The Power of Five Oblivion

me were in it together. Pinch the diamonds and jump on the plane. All in all, it’s better if I don’t show my face.”
    “Could we go in ourselves? Is there a way we can get to meet him?
    “Yeah. Actually, that’s easy.”
    “How?”
    “The sheikh used to gamble in London and he enjoyed it so much, he made it legal in Dubai. So they still have horse racing once a month, even though it’s always the same horses going round the track and they’re so lame now that it takes them half an hour to finish. And there’s also the casino and the sheikh goes there almost every night.”
    “People still have money to gamble?” Scarlett was amazed.
    “I know it’s crazy. You’d think money wouldn’t matter any more. You can walk into pretty much every shop and help yourself to a new car, a diamond necklace … whatever. But you try buying a bottle of water! That’s when you need hard cash and the sheikh just loves making his people squirm. People in Dubai are gambling for their lives, quite literally. Last week we actually had one man die playing a fruit machine. He put in his last coin and when the bells didn’t come up, he just fell off his stool and he was dead. Dehydration.
    “So, you want the sheikh to notice you, you go in there and win big or lose big and either way it’ll happen. Just remember – if he scowls at you, be scared.”
    “And if he smiles at us?”
    “Be scared too. You’ll see how it is. The man’s got all the charm of a rattlesnake. But if you can get Larry out of there, I for one will be grateful.” Martins glanced at his watch. “The casino opens in an hour, at seven o’clock. Good luck if you’re going in there. I’m telling you … you’re going to need it.”

TWENTY-EIGHT
    The casino was on Baniyas Road: a squat, low-rise construction, it was completely dwarfed by the various ultra-modern towers that surrounded it. Had Dubai been populated, if there had been any sign of life behind the thousands of windows, perhaps they might have seemed less threatening. As it was, Scarlett felt she was walking through an enormous cemetery. Everything was crowding in on her and it was all dead.
    The casino could have arrived from another planet. It was covered in red and gold panels with two words – DUBAI CASINO – in glowing neon. But some of the letters had burned out so that it was the legend DUBAI SIN that flashed on and off as they approached.
    There was a time when the casino would have looked out over the wide canal that flowed through the city, and Scarlett tried to imagine it with water taxis bobbing about, and sleek white yachts rocking gently at anchor. But the water had almost dried up, leaving two sloping banks of brown mud with a narrow trail of dark green slime where they met. A few boats remained but they had tipped over on their side. Any pretence of elegance or beauty that this place might have had, had long since gone.
    Richard and Scarlett had both changed, picking fresh clothes from one of the many abandoned stores. Richard had expensive designer jeans, a new polo shirt and new trainers. Scarlett had picked out an ankle-length dress with a silk scarf. Martins had warned her to keep her head and arms covered. The two of them parked their car a short distance away and covered the last few hundred metres on foot. Richard left the keys in the car … just in case they needed to make a fast getaway. He also concealed his backpack with the precious knife in the boot.
    A doorman stood in front of the entrance – only the second person they had seen since they had arrived. Despite the sluggish heat of the evening, he was dressed in a long coat with oversized gold buttons, epaulettes and a cap. As the two of them approached, he spoke to them in English.
    “Good evening, sir. Welcome to the Dubai Casino.”
    It was their first taste of the madness that Martins had described. They had come out of nowhere, from an empty city. Despite their new clothes, they hadn’t been able to wash. Richard hadn’t shaved for days. They both looked – and smelled – less than their best. And yet the man in his smart uniform, already holding the door open for them, was behaving as if they were regular customers, as if they had just stepped out of a chauffer-driven Rolls Royce or perhaps strolled in from the Sheraton Hotel a short way up the road.
    They walked past him and into a reception area that was all glass and marble. Scarlett felt the cold breeze of an air-conditioning unit as it