Around the northwest side of the chancery, where a head-high heap of brick and stone spilled out onto a blacktop parking lot, Abu Ramzi watched five Red Crescent paramedics clamber over the pile in a search for survivors. As he watched, all five suddenly scurried to the same spot and began working frantically to remove the debris surrounding some unrecognizable object that protruded from the pile.
Abu Ramzi ran to their aid at once and, seeing that the object was a man’s trousered leg, began to follow their example in picking up broken pieces of concrete around it. A moment later one of the relief workers tugged gently on the protruding limb. It came away in his hands and the worker dropped it in horror. Without a word, his coworkers dispersed and took up new solitary searches.
As Abu Ramzi climbed down from the pile of debris, he noticed a shiny disc about the size of a dinner plate lodged between two slabs of reinforced concrete. He reached into the crevice and wrested from it a scratched brass plaque mounted on a cracked slab of hardwood veneer. Upon rubbing the brass with his sleeve, Abu Ramzi recognized immediately the engraved likeness of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein suspended over a stylized map of the Arab world. Abu Ramzi had received such a plaque himself a year before in this same Iraqi embassy chancery building.
The Iraqi diplomats who presented the plaque to him and who had arranged for monthly subsidy payments to the Arab Front for the Liberation of Palestine were almost certainly dead now. He had thought of them as good Muslims, good Arabs, and good men. For more than a decade Iraq had backed the Arab Liberation Front, at first against the Phalange, then against the invading Syrian army, then against the Lebanese Communists, and now against the Shiite fanatics. Abu Ramzi was not so naïve as to believe the support was altruistic, but he was grateful all the same, and he had respected the bravery of the Iraqi officials he had known. He did not know who had killed them here, but he knew who stood to gain. And he knew that the Damascus regime would not stop until its domination of Lebanon was complete and every dissenting voice had been silenced.
* * *
Prosser stood facing the brightly lit display window, peering at the expensive Nikons, Yashicas, Olympuses, and Canons arrayed before him. As he turned his head slowly from left to right, he scanned the deserted street out of the corner of his eye for signs of movement. Seeing none, he rounded the corner and walked at an unhurried pace toward the darkened entrance of a nearby office building. He unlocked the heavy iron-grate door and, without switching on the lights, crossed the lobby to the rear stairwell.
Something had changed. Despite the semidarkness, he could feel by the smoothness of the marble floor that it had been washed and waxed. And the usual pile of trash no longer obstructed the approach to the elevator. Most disturbing of all, a folding metal chair had been left leaning against the wall just behind the front door, where a concierge might be expected to sit. Until now the building had had no concierge.
Prosser mounted the stairway and upon reaching the fourth floor turned on the hallway lights. He stopped at the end of the corridor outside a door bearing a brass plaque labeled “Interfabrik Technical Consultants, Ltd.” and unlocked the safe house where he met agents from time to time for extended debriefings.
Until now the place had been a superb safe house. Tucked in the middle of a nondescript block off rue de Baalbek, the building stood only a block and a half from the main shopping area of rue Hamra, where nearly any Arab or Westerner of any social class could easily blend into the crowd. Moreover, since the building employed no full-time concierge, whoever had a key to the front door could enter at any time without being challenged. Now, it appeared, such privacy may have been lost.
Ulla Hamawi had found the place for him the previous fall after he dropped a hint that an American businessman was seeking an office to rent in West Beirut and would offer a sizable finder’s fee to anyone who could help him find a suitable one. After she proposed the building, Prosser informed her that the businessman had already selected a place across town in East Beirut but would make good on his promise, anyway, as he might need her for other services later. Prosser handed her an unmarked envelope with a thousand dollars from the fictitious businessman and she accepted the money without question. Now, in retrospect, Prosser realized that something about their relationship had changed that day and now he thought he understood what it was.
After locking the office door behind him he turned on the lights in the reception area. The office had been arranged exactly as he had directed. Recent newspapers and magazines had been stacked in the bookcase. Paper, pencils, and office equipment were deposited around the place in sufficient quantity to make it look occupied. He entered the kitchen and brought out a bamboo tray laden with two tumblers of ice, a bowl of pistachios, and an assortment of bottled mineral water and fruit juices.
Some fifteen minutes later, after reviewing his notes for the meeting one more time, he heard steps in the hallway, followed by a muffled knocking at the door. Through the peephole he saw Abu Ramzi, dressed in black trousers and a red batik shirt unbuttoned at the throat. The tall Palestinian twisted the ends of his dark mustache as he waited for the door to open and then followed Prosser into the inner office before either of them spoke.
“Ahlan wa sahlan, Abu Ramzi.”
“Ahlan fiik, Wally,” the agent replied. He set his zippered purse on the glass table in front of him and took a place on the sofa across from Prosser. His face was drawn, and the dark circles under his eyes gave him a menacing look.
“Are you feeling all right, Abu Ramzi? You look like you could use some rest.”
The Palestinian nodded slowly. “For the past two days I have been in Sidon receiving a shipment of weapons. By Allah, it was miserable work. We worked without a stop and filled seven large transports, not including the armored vehicles and the self-propelled artillery. We finished only this morning.”
“Do you have a list of what you received?”
He pulled an envelope from the leather pouch. “I made an extra copy of the list I prepared for Commander Abd al Rahim. The other papers inside address last week’s questions.”
“Excellent,” Prosser replied as he removed the documents, folded them and stuffed them into his pocket. “By the way, Abu Ramzi, you didn’t see anybody else in the building on your way up, did you?”
The agent hesitated.
“Well, did you? After what happened to us at the last safe house, I’d rather not take any chances being seen coming and going.”
“I did see one man,” he answered with a faint smile. “The new concierge was placing bricks in the street to prevent cars from parking outside the building’s entrance. But that is of no importance, Wally. He is just an old man.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“Only to wish him a good evening.”
“And did he ask you where you were going?”
“Of course, but I told the old fool that I was an officer of Fatah security making an investigation of the building. I am sure he will not tell anyone. He is just a simple old man from the village.”
“All right, Abu Ramzi. What’s done is done, but let’s make this a short meeting, just to be safe. The old goat might decide to call Fatah to check your story.”
The agent shrugged.
“Before we go on, I just want you to know that I heard about the explosion at the Iraqi embassy this afternoon. Our ambassador has already issued a statement condemning it, and I expect our secretary of state will do the same. Perhaps you knew some of the Iraqi officials who were killed. In any event, please accept our deepest sympathy.”
Abu Ramzi looked at the floor and did not speak for a long interval.
“Have you been there since it happened?” Prosser asked at last.
“I was there for three hours searching for survivors,” the agent replied gravely. “We found only one. He is badly burned and will probably die.”
Prosser put down his pen. “How could an explosion like that have happened in a place so well guarded, Abu R
amzi? I don’t understand how anyone could have brought in such a large quantity of explosives without the Iraqis detecting it. That embassy had the tightest security of any building in town.”
“The explosives were not concealed inside the chancery building, as some have reported. They were carried onto the compound by a truck that crashed through the embassy gate and exploded directly in front of the chancery. No one expected any attacker to be so fanatical as to blow himself up with his own bomb.”
“Do the Iraqis know yet who was behind it?”
“Can there be any doubt?” Abu Ramzi replied with barely suppressed rage. “It was the Ayatollah. But such a huge quantity of explosives could not have been smuggled into Beirut without the acquiescence of Syrians. It has already been determined that the truck passed through at least five Syrian checkpoints on its way to the Iraqi embassy without having been inspected even once.”
“Is there any other evidence linking the explosion to the Syrians?”
“The investigation has barely begun. When more evidence has been uncovered, I will inform you. Of course, it is likely that the Shiite militias also took part. Some who saw the driver of the truck before it arrived at the Iraqi embassy described him as a young man with a beard like that of a mullah.”
“Do you think Colonel Hisham might have been involved?”
The agent scratched his temple. “Possible, but unlikely,” he replied. “I saw the colonel’s cousin three days ago, and he said that until the end of last month, the colonel was in Damascus recovering from wounds he received in the Israeli air raid on Fakhani and Tariq el Jedide.”
“What has he been doing since then?”
“Nearly every day he has been traveling between his office in Shtaura and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where he has been holding secret meetings with certain Shiite political leaders. His cousin believes he is bringing special weapons and equipment from Syria to the Shiite militias, but perhaps it was explosives.”
“Was there any sign that Colonel Hisham might still be planning to assassinate an American official?” Prosser asked.
“The Syrians are not so stupid as to risk such an operation against an American. And Colonel Hisham is not one to carry out a project for which he will not be paid.”
“Tell me this, Abu Ramzi. How much do you think the Iranians might have been willing to pay to destroy the Iraqi embassy in Beirut?”
“From such an operation,” the Palestinian replied, pouring out a glass of mineral water, “I think one could become a wealthy man.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, Abu Ramzi, but I’ve seen some information that makes me wonder if Colonel Hisham was involved in some way in putting together that truck bomb that exploded today. Did you know that Hisham has already carried out an operation for the Syrians against Iraqi targets? According to our sources, Hisham and his friend Maarouf Zuhayri were the ones who arranged the assassination of the three Iraqi diplomats in the Hamra district a couple of months ago.”
“The ones who were shot in their car?” The agent uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.
Prosser nodded. “And a third gunned down in the street a few blocks away. The order to kill them was given by a brigadier in Syrian military intelligence. According to our information, Colonel Hisham and Zuhayri were also hired for another operation against the Iraqis and one against the Saudis as well. The new operations were said to involve explosives and were to be carried out in collaboration with one of the Shiite militias. I brought a photo of one of the assassins involved in the shootings on Hamra Street. His name and some information about him are written on a card taped to the picture.”
Abu Ramzi looked at the photo of the handsome young man in the polo shirt and slipped it into one of the compartments of his leather pocketbook.
“If you like, I have no objection to your passing the photo to your Iraqi contacts,” Prosser continued. “But be very careful in telling them how you obtained it. They should be made to believe that it came from your own sources, of course.”
“That will be easy enough,” Abu Ramzi replied. “I will say that I obtained it through one of my relatives in Damascus, as I have done before. But if you want the photograph to reach the Iraqi government, why not pass it yourself?”
“Because when it is seen as coming from the American government, such information has political side effects,” Prosser explained. “We do not want to be seen as taking the side of Iraq against Syria, or of Syria against Iraq. Believe me, if we had the means to have this man arrested, we would. We simply want to stop Colonel Hisham and his people from doing any more damage, and Iraq seems to be in the best position at the moment to do it. Will you pass it along?”
“Yes, if I can find an Iraqi official left alive in Beirut to receive it,” he responded bitterly. “What I cannot promise is that Colonel Hisham or Zuhayri or the boy in the photo will be found. In their place I would have left Beirut by now and taken shelter in Damascus.”
“Well, do what you can, Abu Ramzi. And please forget where you found the photograph, okay?”
Chapter 33
Saturday
The sun was well above the horizon by the time Prosser rose from bed. He showered, dressed, ate a breakfast of cold cereal, and then retired to the living room sofa to rest awhile before setting about his weekend chores. Five pages into Graham Greene’s The Confidential Agent, he put the book aside and closed his eyes for acatnap .
About the same time, a blue Volvo station wagon slowly turned the corner in front of the Hala Building and pulled to a leisurely stop where a barrier of concrete-filled oil drums blocked access to the segment of rue Californie that passed behind the Saudi embassy compound. The Volvo’s driver, an attractive European woman in her late thirties with tawny hair worn tightly wound at the back of her neck, stared at the barricade as if surprised to find it blocking her path.
Catching sight of the Lebanese gendarmerie’s truck-mounted machine gun parked in the shade of the Saudi compound’s north wall, she realized that the roadblock could not be circumvented and began backing away toward the curb in an effort to make a three-point turn and return the way she had come. But her progress was slow, because each time someone entered or departed the Hala Building, she paused to look.
Perhaps because it was a Saturday, no concierge or Red Fursan bodyguard was on hand to notice her and direct her to move on. While making her second attempt to turn the Volvo around, she caught a glimpse of a white Mercedes sedan approaching from rue Maislin. A slender youth in blue jeans and a pale yellow polo shirt jumped out and strode purposefully into the lobby carrying a Kalashnikov automatic rifle at his side while the driver of the Mercedes backed the car into position just outside the parking lot gate. Meanwhile, the Lebanese gendarme manning the truck-mounted machine gun took another puff from his cigarette and continued to leaf through his morning tabloid.
Prosser was aroused from his nap by the nagging ring of his doorbell. Although he expected no visitors that morning, it was more out of curiosity than suspicion that he looked out the peephole and caught a split-second glimpse of Rami, the rejected visa applicant whose bandaged face still bore cuts and bruises inflicted by the Fursan bodyguards three days before.
The youth stood just far enough away from the door for Prosser to see the buttstock of the rifle held to his shoulder. Instantly Prosser flung himself aside into the tiny alcove off the vestibule.
Perhaps the assassin’s attention had momentarily strayed, or perhaps he had hesitated when he saw his victim’s face blocking the peephole. Whatever the reason, the delay was sufficient for Prosser to evade the first bullets as they blasted through the flimsy plywood door.
Not until he reached into the closet for a pistol did he realize that blood was dripping from his left arm and saw that the bullet had entered his left forearm and blasted a jagged hole on its way out.
Expecting the pain to break through at any moment, he drew the injured forearm across his stomach while reaching into the cl
oset for the .45-caliber autoloader that he kept hidden on a high closet shelf. It was cocked with a round in the chamber—one hand would be enough to fire. He thumbed the safety down and fired three pairs of shots through the door—left, right, and center. Then he ejected the magazine with his thumb and tucked the pistol under his left armpit while his good hand searched the shelf for a fresh magazine. A moment later he found one and inserted it into the weapon.
Hearing nothing more from the stairwell for ten seconds or more, Prosser stretched himself out on the polished stone floor and slid on his back across the floor to the opposite side of the doorway. Once across, he stood to the left of the door and gave it a sharp kick. The youth responded with another burst of gunfire. The reports from the rifle seemed deafening, but above the din Prosser heard the tinkling of shattered glass as bullets ricocheted into lamps and mirrors and a pair of ceramic bowls.
Prosser responded with three more pairs of gunshots fired through the door at hip level. Then he heard a woman’s scream from the apartment across the hall. Through her hysterical shrieking he made out the clatter of feet retreating down the stairs. After tucking the pistol in his belt, he grabbed a third magazine from the closet shelf,and inserted it clumsily into the weapon.
Then he set off toward the rear bedroom, his wounded arm leaving a gruesome trail of blood, and took up a kneeling position behind the balcony railing, with the elbow of his shooting arm supported by his right knee. Once in position, he peered down over the edge and waited for Rami to come into view.
Although Prosser knew from his shallow breathing and the chills and nausea sweeping over him that he was slipping into a state of shock, the crippling pain he feared had not yet taken hold. If only he could keep it under control until Rami came out into the open, he would deal with his loss of blood later.
Prosser lined up his sights with the spot on the ground where he expected Rami to emerge from the doorway and counted: “One, two, three...” Just short of eight, Rami came out with the Kalashnikov held across his waist.
Dynamite Fishermen (Beriut Trilogy 1) Page 33