by Omar Tyree
*****
While Tariq drove hastily to the area of Jebel Ali in the southwest, he thought about the proximity to Abu Dhabi, farther south.
But they would be insane to go into Abu Dhabi, he assumed. Not even Chief Youssef has mentioned the idea.
Nevertheless, Tariq called Abdul to discuss the most recent information with him. But his first call went unanswered. Tariq was never one to leave messages. His work was too confidential.
“Hmmph,” Tariq grunted.
I believe he has a family meeting this morning, he thought. Maybe he’ll call back when he gets a moment.
*****
Abdul quickly eyed his cell phone inside the car but did not answer it. He could feel his wife’s eyes burning through his skin without even looking at her. After her earlier conversation with him, Hamda was practically daring her husband to answer his phone.
I need to know what Tariq has found out, but not right now, he told himself. I will call once we arrive.
But once they arrived at his uncle’s, the Sheikh met him and his caravan of cars out in front of the house at the roundabout driveway, and he was disturbed that so many security men had come with him.
“What is all this?” the Sheikh asked.
Abdul was embarrassed by it himself. “After some recent events, the police and my advisors asked me to be careful,” he answered.
“Be careful of what?”
The Sheikh did not understand the extra security, and he had not been informed about the details from his nephew.
“I will explain it shortly,” he promised.
He did not want to address the details in front of his son and his men.
Sheikh Al Hassan exhaled wearily and decided to hear his nephew’s explanation over their meal. He then greeted Hamda and Rafi with hugs and gentle kisses on the cheeks as they entered his massive and remarkable home of earth-tone stone and columns and domes inside of acres of gated land.
Abdul, Hamda and Rafi were greeted warmly by aunts, cousins and servants in Arabic.
“Ahlan wa sahlan. Sabaah al-khayr.”
The men were then free to separate from the women and children, where Sheikh Al Hassan led his nephew Abdul into a large meeting room to the right. Hamda, Rafi, and the other women, children and servants headed to the left and their own private area.
Before walking in, the elder Sheikh Al Hassan stopped his nephew at the door to speak in a hushed tone. “Allow Sheikh Al Rashid to make his points without disturbance. It will be much better for you to hold your tongue and allow the rest of us to handle him. Do I make myself understood?”
Abdul nodded. He already knew what he was in for. Sheikh Al Rashid could be a very temperamental man. “Thank you.”
Inside the room of men was a large oval table that was filled with fruit, salad, bread, food, wine, water, plates, napkins and silverware. Ten royal chairs with red cushions and high golden frames surrounded the table, where the elder, Sheikh Al Rashid, sat at one end and Al Hassan at the other. They were joined by Sheikh Al Naseem and the young Sheikh Al Falah, who was in his early thirties and of royal lineage.
Abdul greeted them all with individual hugs.
“As-salam alaykum.”
He then took a seat next to Sheikh Al Naseem. After a short prayer from the elder to bless their meal, the men began to eat and discuss Abdul’s recent events immediately, starting with the elder.
Sheikh Al Rashid asked, “Abdul, how do you feel about the mess you have made with your most recent construction?”
The elder planned to pull no punches. He had invited Sheikh Al Falah to their important meeting that morning for him to learn more about the pitfalls of development. Al Falah planned to enter the business of construction and development as well.
Abdul cleared his throat and held his composure. He knew that the young Sheikh had been invited there to learn from him, so he answered, “There is always the unexpected with any construction.”
“But many of these problems have been caused by you and your rush to finish by any means. Is that not true?” the elder asked him.
Abdul’s uncle Sheikh Al Hassan was helpless to defend his nephew until the elder had asked all of his questions. It had already been agreed upon. Abdul would have to stand his own ground, and respectfully.
He nodded and said, “Indeed. Some of it has been.”
The other council members began to fill their plates with food as Abdul continued to answer. The young Sheikh Al Falah paid strict attention.
The elder commented, “And now you have instigated a commotion with many of your immigrant workers. Is that also correct?”
Abdul briefly looked to Al Falah before he nodded. “Yes.”
He had no appetite at the moment and did not move to fill his plate, as he felt put on the spot by the elder. The Sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates were briefed on many concerns involving their nation, particularly those surrounding the tourist city of Dubai. The city represented a great leap into the business of the Western world. Yet Dubai also caused great concern for many of the elders of the ruling class, who feared too much Western influence in their rich, young nation.
The elder continued with his interrogation after a bite of watermelon. “Now tell us about your personal history with the Egyptian Mohd Ahmed Nasir. I believe he was one of your first building engineers.”
Abdul’s eyes grew large as he was shocked by the Sheikh’s inside information. He immediately thought of his private counsel, Tariq Mohammed.
Why would he tell them? he asked himself.
The elder read the young man’s surprise and addressed it with authority, as he had planned to do that morning.
“Abdul, do you realize that your rash executions with construction have now caused a national alert? You cannot withhold such pertinent information. These buildings are not yours alone. They belong to all of the Emirates in the sense that we have allowed them to exist,” the elder reminded him.
“There are no buildings that can be erected in this nation without the Exalted One’s agreement and the confirmation from the council.”
Abdul realized as much, nevertheless, he had rarely been forced to deal with the ruler of the United Arab Emirates or the council of elders on even a monthly basis. There were far too many developments going on in and around Dubai and the UAE for that much personal attention. But while he was on the hot seat, Abdul realized that the safety of their nation depended on transparency of information on any grave danger.
The elder was relentless to make his point. “Now you have hired an army of men to protect you and your family. But who will you hire to protect everyone else?”
Sheikh Al Rashid allowed the young developer to sit and take his medicine all in one dose. He wanted to make it perfectly clear that his immaturity and reckless business practices would no longer be tolerated.
“This has come down from the Prime Minister himself, the Honorable Sheikh Al Maktoum. So tell us, what is your past relationship with the Egyptian?”
Abdul realized that the Sheikh already knew some of the story. However, he was being forced to tell the rest of it in his own words for more clarity and questions. And although he would bring up the revelation of his story to his hired man Tariq, he realized that his private counsel had a responsibility to reveal any and all information that would serve to endanger a number of people in the United Arab Emirates who were far more important than Abdul’s privacy and business practices.
So Abdul took another deep breath, and as his uncle nodded to him to come clean, he began to tell them all his personal story.
“Mohd Ahmed Nasir was an excellent engineer on my very first development ….”
Chapter 25
Mohd ordered that the two surrendering men be tied up in the back of the white van with him as Bakar backed the small service vehicle out of the warehouse to head to Dubai. Mohd had been tipped off through his sources that the investigating police were in search of him the night before in Deira, followed by a search th
at morning in Sharjah. So he dared not to sit up front in the van with Bakar. The wise Egyptian needed to remain in hiding. And after their desperate shootout inside the warehouse, there was no longer time to deliberate his plans. It was now or never.
Just as the white van pulled out of the warehouse, a phone call went out from a spy who was planted outside the building.
“Just as you expected, your father has escaped and they are now headed in your direction.”
“Thank you. I was prepared for it.” And that’s all that was spoken.
As Bakar turned the white vehicle onto the main road, he had noticeably changed into a light-blue uniform of a shipment worker, and he convinced himself to drive casually as instructed. Mohd did not want him to bring any attention to himself with any nervousness or haste at the wheel. And it was a good thing that Bakar had listened. Three police squad cars shot past him, headed in the opposite direction toward the warehouse.
Mohd heard the sirens and remained calm inside the back of the van as the sirens passed. But his two prisoners panicked with wide eyes. Both young radicals from Syria, they did not believe the UAE officers would be a blessing and save them. Instead, they would be served a crueler form of justice in the young but intolerant Arab nation. They imagined themselves being tortured, shot and hung there, but they would rather die fighting with their hands on their guns.
“What if they find the blood of the slain men inside the warehouse?” one of the prisoners questioned.
He was curious to see if he could bring a sense of alarm to the elder. So far, Mohd did not seem the least bit concerned about anything. He had forced the young Syrians to remove the bodies of the deceased and place them in a storage room that they locked at the warehouse, but they did not have enough time to clean up all of the bloodshed, only most of it.
Mohd answered, “Until they bring the dogs to sniff out the warehouse and find the bodies, we will have enough time to make it to Dubai and the hotel.”
The second imprisoned man eyed the wise Egyptian and asked, “As a man of peace, how do you now feel with fresh blood on your hands?”
It was an incriminating question of guilt, but Mohd handled it well.
“I was a soldier myself as a young man in the Egyptian Army. That is where I learned my trade of engineering. So I have killed men before. But as you see me now as a man of peace, I can only tell you that the greater good in the eyes of Allah is much stronger than our necessary evils.”
The first prisoner grinned and responded, “Even peaceful men have been known to twist the intentions of Allah to serve their own reasons.”
Mohd countered, “And some of the most peaceful men have been called upon throughout history, in times of human need, to become fearless warriors, driven by the passion of divine intervention. And only Allah gives us this power.”
The Syrians stopped their argument and looked at each other. They could not disagree with the man’s logic. They believed in divine purpose and intervention themselves. Unable to match Mohd’s intellect and reserve, they chose to remain silent. To debate with the wise Egyptian would be useless. But when they heard another whine of police sirens outside of the van, they panicked with wide eyes again. It sounded as if the new sirens were right there behind them, and they were. However, the second group of police cars that were headed from the right just missed an intersection with the van as Bakar continued to drive forward.
With two close calls at the wheel, Bakar remained nervous, but he was remarkable at holding himself together. He felt for sure that the UAE police would stop him in their white van and force him to open fire on them with the assault weapon. He had placed it on the floor below the passenger seat, and he knew at no time was he to stop their vehicle without firing bullets to back the officers away and protect his elder. But so far it had not happened, and when their white van reached the busy streets that were closer to Dubai and away from the industrial area of Jebel Ali, Bakar was able to breathe normally again.
Praise be to Allah! he told himself. Maybe we’ll have a chance to arrive at the hotel and help save the day.
*****
When Tariq Mohammed arrived on the scene at the empty warehouse in Jebel Ali, he joined more than a dozen UAE police officers and began to reimagine what had happened there. The officers also brought a police dog to sniff out any evidence that would go unseen by humans. In no time, the dog led them to several areas around the room where there had been gunpowder and bullet shells, before finally taking them to a locked storage room.
“What’s behind there?” one of the men asked rhetorically. The dog had gained all of their attention.
Tariq looked on as well, while inspecting the rest of the room.
After breaking open the storage room door, the officers responded instantly to the sight of five murdered men with bullet wounds.
Tariq moved in to investigate the slain men. He carefully studied the angle of bullet entries into their bodies. The men hadn’t been dead that long either; their blood remained fresh.
Tariq then looked to the upstairs area and what appeared to be an office on the second level.
He nodded to himself and was convinced of his conclusion. “Mohd was here, and he has decided to take matters into his own hands.”
He searched around the massive room again and came back to the empty spaces near the warehouse’s rolling doors, where several vehicles had enough room to park.
“Did any of you pass a truck or two on the way here?”
The officers searched each other for a response.
One of the officers commented snidely, “This is Jebel Ali. We passed plenty of trucks, and I saw none of them that appeared to be anything but normal.”
The officer had a point. Jebel Ali was the nation’s primary shipment area. There were plenty of trucks driving in and out at every hour of the day.
“Perfect,” Tariq responded. The insurgents had indeed picked an ideal place to remain undiscovered.
Tariq took a deep breath and thought, This may be much harder than I thought. And where are the other men that a place this large could hold?
He immediately pulled his cell phone from his hip to call the chief of police back in Sharjah.
“Mohd was here, and he left only recently,” Tariq informed his old friend. “But there now seems to be some infighting. Maybe he did not agree with the direction of his men.”
“Which would mean that he is no longer in charge,” the chief commented. “Interesting. So, what all did you find there?”
“There are five dead bodies here and plenty of space for at least a hundred men and supplies.”
The chief paused momentarily. “I seriously doubt if they have that many. But no matter how many they have, they will turn up sooner or later. Hopefully, we will find them before they are able to do anything disastrous.”
“Indeed,” Tariq agreed with the chief.
He hung up his phone and continued to think. What would be the most likely target for an angry group of immigrant workers to make their disagreements with the Emirati rulers of the United Arab Emirates known?
Tariq reflected again on the history of the dispute between Mohd Ahmed Nasir and Abdul Khalif Hassan, and he froze. Suddenly the private investigator’s eyes widened as he considered the most obvious target. “The International Suites,” he commented out loud.
The officers looked on and were dumbfounded. They had no clue about the history.
Tariq reminded himself, That is where it all began, to finish his first hotel years ago.
Without an explanation or another word to the men, Tariq hurried to return to his car while redialing the chief on his cell phone.
“Yes, Tariq, what is it now?” the chief answered urgently.
“The International Suites hotel. What if that is the target?”
The chief said, “I thought of that idea as well, right after you told me Abdul’s story. Even the Sheikh suggested that we send men there.”
Tariq reached his car outside the
warehouse and repeated, “The Sheikh? You told them about this?”
“Of course. This is now a national security concern, and it is much bigger than Abdul and his ego. So we sent men to all of his buildings, including his offices downtown.”
The chief continued, “Abdul is only one man, but thousands of other people work, sleep, eat and are in and around his buildings every day. And that makes this vendetta important to us all.”
Tariq nodded and was quickly reminded of how much responsibility his friend had. He was actually impressed with the amount of command Ali was exerting as the chief of police. In the meantime, as a private investigator and counsel, Tariq was forced to drive around to all of the locations himself, starting with Abdul’s first hotel.
“Well, I will go and join them at the hotel then,” Tariq informed his friend.
“You do that. And you tell me what you find there as well.”
Tariq hung up his phone and started his engine with a new concern: his employer’s policy on privacy. But there was nothing he could do about a national security alert. Abdul would need to understand the level of importance his case had taken on for the nation and face up to the music. Abdul’s personal story was at the center of it all, and there was nothing he could do to change it.
*****
After a second phone call and conversation with Tariq, Ali made a check-up call of his own down to his men at the International Suites in Dubai.
“Anything to report there at the hotel?”
“No, nothing. We’ve been here all morning and everything is fine,” the officer told him.
Ali paused to think, then said, “Have you and your men checked the back loading area for trucks and shipments?”
The officer paused himself. That was a bad sign for the chief.
He answered, “The trucks and shipments have been fine as well.”
“What about the hotel security? Are they where they are supposed to be?”
“Yes, we saw the daytime shift security walk in earlier, more than an hour ago.”
“What about last night’s shift? Did he walk out?”