Shadow of the Burj

by J Jackson Bentley

  “The vehicles come in on a low loader. They carry two pieces of paper, one from the police at the airport, where the vehicles were abandoned, and one from the carrier. If the two sets of papers did not match, questions were asked, but they always did. This system ensures that officials log the cars abandoned and impounded as they are loaded, and that the same cars arrive safely at the Academy compound.” Max flipped a page in his notebook and continued.

  “When the cars arrive at the compound they are only allowed to enter through the Umm Suqeim gate. The cars are matched with the paperwork brought by the driver, and are cross checked with the same papers faxed by the airport police. Cars and registration plates, tags as they are called here, are registered in a book and assigned a block in the compound. The low loader unloads the cars in the assigned block and the keys are stored in a lock box supported by a steel pole in each sector.”

  Max paused to comment, “I don’t know how it would fall down yet, but I think that this might be the first weak link in the system.”

  “Go on,” his Australian colleague urged, by way of a request for Max’s analysis.

  “In the early days, the policemen themselves locked the keys in the lock boxes, but when that became too onerous, they allowed the low loader drivers to do it.”

  “You’re right, Max,” Todd agreed, “and I noticed another potential weakness. The owners of these cars were in such a hurry to leave Dubai that they’d often leave the spare set of keys in the glove box, along with credit cards and house keys.”

  “That still leaves us with the really tricky question, which is, even if they could start the cars, how do they get them out without anyone seeing them?”

  “I don’t know, Max, but obviously they do. In fact, they’ve done it eight hundred and fifty times!”

  ***

  With the permission of the Commander, Todd and Max set off to walk across the dusty compound to where the cars were stored, to check out two further possible exits, namely, the fire gates leading onto scrubland beside Sheikh Zayed Road.

  They had walked only a hundred yards, but their shoes and the bottoms of their trouser legs were already coated in fine dust. The weather was warm, but the heat was not oppressive. It was still early in the year. The temperature was probably around thirty degrees Celsius, but it seemed cooler in the arid air. By the time the summer reached its zenith the daytime temperature would reach forty six degrees or more, with eighty five per cent humidity.

  Max and Todd reached the first of the double fire gates. The exit was impassable. An open trench lay between the locked gates and the hoarding, the sides of which were unsupported sand. Any attempt to move a vehicle over that trench, even on boards, would collapse the trench immediately. They moved along the fence to the other pair of fire gates.

  “Look at this.” Max was standing at the point where the two gates met in the middle of the opening. A chain had been tightly wrapped around the gates to prevent them from being opened, and the gates themselves were just less than four feet from the scaffolding that supported the hoarding.

  “What am I looking at?” Todd asked. Max pointed at the padlock.

  “This gate has been blocked off and out of action for over five years; since early 2007, when this hoarding was erected, in fact. Yet the padlock is pristine. Not a spot of rust anywhere.”

  Todd had been concerned about having a gifted amateur on the team, but he had to admit that Max was sharp. Armed with the knowledge that the gates had probably been opened recently, all they had to do was figure out how cars as wide as a Lamborghini and as tall as a Range Rover could sneak down a four foot gap and out of the gate, or pass through the web of scaffolding which held up the hoarding.

  Todd, inspecting the scaffolding more closely, spotted the answer first.

  “Well, Watson, the game is afoot! I think we may have our first clue.”

  Todd’s affected British accent caused Max to shake his head, but he squatted down beside Todd and looked at the base tying bar that held the bottom of the scaffolding together. Just visible on the bar were two dusty tyre tracks about four feet apart.

  ***

  Jamie had spent the day comparing the compound vehicle records against the dealers’ databases and had made no progress until a thought occurred to her. Why not compare Vehicle Identification Numbers rather than registrations? Almost immediately she got a hit. One top of the range Cadillac SUV appeared in the compound entry records four times, each time with a different registration number. Now at almost 11pm she was sitting at the airport, watching the impound crew picking up abandoned cars. Once the low loader was full, it pulled away from the airport parking lot, collected its paperwork and drove out towards Oud Metha and Bur Dubai.

  Jamie was in the silver Camry, about three cars behind the low loader when it pulled off the main road and took a series of slip roads which led onto a service road, which was used exclusively by the builders of the Metro extension. Jamie parked up outside a large villa across a clearing and tried to look as though she should be there.

  ***

  Max and Todd knew they were in luck when a low loader pulled off Sheikh Zayed Road and onto a slip road leading to the Wellington International School. The road outside the school ran parallel to the main road, and a string of American style yellow school buses were parked along its length. Jamie would have felt right at home. The low loader, which would have held around six vehicles - four on a lower ramp and two on a shorter upper ramp - slipped between the buses parked on both sides of the road, and when it stopped it was nearly invisible from the main road.

  The two men were on the fourth floor of an apartment building overlooking the school, which had a perfect view of the Police Academy compound and its fire gates. Max was manning the Canon Eos 5D Mark 3 digital SLR, with its full frame 22 megapixels and a sensor that worked in minimal light. It was capable of taking decent pictures in the street lighting of Sheikh Zayed Road at six frames per second. The tripod was supporting the large 500mm fixed focal distance lens. With the other accessories in the impact resistant carrying case, the camera equipment the Sheikh had supplied must have cost around twenty thousand dollars, and Max hadn’t even had to sign for it.

  Todd monitored the Canon EOS professional camcorder, which was running on night vision in full HD. The XF305 came complete with an 18 times zoom lens. Both the still camera and the camcorder were brand new and still in the boxes when they were delivered earlier in the day by the security guard. Money didn’t seem to be an object in this operation.

  Todd’s BlackBerry rang. The screen told him it was Jamie calling.

  ***

  Jamie had wondered why the low loader had parked in such a desolate area. She guessed that something was going down. As she watched through her binoculars she saw two men, Indian or Pakistani in origin, working their way around the cars, removing their license tags. She thought she had better report what she was witnessing to the boys at the Police Academy, and so she picked up her Etisalat branded BlackBerry and pressed a speed dial number. The phone rang out at the other end. Once Todd had greeted her, she gave a brief report of what she had seen.

  “The low loader only took the high value cars. Another vehicle took the usual production saloons. It has on board a Lexus Infiniti, a Cadillac Escalade, a Chrysler Crossfire and two S Class Mercedes. I’m not sure what’s happening, but an Indian guy has just turned up on a ‘Hardees Delivery’ motorbike, and right now he’s loading the licence plates into the big plastic box on the back of the bike, the one usually reserved for hot food.”

  “How appropriate,” Todd quipped, “designed for hot food and carrying hot number plates. Stay with the cars, hon, and we’ll keep on watching here.”

  Jamie bristled at the word hon, or honey.

  “Todd, it’s Jamie or JJ, it’s never hon, sugar or darlin’, are we clear?”

  Todd smiled. “Sure thing, JJ. Keep the cars in sight.”

  As Todd disconnected, the motorbike pulled away onto the main ro
ad and headed in the direction of Downtown, the Burj Khalifa and Sheikh Zayed Road. JJ watched as the men used a mobile phone to have an animated conversation, heads wobbling from side to side as they often did with men from that culture. Behind them were the impressive lights of Downtown Dubai, with its apartment blocks and hotels and, of course, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which stood nearly half a mile high.

  The building itself was magnificent. It rose up from the ground like a giant spike of glass and steel, the architecture almost brutal when compared with the gentle golden curves of the Dubai Mall and the domes and arches of the Souk Al Bahar and Old Town, which stood alongside the huge landmark.

  As she looked at the imposing sight, the lights on the Burj began to flicker and shimmer, forming patterns as they seemed to run up and down the tall building. This was something which occurred several times each evening, co-ordinating with the illuminated fountains, and this was probably the last of the musical fountain and light shows for today.

  The low loader pulled away. Its lights flicked on and it headed back the way it came, which seemed odd. It was supposed to be heading to the Police Academy compound. Jamie followed, keeping her distance.

  ***

  Half an hour after the phone call from Jamie had concluded, Max pointed to the slip road leading to the school. A ‘Hardees’ motorcycle pulled in behind the low loader.

  The next few minutes were filled with a fascinating series of events which had all the hallmarks of a well practised military operation.

  Four men, who, until now, had been concealed on the compound, appeared at the fire gate, on the inside. They waved to the men attending the low loader. One of the men on the outside, who had been standing by the low loader, approached the gate and unlocked the padlock, removing the chain. The fire gates opened and a section of the advertising hoarding flapped in the wind as the plywood behind it was lowered to the ground, along with a number of scaffolding poles. The result of this activity was that there was now an archway through the hoarding large enough for a Hummer to get through.

  As soon as the plywood was removed, the first of the five cars left the compound, passed under the hoarding, exited through the fire gates and bounced over the waste ground onto the slip road. One by one the five vehicles disappeared behind the school buses and were loaded onto the low loader. As soon as they were on the ramps, a young man in blue overalls began removing their number plates and replacing them with the number plates which came from the ‘Hardees’ box on the motorbike.

  Todd filmed and Max clicked away, both lost in admiration for the organisation that was quite unlike anything Todd had ever encountered in this part of the world. Todd was more familiar with the sight of six men in overalls standing around a hole in the road for hours on end, watching one man down in the hole do all the work. This seemed to be the standard operating procedure amongst the hordes of construction workers he had seen all over Dubai. These men, however, were quite different.

  In less than ten minutes, the men on the inside had refixed the scaffold poles and had clipped the large plywood panel back onto the poles. The archway was once more an impenetrable jungle of interlocking scaffold poles. The last two men stretched the flapping vinyl cover that carried the advertiser’s message of ‘bespoke luxury living’ back into place and tied it off. In another minute the gates were closed and chained, and the padlock secured.

  Max commented first. “That was slick.” Todd nodded, focussing the camera on the low loader and the unsuspecting men gathering around it. “I guess you noticed the cars, as well.”

  Todd confirmed that he, too, had noticed that the cars which had been removed were a Lexus Infiniti, a Cadillac Escalade, a Chrysler Crossfire and two S Class Mercedes.

  The more they found out about this operation, the more professional it appeared.

  ***

  Jamie had followed the low loader to the port, where the cars were unloaded and packed into special containers with two levels. The cars drove into the container at ground level, and the floor elevated hydraulically until there was room underneath for a second vehicle. She was sure that before too long they would pass through the security gate and go on to the Freezone for loading onto a ship.

  Jamie scanned the container ships in the busy Dubai Container terminal. They came here from all over the world; many of the containers were from China, or were the ubiquitous Evergreen containers from Taiwan. Almost hidden behind the large container ships was a smaller container vessel, clearly designed to carry a smaller container load to more local destinations. Jamie made a note of its name and home port.

  “Grand Voyageur – Djibouti.”

  Chapter 8

  Media City, Dubai:

  13th February; 10am.

  Jamie, Max and Todd were all refreshed after their morning workout. They had coincided in the gym and a casual workout had become very competitive, with some harsh banter passing between them. Although Todd wouldn’t easily admit to the fact, Jamie had proven to be the fittest of the three in everything but free weights. Max was left in the wake of his two colleagues, as he decided that being able to walk without aching was more important than coming a closer third than he did.

  Sheikh Mahmoud had reviewed the photographs and the video for a second time, before laying out his plans for the team.

  “I am without words this morning. Your efforts have brought results so swiftly that we are unprepared. What I can tell you is this.”

  The Sheikh opened the lid of his Macbook Air and depressed a few keys before continuing.

  “The cars were indeed loaded onto the Grand Voyager, which is bound for Djibouti. You were very perceptive, Miss Jamie. We have people in place in Djibouti who will track the vehicles over there to see what we can learn from their destination. We are fortunate that the container port in Djibouti is controlled by the Dubai Ports management under license.

  The people transporting the cars, under contract to the government, have been in our sights for some time. Now at last we have some evidence. It is rather odd that they should clone the cars. I was a little puzzled by that.”

  “Max has a theory on that,” Todd said. “Go on, Max, explain.”

  “My thoughts are that, when there were over five thousand cars in the compound it was easy to take a few without it becoming obvious. Now that there are around twelve hundred cars, it’s more noticeable. To save time and effort, the criminals are shipping the most recently impounded vehicles, which are probably most valuable anyway, directly, whilst liberating similar vehicles from the compound.”

  “With the changed number plates and a quick hose down, the vehicles are presented at the gate as the cars signed out at the airport. We discovered that late-night deliveries very rarely had the column for the VIN numbers filled in on the vehicle inward forms, probably because there’s only one man taking delivery at night. They are recycling the high value cars and hiding them in amongst the mid-range saloon cars which come in at the same time.

  The legitimate second hand value of the cars taken last night was in the region of three hundred thousand dollars, as far as we can see from the local websites.”

  The Sheikh pondered for a moment. “My guess is that the cars will find their way over the borders to the Somali gang lords who run the pirates. They cannot import these cars legitimately. There is even a possibility that the cars will sell to those infidels at inflated prices. We will see where the stolen cars lead us, but for now we need to deal with the local criminals.

  The company who have the contract to recover these cars is Al Muran LLC, a local company that is now part of a larger Bahrainian based enterprise. The management operate out of Bahrain, but the business is led in Dubai by a man called Anil Dilip Singh, from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India. It is unthinkable that he does not know what is happening.

  The greater concern is whether our Arab brothers in Bahrain know what is happening. If they do it will be very offensive to our government.”

  T
he Sheikh sat silently as he contemplated his own words.

  “Do you want us to follow up?” Todd asked. “We could find out whatever we can without alerting anyone to our interest.” The Sheikh looked at the young Australian.

  “If you can do it without killing anyone, you may proceed.”

  ***

  “I think we are going to have to take the initiative here if we want to make progress,” Max offered. “It seems clear to me that the authorities would prefer it if the criminals were not Emiratis, Arabs or indeed any kind of Muslim, but I think they may be disappointed.”

  “The Sheikh is very astute, Max. I think he knows where this trail will lead, and I think that’s why we’re here,” Jamie added.

  “As attack dogs, as a secret army or as scapegoats?” Todd wondered out loud.

  “Possibly a mix of all three,” Jamie answered. “Anyway, what exactly did he mean about not killing anyone?”

  “People seem to want to kill me, and when I respond in kind I get the blame,” Todd responded, smiling.

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill you, Toddy.” Jamie reached over and tweaked his cheek. “You are so lovable.” She laughed.

  Max smiled, and Todd grimaced.

  The three special appointees took the lift up to their office and discussed their next move. Soon they were all in agreement. In order to find answers, it would be necessary to ask someone who had something to lose by not cooperating, and the only person who seemed to fit the bill was Anil Dilip Singh.

  Chapter 9

  Oud Metha, Dubai:

  15th February; 7pm.

  According to the residency section of the Visa department, Anil Dilip Singh had arrived in Dubai six years earlier as a ‘construction engineer’, which meant nothing. The likelihood was that, prior to arriving in the UAE looking for work, he had worked on a farm or in some other menial labouring capacity. You do not take jobs on subsistence pay in Dubai if in India you already have a job which pays well.