Ghul extended a hand as soon as Richter’s head appeared, and seconds later he was leaning safely against the parapet’s interior wall.
‘I couldn’t see the door handles,’ Richter reported, ‘but we must assume they’ve attached charges. It looks like I’m going to have to go in through a window.’
‘I’ll get the plastic explosive.’
‘We haven’t got time for that. I’d have to lower myself down, attach the charge, climb up here, wait for it to blow, and then go down yet again. There’s a quicker way.’
‘The minigun,’ Jackson suggested.
‘Got it in one,’ Richter said. ‘You’re good with weapons, Carole. Get airborne in the Bell and punch a few rounds through the window. Just make sure you aim carefully, because our friend Hussein’s inside, trussed up like a turkey.’
‘No problem.’ She turned towards the staircase.
‘I’d better go with her,’ Ghul murmured, ‘in case the pilot has problems taking orders from a woman.’ He held out a plastic bottle. ‘Here. You’d better have some of this.’
‘Thanks.’ Richter took it. He was already sweating profusely in the blazing sunshine, and needed to keep up his fluid intake. He’d drained about half the water when he heard the Bell start up. As it lifted off the helipad, the pilot swung the helicopter in a tight turn, allowing its right side to face the hotel.
Richter leant over the parapet to watch, and seconds later heard the sudden spurt of sound as Jackson fired the minigun. Below him, glass shattered, and he quickly repositioned the rope to hang directly over the damaged window.
By the time the Bell had settled back on the helipad, Richter was over the parapet and on his way down.
The car was stopped at the entrance by two police officers. As soon as they’d confirmed that the passengers were from the Burj Al-Arab, they were directed onto a service road leading to the hardstanding on which the Gulfstream was parked.
A couple of minutes later, the four Americans were strapping themselves into the leather seats, surrounded by boxes and bags containing more money than the Gross Domestic Product of about sixty of the world’s poorest countries. In the cockpit, Sutter and Haig had started to run through the pre-start checklist.
Richter was getting much better at it. This time it took him only about ninety seconds to lower himself down to the level of the shattered window. Even so, he remained supremely conscious of the yawning drop below him.
Jackson had been as accurate as Richter expected, and the toughened glass had offered little resistance to the 7.62-millimetre rounds that had punched through it.
The hole was too small for Richter to get through, so he took a firm grip on the Ultrascenders, removed his feet from the Stiff Steps and kicked himself powerfully away from the front of the building. He swung outwards about eight feet, then back towards the window, hitting it with both feet outstretched. Glass shattered, but the hole was still too small. So he swung out again, the strain on his arms growing intolerable, and yet again.
The fourth time he hit the ruined window, his momentum carried him right inside the room. The climbing rope started to jerk him backwards, but he instantly released both the Ultrascenders and went crashing and rolling onto the sumptuous carpet of the Royal Suite.
With a whine, the port-side engine began to spool up, then it settled into a muted roar. Two minutes later, Sutter started the starboard engine. After-start checks took them just under a minute and, as soon as they were completed, he requested taxi clearance.
It was unfortunate that two commercial aircraft had requested the same just moments before, and even before that there were already three aircraft heading for the runway threshold. So, as the Gulfstream turned off the hardstanding, it was number six for take-off from runway 12 Right.
But even with that amount of traffic ahead of them, they still confidently expected to be in the air within ten minutes.
Hussein stared at Richter with pleading eyes as he sprinted past, but at that moment the Englishman was concerned with one thing only — the suitcase nuclear weapon.
For a few seconds he simply stared at the aluminium case sitting on the table with its lid closed. He could detect no anti-tamper devices on it, but perhaps Hussein might have seen something.
Richter strode across to the bound police officer and ripped the tape off his mouth. Hussein howled in pain.
‘Did you see those Americans put explosive in the box? Or attach anything to it?’
‘No. They just set the timer, closed the lid and walked out. Please untie me now.’
‘Later.’ Richter ran across and checked all round the box again, trusting what Hussein had said, but wanting to be certain. Taking a deep breath, which he knew made no difference at all, he unclipped the two catches, lifted the lid and peered inside.
The interior looked remarkably innocuous. In a fabric pocket was a set of keys. On the underside of the lid were instructions in multiple languages. He scanned quickly to the end of the English section, where he read the words ‘Abort code’:
The abort code must be entered a minimum of five (5) minutes prior to programmed detonation. Entry of the abort code after this time will be ineffective.
That seemed to amount to the only available information. To complicate matters, there were two keypads with numeric displays located either side of the weapon itself, not one as he’d expected. On the far right was a single gated switch, and two glowing red and green lights. In the centre were two unmarked amber warning lights. Richter guessed these might be circuit-testing lamps, but he hadn’t time to read the instructions next to them, because he’d just seen the twin countdown timers.
The two digital displays showed different information. The right-hand one indicated a time, but it was obviously not local so he disregarded it. The one on the left was counting down in seconds, and as Richter looked, the counter passed ‘400’. Five minutes equalled 300 seconds. He had around a minute and a half left to enter the abort code.
Richter wasn’t a religious man but, as he pulled the notebook out of his pocket, he muttered a silent prayer that Bykov had given him the right number.
He opened the book, glanced at the figures, then back at the counter. ‘378’, ‘377’, ‘376’. He punched the ten digits onto the left-hand keypad, making absolutely sure that he was pressing the correct button each time.
Then he looked at the digital display. ‘354’, ‘353’, ‘352’. ‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered. Had he used the wrong keypad, or did you have to do it twice? Or were the numbers actually wrong? He moved his hand across to the other keypad and entered the same ten-digit sequence.
He looked back at the display. The numbers were still counting down. Then at the other panel, the one that showed the time. That had now cleared, and a message in Cyrillic script was displayed. Richter translated it aloud: ‘Abort code accepted. You have fifteen seconds to confirm.’ As he looked, the figure ‘15’ in the message changed to ‘14’, and then ‘13’.
Again he entered the ten-digit sequence, as quickly as he could while still ensuring he got it right.
This time, when he checked the digital displays, the Cyrillic message in the right-hand one simply stated ‘Detonation aborted. You may now switch off the mechanism.’ In the left-hand display the numbers had finally stopped. The timer read ‘307’.