Carte Blanche

thought we were being followed, an Alfa and possibly a Ford. But if so, we’ve lost them, I’m sure.”
    Dunne looked back, then said, “Good. Go to the works.”
    They circled back to the city. In ten minutes they were at an industrial complex in the Deira, the cluttered and colorful area in the center of town nestled along Dubai Creek and the Gulf. This was another place in which Hydt felt immediately comfortable. To enter the neighborhood was to take a step back in time: its uneven houses, traditional markets and the rustic port along the Creek, whose docks teemed with dhows and other small vessels, might have been the backdrop to a 1930s adventure film. The ships were piled impossibly high with stacks of cargo lashed into place. The driver found the destination, a good-size factory and warehouse, with attached offices, one story, the shabby beige paint peeling. Razor wire, rare in low-crime Dubai, topped the chain-link fence surrounding the place. The driver pulled up to an intercom and spoke in Arabic. The gate slowly swung open. The Town Car eased into the car park and stopped.
    The two men climbed out. With an hour and fifteen minutes to sunset, the air was cooling, even as the ground radiated heat banked during the day.
    Hydt heard a voice, carried on the dusty wind. “Please! My friend, please come in!” The man waving his hand was in a white dishdasha robe—in the uniquely Emirates style—and had no head covering. He was in his midfifties, Hydt knew, although, like many Arab men, he looked younger. A studious face, smart glasses, Western shoes. His longish hair was swept back. A black beard framed his smile. Hydt had been amused to learn that, while hair coloring was not a good product to market in a land where both male and female heads were usually covered, beard dye was a best seller.
    Mahdi al-Fulan strode over sprays of red sand, which drifted along the tarmac and sloped against the curb, the walkways and the sides of buildings. The Arab’s eyes were bright, as if he were a schoolboy about to show off a treasured project. Which wasn’t far from the truth, Hydt reflected.
    Hands were gripped. “My friend.” Hydt didn’t try to offer an Arabic greeting. He had no talent for languages and believed it a weakness to attempt anything you were not skilled at.
    Niall Dunne stepped forward, his shoulders bouncing as they always did in his gangling walk, and also greeted the man but the pale eyes were gazing past the Arab. For once, they were not searching for threats. He was staring raptly at the bounty that the warehouse held, which could be seen through the open door: perhaps fifty or so machines, in every shape a geometrician could name, made of raw and painted steel, iron, aluminum, carbon fiber . . . who knew what else? Pipes protruded, wires, control panels, lights, switches, chutes and belts. If robots had pleasant dreams, they would be set in this room.
    They entered the warehouse, which was devoid of workers. Dunne paused to study and occasionally even caress some device or other.
    Mahdi al-Fulan was an industrial product designer, MIT educated. He shunned the kind of high-profile entrepreneurship that gets you on the cover of business magazines—and often into the bankruptcy court—and specialized instead in designing functional industrial equipment and control systems for which there was a consistent market. He was one of Severan Hydt’s main suppliers. Hydt had met him at a recycling-equipment conference. Once he’d learned about certain trips the Arab took abroad and about the dangerous men to whom he sold his wares, they’d become partners. Al-Fulan was a clever scientist, an innovative engineer, a man with ideas and inventions important to Gehenna.
    And with other connections too.
    Ninety dead . . .
    At that thought, Hydt involuntarily consulted his watch. Nearly six.
    “Follow me, please, Severan, Niall.” Al-Fulan had caught Hydt’s glance. The Arab led them through the various rooms, dim and still. Dunne again slowed his step to examine some machinery or a control panel. He’d nod approvingly or frown, perhaps trying to understand how a system worked.
    Leaving behind the machines with their scent of oil, paint and the unique metallic, almost bloodlike odor of high-powered electrical systems, they entered the offices. At the end of a dim corridor, al-Fulan used a computer key to open an unmarked door and they stepped into a work area, which was large and cluttered with