You were just here two days ago. And you’re coming back?”
Lucas Kane gave his most relaxing smile, knowing that no matter what he did, it would look insincere. He just couldn’t get the smile to reach his eyes, as if he actually gave a shit. Which was fine with him. He could turn the smile into something that scared hardened men if it came to it, and he had nothing to hide at Dubai immigration. Yet.
“Yes. I was called away to Qatar suddenly for business. A little emergency that turned out to be nothing. Now I’m back.”
The official studied his passport as if he could glean the secrets of what Lucas had been doing the past forty-eight hours. Lucas inwardly grinned. The man was trying to find something to stop him. Some reason to harass him simply because he didn’t like Lucas’s shark teeth. He would shit his pants if he knew what I’ve been up to. And what I’m going to do.
Two days ago, he’d flown into Dubai just long enough to bribe the hawaladar, giving him a briefcase embedded with a beacon. It had taken some work, but he’d disassembled a GPS-enabled cell phone to its bare components, concealing it in a false bottom of an old leather hardside. He’d paid the guy handsomely to use the briefcase to deliver the money to the Ghost. After that, he’d only had two hours to spare before his flight to Qatar and had used it to find a secure meeting site for his Hezbollah contact. Secure in the sense it would keep him alive.
“What business are you in?” asked the official.
“Pest control. I’m consulting with hotels here and in Qatar.”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Al Bustan Rotana.”
The official had him look into the camera-stalk for a picture and stamped his passport, grudgingly giving it back. Man, they’ve got more photos of me than the Enquirer does of Angelina Jolie. Last time I’ll set foot in this country.
He passed through customs, collected his rental, and took the short drive to the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel just east of the airport. The midday sun was blistering, causing his sunglasses to fog on the brief walk from the parking garage to the lobby.
Inside, he could see the early preparations beginning for the envoy’s visit. Metal detectors were in place on the front door, but not yet operational, and one bank of elevators was undergoing some sort of inspection. Checking into his suite on the fourth floor, he played stupid when the receptionist directed him to the south bank of elevators, asking why. He acted surprised when told of the arrival of the U.S. delegation, saying, “I hope it won’t cause too big a disruption.”
She said, “As long as you stay on the south side, you’ll be fine. The delegation has the entire northeast wing of the fourth floor. Please avoid it for security reasons.”
He hadn’t purposely asked for a room on the same floor, but was pleased it had worked out that way. If the Ghost planned an attack here, it would be better to be closer, although he didn’t see any way that could happen. The hotel would be a fortress in two days.
Inside his suite, he immediately connected to the Internet on a tablet computer, bringing up the track of his beacon. The Ghost had taken the briefcase earlier this morning, and the track showed him inside the spice souk in Deira old city, right on the banks of the Dubai Creek. The beacon had remained there for six hours. Clearly, he didn’t have the briefcase with him, which was expected. All Lucas wanted was a start point. He had plenty of time to work with. The Ghost surely had a plan and would begin implementing it, but the envoy wasn’t due for three days. Plenty of time to develop a pattern of life and eliminate the threat.
The souk posed a problem, though. It was a place that would prevent him from conducting surveillance for any length of time. He’d be able to blend in with the usual jerk-off tourists, but couldn’t hang around without drawing attention. He knew from experience that areas like this were transitory in nature, with a constant flow of people. Tourists wouldn’t get a second glance. As long as they moved on. Attempting to maintain surveillance on the stairwell of the beacon location would invite scrutiny that would be remembered by the locals manning the stalls.
He shut down the tablet and thought about his options. The kill would have to be quiet. Someplace that would allow him to escape Dubai before the body was found. Which, given the enormous number of cameras all over the damn city, meant jerking the Ghost into a van or some other vehicle. It also meant he’d need help, but that was okay. He’d already planned for that and alerted the Hezbollah contacts here. He just didn’t know if they were still on his side.
He’d had no trouble in Qatar, getting explosives from a Hezbollah cell that was eager to help, but that had been more than twenty-four hours ago. No telling what had come about during that time. He had two hours before the meeting he’d established, but decided to go early to see if he could catch anyone setting up. Better to be prepared.
He left his rental in the garage and took a cab to the Dubai Mall, a monstrous shopping center that housed everything from high-end jewelry stores to an indoor aquarium.
In order to ensure his safety, he needed a meeting spot in a crowded location that allowed him to blend in. Some place where the preponderance of people weren’t Arabic. On his reconnaissance two days ago, the Dubai Mall had fit the bill. Frequented by tourists and expats from Europe and Asia, he would have no trouble wandering around without drawing attention.
Finding the operational setting, he had begun to search for the tactical components he needed. A place that had a single chokepoint, allowing him to identify his contact before the meeting. He had found it in the indoor aquarium.
Like everything in Dubai, from the towering Burj Khalifa next door to the indoor ski slope a few miles away, the aquarium had its own “best” pedigree, with the largest plate of acrylic viewing-glass in the world. Lucas didn’t give a shit about Dubai’s endless attempts to set another record, but he had liked the entrance of the ticket counter that channeled everyone into the aquarium.
He took a seat at an ice-cream shop across from the admission counter, ordered a sundae, and waited. Thirty minutes before the meet he saw two Arab men approach the ticket booth. Both were dressed in Western clothing, like everyone else entering the aquarium. They stood out anyway, as most of the patrons were Western tourists or Arabic families with children. They didn’t talk to each other in line, like the other patrons, but instead nervously swiveled their heads left and right, as if they were afraid a pickpocket was on the prowl.
Strike one.
The instructions had specifically stated the contact should come alone. The fact that two men were together didn’t necessarily mean that something was amiss, since Lucas had no idea what the contact looked like, but it certainly amped things up a bit.
One of the men was rail-thin, with a long neck that showcased a large Adam’s apple. The other had a pudgy gut held in by sweatpants, giving the man the appearance of a couch potato. Observing closer, Lucas saw long, powerful arms that belied the first impression, reminding him of a gorilla. Sinister and simian.
Lucas waited until the meeting was two minutes out, seeing four other possible contacts entering as singletons. It looked like he’d been wrong about the demographics, with more single Arabs entering the aquarium than he’d predicted. There was no way they were all out to get him, and one of them was the contact.
Only one way to find out.