Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)

by Fleming, Preston

  On the opposite side of the highway, scarcely ten meters from the shoulder, stood a pair of low cinder-block structures whose last coat of white paint appeared to have been baked, blistered, and blown away many seasons ago. The larger structure was labeled “Supermarché” in professionally painted lettering while the other, unlit and padlocked, bore the hand-painted inscription “Baskinta Ski Center/Location de Ski.” Extending from the eastern side of the market was a concrete terrace resembling a carport with a concrete slab roof supported by two reinforced concrete pillars. Flayed carcasses of a sheep and a goat hung side by side from sturdy meat hooks attached to the roof. The hides of the animals were thrown to one side while a butcher went to work carving chunks of raw meat from the animals and tossing the chunks onto newspaper spread on the concrete floor.

  “That’s Raymond Lahhoud,” Elie pointed out as they waited in the Rover for the pump attendant. “When we lived up here before the Events, my mother wouldn’t buy our meat from anyone but Raymond and, before Raymond, from his father. As a young man, Raymond learned the trade at Les Halles in Paris and bought his own food stall near the Place Riad Solh. He lost it all during the Events and came back to Baskinta.

  “But lately business has been bad for everyone in the mountains. Some say Raymond is more interested in brandy than his business. My aunt refuses to buy goat from him anymore; she claims he has taken to feeding the goats grape mash from the arak distillery at Zahlé. Gives the goat an odd flavor, she says—a dreadful combination, goat and anise. Anyway, Raymond’s mutton and lamb are apparently still good; my aunt says the sheep won’t touch the grape mash.”

  Lukash laughed. “I think I’ll follow your aunt’s example and pass up the goat. In Amman I lived downwind from a big herd of the filthy beasts. Now I can’t stand the taste or smell of anything connected to goats.”

  Elie pulled up at the filling station while the other two Land Rovers dropped off Fadi and one of the two bearded point men at the supermarché. The gunman carried his M-16 carelessly by its pistol grip, its muzzle pointed downward and hanging only a few centimeters off the ground.

  A moment later the teenage pump attendant appeared, took the key to the Rover’s locking gas cap, and began his work while Lukash climbed out and started across the highway. The American found a place to sit at the edge of the concrete terrace just as Fadi had begun to question Raymond about the relative merits of the two carcasses.

  “Which is mutton and which goat?” Fadi began as he stared at the heads of the two animals and their hides a few meters away.

  “This one is mutton,” Raymond answered without looking up from his work.

  “Cut me a piece from the liver.”

  Raymond reached a bloody hand into the abdominal cavity and pulled out a wriggling purplish mass the size of a small trout. He held it tightly in his left hand and sliced off a thumbnail-size chunk with a primitive wood-handled butcher knife and then offered the chunk to Fadi on the knife’s flat surface.

  Fadi chewed it, murmured approval, and nodded to the bearded point man at his elbow. “Now a piece from the shoulder.”

  Raymond shaved a thin slice of mutton from the animal’s shoulder and held out the knife once more to his customer.

  “Mmmm. A young one,” he observed after tasting it. “Give me the same from the goat, then finis.”

  Raymond scowled at the militiaman but kept his silence and offered up the slice of bloody meat.

  “Ahh, very tasty. And not a hint of anise.” Fadi’s smile was full of disdain as his eyes ran quickly from the butcher to his bearded companion to Lukash. “Give me three kilos of kebab from the goat. Vite-vite. We will wait inside.”

  Raymond glared back at Fadi, one hand steadying the suspended goat carcass and the other holding the massive knife vertically in the air. “As you wish,” he muttered with ill-concealed resentment before lifting one of the goat’s forelegs and hacking away at the surrounding bone and sinew.

  Fadi pretended to ignore the butcher’s ungracious attitude and made for the entrance of the supermarché with the rifle-toting militiaman in tow.

  Lukash decided the moment was not a good one for raising the issue of Pirelli’s telephone calls. He recrossed the highway and tried to figure out what it was about Fadi that had changed since the afternoon in the bunker along the Green Line. But all he could think of was the “Butcher of Tel al-Zaatar” stuffing the chunk of raw liver into his mouth.

  * * *

  The convoy reached the hut, a primitive one-room structure patterned after a Swiss mountaineering refuge, a half hour before sunset. Most of the men, including Lukash, spent the time before darkness fell gathering firewood, loading M-16 magazines, and peering over the side of the mountain at the road leading down into the Wadi Chakroub. They ate Fadi’s kebab in silence. Though the meat was tender and flavorful, Lukash had little appetite for it. All he could think of was the operation that lay ahead and his growing sense that something about it was terribly wrong.

  According to the plan, shortly before midnight, an hour after the moon rose above the horizon, one of the two bearded point men would lead the way on foot down the snow-covered road while the three Land Rovers followed with headlights out. Near the base of the mountain, only two or three hundred meters above the shoulder of the wadi, they would wait for the Free Officers to arrive on snowmobiles trailing cargo sleds. The specially muffled snowmobiles belonged to Phalangist mountain warfare units based in Zahlé, a Christian enclave in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley, on the eastern slopes of the Sannine Range. The snowmobiles had already been transported secretly to a staging area high in the mountains where roads were impassable from November through April.

  The Free Officers would travel through nominally Syrian-held mountain valleys to the Wadi Chakroub. From there they would be guided to the rendezvous by a beam of infrared light flashed by one of Elie’s men and rendered visible by special goggles obtained from the Zahlé-based Phalangists. The radios, medical supplies, and other equipment were calculated to be easily towable on sleds by three snowmobiles, or more slowly by two machines if one were to break down. When the equipment had been safely transferred from the Land Rovers to the sleds, Elie’s team would have accomplished its mission. The team would then withdraw up the mountain to their hut, wait until dawn, cook a hearty breakfast, and return to Beirut. The Syrian Free Officers would retreat in their snowmobiles across Syrian-held terrain to Zahlé and from there smuggle their goods across the Bekaa Valley into Syria.

  At midnight, Lukash slung his M-16 over his shoulder and stared at the myriad stars in the clear winter sky as the moon inched its way above the crests of the highest peaks in the Sannine Range. He felt chilled to the bone, having woken from a shallow sleep a quarter of an hour before and emerged from the hut into a moisture-laden west wind against which his woolen commando sweater and long French army parka seemed far from adequate. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the weather could be far worse than this. The wind was mild compared to what it could be during a spring blizzard in these mountains. He thought of the day he’d spent skiing with Elie on newly fallen snow two days before and recalled how bright sunny days and balmy nights also brought the risk of avalanches like the one they had seen at Qanat Bakiche. But as he felt the weight of the M-16 in his hands, his thoughts turned from nature to the man-made dangers he faced.

  Elie approached from the shadow behind the stone hut and spoke in a low voice, his face close to Lukash’s ear. “Have you inspected our equipment since we arrived?” Elie asked.

  “No,” Lukash answered. “Shall I run through the checklist one more time?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind. I’ll wait here.”

  Lukash propped his rifle against the side of the Land Rover and climbed into the backseat. Then he sorted through the gear that he had spread out there so that it would be within easy reach of the two front seats. “The LAW is missing,” he called out from inside.

  “Only the LAW?”

  �
��Yes. The rifle magazines, grenade launcher, grenades, and the other items are exactly as I left them.”

  Elie stepped up close to the Land Rover and once again spoke softly to avoid being overheard. “Fadi insists on having all three of the LAWs in the third Land Rover. He says he will need them if we are attacked, because as security officer he is responsible for engaging the enemy while the rest of us withdraw.” From the tone of Elie’s voice, Lukash could tell that he was not persuaded by the argument.

  “I should think the LAWs would be better positioned in the point vehicle,” Lukash answered. “If Syrian troops take us by surprise as we make our approach, they’ll be firing from below, in the wadi. And if we beat a retreat, the point vehicle is the one that will have to stay behind while the other two Rovers climb out of the valley in reverse. There’s no way anyone’s going to turn around or pass anyone else on that goat track.”

  “That is precisely what I told him. But Fadi refuses to listen. He insisted that Colonel Faris has given him complete authority over security for the mission and that he knows more about firefights than any of us.”

  “So what then?”

  “I told him to bring me the LAW or I would order him to stay behind at the hut. Then I asked him why he never told you that your embassy was trying to reach you on the telephone. He denied that he ever spoke to someone from your embassy. It was a lie—and a stupid one, at that. Fadi’s behavior troubles me. I feel I can no longer trust him on this mission. Yet I fear that if there is trouble with him, the other fighters may take his side—Lieutenant Ilyas and the two in the lead vehicle are his handpicked men.”

  “So what do you propose we do?”

  “We go forward, with Fadi or without him. And we watch.”

  Lukash gave a quick look through the windshield, reached down, and slowly pulled the leather flap of his holster away from the GI .45. “Don’t turn around now,” he said to Elie, “but your man is coming toward us with a LAW under his shoulder.”

  If Captain Fadi had been at all disconcerted by his earlier exchange with Elie, there was no sign of it in his expression. He exuded brash confidence, as he had all evening. “Tfaddal,” he said as he extended the thick brown tube toward Elie. His grin seemed to mock them. “If you desire it, it is yours.”

  “What about the point men? Did you return theirs, too?”

  “They do not desire it. Why? Would you like a second LAW?”

  “Give it back to them anyway,” Elie commanded.

  “So, my friend. I see you do not trust me in this. That saddens me, because I have always thought that you and I were much alike. Now, it seems, you prefer the company of foreigners who hold their noses in the air because they disapprove of our methods and cannot abide the smell of goats. As you wish, Elie. You have made your choice. Come, let us give these Syrian devils their due and settle our differences on our return to Beirut.”

  Fadi tossed the metal tube in the air and Lukash caught it by its webbed shoulder strap. Elie said nothing as Fadi walked past them and took his place in the passenger seat of the third Land Rover.

  “Yalla, shabab!” Elie shouted to the point men as he handed up the two M-16s to Lukash. Then the major climbed in, turned on the ignition, and followed the lead Land Rover up the hill.

  They drove for a quarter of an hour before either man spoke again.

  “It’s no use. I have been trying to think of—”

  Lukash laid a hand on Elie’s shoulder to silence him and then took the pencil from the clipboard at his feet, scribbling a short message in large block letters barely visible in the moonlight.

  “FADI CAN HEAR US. LIVE RADIO? ”

  Elie motioned for the clipboard and wrote with one hand while Lukash held the board steady. “PERHAPS. I HEARD WHAT HE SAID ABOUT YOU AND GOATS.”

  “HE ALSO SPOKE OF ANISE. HOW LIKELY IS THAT?”

  Elie frowned and gestured for the clipboard again. “OPEN THE LAW. IF TROUBLE, HIT FADI’S ROVER FIRST.”

  Lukash felt instinctively for his pistol and then for the two grenades in his parka pockets. He removed two more grenades from the grenade belt at his feet and tucked one in each of Elie’s cargo pockets.

  “Merci, ktiir,” Elie said with a grim smile.

  The incline was less steep now. Around the next bend Lukash saw the road widen as it emerged onto a shelf fifty meters wide, crossed a shallow ravine over a double-pylon concrete bridge, and then continued through a similar shelf a hundred meters farther on before starting the final descent toward the Wadi Chakroub.

  Lukash watched the bearded point man mount the bridge on foot, examine it closely for telltale wires or explosive charges, and then wave his partner in the first Land Rover across. By now Elie and Lukash had traveled a quarter of the length of the first shelf. In the side-view mirror, Lukash spotted the third Rover coming around the bend behind them. They stopped, and the Rover stopped a few dozen meters behind them.

  The point man, still on foot, waved to Elie and they advanced again. Ahead of them the point man directed his partner in the first Land Rover to back into the deep shadow of a small canyon on the far side of the bridge and turn around. As Elie’s Rover crossed the bridge and drove onto the second shelf, they were directed into the canyon to do the same.

  As a result, the first two Rovers were soon pointed back up the hill while Fadi’s third Rover remained above them facing downward on the western side of the bridge, parked behind a rocky outcropping that largely hid it from view of the road and valley below.

  “Now we wait,” Elie said.

  Lukash looked at the luminous dial on his wristwatch and said nothing. It was a quarter before one. He looked out the window in time to see one of the point men take up position behind a boulder at the far edge of the shelf and flash his infrared signal down into the Wadi Chakroub.

  It seemed like an eternity before Lukash heard the muffled whine of the first snowmobile. It started as a barely audible drone, then grew in volume and before long added the crunch of treads breaking up crusted snow. A moment later the tracked vehicle appeared around a switchback and the point man waved it into the shadowy canyon. The second snowmobile arrived a few seconds later and followed the tracks of the first to the tailgate of Elie’s Land Rover. The snowmobiles were painted entirely in white, and the three men who rode them wore white camouflage snowsuits, doubtless also provided by the resourceful Phalangists of Zahlé.

  The officer who had identified himself to Conrad Prosser as Syrian air force lieutenant Mazen Barghouti, and who had later negotiated with the Phalange over the terms of the equipment transfer, was the first of the three Syrian oppositionists to step forward.

  “We lost one of the snow machines,” he said in Arabic, dispensing with the usual greetings and formalities. “Engine trouble in the wadi a couple of kilometers from here. We shall have to take all that we can on two machines. Come—let us put the heavier pieces behind the first sled, as its machine has only one rider. If all else fails, it is the sled that must get through.”

  “How was the trip, Lieutenant? Did you run into any of your countrymen?” Elie asked.

  The lieutenant shook his head soberly. “No tracks, no lights, no noises, no nothing,” he announced. “Perhaps we should have seen more. But…we are here.”

  “Those machines of yours are quieter than I expected,” Elie remarked. “I doubt any sentry would hear you in this wind unless you passed close enough to kick snow in his face. Now, can I offer your men some hot coffee or tea?”

  “That would be very kind of you. We are airplane pilots, not alpinists. I believe I have never been so cold in my life.” He stomped his feet and slapped his hands together inside gigantic white mittens.

  Elie reached under the driver’s seat of the Land Rover and brought out a metal thermos. He poured the cup two-thirds full and handed it to the lieutenant, who passed it to his two companions before taking a sip.

  “All right,” Elie declared, “let’s pack the sleds and put these men back on the p
ath they came from.”

  While the Syrians looked on, the three Lebanese and the American worked quickly to arrange the load on the sleds behind both snowmobiles so that neither was overburdened or in danger of overturning on a sharp curve. The entire loading process took less than fifteen minutes. It was shortly after one o’clock in the morning.

  “As soon as you drop out of sight around that first curve, we will start back up the mountain,” Elie told the lieutenant. “When we get back to the main road, we will watch the valley until dawn to be sure that you have made it across. May Allah be with you on your journey, Lieutenant.”

  The two men embraced, and then each Syrian embraced each Phalangist in turn, including Lukash. As Elie had promised, the two Land Rovers remained in place until the point man saw the second snowmobile disappear from view. With that, the point men took their places in the first Land Rover and led the way back across the bridge.

  Moments later a flash of light directly ahead drew Lukash’s attention, and in the next instant he saw the Land Rover draw a lazy arc through the air and land on its side twenty meters to the left of the road, near the eastern edge of the shelf, its undercarriage ablaze. A split second later the shock wave of the explosion sent rocks, dust, and slivers of shrapnel against the windshield of his own Rover, turning its safety glass suddenly white with a thousand minute cracks.

  Before Lukash could respond, Elie had whipped the steering wheel around sharply to the left and sent the Land Rover charging down the shoulder of the road into the shallow ravine beneath the bridge in search of a place where it was shallow enough to cross. Thirty yards farther on, the vehicle swung violently away from the stream, then back again, and charged across the shallow streambed. For a fleeting moment Lukash felt the earth drop out from under him. The worn-out shock absorbers bottomed out and the Rover pitched and bucked, but it kept moving forward through the slush and rotten ice. A moment later, its forward momentum by no means spent, it clawed its way up the opposite bank and onto an access road that led up to the western bridgehead.