Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)

by Fleming, Preston

  “I think you’re overdramatizing, Walt,” Pirelli assured him. “All you need to do is tailor your story enough for the Agency to claim plausible denial in supplying the Free Officers. If you can do that, everybody on our side gets what he wants. The administration gets to smack down the Syrians for stepping out of line, and the Agency avoids responsibility if it doesn’t work out right. And you get your career back on track. All Twombley asks is to help the Agency come out looking clean.”

  “I get it. Just follow the script.”

  “Which will be made as easy as possible for you,” Pirelli offered with an obliging smile. “There is one other requirement, though. Before Twombley can tidy up your personnel file, you will have to do something about that Ellis woman. And the same goes for your Lebanese ex. A clean break with both. Understood?

  “Muna is not an ex. She’s my wife. You know perfectly well that there’s never been a divorce.”

  “Then fly to Reno and get it done,” Pirelli ordered coldly. “Twombley can only keep the counterintelligence and security pukes off your back if you wipe the slate clean. Do yourself a favor, Walt. Find some nice American girl to mess around with. Even better, find one at Headquarters so she comes fully equipped with a security clearance and a sense of what we do around here.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I suggest you give it some serious thought. If you buck Headquarters on this again, there’s not much I can do to help you.”

  “I remember accepting your help five years ago on this very subject, Ed,” Lukash answered pointedly. “I took your advice. I boarded the plane to Saudi Arabia and left Muna behind. But it was wrong, Ed. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. If I had been man enough, I would have put my wife first and my job second. So here we are, five years down the road, and you’re telling me to desert another woman, one who has been completely honest with me and as loyal as any man could possibly hope for. The answer is no. If I were to drop Lorraine the way I dropped Muna, I could never look in the mirror again. You and Twombley and the Agency can all go to hell.”

  “And throw away your career? After eight years overseas? Hell, with a year or two more at Headquarters under your belt, you could go out again as a COS or a base chief. Wouldn’t it be foolish to—?

  “In your eyes, I’m sure it would be,” Lukash interrupted. “But when I took your advice five years ago, it was the wrong choice. I know you were trying to help me, Ed, but the entire concept was wrong. And even if I didn’t know it then, I do now.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pirelli challenged. “Your personal choices are your own responsibility. Let’s face it, Walt, you’ve always been a coward when it comes to women. You use them and lose them, and then you forget about them. You can hardly blame me for that. And if you want to throw away a promising career, too, that’s your call. You’re on your own, pal.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to hear you say that. When the chips are down, I rather suspected you might toss me overboard. Honestly, I don’t care what you or the Headquarters brass may think of me. All I want to do at this point is tell what really happened out in those mountains last night, face the consequences, make a clean break with the Agency if it comes to that, and get on with life as best I can. And I’m ready to do it with Lorraine, if she’ll still have me.”

  “Look who’s throwing who under the bus now—some husband,” Pirelli retorted dismissively. “All I can say is, go ahead, Walt. Do your worst. We’ll see where it lands you.”

  At that moment the Renault pulled into the first of several security checkpoints leading to Beirut International Airport and entered a long queue of waiting cars.

  “Okay, as soon as we get past these clowns, I’ll drop you at departures,” Pirelli said.. “Leave the keys to your flat and your car on the dashboard. I’ll have your personal effects shipped back to you.”

  When at last the car pulled up outside the aiport departures area, Lukash grabbed his small black duffel, stepped out without looking back, and marched quickly toward the terminal entrance.

  Ed Pirelli watched Lukash enter the terminal and suddenly slammed his right hand onto the dashboard with such force that the keys left there jumped before sliding onto the floor. “Damn him!” he muttered while reaching down to recover them.

  In the same moment, a white Peugeot sedan pulled up to the curb behind him, and he heard a man shout out the window in French-accented English. “William! William Conklin! Stop! William!” the man cried out. But the noise of jet engines overhead were considerably more powerful than his voice.

  Raising his head to look in the rearview mirror, Pirelli could see a prosperously dressed middle-age Lebanese man who looked vaguely familiar to him. The man continued to shout well after Lukash was out of sight. Then he stepped out, slammed the Peugeot’s door, and set off hurriedly after the American.

  Pirelli ran to intercept the Lebanese and grabbed him by the shoulders from behind. Once stopped, the man spun around to face his pursuer, allowing Pirelli to step between him and the terminal. At that moment Pirelli recognized the older man as Victor Hammouche, Claudette’s husband and the brother-in-law of Cèsar Khalife, the late father of Lukash’s wife.

  “Not so fast, Victor,” Pirelli warned, laying his hands on Victor’s chest and giving him a shove backward.

  Hammouche gazed upon Pirelli with an expression of puzzlement and alarm, which soon gave way to recognition, as he had dined with Pirelli more than once with his wife and brother-in-law before the civil war.

  “You, you…devil!” he challenged Pirelli. “You are the one who brought that man into our family!” he accused in French, then proceeded to curse Pirelli and the entire American embassy for lying to his family about Bill Conklin since the man’s disappearance five years before. “Let me pass!” he demanded. “I demand to know where that man is going.”

  “He’s here to catch an airplane and doesn’t have time to waste with you,” Pirelli answered in an unruffled voice as he removed his hands from Victor’s chest. “Now, exactly what business do you have with him?”

  “He deserted my niece, and by all that’s holy, he won’t escape without paying a price for it!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Pirelli warned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Stand aside and let me pass!” Hammouche demanded, his frustration mounting.

  “You’re after the wrong man,” Pirelli insisted while continuing to position himself between the Lebanese and the terminal door. “The man who just went inside is not who you think he is.”

  At that moment Hammouche stepped back, drew a Czech 75 pistol, and pointed it with both hands at Pirelli’s heart. “No, it is you who have the wrong man, I think!” Hammouche exclaimed.

  Pirelli raised his hands and took a step back. “Calm down and lower the pistol,” he ordered.

  But Victor Hammouche was determined not to let his quarry escape. He fired a warning shot over Pirelli’s head and stepped past him toward the terminal. “If you follow me I will shoot!” he warned as he left Pirelli behind.

  By now convinced that Victor might indeed do him harm, Ed Pirelli retreated slowly toward the Renault, hands still held high and his eyes wide with fear.

  Across the road and some fifty meters distant, a pair of Lebanese Internal Security Force troops heard the gunshot and tossed away their lit cigarettes. In a moment they spotted Victor Hammouche and set off toward him. When they had closed within ten meters they fired their M-16s in the air to gain his attention and ordered him to drop his weapon.

  Seeing the two well-armed troops, Hammouche froze, and his face took on a panicked expression. He lowered the pistol and let it fall to the pavement.

  Within moments, another half dozen ISF troops appeared as if from nowhere and marched Victor Hammouche off to a nearby sandbag bunker for questioning. An ISF officer and one troop remained behind to question Pirelli, who handed over his foreign ministry identity card and explained smoothly
that the entire incident seemed to be an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. The ISF officer listened indulgently to Pirelli’s story for a few moments and permitted him to leave the airport with their apology for the unfortunate disturbance.

  Pirelli pulled away in a dark mood, beset by black thoughts about what Lukash might do and say upon his return to Headquarters. As bad as Lukash’s career prospects looked, his own might not be much better once it all came out.

  * * *

  Conrad Prosser parked the station chief’s Audi sedan in the small section of the parking lot reserved for foreign diplomats. Not seeing Pirelli or the silver Renault, he set off at a brisk pace toward the departures terminal. Once inside, he paused to take in the entire scene at a glance, searching for familiar faces in the crowd as well as potential threats, and allowing his intuition to mark anything that might merit attention.

  The departures terminal was packed with outbound passengers, family members, well-wishers, expediters, porters, and chauffeurs along with vast heaps of well-worn baggage. Along its perimeter walls, migrant workers from Egypt, the Sudan, and Yemen camped out, many for days at a time, awaiting their homeward flights. Failing to spot Lukash or Pirelli, Prosser waded through the mob toward the check-in counters for MEA’s Europe-bound flights.

  He stopped first at the counter for the afternoon flight to London and interrupted a tall, lissome, thirty-something ticket agent who was busily sorting through bundles of tickets, cash, and credit-card receipts. The woman looked up briefly and, seeing that he was a foreigner and a reasonably attractive man close to her own age, put away her professional scowl and brought forth a serviceable smile.

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Prosser began, “but could you possibly do me a favor and confirm for me that check-in has closed for the two o’clock flight to London?”

  The woman held up a document that Prosser took for the flight manifest. “Oui, monsieur, c’est fermé,” she responded curtly.

  “I hate to trouble you further, miss, but I would be very grateful if I could ask you one more question,” he continued with as charming a smile as he could muster. “You see, a friend of mine, who happens to be an MEA employee, was planning to fly standby to London today, and I was hoping to arrive in time to see her off. Perhaps you might know her: Lorraine Ellis. She’s from Ireland. Anyway, I was delayed in traffic and I wondered if you might be able to tell me if my friend boarded the flight.”

  At this, the ticket agent’s demeanor appeared to soften. “We had no standby passengers on today’s flight. It checked in full,” she replied. “Perhaps your friend rebooked to another destination.” The agent lowered her gaze as if to continue working, but then looked up again. “Or perhaps she will rebook for tomorrow’s flight. If so, you might find her yet,” she added with a hopeful smile.

  Prosser thanked her warmly and moved down the line to the counter for the MEA flight to Rome. As he took his place in the first-class queue behind an elderly Italian couple and an elegantly suited Lebanese businessman, he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He turned and, to his surprise, found Muna Khalifé gazing up at him with an expression of mild reproach.

  “You said you would ring me,” she said with a note of petulance. “I waited hours for your call.”

  “I’m sorry. There was no opportunity—”

  “Beirut is a modern city,” she interrupted. “Telephones can be found in every corner store.”

  “I suppose so,” Prosser conceded. “My apologies for not responding. Anyway, you seem to have figured things out well enough without my help. May I ask what prompted you to come to the airport?”

  “I received a call from my aunt Claudette, who advised me that the American embassy had booked a ticket for a passenger named William Conklin on today’s flight to Rome.”

  “Your aunt is a resourceful woman,” Prosser answered, irritated that Claudette would divulge confidential travel information so readily.

  “She also informed my uncle,” Muna broke in again. “I came because Uncle Victor’s heart is filled with such a vicious hatred for my husband that I feared for both men should they ever meet again. Can you help me?”

  “How long have you been here?” Prosser questioned.

  “Only a few minutes.”

  “And you haven’t seen your husband here, either?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then let’s work together. First we should check with the agent to see if he’s boarded the flight to Rome, and then we can decide what to do about your uncle.”

  Within a few minutes, the Italian couple and the Lebanese businessmen had checked in and were headed for passport control with their tickets. Upon reaching the head of the queue, Prosser handed the ticket agent his foreign ministry identification card and explained that he was from the American embassy and was responsible for assisting American citizens with emergency travel. He asked whether the American passenger William F. Conklin had checked in yet for the flight to Rome.

  The agent, a plump Lebanese matron approaching fifty, listened attentively but hesitated before responding. “I would like to help you,” she replied sympathetically, “but, you see, we are forbidden to answer questions about passenger names.”

  Prosser was considering which approach to try next when Muna stepped up to the counter beside him.

  “I understand that you are not permitted to reveal passenger names, madame,” she began gently, “and I would not want to cause trouble for you or the airline. Still, perhaps there is a way for you to help us without breaking your rules. You see, the passenger is my husband. He is traveling to be at the bedside of his mother, who is gravely ill and not expected to live more than a day or two. I received a telephone call this afternoon from Bill’s father, who said that my mother-in-law is hanging on to life desperately in the hope of seeing her only son before she dies. I gave them my assurance that Bill would travel to Rome this afternoon and would be at his mother’s side in Philadelphia not later than tomorrow evening. Tell me, please—if not for my sake, then for the sake of a dying mother—is there any chance that my husband will arrive in Rome in time to catch his connecting flight to Philadelphia tomorrow morning?”

  The ticket agent nodded sympathetically, and Prosser thought he detected a gleam in her dark eyes. “May God keep your promise for you, Mrs. Conklin,” she said. “Your husband left the counter not five minutes ago with his boarding pass. You may still find him at passport control if you go quickly.”

  Muna offered the ticket agent her most heartfelt thanks and set off at once across the crowded hall toward passport control with Prosser in tow.

  “Nice bit of work,” Prosser congratulated Muna when they had traveled several paces from the ticket counter. “But how did you know the story about his ailing mother?”

  “My aunt,” she replied.

  “Ah, of course,” Prosser reflected.

  “Now, about my uncle Victor…” Muna began.

  “I’ll watch for him outside,” Prosser volunteered. “You go on ahead to passport control and come find me when you’re done.”

  She nodded her assent, and they went off in opposite directions.

  By the time Muna arrived at the passport control section, the queue was nearly ten meters long. Toward the front, a few places ahead of the elderly Italian couple she had seen at the ticket counter, stood her husband. Quietly she fell in line beside him, took his left arm gently in hers, and squeezed his hand three times in greeting.

  Walter Lukash turned to look at her. Surprise turned to relief and then to delight as he saw her familiar smile. He dropped his duffel, kissed her on both cheeks, and drew her into an embrace. “This is not at all the sort of meeting I intended for us,” he admitted, painfully aware of how such a departure must appear to her. “Honestly, Muna, I intended to stay longer.”

  “I know, Bill,” she said. “I know what happened to you and Elie last night. Elie’s mother called me.”

  “I’m so very sorry, Muna,” he continued,
all at once feeling the full measure of his long-repressed remorse for having abandoned her and their unborn child five years before. And now he was leaving again, deserting her a second time—taking from her the one remaining man in her life who adored her and longed to offer her a fresh start in life.

  “I did not come here to stop you,” she assured him. “I know it is no longer safe for you in Lebanon.”

  “Yeah, now both sides are after me, and my own government isn’t so happy with me either. Another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.”

  “It will pass, William, and better things will come of it. I did not come to reproach you. I came only to stop my uncle from harming you.”

  Lukash looked at her without comprehending.

  “My aunt Claudette knew of your travel plans and informed Uncle Victor that you would come here. His hatred for you has no limits. I came only to stop him from doing you harm under the pretext of upholding our family’s honor.”

  “My debt to you is more than I can ever repay, Muna,” Lukash confessed. “How can I possibly begin to satisfy it?” he asked, approaching despair. “I would do anything. If you believe we can make a new start together, I am ready to try. We could live in the U.S., Europe, the Gulf, anywhere you like.”

  Muna gave him an affectionate smile but shook her head. “Nothing is expected, nothing is demanded of you, Bill. What we started five years ago is finished. You and I are free. Go to America and begin your new life with my blessing. I, too, will leave Lebanon in the near future. I have decided to accept an offer of work from a former client in Dubai and will go soon. So, you see, my life moves on, also.”

  As Muna spoke, Lukash looked over her shoulder and noticed a pair of muscular Arabs appearing to stare at him from a distance. Their closely cropped hair, military bearing, and loose-fitting batik shirts raised his suspicion that they might be from Syrian intelligence. Suddenly he felt a fresh sense of urgency to be on the other side of passport control.