Shadow of the Burj

by J Jackson Bentley

  ***

  Two hours later, when the body count was completed, the Brigadier and the Sheikh sat down with Max and Todd in the lobby. The Brigadier reeled off a list of the dead and injured. Ashouk had taken a fatal wound to the chest and had bled out before help arrived. Twenty two men had turned up at Fasil Tower at seven o’clock in the evening, and now eleven of them were dead, four were not expected to survive the night and six were suffering life-changing injuries. Not one had escaped unhurt.

  “God be praised! It is a miracle!” the Sheikh intoned. “Jamie was a heroine. She accounted for the demise of many of the attackers. She is truly a brave woman.”

  “Who was the man in black who saved her life, Brigadier?”

  The Brigadier seemed unwilling to explain, and so Todd interjected.

  “I saw the insignia on one of the guys’ shoulders. It was the badge of the Abu Dhabi Diplomatic and Special Tasks Force, if I’m not mistaken.”

  The Brigadier looked enquiringly at the Sheikh, who nodded in confirmation, and then the Brigadier spoke openly.

  “The Special Tasks division are trained for this, and they are based on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, on the Dubai side of the city. They have their own helicopter. My wife’s cousin is a colonel there, and he was keen to help when I told him that we were having problems mobilising a trained and armed force from Bur Dubai Police Station with alacrity. They arrived a minute or two before us. Six men abseiled onto the flat roof of the apartments. That is why they were on the scene so quickly.”

  “My God, Todd! What did you do to this Italian mobster Down Under to make him send out a second killing squad?”

  “I don’t make friends easily, that’s true,” Todd joked, managing a wry smile. “By the way, you’ll definitely be coming off my friends list if I ever hear that Dame Edna Everage impression again. Sounded nothing like me.”

  “No. To be fair, you sound more like Rolf Harris,” Max teased, mimicking Todd’s voice so closely that the Brigadier laughed. Shaking his shoulders and continuing to mimic Todd, Max said, “Come on, can you tell who I am yet?”

  Sheikh Mahmoud joined in the laughter, which was born out of relief as much as humour.

  Chapter 24

  Apartment above The Madrassa, Al Safa, Dubai:

  24th February; 8am.

  Trevor George Baker, now known to his followers as Mullah Khaweini, came awake with the thought that he wished that he had never heard of Vincente Polletti. The unholy alliance they had formed was doomed to failure, Khaweini could see that now. It was never Allah’s will. It had been simply too tempting an offer; dispose of the team that had undermined his fundraising operations and who had tarnished his reputation with the Al Qaeda leadership, whilst having a gangster foot the bill.

  With any luck, the authorities would not associate the attack with him, and would assume that it was all Polletti’s doing. It was for that reason alone that Khaweini chose Aspinall Defence Resources for the job. Even now, it was hard to believe that twenty two armed men had been unable to overpower two men and a girl, all of whom were thought to be unarmed.

  Khaweini gently pulled back the sheet on the bed, exposing the smooth olive skinned back and buttocks of his assistant, Jamil. The boy had been reluctant to come to his bed at first, but, faced with a mixture of threats and kindness, the boy gave in. Khaweini used the same technique he used for radicalising the boys in the Madrassa, and with suicide bombers.

  Jamil was awake but breathing gently, hoping that the Mullah did not touch him. That was how it always started; a touch, holding and kissing and then excitement overcame the Mullah and he turned Jamil over before indulging in his filthiness.

  Jamil could not reconcile Khaweini’s weakness for forbidden sex with his role as a Mullah. Surely, he thought to himself, Islam is truly a religion of cleanliness and overcoming bodily desires. Why else would we ritually clean ourselves and subject ourselves to fasting during Ramadan?

  His thoughts were interrupted and his hopes dashed as Khaweini ran his rough hands down Jamil’s arm and onto his buttocks.

  ***

  It was already 3pm in Melbourne, and Vince Polletti was pacing like a caged animal around his enormous living room, the ankle bracelet emitting its ceaseless silent signal. He knew he could expect yet another visit from the Federal Authorities when they heard about the fracas in Dubai. How was it that more than twenty men couldn’t kill a single Australian copper? It was unbelievable. If Todd Michaelson testified in the trial in April, not only would Vincente go down for the rest of his life, but so would two other crime bosses. Vince knew that if his decision to hire an undercover copper as his right hand man led to Donny and Jake being imprisoned, he would never serve his sentence. Vince could contain the other crime bosses out here, but in prison they had far more pull than he did.

  Vince didn’t want to die ignominiously in a prison shower block, and so Michaelson had to die. Vince kicked a footstool out of his way.

  “That bloody Arab, or Brit, or whatever the hell he is! He was no bloody use at all!”

  On reflection, Vince had been right to refuse to take Khaweini’s call when he first rang, but then, when it seemed he had a location for Michaelson - well, Vince knew he had no choice other than to fund the storming of that damned office block. It seemed that everyone in the criminal underworld knew Vince had a problem with Michaelson, and they all wanted to help, for a share of his money, of course.

  With no close relatives of Michaelson available to threaten or coerce, Vincent had few options left. In fact, he had only one. It was a good option but he was reluctant to use it. But he would, if he had to.

  “One way or another, Michaelson, I’ll get you,” Vince snarled as he looked out of the window of his palatial house, now his palatial prison.

  ***

  Kwong Chong Lee completed his latest email and saved it into the ‘drafts’ box. It would be picked up from there and, as a result, it would never actually be sent. The email was written in Arabic and it simply said that the package was ready for delivery on the agreed date. No signature would be required, but payment should be made in advance. He signed off with his nom de plume.

  In a few days Kwong would be richer than his father; perhaps he would embark on a hostile takeover of his father’s business. The thought of humiliating his father in this way made him smile. For now, though, Kwong slipped on his Super Dry retro tee shirt and got ready to walk to the Dubai Mall, where he was about to take a bus tour of the city.

  “Might as well see it before it’s reduced to rubble,” he thought to himself.

  ***

  Jamil showered, the water as hot as his body would bear, and still he could feel the stickiness left behind after the Mullah had finished with him. Even when that had been washed away, he still felt unclean.

  The boy opened the email account. There was a single draft in the mailbox; it was signed off with the word ‘Thil’. Jamil printed the message and delivered it to the Mullah, whose face still wore a self-satisfied look. Fearing that he may have been overly aggressive in his ‘lovemaking’, he took the note and, without looking the boy in the eye he said, “You will be blessed for your sacrifices, young one.”

  But Jamil did not feel very blessed.

  ***

  At the Vastrick Security office in Gate Village, at the Dubai International Financial Centre, Hepsi opened the same email just before it was deleted. Indian by birth, Hepsi knew only a smattering of Arabic and so she did not know the meaning of all of the words in the email, but she understood the word that had been appended as a signature. It was the Arab word ‘thil’, which meant shadow. The person delivering the package was signing themselves off as The Shadow.

  Minutes later the translation was sitting on the fax machine of Sheikh Mahmoud, who shivered with foreboding.

  “May Allah give us the gift of insight and the forbearance of the martyrs who went before us,” he uttered in a familiar prayer.

  Chapter 25

  4th Floor, Sur
gical Ward, The American Hospital, Oud Metha, Dubai:

  24th February; 8pm.

  Jamie was sitting up now, with two attentive males at either side of her bed. Todd and Max each held one of her hands, and she had to ask one of them to let go every time she wanted a sip of water. She really wanted a Big Mac, but she was on an enforced fast in case she needed more surgery.

  In the last twenty-four hours she had been sedated, x-rayed, operated on and prodded with needles more times than she cared to remember. She had lost a floating rib in the surgery. It had to be removed because it had been detached when a bullet passed through her. She had also had some work done in patching up her right kidney, which had also seen a bullet graze it.

  For the time being, and to her embarrassment, her bodily fluids were being drained into a bag hanging on the side of her bed. At least she didn’t have to get up to go to the toilet, which was a good thing, as even the most minor of movements was painful at the moment.

  “You’ll like the new digs,” Todd said as he stared out of the window to the red neon sign of the Movenpick Hotel opposite. “We’ve been told to look after it. Apparently the villa was gifted to an Emirati couple by Sheikh Mohammed when they got married. Not bad, eh? It’s on 14C Street in Al Safa 1, not too far from where we were staying before. There’s plenty of room for the cars, and it’s got five bedrooms, with a huge landing. Max and me, we were thinking of getting a pool table.”

  Jamie knew that Todd was speaking for the sake of it, and she understood that her colleagues, now her best friends, would be slow to show their affection, but just having both of them here, holding her hands protectively, told her all she needed to know.

  “It appears we’ve been reduced to chasing shadows, or one shadow, to be more precise,” Max offered, cutting off Todd’s mundane chatter. Jamie looked puzzled, so Max explained.

  “Vastrick have been monitoring the email account we picked off the courier’s laptop, and we struck gold. Someone, calling themselves The Shadow, said that the package was ready for delivery.”

  “Do you think this Shadow is the person we lost in the Mall?” Jamie asked. Both men nodded. “The package he or she is going to deliver doesn’t sound like a good thing, does it?”

  “It doesn’t,” the two men agreed in unison.

  Jamie was perspiring despite the air conditioning; she guessed it was the effect of the drugs. Max stood and gently mopped her brow with a flannel kept in a tray of ice water by the bed. Jamie was touched by the tenderness he showed as he dabbed her face. Max explained why he was being so attentive.

  “I lost someone I cared about last year, Jamie, and there was a point last night when I thought we might lose you, too,” he told her, the slightest hint of a tremor in his voice. Jamie smiled.

  “I’m from Queens, New York, Max. If you haven’t been shot at least twice by the time you reach thirty, you’re considered a wuss!”

  The two men stood and kissed the American policewoman on her cheek, leaving her to rest. They passed a guard, who stood alert and to attention outside her door. He nodded to them as they left, as if to confirm that she was safe in his hands.

  ***

  Max and Todd were driving the Black Porsche 911 Turbo. Max was at the wheel, and was not holding back on the revs. They took Sheikh Rashid Road onto Sheikh Zayed Road, and headed towards Al Safa. Max was in the outside lane as they passed Al Safa Park, a large recreational area where they had all jogged at one time or another during their stay. It was always hot no matter what time of the day or night they chose to jog, but it was better than continually working out on a treadmill.

  As they passed the multi coloured building housing the English College on their right, Max moved across the carriageway and onto a slip road. Changing down a gear, but barely slowing, Max slipped the Porsche around a small roundabout and straight on. The way Max was driving was reminiscent of a racing driver, which piqued Todd’s curiosity. But for the moment he was concentrating on what was happening behind them. Both men were watching the rear-view mirrors to ensure they were not being tailed. At this speed it would be quite obvious if anyone was trying to keep them in sight.

  Max slung the Porsche around a ninety degree turn onto 18th Street, without so much as a squeal of tyres. The Porsche reacted as if it were on tracks. At the end of the road, after two body-jarring speed bumps, Max took a left, followed by a quick right onto 14C Street.

  Just beyond a timber portico, built to offer some shade to their neighbours’ cars, Max pulled into the driveway just as the remote controlled gates were opening. The gates began to close as soon as they reached their zenith, and the Porsche and the garage were concealed from sight behind the seven foot high heavy wooden gates.

  Across the road, and directly opposite the villa, lay the Splendour Villas, an exclusive and well-guarded gated community for wealthy Arabs and ex-pats. Usually guarded by a local security firm, the guard house was occupied twenty four hours a day by an undercover armed policeman dressed in the brown fatigues of Al Masri Security. His task was to keep an eye on Villa Afzal, where Max and Todd were posted.

  Todd and Max took the five steps up to the heavy wooden double doors at the side of the house. Max swiped his card in the entry console and punched in a four-digit code. Both men heard a click as the deadbolt disengaged. Todd extracted a Yale style key and unlocked the second of the locks. As they entered, a sensor picked up movement and began a silent forty-second countdown to the alarm being sounded. Todd stepped up to the water cooler, reached behind and on a hidden numeric pad typed in the same four figure code. There was a beep as the system disarmed.

  “I can see me getting fed up with this security system pretty quickly,” Todd said aloud. “It’s a bit over the top.”

  The villa boasted windows which were glazed with security glass, which would withstand most bullets, and the ornate carved wooden front doors which faced the road were actually made of steel and were welded shut.

  “Mahmoud told me that they inherited this place from a Russian who died in an unfortunate boating accident on a trip to Oman. They think he was eliminated by an opposing gang,” Max explained.

  “Well, it was a good decision not to try to take him out in here. You could be here all week trying to get in.” Todd paused as he flicked on the lights. “By the way, mate, that was some fancy driving. Who are you, a budding Jenson Button?”

  “Hardly,” Max laughed, “but I took a course at Hereford on defensive driving before an assignment in Afghanistan. I was embedded for six weeks in Helmand Province.”

  Todd nodded in understanding. He knew very well who trained at Hereford, even though it was consistently denied by the authorities. A number of Australian Special Forces had trained there, and had come home looking bedraggled and twenty pounds lighter than their original fighting weight.

  The lounge housed the front doors and was at least thirty feet by twenty feet, with ceilings around twelve feet high in the centre and ten feet high at the perimeter, where the air conditioning and lighting was concealed. The temperature was an acceptable twenty-two degrees.

  “Wi-Fi on,” Todd shouted, and the Samsung flat screen Smart 3DTV came to life. The LCD panel was sixty inches, corner to corner, and was specified as being true high definition. The panel was enclosed by a thin silver coloured frame, and was only half an inch thick.

  The menu which came up on screen offered a number of options: Internet, Mail, TV, Games, Skype and Folders. The two main telecoms providers in the UAE did their best to discourage Skype usage, presumably to avoid a loss of revenue from their services, but the Sheikh had insisted that it be installed for video conferencing.

  “Folders,” commanded Todd. A screen opened with twelve folders greyed out as a dialogue box opened demanding a password. “3-7-5-3,” Todd said clearly, and asterisks appeared in the box each time he spoke a number. The screen cleared and all twelve folders appeared in full colour. Only five of them were named. Todd opened the first of the named folders with the command
“Intel”.

  He and Max looked at what they had to work with. It wasn’t much. Someone, possibly Khaweini, had a truckload of C4 explosives and was planning perhaps one or, more likely, a series of attacks in Dubai. One of the attacks might involve a School bus.

  “We need a lead, badly,” Max intoned.

  “And I think I know just where to find one,” Todd answered.

  ***

  Ron Styles, deputy to the Consul General and the US diplomat charged with protecting its citizens in Dubai, limped into Jamie’s room, leaning heavily on a cane.

  Jamie watched the avuncular looking man with the wide smile and soft eyes of a friend, enter her room. The man was close to six feet tall and of heavy build. His suit hung on him rather than fitted to him. He was losing his hair to male pattern baldness, and his skin was pale for a man who had lived in the region for some years.

  “You look worse than I feel,” Jamie joked.

  “It’s nothing, really,” he answered with a shrug. “Recurring back problems. I only need the cane occasionally, but it does earn me some sympathy.” Ron smiled and winked.

  After a few formalities, Jamie told the diplomat what she was allowed to tell him, which wasn’t much, and he listened intently. Finally it was his turn to talk.

  “You’ve been recalled to Homeland. A deputy director there was a little unhappy that you’d been placed in harm’s way. He believed you were being seconded from the Anti Piracy unit for purely investigative purposes.”

  “Are we talking about Brett Clayton here?” Jamie asked. Ron nodded. “Yeah, I thought as much. You can tell him that I’m not coming home until I find out who wanted me dead, and why. Tell him I’ll be back in the US early in March.”