Down at ground level, on a piece of waste land, a number of vehicles were gathering. Six vehicles had either parked or were in the process of parking. During the time they had been here no-one had parked there before. Indeed, it was actually unnecessary to park there, as adequate, actually excessive, canopied parking was available in front of the building, free of charge.
The presence of these vehicles had alerted Max immediately. Further concerns soon arose as at least three men exited each car. Max had so far counted twenty one men, each wearing a jacket that could easily conceal a weapon. Any doubts that the three had about the visitors were erased when, with a pair of Nikon 290 binoculars, Jamie caught a glimpse of a long-barrelled gun being slipped into a holdall at the rear door of a Porsche Cayenne 4x4.
Todd darted across the room and picked up the phone. He dialled Ashouk on the ground floor, but there was no answer. “Shit!” he muttered. He picked up his mobile and dialled Ashouk’s cell phone; it went straight to voicemail.
“We need to get to the office pretty quick,” Todd announced, tension lowering the pitch of his voice.
All three ran to the office and looked at the screen on the iMac which should have been showing six rotating views of the garage, ground floor and the single operating lift. All views were blank.
“They’ve already taken out Ashouk!” Jamie said out loud what all three were thinking.
Max rushed to the lift bank. Of the four lifts, only one was fully operational, and it was limited to the ground, sixth and eleventh floors. Using a fire extinguisher, which was concealed in an alcove behind a wooden door, he smashed the locked plastic door on the box that read ‘Fire Service Use Only” beside the lift and pounded the red button that came into view. If the button worked, or was even wired in, the lift should now be out of action. It would default to the ground floor and stay there until a fireman’s key reset the system.
Todd didn’t trust the electronically operated system, and so he encouraged Max to help as he prised open the lift doors. When they were open to about nine inches, he held them whilst Max wedged the fire extinguisher into the gap, holding the door apart.
“The lift’s definitely not coming up now,” Todd announced.
***
Jamie had watched as the group below abandoned their vehicles and walked in loose formation towards the building. They had the look of military or ex-military. Once she had phoned the emergency number they had for the Sheikh and left a message, her phone trilled. It was the Brigadier, who promised assistance within forty five minutes.
“If we need light automatic weapons we need to have men come from the Bur Dubai police station. Most of the policemen here have only side arms! It will take a few minutes.”
Jamie felt a rush of alarm at having to wait forty five minutes, but she calmly told him to get here as quickly as possible, and sought out the LMT 308 MWS automatic rifle, the only long barrelled weapon in their little armoury. Loaded with a 20 round mag of .308 ordnance, plus one in the chamber, it was not the ideal weapon for sniping, but it would do for what she needed.
Using the balcony as her tripod, she carefully aimed at the hood of each 4x4 in turn and, on single shot firing, she placed three of the armour piercing rounds in each engine block.
Smoke, steam and a short burst of flame from one vehicle told her that she had achieved her goal. Those vehicles were not going to carry anyone away from the scene of this attack.
“Pretty good shooting from eleven floors up,” she congratulated herself, just as a shot ricocheted off the column immediately to her left.
She looked down to see a lone gunman pointing in her direction. Obviously the attackers had left someone with the cars, and she hadn’t seen him as he had been inside the steel grey Pajero. As she aimed her LMT 308 LWS in his direction, the man ran for cover, a fraction of a second too late.
Jamie loosed her last three rounds. The first spat up a mini volcano of sand, whilst two hit their target. One hit his left leg and one his left arm, both unprotected by body armour. Not that standard issue body armour would have stopped the .308 shells she was firing. The shooter tried manfully to drag himself to cover, but collapsed with the effort, leaving himself prone to being finished off.
Jamie had no desire to kill the man, who would probably never use his left arm or leg again, such was the damage these shells inflicted on bone and muscle, and so she left him lying unconscious by the cars, bleeding out into the dust.
***
“Max, this doesn’t look good, mate,” Todd said, shaking his head. “There must be at least twenty of them, and only the three of us. But we do have advantages.” He listed the advantages on his fingers as he spoke.
“First, they don’t know for certain we’re all here, or all together. Second, they don’t know what floor we’re on, so they’ll have to clear each floor, which might take a while. Third, we’re rested but they’ll all be exhausted by the time they get to the eleventh floor. Remember, they’re probably carrying heavy body armour and heavy weapons, which they have to keep raised and ready. Finally, we know this building, but they don’t.”
“When you put it like that, I don’t know why I was ever worried. Maybe we should give them the chance to surrender now!” Max joked.
“That’s the spirit, mate,” Todd laughed as he playfully punched Max’s shoulder.
Thanks to their benevolent sponsor, Sheikh Mahmoud, Jamie, Max and Todd were each armed with a Magnum Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol. The evil looking handguns were matt black with a six inch barrel and, like all Magnums, they were people stoppers. The magazine took seven .5 heavy shells, known as action express rounds due to their constant readiness, and each operative had a spare magazine. In addition, Todd had their Bushmaster Carbon 15 automatic pistol that carried thirty one 5.56mm rounds. He also carried his old Timberline field knife, with serrated back edge, tucked in his boot.
Jamie joined the two men in the corridor. “When they get out of here, if they get out of here, they are going to need Triple A to recover their vehicles.”
The men smiled. “I don’t think the American Automobile Association cover Dubai,” Max responded. Jamie thought for a second, and then when her eyes hardened for battle she said, “In that case, let’s save them the trouble of having to walk home.”
***
Fasil Tower was set out around a central core which carried the lifts and the services. In the centre of the building the concrete core housed two sets of concrete emergency stairs, one at each end, and three lifts. One of the lifts was concealed in a cleaner’s room, and was designated as a service lift. It had never been in service. With no lifts in action, the only way up to the eleventh floor was to climb the narrow emergency stairs.
Around the core on each floor were four corner apartments and, on the long side of the building, two further apartments between the corner apartments on each side of the tower, making eight apartments in total on each floor. Max, Todd and Jamie had each occupied a two bedroomed corner apartment, and another two-bedroomed apartment served as their office.
Todd asked Jamie to defend the other staircase without risking her own safety. Jamie nodded and moved off. One set of emergency stairs arrived at the eleventh floor on the gulf-facing side of the building, the other exited onto the eleventh floor on the desert-facing side. Jamie was defending the desert-facing side.
***
Phil Clemens had been devastated at the supposed accidental death of his boss, Nigel Bowron Aspinall. He was even more devastated when he saw the finances of the company he had inherited, Aspinall Defence Resources. The company was over a quarter of a million US dollars in debt, and as a director Phil had been joint and severally liable for the debt. Now he alone owned the debt. ADR was bankrupt in all but name, and this enterprise was his only way out.
ADR had been promised almost half a million US dollars for removing the Australian and his cohorts, and Nigel had no doubt the money was as good as in the bank. Or at least it had seemed that way, until
a few minutes ago.
Jacob, dressed in full Arab regalia, had summoned the guard to the door of the apartment block by holding his mobile phone up and pantomiming that it was not working and that he needed help. Ashouk knew that he should not answer the request, but he had been conditioned to respond respectfully at all times to Emirati citizens; as an Indian, his job often relied on it.
As soon as the door was opened, the man dressed as an Arab stepped aside and a sniper’s round hit Ashouk squarely in the chest. Phil Clemens and his men rushed into the building, torturing Ashouk for information before disabling the security system and cameras as they went, allowing Jacob to return to the vehicles and change out of his disguise. They left Ashouk to bleed out behind the desk.
Whilst they were clearing the rooms on the second floor, they had heard shots being exchanged. Looking out of the window, Phil saw that every car was spewing smoke and steam, and Jacob was nowhere to be seen. Phil wrote Jacob off in his mind when Jacob failed to respond to the radio call for the fifth time.
By now Team Alpha had reached the sixth floor on the left staircase, and team Delta were on the right staircase, approaching the seventh floor. Phil Clemens covered the corridor to allow his men, six of them, to position themselves outside each of the four doors that led to what had been labelled as a conference suite on the drawings. Counting down silently with his fingers, his men crashed into the four doors simultaneously.
Whilst they were clearing the conference rooms, Phil stepped back into the stairwell, where two men were covering the lower floors and two were covering the upper floors. He hoped that Jez, the Delta Team leader, was as disciplined.
Chapter 21
Fasil Tower, Media City, Dubai:
23rd February; 7:15pm,
Emergency Staircases
Gulf Coast Staircase
Jamie pushed the desk across the corridor and into the fire escape stairwell. She was perspiring heavily with the exertion, and also because the staircase was not air conditioned. Jamie positioned Todd’s desk over the top of the stairs, leaving it on the very edge of the top step.
“This should slow them down,” she thought to herself, knowing that she would need every advantage she could get if she was facing ten armed men. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall, checked her gun and the spare magazines and relaxed, breathing ever more slowly, ever more deeply, and yet being alert to every sound and movement.
Desert facing staircase
Max returned to Todd’s side, having returned to his apartment to get something that his partner had asked for but which Max could not see any possible use for in their current situation. Not far below the two friends, Phil Clemens and his team were in the process of clearing the eighth floor.
When all of the men were back in the stairwell, they fell in behind Phil and slowly and silently crept up the stairwell, one step at a time. Suddenly a cry of “Grenade!” echoed around the stairwell, and the attackers saw and heard a metallic object bouncing down the stairs towards them.
Instinctively, Phil stepped backwards and unbalanced the man behind him; the domino effect continued down the line as men tumbled over each other. The grenade had stopped bouncing and had come to rest under three men, who were scrambling to their feet. Two of the men, realising they were going to be in the forefront of the imminent explosion, leapt over the balustrading to land a just few feet away on the stairs leading down to the next floor. They landed on the concrete stairs and lost their footing. Both cried out in pain as they tumbled down to the next landing. One had broken his ankle in an awkward landing, and the second had dislocated his right arm as he tried to protect himself from his fall. His gun went tumbling down the void in the stairwell, landing on the stone floor eighty feet below and firing a round into the void. Neither man could continue.
Phil scrabbled around on the floor to grab the grenade before it could explode, and his hand found the cold metal. As he lifted it to drop it to the basement, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
***
“Works every time, mate. Soldiers hate hand grenades. They’d rather be shot than cut up by shrapnel,” Todd whispered. “Anyway, what did you decide to bring back from the kitchen? The label was missing.”
“I brought a can of sweetcorn,” Max replied seriously. “I didn’t want to waste a tin of mushy peas.” They both smiled, realising that at least two of the men were out of the game without a shot being fired.
***
Phil Clemens swore loudly, repeating the same f-word six times as he dropped the shiny tin can down into the void between the stairs.
“Toby! Get Nick and Timor downstairs and into one of the cars. If you can get one of the cars going, drive them over to Saeed’s clinic and wait there.”
Toby didn’t relish his task. In addition to their main injuries, the two men had also sustained head injuries as a result of falling down the stairs and were probably concussed, added to which Timor must have weighed two hundred pounds. Nonetheless, Toby followed orders and headed away from the action. Phil had seven men left in his crew, more than enough for the job.
Gulf Coast Staircase
When the men below her were just two flights away, Jamie tipped the precariously balanced desk over the edge of the top stair. As it slid down, blocking the stairs, she hung over the handrail with her gun at the ready, hoping.
The noise of the desk bouncing down the concrete stairs was deafening after the silence that had prevailed a few minutes earlier. Just as Jamie had hoped, one of the men broke ranks and, in an undisciplined move, he looked out over the handrail and up the stairwell to see what was causing the noise.
Jamie saw the look of horror in the man’s Slavic features as he tried to raise his gun arm. He was too late. A single shot from Jamie entered his upturned face through his chin, destroying his jaw and tearing a hole in his throat. Blood fountained out as he fell backwards down the stairs in a dead fall. A crescendo of sound filled the stairway as automatic fire riddled the spot where Jamie had been standing just seconds earlier.
Safely ensconced in the concrete recess that housed the eleventh floor access door, Jamie banged her arm against the door and cried out as if in pain before stamping loudly on the floor and then remaining entirely still, whilst dropping the black office stapler down into the gap between the stairs.
“I think we got her!” one voice cried out. “That was her gun that just fell down the stairwell. Even if she’s alive, she’s probably unarmed.”
Jamie simply smiled to herself.
“Cap, move Jan’s body down to the landing. We’ll collect him on the way down," ”Jez said, without emotion. His men were mercenaries, but few if any of them had seen a comrade die in front to them. He needed them all focussed, because he didn’t share their optimism about having taken the girl out this early in the game.
A minute later, the nine remaining men crept up the stairs towards the eleventh floor.
Desert facing staircase
Phil Clemens led his seven remaining men out of the stairwell and onto the tenth floor landing to familiarise them with the floor layout.
“OK. Jez has cleared this floor, and when we storm the next floor he’ll take the Gulf view rooms and we’ll take the desert view rooms. That means we’ll be covering this corridor, the one with the three lifts, OK?”
There was a collective nodding of heads. “They’re defending the eleventh floor for a reason. That is the floor where they live, according to our informant, so be wary. They know the layout better than we do. Keep your guns ready and go in single file, hugging the wall.”
Max and Todd heard the tenth floor landing door close, and Todd went down the stairs to assess the situation. The stairs were abandoned except for a man two floors down, struggling with his injured colleagues, who were not going quietly.
It had been a poor tactical decision by their leader, because Max and Todd could have slipped down to the ninth floor and escaped, or taken the intruders from the rear. Todd considere
d the situation, but decided it was too dangerous. This was a wise decision, as Phil had allocated one man to keep an eye on the staircase by keeping the door slightly ajar. It was something that Todd noticed as he surveyed the lower staircase area.
Signalling to Max to keep his head down and be ready to give covering fire, Todd pressed himself into the corner of the return landing, just out of sight of the ninth floor landing door.
Out of sight of the men coming through the door and heading stealthily up the stairs, he counted to ten. Then, with startling speed, he leapt to his feet and sprayed gunfire up and down the opposite flight of stairs.
From where he was he could see only legs, but he could see that the men were proceeding in single file against the far wall, trying to stay out of the line of fire. The sight of blood spattering against the wall and the screams of injured mercenaries told Todd he had been accurate with his spray burst from the machine pistol. Todd ran as fast as he could up the stairs, to be greeted by Max, who would have offered covering fire had it not been for the hail of bullets strafing his position.
Down below them, four more men were left unable to walk, much less stand, with at least two 9mm rounds penetrating each of their legs and feet. Phil Clemens covered the staircase whilst his three remaining fighters moved the injured down to the landing. They needed to keep their escape route clear; they didn’t want to be backing down a staircase, under fire, when it was littered with injured men.
Gulf Coast staircase
Jamie had run up and down these stairs many times since she had taken up residence here, as part of her fitness regime. She had been surprised that the builders had been unable to leave the concrete stairs unfinished - after all, who was going to use them? But they had coated the concrete in a bluish grey decorative surface which had a slight slipperiness about it. Not something you would ordinarily want in a fire escape, perhaps, but which might come to her aid now.
Shadow of the Burj Page 14