Payback (40 page)

When he had rung Hussein to pass on Richter’s message, he had learned that they were currently at the Burj Al-Arab. But when he warned that the Americans could be trying to plant a bomb,
Hussein hadn’t responded. Then Watkinson had heard a dull thud followed by loud shouting, followed by at least two gunshots.

He’d waited for Hussein to continue speaking, hoping that his warning had been in time, but slowly realization began to dawn. He held the phone close to his ear, straining to hear anything
further, but all he could detect were mumbles of conversation, too indistinct to make out. Then somebody closed Hussein’s mobile, ending the call, and there was only silence.

Watkinson stared at the handset for a few moments, then phoned Richter.

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai

When the taxi arrived, Richter told the driver to wait. The sightseeing trip they had planned obviously wasn’t going to happen, but having a car at their disposal
seemed a good idea. The vehicle was sitting outside the hotel, engine running, while Richter waited for a phone call to confirm his suspicions.

The moment his mobile rang, Richter snatched it. ‘Michael?’

‘Wrong – it’s Simpson. I’ve got a couple of answers for you. In the same order as you asked the questions, they are “no” and “yes –
Cairo”.’

‘Right,’ Richter replied. ‘No and yes. Thanks for that. It looks like we’ve got major problems at this end.’

‘Anything we can do to help?’

‘I don’t think so at the moment. I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on.’

Carole-Anne Jackson looked at him questioningly. ‘And “no” and “yes” mean what, exactly?’

‘It means you were right. Simpson contacted Langley with two questions. I asked if the CIA employed more than one man named Grant Hutchings – the answer was no – and if the CIA
team’s Gulfstream diverted to Egypt. It did, to Cairo, so I think it’s fairly clear what happened.’

For a moment Jackson was silent, then she looked at Richter. ‘If I were a terrorist,’ she said slowly, ‘I’d be trying to hit a building that was unmistakably a symbol of
Dubai. I’ll bet they’re targeting the Burj Al-Arab.’

‘Makes sense,’ Richter agreed. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

As their taxi pulled away, heading towards Al-Jumeirah Road, Richter’s mobile rang again. This time it
was
Watkinson.

‘They’re at the Burj Al-Arab,’ he announced, his voice angry. ‘I passed Hussein your message, but I think the bad guys got the drop on him.’

‘Shit,’ Richter said. ‘That’s what I was afraid of. Thanks, Michael. We’re on our way out there right now. You’d better brief the consul and get him moving. I
know this may look like the beginning of something, but actually I think it’s the end of a long, clever and very carefully planned operation.’

‘What do you think these bastards want?’

‘My guess,’ Richter replied, ‘is money. Lots and lots and lots of money. This is going to make the Great Train Robbery look like a couple of kids knocking over the sweet shop
on the corner.’

Monday
Burj Al-Arab Hotel, Dubai

The Americans were busy. Wilson and Dawson were running through the operations to get the nuclear weapon ready. Petrucci was preparing a charge of plastic explosive, taken from
one of the cases which had been wrapped, Hussein noticed with sick realization, in exactly the way Wilson had described minutes earlier. O’Hagan was checking the entire suite to ensure there
were no other entrances they hadn’t secured.

Hussein was lashed to an upright chair, on the suite’s upper level, watching the four Americans with shocked and helpless disbelief. He’d seen the ID carried by Hutchings when
they’d arrived in Dubai aboard an aircraft the CIA had told him to expect, yet they had to be impostors. There must have been a substitution, somehow and somewhere.

Not that there was anything he could do about it, because he could barely move. His hands and feet were already numb, but even if by some miracle he managed to free himself, there was no way he
could overpower four armed men. They would kill him instantly, the same way they’d shot down his men outside.

The man Hussein had known as ‘Roger Middleton’ – Alex O’Hagan – stepped across and stood in front of him.

‘Inspector Hussein, let me explain a few things to you. That device over there is a tactical nuclear weapon. It has a yield of about one kiloton, meaning one thousand tons of TNT, and
we’ll detonate it, right here in this suite, unless your government agrees to our demands. If that happens, this hotel will cease to exist. The Jumeirah Beach Hotel and many other nearby
buildings will also be destroyed or badly damaged. I don’t know the exact blast radius, but I can assure you the explosion will be devastating. Dubai will be finished as a financial centre,
wiped out as a tourist attraction, and contaminated by radiation for years to come. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Hussein nodded dumbly. He understood only too well the relative fragility of Dubai, a small strip of desert relying on tourism and high levels of outside investment. The moment confidence in the
place was lost, the smart money would leave. All of the country’s most ambitious projects would fail, leaving Dubai in the doldrums.

‘Now,’ O’Hagan continued, ‘our demands are simple enough. We don’t personally care whether anyone knows what’s happening or not, but we’re quite sure
your government will want to keep this incident as secret as possible. So no police cars, no fire appliances, no helicopters. Do you understand?’

Again Hussein nodded.

‘Make sure you do, because in a few minutes you’ll be relaying everything we’ve said to the most senior police officer you know. We’ll provide you with the serial number
of the nuclear weapon, together with details of the location from which it was obtained. That will allow your security people to verify that the weapon is exactly what we say it is.

‘You’ll make it clear to them that we aren’t suicide bombers, but we’ve all risked our lives to get this far, and if we’re captured we can expect execution, so
we’re quite prepared to end this operation here. That means if we’re attacked, we’ll explode the device.

‘We’ll be setting this weapon to detonate on a four-hour timer. Then we’ll leave here by car – one of those Rolls-Royces outside will do – and drive to the airport
where our Gulfstream jet will be fully fuelled and ready to go. Only when we’re clear of your airspace will we transmit the abort code enabling you to deactivate the weapon. If any attempt is
made to intercept us on the way to the airport, or if our aircraft is targeted either before or after it gets airborne, we won’t transmit the code, and the weapon will explode. Is that
absolutely clear?’

Hussein couldn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded again. This was, he knew, all his fault and, whatever happened in the immediate future, his head was almost certainly going to
roll. If only he’d taken the time to check the Americans’ identity documents properly when they arrived . . . He forced his mind back to the present.

‘The last thing we want is fairly predictable. We need a payment of three billion American dollars in the form of easily negotiable and untraceable assets. Gold, silver and platinum
bullion, and diamonds would do, plus cash in American dollars, Euros, pounds Sterling and Japanese yen only, bearer bonds and other financial instruments. Because of the aircraft’s weight
limitations, we’ll accept no more than five per cent as bullion, and another five per cent as cash.’

He paused to ensure what he was saying was being understood by the bemused-looking police officer. When Hussein nodded, O’Hagan continued.

‘This sum must be delivered to our aircraft within twenty-four hours – that’s by twelve noon tomorrow. We’ll leave the Burj Al-Arab when we’ve received confirmation
from our associates that the total sum is on the plane. We have scanners on board that can detect forged banknotes, and assay equipment to check the bullion. For every attempt to provide forged
currency or any kind of counterfeit asset, the sum demanded will increase by one hundred million dollars. If the ransom isn’t delivered by the deadline, a penalty of one hundred million
dollars will be added for every hour that it’s delayed. OK, is there anything you don’t understand?’

‘No,’ Hussein replied, finally finding his voice.

‘Now we want you to explain everything I’ve told you to a senior police officer. And please don’t say anything stupid,’ he added.

‘And I’ll know if you do,’ Petrucci warned him from across the room, in fluent Arabic, and Hussein realized then that he had no options left.

Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai

Richter told the taxi driver to stop, and he and Jackson climbed out of the vehicle. For a few moments they stood looking at the huge offshore hotel.

‘It’s big, all right,’ Jackson remarked.

‘You’ve seen it before, obviously.’

‘A couple of times, but I’ve never actually been inside. So what the hell do we do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Richter admitted. ‘It all looks peaceful enough over there, but if Watkinson’s right, that’s deceptive.’

‘You’re sure this is extortion?’

‘Yes. If it was a terrorist attack, they’d just have positioned the bomb somewhere and triggered it. And the perpetrators don’t fit the profile. They’re American, for
starters, highly prepared and well organized, and this operation has been planned for a long time. Just finding out where those suitcase nukes were stored must have taken them months. I mean, the
West only heard about the weapons a few years ago, and until now the Russians have never officially admitted they even existed. Then they had to work out some way of getting themselves into the CIS
and stealing one. If they’d just intended to blow up something, they could have fabricated an IED in a couple of days. And why choose Dubai? It’s not exactly a hotbed of Muslim
extremism. It’s a tolerant and cosmopolitan city that welcomes all races and religions. But Dubai has one thing that probably attracted them more than anything else.’

‘Money,’ Jackson said.

Richter nodded. ‘Exactly. The city is enormously wealthy, and I’m certain that this is all about money. Let’s get out of this heat. I’ll buy you a drink.’

They were sitting in one of the lounges offering a view of the Burj Al-Arab when Watkinson called.

‘They’ve made contact,’ he said, ‘and we need to talk. Where are you?’

‘The Jumeirah Beach Hotel. And you?’

‘I’m in a car heading out of Dubai City, so I should be with you in about ten minutes.’

A quarter of an hour later Watkinson sat down and joined them. He took a sip of iced orange juice and put the glass down on the table. ‘You were right,’ he said, keeping his voice
low. ‘It
is
extortion, but in a whole new league. The Americans are using Inspector Hussein as their mouthpiece. They’re holed up in one of the Royal Suites in the Burj Al-Arab
with a tactical-yield nuclear weapon, and they’re going to detonate it unless the Dubai government gives them three billion dollars within the next twenty-four hours.’

Burj Al-Arab Hotel, Dubai

The Americans were happy with the way things were going so far. Hussein had relayed all their demands to his chief superintendent at the Old Fort, who – after a
brief period of flat disbelief that ended when he checked the situation with a near-hysterical Salim Barzani on a second line – had agreed to tell the Dubai government.

O’Hagan had ordered a two-watch system, with himself and Petrucci taking the first shift while Wilson and Dawson slept. At six that evening, they would change over, and again at midnight.
Nothing was likely to happen before mid-morning the following day, but they hadn’t come this far to fall at the last hurdle. They’d be better prepared to handle any eventuality if at
least two of them were fully rested.

Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai

Richter took a thoughtful sip of his Coke. ‘Apart from the money, that’s more or less what I expected. The Gulfstream carrying the CIA agents diverted to Cairo
with a technical fault. That was where the air ambulance carrying the stolen Russian nuclear weapon landed, and so two plus two was pretty much bound to equal four. How do you think the Dubai
government will react, Michael?’

‘I’m not sure, to be honest. Nothing like this has ever arisen before, but my guess is they’ll agree because the alternative is too horrific to contemplate. The sum demanded
may be enormous, but it’s probably less than the Burj Al-Arab alone would cost to rebuild. And by Dubai’s standards it’s pretty much small change. The Burj Dubai development alone
will cost about six billion dollars before it’s finished, and recent building projects around the city amount to three hundred billion. When you contrast the ransom demand with the long-term
consequences for Dubai as a whole if they detonate the weapon, it’s utterly insignificant.’

‘So they’ll just roll over and play dead?’ Jackson demanded.

‘If you want to put it like that, yes,’ Watkinson said, ‘and I don’t blame them, either. There’s no sign that these four men are bluffing. They supplied details of
the nuclear weapon, and about half an hour ago Vauxhall Cross has confirmed that the serial number checks out. They’ve already killed two police officers in the Burj Al-Arab
who—’

‘They’ve killed a lot more than that,’ Richter interrupted. ‘I’ve only just made the connection. I was wrong about Holden’s premonitions diverting attention
away from Nad Al-Sheba. He was nothing to do with those Arabs – it was much simpler than that. All those people in Syria and Bahrain died for one reason only – so that a team of alleged
CIA officers could get a suitcase into a high-security hotel without anyone stopping them to see what was inside it. The last thing anyone would think of checking would be a case carried by CIA
agents who were in the UAE at the request of the government, and even escorted by Dubai police officers. Hell, the Burj Al-Arab’s own staff probably carried the weapon into the hotel for
them! It was a brilliant scheme.’

‘And the reason they stole the nuke is obvious, too,’ Jackson observed. ‘They couldn’t hope to get enough conventional high explosive into the hotel to make their threat
viable. The worst-case scenario would have been the destruction of a couple of suites or maybe one whole floor, and the Dubai authorities might have been prepared to risk that level of damage. To
make it work they needed something powerful enough to destroy the whole building.’