“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Todd closed his phone and walked across the room to collect his car keys. “I need to go out for a while,” the Australian announced to his smirking friends.
“You might need to shine your armour up a bit. It got a bit tarnished today,” Max quipped. Todd merely grunted. Giving a wealthy misogynist a good kicking was just the therapy he needed right now.
Just over ten minutes later Todd pulled the Porsche over onto the waste ground behind the shelter. He wasn’t overjoyed at parking the car in the hot desert sun, but there was no shade to be had. He walked towards the plain, stuccoed building that announced itself to be a ‘Charitable Relief Agency’, clicking his remote control and locking the car as he walked.
A short and heavy-set Pakistani woman answered the door, after examining the visitor on the CCTV camera. Todd stepped inside. The small foyer was plain and unadorned. There were four uncomfortable looking mismatched chairs against the wall, and a heavily distressed coffee table which looked to have survived the seventies, eighties and nineties to make it into the new millennium.
“Ma’am is waiting for you,” the lady announced, walking down a dingy corridor and clearly expecting him to follow. Once they had passed through an old wooden door, the décor and atmosphere changed dramatically. The walls were brightly painted, there was an abundance of artwork and greenery, and the fixtures and fittings were modern and new.
Todd entered a small room with a single opaque window which was hung with vertical blinds. There was a lot of pink on display and, along with memorabilia, there were also certificates, honours and executive toys. A completed Rubik’s cube sat on one corner of the desk.
Aara rose to greet her visitor. She was dressed head to toe in black, with just her face and a little hair showing. Her make-up was exquisite, her eyes stunning, the pupils dilated with interest.
“I am so sorry, Mr Todd. The man left just before you arrived. I am afraid you have had a wasted journey,” Aara said, in almost perfect English.
Todd didn’t think he’d had a wasted his journey at all. True, he hadn’t got to vent his frustration on some troublemaker, but that was probably for the best; he didn’t need a few nights in a jail cell. The trip had been worthwhile just to see Aara, to smell her sweet, flowery perfume and to shake her henna-tattooed hand.
“Don’t worry, Sheikha, I was happy to come and offer help. If the man has already left, then so much the better. It was my pleasure to come here. It’s always a pleasure to see you.”
Todd thought he saw the signs of a blush, but it was transient.
“Please, we are Todd and Aara, are we not?” The smile revealed perfect white teeth, and Todd responded by smiling back.
“Tell me, Aara, how did you come to run a women’s shelter?”
Aara settled back in her chair with a sigh, and began a long and well-rehearsed narrative.
“You know that I am a distant cousin of the Sheikh. Well, my father is a member of the Saudi Royal Family and, whilst the ruling family were as distant to me as they were to the poorest Saudi, I was always told I was a princess. The title meant nothing to me as a child, but then in adolescence it became clear that my future was mapped out for me. From the age of fourteen, I was constantly in the company of uncles and cousins from another branch of our family. I didn’t realise that I was being conditioned for introduction to their family as the wife of their middle son.
My education was limited and was largely religious, but my mother wanted me to know more than the Madrassa would be teaching, and so we travelled. My father was not concerned. He had more money than we could ever spend, and he had other younger wives and consorts. We went to London first, then Paris and finally the USA. I learned English and I had tutors for music and maths. Still, I have not one single paper qualification.
Eventually we were summoned back home, and my mother explained that I had been promised to the boy I had spent so much time with in my youth. I would not, I could not marry; it was anathema to me. My mother understood, but refused to support me, and my father simply dismissed my concerns. He had seven daughters to place with husbands, and my marriage was settled.
On a trip to London to select wedding attire, I absconded. I managed to evade my parents’ searches for over a year, thanks to help from friends. I was now twenty two years old, and I had witnessed with my own eyes the suffering of women, something I would never have seen from our home in the Kingdom or from my new husband’s home. I knew that I had to dedicate myself to helping these women.”
Aara spread her hands as if the room was filled with needy women.
“By the time they found me, my future husband had found another wife and my father had disowned me. My mother abandoned me in favour of my father and her other children. But enough about me and my sorrows,” Aara said, pain showing in her face.
“We take in women who have been abused or mistreated. We care for them, teach them personal grooming and how to dress well. We teach them English and a few basic social skills, then we send them home, where they can use their new found skills to thrive. There would be no life for them in Arabia having once absconded. They are refugees like me.”
“Do you ever see your parents?” Todd asked. A wan smile crossed Aara’s face.
“No, Todd. I was cut off, starved of funds and abused by my brothers, who were sent to bring me home. I am hated by my family. I am a traitor to them and to Islam, in their eyes. I have no family.”
There was bitterness in her voice, and her eyes had hardened. For a brief moment Todd thought he might have glimpsed a concealed personality.
“Let me show you around.” Aara had regained her composure and was standing up to indicate their brief meeting was over.
Todd was impressed by the shelter. The women came in lost and bedraggled, but they left as confident, well dressed and quite glamorous women. The difference shown in the ‘before and after’ photographs was astounding.
“Todd, I am afraid I have a meeting and I must leave. Aysha will continue to show you around.” Aara smiled and touched Todd’s arm.
“Aara,” Todd said in a whisper, “I was wondering if we might have dinner some time?”
“Ah, the Australian alpha male surfaces. You do not think I am already a scandalous enough figure?” she teased. Todd faltered. “Yes, Todd, I think we might share dinner some time. I think you have my number.” Aara smiled, turned and left Todd in a haze of her heady perfume.
Todd spent the next few minutes touring the facility, meeting beautiful Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian girls who would have been more at home in a fashion shoot.
“Aysha, you do a magnificent job here,” Todd said. Aysha was herself stunning. She was clearly of Indian origin.
“Thank you, Mr Todd. Most of these girls are booked on an aeroplane out of the Middle East tomorrow, thanks to Miss Aara’s friends, and then they can start their lives again.”
***
Aara pulled a roll-along case behind her as she stepped into the heat and towards the black SUV with blacked out windows. A heavy-set Arabic man took her case and placed it in the luggage area of the vehicle. He then helped Aara into the back of the car, where she sat beside a casually dressed man of white European appearance.
“Have you got what you need? You know you can’t come back?” Aara nodded. There was no hint of sadness in her expression. “How many girls this time?” Pete Adams asked, his thick Australian accent reminiscent of the man Aara had just left behind.
“Eight, all of the very best quality. They think they are heading for office jobs in Melbourne, with accommodation arranged,” Aara answered. “They are all very pretty, but they are also stupid and naïve. It is their inferior cultures that make them that way,” she added.
Pete smiled. “OK. Well, in case you’re interested, Mr Michaelson won’t be leaving the area, unless, of course, the explosion is so large that pieces of him are found in Tecom.” He laughed at his own joke, and Aara merely looked out of the window, her
face devoid of a recognisable expression.
***
The Shadow hated working on spur of the moment assignments, but he was being well paid. A single target to eliminate, and his retirement fund would grow by a quarter of a million dollars. As he sat and waited to see the results of his handiwork, he considered whether Khaweini was expecting a commission for recommending Lee to Vincente Polletti. To his credit, the Australian crime lord had not argued over the fee. He accepted it instantly; half up front, the other half to follow in the next half hour.
From where he was standing he could see the rear tail pipe of the Porsche but he could not be seen by anyone climbing into the German car. The bomb was crude, but it should be effective.
Having been unable to gain access to the car because of the effectiveness of the Porsche’s anti-theft devices, Kwong Chong Lee had wired a fist-sized piece of C4 to his improvised detonator. The plastique was wired back to the car’s exhaust. There, inside the exhaust outlet itself, was a sensor that monitored emissions. Such sensors were now readily available in the UAE, where the drive towards cleaner cars was causing a controversy. The Porsche would emit around 224 grammes of CO2 per kilometre once it was warmed up, and so the sensor was set to send an alarm signal at 210 grammes. That way, the driver would have been in the car for at least a minute before the sensor sent a signal to the detonator and the C4 attached to the floor pan under the driver’s seat exploded.
“It was a work of art, really,” the shadow thought to himself as he stayed carefully out of sight.
***
Todd thanked Aysha for the tour of the shelter and wished her well, but he couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. Something did not feel quite right. There were plenty of ‘after’ models in the shelter, but where were the ‘before’ models? Where were the shorter, plumper or less physically perfect refugees? He made a mental note to ask Aara a few searching questions when they met for dinner.
Todd returned to Aara’s room and picked up his car keys from the desk. He needed to get back to the villa, to chase up any leads that might lead to the Shadow.
***
Kwong Chong Lee heard the car start up and saw a shimmer behind the exhaust pipe where the hot engine gases started to mix with the atmospheric air. The wire leading into the pipe was vibrating. That wasn’t ideal, as the sensor was held in place largely by gravity.
After around thirty seconds there was a huge explosion. Kwong risked a look, and saw the blazing skeleton of the Porsche. The car had buckled in the middle where the shaped charge had exploded upwards. The driver’s seat and the driver were gone, and in a few seconds the car was unrecognisable.
As he watched, an elderly Pakistani lady came around the corner, took one look at the sight in front of her, and fainted. The Shadow hurried away, keeping at least one building between him and the carnage he was leaving behind.
***
Pete Adams’ phone rang. Aara looked at her companion as he lifted the phone to his ear. The Australian smiled and winked at her, before speaking into the phone. “Thank you, Kwong. The remainder of your fee will be transferred immediately.”
Aara looked out of the window over Jumeira Beach.
Chapter 43
Charitable Relief Centre, Al Quoz, Dubai:
3rd March; 7pm.
Max stood just outside the yellow tape cordon that surrounded the burned out car. Darkness had fallen, bringing a mild night, and so the smouldering wreck of the Porsche was noticeably hot, despite having been hosed down by the fire department earlier.
“Bloody hell, Jamie!” he exclaimed. “Todd must have wound someone up really well. Do you think this was Polletti?”
Jamie nodded as she circled the car again. She sounded angry. “Not only do I think it was Polletti, but I would place money on our friend Kwong Chong Lee being the bomber.” She paused to look at her notebook. “Forensics says that the bomb was probably external. It was certainly C4, and it must have been triggered to go off when the exhaust reached a certain temperature, otherwise it would have gone off as soon as Todd started the car.”
“Polletti, Khaweini and the Shadow,” Max muttered, shaking his head in anger. “Talk about a triumvirate of evil!”
“Although, if we nail one, we could nail them all, looking on the bright side.” Jamie hesitated, and looked back at the twisted remains of the Porsche before adding, “If there is a bright side, of course.” It was Max’s turn to nod. “I think we may need to add another name to your axis of evil, Max.” The English journalist looked questioningly at his companion. “Sheikha Aara,” Jamie clarified.
Max looked shocked, but doubtful. “She’s the Sheikh’s cousin,” Max pointed out.
“Max, this is a small country. Everybody is somebody’s cousin. She knew the location of our offices, and you were tailed from those offices. She called Todd to ask for help, knowing he’d come running, and then… well, then this.”
There was a pause in the conversation before Jamie continued. “I’d guess she can’t be contacted.”
“Very good. You are right,” a loud Arabic accented voice boomed from behind the two friends. “She is not answering her phones, she is not at her apartment, and her assistant was caught trying to sneak out of the hostel with all of her worldly belongings. It stinks like a bilious camel.”
The Brigadier stood beside Max and Jamie, gazing sorrowfully at the wreckage of the Porsche. “This is my fault. If we had apprehended the Shadow when we had the chance….”
“We can’t think like that, Brigadier,” Jamie said. “There’s a bomber out there who, so far, has caused some loss of life, but we don’t know where he’ll strike next, or what the scale of the next attack will be. I think our next step….”
The Brigadier silenced her by putting his finger to his lips and whispering, “Walls have ears!”
Jamie wanted to point out that they were outside, not in a confined space. He continued. “We should discuss this back at your residence, where privacy is guaranteed.”
***
Khaweini was not overjoyed at having a house guest, but he was prepared to endure the Korean for a day or two whilst their plans came to fruition.
Kwong Chong Lee had altered the explosive devices in line with the recommendations of the late Jussuf Khalid, and sixteen lunchbox bombs were lined up on the kitchen floor. Khaweini was nervous. He didn’t like explosives. He didn’t trust explosives. He had been at a training camp in Pakistan when two activists were blown to smithereens when badly wired explosives went off prematurely. If these sixteen bombs went off earlier than planned, small as they were, they would leave nothing but a crater where the house now stood.
“Tomorrow the volunteers will be here for final training, and on Monday morning the charges will be placed. By lunchtime on Monday we will have brought Dubai to its knees and sent its pampered princes off to their safe houses in Europe and America.”
Kwong tried to look as if he was interested, but he was tired. It had been a long day, narrowly escaping arrest and disintegrating an Australian Federal Policeman. He was looking forward to his bed.
***
Aara removed her burqa to reveal her slim figure clad in designer jeans and a Juicy Couture tee shirt top. She slipped a thin pink jacket over the ensemble as she waited to embark. Pete Adams helped her into the speedboat, and as soon as she was settled he cast off. The man who had been driving the SUV pushed the boat into gear and headed off into the Gulf.
The bright red Triton 33 High Speed craft would have attracted attention in the daytime, but in the dark it was just another light amongst many on the water. The boat skipped across the choppy waters at speed for over fifteen minutes, and Aara was beginning to feel nauseous. Pete saw her discomfort. “We’re almost there,” he said comfortingly.
A minute later the boat settled down in the water as the engines cut out and the boat drifted towards a large yacht. The name on the back of the yacht identified it as ‘The Possum’.
Once on board with her belonging
s, Aara relaxed in the ivory coloured deep leather armchair. If you had to be at sea, this was how it must be done, she thought.
“How long until we reach Karachi?” she asked.
“Two days. We’re taking it steady. From there we take a plane to Bangkok and pick up our chartered plane to Oz. Your estate in Melbourne is in good hands. I checked on it before I left. I bet you have a great view from the bedroom.” Pete smiled, and Aara shot him a haughty look which let him know that he was never likely to find out.
Chapter 44
The Possum, Arabian Gulf:
3rd March; 11pm
Pete Adams had just spoken to his boss in Melbourne and, using a well-established code, had managed to convey that Michaelson was dead and that he and Aara were on their way to Karachi. He had also communicated that the last batch of girls from Dubai were on their way, as planned. It was a pity that this particular supplier of girls was now out of business. The girls had all been of the highest quality, and were only marginally more expensive than their untrained and unkempt peers. Pete would have to find another supplier of Asian girls; there was only so much demand for the endless supply of Eastern Europeans.
Before he dispatched his second in command to Dubai, Vincente Polletti had made it clear that if Aara had fallen overboard on the journey to Karachi, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. However, after a long discussion, it was decided that she would be debriefed in Australia before any precipitate action was taken. One way or another, however, her life expectancy would be measured in weeks rather than years.
Aara lay on her luxurious bunk. The cooling breeze from the air conditioner required her to use the large, heavy duvet. Her thoughts turned to Todd Michaelson, and she regretted his death. He was one of the few men who had treated her as she hoped to be treated. Before she slipped off into her troubled dreams, she thought of her journey to where she was today.
Shadow of the Burj Page 24