassam what was going on and to make sure he knew what was coming.
Instead, he was kind, asked her if she needed anything, and let her rest when she wanted to. She dozed on the couch while Bassam and Ben put on an old Hong Kong action movie, but when Bassam's phone rang, she came fully awake.
Bassam checked the caller ID, grimaced and excused himself. After a moment, she heard the door close to his office, and a moment after that, she rose from the couch, telling Ben quietly that he shouldn't stop the movie for them, she just needed to use the restroom.
Laura's heart pounded in her chest as she walked down the hallway. It felt like there were a dozen eyes on her, as if at any moment, someone would pop out of the doors, telling her she was a filthy spy. She would almost have welcomed it at this point. At least it would mean that she did not have to do what came next.
Moving slowly and carefully, Laurel set her ear next to the door. The words were surprisingly clear, but she let them pass in a tumult, waiting to hear the words "Pacific Global." When she did, her entire body felt as if it had folded in relief. That was it, that was all.
She almost tripped in her hurry to get back to the living room, where she ruffled Ben's hair and picked up her phone. She lay on the couch, watching the movie with her enthusiastic son, taking in the death before dishonor stands and the wild martial arts stunts. At some point, Bassam made it back, apologizing for his actions and talking with Ben about the actors and the training they had to go through.
Laurel listened with half an ear, nodding along and smiling where called for, but it felt as if she was truly in another world.
She pleaded a headache to Bassam, but when he asked her if she needed to sleep alone, she shook her head no. It didn't matter to her in that moment whether he might see her get an email or question what it was. After everything she had been through that day, it felt too cruel, too cruel by far, to be denied the comfort of sleeping with him.
There was a single kiss that still managed to make her sigh with pleasure, but other than that, he curled up with an arm thrown over her hip. She listened to him breathe, and she let it soothe her as she waited. Sometime past midnight, her phone chimed, and even before she opened the message, she knew what she would find.
Hello! Are you the Laurel Garibaldi who wrote the piece on food fraud in Holland? We were intrigued by the piece, and we were wondering if you cared to be interviewed for your experience as you wrote it!...
She took a deep breath, feeling a bit like she was stepping off of a bridge. After taking that step, there would be no going back. It didn't matter if she helped these men get away with it, if she got arrested or even if nothing ever came about because of it. This was the end of an era, and she felt herself in a deep kind of unease and helpless anger.
Thank you very much for your kind words! I would be happy to speak with you at your convenience...