by Brad Taylor
He glanced back at the elevator shaft. Still not enough.
He looped the wire around his hands and jerked with all of his might, the wire slicing into the fleshy part of his palm. He tried a second time and fell backward as the anchor gave way.
Several minutes later, he had the detonator separated from the explosives by about thirty meters of speaker wire. He affixed the detonator to the wall between the elevators and powered it up. He saw the flash of red, then a steady green. He wiped his brow and hurried to the exit door.
He swiped Hamid’s key card, opened the door, and took the stairs up two at a time. He slowed as his head crested the top of the stairwell. He surveyed the drive to the mall parking garage and froze, his stomach clenching.
The black man he had tried to kill was walking toward him, another man at his side.
59
Knuckles shut off the van and pointed at the hooded man from the souk. “We going to leave him behind like we did Lucas?”
Getting Jennifer’s voice mail one more time, I stabbed the keypad and hung up. “No. You’re going back to the hotel. I can’t get Jennifer. Something’s wrong. Get over to the hotel and find her.”
He started to say something, and my phone rang. I stabbed the call button and heard Blaine. Dammit. Where is she? I listened, then said, “We’re there now, and I can see limos roped off. What the hell’s going on? Why did they come here?”
On the other end of the phone, Blaine said, “Pike, we didn’t get to them in time. We had too many layers to go through to get the phone number. We have it now, but it goes straight to voice mail.”
“Call someone else. There are three limousines here. Someone’s got their phone on.”
“They all go to voice mail. We don’t know why. Maybe the building is shielding the signal or something, but the bottom line is we didn’t get the warning to them.”
So much for doing this slow and methodical.
“How long are they going to be in there?”
“Less than ten minutes on the upper deck. The clock’s ticking right now. What’re your courses of action?”
“Shit, sir, I have no idea what trap he’s built. He’s been all over the damn building planting explosives. It’s going to take time to get to the maintenance room on the upper floors. It’s above the observation deck. On top of that, he apparently placed explosives in the basement as well.”
Blaine said, “What can I do? What do you need?”
“I need someone to tell them to stay out of the damn elevators!”
I calmed down and continued. “I’d like to target the Ghost because I’m sure he’s going to command detonate whatever he’s got, but we don’t know where he is. I have no doubt he’s around here, but I can’t waste the time looking. Second COA is to enter the building and see if we can render safe whatever trap he’s laid, but it’s the basement only. I have no idea if that’ll be enough. Brett and Decoy are headed there right now.”
“What’s the risk to the force? Can you protect them?”
I watched Brett and Decoy cross the street, both carrying a small duffel bag full of tools. “No,” I said, “there’s no way I can mitigate the risk without the Ghost.”
Blaine said something else, but I was no longer listening. A man with a Burj Khalifa maintenance uniform had just popped out of the bushes. Wearing thick glasses. Right next to the basement entrance.
The Ghost ducked back into the stairwell, considering his options. Clearly, it was no coincidence that the black man was here. It was because of the envoy. The only mystery was how they’d penetrated his plan. They hadn’t followed him here, or he would have been interrupted installing the phone numbers and arming the detonators.
It must be the building itself. They don’t know I’m here.
They weren’t looking for him. They were looking for his trap. He couldn’t let them explore for any length of time. He hadn’t placed any booby traps around his explosives, and they could be disarmed fairly easily.
He thought about hiding in the basement and attacking them, but didn’t like the odds. Two on one would be hard to pull off. Somehow, he had to prevent them from entering the basement. But he had nothing. No way to distract them. No means of pulling them from their goal.
Except for myself.
It hit home that he would be irresistible bait. They were following me earlier. They know what I look like. He could prevent them from stopping the attack, but he would be caught. Chained and tortured, then killed. He wouldn’t be able to utilize his false jihadi website group to claim credit. Wouldn’t be able to put the Palestinian cause on the world stage. He would be walking to his death.
He peeked over the top and saw the men were less than seventy meters away. If he waited any longer, he would be trapped anyway. He jumped up and grabbed the railing on the left side of the stairwell. Swiftly scrambling over it, he hid in the shrubbery beyond.
He thought again about his options, but came up blank. It was either him or failure. He felt a sadness seep inside. He steeled himself, shaking off the melancholy. He would need to remain out of their grasp for several minutes, leading them on a chase. From there, it would be up to Allah. Maybe he could get them to kill him here, before they started in on the torture.
He kept his eyes on the two men, waiting until just before they reached the stairwell. When he was certain they would sense his movement, he slipped over the side, walking behind them at a fast pace, purposely scuffing his shoes.
60
I dropped my phone and keyed the radio. “Brett, Decoy, turn around. The Ghost is behind you. Look behind you!”
I saw them whip around, then the man take off running. He circled around the back side of the building, running along a promenade that fronted a giant artificial lake.
Knuckles was already out of the van, waiting for me to give him the word, unleashing the hounds as it were. Instead, I said, “No, you go to Jennifer. Go get her. We’ll handle this.”
He gave me a sour look, not liking at all that he’d be sitting out the chase, but he nodded and moved back to the door.
I took off at a sprint, panting into my radio, “Hit him with the EMP gun. Take out any electronics on his body.”
I was about seventy meters behind the target and forty meters behind Brett and Decoy. Brett was pulling away, running like a linebacker for the end zone. Moving at astonishing speed.
The Ghost flipped a glance over his shoulder, and I was close enough to see the shock on his face when he saw Brett closing the gap. He veered toward the water, and Decoy took a knee, aiming the EMP gun.
I saw him track the target all the way to the water’s edge, presumably firing his body full of electromagnetic pulses. Hopefully scrambling whatever remote detonation mechanism he had.
The Ghost cleared the railing and dove into the lake right at the juncture of a false stream. He started swimming to the far side, looking like a child who had fallen out of a Disney ride, a dark cork in the impossibly blue water.
I saw a bridge crossing the stream, letting tourists continue their promenade along the false sea, and sprinted to it. I reached the far side, and we had a little bit of a “man-in-the-middle,” with Brett and Decoy on one side, me on the other, and a bedraggled terrorist now treading water between us.
When he didn’t move to either side, Decoy jumped in after him, forcing him to choose. He came my way, trying to climb up a maintenance box and jump back onto the promenade. It was easy to beat him to it.
I grabbed him by the lapels and swung him violently onto the ground, surprised at how light he was. His coke-bottle glasses flew off, and he hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of him.
I ripped through every crevice and pocket of his body, trying to find whatever he had that would trigger the explosives in the building. I came up empty.
Brett reached me, saying, “Did we fry the device?”
“There isn’t a fucking device.”
I slapped the Ghost’s face. “What’s the threat? Wher
e is it?”
He looked at me with a sense of calm and satisfaction, as if he’d just won a contest of skill.
“You’re too late.”
61
Jeff McMasters saw the end of the lap around the observation deck to his front and gave a silent thank-you. The drone of the official tour guide had endlessly echoed with bits of trivia of the city no matter which direction they looked.
He did have to admit they weren’t kidding about the height. They were so far up in the air that the “ordinary” skyscrapers of downtown Dubai looked like toys. So far up that there had been no vertigo at all. It was like looking out the window of an airplane, the earth so distant that his mind couldn’t compute the effect as being above it.
They reached the elevators, and the guide asked if he’d like to go outside, to the tallest open-air observation deck in the world. He, of course, expressed keen interest, wondering what else the man could blab about.
Blessedly, the tour guide simply said, “Enjoy yourself and let me know when you’re ready to return to the bottom.”
He nodded as if he was having the time of his life and pulled out his international BlackBerry. To his surprise, he had not a single e-mail or missed call. The damn thing rang endlessly, and he’d been out of contact for at least thirty minutes. He looked closer and saw he had no signal.
Must be something to do with this building.
Like a man addicted, he felt the need to get his phone back on the network. He nodded at Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and said, “Let’s continue our tour of your fabulous city.”
The sheikh smiled. “Of course. Today is your day.”
As soon as the words came out of the Ghost’s mouth, I knew he’d tricked us. Delayed us to execute his plan. I wanted to scream at my stupidity. I should have hit what I knew—the elevators in the building. I’d gotten tunnel vision when I’d seen him, and now it would cost us.
I wasted no more time on him, knowing there was no pressure on earth I could bring to bear in the short time I had to get him to talk. He was prepared to die. Unlike his accomplice—my ace in the hole.
I started snapping orders. “Brett, target’s yours. Get him back to the van. Decoy, get the EMP gun recharged and ready. Knuckles, what’s your status?”
“Still on the parking-garage road, about to enter the highway. What’s up?”
“Turn around. Come back. Get that little weasel in the van to the basement door. He needs to lead us to the explosive set he saw the Ghost emplace.”
“On the way. Ten seconds out. What about the shit on the hundred-twenty-fifth floor?”
“Nothing we can do about it. We’re going to disable what we have.”
“You think that’ll be enough?”
“I have no idea, just get him moving.”
Sprinting back the way I had come, I saw Knuckles leap out of the van, rushing our captive forward, holding the back of his neck, the man’s feet barely touching the ground. We met up at the stairwell.
“Lead us directly to the location your friend placed the explosives. If you deceive us in any way, I swear to God I’m going to kill you.”
His eyes bugging out of his head, he simply nodded. I swiped his card, and we entered in a rush. We stood inside for a millisecond before I slapped his stomach.
“Where, dammit? Where?”
His hands cuffed in front, he took off at a trot. “This way. To the shafts.”
He led us through a maze, finally pointing at the gaping holes of two large elevator shafts. And the explosives inside each.
“Don’t touch them. Find the detonators. They’ll be electronic. Knock them out with the EMP gun.”
We fanned out, and I saw a snake of wire leading from the explosives in the right shaft. I followed it with my eyes, winding and curving on the ground like a child’s maze. Eventually, I ended up at the wall between the shafts themselves. And saw a blinking light.
“Decoy! There! Between the shafts! Hit it with the gun!”
He immediately took a knee, aiming the EMP. I heard a distinctive hum, then saw a blinding flash, followed by a shock wave that launched me backward.
I sat up, attempting to shake the ringing from my ears, looking to see if anyone on the team had been injured. Another sound penetrated the stillness. Something like a freight train loose on the tracks, coming from the shafts themselves.
The elevators.
I rolled backward as fast as I could, and another explosion rocked the basement, this one from the kinetic energy of a double-decker elevator hitting the earth from over ten thousand feet in the air.
62
Lucas began dressing himself and said, “Now Pike and I share something else in common.”
Her wrists strapped to the top of the bed frame, Jennifer said nothing. Her panties and bra had been ripped off, but her pants remained wrapped around her lower legs, her shirt bunched up to her neck.
Lucas continued, “I’m sorry it has to end this way, but I’ve got a plane to catch, and I can’t have you messing anything up. I mean that. You and Pike are the closest thing I have to friends, and it pains me to do this.”
Jennifer tested the lamp wire around her wrists. During the assault she’d fought like a wild animal, to no avail, but had felt the wire loosen. It wasn’t the best for holding knots, and she thought she could work it to her advantage, especially since Lucas hadn’t bothered to tie her legs down. She continued to act catatonic. Defenseless. Simply staring at him with large eyes.
Lucas picked up a pillow from the floor. “I wish I could have simply talked to Pike. Let him know that it was all professional. Just like the targets he attacks. There’s nothing personal in it at all. In a way, I’m glad I missed him three years ago.”
He held up the pillow. “Someday he’ll come to grips with what he is, and he’ll see that he’s just like me. It’s taking him a little longer, but it’s true. He and I are the same.”
He leaned over her. “I’ve heard that suffocation is the most painless way to go. Once you pass out, you feel nothing. Of course, I can’t prove it, since no one I’ve done this to could give me an opinion when it was over. It’s the best I can do, given the circumstances.”
He brought the pillow to her face and hesitated, staring into her eyes. She rotated her body, bringing her legs into her stomach. She lashed out with all the strength she had in a mule kick, hitting him in his upper chest.
Caught off guard, Lucas flew across the room into the far wall. Jennifer yanked one arm free, then frantically began working her hand out of the second loop. Lucas sprang up and rushed her. She snapped out with a side kick, connecting again, and felt the hand slip out.
She jumped off the end of the bed, putting Lucas behind her, the door to the living room to her front. She yanked her pants up with one hand and clawed at the door with the other, getting it open. She almost made it out before he tackled her, bellowing in rage.
They bounced off the table in front of the anteroom television, then hit the floor. She rolled onto her back, Lucas straddling her body and trapping her left arm. She whipped her right elbow up and caught him on the chin, stunning him enough to allow her to snake out of his grasp. She leapt to her feet and he followed suit, slamming her into the wall. Rattled, the blow cutting her ability to think, she felt herself rotated around until her back was to the wall, her arms trapped in his grip.
He leaned into her face, the spittle flying out.
“You fucking bitch. Never want to make it easy. Always want the fucking pain. So be it.”
He reached his hands up to the base of her neck to repeat the pummeling she’d endured earlier. She stared into his snarling visage and felt his hands close. She knew she was done. No way out.
She thought of Pike. Of how he wouldn’t quit. Never, ever quit.
Never. Ever. Quit.
She whipped her head forward, catching him just above the bridge of his nose with the bony part of her forehead. He shrieked, and she did it again, feeling the nose crunch undern
eath the blow. Feeling him back up to escape.
She turned and ran, reaching the door to freedom a millisecond before him. She felt his breath on her neck, his hands grabbing her shirt. She launched a leg backward, felt it connect and heard him grunt, then she was outside.
She sprinted to the north elevator bank. The one with the envoy’s security. She got within sight of it and started walking, checking her appearance. Her shirt was back in place, but she had abrasions on her wrists, and her hair, she knew, must look wild.
She glanced behind her and saw Lucas scowling from the entrance to his room. He pointed a finger at her like a weapon, then blew the tip as if he was clearing smoke before shutting the door. She continued past the elevators until she reached a stairwell, ignoring the stares of the security men. She sprinted down them and ran to her car. A minute later, she was out of the garage and pulled over to the side of the road, throwing up on the shoulder.
She collected herself, sitting in the front seat and panting, unable to fully come to grips with what had just happened. She felt a simmering rage. Pulling out her phone, she saw several missed calls from the team. Out chasing a terrorist while I was raped.
At that moment she decided to keep the attack a secret. To pretend the abomination was nothing more than a bad dream that had never happened. She’d help the team find and capture Lucas, then watch him get the Taskforce version of justice. For the first time, she understood fully what that meant. Embraced the reasons why. Wanted to be the one who dropped the hammer.
She texted Pike, telling him she was okay and on the way back. She put the phone away without calling, not caring what had transpired with the Ghost. She drove to their hotel and went to her room. She stripped out of her clothes and went straight to the shower, letting the hot water beat her body.