Shadow of the Burj

by J Jackson Bentley

  The building is empty, except for the three of you and my two personal security men, Ashouk and Nasr. One of them will be on duty on the ground floor at all times. The gymnasium was fitted out to attract buyers, and that is located on the first floor beside the outdoor swimming pool. The pool will be filled very soon, because it seems that empty pools deteriorate more quickly and so the owners thought it a worthwhile investment to have the pool in use. The only access to the building is from the secure basement car park, which has one hundred parking spaces and whose entrance gate can only be opened with a smart card.

  The same smart card operates the lift from the garage, which travels only as far as the ground floor. When you arrive or depart you will always have to pass the security guard in the lobby. Only one lift is connected, and the software has been programmed to permit it to stop only at the ground floor, first floor, the sixth floor and the top floor.

  The building is registered as being empty and being prepared for sale. No-one knows, or is to know, that you are living or operating from here, for reasons I will explain later. Finally, there are five vehicles in the garage for your exclusive use. The first is a Range Rover with darkened sunscreen windows. There are two Toyota Camrys - one grey, one white. You also have the use of a Porsche 911 Turbo and a Mercedes E Class saloon.

  The Camrys will be very anonymous here in Dubai. The Range Rover is very private and can, of course, be used on rough terrain, and the Porsche and Mercedes will be useful for accessing clubs, hotels and other smart establishments where the Toyotas would be frowned upon.

  You will see that I have gone to great lengths to keep our small team off the grid; only one other person knows of our premises and objectives, and he will be here shortly. In the meantime let me introduce each of you in turn.

  Miss Jamie is a Special Agent with US Homeland Security. Miss Johnson has been seconded to the Dubai Piracy Taskforce, which is dealing with the Joint Middle East, European and US Somali piracy initiative. She will not be joining them just yet.

  Mr Todd Michaelson is a former Special Forces operative who worked for the AFP undercover in Australia to bring down a drugs cartel, and he has graciously offered to assist me whilst he awaits the call to return to Australia.

  Mr Max Richmond is a talented investigative journalist, whose undercover work has led to many exclusive newspaper stories around the globe and the exposure of many criminal conspiracies.”

  The lift bell rang again and the doors opened to reveal a young man in full Arab attire. As he walked towards the gathered group he nodded to each of those present.

  Todd recognised the handsome young man whose portrait adorned many public buildings and highways in the Emirate. The new arrival was Crown Prince Arbaaz bin Al Salfah, who was widely regarded as an up and coming young racing driver destined for Formula 1, after two dramatic victories in races at the Yas Island Circuit an hour away in Abu Dhabi.

  “Mooshi!” the Sheikh cried as he stood to greet the young crown prince. The young man responded, “My favourite uncle.” They embraced, each offering the other their cheeks. “I was your only uncle the last time I heard from your mother.”

  “That is so, Uncle, but the man who has one camel is just as entitled to have a favourite as the man who has a thousand.” The younger man bowed in a mock salute to age, and they both laughed.

  “This slippery tongued young man is my nephew, His Highness Crown Prince Arbaaz bin Al Salfah. His mother is my sister, and his father is like a brother to me.”

  The Crown Prince and the Sheikh sat down. The Sheikh introduced everyone and then spoke directly to the three foreigners.

  “You may or may not know that in our Government I have direct responsibility for the police, all branches including our security forces. But we all answer to someone as well as Allah, and I answer to the Crown Prince and his father. I will let him explain why we have gathered this select and uniquely talented group together.”

  The Prince nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Thank you, Uncle. He may report to me but I defer to him. Long before I was born, before we even became a Nation under the revered Sheikh Zayed, the British governed the region with the Trucial Oman Scouts, a paramilitary police force. In 1971 these forces were turned over to the Emirates Government as our police force. We now have our own Emirate police academies for men and women, but many of our older officers were trained at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England and at West Point in the USA. My Uncle was the first leader of the police force to have graduated from Sandhurst and to have attended Hendon Police College near London.

  We are proud of our police force and we have the greatest trust in them, but they have recently been accused internally and externally of being corrupt. This is not true; at least, it is not true of the institution. We all understand that an individual may deviate from his duty to the Emir, his country and his God, but we believe that is a rarity.

  In the last twenty four hours we had cause to check our email and telephone logs to see if any of our personnel had passed on confidential information about an individual under our protection.”

  The Prince looked directly at Todd Michaelson and the two other guests turned to see their Australian counterpart shrugging his shoulders.

  “We have identified that one of our operatives, not an Emirati, had betrayed us. He is now in custody and he will tell us everything we need to know, of that I most certain. However, our purpose here,” the Prince gestured to include his uncle, “is to address a much greater threat. A threat that has the potential to unsettle the Middle East, and to flood the West with suicide bombers; failure is not an option.”

  The three Westerners in the room began to listen more closely as the Crown Prince outlined the problem.

  Chapter 6

  Media City, Dubai:

  12th February; 1pm.

  The gathering sank back into their well upholstered chairs at the behest of the Crown Prince. The young leader took the seat at the head of the table and folded his hands, resting them on the table in front of him. Meeting each of the ex-pats’ eyes in turn, he spoke quietly but confidently.

  “You are all aware of the assassination of a leading Hamas activist just a few miles away from where we now sit. Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, or someone impersonating Mossad, executed the Hamas man in his hotel room. Unfortunately for them, they chose to send too many sloppy operatives into Dubai, and all were duly identified by surveillance cameras. Why they needed over a dozen operatives to kill one unarmed Arab, we will never know. But in so doing they breached a covenant we have had in place for some time; that is, not to operate covertly on our sovereign soil.

  We have been told, off the record, that the Israelis are worried about the growing threat of terrorism that is being funded by wealthy oil producing nations. They understand that we have the strictest possible money laundering provisions to avoid terror funds passing through Dubai, but everyone accepts that we cannot intercept it all.”

  The Prince opened a thin file and produced a spreadsheet, which he passed to Jamie to share with Max, who was sitting beside her. A second copy was passed to the Sheikh and Todd, who sat opposite Jamie and Max. He directed them to the first column.

  “It is little publicised but, since the terror attacks on New York, we have been working closely with the West to intercept terror funds. Column one shows the years since 2001 and in each corresponding cell on the spreadsheet you will see how successful we have been.”

  The gathered group were taken aback by the amounts of money that had been confiscated.

  “The next column shows funds from crime in the UAE, funds that we believe were destined for the use of terrorists.” He paused for them to take in the figures. “And in the final column you will see the value of contraband confiscated by us, the sale of which may also have been used to fund terrorist insurgents. Add to this the illicit arms which have been found in our container ports and destroyed, and together you will see that, were it not for our efforts, ov
er a hundred million dollars of assistance would have now been in the hands of extremists.”

  A contemplative silence settled on everyone in the room whilst they tried to work out what that meant in terms of weapons, armaments and the training of insurgents.

  “If you have absorbed that data, please turn over the spreadsheet and look at the reverse of the sheet,” the Sheikh instructed them. Printed on the back of the sheet was an article dated just a week earlier, which had been scanned from the Gulf Times. The article praised a policeman who had intercepted two car transporters, each carrying nine cars, which were trying to cross the border with uncertified vehicles on board.

  The Prince continued by offering some background to the story.

  “There was, thanks be to Allah, a good deal of favourable fortune in this apprehension of the cars. The fact is that the transporters had all of the necessary papers and they appeared to be perfectly in order. Had it not been for a bout of food poisoning amongst the border guards, these cars would have gone on their way unimpeded. But, as we were short of border guards, we sent out a team of policeman to supplement the border guards for a day or two, and one of the policemen we sent recognised the driver of the first transporter as a wanted criminal. Working on the premise that honest companies do not employ criminals to transport their cars, the policemen did a thorough check and compared the vehicle identification numbers with the papers. Finding all to be in order, they were about to allow the reserve driver to pass through the checkpoint. However, one sharp eyed policeman noticed that a black Range Rover Vogue had a bar code on the windscreen just above the VIN observation window, and the bar code had the letters ECOV next to it. Whilst this is not widely publicised, and so you need to keep this information in this room, ECOV is an acronym for Emirates Council Official Vehicle, and these bar codes are issued to members of the ruling families only.

  Correctly assuming that a member of the Royal Family would not be reselling their car outside the country, the police held all vehicles, the men accompanying the cars and their transporter trucks.

  Within an hour of the arrests, the story began to unfold. The Range Rover belonged to the wife of a Sheikh, who left it in the short stay terminal at the airport for her domestic staff to retrieve. When they forgot all about it, the car was believed to have been abandoned, and was impounded three days later with many others.”

  The young man looked at each of the three visitors individually before embarking on an aside which would place his concerns in context.

  “As you may have heard, since 2009 many foreigners living in Dubai have decided to try to elude their creditors by fleeing the Emirates and abandoning their cars at the airport. In the first few months of this plague we recovered over five thousand cars, many with house keys, credit cards and other documents. Usually they had a note that said they were sorry, but they could not stay and face prosecution for bankruptcy, as if we had the inclination or ability to prosecute and jail every debtor.”

  The Crown Prince paused to accentuate the seriousness of his next statement.

  “The real problem is this; every one of the cars intercepted was supposed to be in a secure compound in the grounds of the police academy. Worse still, every one of the cars intercepted had legitimate export papers issued by the department for motor vehicles, which should not have been possible, as legally they were still the property of their fleeing owners.”

  Todd jumped in with a rhetorical question as the Crown Prince paused.

  “So, your Highness, to an outsider it looks as though at least one civil servant in the Traffic Department has been dishonest. So am I right in thinking that now you’re worried about how twenty cars can be absent from the Police Academy compound without someone at the Academy knowing about it?” The Crown Prince nodded. “Do we take it, then, that you’ve investigated?” Todd finished.

  Sheikh Mahmoud raised his left hand, palm out in the traditional Arab way as a sign that he would answer the question.

  “We have two civil servants in custody; a supervisor and a vehicle licensing clerk. Each one is blaming the other, but what we know is this. The supervisor and the clerk were approached separately by a man we know well. He is known locally, and wrongly, as Mullah Khaweini. His history is tortured and unusual. He was born Trevor George Baker to a French Algerian Muslim mother and an English father in 1962. He had a strange upbringing in the East End of London and was languishing in prison for grievous bodily harm when he took an interest in religion. He converted to Islam in prison, and by the time he was released on parole in 1997 he was widely regarded as scholarly in the Quran, hence the term Mullah. The British tried to imprison him again when he made some very unscholarly remarks about what British Muslims should do to serving soldiers, but he escaped punishment and was sponsored by benefactors to take charge of a congregation in Oman, then Qatar and now here in Dubai. It is a widely held belief in the West that he is a major fund raiser for Al Qaeda.

  So, you see, we are concerned about his possible involvement. His ability to threaten and to persuade using false doctrine is a worry to us. We do not need to have our own people radicalised.

  Acting on his instructions for the last year, the two men arrested have re-issued the ownership documents for many vehicles, in each case charging the appropriate fee and effectively laundering stolen cars. We have stopped the further issue of documents, but we now believe that over eight hundred and fifty cars are missing from the various compounds holding the abandoned vehicles.”

  “I’m rather puzzled, I have to say,” Max interjected. “I mean, why is it that, when faced with five thousand cars, all nearly new, usually top end cars like Porsche, BMW, Lexus and Range Rover, you’re letting them gather dust in compounds? Why not sell them on?”

  “I was about to ask the same question,” Jamie added.

  The Sheikh steepled his fingers under his bearded chin before answering.

  “There are many reasons, but these are the two main reasons. Firstly, the cars are still owned by those who have fled the country. The banks want the money; they do not want the cars. Secondly, if we placed five thousand cars on the market in Dubai at discounted rates we would kill the new car market for a year or more.”

  “And as the largest car dealer in Dubai is married into the ruling family....” Todd added, to stir things up a little.

  The Sheikh waved his right hand back and forth in a fanning motion, dismissing the last comment, but a fleeting smile crossed the lips of the Crown Prince. “Whatever the real reasons, we know this - we have misplaced almost nine hundred cars, with a combined market value of around two and a half million US dollars. We have to assume that the money has helped to fund the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps even prospective terror attacks in Europe and the United States. It is in all of our interests to stop this trafficking right now.”

  Everyone in the room agreed silently, with nods of their heads by the Westerners and with hand gestures in the case of the Crown Prince.

  Chapter 7

  Police Academy, Al Barsha, Dubai:

  13th February; 9am

  The cars which had gone missing from the abandoned cars inventory had one thing in common - all had been stored in the secure grounds of the Al Barsha Police Academy. Ostensibly there were two ways in and out of the academy grounds. Both vehicular exits were controlled by serving policemen, who were trusted and reliable, according to the Sheikh.

  Max and Todd were standing at the Umm Suqeim Road entrance, waiting for their credentials to be checked. The two men were in the Range Rover, having travelled the short distance from their apartments, which were also in Al Barsha.

  Todd had driven, as he was familiar with the vagaries of the Dubai road network. Max was admiring the Mall of the Emirates, with its dramatic dome and two exclusive hotels, one at either end of the mall, when Todd pointed out the Police Academy on the other side of the road. Max wondered why they continued driving for another two miles and did two U-turns before they arrived at
the Academy, which had been just two hundred yards away as they passed the Mall. Todd explained that Max would need to get used to the fact that in Dubai the quickest way between two points was rarely a straight line. Max bowed to Todd’s superior knowledge.

  The Police Academy was bounded on three sides by main roads and had exits onto two of them. The third road was Sheikh Zayed Road, the main road through Dubai. There was no access to SZR from the Academy, because a giant advertising hoarding ran the length of the wire mesh boundary fence. The advertising hoarding was supported at the rear by a complex system of scaffolding.

  An unsmiling policeman ushered the two visitors into a parking space beyond the barrier, where a uniformed policewoman was waiting to take them to see the commander.

  The Commander was genuinely embarrassed by the loss of so many vehicles from his secure compound, and he was anxious to help the ‘Logistical and Security Consultants’ who presented business cards bearing the name of one of the world’s largest accounting firms. The cards were impressive but the letter from the Sheikh was persuasive.

  The commander sat patiently as one policeman after another came into the small conference room and explained how the system worked. Max made notes in shorthand, impressing Todd and the Commander. When the Commander took a break to make some calls, Max and Todd sat in the spartan room, chilled by two noisy Hitachi air conditioning units, reviewing the seemingly impressive procedures. Max summarised his shorthand notes for Todd.