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 do 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 contained 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 over 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.