David shook his head. This wasn’t right at all. There had definitely been a mistake. If Reston could have seen this room, he’d probably have fired David on the spot. The Merc would never have paid for something like this, and they wouldn’t have expected anyone else to either. And certainly, this had to cost a fortune. David took a small step into the room, then quickly found a cordless phone resting on a chrome pedestal by what appeared to be a fully functioning wet bar.
The front desk answered on the first ring.
“Yes, Mr. Russo? How may we help you? Is there a problem with your room?”
Did everyone in the country know his name already?
David cleared his throat.
“I think there’s been some sort of mistake. I’m probably supposed to be in a much smaller room.”
The woman on the other end of the line seemed amused. “No, Mr. Russo, we have you in one of our executive suites. You’re an honored guest of the Ministry of Finance, and the upgrade was the least we could do. Your bags are on their way up as we speak. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
David declined an offer of champagne and caviar and delicately hung up the phone. He moved a little farther into the incredible two-floor suite. Then he shook his head.
An honored guest of the Ministry of Finance.
Cristal on the airplane. A silver stretch BMW waiting for him at the curb. And a hotel room right out of Donald Trump’s fantasies. David wasn’t sure who these people were or what they wanted—but they sure as hell had gotten his attention.
F
rom the very moment David lowered himself into his seat at the postmodern, black-glass conference table in the huge, brightly lit penthouse office on top of the second Emirates Tower, he realized that he was way out of his element. And it didn’t help that the walls of the room were entirely made of milky-white transparent glass, making it feel like the meeting was taking place on top of a cloud; the view from the top of the world was staggering, but also dizzying and maybe even a little nauseating. Worse yet, the way the rotund minister of finance was peering at him from across the table—his doughy brown face seeming to melt right off the bones, his sausagelike lips bent into a palpable frown—David felt like he had already made some grievous cultural error, and he hadn’t even said anything yet.
He told himself he was just being stupid; that was probably just the way the man’s face always looked. Certainly, Minister Hakim Al Wazali was, to put it mildly, a
generous
man; rolls of fat leaked out of the collar of his tailored blue suit, and his fingers, laced together beneath his chin, looked like raw hot dogs that had just been yanked from their packaging. The minister was
in his midfifties, and it was obvious from his bearing, and from the way the younger, equally well-dressed man to the minister’s right deferred to him, that the portly man was very powerful.
“So you are the vice president of strategy for the New York Mercantile Exchange,” the minister said, after the view had been duly appreciated, introductions had been officially made, and everyone had taken their seats. David nodded. His gray suit felt stiff after having made the long journey in his cheap luggage; it had taken him a good hour to figure out the high-tech ironing system in his hotel room, and he had only just finished work on the jacket when Anwar arrived to take him to the meeting. He noticed, with a little jealousy, that both of the men on the other side of the table were wearing much more expensive suits—three buttons each, with vests, and both were in gray as well. Still, he was glad they weren’t wearing robes; that would have made him even more uneasy than he already was.
“That’s right,” David responded. “And it’s a great honor to meet you, sir. Your country is beautiful—”
“And nobody else saw fit to make the trip with you?” the minister interrupted, waving one of his meaty paws.
David swallowed and nodded again. So that was the reason for the man’s expression. In the eyes of this minister, the Merc had answered Dubai’s invitation by sending a kid. Maybe Hakim had been expecting Reston, or one of the more powerful board members—certainly not a twenty-five-year-old who’d recently been made VP by the departing chairman. David realized he had to put the man at ease, as soon as possible.
“I’m the president’s right-hand man,” David said. “I’m reporting directly back to him. I have his full authority on matters of the New York Mercantile Exchange.”
The last part was a complete fabrication, but David felt he had to add something because, really, Hakim was right—David had been sent because nobody else wanted to make the trip. Giovanni was gone, Reston was too busy, and the rest of the board would have laughed at the idea of spending fourteen hours
on a plane to visit the Middle East. What the hell was the minister expecting anyway? David wasn’t even sure what
he
was doing there. Dubai was fascinating, but what did it have to do with the NYMEX? There wasn’t even much oil in Dubai. And even if this had been Saudi Arabia, with black gold coming out of the bathroom faucets, the Merc wouldn’t have had any real business here: the Merc was an exchange. Oil contracts were traded on its floor, but that’s where the relationship really ended.
The young man to the right of the minister cleared his throat.
“The minister and I are very pleased that you have elected to meet with us,” he said quietly. “And maybe in the future your superiors will have a chance to see our wonderful city for themselves.”
David turned his attention from Hakim to the younger man. He had introduced himself as Khaled Abdul-Aziz; he was a good-looking kid, with high cheekbones and piercing dark eyes. He was also a few inches taller than David and had ridiculously good posture—which made him seem almost towering as he sat next to the squat minister of finance. David couldn’t be sure, but Khaled was probably around the same age as he was, though from the looks of his clothes and the polished nature of his mannerisms, he was from a much wealthier background. Maybe he had grown up in this futuristic place. It was impossible to place his background from his voice: his English was slightly accented, but David couldn’t quite place the accent. His diction was perfect and precise and made David wonder if the kid had taken acting lessons somewhere in his past. In short, he was extremely well spoken, and he seemed to choose his words very carefully.
“Dubai is growing quickly,” he continued, looking right at David. “And more people are discovering our city every day. There are enormous opportunities all around us.”
David could see many of those opportunities through the milky glass walls: skyscrapers, amusement parks, shopping malls—billion-dollar projects sprouting right up out of the desert. But what did any of it have to do with him?
Before he could ask the question, the minister abruptly rose to his feet, then nodded to Khaled and to David.
“I apologize, Mr. Russo, it was a pleasure meeting you. I have other business to attend to at this time. My associate will continue the meeting—as he has full authority on matters of the Ministry of Finance.”
David blushed as his own words were thrown right back at him. He quickly stood, shook the minister’s hand, and watched him wobble right out of the conference room. When the door had shut behind him, David turned back to the younger man, who was already back in his seat.
“Why am I here?” David asked, a bit flustered. “I don’t think the minister has any interest in talking to me.”
To his surprise, Khaled smiled.
“The minister didn’t invite you, Mr. Russo. I did.”
Now it was David’s turn to be surprised. He lowered himself back into his seat. This kid across the table had invited a representative of the Merc to make a first-class trip all the way to Dubai? On a letter from the Ministry of Finance, with two sheiks’ signatures across the bottom?
No wonder the minister had acted as though the entire meeting was a waste of his time: he had obviously been there as a favor to his young charge. Obviously, Khaled had some impressive pull in the Dubai government. But he was young, and from the way the minister had hightailed it out of the room, probably no more powerful in the greater scheme of things than David was at the Merc.
“Why?” David finally asked.
“I wanted to pick your brain, Mr. Russo. You see, I’ve spent the past month meeting with various interests, discussing potential projects—real estate, commercial, whatever—for the continually changing landscape of our city. These projects represent trillions of dollars of foreign investment, much of it from this region of the world, but also from Europe and, more recently, your country.”
David listened patiently as Khaled spoke. There was something almost musical about the young man’s tone; he was smart, that was obvious, but he was also very controlled—almost as though he was holding himself back. He clearly wanted something from David, but the more Khaled told him about his job, the less likely it seemed that David had anything worthwhile to give him.
“Some of these projects will cost the ministry billions of dollars. And when finished, they will be quite spectacular.”
“I imagine so,” David said. “What you’ve done already is, well, spectacular.”
“Mr. Russo, I’m not interested in spectacular. I feel that Dubai is in a unique situation. We’ve got a ruler who has made it his prime purpose in life to make Dubai the greatest city on earth. We’ve got money and, more importantly, the attention of Europe and America. I want to find a way to use these things to change the entire region. To change the world.”
David stared at the kid. He could tell that the words were not just hyperbole—Khaled meant exactly what he’d said. And he was being completely honest. David doubted that he’d have opened up like this if the minister had still been in the room. Maybe he’d also have held back his feelings if Reston or one of the older members of the board had been there. But for some reason, he had let David in on his grand intentions. Maybe it was simply the fact that they were similar in age. Or maybe, somehow, he knew that David was the type of person who would respond to such intellectual grandeur—even if it was obviously going nowhere, because how the hell could a twenty-five-year-old Arab kid who couldn’t keep his boss in the room ten minutes hope to change the world?
“Cool,” David finally responded. He knew it was a pathetic response, but he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Yes. And that’s why I sent the letter to your exchange. You see, I’ve been reading up on your business—and I think there might be a way for us to partner on a project here in Dubai.”
David raised his eyebrows.
“Partner? Who, the Merc Exchange? And Dubai?”
David had no idea where this kid was heading. His own personal hesitations toward the Arab world aside—hell, what American didn’t have personal hesitations toward the Arab world?—he couldn’t think of a bigger mismatch than the Merc’s board of old-world Italians and Jews and what he’d seen so far of Dubai.
“That’s correct. I believe that a partnership with your oil exchange is exactly the sort of endeavor that could change the way people view our part of the world. If we could re-create here what you’ve created in New York, I believe it would be region-changing.”
David blinked, then stared at the kid. David wanted to make sure he had heard Khaled correctly.
“You want to build an oil exchange. In Dubai.”
The room went silent. Khaled laid his caramel hands out flat against the black-glass table. David coughed, then repeated himself.
“An oil exchange in the Middle East.”
Khaled had to be kidding. Even putting aside what most Americans—and especially the sort of men who ran the Merc—thought of the Arab world, it was an insane idea. Stock exchanges existed in places like New York, London, Berlin—first-world cities that were centers of capitalism, with massive, international appeal, particularly with respect to oil and energy: an oil exchange was in itself a center of capitalism, a real-time casino built around the world’s most important commodity. An exchange in the Middle East—it was a crazy thought. Other than Israel—and David knew they certainly weren’t talking about Israel—the Middle East had no democracies. The place was run by sheiks, for God’s sake. Was it even really capitalist? Could capitalism really exist in an Islamic world?
David had thought he was out of his depth before, when he’d first entered the conference room; now he knew he was at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. He didn’t want to be rude, but part of him wanted to get the hell out of there. No wonder the minister
of finance had left so quickly. Even if this kid was wild-eyed and idealistic enough to think of something so absurd, the minister probably knew better.
“Look, I’m no expert on religion,” David said, “but isn’t Dubai an Islamic country?”
Khaled nodded. “Of course. But there are caveats. You see, the emir, in his infinite wisdom, has established a number of free zones in the city, where most forms of trade can flourish. The International Financial District, which surrounds us, offers a location particularly attractive to corporations; no corporate or personal income taxes, a top-notch banking system, and a legal code favoring the ownership of property. The free zones are not subject to the application of sharia law.”
David had never heard of sharia law—and he was pretty sure the meatheads from Brooklyn and Staten Island hadn’t either.
“Okay, but an exchange is, by its nature, international. If you opened an oil exchange here, you’d have to bring in traders and brokers from all over the world. You’d have to create oil contracts with the help of the big players in the local region as well: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar—”
“We would have to navigate around a few obstacles, certainly. But what would be the result?”
David sat back in his chair. An oil exchange in the Middle East? Even if he thought such an idea was remotely possible, was it something he’d want to be involved with? Still, he felt he owed it to Khaled to at least entertain the concept, however absurd he thought it was. After all, this crazy kid had invited him all the way to Dubai. David decided to humor him—to do his best and imagine that somehow he could overcome the prejudices and hatreds, that somehow he could get the board interested enough to move forward, that somehow he could get the rest of the world market involved in building an oil exchange here in the Middle East. What would be the result?
A center of pure capitalism? Maybe. If Dubai really allowed the Merc to re-create what they’d done in New York, bringing
in players from all over, resetting the way oil was traded and even priced—hell, there were so many angles, David would need a month to figure it all out. But simply put, Khaled was right about one thing: if such an exchange was successful, it would quite possibly change the entire region. It would be like a revolution of international market forces in the center of the Islamic world. It would certainly put Dubai on the map as a financial center and give it a role in the pricing and trade of oil—in many ways, making it as important as its bigger, oil-rich neighbors in the region.
“Exchanges are living, breathing institutions,” David finally said, rewording something that Giovanni and Reston had once told him. “Building one here would be like building a soccer stadium and inviting the whole world to come and play.”
Khaled grinned. It seemed exactly what he wanted to hear. If that wasn’t changing the region—and by extension the world, because they were talking about the Middle East, the source of so much war, terrorism, and hatred—then nothing else was. David couldn’t help but feel the kid’s energy, even from across the room.
Christ, the kid really was a dreamer.