by Vince Flynn
They arrived as the sun was setting on the far end of the Mediterranean, feeling a mix of anticipation, anger, and apprehension. That's what Beirut did to Hurley. He'd spent time in the city before the civil war, back when it was a thriving mecca of Christians and Muslims living side by side, socializing, raising families, enjoying life, and for the most part getting along. Then the PLO began to radicalize the slums and demand a say in how things were run. The Maronites had no intention of sharing rule with these gypsies, and the battle lines were drawn. No one, not even Hurley, had thought the disagreement so egregious that it would plunge the city into a fifteen-year civil war, but it did. More than a million had fled, 250,000 were killed, hundreds of thousands of people were wounded and crippled, and the economy and much of central Beirut were laid to waste. That such a great city could be so thoroughly destroyed was enough to shake the faith of even the most optimistic.
At the airport there were a few signs that things were headed in the right direction. The part of the terminal that had been severely damaged during the Israeli shelling of 1982 was now torn down, and reconstruction was under way. Hurley and Richards trudged down the metal stairs with their fellow passengers. Tired and bored Lebanese militiamen flanked the travelers and directed them toward Immigration and Customs. The last time Hurley had been here, Immigration and Customs consisted of a single portly bureaucrat sitting behind a metal desk on the tarmac. His job had been less about border security than about collecting the bribes needed to enter the country. Now they filed into the airport, where there were posterboards announcing ambitious rebuilding plans.
They threaded through the Customs lines, trying their best to look tired and bored. Richards passed with barely a glance. He handed over his cash that they called a fee, but was more of a bribe, because it never saw its way into the Treasury. Hurley had to answer a few questions from the Customs official, but nothing that was too alarming. He thought he caught one of the supervisors standing behind the three Customs agents paying him a little too much attention, but that, after all, was his job. In the end it was nothing to worry about. The man did not intervene or follow them to baggage claim.
They collected their luggage and stood in line once again. This time they were both searched. Then, outside at the cab stand, Hurley slipped the man a twenty-dollar bill and told him in Arabic that he wanted to pick his own cab. For no reason other than the fact that it was random, Hurley chose the fourth cab in line. They took it to the under-renovation Intercontinental Hotel, where they went inside and bought a drink. This was also where Hurley persuaded the bartender to sell him the bottle of Jack Daniel's. From there, they found another cab, skirted the central business district, and had the man drop them off three blocks from the Mar Yousif Inn.
Hurley would have preferred to have had the safe house ready, but there was no getting around it. Not if he wanted to use someone he could absolutely trust. Besides, there was only so much he could control. Setting up a new base of operations was never easy, and was even more difficult in a town like this, with shifting battle lines.
Hurley looked out across the skyline. He couldn't swear, but there seemed be quite a few more lights than there had been a few years earlier. Perhaps progress was being made. He heard some voices and stepped around the top of the blockhouse that encased the stairs. A few of the hotel workers were clustered around a folding table, sitting in plastic chairs. They waved to Hurley. He flashed them a smile and walked to the far edge. Beirut was like most densely packed cities, in that the inhabitants used roofs to try to escape the claustrophobic feeling of being shut in. There was another plastic chair in the corner where he was standing, but he didn't feel like sitting. He looked north, over the rooftops, at the ocean. Way out there on the horizon to the northwest he could make out the glow of the lights on Cyprus. Back to the south the airport was lit up, receiving its last few flights for the day.
A not-so-welcome memory started to bubble up. Hurley gripped the bottle tightly, held it to his lips, and took a swig of Jack with the hope that he could drown it out. After a minute he started up a heater and tried to remember the last time he'd been in the city. He wasn't counting his last trip two years earlier, as he had been in and out in less than a day. Hardly enough time to look up any of his old contacts. The city brought back so many memories. A few good, a lot bad.
He took another swig but it didn't work this time. His gaze was drawn to the west where the old embassy had stood. He'd been here that day--here being the Bourj Hammoud district. Hurley had met one of his contacts for coffee that morning, a man named Levon Petrosian, the Armenian crime boss who kept things working during the civil war. In addition to making sure the neighborhood had power, water, and food, Petrosian handled all of the gambling and prostitution, and of course collected a pretty penny in protection money. After their meeting, Hurley decided to take the crazy Armenian up on his offer to sample some of the merchandise. Hurley had been in bed with two women from the Armenian Highlands of Eastern Turkey when the explosion rocked the room.
His worst fears were realized when he'd scrambled onto the roof, still pulling on his pants. Bombs were becoming increasingly common back in 1983, but this one was much bigger than the average mortar round or RPG. The plume of debris and smoke was close enough to the embassy that Hurley was certain it had been the target. The only question was the amount of damage done. Hurley raced back to the bedroom to collect the rest of his stuff and then down to the street, where his driver was asleep behind the wheel of the company Jeep. Hurley bumped him out of the driver's seat, started the Jeep, and tore off down the street.
When he arrived and looked up at the seven-story building his heart was in his throat. The front entrance was gone. A gaping hole from the seventh floor all the way to the first. A big gash between the main part of the embassy and one of the wings. Strangely enough, the roof, for the most part, was intact. He remembered something about its being reinforced to handle all the communications gear they'd put up there. As the dust settled, the first of the survivors began to crawl out of the building. Hurley was still holding on to hope at that point.
It would be two full days before they grasped the extent of the damage. By then, the hope that Hurley had felt in those moments after watching the first survivor come out of the building was entirely gone, along with one of his best friends, Irene Kennedy's father, and sixty-two others. As was standard for the Lebanese civil war, the locals took the brunt of the blast, but in terms of American personnel, the CIA took the heaviest toll. Eight Agency employees were killed, and the Near East Section was decimated.
Stansfield had been associates deputy director of operations at the time, and he had rushed over to assess the damage. The guilt Hurley felt was overwhelming. He tried to resign, but Stansfield would hear none of it. He didn't care that Hurley had missed a one o'clock meeting at the embassy. There was some speculation about that. Was Islamic Jihad lucky in their timing, or did they have inside information that Langley's top people would be meeting at that time, and if so, some had spoken out loud that it was very convenient that Hurley missed the meeting. Hurley was placed under a microscope by a few higher-ups, but Stansfield covered for him.
His operative was meeting with Petrosian the Armenian, and the meeting had gone longer than anticipated. That was as much as anyone needed to know. The fact that he was in bed with two hookers while the van crashed through the gate was inconsequential. They had already lost enough good people, they didn't need to lose another because of his vices--vices that Stansfield was well aware of.
Hurley knew Stansfield was right, but that didn't mean he could simply ignore what had happened. He was an operational wreck for those next few months. Stansfield received a report that Muslim men were turning up dead in areas of the city that were known to be relatively peaceful, completely randomly and at all hours of the day. One man was shot while reading the paper on his small terrace, another was strangled in the bathroom of a public restroom, another killed leaving a nightclu
b. All three men had loose connections to Islamic Jihad. Stansfield called Hurley back to D.C. to ask him if he knew anything about the murders, and to his astonishment Hurley admitted to the killings.
Stansfield could not allow one of his oldest friends and best operatives to go running off half-cocked killing whomever he wanted, even if the targets were somewhat legitimate. As Hurley had pointed out, Islamic Jihad had declared war on the United States; he was simply obliging them by participating in the war. There was a bit of logic in his thinking, but Langley couldn't afford any more scrapes with the press and the politicians at the moment. The solution was easy. Things were heating up along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and Hurley knew the Russians better than anyone. So Stansfield shipped him off to Peshawar to help train and equip the mujahedeen.
And now, almost ten years later, here he was full circle. Right back in this stew of religious fascists who all fervently believed they, and they alone, knew what God wanted. Hurley had been trying to warn Langley for years that these Islamic wack jobs were the next big problem. He'd seen both fronts up close. Beirut and Afghanistan and the Afghanis made these guys look like pikers. Any culture that swaddles its women from head to toe and refuses a drop of booze while exporting opium around the globe is seriously screwed-up. Another of Hurley's rules was to be extremely distrustful of anyone who didn't drink. Afghanistan was an entire society that didn't drink, and it scared the piss out of him.
Hurley took a pull from the bottle and shook out another cigarette. He lit it, blew the smoke up into the ocean breeze, and thought about tomorrow. The safe house should be set up and equipped by then, and the backup would be ready by early afternoon. He'd have to see what kind of info the Agency guy had, and if it wasn't enough, he'd go pay Petrosian a call. Hurley had heard he owned more than two thousand apartment units in the neighborhood. That would generate a lot of income, but a guy like Petrosian could always use more money, and that was one thing that Hurley finally had a lot of.
What he didn't have was time. If they were going to save the Schnoz they would have to work fast. Sometimes working fast could be used to your advantage, but you had to mix it up, and they'd been moving at a pretty good clip for about a week. Sharif, Dorfman, and by now Ismael. They might as well stay on the attack for a few more days.
Hurley looked at the bottle of Tennessee whisky and wondered if he'd come back to Beirut to die. All the times he'd cheated death, all the men he'd killed over the years, all the gods, real or imagined, that he'd pissed off. If it was anyone's time it should be his. Looking skyward, he said, "Don't piss off the gods." He poured some of the whisky down his gullet and smiled. If it was his time, so be it.
CHAPTER 47
MARTYRS' SQUARE, BEIRUT
SUNDOWN was shortly after five in the evening and sunrise shortly after six in the morning. With limited power in the building, and no curtains on the windows, there wasn't much to do after sundown, so Sayyed had gone to bed early. Loyal Samir had scrounged up a mattress and a lantern and set up a room for him on the fifth floor away from all of the men and most of the noise. He'd checked on the two prisoners briefly to make sure they were following his orders. The businessman was faring much better than the spy. Sayyed had brought a doctor in to take a look at Cummins and the prognosis wasn't good. Due to the beatings, poor diet, and unsanitary conditions, the doctor feared he was suffering from liver failure.
The news upset Sayyed. He had been warning the guards for several weeks to lay off the prisoners. But they somehow couldn't get it through their thick heads that the two men were worthless to them if they were dead. Add to that the stress of the missing money and Ivanov coming to town and it was enough to make Sayyed's temper flare out of control. He gathered the men in the basement and told them he would execute the next man who dared lay a hand on either prisoner. He caught one of the men rolling his eyes at the order, and before the imbecile knew it Sayyed had the muzzle of his Markov pistol pressed firmly against his forehead. The others finally got the point.
Sayyed went to bed wondering if they would rebel or follow his orders. It was just another thing to add to his general discomfort. He did not sleep well. His dreams, vivid and bizarre, taunted and tortured him. He was running. He must have been on the beach, because no matter how fast he told himself to run, his legs plodded along as if they were stuck in deep sand. There was a dense fog, so thick that he could see no farther than the end of his hand. Jets were overhead, screeching and dropping deafening bombs in the distance. Bright flashes erupted through the marine layer, the noises of the big bombs muted by the moisture in the air. Why was he running toward the bombs? What was he running from? He woke up with a start, his heart pounding out of his chest, covered in sweat.
Sayyed looked around the office where he'd decided to spend the night. A soft moonlight spilled in from the blown-out window. There was a pile of garbage in the corner where Samir had swept the glass and debris. Scavengers had taken everything. The furniture, even the carpeting, had been pulled up, leaving only the bare concrete floor and the dried glue that had been used to hold the carpeting down. The whole thing was depressing. The geniuses in Damascus should all be forced to live like this for a night.
Sayyed decided to get some air. He pulled on his shirt but didn't bother to button it up. He climbed two flights to the roof and with a murmur greeted the two men standing watch. All was quiet across the street. He lit a cigarette and wondered what Ivanov was up to. The man was always plotting. Given the choice between making a fortune the honest way and stealing it from someone, he was convinced, Ivanov would prefer to steal it. He was a thief at heart. It was in no way a stretch to think of him plotting to kill Sharif, and then with the Turk out of the way, killing Dorfman and taking everything for himself.
Sayyed sighed. He wished he could skip ahead a day or two. Be done with this mess and go back to Damascus for a few weeks. His two girls were grown and married and had very little to do with him, and that was fine. He didn't particularly care for their husbands. Beyond that, he had never been around when they were growing up, so there was no real connection. His wife--they barely spoke. The women in life weren't the draw. Civilization was the draw. Running water, and functioning toilets, and sleeping in a clean bed without fear of two thousand pounds of steel and high explosives being dropped on your head. That's what he needed. A VCR and a stack of movies and some sleep. He needed to recharge.
If he could run, he would. Walk out of this hellhole of a city and leave it all behind. He'd considered it many times as his pot of money grew with Herr Dorfman. Another year or two and he would have made it. He could have gone back to Damascus, retired, and used the money he had stashed away in Switzerland to invest in opportunities as Beirut stabilized. He could have lived like a wealthy sheik. All of those years of hard work gone in an instant. It was almost impossible to bear.
He finished his cigarette and looked at the stars. He did not like having to stay in one place like this, especially a place so primitive. The food was horrid and infrequent, the conditions ripe for illness, and he couldn't sleep, and if he couldn't sleep he would make mistakes. Mistakes were not something he could afford these next few days. He did not want to go back to the depressing room with the soiled mattress, but he had to, at least to close his eyes and rest.
Sayyed plodded down the steps and into the dark room. He took his shirt off, setting it on the floor, and then lay back down on the dirty mattress, trying to ignore the stench. The crux of the problem was the money, and it was a bigger problem than any of them realized. They were all lamenting their loss of personal wealth, but the dire situation lay in their inability to pay their people.
There were a few mentally unstable militants who would work for free, but the bulk of the foot soldiers would walk away. They were paid in cash every week, and payday was Thursday. They would be able to scrape together enough to get through this week, but then they would be bankrupt. The following week they had to pay their monthly bribes to the police, polit
icians, bureaucrats, and spies in the other camps. There would be hundreds if not thousands of hands extended, waiting for the money, and behind them families, waiting to put food on the table. If they did not rectify this situation quickly it could be a major disaster. The Maronites and the other factions would swoop in and pick up territory it had taken them years and thousands of men to gain.
Everything they had worked for would unravel. He would have to tell Damascus, and of course leave his personal loss out of it. They were likely to punish him by banishing him to Yamouk, the bleak Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus that was teeming with the pushy tribe in search of a permanent home. He heard footsteps down the hall and then some voices. They sounded as if they were going from room to room. Looking toward the open doorway, he saw the beam of a flashlight. Sayyed grabbed his pistol and sat up.
"He's up here somewhere," he heard a voice in the hallway say.
"Who is it?" Sayyed asked.
"It's me. I've been looking all over for you."
Sayyed recognized Radih's voice and lowered his gun. "I'm in here."
Radih appeared in the doorway. Three other men were behind him. "Assef, you are not going to believe the news I bring you." Radih clapped his hands together.
Sayyed looked for his watch, but couldn't find it. "What time is it?"
"Nearly two in the morning. You must get up. I have amazing news."
Sayyed sighed. He half rolled off the mattress, looking for his watch. He found it, strapped it on, and then grabbed his shirt. "It better be good. I need some sleep."
"You will not be disappointed."