Enemy of Mine

out between the shutters of the window. He could see an alley below him, with various wholesale stores selling dry goods. Nothing appeared to be out of place. No one standing around without a purpose.

He placed the batteries in his final IMSI grabber and turned it on. Within seconds, it began registering dozens of numbers. He shut it off immediately, knowing he’d just disconnected quite a few phone calls. He was pleased that it worked as advertised, but didn’t need any anomalies in the cell system to generate suspicion.

He placed it and the WiFi booster he’d purchased yesterday into his knapsack and glanced at his watch. In two hours the envoy would be landing. If all went well, in five he would be dead.

Getting Jennifer in place inside the lobby of the Al Bustan Rotana turned out to be the easy part. Dressed nicely, she blended in well, drinking coffee at a small table next to an espresso bar that afforded a view of the entrance and both banks of elevators.

Finding a place to conduct the ambush had been damn near impossible. The hotel itself looked more like a high-end prison, with metal detectors on all doors and roving men in suits wearing sunglasses and wired earbuds. This, in addition to the cameras all over the place.

Initially, I had planned for Jennifer to walk to the parking garage, getting inside to some corner that was dark and scary, where we could thump Lucas unimpeded. When we arrived, we saw the garage entrance had been converted into a search-and-quarantine section, with every vehicle getting inspected bumper-to-bumper. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be very pleased with the armament we had brought.

This, coupled with the fact that Lucas’s phone had been stationary outside a spice souk in Deira for the entire morning, had almost caused me to change my mind and simply execute the mugging using the vehicle. Just follow and rip him off the street at the first opportunity.

I really didn’t want to do that given the variables of location and time. I wanted-needed-to control the kill zone, so we kept looking. Eventually, we ended up behind the hotel at a back entrance that led to several attached restaurants. The restaurants were only open for dinner, and the hallway between them ultimately ended up back in the hotel lobby. Even better, the hallway had a single camera at the lobby entrance for the hotel and a single camera at the exit, outside the door. The kicker had been that instead of a metal detector at the exit, it was simply locked. The hotel had decided to shut it down for the duration of the envoy’s visit.

Sitting next to me in the van, staring at his Taskforce smartphone, Knuckles said, “Target’s on the move.” I looked at my own phone, brought over in the support package Jennifer had received, and saw Lucas was crossing the Dubai Creek and headed to us. Or the airport.

Moment of truth.

The envoy’s party was due to land in about thirty minutes. If Lucas bypassed the hotel and made any indication that he was headed to the airport, we would be forced to take him down with the vehicle whether we liked it or not. I was betting he wouldn’t, though. He’d had the time to come up with something ingenious, and with the Saudi unknown helping him, I didn’t think he’d do some ghetto drive-by. He’d want to get away clean.

I keyed the push-to-talk on my radio. “Everyone set?”

Brett said, “Roger. I got the line of sight down the hallway.”

Decoy said, “Yeah. I got the front door and the roundabout outside.”

Jennifer said, “I’m still good. No change.”

“Remember,” I said, “he doesn’t bite on the way in, we recock and try again on the way out.”

Knuckles did a functions check on the new EMP gun we’d received in the drop, making sure it was ready to take out the camera above the door. I busied myself with my electric lockpick gun, mentally rehearsing in my mind the sequence I would go through.

Our part of the mission was the one big risk to discovery. I had to get the door open before Jennifer reached it, which meant Knuckles would have to kill the camera before Lucas committed to the trap. If he didn’t, we’d have to cross our fingers that someone wouldn’t come out and investigate why the camera wasn’t working while we waited on round two.

Knuckles said, “He’s made the turn on the road to the hotel.”

I felt the adrenaline rise, knowing we were about two minutes out. Knuckles shut off the phone, slid open the door to the van, and said, “Decoy, your target.”

“Roger.”

Decoy was the trigger. The minute he saw Lucas, we’d be in motion.

Sooner than expected, I heard, “Target at entrance. Held up with security. They’re searching his backpack.”

That was one good thing about this location. We’d know positively that Lucas had no firearms. Knuckles handed me his radio and cell phone, then exited the vehicle, me right behind him. We slid down the wall of the hotel, doing whatever we could to stay out of the camera’s field of view.

He reached within forty feet of the ball hanging above the door and began sighting. I backed up a few yards to prevent any backsplash from destroying our electronics. Especially my lock gun.

The EMP hummed and Knuckles said, “Go.”

I raced to the lock, taking a knee and sliding in the thin needle. I inserted the tension wrench, then began pulsing the lock gun. It rattled like crazy, much louder than I remembered.

Decoy said, “Target’s passed. Jennifer, your show.”

I continued to work the lock and told Decoy to give me a play-by-play. Jennifer had done a timing run, and I knew the hallway was two minutes from the lobby to the door. Unfortunately, the last bend, right in front of a Chinese restaurant, was only one minute and thirty seconds away. From it someone would have a view of the door and me behind it through the plate glass.

“Jennifer’s up and looking sexy, giving Lucas an eyeful. Come on, baby, show him some skin.”

Asshole. I grinned in spite of the seriousness of what we were doing. Decoy was busting my balls because of a fight we’d had last year in a similar situation involving Jennifer. He’d made some inappropriate comments, and I’d about taken his head off. Now, he was poking me in the eye for the fun of it.

“Okay, Lucas has lock-on, and he definitely recognized her. He stopped for a second. He’s now staring at her back, but headed to the elevator. Target unsighted. Brett, it’s your ball.”

Shit. Come on. Follow her.

Brett said, “I got him. He’s at the elevator. Jennifer’s about fifty feet from the hallway. He’s still looking.”

I continued working the lock, having trouble getting the pins to the shear line. One seated, then another, but slower than my rehearsal earlier in the van.

“Bingo. He’s coming her way, walking fast. Jennifer, pick it up or he’s going to catch you.”

I heard Jennifer acknowledge, and I started to sweat. “Time?” I asked Knuckles.

Knuckles said, “Easy. You still got over a minute. Slow and smooth.”

I felt another pin reach the shear line, realizing I was going to make it with half a minute to spare. The next call popped that illusion.

“Shit, he just started running. Jennifer, get moving! He’s not going to follow. He’s coming hard to take you out. Jennifer, you copy?”

I heard silence for a second, then, “Target unsighted. I say again, target unsighted.”

I looked through the window, but saw nothing. At a sprint my time went from a minute and a half to about twenty seconds. I returned to the lock, the tension wrench having moved about forty-five degrees, which meant I had about two or three pins to go.

I seated another pin and heard Knuckles say in a monotone, “Got her in sight. You’re out of time.” I looked up to see Lucas right behind her, bearing down like a bull in full charge, both running flat out. Jennifer caught my eye, and I shook my head left and right in an exaggerated motion.

She glanced over her shoulder and Lucas struck, attempting to wrap his arms around her in a full-body tackle. She rotated and drove her foot straight into his stomach, his forward momentum increasing the power of the strike.

I heard his grunt and exhale of breath all the way outside as I frantically stroked the remaining pin.

“Come on, Pike!” Knuckles shouted. “He’s getting back up!”

Jennifer was in a fighting crouch, dancing out of his way, slowly using up her remaining space to the door, attempting to give me time.

He swung a roundhouse at her head, hard enough to knock her out completely. She parried and redirected