Chase: Terror on the Border

Cash

Chapter One

Burj Khalifa, Dubai

The secret of the world’s tallest building was finally revealed on its opening night, January 8, 2010. Column upon column of gleaming glass and shimmering steel towering into the night, the Burj split the starry sky like a scalpel. A modern-day obelisk. A Tower of Babel. Those were the most common comparisons in the never-ending barrage of glitzy media hype and talk shows chattering up the grand opening of the tower. On the street, in the tiny cafes where old men drank tea and smoked hookahs, they shook their heads slowly and scoffed at such inaccurate heresies. Obelisks, as the Egyptians among them constantly liked to remind them, were typically seventy feet.

And The Book recorded that the Babel Tower was under construction for forty-three years, from 1645 to 1688. In comparison, the construction time for the Burj was almost insignificant. Only since January 2005. A mere five years. Even more damning in the old men’s eyes, whether Jew, Christian or Muslim, New Testament, Torah or Koran, scholars who translated biblical cubits agreed that a cubit equaled one foot, twelve inches. The Babel Tower was recorded at a total grand height of 5,422 cubits and two palms. In modern feet this came out to a staggering 1.44 miles.

Still, in modern history, the old men grudgingly admitted when pressed, the Burj was clearly taller by far than anything yet erected by the hand of contemporary mankind. The next-tallest structure, Taipei 101, checked in at a dizzying 1,671 feet. Yet the Burj appeared to even the most casual of onlookers as at least twice that height. After that, the comparisons were hardly even worth discussing. The Sears Tower, the Empire State Building were not even considered in the discussions. Industry professionals who liked to get technical and show off their expertise on occasion to the old men, pointed out that the tallest structure ever erected was not a building at all but the Warsaw Radio Tower which reached a height of 2,121 feet. The old men countered that even if true, the Burj was clearly taller than even such a glorified antenna.

But now the old men and experts would have to find new topics to sip tea and smoke over. Finally the arguments were done. The secret was announced with the expected fanfare and much anticipated pomp. Literally exploding with fireworks along its entire length, the building’s actual height flashed on strategically placed flat screens to the throng of thousands gathered below at the base courtyard: 2,717 feet. But other secrets remained.

Few at the event knew the secret of why the tower had been re-named at the last minute for the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Bin Sayed. None in the crowd could even say for sure exactly how many floors the building held. Emaar Properties, the developer, initially boasted the Burj had more than 200. Later promotional materials said there were 160. The project director officially stated that the confusion was due to fire-resistant refuge floors every 25 to 30 stories.

In reality the developer had varied the number because at the spire’s taper, there were other floors, unknown to outsiders. Up in the highest of these, for an elite few, another grand opening was unfolding.

Twelve lavishly robed Saudi sheiks of varying ages sat on ornate chairs before a giant mural which curved like an artificial horizon around the tapering walls of the spire’s tip. The massive windows behind them glowed with luminescence from the rain of showering sparks from the fireworks outside, marking the occasion with an ethereal feel.

Up close underneath the gold bullion-embroidered hems of silken robes, those few who had ever approached them saw dyed hair and meticulously trimmed beards under heavily tinted and hyper-expensive sunglasses. To those initiated in the science and study of human behavior, such habits indicated a vanity and corresponding immaturity of emotional growth that out spanned their actual ages. But the traditional costume also allowed a high degree of anonymity.

For when the sheiks traveled to the West, to the sex dens of Europe and elite islands of the Caribbean to play, off came the robes, glasses and sometimes even the beards, and they literally became different men. Men who dressed in three-thousand-dollar Armani suits. Men who broke every law, Islamic or Western, in their debauchery, save one: The Gold Rule. Those with the gold make the rules.

They sold oil and bought gold just they bought women and sold servants as lifetime slaves. And on occasion, at their leisure and for their pleasure, they invested—in many things.

They had invested in the Burj, but that investment had already been celebrated. Now they had gathered to admire another investment uniquely and privately theirs. For their destiny and their glory. To their religion and their race. Of their past but for their future, as masters of mankind.

The mural dominated the room and segmented time and space in panels. It was the masterwork of three different artists combined into one: painter, framer, lighter. And it had taken almost as long as the Burj itself to be constructed to the standard of quality and stylistic elegance the commissioners had quite literally demanded.

The end panel depicted United Flight 175 slamming into the 85th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. In the next panel, Flight 11 followed, disintegrating into the Second Tower. Glass and debris showered down. Flames spouted and smoke billowed. Another panel showed New Yorkers leaping to their death, choosing impact over incineration. Cleverly hidden lighting above, around and even in the picture frame gave the flames and explosions a startling glow of realism. The pops and booms of the fireworks outside the building accentuated the mural’s violence, adding a surreal dimension of sound to the piece.

A final panel featured the towers' collapse. All the panels were framed and etched in real gold leaf with suras from the Koran encircling the entire work. The selection, etching and strategic placing of the verses, ayat or verse, by verse, had been a project in and of itself. Seated in a semicircle around it, the sheiks sat silent, savoring the opening instant of their private showing. Slowly, almost reluctantly, they began to speak to one another in hushed, reverent tones of cultured Arabic.

Ours burns but does not fall, said one sheik with a dyed beard.

Truly a masterwork, said another wearing gold brocaded robes.

To which do you refer, cousin? said the dyed beard. The building or the painting?

Both, of course, said Gold Robe. He chuckled and they all joined in.

"Are all one hundred and fourteen suras there?" asked another.

They are, yes, said the eldest. So that one can contemplate and pray here at leisure.

A great day for Allah, said a fat sheik.

But well in the past, said another. Some ten years.

What could be a greater triumph, said the first sheik. What?

That, my friends, said the fat sheik, is what we must now discuss.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks. Electrical problems are at least partly to blame for the closure of the Burj Khalifa's viewing platform – the only part of the half-mile high tower open yet. But a lack of information from the spire's owner left it unclear whether the rest of the largely empty building – including dozens of elevators meant to whisk visitors to the tower's more than 160 floors – was affected by the shutdown. The indefinite closure, which began Sunday, comes as Dubai struggles to revive its international image as a cutting-edge Arab metropolis amid nagging questions about its financial health. The precise cause of the $1.5 billion Dubai skyscraper's temporary shutdown remained unclear. In a brief statement responding to questions, Emaar Properties blamed the closure on unexpected high traffic, but then suggested that electrical problems were also at fault.

-Adam Schreck, 2-8-10, Huffington Post

Chapter Two

Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base, Russia.

The base was deserted. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S.S.R.’s nuclear weapons program had been abandoned, along with most of the facility. After the Soviet economic collapse, literally anything was for sale to the highest bidder. Every man for himself.

Many a field grade officer simply transitioned to organized crime lord. The soldiers under their command became their gang. The work was much easier. The pay, much better. Capitalism. Raw, and unmitigated. The American dream turned Russian nightmare.

A single street lamp in front of the squat building illuminated falling snow. The streets were wet and puddled, and the steel gray limo known as a Vervolf, Russian for werewolf, splashed through them as it purred to a stop before the warehouse where a black Lincoln already idled.

Two uniformed Russian colonels in their forties exited the staff car via the rear left door. They were near retirement but now there was no retirement. So they had created their own. Soviet-style entrepreneurship. Sell whatever to whomever.

They had tried their hand at girls. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds from the outer provinces sold for a thousand dollars apiece in eastern Europe. But that market was already tightly controlled by the nomenklatura, the party apparatchiks turned criminal early, or had been criminal all along. They had been rebuked for their foray into white slavery. Sternly. Their first product, a fourteen-year-old Slav girl, had been returned to them via Russian FedEx on dry ice. The box had also contained photos of the officers’ two young daughters as well. The message was clear. Find another line of work. This one was taken.

They moved on. Returned to what they knew best. What they could control. Their own high ground. And they had reasoned it wasn’t really treason. After all, how could one betray a nation that no longer formally existed? It was they who had been betrayed. Communism had been proven to be a farce. Capitalism had never collapsed contrary to what they had been taught since childhood. Communism had collapsed. Communism had been the false system.

They had been lied to. They were, they reasoned, simply now making up for lost time. And lost wages. So now they were communists turned capitalists. Soviet soldier businessmen. They had started simple with the world’s oldest profession, but having failed at that, they turned to the world’s second oldest line.

War. And war’s trappings. This, they knew. This they could do. So they did.

The young, uniformed soldier held the door open, standing at rigid attention. The officers’ breath flared as they walked to the Lincoln. One carried a silver metal suitcase. The door on the Lincoln opened as they approached and they entered.

Inside the car the two Russians sat backwards facing two Arabs in thousand-dollar cashmere overcoats. For an instant, no one moved. The Arabs glanced at each other, then nodded, and each brought an identical full-grain, brown leather briefcase to their laps. They opened them, then ever so slowly, pivoted them around so that the colonels could see the stacks of U.S. cash brimming in each. The colonels’ eyes went wide. This was their American dream, Russian style. More money than either had ever seen, much less owned.

One colonel nodded to the other. The second Russian colonel paused. A seventeen-year military career, a wife, a kid, and the heritage of a fallen nation all sat before his eyes and in his lap. He shook his head, swept his hand across his lap as if brushing away flies, and pulled up their silver metal suitcase.

It slid heavily into his lap. He unlocked it, carefully opened it and turned it about so the Arabs could see. inside the suitcase.

Now it was the Arabs’ turn. Their eyes widened. They were rich. Wealthy. Intimately familiar with the trappings of wealth and the kind of power that came with such wealth. But in all of their rich, soft, spoiled lives, neither had ever seen raw, pure power such as this.

So much power in such a small box, murmured the one Arab.

"Just as Pandora, eh tovarich," said one of the Russians.

His partner grinned widely. Then he jerked his head towards the Arabs. The first colonel closed the silver suitcase, and made as if to slide the case forward.

The two Arabs in their expensive cashmere overcoats closed the two cases stuffed with U.S. cash. The older Arab nodded to his younger partner, who in turn slid the two cases to the Russians, from his knees to theirs, both smiling broadly. The first colonel slowly, gingerly, reverently, slid the suitcase over to the Arabs’ knees. They took it just as carefully, laying their hands on it gently.

It’s warm, said the first Arab businessman.

Yes, said the first Russian colonel. Like a little sun. Both teams stared at each other. Then the elder of the Arabs gestured at the door. The colonels both nodded. The spell was broken, the die cast. The first colonel reached for the door handle.

The limo door opened and the colonels exited, money cases in each hand. As they approached their staff car, the driver private emerged smartly, opening the rear door and saluting. The colonels entered and the driver shut the door. Ensconced back inside their own lightly armored limousine, they looked at each other. Safe. And rich. It had taken seven months. Two lives. All of their combined savings along with a small bank robbery. They smiled. Then laughed. Their laughter turned to guffaws. They slapped each other’s shoulders. So this was how it was done. Capitalism. The deal. The younger colonel lunged abruptly, coming up with two glasses and vodka.

To celebrate? The younger colonel said in Russian. Back on their own turf, he abandoned the international language of business English for his mother tongue.

And to forget what we have done, said the older officer slowly.

You know, I have heard that U.S. currency is the best of amnesiacs, said the younger colonel.

The private went to his door and opened it. He looked into the back at the laughing officers, wishing they would offer him a drink too. He hoped they would reward him with a cut of whatever was in the cases as well. In exchange for his silence, as much for his loyalty. He had a wife and two small boys back in his tiny Moscow apartment and youngest had asthma. Medicine was expensive and hard to come by.

His colonels laughed again, clinking glasses. They were happier than he had seen them in half a year. This was a good sign. Perhaps a turning point. Maybe even a promotion. He was certainly overdue....