Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)

by Fleming, Preston

  “I’m sorry, nurse, but I don’t have time for—”

  “I am told you are a United States government employee, Mr. Lukash. If that is correct, then you do not have a choice in the matter.”

  Lukash reddened, but before he could speak, Prosser thanked the nurse warmly for her help and offered to help in any way he possibly could. “Don’t worry,” Prosser assured her, “I’ll keep a close eye on the patient. Go ahead and call the hospital.” Appeased by his promise of cooperation, Nurse Asma left the room.

  The moment the door closed behind her, Prosser picked up a bar of soap and a handful of paper towels from the sink beside him. “Here, clean yourself up while I go upstairs and find the chief. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to get you back to the airport.”

  “Okay, but make it quick,” Lukash replied. “The longer we wait, the more likely that the Syrians or the Phalange will be waiting for me.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t fly, then. Maybe you should try the ferry to Cyprus.”

  “Not with the ferry leaving from Phalange territory,” Lukash countered. “And the overland route through Syria obviously isn’t an option. No, it looks like the airport is it. And if I don’t make it out today, the place could be crawling with Syrian and Phalange goons by tomorrow. Who knows? I may be holed up in the embassy indefinitely, like Archbishop Makarios in Nicosia. Washington might have to send a navy helicopter to pick me off the roof, Saigon-style.” He caught Prosser’s eye and both men laughed.

  “Never mind,” Prosser assured him. “We’ll get you out. As soon as I find Ed, I’ll send him down to see you while I go about booking you a seat on the next flight.”

  “And just how were you planning to do that?” Lukash interrupted.

  “Through the admin section,” Prosser replied. “The travel section is pretty good at getting seats at short notice.”

  “I don’t like using the locals for this. Can’t you go to the ticket office yourself?”

  “Have you been to a MEA ticket office lately? It could take all day.”

  “Okay, I see your point,” Lukash conceded. “But don’t let anyone connect my true name to the reservation. Why don’t you talk to Harry Landers and ask him to make an emergency request on behalf of an American citizen attending to a dying parent? Make it under the name of Conklin—William F. Conklin. I have an old alias passport under that name that I conveniently never turned in.”

  Prosser shook his head. “I’m afraid that won’t do,” he cautioned. “Headquarters will have canceled it, for sure. If you tried to enter the U.S. with it, the INS would arrest you so fast your head would spin.”

  “Who said anything about entering the U.S.? I just need it to get to Europe. I’ll request a replacement passport in true name from the consulate when I get to Europe.”

  Prosser shrugged. “Okay, if that’s the plan, let’s go for it. Where do you want to lay over? Paris? London? Rome?”

  Lukash shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Anyplace will do as long as it’s west of here. Oh, and I’ll need some cash. Can you advance me something out of your ops funds?”

  “How much do you need? Would five thousand U.S. do?”

  “Better make it ten. For the layover…just in case.”

  * * *

  Prosser rode the elevator to the fourth floor and entered the political section, greeting the young stenographer who had recently arrived on temporary duty from Washington. “Is Ed in?” he inquired.

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Prosser. He’s been out all morning. May I take a message?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll catch up with him when he gets back.”

  “But while you’re here,” the stenographer added, “there’s a Lebanese-sounding woman holding for you on Line 2. This is the third time she’s called. She won’t give me her name, but she said she spoke to you at home this morning and that you told her to call you at the embassy. Would you like to take the call now?”

  Prosser shook his head. “I don’t have time. Tell her to call back after lunch.”

  As the woman reached for the telephone, it rang again on another line and she picked it up. “Yes, ma’am, I will,” she replied as Prosser turned to leave.

  “The nurse wants a word with you,” she announced, holding the receiver out for Prosser with an impish smile. He scowled and took the receiver.

  “It’s Asma,” she began forcefully. “I just spoke with the hospital. The chief neurosurgeon is concerned that Mr. Lukash may still be at risk of cerebral hemorrhaging from his concussion and wants to see him immediately. Please, Mr. Prosser, I’m calling on you as the responsible person closest to the patient to persuade him to go. The embassy cannot be held responsible if he refuses. In any case, he cannot remain in the chancery any longer in his condition. I will make arrangements for the motor pool to bring a car around for him. May I count on your help?”

  Prosser rolled his eyes and agreed. “Give me a few minutes, Asma. I’ll come down and escort him out.”

  He handed the receiver back to the stenographer and strode past her to his office, where he picked up the telephone once again and dialed. “Harry, it’s Con,” he greeted the consul when it rang through. “Hey, buddy, I need to ask you a favor. I’ve got an American here who needs a plane ticket back to the States fast, but I’d rather the request not come from me. Could you call the travel section and have them make a reservation under the name of William F. Conklin? Tell them he’s a businessman with a dying parent stateside.”

  Prosser nodded as he listened to Harry Landers’s reply.

  “Sure,” Prosser continued, “you can route it through any airport in Western Europe, but the flight has to depart from Beirut today. First class is okay if coach is sold out. All he needs is a reservation. We’ll ticket at the airport.”

  Prosser stopped speaking for a moment to listen.

  “Yes, I realize that, Harry. I’d have asked him to do it himself, except the phone lines to MEA are all tied up and he’s got some medical problems of his own to sort out before he can leave.”

  Prosser hung up the receiver and stepped over to his four-drawer-file safe. He twirled the dial rapidly to the left and right until the tumblers fell into place, then he pushed down on the lever to open the main drawer. Inside was a metal cash box half filled with banded stacks of U.S. and Lebanese banknotes. Prosser found a stack of C-notes and wrapped it in a sheet of copy paper before stuffing it into a trouser pocket and locking the safe. He winked at the stenographer as he breezed past her desk and out into the central corridor. Rather than call the elevator, he took the stairs down to the ground floor.

  Upon entering the dispensary, Prosser found Walter Lukash sitting motionless in a straight-backed office chair with his eyes shut and his palms resting on his knees.

  “Walt, it’s me,” he said softly, placing a hand on Lukash’s shoulder from behind and waiting for his eyes to open. “Ed’s out and we don’t know when he’ll be back. I’ve got the travel section working on your flight, but the nurse won’t let you stay here. The doctors want to see you over at AUB Hospital right away.”

  “Can’t we stall them?” Lukash asked, facing his colleague with an annoyed expression.

  “Not without raising a stink,” Prosser replied firmly. “You’ll just have to cool your heels at the hospital until I have your reservation and come to get you. The nurse has called a car for you. As soon as it’s ready, she’ll be coming back to make sure you don’t skip out.”

  Without waiting for a response, Prosser removed the stack of banknotes from his pocket and wrote out a receipt for Lukash’s signature. Only when it was signed did he hand over the money.

  “Okay, then, here’s what I propose we do,” Lukash answered once the funds were tucked into his waistband and covered by his shirt. “In the interest of keeping the peace, I’ll take the embassy car over to the hospital like a good boy. But I’m going to walk in the front and right out the back. I’ll be waiting for you at the rue Maamari exit in fifteen minutes.
Do you think you can have a flight for me by then?”

  “I have no way of knowing,” Prosser replied impatiently “If I’m not there on time, just hang out somewhere and come back every quarter of an hour till I show up.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Conrad Prosser was back in his office, still on the telephone after repeated attempts to reach Harry Landers.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Prosser,” the consular receptionist repeated. “The consul is in a visa interview. May I have him call you back?”

  “Never mind,” Prosser answered resignedly. “I’ll come down and wait for him. Life always seems to be more interesting down there than it is up here, anyway.”

  He descended the stairs more slowly now, knowing that, at least for the moment, the question of Walter Lukash’s return to Washington was out of his hands. To his surprise, however, upon entering the consular offices, he was waved forward without delay through Harry Landers’s open office door. Inside he found Landers leaning back in his swivel chair, dispensing instructions to an attentive Claudette Hammouche.

  Seeing Prosser approach, the language tutor smiled at him and stepped back from the consul’s desk, signaling her willingness to finish and leave the two men alone. “Hello, Conrad,” she greeted him with a smile. “I’ve missed you lately. Shall we resume your Arabic lessons soon?”

  “Certainly,” Prosser answered with a friendly grin. “Yours is my favorite hour of the day.”

  “Perhaps later in the week, then?” she offered, pleased at his flattery. “My appointment book is downstairs. Come see me when you have finished here and we will find you an opening.”

  Prosser nodded his assent and Claudette turned to leave. “Any luck with getting that seat to Europe today?” he asked Harry as the tutor went out the door.

  The consul winced and held his response until the woman was fully out of earshot. “You can’t be too careful around the locals,” Harry warned in a low voice. “They have ears like bats. Claudette included.” Then he brightened and flashed a wry smile. “Which do you want first: the good news or the bad news?”

  “Give me both barrels at once,” Prosser replied.

  “Well, the bad news is that all westbound seats today are booked. Good news is that they found a seat on the three thirty to Rome in first class. At about three times the coach fare. Do you still want it?”

  “Definitely,” Prosser replied.

  “Okay, I’ll call down and have them book it. I suggest you check in early, or the airline may sell the seat out from under you.”

  “With pleasure. Thanks a bundle, Harry. I owe you one.”

  “More than one,” the consul added tolerantly. “Not that I’m counting.”

  Prosser left the consul’s office, where a queue of local employees was forming outside the door with documents to be signed. Upon reaching the ground floor, he found Claudette Hammouche at a desk in the administration section, where her calendar lay on the desktop awaiting his arrival.

  “I have an opening on Friday at eleven,” she declared upon seeing him approach.

  “I’ll take it. See you at eleven sharp,” he answered cheerily and backed away to leave.

  “Oh, but while you are here, I have a question about the flight the consul requested for you this afternoon. I am helping in the travel section today and—”

  Prosser’s face fell. “The flight’s not for me, Claudette. You should talk to Harry.”

  Claudette smiled knowingly. “Oh, I apologize. I was hoping I might have a faster answer by speaking with you. You see, the first-class seat we booked to Rome a quarter of an hour ago is unavailable and has been downgraded to standby, with a guaranteed seat in coach. Do you think that a coach seat might be acceptable to your…passenger?”

  Prosser was momentarily at a loss for words. “I don’t know, Claudette,” he answered vaguely. I’ll pass it on and have someone get back to you.”

  But instead of letting the matter go, Claudette gave Prosser a penetrating look. “Tell me, Conrad, do you know this American traveler, this William Conklin?”

  Prosser was startled but did his best not to show it. “No, can’t say I do,” he answered with a quizzical smile. “Why, do you?”

  “Perhaps so,” she answered earnestly, “but I canot be certain. The name is one I remember from years ago, before the Events.”

  When Prosser declined to comment, Claudette Hammouche’s face froze into a hard mask.

  * * *

  By the time Prosser reached the dispensary, he found no sign of Lukash. He went next to the embassy’s front entrance and, upon reaching the reception area, caught a glimpse through the open door of his colleague leaving in the company of the nurse and an embassy driver.

  Prosser checked his watch, then waved to the marine guard as he passed through the reception room and waited at the door for the embassy sedan to leave the porte cochere. But as he finally stepped outside and turned toward the Corniche to fetch his Renault, he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end as if he were being watched. He turned around in time to see a grim Claudette Hammouche staring at him through the half-open door at the opposite end of the waiting room.

  Chapter 22

  Walter Lukash crossed the street from the rear door of American University Hospital and walked slowly to the west along rue Maamari. From a block away he spotted Conrad Prosser’s silver Renault. As it approached and slowed to a halt ahead of him, he stepped onto the street between two parked cars just in time for the car’s passenger door to open from inside. Peering into the shaded interior, Lukash was startled to see that the driver was not Prosser, but Ed Pirelli.

  “Hop in, Walt,” the station chief suggested amiably.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Lukash blurted out before taking his seat.

  “Driving you to the airport,” Pirelli replied coolly. “I ran into Connie on the Corniche as he was leaving to pick you up. He said you’re on the three thirty flight to Rome, so I guess we’d better hustle.”

  Pirelli let out the clutch and set off to the east. “I’ve been trying to reach you and Bud for the past twenty-four hours,” the chief added with a troubled glance at his passenger. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “You don’t know? Connie didn’t tell you?” Lukash asked incredulously.

  “All he said was that you came across the Green Line this morning and called him to pick you up when you had car trouble. Oh, and that the two of you ran into some trouble at a roadblock and you got whacked in the head.”

  “Yeah, that’s about right,” Lukash replied warily.

  “Well, I’m glad you made it in one piece, Walt, but right now we have some serious catching up to do. I want to know what the hell has been happening over there between you and Bud and the Phalange. It’s not like either of you to be out of touch for so long. And where are those handheld radios of ours? Did you get them back from the Phalange yet?”

  Lukash drew a blank. “Get them back? We just handed them over. Why would we want them back?”

  “Because I ordered Bud to retrieve them, for God’s sake. Didn’t he tell you?”

  Lukash shook his head. “Haven’t seen Bud in two days. Never got the message.”

  “Shit…Where are the radios now?”

  “Don’t even ask. You really don’t want to know.”

  “It’s not what I want, Walt. It’s what Headquarters and the ambassador want.”

  “Okay, okay,” Lukash replied slowly. “But first let me get this straight: you mean nobody from the Phalange has talked to you about last night?”

  “Goddamnit, Walt, don’t play games with me,” Pirelli snapped. “I’ve been calling everybody I know over at Phalange headquarters and nobody will talk to me. Colonel Faris and Major Elie have disappeared. From the look of this morning’s intercepts, there was some sort of skirmish last night in the Sannine Mountains that got the Phalange pretty riled up, but that’s all I have. Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “I
’m afraid so. I was there. With Elie. And the damned radios.”

  “So where are they?” When Pirelli saw the expression on Lukash’s face, he paled. “Don’t tell me they—”

  “Yes, the Syrians have them, along with the rest of the equipment the Phalange gave to the Syrian Free Officers. We were ambushed out there, Ed. Faris set us up, big-time. He engineered the rendezvous with the Free Officers to plant a couple sleds’ worth of American arms and equipment on them, and then he tipped off Syrian intelligence to ambush them, along with Major Elie and me. An American officer being killed while helping the Phalange arm the Syrian opposition: what better way to goad the Syrians into attacking American interests in Lebanon?”

  “Knowing that Uncle Sam would respond by knocking Syria’s bloody block off,” Pirelli added.

  “Amid loud cheers, no doubt, in the White House and Tel Aviv.”

  “The White House, maybe, but not Headquarters,” Pirelli corrected. “Which explains why Twombley ordered the radios back and would have wanted you recalled so fast.”

  “You mean my recall wasn’t about—?”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” the station chief scoffed. “Twombley couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Lorraine Ellis. Listen, you may be a bad boy from time to time, Walt, but as long as Twombley’s on your side, he can keep your personnel file smelling like a rose. That is, so long as you do the right thing by him.”

  “Which would be…?”

  “Lay the blame for the handoff on Faris. Deny you knew anything at all about the Phalange’s plans to supply the Syrian opposition with our radios or played any role in carrying it out. Can you do that?”

  “It would certainly be convenient,” Lukash answered thoughtfully. “But I’m not so sure I can. It was clear from the start that the Phalange intended to supply the Free Officers. We just didn’t know the colonel would go so far as to give them our best radios—or me. My concern is that no matter how good a story I might come up with, when the lid comes off, the story may not hold up. And if it doesn’t, I expect I’ll be cast as the rogue officer who messed up. While Twombley will doubtless prove that you and he are perfectly clean.”