by John Urwin
‘Ok, let’s get on with it,’ Chalky said, taking a map out of his back pocket and laying it on the ground. He glanced at his watch. ‘Right it’s 0655. We’re here and the border with Syria is over that way, roughly where those mountains are.’ He pointed to his left. ‘We’ve got about nine miles to go, south of where we are now, following that road on the other side of the village.’
Following where he pointed, we saw far in the distance to the east a range of snow-capped purple-grey mountains, outlined in the early morning sun.
‘The situation is this,’ Chalky went on. ‘We’ve got bags of time so we don’t have to rush anything, and this village doesn’t look as though it’s going to cause any problems. I think those guys with the rifles might just be acting as local policemen – I don’t think they’re going to be a problem to us. So we’ll break up into pairs, what do you reckon? Geordie and I will go through the centre of the village, you two go around the outside and we’ll both meet here where the side street meets up with the main road leading to Beirut,’ he said, pointing to a spot on the map.
‘That shouldn’t cause us any problems, it’s only a small place,’ Spot said.
Dynamo nodded. ‘You and Geordie go ahead and we’ll catch up with you in a few minutes; it’ll look less suspicious that way and we won’t draw attention to ourselves.’
For all we had bags of time, Chalky immediately stood up and set off down the embankment.
‘Come on then, Geordie,’ he called back to me over his shoulder.
We entered the village along what appeared to be the main street and passed some of the old people we’d observed from the embankment but none of them took any notice of us. The whole area was a complete shambles with boxes and litter lying all over the place. For all it was still early there was quite a bit of activity going on and a lot of people sitting around outside some of the buildings – these may have been shops or cafés but they all looked to be either shuttered or boarded up. Most of the buildings were single-storey concrete affairs but there were a few relatively large constructions of two or three floors.
It wasn’t a very large place, only about half a mile long, and we walked through it quickly, passing several side streets lined with square-looking houses and buildings and a few stationary old cars. As we neared the pre-arranged meeting place, we saw Spot and Dynamo coming towards the same junction from our left.
‘What a dump,’ Dynamo said as they caught up with us. ‘How can anyone live in a place like that? The poor sods haven’t got much, have they?’
‘Whose bright idea was it to carry these stinking things?’ Spot said in disgust, throwing the fish he was carrying into a nearby gutter.
‘Phooh, yeah, you’re right,’ Chalky said and we dumped ours too. ‘I think Lynch was having a bit of a laugh, there.’
We headed south along the fairly wide main road. In lots of places the concrete was cracked and holed and it was badly in need of repair. We saw very little traffic. Just a few pickups and the odd car or truck went by and a guy on a bike, but he just kept his head down and pedalled on.
As we walked, we discussed our contingency arrangements should I fail to fulfil the mission as planned. Obviously, we would need to go ahead and take the target out together with his two guards, as they posed the most immediate threat, and then make our escape in any ensuing confusion. We’d then head towards the busy port area, pretending to attempt to escape by boat, but would actually double back to the crowded main area of the city where we could lie low until dark. The military would probably continue to look in the area we first headed and not expect to find us back in the city centre. Dressed like the locals as we were, we would be able to blend in more there than if we headed straight out on to the open road.
Obviously, such a delay would mean that transport was imperative for us to make an escape. In order to do this, our best option would then be to head out towards the main road and try to get a military vehicle and some uniforms to help us get out of the city and back to the village: military vehicles would not generally be stopped at roadblocks or checkpoints. However, we didn’t plan in too much detail; if we needed to change our original idea we would simply play it by ear, making use of whatever was available around us at the time.
We walked for about four miles with the sea on our right and although still early in the day, it was already very hot and sweat was pouring from us. Hearing a truck approach us from behind just as we began to climb up a steep hill, we kept our heads down until it passed by and continued on its way. It was an old vehicle and as it reached the brow of the hill, it began to struggle and gradually slowed down until it was barely moving.
As we’d kept up a steady walking pace after it passed us, we’d now almost caught up with it and were actually beginning to overtake it. Just then, another truck appeared over the brow of the hill travelling in the opposite direction, loaded with workmen and armed troops. Chalky, who was leading the way, quickly indicated to us to fall back behind the slow truck and use it for cover. It didn’t look as though the old truck was going to make it so I kept my head down and started to give it a push and the other three joined in. By this time, the truck with the troops had driven by without giving us a second glance and headed off towards the village we’d just walked from.
The slow-moving vehicle was loaded down with crates of fruit and apples and as it eventually climbed over the brow of the hill Dynamo jumped on to the back, smashed open one of the crates and threw each of us an apple.
‘Here’s lunch lads,’ he said, laughing.
The truck began to pick up speed as he jumped off and the driver beeped his horn in acknowledgement of our help. Dynamo waved back at him, a half-eaten apple in his hand, then suddenly the truck stopped, the passenger door opened and a man climbed out. Immediately we stuffed the apples up our shirtfronts like naughty schoolboys, as the man called out something in Arabic. Dynamo walked towards him and they had a brief conversation before the guy got back in the truck and it drove off.
Dynamo turned to us with a huge grin on his face and bit into his apple. ‘I thought we might have a spot of bother there for nicking the old boy’s apples but he very kindly offered us a lift into town, chaps, which was jolly decent of him, don’t you think? Naturally I had to decline his offer,’ he said, as we all burst into helpless laughter.
From the top of the hill, we could see the skyline of Beirut in the distance, about five miles away, its buildings outlined against the sea where a couple of large ships were heading towards the coast. We sat for a few moments eating our apples watching the distant city. It looked massive to me, the biggest place I’d seen in my life so far. I couldn’t believe that we were actually going to walk right into this place and kill someone in broad daylight.
The outlines of the buildings were totally strange to me with round roofs and towers and funny spires unlike anything I’d seen before. Dynamo told me they were called mosques and minarets.
‘Some guy goes up there a couple of times a day and screams his bloody head off and the rest of the daft sods fall on their knees,’ he told me, laughing as we set off once more towards the city.
It was blisteringly hot under the cloudless sky. The road was dry and stony and our feet kicked up little clouds of dust as we walked, and our boots and trouser legs were caked with the sand and dirt. Just past an old burnt-out rusting car, a stream of water ran down towards the road. This flow probably should have gone underneath the highway through a nearby pipe we could see, but this was badly cracked and broken, allowing the water to take the route across the ground. It was probably a sewer and it stunk; the stench was indescribable. The foul liquid was covered with swarms of flies and insects which flew up into the air as we ran past with our hands covering our mouths, noses and eyes.
‘Filthy bastards,’ Chalky said. ‘God knows what’s lurking and fermenting in that lot.’
Dynamo turned to me again. ‘By the way, Geordie, have you got that needle handy?’
‘Yeah, just a
second.’ I looked at my sash and pushed the buckle up but couldn’t find the spot where I’d hidden the wire. ‘Bloody hell, I think I’ve lost it! I can’t feel it!’ I said, frantically feeling along the bottom.
‘Hang on, Geordie,’ Chalky said, running his hand around my back underneath the sash. ‘I think I’ve found it – it’s worked its way around to the back. Just a moment.’
He tried to push the needle back towards the front of my sash but it seemed to be stuck, so he took out his boot-knife and put a small nick into the belt to get at it and ease it out.
‘Right we’re laughing, I’ve got it so we don’t need to call the operation off!’ he joked and slapped me on the back.
I was so relieved: I thought that it might have dropped out when I fell onto the boat, even though I was sure that I’d put it in a secure place. Taking the small piece of wood out of my pocket, I fixed the needle to it and, holding the wooden handle in my hand, I hid it up my shirtsleeve.
We’d now reached the outskirts of Beirut; the place was a total shambles, like a shanty town. Gradually the number of buildings we saw began to increase, but they were mainly ramshackle affairs and badly in need of repair. The streets were full of old cars that had been stripped and burned out. I looked around me in amazement. Little kids ran around half clothed with nothing on their feet and women, mainly dressed in traditional clothes with their heads covered, carried large cardboard boxes and had loads balanced on top of their heads. Some of the older men wore long traditional garments and most of them had some kind of headgear but, in general, they were dressed in more western-style clothes: suits or shirts and trousers. They didn’t seem to be doing very much, just sitting around.
Groups of young men hung about on every street corner, almost all of them carrying weapons of some sort, mainly pistols, but we saw others with Sten guns and old .303 Lee Enfield rifles. They were dressed in various types of pseudo-army gear and appeared to be stopping people, searching cars and vehicles.
‘Best to get off the main streets now, I think,’ Chalky said.
He turned down a stinking, filthy alleyway and we began to criss-cross through a maze of back streets and alleys, working our way towards our target area using a map of the city Chalky carried, which he told me they’d been studying for over a week. Lines of drab washing hung everywhere, litter and rubbish was piled up in corners with mangy dogs or cats rummaging through it. There seemed to be very little vegetation anywhere. The buildings were close together, tall blocks of flats with washing, clothes and rugs hanging from every balcony. Just about every street had water gushing across it: the sewage pipes must have been in a terrible state. People bustled around, there were cars and trucks, and vehicles of every description, the din was deafening.
Most of the shops were windowless with just long tables inside and at the front. Many of these had cloth-covered bundles of meat laid on them and strangely shaped and coloured poloni-type sausages hung from the ceilings. Other shops had tables on which stood pottery, lamps, bottles or small rugs. The air was filled with strong, strange, mostly nauseating smells: unusual foods being cooked, the stench of decaying sewage and poor drainage, and all of these were mixed together with the pall of exhaust fumes. We walked through it all, completely unnoticed. It felt so weird.
Gradually the streets began to widen and the tall buildings, many of them now obviously office blocks, were clearly in a better state of repair. As we neared the main area of the city, the crush of people grew ever larger, the noise even louder and over everything hung an almost tangible feeling of tension. None of these people looked happy, none of them smiled.
Chalky indicated for us to casually group together outside a shop selling tobacco and cigarettes.
‘We’re almost at our target area, the building he works in is around here somewhere, I’m sure it’s at the end of this street,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I think it would be better if we split up into twos and worked our way down either side of the road.’
Spot nudged my arm and I followed him around the corner into a wide busy street.
‘Geordie, what do you feel like?’ he asked quietly.
‘I feel a bit strange but pretty excited,’ I whispered back. ‘What an awful miserable place though, and I thought Byker was a dump!’
‘And this is the posh bit!’ He grinned.
We pushed our way through the crowds, trying to keep up with Dynamo and Chalky on the other side of the road, without looking conspicuous. About halfway down the street Dynamo waved us over.
‘This is it lads,’ he said confidently, checking his watch. ‘We’re early so Chalky and I will check this place out. You two go that way and check the area out, see if there is any transport about we might be able to use – if all hell breaks loose we might need some quickly. Don’t go too far away though. We’ll meet back here in half an hour at 1100.’
Spot and I walked back to the other side of the street and looked around for a while. We needed to familiarise ourselves with the immediate area as part of our contingency plan, should I fail. We checked up some of the narrow side streets to see if they could be used as exits in case something went wrong. There were cars and trucks everywhere but most of them were ancient.
‘There’s plenty of old bangers around, Spot, but I can’t see us speeding off in any of them,’ I remarked.
‘We could probably run faster than most of these,’ he agreed.
Returning to the main street, we saw four or five young guys coming straight towards us. Each of them was armed with a semi-automatic rifle hanging from a shoulder strap and they all carried a pistol in a holster at their waists. We both stopped and turned to look into the nearby shops. The guys stared blankly at us then walked straight past, their guns pointed down, their fingers in the straps.
Spot and I looked at one another and grinned then made our way to meet up with Dynamo and Chalky as arranged.
‘This is definitely it,’ Dynamo said quietly. ‘The café is about three hundred yards down the street from his office building.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘We spotted a shop selling rugs about a hundred yards before you get to the café on the same side. I’ll hang around there and hope he crosses the road before then. If he doesn’t I’ll just have to get him later when he comes back.’
‘He could be in there for ages,’ Spot pointed out.
‘Well, I’ll just have to wait and hope he doesn’t take too long for his lunch break.’
‘I’ll stand nearer the building and signal to you when he comes out, Geordie,’ Dynamo said. ‘Chalky, you stand across the road in front of me and Spot can wait near the café – I’ll follow him when he comes out.’
Dynamo went over to the building and Chalky moved off to the other side of the street as arranged, while Spot and I began walking along the road towards the café. The whole area was packed with people, the majority of them in traditional clothes, especially the women, but to my surprise, there also appeared to be a lot of foreigners in the area, tourists I supposed. The majority of the younger men were dressed like us so we blended in relatively easily. Swarms of scruffy little kids hung around the tourists, begging.
We reached the carpet shop and Spot continued to walk on towards the café while I stopped. I could see Chalky still walking down the other side of the street. The idea was, that as the guy got closer to me the others would also move nearer just in case something went wrong and I needed backup.
I joined the crowd of people looking at the carpets, which the shop owner had stacked around his shop and laid out on a table in front of it. I was dripping with sweat as I concentrated hard on the rugs in front of me, pretending that I was interested in buying one while actually looking over towards Dynamo and waiting for his signal. My mind was racing as I tried to work out a way in which to distract the target while I jabbed him.
The owner of the shop was a toothless old guy, dressed traditionally, his skin deeply wrinkled and creased. He was babbling away at me, trying to get
my attention, but as I couldn’t understand a word of what he said and didn’t want him to get a good look at my face in case he saw my blue eyes, I just kept shaking my head and waving him away with my hand.
I was growing impatient and looked at my watch: it was 1245, only minutes had gone by but it felt like hours to me.
Where is this guy, I thought? Why the hell hasn’t he come out yet?
The needle up my shirtsleeve was jabbing me in the arm and, although I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to get this over with and get out of the place. I was still sweating profusely and unconsciously wiped my hand across my forehead to remove some of the drips of perspiration. The old man kept on staring and jabbering away to me, pointing at his rugs and I now had the added problem of one of the beggar kids clinging to my trouser leg and shaking it to get my attention. I tried to push him away but he was a persistent little blighter. It was a nightmare. Eventually the kid realised he was getting nowhere with me and to my relief, transferred his attention to a woman tourist standing next to me.
Feeling something sticky on my fingertips, I looked down and saw to my horror the dark stain of my make-up and I realised that it must have come off when I wiped my forehead. There was a mirror behind the shopkeeper and I tried to look into it to see how much damage I’d done but the old guy kept getting in the way as he yammered on at me. I smiled at him and moved a few yards away – all the time glancing across at Dynamo.
However, as I looked back at the nearby rugs an idea began to formulate in my mind. I went back to the shop and began to pick them up. I realised that I could use one of them to ‘accidentally’ bump into the target and to cover up my action with the needle. I selected one about three feet long and not too heavy, it would be ideal. I had difficulty in hanging on to it as the old guy kept trying to take it from me to open it up and show me what it looked like and a woman tourist wanted to pick it up to buy.