Chapter 2
The plane arrived right on time at the international airport. Six black sedans waited just off the tarmac, and in a matter of minutes they were driving down the surprisingly quiet roads towards the embassy.
Heath’s gut clenched. “This isn’t good.”
“Our contact says the government is barricading the streets,” Dobby reported over the ear comms. “We’ll need to go the long way around.
The protests are centred around Amiri Diwan.
” He was in the car in front. There were two special forces soldiers in each car.
The convoy looked like exactly what it was: diplomatic cars driving to the embassy.
May as well paint a target on their backs.
Several other countries had already closed their embassies amid threats of sweeping blackouts, no sanitation, and violence. Without the migrant workforce, the country would come to a standstill.
Heath scanned the area, watching side streets and the few other vehicles on the road were locals heading out of the city.
A terrible sign.
“The embassy confirmed they’re ready?” Heath asked.
“Copy. We should be in and out, back at the airport by thirteen thirty.”
An hour and a half on the ground. That would be a record. And the dust storm was due to hit around fourteen hundred.
The closer they got to the embassy, the more vehicles were on the streets. Most of them were beat-up vans or buses, all heading towards the parliament.
Heath swore.
“They’re not interested in us,” Radar said as he kept an even distance behind the car in front of them.
That might be so, but Heath didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. At least the Australian embassy was a reasonable distance from the protest, though the protest was between them and the airport.
The first car pulled into the security checkpoint, and the gates to the underground car park opened. Up ahead stood two people with archive boxes and computer equipment piled up next to them.
From the briefing, Heath knew the elevators required a security pass to get between the floors.
As Radar pulled in behind the last car, Heath spotted people coming out of the elevator carrying boxes. Already the first cars were being loaded up.
The Ambassador and his family were bundled into the first two cars, and by the time Heath got out and joined the teams loading the vehicles with essential documents and equipment, the first three vehicles were full.
Dobby spoke with Stefan, the man in charge of the day-to-day operations of the embassy.
“Everyone here?” Dobby asked.
“Everyone except Zoe Yelton,” Stefan spat out her name. “She decided it was more important to say goodbye to her friends than to help pack up the office.”
Heath remembered her photo from the planning session: late twenties, short dark hair, big brown eyes, and a wide smile.
“She said she’d be right here, but I’ve called her twice more and she hasn’t answered,” Stefan continued.
“There’s your douchebag,” Radar murmured as he grabbed two bags and loaded them into the next car.
“Joker, you and Radar head to the lobby and look for Zoe.” Dobby turned to Stefan. “Was Zoe on foot?”
He nodded. “She was on the Al Corniche about two kilometres away, so she should be here by now.”
Not good. She could have been caught up in the protest.
Stefan passed him a security pass. “This will get you to the twenty-first floor in case she arrived and went straight up.”
Heath took it and jogged up the stairs to the lobby with Radar behind him.
They came out next to the elevators into a curved and empty lobby. But nearby someone was gasping for breath.
Heath exchanged a look with Radar and placed his hand on his gun. He followed the curve of the wall around to the next bank of elevators as one of them dinged to announce it had arrived.
He moved faster in time to see a dark-haired woman dash into the open elevator. “Zoe!”
She glanced at him, eyes wide, and then lunged for the elevator buttons. “I’ll be right back.”
The doors closed and Heath stabbed the button, but he was too late. The high-speed elevator was already moving. He swore.
“You want to match for it?” Radar asked.
Heath shook his head, watching the numbers to make sure it stopped on the twenty-first floor. “I’ll go. You head back to the others and help. Let me know if I miss her in transit.” He tapped his earpiece.
“Copy.” Radar jogged back to the stairs as an elevator arrived at the lobby.
Heath swiped the security card and hit twenty-one on the control panel. The door closed and the numbers climbed quickly. At the eighteenth floor, the lights suddenly went out, and the elevator came to a halt. Heath stumbled at the change of speed and swore.
Someone had to be kidding him.
“Blackout,” Dobby’s voice came over the comms. “Looks like the entire block is out.”
So he either had to wait for the backup generator to come on and hope he didn’t miss Zoe, or pry open the door and jog up the stairs.
He pressed the door open button in case it had any residual power.
Nothing.
He reached into one of the inside pockets of his jacket and pulled out his multi-tool.
“First convoy has left,” Dobby reported. “Joker, sitrep.”
“Stuck in the elevator around the eighteenth floor. Zoe probably made it to the twenty-first before the power went out.” He opened the maintenance panel underneath the buttons and triggered the manual release.
“Duke, go check the maintenance room,” Dobby ordered. “Make sure the backup generator comes on.”
“Situation is looking dicey on the street,” Romeo reported. “More crowds gathered and a couple of military trucks.”
“Cars all loaded,” Axle reported.
Shit. They were waiting for him and Zoe. Heath pried the elevator doors apart, and slowly they slid open.
“Maintenance room is damaged,” Duke reported. “Backup generator isn’t coming back on.”
There were a set of shaft doors right in front of him.
He reached up and triggered the interlock.
The click opened the doors partially and he pushed them the rest of the way.
He was on the nineteenth floor. He leapt out and started for the stairs.
“I’m out. Heading for twenty-one to get the target.
” But running down twenty-one flights of steps would take time, and Zoe was already puffing from her run back from her meeting.
It would take them at least five minutes.
“Looks like they’re preparing to close the airport,” one of the team members from the first convoy said. “We got through, but there are military vehicles behind us.”
Not good.
“Dust storm is coming in fast,” another said. “Probably hit thirty minutes earlier than forecast.”
Shit. That would make it tight for take-off.
“Heath, ETA,” Dobby demanded.
There were cars in the car park he could borrow. “Go,” he said. “I don’t have eyes on Zoe yet. We’ll meet you there.”
“Copy.”
It showed how worried Dobby was that he didn’t argue.
“I’ll leave the key decoder by the elevator,” Axle said.
“Thanks.” It would allow him to bypass the security of any modern vehicle. Heath burst through the doors on the twenty-first floor and headed into the embassy. He scanned the desks, but it was Zoe’s frantic voice that told him where she was. “Please help me.”
Who was she talking to?
He strode into the office where Zoe was on a landline and frantically stuffing her laptop and a few folders into a backpack.
“They’re being transported tonight,” she said in Arabic. “You must believe me. Those kids will disappear.”
Heath’s gut clenched. What the hell was she talking about?
“Exit street blockaded,” Axle said in his ear. “Taking route B.”
Right. “We need to go,” he told the woman as she spun around, eyes wide, to face him. Her dark brown eyes pinned him with a plea as she spoke. “Please. Promise me you’ll do it.”
Heath almost nodded before he realised she was speaking to the person on the phone. He blinked, breaking the spell, and in two steps he pressed the disconnect button.
Horror filled her eyes. “You don’t understand—”
Heath took her elbow, and she scrambled to grab her backpack with her other hand. “What I understand is this whole situation is moments away from combusting and we need to get our arses out of here.”
He dragged her out of the room and down the corridor. “En route with Zoe,” he reported.
“Find a motorbike if you can,” Radar said. “Most of the streets are blocked. We’re going the long way around.”
“Copy,” Heath said. Another option might be a boat if he could find one fast enough to cut across Doha Bay. He switched on the small but powerful torch he had stashed in his pocket as he pushed open the door to the stairwell.
Zoe was puffing behind him, saying something, but he paid her no mind until he caught the words, “people trafficking”.
His pulse leapt, but he didn’t slow his pace down the stairs as he glanced at her. “What did you say?”
Desperation covered her face. “Tonight. Six children. The Tridant container ship.”
That wasn’t his mission, but his thoughts flashed back to two decades earlier, their frantic flight from his country of birth, the people who promised them safe passage and then reneged on that promise.
Huddling in the dark with his younger sister while his mother paid for their safety with something she shouldn’t have had to give.
“Shots fired,” Axle reported.
His friend’s voice cut through the memory, and he refocused on the mission at hand.
From the inside of the stairwell he couldn’t hear anything, so he couldn’t work out how close the fight was.
Behind him Zoe slipped on a step with a shriek, and he turned just in time to catch her, bracing her warm body against his for a second until she righted herself.
“You OK?” he asked, pausing for a second to allow her to get her breath back.
She nodded. “What’s the rush?”
He started moving again. “Shots have been fired. The military are going to close the airport and streets are blockaded. It’ll be hard to get to the plane.”
“It’s dangerous?”
“It’s unpredictable.” Heath didn’t want to frighten her, so she didn’t want to leave the building.