They Came to Kill at-15

by Dick Stivers

  "The freedom fighters have you Americans shaking," she said as she shrugged off her coat and let it slide to the floor. She wore a snug sweater, jeans and tennis shoes. A Nikon with a zoom lens hung around her neck. Around her waist she wore a web belt with several pouches. By touch, he found her identification, then her film, a flash unit, another lens and various accessories. He threw her Canadian passport and papers on the couch.

  "That military gear could get you killed," he told her.

  "I'm a journalist. All sides respect my neutrality."

  "Dream on, mademoiselle." Powell sight-checked her. Her tight jeans concealed nothing. He jammed his fingers in the back of her waistband. He found only the sheer synthetic of her underwear. She recoiled from his touch. Then he patted her armpits, and in the instant before she twisted away, felt the undersides of her breasts.

  "Don't touch me like..." she sneered.

  "What do you have in your bra?"

  "You pig! You Americans..."

  "What is it? Take it out!" Powell shouted.

  Turning away, she put her hands under her sweater. Powell jerked her around to face him. Defiant, she pulled up her sweater, exposing the white flow of her abdomen, then her bra.

  She pulled a disc of foam out of one brassiere cup. The foam had been cut to conceal a microcassette recorder. She passed it to him. He threw it on the couch, then reached into the other side of her bra and pulled out the other pad. It had a few U.S. hundred dollar bills, traveler's checks and a thousand-franc note in a plastic envelope.

  "I have never been searched like this before! Never!" she said, her voice shaking with anger.

  "You never came here before." He snatched the hat off her head, and her black, lustrous hair fell to her shoulders. He found nothing inside her hat.

  "Sit down there," he told her, pointing to a chair across the room. The search over, he took a moment to look at her, enjoying the fine-boned features of her face, the white flow of her throat. He remembered the warmth of her body against his hands and smiled.

  She sat in the chair and stared back contemptuously. He sat on the couch several steps away. Setting the safety on his Colt, he placed the gun on the coffee table in front of him. Then he picked up the micro-cassette recorder. He watched the reels turning for a moment. Grinning to her, he popped out the cassette and put it in his pocket.

  "Now you're a thief!" she cried.

  Powell laughed. He flipped open her passport. He verified her name and nationality, then read the entry and exit stamps. In the year since the passport had been issued, she had traveled first to El Salvador, then Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, then to Nicaragua several times, then to France, West Germany, East Germany, Italy, Syria, and finally to Lebanon. He sailed the passport and papers back to her.

  "You do get around."

  "It is my work."

  "For what newspaper?"

  "I am a free-lance journalist. I came to talk about Rouhani and the murder of the CIA agent."

  "How'd you get that photo?"

  "We will exchange information?"

  "Depends."

  "On what does it depend?"

  "What you want to know and what I want to tell you." He opened up her note pad and leafed through it. She wrote in French, a precise typewriterlike printing of words and symbols and abbreviated names. He skimmed her notes, recognizing many of the names and places. As he read her quotes and observations, he talked to gain time. "Got your own personal shorthand. What's it say?"

  "Don't you speak or read French? It is the most important language here! The first language of the educated people."

  "I'm just a Texas kid." He read that Sayed Ahamed had told her he knew nothing of American operations in Beirut or Lebanon, that he knew nothing of the ambush of the American agent, but that he hoped all foreign imperialists suffered the same fate. Powell continued jiving the Canadian journalist. "Only French I ever heard was Louisiana Creole. And sometimes that crazy Creole you Cuebek-cuystalk."

  "Quebecois!" she pronounced. "Mr. Powell, I didn't come here to do a biographical sketch of the quintessential American intelligence agent. I want to talk to you about the assassination two nights ago of George Clayton, your superior officer."

  He looked up from reading her notes. "Who's this? When?"

  She ignored his questions. "My sources told me the late Mr. Clayton intended to follow First Secretary Baesho to a meeting with Rouhani and to photograph the other representatives of the peoples' revolutionary forces who attended the meeting. What does the Agency believe went wrong?"

  "Look, honey, if I were with the CIA, I couldn't answer those questions, but I'm not, so I don't even know what you're talking about. But that Iranian you talked about, I'm interested in him. Did he have something to do with murdering that American?"

  "If you're not with the Agency, why do you care?"

  " 'Cause I hate those raghead motherfuckers! I'm AWOL, but I'm still a Marine, and I got one heavy payback to deliver."

  "It's a personal crusade, this payback? My sources said you were a Marine. That is, before you joined the Central Intelligence Agency."

  "I'm no agent. I tell you, I wouldn't work for those jackoffs, they're just too much stupid."

  "You say you're absent without leave from the United States Marine Corps. What are you doing in Beirut?"

  "Can't go home, you know. Unless I want to go to prison."

  "You're wearing the uniform of the Amal militia. Are you now serving with the Shia forces?"

  "Gotta work. No welfare here, not for American Marines on the run. But I don't want to talk about me. I want to know about that there Iranian. Where'd you take that picture? And who's the other dude?"

  "There's more photos in my notebook. In the back. They are difficult to find."

  Powell flipped open the notebook and folded back the cover. In his hurry to read her notes, he had missed a slit in the vinyl of the notebook. The woman had concealed several photos between the vinyl and the cardboard of the cover.

  "There. Look through all the photos. I believe you'll speak with me now. I want the story of the killing. And you want the killers."

  Taken from the roof of a building, looking down at the street, the first grainy photo showed a limousine followed by a panel truck. The next photo showed the panel truck and a Fiat in the center of the block. The third photo caught the flashes of rifles and the long flame of a rocket. The next photos showed the explosions and flaming hulks. Powell finally looked up to the young woman.

  "Who took these pictures?" he asked.

  "I did."

  "You were waiting for it to happen?"

  "I wasn't told what would happen. I was told to wait and watch. I was told it would be a diplomatic meeting."

  "Who told you?"

  "You want to meet him?"

  "Who is he?"

  "He wants to speak with you. He is also an American. He did not know what would happen that night until it occurred. He realizes that the killing of Clayton now jeopardizes his life."

  "I asked, who is he?"

  "You want to meet him? I'll take you to him."

  Powell holstered his Colt. "Let's go," he said.

  7

  In the front seat of the parked taxi, Carl Lyons sipped sweet French coffee flavored with nutmeg and vanilla. He watched the street and the apartment house while he savored the warm spicy drink. His eyes were always searching, flicking from the apartment entry to the balconies and rooftops overlooking the street, then scanning the sidewalks and doorways before returning to the street door. Sometimes he glanced at the rearview mirror.

  The neighborhood appeared deserted. No cars moved on the street. Debris from rocket strikes — glass, concrete, pieces of furniture — littered the asphalt. Wads of bloody bandages on the sidewalk marked the site of the tragedies and suffering during the night.

  Lyons glanced at his watch. Six-thirty in the morning. The start of the morning traffic rush. Fifteen minutes had passed since the young woman arrived
in a taxi and then entered the agent's apartment house. Five minutes since Lyons poured his third cup of spiced coffee.

  Three hours before, Able Team had flown from Cyprus via private plane. Now, with cameras and tape recorders as props for their roles as American journalists, they waited outside the apartment of the renegade CIA agent, Lyons and Blancanales watching from the taxi, Gadgets maintaining electronic surveillance from the rooftop.

  The taxi driver — Pierre, a Phalangist agent provided by the Agency — slept over the steering wheel, snoring. He shifted in the seat, then opened his eyes and glanced around. He returned to sleep. Blancanales slept in the back seat. He would take the next surveillance shift.

  An electronic buzz started the driver awake. Lyons set down his coffee. Gadgets's voice came to them through the encoding circuits of the hand radios Lyons and Blancanales carried.

  "He's coming down. That girl's with him."

  "You got a mike on them yet?"

  "On his car. I'm up on the roof now. I'll go into his apartment while you're following them."

  "See you later."

  Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. Designed and manufactured to the specifications of the National Security Agency, their hand radios employed encoding circuits to scramble every transmission, to decode every message received. Without one of the three radios Able Team carried, a technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

  "Hey, Pol, wake up," Lyons said to his partner.

  "I'm awake. I'll stay down until we're moving. You see him?"

  In the back seat, Blancanales turned on a VHF receiver-recorder unit. The radio received the transmissions from the miniature microphones placed by Gadgets and recorded the monitored conversations.

  "No problem," Lyons told him. "We'll watch him for a while. Watch and listen. Got anything yet?"

  Blancanales turned up the volume of the monitor. The tiny speaker issued static and the sounds of distant voices and a clanging metal gate. Footsteps echoed in a garage.

  "But we cannot take him," Pierre protested. "One way, other way, the girl is a problem. A witness. It would be better if no one knew."

  "We have time," Blancanales answered. "The Agency wants information. We'll get some."

  "Then we'll get the man," Lyons added.

  They heard distinct voices and footsteps. As they listened, car doors opened and closed. Then they heard the voice of the agent.

  "...understand, it's not that I don't trust you, mademoiselle, it's just that I don't know what to expect. So pardon me if I take a little look-see around his place before we go waltzing in."

  "That's your prerogative."

  As the car's engine started, as the voices continued, Lyons turned to Blancanales. "I've heard that voice before! This Powell guy, you think — remember that Marine out at Twenty-Nine Palms that time? The captain who spoke all those languages? Reminds me of him."

  "There was nothing in the background dossier about that," Blancanales said.

  Lyons listened to the agent making conversation with the woman. "Wow, maybe it is. And I thought that Marine was a stand-up fellow."

  A battered black Mercedes left the apartment building's underground garage. Pierre waited a few seconds, then started the engine and put the taxi in gear. As he followed the Mercedes, he glanced to the two Americans and said, "Yes, this Powell was a Marine. Before he worked for the CIA. Before he betrayed us and joined the Communists. Very strange, isn't it?"

  Lyons and Blancanales exchanged glances. After a moment Lyons finally agreed. "Yeah, strange."

  * * *

  "Who is it we're going to meet?" Powell asked her as they drove through the cold gray streets. "How 'bout breaking down and telling me his name?"

  "I will introduce you when you meet."

  On the boulevards, they had finally encountered traffic. An hour of quiet had persuaded the citizens of Beirut to brave the streets. Now, bumper-to-bumper lines of Mercedes sedans, Fiats and rusting Cadillacs wove through the rubble of collapsed buildings. Hulks of burned cars and trucks lined streets devastated by shellfire. At an intersection Powell wove his Mercedes through a jam of ambulances, medics and work crews digging through a pile of broken concrete that had been an apartment house.

  Powell glanced out his window and laughed. He pointed. "There's someone who's taking their share of the spoils."

  "What?" Desmarais asked. She couldn't see what he meant.

  "That dog... there!" Powell pointed in front of the car. "Think I could get rich, marketing that brand of dog food? Export Beirut's number-one product."

  The young woman leaned forward. Finally she saw, and gasped.

  A dog ran through the traffic with an arm in its teeth. Severed below the elbow, the hand and forearm trailed a ragged strip of skin and tendons. The hand still had rings and nail polish.

  "Take a picture!" Powell told her. She turned away. Powell leaned across the seat and grabbed her Nikon. "Come on, take one! That'll look great on a front page. 'Beirut Goes to the Dogs, Piece by Piece.' "

  A Kalashnikov popped. As Powell idled past, a militiaman kicked the dead dog. He picked up the arm and stripped off the rings, then dropped the arm beside the dog.

  "So what do you think of Beirut, Mademoiselle Desmarais?" Powell joked.

  "Are you proud, American? Do you not feel even the slightest shame for what your country has done to the Lebanese? The rape of their country, their traditions? You and your Israeli friends?"

  "Bitch! Shut up! I read history books. All this started a long time before there was even a U.S. of A. Before Columbus. Before..."

  "Oh, you can read?"

  Turning onto a side street, Powell slowed for a moment as he buttoned his overcoat to conceal his uniform, then he accelerated. After two more turns, he snaked through an unmanned roadblock of oil drums and sandbags. He stopped at a second roadblock and rolled down his window.

  Militiamen in mismatched uniforms and weapons approached the Mercedes. As one watched the interior of the car, another took the plastic-sealed pass Powell offered. Other militiamen — teenagers in jeans and leather coats and stained Lebanese army coats — stood back several steps, casually gripping their Kalashnikov and M-16 rifles.

  A Shia officer who knew Powell waved and called out in Arabic. Powell ignored his friend's greeting. Confused, the officer leaned down to look at the face of the bearded, shaggy-haired American.

  Powell spoke loudly. "Don't want no problems, Commander. Just taking my girlfriend on a tour of the Casbah."

  A militiaman translated for the officer. Understanding, the Shia grinned and nodded. He said in broken English, "Very good, sir. Very good. Have good day. Hello."

  Powell accelerated away.

  * * *

  As the taxi slowed to a stop at the roadblock, Lyons watched the Mercedes disappear around a corner. The voices of Powell and the woman faded as Blancanales turned down the monitor volume and covered the receiver-recorder with a camera-equipment case. Militiamen surrounded the car and looked inside.

  "Journalists," the Phalangist driver called out.

  The officer pointed at the taxi driver and gave him an order in Arabic. The driver waved his pass. Militiamen jerked open the door and dragged out the driver.

  An AK muzzle tapped Lyons's window. A militiaman shouted, "Out! Get out!"

  Explosions blasted away the shouts. Militiamen ran for cover, but the officer and two men still held the driver. American dollars appeared in the taxi driver's hand. Waving the money, he stood up. The officer returned the pass and took the handful of twenties. The three men waved the driver on, then coolly walked to the shelter of their sandbag emplacement.

  As bits of concrete rained down, Pierre threw the taxi into gear and sped away, skidding around a corner, then weaving wildly through pedestrians running for cover. Lyons could not see the Mercedes, but Powell's voice returned as Blancanales turned up the receiver.

  "Sounds like one-twenty mort
ars. Maybe two gangs banging at each other — hear that? That's the tube pop, but if they're the ones targeting the Green Line, they're firing way, way short. If they're trying to kill Christians. But then again, maybe it's Muslims fighting Muslims. Who knows?"

  The woman's voice answered. "A profound analysis, Mr. Powell."

  Blancanales switched on another receiver. An electronic tone wavered.

  "What is that?" the taxi driver asked.

  "It's the signal from a directional transmitter. Follow it and you'll find our man."

  "You Americans!" the Lebanese marveled. "You have everything. Very modern. That is why your country is so rich. We want to be just like you."

  Lyons looked around to the devastated streets, at the civilians cowering in doorways, at the militiamen waving rifles and RPG launchers. A Japanese pickup truck fitted with a Soviet 12.7mm heavy machine gun sped past. Weathered posters of Khomeini fluttered on the doors.

  Lyons turned to the Lebanese taxi driver. "I think there's more to it than gizmos."

  "Very modern and Christian. The world's most powerful nation. United by faith in Our Lord and Savior. When we liquidate all these filthy Mohammedans, we will also have modern nation, then we can prosper as the Lord intended for his Faithful..."

  "Hey! Quiet!" Blancanales interrupted the discussion of culture and economics. "She's giving him directions..."

  * * *

  Speeding past the address, Powell scanned the rooflines and windows. He continued to the next street and wheeled a quick right, then a left. He went around the block and approached the tenement from the opposite direction. One block short, he slowed to a stop. Again he scanned the rooftops and windows and doorways for an ambush.

  "Why would I lead you into a trap?" Desmarais demanded.

  "To get me wasted."

  In the distance, the mortar exchange continued against a background of hammering heavy automatic weapons. Sirens screamed through the center of the city. But on this street, only a few blocks from the squalor of the Sabra refugee camp, workers went to their jobs. Shopkeepers stood in their doorways listening to the outbreak of fighting a few kilometers away. Then they resumed placing their furniture and cloth and dishes in sidewalk displays. Other vendors continued putting out baskets of fruit and vegetables. Powell saw nothing indicating a trap.