Authors: Brad Taylor
He followed the kick with a left cross to her head. She raised her arms and took the blow harmlessly, but opened up her left side in the process. He shot a right hook to her kidney, causing a blinding pain to radiate beneath her rib cage. She felt him close his hands around the back of her neck, controlling her head, and knew she was in trouble. She threw her arms down low to ward off what was coming, but it had little effect.
Lucas speared his knee through her feeble attempts at protection, hitting her in the solar plexus and driving the air from her lungs. She threw jabs at a body she couldn’t see, connecting in one way or another, but doing little damage.
Maintaining control of her head, Lucas placed her back against the wall and drove his knee into her stomach two more times, the wall itself increasing the force of each blow. She screamed, the pain causing
her to double over. Lucas let go of her neck and she fell to the ground, gasping in a shallow pant in an attempt to draw in air.
She felt Lucas loop the lamp cord over her wrists and jerk it tight, her strength to resist gone.
“That little bit of work is going to cost you some foreplay,” he said.
J
eff McMasters pasted on an interested smile
and ignored the man droning on and on about all of the wonders of the Burj Khalifa.
Could you cram one more record in there? Tallest building, highest observation deck, longest elevator, highest swimming pool…My God, give it a rest.
He’d relinquished his ambassadorship in 2009, at the crest of Dubai’s heady days of expansion. Months later, the world financial crisis had left Dubai facing epic debts that threatened the very stability of the state. Its neighbor, the oil rich state of Abu Dhabi, had ridden to the rescue, providing an infusion of much-needed cash. The very building he was standing in highlighted Dubai’s meteoric rise and subsequent rapid descent: An architectural marvel unrivaled in the world, its name had been changed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa after the bailout, in deference to the ruling sheikh of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Following the tour guide around the eight-foot plastic scale model in the anteroom, he thought the rattling off of statistics and record-breaking feats sounded a little desperate, as if the tour guide was trying to convince him of the building’s greatness—and by extension Dubai’s worth.
McMasters let the voice fade into the background, the ever-present mission in Qatar creeping forward to his conscious mind. He was due
to arrive at the peace conference the following day, and the closer it got, the more he thought about what could go wrong.
He’d agreed to become the new Middle East envoy before they’d told him what that entailed, namely a covert action involving passing money to the Palestinian Authority. As an ambassador, he’d been privy to various covert actions conducted by the CIA, but none had involved his embassy, and he’d certainly never participated in one as a player. In truth, as a diplomat, he found the whole notion of covert action distasteful. Lying and sneaking around simply wasn’t in his makeup. Or so he had thought.
Now that he was a primary actor, he found it exciting. True, he was just the catalyst and not the agent who would actually transfer the money, but it was still a thrill. When first told of the mission, he had balked, asking how he was going to travel from country to country toting around a suitcase full of cash. He’d been told that the money would be coming separately, brought by two members of the CIA during the conference, and that it wouldn’t be dollar bills, but diamonds. Much smaller to haul around.
The actual transfer plan had been withheld from him, using sources and methods known only to the CIA. He’d toyed with the idea of demanding the information, since it would be his head on the chopping block if something went wrong. He knew it was simply because he wanted to satisfy his curiosity. Wanted to feel more a part of the mission.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the tour guide walking toward a long hallway, past an incongruous picture of Tom Cruise hanging on the outside of the Burj Khalifa for some movie.
He nodded at the aides with him and followed, finally reaching two double-decker elevators after several minutes. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid pointed at the one to the right, leaving the remainder of the straphangers to ride up in the elevator to the left.
* * *
The Ghost exited the elevator’s maintenance room on the 125th floor and saw two females dressed in Burj Khalifa uniforms scurrying down the hallway, animatedly talking. When they were abreast, he asked what the excitement was about.
“They’re here. His Highness is here with the American. They’ll be on top shortly.”
He thanked them and headed in the opposite direction, toward the service elevator. Four minutes later, he exited in the basement. He paused for a second, listening for anyone else working. Hearing nothing, he jogged to the radar brake array for the observation elevators.
He used a stepladder to place the WiFi repeater as high as possible into the left elevator shaft, giving it the greatest possible chance of hitting the network. He turned it on, watched the lights go from red to green, and returned to the bottom.
He placed a WiFi sniffer he’d purchased near the detonator. He smiled when he saw four out of six bars. He turned on the detonator, holding his breath. The light flashed red, then went to green. It was armed.
He moved to the right elevator shaft and powered its detonator. It flashed red, then began to blink red and green over and over again. He was unsure what that meant, but knew it wasn’t good. He placed the sniffer next to the detonator and saw he had no WiFi signal.
So much for the advertisement on the box about the repeater range.
The shaft itself was blocking the signal.
He held the sniffer at eye level and walked slowly toward the repeater, feeling the press of time. In three steps he had a single bar. Five more steps and it went to three bars. When he reached the wall between the two elevators he saw four bars.
Good enough to trigger.
He somehow needed to get the detonator to this wall.
He glanced around the room, looking for loose wire. He saw paint buckets, spare pieces of crown molding, and a tarp, but nothing remotely that he could use. Frustrated, he ran to the keypad for the door leading outside. It was encased in metal, with the wiring running up the wall inside a pipe.
No good.
He wondered where the entourage was located. If they were already on the observation deck. If they weren’t about to trigger the explosives, with him standing next to them.
To the left of the keypad was a speaker. Presumably an intercom that allowed communication to other maintenance personnel inside the building. It had no apparent wiring leading to it, meaning the wiring was behind the speaker and ran inside the wall. He found a flat piece of scrap metal and jammed it under the plate. He levered the speaker away from the wall, pulling out a mess of spaghetti.
Not wanting to shock himself, he identified the power line, then the wire used to transmit from the speaker. He separated the two, then gave a hard yank to the speaker wire, drawing out three feet. He began pulling hand over hand until he had no slack.
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.
K
nuckles 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.
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.