Beirut - An Explosive Thriller

by Alexander McNabb

  Meier turned away. The kitchen door opened and closed again, a slight coolness in the air.

  A band of steel tightened around Scerri’s chest and stopped his breath. He tasted blood, but felt no pain as the dark sleep crept up on him. He fought against it, scrabbling for his pen, his hand shaking as the strength ebbed from his fingers.

  Breathing in the iron tang of his own blood, Joseph Scerri cried out to his beloved Fran in exultation. He let the sleep overwhelm him and take him to her.

  Tomasi strode up waving a sheaf of papers as Lynch was getting out of the car outside police headquarters in Floriana. ‘We’ve got Scerri’s call records. One incoming call from a roaming mobile this morning. He’s placed a number of calls to Albania in the past ten days as well. We’re trying to get a trace on the numbers from the Albanians. You ready to have a chat with sailor boy? Name’s Magdy Boutros. Sounds Lebanese, right? He’s being smart and we can’t get a thing out of him. He keeps insisting on a lawyer. We thought you might be able to help. The one thing we know is that he walked off the Arabian Princess and seemed to be very glad to leave the boat behind him.’

  ‘Sure. What about the girl?’

  ‘In her room. Checked in early this morning and hasn’t moved since according to the staff. We’ve got a surveillance team on the hotel. I’ve instructed them to observe and report, no intervention. They’re plugged into the hotel’s CCTV system.’

  Tomasi led the way from the spring sunshine and into the shade of the police station. ‘I’ve asked Gabe Lentini to come over from the barracks and join us. He’s very keen to find out more about the layout of the boat and Boutros should be able to help. Ah, here he is. I was just explaining to Gerald your interest in our friend from the boat.’

  Lentini fell in with them. ‘Sure. Logically the ordnance is stored in the pool area, but we can’t be sure. It complicates the action. And I don’t like assumptions.’

  Lynch stopped dead in the corridor. ‘Ordnance?’

  ‘Yes, the guns these guys are smuggling,’ Lentini piped.

  It never failed to anger him, this insistence on putting brave men’s lives at risk for dumb lies. Lynch’s career was crammed with incidents where the men on the ground were misled as to the true aims and goals of operations, the real risk of the actions they were asked to undertake. Secrecy be fucked, he thought.

  ‘Gabe, the Arabian Princess is believed by my masters to be carrying two stolen one hundred kiloton Soviet nuclear warheads. If they were triggered, Malta would be a new Atlantis. You need to be taking radiation precautions.’

  Lentini turned to Paul Tomasi, who had placed a hand against the wall for support, his face a picture of amazement. Tomasi held up his hand to ward off Lentini’s questions. ‘Gerald, are you fucking us around here?’

  Lynch frowned. ‘No, Paul. I’m not. That’s the payload they’re tracking this boat for, not a few guns. Your best bet would be to pass a Geiger counter over that poor fucker in your cells, not a lie detector.’

  Lentini’s high voice was furious. ‘This is unacceptable. We were going in with no knowledge of this.’

  Lynch forestalled him. ‘Look, just kit your guys up properly now you know. I didn’t tell you, right? There’s a lot riding on how you do this tonight. I don’t know why they haven’t told you guys the whole truth, but I do know they were very keen indeed to keep this from going public. Like I said, just make sure your guys are well equipped. And don’t tell anyone I told you.’

  Lentini stared at Lynch for a few long seconds, then nodded slowly. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  They reached the door of the interview room, a police constable standing by. Tomasi signalled for him to open the door and let Lynch enter first. The small room was bare, two cheap plastic chairs either side of a wooden table. The strip lights hummed, casting a pallid light over the gloss-painted walls and grey floor.

  Boutros was sitting hunched on one of the plastic chairs. He wore a t-shirt, a leather jacket slung over the back of his chair. His back straightened up as they entered, a look of forlorn hope on his swarthy, drawn face.

  Lynch pulled up the plastic chair facing Boutros. Tomasi and Lentini took up positions behind him. Boutros’ eyes darted between the three of them. His knuckles were white, the muscles on his forearm knotted.

  Lynch smiled, his voice factual and a little bored. ‘You are Magdy Boutros, a member of the crew of the Arabian Princess. Am I correct?’

  ‘I want a lawyer.’

  Lynch’s tone didn’t change. He leaned back. ‘You are being held in Maltese police headquarters in Floriana. The gentlemen behind me represent the Maltese police and special forces. I am an officer in British intelligence and I will beat the living shit out of you if you do not cooperate fully and immediately because I do not have the luxury of time. Do you understand me?’

  Boutros scanned Lynch’s face, his eyes again darting to Tomasi and Lentini, both silent against the wall. He swallowed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are, I understand, a Lebanese national. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old are you, Magdy?’

  ‘Thirty-two.’

  Lynch scrutinised Boutros’ face as he responded, noting the direction of the man’s eyes as he answered.

  ‘When did you leave Beirut?’

  ‘I moved to Munich four years ago.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘A girl, a German girl. We were going to settle down.’

  ‘The Arabian Princess is a fifty-metre Luxe Marine superyacht that sailed from Hamburg just over two weeks ago. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘Do you like sailing?’

  The question disconcerted Boutros. He thought for a second. ‘Yes.’

  Lynch had it now. Eyes left for recall, right for invention. The behavioural pattern in all of us that betrays our lies in the hands of trained interrogators.

  ‘Where did you join the yacht, Magdy? In Hamburg, the Czech Republic, or Bremerhaven?’

  Either Boutros was a brilliant actor or he was genuinely puzzled. ‘Czech Republic?’

  ‘Never mind. Do you know what cargo the Arabian Princess is carrying?’

  Boutros shook his head, ‘No cargo. Just ...’

  ‘Just what, Magdy?’

  Boutros took a deep breath. ‘Just a girl.’

  ‘Just a girl. Elli Hoffmann.’

  Boutros shifted in his chair, his eyes wary. ‘Yes. Elli Hoffmann.’

  Lynch leaned forward, his voice still measured. ‘Has Michel Freij visited the boat?’

  Boutros shook his head. ‘Don’t know any Michel Freij.’

  ‘Tall man, Lebanese. Oiled-back hair, goatee beard.’

  ‘No. I left anyway, soon as I could.’

  ‘Why did you leave the boat, Magdy?’

  Boutros was sweating. ‘To help Elli. They hired me to sedate her and make sure she was looked after. Gonsalves tried to rape her and it was too much. I helped her escape. He wanted her killed.’

  ‘Gonsalves?’

  ‘The captain of the Princess. Joel Gonsalves. He’s a Portugese.’

  ‘Do you know where Elli Hoffmann is now, Magdy?’

  Boutros stared at Lynch, sweat beading his forehead. His mouth tightened in resolve. Lynch whipped his hand across the table, the stinging flat-palmed blow to Boutros’ cheek unseated him. Lentini moved fast, picking Boutros up and pinning him against the wall. A fast, economical punch to the stomach forced a cry from Boutros’ throat. Lentini picked him up and pushed him back onto the plastic seat Lynch had righted. Boutros sobbed.

  ‘I told you.’ Lynch shot a cuff. ‘We haven’t got time to mess around, Magdy. Where’s Elli Hoffman?’

  Boutros’ eyes were on his clasped hands. ‘At the Excelsior, waiting for me. She had a contact here, a guy that knew her father.’

  ‘Joseph Scerri.’

  Boutros nodded.

  ‘Where is Peter Meier? Is he with Elli?’

  ‘Elli’s alone. I don�
�t know any Peter Meier.’

  ‘Have you looked in the pool area of the boat, Magdy?’

  ‘No.’ Boutros glanced at Lentini and Tomasi before his eyes returned to Lynch. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Is there any other area of the ship that is blocked off or being used as a storage space?’

  Boutros wiped perspiration from his forehead, his hand shaking. ‘No. There are cabins that aren’t being used, we’re on a skeleton crew, but we haven’t been told we can’t go anywhere.’

  Lentini’s voice shrilled. ‘How many crew?’

  Boutros turned to face the big man. ‘Four. There’s myself, a cook called Blanc and two sailors, both speak Spanish and little else. Panamides and Martinez.’

  Lentini crossed his arms. ‘Have you been taking any precautions against radiation? Monitoring?’

  Boutros’ face was ashen. ‘Radiation? What the fuck’s going on here?’

  Nobody answered him. Lynch turned in his chair. ‘Paul, I think the best thing we can do right now is pick up the Hoffmann girl. I think we should bring Magdy along if he’s what she’s expecting. And then I think Gabe and his boys need to do their thing as fast as possible.’

  Tomasi opened the door. ‘Agreed. Come on, I’ll get you a firearm organised.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  The black Lincoln pulled up under the portico of Valetta’s Grand Excelsior Hotel. Lentini snapped instructions into his walkie-talkie. The driver opened the door, helping Magdy Boutros step down. He was handcuffed. Lynch waited as Paul Tomasi rounded the big car to reach them. Tomasi waved the staff back. The Lincoln pulled away and they waited under the portico for Lentini to finish giving instructions to his team.

  Lynch started at the splash of red light across Boutros’ forehead. He turned to shove the man. Boutros stiffened oddly, rooted to the spot with a look of comical surprise on his face. A neat hole appeared in his forehead. The beige wall behind him turned misty red. The busy traffic outside the hotel compound masked the sound. Time stood still for a moment. Silence reigned. Stasis.

  Boutros collapsed. Lynch cried out and reached for his gun. Lentini already crouched with his pistol held in both hands, scanning the one building that had a clear line of sight to them, far away by the hotel exit. Tomasi was slower to react, his hand on his mouth, staring.

  Lynch called to Lentini. ‘Gabe. The girl.’

  The big man nodded once and Lynch was off, sprinting along the hotel’s frontage towards the building, gun in hand. He passed a puzzled pedestrian. Alarm registered on the man’s face as he saw the gun. Lynch’s feet hammered tarmac. He ran into the road, his jacket flapping. Car horns sounded. Tyres screeched. He raced for the apartment building, rounding the corner to its rear to come up against an area of scrubland. Nothing moved. The fire escape door was closed.

  Lynch stood panting, the Walther hanging useless in his hand.

  Sirens sounded as Lynch returned to the hotel. Someone had already put a blanket over Boutros’ body, but it hadn’t stretched to covering the dark splash on the steps or the misty stain on the wall. He strode past into the plush hotel lobby, two soldiers in brown and green camouflage stood to one side holding machine guns, white on black ‘Malta’ labels on their chests, an incongruity in the opulent setting. Tomasi peeled away from the girl at the reception desk and took Lynch’s shoulder.

  ‘Come on, it’s upstairs.’

  Lynch caught his tone. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tomasi pressed the lift button.

  They didn’t speak as they waited in the lift. Lentini’s men greeted them as they walked out, more camouflage and crew cuts in the corridor. They nodded at Tomasi. ‘That way, sir.’

  The door was very broken indeed. Beyond it, Lentini stood with another soldier who avoided looking at the bed.

  Lynch turned to it.

  She had been pretty, he had to admit. She had short cut, bleached-blonde hair, an elfin attractiveness. In death, her pale skin had become alabaster. She had given up the struggle to live, the peaceful look on her face a counterpoint to the livid marks around her neck. She had been strangled.

  Lynch pulled out a hankie and picked up a packet from the bedside table. ‘Risperdal?’

  Tomasi shrugged. Lynch opened the packet and shook out the folded wad of thin paper. He read the fact sheet intently. Lentini murmured instructions to his trooper, who left the room without ever looking at the bed. A squeamish soldier, thought Lynch. Interesting.

  ‘It’s used to treat schizophrenia.’ Lynch laughed. ‘Oh, sweet mother of Jesus, she was a schizophrenic.’

  Tomasi frowned, gesturing at the corpse. ‘Please, Gerald. Come on.’

  Lynch rounded on him. ‘Paul, do you not see this? We are about to mount an armed raid on a billionaire presidential hopeful’s superyacht, with patrol boats and the air force in support. I have been chasing around Europe like some mad fucker for a week and we’ve got a major intelligence operation ongoing in Beirut. There’s a pan-European manhunt on for Meier. And it’s all based on the testimony of a mad German prostitute.’

  Tomasi held his hands up. ‘Yet you tell me the arms dump was real. And this poor girl, Gerald, is clearly very dead and clearly very strangled. First Boutros, then her. Someone’s clearing up.’

  Lentini’s eyebrows were raised, his walkie-talkie held near his ear as he waited for Lynch’s verdict. Lynch’s mouth tightened.

  ‘Fuck it, we go ahead. Take the boat, Gabe.’

  Lentini’s bark into the walkie-talkie was helium-high, but it was a bark all the same.

  Lynch sat in the car scanning the Arabian Princess through field glasses, the big boat’s lights twinkling and joining the dancing reflections across Valetta’s Lazaretto Creek in the dusk. Two Zodiacs were to approach from the seaward side of the boat, while the main boarding force would move in from land. He peered through the growing shadows.

  ‘Coffee?’

  Paul Tomasi offered the tiny plastic cup and Lynch’s nose wrinkled at the pungent drink. He took it and raised it to Tomasi. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I think we have a little time yet, Gerald. They will be very careful to plan everything and make sure they are perfectly set up. We don’t get this sort of thing very often, so I know Gabe and his boys are keen not to fuck it up. The captain, Gonsalves, has been kicking up merry hell all afternoon about not being able to refuel, threatening lawsuits and all sorts. Strange, you’d have thought he’d want to keep his head down.’

  Lynch nodded, sipping at the thick coffee. ‘We go in straight after Lentini’s boys, right?’

  ‘They’ll let us know when they’re comfortable for us to join them. You know, this is a little more complicated than most enforcement operations.’

  Lynch cupped the little plastic cup of hot drink in his hands, although the Mediterranean night was warm. ‘Sure, I understand.’ He gazed across the wharf and the water rippling in the distant moonlight. Lynch scanned the dock again through the glasses. Something shadowy seemed to move beside a rocky outcrop built into a wall, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Lynch adjusted the focus of the binoculars. ‘Did you get the warrant for Freij’s arrest?’

  The silence made Lynch turn. Tomasi’s face showed he had been dreading the question. ‘No, Gerald. I’m sorry. There are no charges against Freij.’

  Lynch’s voice was as tight as his hands gripping the binoculars. ‘What about fucking murder?’

  Tomasi tried to keep his voice steady. ‘No evidence, Gerald. My prosecutor wouldn’t touch it with yours. I got told to leave well alone. Hands off. Official.’

  Lynch jumped at the flash to his right. Shadowy figures swarmed across the concrete wharf like bounding rats. Muffled concussions reached them and he hit the window button to better hear the action. Tomasi strained for a view from the driver’s seat.

  The warm breeze bore the distant echo of shouts and the thump of smoke grenades. Shadows flitted across the boat’s three stacked decks. Lynch fancied he saw one stick figure swallow-d
ive from the bow of the big boat. There was a brief, crackling burst of live fire.

  Lynch jumped at Tomasi’s shout. ‘There. The signal.’

  Lynch’s head was slammed back against the headrest as Tomasi hit the accelerator, taking them down to the dock level. They pulled to a sharp halt. Blue lights flickered on the road above them and sirens sounded across the sleepy docks of Manoel Island.

  Lynch sprinted up the gangplank. Lentini was waiting for him at the top, his white teeth gleaming in his blacked-out face. He was wearing a dark biohazard suit, a stark contrast to the bright white suits Lynch and Tomasi wore. Their hands slammed together.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Lentini. ‘A walk in the park. She’s ours.’

  Lynch rasped urgently. ‘The cargo? The pool space?’

  Lentini’s radio spat a series of urgent voices. ‘We didn’t open it yet. But there’s no radiation reading at all from the counters. You want to go there first?’

  ‘Sure,’ Lynch said.

  Lentini led the way to the pool on the afterdeck. Four of his men rolled back the heavy panelling covering it. Two freestanding floodlights had been set up and, together with the boat’s own lighting, the whole area was bathed in brightness. The brass fittings glittered, the wooden decking faded into the shadows.

  They peered as one into the brightly lit area that should have been a swimming pool and the extra space created below it by the unpaid workers at Luxe Marine. Lentini gave a low whistle.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ Lynch whispered.

  The modified pool space was very deep indeed, a yawning chasm stretching at least four metres down, its depths shadowed despite the lights Lentini’s men had erected.

  It was empty.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Lynch cast his eye over the butterscotch marble floors and red-carpeted staircases of the Hotel Grand Excelsior’s lobby. ‘It feels like I’m in the damn Gulf,’ he complained to Paul Tomasi, who sipped his morning espresso.

  He broke off as Gabe Lentini’s bulk wove towards them through the clusters of tables and chairs scattered in the lobby lounge. Lynch pushed himself out of the dark wooden chair to stand and slap palms with Lentini.