His absorption in watching the waves was disturbed by two simultaneous bursts of automatic rifle fire coming from less than 150 meters behind him. He looked up in time to see a dark blue sedan careening away from the juice stand, automatic rifles blazing away from three of its open windows with muzzles aimed just over the heads of anyone who might intervene. Within seconds of the car’s getaway, scores of people began to converge around the three figures sprawled on the sidewalk in spreading pools of their own blood. Although it was difficult to see very far through the gathering crowd, he recognized one of the victims by his royal blue exercise suit and the other two by their camouflage fatigues.
The thought suddenly occurred to Prosser that it would be wise to stay clear of the crowd, as the onlookers would soon be joined by armed men from the local PSP, Murabitoun, PLO, and Syrian peacekeeping forces stationed nearby, not to mention the Lebanese gendarmerie. To have so many heavily armed men converging on the same spot so soon after a shooting was likely to make matters even worse. He crossed swiftly to the opposite side of the street just in time to see some of the bystanders lift the inert bodies into a pair of waiting taxis.
After distancing himself from the crowd, Prosser turned off the Corniche and started back up the hill toward the stone stairs that bisected the AUB campus and fed onto rue Bliss. Reaching the top of the stairs with very little breath to spare, he jogged at a slow pace the rest of the way back to his apartment. As he did so, the image of the middle-aged Lebanese man in the blue exercise suit would not leave him.
Although gangland-style assassinations among feuding political factions in Beirut were so commonplace that Prosser had long ago ceased to give them much thought, this was the first time he had ever seen one up close close. He thought of the murdered British journalist, the old man in pajamas stuffed into the Volvo’s trunk, the cast on Husayn al Fayyad’s foot, the rocket attack against the Saudi embassy, the shelling of the Corniche beaches, the car bombs, and now Abu Khalil’s report of a foreign spy being targeted for assassination, and he wondered how long he could remain unharmed by the city’s violence.
Prosser had always taken comfort in the apparent randomness of it all—out of the half million people in Beirut, only a few thousand would be injured or killed by the fighting in any given year. That gave him less than one chance in a hundred of becoming a casualty. Being a foreigner improved the odds, as did speaking Arabic and living in one of the safest buildings of the city. On the other hand, working at the American embassy worsened them, as did being an intelligence officer. Still, he thought to himself, one in a hundred were odds he could live with.
Chapter 13
Prosser climbed the stairs quickly, taking two steps at a time, and then, out of breath, he stopped on the landing to punch the four-button combination of the Simplex lock and enter the embassy communications center. Once inside he tossed his stack of draft cables into the communicator’s in-box and turned to leave. As he reached for the door, the communicator emerged from the radio room.
“Ah, I see you’ve left some goodies for me,” he remarked with an easygoing grin. “Will these be the last before lunch?”
Prosser nodded. “From me it’s the last you’ll see all day. But when Ed gets back from his meetings on the East Side, I expect he’ll have a few messages to send out toward closing time.”
The chief communicator looked displeased. “Why can’t you guys ever finish your writing at a decent hour? Last night Ray had to stay here till nine thirty. There’s no need for that.”
“I suggest you take that up with Ed, habibi. He’s the boss. I only write the stuff.”
“Come on, when you guys bring reports up here at six and seven o’clock, that means Ray and I have to stay here till nine poking them out. Can’t you write some of your reports in the morning once in a while?”
“I wish I could, but my agents don’t exactly keep regular hours. As I said, if you have a problem with that, talk to Ed. That’s why they pay him so much. By the way, you might as well plan on staying late tomorrow night, too. I have an agent meeting at nine thirty. Sorry about that.”
Prosser left the communications vault and rode the elevator down to the consular offices on the first floor, where he asked the Lebanese receptionist at the immigration counter whether Harry Landers was free. Hers was a face Prosser was certain he had not seen before. She was a pretty girl of about twenty or twenty-one, with a classic Lebanese profile, milk-white complexion, lustrous black hair cut to shoulder length, and a graceful, slender figure. Her simple but modish dress showed rather more taste than most of her overdressed colleagues, and when her eyes met his he sensed that she was also more spirited and intelligent than the giggly, overprotected girls from wealthy Lebanese families who usually found employment in the embassy. He made a mental note to ask Harry about her as she excused herself to determine whether the vice consul was free. She returned half a minute later with word that he would see Prosser right away.
He reached Harry’s door just as an elderly Lebanese couple was leaving the office. The old woman clutched her passport tightly to her breast with both hands, as if she were expecting someone to wrest it away from her at any moment. Her husband, a stick figure who seemed to have shrunk inside his dark blue serge suit, held her arm to escort her toward the lobby while casting a blissful look skyward as if his fondest prayers had just been answered. Prosser deduced that they had just been given immigrant visas. He stepped aside to let them pass and then knocked on the half-open door.
“Where have you been keeping yourself, Harry? It’s been days.”
Prosser rarely visited the consular offices and, when he did, it was usually because he wanted information. Not only did the consular files contain the visa applications, complete with photographs, of tens of thousands of Lebanese and third-country visa applicants, but the consular interpreters possessed encyclopedic knowledge of every political, religious, and cultural subgroup in Lebanon. Frequently the consulate picked up fast-breaking local news long before the political section or the ambassador’s office. In return for this information, Harry and the consul relied on Prosser and Pirelli to perform name checks, using the Agency’s vast computerized filing system, for all of the consular section’s immigrant visa applicants and for any nonimmigrant visa applicants who appeared suspicious.
“I meant to talk to you at the game on Saturday, Con, but with all the excitement I got sidetracked,” Harry said. “Now that it’s summer, the visa business has been murder. It seems like every Leb and his uncle wants to travel to the States by the end of June. Do you suppose they know something we don’t?”
“Possible, but not likely. It’s hardly a secret that the fighting around here peaks during the summer. You can’t blame the Lebs for wanting to keep their wives and kids out of harm’s way during the school holidays.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what my secretary keeps telling me. But after hearing the thousandth applicant insist that all he wants to do is visit Monde du Disney, it’s hard not to get a bit skeptical.”
Prosser seated himself on a chair across from Harry’s desk. “Listen, I don’t want to take up much of your time, Harry, but I have a few names I’d like you to run through your visa refusal files. Can you do it?”
Harry glanced at his watch. “Sure, what the hell. We’ve had a relatively light load this morning compared to what we geared up for. Should I have one of the girls look up the names, or is it something you’d like me to handle personally?”
“There’s no problem with letting the locals handle it. Just do me a favor and write the names and biographic data in your own handwriting. Then wait fifteen or twenty minutes before you give the names to them so that they won’t assume right away that I’m the one who’s asking. You know the routine. What I’m looking for here is home addresses, telephone numbers, employers, references, and any other information you might be able to get from their applications. If you get a hit on any of the names, just give me a photocopy of the application and any suppo
rting documents. I’ll take it from there.”
“Sure thing,” Harry replied. “I’ll bring the information up myself. It’ll give me an excuse to escape this nuthouse for a while.”
“Thanks, Harry; you’re a pal.” Prosser leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “So what else is going on with you these days,? Did you do anything new and exciting this weekend? No more off-limits exploring, I hope.”
“As a matter of fact, I drove down to Sidon yesterday for lunch. For months I’ve been itching to tour the Sea Castle. Sidon’s still a fascinating town, Con. When you enter the souk, you feel like you’re walking right back into the Middle Ages. You’d love it. And the beaches are fantastic: beautiful white sand, palm trees, and hardly a soul around. Not a bit like the overcrowded, polluted, rocky shitholes that pass for beaches up here.”
“As long as you don’t mind barbed wire and landmines.”
“Well, there weren’t any where we went. The beach where we swam was as safe as anything you’d find in Beirut or Jouniyé—probably safer. A Fatah captain runs it, and he won’t stand for any nonsense from the shabab that might drive customers away.”
“How was the Sea Castle? Were you able to get in?”
“It’s a controlled area now. I think the PLO has installed antiaircraft guns or SAM missiles or something like that. Damned shame. They wouldn’t even let us out on the causeway.”
“How did you get as far as Sidon in the first place? The last I heard, the ambassador wouldn’t let anybody set foot farther south than Khaldé. Wasn’t the consul’s car stoned near one of the refugee camps down there last year?”
“Not exactly. It was the DCM’s car, with the consul riding in it. The refugees took one look at that big black nasty Imperial with the American flag flying from the bumper and assumed it had to be Reagan himself. They weren’t about to let an opportunity like that slip between their fingers, so they let loose with every brick and stone they could lay their hands on. At least I have sense enough not to enter Fatah-land in a dip-plated car.”
“So what car did you use? A taxi?”
“Give me a little credit, will you? I rode down with one of our interpreters. She has a room down the street at the Charles Hotel and visits her parents in Sidon once a month. She invited me to her family’s house for their big Sunday dinner, no doubt to butter me up for something that hasn’t been sprung on me yet. Afterward she introduced me to twenty or so of her relatives. As I expected, they all hit me up for visas before the day was out. But apart from that I’m sure you would have enjoyed it.”
“I would have. If you take another trip down there, keep me in mind. I love scouting up new contacts in the provinces.”
“I’ll bet you do, Con, although it’s not just political contacts you’re after, I suspect. I saw you hustling Husayn al Fayyad’s sister the other night at the Pagoda. And, speaking of new contacts, have you noticed our new talent right here in the consular section? Personnel gave us three new girls last week to fill our secretarial openings. Two are out on the visa line learning to interpret for visa interviews, and one of them just escorted you in here. What do you think?”
“She’s a good-looking girl.”
“Her name is Ghada. She just graduated from AUB and moved into a room at one of the women’s residential hotels near the Charles. Her family is from some village up in the mountains along the Damascus Highway.”
“She looks like a live one. Too bad she’s so young. I don’t think I’d know what to do with her.”
“I’ll bet,” Harry replied with a leer. “I’ve watched you since you broke up with Ulla. You must go through two or three women a month.”
“I didn’t realize anyone was keeping score.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s hard not noticing things from time to time. Take Ulla, for instance. She’s a knockout, Con, but I never saw her as your type. Too quiet, if you ask me, and too much the clinging vine.”
“And what is my type, Harry, if I may be so bold?”
“Younger, definitely younger. Very bright—bordering on intellectual, but not too much the egghead. And, for lack of a better word, rambunctious. Exactly like Husayn al Fayyad’s sister,. She wouldn’t happen to be the next in line, would she?”
“I couldn’t really say, old sport. But thanks for the word of advice, all the same.”
“Variety is the spice, amigo.”
Harry got up from his desk to show Prosser to the door, but as he did a sudden inspiration seemed to take hold of him.
“Say, Con, before you leave, take a look at this.” Harry handed his guest an official-looking certificate with an assortment of seals and stamps across its bottom that resembled in every respect a Lebanese Sûreté Générale certificate of good conduct. When Prosser finished inspecting it, Harry looked up with an amused expression on his face.
“It’s bogus, isn’t it? Where did you find it?” Prosser inquired.
“There’s a punk sitting right outside who palmed it off on me to try to get an immigrant visa. His brother went to California illegally ten years ago and adjusted his status in L.A. Now he’s sending for his little brother, but the trouble is that our boy is about to run afoul of Section 212(a)(19) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. Come on, stay a minute and watch.”
Harry picked up the telephone and told his secretary to bring in the immigration applicant. She brought in a slender youth of about twenty with dark eyes, closely cropped hair, sparse black mustache, and the trace of a smirk on his lips. He wore a forest green polo shirt and pressed jeans; there was something about him that Prosser found oddly familiar.
“Welcome and good morning,” Harry greeted the young man. He pointed to the wooden straight-backed chair to the left of where Prosser was seated and invited the youth to sit down. “How are you feeling this morning, Rami?”
“I am very well, praise Allah,” he answered confidently in an accent that Prosser had come to recognize as Palestinian rather than Lebanese. “How are you, Mr. Harry?”
“Oh, I’m just fine, too,” Harry answered in a tone that bordered on patronizing. “Rami, I’d like you to meet my colleague, Mr. Prosser. He’s reviewing a few immigrant visa applications with me this morning.”
“Good morning,” the young man greeted Prosser.
Rami’s smile faded momentarily, and Prosser wondered if the young man did not recognize him, too, from some earlier acquaintance. Prosser ran quickly through a list of possible occasions for such a meeting, but remained at a loss to place the youth’s face.
“The reason I called you here this morning,” Harry went on, “is that I forgot to ask you a few questions the last time you were here. Now, these are routine questions that we’re required to go through as a matter of record. You don’t mind answering a few more, do you?”
“Maalesh, you may ask and I will answer,” the youth replied.
“Good,” Harry continued, glancing at Prosser as he prepared to begin his interrogation. “First, may I ask whether you have ever applied for an American visa before?”
“As I have told you before, no.”
“You never applied for any kind of visa to America before, not even a tourist visa or a student visa?”
Rami shook his head slowly and deliberately. “No, this is the first time.”
“Okay, then, Rami. Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a major crime in Lebanon? You know what I mean: have the police ever arrested you and put you in jail?”
The youth’s eyes narrowed. “I was never in jail. Me…never.”
“You never even went to the police station?”
“Never once.”
Harry leaned back and smiled. “But surely, Rami, you must have gone to the police station to get this police certificate, didn’t you?” He held up the police certificate.
“I did not go to the police station. My brother got the paper for me.”
“He got it from the police?”
“Yes. It says I never did anything wrong here.
You can read what it says.”
Harry propped his elbows up on the desk and leaned over to look the young man squarely in the face. “You say it and this paper says it, Rami, but I know and you know that it’s a lie. This paper is not from the police. Your brother Khalid bought it in the souk, didn’t he?”
Rami turned pale and became absolutely still.
“Rami, I want you to tell me where you and your brother got this piece of paper, and I want the name of the person who sold it to you and how much you paid him.”
“I do not know what you are talking about. Khalid took the paper from the Raouché police station. If you want a different paper, I will get a different one!”
Harry leaned back and folded his hands across his stomach, looking calmly across the desk at the young man, whose forehead and nose were breaking out in tiny beads of perspiration.
“Let’s not waste our time, Rami. The problem here is that you don’t have a police certificate, at least not anymore.” The vice consul tore it slowly in half, then in quarters, then in eighths, and dropped it into his wastepaper basket with a theatrical flourish. “Face it, without a new police certificate, you can’t go to the United States. Not now, not ever. If you tell me who sold that one to you, and you write it all on a sheet of paper and sign it, then maybe we can start all over again and I might be in a position to help you. But if you keep denying what’s been done, then I’m sorry to say you may never get to visit America. Ever. Is that clear?”
An expression of utter panic seized the young man’s face when Harry destroyed the police certificate. Rami looked at Harry, then at the wastebasket, and then at Prosser, his mouth agape. “But you cannot do this! You cannot destroy my papers! It is forbidden for the consul to destroy papers!”
“You are missing the point, Rami. I just did it. The document was no good, so I tore it up. Now, if you want me to help you out of the mess you’ve put yourself in, then go outside into the waiting room and write down exactly how you obtained the paper. You can give what you write to my secretary and she will translate it into English. Then I’ll read it and see what we should do next. But, Rami, without a written statement from you, I can do nothing more here.”
Dynamite Fishermen (Beriut Trilogy 1) Page 14
