Chapter 11: Game. Check. Point.

I’ve never been one to make much of a fuss over cars. I mean, I enjoy comfy seats and power steering as much as anyone and it has been said I’m a tiny bit obsessive over vehicular cleanliness, but by and large I am not very interested in the roar of an engine or how many horse power it has. So it was odd I found myself so completely enthralled by this Aston Martin Vanquish. Not just the paint job, which was a deep, dark, shiny, sparkly, magnificent blue, but the stitching on the seats, the scalloped roof, the way the sat-nav pops up from the dash ... I’ll shut up now. Oh, wait, the SUSPENSION! I mean, presumably it’s just a couple of coiled springs, right? But it feels light and floaty when you’re going straight, yet precise like a surgeon’s scalpel when doing corners. I was almost tempted to find a garage and ask them to put the thing on a car lift so I could see how they did it.

I’ve said on record that if I were a car, I’d be a Volvo. Dull, reliable and a bit too large. But what I’d WANT to be, which is not something I’d ever given any thought too previously because that way madness lies, is the Vanquish. I wish I’d look as good in my bespoke suits as the Vanquish does in its sprayed body panels.

All in all I think you can tell I enjoyed driving around in this car, even though it took some getting used to the paddles behind the steering wheel in lieu of a sturdy gear stick. And finding beacons turned out to be easy enough, too: I scored the first one as I left the hotel district. The sat-nav chimed and a small, gold star appeared on the map.

The second one was located at the exact halfway point of the Corniche and I found the third one in the parking lot of the Museum of Islamic Art, so that was a bit of luck. I was actually headed there, because I was almost certain there would be a checkpoint in the area.

I was tempted to get out and visit the massive, blocky building. In real life it didn’t look nearly as awful as I’d imagined. It sits on a small, artificial island on the edge of the bay, so it is isolated against the eternally blue Doha sky and the greenish water of the Gulf. You have to walk through a park to get there from the parking lot, and the entrance looks inviting.

It wasn’t very busy right now, judging by the number of cars that were parked here. An Indian fellow in a golf cart drove up to my car, to ferry me to the entrance: even a five minute walk can ruin your day in the oppressive heat of the Middle East. I spoke to him for a few minutes, as I tried to explain I wouldn’t actually be visiting the museum. But I did wonder about something else.

“So there’s supposed to be a radio beacon around here somewhere. Did you see it?”

“Yessir,” he said, as he shook his head, or rather tilted it from side to side. Oh damn, Indians do that, don’t they? The infamous head bobble, when they don’t want to say no to your face.

“Is there a device hidden around here?” I tried.

“Yes, very good. You come inside? I drive you, Sir.”

“No thanks. Maybe tomorrow. Have a nice day.”

“Yessir.”

He drove off in search of other people to ferry to the entrance and I drove around the lot, looking for a car with an extra antenna or some other indication it contained a beacon. The thing is: my car had chimed as I entered the parking lot, but no sane person would park so far away from the building and so there wasn’t a single car parked nearby. So where the hell was that beacon? And how did it work, anyway? Bluetooth? Surely not. I’d been going fifty kilometres an hour on the Corniche. No way would a Bluetooth signal be able to reach my car and handle the connection protocol that quickly. RFID was an option: it has a better range, but then there’d have to be some sort of box stuck to my windshield, like you get for automatic toll collection systems. There was nothing like that hidden in or attached to this car, as far as I could tell. Besides, I’d have to be carrying a receiver for the sat-nav to be able to identify which beacon I hit. Those are a lot bigger than a mere RFID tag.

Proper radio waves, then? That didn’t strike me as very likely, either. Surely not even Qatar would allow dozens of unregulated radio transmitters to be placed in urban areas. There are public frequencies, but they’re in use for walkie talkies and such. Wi-fi was an option, but I’d been going through the menu of the navigation system and it didn’t give even the slightest indication of being wi-fi enabled. So how the hell did they do it?

It took quite a few turns and a roundabout to reach the souq, even though it was only across the street from the museum, but eventually I was cruising around its parking lot and scored another star. Again, there was nothing near me that might contain a transmitter. I got out, braved the heat and searched underneath the car, looking for a receiver. I also opened the engine compartment. It was breathtakingly beautiful there, even though the only things I could positively identify were the oil cap, the washer fluid compartment and the battery, but there was no receiver. Not unless it came factory installed, which I doubted. I came across the envelopes we’d found earlier in the glove compartment and one turned out to contain 800 Qatari Riyal, about 200 Euros, in ones, fives, tens and eight fifty Riyal notes. As the Aston Martin logo was printed on the envelope, I assumed this was to pay for fuel and snacks during the chase.

It was so terrifyingly hot I decided to get a cold drink at the souq, where merchants did their best to provide some shade with parasols and colourful sheets strung between buildings. I’ve not been to many of them, but I am pretty sure the Doha souq (called Souq Waqif) is the most sanitized one in the Arab world. Walt Disney would probably say: ‘Bloody hell guys, looks a bit artificial, doesn’t it?’ It was all paved, the streets were mostly spacious, the bars were hip and modern (although they didn’t serve alcohol) and there were several warning signs from the ministry of food safety or whatever, warning tourists they should only drink from cans and bottles that were offered sealed. A cleaning crew was swiping up imaginary dust, because the place was spotless. But hey, I like my souqs like that. And I was pretty sure the same went for Caroline, so perhaps we’d have to add another day or so to our stay.

The shops certainly looked interesting, with everything from the usual carpets and gold trinkets to stalls with fragrant mounds of colourful spices and, of course, clothes for the common Qatari. And the common Indian lady, who likes her fabrics colourful and can choose from hundreds if not thousands of fabrics, in shades from eye-watering jade to atrocious chartreuse. It does make for colourful holiday snaps, though.

Up close, those seemingly dull black abayas and burqas Arab women wear are a lot more individual and luxurious than you might think and headscarves (hijab, singular) come in a billion different shades and prints. I’ll be honest: I quite like those. It’s a lot more elegant than the see-through plastic rain cap my mother wore in the days after she got a fresh perm. And I’d spend considerably less time waiting for Mel to get ready to leave the house if she could just throw one on.

The souq salesmen were as you’d expect: they’d loiter outside their tiny shops, all smiles, trying to lure you in with calls of: ‘Sir? Sir? Beautiful carpet? Present for your wife, Sir? Leather goods? Perfumes? Saffron? Sir? Best price here, Sir. Love your suit, Sir.’ I don’t enjoy that approach, but learned they weren’t pushy: I just smiled back and shook my head, which made them back off. I hear they’re a lot more persistent in other parts of the world.

One shop did draw me in though, as it sold model replicas of famous buildings in the Middle East, which are obviously mostly mosques and palaces. Next to the Doha souq there is a mosque with a beautiful, slightly odd spiral staircase that runs around the outside of the minaret. It looks a bit alien, something George Lucas might have liked when he was designing Mos Eisley. I’m told it is a replica of a mosque in Samarra, Iraq. This particular mosque was part of the Islamic Cultural Learning Center, which I knew because that’s where I had parked my car to search it. The center has a not very enticing sign at the door that reads: ‘Discover Islam – free to non Muslims.’ I wasn’t tempted. I look hefty enough as it is without twenty sticks of dynamite sewn in my pockets, thanksverymuch. Still, the building appealed to me and so I decided I’d get a scale model of it, for Melody. It came in a clear plastic presentation case, on a dark, lacquered wooden base. I haggled down from 140 to 100 Riyal and the bastard then threw in a lovely satin head scarf, white with roses: obviously I’d left some money on the table there.

After my shopping spree (one item is a spree for me) I was tempted to sit down underneath the tarp of a pleasant bar and order a Diet Coke, when I remembered I was trying to win a car. I bought three ice cold cans and some (sealed) water from a shop the size of a fuse box cupboard and resumed my race against three invisible opponents.

I picked up another star circling the mosque with the spiral staircase and spotted Pepi Enkokki in my rear view mirror. I knew him off the telly and apparently he knew me. The fact we both drove Aston Martins helped, obviously. He honked and rolled down his window to give me a wave. A proper wave, with all of his fingers. I waved back and went to look for the so-called Zigzag towers, which I was sure were worth a star. They were located near the Pearl, one of those ridiculous construction projects Arabs are so fond of. They honestly think they can lure the mega-rich to their hot as hell, oppressive, alcohol-free, non-democratic, exploitative countries by building expensive houses on artificial islands shaped like crescent moons, continents or whatever the fuck The Pearl is supposed to be. Lopsided amoeba would be my guess. (It’s called The Pearl not for its shape, but because the island is built on one of Qatar’s previous major pearl diving sites.)

Yeah, that’s exactly what the rich want: live in a country where alcohol consumption and adultery are not just forbidden but actively punished, where brass doorknobs melt in your hand in summer (and are mushy in winter), where EVERYONE has a Ferrari and you’re only tolerated if you work for the locals or buy specially designated, overpriced property in weird enclaves. Yes, by all means bring your daughters and wives to a place where they are forced to cover themselves up. Not as much as local women, sure, but that just causes local men to view them as little more than prey, or hookers. Your sons will grow up with a weird male superiority complex and at the same time have no idea how to interact with girls. They will also learn that slavery is fine, as long as the slave is from India, Nepal or Thailand (so he’s not actually black) and has paid for his own work permit. In short, it’s fun for all the family!

Sure, there’s no income tax and that’s a big plus, but you don’t actually have to live there to take advantage of that, so the rich wisely don’t and that’s why places like The Pearl are like well-maintained ghost towns, with malls filled with jewellers and car dealerships that see nothing but cobwebs and mocking tourists.

The Zigzag towers are nice, by the way. It’s a bit like looking at an Escher drawing. They zigzag, what can I say? And they had a star for me, which I got when I was nowhere near them. I had just crossed a bridge over an artificial lagoon, dredged to create waterfront property for people who wanted to moor their gleaming white yachts at the end of their garden, when I heard the chime. Where the fuck would they have hidden that transmitter? We were on a bridge!

I visited The Pearl as well. It’s a gated community, but the Vanquish was enough of a calling card to get me past the barrier. I was actually going to ask the guard for permission, but he had no intention of leaving his air-conditioned hut and just smiled and waved me in. I must admit that, as Potemkin villages go, this was a nice one. Shame I was here by daylight, because I was pretty sure the marina was spectacular at night. I drove past huge apartment block towers of about thirty floors high, in various states of completion. Most looked finished, but not exactly occupied. Next was a section with much lower buildings, modelled after Venice. I happen to love Venice and I’ll admit this brand new candy floss version captured its architecture and general atmosphere rather well, the main difference being that the real Venice is filled with people who want to take it all in and marvel at it and this place was empty, because it was hot as hell, completely fake and had nothing, absolutely nothing to offer to anyone who wasn’t rich enough to be able and go live somewhere else. There were no lofts for poor, struggling artists here, no students moonlighting as waiters, no gay bars or underground Jazz cafes. Kids couldn’t make a buck doing paper rounds, because the paper boy would be brought in from India. The elderly didn’t need someone to look in on them: they had a private nurse, if they needed one. Millionaires play tennis, but they don’t join, say, a marching band or a local theatre group. I’m pretty sure they’d send their Filipino maids to the annual residents’ association meetings if they could. And so this place was, and forever would be, soulless and anaemic. You can’t build a community like that, on tax shelters and investment vehicles.

Look, I don’t begrudge people their money. I’d been rich. In fact, by most standards I still was. I had the villa and the art collection and the boat and the sports car, once. Being rich doesn’t make you a bad person, though it tends to nudge you in that direction if you’re not careful. Maybe not so much bad as egotistical and paranoid, actually. But the people who bought houses here didn’t do it to start families, to live their lives from start to end. These weren’t even vacation homes, because who the hell vacations in a place where you can’t drink? I wouldn’t, and I have about one beer a month on average!

There were no beacons here, or at least I didn’t find any, so perhaps going past the barrier had not been such a good idea. But this place was fascinating and so I parked my car at the edge of a quay, ready to receive yachts that would never come to visit shops that would never open. I figured the heat would be less oppressive here, what with the sea breeze. And so I stood there, musing about the weird side effects of capitalism and taking some pictures I’d send to Melody later that night, when a car parked directly next to me. It was an Aston Martin DB9, in stylish silver grey. A man in his early thirties with an enviable mop-top and a face that seemed unable to choose between a smile and a smirk literally hopped out. He wore a sensible polo neck shirt, whereas I was dressed in a suit and tie. (The jacket was carefully laid out on the rear seats. I’m not mental.)

Now I don’t watch sports and as a consequence I don’t know many sports people. I know a few names, because I’m not a hermit, but I don’t know the faces that go with them and I also don’t keep track of when I learned about them. As far as I know, Boris Becker and Monica Seles are still playing tournaments, Alain Prost is faithfully doing his laps on some race track and Ronaldo lives in Eindhoven. It was pure chance I knew Pepi Enkokki, really. But this just had to be the tennis player I was up against, even though I had no idea what his name was. He knew me, though, which made it very awkward.

“Hey, Martin, is so nice to meet you, man!” he said, in a Spanish accent. Rudolf? Ralph?

I smiled my broadest smile and warmly shook his hand.

“Fancy meeting you here!” I said, all smiles. “I saw our racing driver in downtown Doha about half an hour ago. How is your hunt going?”

“Is okay man, you know. I love to drive these cars. So, how many you find?”

Obviously he hadn’t come out of his car to socialize. He wanted intel.

“Just found my second one, at the Zigzag towers” I lied. He’d have that one too, as the Towers were located on the access road to this place. “But none here, so far.”

“Only two? Man, I found eleven!” he said, which surprised me. Either he was boasting, or he was an easy mark. I decided to find out.

“Eleven!” I said, trying to sound awestruck. “How do you do that?”

“It’s easy, man! Just find the landmarks. Did you get the one at the hotel?”

“Yes. So that makes two for me.”

He slapped my shoulder, ready to let me in on some secrets.

“There’s one at the museum on the Corniche, and one near that weird mosque. And one at the ... the torch, with the hotel. Aspire tower. Easy to find, man!”

Was he really going to give me all these locations?! Great!

“I haven’t been there yet.”

“And one at the shopping mall with the gondolas, Villaggio. And the Khalifa complex, obviously. And the Doha golf club.”

He was seriously going to list all of them. I should have let him talk, but I didn’t want to be disqualified for taking advantage of the mentally underprivileged.

“Uhm ... You do understand this is a race, right?” I asked.

“Man, there’s so many of them! All the way round the island! Like, maybe even a hundred!” he answered. “There’s no way you will find them all. But Pepi, he is going to try. He’s racing around the island like a madman, and South is trailing him, haha!”

“That’s nice. Very sportsmanlike.”

“Exactly!” said ... famous Spanish tennis guy ... whose name escaped me. He was suddenly very serious. “And we don’t like that, me and Pepi. We know you get a car if you beat South. So we are gonna tell you some checkpoints, to help you beat him. Just give us a call in a few hours, when we find more, okay? I give you my number.”

He pulled out his phone, but I didn’t take out mine. I am not a charity case.

“That is very kind of you, but that’s not how I want to win. And if I’m honest, I knew some of the checkpoints you told me, and I would have found the rest.”

He stared at me, unsure of what I was telling him.

“Then why are you here, looking at this ... weird amusement park for ghosts?”

“Just taking a break. Okay, it’s been nice talking to you. Best of luck with the rest of the competition.”

He quickly shook my hand, tossed his keys in the air and caught them with a snap as he turned around.

“Just beat South, okay? He’s an asshole,” he said, as he slid into his car.

“Will do,” I smiled. And then I made sure to stand perfectly still, apart from a smile and a wave, until he was out of sight.

“NOODLE! RAYMOND NOODLE! Shit, I knew it would come to me,” I grinned, as I got back into my pleasantly cool car. Then I drove five hundred meters further towards the tip of the island, as far as I could get until a construction fence stopped me, and picked up another star.

At that point I unfolded the empty map we were given, a commercially printed road map you could presumably get at any gas station, with a more detailed section for downtown Doha and an overview of the entire country (it’s just 4500 square miles) and marked the locations I had found so far with the red marker that had also been provided. Were there really going to be a hundred locations? That’s a lot of beacons to hide, especially since they’d set this up at short notice. Surely one hundred was just a made up number, casually mentioned by some wise ass trying to mess with the other players. I’d be surprised if there were more than twenty, really.

Just when I was about to resume my search, my phone rang via the car’s handsfree system. I didn’t recognize the number, but it seemed to be local so I assumed it was Caroline, calling from the hotel.

“Your Magnificence?”

Someone giggled, in entirely the wrong key.

“Huh huh ... Hello? Martin? It’s Leonie. From Qatar Airways.”

“Oh! Hey! Uhm ... Didn’t expect you.”

“I got your number via the civil aviation authority. You gave it when they interviewed you. Is this bad timing?”

“No, but I hope this isn’t about giving another statement or something. I didn’t appreciate being interviewed like I’d tried to steal the damned airplane. And I’m actually here on business.”

In hindsight that was a bit rude, but I had a lot on my plate these days. She didn’t take it well. I’m used to women like Kate, Daphne and Caroline, who can let me have it with both barrels when I’m a bit too direct. Even Melody has learned how to tell me off when I skip a few too many social niceties. I guess that’s not part of pilot training.

“Oh God ... I’m sorry! I didn’t ... I mean, we ... I shouldn’t have called! I’m so sorry!”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, realising that even though she SPOKE Dutch, she WASN’T actually Dutch. We get to the point really quickly, unlike the Belgians and most other nations. “What is it? I mean, why did you...”

She needed a second to regain her composure.

“Okay, listen: we’re sorry about how you were treated by the police and the aviation authority, but that wasn’t us. We explained it to them a dozen times. So we’d like to make it up to you and I’m calling to ask you if you can visit our offices today. So we can thank you properly.”

“Oh. That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want anything. I just ... I was in the right place at the right time. And I saved my own life as well. So...”

“Yes. I see. But ... Look, there’s also something else. We’re doing a memorial service for David. Captain Collins, I mean. His wife has come over from the UK, to collect his body. I’m sure she’d want to speak with you. It would give her closure, you know?”

That I understood. If Mel died and I was somehow still lucid, I’d want to hear every last syllable about it from anyone in a five mile radius.

“When and where?”

“At one thirty, if you can make that. Our office is next to the Al Manna building on Airport Road. The building is called Tower One.”

“That’s ... How the hell am I going to find that? ‘Our building is next to another building’ ... No shit! Not even a number?”

“This is Qatar,” she said, getting nervous again. “Do you have an iPhone? I can send you a map location?”

“Yeah, that will work. Okay, I’ll see you then. But after one hour, I’m gone.”

“Thank you, Martin. We appreciate it. Oh, what car will you be driving? So the guard can let you in.”

“A dark blue Aston Martin Vanquish.”

“License plate?” she said, in that tone of voice people use when they’re writing stuff down.

“A dark blue Aston Martin Vanquish doesn’t need a license plate. If the guard doesn’t recognize it, he needs a dog and a special stick. Besides, it’s hot out there and I don’t feel like getting out to look. I was just outside and if I keep going back and forth, I’m going to catch pneumonia. And then who’s going to fly and land your plane on the return leg, huh?”

“I suppose you’re right,” she giggled. “Okay, I’ll send the location as soon as I hang up. Bye, Carstairs.”

I made extra sure the connection was terminated before I let out an agitated scream.

“AAAARGH! DAMN IT! This is going to cost me the bloody race!”

I wondered if I should call Caroline, but she’d probably try and talk me out of this visit and I really was going to make myself available for the Captain’s widow. It was the decent thing to do. And so I waited for Leonie’s message, copied the location of the pin to my own navigation system and headed towards the airport. With any luck, I’d be able to hit up a few beacons on the way.

It was easy to find the Qatar Airways head office. It was across the street from a very funky building, shaped more or less like Pacman. You don’t see that every day. No beacon, though. The guard didn’t cause me any trouble and I was greeted at reception by Leonie, who was wearing her full uniform. We kissed, left, right, left, because inside the airline offices the rules of international civilised society applied and besides, we’d been through quite an ordeal together. Screw the towel heads.

“Sorry I was a bit short on the phone,” I said, as she escorted me to the lift. “I just came out of the heat and it made me crabby.”

“That’s okay. It’s exactly what I expect from you Hollywood types, anyway,” she said, looking deadly serious but nudging me with her elbow. We giggled all the way to the tenth floor. Just before the doors opened, I pulled a serious face and checked my tie in the reflective copper surface of the inner door.

An hour and a half later I was back in my car. I’d spent half an hour speaking to the late Captain Collins’ wife and his daughter, who had indeed wanted to hear everything I knew, even though I hadn’t actually spoken to the man while he was still alive. I suppose it just helps to deal with the loss. He was a nice guy, even if he’d decided to live in Doha while his family remained in the UK. Well, I wouldn’t want to pay UK income tax on a Captain’s salary, either. (I do pay income tax, by the way. But I understand how tempting it is to just rent a small house in the country of your company’s HQ if you spend half your time there anyway, and not pay a dime. Private schools are quite expensive, after all.)

A crowd of his former colleagues stood around us, listening quietly at first and then moving on to questions about how I had managed to land that thing. I cut that off, because you don’t tell stories like that when the next of kin of the guy who caused all the trouble are standing next to you, do you?

When I had nothing left to tell them, a company director gave a short speech and we had a minute’s silence for both the captain and technically also for the idiot who broke his neck over some moronic conspiracy theory.

I also spoke to second officer Neil Something (I forgot his last name) over Skype. He was in hospital, still far too ill to even walk around unaided. He must have croaked ‘thank you’ over a dozen times, even though the lining of his throat was practically stripped away after all the vomiting he’d done.

In a somewhat forced moment of jocularity I was then made an ‘honorary Captain’ and given the appropriate uniform stripes in a presentation box, together with a really rather beautiful Patek Philippe pilot watch. I was also given a staff number, which meant I could fly for free on any Qatar Airways flight that had a spare seat, or book one with a staff discount equal to that of a Captain. Which is practically free, or so I’m told. That was very nice of them, although I’m not really the sort of person who goes abroad on a whim and sees where the wind takes him, or shows up at the airport on the off-chance there’s a seat going. In fact, for the last couple of years I had been the sort of person who would just like to sit on his own sofa, read a newspaper and ignore the phone for ... oh, I don’t know, is half an hour asking too much? That’s clearly not going to happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a heartfelt wish from a man who can’t seem to leave his own house without some fucking disaster landing at his feet. Granted, a lot of good things have happened, too. But I tend to remember the near death experiences a lot better. Funny, that.

Leonie walked me to my car and we had the real chat, the chat two people who have gone through an ordeal together simply need to have, as she leaned in through the car window. We spoke Dutch, because ‘thanks for saving my life’ and ‘thanks for accepting my instructions and not being some kind of panicky idiot’ really sound a lot more sincere in your native language.

I resumed my search near the airport and found a checkpoint at the entrance of the public car park, where I then had a hell of a job backing out without having to buy a ticket because some a-hole in a white Land Rover couldn’t back up five metres. I had a look at my map and then considered if it was worth my time driving to the tip of the Qatar peninsula. That was about 100 kilometres from Doha, one way. There’s nothing there, no village of more than a few hundred people. If I made it a round trip, it would come to 250 kilometres. Qatar is only as big as Connecticut, after all. Or one third of The Netherlands, if that makes it clearer. Still, that would take all the time I had left and how many checkpoints was I likely to find? In hindsight I should not have declined Noodles number. He seemed to want me to beat South, after all.

I decided to call Caroline for advice as I made my way to Villaggio, the huge shopping mall that was supposed to have actual indoor gondolas, like The Venetian in Las Vegas.

“Hello, Carstairs.”

“It’s just me, Caroline.”

“Oh, good. How goes it?”

“Well, I haven’t been in a life or death situation for at least twelve hours, so...”

“I mean, how many checkpoints did you find? Or beacons, or whatever.”

“About nine.”

“WHAT?! I hear there are supposed to be fifty of them!”

“Who told you that?”

“Gareth. He said he picked them all.”

Gareth placed FIFTY beacons at a few hours notice?

“Well, then I’d better hurry. Thing is, I’m wondering if I should waste my time travelling all the way up North. Or however this Godforsaken litter basket is oriented. The far end, I mean.”

“Well, you seem to have been wasting your time anyway, so why not? Martin, what have you been DOING all this time? I could have found more than ten checkpoints on foot!”

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This Is Your Carstairs Speaking

Ron Dudderie

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