Lentini and Meshkallah shook hands, and the shorter man led the way back to the low administration block. Lentini’s hand darted to catch the door as it swung in the wind. It slammed behind them as they reached the warmth of the administration block. They clattered into a waiting area with chipped metal seating bolted to the floor in sections, an embarkation point for the military. It was disused and smelled oily.
‘There will be a storm,’ grinned Meshkallah. ‘We must all take care tonight, I think. Please, take a seat here, gentlemen and we will arrange the necessary transport. We believe our quarry has passed the border with Macedonia a little before the dawn. We are in wait for them. We are crouched like the tiger.’
As Meshkallah strutted off, Lynch leaned over to Lentini. ‘Gabe, he’s either an incompetent fuckwit or a dangerous waste of space. I can’t make up my mind.’
Lentini laughed. ‘Let’s see. These guys still have a formidable military machine. I flew in over Sazan Island. It used to be a huge Soviet military base and it still seems like an active military zone. I’d heard about it before, never expected to see it, somehow.’ He leaned forwards in response to Lynch’s raised eyebrow. ‘I mean, I doubt Meshkallah could have got to where he is by being incompetent.’
There was no sunset, just a deepening of the gloomy cloud cover to a sulky slate. Lynch paced along the windows overlooking the airfield, retracing his steps like a cage-happy animal. He caught his reflection in a glass panel. The neon lighting made his face ghostly.
Lentini inspected his firearms, laying them down on the bench. He had stripped each of the two pistols he carried, scrutinising each piece and reassembling the guns with loving care.
He peered up from his labour. ‘Easy, Lynch. You’ll wear a path in the flooring.’
Lynch rounded on Lentini, exasperated. ‘Gabe, we’ve been sitting in this dump for over two hours now. I’m sick of waiting.’
Lentini chuckled. ‘Relax, Gerald. You’ve obviously never been in the army. We do more waiting than anything else. The Albanians shut the border as soon as we talked to them. It’s their operation and we have to respect that. Meshkallah’s in charge now.’
‘So how long do we give them?’ Lynch gazed out of the window at the deepening gloom outside, raindrops starting to dot the glass. The Princess must be here by now. They could even be loading up and we don’t know what the hell’s happening.’
Lentini sighed. ‘I understand your frustration, but there’s really nothing we can do. We can’t search the Vlorë coastline by ourselves, can we? These guys have got the resources and Meshkallah’s the man in charge. They’ll have patrols at sea, and overflights, too. There are only two places with jetties that could load a boat as big as the Princess and Meshkallah’s bound to have them both covered.’
‘What about the houses Scerri made calls to?’
‘Both under surveillance. The Albanians have had people there since we called this morning. Really, we can do nothing more than wait.’
Lentini’s mobile rang and the big man’s shoulders stiffened as he listened, turning and nodding at Lynch. Lentini hung up and bent to lift the heavy holdall he had brought with him. ‘We’re go. Customs have picked the consignment up, they’ve let it go through as agreed. The tail is good. There’s a team ready to move on the Petrolifera facility and the port’s been shut down. The navy is moving to blockade the straits between Sazan and Vlorë. The cargo’s moving. Meshkallah’s sent a driver. We can follow him. So relax, we’re good.’
They strode to the door. This time the soldiers on the other side nodded and escorted them. They bustled through the empty, grey building, gathering more men as they made their way, finally bursting through the glass front doors as a large group of uniformed men with Lynch and Lentini at its centre. There were two big Land Cruisers waiting for them, new matte camouflage paintwork and regimental insignia above their back bumpers, whiplash antenna waving in the air. Two staff cars were queued up behind them, engines running. Officers barked commands and they were surrounded by commotion. Behind it there was a low beating sound. Lynch craned his head to try to hear better over the noisy military around them. He strained to catch the noise, tapping Lentini’s arm.
‘Did you hear that?’
The big man shook his head. ‘Hear what?’
‘Choppers.’
‘How many times? Relax. There should be choppers up there. And spotter planes. And patrol boats on the sea. These guys are going all out to help us here and we haven’t even been truthful with them. At least you told us what we were up against back in Malta.’
‘Yeah, well. I got double warned off letting anyone here know about our two little problems.’
Lentini was sour. ‘Not my call, anyway, is it? Come on.’
They passed the airbase to their right, another two military cars joining them as they raced through the city’s suburbs, the front car flashing blue lights to push the sparse traffic out of the way.
A signpost to their left proclaimed ‘La Petrolifera Italo Libanese’. Lynch glanced at the army driver. ‘Here?’
The driver pointed ahead of them. ‘No. Not here. This way.’
The driver switched on the headlights as the darkness thickened, the trees shadowed. The woodland cleared ahead of them, blue and red lights flashing against the tall trees at the periphery of the clearing. Floodlights had been set up. The roadblock was lifted as they slowed to approach. They drove into the floodlit area, the military transporter lorry standing at the centre of the lamps in the clearing, almost in daylight.
‘Those are NATO insignia,’ said Lentini.
‘Figures,’ said Lynch. ‘Explains how they sailed through all those border posts, doesn’t it? Christ, but Meier’s got balls, all right.’
They pulled up, the wheels crunching on gravel. Lynch joined Lentini at the front of the car, the driver by their side. The evening had cooled, and Lynch turned away from the buffeting cold of the strong breeze. The military transporter carried a single container, which was being opened as they approached it. Lieutenant Colonel Anton Meshkallah walked up to them, his face a picture of joy and pride. He gestured at the clearing, military trucks and cars joined by police cars, a collection of at least twenty vehicles, tape fluttering at the periphery and floodlights set up to pick out the transporter.
‘You see? We have your contraband under control perfectly!’
Lynch scanned the huge display of activity, his face a picture of incredulity. He focused back on Meshkallah’s beaming face, glowing with perspiration under the floodlights.
‘The fuck you do,’ he said, striding towards the container.
The big doors were open as soldiers unloaded it using a lifting platform, pulling crates out and stacking them. A light drizzle had started to fall. The canvas covering the lorries glistened under the floodlight.
‘Look here,’ said Meshkallah, pointing with his little silver-ferruled swagger stick. ‘These are 122mm missiles designed for the Soviet RM70 launcher. Here there are Trnovnik missiles. According to our experts, they are equipped with cluster bomb warheads.’ He jabbed the stick at another stack of crates. ‘9M22 Grad warheads. HE fragmentation. These are very dangerous weapons, you understand?’
‘Very,’ said Lynch. ‘But they’re not what we’re looking for.’
Meshkallah peered at him from under his peaked cap, his brown eyes lively and his face suffused with excitement. ‘Not what you are looking for? How is this? We were given alert for illegal shipment of arms coming from Czech Republic and here they are. They are shipped using NATO lorry and with NATO paperwork that authorise this shipment. Even they have two motorcycle riders for this lorry. Everything was in order. This is why it reach this far. But we are better than these bad men.’ He grinned. ‘We catch them, no?’
Lynch scanned the floodlit clearing. ‘Where is the driver?’
Lentini took a call on his mobile, walking away from them and cupping a hand over his ear as he talked urgently.
Meshkallah’
s face was a picture of deep regret, his hands thrown out in sympathetic despair. ‘He get away. Still my men they are hunting him in the forest. You understand it is difficult in this darkness. We do not yet have the equipment the Americans promised to us, the night vision and the helicopters.’
Lentini piped, ‘And the outriders?’
‘Ah, yes,’ Meshkallah gestured up the road with his swagger stick. ‘Tragical they are too fast.’
‘Excuse me one second,’ Lynch nodded to Meshkallah and joined Lentini a few paces away. Lentini signalled to Lynch to wait. After a few seconds listening and a terse ‘Grazzi,’ he cut the line, his face grim.
Lynch hissed, ‘Gabe, this guy’s fucking us around.’
Lentini nodded. ‘That was my liaison officer. He checked with the Macedonians. They let three trucks through in total. We’re missing two trucks.’
‘So we check out the Petrolifera facility? It’s the most likely of the two places they could offload the warheads.’
Engines started up behind them as they broke into a run, Meshkallah shouting protest. Lynch clambered into the driver’s seat of the Land Cruiser, momentum slamming the door as he rammed the big car into drive and floored the accelerator, wrenching the steering wheel to turn the vehicle back the way they had come. Scattering gravel behind them, they swerved onto the road back to the Petrolifera facility.
The light drizzle had turned into steady rain, forming big puddles. Lynch, peering into the darkness, spotted the turning too late and jerked the wheel, sending them sliding into the turning off to an area of industrial units interspersed with scrubby open spaces. He grappled with the wheel and regained control. The patchy sodium lighting cast a rusty glow over the unkempt buildings. Barbed wire fencing surrounded many of them. Others were protected by high walls. The rising wind sent a cardboard box rolling down the street.
Lentini leaned forwards. ‘Lynch, do you know where you’re going?’
‘I took a look at the satellite images of Petrolifera’s facility back at the hotel. They’ve got an area of deep water wharfage. If they were going to embark the warheads onto a boat as big as the Princess, it would make sense to do it from here.’
They broke into a large open area with brighter perimeter lighting, the dark mass of the sea stretched in front of them. The moonlight glittered on the waves, picking out the vague silhouettes of two loading cranes on the wharf.
Lynch slammed on the brakes and the big car slewed to a halt. He sat with his arms crossed on the wheel, squinting at the stark shapes of the cranes, the rubbish strewn on the ground and the weeds pushing up through the cracks in the concrete. The fat raindrops beat a steady tattoo on the roof of the car.
Lynch got out of the car and peered into the shadows.
Lentini joined him. ‘Nothing.’
‘Hang on,’ said Lynch. ‘Listen.’
Lentini tipped his head to one side, straining to hear against the drumming of the rain. His face relaxed as he recognised the sound. ‘Choppers. Heavy ones.’
‘Over there.’ Lynch pointed to the lights rising from beyond the industrial units. ‘They’re taking off from the airbase.’
Lentini reached into the car, pulling open his dark holdall and grabbing a pair of binoculars. He adjusted them and whistled, handing them to Lynch. ‘Here. Night vision.’
Lynch picked out the shapes of the two big helicopters, each harnessed to a container, lumbering seaward from the direction of the airbase. ‘Where the fuck are they going?’
Lentini shouted above the noise of the rain and the increasing din of the rotors. ‘They’re almost going to pass overhead of us. They must be headed for Sazan.’
‘Sazan?’
‘It’s a big Albanian military base, an island a few klicks out to sea from here. The one I said I overflew.’
Lynch’s face was screwed up in frustration. ‘What the hell can we do to stop them?’
‘Nothing. I’ve only got handguns. We’d need SAMs to bring those bastards down.’
‘The navy?’
Lentini’s frustration mirrored Lynch’s. ‘Meshkallah was in charge of liaison. I don’t have any other contact here.’
Lynch got back into the Land Cruiser. Lentini opened the back door as the lights from behind picked out the Land Cruiser in their glare. The reflection in the rearview mirror blinded Lynch, an army lorry and two staff cars, a bullhorn barking at them, Meshkallah’s voice rendered oddly mechanical. ‘Stop now. Do not move.’
Lynch swore, turning to Lentini who still stood outside the car. ‘What do we do?’
‘Nothing. Don’t move.’
Troops disembarked from the lorry, taking up kneeling positions. Meshkallah leaned behind the open door of the staff car, cracking out orders on his bullhorn. ‘Move away from the vehicle now and nobody will get hurt.’
‘Fuck me,’ Lentini spat. ‘This clown thinks he’s in a movie.’
Jesus, but it’s like listening to Mickey Mouse swearing. The incongruous thought hit Lynch, bringing a cold grin to his face. The rain was falling in sheets, the noise of its spattering modulated by the gusts of wind masking the dying sound of rotors in the sky. Lentini stretched for his holdall.
‘Gerald, listen to me. Meshkallah’s bent. You have to get word out and have those containers followed. When I say go, hit the accelerator and get out of here. You hear me?’
Lynch shook his head. ‘I can’t leave you behind.’
‘We don’t have time to argue. This is what I do, it’s not what you do. Go and get hold of your people. I’ll catch up with you.’
‘You can’t take out eight soldiers with machine guns.’
Lynch caught the glint of two big semi-automatic pistols as Lentini snapped off the safeties, a wolfish grin on the big man’s face. ‘You got a million pounds to bet me?’
Lynch was silent. Lentini’s grin widened. ‘Thought not.’
Lentini spun away, the deafening guns bucked in his big hands. Muzzle flashes strobed across the Land Cruiser’s interior.
Lentini screamed ‘Go! Go! Go!’
He launched himself away from the car. The rear window hazed as the soldiers returned fire. The noise of its implosion and the cacophony of gunfire forced Lynch’s foot to the throttle and the car jerked forward, the huge engine roaring. Bullets hit the front wheel arch, a series of tinny plunks. Muzzle flashes lit up the night air. Lentini rolled on the ground and soldiers threw up their arms, diving aside for cover. The big car jinked along the wharf, a bullet smashed the side window. Lynch lifted his hand against the shards of glass flying into the car. The wheel flew from his grip as the front tyre blew out. The rubber slapped the wheel arch and sloughed off. The Land Cruiser spun on the slick concrete with sickening momentum.
The door vibrated against his leg with bullet impacts. The warehouse wall loomed, and Lynch threw up a hand to cushion himself against the shock, the airbag smeared with red in front of his face as the crash sucked the air from his lungs and slammed his limp body back against the seat.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The whiteness of sunlight on clean linen hurt his eyes as he tried to open them, the lids glued together and his mouth parched. His head throbbed. He tried to move, but the effort too much for his bruised body.
Lynch tried to speak, but could only croak, the consequent cough driving a bolt of pain into his chest and side. He relaxed, letting his breathing and heart slow again. He sniffed, antiseptic and a hint of something else, possibly scent.
He took another, slower, breath. It came back to him.
The trolley crashed to the floor. Lynch lashed out, his own pain forgotten as he struggled to raise himself, flailing against the tubes and his own weakness. An alarm sounded; raised voices and footsteps echoed down the corridor. By the time the first nurse arrived, his shouts had died to whispers and he plunged back into unconsciousness.
Later, he woke again, a better awakening with the memory of a conversation with Leila falling away from him despite his efforts to recall every li
ttle detail of the dream. She had been standing by the railings overlooking Raouché’s rocks, posing for a photograph with the famous landmark behind her, shielding her eyes from the sun and laughing at Lynch trying to take a picture and simultaneously fend off the various hawkers and urchins gathering around the khawaja, the gentleman. She took his arm and they wandered down the corniche towards Manara, Leila teasing Lynch as she held on to him.
‘So you spy on me too, Lynch? Are you keeping a watch on the activists?’
‘I don’t know anything about you. I don’t want to know.’
‘Kazab. Liar. Of course you want to know. It’s in your blood. You’re a spy.’
‘Deputy Commercial Attaché. Only information I have an interest in is commercial opportunities for the boys and girls of the DTI.’
‘DTI?’
‘Department of Trade and Industry.’
It was a conversation from the early days and recalling it made Lynch smile. At that point, Leila faded, become a dove and flew up into the blue Mediterranean sky above the green sea, circling the Manara lighthouse and swooping in the warm currents of the sunny afternoon.
Lynch opened his eyes. He focused slowly, resolving Dubois’ gentle smile. ‘Good afternoon. How are you feeling?’
Lynch licked his dry lips, taking the Dubois’ proffered plastic cup of water. He flopped back on the pillow. He let his breathing slow. ‘Lentini?’
‘In ICU. He has been shot eight times. He’s a remarkable man. They think he will pull through now, but he has been in theatre all night.’
‘He got Meshkallah.’ It was a statement.
‘Yes, he did. Meshkallah was Meier’s man, had been selling arms from Albanian caches and stockpiles to Meier for years. They flew the warheads using two army choppers to the Sazan Island base. The Albanians have arrested a number of officers and men who have links with Meshkallah. They are very embarrassed. The warheads are in two containers, both painted with NATO markings, according to the men we caught at Sazan. We’ve got a whole team wrapping up the Albanian end of this.’
Beirut - An Explosive Thriller Page 24