“He didn’t translate what the Sheikh said. He didn’t even translate what he said. He’s inserting his own agenda.”
“Explain,” Thorn said, his eyes turning to dark ice.
“Ibrahim proposed a compromise to the Sheikh. He didn’t say ‘local labor.’ He said ‘their preferred local subcontractor.’ Singular. And when he translated it for us, he changed it to ‘local labor, as opportunities allow.’ He softened it. He’s playing both sides.”
“Why?” Cole asked.
“I don’t know,” Elena said. “But a preferred subcontractor isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a multi-million dollar kickback. He’s trying to slip it past us and past them. He’s likely getting paid by this subcontractor. He’s sabotaging the deal for his own profit.”
Thorn was silent for a beat. The level of deception was staggering. He had been about to walk right into it.
“He’s betting,” Thorn said, “that you’re just a standard translator. That you wouldn’t catch the difference between local labor and a preferred subcontractor. He’s betting that you’re just like the last ones.”
“What do we do?” Cole asked, panicked. “We can’t accuse him. We’ll insult the Sheikh and blow the whole deal.”
Thorn looked at Elena. The trust in his eyes was absolute. “What do you do, Ms. Sanchez? This is your room.”
Elena’s mind raced. She couldn’t accuse Ibrahim in English; it would be her word against his. She couldn’t accuse him in front of the Sheikh; it would cause a massive loss of face. She had to expose him. But she had to do it to him. And let him hang himself.
“I have an idea,” she said. “But you have to follow my lead. Do not react. And Mr. Thorn, I need you to look angry. Not at him. At me.”
Thorn looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re not supposed to,” she said. “They’re not supposed to. Just trust me.”
They re-entered the boardroom. The atmosphere was expectant. Mr. Ibrahim, the translator, looked smug.
“Our apologies, gentlemen,” Julian Thorn said, his voice hard as steel. He sat down and didn’t look at the Sheikh. He glared, as requested, at Elena. “Mr. Ibrahim,” Thorn said in English. “Your translation was a ‘symbolic gesture.’ My… advisor…” He said the word with a slight sneer. “Seems to think this is a more binding request. She is… cautious.”
Elena kept her face down, as if she were being reprimanded.
Ibrahim smiled. A thin, oily smile. “It is merely a sign of mutual respect, Mr. Thorn. A cultural necessity. Your advisor is perhaps… unfamiliar with the scale of such deals. It is nothing for your lawyers to worry about.”
He was patronizing her. He too saw her as the help who had gotten lucky.
“I see,” Thorn said. “So you are confirming. It is a non-binding request for local labor.”
“Precisely,” Ibrahim said.
“Good.” Thorn leaned back. “Then we have a deal.”
Mr. Cole looked at Elena in panic. What was she doing? She was letting it happen. The Sheikh looked pleased. “Excellent. We will have the final contracts drawn up.”
Everyone began to gather their papers. The deal was done.
Elena waited until the Sheikh had stood up. Until Ibrahim was shaking Mr. Cole’s hand, smiling his false smile. Then she spoke. She did not speak in English. She did not speak in the formal Arabic of the meeting. She spoke directly to Mr. Ibrahim in a sharp, cutting Egyptian dialect—a dialect known in the linguistic world as the language of media, confrontation, and a good intellectual fight.
“Mr. Ibrahim,” she said, her voice clear and carrying across the room.
Ibrahim froze, his hand still holding Cole’s.
“You are a very skilled man,” Elena continued in Arabic, a polite smile on her face. “I was just reading your 2019 paper on ‘contractual false friends’ in Gulf negotiations. It was brilliant, especially your section on the ‘preferred subcontractor’ gambit.”
Ibrahim’s face went from smug to ashen in a fraction of a second. He looked as if she had physically struck him.
The Sheikh and his sons, who had been talking among themselves, stopped and turned. They heard the shift in language. They saw the look on Ibrahim’s face…
