Richter reached for the gated switch, then withdrew his hand. He was suddenly aware that the numbers displayed on the weapon might prove useful. He also realized there was very little time left to stop the Americans. He took the keys from the inner pouch, closed the lid, clicked the catches home and locked both of them.
He ran over to the staircase and down to the double doors. As he’d guessed, there was a plastic explosive charge taped to the handle. It was a common enough type of detonator: delayed action — usually ten to thirty seconds — until switch-on, then activated by any kind of pressure applied to the wire attached to it. The easiest way to disable it was to cut the wire. The problem was that if the cutters slipped, Richter himself and a large part of his surroundings would be immediately vaporized.
He studied the tape securing the plastic explosive to the handle. That seemed the safer option. Richter took out his Kamasa multi-tool and selected a knife blade. Holding the explosive firmly in his left hand, he carefully cut through each piece of tape, then moved the plastic explosive to ease the pressure on the wire. Once it was completely slack, he pulled out the detonator and tossed it to one side, then dropped the explosive on the floor.
Richter flung open the doors to find Ghul and Jackson waiting outside. A nervous-looking Barzani stood beside them.
‘It’s disarmed,’ Richter announced. ‘Now we’ve got to stop that aircraft.’
‘I’ll call the airport,’ Ghul said.
‘We need more positive action than that. I’ll take the chopper.’ Then he pointed towards the upper level of the suite. ‘Hussein’s still tied to a chair up there.’
Before Ghul could respond, Richter strode past him towards the lift and pressed the button. Jackson slid into the elevator beside him just as the doors started to close. Less than a minute later they were back on the roof, heading for the staircase leading to the helipad.
The pilot was still in his seat, presumably waiting for further orders from someone, the engines running though the rotors were braked. Jackson glanced at Richter and caught his almost imperceptible nod. While he climbed into the rear cabin, she wrenched open the cockpit door and slid into the co-pilot’s seat.
The pilot looked somewhat startled, and even more so when Jackson pulled on a headset and instructed him, in crisp and precise Arabic, to take off.
‘You can’t order me around,’ he began, but his voice died away as she produced her Glock 17 and aimed it directly at him.
‘Think again, or you’ll find yourself meeting Muhammad way sooner than you ever expected,’ she said. ‘Now get this bird in the air.’
Chief Inspector Ghul arrived on the roof just as the Bell lifted off. For a moment or two he watched it heading east, back towards Dubai City and the airport beyond, then reached into his pocket for his mobile phone.
‘November Two Six, Dubai Ground. Execute a one hundred and eighty degree turn and return to your stand.’
‘What the hell?’ Haig exclaimed. The Gulfstream was just about to enter the runway.
‘What is it?’ O’Hagan called out.
‘They’ve ordered us back to the hardstanding.’
O’Hagan unbuckled his seat belt and strode forward. ‘Is the runway clear?’
‘Hell, yes. We were the next aircraft in line.’
‘Right, fuck them. Probably somebody in their government’s got cold feet — or a sudden attack of stupidity. Just go.’
Sutter eased the throttles forward, turned the Gulf-stream onto the runway, then pushed them fully forwards. The aircraft immediately began accelerating.
As the Gulfstream crossed the piano keys, the Bell 212 swept over the airfield boundary, already flying close to its maximum speed of one hundred and thirty knots.
‘I must get clearance,’ the pilot shouted. ‘This is an active commercial airfield. I can’t fly over it.’
‘You won’t be flying over it, just going as far as the runway. And trust me, you won’t be getting into any trouble. Well, maybe not,’ she added, sotto voce, peering ahead for any sign of the Gulfstream.
And then she spotted it. ‘Paul, it’s on the runway, and already rolling. You want to forget this and whistle up some fighters? There are Mirages stationed at Al-Dhafra. They should be able to catch it easily.’
‘Not if I can help it. Tell laughing boy in the driving seat to get us down to ground level and intercept that fucking Gulfstream. We need to be on the aircraft’s left so I can bring this minigun to bear.’
Richter heard a babble of Arabic in his headphone, then the Bell dived forward. He braced himself against the side of the open doorway and looked ahead.
The G450 was approaching take-off speed just as the helicopter drew alongside, some fifty metres clear, on the left side of the runway. Richter didn’t hesitate. As the Gulfstream accelerated, he pointed the minigun straight at it, aimed for the centre of mass and squeezed the trigger.
The General Electric M134 minigun fires six thousand rounds a minute in its normal configuration, an almost continuous stream of bullets pouring out of the six rotating barrels.
Richter’s aim was initially a little off, the first bullets passing over and beyond the Gulfstream, but he immediately corrected. The stream of 7.62-millimetre ammunition ripped through the thin and relatively delicate skin of the passenger cabin, moving down and forwards, tearing a ragged line through the metal that almost bisected the aircraft.
In the cabin, the four Americans stared in horrified disbelief as the bullets howled through the fuselage, obliterating everything they hit. O’Hagan tore off his seat belt and rushed over to one of the port-side windows to look out. The Bell 212 was flying parallel, only yards away. In the open cabin door, an ugly black weapon was pointing directly at him. O’Hagan instantly recognized the minigun — and then the face of the man behind it.
‘That fucking Richter,’ he screamed, as the jet began to break up around him.
In the cockpit, Sutter and Haig became aware of an increase in noise and vibration, but couldn’t immediately identify the cause. Haig called out ‘V2 — rotate,’ and Sutter eased back on the control column. Just as he did so, the stream of bullets from the minigun reached the cockpit, killing both men instantly.
The minigun fell silent as the last shell was fired, but Richter had done more than enough. The Gulf-stream was going nowhere now. The nose slowly lifted, then the weakened fuselage crumpled behind it, the aircraft seeming almost to fold backwards. It lurched sideways, one wingtip hitting the ground, and then cartwheeled, spraying debris, bodies and boxes of money and bullion and gemstones as it left the runway. The tanks had been full and, even before the wreckage came to rest, a spray of fuel from a ruptured line caught fire and turned the tumbling aircraft into an inferno.
‘May Allah forgive me,’ the pilot murmured, as he watched the pyre with horrified eyes. Fire engines and ambulances appeared as if from nowhere, converging on the blazing wreckage.
‘You stopped them,’ Jackson observed, her voice sounding husky on the intercom.
‘I guess I did,’ Richter replied. ‘Let’s get back to the Burj straight away. I have a feeling this is not a good place for us to be right now.’
Richter and Jackson took the elevator from the roof down to the Royal Suite. Its lobby was a scene of noisy chaos, a crowd of Arabs in gellabbiyas and kaffiyehs, others in suits, milling around with uniformed police officers. All of them seemed to be talking at once, either to each other or into mobile phones, or both at the same time.