Shadow of the Burj

by J Jackson Bentley

  ***

  As they had expected, the factory was virtually empty. A few wooden crates stood in a haphazard group on the factory floor. They had been daubed with transit markings, and the timbers used to construct the crates looked fresh and new; the crates certainly had not been sitting around since the factory closed. Max spoke.

  “I’ve seen this sort of thing before, in London. They bring in a large truck and then break down the load into smaller regular sized vans that can travel anywhere without being noticed.” He paused. “I think we have to report back that, in all likelihood, the explosives were here and are now back in Dubai.”

  “Why Dubai?” Todd asked reasonably.

  “Because we’re only a mile or so away from the border. Why bring the lorry into Sharjah just to stop it here? Surely you’d just carry on to where the cargo was needed. No, Todd, I think the explosives are back in Dubai.”

  Todd nodded in agreement and then said, “I think we might have another problem.” Max wrinkled his forehead in puzzlement, and Todd continued. “That taxi followed us from Al Barsha. The bad guys must know where we’re based. And it gets worse.” He paused and looked into Max’s eyes. “I’m pretty sure three of us didn’t tell anyone else about our plans, and so that leaves Dominic and Aara! It has to be one of them, mate.”

  Max uttered an overused expletive in reply.

  Chapter 17

  Lower Ground Floor, Dubai Mall, Dubai:

  22nd February; 7pm.

  Jamie was sitting in a leather armchair, which was amongst a group of chairs on the concourse directly outside a Texas Roadhouse restaurant on the lower ground floor. There were several other restaurant customers gathered around her, waiting for tables to become available. Jamie was supposedly perusing the menu, but in reality she was covertly keeping her eye on the stone horse outside PF Chang’s Chinese restaurant, located just a few metres away from where she was sitting.

  Dominic browsed idly in a high-end chocolaterie; he was looking at a chocolate concoction, shaped like an inverted cone and covered in sculpted confectionery flowers in pastel colours. It boasted four and a half kilos of finest Swiss chocolate for just a thousand dirhams, or over three hundred dollars. He, too, had a direct line of sight in the direction of the stone horse.

  Jamie had been disconcerted when Max and Todd returned from Sharjah empty handed but armed with a suspicion that either Dominic or Aara had sold out their secret office address. Nonetheless, she had agreed that Todd would supplement the team inside the Mall to keep an eye on Dominic, and that Max would tag team with Aara, outside.

  Todd was standing a floor above Chang’s, looking down through the gap between the two first floor concourses. From that vantage point he could see the other two operatives and the stone horse. After a few minutes, Jamie laid the menu on her lap and placed one hand on top of it. That was the signal that a likely candidate had appeared at the meeting point.

  A nervous looking young man in full Arab dress feigned a mobile phone call whilst passing prayer beads through his right hand. His eyes were constantly scanning the area, alert for threats whilst seeking out his contact. A moment later Jamie’s right hand joined her left hand on the menu; the second contact was close by.

  Todd watched as a lady, dressed from head to toe in black, approached the young man standing at the horse. As was usual, the lady in black was wearing a hijab which covered all of her face except the eyes, which were covered by a large pair of Dior sunglasses.

  The man at the horse slipped his phone into his pocket and almost invisibly palmed a set of keys to the lady as she stopped to ask directions. The man smiled and pointed her towards the Star Atrium nearby. She nodded, and walked away with the keys. The young man, in his dishdasha and red and white chequered keffiyeh, turned and headed towards the car park. Jamie followed him, leaving Dominic to tail his contact.

  Todd was quickly descending the escalator to offer backup to Dominic when he heard Dominic’s voice speak tinnily into his earpiece.

  “We might lose her if she gets into a crowd of people all wearing the same type of black hijab, which is pretty damn likely in here.”

  “Right. I’ve got an idea,” Todd responded as he darted into a pharmacy and made an emergency purchase, leaving a fifty dirham note for a thirteen dirham product, much to the amazement and delight of the Indonesian counter assistant, who pocketed the change.

  “Todd, are you behind me?”

  “Yeah, Dom. I have visual contact with the suspect, so you can drop back.”

  Dom moved away to look into a shop window, and Todd took up the tail. Once Todd was in position, Dominic took a parallel route along the Mall walkway, from where he could see both the suspect and Todd.

  The lady in the hijab stepped onto an escalator that was ascending, and Todd jumped on right behind her. Ensuring that no-one else was paying any attention, he discreetly sprayed a long burst of cheap antiperspirant spray at the back of the hijab.

  As the lady stepped off the escalator and turned left, Todd went right, leaving her to Dominic. Dominic smiled to himself. “Ah, very clever,” he chuckled. Their suspect was wearing the only hijab in the Mall with a great white streak down its back.

  ***

  Jamie followed the young man into the car park and watched as he depressed the button on his remote control and the orange indicator lights flashed on a white Mitsubishi Pajero. Having made a mental note of the number plate on the vehicle, Jamie veered off in another direction and lifted her phone to her ear. The phone rang out and an Arabic voice answered.

  “Hello, Brigadier. The target is in a white Pajero. It has a Dubai registration plate, number G 11873, and it is parked in Fashion Parking lot.”

  “Thank you, Miss Jamie. He will be picked up on Financial Centre Road as planned.”

  ***

  The lady in black stopped to look in shop windows. Her behaviour seemed odd, and she suddenly reversed direction, going back the way she had come. She then instituted every other counter surveillance technique Todd had told Dominic to watch out for. Eventually, after a good deal of backtracking, she arrived at the exit which led out to the lagoon, just a hundred yards from where she had made the pickup. As she exited the Mall she was swallowed up in the throng of people who had gathered to watch the famous fountains. Dominic and Todd used their height and the steps which led from the lagoon back into the Mall to look over the heads of the crowds, who were oohing at the illuminated fountain show on the lagoon.

  Andreas Bocelli and Sarah Brightman were crooning ‘Time to say goodbye’ over every one of the lagoon loudspeakers, and the fountains were dancing in time with the music. Cameras and videos were held high above heads as tourists tried to capture the magical event. Soon, the lady in black was lost in a cluster of hijab-clad ladies.

  “Dominic, I’ll take the bridge. You watch the lagoon exit. She has to pass one of us when the music stops and the crowds head back inside to the air conditioning.”

  “I’ll watch the exits through the restaurants at the Address end of the lagoon,” Max said, joining the radio conversation. “How will I recognise her?”

  “She looks like a skunk,” Todd answered.

  “He means she is wearing a hijab with a white streak down her back,” Dominic elucidated. There was silence on the radio. “Don’t ask!” he offered in conclusion.

  The music finished and a loud explosion sent plumes of water thirty floors into the air. The crowd gasped and the show was over. Suddenly thousands of bodies started to move towards the Mall entrance, the lagoon side restaurants - all of which had access to the Mall - and towards the bridge that led to Souk Al Bahar.

  Todd and the others watched carefully, but none could see the white tainted hijab. Eventually the crowds began to subside and Dominic noticed that a crowd of Japanese people were looking down at their feet, which were entangled in something.

  “Merde!” he shouted into the radio, in strict breach of protocol. “I think she has discarded the hijab. I think we are
probably looking for a woman in typical western dress now, which means she could be any of the people in the crowd.”

  He scanned the crowd and saw hundreds of women in Western dress; not one was wearing Dior sunglasses.

  Todd raced down to the lagoon side and joined Dominic. The white streaked hijab lay dirty and torn on the floor beside a broken pair of Dior sunglasses. Todd picked it up.

  “She is getting away!” Dominic seethed, his first field assignment falling prey to failure.

  “You mean HE is getting away,” Todd said, matter-of-factly. Max had reached their side just before Todd spoke. His jaw was set; he was angry and disappointed.

  “If it had been a woman in the hijab there would have been no need to take the risk of disrobing in a public place like this. She could have gone into any ladies’ room, removed it and walked out unnoticed and unrecognisable,” Max explained to a perplexed Dominic.

  “I’ll make a detective out of you yet, Max,” Todd joked, but no-one felt like laughing.

  Chapter 18

  TGI Fridays Restaurant, Dubai Mall, Dubai:

  22nd February; 11:30pm.

  The restaurant had been closed for thirty minutes, but a table had been set up for the surveillance team, the head of Mall security and Brigadier Hassad. The manager buzzed around, ensuring that everyone had food and drink in front of them. Despite their disappointment, the gathering ate heartily, consuming steaks, fries, salmon, mash and pasta, as if it had been their last meal.

  Eventually a young man in a police uniform appeared and passed a piece of paper to the Brigadier. He read it and dismissed the young policeman, after allowing him to purloin a couple of breaded mozzarella sticks which had been left on a side plate.

  “The man we have in custody knows that he is in serious trouble,” he told the gathering. “He is not a local, he is Palestinian. He is in Dubai illegally; his name is Shunnar Mahadi. According to our interrogator, he is a ‘cut out’. He receives his instructions from another messenger, and so he may not be able to link us back to the Mullah. One thing he was able to help with was the taxi driver’s uniform from earlier in the day. He stole it from a contract laundry service, as he had been requested to do. It seems he delivered it to the driver of the taxi car, his uncle, who is also Palestinian, at Al Barsha. He did not know his uncle was dead, and was very distressed when he heard of it. He said he had been told that his uncle had tracked the Westerners’ hideaway by following Sheikh Mahmoud from the ministry a few days ago. I think we have to assume that he will have passed that information on to Mullah Khaweini’s men.”

  The Western operatives all agreed that it would be better to assume that their HQ was now compromised, but all were relieved that there had been no leak from within the team.

  “Are you saying that Shunnar and his uncle were contractors?” Max asked.

  “Yes. Mahadi says that they came in over the Oman border last week. There is, however, a shred of good news,” the Brigadier said, trying to lift the mood. “The keys he passed to his contact were a duplicate set. He was due to return the second set to his handler tomorrow. They appear to be the keys to a Nissan Civilian Coach Bus, according to the writing on the electronic key fob. The electronic key number was assigned to a bus painted lilac and white when it was originally sold in 2007. The bus carries a Dubai plate, C 9751. It was sold in auction to the Al Safa Madrasseh Trust last year, a trust that carries its students to school from all over Dubai in the now yellow-painted school bus.”

  “The school wouldn’t happen to be attached to Mullah Khaweini’s ministry, by any chance?” Jamie asked.

  “You are ahead of me again, Miss Jamie. We are watching for the bus this very minute.”

  Chapter 19

  Business Bay, near Dubai Mall, Dubai:

  23rd February; 7pm.

  At almost the same time as the Brigadier was speaking, Kwong Chong Lee peeled away the vinyl transfer from the side of the bus. The vinyl had been heated with a hot air blower and had deposited the bold black lettering onto the yellow paint. The temporary transfer lettering wouldn’t last the month out, but by then the bus would be history.

  Kwong stood back and admired his handiwork. ’BASA’ was now written on both sides of the bus, at shoulder height and towards the rear of the bus. Most people would associate the acronym with the British and American School & Academy, a well-respected educational campus sited in Al Barsha.

  Kwong stood five feet two and a half inches tall in his stocking feet. He considered the half inch very important, particularly for someone like himself, short and slim and with soft, almost feminine features. His lack of facial hair, long eyelashes and full lips allowed him to disguise himself as a woman when it was necessary to do so.

  Having been raised in Taiwan by wealthy parents who had made their fortune by assembling flat screens for television and computer monitors for major Taiwanese and Korean electronics companies, Kwong had been disowned by his family for four years.

  In 2003 he had been sent to the USA to study in California. Earning his engineering degree had been easy enough, and so he embarked on a research degree that would lead to a Ph.D.

  Specialising in electronics and the effective use of electronic signals to initiate detonation of plastic explosives, he was always likely to be approached by the US Military. Just a week before an interview with the Department of Defence, who wanted to fund his research, Kwong was encouraged by his Fraternity brothers to help them play a prank on the Dean.

  Kwong, along with a frat brother called Bernard Shelbourne III, accessed the Dean’s car and placed detonators on the inside of each wheel. The idea was that when the car reached ten miles per hour there would be four minor, controlled detonations that would separate the wheels from the car, leaving the old Volvo sitting on its chassis in the car park. Thanks to a series of unforeseen accidents of fate, the prank went badly wrong. Firstly, the traffic leaving the campus was so congested that the dean’s car never reached ten miles per hour; second, the Dean sat at the exit for so long waiting for a gap in the traffic that when a small gap appeared he accelerated away uncharacteristically.

  The Dean was moving into the middle lane when the charges blew and the car sank to the road as the wheels ran past him and off into the distance. At first there was a cheer and an exchange of high fives from the frat brothers, but then the fatal intervention of fate occurred. A lady in a white Dodge Ram was texting as she drove along in the middle lane, and she did not see the Dean pull in front of her pickup. She continued to close the gap that was no longer available, her eyes still on her phone. Suddenly there was a loud bang and she looked up to see an old Volvo stranded in the middle lane just a few yards ahead. Realising a crash was inevitable, she swung the wheel around and smashed into a car in the outside lane. The wreckage of the Nissan Altima in the outside lane pushed the Dodge Ram into the Volvo and two more cars joined the melee.

  By the time the police arrived, the frat brothers had scattered and the Altima driver had been declared dead at the scene. The Dean had suffered a dislocated shoulder and some minor glass cuts, and the Dodge Ram driver escaped injury, bemoaning only a broken iPhone screen.

  By the time Bernard Shelbourne III had confessed and implicated Kwong in what was now a manslaughter charge, the Taiwanese student was on the run in Mexico.

  His distraught mother wanted her boy back. She wanted to protect him from the US authorities, and when Kwong rang home and spoke to her the conversation inevitably left both in tears. Kwong senior had a different view; he forbade his wife from aiding or assisting her son, and he told the boy that unless he turned himself in to the police in an honourable fashion, he would be dispossessed. Kwong could not face a prison sentence, and so he kept running. He had been running since the spring of 2008.

  Living in the twilight world of criminals and terrorists, he used his skills, and his mother’s secret funding, to establish himself as an underworld explosives expert. Now, rich in his own right, he travelled the world under the
pseudonym Philip Ho, a construction supervisor whose wife had sold his passport and other identity documents to Lee after Ho was killed in a workplace accident. To his employers who were never allowed to see his face, he was simply known as the Shadow.

  Kwong Chong Lee stepped outside into the late evening sun of Dubai and looked towards the Arabian Gulf. Rising high into the sky, almost two kilometres away, he could see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. He smiled at the irony of the situation when he realised that the shadow cast by the tower ended at the unused building he was using as his workshop.

  “A shadow within a shadow,” he said aloud. “How very Confucian.” He laughed at his own joke, and went back to working on the bus.

  Chapter 20

  Fasil Tower, Media City, Dubai:

  23rd February; 7pm.

  Dominic was back in London, and Aara was in Oman, speaking to the government about reforms that would bring more women into positions of influence, so Fasil Tower was quiet.

  Todd and Jamie were relaxing on the oversized leather sofa by watching an action movie and criticising every move of the action hero from the way she held her gun to the way she continually left herself exposed and without cover.

  Max sipped his Café American and looked out at the sunset. Something caught his eye and he became alert at once.

  “Todd! Jamie! Over here, quick!” The two operatives joined Max behind the reflective solar glass which shrouded the whole building and provided their window to the outside world. The two new arrivals followed Max’s outstretched hand as he pointed.