by Jim Case
“Is that our man?” asked Vanloo, pointing through the windshield at a figure walking across the street.
“No.” Kelly was positive. “Kaddoumi is a small, stout man, clean-shaven, with wire-rimmed glasses. He almost never comes on the street in the daylight. The contact man we need is a fatso, about five-nine and two-hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Trouble,” Cal whispered.
She saw them coming around the corner, a ragtag group of teenagers with automatic rifles, one carrying an RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade on its rifle-like launcher. Small raiding parties like this roamed both sides of the Green Line, often taking what they wanted from whomever had fewer arms and less of a stomach for fighting.
There were eight of them, all in their teens. They moved up cautiously, then when they saw who was in the car and the TV camera, they became bolder.
Kelly rolled down the window and spoke to them in her passable Arabic. The apparent leader of the group, a pimple-splotched youth of no more than sixteen, laughed and replied in English.
“You crazy come out here. This is our street. You got to pay to sit here. Instead you pay to take my picture. Put us all on the American TV, yes?”
“I’m waiting to see an important man. You probably now him. Majed Kaddoumi.”
The name cause a stir among those who did not know English. The young leader of the pack took a step backward.
“You lie. Nobody, no American, ever talk to Majed.” The youth glared at her, turned to listen to someone in his group and laughed. “My expert on women says he wants to see you with your clothes off, see if you have blonde hair other places.”
“Your expert on women is a little boy who has never had a woman and wouldn’t know what to do with one,” Kelly shot back at him in Arabic. It caused hoots and howls of laughter among the group. The only one not enjoying the joke surged up to the car and slammed his rifle butt into the windshield, cracking it.
“Get out, American whore!” the enraged youth spat. He turned the rifle and fired a round into the side of the rear door.
Kelly never moved. “What’s the matter, big general? Can’t you even control your troops?” Again she spoke in Arabic.
The leader shrugged.
The youth with the rifle glanced at the leader, then swung the rifle so it pointed at Kelly. “Get out, you stinking American whore! Get out and strip off your clothes… or you die right where you sit!”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
“Hold it right there, small boys,” John Cody barked in his top-sergeant’s voice. “One move and you join Allah.”
He stood fifteen feet away with his Uzi leveled at the group. They had taken the silencers off them for this first run, so they could hide the weapons under loose-fitting shirts.
Caine braced to one side for a crossfire angle with his Uzi lined up perfectly.
The leader saw the situation and shouted a quick order to his team, freezing them.
“You with the rifle pointing at the woman, put it on the ground, carefully,” Cody commanded.
The street bandit looked at his leader. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his whole body shook. He picked up the silent command from his leader and slowly bent to put the weapon on the ground.
The others whispered and growled, but a sharp command from the teen boss quieted them.
“You a big hero or something?” the bandit leader asked him.
“Mostly something,” Cody growled. He walked up to the group and slapped the youth who had fired his rifle. The blow slammed the teen sideways, but he caught his balance before he fell.
“You understand enough English, small boy,” Cody said to the one he had just slapped. “You like to see people naked, try it yourself. Strip down, right now.”
“No way,” the youth said.
Cody hit him with a short right fist that slammed him backward so hard he lost his balance and found himself sitting in the dust of the street. Before the kid could move, Cody darted forward and slid a four-inch honed straightedge razor against the downed Lebanese’s throat.
“Strip down right now, punk, or I slice your clothes off you! I won’t mind cutting you up a little in the process.”
The boy, who now looked his fourteen years, nodded and unbuttoned his shirt. A few seconds later he kicked out of his pants and slouched there in his shorts and shoes.
“All the way, gutter rat! Next time you think twice about ordering a woman to take off her clothes.”
Hatred showed on the boy’s face. He turned around, away from Kelly, and pulled down his shorts. He kicked them off his feet, then looked at Cody over his shoulder. Suddenly, he began crying, and Cody waved the whole band away.
“Get lost, punks. Come back when you grow up, in about ten years!” Richard Caine shouted at them as they ran.
Cody motioned to the woman. “Get in that rig and move it fast! Those hotheads will be shooting this way as soon as they get behind cover. Move it!” Kelly jumped in the car, where her cameraman had stayed, and spun the wheels in a U-turn as she tore back down the street.
Cody and Caine sprinted for the mouth of the alley, surged behind solid walls, and waited. Two shots blammed through the quiet street from the direction in which the teenage bandits had vanished.
Cody shrugged, got back in the car they had arrived in minutes before, and raced down the street after Kelly. She had stopped two blocks ahead to wait for them.
She stood beside her car and laughed with a trace of nervous tension when Cody stepped up beside her.
“Who the hell are you and where did you come from when I needed you?” she asked, a brassy but sweet California-girl grin on her pretty face.
“I’m Cody, that’s Caine. We need to talk to you somewhere that’s relatively safe and where they serve beer.”
Kelly held out her hand and gripped his with a firm handshake. “I’m Kelly—”
—“McConnell. Famous TV correspondent,” Cody finished for her. “I know. We came hunting you. Where can we talk?”
Ten minutes later, all three settled down over beers in a small cafe.
12:25 hours.
“I can’t tell you how glad I was to see you back there, Cody. I’ve been here over a year now prowling the streets, and I’ve never been threatened with guns like that before—certainly not by one of those teenage gangs.”
“I’m glad we were there,” Cody said. “Any luck finding Majed Kaddoumi?”
Her soft blue eyes darted up to watch him with concern, then a touch of alarm. She grinned. “Okay, that must be it. You know Jack Gorman and he told you I was Kaddoumi-hunting. Which means you’re either State, which I doubt, or CIA. Right, CIA. You’re on the hijack.”
“You always do your logic out loud?” Caine asked with a grin.
“When I’m with friends. I owe you guys.”
“Any luck on Kaddoumi?” Cody persisted.
“A short fat man was supposed to leave that house I was watching and go to Kaddoumi. We probably missed him. And with that gunfire in the street outside his house, he won’t show his face for days.”
“You must have more than one lead.”
“Why should I tell you?” she asked. “You could be an advance team for another network.”
“How many network news hawks do you know travel with a pair of Uzi submachine guns?”
“Good point. Look, I got this job the hard way. I am not just a bimbo over here pretending to be a newsperson. I get more than my share of stories with hard-nosed, digging-it-out work. I thanked you for showing up back there just in time. My virginity was not at stake, but a gang-bang is not something that turns this lady on. And so, Mr. Cody and friends, when 1 say I owe you, that’s all there is to it.”
“And we both have a job to do,” said Cody. “I’m on a tight schedule, Kelly. I’m sorry. Where’s your other contact?”
“Across the Green Line.”
“Shiite territory.”
“Exactly. I go over there as little as possible, but it
looks like I’m out of options. I have a friend who is a double and has great contacts on the other side. I can take one man with me. I’ll take you, Cody, and leave my cameraman here. Are you game?”
Five minutes later they drove down Avenue Dugeneal Fouad Chehab, turned right onto Rue Bechara El Khoury.
The Green Line was established years ago to divide Beirut into Christian and Moslem sectors, but for many years now it had been a bloody line, militia on one side firing at anything that moved on the other side.
Now it was a symbol, and a barrier, and a spot where few wanted to be, let alone cross over.
Kelly turned right onto a side street. They were in the Bachoura section of East Beirut; only two blocks over was Rue De Damas, the Green Line. Just across the line was the old St. Joseph’s University in the Yessouieh section of Moslem West Beirut. She parked a short way down the street behind a red Fiat. A man with a submachine gun slung on a cord around his neck leaned on the back of the Fiat, smoking.
“If he was not smoking, we would not have stopped,” Kelly said. “It’s our all-clear signal.” She got out of the car.
Cody made sure the Uzi was out of sight under the loose sport shirt he wore as Kelly walked past the man and turned into the alley, then he strode along beside her.
Halfway down the alley a door stood open. Kelly stepped in and motioned for him to follow her. Inside the dingy building the light was faint, and what light there was came from a small skylight two floors up.
The building could have been there for a thousand years. It was made of stone and much plaster and many coats of paint. It smelled of hundreds of years of living, and cooking, grease and unwashed bodies, and now the strong musk of recent lovemaking.
Kelly turned, noting the scent.
“People here must live for the moment,” she said quietly. “They never know how long they will survive.” She continued through the room, past two people sleeping on mats on the floor and into another room that had a square table made of heavy, black wood. A man sat there smoking a water pipe. He did not look up as they sat down in two chairs facing him.
The man was ancient, at least eighty years old. When the old man’s eyes opened, Cody could see the white growths that covered all of the cornea and half the other.
“Small flower,” the man wheezed through a protesting throat. “I am pleased to see you again.”
“I must make a special trip to see Majed, ancient one,” she said in Arabic. “It is vital I move as quickly as possible.”
“Youth, always so impatient. How old are you, girl, child?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Oh, to be even fifty again!” The old man blinked his nearly sightless eyes. He clapped his hands once and a small boy of nine or ten ran in. “Take them to see your uncle,” the old one wheezed in English.
“Yes,” the boy said. He leaned in and hugged the old man, who blinked back a tear, then closed his eyes. The boy smiled at them and hugged Kelly, then held out his hand to Cody
“Dahr, this is Cody, he will be going with us,” Kelly said.
The small boy nodded, turned and walked away. Kelly followed him and Cody was close behind her. They continued through the building to another alley, down it to a building that had been hit by an artillery shell, and finally through a basement door under the rubble.
Once in the basement, Cody saw that the area had been cleaned up and that several families lived there. Dahr walked through without speaking to anyone. No one looked at them as they stepped into a closed room, and Dahr pulled aside a blanket that covered a door. He took a flashlight from a niche in the wall, and shone it forward. A dirt tunnel extended as far as they could see.
Now Dahr took Kelly’s hand and led her into the cavern. Cody had to stoop in places to get through, but it was dry and the air was good. After they had walked an estimated fifty yards, Cody could see light, and soon they were in a room in which a blanket had been pulled back to let the sun shine through a window and almost directly into the tunnel.
“We’re now on the Amal and Shiite side of the Green Line,” Kelly said. “Here we are in true enemy territory.” As she said it she took a large kerchief from her purse and put it around her hair. She then put over that a black shawl with a veil that Dahr handed to her.
“I must look like a proper Moslem woman on this side or I would attract attention,” she said. “Your Western clothes are acceptable here for a man, and you are dark enough. A blonder man would have trouble.”
Dahr led them out of the room, through several passageways and then into an alley. They walked through three blocks of the alley, crossing main streets quickly, then came to a door where Dahr knocked. A dark face showed through a two-inch crack.
Dahr said something in Arabic, and the door opened.
“Inside, quickly,” a deep voice said speaking English. They moved past the door and found they were in a modern, well-decorated living room. The man who had told them to come in held out his hand. He was slight, short, dark brown with black hair and a patch over one eye.
“You may call me Abu. I know Kelly. This gentleman is…”
“Cody, John Cody.” They shook hands.
“Kelly, fragrant flower, I know why you are here. It is a tragic affair. Most of us wished that it had never happened. It is bad for all of us. Arafat with the PLO is furious. He knows his movement will be hurt by the similarities in name. The Amal are unhappy. All of the Shiites believe it was a mistake. Even the Hezbollah think it will hinder, not help, our causes.”
“Then help us end it,” Cody said softly. “Tell us how we can contact Majed Kaddoumi.”
Abu looked at Cody quickly, smiled, then glanced back at Kelly. “A woman so beautiful should not concern herself with politics. I have told you that before, Kelly. You are welcome to join me here anytime. Your working days will be over. You will have a life of leisure…”
“Abu, get back to the subject,” Cody insisted. “I have a deadline, it is running out quickly. Where can I find Majed?”
“Mr. Cody, you are insistent.” Abu paused, walked to an alcove and brought back a hand grenade. The pin was firmly attached. It looked like an old American-made bomb. “We all must be patient, Mr. Cody. This whole section is ready to explode. I don’t want to be responsible for pulling the pin.”
“Abu, I have twenty-eight hours to meet my deadline.”
Abu turned to Kelly. “You, too, have deadlines, daily ones, as I remember. Do you also wish to see Majed?”
“I must, Abu. It is my work, and it is partly for my country. Remember how you told me one had to be loyal to a nation or one was cast adrift?”
“I remember.” Abu stared at a picture on the wall. It was a good print of a French impressionist. “Very well. I’ll show you. Dahr has returned to his home on the other side. This way.”
They left by the same door they entered and were half a block down the street when submachine gun fire chattered from a window across from them and shattered glass over their heads. They dashed for a doorway and rushed inside for protection.
More weapons began firing, and then a bomb blasted death and destruction down the street.
“It came sooner than I expected,” Abu said. “Out this way!” They ran through the building toward the alley, and had just lunged from the structure when riflefire flared in the alley. The firing was away from them. They ran from doorway to doorway, moving away from the fighting.
A jeep rolled into the end of the alley ahead of them. It had a belt-fed machine gun mounted on the center post, and a gunner began raking the alley with lead.
They each dove behind a large metal trash bin and lay panting in the dirt of the alley.
“It has to be the Hezbollah!” Abu shouted over the sound of the firing. “They would sell their mothers into slavery to gain the upper hand over the Shiite Amal. They do not have good leadership.”
“Where is Majed, in case they get lucky?” Cody demanded.
“You’re right, I should tell you. But
first, let’s get out of here. That door, right over there on the far side. If we can get to it we’ll be well out of the firefight by the time we get through the building.”
“Not a chance crossing the alley with that machine gun up there,” Cody said.
Before he finished the sentence, firing increased from the far end of the alley, and he saw a dozen fully uniformed men rush into the space and flatten in doorways and behind cover. For a moment, lead from both sides slammed through the confines of the ages-old alley.
He leaped three feet from the protective bin to the doorway on the near side of the alley and pounded on the panel. It was locked. Before he had time to shoot the lock off, the gunfire increased again. He had to get Kelly out of there! She would do him no good wounded.
He made one surging run to the trash bin and saw Abu standing up behind it, sending signals to the troops working their way slowly up the alley. They must be friendly. Perhaps they could knock out the Jeep and end the threat.
Before he could work out a plan of action, the decision was taken away from him. He heard the engine whine and then roar as the Jeep with the mounted machine gun began a mad dash down the narrow alleyway, the .30 automatic weapon firing twenty-round bursts, sweeping away everything in its path.
There was no place to hide.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Cody motioned for the other two to stay behind the protective metal trash dumpster. He pulled a smooth hand-grenade from his pocket and took a quick look around the side of the trash bin to judge how far away the Jeep and its blazing machine gun was.
Still thirty yards. He waited. He jerked the ring and drew out the safety pin from the small hand-bomb and held the arming handle firmly in place.
The machine gunner had switched to five-round bursts. His barrel was probably overheating. The bullets slammed past them, jolted into the metal dumpster, careened off the stone and bricks of the buildings, as the Jeep came forward, more slowly now. The driver and gunner examined each doorway.