“We have to leave this building immediately. It’s about to be struck by an airplane.”
Jack blinked, put the lid back on the hatbox before anyone else saw what was inside it.“A wha —?”
Then a Klaxon sounded.
A hotel alarm.
Red emergency lights blazed to life as a voice came over the internal PA system, speaking first in Arabic, then in English:“Would all guests please evacuate the hotel. This is an emergency. Would all guests please evacuate the hotel and convene out by the parking lot.”
Everyone exchanged worried glances as the voice went on in other languages.
And then other phones started ringing.
First Robertson’s, then Vulture’s.
“What is it?” Jack asked Abbas.
The sheik’s face was white. “They say a plane that took off a short time ago from Dubai International has departed from its flight plan and deviated from the regular flight corridor. It’s headed this way, toward this building.”
Jack froze. “This can’t be a coincidence. Everybody out! Now! We’ll rendezvous at The Halicarnassus ! Move!”
Everyone cleared the room—Abbas was whisked outside by his minders; Robertson went out all by himself. The Marine, Astro, stayed, saying to Jack: “How can I help?”
Jack was already springing into action. “Zoe! Pooh Bear! Get the kids outta here! I’ve got to grab Wizard’s stuff. Stretch, help me out! Lieutenant”—he said to Astro—“you can help, too. I could use an extra pair of hands.”
It was then that West looked out through the wide panoramic windows of the Presidential Suite.
And his jaw dropped.
He saw a Boeing 767 cargo jet banking across the sky and then leveling out on a dead-straight flight path that would end at the Burj al Arab Tower.
“Oh, crap,” he breathed.
IF YOU COULD have seen it up close, you would have made out the words TRANSATLANTIC AIR FREIGHT on the side of the speeding cargo plane.
And although the pilot listed on its flight plan was Earl McShane, it wasn’t Earl McShane who sat at the controls. It was a lone man who was prepared to die—for a matter of honor.
The 767 zeroed in on the tower.
In the hotel, people were running every which way.
Every elevator was jammed to overflowing. The fire escape stairs were filled with fleeing guests, some in tuxedos, others in their pajamas.
Up on the helipad, high above the world, a helicopter lifted off and powered away from the building.
The PA blared:“This is an emergency. Would all guests please evacuate the hotel…”
Zoe and Pooh Bear burst out of the fire escape into the wide lobby of the hotel, gripping Lily and Alby by the hand.
“This is crazy,” Zoe whispered. “Just crazy.”
They dashed outside into the morning sunshine, into the massing crowd.
Up in the Presidential Suite, Jack, Stretch, and Astro were the last ones left.
They were packing frantically, gathering together all of Wizard’s notes and books in a few sports bags.
When at last they had everything, they ran from the suite, West coming last of all, peering back out the window in time to see the cargo plane looming large right outside.
Then the plane dipped below the window line and a moment later Jack felt the building shudder in a way he wished he’d never feel again.
Seen from the outside, the speeding 767 hit the Burj al Arab Tower about two-thirds of the way up its side, around the fiftieth floor.
The entire plane instantly burst into a billowing fireball, a flaming meteor that spewed out the other side of the waterfront tower.
The building shuddered violently and tottered, belching a great plume of smoke, eerily reminiscent of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 in that terrible hour before they fell.
“We’re cut off!” Stretch called from the entrance to the fire stairs. “We can’t get down!”
West spun. The world around him was literally crumbling. The tower was swaying. Black smoke rose past the windows, blotting out the sun.
“Up,” he said. “We go up.”
Minutes later, the three of them burst out onto the helipad of the burning Burj al Arab Tower.
The coastline of Dubai stretched out before them—a dead-flat desert plain meeting the aqua waters of the Persian Gulf. The Sun was blood red in color, veiled by the smoke.
“This is outrageous!” Astro yelled.
