The Power of Five Oblivion

operating here in Dubai. That’s one hell of a lot of cranes. But they were all needed, to help build the miracle in the desert.
    “Only the miracle wasn’t as miraculous as everyone thought. Once the recession hit, the pop stars and the footballers stopped coming. Half the properties here were suddenly empty and the palm-tree islands never worked properly anyway because they fouled up the tide and suddenly people started noticing they were surrounded by sewage. Then the business dried up too. Nobody was doing any shopping. And here’s the funny thing. It was actually illegal to go bankrupt in Dubai. You weren’t allowed to do it. And finally, one day they woke up and found that Dubai itself was bankrupt.
    “That was when everyone left. They drove out of here. They took planes. Some people even rode out on camels. They took everything they could carry with them – you may have noticed that most of the shops are pretty empty. But that still left enough for people like me. You want a nice Rolex watch for yourself, Richard, or maybe a diamond necklace for your young friend, I can show you where to find one. There’s plenty of food and water too. This city’s got everything! Except people.”
    “So where is the pilot?” Richard asked. “It looks to me as if you’re stuck here without him.”
    “I am stuck here,” Martins agreed. “I suppose I could put this hunk of metal up in the air. I have thought about it. But the fact is, I’m better off where I am … at least until the booze runs out. After that, we’ll see.” He reached for his glass. “Larry was an idiot but until he turns up, there’s not very much I can do about it.”
    He threw back his whisky and swallowed, screwing up his eyes. It was hard to tell if the liquid gave him pleasure or pain.
    “I say that everyone got out of here,” he went on. “But actually, that isn’t true. Dubai always had a royal family … you know, a sheikh. And the man in charge when everything went down the pan was Sheikh Rasheed Al Tamim. He has a palace overlooking Dubai Creek, although I don’t suppose the views will have been quite so pretty since the water dried up.”
    He poured himself another whisky.
    “He’s still there. He’s got a wife … and several kids. He’s surrounded by ministers and advisers. Sheikh Rasheed is an important man. As well as being king, he’s president of the United Arab Emirates and vice-president of the Supreme Council of the Union. He has an extensive military bodyguard. And then there are the diplomats, the civil servants, the advisers … everyone you’d expect to find in a busy court. And there’s something that everybody knows but that nobody ever says. Here are the two things you need to know about Sheikh Rasheed. One – he’s an evil bastard. And two – he’s completely, utterly and certifiably mad.
    “Maybe he always was. These people, locked up in their palaces with billions of dollars in their pockets and everything they could possibly want … it’s probably all too easy to lose touch with reality. Or maybe it was the shock of waking up one morning and realizing that he was the absolute ruler of absolutely nothing! The city was empty. Everyone had gone and his beloved Dubai had about as much relevance as—” he searched vaguely for the comparison— “as a check-in desk in an airport with no planes.
    “So here’s what’s happened, Richard. Sheikh Rasheed goes on ruling. He has important meetings in which he discusses new building projects that are never going to happen, traffic control schemes that are never going to be implemented, education policies that no longer matter and state banquets to which nobody is going to come. Last week he inspected his army. It’s a shame you weren’t here. He stood on a balcony and they marched the same one hundred soldiers round and round the building for three hours, making him think he was in control of thousands. Oh yeah – and they brought out the tank too. There is only one working tank. But he stood there, taking the salute, with the deputy prime minster on one side and all the other ministers around. I was there too. I saw him. And I’ll never forget the idiot grin on his face.”
    “Why do the ministers stick with him?” Scarlett asked.
    “Because he’ll shoot them if they try to leave. They smile and they bow and they applaud when he says something witty – and they’re all terrified of him. More to the point these people chose to stay behind