Beirut - An Explosive Thriller

by Alexander McNabb

  ‘And “Spike”?’

  She paused, then turned to regain her place on the sofa. ‘No idea, habibi. I’m not a phone book.’

  Lynch chuckled, the search phrase ‘Deir Na’ee’ for some reason returning the Irish poem A bhonnán bhuí, The Yellow Bittern. He read it out loud, the Irish words coming back to him from the mists of distant childhood, the disinfectant reek of the Sisters of Charity’s classroom. ‘A bhonnán bhuí, is é mo léan do luí, Is do chnámha sínte tar éis do ghrinn, Is chan easba bidh ach díobháil dí, a d'fhág i do luí thú ar chúl do chinn.’

  Leila was laughing at him. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘It’s Irish. Deir Na’ee gets that in Google. Christ alone knows why.’

  ‘That is not a language. It sounds like dogs fighting.’

  ‘Póg mo thóin.’

  Leila picked up her book again as Lynch opened the next file in the computer’s ‘recent files’ list, a Word document with the filename Olives. The smile left his face as he read the document with dawning horror.

  To be honest with you, this was not one of my finest moments. I waited for something to happen, picking flakes of paint off the wall and cracking them between my fingernails before dropping them. The only sound in the cell was the ambient roar of emptiness; the occasional dry snap of paint.

  It was Stokes’ memoir of his time in Jordan. Lynch felt sick. He flicked to the end of the document, 267 pages down.

  And in sorrowful envy he outran me and took you apart into his quietness.

  They were Paul’s last words to his lover Aisha, the words taken from TE Lawrence’s dedication. Lynch’s breathing was harsh as he read the preceding paragraph, Paul’s description of the moment when he lost her to the brutality of Jordanian special forces. Lynch had arranged the raid himself. He hadn’t reckoned on them to be so heavy-handed, so keen to clean up the loose ends.

  They had killed the girl.

  His attempt to resettle Paul in Beirut had been his way of making amends, giving the young man a new life after Lynch had ruined his old one. He had, of course, concealed that he had been the architect of the raid. Bitterly, Lynch reflected he’d made the same mistake twice, underestimating the amount of force his actions would bring to bear on Paul Stokes’ life.

  Lynch had recruited Stokes in Amman, blackmailing the young journalist into providing information on Jordanian government contracts as well as on Aisha’s family as part of a joint operation with Israeli intelligence. Now he had Paul’s side of the story at his fingertips. He went back to the beginning and read, flicking the pages until he reached Stokes’ description of their first meeting together at the British Embassy.

  Lynch was sweating and I caught a hint of stale alcohol under the supermarket aftershave. His accent was Northern Irish softened, I guessed, by years away from home.

  He stared at the black text on the screen, his heart pounding in his chest. Yeah, thanks for that, Paul. He couldn’t read any more of the dead man’s words. He closed the file and slumped back, his forehead dotted with perspiration.

  Lynch had a long and rich past and he didn’t like it catching up with him, any of it. He gouged his fingers into his eyes to drive away the thoughts with physical sensation and assert his sense of self in the wash of encroaching memories.

  ‘Christ, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll nail the bastard, Paul. I won’t rest until I do, I swear.’ He didn’t realise he was talking out loud until Leila moved over to him, her long, tanned legs catching the light. ‘What’s wrong, Lynch?’

  He forced a smile. ‘Nothing, nothing. A ghost.’ He pulled the lid of the computer down. ‘I need a light.’

  She handed him a lighter and curled up on her chair, catlike. She was reading Proust. He went onto the balcony to feel the cool evening air on his damp face, lit the clipped cigar and watched the red glow tremble as he forced himself to stop thinking of the blackened gash in Paul’s neck.

  Lynch gazed down from the balcony to the street and the sea beyond where the last of the day’s light still shimmered red on the distant waves. The azan sounded, the maghrib prayer. Lynch listened, enjoying the sweetness of the muezzin’s voice carried over the sound of traffic on the streets below as the man repeated his affirmations: Allahu akbar, the rhythm calming and familiar. God is great.

  The doorbell sounded. Lynch paused, puzzled, the cigar halfway to his lips. Leila uncurled from her chair and escaped into the bedroom, part of their unwritten agreement to lead separate lives in public. He left his cigar balanced on the green plastic Heineken ashtray and went inside.

  Palmer stood at the door. The embassy man was freshly laundered; Lynch could even smell the soap and toothpaste. Palmer simpered. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure. G’wan wit’ ye.’

  Lynch kicked the door shut with his heel and followed the young man down the hallway, catching the flash of Palmer’s forehead passing the mirror.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Um, no thanks.’

  ‘Suit yourself. What gives, then?’

  Palmer pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket. ‘You’re to accompany Paul Stokes’ body to London. The funeral’s on Monday. H.E. is not terribly happy about the complaints from the Lebanese and the local press have been giving Chancery quite a hard time about his death.’

  Lynch took the envelope. At least it was a business-class flight. His eyes narrowed. This was a hospital pass. ‘How much media interest, exactly?’

  Palmer snorted. ‘You know what they’re like, journalists. Stokes was one of their own, all that.’

  ‘And pre-fucking-cisely what does that do for my cover, Nigel? You remember cover don’t you? The quaint, old-fashioned notion that intelligence is a covert activity? Like, you know, secret?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be the deputy commercial attaché, it’s not totally unprecedented. You won’t be asked to act as spokesperson or anything. But Chancery needs to send someone to accompany the body and so on.’

  Lynch read the booking slip printout stapled to the ticket, Accompanying deceased: Paul Stokes. He noticed Palmer staring at the Orrefors glass on the table and the volume of Proust lying next to it.

  ‘Thanks, Palmer. Door’s right there behind ye.’

  Palmer actually shuffled backwards before turning to leave. Lynch waited for the snap of the front door lock and took his whisky back outside where he finished his cigar in the growing darkness, listening to the honking traffic on Beirut’s twilit streets. He remembered Stokes unmanned and crying at Aisha Dajani’s funeral in Amman. Her mother, Nour, standing by Stokes’ side and comforting him as her daughter lay in the ground that had accepted her two sons and her husband. Nour led away from the grave by the police who had brought her to the funeral, a humanitarian concession.

  Lynch flicked the butt of his cigar into the bushes below, watching its pinprick of light spin into the darkness. He slipped inside to the bathroom where, after a while, Leila came and helped him wash.

  FIVE

  Gerhardt Hoffmann fiddled with his blue and silver Bulgari cufflink, feeling the smooth cabochon stone as he gazed over the immaculate rolling greens. The players wore heavy sweaters and jackets against the spring cold. Their breath formed tiny clouds.

  The waiter laid down a long porcelain dish of canapés. ‘Chef’s compliments, Herr Hoffmann.’

  He started, his eyes devouring the colourful line of delicacies arrayed on the white china, and smiled. ‘Thank you, Hans. And please convey my gratitude to Chef.’

  Grunting, Hoffmann took an artful pile of salmon and roe on black bread and popped it into his mouth. After months of avoiding the Landsee, he was now able to enjoy, once more, the privilege of dining in its immaculate clubhouse. Life was good again. He sipped the excellent Gewürztraminer and swallowed luxuriously.

  The distant cry of a golfer and the warm sun streaming through the glass bore him back to his childhood, the cry of young voices in the trees and the sun breaking through the woodland in blades of light. They
played simply back then, hide and seek and war games. Bigger than his friends, Hoffmann had never won at hide and seek until the day he stumbled across his hiding place, the heavy metal door in the undergrowth. A clever child, he used a branch to lever the door open and had the presence of mind to leave the lump of mossy wood as a wedge in case it slammed shut and trapped him inside.

  He remembered the cold gloom, the sound of dripping water and the looming shapes in the darkness beyond the finger of grey light the gap in the door let in. Days after, he had returned with a torch and his two closest friends for safety in numbers. They fought over who went first, almost dropping the torch in their fear. Emboldened by the silence, fearful of the echoes, they crept farther down the iron staircase and onto the wide concrete floor, huge doors to their left and right. One of the nearest doors was open, marginally, and they sidled in to prise open one of the stacks of crates. What they found scared them so much they ran out, removed the prop and let the door slam shut. They covered the whole thing up with undergrowth again. As they stood in the clearing, shivering with the cold and fear, they nicked their hands with Hoffmann’s knife and took a blood oath never again to mention the dark cavern to anyone except each other.

  The distant click of a teed-off golf ball and then, a few seconds later, clapping brought Hoffmann back to the Landsee Golf Club. He scooped up another canapé, a sesame toast of red tuna topped with a delicate green wasabi rose. Michel Freij was late, Hoffmann noted as he let the tastes mingle in his mouth. They were really rather good, but then one had certain expectations of the best golf club in Berlin, arguably in Germany. Perhaps, Hoffmann thought mildly, in all of Europe.

  Hoffmann watched as the slim, dapper figure wove through the green and cream striped chairs towards him. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet to receive his guest with an outstretched hand and a smile.

  ‘Mr Freij.’

  Peter Meier, a man who moved amongst the rich and powerful and so not easily impressed, had said Michel Freij was the most powerful man in Lebanon. Hoffmann found himself struck by the man’s forceful charisma.

  Freij bowed slightly. ‘Herr Hoffmann. A pleasure, finally, to meet in person.’

  Hoffmann gestured to the chair facing him. ‘Please.’

  Freij lowered his tall frame into the chair, placing his mobile onto the linen and taking his napkin before the waiter could reach him. ‘A beer please. Staropramen.’

  The waiter stuttered. ‘We do not have this beer, sir.’

  Freij flicked a glance at Hoffmann, sharing his disappointment with his host. ‘Oh. A shame. Then a wine. You have wine?’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  Hoffmann gestured at his frosted glass. ‘The Gewürztraminer is excellent, Mr Freij.’

  ‘I am sure it is.’ Freij turned to the waiter. ‘You have Pouilly Fumé?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ The man flipped open the wine list and flourished it. Freij nodded approval. ‘Excellent. The Asteroïde, then.’

  The waiter retired backwards. Freij plucked a canapé, to Hoffmann’s horror. He had been looking forward to the smoked chicken breast topped with aubergine mash and pomegranate seeds.

  Hoffmann cleared his throat. ‘The shipment has cleared Hamburg. We will be delivering as per our agreement. I take it this is still convenient to you?’

  Peter Meier had drilled him on the details until he had dreamed about them. Hoffmann was word-perfect.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Freij, wiping his fingers on the napkin as he chewed. ‘We have made the deposit, of course. As per our agreement.’

  ‘So I understand. Excellent. Can I recommend the business lunch menu? It is pleasingly fast and yet delicious.’

  Freij ordered á la carte. He waited for the waiter to depart. ‘We are slightly concerned regarding the delivery of the consignment. We ... appreciate our partnership, but think it prudent to seek further guarantees.’

  Hoffmann beamed. ‘We have already foreseen this eventuality. It is appropriate, given the value of the cargo.’

  The sommelier arrived carrying an ice bucket. He pulled the bottle from the ice, displaying it nestled in a white linen napkin. Freij waved his approval and the man opened the wine, laying the cork on the linen tablecloth. He poured a taste. Freij sniffed the wine briefly, nodded and waited for his glass to be filled. He raised it to Hoffmann, who returned the salute with a gracious smile that disguised his dismay at the cost.

  Facing almost certain financial ruin had forced Hoffmann into a true appreciation of the value of money and he had slipped into being a mean man, an attribute Hilde had remarked upon with increasing bitterness in recent months. Having teetered on the precipice, Hoffmann did not intend to look into the abyss again, even for Hilde.

  When the manager of Deutsche Bank Hamburg had finally called to deliver the intention to foreclose, Hoffmann was terror-stricken. He drove into the night, stayed in a cheap motel in Frankfurt and drank himself to sleep. The next morning, hung over and exhausted, desperation drove him to see Hilde’s brother, Peter Meier. An influential man whose business dealings were, Hoffmann knew, more colourful than his own, Meier was rich as Croesus and infinitely resourceful, worldlier than Hoffmann, and harder, too. A man you would want with you in a fight to the finish. Hoffmann had reached the finish.

  Freij leaned back as the waiter delivered his pan-fried foie gras. Hoffmann took a green salad.

  ‘Is Herr Meier not joining us?’ asked Freij, placing a wobbling pink lump on a slice of toasted brioche. Hoffmann watched as the manicured fingers pushed it into the red-lipped maw framed by trimmed goatee beard. The Hollywood perfect white teeth sliced into the warm liver and left crumbs on the moist lips. He shuddered.

  ‘Hoffmann?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. No, he has been called away on an urgent matter. He asked me to convey his sincere apologies, but to tell you he was looking forward to meeting when we make the delivery.’

  Freij laid down his knife and fork. ‘I see. We were talking about additional guarantees.’

  Hoffmann had reached Meier’s house in tears, begging for money. Ignoring his pleas, Meier had painstakingly walked the desperate man through his assets, sources of potential income and expectations of remuneration. The cupboard was, as Meier had said when twisting the knife, quite bare. Finally, crying like a child, Hoffmann had remembered the game in the woods on what had been the East German border all those years ago and the macabre contents of the bunker they had found. He tossed it into the conversation as a joke, as a desperate gambit to entertain Meier and buy some sort of consideration: ‘Unless Soviet missiles have a value.’

  Meier froze, his voice chill. ‘Soviet missiles, you say?’

  Hoffmann, feeling foolish, told Meier of the bunker they had found as children, their fearful pact made in the woods near Hřensko. The great looming shapes in their cradles.

  Meier was ferocious. He grabbed Hoffmann’s arm. ‘Your troubles could well be far behind you. Take me there. Now.’

  Pleased to finally engage Meier’s interest, Hoffmann was taken aback by the man’s sudden passion, protesting, ‘Please, Peter, it is late. The morning, surely?’

  Meier arranged the early morning drive into the forests of Hoffmann’s childhood. Hoffmann had never imagined the sleek green missiles in their stacked wooden crates would still be there, let alone could be worth so much money, but Meier had been dismissive of them. He had taken them as what he called the cherry on the cake. Meier’s cake had been the two larger devices lying on their massive oiled chassis, stored behind huge blast doors. Meier had hooked the doors’ electronic locking mechanisms up to an aluminium suitcase he carried from the car. It opened up to show a complex computer screen. After a few minutes, the lock clicked open. Meier unhooked the cables from the lock and heaved open the door to the hangar full of looming, fearful shapes.

  Two of the brutal missiles had detachable warheads, a three-meter cone of green. Meier stared, his breath coming in little gasps. ‘My God.’

  Hof
fmann had wondered quite who Meier’s God was.

  The clamour of his mobile tore Hoffmann back to the present. He excused himself to take the short call and strolled across the restaurant floor. Nodding and grinning, he cut the line and swaggered back to the table. He placed his handset on the white linen, smiling at Freij with a renewed confidence. ‘I am so sorry. We were talking about guarantees, were we not?’

  Freij nodded. His slicked-back hair was receding at the temples. Together with his goatee, it gave the man what Hoffmann rather thought of as a vaguely Mephistophelean air.

  Hoffmann beamed and leaned back. ‘My own daughter Elli will be accompanying the Arabian Princess personally. It is an exceptional guarantee, but then she is an exceptional yacht, I think we can both agree.’ Hoffmann’s slow, conspiratorial wink was accompanied by the broadest of grins. ‘I think you could hardly wish for more assurance than that.’

  Hoffmann basked in Freij’s appreciative little smile, marvelling once again at Peter Meier’s exceptional ingenuity. Elli had gone against him, and Hoffmann found her betrayal, like her mother’s before her, hard to forgive.

  Lynch shivered as he passed the tumbles of purple hydrangeas up to the door of the imposing Edwardian house. He pressed the doorbell and waited, hunched against London’s damp fog. He had arrived that morning, the five-hour Middle East Airlines flight to Heathrow was overbooked and the staff bad-tempered. He missed Beirut already. It was cold there this time of year, the Lebanese skiing season was in full flow, but at least it was a clean cold with sunshine brightening the days. London, on the other hand, was sheer misery, the leaden moisture permeated his clothes, invading his every breath. The trees dripped.

  ‘Hello, sir. What a surprise seeing you here.’ Yates, ancient and bowed, the faithful family retainer of an intelligence service which had long ago discarded faith and family.

  Lynch squeezed the old man’s shoulder as he passed. ‘Still here, old friend?’

  Yates had never been a friend, but he chuckled like a fond father welcoming the prodigal as he led Lynch to the sitting room. Brian Channing was seated by the unlit fireplace. He gestured to the chair opposite, a genial expression on his face that didn’t reach his analytical eyes.