by Jack Hayes
Fending off blows and bites from the Russian, Zain fell against the framed paintings on the wall, bringing them to the ground.
“Get upstairs,” Anatoly called. “Grab the kids.”
More beatings.
Zain kneed Anatoly in the groin as they rolled on the floor. He could see Alex being pulled into the house semi-conscious by her hair. Before he could help her, he dodged another sweeping bat swing and ran towards the lounge.
“A weapon, a weapon,” he thought.
Vases, statues, cushions.
Anything he could find he threw at his pursuer.
A scream.
Zain instinctively turned his head in time to see the maid’s body fall down the centre of the stairwell and land on the hall chequerboard tiles with a wallop.
He didn’t even see the baseball bat that cracked across the side of his skull.
“Take them to the van,” Anatoly said, cradling his injured pistol hand. “And if these two give you any more trouble – shoot the kids first.”
***
The Audi soared through the chain-link fence and skidded as Blake spun onto the road. He revved the car back up to top speed and streaked onto the Al Khail bypass. This road was still under construction and police cameras had yet to be installed.
That occasionally meant there were patrol cars with human speed traps, but he decided to chance it. Minutes later and he turned off the motorway and reverted to the side roads.
A few twists and the Audi entered the labyrinthine warren of Dubai’s main industrial park.
The Al Quoz area had been designed by a fiendish genius. There were perhaps twenty entrances that allowed cars in. There were perhaps only three ways out. At first thought, driving through the warren seemed a bad idea but Blake decided that since it was deserted after dark, it would prove a useful place to regroup.
Al Quoz was notorious, not only for being a maze, but also for having extremely poor street lighting at night. Blake whipped the car past three lockups and down a quiet back alley.
He stopped and switched off the engine.
He pulled out his torch, grabbed his phone and ran to the back of the car.
Opening the boot, he pulled out his work issue laptop.
“Come on, come on,” he thought as it slowly booted.
A minute passed.
He plugged his phone into the computer.
More time.
“No pressure,” he muttered. “Man and cat found murdered on Dubai industrial estate in pitch darkness.”
A car drove slowly past.
Blake instinctively hid his torch beneath his fingers.
“Shitting hell.”
The car moved on.
His heart was in his throat.
He exhaled.
The computer acknowledged he’d jacked his phone in.
Blake clicked a few buttons and backed up all his numbers. He took his SIM card out and snapped it in two. He then removed the battery and hurled it onto the roof of a nearby two-storey industrial unit.
Circling the Audi, he checked the front of the car for damage.
Blake ran the torch back and forth. The bonnet was scraped badly. There were dents in the grill. A cruel gash ran along the passenger-side door showing naked silver through the dark-red paint. Crucially, the lights weren’t smashed. Blake wouldn’t be getting his deposit back from the leasing company but also he wouldn’t be stopped simply for driving the streets in her.
He tapped the aluminium roof lightly.
“Good girl,” he said. “Got to love a solid bit of German engineering.”
Still, he’d need a change of wheels sooner rather than later. There was no satellite tracking device in the vehicle but he was unsure as to the capabilities of his pursuers. For all he knew, they could tap into the police camera network, or even the Road Traffic Authority’s automatic street-toll payment system.
“Paranoid, much?” Blake whispered as he opened the boot once more and fumbled through his holdall.
He removed a complete change of clothes and the tiny jerry can of spare fuel he kept for emergencies.
Moving back into the darkness he stripped off everything he wore, including his socks and underpants. He put the clothes he took off in a pile at the side of the alley as he donned each new article. He didn’t believe he had a tracking device about his person but an old adage from his first boss at Rubicon came into his mind as he upended the fuel can over his old outfit.
“You can say one thing about paranoid people in this line of work,” he said, slipping a fresh pair of shoes on. “They tend to live longer.”
Blake flicked a match at the pile and watched it go up in flames.
“Good bye old life.”
The petrol-fuelled fire burned quickly, the orange blaze soon becoming too hot to stand near.
“Sod it. I wasn’t enjoying working here much anyway.”
Blake got back in the Audi and started her up.
31
Asp slammed the front gate to his home sourly.
Hours of research and he had nothing to show for it. He still couldn’t place a finger on what his men were trailing that might have led to their deaths. He crossed the garden path, scuffing his leather shoes against the stones until halfway across, the security light flicked on, illuminating the garden.
The front double door of his home was swung wide.
“Why the hell are you open?” he asked aloud.
He jogged the last few metres and peered inside.
Flipping the switch, he saw the obvious signs of a struggle – a great fight spread across every downstairs room of the house. Broken vases, overturned tables, fallen picture frames.
Pools of blood.
“Jesus,” he gasped.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled Mehr Zain.
It rang.
That was a start, at least his phone was still on. Perhaps the burly Egyptian had fought off the attackers.
“Mr Aspinal,” a mechanical voice answered.
“Hello?” Asp replied. “Where the hell are Zain and my family?”
“For the moment, they are safe,” the voice replied. “How long they remain that way, depends on you. You are interfering in events that are not your concern. That cannot be tolerated. You know what we want. You must bring the package to us. Instructions will be sent shortly. Do not involve the police. Do not involve the authorities. Sit and wait. We will contact you.”
“I want...” Asp began.
The phone went silent.
Asp swore a long trail of expletives. His head began to spin as he looked at the debris.
“Oh my god,” he muttered, leaning against the wall for support. “My Ginny, my Pepper, my Alex...”
He looked at his phone.
“No police and no authorities.”
He scrolled furiously through his contacts. In years of nefarious work in corporate espionage there had to be someone he knew in the Middle East who could help...
Asp stopped filing past the names.
“Ron Casabian,” he said. “Of course.”
***
Blake walked calmly from the shadows of the car park towards the security doors at the front of Alice’s marina apartment complex. A couple leaving the elevator opened the card-enabled entrance just as he reached it. He walked with his head held high, the flight bag clutched firmly in his right hand, talking into his phone in his left.
“Yeah, yeah – look, tell them to just sell it. It’ll be fine,” he said loudly into the mobile.
He nodded politely to the couple as they held the door for him and proceeded swiftly past, still talking loudly as he gave a perfunctory blink to the man at the desk. The guard gave a polite greeting back.
Once past the desk, Blake stopped. He took five paces back, drawing level with the security man once again. He didn’t acknowledge the guard this time and proceeded to run his eyes over the last few groups to sign in to the building.
He saw what he wanted,
two hours previously. A “Mr Clipshaw” had entered the building escorting a party of five. The writer had tried to disguise their usual writing style and had used a false name.
“Duncan,” Blake thought, recognising the obvious similarities with his colleague’s calligraphy. “Such a twat.”
“Can I help you, sir?” the security man asked helpfully.
“Excuse me just one moment,” Blake said into his phone. “Yes, I know – I’m very sorry for the interruption.”
He gave the guard a withering look.
“Can’t you see I’m on the phone? This is an important business call.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the security man said deferentially, his hand tugging on the brim of his peaked cap as he said it.
Blake went to leave but turned back to face the guard once again at the last moment. He pointed a finger and spoke forcefully.
“The group of six that went to see Miss Alice; how many have left so far?”
The guard felt on the spot.
“Er... Two sir. First the tall American went, then one of the local men.”
“So, one local man is still here?” Blake asked.
“Yes sir. And three others,” the guard said.
32
On the twentieth floor, there was an air of nervous apprehension.
The Somali watching the lift door firmly gripped a farmer’s shotgun between his sweaty fingers. His cousin was behind the sofa in the room. Their friend was in the stairwell, following Mr Oassan’s instructions to the letter.
The man’s name was Lameck. He and his cousin had lived in a shanty-town outside Bosaso, in Puntland, in what had once been part of northern Somalia. They had moved there, like many others, for work. It was the fastest growing city in the country. They were optimistic when they left their village and made the long journey, part walking, part by bus, to get jobs and grow rich.
They started out trying to work as fishermen. Foreigners labelled all Somalis as smugglers and pirates, yet they knew the opposite was true. Bitter years of civil war left the country unable to protect her coastal waters and valuable fisheries – the best in all of Africa – so they were plundered by raiders from abroad, dragging trawler nets that ripped the sea bare.
After two years of failing to make ends meet, he and his cousin tried other jobs – he trained to be an electrician. But you only got work if you paid for it. Corruption was endemic. It was no way to make a living.
When the oil men came, Lameck thought that might make the difference. Instead, he found himself talking to the great Aarez. The man understood him, recognized his plight, knew what he wanted. Aarez realized that life was hard and the path to the future was to make it easier.
Lameck convinced his cousin Yousef and together with a friend, Moein, they signed up to join the revolution Aarez promised. The wealth of the land should be claimed by the people!
Now, as he stood, doing the bidding of the man to whom he’d sworn his loyalty, Lameck was less sure this path would lead to riches. He could smell the metal of the gun as it shifted in the sweat of his palms.
“Oassan, the lift is coming again,” he called out loudly.
Lameck watched the numbers tick down slowly. Oassan was a powerful man and he frightened them all. Lameck had seen Oassan do terrible things and, at first, he had believed the calming words of Aarez that all those who stood in the way to wealth for the people had to be removed. But lately…
The lift continued climbing.
Floor nine. Floor ten. Floor eleven.
Lameck’s thoughts halted as the lift rose. It was as Oassan had predicted. He laid out four plans. If the lift went to the roof, Lameck would call out and they would prepare to be attacked from the windows. Moein would aim his pistol at the glass and shoot the intruder.
Floor twelve. Floor thirteen. Floor fourteen.
If the lift went to the twenty-first floor, Moein would have to be ready but so would Yousef on the stairwell with his own pistol.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
If it went to the nineteenth, that would be entirely down to Yousef on the stairs and Lameck would turn to guard the stairwell door.
Eighteen.
And if it came to the twentieth... Lameck raised his shotgun ready.
Nineteen.
Oassan said there four possibilities and only four, if the man was coming to claim the body of the girl. Oassan might be frightening but he was never wrong.
Lameck watched the numbers.
Twenty.
Ping.
The elevator doors rumbled and shuddered.
Lameck breathed fast and shallow. His finger twitched. The doors began to open.
“It’s twenty! He’s here! He’s here!”
He pulled the trigger.
The boom deafened him. Lead shot sprayed forth. He didn’t hear the sound of metal rain as the cone of death spattered off walls, steel doors, and the back of the lift. The rifle rose under the recoil. The elevator opened wider. He pulled the trigger again.
Another blast.
The lift opened fully.
It was empty.
The back wall was now pitted and grooved with buckshot.
Lameck frowned. Where was the man? He stepped forward as he opened the breach of the gun and removed the two spent casings.
“Did you get him?” Yousef called from the stairwell. “Is he dead?”
Lameck looked around the lift in disbelief.
There was a spatter of bullets. The lift lights went out. Lameck had time to look up and see a series of holes open up in the ceiling.
He didn’t answer his cousin.
***
Moein watched through the open door of Alice’s flat from behind the settee.
He saw the lift lights go dark and Lameck stumble backwards into the hallway, before he collapsed onto the ground. Moein’s eyes widened. Yousef ran in from the stairwell and, on seeing his cousin on the ground in a pool of widening blood, he pointed his pistol at the ceiling of the elevator.
Yousef turned his face away and let off three rounds. There was a scraping noise as the lift doors tried to close, hit Lameck’s legs, and opened wide again. Lameck was still shuddering, like a fish pulled from a stream and dropped onto the river’s bank.
Yousef turned back to face the roof of the lift. More scraping. But this wasn’t the lift doors trying to close. Moein watched Yousef release five more shots into the ceiling.
Nothing.
Yousef stepped back and looked at Moein.
Moein shrugged.
Another hail of bullets.
The stairwell door splintered. Holes appeared in neat rows across it.
Yousef jiggered, the strangest dance. He fell against the wall. More bullets. He slid to the floor, slumped over Lameck.
Moein began to pray. He raised his pistol and pointed it at the stairwell door. Next to him was an open mobile set to speaker phone.
Before he could turn to it and ask for instructions from Oassan, the lights went out on the entire floor. Moein’s whispered prayers grew louder. He fired his pistol at the door.
Once, twice, three times.
Then the door slammed shut.
“Oh God be merciful,” he thought. “The devil himself is in here with me.”
***
Down on the street Oassan was listening on his phone to the pandemonium in the apartment. He smiled every time he heard another hail of gun fire.
“Oh this one is good,” he said.
The lights on the twentieth floor of the apartment block went dark. Oassan raised his eyebrows in surprise. When he heard the final burst of gunfire he laughed even louder.
“Brilliant!” he clapped his hands. “Just wonderful!”
He turned and walked brazenly along the small side street beside the apartment, looking at the cars. He saw the one he was after: a slightly battered Audi with a garish gouge down the side.
Each of the windows was wound down by an inch. On the back seat was a cat in a carryin
g case.
“Excellent,” he said.
He reached into his pocket and removed a receiver the size of a deck of cards. He pulled out the aerial with his teeth.
“Now we have your car, I believe we probably don’t need you, Mr Helliker.”
He pressed the button.
The twentieth floor of Flamenco Towers Apartment Block C exploded in a brilliant fireball.
“And that’s how you burn down a marina tower block,” Oassan chuckled, wiping a tear of laughter from his eyes.
He pulled a small strip of metal from a blue rucksack he had slung over his shoulder and began to jimmy the Audi doors open. The lock clicked and he was in.
There was a frantic meowing from the backseat.
“Well, good evening,” he said. “You must be Boxcat. Oh, I’m going to have some fun with you.”
Oassan lifted his head up to observe his handiwork as he sat back in the driver’s seat. Billowing balls of ambers, golds and reds curled higher from the middle of the building.
“London’s burning, London’s burning” he began to whistle as he started hotwiring the Audi.
33
A few minutes earlier Blake had moved silently down the stairs from the twenty-first floor, hugging the wall as he moved.
The two diagonal lines of bullet holes ran through the door to the twentieth floor, all of them sourced from his P90. He knew from the sounds on the other side that he’d hit at least two of the men guarding the flat. That left at least one henchman and, possibly, one of the higher ups in the organisation – either Aarez or his lieutenant.
Blake reached the flat concourse.
There was a four inch gap between the jamb and the fire-proof door. On the floor he saw the bodies of both men he’d shot. One lay dead, slumped on top of the other. The second, lower, man was still twitching.
His skin was pale. He was clearly in shock. Blake had aimed low when shooting through the ceiling of the lift. He’d hoped to catch at least one of the men in the legs so that he could leave them alive.
He’d then climbed to the next floor up and pried the lift doors open, planning to take the stairs back down to the right floor and catch the defenders from behind.
Nudging the fire door slightly wider, he was able to see that he’d misjudged his aim and caught the Somali higher than he’d intended, in the belly.