Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)

by Fleming, Preston

  “It leaves at two, but it boards at half past one. Latest check-in is at one. Think you could meet me at passport control by then?”

  “I’ll make a point of it,” he assured her.

  “What about Walter?” she continued apprehensively.

  “I really don’t know, Lorraine,” he answered abruptly “All I know is that I have to run. Ciao, I’ll see you at the airport.”

  Prosser opened another can of orange juice and downed half of it before depositing the opened can in the refrigerator. Once again he took two steps toward the bathroom before the telephone rang. He put his hand on the receiver, scowled, and took a deep breath before picking it up, half expecting it to be another call from either Lukash or Lorraine.

  But it was neither. The call was from Muna Khalifé.

  “Is this Conrad?”

  “Speaking,” he answered, caught off guard by her call and concerned that she might divulge information best left unsaid over the telephone.

  “I would not have called, except…I have heard the most terrible news,” she began with evident distress in her voice.

  “Tell me,” he replied.

  “And I need to know if it is true,” she went on as if not having heard his answer. “The mother of a…mutual friend…has just been to see me. She claims that the Syrian army surprised a team of our boys last night in the mountains near Sannine.”

  Muna paused, awaiting his response.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Muna, but I haven’t heard a thing. Of course, I haven’t been to the embassy yet this morning, so I’m at a bit of a loss.”

  “No, you don’t understand, Conrad,” she insisted, raising her voice. “She is the mother of someone important. A friend at the war council informed her that her son was among those killed. And that an American expert was with them. You must tell me. Is it true? And the American…?”

  “Muna, I don’t know,” he answered, eager to get off the line. “Listen, I’ll be at the embassy soon. Why don’t you call me there in an hour? Right now I’ve got to go.”

  Without waiting for her response, Prosser hung up the phone and dashed to his closet to find some clothes. This already had the makings of a day to try one’s soul, he thought, and wondered what kind of a jam Lukash had gotten himself into this time.

  Chapter 20

  The moment Lukash stepped back out into the daylight from the takeout food shop he saw three young schoolboys gathered behind the Mercedes, ears cocked and legs tensed to take flight, as if they’d heard some strange and horrible sound coming from inside. He moved closer and heard it, too: a low moaning sound, not quite distinguishable as human.

  “What’s the matter with you boys?” he chided them, coming up behind them by surprise. “Haven’t you ever heard a goat before? He is crying because he is unhappy at being served up for dinner. Perhaps one of you would like to volunteer to take his place?”

  The boys looked at each other, at Lukash, at the Mercedes, then again at each other and ran off toward the nearby filling station shrieking with laughter and feigned terror. Lukash backed the car out of its parking slot and doubled back toward Palais de Justice Circle. He was not a hundred meters past the filling station when he noticed the two black-helmeted motorcycle riders behind him once again. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor, depressed the clutch, and shifted into fourth gear. Pulling into the passing lane, he overtook a tank truck, then a minibus, and finally a Toyota pickup before veering back into the center lane, which had reverted to its typically sluggish midday pace. Seeing him succeed at the maneuver, a BMW and a Renault followed his example and dropped in close behind him.

  He pulled the .45 out of its holster and rolled down his window. If the motorcycle appeared in his mirror again, he would be ready to fire on it. The Phalange’s best chance to stop him had been outside his apartment. Now if the colonel’s men intended to stop him and rescue their leader, they had little time left. In a minute or two he would be inside the Lebanese army’s security zone, where the Phalange’s magic held no power. The army sentries who manned the checkpoints by the Lebanese National Museum, Muslims all, would quell any disturbance that bore so much as a whiff of the Phalange.

  The Mercedes edged forward. He was only four or five car lengths from the nearest Lebanese army roadblock now. If he were arrested there, diplomatic immunity might actually count for something. But unless the colonel put up a sudden fuss in the trunk, Lukash did not expect to be stopped. The sentry would recognize that he was a foreigner and wave him through without even asking for a passport or a foreign ministry card.

  Suddenly the delivery van directly in front of the old Mercedes came to an abrupt halt, and Lukash slammed his foot on the brakes. The heavy chassis pitched and bucked on its 1950s suspension, and in the same moment he thought of Faris Nader being tossed about in the trunk. Perhaps the thought had a telepathic effect, for in the next instant he heard a thumping from behind the rear seat and then a drawn-out and painful lowing like that of an injured cow. Lukash watched the line of vehicles ahead of him move forward again, and he made a mental estimate of how long the sentries would likely remain within earshot of the colonel’s moaning and thumping—five seconds, maybe a bit more.

  He hung back and let the delivery van get a head start, intending to accelerate past the checkpoint upon coming into the proper range. But a middle-age woman with a beehive hairdo in the car directly behind him leapfrogged her Peugeot adroitly past him into the gap. He tried again, this time allowing a gap only half as large, but once more a driver pulled out from behind him into the open space. Again he let the interloper take the spot.

  Meanwhile, the thumping grew more violent and began to jostle the Mercedes perceptibly on its soft leaf springs. Lukash felt beads of sweat gather on his upper lip and prayed that he could get past the Lebanese army sentries without being asked to open the trunk.

  A horn blared behind him, then a second and a third. Lukash peered out the window at the side-view mirror and saw the black helmet coming up rapidly in the outside lane. But now his car was completely hemmed in, front and back, with no room to maneuver. He shifted into neutral, took his foot off the clutch, and wheeled around, .45 in hand.

  The passenger on the motorcycle, now only two car lengths behind the Mercedes, raised a stiffened arm as if preparing to shoot. Lukash took aim at the rider in front and prepared to squeeze the trigger. But before he could let off the first round, the Subaru behind him blocked his line of sight, its driver having spotted the opening created when the line of traffic ahead of Lukash’s Mercedes resumed its forward movement.

  In the driver’s haste to fill the gap, he had pulled out too quickly to notice the advancing motorcycle, which slammed into the Subaru’s rear bumper and sent its black-helmeted riders careening into a row of striped oil drums that bordered the two-lane corridor. All at once horns blared from every direction. The line of vehicles in front of the Mercedes advanced, while those behind stopped where the Subaru blocked both lanes.

  Moments later a distracted Lebanese army sentry waved Lukash past the checkpoint without so much as a glance at the black-jacketed American diplomatic passport he held out for inspection.

  * * *

  Lukash’s first thought on entering West Beirut was the recollection that he had had eaten nothing since dinner at the mountain hut the night before. Memories of the descent into Wadi Chakroub and the violence that followed had already begun to fade into unreality. In an hour or two he hoped to step onto an airplane bound for Europe and connect in due time with an onward flight to New York or Washington. Some at Headquarters would doubtless condemn him for having accompanied Elie into the mountains and allowing the transfer of U.S. equipment to Syrian oppositionists, but Lukash remained hopeful that when told the full story they would not make him a scapegoat for the damage to U.S. interests resulting from Colonel Faris’s treachery. Of course, his position might be strengthened considerably if the colonel could be induced to confess.

  The pounding an
d shouting in the trunk that began in earnest when the Mercedes approached the Lebanese army checkpoint had subsided as soon as the vehicle gained speed to cross the no-man’s-land between the National Museum and the Barbir Hospital. Lukash had overheard a few tentative outcries when the Mercedes reduced speed before the Syrian checkpoint, but they subsided as soon as the car came to a stop. The Syrian and Palestinian accents of the laborers reinforcing the sandbag bunkers along the median strip may have been enough to silence the colonel.

  As soon as Lukash passed the Cité Sportive Stadium, he looked for a suitably quiet place to stop. He found one opposite a vacant lot. As he approached the trunk, keys in hand, he was met with an eerie silence. He inserted the key into the trunk lock, turned it sharply, and stepped back, ready for anything.

  But there was no violent kick aimed at knocking the key from his hand and no frenzied rush for his throat. Instead, the colonel raised his eyes and squinted up past Lukash’s head into the dazzling midday sun.

  “Come on out, Colonel. You are free to go,” Lukash offered, training his .45 on the Phalangist.

  Colonel Faris Nader reached over his head with both hands, grasped the fender of the old Mercedes, and raised himself up, squinting in Lukash’s direction as his eyes adjusted to the midday brightness. “Ah, Wali,” the colonel sighed reproachfully. “You should not have done this. After your ordeal in the mountains, I was prepared to consider letting you go free. Now I am no longer so inclined. You can kill me, of course, but if you do, I assure you that you will never leave Lebanon alive. So I will make you a fair offer. Drive me to the nearest telephone, let me call my office, and I will tell the officer of the day to cancel the order for your arrest. Drop me wherever you like after that, and you will have the benefit of as much time as I shall need to find another phone and reinstate the order. Instead of certain death for us both, one of us will live, and maybe both. Do you accept?”

  Lukash laughed. It was a confident, carefree laugh, devoid of any resentment or bitterness, and it brought a puzzled look to the colonel’s face.

  “You think perhaps that because you hold a pistol you deserve more?” the colonel challenged. “Tell me, then, if you intend to kill me, why am I still drawing breath?”

  “Because I want to make a different kind of deal,” Lukash answered curtly, taking another two steps back from the Mercedes. “Take a look around, Colonel. Does the place bring back any memories?”

  The colonel’s eyes first fell on Cité Sportive Stadium and then scanned the Avenue Camille Chamoun from north to south in stunned silence. “No, it can’t be,” he said, his face draining of color. “But this is...West Beirut!” He pointed to the stadium and fell silent.

  “You are lucky that my offer is more generous than yours,” Lukash continued. “If you tell me what I want to know, I will give you the keys to the car and you can test your wits by finding your way back to East Beirut. For a professional like you, it shouldn’t be so hard. On the other hand, if you prefer not to cooperate, I keep the keys and you get to walk.”

  He looked at the colonel’s rumpled beige suit and shook his head in mocking disapproval. “How untidy,” he observed. “But, then, an elegant gentleman like you on foot in a neighborhood like this might attract attention. Without proper identification, the local militia might even pick you up for questioning. And once they determine who you are....”

  “What do you want to know?” the colonel asked sharply, showing only the faintest trace of anxiety.

  “How did the Syrians know we were meeting the Free Officers last night at Wadi Chakroub?”

  The old expression of arrogance and contempt returned to the colonel’s face. “We control many of their agents in Lebanon. It was easy enough to let them learn of the rendezvous.”

  “And why did you send me with them to be killed? Was it your own idea, or did someone higher up order you to do it?”

  “The answer to that is obvious,” the Phalangist declared. “The decision to alert the Syrians came from the highest levels.”

  “And Major Elie? Was he also aware of your plans?”

  The colonel snorted in contempt. “You Americans are no different from the French. You think you are the cleverest persons on earth, daring to bribe and buy our people wherever and whenever it suits you. Do you think we are so stupid that we have not learned to monitor your telephones and install microphones in the places where you meet your agents? Elie was a traitor and a fool. He deserved worse than the quick death he received from the Syrians.”

  “And did I deserve the same because I gained his trust?”

  The colonel laughed. “Not at all. You see, I am a realist. Your job is to recruit spies. Mine is to neutralize them. Your success in seducing Major Elie could no longer do me any harm once I became aware of it. So from that point of view it is a matter of indifference to me whether you live or die.”

  “But certainly you could not have believed that Washington would simply shrug off the loss of one of its officers and go on sending you money and equipment as if nothing had happened.” Lukash challenged.

  “On the contrary,” the colonel answered confidently. “I expect them to send us even more. As indeed they will, regardless of what happens today between the two of us.”

  “Then you don’t know Washington, Colonel. They aren’t in the habit of throwing away good money after bad. They will definitely want to know how you lost a half million dollars’ worth of their equipment, not to mention trying to kill off one of their officers. I doubt they’ll buy your answers.”

  “You will excuse me for saying this, Walter, but I think you are the one who does not understand. Your division chief, Mr. Twombley, has known from the very beginning that the equipment you sent us would be lost. He would not have sent it to us otherwise. The very purpose of the equipment, and of your own presence here, has always been to convince the Syrians that your government is supporting anti-regime forces in Damascus. Mr. Twombley has said that your new president believes such a step is essential to bringing Hafiz al-Asad to his senses and making him treat seriously whatever peace initiative that your government may put forward in the coming year.”

  Lukash felt his face flush but said nothing. Though the claim was shocking, he found it plausible.

  “In my view, and that of the war council,” the colonel continued, “your government is completely mistaken in its belief. On the contrary, al-Asad will view America’s support for Syrian oppositionists as an intolerable affront to Syrian sovereignty and will retaliate harshly, most likely against your embassy in Beirut. The result will be a new alliance between your country and ours against the Syrians. Where our words have failed over four years to convince the American government to evict the Syrian occupiers from Lebanon, an attack on your diplomatic mission by assassins from Damascus is bound to succeed.”

  “Thanks, Colonel, I’ll pass that along. Perhaps they’ll listen this time,” Lukash replied.

  “I doubt it. Of course, to me it would have been preferable if the Syrians had found your body with the others in Wadi Chakroub. That would have offered further proof of American involvement in helping the Syrian Free Officers. But your leaders and ours will not let the extreme claims of a discredited junior officer stand in the way of their larger objective.”

  The colonel heaved an exaggerated sigh and then held out his hand for the car keys. “The keys, my friend. I am already late in appearing at the war council, and when my automobile is found, my people may fear the worst.”

  Lukash clenched his jaw in anger. “On second thought, it may be too easy for you to get back to East Beirut. Maybe you need a little handicap to even the odds, like the one you gave our team last night.” Lukash pulled his .45 out of his waistband and took aim at the two nearest tires on the Mercedes. He fired twice and the old car listed sharply to port.

  A handful of small boys who were gathered around a cake seller’s pushcart some fifty or sixty meters away stopped eating momentarily to see who had fired the pistol shots.
A hundred meters beyond them, Lukash spotted Prosser’s silver Renault four-door. He waved with his free hand and a few seconds later saw the car pull away from the curb and approach at a measured speed.

  “Salope,” the colonel hissed, his confidence evidently shaken. “If you wish to kill me, do it now with a bullet from your pistol. Do not leave me at the mercy of these filthy animals.”

  “You should have thought of that before you sent us up to Wadi Chakroub, Colonel. I hope the brutes skin you alive.”

  Lukash turned his back on the colonel and started off at a trot toward the Renault. After a few moments he turned and watched the colonel remove the jack and spare tire from the trunk of the old Mercedes and begin changing the damaged rear tire. Meanwhile, the young boys and the pushcart vendor moved closer to the Mercedes and a handful of idle adults appeared out of nowhere to form a loose circle around the colonel.

  A pushcart sweets vendor crossed Prosser’s path, making haste toward the group. “Be careful, Uncle,” Prosser warned the elderly Kurd. “That one does not belong here. I suspect he may be a troublemaker from the Phalange.”

  Prosser’s Renault stopped at the curb and Lukash stepped in without looking back at the Kurd, who was now shouting at the gathering crowd.

  “What was that all about?” Prosser asked when Lukash was on board and the Renault had completed a hasty U-turn back toward the north. “Shouldn’t we have offered some help to your friend back there?”

  “Not on your life,” Lukash answered. “Let’s go to the airport. Is Lorraine still booked on the MEA flight to London?”

  “As far as I know,” Prosser replied. “Until you called me this morning, I was planning to drive her to the airport. To tell the truth, Walt, she was pretty upset when she called me last night to ask. Sometimes I honestly don’t understand why she puts up with you.”

  “Nor do I, Connie. But I intend to make it up to her. And if Headquarters continues to insist that I drop her, it may just be time for a career change—that is, if the Agency doesn’t fire me for what I just did to the chief of Phalange intelligence.”