“Hi, I’m Chris Clayborne. You’re new here, right?” The man held out his hand. He had a strong and firm handshake. He was in his late thirties and good-looking, thought Laura. Well-tanned from working outside in the sun. This one, she guessed, did not spend his days in the safety of the Commodore bar.
“Yes, I am new here, my name is Laura Craft. I arrived yesterday.”
“The greatest danger that can happen to this bunch,” said Clayborne, pointing across the room, “is that they might fall off their bar stools after too many drinks. Especially Jounieh Jim there,” he pointed to the TV correspondent.
“Jounieh Jim?” questioned Laura.
“Yes. We call him that after the port of Jounieh, about ten miles to the north of here. During the Israeli invasion in 1982, Jim used to spend every weekend there because it was safer than Beirut, but continued to report as though he was on the front lines. He’d interview his cameraman over the phone and then report to New York, as though he was there. Paid his soundman extra bucks to mix in sounds of explosions and bullets. He would even duck to avoid bullets flying over his head. I’m a journalist with IPS, International Press Syndicate. Whom do you work for?”
“I’m freelance, mostly for women’s magazines.”
“So where is home for you?”
“Right now, the Commodore Hotel; otherwise, Paris. And you?”
“I grew up in the US, in the DC area, in Virginia, and went to school there. A boring little place called Burke, where the most exciting thing that ever happens is when the local volunteer fire department drives around the neighborhood every Christmas with Santa standing on the back of the truck.”
“Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“Clayborne?” asked Laura Atwood. “Is that Scottish, Irish, English?”
“As a matter of fact, I have Hungarian origins,” replied Clayborne. “My great-great-grandfather came from Budapest to Quebec. My great-grandfather couldn’t stand the cold and moved further south to the US. I was born just outside New York City. Then my parents decided to move to the DC area. The family name was changed from some unpronounceable name for the US immigration officer at Ellis Island when my great-grandfather moved here.”
Across the room, the obnoxious television reporter was now shouting at the drunken Australian about how a war should be covered.
“So what brings you to the Paris of the Middle East?” asked Clayborne.
“The usual: I want to do a story on the aftermath of the killing of the US diplomat.”
“Kind of unusual for a women’s mag, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, yes, we’re actually doing a piece on the diplomat’s widow.”
“You know, it was no big secret here, but the diplomat, as you keep calling him, was really the CIA’s man in Beirut. He was the local spook.”
“Are you certain?” asked Laura.
“Unless you know many dips who carry M203s—that’s an M16 that fires grenades as well as bullets—in their back seats and have the capability of calling in Cobra attack helicopters for help in the middle of the day on the main coastal highway. Not even the ambassador has that kind of clout.”
Chris Clayborne took a long sip of his Jack Daniels, savoring the burning sensation as it went down his throat. It was his first drink of the day and it felt good. When Chris Clayborne first arrived in the Middle East as a young journalist, more than two decades ago, he had found the story exciting and instantly fell in love with the place. His mentor and boss, Charlton MacClarty, had given him the opportunity to prove himself and sent him to cover the war during his first month on the job. Fresh out of college, Chris Clayborne proved he could produce great stories and compete with newsmen who had been in the field many years more than he had. He had a knack for getting to the right place at the right time.
But the violence soon got to him. The more bloodshed he saw, the greater his love for peace grew and the more he despised war. Yet he could not get himself to leave the place. There was a certain attraction that kept him hooked to Beirut and the Middle East. It was a love-hate relationship. At times, Chris Clayborne felt as though he was living his life to the fullest, yet at other times, he was really tired and fed up. There was a certain joie de vivre in the Middle East that was lacking in the US. Even during the worst days of the war, life in Beirut was still pleasant and exciting. People took the time to enjoy life. Every minute of the day was lived to the utmost, as though it might have been the last minute of life—and sometimes it was. There’s a limit to the amount of bloodshed you can bear. There were days that he missed being able to walk quietly down a crowded street. To go to a movie, to the beach. To see normal people. To get away from the guns and the war. Well, at least Beirut was quiet now. The guns had finally fallen silent. He liked his present arrangement where he spent half his time in the Middle East and half in Washington. This way he was getting the best of both worlds.
11
BEIRUT, LEBANON
Two months after Laura Atwood arrived in Beirut, Kevork Nazarian was at the wheel of his battered Mercedes taxi. Although the old gray and beaten car had seen far better days, it tended to blend in with the rest of Beirut’s aging taxi fleet, yet Nazarian’s taxi was no ordinary taxi. Rather, it was the driver that was out of the ordinary because he possessed amazing driving skills that were hard to match. Nazarian was able to manipulate his car with incredible agility. He had learned his skills while working as the personal driver and bodyguard to one of the Christian Lebanese Forces leaders, until his boss got blown up one day while riding in the car of a fellow militia leader. Kevork’s armor plating saved him from injury as he was driving close behind the other car. Although the vehicle’s bodywork left much to be desired, it was what was under the hood that really mattered: a V8 engine kept in perfect working condition and capable of outrunning most, if not all, cars on the road.
The driver of the nondescript taxicab waited anxiously outside a quiet residential Beirut apartment building, three buildings away from where his “package” worked. The driver of the battered gray Mercedes chain-smoked American cigarettes as he waited. He had been waiting for well over an hour. The woman he was waiting for usually left the building, where she worked as a cook for a wealthy Lebanese couple, shortly after eight every night except Sundays.
This particular night, however, the couple had dinner guests, and asked the woman to remain a while longer. The driver, of course, did not know that, but he had no option but to wait. Finally, the woman came out and the driver turned on his engine as she emerged from the building. The driver threw the car into first gear and slowly approached the woman from behind. Hearing the sound of the car’s engine in the otherwise deserted street, the woman turned around. She usually had to walk a few blocks to the corner of the street before she found a taxi. She thought luck was with her tonight and hailed the taxi to stop. Instead, the driver stepped on the gas, running straight into the unsuspecting woman, knocking her to the ground.
The driver had practiced this maneuver dozens of times. The trick was to knock the victim down without killing her. It was a tricky maneuver in which one had to take much into consideration, starting with the gender, age, and physical condition of the intended victim. The climate needed to be considered, as people wore thicker clothes in winter. It was also important to pay attention to the surroundings so the victim did not fall into incoming traffic. And, just as important, the driver had to make sure there would not be police officers or security guards around to try to stop him fleeing the scene.
The driver called the police on one of three cell phones purchased a few days earlier and reported the hit-and-run incident. He described the car as a blue Toyota Corolla. Yes, he was sure that’s what it was. He hung up before the police had a chance to ask his name. He repeated the exercise with the second phone, only this time he spoke using heavily accented Iraqi Arabic. A man walking his dog witnessed the scene and called for help but his statement that it was a Mercedes car that knocked down
the woman would be countered by two other witnesses saying it was a Toyota. In any case, no effort was going to be given by the Lebanese police—already stretched—to find the hit-and-run driver in a case involving a Palestinian refugee from the camps.
The driver then used the third phone to call his employer, a very pretty Canadian woman he knew as Madame Laura. The driver removed the SIM cards from two of the cell phones, broke them into little pieces, and threw them and the phones into a large garbage bin, then drove home for the night. Less than an hour after the battered taxi knocked down the woman in a Beirut street, a phone call from a number in Beirut was intercepted in Langley, Virginia, thanks to the wonders of satellite technology and the National Security Agency’s highly sophisticated technology. NSA specialists had been monitoring all phone calls to parts of a remote camp in Lebanon where they knew Kifah Kassar had been staying and training his new recruits. Arabic speakers on duty picked up the message they had been waiting for without difficulty.
“Kifah, this is Mahmoud in Beirut. I know I shouldn’t call you on this line, but there’s been an accident. Your wife was hit by a car less than an hour ago and was taken to the American University Hospital. I thought you might want to know, comrade.”
“How . . . how badly is she hurt?” asked Kifah Kassar, dazed by the news.
“We don’t know, comrade, she’s in the operating room right now. Still unconscious.”
“I’ll come—no, wait. I’ll, umm . . . damn. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” said Kifah Kassar, slamming down the phone.
12
SOMEWHERE IN THE BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON
This is the one,” said one of the Arabic speakers monitoring the voice communications near Fort Meade, Maryland. The information was instantly relayed to the CIA in Langley, where it was passed on to the Command and Control center in charge of this mission aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the eastern Mediterranean. Less than one minute had elapsed between the time the message was intercepted and the time it reached the Mediterranean. From there, the information was relayed to a team of US Navy SEALs who had been dropped by parachute from a height of ten thousand feet over a deserted road linking a remote FSF training camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to the main Beirut highway. They used black directional parachutes, their faces painted black to blend in with their black uniforms, making them practically invisible just a few feet away.
The short burst came over the high-powered radio the team carried, “Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Base. Do you copy?”
“Phoenix Base. This is Phoenix One, go ahead.”
“Phoenix One, please be advised the bird has left the nest. The show is on the road. Over.”
“Phoenix One, copy and out.”
“Stay awake, boys, time to rock and roll,” said the SEALs team leader, like three other members of his team, a fluent Arabic speaker. He clicked the safety off his machine gun and waited. Each knew exactly what they had to do. The men had trained extensively every day for the past three months on how to carry out this mission. Hopefully there would be no deviation from the original plan, and all would unfold as it had during the training exercises. But he knew things could always go wrong.
Fifteen minutes later, a car was heard racing towards the Navy SEALs roadblock. Kifah Kassar could make out flashing lights ahead and picked up the outline of the roadblock with his headlights. Damn roadblocks, thought Kifah Kassar. There were probably another half dozen more between here and Beirut. That was going to slow him down considerably. He cursed the Lebanese Army for being overzealous, as these checkpoints were quite ineffective.
Kifah Kassar stopped at the checkpoint manned by the SEAL team, who had now all donned Lebanese Army uniforms.
“Jabha,” shouted Kifah Kassar, slowing down.
“Stop, brother, stop,” ordered one of the men Kifah Kassar thought to be Lebanese.
What are these clowns up to now, wondered Kifah Kassar as one of them approached him, shining his light into his face. “Turn that fucking light off before I shove it up your ass.”
“Sorry, friend,” said the man in the Lebanese uniform, “but we have reports that the Jews might have landed a team farther up the road.”
“The fucking Jews are always landing farther up the fucking road. Now get out of my way. I am Major Kassar from the PSF. Now move.”
“Yes, I know who you are,” replied the native Arab speaker with a grin, as he fired two darts straight into Kifah Kassar’s throat. “You are a motherfucking son of a bitch terrorist piece of trash,” added the SEAL, in English. The Palestinian never heard that last part. He was out cold even before he had time to realize what was happening.
The gun used by the Navy SEAL fired special darts that would knock out a person instantly without killing the person. Hours later, Kassar would wake up with a very bad headache.
Before his head hit the dashboard, another member of the commando team jumped in the seat next to him and started pulling him out of the car. Among the items dropped by parachute with the Navy SEAL team equipment was a rather macabre item: the body of an Iraqi man, roughly the same age and build as that of Kifah Kassar.
The dead Iraqi brought by the Navy SEALs was dressed in the clothes taken from the Palestinian, along with his watch, and placed at the wheel of Kifah Kassar’s car, which was then doused with gasoline and driven over the side of the road onto the rocks. The crash was not enough to ignite the car, but a small self-destructive timing device would take care of that in exactly five minutes, rendering identification practically impossible. As with Kassar’s wife, Lebanese authorities were unlikely to spend much effort investigating the crash. The lateness of the hour and the empty bottle of booze in the front seat would make it an open-and-shut case.
“Phoenix base, this is Phoenix One: Birds are ready to fly home with the worm,” said the group leader into his radio.
“Eagle down in four minutes. Stand by,” came the reply from one of the two helicopters hovering high overhead.
13
NEAR PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
Kifah Kassar slowly awoke what he assumed to be several
hours later. In fact, he had been heavily sedated and sleeping for about two days. His beard was shaved to let him think he was out for hours instead of days. He felt as though his mouth was on fire. After he was knocked out and taken aboard the helicopter, he was transported to a US carrier off the Lebanese coast, then, under medical supervision, put on a flight to Athens, and ultimately transferred to a secret CIA facility in the Czech countryside. Arrangements had been made to turn the facility into something resembling a Lebanese security prison. All personnel that came into contact with the prisoner—and those were few—were of Lebanese origin and spoke Arabic flawlessly with a Lebanese accent.
The Palestinian opened his eyes slowly, quietly taking in the scene around him. He was lying on a thin foam mattress that was placed on the floor of a tiny cell. It was filthy and bloodstained, and reeked of urine and vomit. A low-wattage bare bulb, suspended from a short wire protruding from the ceiling, illuminated the room. A dirty, dented bucket in the corner of the cell served as a toilet. The Palestinian instructor pushed himself up on his elbows. His throat felt sore. He rubbed his throat and his head, which felt like he had a hangover, the way he usually felt after getting drunk on cheap arak. He tried recalling what had happened, but his mind was not responding too well. He tried to stand up, but fell back onto the filthy, smelly mattress.
He remembered the roadblock. It must have been those Lebanese soldiers who kidnapped him. But why? He could hear screams coming from a distant cell, maybe another floor, and moaning from adjoining cells. Kifah Kassar didn’t know it, but those were all recordings made by a professional Hollywood studio. Kifah Kassar shuddered. He rose slowly and started banging on the iron door. It seemed to no avail at first, but minutes later he heard footsteps outside. Several people were walking towards his cell. The heavy metal door was flung open, revealing three armed guards.
“Wh
at is the meaning of this,” screamed Kifah Kassar. “Do you people know who you are messing with?”
“Keep your fucking mouth shut,” ordered the oldest of the three guards. “Move your fat ass and come with us.”
The men were wearing uniforms worn by the Interior Ministry police force, the ISF, or Internal Security Force. Why had the Lebanese arrested him? To be sure, the Front had been at odds with the Lebanese in the past, but relations at the present time were good. It simply did not make sense. This was a stupid mistake that would quickly be taken care of. He would be released in no time and with all apologies due.
Kifah Kassar was marched down the long, narrow corridor to a room where an officer was waiting for him. Kifah Kassar couldn’t identify the man’s rank, as he wore no insignia on his clean, starched uniform. This was not unusual with some interrogators. The man did not bother to look up at him and continued to study a file on his desk. Except for a single black telephone, the desk was bare. A large color portrait of the Lebanese president adorned the wall behind the desk. A map of Lebanon was crudely taped to the far wall. There were no windows and no natural light filtered through. The officer motioned him to sit in a chair placed about five feet from the desk.
“What is this all about—”
“Quiet!” shouted the officer. “Quiet. You will speak only when spoken to.” The officer paused for a second. “Understood?”
It was more an order than a question. The officer returned to his file. He did not expect an answer from the Palestinian. After a few minutes, the officer lifted the telephone. Kifah Kassar guessed that the phone was relayed to a switchboard, as the officer did not dial.
“The colonel’s office,” he barked into the receiver. Then, in a far nicer tone, he said, “He’s here, sir,” and hung up. No doubt Lebanese, thought Kifah Kassar, Lebanese, but why, why?
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