February 4, 2001DubaiRoyal Court (Private Reception)19:10 Hours
Dubai did not receive visitors the way Riyadh did.
Riyadh measured men by history and doctrine.
Dubai measured men by risk and revenue.
When Musharraf arrived, the air was lighter, the furniture sharper, the hospitality polished into a kind of modern ceremony. But the conversation, beneath the courtesy, was colder than it looked.
The UAE leadership already had the file.
Not a formal file—Dubai's version of a file: briefings from advisors, quiet signals from Riyadh, and clips of Musharraf smiling in Al-Haram with crowds around him as if legitimacy had become contagious.
The Ruler did not start with religion.
He started with the only religion Dubai truly respected: stability.
"General," he said, "I hear you are moving quickly."
"I have to," Musharraf replied.
The Ruler's eyes remained steady. "Quick men are useful. Quick men are also dangerous."
Musharraf nodded once, accepting the framing.
"That's why I came with limits," he said.
The Ruler tilted his head slightly. "Limits?"
Musharraf placed the first assurance on the table like a passport stamp.
"I will not touch Jebel Ali," he said.
The words landed cleanly.
For a fraction of a second, the room's temperature shifted—because everyone knew what he meant. Jebel Ali was not simply a port. It was a lifeline. A commercial artery. A strategic foundation that Dubai would defend more fiercely than any ideology.
The Ruler studied him.
"You understand," he said quietly.
"I understand your ecosystem," Musharraf replied. "I am building corridors. I am not building competition to your lifeline."
Aditya, inside, watched the Ruler's expression soften—not into warmth, but into respect. In Dubai, respecting limits was intelligence. It signaled that Musharraf was not a reckless revolutionary.
He was a negotiator.
The Offer: Dubai as the Neutral Stadium
Musharraf continued before the moment could evaporate.
"I will arrange SPL opening matches in Dubai," he said. "Not permanently. Select fixtures. Prime-time visibility. Controlled crowds. High-spend tourism."
The Ruler's advisor murmured something; the Ruler raised a hand to silence him.
"Why Dubai?" the Ruler asked.
Musharraf answered in a single sentence—short enough for a monarch, and sharp enough for a CFO.
"Because Dubai is where enemies can sit in the same hotel without calling it surrender," he said.
The Ruler's mouth tightened slightly—almost a smile.
Musharraf added the second hook.
"And I want a UAE diaspora team in the SPL," he said. "Not as a token. As a full franchise."
Now the room leaned in. A diaspora team meant something bigger than sport. It meant a new category: the league would no longer be "India-Pakistan."
It would become international.
The Ruler's chief advisor spoke carefully.
"International leagues invite international scrutiny."
Musharraf nodded.
"That is part of the value," he said. "Once the SPL becomes a platform for multiple cricket-playing nations, it attracts tourism not just from India and Pakistan, but from across the cricket world—England, Australia, South Africa, the Gulf expat communities. Dubai becomes the safe neutral stadium where the world watches South Asia behave like adults."
The Ruler's eyes stayed on Musharraf.
"You're selling me tourism," he said.
"I'm selling you controlled prestige," Musharraf replied. "Tourism is only the visible profit. The real profit is being the arena where narratives reset."
Dubai's Admiration
Dubai's Ruler did not praise easily. He signaled admiration in a different way: by shifting from probing questions to forward planning.
He leaned back and said softly:
"You're careful not to threaten Jebel Ali."
Musharraf's response was simple.
"I don't attack lifelines," he said. "I create new lanes."
The Ruler nodded once—approval, quiet but real.
Then he moved.
"We will buy a share in the SPL," the Ruler said. "Significant."
Musharraf kept his face neutral, but inside Aditya registered the strategic weight: a Gulf stake in SPL was not sponsorship; it was insulation. The more foreign money sat inside the league, the harder it became for sabotage networks to burn it without consequences.
The Ruler continued.
"And we will make an offer to buy shares in the Dubai franchise as well," he said. "A team that belongs to this city."
The advisors exchanged glances. Numbers began to form in their heads before any document was printed.
Musharraf asked carefully, "And the public face?"
The Ruler's eyes narrowed with mischief—Dubai's favorite style of power.
"A team needs an ambassador," he said.
Musharraf waited.
The Ruler delivered the name like a card placed on a table.
"Salman Khan."
One of the advisors coughed—half surprise, half calculation. Another smiled despite himself.
Salman Khan was not just a film star. He was an audience magnet. A walking billboard. A human satellite dish that pulled attention across borders.
In one move, Dubai would tie:
Bollywood glamour
cricket legitimacy
Gulf capital
and regional soft power
into a single, exportable package.
Musharraf nodded slowly, as if absorbing it formally, but Aditya's mind moved faster than the room:
This isn't a celebrity choice. This is distribution strategy.
The Council's Arithmetic
After the meeting, the Dubai council sat in a smaller room, away from cameras, away from formalities. Their excitement was controlled, but it was there.
They didn't speak about peace.
They spoke about revenue streams.
broadcasting rights
stadium occupancy
hotel bookings
airline packages
sponsorship overlays
merchandise flow
One advisor did the simplest math aloud:
"Even a partial season here…" he said, "…and we will print money."
Another added, quieter, "And we become the neutral capital of South Asian entertainment."
A third looked up at the Ruler.
"And the political risk?"
The Ruler's answer was crisp.
"We manage risk the way we always do," he said. "By owning the table. When you own the table, others play by your rules."
Closing
That night, Musharraf stood in his suite and looked out at Dubai's skyline—light built from ambition, not ideology.
He understood the shape of what had just happened.
Riyadh had given him cover.
Dubai had given him leverage.
And both had done it for the same reason:
They saw that this "butcher general" was behaving like a disciplined administrator—moving fast, but respecting lifelines, turning sentiment into systems, and turning systems into profit.
Aditya, inside, felt the timeline tighten again.
If SPL became international, the spoilers would not retreat.
They would escalate.
Because once peace becomes a business model, it stops being a dream.
It becomes a threat—to everyone who profits from war.
Author's Note — Jebel Ali, Ports, and Power
Jebel Ali is not "just a port." It is a logistics ecosystem—shipping, free zones, warehousing, customs throughput, and finance—built to make Dubai a default gateway for trade across the region. In South Asian strategic circles, there's a long-running, controversial view that Karachi and Mumbai never fully realized their natural potential as global logistics super-hubs partly because Jebel Ali absorbed the region's high-value routing—especially for transshipment and time-sensitive trade.
In the novel's worldview, this becomes a geopolitical suspicion: that major external powers find it easier to manage trade and influence through a smaller, highly centralized Gulf hub than through the messy, politically noisy, high-population environments of India and Pakistan. A concentrated system is simpler to pressure, negotiate with, and "sell" narratives into—while a large democracy or a complex security state generates friction, media noise, and unpredictable public blowback.
This is not presented as a settled fact—more as a strategic belief that characters in the story act upon. Musharraf's promise to "not touch Jebel Ali" is therefore not merely economic courtesy. It is a signal: I understand your lifeline, and I'm not here to threaten it. In Dubai's language, that kind of restraint is often the first proof that someone is smart enough to be taken seriously.