Dubois flicked his cigarette into the gutter and got into the car.
Maalouf spoke French. ‘Thank you.’
‘Save your breath.’
‘You met with Coleman and a guy called Steele.’
‘What do you want?’
‘We track them. They track us. We track them tracking us. We all play games. It is our way of all staying employed. Coleman asked to speak with you because we rattled his chain. He is scared.’ Maalouf gazed out of the window as they left the Phoenicia and joined the road. ‘It is always better when we play parlour games like this than when we make wars. Better to have men behaving like children on the playground than like savages.’ He sighed. ‘Forgive me, Yves, I am an old man and have much to regret.’
‘Spare me.’
‘As I told you, this Buddy Steele is Israeli. He is operating under the protection of the US Embassy. His real name is Amit Peled and he is a Mossad operative of senior rank. It is a clever name, this, a new Israeli name for an old Diaspora name. Peled is Hebrew for steel, replacing the German Yid name Stahlman. Amit means friend. So we have a friend, a buddy, of steel. Why are you not laughing, Yves? It is a subtle joke, no?’
Dubois recalled Steele’s odd accent and awarded Maalouf a brownie point. An Israeli, then.
‘They tried to stop you, Yves. We know this because they had no other option. Their operation is illegal. We have been watching them for a long time. You have the data from Falcon. I know you do. Together we can find out everything, apart we are blind. I know you hate me and I don’t pretend to be anything other than the monster you think I am. But we need to work together. There is no time.’
Consumed by a dangerous lassitude, Dubois faced Maalouf and looked him in the eye. ‘Why do you even take an interest? Let the Israelis stop them.’
Maalouf’s gaze flitted between Dubois’ eyes, his lined face registering his surprise. He cried out in frustration. ‘I told you, Israel is not the target of these missiles. Steele is Michel Freij’s control. Israel is Freij’s backer, not his target. Freij will fire these missiles at Iran in a deniable strike to eradicate the Iranian nuclear programme. And the missiles will come from Lebanon. We will have another war after this. A real one. The Gulf will be in flames, the oil wells will go up. And Israel will have everything it wants. So will the right-wing Americans behind them.’
Dubois and Maalouf stood listening to the waves together. They leaned on the cold metal railing that snaked along the wide-paved corniche. Maalouf was first to break the long silence. ‘I live with it even now, you know. I see her still in my dreams and wake up crying because I am sorry for what I did.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I agreed to talk business, not about this. I will not let you unburden yourself to me. Shut up. Talk business.’
‘We become brutal at times like that. Brutal times. Do you remember they used to fly along this very stretch of corniche, dropping their flares before they came inland and dropped hell on us all?’
Dubois shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t move away. ‘Business. Now. The future. Not the past.’ He drew on his cigarette and glared at Maalouf, who was also smoking. ‘I will not go back with you. You are on your own.’
‘Even you, who are so self-righteous. Even you were sent home because you let your precious standards slip.’ Maalouf turned to him. ‘She wasn’t your wife then, Yves. You didn’t even know her.’
Dubois’ lips were drawn. ‘Enough or I walk. Warheads or not. Enough.’
Maalouf turned to look across the rocky foreshore to the iridescent sea. Dubois followed his gaze, the waves breaking against the abandoned concrete of some long-forgotten restaurant or gun emplacement. He couldn’t remember which.
‘Their target is Iran. Two strikes against the remaining Iranian nuclear research facilities, two nuclear explosions near Qom and Tehran. All evidence will be wiped out in the explosions, which they will claim were caused by Iranian negligence. If by chance any evidence remains, it is Russian nuclear technology and a missile made from stolen designs. The missiles flew from Lebanon, not Israel.’
Maalouf puffed on his Gitane. He waved the cigarette at Dubois. ‘Michel has prepared his militia. They will strike against Hezbollah and other Shia targets, hard. They are well equipped. When Freij talks of a strong Lebanon, this is what he means. When he talks about ceasing outside interference, this is what he means.’
‘What about Selim Hussein? His partner? The guy is Shia, no?’
‘Hussein is technical genius, but he is stupid with people. He believes Freij is the best of men. He loves Freij. Not like a brother, more than this.’
Dubois ground out his cigarette butt with his heel. ‘And if Iran retaliates?’
Maalouf sighed. ‘It will be against Lebanon. And the Middle East will erupt into flames in any case, you know this.’ He turned to Dubois, his palms up. ‘Now, Yves, will you work with us?’
Dubois’ mobile rang and he checked the screen. ‘Hi, Nino. What is it?’ He listened, nodded, and caught Maalouf’s gaze. His face grave, he nodded again and asked, ‘Are you sure? When?’ He rubbed his cheek and chin. ‘Where’s Lynch?’ A pause, then, ‘How long for?’
Maalouf flicked his cigarette butt over the railings and lit another one, crouching over his lighter to shield the guttering flame from the sea breeze. Dubois ended the call. ‘The missiles arrived here this morning by air. They are at Falcon’s main R&D centre, a mainly underground facility called Deir Na’ee in the Northern mountains.’
Maalouf was grave. ‘We know of this place.’
Dubois turned to face Maalouf, his finger stabbing. ‘You do not speak to her, you understand? Not one word. Especially not about—’
‘I understand. If I would say something, I would have said it to her by now. She has her life and she can live it without concerning herself about me. And so can you, Yves, if you will only let yourself.’
Maalouf offered his hand and Dubois, surprising even himself, took it.
THIRTY-FIVE
Brian Channing sat back in the armchair, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed as Dubois talked and paced Channing’s office. When the older man finished, Channing didn’t move a muscle, his fleshy face in repose. Dubois waited, wondering quite what it was about Channing that scared him. Perhaps it was this very languor, a state that Channing seemed to retreat into when at his most dangerous. The man was certainly smooth, always dressed in fine blue pinstripes, with tie-pins, collar studs, cufflinks and other accoutrements. Every bit the English gentleman, cool and poisonous behind the politician’s smile. Yet Channing was very good at his job, a genial host and unmatched in his ability to feel his way around the corridors of power, a call here, a bon mot there. He was, in short, everywhere.
Channing’s voice was a drawl, his eyes still closed. “Frank Coleman’s an old warhorse, but his remit has been eroded by the current round of power-grabbing in Washington and station chiefs have nothing like the authority they used to have. They’re being marginalised by the more vertical approach to counterterrorist operations that Washington’s taking. It seems odd, though, that they’d shake sticks at you here at the operational level. It would make more sense to escalate the back off request up to Daddy in Washington so your mealy-mouthed buggers over at Berlaymont pull their noses out of the trough long enough to call us off the kill.’
A knock on the office door snapped Channing’s eyes open. ‘Come.’
A plain girl in her early twenties entered, handing a file to Channing with a deferential murmur. His salacious eyes followed her leaving. He grunted. ‘Now, Yves, let us take a look at what we’ve got sitting under Frank Coleman’s little rock, shall we?’ He ambled over to the desk, spreading the file out and picking through its contents. He tapped at his notebook’s keyboard.
Dubois found it difficult at times to keep up with Channing’s idiomatic drawl, one of the many aspects to the man that got under his skin more than he’d care to acknowledge in public. Channing liked to test his
patience and Dubois, as ever, waited so that he wouldn’t give the man the pleasure of a reaction.
Channing tutted. ‘So our buddy Buddy is a fully paid up Mossad hood. Kidon boy. Speaks Arabic, long history of involvement in southern Lebanon, AKA Amit Peled, Harry Stahlman and Rutger Stahl. He’s been all over, has Buddy. Munich, Dubai, Gaza and Saida. A lot in Saida. Funny you hadn’t come across him before, Yves. Used to be your stamping ground, didn’t it? Saida?’
‘I have never met him before, no,’ Dubois shook his head, consigning the hazy remembrance of a young Frank Coleman shouting at him back into the past.
‘Peled’s been spotted snuggling up to a number of right-wing US groups recently, suspected of involvement in a couple of operations that have caused great embarrassment to the current government, starting with that Hamas murder screw-up in Dubai.’ Channing became garrulous. ‘There’s talk of an ultraright-wing cabal in Israeli intelligence and political circles and our boy fits the profile perfectly. Old Sharon thought the sun shone out of Buddy’s little brown arse.’
‘The Americans have run with the Israelis before. This is hardly news. They have told us to get off their patch.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we’re going to do that,’ Channing drawled, reaching for his mobile. ‘One second, Yves.’ He dialled, waited. ‘Karl, hi, it’s Brian over in London. Well, not actually. In Beirut at the moment. How’s Celia? Great, great. Look, Karl, I wonder if you could do me a quick favour. We were having a look around over here and wondered if you chaps had any ops running in Lebanon right now, particularly anything going on with our friends from David’s Land? Sure, no problem at all. Thanks, Karl.’
He dropped the line with a look of smug satisfaction. ‘Now that, Yves, is why you need to cultivate contacts.’
Dubois smiled wanly and sat back as Channing continued to pick through the file with his tender, thief’s fingers.
Brian Channing let the mobile ring five times before answering it, the nearest Dubois had ever come to snapping and shouting at the man to react for the love of God.
‘Channing.’ He listened for a time. ‘Can I take that as Gospel, Karl? I mean, there’s no chance that anyone particularly clandestine might be operating here? Under Frank Coleman’s direct purview, for instance? Okay, thank you very much. No, no, nothing at all.’ Channing held the phone between shoulder and cheek as he scanned the papers in front of him. ‘No, Karl, absolutely not. You know if we do, you’ll be the first to know. Be great to catch up next time you guys are in London.’
Dubois watched Channing’s grin, knowing that the smiles were purely for the benefit of the man on the other end of the phone and feeling that he had, somehow, to admire the way the man worked even as he knew that Channing’s gain would always somehow end up being his colleagues’ loss.
Dubois was surprised at the look of fear that passed across Channing’s face as he laid the mobile down on the desk like a playing card. Fear was something he had never seen in the man before. Channing was about cunning and determination, not fear. Dubois was silent as Channing sat, his eyes closed.
‘They’re freelancing, Yves. The CIA has no operations running in this area currently. Absolutely none. Coleman is retiring next week and is off effective duty.’ Channing rose from the table and reached again for the mobile. ‘The innocent questions I have just asked are about to start creating fucking chaos in Washington. I suggest you talk to your masters as I am about to talk to mine. If Maalouf is right, the whole Middle East is about to go up in flames.’
Dubois nodded and headed for the door. As he pulled it shut behind him, Channing’s silky tones sounded. ‘Minister, it’s Brian Channing in Beirut.’
THIRTY-SIX
The meeting room deep in the heart of the Résidence des Pins was functional, blue carpet tiles and scuffed white walls, the plastic-covered table surrounded by a motley collection of swivel chairs. The whiteboard on the wall was scuffed and grubby in the corners from long use. There was a kettle and a tray with coffee packets, tea bags, sugar and a tin of condensed milk.
Channing stood by the projection of the ground plan of the Deir Na’ee facility, his face stark in the projector’s light as he glanced around the room. Ghassan Maalouf and Yves Dubois sat to his right, to his left Jean Meset, the programmer from Nathalie’s team. The young man’s face was bathed in the blue-grey light of the screen.
‘Okay, this is the situation right now. The team here has access to the CCTV systems in the Deir Na’ee complex and to the core security systems. We are in effective control of Falcon Dynamics’ networks and can shut them down if we so decide. The question I believe is timing. The Lebanese Army is moving in. Ghassan?’
Maalouf got to his feet. ‘The army is deploying units from Bahjat Ghanem, the air force is readying Fourteenth Squadron, which has modified Bell Hueys. It will be an hour before the army units are within range of the complex at Deir Na’ee. We fear it will be too little, too late, but sadly Lebanon is hampered militarily by lack of supply and technology. We know that Freij’s militia is numerous, well armed and entrenched in Kalaa, the area around the Deir Na’ee facility.’
Channing turned to Jean Meset. ‘Jean, where’s the missile guidance system? Can we hack these missiles?’
Meset rose with an odd bowing motion, his hands clasped together and fidgeting. ‘We have missile analysts from Dassault and BAE working on the data we have gathered on these units and we know that the guidance system is highly sophisticated, but we haven’t been able to find the control network. We think it might be totally independent of the systems that we have gained access to. This would be sensible, actually. We think it might be linked to the supercomputer we have found. We have not gained access yet.’ He turned to Maalouf. ‘Erm, you can tell your army guys that when they’re ready we can open the automatic doors, but not any manual ones. Obviously. I mean—’ He shuffled a little and glanced at Channing. ‘We can’t take the networks down without losing control of the access systems, so we have to leave them up for now. I would suggest we open all doors then shut down the networks when the army is arrived.’
Channing nodded. ‘Thanks, Jean. Yves?’
Yves Dubois stood. ‘As the European Union, we have no significant military assets close by. There is a British airbase in Cyprus, but it is set up for search and rescue helicopter missions, not for major combined attacks. The British have the Armilla patrol in the Gulf, which does have a combat aircraft capability and has been put on high alert. We could call on support from the Turkish air force, but there simply isn’t time. We believe these missiles could be readied to fire imminently.’
‘Guys,’ Jean Meset’s voice was tight with excitement. ‘There are two prisoners being brought into the building. Here.’
He twisted his tablet screen and they watched Gerald Lynch, blindfolded and bound, marched past the CCTV camera. The bald man walking next to him stumbled, urged on by the gunman from behind.
The shock hit Dubois, an icy blow. He turned to Channing, who was staring at the screen. ‘What do we do?’
Channing was silent for a moment. He glanced away from the screen, shaking his head. ‘We must proceed as we can. The army goes in, the networks go down. We try to find the missile guidance systems. I’m going to make a couple of calls to America to see if they have any assets close by.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Marcelle Aboud was sitting on the sofa in Michel Freij’s sumptuous office when Lynch was marched in, Danni the gunman’s hand on his shoulder. The heavy door slammed shut behind them. She was wearing a long red dress, diamonds glittered above her full bust. Her smile at his entrance turned to a look of concern.
He stared around the big room. The walls were stone, a free-standing fireplace divided the workspace from the sofas and a bar, the flames dancing merrily. To the right was a massive picture window looking out to the wintry mountains beyond, the huge pane of floor-to-ceiling thick glass at least thirty feet wide to give a breathtaking, vertiginous view of the snowy slopes
of Dannieh.
‘Mr Lynch.’ Michel Freij was sitting at the big glass desk. He issued a command to the gunman in Arabic and Lynch found himself shoved across the rug-strewn wooden floor and into a black and chrome chair. The movement made the cable tie on his wrists cut even deeper and he fought to suppress the cry of pain in his throat.
Freij nodded a dismissal. ‘Thank you, Danni.’
Freij was wearing a white shirt, open at the collar, and jeans. His dark hair was slicked back and his handsome face turned to Lynch with a pleasant, relaxed smile.
Lynch’s mobile was on the black mirrored surface of Freij’s desk. The only other object on the obsidian surface was a slim black notebook computer parked to one side. Freij followed his eyes.
‘Yes, Mr Lynch. Your mobile. I should have Danni punished for that oversight, should I not?’ He smiled regretfully. ‘He is normally so very ... effective.’
Lynch croaked through his dry lips. ‘He’s just another thug, Michel. Like you, but without the suit.’
Freij tapped the desktop with his fingertip, which instantly became a display. He swept a finger across an area of coloured symbols that Lynch could only dimly make out from where he was sitting.
‘There,’ Freij mused, scrolling the screen with a fingernail. ‘Yes, the polls are once again excellent. Au contraire, then, Mr Lynch, this ‘thug’ is well on track to becoming the next president of Lebanon. Marcelle, do you think you could be so kind to give Mr Lynch a glass of water? He seems to have been in the wars.’
Marcelle sashayed over to the bar and brought a heavy tumbler of water to Lynch. She cradled his neck as he drank, leaning into him and whispering, ‘There,’ when he had finished.
She took the glass away and Lynch glared at Freij, his voice stronger. ‘What’s she doing here?’
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