by Tyree, Omar
Sheikh Al Hassan cleared his throat. “If I may, I will remind you that all of Dubai’s developers use the same immigrant workforce—”
“And yet none of them have caused an atrocity like this one,” Sheikh Al Rashid responded, cutting him off. “If it were up to me, he would not be able to build a children’s playground in Dubai.”
Abdul was beyond humiliation in a multitude of ways. But if he were to react, like he would do with almost anyone else, he knew that he would only make it worse. His uncle had advised him to allow the elder Sheikh to blow off his steam, and that’s what Abdul continued to do. But it was much easier said than done.
Finally, the young Sheikh Al Naseem tried to lighten the mood. With a plop of a purple grape into his mouth, he said, “Brother, please, be merciful. Even Allah recognizes mistakes. And surely he would allow Abdul to build a playground.”
Abdul understood his fate. He would be made an example for the line of young and ambitious developers behind him. The young Sheikh Al Falah was right there at the table with them to learn his lesson of respect for his elders and for the work of development in the UAE. And Abdul realized that it was best to accept a hard reprimand from Sheikh Al Rashid, who knew him and his uncle well, than to accept a much colder denunciation from the Prime Minister and the President, who would surely be involved afterward.
Outside of their closed room, Abdul’s wife eavesdropped. Hamda understood that Abdul was in a grave situation that needed serious discussions, so he had wisely given her his cell phone. That way he would not be tempted to even look at it during their talks.
“Sister, please, come back to the sitting room,” she was told by one of the elder wives.
Startled by being caught, Hamda could only apologize for her worry.
“Ana aasifa,” she stated in Arabic. “I’m just so concerned,” she admitted.
“It’s okay, just come back to the room,” the elder wife told her graciously. “Let the men talk and work it out.”
The wives already knew that Hamda was particularly independent, and some of them secretly admired her for it. Nevertheless, there were still times to reel the young wife back into the hold of tradition before she caused herself and her husband more difficulties.
Hamda was told as much when she arrived back in the sitting room with the rest of the wives and young children.
Her aunt and head wife of the Hassan household, Maryam Abdullah, was blunt. “A restless foot will stub its toe on many closed doors, believing that they are open. And some toes will not learn their lessons until they are all broken and cannot be fixed.”
Not only did Hamda get the message loud and clear, but so did the other wives inside the room, who may have been overly inspired by her audacity. So Hamda retook her seat in a tall comfortable chair and could not wait until their visit was over. Every visit with the elder wives seemed to last much longer than she could stand. But like her husband in the room with the elder men, Hamda was forced to swallow her pride and hold back her tongue for as long as she was in their presence, unless she agreed to respect all of their feminine customs.
*****
While Abdul and Hamda received their reprimands at the house of Hassan in Abu Dhabi, in downtown Dubai a tactical war was now fully engaged on a hotel roof, in the loading docks, at all the exits and at the entrance and lobby.
“We are forced to be extra careful with so many hostages here,” the commanding army officer noted to his men and the police. Their advanced weapons and trained soldiers were at the mercy of the immigrants to refrain from using the hostages as human shields. But whenever the soldiers had strategic and technological advantages, the immigrant rebels would use exactly what the UAE feared: human shields while firing many rounds of their ammunition. They were not even able to follow the crazy tourist into the valet parking area, creating a need for immense patience.
So far, seventeen of their men had been killed and several injured, including those who had gone down in the helicopter. Only eight of the immigrants had been killed, and mostly on the roof, where there were no hostages. There was still no count of exactly how many there were. But they seemed to be all over the hotel.
“What next—do we use the snipers and tear gas?” the second in command asked the commander in chief out front.
From the front entrance, there were many obstructions that took away many of the clear sight lines, and the immigrants made sure to stay out of range of clear shots. So the lead commander shook it off.
“Not yet. Let’s see what reports we have from the roof and the other exits.”
*****
After losing one helicopter, security forces continued in their efforts to overtake the hotel roof without landing and killed several of the terrorists with a barrage of machine gunfire. Amid the gunfire, one of the immigrant workers shot three of his colleagues in the back.
“Did you see that?” one helicopter pilot radioed to another. “He shot down his own men.”
The roof was riddled with bullet holes, bodies and blood. The Union Defence Force, wearing SWAT team gear, awaited orders to descend down their rope ladders to the roof to enter the hotel. But landing there was still too risky. That’s was how they lost the first helicopter. The pilots relayed the progressive report to their commander on the ground.
“We are in position now to drop off several of the men on the roof,” they told him. “And some of the immigrants are now helping us. But it is still too dangerous too land. So we will use the ladders.”
“Excellent. Commence. We are at a standstill here,” the commander told them. “Report back to me when the men make it inside.”
“Yes.”
*****
Inside the surveillance room in the basement of the hotel, Habib and Akil watched the tourist break into the door from the valet parking lot.
“Akil, I told you, he’s making his way in. The American.”
“How do you know he’s an American?” Akil asked.
“He looks like an American. His hair, his clothes, his skin. I’ve seen enough American movies to know. He even moves like an American football player.”
Akil frowned at his friend’s unfounded assumptions and asked him, “What did he use to get in?” The parking area door had been locked.
“I don’t know. But go kill him. We’re not making an American movie here.”
Akil grabbed his assault weapon. “These cameras are going to your head, my friend.” And he left the room to do his work.
A moment later, one of the other surveillance men caught an act of treason happening on the roof.
“Did you see that? He shot three of our own men.”
Habib watched the replay of the tape from the roof and smiled. “Heru expected this. Some of the men are still loyal to his father and will try to sabotage our mission. I will tell Heru immediately.”
*****
Ra-Heru was already near the twenty-seventh floor when he was hailed on his walkie-talkie. “Hello,” he answered.
“We’ve found the first traitor on the roof.”
Heru nodded and readied his assault rifle. “I’m there.”
He hung up the call and made his way up the final staircase to the roof as several UAE soldiers made it down their ladders from the helicopters.
The traitor ran back into the building, acting overwhelmed by it. He spotted Heru heading fast in his direction up the stairs and yelled, “Heru, they have taken over the roof! It was too many of them!”
Without seeming to respond, Heru took out his blade with his left hand, while still carrying his rifle in his right, and he curved his blade quickly around the traitor’s neck in one swift motion, cutting him open like a pig.
“Thanks to you, we have one less man on their side now,” Heru said, and he allowed the traitor to fall to his death down the steps without the alarming noise of gunshots … so when the men on the roof approached the door, they had no warning of what they were up against.
Heru waited patiently for their posi
tion, and instead of allowing them to open the door and charge in on him, he charged them instead, using a similar forward roll that the American had used earlier. However, Heru carried a fully loaded assault weapon with him, and he let loose with it.
Before the men could react properly to counter him, Heru killed four of them, with seven more who scrambled for cover.
Two more of the men were shot as the leftover soldiers from the helicopter took aim at Heru’s rapidly changing position. He was as lightning quick on his feet as a deadly Ninja, and when the shooters missed, Heru did not.
Three of the men in the helicopter were shot, falling to their deaths. The pilot was protected behind bulletproof glass, so Heru took aim at the propellers instead.
Struck perfectly, the helicopter began to spin out of control and hit the roof, killing more troops.
*****
Back at ground level, the commander in chief was puzzled while hearing all of the gunshots from the roof and seeing the helicopter crash into it. He was still awaiting a new report of a successful entry into the top of the building.
“What is going on up there?” he asked the reporting pilot.
The pilot was shaken, stammering as he spoke. “We, we, we had several men in place on the roof, then one man came out and shot down everything.”
“One man?” the commander repeated doubtfully.
“Yes, one man. And they could not hit him. He even took down a second helicopter by himself.”
“Well, where is he now?”
“He went back inside.”
“Well, get in there and get him!” the commander barked. “We don’t have enough men now,” the pilot complained. “He just killed a dozen trained soldiers by himself.”
The commander looked up to the roof and saw the remaining two helicopters retreating from the scene like dogs with their tails caught behind their hind legs. But the commander was unnerved by their small defeat.
“Call for four more helicopters and men,” he told his second in command. “We must secure the roof. It’s our best way in.” Then he paused. “And get the snipers and tear gas positions.”
“Yes!” the second in command answered gleefully. He would have gone Rambo much earlier and not allowed the rebellion to pick up any confidence. But he was not in charge to make the call.
*****
Back inside the basement surveillance room, Heru told his man Habib on his walkie-talkie, “Send more men to the roof. They will return with backup shortly.”
“Yes,” Habib responded. He completed the call just in time to witness, on the monitors, his comrade Akil lose a decisive battle to the American.
“What the … Play that back again,” he told the other men who saw it as well in the room.
They all watched again as Akil approached the American, who slid beneath him and grabbed his assault gun before headbutting him and bashing Akil in his head with his own weapon.
“Did you see that? That looked like something Heru would have done,” one of the men commented.
Habib continued to look on in shock as the American made his way up the stairs toward the lobby with the gun in hand.
“Yes, but Heru would have killed him,” he concluded. Habib then called their lieutenant inside the lobby on his walkie-talkie.
“The American man is headed your way with a gun.”
Their imposing lieutenant in the lobby was not pleased. “Who? An American?”
“Yes, the man who ran past the entrance is an American, I’m sure of it.”
“Where did he get a gun?” the lieutenant asked.
Habib was embarrassed to even say it, but he was forced to.
“He beat Akil in the basement hallway. But he knocked him unconscious and took the gun instead of killing him. So I believe that he is soft.”
“I see,” the lieutenant responded. “Well, we will be prepared for him.”
Chapter 29
Tariq watched as several UAE squad cars full of police officers pulled up through all of the chaotic traffic downtown to help him capture Mohd and his men from inside of a three-story brown-brick building.
He pointed to the building. “That’s the one they went into right there. So guard the back exit doors, and I need several men on the adjacent roofs to surround them.”
There were about twenty police officers in all, and most of them were experienced.
“So, you want all of them alive,” the lead officer asked for clarity.
“No,” Tariq answered definitively. In case they didn’t know what the Egyptian looked like, he showed them all a photograph of Mohd on his cell phone that he had downloaded earlier. “Only him,” he stated. “The others are disposable.”
The officers all looked and nodded. “Thank you. Let’s get to work then,” the lead officer spoke for them all.
The men split up and went in their separate directions to make the crucial arrest.
*****
Inside the downtown office building, Mohd took a deep breath and contemplated his fate. He was unable to reach the International Suites in time to make much of a difference there, and now he was hiding out in a business center restroom with three men that he had no use for. There was no amount of protection that Bakar could provide for him now. His son Ra-Heru had begun a war that could cost both of them their lives. Therefore, Mohd thought only of telling the United Arab Emirates authorities their story, so that the world might know the truth.
“So, what are we to do?” Bakar asked him. They had all locked themselves inside of the bathroom to think.
First, Mohd considered the two men who had been loyal to his son, and he saw no reason for them to follow him.
“You two may go your own way,” he said. “And I pray that Allah may guide you in the rest of your days. But if there are men here who would still connect you to the rest of the group, then I would no longer remain in Dubai. I would leave here as quickly as possible.”
The two men glanced at each other and looked back at Mohd as if waiting for more.
“But we have no money to leave,” one of the men commented. “We have nothing but the clothes on our backs.”
Mohd looked at Bakar and nodded. Bakar dug into his clothes and gave them several hundred dirham. “That is all that I can offer you. Now go.”
“Thank you, thank you,” they both spoke and nodded.
When they were gone, Mohd addressed Bakar in private. “You take the rest of the money and leave here yourself. I will no longer be needing you.”
But Bakar was insistently loyal. “What do you mean? I have sworn my allegiance to protect you until my death. You have helped me to provide for my family back home, and you have been very gracious and giving to me for years.”
Bakar took more of the dirham from his pockets in his left hand and said, “This means nothing to me.” Then he put his right fist over his heart. “But this means everything.”
Mohd took a deep breath and was moved by Bakar’s loyalty, yet he would not change his mind. “You have an allegiance to protect a man who is still alive. But I am a dead man now.”
“You are not dead,” Bakar argued. “So I will continue to protect you.”
Mohd shook his head and eyed the pistol that Bakar still held at his waistline. “You can no longer protect me with that. You would be better off to throw it away.”
Bakar took the gun from his waistline and tossed it into a trash can. Mohd then looked down at the man’s leg, forcing his bodyguard to do the same with the knife that he held inside the holder at his ankle.
“So I now protect you with my heart and my spirit alone,” Bakar told him.
Mohd nodded. “And are you ready to suffer the consequences of torture?”
Bakar paused and nodded slowly. “So we will turn ourselves in?”
“There is no other way for me,” Mohd confessed. “I must tell my son’s story. It is the way he wanted it to end.”
Bakar agreed with him. “Then that is what we will do then.”
***
**
Outside of the building, Tariq had no idea what Mohd’s plans would be. So he advised the officers to flush the men out from the back door and into the front as they began to clear the street and the sidewalks of pedestrians. To his surprise, two of the men walked out of the front door unprovoked, as if attempting to appear as normal citizens. Had Tariq not spotted them earlier, they might have gotten away with it. But as they made their way safely out of the building and quickly walked toward the corner, Tariq gave the signal from his position across the street for the UAE police officers to arrest or kill them.
“Stop!” the officers yelled with their guns out.
Understanding that their arrest would mean death, both men took off running and were willing to take their chances. However, with several sharpshooters already on the roofs, and the streets cleared of people, the two men were easy targets.
Bullets slashed the air.
Mohd and Bakar heard the gunshots outside and stopped momentarily as they approached the front door. The building was an open office of several businesses with a front lobby. With three floors of different offices, no one was particularly concerned about who walked in or out, until they realized that two of the four men who had entered the building earlier were obviously dangerous fugitives. They then looked at Mohd and Bakar, who had walked in with the others, and they panicked.
“We mean you no harm,” Mohd told them in the front lobby. He raised his arms high in surrender even before they reached the door, and he had Bakar do the same.
Back outside the building, Tariq could see Mohd and his security detail walking toward the entrance with their hands raised high, and he realized that his quest was over—or at least a part of it. He now would have to find out pertinent information about the hotel and the men.
“Do not shoot! He is surrendering!” Tariq reinformed the men. “Do not shoot!”
He even walked out from his position across the street from the building to show his own confidence in Mohd’s surrender. Mohd recognized his graciousness and nodded to him as he kneeled with Bakar in expectation of their arrest.
As the UAE police quickly handcuffed the surrendering men, Tariq said, “You have a lot of explaining to do, Mohd.”