Divorce Lawyer

"Anything new?" Penny asked as they settled into their seats for the flight to Paris the next morning.

"Yes," Grant replied. "Our client is one Salomé Hamadi, the wife of the heir to the Qatari throne, Sheikh Ali Hamadi. According to her, she's been kept a virtual prisoner for more than 20 years, never allowed out alone without personal security; in actuality, minders. She somehow slipped away from her security detail long enough to beg a group of tourists to help her, telling them that she was being kept a prisoner. When her security detail tried to intervene, one of the tourists tried to protect her and ended up with a broken arm. Then the gendarmerie intervened. The security detail were armed, it seems, and promptly arrested, and the tourist whose arm was broken offered our client sanctuary in his home and arranged for his own private security, along with that of the local gendarmerie."

"Our client's husband is the single largest owner of real estate in France, including most of the commercial property in the city of Biarritz, which is where this took place," he continued. "It is threatening to become an international incident with the Qatari government insisting that it is a private, internal affair that the French government has no business interfering with, despite the fact that it occurred on French soil. The good Samaritan who came to the rescue, and who has also put up our retainer, one Victor Slade, contacted me after no French attorneys were willing to take on the case, not wanting to go up against the wealth and might of the Qatari government."

"How did he know about you?" Penny asked.

"I have no idea," Grant replied. "You now know as much as I do about the whole thing. We'll learn the rest when we get there."

It was late in the evening by the time their final flight landed in Biarritz and they were feeling the effects of the long trip. Seeing a placard with STUDDER on it, they approached the man holding it who introduced himself as Ari Steinmetz, the head of the security detail that had been hired to protect their client, as he explained. With him were two other hard-looking men. Retrieving their luggage, they were escorted to a black SUV with heavily tinted windows, police cars in front and behind.

"Who are they?" Grant asked, noticing the black-clad men staring intently at them.

"The opposition," Ari replied. "This is their way of trying to intimidate you."

They drove into town from the airport, encountering two more police cars blocking Rue Louison Bobet on the ocean at Miramar Beach, 100m north of the Hotel Du Palais Biarritz, with another two visible at the other end of the short street. They were let through and turned into the 2nd of four residences, a large home of 3 floors. There were two more balaclava-clad men in front of the house who nodded to Ari as they got out of the SUV.

"These are my people and there are two more in the back," Ari explained. "There are two more in the house on the 2nd floor where Mrs. Hamadi is being housed, one in front of the door to the bedroom that she is staying in. We have three teams that we rotate every 4 hours."

"Is the situation really that serious?" Grant asked.

"They're Qatari," Ari replied, shrugging, as if that explained everything.

Entering the house, they were met by a tall, good-looking man with his casted arm in a sling.

"Victor!" Penny gasped when she saw him.

"Penny!" Victor said, then smiled. "I might have known that you'd come riding to the rescue."

"You know each other?" Grant asked.

"Amy and I met him at Selena's party," Penny replied, her smile ear to ear.

"I see," Grant said, once again eyeing Victor. "Grant Studder," he said, shaking hands.

"Victor Slade," he replied. "Thank you for coming so promptly."

"I'm curious, Mr. Slade," Grant said. "Why did you contact me?"

"I read an article about you in the New Yorker magazine about 10 years ago," Victor replied. "You were rumored to be connected with the Hargrave divorce in Rochester at the time, the details of which nobody ever heard, only that it had occurred. When Selena needed an attorney for her divorce a few years ago, I remembered that article and told her about you. You did a great job for her, got her what she wanted and kept everything out of the news. It seemed that was what was called for here, all things considered."

"And your connection with Mrs. Hamadi?" Grant asked.

"Pure chance," Victor replied, smiling at Penny. "I have a weakness for beautiful women, so I decided to do what I could to help. Having my arm broken pissed me off. I was going to arrange for you to stay at the Hotel Du Palais Biarritz right down the street, but Mr. Steinmetz convinced me to have you stay here for reasons of security. There's plenty of room, so it's not an inconvenience. I hope that you don't mind."

"No, of course not," Grant replied.

"I'll show you to your rooms and you can get washed up," Victor said. "I imagine that you'll want to meet Mrs. Hamadi."

"Yes, to meet her and say hello," Grant agreed. "It's late and I'm sure that we can talk in the morning. Have you talked with her?" he asked as they followed Victor up the stairs to the second floor.

"Not about what's going on other than to learn that she's afraid for her life and that she's been kept as a virtual prisoner for almost 20 years," Victor replied. "From what I've seen so far, I believe that she has good reason to be afraid, which is why I contacted Mr. Steinmetz's security group. They're all Israeli ex-special forces."

"Isn't that rather like stirring the pot with nitroglycerin?" Grant asked. "The Qataris and the Israelis aren't exactly friends."

"An interesting dynamic, isn't it?" Victor asked, smiling. "Mrs. Hamadi is staying in this room," he explained as they walked by one of Mr. Steinmetz's men in front of double doors. "My room is next to it and I'll put you on the other side."

Entering the next bedroom, Penny saw that it was spacious with a large canopied bed.

"There's another one next door," Victor explained, leading the way through a connecting door into an identical bedroom. "The connecting door locks from either side."

"Does that door lead to Mrs. Hamadi's bedroom?" Grant asked, indicating a door in the opposite wall.

"Yes," Victor replied. "All of the bedrooms have connecting doors."

"How convenient," Penny said, smiling.

"It was the only change I made to the house when I bought it," Victor explained, smiling. "For the convenience of my guests."

"I can just imagine," Penny laughed. "How is that you happen to be here in Biarritz?"

"Other than owning this house, there are several parties taking place in the next couple of months in the area," Victor replied. "Every year at this time. It was one of the reasons that I purchased this house. It is convenient for access to the rest of Europe without the feeling of a big city, and Biarritz is a wonderful, vibrant city with no end to the possibilities of pleasure for a sybarite like myself. It suits me rather well, as it would you," he added with a smile.

"Why don't we meet Mrs. Hamadi now before it gets too late," Grant suggested. "It's the middle of the night for us and we'll need a good night's sleep so that our body clocks can adjust."

Victor walked over to the adjoining door to the bedroom that Mrs. Hamadi was occupying and knocked softly on the door.

"Salomé, c'est Victor," he said.

"Entrez," they heard a throaty, mellifluous voice call out.

Victor opened the door and entered the adjoining bedroom, followed by Grant and Penny. Penny saw what she thought was the most beautiful woman that she had ever seen rising to her feet from a comfortable chair, closing the silk robe that she was wearing, but not before she got a glimpse of a naked body beneath. She was dusky-skinned and only 5'2" with long wavy black hair halfway down her back, with large, luminescent black eyes, like deep pools. Her nose would have been too large but for the wide, generous mouth beneath it. She had full breasts and slender legs. She was barefoot, her long straight toes painted a pearlescent color, as were her fingernails.

"Salomé Hamadi, this is Grant Studder, the attorney that I told you about, and Penny Lane, his..." Victor said, looking to Grant and Penny for help.

"My co-counsel, Mrs. Hamadi," Grant said, gently shaking the hand that she offered. "It's a pleasure to meet you, though I regret that it is under these circumstances."

"Thank you, Mr. Studder," she said with a heavy French accent, smiling, the whole room seeming to light up. "I prefer Salomé, if you don't mind."

"Only if you'll call me Grant," he agreed.

"Penny Lane, from The Beatles?" Salomé asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Penny replied, smiling. "I didn't get a vote when it came to my name."

"I loved The Beatles' songs when I was young," Salomé said. "Penny Lane was about the innocence and simplicity of Paul McCartney's youth in Liverpool. Does that also describe you?" she asked.

"I doubt that anyone that knows me would describe me as either innocent or simple," Penny replied, laughing.

"If you'll excuse me, I'll leave you to talk. Because of the situation, breakfast will be brought to your rooms in the morning at 8:30," Victor said. "Is there anything that I can get anyone first?" he asked.

"I'd love a bottle of wine," Salomé replied. "I need something to help calm me down."

"Three glasses?" Victor asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sure," Penny replied, smiling at him and watching as he crossed the bedroom to the opposite connecting door and went through it to his own bedroom, Penny smiling to herself when she realized that he hadn't needed to unlock it.

"I know that it's late and I won't keep you long," Grant said. "I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself, see if you had any immediate questions."

"I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having nothing but the clothes on my back," Salomé said. "I've never had any money, part of the way my husband controlled me. My security guards always paid for anything that I wanted. I have no way of paying you, in other words."

"Somebody has already paid my retainer, which is why I am here," Grant said.

"That's Victor, though I've insisted that it is only a temporary loan until I can get my life sorted out," Salomé said. "What are the normal arrangements for something like this?" she asked.

"My retainer is $10 million and I get 10% of any settlement," Grant replied. "The retainer is non-refundable."

"I see," Salomé said.

"Is that a problem?" Grant asked.

"No, I just...there is much about normal life that I know nothing about," Salomé replied. "Including divorce. The past few days have been very unsettling. I never dreamed that I'd be in a position to escape the misery of my life."

There was a knock on the connecting door to Victor's bedroom, which then opened and he returned, a bottle of wine in his good arm and three wine glasses in the hand of his broken one. Quickly opening the bottle, Victor poured, then took his leave.

"Merci," Salomé said to his departing back, lifting her glass in a mock salute. "I've not been sleeping well," she explained, taking a sip of the wine.

"Is there anything that you'd like to tell us or would you prefer to wait until morning?" Grant asked.

"I'm ready to explode for want of someone to talk to about everything," Salomé replied. "Victor has been very sweet, but I don't want to burden him with the nightmare that my life has been."

"That's my job, to bear that burden," Grant said, smiling. "Feel free to tell me as much or as little as you care to. Over the next day or days, I'll work with you to understand the totality of your situation so that we'll know exactly what it is that we're dealing with so that we can make a plan on resolving the problem. If you'd be more comfortable talking to Penny, I won't be offended. She'll report to me what I need to know. I understand how difficult it can be to talk about these things."

"No, I don't mind," Salomé said. "I was born in Qatar. My father is a very successful businessman with good relations with the royal family. He gave me - I think of it as sold me - to the Qatari royal family to be the wife of Sheikh Ali Hamadi when I was 16. He's the oldest son of the Emir and will inherit the throne when he dies. But I grew up in France, went to school here. My French is better than my Arabic. Other than for the actual wedding, I have never been back to Qatar, living my whole life here."

"My husband is 30 years older than me," Salomé said, unable to disguise the distaste that that admission caused her to feel. "To him, taking me as his wife was a business decision as well as a political one. He needs heirs to assure himself of being the next on the throne. I have a daughter 19 and a son 18, the presumptive heir, unless something were to happen, then the throne would go to his younger brother, Selim, who is married and has 3 sons and a daughter."

"Just after the birth of my son, Ali became ill and was hospitalized here in Paris," Salomé continued. "I happened to see his medical chart one day when I was visiting him in the hospital and learned that he was sterile due to a bout of measles when he was a boy."

"But you have a son and a daughter," Penny said.

"Yes," Salomé agreed, taking a big gulp of her wine. "When we married, it was apparent to me that Ali found fulfilling the duties of a husband to be distasteful. He would only share my bed 12-14 days before my period, when I was at my most fertile, and leave as soon as he had finished. I was young and even that little bit of forced intimacy aroused me greatly. I began an affair with Ali's younger brother, Selim. He is the father of my children, not Ali."

"Did your husband know of his sterility?" Grant asked.

"He learned of it during the same hospital stay that I discovered it," Salomé replied. "He was incensed with rage, at the vagaries of fate and at being cuckolded. I refused to tell him who the real father of my children was. He never touched me again, instead, locked me away in our home here with a phalanx of guards to watch my every move. That was when I became his prisoner. I've also never seen my children or Selim since then. He took them back to Qatar while I've been imprisoned here. The biggest problem arising from all of this is the fact that Ali will never succeed his father as the Emir if his sterility were to become known."

"That fact will be very important when we negotiate your divorce and settlement," Grant said.

"If I live that long," Salomé said, finishing her glass of wine, then pouring another. "You do not realize what these people are capable of. The Emir's health is failing. He is not expected to live for much longer. I am the biggest obstacle to Ali inheriting the throne and he will do anything to make sure that he succeeds in that."

"Why not just expose him?" Penny asked. "If he doesn't inherit the throne and Selim does, wouldn't that diminish his ability to act against you?"

"He is a very wealthy man," Salomé replied. "Throne or no throne, he'd have the financial means to do anything that he wants. And if he were denied the throne, his hatred would have no bounds. But that's the least of it. If I were to expose him, it would also destroy my children, unless I were willing to name their father, which would also destroy Selim and his family. Selim was so very sweet to me. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know what I would have done. I can't do that to him or our children."

"What is it that you're not telling me?" Grant asked. "There's more, something missing here. I can't operate in a vacuum if I'm going to effectively help you."

"When Ali found out about his sterility, and the fact that my children are not his, something broke inside of his head," Salomé said. "He became...twisted. He fired the entire household staff. The only people in the house were me and the dozen or so security people whose loyalty was solely to him. I had to prepare my own food, do my own housekeeping, even my own gardening, which I did to try to hold on to my sanity. I was a virtual prisoner. For years, I was not allowed to leave the house. If I wanted something, I had to tell the security personnel and they would either get it for me or not."

"Then Ali had my clothes taken away from me," Salomé said, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "I'd use anything, towels, sheets, blankets, to cover myself, but he'd have the security people take them from me, force me to be naked in front of them. He would constantly press me to tell him who the father of my children was. When I continued to refuse to tell him, he started having his security people use me sexually, right in front of him. When one of them would finish, he'd ask me again. When I'd refuse to tell him, he'd have another one take his turn. This would go on for hours, day after day, week after week, month after month, all of them taking their turn."

"I tried to get him to stop by pretending to enjoy what was being done to me, complimenting the men on whatever it was that they were doing, always making sure to tell them how much better they were than Ali. That backfired on me in the extreme. Ali went back to Qatar and told the security people that he left to watch me that they were free to use me as they liked, whenever they liked. And they did. Constantly. It was more than five years before I saw Ali again and the security teams changed every six months, a whole new group of men to use me. He had gotten fat and even more twisted. For more than a week he had the security people use me night and day while he watched, then he returned to Qatar. I haven't seen him since, more than ten years, yet the security teams remain and they continue to use me."

"Was there no way to escape?" Penny asked, aghast at what she was hearing.

"The house is out in the country, almost an hour from Biarritz," Salomé replied. "About five years ago, I was allowed to start going into Biarritz from time to time, but always accompanied by at least two security personnel. I kept looking for a way to escape on those occasions, but they stayed very close to me, never letting me interact with anyone."

"Running into Victor and his friends was a godsend. They were exiting a restaurant as we were walking past it and I just ran to them before the security personnel could grab me, babbling like an idiot that I was being kept a prisoner, begging them to help me. I could see that they thought I was crazy, but then one of the security personnel pulled his weapon out. That's when Victor acted. He put me behind him and tried to protect me. His friends all ran away screaming when they saw the gun. Victor was fighting with the man with the gun and they fell to the ground. By then the gendarmerie had arrived and they arrested the two security personnel because they were armed. Victor's arm was broken. He wouldn't let me leave his side, even when he went to the hospital to have his arm set and put in a cast. Then he offered to help me, giving me a place to stay and promising that he'd find someone who could help. And now you're here."

"How could something like that happen in a country like France?" Penny asked, stunned.

"Money," Salomé replied, shrugging and pouring the last of the bottle of wine into her glass, Grant's and Penny's barely tasted. "The same reason no French lawyer was willing to take my case. They're afraid of retribution. France doesn't have the world's best record when it comes to protecting its citizens from radical Islam. Now that you know everything, are you still willing to help me?" she asked.

"More than ever," Grant replied. "If there's one thing that I hate more than anything in life, it's unfairness. Even though we live in a universe that is inherently unfair, it's something that I've always striven for in my life, fighting unfairness."