Welcome to Dubai (The Traveler)

  Realizing the soldiers were far too close for comfort to tussle with a skilled traitor, Heru dove down another staircase to retreat to the twenty-sixth floor. And to his surprise, the traitor followed him. Heru then smashed the man into the exit doorway before pulling out his pistol, which was much better to use in close range. But again, the traitor countered and grabbed his arm away, causing the pistol to shoot into the hallway ceiling.

  Finally, Heru was able to get a good look at him.

  “I know you. You are the construction worker recruited by Father.”

  Saleem, the taller and stronger man, responded, “Yes. Mohd is a good man, and he will be brought down and killed because of the ideas of his mad son.”

  “He is an old man who was taken advantage of by the Emirates,” Heru told him with a right knee to his ribs.

  Saleem took the knee, leaned forward and attempted to headbutt him but missed as Heru fell backward with a trip move and the Pakistani’s heavier weight, slamming him headfirst into the wall.

  With no time to follow-up and shoot the traitor, the UAE soldiers were right on top of them as Heru fired several shots into the exit doorway.

  He leaped back to his feet and ran down the hallway, continuing to shoot at the soldiers who pursued him. The reinforcement soldiers wore thick black helmets with shields and bulletproof vests, so Heru aimed for their necks and knees, injuring three of them in the front.

  *****

  Back down in the thirteenth-floor hallway, Gary caught up with Ramia and Johnny, who were overjoyed to see him.

  “Gary!” Ramia let out, hugging him instantly. “I was so worried about you.” She squeezed him as if attempting to push all of the air out of his lungs. Johnny squeezed him as well to make it worse.

  “Hey, easy,” Gary whined, cringing. His ribs and arms were sore from so much diving, rolling and fighting earlier. But he was still ready for more, if needed.

  “I was concerned about you two. I saw you on the monitors in the basement. What are you doing in here?”

  “The same as you, man. We’re trying to be heroes,” Johnny quipped.

  Gary grinned and shook his head. “You’re unbelievable, man.” Even in the middle of turmoil, the guy was full of jokes and positive energy.

  “No, you’re unbelievable!” Johnny said. “We saw how you got in here. Everyone saw it.” Then he whispered, “So, are you a secret agent?”

  Ramia slapped Johnny on his chest. “Stop it. Even if he was, he could not tell you.”

  Gary noticed their short but important work together had given them a chemistry, as if they had known each other for years. And it was good.

  “I’ll tell you both later. But how did you get in?”

  With the soldiers passing by them in the hallway with more hostages, Ramia answered, “We’ll tell you that later,” and grinned, mocking him.

  Gary chuckled. “All right, it’s a deal. We’ll trade secrets later. But I just wanted to let you guys know that I was all right.”

  Ramia became concerned again. She grabbed on to the hem of his shirt and asked him, “Where are you going?”

  Gary took a deep breath. “To finish something.”

  Stealing the moment, Ramia pulled him into her and kissed his lips, forcefully.

  “You come back in one piece, Mr. Stevens. We want to know who you are.”

  Gary nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. That’s a deal.” But as he ran off through the exit door and back down to the lower-level floors to avoid the soldiers, who he assumed would stop him from going up, Gary was concerned about facing Heru with a gun in hand.

  That guy seems lethal, he mused as he hustled up the hallway of the eleventh floor toward the service elevator.

  What if that tough guy can’t take him? he thought of Saleem. The two of them still hadn’t exchanged names. And although Saleem knew that Gary was obviously an American, Gary had no idea what nation Saleem was from. He looked like a million other men from the Middle East, with added height and ruggedness.

  Nevertheless, the Egyptian Ra-Heru Amun appeared to be an expert assassin on a serious mission to kill as many UAE soldiers as one man could.

  When the service elevator arrived, Gary quickly stepped inside with the dead bodies and climbed to the top as his ally had done earlier. Only he didn’t know how to get off when it reached the top faster than he expected.

  Gary jumped clumsily onto the wires beside him and nearly fell to his death.

  “Shit!” he yelled, holding on for his life. He then swung his legs back and forth until he could reach the elevator doorway and pull it open.

  After climbing into the hallway of the twenty-seventh floor, Gary dove to the ground in a pile of dead men as he spotted more UAE soldiers up at the opposite hallway. They looked down in his direction but failed to check it out.

  “It was probably one of the guests at their door,” one of the soldiers commented. “But we are not to help them escape until we find and kill Heru. That is the commander’s direct orders. It is too dangerous to be concerned with the tourists at this time.”

  Nevertheless, they kept two men on the floor to watch over it, forcing Gary to inch his way toward the nearby exit staircase until he could make it out unnoticed. But once he had made it, he froze. Someone was hustling back up the staircase straight toward him, and it was a lone man and not soldiers. With more dead men inside of the staircase, Gary thought of blending in and playing dead, but the man was too close to him, and Gary was certain that his white skin and light-brown hair would stand out too much amongst the brown immigrant bodies on the floor.

  With fight-or-flight instincts, Gary rolled back into the exit door and dove through it, returning to the hallway with the soldiers. But he remained low to the ground, climbing over the dead bodies. It was a perfect move that saved his life.

  Ra-Heru Amun burst into the hallway shooting straight at the soldiers down the hall. He had a much stronger assault weapon that blew them backward like toys. Realizing how fast he had to move, Gary had already grabbed a weapon from the floor and fired back in Heru’s direction. But he did it too fast to aim correctly, with bullets flying overhead into the ceiling.

  Heru dove back from the fire and repositioned his big gun to shoot at the unexpected assailant with white skin and light hair.

  That must be the American! Every thought and recognition was lightning fast with Heru.

  Before Heru could aim his powerful weapon and return fire, Gary shot at the guestroom door to his left and broke inside like an American football player sacking the quarterback. He planned to apologize to whoever was inside the room, hoping that they would not be injured by him, but when he flipped and rolled over into the bedroom, he found that the room was empty.

  Gary quickly looked over to the wall behind the bed as a buffer for a possible shootout with Heru, and he spotted a wall full of black bombs.

  “Oh, my God!” he whispered to himself. Heru’s final plan unfolded before his eyes. “He’s gonna blow up the building from the top and let it burn down.”

  A memory of the Twin Towers in New York rushed to mind, where two airplanes had struck the top floors with tanks full of flammable fuel. And with a highly flammable explosion at the top floors of a building, because of the obvious height and the dangers of collapse, it was nearly impossible to put out as opposed to battling a bomb from a lower floor.

  Heru was making certain that the world would not ignore their revolt. And as the thoughts of paranoia ran rapidly through Gary’s mind, he felt fortunate that he had found the bombs before the plan was set in motion, but he also realized that he was trapped inside with him.

  “I don’t know who you are, my friend. But you just involved yourself in something that you will regret from your cremation,” Heru spoke into the room from the hallway.

  Gary responded, “I don’t know who you are either. But it looks like you haven’t set your bombs yet, unless you planned to have them all in one room.”

  He was assuming the room was a
distribution point, but Heru laughed at him.

  “You are wrong, my friend. Those are only the leftovers. But too bad you will not be able to tell anyone before you die.”

  Gary looked and thought of jumping out of the window with bedsheets. But while on the twenty-seventh floor, he would need to shoot his way back into a lower room, where he would surely endanger a family.

  That’s not gonna work, he told himself. These sheets will only reach about three to four floors down.

  Fortunately, Heru had more soldiers to deal with as he began to fire back down the hallway at more men, so Gary seized the opportunity to shoot his way back out, aiming at the walls of the room where he felt Heru would be standing inside the hall.

  Heru responded by shooting through the room’s walls, forcing Gary to crash to the floor. But he was determined to blast his way out with the help of the soldiers.

  Just keep shooting, he told himself. He can’t afford to stand there in the hallway. We all have to force him to retreat.

  Gary continued to fire up through the hotel room wall until he ran out of bullets. But his calculated hunch was right. Heru could not possibly hold his position for long. The soldiers would all know his position.

  In fact, Heru had already remained there too long. And by the time he had returned to the staircase to escape from the twenty-seventh floor, the stairs were flooded with more soldiers behind him. Undeterred with his powerful assault weapon, Heru cleared a path with bullets that tore apart the staircase, forcing the surviving soldiers to retreat again.

  *****

  Back down at the armored truck headquarters at the hotel’s entrance, the commander of the UAE Defence Force was incredulous. He couldn’t believe the continued reports.

  “You mean that one man continues to rebuff you? Ludicrous! You are an army! So act like one!” he yelled at his men through their hi-tech military phones. The communications scramblers had no effect on them.

  But as the commander of the Union Defence Force stepped back out into view, along with his second in command, Chief Ali Youssef and Tariq Mohammed, another secret plan was being hatched. Just as it was the UAE Defence Force plan to take out Heru as the head of the immigrant rebellion, Heru had a plan of his own to take out the head of the army. And out of the crowd, a woman wearing a full white burqa dress with a fully covered headdress, aimed a pistol and shot it at the commanding officer.

  Tariq saw the assault in time and reacted quickly enough to push the commander out of the way. But Ali and the second in command officer were both hit with bullets before the police and the UAE soldiers could shoot the woman down.

  Realizing that his good friend had been hit, Tariq quickly moved to him to lift him up. But without a vest and several shots to his chest and neck, Ali’s death was imminent.

  He then jabbed his friend Tariq in the chest with his finger and in his dying breath told him, “You’re the new chief. En sha Allah.”

  Tariq cried out loud, while cradling his dead friend. “AAAHHH! Merciful Allah! Merciful Allah!”

  The commander of the Defence Force was incensed as his men tended to his second in command, who was also dying from bullet wounds. The commander then shouted to his men in reference to the dead assassin, wearing the white burqa, “Take it off! Take it off!”

  As the largely Muslim crowd watched in alarm, the soldiers found a scarred-face man under the clothing.

  “Merciful Allah,” some of the men commented and cringed at the sight of the severely burned face.

  The commander had a look of his own and immediately understood that a full covering was the only way the man could hide his hideous face. But when Tariq saw him, he knew exactly who he had been.

  “He was the accomplice with Heru two nights ago in Deira when they slit the throats of two elders who knew of their wicked plans. One of the attackers was hit in the face with hot fish oil. And it was him.”

  The commander nodded, increasingly impressed with the investigator and private counsel. “You know your work well, my friend. And I thank you for saving my life.”

  Tariq nodded soberly. “If only I could save everyone.”

  Chapter 33

  Incensed now himself, Tariq rushed back into the armored truck headquarters where they continued to hold Mohd, and the private investigator and counsel pulled out his pistol to point at the Egyptian’s right eye. His friend Ali was already headed to the hospital, but only to confirm the obvious.

  “You tell us what the plans are, right now!” Tariq shouted before the commander and his soldiers could stop him. “Right now,” he repeated, “before more people die, starting with you!”

  Mohd refused to even blink while waiting for the bullet to end his life. He repeated the words that he had told Bakar earlier. “I am already dead. And my spirit died long ago with my wife. This is why I have no control over my son.

  “What he does now is of his own mind,” Mohd continued. “I can only imagine, like you, what he will do next. And whenever I was able to find anything out, Heru killed them.”

  “How much didn’t you come forth to tell the proper authorities then?” the commander asked him.

  Mohd breathed deeply and felt guilty. He answered, “He is my son. So I prayed to every god of mankind that he would not go through with this. But Heru became his own god, and he would not be denied by his father.”

  The commander nodded and pulled Tariq’s gun away. He told Mohd, “You are definitely going to die. But you’re going to die after court in the Sharia law. That is the way of the United Arab Emirates.”

  “Do what you will with me,” Mohd said. “I only pray that you are able to stop my son with the men that I have planted amongst him.”

  Just then, there were new reports from the soldiers that had finally secured the roof of the building:

  “The American helped us to find a room full of bombs on the top floor. But he said Heru told him that there are more. So we have no choice but to evacuate the rest of the rooms to find the ones with the bombs in them on the top floors. That is why Heru has spent so much time protecting the top of the building.”

  Tariq’s and the commander’s eyes widened with fear. But they refused to panic. They were forced to figure it all out.

  “What about the lower floors?” the commander asked his men.

  “We found nothing in the rooms and only security men and shipment workers locked up in the basement.”

  “Well, continue to look,” the commander ordered. “In the meantime, get rid of Heru! And then we will deal with the lobby.”

  When the commander ended his call, he looked at Tariq and asked, “Who is this American? Give us a search using his face.”

  “We tried earlier, but nothing came up but his school information. He is a graduate from the University of Louisville, with a double degree in Business and International Studies. And he was kicked off the lacrosse team at Duke for low grades in his freshman year. It also said that his mother, Gabrielle Stevens, was killed in a carjacking incident five year ago and that his best friend was murdered by unknown men in Colombia, South America, in that same year. So, he’s sympathetic to those in tragedy.”

  “Yes, but he has nothing of a military history?” the commander questioned.

  “Nothing that was reported. It says he owns a record store in downtown Louisville.”

  The commander chuckled and said, “This American is a total mystery man. But he has helped us several times today.”

  Tariq walked back over to Mohd and asked, “What of these loyal men that you have planted to stop him? Are any of them good enough?”

  Mohd breathed deeply again and thought only of Saleem. He had a good feeling about the rugged Pakistani’s potential in warfare. But it was only a hunch. And even Saleem was a long-shot against the determination of his son.

  Mohd said, “What of this American tourist? If he was able to speak to my son and live, then he may have a chance.”

  “Yeah,” the commander grumbled, “we’ll see.”
r />   *****

  As the time approached four o’clock, Basim had parked his car and started to run through the crowded downtown. Despite the Emirates disdain, even the restrictive news stations were beginning to report some of the story. But they were only allowed to call it a “disturbance.” However, Basim thought better of it, and he was not going to wait to find out more, hours later, that it was much worse than what was first reported.

  He also thought that he might be ready to send his cousin Ramia back home to Jordan or maybe move to America with her where the culture would be less restrictive and more of her liking. But America and its large urban cities, where the majority of the jobs were, could be dangerous too. Or maybe London could be an alternative.

  All of those options crossed Basim’s mind as he continued to run through the crowds for the International Suites. But none of his new ideas would mean anything without Ramia still being alive.

  *****

  Not only was Ramia still alive, but she continued to help hundreds of others to survive the nightmare in broad daylight.

  “We have only twelve floors to go,” she told Johnny on the fifteenth floor of the building as they continued to move their way up after the soldiers secured the safety of each floor.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna need the longest full-body massage in the world after this,” Johnny complained lightly.

  “Yes, but think of all of the beautiful women of the world who love a real hero,” Ramia teased him.

  Johnny paused and had a thought. “You want to take a picture of me on my cell phone inside the hallways.”

  “No!” Ramia snapped at him candidly. “This is not a time for pictures. So keep your mind on the benefit and welfare of the families that we are helping to escape.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  Ramia grinned while still thinking and worrying about the mysterious American traveler, Gary Stevens.

  *****

  Back on the twenty-sixth floor, Gary worked his way down behind a group of new escaping hostages from the top floor, who were mostly the wealthier bigwigs with few children. And as they worked their way down the staircase, Gary noticed that soldiers had captured his ally.