Welcome to Dubai (The Traveler) (28 page)

“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.”

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 police 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.