Free World of Trouble (9786167611136) by Jake Needham Page A

no chalk marks, no litter. Something else felt wrong, too,
but it took him a few minutes before it finally occurred to him
what it was. The whole courtyard was unnaturally clean, certainly
far cleaner than any other part of the souk he had seen. Were the
Dubai police that efficient? Had they swept down in force, measured
and photographed everything, and then scrubbed and cleaned the
whole scene, all in less than twenty-four hours? He supposed it was
possible. Obviously more than possible since that was exactly what
had happened.
    What am I really looking at here?
    It was the scene of a political assassination
attempt, every trace of which had been erased in less than
twenty-four hours. Could it be that the Dubai authorities,
embarrassed that something like this could happen in their country,
were trying to wrap it up quickly? Or was somebody else altogether
behind the clean up, somebody connected somehow to Charlie?
    But how did that make any sense?
    Shepherd had no idea. No idea at all.
    After ten minutes of thinking about it, he
gave up. He stood up, wished his still silent companion a good
afternoon, and walked off in search of a road big enough for him to
find a taxi.
    ***
    SHEPHERD HAD DINNER alone at the Manhattan Grill at
the Grand Hyatt. For what a steak cost there he could have bought a
small car in some countries, but he figured Charlie could afford
it. It was certainly one hell of a lot cheaper than flying him to
Bangkok in a G-4.
    After dinner, he went back to his hotel and
sat on the balcony just staring out into the blackness of the
Persian Gulf. Shepherd hadn’t smoked a cigar in a week or two, but
all at once a cigar was exactly what he wanted. He went back
inside, got a Montecristo out of his briefcase, cut it, and lit it.
He was in a non-smoking room and there weren’t any ashtrays so he
went into the bathroom and drafted a drinking glass to play the
role. It didn’t seem to mind. Back out onto the balcony, he put his
makeshift ashtray on the table, then leaned against the railing on
his forearms and smoked quietly for a while. The air was moist and
thick and there was an odor of ocean salt on the hot night
wind.
    Those guys had been trying to kill somebody , Shepherd reminded himself. Whether it was Charlie
or it was him, it was sure as hell one of them , and
they were both still alive. The gunmen might be dead, but they were
only hired hands. Whoever hired them wasn’t dead, at least not as
far as he knew, so it seemed possible, even likely, that there
would be another attempt. And if necessary, another one after that.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that the
attempts would probably continue until somebody tracked down
whoever was behind this, or until they eventually succeeded.
    If he was right, if that was the way it was,
then Shepherd figured there wasn’t much he could do about it. He
sure as hell wasn’t equipped to track down the plotters, whoever
they were. And, other than ducking at every possible opportunity,
he had no control that he could think of over whether or not they
were successful.
    Then there was the matter of Agent Keur.
Clearly Keur wasn’t just going to disappear any more than the
shooters were. That wasn’t the way the Feds worked when they wanted
something, which caused Shepherd to ask himself just what it was
that Keur really did want. Asking him to keep tabs on who
Charlie saw was ridiculous. If that was all Keur wanted to know,
there were better and less risky ways to find out. No, there had to
be more to Keur’s approach than that, even if Shepherd didn’t have
the slightest idea what it might be.
    Whatever Keur was really after, Shepherd
figured Keur would keep cranking up the pressure until Shepherd
either did it or Keur didn’t want it anymore. If that was what he
was going to do, Shepherd decided there wasn’t much he could do
about that either.
    Perhaps it was Shepherd’s growing sense that
he was losing control over nearly everything