Mahmoud al-Mabhouh entered the lobby of the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai just before 8.30 in the evening, one of many guests coming and going. Like them, he was captured by the closed-circuit camera over the entrance. He had black hair, a slightly receding hairline, and a thick black moustache.
He'd been in Dubai for less than six hours, but already he'd met with a banker who was helping him arrange various international financial transactions required to purchase special surveillance equipment for Hamas in Gaza. He'd also met with his regular contact from the al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who flew in to coordinate the delivery of two large shipments of weapons to the extremist Islamic organisation.
Al-Mabhouh did a lot of business in Dubai. When he flew into the small city-state on 19 January 2010, it was at least his fifth visit in a little less than a year. He travelled on a Palestinian passport which listed a fake name and a fake occupation. In reality, he was a top Hamas operative and had been for decades: 20 years earlier, he'd kidnapped and murdered two Israeli soldiers, and more recently, after his predecessor had been disposed of by the Mossad in Damascus, he'd been in charge of stocking Hamas armouries.
A step or two behind al-Mabhouh, there was a man with a cell phone, following him into the elevator. “Coming now,” the man said into his phone. Al-Mabhouh might have overheard, but he didn't seem to notice.
Al-Mabhouh was by nature an extremely cautious man. He knew that the Israelis wanted to kill him. “You have to be alert,” he'd told Al Jazeera in an interview the previous spring. “And me, praise Allah, they call me ‘the fox' because I can sense what is behind me, even what is behind that wall. Praise God, I have a highly developed sense of security. But we know what the price of our path is, and we have no problem with it. I hope that I get to die a martyr's death.”
The elevator stopped at the second floor. Al-Mabhouh stepped off. The man with the phone stayed on, going to a higher floor. Definitely a tourist. Al-Mabhouh turned left and walked towards his room, 230. The hallway was empty. Out of habit, he quickly scanned the frame of his door and the lock mechanism, looking for nicks, scratches, any hint of tampering. There was nothing. He entered the room, closed the door behind him. He heard a noise and turned to see what it was.
Too late.
