The enigmatic leader of the U.A.E. may soon emerge as the region’s most powerful figure. What does he really want?

On the coast of Abu Dhabi, gilded outposts of the Louvre, the Guggenheim and New York University are being built by foreign workers who cannot leave and are paid half of what they were promised.

Since being revealed as a CIA operative and selling Blackwater, Erik Prince has set to work building U.A.E. a mercenary army, made up heavily of Colombian and South African troops, to be used “if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.”

The battle to contain the Asian tiger mosquito–one suburban, above-ground pool at a time.