WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller (26 page)

10

Quraishi watched the body fall from the balloon with impotent horror. He knew it wasn’t the American agent; he could see the rope used by the pilot for support fluttering now in the breeze, and it was clear that nobody was holding it any longer.

There was only one body; which meant that somehow, the agent must still be clinging to the basket. And, realizing now the utter single-mindedness of his opponent, Quraishi understood that the next thing that would happen was that the man would climb up into the basket.

And then what?

His plan – so many years in the making – was just about to reach fruition. And while he didn’t strictly need to be involved from this point on – everything would go ahead just as well, just as
lethally
, without him – he felt the need to see the results of his endeavours.

He wanted to see the West crushed beneath his feet, he wanted to see
his beloved Arab homeland as a free country again, no longer dominated by a corrupt, hated monarchy.

He wanted to see it, and he wasn’t prepared to let this insignificant insect, this dog of an American, spoil his enjoyment.

He breathed deeply, preparing himself for combat.

Allah would be with him, and he knew this would give him the courage necessary for the fight that was surely to come.

Cole’s muscles were burning now, the lactic acid b
uilding up in his shoulders, forearms and fingers to excruciating levels as he held onto the metal frame. The climb up the rope had exhausted him, but at least he had been able to balance his weight out through his feet on the rope; now all he had was the grip of his hands, bound close together, the restraints making the position even harder, even more painful.

But he knew he had to somehow keep moving, get into the basket; if he did not, his grip would eventually give
way, and he would plummet to the dusty streets of Riyadh as the pilot had before him.

And so Cole clenched his teeth against the pain and started to edge his hands slowly along the metal rail which made up part of the frame suspended below the basket; his fingertips struggling to keep hold as they walked Cole ever closer to the edge.

But soon enough he was there, where the frame ended and the edge of the basket began. He took a deep breath to center himself, and – keeping his grip strong – rocked his body first one way and then the other, finally bursting upwards and shooting out his nearest leg, his bare foot hooking onto the lower guard rail of the basket.

Cole tested the
position, could feel it holding. The next part, he knew, would be so much easier with his hands free; but that was a luxury he didn’t have, and he cut the thought from his mind, focusing only on what he
could
do.

The bland, brown concrete mass of Riyadh stretched out b
elow him, and for a fraction of a second, he imagined himself falling, his body plummeting through the warm air, breath caught in his throat, organs lurching around inside his body making him want to be sick, but unable to be sick, unable to even breathe as the velocity of his fall increased, until he blacked out completely, long before his body was smashed into little pieces as it finally made its impact with the unforgiving earth.

And then the image was gone just as soon as it had appeared, and Cole contracted the tiny muscles of his foot, causing it to grip hold tighter, tighter; and then he let go with his hands and lurched his body sideways and upwards in a near-suicidal last-ditch bid for the basket.

His hands made contact with the cords which ran down the side of the basket and they closed tight immediately, securing his grip once more; and then he pushed up with his foot and levered his other foot up onto the guard rail next to it, his body crunched up onto the side of the basket.

He breathed out steadily, controlling the fierce spike of adrenalin from the maneuver.

And then he extended his legs further, hands going over the top of the basket, taking hold and pulling himself upwards.

And despite the pain in his muscles, the terror which had
gone unbidden through his heart, he couldn’t help but smile.

Quraishi was soon going to tell him everything he wanted to know.

Quraishi saw the American’s face as it rose above the side of the basket, flushed with effort but set with determination.

Quraishi had been scanning the rim of the basket continuously, waiting for the first sign of the man, ready to respond to his appearance.

And when Mark Cole appeared, Quraishi didn’t waste any time at all; he merely planted one booted foot on the base of the basket and unleashed the other, kicking the American with all of his force right in the center of his face and sending him flying away from the basket.

Quraishi smiled.

It had been even easier than he’d thought.

The impact rocked Cole’s head back with savage force, tearing his body from its secure hold on the basket.

There was a flash in Cole’s head and for a moment, he could see nothing, think nothing,
do
nothing; but he felt his body falling backwards and registered the danger, his mind switching back on just as his feet also began to lose their grip on the guard rail.

In that brief instant when he regained his senses, he saw and sensed everything with perfect clarity; the angle of his own body as it fell backward, the distance and relative angle of the basket, the level of grip retained by his feet, the rope which had secured the pilot, blowing about in the warm air.

And within that same instant, angles and speeds calculated instantaneously, his bound hands reached out and grabbed hold of the discarded rope.

Cole transformed his downward momentum into a sideways swing on the rope, travelling round the basket in a tight arc, legs releasing their grip and extending high upwards until the first one hooked over the edge of the basket and gripped tight; and then Cole pushed the rope away, his hands on the basket’s edge, pulling himself inside, his body rolling forwards until it landed safely on the inner floor.

With no chance to get his breath back, Cole looked up to see Quraishi’s booted foot aimed once again at his face and pushed his hands out, smothering the kick.

He rolled into the support leg in the same movement, taking Quraishi down
, but the man quickly lashed out again and caught Cole across the jaw, making his head spin. He was moving more slowly than normal, he knew; but it was the fatigue of the past few minutes which had sapped him completely and left him sluggish.

Cole shook his head clear and clambered across the floor towards Quraishi, who seemed to anticipate the movement; and instead of knocking him down, the other man instead struck Cole in the face with an open palm, fingers then closing, gripping hard into Cole’s eyes and cheeks, forcing his head back . . .

Cole could feel the burning heat on the back of his head, and knew what Quraishi was doing; he was trying to force Cole’s head onto the burner unit, the flames arcing high up in the balloon above them.

Cole’s balance was gone, and he felt the
flames from the burner shockingly, painfully close, threatening to burn the skin from the back of his head.

Cole’s head pulled forwa
rd away from the red hot burner in a powerful reflex action, his bare foot coming up into Quraishi’s groin instinctively, making the man instantly release his hold on him.

Cole dove forward, taking Quraishi violently down to the floor, the impact jarring the breath from his opponent. Cole quickly capitalized on the situation, forcing the cords which bound his wrists towards Quraishi’s throat to strangle him.

Quraishi’s chin came down quickly to block the cords from getting to his neck, and Cole let the cords instead come up under Quraishi’s nose, forcing the head back painfully, grinding upwards until the man had to turn his head away. Waiting for the movement, Cole immediately moved the cords back to Quraishi’s neck, this time getting them into his throat, pushing down and cutting off the man’s air supply.

Cole forced his hands down on either side of Quraishi’s neck, pushing into it with his bodyweight, letting the cords dig deep into his throat.

Quraishi gagged, his eyes bulging from his head as he struggled to breathe, panic setting in, the whites of his eyes started to turn red.

It was then that Cole looked up, sensing the presence of something massive, something unavoidable,
something immovable.

And then all he could d
o was close his eyes as the balloon – pilotless and completely out of control – flew straight towards the upper floors of a gigantic skyscraper.

11

The Al Faisaliyah Center, at eight hundred and seventy six feet, and forty-four floors high, was the third tallest building in Saudi Arabia.

Designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Foster and Partners, it contain
ed a hotel, commercial offices, and a shopping center. It resembled a gigantic ballpoint pen, four huge corner beams joining together at the top above a huge golden ball.

The golden geodesic orb itself, suspended ove
r six hundred feet in the air, was three stories high and housed The Globe restaurant, a fine dining venue with incredible views across the Saudi capital.

And it
was this luxurious restaurant that the balloon’s basket hit first, smashing into the strengthened glass at fifteen knots.

Cole felt the impact jarring
on his body and was immediately thrown clear from Quraishi’s prostrate form. He heard twisting, screeching metal and looked up; above him, the twin burner was bent and broken, the balloon itself rapidly deflating.

The basket whipped about in the wind as the silken mass of the balloon tangled itself around one of the huge corner beams and its network of steel cross-struts. Cole felt the basket drop, threatening to plummet down to the streets below, and his stomach gave an involuntary lurch; but then the deflated balloon settled above them, and the basket hung secure, bumping gently against the glass of The Globe.

It was only then that Cole heard the helicopter.

At last!
Quraishi didn’t know what had taken them so long, but the chopper was finally here.

And as he peered over the rim of the mercifully near-stationary basket, he smiled; it was even better than he’d hoped. His friend at the Ministry must have pulled some serious strings, for although there was only a single helicopter approaching, it was perhaps the most advanced combat aircraft the world had ever seen.

The AH-64D Apache Longbow had been in service with the Saudi military for years, but was still the finest weapon in its armory. With laser-guided precision Hellfire missiles, 70mm rockets and 30mm cannon with 1,200 high-explosive rounds, the Apache could classify and threat-prioritize up to 128 different targets in less than a minute, no matter what the conditions were like.

But as the imposing, menacing chopper slowed to a hover in front of the Al Faisaliyah Center’s golden globe, doubts started to enter Quraishi’s mind. What were its crew’s orders?

He exhaled slowly, mind racing.

What was it going to do?

Cole was desperately searching for cover as he asked himself the same questions. With the basket hanging six hundred feet in the air, there was a limit to what the Apache could actually do; it wasn’t rigged up for rescue operations.

The answer came just moments later with a flash of light from its cannon pods, followed immediately by the heavy impacts of its 30mm rounds and the deafening noise of gunfire.

Cole hugged the floor along with Quraishi – a look of surprise, then fury on the man’s face – as the basket above them was torn apart, the curved glass windows of the restaurant shattering into millions of pieces.

Glass fell on them, and above the roar of cannon fire, Cole could hear the screams from the restaurant beyond, and could only imagine what was happening there as hundreds of high-powered rounds streamed across the sky from the combat helicopter.

Cole wondered if they’d been ordered to kill Quraishi too, but couldn’t be sure; more likely was the fact that the crew had been told there was a terrorist in the balloon that needed taking care of. The irony, of course, was that the terrorist they had been told about was Cole, and
not
Quraishi.

Still, the man would be just as dead no matter if they knew about him or not, and Cole found himself hoping for a direct hit. A single 30mm round fired by the Apache’s ferocious
M230 automatic cannon would cut the terrorist leader in half.

The thought, however, only occupied Cole’s mind for a fraction of a second; in another fraction, he analyzed his chances of waiting on the floor of the basket, and made his decision to move.

There was a lull of cannon fire, as the pilot moved in closer to assess the damage, and Cole took the opportunity, leaping up from the floor, stamping through the remains of the wicker basket and leaping through the jagged broken glass of The Globe’s windows into the hopeful sanctity of the restaurant beyond.

Quraishi couldn’t believe what was happening, his mind reeling. Why were they shooting at him too? What were they
thinking?

His mind flashed back to the conversation he’d had with his friend in the Ministry. ‘I need helicopters,’ he’d said. ‘There is a dangerous terrorist escaping in a hot air balloon, north across Riyadh.’

He couldn’t believe his stupidity. Why hadn’t he mentioned the fact that he was in the same balloon? He knew the order his friend would have given – to shoot the balloon out of the sky, no matter what. The Saudi government was ruthless in its treatment of dissenters and terrorists. Quraishi knew this better than most, and yet he still hadn’t mentioned that he would be in the basket too.

It must have been the pressure, Quraishi thought; the stress. It had been a long time since he’d been in a combat situation, and he had grown soft. The thought angered him, but there was little he could do now.

Now he just had to try and survive.

To his right, he saw the American moving, recognized that the sounds of the cannon had momentarily died down, knew he had one brief chance, and jumped out of the basket after
him, scrabbling across the broken glass for the interior of The Globe restaurant.

Cole tripped over a broken table and the bodies of two dead diners, a look of shock still plastered over their bloody features, but managed to regain his balance on his bare and lacerated feet and keep on running.

He raced as far into the restaurant as he could,
ignoring the pain in his soles as he ran across the broken glass, hearing the heavy breathing of Quraishi behind him. But for the moment, Quraishi was the least of his concerns. Right now, he just had to concentrate on not being killed.

Dead bodies littered the expensive five-star restaurant, staff and customers alike. Others were alive but injured, screaming and moaning as they lay on the floor or tried to hobble towards the stairs.

The Apache opened up again, spraying the restaurant with its 30mm cannon rounds, and Cole saw more people going down, blood flying across the polished wood and marble.

Cole crawled across the glass-strewn floor for the far side of the room, then – when he could no longer hear the sound of cannon – risked looking up.

He saw Quraishi raising his own head to do the same, and they both saw the helicopter pulling away, arcing left – presumably to fly around the building to get a better shot at their fleeing targets.

Cole turned and saw armed guards on the stairs, racing upwards.

Quraishi took his chance, leaping to his feet and pulling his ID, screaming at the men in Arabic and pointing over his shoulder at Cole.

Quraishi was ushered into the protective phalanx of guards, pulled away down the stairs, and Cole had to physically resist the urge to follow him; there were too many guards, too many guns.

It was no use; Quraishi was gone.

But Cole knew he still had to get out of this place, and his mind raced furiously as he tried to come up with a plan.

The chopper was rounding the other side, the side Cole had run to; in the restaurant, armed men were already raising their handguns and machine-pistols to him. Still on the staircase, they had blocked his only escape route.

There was only one thing for it, Cole decided.

Breaking into an all-out sprint, Cole raced back across the restaurant the way he had come, bullets tearing after him from the security guards on the stairs. Jumping over shattered tables and broken chairs, eviscerated bodies and bleeding casualties, Cole neared the shattered glass, increasing his pace; he knew the Apache would be opening up soon, maybe this time with more than just its cannon.

The firing from the guards had stopped, and Cole turned his head, seeing instantly why; they had run back down the stairs, the
Apache hovering outside, ominous flashes coming from its side pylons.

Cole knew exactly what it meant; the Hellfire missiles had been fired, and The Globe was about to be completely destroyed.

The shattered window was now only feet away, and Cole jumped for it, his body passing through the jagged tangle of broken glass even as the Hellfire missiles blasted through the other side of the restaurant, exploding in an enormous concussive blast.

Cole’s body hit the floor of the half-destroyed basket, the force of the impact pulling the damaged, deflated silken balloon material free from its mooring around the corner support above.

Cole felt the basket moving, and kept his head down as a wall of fire exploded above him from the restaurant, the missiles igniting inside the huge golden orb.

The hot winds from the violent explosion served to rip the balloon completely free from where it had entangled itself, the support beams themselves breaking and toppling.

Cole felt his stomach lurch again as the basket dropped; held for a moment; and then dropped again, this time picking up speed as it skittered down the side of the skyscraper.

Cole held on for dear life as the damaged basket bounced its way down the side of the building, glad that its sides were not entirely vertical but rather widened out towards its base, acting like a gigantic slide for the basket.

And then the ripped and torn balloon itself partially filled with air from the fall, billowing out and slowing his momentum yet further; then it collapsed again and the basket fell faster for a few heart-stopping moments; and then the balloon caught the hot midday air again, filled, and slowed his progress once more.

Cole had no idea how fast he was falling, or how far; he just felt the jerking, terrifying, bumping journey as the basket slipped, slid and sailed down the angled surfaces of the Al Faisaliyah Center, his knuckles white as his fingers gripped the wicker base for all he was worth.

And then he felt the massive impact as the basket finally reached the concrete plaza, jarring him violently and leaving him shaken and dazed.

But
alive
, he thought with amazement as he looked upwards to see the silk of the balloon fluttering in the breeze above him, until it finally came to rest on the ground to one side of the basket, still giving the odd flicker of movement as the wind caught it, like a dead body twitching with the last of its nerves.

It was the sound which drew his attention upwards again, the enormously loud screeching of metal and concrete being ripped apart, a noise of destruction and annihilation.

And in the clear blue skies above him, he saw the entire, broken and shattered three-story golden globe of the skyscraper’s restaurant and viewing complex, hurtling down towards him, its crushing mass filling his vision completely.

Quraishi could barely believe his eyes as he watched the carnage unfold.

The security guards had managed to get him down the stairs, out of the suspended golden orb, and into the main bulk of the building, just in time.

The Apache must have fired its missiles into the globe, destroying the interior completely, and Quraishi recoiled from the fortieth floor windows as the huge globe itself – presumably having been ripped from its moorings – smashed into the side of the building, before continuing its downward descent.

Quraishi stood breathless, the windows, walls and some of the floor in front of him entirely gone from the globe’s impact, leaving just a gash in the building’s surface, a giant hole out into the blue sky beyond.

Quraishi backed away from the crater, instinctively gripping hold of the nearest wall, steadying himself for the impact which he knew was to come, the guards doing the same.

And
then it happened; the globe reached the concrete plaza below, the colossal impact sending a concussive shockwave back up throughout the entire structure.

Quraishi held tight as the building shook with violent force, the office furniture of this level thrown around as if hit by a powerful earthquake.

For a moment, Quraishi thought that the entire building might collapse, the force of the globe’s impact with the ground enough to shake the skyscraper free from its foundations, resulting in a crippling, complete failure of its structural integrity.

But the reverberations finally settled down, and the huge skyscraper seemed to regain its equilibrium, coming to a peaceful rest.

Quraishi looked around at the frightened guards, dust swirling through the room, and swore that he would have the Apache crew court martialed; perhaps even executed.

But, he considered, at least the American agent was dead.

That much was a certainty.

Cole looked at the huge, damaged golden globe in wonder.

Wonder that it hadn’t killed him, crushed him beneath hundreds of tons of glass and steel.