Chapter 21: The Ugliest Laptop Ever Made

I woke up at nine, which was fine except a bit too late to attend the buffet in the main building. Never mind: I called the kitchen again and ordered breakfast. It would take a while to reach me, but as long as I didn’t order any hot items that was fine. Yoghurt, a bun and some jam would do me.

I selected a suit and showed up just in time for my daily session with Alexandra. Technically this was the start of a new week, although neither I nor Alexandra got any days off. It was crunch time for her.

Now that we had covered the basics, or at least the vocabulary to understand the basics, we were beginning to encounter some problems. One of the issues the text book we were using explored was that of rent control. I won’t go into it here, but you get the idea: some cities impose limits on rent for residential housing, hoping to keep it affordable for the unlucky 99 percent of people who don’t work for a tech startup or a bank. Because we like the idea of having nurses, firemen, police officers, teachers and plumbers show up for work without having had a two hour commute. There are many pros and cons to rent control, which makes it a very good subject for an economics text book. Except for a Saudi princess who didn’t really grasp the concept of rent. Or indeed of owning property. Or why firemen didn’t simply get paid five thousand dollars per month, if that was what it took to allow them to pay the rent and not starve. The invisible hand of the market was completely absent in her life and always had been. Instead, the very visible hands of her father and now her uncle provided credit cards, and all the rest was paid for by the state.

I’m not saying she was dumb. She was average, which is fine. I’m average, and I manage. But she was having to deal with concepts that were all alien to her, just like I am aware of the existence of tennis rackets and those nasty white shoes, but I am simply unable to grasp why anyone would actually want to play tennis.

I get that it is supposedly enjoyable, because that is what people who play tennis always tell me. But it just means nothing to me, so I can’t for instance predict if these people would be equally happy playing badminton, or getting castrated without a sedative. To me these activities are interchangeable, you see. And so it was with Alexandra: she couldn’t predict what home owners would do, because she would never in her life own anything like a house. When her parents died, her younger brother got it all. In fact, under Islam the default is that daughters get half of what sons get. There are some scenarios where women do actually get half, but generally they get the short end of the stick. After all, what would a woman do with a house? Live in it? With whom? Rent it out? She’d have to speak to a stranger to arrange that. And what would she do with the money as a single woman? That’s right: drive around town like a fucking whore, displaying her vagina to all and sundry, that’s what. So it’s best if women don’t have independent means of existence, and it all goes to men. Men need to pay dowries, after all.

A related problem was that Lexy had no idea of what a normal house might even look like, much less cost to rent or maintain. She only knew the palaces she lived in and the houses people inhabited in American TV series. I’m sure you’ve heard about the apartment featured on Friends: Monica and Rachel split the rent on a two-bedroom in the West Village that would go for around 5000 dollars a month in real life. Rachel was a waitress for the first two seasons, for crying out loud! She wouldn’t have made 2500 bucks for rent if she served nothing but hot blowjobs.

Likewise, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt finds an affordable apartment on her first day in New York, the Broke Girls somehow have a garden big enough for a horse, Frasier Crane had the best view in Seattle on a local radio host salary, the Gossip Girls were able to afford a loft in Brooklyn, Jessica Jones rarely gets paid for her detective work but must pay at least 3K a month in rent and the Tanners from Full House lived in a lovely home that would have set you back around 4.5 million dollars, even in 1987. Sure, most characters throw in the odd line about rent control or having inherited the house, but you see my point, don’t you? Those shows do not depict the real world, and she never watched the ones that do, like The Wire.

There were more problems with her world view. She didn’t understand the concept of taxes, as Saudi Arabia levied neither sales nor income tax while I was there. Import duties were also a very vague concept to her, as indeed was postage. She rarely used or even saw bank notes and treated coins like unwanted candy pressed in your hand by a leering hobo. In fact, she seemed largely unaware that Saudi Arabia pumped up oil and sold it. I honestly think she assumed all other countries in the world gave money to the King in exchange for him keeping an eye on Mecca and promising not to enslave them.

This, coupled with the fact I never saw her and therefore couldn’t even make eye contact with her to check if there was even the faintest glimmer of comprehension, made my job as her teacher a bit of an uphill struggle. I didn’t care if she graduated or not, because I planned to be long gone by then, but we had to be making at least some progress or I’d be kicked out. But meanwhile, our relationship was deteriorating. At first she was relatively cooperative, realising that her uncle wouldn’t rest before she had this diploma she’d never use for the rest of her life and I was a considerable upgrade from the haughty, moody and disinterested Professor Rasul. I was still enthusiastic about teaching, not just as part of my cover but also because at one point in my life I assumed I’d dedicate my working life to economics (before that it was mathematics, before that the theatre) and I really enjoyed refreshing my own knowledge. It’s not enough to read The Economist or the Financial Times whenever you find them at an airport, you see.

But the novelty had worn off for both of us, although more so for her than me. I was a more pleasant task master than Rasul, but a task master still.

It really is very difficult to establish a rapport with someone who is hiding from you for religious reasons, especially because neither of us saw the point. We had devised a way to let each other know if an observer was in the room: we’d call each other Lexy and Reg’ when nobody was listening in, but we’d become formal if the Khafama checked up on me or one of the endless parade of family members popped in at her side, to see if she wasn’t secretly sucking me off through the curtain or something. But even though we had this little secret, we really had nothing in common. No shared life experiences of any kind, very different views of the world and both of us were speaking in a foreign language to converse. Not that I was supposed to let on I am Dutch, but I do slip up from time to time, especially when I get tired. I just don’t transcribe it into this journal, because it drives the spell checker mad and it’s never very interesting either. But I do sometimes stumble over particularly difficult phrases, or get something wrong. Mel calls that ‘a glitch in the mainframe’ and finds it endearing. Kelly is usually a bit annoyed when I stumble, because she knows it happens when I’m tired and she doesn’t like it when I push myself too far. Kate always offers to switch to Dutch for a while to accommodate me, but that really isn’t her first language any more and after a few minutes her throat will start to hurt, or she can’t think of a word and switches back again. But being Carstairs all day and all night, especially when teaching, is really tiring. And so I lost my temper with her every now and then, which she never let pass. And so it was time for me to change my tactics.

“Lexy?”

“Yah?”

“Do you know what an incentive is?”

“That’s like ... when you want to make someone do something? Like, build a house? So you give them money?”

Close enough.

“Right. It’s not always money, but you have the right idea. So what would be an incentive for you to actually study the subject of inflation? I mean chapters 5 through 8.”

“Wud?”

I’ve mentioned her Valley Girl accent, haven’t I? Oh man, it grates ... Especially when you know it’s an affectation.

“What could I give you to incentivise you to really dig into that subject?” I said, staring at the curtain. Silly, how humans will always try to seek out a face, even if they know full well there’s nothing to see. She once asked me to email her a picture of myself, because she hadn’t really remembered my face from the one time we’d met. I took a selfie then and there and noticed I urgently needed to dye my beard. Not that the wisps of grey would blow my disguise: people would simply assume it was vanity if those disappeared. But this city was teeming with British people and it was bad enough I forgot to wear the glasses half the time.

“What could you give me?” she asked disdainfully. I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean to, but she was a Royal Princess who only ever travelled in private jets or airplanes owned by the Royal Family and who loved to go on shopping sprees that easily came to tens of thousands of pounds. Those days were over now that Omar was in charge, though. She told me they’d once kept the Galeries Lafayette open for two extra hours just because she and some friends were on a roll. Their shopping was delivered in two airfreight containers. Most of it was still in there by all accounts, because she didn’t have the space to put it all. The containers now sat in storage, filled with shoes, dresses and whatever else women buy without male supervision.

“What I can give is a recommendation to your uncle to give you a reward for working very hard.”

“Recommendation...” she scoffed. I ignored that.

“So ... What would you like?”

“I would like to live in America. Alone. Can you arrange that?”

Oh, great. Sarcasm.

“We may have to build up to that. But how about a trip to Dubai?”

“With you?”

“Oh, God no. I’m not volunteering to watch you buy jewellery. But I’m sure you can drum up a relative who will come with you and turn a blind eye to whatever you want to do. Meet up with friends, go shopping, whatever.”

“Yes! Can you do that?”

“I can try. I’ll speak to your uncle and ask for a reward if you pass a test. I’ll draw up the questions myself. But it will be a real test, so if you fail you’re not going anywhere.”

“Okay. Go and ask him. Now.”

“Not now. We still have an hour to go. Let’s look at that graph on page twenty-six again. Have you got it?”

“The green one?”

“Yes. So the vertical axis is a measure of price, the horizontal axis is quantity. In the graph there is a downward curve for demand and an upward curve for supply. Where they cross is the equilibrium, or in other words the place where supply and demand are perfectly matched. Let’s examine that.”

When class was over, Alexandra headed off to prayer. Or at least she went away. I enjoyed prayer time, because it felt as if I had the palace to myself. I’d usually stroll past the door to Omar’s office and try it, but it would invariably be locked. Except today! I was actually a bit startled when I managed to push the door open, and immediately prepared an excuse in case he was there. But he wasn’t. I’d been summoned to this room before, but this was the first time I saw a laptop on his desk. Immediately I pulled a pair of white gloves out of my back pocket. Then I closed the door, placed a chair behind it and looked for an escape route. There wasn’t one, so that was easy.

Rarely have I seen something uglier than this laptop. It was branded ‘Luvaglio’ and at first glance it looked like a wooden box for something like hand carved chess pieces, although those don’t usually have HDMI connectors at the back. I can’t imagine the entire case was made of wood, as that is a terrible conductor of heat, but it sure looked convincing. The keyboard seemed old and yellow at first glance, like the stained keys of an antique piano. Turns out those keys were made of ivory. A small diamond, A DIAMOND, sat between the G, H and B. I don’t know what those are really called, but we used to call them a ‘clitmouse’ when I was younger. These things, normally made of red or green rubber, preceded the touch pad, even though this laptop had one of those as well.

I also saw a fingerprint sensor, with a clear fingerprint on it. I’d be able to lift that with some clear tape, but I didn’t have any on me and there wasn’t any in the desk drawers either. By now I was pretty nervous, because getting caught at this point meant a one way trip to Deera Square. I picked up the laptop, which was about as portable as a ten pound hedgehog, and saw a hatch that was secured with a simple Torx screw, which supposedly gave access to the RAM and perhaps even the hard disk. If I could get my hands on that disk, I’d be laughing.

Obviously I couldn’t do anything now, so I took a bunch of pictures of both the laptop and the room, looked around for a spare key to this office, found none and made sure I was back in my study by the time prayer had ended. Time for lunch and perhaps a cup of tea with my CIA handler.

I contacted Stein through the highly covert CIA-approved method of sending him a text message via an app called Telegram. The answer came during lunch, suggesting a meeting at the shop around four p.m. I reached out to Asim and asked him if he wanted me to cook dinner for him, because truth be told I could really use some company. It had been less than 24 hours since I was ordered to attend an execution. I felt frustrated and to be honest, a bit lonely. Asim was the closest thing I had to a friend and he would eat absolutely anything I put in front of him. Today I felt like something from home. Mrs. Bloothooft, who used to cook for Kate and me when mum worked late, would sometimes prepare a dish we called ‘preibollen’. You stir fry finely chopped leeks with ground beef, pepper, salt and a heaped teaspoon of yellow curry powder until the beef is brown, and fold it into a sleeve of croissant dough (just use those cans for instant croissants), so that it is enveloped. Brush with egg yolk and bake in the oven for half an hour at 220 degrees. (Or gas mark 7, if your oven is some sort of bloody fossil. Stufe 4 if it’s a German fossil.)

The problem in replicating the recipe is that yellow curry is actually a specific blend of spices, and that mix apparently varies from country to country. What I grew up calling curry powder is actually a masala, a spice mix in which curry is just one of almost a dozen ingredients. I couldn’t find a similar blend in the US, but mum brought a jar with her, at my request.

Fortunately, Lulu Center stocked spices from Silvo, a Dutch company. I made this dish for Kate about a year ago. She hadn’t had it in at least fifteen years, and cried after her first bite. It’s a family favourite now. You don’t easily overdo it on the spices, including the salt and pepper: the leek soaks it all up, you see.

Asim was happy to hear from me and delighted at the prospect of having his house smell of home cooked food again, so I had the fairly unique experience of stepping into a CIA meeting with a basket full of shopping. Well, I couldn’t very well leave the ground beef in a hot car, could I? I was using one of the palace vehicles right now, because I’d sent K-T out on an assignment: I wanted her to keep an eye on that mosque and more specifically on Imam Musa ibn Ja’far. As she could recharge herself in the workshop I’d rented, she could handle that without any supervision.

“Hey, it’s little Red Riding Hood”, joked Gerard, who was also in attendance. He was referring to my basket. I use a basket when I shop, one I bring from home. Sure, laugh. You clearly don’t do your own shopping. It’s not even about the environment, it’s about the fact my eggs always end up perpendicular, the lids of the yoghurt cups get pierced and my veggies get bruised in those pathetic plastic bags.

“Don’t annoy him,” said John, pretending to be strict with Gerard. “Agent 327, good to see you. Got all your eggs in one basket, I see?”

“I’m making meringue shells with lemon curd,” I said, as I placed the basket on the floor and braved howls of laughter. I’ve become accustomed to riding those out with a stone faced expression.

“Oh God ... This guy...” said John, reaching for a tissue to clean up the droplets of coffee that had spilled out of his cup while he laughed. “I’ve never met an undercover operative like you, Martin. Sit down. We’re getting you tea as we speak.”

“Wonderful. Now, can we get down to business?”

“Oh sorry, Sir,” said John, saluting me. “Yes, Sir. The recruit is ready to take notes, SIR!”

“Don’t be silly. And 327 is my MI6 designation. You make up your own. How did you find out, by the way?”

“I play tennis with Ralph.”

“Who?”

“Ralph! Edgebaston? Your MI6 handler?”

“Wouldn’t call him a handler. More of a hands-offler. Never even met the bastard. Now, what did you get from that recording I gave you?”

John turned serious, but waited with his answer until my tea had arrived. Purely to get a rise out of me, they had organised a porcelain cup with an ear so small I’d need tweezers to pick it up. The cup stood on a saucer, but between the cup and the saucer they had placed a paper doily. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction, so I sipped my tea.

“Well?”

“Right. Uhm, you don’t have another copy of that file, do you?”

“I copied it to my phone, to have a listen. Couldn’t make much out of it.”

“Gimme your phone,” said Gerard. “We need to delete this right now. That file and its contents have been classified. Delete it. Now, please.”

I had no choice. They made me unlock my phone and delete the file, plus the iCloud backups.

“You’re a smart guy so you can probably get it back somehow, but I’d advise against it. Possession of that file is a criminal offence.”

“I GOT you that file!”

“Yes. But you have absolutely no clearance to know what is in it. I’m sorry, Martin. I know you gave MI6 a copy as well, but we have coordinated with them.”

“I see. Must have been quite some meeting. Do you know I’m having dinner with one of the attendees in two hours? I could just ask him.”

“He won’t tell you. It wasn’t the meeting he was expecting to have. Listen, for what it’s worth: you’ve uncovered something important here, something we were entirely unaware of. This alone makes your infiltration worthwhile, and validates Rasul’s death. But most agents who bring us intel don’t know or hear about the specifics, so don’t take it personally. Operational hygiene.”

To be fair, I could see their point. I was nobody, the equivalent of a bribed waiter. And I wasn’t expecting to learn all that much from this conversation, either. It was unlikely to have been a reunion party of those involved with the attack on the London Underground. ‘Hey, remember how we couldn’t fit Mohammed into his suicide vest and you suggested to surgically remove his kidneys a few hours before the attack because he’d be dead anyway? Ha!’

But it did make me realise neither MI6 nor the CIA were actually on my side, that they were not going to help me achieve my own goals. I decided I’d keep whatever else I learned to myself from now on, although I was of course not going to turn down their specialist knowledge. And so, after what seemed to be a suitable amount of grumbling and complaining about being kept in the dark, I told them about Omar’s laptop. In fact, I showed them the pictures.

“Gerard, find out what that thing is. Maybe we can replace it or something. At the very least it will be good to get our hands on one, so we can work out a way in.”

“That is one fucking ugly laptop. Only a towelhead would like that,” muttered Gerard, as he began a search on a tablet.

“It has a fingerprint scanner, but I didn’t have anything on me to lift a print.”

“Shame. But getting Omar’s prints is easy. We may even have them on file. So I gather you were taken to chop chop square yesterday? Tell me about that?”

I did, in part because there was no harm in sharing, but also because I had found the entire event very traumatic and hadn’t yet had much time to process it. Sleep last night had been short, shallow and full of disjointed scenes that played in my head. Walking along corridors. The mole on Ruya’s face. Driving across town under police escort. Thoughts and dreams about irrelevant details and things I might have said or done had taken up at least half of the short time I had to rest up. Frankly. I wasn’t doing so well. There was a reason I had reached out to Asim, after all.

Stein seemed to understand it, but had little to offer except some encouraging words. It gets easier. You’ve had the worst, Martin. You found some valuable intel. If you could get your hands on that laptop that would be the icing on the cake, but even at this point you have a right to feel proud. Except I didn’t. I felt tired, and alone. I wanted food from home. I wanted pictures of Edwin.

“HOOOOOLY SHIT!” said Gerard, just after I was done with my story. “That Luvaglio laptop? That costs one MILLION dollars! The power switch is an actual diamond. You can buy one by invitation only. The specs aren’t all that impressive, but it’s designed so that you can replace almost every component and make it last.”

“So the wood is basically an expensive laptop cover,” said Stein.

“Yeah. Well, a bit more than a cover, but the hardware inside that thing certainly ain’t worth a million. I don’t think we can easily get our hands on a duplicate, though. Each one is custom built and entirely unique!”

“Fuck. Not that I’d get permission to procure one just to see what the battery compartment door looks like,” said Stein. “Maybe we can intercept that thing in transit? Have our boys take a look at it?”

“Transit to where? I don’t even recall seeing it on the ship,” I said. “And it’s not as if he takes this behemoth along to get some work done in Starbucks.”

“At least it’s designed to be upgraded. That might give you a chance to get to the hard drive. Grab it, clone it, stick it back. Could be done in an hour or so.”

“Oh, great. I don’t even have a key to his room.”

“Someone must have. The Khafama, probably. Start there.”

“Well, isn’t that great? Another nice little job for me. And then I hand in the drive and hear nothing more about it.”

“Probably,” shrugged John. “And maybe you will help save a few lives. Maybe hundreds. Get us that drive, Martin. Get us the laptop, if that’s the only way. Then scram. Job done. Pick up your medal from window number four.”

I leaned back and drummed on the table with my fingers.

“You know ... That’s going to be a problem. His room is locked almost all the time. The Khafama hates my guts and I’m pretty sure he’ll be changing his locks very soon, if he hasn’t already. And I’ve been scanning the local network for a while now. This notebook has never shown up. I’ve found dozens of phones and tablets, all from family members, and some laptops I’ve linked to the men in the house and a security workstation. He’s not using the palace internet connection.”

“Maybe his phone is a hotspot? Look, Martin, given your background there is nothing we can teach you or give you to figure this out. It may be the only area in which your knowledge exceeds our training.”

“Surely not. For one thing, I pivoted to management years ago.”

“Oh, I’m not saying we don’t have people who are better hackers than you. But they can’t get anywhere near the palace. It’s the air gap problem, you see. We need you for that. If you need to offload a chunk of data for analysis, or let our guys have a whack at some encryption scheme, we can certainly do it faster than you. But you are on the inside.”

I leaned forward again, and took off my glasses. I didn’t really need them for this meeting, anyway.

“Cards on the table, Stein. I’m not here to help the CIA, and you know it. If you don’t tell me about that meeting, I don’t know if I’m barking up the right tree. You know what I want, right?”

Stein nodded.

“You want to know who coordinated and paid for the attack in London.”

“Yes. So I am asking you now: in this meeting, was there any indication that Omar was involved with the attack, or that he knew anything about it?”

Stein shook his head.

“Hand on heart: no, there was not. It wasn’t discussed. At all.”

“And do you believe he sponsors attacks like that one?”

Stein considered my question. He briefly looked at Gerard, who nodded. Then he gave me a long, considered answer:

“I can tell you that he donates considerable amounts to several mosques, which all claim the funds are used to train Imams, who are then assigned to mosques in Europe. They are supposed to teach muslims in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and so on about true Islam. Their Islam. Sunni islam. None of that tolerant, soft-shoed, Jew-hugging, multi-denominational crap that third or fourth generation muslims gravitate towards once they have lived in the Western world for a couple of decades, but the full on beat-your-wife-like-a-rented-mule Sharia Islam. But he’s hardly the only one contributing to that goal. Practically everyone in the top tier of Saudi society does it. It’s government policy, actually. But they all like to suck up to their own Imams, which means they have to donate.”

I nodded. This practice wasn’t news to me.

“So if that is what they use as a cover, God only knows what some of the funds are really used for. All I can say is that somehow, IS and Al Quaida are never short of cash or resources. Any idea how many Toyota trucks are bought here? Thousands. Tens of thousands. But they all drive Mercedes and BMW. So where are those pick-up trucks? I’ll tell you: Iraq. Syria. All the hotspots.”

“I hardly need to be told they sponsor terrorism in general. But if I find out, or if YOU find out, who is responsible for London ... Can I count on the CIA to help me?”

“Depends. Extradition? No. Legal proceedings? Hell no. But if it is Omar, or anyone else we haven’t got an arrangement with, or who we need to stay in power, then I can easily be persuaded to give you another one of those pens, or maybe even something fancier. As long as it looks like an accident. But right now, I figure I don’t owe you anything. Get me that hard disk, or whatever is on that machine, and we’ll talk.”

“I can vouch for John, Martin,” said Gerard. “He doesn’t make empty promises.”

“Even so: are you even LOOKING for whoever coordinated the attack?”

“To be blunt: no. It did not occur on US soil and didn’t involve any of our citizens. Obviously we share intel with the Brits, and if we hear anything you guys are the first to know about it. But we have our own cases to work.”

“First to know about it ... unless you’re already in bed with the perpetrators.”

Stein suddenly looked angry, which was the first time I saw that expression on his face.

“Welcome to the world of international espionage, agent 327. Check your morals at the door. My guess is you’ll be in this business for a while, whether you like it or not, so get used to it. You want something done? Owe me a huge favour or do it your Goddamned self. Excuse me, I got a thing. Jerry, see him out.”

And with that, he stormed out of the back room of the fishing supply store. I was a bit shocked. Gerard stayed behind and grinned.

“Don’t worry about it. You’re new to this. He’s been through twenty years of intrigue and backstabbing, particularly with MI6. In real life, he takes friendship very seriously. You just reminded him that in this line of work, that’s not always the case. C’mon, I’ll follow you back to the palace, to see if someone is on your tail. Let’s plan a route.”

I wasn’t going to the palace, so Gerald followed me to Asim’s house. Not that I noticed that, because he was always a few cars behind me. If anyone was keeping an eye on me, he’d most certainly notice over the course of the seven mile detour I took to get to Asim. It’s one of those things that intelligence people call ‘hygiene’: never think that things are okay, that nobody suspects you. Keep monitoring your room, keep changing your routes and keep looking in the rear mirror. In this case he was doing it for me, which is better.

Asim met me at the door.

“Carstairs! Good to see you! Welcome, welcome! Where is your car?”

We shook hands like our life depended on it, and he threatened to nose-kiss me just to wind me up. I’d have rolled with it if he had.

“Hello, Your Royal Highness! My car? It’s in the garage I rented. Why wear it out when there is a fleet of staff vehicles I can use?”

Asim smiled at this, but I knew he didn’t really understand it. Why would you own a sports car and not use it? If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Right now I was driving a very nice Honda Civic, white and a bit dull to look at, but with the right sort of license plates to park anywhere and cut in front of whoever you liked. Not that I would do such a thing, obviously.

“Come in, come in. Hey, there is mail for you. A package. It came today.”

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Carstairs of Arabia

Ron Dudderie

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