“Don’t worry. I haven’t shredded my agent meeting notes just yet. But I also have no intention of being yanked home short of my full tour of duty unless there’s a damned good reason for it. Somehow I doubt that riding a Headquarters desk would help me get me promoted to GS-12. Besides, I rather like it here. If one doesn’t mind the unruly neighbors, the living is pretty good.”
Pirelli smiled indulgently and then turned his swivel chair around to begin typing another report.
Chapter 16
The elderly Lebanese American translator came into view just before two o’clock, walking west on rue Sidani at surprising speed for a man of seventy-six years. As usual, he wore gold-rimmed spectacles, a bow tie, and a thick wool cardigan despite the midday heat, and carried a half-full plastic grocery sack of the kind used by pushcart vegetable vendors.
As soon as the old man passed Prosser’s vantage point by the window of the Idriss Supermarché, Prosser took his olives and yogurt to the checkout counter, paid for them, and started off in pursuit. The Lebanese traversed less than half a block before turning abruptly to cross the narrow street and enter Salloum’s Market. Prosser followed at a leisurely pace and, when he was satisfied that neither of them was being followed, entered the store.
Picking up a wire shopping basket, Prosser tossed into it the sack with the olives and yogurt and headed toward the back of the store, adding a bottle of Sohat mineral water, a bag of mixed nuts, and a package of Danish butter on the way. Within fifteen seconds of entering, he spotted the old man in his beige cardigan at the rear left corner of the store by the meat counter. He took up a place to the man’s right and waited to be served.
Behind the counter, the butcher, a jovial bear of a man in a blood-spattered white apron, carefully positioned a slab of Emmentaler in the electric slicer while his teenage assistant wrapped a scrawny chicken in heavy white butcher paper.
“Anything else?” the assistant asked his elderly customer as he sealed the bundle with cellophane tape.
“Yes, a half kilo of your best kabab meat.”
As the teenager took up his cleaver, Prosser set his grocery basket on the ground alongside that of the bow-tied Lebanese. The contents of the second basket were nearly identical to those of his own except for the sack of vegetables he had seen the old man take into the store in lieu of his own sack of olives and yoghurt.
“And you, siidi, what would you like?” the butcher asked Prosser after he passed the cheese to his helper.
“A half kilo of lean ground beef, please.”
The butcher weighed the meat, wrapped it, marked the price in crayon, and handed it across the counter.
“Something else today, siidi?” he asked in English. “My chicken is very fresh, very tasty.”
“Sorry, but that’s all.”
Prosser dropped his package of meat into the basket containing the old man’s bag of vegetables and carried it off in the direction of the cashier. The old man, absorbed in supervising the preparation of the kabab meat, paid him no attention. By the time the elderly Lebanese reached the checkout counter, his vegetables were on their way to the American embassy. Beneath two kilos of carrots lay fifteen neatly handwritten pages comprising translations of Abu Ramzi’s and Abu Khalil’s documentary reporting for the past week.
* * *
The khaki-uniformed traffic policeman stepped defiantly into the path of a rust-eaten Mercedes taxi, whose driver had attempted to cross rue Abdel-Aziz after the policeman gave the signal to stop. The policeman shouted a scabrous insult at the driver and then whirled around to signal the opposing traffic to proceed. Prosser, whose gray Renault was four cars behind the leader, rushed through the intersection with rue Hamra and advanced another fifty meters before coming to a halt at the end of a long file of cars.
He thought there should have been ample room to accommodate two lanes of traffic along the one-way street, but the parked cars lining both sides of the street left barely enough clearance for a single lane to pass. This was not the first time he had been stuck in Ras Beirut’s afternoon rush-hour congestion, however, and he resigned himself to the prospect of waiting fifteen or twenty minutes to cover the remaining three hundred meters to rue Bliss.
As the queue inched its way forward, Prosser watched the pedestrians who overtook him. Most were housewives doing their daily shopping, but there were also knots of schoolchildren in blue uniforms heading home for lunch and solitary old men, worry beads in hand, exchanging elaborate Arabic greetings with the shopkeepers they passed.
He advanced another half a block before he noticed the sound of automobile horns some distance behind him. The noise seemed to be coming from beyond rue Hamra and was getting perceptibly closer. Over the blare of the horns he thought he heard pistol shots.
The line of automobiles continued to push forward, ten or twenty meters at a time, pausing for a minute or more between each move. The sound of horns came closer. In his rearview mirror he saw three cars attempting to pull off the road at once into the same driveway. More pistol shots rang out, this time no more than one hundred meters away.
Prosser turned around and saw an expensively suited Gulf Arab, probably in his mid-thirties or early forties, running erratically between the line of stalled traffic and the row of parked cars along the left curb. The runner, who was tall and lean and had a cruel, hawkish face, carried a slender shining object in his right hand that at first looked like a hammer but on second glance turned out to be a long-barreled nickel-plated revolver.
As the Arab came abreast of the Renault, Prosser paused to look behind him. Sweat dripped off the man’s pallid face as he breathed in great heaves, all the while scanning both sides of the street for a means of escape. He must have realized that the traffic jam blocked every route except the one he was taking, because a moment later he resumed his flight toward rue Bliss. But before he did, his gaze met Prosser’s for the briefest instant. Prosser had never seen a look of pure terror to match the one in the Arab’s eyes.
The queue advanced once again, this time far enough for the Renault to once again draw nearly even with the running man before the car ahead braked. The horns were much louder now, and pistol shots could still be heard above the din. In his side mirror Prosser saw cars darting into vacant driveways and jumping the curb onto the sidewalk in an attempt to make room on the left.
Behind them a pair of helmetless riders aboard a large touring motorcycle made intermittent headway along the newly cleared lane. When the motorcycle was within thirty meters of the fleeing Arab, its passenger fired three pistol shots at him. Prosser ducked across the front seat of the car when he heard the shots and stayed down until the motorcycle passed. He counted to five before looking out again. The touring bike was still making steady progress, but by now its quarry was no longer in view.
The line of traffic started to move again, and Prosser put his car in gear once more when the horns repeated their warning. This time it was a gray Toyota station wagon that approached from behind, taking advantage of the path the motorcycle had cleared. The passenger in the right rear seat waved a revolver out the window and fired in the air to force the other drivers out of his way. Prosser ducked again as the station wagon passed, then raised his head a few moments later to watch the car bully its way forward to the end of the block. In less than half a minute the motorcycle and car were out of sight, and no more horns or shots could be heard. Whatever had happened to the fugitive, it was over.
As the line of traffic resumed its intermittent progress, Prosser watched life return to normal on the sidewalks of rue Abdel-Aziz. Pedestrians emerged from doorways where they had taken refuge and chatted with their companions as if they had done nothing more than seek shelter from a fleeting summer shower. Shopkeepers returned to their seats outside their stores, holding freshly poured glasses of tea. The drivers who moments ago had tried to retreat into driveways and loading ramps now regained their usual bravado and jockeyed for competitive advantage in the hope of passing the ca
r just ahead.
When Prosser reached the end of the street a few minutes later, not a trace was left of the fugitive or of his pursuers. The unhappy thought occurred to him that he might be the only onlooker who cared in the least how the man’s flight had ended.
Chapter 17
Prosser paced along the Corniche seawall with long, rapid strides, stopping where the sidewalk ended a short distance north of the Bain Militaire. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, put it back, and ran the fingers of both hands through the cropped hair at his temples. Raising himself atop the metal railing, he sat with elbows propped on his knees and watched his Lebanese neighbors pass in review along the Corniche. At this hour, just after sunset, the seaside promenade was filled with poor and middle-class Lebanese, the vast majority of them men.
The older ones walked side by side in twos and threes, kneading their worry beads between their fingers while they conversed. Those of middle age played cards or backgammon at makeshift tables under hissing propane lamps that the proprietors of curbside espresso vans had set out for their use. The youths, who outnumbered all the others, leaned or sat on the railing and waited for something interesting to happen.
Prosser looked at his watch, then jumped down from the metal railing and started across the street toward the Hotel Mediterranée. Once across and out of the glare of the streetlamps, he turned onto an unlit side street and trudged up the steep incline toward rue Venus, perspiring heavily in the humid stillness. He had covered about two-thirds of the distance to the hill’s crest when a pair of headlights came to life ahead of him and cast their beams over his head. Almost imperceptibly, the parked vehicle to which the headlights belonged began to move forward. When it had come within ten meters of him, it pulled over and waited. The driver leaned across the passenger’s seat to open the door.
Prosser climbed into the battered white Toyota and closed the door behind him. “Good evening, Abu Khalil. Kiif haalak,” he greeted the Palestinian as he reached out to shake his hand.
“All is well for me, praise Allah,” Abu Khalil replied as soon as the car was in first gear.
“And your boys?”
“All very well, thank you. Especially Ali, the youngest. I took him back to the hospital today, and the surgeon told me he will have the plaster removed from his leg next week. For this I thank you, Tommy. By Allah, without your help, his operation would have cost me too, too much.”
“Don’t mention it, Abu Khalil. The important thing is that Ali grows up to be big and strong, like his father.”
The Arab chuckled at Prosser’s flattery, which was mild compared to Abu Khalil’s own toadying when he wanted something from the American.
They reached the end of the street and turned left onto the coastal road toward the nightclubs and restaurants of Raouché.
“I bring other good news, Tommy,” Abu Khalil said. “There is a new promotion list for officers of the Democratic Front, and I have been promoted to lieutenant colonel.” The Palestinian smiled proudly and tapped two fingers against imaginary epaulets on his shoulder.
“Congratulations!” Prosser answered. “What a terrific surprise! But tell me, Abu Khalil, does this mean you will be reassigned to a different duty station?”
“Probably not before the end of summer. But the high command is working on a new rotation, and there is talk that some of us may be transferred to new duties in September.”
“Do you think you can manage to stay in Beirut?”
“Inshallah, although it is also possible that I may be asked to command a unit farther to the south, in Damour or Sidon.”
“Damour would not be so bad, but don’t accept a job in Tyre or the border region if you can avoid it. I couldn’t go there to meet you, and it would be difficult for you to come to Beirut more than a few times a month. Besides, the south is a dangerous place, Abu Khalil. We don’t want to lose you.”
The Palestinian gave a self-assured laugh. “Do not be concerned, Tommy. I would never volunteer for duty along the frontier. That is for the younger men who are eager to fight and die. I am not so eager.”
He took a bulging envelope out of the glove compartment and handed it to Prosser, who opened it and examined its contents for a brief moment before stuffing the handwritten reports into his rear trouser pockets. He buttoned the pockets while Abu Ramzi pulled a pack of Kents from the dashboard, shook out a cigarette, and lit it with a lacquered gold lighter.
“I see you’ve been busy since Saturday,” Prosser remarked as he fastened his seatbelt. “Tell me, have you had an opportunity to learn anything else about Colonel Hisham?”
“I spoke to my cousin this morning,” the Palestinian replied. “He told me he met Colonel Hisham last night and had a glass of whiskey with him. The colonel had been drinking for some time already and told my cousin in the strictest confidence that he has been planning an operation against the Americans for several weeks. It was to be carried out this week, but when the Phalangists arrested the colonel’s men in East Beirut over the weekend, he moved it up to today.
“The plan was for one of the colonel’s assistants to assassinate an American spy early in the morning along the Corniche road. But yesterday morning a Nasserist official was shot at almost the same spot as the one the assistant had selected, so it became necessary to call off the entire operation and reexamine the alternatives.
“My cousin said Colonel Hisham was furious about the delay. Had it not been for childish squabbles among the Nasserist militias, he complained, the American spy would already be dead and the colonel’s captured men would be avenged. The colonel had no doubt that the Phalangists had tortured his men to death, and he was just as certain that the Phalange could not have captured them without help from the Americans.”
The news made Prosser shiver despite the heat and formed goosbumps on his bare forearms. “Hold on, Abu Khalil,” he broke in, doing his best not to let his anxiety show. “Let me get this straight. Does this mean he’s canceled the operation against the Americans?”
“Not at all. The colonel said that the only step required for the operation to go forward is to select a new time and place for it, as his assistant has prepared several alternative action plans. The colonel is waiting only for a green light to proceed.”
“I see. And whom does the colonel expect will give him this green light?”
“Ah, Tommy, that is something my cousin was unable to find out.”
“Did it sound as if the order would come from Damascus?”
“Most likely. But my cousin cannot be certain of it.”
“Okay, then, let’s go back to what Colonel Hisham said about the target. Did he say only one person will be shot? Or will there be more?”
“He said that the one to be liquidated will be an employee of the American embassy. A spy.”
Prosser remained silent while the Palestinian officer knocked a long ash from his cigarette into the car’s ashtray, which was already brimming with butts.
“An employee or an official, Abu Khalil? If Colonel Hisham said ‘employee,’ he might have meant one of the embassy’s Lebanese employees. There are over a hundred of them. But an ‘official’ can only mean an American. Is your cousin absolutely certain that Colonel Hisham said the target would be an American official?”
“The words my cousin used were ‘American spy,’ so, yes, I believe that is what he meant. But you must understand, Tommy, both the colonel and my cousin were drinking, and the colonel has a very indirect way of speaking where such topics are concerned.”
Prosser scribbled nervously in his checkbook-sized notebook. “When you saw the colonel a week ago, Abu Khalil, he said the target was going to be a foreigner. Now he says it will be an American spy from our embassy. That’s a very important difference,. If I report that to Washington, they’re going to get very excited and will probably order the embassy to take security measures that the colonel might notice. If you think your cousin could be wrong abou
t what he heard, I need to know now.”
“Of course he could be wrong,” Abu Khalil replied indifferently. He took a last drag on his cigarette, exhaled the smoke through his nose, and tossed the butt out the window. “And I know very well what it will mean for my cousin and for me if Colonel Hisham discovers new security measures being taken by your embassy. But I have told you all that I know. It is for you to decide what to tell your government. My cousin and I will do what is needed to protect ourselves.”
“It’s not that I doubt what you’re telling me, Abu Khalil. It’s just that I had hoped it might be you who would drink whiskey with the colonel instead of your cousin. I thought you were going to meet him this weekend. What happened?”
“He was invited to eat with us on Saturday, but instead he was obliged to attend a meeting that was called after the Phalangists shelled the Corniche.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“He did not say.”
“In Damascus?”
“No, in Shtaura, I believe.”
Prosser sighed. “All right, before we move on, is there anything else the colonel told your cousin last night that I ought to know about?”
“I have told you everything.”
Prosser frowned and wrote something into his notebook, then he looked up again at the Palestinian. “Damn it, Abu Khalil, what we really need right now is for you to go see Colonel Hisham yourself. Can you do it?”
“By Allah, that would be difficult, Tommy. He would suspect me.”
“Tell him you admire him. Tell him you’d like to help. Tell him whatever you want—just get him talking. If he is really planning to kill someone from our embassy, we need to know more so that something can be done about it.”
Dynamite Fishermen (Beriut Trilogy 1) Page 17