His phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, reads a text message from Kashif: In position.
Billy looks back at Franka. ‘Excuse me, I need to hit the men’s.’
She nods but he can see in her eyes that she thinks his abrupt exit is motivated by the text message he just received. ‘Everything okay?’
He nods and swivels out of his chair, keeps his head down in case one of the Three Champions happens to glance his way, makes a beeline for the rear of the coffee shop. As he moves he can see the three figures reflected in the mirror behind the espresso machine as they stride towards Tiffany & Co. They’ll arrive there in a matter of seconds. Good thing he has a plan. He just hopes it works.
~ * ~
The Mall of the Emirates is exactly as Schumacher remembered.
His crew completed an exhaustive reconnaissance survey of the building two months ago when they had spent the better part of three days getting to know everything about the place. Of all the jobs they had planned this was not only the most important but the simplest. The most important because it was the last, the simplest because this place was lightly secured for its size, odd in such a security-conscious city.
Schumacher leads his crew into the jewellery store and they each pull a sawn-off shotgun from their duffel bags. As it happens the security guard, shopgirl and the young guy she was serving sprint to the rear of the store and disappear through the doorway.
Hunt watches them go, confused. ‘What just happened?’
‘Forget them.’ Schumacher steps forward, flips the shotgun in his hand and slams the butt of the weapon into the top of the central glass case.
Smash. The glass explodes in a cascade of twinkling shards. He flaps open the duffel bag and his gloved hand sweeps the jewellery and glass into the bag with the assistance of Hunt. Once the case is empty he swings the butt of the shotgun again —
Smash. The second case shatters. Again they sweep rings and earrings and necklaces into the bag.
‘Ten seconds!’ Senna yells from the front door and scans the mall.
Smash. The third case explodes under the butt of the shotgun. Again Schumacher and Hunt sweep the valuables into the duffel. It’s heavy but it’s not full.
‘Fifteen seconds!’
Schumacher has time for one more. He swings the shotgun again.
~ * ~
Smash. Billy hears the fourth glass case shatter. He sprints along the access hallway situated behind the line of stores until he sees a heavy metal door propped open with a wooden wedge, just as planned. He passes the shopgirl, security guard and nervous fiancé as they exit. They are actually three of Kashif’s officers who were working as decoys. Billy slips into the storeroom and pulls the door locked behind him.
‘Twenty seconds!’ Billy hears one of the Three Champions call out. The Australian drags a black ski mask from his back jeans pocket and pulls it over his head as he approaches the doorway which separates the storeroom from the shopfront. He slides a two-inch compact mirror out of his trouser pocket and uses it to look around the corner and into the store. He sees Senna by the front door, then Hunt and Schumacher sweeping Tiffany & Co.’s finest into a duffel bag.
He pushes the compact mirror back into his trousers and draws two items from his jacket pockets. He pulls a pin out of the first and tosses it into the store, then quietly pulls the door shut and locks the deadbolt. He then looks at the second item, which resembles a car remote, and pushes the only button on it.
~ * ~
A shuddering noise cuts across the soundscape. Schumacher turns to the entrance.
Thwump. A metal door drops to the ground like a giant guillotine, lands three inches in front of Senna’s boot and cuts off their escape route.
Clink clank clunk. Schumacher pivots, sees a small metal canister bounce across the marble floor towards him. White smoke hisses out of one end.
‘Tear gas!’ Schumacher knows their helmets will afford them some protection from its effects but they don’t have long.
Senna peers through the window as a swarm of police officers rush towards the store, each with a weapon in hand. ‘Police know we’re here. They’ll be outside in ten seconds.’ He turns to Schumacher. ‘What do we do about them?’
‘Nothing. We have what we came for.’ Schumacher nods at Hunt. ‘Give me the bullet.’
Hunt strides towards Schumacher as he pulls a metal and plastic contraption from his bag. It’s just under a metre long and less than half a metre wide. He holds it by one end as Schumacher grabs the other and pulls on it.
Click click click. Each rung of the telescoping aluminium ladder, or ‘Bullet’ as it was named by the seller on eBay, automatically locks in place with a solid click until it’s extended to its full five-metre length. Senna swings it towards the roof, punches out a foam roof panel, leans the ladder against a ceiling cross member and tests that it’s stable. ‘We’re good.’
‘Then let’s boogie.’ Schumacher climbs the ladder and can’t help but think that the Bullet was the best hundred bucks he ever spent. Hunt follows him with the bag of jewels over his shoulder and Senna brings up the rear.
~ * ~
What the hell is going on in there?
The idea was that the Three Champions would enter the store and rob it without having any idea they were about to be locked inside. That’s why the decoys, and the real jewels, were in the store; to make sure they were caught red-handed. Tiffany’s had taken some persuading but finally agreed, having been hit by the Three Champions twice already. And the plan had worked beautifully up to this point, but now Billy can hear rattling and clunking and —
Crash. The noise is loud, and then there’s no sound at all. He waits a moment, pulls a disposable gas mask from inside his jacket pocket, fits it over his face, unlocks the door, eases it open and peeks inside with his pistol raised.
Unsurprisingly, the room is full of tear gas. He moves into the room, peers through the fog —
Clank. His shoe hits something. He looks down but can’t see anything through the gas. He kneels, reaches out, touches it.
A ladder.
Clever.
He looks up. Through the white fog he can just make out a dark, ghostly hole left by the missing tile in the ceiling. They’re in the roof and on the move.
Do I follow them, up?
No. He’ll be a sitting duck if he climbs up there. He needs to take them by surprise. He can hear them move to the left. He pivots and runs, opens the rear door, sprints into the hallway, pulls off the gas mask then stops and listens. They still moving to the left. He sprints along the hallway and follows the sound. His phone buzzes in his pocket. He yanks it out, looks at the screen. Kashif. He answers with a whisper: ‘Yes?’
He hears the Chief’s clipped voice: ‘What’s happening?’
‘They’re out and on the move.’
‘Where?’
‘In the roof.’
‘How did they get —?’
‘Ladder. I’m on them.’
‘Where are they headed?’
‘I’ll let you know.’ Billy hangs up and focuses on the roof, listens hard.
They’re still moving to the left.
But why? Where are they going?
Then he knows. ‘The stanchion.’ He pushes his phone into his rear pocket and runs hard.
~ * ~
Schumacher and his crew move across the false ceiling. It’s dark so they use the torch apps on their mobile phones to light the way. Fortunately there’s a lot of room up here so they don’t need to crouch. They do, however, need to make sure they only step on crossbeams and not the flimsy ceiling panels, otherwise their escape will end very quickly.
Senna leads the way. ‘So what just happened back there? How did they know we were going to hit that place?’
The question is directed at Schumacher. He whispers back: ‘I don’t know. And keep your voice down.’
Senna takes this in with a sour no
d. Schumacher is just as troubled as Senna by the turn of events but there’s no point even thinking about it until they get out of here safely. He raises his phone’s light and illuminates a wall. ‘There.’
They move to it, shine their lights on it until Hunt locates a small access panel. He turns the metal twist lock and swings it open. They slide through the hole and find themselves in a narrow cement stairwell.
They move fast.
~ * ~
Pistol raised, Billy reaches the stanchion, a giant cement tube which rises straight through the roof. In the middle of it is a doorway marked Emergency Exit. He gently presses down on the long handle that spans the width of the door, eases it open and pokes his head inside the stairwell. He can hear footsteps echo in the distance.
The Three Champions. Surely. They found a way into the stairwell, probably through a service panel. He listens to the sound for a moment and realises they’re moving upwards.
Why would they do that?
There’s only one way to find out. He slips into the stairwell and steps onto the first stair. His footfall echoes loudly. He realises they will hear him coming and stops, pulls off his workboots then silently bounds up the stairs in his socked feet, pistol in one hand, Blundstones in the other.
~ * ~
Schumacher is the first to reach the top of the cement staircase. It was a steep climb but they’re not breathing heavily. ‘Hide your weapons.’ They do it and Schumacher pulls open a door.
They’re hit by a gush of frigid air as they enter a winter wonderland, or at least the snow-covered level at the very highest point of Ski Dubai, a steep hundred-metre high slope that is the starting point for the four-hundred metre ski run. The fire stairs they just climbed are contained within one of the two stanchions that support the highest point of the giant loaf-shaped structure that sits above the Mall of the Emirates.
The place isn’t too busy today, but there is a small group of skiers and snowboarders who have been deposited at the top of the hill by the lift. As one the group turn to the guys wearing the leather jackets and jeans and crash helmets, visibly surprised by their inappropriate clothing. It is, after all, two degrees Celsius in here.
‘Maintenance crew.’ Schumacher says it because he’s not sure what else would sound believable. He and his crew then crunch across the pristine white snow. It’s the longest fifty metres of Schumacher’s life. They can’t run, because the snow is slippery, so they walk as carefully and quickly as they can. As they go Schumacher glances down the hill, amazed by the sheer size of the place. He sees a snow park area to the right where you can hire large inflatable plastic balls to roll around in.
They look like a lot of fun.
Under different circumstances he’d like to try one out one day.
They reach the far wall and see a door, same as the one they entered the ski field through. Schumacher pulls it open and on the other side is the clear blue sky and glaring yellow sun of a sweltering Dubai day. Senna steps outside, then Hunt follows. Schumacher looks back to make sure this really is the clean getaway he thinks it is.
~ * ~
Wham.
Billy nails Schumacher hard around the left thigh and drives him into the building’s insulated wall. They bounce off, smash into the frozen ground at the top of the slope and slide apart. That tackle was deluxe, even if Billy does say so himself, and it was also his only course of action considering the guy was almost out the door. And if Billy had taken any longer putting his boots back on he may have missed him altogether.
Now all the Australian has to do is subdue the guy and the whole thing is over. The best way to do that is to use his pistol. He doesn’t want to shoot anyone, he certainly doesn’t want to shoot anyone in here, in what is essentially a family amusement park, and he really doesn’t want to shoot Kurt, if indeed Schumacher is Kurt, but he will if push comes to shove. Billy pulls himself up then reaches down to grab his pistol from the ankle holster the Frenchman loaned him —
Slam. Schumacher rears up and punches him in the jaw.
Ooof. The Australian slides backwards from the force of the hit—but flicks out a foot and whacks Schumacher’s knee, knocks him sideways. He stumbles forward and crashes into Billy —
Thwump. Together they slump over the edge of the hill and slide down the ski run.
Goddamnnit. The slope is extremely steep and they’re at speed instantly. Billy travels backwards in a sitting position and swings his pistol at Schumacher, who travels forward on his back and swings his pistol at Billy.
It’s a standoff—except neither are standing. They slide in unison, three metres apart, Schumacher to Billy’s right, down, down and down, fast as hell. The Australian wants to turn and make sure he’s not about to plough into some unlucky punter but he won’t risk taking his eyes off Schumacher. He’s not going to lose him again.
They slide into a right-hand curve and pick up even more speed, catch up to a dude on a snowboard who slides between them. Billy waves at him to get out of the way but Dudeman ignores the request and casually flicks him the bird—then notices the pistol in the Australian’s hand, mouths a startled ‘Oh fuck!’, puts the bird away and swerves to the right —
Crunch. Schumacher kicks out a foot and sweeps the snow-boarder’s legs from under him. Dudeman tumbles off and face-plants as his snowboard slides backwards, into Schumacher’s waiting hands. He pulls himself onto it in one sharp movement, finds his feet, then carves across the hill behind a group of skiers, his pistol trained on Billy the whole way.
The Australian has his weapon trained on Schumacher too but there’s no way he can fire with so many people about —
Wham. Billy slams into a plastic catch fence and jolts to a stop. One hundred metres up the slope he watches Schumacher crunch to a stop with an impressive fan of white powder. He abandons the snowboard, levers himself into a ski-lift chair, glances back at Billy . . . and throws him a little wave.
Prick!
The Australian exhales, as frustrated as he’s ever felt. The guy is gone and there’s nothing he can do about it.
Or is there?
If Schumacher’s going to take the ski lift up to the top then maybe there’s a chance one of Kashif’s men is in the vicinity and could help. Billy draws out his iPhone to make the call —
‘Oh come on!’ This is why you should never put a phone in your back pocket. The screen is shattered and the phone is dead as a dodo. ‘Wonderful!’ Billy finds his feet and glances back at the ski lift one last time. It isn’t moving very quickly. In fact it’s moving at a snail’s pace. He could probably run after it, might even be able to catch it by the time it reached the top, if he was wearing the kind of shoes that could grip the hill’s steep, snowy incline. But he’s not wearing that kind of shoe; he’s wearing slick-soled workboots that have almost no grip on a frozen surface.
He turns to a young blonde couple playing with a giant ball in the fun park area ten metres away. The ball is called a Zorg—no, a Zorb, and it’s a clear plastic sphere. It’s double-sectioned, with one two-metre-wide ball inside a larger three-metre sized ball, with a pressurised air layer between them. The layer acts as a shock absorber for the person inside the smaller ball who can roll the Zorb, within reason, pretty much anywhere without injury. Billy only knows this because he saw a documentary about the New Zealand blokes who make them. These particular Zorbs have a heavily ridged outer layer so they can grip the snow.
‘Grip the snow.’ Billy says it aloud then looks up the hill at the ski lift and the man wearing the Michael Schumacher helmet, then back at the Zorb.
He gets an idea.
~ * ~
Come on!
This ski lift is taking its sweet time getting to the top of this mountain. It’s not just slow, but super slow. Schumacher would get off and walk if he didn’t think he’d just slide to the bottom. He turns and looks to the spot where the guy in the black ski mask crashed into the safety fence.
H
e’s gone. Where’d he go? Schumacher scans the side hill. He can see plenty of people happily skiing but no sign of the guy. Who is he anyway? A cop? A security guard? And why was he wearing that mask? Does he have anything to do with the guy who wore the mask on the golf course in Malaysia?
Schumacher’s eyes flick right, to the fun park section. There’s no sign of the guy there either, but he can see four of those giant inflatable balls rolling around an obstacle course. They really do look like fun —
Hold on.
One of the balls is no longer on the obstacle course. It has rolled out of that area and makes its way across the hill.
Why would it be doing that?
Before he can answer his own question, the ball turns and heads up the hill—towards the ski lift, the ridges on its exterior perfectly gripping the snow and propelling it forward.
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