“What about Ari? Is it possible he could be the culprit?” Max asked warily. Ruitgen shook his head firmly.
“No. Absolutely not. And you will see why in a moment.”
***
Despite the heat and the urgency, the men waited until the store man provided them all with helmets, high visibility jackets and safety boots. Looking the part, they entered the turbine hall, which was larger than either of the visitors had expected. There were no windows, and such air as was being blown around was warm. However, the hall was as brightly lit as an operating theatre.
Rie Ruitgen pointed out the three Rolls Royce turbines. They gleamed as brightly as they would have done on the day they were delivered and, despite the fact that they were in the middle of a desert, they were dust free.
Rie Ruitgen shouted above the noise of the plant. “Ari!”
An Egyptian engineer, dressed in the same protective clothing as his guests, appeared from behind turbine number two and smiled up at the men. Ari was in a high tech wheelchair which looked as though it might be entered into a race. It had a single small wheel at the front and two larger wheels either side of the seat. Ari had no legs.
“Nothing wrong that I can see, boss,” Ari said, looking down at a computer tablet on his lap. “Performance is running at design levels and a physical check didn’t show anything.”
When the two inspectors looked puzzled he held up a monocular or mini telescope. “I can see all I need to see with this.”
“Thanks, Ari. We’re going up to have a look,” Ruitgen said as he clambered up a short steel ladder welded to the turbine casing. About six feet up there were two steel hoops to prevent falling, and a platform made of steel ‘eggcrate’, a steel grid that formed a walkway. All three wore ear defenders, in accordance with the red safety sign’s instructions. Up here the turbine was enclosed, for obvious reasons, and the moving parts were concealed from view. Ruitgen removed a small padlock from a steel panel using a generic key. The panel opened to reveal the control panel with diodes and flashing lights. “Nothing here,” he mouthed, knowing he could not be heard.
Ruitgen closed the panel and replaced the padlock, and the two agents breathed a sigh of relief, but Ruitgen wasn’t done. Extracting an unusual looking screwdriver from his jacket pocket, he began loosening one of four small bolts from a larger panel that carried another red warning sign, which stated ‘Warning, moving parts’. With two or three turns of the screwdriver, each corner of the panel popped from its housing and Ruitgen carefully lifted the thin steel panel away from its rubber seals. The noise levels increased immediately.
Setting the panel into a steel channel obviously designed for the purpose, Ruitgen took his torch and shone it into the void. Max and Todd did not need the bright light to see the colour drain from the manager’s face, nor did they need to hear him to understand the string of expletives issuing from his lips.
Todd and Max stepped across the platform, as they were invited to do, and looked into the guts of the turbine. There on the spindle, held by strips of Velcro onto the casing, which looked like a large piece of stainless steel piping, was what looked like a small explosive device. Apart from the steady glow of a red diode, it comprised a sealed plastic box around six inches wide and nine inches long. No-one showed any enthusiasm for examining it any more closely.
***
Two hours later Max, Todd and Jamie were sitting in the villa watching a live feed from the Al Kifra Power Plant and from the London office of Len Preece.
A fixed camera was sited above an Emirati Bomb Disposal Officer. There were only seven trained Bomb Disposal Officers in the whole region, and most of those were on their way to Dubai already.
The man was clad in so much protective clothing he seemed like a black hulk. The operation had just begun. The operative was called Malik, and his English was heavily accented. Doctor Preece spoke slowly so that there could be no misunderstanding.
Max and Todd had initially spoken to Preece on the phone from the power plant where, armed with a few digital photographs, he was able to explode some myths without exploding the device.
“The unit looks to be on a timer because a mobile phone signal would be unlikely to get through the magnetic field created by the turbine. I’m sorry to say that in real life bombers don’t put countdown timers on their bombs, as they do in Hollywood movies. Why would they bother? It’s just another bit of kit to buy and fix. I’m afraid we have no idea when the device will blow. We’ll just have to pray that it’s set to go off later tonight or tomorrow, rather than imminently.”
“Kwong, the cunning monkey, has created an opaque plastic housing that covers the whole unit and which is held on by the Velcro strap that holds the device itself.
Two things to bear in mind before you call in the bomb disposal chaps. Don’t even think of cutting the Velcro strap and taking the device somewhere safe in the desert to blow it up, and don’t try to remove the cover to see what is inside. Just wait.”
The warning had been unnecessary. No-one in their little group was feeling terribly heroic, so now they watched a professional at work. The screen showed Malik carefully feeling around the device. A small window at the bottom left of the screen showed Len Preece, who was doing most of the talking.
“Malik, there are three possible anti handling traps, the way I see it. One; it’s possible there is a micro wire inside the Velcro strap, so that if you cut the strap the device goes off. Two; the cover being lifted off triggers a switch, and three; there is a level switch. That is, if you disturb the equilibrium, the spirit level sets the bomb off.
Personally, I don’t think there will be any anti handling devices because these units were placed by volunteers and Kwong wouldn’t want them going off prematurely and alerting us to their plans. So, using the Dremel, cut the plastic cover away below the Velcro strap and the lid should lift off.”
The Dremel was a small hand held tool that resembled an electric screwdriver but which had numerous different attachments. This one had a cutting tool attached.
With great care, Malik cut away the tiny strips of plastic that passed below the one inch wide black Velcro strap and held the cover in place.
“OK, Malik. I think we test for switches, just in case. What do you think?” Malik agreed, and slipped a microscopically thin plastic feeler gauge between the cover and the device. He slowly ran it around the perimeter of the unit, looking for resistance.
“Clear,” Malik said, no hint of tension in his voice. The man was stoic. Without further instruction Malik gently lifted the cover off the device, keeping the cover level at all stages.
“The cover is clear, and it is not connected to the device by wires.”
“Clever chap, this Kwong,” Preece said, with a hint of admiration in his voice. “The plastic casing is a proprietary box used by electricians to keep moisture out of external electrical circuits. He probably bought it from a hardware store. Malik, can you see any signs of a spirit bubble?”
“No, and the only wiring visible is to the detonator. The C4 is partially exposed. The timer must be underneath the moulded explosive, possibly even encased in it. Like Al Qaeda did in Bali a couple of years ago,” Malik said to the watching audience.
“Malik, you and I know that the only safe way to proceed now is a controlled explosion. But if we do that, we are doing Kwong’s work for him.” Preece paused. “This is a decision for the man at the scene. I’ll advise if you decide to go ahead, but you are risking your life.”
Malik laughed. “I didn’t take this job without understanding that I might face Allah as a young man, wholly unprepared for that meeting. Let’s defuse this device.”
Malik placed a small plastic bubble filled with oil on the device and used his K Bar knife to cut through the Velcro, which would allow him to lift the device from the spindle casing. Very carefully, and excruciatingly slowly, Malik lifted the device, keeping the oily bubble in the dead centre of the tiny dome. He placed the device on a small me
tal frame, which he had attached to the turbine casing earlier. He fixed the device onto the frame using plastic mini clamps with foam in their jaws to avoid damage and to avoid magnetic or electrical conduction.
The plastic cover hung free from the bottom of the device, held in place only by the flapping Velcro. Malik removed the cover and exposed the workings of the device.
“The timer is underneath the C4, but there is no indication of the length of time remaining. I will try to disconnect the C4. That way, if the device explodes only the detonator will go up.”
“No, Malik,” Preece interrupted. “You have done enough. If you can’t see any anti handling devices, just take the device to the chamber and destroy it. We aren’t going to learn any more from dismantling it, and we may have more to deal with.”
“More than the three in Al Jifra?” Malik asked, surprised.
“Maybe many more. We have people working on it,” Preece said in conclusion.
In the next twenty minutes the same exercise was carried out on the two remaining turbines, and the active devices were each placed in a large titanium drum which was three feet in diameter and four feet high, with a domed lid that was held on by heavy clamps.
The devices were resting on a fine reinforced glass mesh inside the large chamber. Inside the drum, scanners were taking 3D images of the devices using X-rays and Magnetic Resonance Imagery. In a few minutes they would know exactly how the devices were constructed, and how they could be deconstructed safely.
Preece and Malik would work together on a method statement that would be passed to all bomb disposal operatives. Once the scans were complete, the mesh was lowered into a toxic bath of acids at the bottom of the vessel that dissolved the C4 safely, along with most of the metal parts of the bombs.
What the bomb disposal teams didn’t know, and could not know, was precisely when the bombs were timed to explode, and so time was of the essence.
Chapter 49
Hamya Mosque, Karama, Dubai:
4th March; 6:30pm.
Paresh enjoyed working the early shift at Al Jifra because he could spend time with his children and wife before evening prayers. As he left the mosque he crossed the road and headed towards his modest home. When he arrived he suddenly rocked to a standstill, and looked in shock, horror and total bewilderment.
The front door of his tiny house had an ornate cast iron pull bar bolted top and bottom. Firmly attached to the door handle by a Velcro strap was the plastic covered device he had placed at the power plant, or one very similar to it.
Paresh had to get inside. His little ones were in there with his wife. As he stepped forward to enter his house, four armed policemen surrounded him. A man in a different, more ornate uniform and wearing a cap stepped forward and took Paresh’s right hand, clamping it in handcuffs. He then locked the other half of the handcuffs onto the door handle just above the bomb.
Paresh could not control his bodily functions and he soiled himself. Ashamed and disgraced, he sobbed.
“Paresh,” the uniformed man said. “You set the bomb. We have returned it to you. We will return and remove the bomb before it explodes, if you tell us when it is due to explode, otherwise you and your little family will be the only victims of a tragic gas explosion. Your neighbours have already been evacuated.” The Brigadier handed Paresh a phone. “Speed dial one. Don’t wait too long, Paresh.”
Paresh collapsed onto the ground and refused the phone.
“The bombs, they are due to explode at Dhuhr Prayers tomorrow,” he stammered. “Please, let my family go!”
The Brigadier breathed a sigh of relief. They had over fourteen hours to disarm the other bombs. He spoke to the broken man before him.
“I will let them go when I know where the other bombs have been placed,” he said, not a spark of humanity evident in his voice.
“I do not know, sir. Khaweini kept us all separate. We were not even allowed to know each other’s names. All I know is that there were seven others. One took a single bomb, six took two each.”
The Brigadier had suspected that this would be the case, and he nodded to his men, who released Paresh from the door handle and also removed the bomb. The sergeant with the bomb handed it to the Brigadier.
“I have no need of this,” the Brigadier said, throwing the bomb to Paresh. The terrified man caught the bomb using both hands. He cradled it in his hands very carefully, before he slowly realised that he was holding an empty plastic casing.
“Your family are already being held in the immigration centre awaiting deportation. You, however, will not be leaving Dubai. Unless, of course….” - he stared at the dishevelled man being roughly handcuffed without sympathy - “they would like to pay for your remains to be sent to them.”
***
At Villa Afzal the mood was brightening. Another power station had discovered a device attached to their single, but very large, turbine. The bomb squad had already detached it and were on their way to the next potential site. There were now six teams, each led by a Bomb Disposal Officer, and potentially six more locations, if the information garnered from the Brigadier was correct.
The screen projected onto the wall flickered into life again. Incoming call from Vastrick London, it announced. A skinny, bespectacled computer geek by the name of Simon appeared on the screen.
“Hello, Simon,” Max said merrily. “I never expected to see you again, especially not in these circumstances.”
“Nor did I, Max. By the way, thanks for the mention in your series of articles on the London riots last summer. The phone has been ringing off the hook ever since. Do you ever hear from Ben Fogarty?”
“I do, actually. He’s back in New Zealand, and now I have another to deal with.” Max looked at a frowning Todd.
“OK, everyone. Bad news first.” Simon looked down at the report in front of him. “There is nothing on the laptop that will help you today, but I can assure you that there is a wealth of information on where Kwong Chong Lee keeps his money, who has hired him, how much they paid and the accounts they used. I imagine Interpol will be rounding up criminals for months when the hard drive is fully decrypted.
Now for the good news. On the mobile phone I found a hidden file. It took me some time to get at it, but here it is. It looks like a camera phone picture. Luckily the Nokia 800 has an eight megapixel camera and Zeiss optics, and so the picture blows up to this size quite readily.”
Simon disappeared, and the screen filled with a map of Dubai showing the major power plants. A cursor ran across the screen and settled on Al Jifra Power station, which was ringed in red pen. The red circle had a number three in it.
“You found three devices here, and one device here.” The cursor moved across Jebel Ali to another power plant. “All of the other red circles have a number two in them. So, eight power stations are ringed in red, which matches with the evidence from the Al Jifra bomber, who said eight men were present at his meeting. That would mean that you have six power stations to investigate, and potentially twelve bombs to disarm, if this diagram is current and I’m reading it correctly.”
“When was it taken, mate?” Todd asked. Simon reappeared on the screen.
“8:07pm on 29th February, this year,” Simon answered.
“It must be current,” Todd commented to the gathered operatives.
“OK, Simon. Thanks for the help. You may be helping to save a lot of lives today,” Jamie added before they closed the connection. She turned purposefully towards her associates, a determined look in her eyes. “Let’s move, boys. I’ll copy this photo to the Brigadier and he can text the bomb squad with the locations. Dominic and I will head off to the Dubai power stations, you two take Jebel Ali.”
Jamie’s orders were received with good humour. Everyone was pleased to see her back to her old self.
Todd and Max took the Camry and left Dominic and Jamie with the Range Rover. Both cars headed out, the occupants much happier now that they knew they had over twelve hours to defuse the bombs. If
the bombs had been scheduled to go off at evening prayers tonight, Dubai would have been in darkness now and for months to come. The thought made Max shiver.
Chapter 50
Terminal 1, Dubai International Airport, Dubai:
5th March; 8am.
As planned by Aara, the girls from the hostel arrived at the airport for their flight to Melbourne and their new lives in Australia. The new girl, Shana, had been introduced into the group just last night, but she had gelled with the other girls immediately. The girls giggled excitedly as they walked towards the departure gate, ready for the flight that would take them to a life of freedom.
Aysha waved them off and returned to a bare office in the terminal where Sheikh Mahmoud was waiting. “If this works as it has been planned, you will be free by this time tomorrow, and you will be in a business class seat flying back to India. Am I understood?”
Aysha nodded. She knew that any other outcome would lead to a long spell in an inhospitable women’s prison.
With the Sheikh watching, Aysha picked up her mobile phone and sent a brief text to an Australian mobile phone number. “All goods safely on plane, same flight as before. You can pick up at airport, 8 units delivered.”
***
It was 4pm in Melbourne, and Vincente Polletti had barely been sober since he received the good news that Michaelson had been blown to pieces, killed at the third time of asking. It had been an expensive exercise. He had paid almost half a million US dollars to Kwong and those damned mercenaries, but it had been worth it in the end. No testimony from Michaelson meant no conviction for Polletti.
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