The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott by Jonathan Lowe Page B

wild nite at the ritz .
    Etherton placed a hand over David's as he was about to click on another video. "I don't think you should," he said.
    "Why not?" David asked.
    "How do we know Aazad doesn't have tracking on these computers? Cookies. Keystroke monitors." He paused. "Although even at Nasheed's place the internet is controlled by Etisalat , so I'm surprised we have access to these videos at all."
    "Isn't Aazad's brother head of Etisalat ?"
    Doug nodded, then pointed toward the screen. "Try something for me."
    "What?"
    "Type sex dot com in Google search."
    "What?"
    "Do it."
    David did it. The screen refreshed, indicating two hundred sixty-five thousand plus hits.
    Doug opened his hands. "There you go. Aazad is not limited by Etisalat . He has full access."
    David cut off the computer. "What does that mean?"
    "Well, it might indicate he's not Muslim, for one thing. But what do I know?"
    David shook his head. "What happens now?"
    "Now?" Doug smiled. "Now we pretend to be Bakir Baloum , with keys to the kingdom. Only with a better vocabulary."

12
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    An evening meal, served at the end of a multicolored stone dining table with seating for ten, consisted of three courses, beginning with a shrimp cocktail followed by a swordfish steak served with risotto and mixed salad greens, and ending with a cold cucumber soup. For dessert they requested crème brûlée and espresso. An hour after the meal found them in the pool's adjacent Jacuzzi, where an electronically raised waterproof television tuned to CNN revealed little progress was being made in uncovering the perpetrators responsible for the aerial attacks. A full U.S. military investigation was underway, including satellite imaging of the desert surrounding Dubai--with hints that Iran might be involved--but the talking heads being interviewed, including the commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf, General Richard Markham, could promise nothing more than further cooperation with the UAE in ferreting out the puzzling truth. Meanwhile, funeral services for Swann's family were being planned for Monday.
    Etherton placed a second cell phone call to Shakil Nasheed in China, which again went to voicemail. Closing his phone after recording his message, Doug looked across the illuminated surface of the chilled yet roiling water, then asked, indicating the sky, "Doesn't Mars seem dim these days?"
    David tilted his head back into the molded cradle behind him, feeling the full force of the jets that messaged his neck. He focused on a steadily shining white dot, at the edge of visual perception, amid the few twinkling stars in the still-darkening heavens overhead. "Be almost a year before it begins to brighten again," he said, recalling the relative cycles of the inner planets.
    "Mars, the planet of war," Doug mused. "Did its departure mean peace, though?"
    David didn't answer. He knew Doug was kidding. An atheist and skeptic, Etherton believed only what he could see with his own eyes, and sometimes not even that. Ever since his days at Cal Tech, Doug had reportedly posed rhetorical questions that suggested his amusement at widespread faith in religion, spirituality, or the supernatural. To him, all the reputed phenomena of near death experiences, remote viewing, witchcraft, angels, and astrological signs or ancient hidden secrets held the same validity and deserved respect as believing in the Easter Bunny. What mattered was what could be repeated in the laboratory, or confirmed in other observatories. So David felt reluctant to attempt describing his own experiences, or expressing his opinions, even if he could. Anything bordering the metaphysical was nonsense to Doug. Any perception of hidden truth would also be suspect. The video they'd seen of Aazad's son had produced little effect in Etherton, although it had a chilling effect on his own bout with the past. Seeing Cashman and Innes would be the ultimate test, and in the meantime he reminded himself that he no longer needed to envy