Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

He peeked over the top and saw the men were less than seventy meters away. If he waited any longer, he would be trapped anyway. He jumped up and grabbed the railing on the left side of the stairwell. Swiftly scrambling over it, he hid in the shrubbery beyond.

He thought again about his options, but came up blank. It was either him or failure. He felt a sadness seep inside. He steeled himself, shaking off the melancholy. He would need to remain out of their grasp for several minutes, leading them on a chase. From there, it would be up to Allah. Maybe he could get them to kill him here, before they started in on the torture.

He kept his eyes on the two men, waiting until just before they reached the stairwell. When he was certain they would sense his movement, he slipped over the side, walking behind them at a fast pace, purposely scuffing his shoes.

I dropped my phone and keyed the radio. “Brett, Decoy, turn around. The Ghost is behind you. Look behind you!”

I saw them whip around, then the man take off running. He circled around the back side of the building, running along a promenade that fronted a giant artificial lake.

Knuckles was already out of the van, waiting for me to give him the word, unleashing the hounds as it were. Instead, I said, “No, you go to Jennifer. Go get her. We’ll handle this.”

He gave me a sour look, not liking at all that he’d be sitting out the chase, but he nodded and moved back to the door.

I took off at a sprint, panting into my radio, “Hit him with the EMP gun. Take out any electronics on his body.”

I was about seventy meters behind the target and forty meters behind Brett and Decoy. Brett was pulling away, running like a linebacker for the end zone. Moving at astonishing speed.

The Ghost flipped a glance over his shoulder, and I was close enough to see the shock on his face when he saw Brett closing the gap. He veered toward the water, and Decoy took a knee, aiming the EMP gun.

I saw him track the target all the way to the water’s edge, presumably firing his body full of electromagnetic pulses. Hopefully scrambling whatever remote detonation mechanism he had.

The Ghost cleared the railing and dove into the lake right at the juncture of a false stream. He started swimming to the far side, looking like a child who had fallen out of a Disney ride, a dark cork in the impossibly blue water.

I saw a bridge crossing the stream, letting tourists continue their promenade along the false sea, and sprinted to it. I reached the far side, and we had a little bit of a “man-in-the-middle,” with Brett and Decoy on one side, me on the other, and a bedraggled terrorist now treading water between us.

When he didn’t move to either side, Decoy jumped in after him, forcing him to choose. He came my way, trying to climb up a maintenance box and jump back onto the promenade. It was easy to beat him to it.

I grabbed him by the lapels and swung him violently onto the ground, surprised at how light he was. His coke-bottle glasses flew off, and he hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of him.

I ripped through every crevice and pocket of his body, trying to find whatever he had that would trigger the explosives in the building. I came up empty.

Brett reached me, saying, “Did we fry the device?”

“There isn’t a fucking device.”

I slapped the Ghost’s face. “What’s the threat? Where is it?”

He looked at me with a sense of calm and satisfaction, as if he’d just won a contest of skill.

“You’re too late.”

Jeff McMasters saw the end of the lap around the observation deck to his front and gave a silent thank-you. The drone of the official tour guide had endlessly echoed with bits of trivia of the city no matter which direction they looked.

He did have to admit they weren’t kidding about the height. They were so far up in the air that the “ordinary” skyscrapers of downtown Dubai looked like toys. So far up that there had been no vertigo at all. It was like looking out the window of an airplane, the earth so distant that his mind couldn’t compute the effect as being above it.

They reached the elevators, and the guide asked if he’d like to go outside, to the tallest open-air observation deck in the world. He, of course, expressed keen interest, wondering what else the man could blab about.

Blessedly, the tour guide simply said, “Enjoy yourself and let me know when you’re ready to return to the bottom.”

He nodded as if he was having the time of his life and pulled out his international BlackBerry. To his surprise, he had not a single e-mail or missed call. The damn thing rang endlessly, and he’d been out of contact for at least thirty minutes. He looked closer and saw he had no signal.

Must be something to do with this building.

Like a man addicted, he felt the need to get his phone back on the network. He nodded at Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and said, “Let’s continue our tour of your fabulous city.”

The sheikh smiled. “Of course. Today is your day.”

As soon as the words came out of the Ghost’s mouth, I knew he’d tricked us. Delayed us to execute his plan. I wanted to scream at my stupidity. I should have hit what I knew-the elevators in the building. I’d gotten tunnel vision when I’d seen him, and now it would cost us.

I wasted no more time on him, knowing there was no pressure on earth I could bring to bear in the short time I had to get him to talk. He was prepared to die. Unlike his accomplice-my ace in the hole.

I started snapping orders. “Brett, target’s yours. Get him back to the van. Decoy, get the EMP gun recharged and ready. Knuckles, what’s your status?”

“Still on the parking-garage road, about to enter the highway. What’s up?”

“Turn around. Come back. Get that little weasel in the van to the basement door. He needs to lead us to the explosive set he saw the Ghost emplace.”

“On the way. Ten seconds out. What about the shit on the hundred-twenty-fifth floor?”

“Nothing we can do about it. We’re going to disable what we have.”

“You think that’ll be enough?”

“I have no idea, just get him moving.”

Sprinting back the way I had come, I saw Knuckles leap out of the van, rushing our captive forward, holding the back of his neck, the man’s feet barely touching the ground. We met up at the stairwell.

“Lead us directly to the location your friend placed the explosives. If you deceive us in any way, I swear to God I’m going to kill you.”

His eyes bugging out of his head, he simply nodded. I swiped his card, and we entered in a rush. We stood inside for a millisecond before I slapped his stomach.

“Where, dammit? Where?”

His hands cuffed in front, he took off at a trot. “This way. To the shafts.”

He led us through a maze, finally pointing at the gaping holes of two large elevator shafts. And the explosives inside each.

“Don’t touch them. Find the detonators. They’ll be electronic. Knock them out with the EMP gun.”

We fanned out, and I saw a snake of wire leading from the explosives in the right shaft. I followed it with my eyes, winding and curving on the ground like a child’s maze. Eventually, I ended up at the wall between the shafts themselves. And saw a blinking light.

“Decoy! There! Between the shafts! Hit it with the gun!”

He immediately took a knee, aiming the EMP. I heard a distinctive hum, then saw a blinding flash, followed by a shock wave that launched me backward.

I sat up, attempting to shake the ringing from my ears, looking to see if anyone on the team had been injured. Another sound penetrated the stillness. Something like a freight train loose on the tracks, coming from the shafts themselves.