by Tyree, Omar
Mohd looked up at him and grinned slightly, with his arms and hands cuffed behind his back. “And you have a lot of listening to do.”
Tariq nodded and was very satisfied to make his phone call.
“Yes, Tariq, what have you found?” Ali asked him immediately. “I have just now arrived at the hotel.”
Tariq told him the remarkable news. “We have Mohd now in custody. And we will bring him to the scene to discuss everything.”
“Praise be to Allah,” the chief said. “Bring him then. Bring him here immediately! The Union Defence Force has told me they have an expert man who leads the immigrants. He has killed nearly twenty men by himself. And I am certain that Mohd knows who he is.”
The chief was so loud over the phone that Mohd was able to overhear him. And he grinned again, realizing that his son would surely make a name for himself. Right or wrong, Ra-Heru would be known throughout the Middle East.
*****
Back at the International Suites, Gary was preparing to go into real warfare. Throughout his three years of training, he had never killed anyone and rarely aimed to do so with his targets.
So what am I gonna do now, shoot at all of their legs? he asked himself inside the staircase. And what if they’re holding hostages? I could get a bunch of people killed, including myself.
He looked down at his cell phone and saw that he had cracked the screen in his forward roll move from earlier. And his phone would no longer work inside the building.
Maybe this phone isn’t foolproof after all, he mused. But while fiddling with it, he remembered Jonah’s fateful words of advice: “Gary, I know you may feel a little uncomfortable about shooting a gun to kill, but in a real-life situation, a man or a woman who is still alive … can still kill you.”
Gary reflected on her words and took another deep breath before he could launch himself through the door.
“Well, here I go,” he mumbled. “And if I die, at least I get to join my mother and Taylor in Heaven.”
*****
Inside the surveillance room in the basement, Habib watched and waited for the American to show his hand. In the meantime, his men were able to collect Akil from the hallway and bring him back to the room. Akil watched the monitors in a daze as well, while clearing his aching and injured head.
“We will now see how good this American is with a gun,” Habib commented.
“What are they waiting for?” Akil grumbled. He was angry that he had lost so swiftly to the American. “Tell them to shoot him through the door.”
“No,” Habib argued. “That would only give the American a warning that they are waiting for him.”
“So what? Send the men down in the stairway to get him. Or I will go finish him off myself.” Akil even grabbed another assault weapon before falling sideways into the wall.
“Akil, you need to clear your head before you can do anything,” Habib said.
The other men inside the room had to stop themselves from laughing. Akil had a pretty violent temper. In the distraction, one of the cameras in the bathroom lobby disappeared.
“Did you see that one? That’s the bathroom near the lobby.”
Habib looked. “It may be another traitor. I will tell the lieutenant. But Heru said not to bother him with anything below the twelfth floor of the building.”
*****
Right as the lieutenant answered his walkie-talkie in the hotel lobby, where his men were ready with their guns and plenty of hostages, Gary slammed open the basement door, expecting an ambush, and he tossed his tan button-up shirt fifteen feet into the air, like a parachute. The immigrant gunmen immediately responded to that with a hail of bullets.
The floating shirt was just enough of a distraction to divert their eyes and allow Gary to launch himself low on the floor with his assault weapon aimed and ready in his white tank top undershirt. And there was no hesitation in his rolling floor moves.
Gary shot at their toes, where it was easy to distinguish workman boots and dirty shoes from the sandals and bright, new tennis sneakers that the average tourist wore. And it worked. Gary was able to hobble six men inside the room.
In unison, the snipers from outside with the UAE Defence Force began to fire and pick off more immigrant men inside the lobby. They had used the distracted attack from inside as a signal of their own.
The hostages and their families were terrified, screaming in agony as the bullets flew back and forth all around them.
*****
“It’s the crazy tourist! He’s inside with a gun now!” one of the UAE snipers commented outside to the commanding officer.
Again, the commanding officer was baffled. “Who is this man?”
Ali, who had just arrived at the scene, saw the opportunity for their men to overwhelm the immigrants immediately. “Now is the time!” he advised. “We should charge them!”
But the commander was not as certain, nor did he like the police chief telling him what to do. So he eyed him down before deciding to give his men his own signal.
“Move forward.”
*****
Inside the lobby, Saleem made his move from the bathroom and instantly secured a gun from an overmatched immigrant. Realizing that the American tourist was not shooting to kill, Saleem picked off more of the men. All around them, the hostages continued to scream and run for their lives.
Gary even spotted the American family right there in front of him.
“Move! Run! Out of the building! I’ll cover you!” he shouted to the families.
A flood of terrified foreigners began to run free and out of the front entrance of the hotel amidst the chaos.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” the commanding officer yelled to his snipers.
And the people ran free.
*****
Watching the scene from the surveillance room, Habib was shocked by it all and decided to call back Heru on his walkie-talkie.
“They are attacking the front entrance with snipers and an American tourist who snuck in!” he informed their leader. Habib had not mentioned the American to Heru before because he did not think that the man would survive.
“An American?” Heru asked him, concerned. “A military man?”
“He must be. He moves as fast as you, but he is not trying to kill. However, there’s another traitor with him who is. I noticed him from the meetings with your father, Mohd, in Deira. And the soldiers are headed in with their snipers, while the hostages in the lobby are running free. It’s time for phase two,” he suggested nearly in one breath. The man was full of nervous tension.
“Then do it!” Heru barked at him. “What are you waiting for?”
From the crowd of gathered citizens in back of the UAE soldiers and police, another group of a dozen immigrant men attacked with smaller assault weapons that they pulled from workbags. They began to immediately fire through the crowd at the snipers, the police and Defence Force soldiers.
The commanding officer and Ali ducked behind the cars and the armored trucks as several more of their men were killed by unexpected bullets from behind.
“Ambush!” the commanding officer screamed. “We need more backup, now! How many of them are there?”
With the second wave of immigrant attackers mixed in with the crowd, it was nearly impossible to counter them without striking innocent people.
In the middle of the attack, Ali made a call on his cell phone.
“Tariq! Ask Mohd how many men there are!” he screamed into his phone. “It is not safe here! We are being ambushed from the crowd behind us!”
*****
On the backside of the hotel, Ramia and Johnny found another way in as the UAE soldiers formed an aggressive wall to penetrate the building at a weak point. They pushed back the immigrant gunmen and were able to enter the back left hallway. With more police officers in position to stop bystanders from getting too close when the ambush occurred at the front entrance, an opportunity was created for Johnny and Ramia to slip inside while the pol
ice were called to the front for backup.
“Come on. Hurry!” Ramia told Johnny as she jogged forward.
Johnny was still amazed that she was that serious. She’s crazy! he continued to tell himself. Yet he followed her into the embattled building anyway.
Once inside, they made their way to the second floor and headed back toward the interior of the building, passing countless rooms of terrified guests. “Is it over?” a Filipino mother in her thirties asked Ramia. She was peeking out from her cracked room door with her three small kids right behind her.
Ramia stopped and thought about it. The woman’s family could easily make it down the stairs and out the back exit. So Ramia took a chance.
“Come on. Hurry,” she told the woman and children.
Johnny looked up the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. And when the family made it down the stairs and out of the building to safety, Ramia felt like a hero herself.
“We could help more people to escape,” she told Johnny.
Johnny was more apprehensive. He wondered why there were no men there to secure the exit. “I don’t know about that,” he commented. “I don’t want to get anyone killed.” Including me, he thought.
But Ramia was inspired. “We can do it,” she said. “We can help a lot of people.” And she started knocking on hotel doors. “Hurry, you can all make it out.”
*****
Down in the surveillance room, Habib and Akil watched their plans to hold an international hotel full of hostages falling apart.
“We are losing too many hostages, and the soldiers are now inside the building.”
Akil disputed him. “We have plenty more hostages on more than twenty floors.”
“Not if the soldiers continue to kill off our men.”
Akil watched the monitors as the UAE soldiers quickly worked their way up each floor, shooting down the inexperienced immigrants inside the stairwells and hallways.
“Tell Heru the soldiers are headed straight toward him,” Akil stated.
Habib picked up the walkie-talkie and relayed the message. “Heru, the soldiers are coming for you on the left side of the building and killing plenty of the men.”
After the report from the roof and the loss of the second helicopter, the mission was to take out the lead man and to find out who he was. But Heru had no worries.
“Let them come,” he told his men.
*****
Meanwhile, Heru’s lieutenant, with reinforcements, continued to hold his own against the UAE soldiers and the American at the front entrance.
“Shoot to kill, not to maim!” the Pakistani Saleem yelled at the American. He could have made their task a lot easier with his great aim. And Saleem was growing tired of finishing off his leftovers.
Gary understood his alarm, but he had allowed the Pakistani and the UAE soldiers to do the killing for him, and it had all worked out fine. But as more immigrant men forced new hostages into the lobby from the cafeteria, the workout room and the swimming pool, it was obvious that they planned to hold down the lobby at all costs. And there were too many of them to remain there.
“You came in from the basement?” Saleem asked the American. They ended up side-by-side while running behind the reception desks. It was the best place for them to avoid so much firepower.
“Yes,” Gary answered.
“Did you see a surveillance camera room there?”
Gary shook his head. “I didn’t look for one.”
“That is how they know our positions. This hotel is filled with security cameras,” Saleem told him. “We need to go there and take them out.”
Gary looked around the lobby and asked, “What about the hostages?” He saw that they had the two Italian women from the sand tour, Sophie and Anastasia, in their group.
“We will have to come back for them,” Saleem insisted. “But we must take out their cameras to stop their preparations.”
Gary didn’t like the idea of leaving the hostages, but he had no choice. They were greatly outnumbered.
“So, how do we get back to the staircase?” Gary asked.
“We have to cover each other. I will go first.”
Saleem still did not trust the American to shoot to kill, so he decided to make them a path himself.
Gary nodded and agreed. “Okay. You go first, and I’ll cover you.”
Saleem nodded and wasted no time. He ran low from behind the reception desk and cleared a path to the basement door with a round of bullets.
With the men concentrating on the Pakistani, the American came right behind him, firing as they had planned.
When they made it into the basement staircase successfully, Habib, Akil and the rest of the men inside the surveillance room grabbed their assault weapons and prepared to hold their positions.
“They are coming now for us,” Habib stated nervously. Both the Pakistani traitor and the American were very good with their guns and their movements, and Habib had little confidence that they would survive an attack from the two men.
“I must tell Heru that the American and the traitor are coming for us.”
Akil nodded and did not dispute that they were in danger. His head continued to hurt from the American’s first attack on him inside the basement hallways.
“Yes, tell Heru now.”
Akil hoped that Heru would arrive in time in the basement to save them, but he realized that that would be unlikely. So he prepared to fight for his life.
Chapter 30
After receiving the urgent call from Chief Ali Youssef of the dangers at the hotel, Tariq asked the UAE police officers to pull their squad car over less than a mile away from the hostage scene. They were so close to the hotel that they could practically smell the gunpowder of warfare from their cars.
Ali had strongly suggested that it was no longer safe to bring the Egyptian there to the hotel amidst the violent insurgence.
Nevertheless, Mohd expected to talk to them all and more than just one, so that his story would not be lost on the ears of only one man. He had prepared himself for a climactic performance, and did not plan to speak to the lower-ranking officers alone. So when Tariq climbed into the back of the squad car with him, Mohd was determined to avoid saying too much.
Tariq began, “I have already heard of your story, and I am sorry for the loss of your wife. But to take the International Suites hostage, endangering hundreds of tourists and families, is barbaric. And I would not expect that from a man of peace.”
Mohd nodded patiently and was not offended. He planned to keep his poise. “Indeed, you may know some of my story, but you know nothing of my son and the love that he had for his mother.”
Tariq was noticeably surprised. With Mohd in his mid-sixties, his son could easily be a grown man in his thirties, and more than capable of leading a group of rebels.
“So your son has served in the Egyptian military as well?” Tariq asked. With Mohd having military training himself, it was easy to imagine that his son would have followed in his footsteps.
But Mohd had no more to say about it, at least not to him. “I will reveal more to the proper authorities at the hotel.”
“I am an authority,” Tariq snapped. “You can tell the rest to me. It is not safe at the hotel.”
“And it will not be safe unless you know all that you need to know,” Mohd hinted.
Tariq became alarmed. What if they are planting a bomb at the hotel? he thought. They surely have enough warehouse space, trucks and plenty of men to do it.
Instead of wasting more time with an older man who had no reason to bend, Tariq nodded and made his swift decision. “Then we will take you there.”
He stepped back out of the squad car and closed the door to inform the officers: “To the hotel.”
“But I thought Chief Ali said not to.”
“The plans have changed, and we have no time to argue,” Tariq answered calmly. “My good friend Ali Youssef will understand when we arrive. In the meantime, call the Union Defence
Force and have their intelligence division do a full search on the sons of Egyptian Army engineer Mohd Ahmed Nasir.”
The lead officer was surprised by the new information as well. “So his son is leading them. How obvious.”
Tariq nodded. “We would have found out eventually. This has all been very sudden. But I can only imagine how long they’ve been planning it. So call the Defence Force intelligence while I speak to the chief.”
*****
Up on the top floors of the hotel, Ra-Heru continued to prepare, with his men, a counterattack on the UAE soldiers. He had gotten word from the basement that his surveillance force was under attack.
“They are coming up the staircase to the left, so be prepared for them,” he told four of his armed immigrants on the seventeenth floor. On each level of the higher floors, at least six men guarded the hallways at each exit and the elevators to make sure that no families escaped. But on the lower floors, up to level five, the soldiers had infiltrated the building, and hostages were rapidly escaping to safety.
“Do you need any help, Heru?” one of the men asked the tactful and energized leader.
Heru paused, reflecting on the men who had been most loyal to his father. And he was still looking for traitors to dispose of.
“Yes,” he answered. “I could use you. Come with me.”
The man quickly followed him into the staircase to the left, where the UAE soldiers were heard shooting their way up.
Heru aimed his assault weapon down into the staircase for his man to attack. But the man looked surprised and confused by it.
“You want me to go right into them?” Heru was already skeptical of him. Then he came up with an idea.
“I have a plan.” He pulled out a thick rubber rope from the carry bag on his back that he planned to use later. He also had a belt of hooks to attach it to. “Put this on,” he told his man.
The immigrant put on the belt reluctantly. “What is this?” he asked.
“It is a way that you can help,” Heru said. “They will not be expecting this.”
*****
Back down in the basement, Habib, Akil and the other men inside of the surveillance room were expecting a fierce battle with the American and the Pakistani.