Shadow of the Burj

by J Jackson Bentley

  The Palazzo had clearly been built whilst the local planning officials were looking the other away; that is to say, some of the Italian crime lord’s illicit fortune had eased the way for the Italianate-style dwelling to be constructed. Mimicking the palaces of Florence and Venice, the two storey white building had been described as ‘elegant and luxurious’ by a popular homes magazine, and as a “ghastly architectural monstrosity on the edge of one of Australia’s best loved parks” by a well-known British VIP visitor.

  Vincente Polletti looked out of the picture window in the Palazzo’s master bedroom overlooking Ruffey Lake Park and Ruffey Creek. It provided a magnificent view that usually inspired him, but today it had barely moved him at all. It was still late summer, but the leaves were already turning and the nights were drawing in.

  The cause for Vincente’s concern was an anticipated visit from the AFP, the Australian Federal Police. They strode into his home uninvited, past the police constable at the door, and flashed their shiny silver badges, bedecked with a crown at the top. These were the men who were making his life a misery. The ordinary coppers, uniformed and detectives alike, had shown him some respect, kept their distance; but not these people.

  They considered it was their duty to fight organised crime and the so called drugs lords who seemed to be behind most of it. They thought they had him cornered, but they had no idea how far his influence reached. Vincente couldn’t understand the logic of it all; if he went prison tomorrow, someone else would take his place before tea at the test match, stepping seamlessly into his shoes and making sure nothing changed.

  Polletti had invested in politicians and local authorities of all colours equally. They knew that they were better off with Vincente - better the devil you know, as the saying goes. The authorities would rue the day Vincente Polletti went down, because he would be taking a lot of people down with him. He wouldn’t go quietly.

  They’d be sorry when they realised that they had imprisoned a cultured man who was known to be charitable and benevolent, only to see him replaced by some roughneck like Jacob Sykes. That man was psychopathic. Sykes didn’t care about the community. He didn’t sponsor boy’s clubs. No, he concluded, they would rue the day when Vincente Polletti fell from grace.

  But the simple fact of the matter was that he needn’t go down. He need not spend another day with the damn ankle bracelet on his leg, nor need he ever cross the portals of the prison entrance. No, if Todd Michaelson were to die, Polletti could beat the most serious charges. That was the reason why he had been honoured by a visit from the AFP.

  After two botched attempts, those bloody mercenaries had failed to take the man out, and they had left evidence on their phones and computers which proved that they had been talking to Polletti. The AFP was warning him off. Naturally, he denied any knowledge of a plot against Michaelson, but it was a rote denial, made without any passion. He simply wanted his denial on the record.

  Polletti looked into the swirling depths of the whisky glass in his hand and pondered his appalling luck. Twice he had spoken to the seemingly invulnerable Michaelson, and on both occasions Polletti had expected the call telling him that Michaelson was dead. It was the damned disappointment that rankled.

  Polletti tossed back the aged whisky and felt the satisfying burn at the back of his throat; the aftertaste reminiscent of the smell of old oak casks filled his mouth.

  Polletti knew that the police were watching his every move and listening to his every syllable, and so he had to be careful. In his heart, Vincente had always known that it would come to this. He had one more chance at Michaelson and he would reluctantly have to take it. It was a high risk strategy and it would waste a high value asset, but there was no other way. Vincente had tried to keep Michaelson’s contract kill at arm’s length, but time was running out. It was time to go for the nuclear button.

  Polletti pulled on a long ribbon which hung from the ceiling, and a bell rang elsewhere in the house. A moment later a tall, muscular man with flowing blond hair and deep blue eyes entered the bedroom. He was wearing tan chinos and a white golf shirt, although he would not have looked out of place in speedos on a surfboard. Polletti spoke to him.

  “Pete, I need our friend in the desert to take care of business for me.”

  “Are you sure, Boss? I mean, we only get to use that option once. Are things really that bad?”

  Polletti turned away from his nephew to stare out over a darkening landscape. “Yes, Pete, things really are that bad.”

  Chapter 36

  Former Volvo Dealership, Sheik Zayed Road, Al Quoz, Dubai:

  29th February; 8pm.

  Jussuf was sweating. It was not due to the temperature, because it was a comfortable seventy four degrees Fahrenheit. No, it was due to the concern he felt, and the fear that these two madmen provoked in him.

  Jussuf was an engineer; a turbine engineer, to be precise. He had moved to the USA after the Iranian revolution with his wealthy parents, and had been educated at MIT. He interned at General Electric in the Turbines Division, working on power station generators and aircraft engines, which were largely interchangeable.

  Jussuf was then taken on as an engineering assistant by AGP, the American General Power Company, who supplied blade sets for GE, Rolls Royce, Alstom and other generator manufacturers.

  It was always puzzling for people when they found out that he designed blades for generators. Their next line was usually, “Can you make a whole career out of making blades for fans?” One could, and he did. Listeners were amazed when he told them how a few microns could make the difference between a generator working at 95% efficiency and a mere 65% efficiency. He would explained to glassy eyed friends how a blade just a millimetre out of line could cause so much turbulence that the generator would wear out thousands of hours before its time. He would then surprise them with how thin and delicate the blades could be, and how fragile. For example, a bird strike could wreck an entire airplane engine by destroying the symmetry of the blades.

  It was this experience, along with a certain amount of desperation, which brought him here today. Having risen through the ranks to Vice President in charge of design, Jussuf now had an American born wife and two children. It was at the high point in his career that disaster struck.

  Invited to a power conference in the Middle East, he attended as a guest speaker. Whilst in his hotel room he was approached by two men he did not know, who claimed to be Iranians. They made it clear that his parents and siblings, who had returned to Iran two years earlier, were in no danger. Not yet. If Jussuf could spare the time to solve a small generator problem they were facing, he would be back at the hotel before anyone knew he was gone, and his family would retain the favoured status they had enjoyed since their return from the West.

  Jussuf was by no means a prisoner. In fact, the trip to the Iranian Embassy had been comfortable; he had been transported in a stretched limousine with a TV and mini bar. In the event, the Iranian’s problem had been easily resolved with a little computer modelling and a few tweaks of two drawings. Jussuf was mightily relieved when he was bid farewell, as his hosts had been both kindly and hospitable. Eventually he found himself back at the hotel in the early hours of the morning.

  Unfortunately for Jussuf, an Israeli agent, whose assignment was to slow down or stop the influx of nuclear power generation data reaching the Iranians, had been tasked with watching the embassy. Thanks to Mossad, when Jussuf returned to the US a week later he was denied entry, and was told he had been placed on a watch list by the FBI. He was advised to fly to a friendly, neutral country and try to resolve the problem using the local embassy. That was two years ago, and he was still awaiting a final interview.

  His wife had believed him to be a terrorist, and had filed divorce papers, and now he could only contact his children by letter and Skype at Christmas and on their birthdays. Jussuf was depressed, and he desperately needed money, so he was here advising a man whom he knew to be a Mullah, but who dressed like an Amer
ican rock star.

  ***

  Jamie was still fragile, and she had felt fatigued when she returned from their outing, and so she was asleep upstairs in her new bedroom. Todd, Max and Dominic sat around the kitchen table and drank cold beer straight from the cans.

  “When we heard about the bomb on the school bus we asked the investigative division if they could tell us anything about the device, or devices,” Dominic began conversationally. “Divers were able to find a detonator and a trigger mechanism, both of which had been submerged in the water before the main explosion, and so they failed to ignite the attached packs of C4.”

  “What? Are you saying the explosion should have been bigger than it actually was?” Todd asked, incredulity in his voice.

  “I think so,” Dominic replied before continuing. “Actually, we already knew where the C4 came from. We have no leads from there. The trigger mechanism, however, it was of Chinese manufacture. Also, the signature of the bomber, it was like that of two other terrorist bombings in 2011.”

  “Now I know you’re not going to tell me he signed his work,” Max commented.

  “Nah, mate. The signature is how a bomber wires up the device, how he protects it with booby traps and anti-handling devices, and so on,” Todd interjected. “Every bomb maker does it in a slightly different way.”

  “We have examined all the facts together. Interpol, Vastrick and the UAE special services department have produced this.” Dominic lifted CCTV still from his briefcase and passed it to Max.

  “We believe this is Kwong Chong Lee. There is an arrest warrant outstanding for him in the USA. He was expelled from University for causing an explosion which resulted in a death, but he disappeared before he could be arrested. This picture was taken two weeks ago, when he arrived in Dubai with another passport. We believe that he has been travelling the world, selling his skills. We have men looking at the CCTV from airports around the world in the time frames before and after major bombings. So far we have been unlucky.”

  He has feminine features,” Todd commented, squinting critically at the image.

  “And he has a very slight build,” Max added, when he realised where Todd was leading them.

  They had all reached the same conclusion; they were looking at a picture of the Shadow.

  ***

  Jussuf looked at the drawings in front of him on the makeshift table. The drawings showed diagrams of turbines by GE, Rolls Royce and Alstom Power. He began with the Rolls Royce turbine which was based on the famous RB211 aircraft engine. His ‘teach in’ was underway.

  “You probably already know in basic terms how power stations work. Essentially, they burn fossil fuels to create steam, steam turns the turbines and the turbines create electricity. To disable an entire power station is difficult, because of built in redundancy. That is to say that most power stations run on around two thirds of their plant, one third being on standby or under renovation. Generally, when major works need to be carried out, the power station goes off line for a few weeks in what is termed an outage, and their capacity is made up by other providers. In colder climates this is done in the hot summer months when demand is at its lowest. In Dubai, as 70% of all power is used on air conditioning, that cannot be done. You may think, therefore, that to take out a power station you would need to attack many different parts of the plant; the boilers, the auxiliary boilers, the Heat Recovery Steam Generator and so on.” The engineer pointed to each piece of plant as he mentioned them by name.

  “However, all of this plant leads ultimately to the turbines and the turbine hall where the electricity is generated. Turbine halls are huge buildings, and to destroy a turbine hall you would probably need a major airstrike. Here in Dubai, and in smaller power stations, there are two turbines which work most of the time. In some larger plants there are more turbines, and their usage can be rotated. That is not usually the case here.”

  The engineer paused as he withdrew a schematic drawing from his briefcase, showing all of Dubai’s power stations.

  “If you took out these key power stations,” he said, as he drew large red circles around the Power Stations he had selected, most of which were located in Jebel Ali, “you would achieve two things; first, you would immediately reduce electricity supplies in the Emirate by over 65%; second, you would reduce the desalinated water supply by over 80%.”

  The two men listening to Jussuf smiled as they imagined the destruction this relatively small act of terrorism would cause. Jussuf continued.

  “With sixteen well placed devices, all of them small and capable of being transported in a small backpack or box, you could disable the turbines and stop electricity production for months.”

  The two men were grinning widely now. Jussuf pulled out the drawings of the GE, RR and Alstom turbines and pointed at the blade assembly.

  “I have worked in blade design for many years, and I know that with a few carefully placed charges we can shut down a turbine without jeopardising human life. It is likely that we can close down these turbines without even causing any damage to the turbine housings. The damage will be local but devastating.”

  “Won’t they just bring in spare parts or even new turbines to replace the damaged units?” Kwong Chong Lee asked. It was now the turn of Jussuf to smile.

  “Alstom have a three year waiting list for replacement turbines, GE at least two years and Rolls Royce are closer to four years. It is possible that spares can be found in the marketplace in the USA, Asia and Europe, where they are stored by other power providers, but they are unlikely to sell their spares because of the long waiting lists to replenish their stocks. Even if the Dubai Authorities were able to persuade the three turbine companies to disregard all of their current orders and fulfil Dubai’s emergency needs, it would still take three to four months to manufacture and deliver new parts, and another month or two to install and commission them. That would take us well into the hot summer, and the American and European engineers would be reluctant to come to Dubai to carry out repairs if they faced the prospect of no air conditioning and limited clean water.”

  “OK, I understand that. But why not just bring power in from other Emirates, or even Qatar or Oman?” Kwong queried.

  “The other states you mention have limited resources themselves, and in any event, the infrastructure is not capable of carrying the loads that would be required.”

  Jussuf turned his attention to the drawings again. “I would place the charges here on the Alstom Turbines, which will require access to the turbine housing, but the housings are opened regularly for maintenance purposes anyway. In the GE and Rolls Royce Turbines they can be placed on the spindles, here.” He pointed at a red cross he had drawn on the diagram. “This means that they can be placed without opening up the housings, but it also means, of course, that the charges will be visible to a trained eye.”

  “How much damage can we expect from such a small amount of explosive?” Khaweini asked.

  “Not much, but the main damage will not be caused by the explosive but by the turbine itself. The charge will unbalance the turbine blades, which will be turning when the charges detonate. The fragile turbine blades will continue to turn, but they will do so eccentrically and will hit the supporting structural steelwork and the metal casing with devastating effect. By the time the emergency electronic ‘cut out’ stops the blades from spinning, many of the blades will be damaged beyond repair, and the controls will be burned out. Each turbine will take two to three weeks to disassemble, even with shift working and imported labour, and then the parts will have to be sent to Europe or the USA for repair. I cannot see any of the sixteen turbines being back in operation for at least three months, and I forecast that it will be nine months before 25% of the current capacity can be restored.”

  Khaweini recalled the ‘Energy Disaster Plan’ that had been leaked to him by a follower and from which the seed of an idea had been germinated. The plan had been prepared for the government by a major international accountancy practice. T
he key points had always stuck in his head.

  -The Key Power Stations provide 65% of Dubai’s power.

  -They also support 80% of the desalination processes for potable water.

  -The loss of 65% of the power in Dubai would mean diverting the remaining 35% to emergency use which would not include; air conditioning, powered lifts and escalators, the Metro, public lighting, telecommunications, office and retail supplies.

  -The loss of 80% of desalinated water would require the suspension of; irrigation, industrial use of water, swimming pools and leisure uses of water, with further strict restrictions as to personal use of water.

  -As over 70% of Dubai residents live and/or work in high rise buildings, which would have to be evacuated due to safety concerns, most evacuees would be obliged to leave the Emirate as there would be insufficient low rise accommodation.

  -Abu Dhabi could only accept around 5% of Dubai’s evacuees and Sharjah 3% of the evacuees.

  -Professionals, including engineers, would leave in the first wave of an accelerating exodus and soon the emergency services, transportation, medical and social services would be unable to function due to lack of personnel.

  -The Emirate would have to consider banning certain groups from leaving so that the essential services of the Emirate could be maintained. However, a ban was unlikely to be successful as the borders were porous and Abu Dhabi would be unlikely to support such extreme measures, allowing Dubai residents to leave via Etihad and by sea.

  -The possibility of civil disturbance would be very high.

  It was Khaweini’s firm belief that even if the Westerners wanted to return to Dubai later in the year, there would be little to attract them. Businesses would be closed or relocated, golf courses would have returned to desert conditions, the property market would have collapsed and there would be few if any support services available. Dubai would be bankrupt. Mullah Khaweini was convinced that he was the man who would bring Dubai down with a few well targeted explosives, and that as a result he would be famous, or infamous.