The Beirut Conspiracy

by John R Childress

  “Forget the sales spiel. Neither of us believes it. The state of the economy and worsening conditions in the Middle East were my real concerns. Anyway, I’m sitting here; sliced up by steel pellets from a suicide bomb, lucky to be alive, and soon I’ll have to face the nation and the world. With answers. I will need your help again, Karl. Big time.”

  “Where’s your tin cup?”

  “You don’t think I use it too much? It’s important for me, just as much now as it was in the prison camp in Vietnam. Reminds me of my purpose. In an odd way it gives me courage, too.”

  Karl van Ness nodded. “It’s certainly good theater, and every good politician needs a little theater now and then. But yes, you over do it sometimes, banging on the podium during the Presidential debates to make your points.”

  “We’re from different generations, Karl.”

  “I respect more than most what that tin cup means to you. I was one of those waiting on the tarmac in Hawaii after your release from the Hanoi Hilton. You looked like hell, but you were proud.”

  “I believe strongly in the importance of open communication. That’s what the cups were to us in prison, our only means of communicating, through code banged on the prison bars. And open communication is what I’ve tried to provide throughout my business and political career. But it gets harder and harder as this world gets more and more complex and intertwined. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have the intestinal fortitude anymore.”

  “Your mother still believes you do.”

  Ross smiled. “If I only had a tenth of her courage. She’s a Quaker, and a good one. She actually says what she thinks and practices what she preaches.”

  Van Ness listened to the voices outside. Politicians, all of them. “Your dad made up for your mother’s strengths,” he said dryly.

  “One domineering sonofabitch. A confirmed capitalist and product of the American dream. He constantly kicked my ass, but always in the right direction.”

  “Well, with all due respect, Mr. President. In this case the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. So let’s see if we can’t use those attributes to get our nation out of this mess.”

  Ross leaned back. He rubbed his eyes. “Just how the hell did she get a press badge? The Israel Daily, no less. Can’t miss the irony there.”

  “Somebody was clever. And prepared.”

  “The first suicide bomber on American soil, and it happened on my watch. And I’m the big mouth who campaigned to solve the crisis in the Middle East – one way or another.”

  “Mr. President, it’s not important what happens. It’s how you handle it that matters. Now let’s forget this self-serving ‘on my watch’ crap. It’s time to put some backbone into this country. And those dithering advisors waiting outside.”

  “Check on Emily for me will you? She must be having a fit not being allowed in yet.”

  Van Ness grinned, an additional score of wrinkles surfaced on his weathered face. “Shall I tell her it was your decision?” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll let the sniveling sheep waiting outside know you’re ready. Good luck, Mr. President.”

  Ross Pierce winced as he swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed and groped with his feet for the slippers. The ones with the Presidential seal embroidered on them.

  “The country is in chaos and someone still thinks of the image of the President.” He smiled, straightened the bed sheet and waited. A gentle knock came from the other side of the door.

  “For Christ’s sake, come in. We’ve got work to do.”

  Polished shoes shuffled on the floor. Eyes darted, checking the political landscape.

  “Only two chairs. Anyone want to sit on the bed with me?”

  CIA Director Terry Finch looked quickly at the floor. “I’ll stand, Mr. President.”

  “That’s to your credit, Terry. I don’t want the CIA in bed with anyone.”

  Tight smiles all around. “How are you feeling, Mr. President?”

  Ross Pierce glanced quickly at the Secretary for Homeland Security. “Maybe better than you, Bill. You get attacked by a mad BIC razor?”

  “We were in New York working all night. Just got to bed when the call came about the bombing.” William McLaughlin gently touched the blood caked cuts on his face.

  “To answer your question, I’m fine. Physically at least. But my heart aches for those poor people who didn’t have a chance.”

  President Roswell Clayton Pierce looked at the tense faces of his security advisors. Time to move things along. Carpe diem and all that shit. “Okay. I take it you’ve all seen the Angela Wu piece as well as the CNN video of the bomber?”

  “We’re on to tracing the bomber, Mr. President; computer search of a facial grid might turn up…”

  Ross Pierce raised his hand, oddly commanding as he sat in his pajamas. “Let it go for now, Howard. I know all your agencies are working flat out and I expect nothing less. But the real reason I wanted you all here together is to get something said, and something understood. Right here. Right now.” He held each in his gaze as he looked around the tiny room.

  “Okay, we fucked up on this one. A bomber got through all our best security, and she did it on national TV. They showed a severed head in the gutter, for Christ’s sake.”

  The warbling P/A system broke the brittle atmosphere as a doctor was paged to surgery.

  “And we lost people. Lots of people. Good people. Some we knew, some we didn’t. No one’s going to want to cover a Presidential press event from now on. To hell with the President, they might get blown up.”

  Ross looked down at the floor, then up to the ceiling as he shaped his words. “Let me tell you how this is going to go from now on. First, no more fiefdoms. It’s common knowledge among every terrorist organization, it’s in all the newspapers. Our security agencies don’t work together, don’t coordinate, don’t even communicate. That’s in the past gentlemen. It’s over. Finished. Ancient history. From now on I want one joint report on my desk, every morning and every evening, that each of you has contributed to and are willing to stand behind. We don’t have time for second guessing and withholding.”

  Someone coughed nervously. All eyes turned to the CIA Director.

  “Mr. President,” Terry Finch began quietly, “we’re always…”

  “Knock it off, Terry. That bullshit line is over. Gone. Blown away. Like the safety of our country. Like peace in the Middle East.”

  The President poured himself a glass of water. “So, number one, you guys get your acts together. I want some facts that I can give to the reporters, and the American people, when they come ready to chew my ass off. Taxes are crippling the average American and with all the money spent after September 11, what do they get? A severed head on the streets of Washington, D.C.”

  “If I may, Mr. President?”

  “Okay, Bill. What’s the view from Homeland Security?”

  “I’m grossly under funded as it is. Guys work two, three nights in a row just checking out all the leads we get. I need…”

  Ross nodded, cutting him off. “It’s a thankless job, I know. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe your new partners here will give you some extra manpower?”

  “Shit, Mr. President. We can’t even get our databases to talk to each other. Different systems running on different software platforms.” The bald head of the FBI Director beaded with sweat, but he was committed now. “Everyone agrees it will take at least another year to marry up our database systems.”

  “Well, gentlemen, wake up and smell the coffee. Reality has just pitched us a big roundhouse curve. I definitely wasn’t ready when that missile shot down my A6 Intruder, but I had to deal with it real quick. And that’s what we’re going to have to do now. Deal with it!”

  “Just how are we supposed to…?”

  “I wish I knew, gentlemen. I wish I knew. But it’s your job, not mine. I’ve got to keep the world from blowing up.”

  Again the P/A system echoed in a faraway hall. Ross Pierce refilled his g
lass.

  “Look, gentlemen. You know your jobs, your people. You’re the best in the world at this stuff. And you know the predicament we are in. If we don’t find out how this happened and shut it down, every two-bit terrorist with a knife, gun or bomb will think its open season on Americans. Whose head will it be in the gutter next time?”

  Wearily he stared at the bed sheets. “I want your first joint report on my desk at 7am tomorrow morning. Something substantial for my address to the nation.” He peeled off a bandage from his hand.

  “And we will meet every Tuesday at 7am in the Oval Office from now on. You’re my new cabinet on terrorism, security and the Middle East. I’ll add a few more members, but keep it small. No substitutes. If you don’t come to a meeting I’ll assume you’re dead or dying. And you will be.”

  He reached out and shook each member’s hand, holding it firmly, communicating his resolve. “And about that funding, I hear you, Bill. We’ll get more money from somewhere. I guarantee it.”

  They all nodded, both hopeful and fearful. “Get some rest, Mr. President. I think we’re all going to need it.”

  “Thanks Frank. But I doubt if any of the Secret Service will be sleeping tonight. Nor will I.”

  The door closed firmly. Marine guards snapped to attention as the four senior directors quietly left the room.

  Alone again. Ross Pierce picked at his bandages. Like in a jet fighter, timing was everything. Angela Wu arrived late at the press conference. She lived. He stood a few yards behind Dr. Andrew Norman. He lived. Life and death, turning on the smallest of actions. But just what were the right actions from now on? Was there one right decision that could shift the momentum of the world from destruction to global peace? Could he find it? Could he use it?

  He picked up the phone. “Nurse, I need to use the head.” He listened. “I know that. Send her in, but I’m closing the damned door.”

  While the army nurse stood in the empty room, just next to the bathroom door, the President of the United States reached for a towel. The tears overtook him like a malignant wave, he buried his face, muffling the sobs. He slumped to the cold floor, his back bumping against the door.

  “Are you all right, Mr. President?”

  Roswell Clayton Pierce was fine, but he knew the world was running out of time.

  Chapter Two

  The American University of Beirut, Lebanon, 1969

  “Come on, Samir, I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.” Matt Richards threw his pencil down on his dormitory desk and stretched. “We’ve been studying for three solid hours. My ass is flat and my stomach is growling.”

  “You Americans, all you think about is your stomach. In the Koran it says prayer is the food of the righteous.” Samir Hussein was a psychology major, Palestinian, and Matt’s roommate.

  “Well, in the King James version of the Bible it says the Lord helps those who help themselves. And right now I’d like to help myself to a bowl of humus, a mountain of tabouli, a big juicy lamb kebab and a couple of beers.”

  “You can afford to be causal about studying. At the end of the school year you’ll be headed back to your home in America.”

  A grin filled Matt’s suntanned face. “Yeah.” A summer job in the fruit orchards outside of Seattle, then his final year at Harvard. “Don’t forget med school, Samir. Next time we meet you’ll have to call me Doctor Richards.”

  “Just like your father and older brother.” After nearly seven months of living with him every day, Samir still wondered about his American roommate. Was he following his heart, or someone else’s expectations? With a world renowned heart surgeon for a father, who could ever measure up?

  “No matter what I become, surgeon or bum, I’ll never forget this year.” Matt studied Samir’s face. Born in Jerusalem in the, then, independent state of Palestine. Soon to be lost forever in a sea of chaos and conflict. “This year has been the most influential of my life. I know it. I’ll always remember the sights, the sounds, the smells, the food, the history. And the women. What can I say?”

  “Speaking of women, are we going to meet up with Bedouina and Maha tonight, or are you going to give me one of your ‘I love Beirut’ monologues that puts me to sleep?” Samir stood up. Anxious fingers ran through his thick black hair. “However, my friend, I think we’re out of luck. Its past curfew and the school gates are locked. We’re stuck. Besides, you’ve seen the guards carrying machine guns posted at all the University gates. They’re loaded with real bullets.”

  “Don’t be a wimp. Ever since the Israeli attack on the Beirut Airport in December, they’ve had guards everywhere. Who cares? We’ll just climb over the wall like I always do. You can do it. We’ll be back in less than two hours.”

  “But you saw bullet-ridden airport terminal and the burned out carcasses of the Middle East Airlines planes scattered across the runway. The city has never been the same since. Armed patrols on the streets, guards at the University gates, fighting between the Christians and the Moslems, right here in the city.”

  “Screw that. I’m off. You coming or not?”

  “Okay, Okay. I’ll call and tell the beauties to meet us at the kebab restaurant at the end of Rue Bliss. If we’re going to die, it might as well be in the arms of the lovely Maha and Bedouina.” He dialed and spoke rapidly in Arabic.

  “Shit,” Matt said, searching for his windbreaker. “Why can’t I pick up Arabic? I speak French like a native, thanks to my Mom, but that language totally baffles me.”

  “It’s simple, blockhead.” Samir laughed and punched his roommate. “By the way, I like these American terms you’ve taught me.”

  “So what’s so simple?”

  “Life is too easy here for you. French is one of the two official languages of Lebanon. And all the courses at the American University are taught in English. Do you really expect to learn Arabic?”

  “It might help my love life.”

  “I’d say you’re doing pretty well with Maha as it is.” The relationship between Matt and Maha, a Jordanian with a fiery temper from an aristocratic family, couldn’t last much longer. But he couldn’t tell Matt.

  Matt zipped his windbreaker. “Ok, it’s 11 pm and I’m out of here. Put on a dark jacket. With all the street lamps smashed, we won’t be spotted as we climb over the wall. Let’s go, I’m starving.”

  A large red bougainvillea in full bloom provided the perfect ladder and concealment. They climbed over the high stone wall surrounding the university, carefully avoiding the broken glass imbedded along the top, and silently dropped to the street.

  Samir grabbed Matt’s collar as a Mercedes taxi roared past. “Beirut may be the crossroads of the Middle East, but don’t get killed crossing the street.”

  “God, this city enchants me every time I step onto these potholed, dusty streets. Smell the spices, the tang of the sea, the lamb roasting on charcoal?”

  “You’re just a hopeless romantic under that veneer of cynicism, roommate.”

  Matt sprinted across the busy street. Dusty cars honked, dodging Matt and the other pedestrians. Cheap neon reflected off the windshields. Impatient bearded faces squinted against the glare. Everybody going somewhere. Above a modern cinema, a giant poster showed John Wayne in Green Beret fatigues. He looked down with his usual snarl. Matt pressed himself against a shop window. Several elderly men in long white robes passed by. He turned to look into the shop. The haute couture of Paris and Milan draped on headless mannequins, teased Matt’s student pocketbook. He slipped between sidewalk cafe tables, the thick aroma of espresso clinging to the air; animated conversations in French, Arabic and English competed with the horns of shiny Mercedes taxis and shouts of greetings.

  But the heady chaos was not only in the streets. Buried in deep vaults, the financial center of the Middle East kept pace with the activity above, bank notes rippling through counting machines, sterling, dollars, lire, and yen. Mounds of currency powered a vibrant trading economy, and unknown to most, it also powered a new industry, t
errorism.

  A faint breeze caressed her cheek. A perfect crescent moon beckoned above the glassy Mediterranean. Maha Hammad sat facing the sea. Happiness and sorrow, anticipation and regret weighed upon her. She ran her long fingers through thick red hair, now coppery in the glow of the lights. The small table for four sat in the far corner of the cozy rooftop terrace overlooking the limestone cliffs of the Ras Beirut peninsula. It was here, in ancient times the Crusaders regrouped for their march into the Holy Land. It was also the young foursome’s favorite meeting place.

  “Where are those men? They’re never on time.” Bedouina’s eyes narrowed, her dark black hair, cut short, stuck out at unruly angles. Intensity strained her face muscles. “They can’t be late tonight, not tonight.”

  “Look, we’ve spent nearly three years at the School of Pharmacy studying like animals. Relax. It’s almost over. Soon a new adventure will start.”

  Matt came up the terrace stairs, stopping in the doorway. He stared, then burst out loudly. “Oh my God. The most beautiful daughter of a goat shepherd in all the world” He moved quickly to her side and planted a respectful, yet lingering kiss on both cheeks.

  In the months following their first meeting last September, Matt and Maha had spent hours together exploring each other’s lives and worlds. On the surface they were very different; at an inner level a deep connection and a strong bond of trust, respect and love bound them.

  In contrast, there was Bedouina, a dark-skinned Palestinian with an even darker personality. Samir watched her. “She is tense tonight.” He turned to Matt. “I promise we won’t talk politics, not tonight.”

  “You say that every time, Samir, and somehow the two of you always climb on your soapboxes about one thing or another. I’m starved for food, not politics.”

  As the four of them talked Matt’s hunger retreated. “How you guys eat all this great food and never get fat is a mystery to me,” he said. Drippings from the lamb kebabs glistened on his chin. Maha wiped them off with her napkin then gently kissed his stubbled chin. “Where am I gonna’ find tabouli and humus back in Boston? I may just wither away to nothing.”