Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Thriller; Fiction; Espionage; War
Description: The second book in the Beirut Trilogy, Bride of a Bygone War is set in the spring of 1982, when Lebanon hopes for fresh political winds that might end its seven-year civil war. Enter Walter Lukash, a midlevel CIA officer assigned as intelligence liaison to the Phalange militia. Lukash soon becomes a pawn in a Levantine game intended to draw the U.S. into conflict with Lebanon’s Syrian occupiers. Unfortunately, Lukash is too distracted by problems arising from having abandoned his Lebanese bride five years earlier to see the trap until it springs. Beirut, 1982. Walter Lukash, a journeyman CIA c
Publisher: PF Publishing
Rights: Copyright &#169; 2013 by Preston Fleming

Bride of a Bygone War

A Novel

Preston Fleming

PF Publishing, Boston

This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Preston Fleming

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

PF Publishing, Boston, MA

www.prestonfleming.com

ISBN-10: 0-982-95947-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-98295-947-3

Part I

Chapter 1

Conrad Prosser picked out the pale yellow point of light just above the horizon to the left of the rising crescent moon. He leaned forward, all of his attention concentrated upon the light, until his nose pressed against the windshield and clouded the glass. “It’s coming. I see it. There, at two o’clock.”

“The hell it is,” Bud Strickland replied. “That’s Venus. It’s too bright for an aircraft. Besides, it ain’t moving.”

“Of course it’s moving. I saw it do a little dip a minute ago. Then it drifted a bit from left to right.”

“That’s just an optical illusion,” Strickland insisted, his Tennessee drawl dragging out the long vowel of the last word. “Anything in the distance will seem to move if you stare at it long enough. Face it, old fella. It’s twenty minutes past sundown, and the flight is an hour and a half late. Our man ain’t coming.”

“He’ll be here. Amman is less than an hour away, for heaven’s sake. They’d send out a spare plane from Beirut if it came to that. The Lebanese need the money too badly to cancel a flight.”

Strickland gave a knowing shake of the head. “Emile says the airport won’t handle passenger flights after dark anymore. The only night flights that arrive these days are cargo flights. What do you say we check one more time at the arrivals counter and call it a night?”

“In a minute, Bud, in a minute. First, let’s watch this baby land. Something tells me it’s the one we’re waiting for.”

“There’s a fifty-Leb note in my back pocket says the damned thing isn’t man-made.”

“Double it and you’re on.” Prosser held out his hand, which was large and square and attached to a thickly muscled wrist.

Strickland gave it a perfunctory shake and then returned to twisting the dial of the AM car radio. Like all embassy vehicles, the American-made station wagon was a rock-bottom, no-frills model, and the radio was anything but high-fidelity. Strickland twirled the dial until at last he found a clean signal and then snorted loudly in disgust. It was the evening news, in Arabic.

“Can you understand all that mumbo-jumbo?” Strickland asked.

Prosser laughed. “The U.S. government kept me on full salary for nearly two years to learn that mumbo-jumbo. What you’re hearing now is the Voice of Palestine, covering Chairman Arafat’s return from his meetings with his brotherly Arab leaders in North Africa. According to the report, he delivered an important—scratch that, historic—communiqué on behalf of the revolutionary leadership concerning the need for solidarity and steadfastness in the face of the Zionist and Imperialist enemies. There’s more, but I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you in case you planned to read about it in the morning papers.”

Strickland flipped the dial again but found nothing but news: four broadcasts in Arabic and one in French. He switched off the radio and lit up a Marlboro, far and away the number one brand on both sides of the Green Line.

“You do know what he looks like, don’t you?” Strickland asked absently, gazing through the windshield at what he was sure was the second planet.

“Lukash?” Prosser answered after a long pause. “I’ll recognize him all right. My first week in Jeddah, I did the jerk a favor and nearly lost my job over it.”

Strickland raised an eyebrow. “What did you give him, the cipher tapes?”

“A passport, slightly used. One of Lukash’s agents had to leave the kingdom in a hurry and asked him to help get the man’s girlfriend out. Since I worked mornings at the visa counter, Lukash asked me if I could dig one up for her to use.”

Strickland let out a low whistle.

“No, it wasn’t an American passport,” Prosser said. “I’m not that big a fool. I found him a nice little Italian job, complete with Saudi exit visa and a freshly minted U.S. tourist visa. The year of birth, physical ID, and photo were all quite close to what he needed. I heard later that his gal made it past Saudi and Italian passport controls without anyone giving her a second look. So I held up my end of the bargain.”

“Then why the flap?”

“The next day, when I tried to reach Lukash and couldn’t, I was dumb enough to ask the deputy chief whether Lukash’s exfiltration arrived safely in Rome. It never occurred to me that Lukash hadn’t cleared the operation with the front office. For a while it looked like we were going to have to brief the ambassador and have U.S. Immigration put the passport on their watch list. In the end it didn’t come to that, thank God. The chief of station managed to sweep the whole affair under the rug.”

Strickland’s eyes betrayed his disbelief.

Prosser sighed. “The thing was, this particular woman could have raised an enormous stink for us if the Saudis had pulled her in. Enough to get half the station kicked out of the kingdom. I think Lukash honestly believed he was doing the right thing in getting her out of country fast, even if it meant not waiting for approvals. But both of us still got letters of reprimand for it.”

“Hell, Con, seems to me you got off easy. If one of our techs did something like that, he’d be processed out of the Agency within twenty-four hours. What were you planning to do if the real passport holder showed up? Tell her the dog ate it?”

“Oh, she showed up all right,” Prosser answered with a dreamy, distant look, as if he were reliving the incident in his mind. “The signora presented her numbered chit at the desk, and our Pakistani file clerk gave her his typical runaround, bless his soul. I kept my distance until he had time to wear her down a bit. When she finally demanded to see an American, I stepped forward with a song and dance about her passport being accidentally shredded with the classified trash. Of course, I apologized profusely and promised to intervene with the Italian embassy to get her a new passport and with the Saudi interior ministry to get her a new exit visa. And after some wailing and moaning, she accepted the offer.

“But the consul wasn’t as easily convinced. He never challenged me on it, but from then on, he kept all the unclaimed foreign passports in the four-drawer safe in his office. Jack had an uncanny instinct for spotting bullshit. Even mine. I imagine it comes from all those years of being lied to by visa applicants.”

“Not to mention several generations of junior intel officers under consular cover,” Strickland added.

“I beg your pardon,” Prosser protested. “Didn’t they teach you right from wrong at the Farm? There’s nothing wrong with lying for your country. It does you good. Ask anyone at Headquarters.”

“Jesus Christ, the damned thing has grown,” Strickland interrupted, his gaze fixed on a yellowish disc to the left of the moon.

Prosser saw it, too, and broke into a self-satisfied grin. “What did I tell you, Bud? Middle East Airlines 434 on its final approach from Amman.”

Strickland pulled out his wallet and slapped a hundred-lira note onto the dashboard with a sulking grunt.

Prosser stuffed the note into his trouser pocket and let his thoughts move on to other things. In a few minutes he would be responsible for conveying Walter Lukash safely to the American embassy. As it happened, Lukash’s arrival had occupied his thoughts for most of the day. Nearly two years after the passport episode, he still resented Lukash for having taken unfair advantage of his inexperience. He had hardly known the man when the favor had been asked, yet Lukash had been able to persuade him to suspend his natural caution and good judgment. Such talent for inspiring the confidence of mere acquaintances doubtless accounted for Lukash’s unusual success at recruiting agents. In Delhi, Jeddah, and Amman, Lukash was said to have recruited a slew of them, all solid reporters.

“You stay here,” Prosser said. “I’ll meet our man at the gate and walk him through customs. The ambassador wants to see him the moment we get in.”

“You may need this.” Strickland held out a thin, wallet-like airport pass, backed with forest-green kidskin, embossed with the Lebanese interior ministry’s seal. Inside, Strickland’s name was carefully inscribed by hand in Arabic and French, and his photo was fastened at diagonal corners with two brass grommets to prevent substitutions.

“No, you keep it,” Prosser replied. “Just in case you have to come in to get me. This one is all I’ll need.”

He pulled his diplomatic identity card from the inside breast pocket of his suit. It had an identical green leather backing with a Ministry of Foreign Affairs seal that seemed all but indistinguishable from the Ministry of the Interior seal on Strickland’s pass.

The yellowish light remained suspended like a parachute flare over the Mediterranean, and then it slowly divided into two distinct landing lights as the aircraft began its final descent. Prosser and Strickland remained inside the station wagon, watching the twin beams alternately hover and drift back down to earth.

After a few minutes Strickland broke the silence. “Does Lukash know you’re the one sent to meet him?”

“I don’t see how he could. But what’s the difference? The passport episode is ancient history. Lukash has a short memory; he only cares about what’s happening to himself today—here and now. If ever there was a guy who never looks back, it’s him.”

* * *

Twenty-five minutes later Strickland was still twisting the radio dial in search of a language he understood. A handful of Lebanese passengers with luggage had begun to trickle out of the arrivals gate, but the bulk of the passengers aboard MEA 434—if indeed that was the flight—were still awaiting clearance from passport control and customs.

Strickland gave another glance at the terminal and saw a tall, broad-shouldered foreigner of about thirty-five step over the curb surrounding the diplomatic parking zone. The stranger wore a black turtleneck under a camel’s hair jacket, and his closely cropped black hair was brushed back in a style favored lately in Frankfurt and Berlin. The stranger stopped a good three or four meters from the station wagon and dropped an expensive-looking leather carry-on and matching garment bag onto the pavement.

“American embassy?” he inquired with a confident smile that presumed the outcome. “Not that anyone else would drive a full-sized Chevy wagon in a country with a chronic gasoline shortage.”

Strickland stepped out and offered the newcomer his hand. “Bud Strickland. Good to see you. Tell me, were you really on the flight from Amman?”

Lukash smiled. It was a forthright, all-American-boy kind of smile that made Strickland think of sandlot baseball, teamwork, and fair play. But at the same time, Lukash’s broken nose and the inch-long scar above his right eye left the impression that he preferred contact sports—ice hockey, or maybe lacrosse or rugby. There was something about those unblinking gray eyes that confirmed that impression: something withheld, hidden, and cold at the core. Strickland imagined he could see why Prosser had come to resent the man.

“Here, let me put those in the back for you,” Strickland offered affably, unlocking the tailgate. “Where’s the rest of your gear?”

Lukash shrugged. “That’s it. I thought I’d pick up a new outfit or two on Hamra Street. The rest of my stuff is on its way back to the States.”

“Two carry-ons? That’s all?”

“Hell, it’s only a two-month gig.”

Strickland hesitated. “I wouldn’t count the days just yet if I were you.”

“Well, okay, two to three months, depending on how long it takes Headquarters to find my replacement.”

“Shucks, Walt,” Strickland chuckled. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, old pal, but they’ve already found your replacement. It’s you.”

The newcomer’s jaws clenched and his lips drew back in the hint of a snarl, but before Strickland could react, Lukash let out a deep breath and his eyes took on an expression akin to resignation. “That would be just like Headquarters, wouldn’t it?”

Strickland was pondering Lukash’s sudden change of expression when he saw Prosser crossing the weed-choked median strip that separated the arrivals terminal from the diplomatic parking zone, where the station wagon was waiting. Even at a distance Strickland could see Prosser’s displeasure that his charge had evaded him.

“Where have you been?” Prosser greeted Lukash irritably, foregoing any greeting or word of welcome. “I waited at the damned gate for twenty minutes. When the last transfer bus arrived without you, I even asked passport control to check the passenger manifest, but they said you’d already passed through. Where the hell were you?”

“Relax, Connie. I made it, didn’t I?” Lukash answered with a conciliatory tone, holding out his hand.

“By the grace of God you did,” Prosser replied, opening the front passenger door of the station wagon. “Don’t you realize this place is crawling with Syrian and Palestinian security? Normally Headquarters never would have let you come in by way of the airport. If they hadn’t been in such a rush to get you here in time to see the division chief, you’d have had to take the boat from Cyprus. For Christ’s sake, Walt, this isn’t the Paris of the East anymore. It’s Dodge City, and the Dalton Gang is running it.”

Lukash held out his hand once again. Prosser hesitated for a fraction of a second and then took it. “Welcome to Beirut, Walt. What’s left of it, anyway.”

Lukash looked around at the potholed pavement, the scrub-covered median strip, the shattered streetlamps, and then at the scores of broken windowpanes on the second and third stories of the terminal. To the south and west, three-meter-high earthen berms littered the barren landscape as far as the eye could see, each designed to defend a Syrian antiaircraft battery from attack by Israeli fighter-bombers. Prosser was right. This was not the Beirut he had left five years ago.

“I see you two fellas are already acquainted,” Strickland observed drily. “Were you stationed together?”

“Connie and I served together in Jeddah a couple years back,” Lukash answered. “We had some tense moments at the airport back then, too, didn’t we, Connie?”

Prosser smiled faintly. “Saudi immigration officers are even denser than the Lebanese. When we exfiltrated the woman I was telling you about, Bud, I had to pose as her husband and write out an authorization for her to leave. Under Saudi law, you see, a married woman isn’t allowed to leave the country without written permission from her husband. That goes even for wives of foreigners and non-Muslims. God, you should have seen me trying to explain to the Saudis why I looked so different from the photo in the Italian passport I was carrying.”

Lukash opened the rear door of the station wagon and climbed in. Prosser and Strickland took their seats in front.

“So tell me your secret, Walt,” Prosser inquired. “How did you get through immigration so quickly?”

“Oh, dumb luck, I suppose. I was the only passenger traveling first class, so the senior air hostess offered me a lift to the terminal in the crew’s minibus. I went straight to the head of the line reserved for diplomats and air crews and waltzed right through.”

“And how did you swing first class?”

“Diplomatic discount. Middle East knocks off fifty percent. But you have to know to ask for it.”

The station wagon reached the end of the access road and turned left onto rue Gamal Abdel Nasser, better known as Airport Road. A hundred meters farther, Strickland brought the wagon to an abrupt halt alongside a shoulder-high sandbag enclosure. A similar structure stood on the opposite shoulder of the road fifty meters ahead. Between the two, a pair of desert-tan armored personnel carriers squatted in opposite directions astride the road, their swivel-mounted heavy machine guns trained on approaching traffic.

A dark-eyed Syrian soldier whose age could have been anything between eighteen and thirty reached out with his left hand for Strickland’s diplomatic identity card while keeping his right on the pistol grip of the Kalashnikov carbine slung over one shoulder. Judging from the Syrian’s red beret and the paratrooper’s wings pinned to his camouflage tunic, Lukash guessed that he belonged to a Special Forces unit. He handed forward his diplomatic passport for Strickland to offer the sentry.

The Syrian returned the card with a smile that revealed two even rows of gleaming white teeth set off against a bushy black mustache. With his enormous dark eyes, long straight nose, and ruddy complexion, the man was handsome enough to make it in the movies, Lukash thought—a young Omar Sharif. But, then, there were so many like him in Beirut—Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, Kurds. Nowhere else had he seen such a uniformly high standard of masculine good looks. What a pity the women were not so amply favored. While Lebanese girls were often pretty enough in their teens, they soon ran to fat and by twenty-five rarely merited a second look. It was hardly fair, but, then, Lukash had stopped expecting fairness from life long ago.

The Syrian dismissed Strickland’s offer of the additional two identity cards with a desultory rearward tilt of the head and click of the tongue, a Levantine gesture that meant everything from “no thanks” to “you must be out of your mind.” “Ahlan wa sahlan. Bienvenue á Liban,” he said as he waved them through the checkpoint.

“One down, five checkpoints to go,” Strickland commented nervously when the sandbag enclosure was thirty or forty meters behind them.

“The checkpoint industry was still in its infancy when I left here,” Lukash observed. “Mostly straight Muslim-against-Christian stuff. It wasn’t so bad for Westerners then, but you could never be quite sure they wouldn’t just line everybody up against the wall and fire away.”

“You still can’t be sure,” Prosser added with a note of sourness returning to his voice. “By the way, Headquarters warned us about your cover having been compromised to Syrian intelligence awhile back. If the dirtballs had enough sense to watch-list you, they could grab you at one of these checkpoints and have you moved into a Damascus dungeon in the same time it would take Bud and me to drive back to the embassy and fire off a cable to Headquarters. Which, of course, is why Ed sent us to pick you up instead of sending Emile.”

“Well, I do appreciate your taking the trouble,” Lukash added with a tinge of irony. “Once I cross over into East Beirut and settle in with the Phalange, I don’t expect to be seeing this side of town again. Unless, of course, the Lebs suddenly stop feuding and the Syrian army withdraws to the frontier.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Prosser answered.

“I don’t know what route you usually take between the airport and the embassy, but would you mind if we took the coastal road?” Lukash asked. “I’d like to get an idea of the changes since I left five years ago.”

“Sure,” Strickland said. “We’ll be turning left at Airport Circle, and then it will only be a mile or so to the coast. No problem at all.”

They came across another Syrian checkpoint at Airport Circle, but the sentry spotted the diplomatic license plates from a distance and waved them through. All along the way Lukash noticed antiaircraft emplacements dug in behind bulldozed walls of earth and rubble. The place resembled nothing so much as a vast, untidy landfill, complete with the abandoned hulks of wrecked cars and trucks, mounds of discarded tires, and scattered heaps of refuse.

Wherever he looked Lukash could see the aftereffects of warfare: craters in the asphalt road, black-rimmed entry holes the size of softballs in the sides of apartment buildings, and starburst-shaped blast marks where grenades and shells had detonated but failed to penetrate. Yet most of the damaged buildings still seemed to be occupied, whether they had been repaired or not. Where else could people go? Who in his right mind would put capital at risk constructing a new building in a country that was perpetually at war?

“Heads up, guys,” Strickland called out. “We may have some trouble up ahead. Check out the roadblock by the entrance to the Sabra refugee camp. Some cars look like they’ve been ordered to pull over.”

“Let me do the talking,” Prosser replied. “Don’t do anything unless I say so, or unless they hold a gun to your head. Unfortunately, Fatah sentries don’t give a rat’s ass about diplomatic immunity.”

The station wagon took its place behind a half dozen cars queuing at the checkpoint. The sentry post, a crude structure fashioned out of cinder blocks and topped with a corrugated metal roof, sprawled across the full ten-meter width of the median strip, with waist-high walls of sandbags lining both curbs. Only the weed-infested shoulder remained unobstructed.

Twenty or thirty meters ahead, Lukash spotted a couple of boxy Fiat four-door sedans parked well off the shoulder of the road against the high cinder-block wall that surrounded the refugee camp. He watched as a pair of Palestinian militiamen undertook a painstaking search of each vehicle while a third militiaman held the occupants at gunpoint from several paces away.

A helmetless teenager in a green-and-brown-camouflage tunic and mismatched olive drab trousers blocked the Chevy station wagon’s progress twenty meters from the sentry post. Lukash saw in the dim light that the teenager’s hair was dirty and unkempt and that his uniform appeared to be coated with a layer of fine dust. As soon as the vehicle stopped, the boy took Strickland’s proffered diplomatic identity card and stared at it blankly as if unable to read it. Strickland looked past him indifferently, offering no assistance.

“Document—for the others,” the teenage militiaman barked in Arabic. Then he held out his hand.

Lukash guessed that the boy hoped the other men’s identity documents might somehow be easier to read than Strickland’s. At Prosser’s nod, Strickland handed over Prosser’s identity card and Lukash’s diplomatic passport.

While Prosser and Strickland tried to read the facial expressions of the teenage sentry, Lukash watched from the backseat as another pair of sentries waved down a red Alfa Romeo sedan following directly behind the embassy station wagon. The older of the two sentries, who might have been thirty or thirty-five, examined the identity cards of the smart-looking young Arab couple in the Alfa while his younger partner covered them with his rifle.

Suddenly the older sentry’s face exploded with rage. He began screaming at the couple to get out of the car and gestured menacingly with the muzzle of his rifle for them to put their hands up. As soon as they had done so, the older sentry called out to a third militiaman, who leaped past the couple into the driver’s seat and put the Alfa into gear. With a loaded Kalashnikov at their backs and their hands in the air, the couple watched helplessly as their shining new car lurched forward along the shoulder of the road toward the entrance to the refugee camp.

The sports car’s owner, a clean-shaven Arab of about twenty-five in a stylish suede jacket over baggy gray flannel trousers, set off at a run after the Alfa but was tackled from the side and brought down by the militiaman stationed farthest forward. The dazed civilian scrambled to his feet, only to be felled once more when the rifle butt of yet another militiaman slammed squarely between his shoulder blades. As the attacker drew his foot back, intending to deliver a savage kick to the downed man’s ribs, the Alfa owner’s girlfriend seized the attacker’s arm and tried to throw him off balance. She succeeded for an instant before the militiaman knocked her down with a vicious elbow thrust to the side of her head.

When Lukash saw the enraged militiaman raise his foot high over the head of the young Lebanese man, he could stand it no longer. He flung the door open. “Stop! Leave them!” he shouted in Arabic and began to climb out of the car.

He still had one foot inside the station wagon when he felt Prosser grasp his left arm in both hands and yank hard, pulling him off balance and back onto the seat. “Close that door and get back in here!” Prosser hissed. Then, turning toward Strickland, he barked, “Damn it, Bud, step on it!”

Lukash found the asphalt once more with his right foot and twisted his torso violently to break Prosser’s grip. He succeeded, but in doing so he lost his balance a second time when the station wagon pitched forward and threw him back into his seat. The door slammed shut by its own weight as the station wagon accelerated away from the roadblock as fast as its sluggish engine would carry it. A moment later the scene of the struggle over the Alfa was already receding from view, with the well-dressed young Arab and his girlfriend left at the mercy of the Palestinians.

“What the hell did you think you were you doing back there?” Prosser demanded angrily as soon as they were out of small-arms range.

“I don’t care whose list my name may be on,” Lukash answered with cold fury. “I won’t pretend to look the other way when someone is being beaten half to death right under my nose.”

Lukash knew as soon as he spoke that his statement was not quite true. He had seen men beaten before without intervening. They were never his own prisoners, of course, and it was never in his own country that such things happened. But neither was this. For some reason he could not explain, he had seen it differently this time.

“Of all the goddamned...” Prosser heaved a sigh of exasperation, rolled his eyes, and looked toward Strickland as if for support. The technician’s face was ashen, his eyes close to bulging, and his knuckles white from the desperate grip he maintained on the steering wheel. He did not meet Prosser’s gaze as he handed over the identity documents the sentry had returned to him.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Walt, there’s still a civil war going on here,” Prosser continued. “People do that sort of thing to each other in wars. And if you get in their way, they just might kill you for it.”

“Spare me the lecture, Connie. What went on back there had nothing to do with any civil war. It was armed robbery, pure and simple. If we had been able to reach their commanding officer, we might have made enough of a stink to have shaken that couple loose.”

Prosser was unmoved. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking down there in Amman, Walt, but if I were you, I’d lay off. And the next time you get the urge to be a hero, do us all a favor and wait till you’re alone.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later the station wagon pulled into the semicircular driveway of the American embassy, a converted apartment building at the eastern end of the Corniche road between the American University of Beirut and the sea. When Lukash had last been inside the building—just short of five years earlier—the Beirut embassy had been the largest American diplomatic mission in the Middle East. Every one of its floors had been in regular use, and a new, larger chancery building was already under construction a mile down the coast in Ramlet al-Baida.

A hundred Americans and more than double as many Lebanese had been on the embassy’s payroll then. Now, fewer than half the embassy’s offices were in use. Two complete floors had been converted to temporary sleeping quarters for these periods—sometimes for weeks at a time—when civil unrest made it unsafe for American diplomats to remain in their apartments overnight. Another floor housed the fifteen-man Marine Security Guard detachment.

Strickland waved to the plainclothes Lebanese guard and parked the station wagon under the porte cochère. The three men entered the embassy lobby in silence and waited for Lukash to present his diplomatic passport to the solemn-faced marine guard in the bulletproof glass enclosure.

After quickly examining the photo and riffling through the back pages, the black marine corporal pressed the buzzer to unlock the inner door and invited the men inside. “Welcome to Beirut, Mr. Lukash,” he added, still expressionless as he handed back the passport.

“I’d say it’s a pleasure to be here, Corporal, only I’m not sure that would be truthful,” Lukash replied as he entered.

The three men stopped before the elevator, a tiny, wood-paneled European model barely large enough for four Americans of average size.

“Better go on up, Walt,” Prosser said. “They’re waiting for you. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

Lukash entered the elevator alone. At the eighth floor the whirring stopped and the cab made a sharp bounce on the cables. He pushed open the hardwood door and entered a spacious anteroom whose far wall consisted largely of floor-to-ceiling casement windows, at either end of which a glass door opened onto a full-length terrace. Along the remaining three walls, flowered chintz easy chairs and sofas were arranged in conversational clusters. The furniture had nothing in common with the dull, earth-toned, government-issue junk that filled every other American embassy where Lukash had worked.

A matched pair of heavy teak desks squatted side by side, dominating the center of the room. Behind the desk on the right sat a tall, full-figured woman of about forty, round-faced and plain, with limp, dishwater-blonde hair streaked with gray. She wore a loose-fitting, long-sleeved cotton print dress of a kind that had become the unofficial uniform of American embassy wives in Jeddah and Riyadh. The loose cut and thin fabric made it as comfortable as the Bedouins’ billowing white jalabiyyas in the simmering summer heat, while the long sleeves and ankle-length hemline had the added advantage of not offending traditional Muslim sensibilities.

There hadn’t been many conservative Muslims in Beirut five years ago, Lukash thought—at least none in those days whose sensibilities had to be reckoned with. He wondered whether conservative dress was the product of an Islamic rebirth in post–civil war Beirut or whether the ambassador’s secretary had simply conformed to the wash-and-wear style of so many State Department officials who had spent the better part of their careers in Third World capitals where dry cleaning was not an option.

“Ah, Mr. Lukash,” she began with the condescending smile and omniscient tone of voice of someone who handled every piece of paper that crossed the ambassador’s desk. “It’s so good to have you with us. The ambassador was quite concerned about your safety at the airport. I’ll ring him right now to let him know you’re here.”

She picked up the receiver and punched a red button at the base of the telephone to engage the intercom. “Walter Lukash is here, Mr. Ambassador. Shall I send him in?” She gave Lukash a patronizing smile, as if she had done him a favor for which he should remain forever in her debt. “Yes, Mr. Ambassador. I’ve already phoned the dispatcher. I’ll let you know as soon as your car is ready.” She deposited the receiver gingerly in its cradle, then she looked up at Lukash and blinked twice, as if in surprise that he had not instantly followed her cue to go in.

“Excuse me, but I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, Miss...”

“Oh, call me Muriel. There’s no point in being formal. We all get to be on close terms rather quickly here. In fact, this embassy is more like a family than any other post I’ve known—and that’s eighteen years in the department speaking. But, then, there’s nothing like a common danger to bring people together. Don’t you think so?”

Lukash smiled amiably, but his eyes held a distant look. As she spoke his thoughts had turned inward, returning to the morning exactly a week before when he had been handed a one-paragraph cable ordering him to proceed at once to Beirut rather than serve out the last two months of his tour of duty in Amman. It had been a back-channel message from the chief of the Near East Division in the Directorate of Operations, who was now on the first leg of his semiannual inspection tour of Middle Eastern stations. The cable offered no specifics except that Lukash’s month of home leave had been canceled and his reassignment to Headquarters as chief of the Palestinian desk was postponed for two months. Lukash was to proceed to Beirut by the fastest available means so that he could meet with the division chief there before the latter’s departure for Damascus on Thursday morning.

Lukash had met the division chief only once before. He recalled a slender, rather effete man of fifty or fifty-five who stepped lightly on crepe-soled shoes and bore an odd resemblance to Mister Rogers of children’s television. Since that day, every time he thought of the chief he imagined the annoying tune “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” playing softly in the background.

“And is Mr. Twombley with the ambassador?” he asked the secretary.

“I’m afraid he had to leave for Damascus after lunch. A dinner meeting was scheduled there at the last minute with Ambassador Paulson.” She pushed her swivel chair back from the desk and picked up a polished steel ruler gingerly with both hands. “But if there is anything you want to bring to Mr. Twombley’s attention, I’m sure Mr. Pirelli will be able to pass it along by cable.” The intercom buzzed once more, and the cheerful, efficient mask once again came over her face. “Please, go right in.”

Whatever the reasons had been for canceling his return to the States and sending him to Beirut, Lukash would now have to hear them from Ed Pirelli and the ambassador. And if what Strickland had said about his two-month temporary assignment having being converted into a two-year permanent assignment was true, he would now have to plead his case for a reversal before a station chief and an ambassador who each had enlarged his respective fiefdom by Lukash’s addition. If he meant to raise any objection at all, he would have to do so with some delicacy if he was to avoid poisoning the atmosphere for as long as he might be required to stay on.

He twisted the brass doorknob and went in. Ambassador Richard W. Ravenel sat directly opposite the door in an oxblood leather easy chair, his long legs crossed and his arms extended the full length of the padded leather armrests. In a matching leather sofa adjacent to the easy chair, gazing out dreamily across the room toward the Mediterranean, slouched Edwin Pirelli, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Beirut Station. The contrast in appearance between the two men was telling.

Ravenel was a tall, patrician figure with slender, bony hands and a high-domed forehead, accentuated by near-total baldness. Lukash guessed the ambassador was at least sixty, recalling that he had already been a senior career ambassador when, draping himself theatrically with an American flag, he evacuated the American staff from the roof of a tiny Southeast Asian embassy a year before the fall of Saigon. Ravenel’s face was dominated by piercing blue eyes and a long, thin mouth upturned at the corners in perpetual irony. The European lines of his elegant double-breasted navy suit and the odd, idiosyncratic hand gestures assimilated from a forty-year career spent communicating with people of foreign cultures lent the impression that Ravenel was not an American at all but a sort of composite European American, or what a Marxist might call a rootless cosmopolitan.

Edwin Pirelli could hardly be mistaken for a cosmopolitan. His thick-soled black brogues and his pale blue drip-dry cotton suit, while admittedly handy in Third World posts where dry cleaning was nonexistent or at best unreliable, marked him indelibly as a budget-conscious American embassy functionary. Even his closely cropped black hair—lately infiltrated by gray—and his erect posture seemed to smack of government issue, his fifteen years in the Agency and four years as an Airborne Ranger during the early Vietnam era having left their imprint on him.

Yet, as Lukash observed the ambassador and the station chief together in the moment before they acknowledged his presence, he sensed a deep rapport between the two men that he assumed was the product of their mutual dependence. The station chief, who had raised himself through the ranks by hard work and relentless self-promotion, seemed to assume that the distinguished career ambassador recognized him as a peer, or nearly so, seeking out his views and opinions on delicate matters of state in which judgment and discretion were paramount. Lukash suspected that what the ambassador relied on Pirelli to provide was merely the raw intelligence information that represented a vital source of an American chief of mission’s power. He also suspected that the ambassador manipulated Pirelli’s tender ego with as much cynical disdain as Pirelli applied in manipulating the egos of his paid foreign agents

“Welcome to Lebanon, Walter,” Ambassador Ravenel said, greeting him warmly and rising slowly from his chair to shake his hand. “I understand that you and Ed know each other from your earlier postings here. If I recall correctly, you completed your Arabic-language training at the embassy’s language institute before it was evacuated to Tunis.”

“Yes, sir, I learned Arabic in Beirut, but not at the language institute. I was under nonofficial cover then and studied with private tutors. Back in those days I was under instructions to avoid the embassy. Except for contact with Ed, that is.” He nodded toward Pirelli. “Ed was my inside supervisor.”

Pirelli seized Lukash’s hand with genuine enthusiasm. “It’s terrific to have you back, Walt,” he declared, pumping Lukash’s arm vigorously. “When Headquarters approved a new slot for a full-time liaison officer to the Phalange, I knew you were just the man to do it.” Pirelli turned to address the ambassador. “Walt knows the people here, he speaks the language, and he has paramilitary experience. What’s more, he’s a topflight recruiter. Nobody else they nominated even came close. As I told Tom Twombley this morning...”

Pirelli caught himself in mid-sentence and stole a glance at Ambassador Ravenel, who gazed at the two younger men with an expression of benign tolerance. He suggested by an expansive sweep of the hand that they seat themselves

“But I see I’m already getting ahead of myself. Maybe it would be better if Ambassador Ravenel explains how this whole project got off the ground.”

Lukash murmured his assent.

The ambassador cleared his throat. “Since the November elections,” he began ponderously, as if reading prepared testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “the White House and the National Security Council have been taking a closer look at Lebanon in the context of the Middle East Peace Process. I cannot claim to have been privy to those deliberations, and I would be less than candid if I did not add that I have serious reservations about some of the conclusions that have been reached. Nonetheless, for the present, the new administration seems intent on taking a different approach toward Lebanon and to focus greater attention on the Christian side of the equation here.

“There is a perception in certain circles of the new administration that, if properly nurtured, the leaders of the Phalange Party might be coaxed—perhaps bribed is a better word—into taking a more moderate position toward their Muslim countrymen. The hope in these circles is that a newly unified Lebanese state might be forged out of the remnants of the old one, which appears close to collapse. The foundation of the new Lebanese state would rest upon substantial political concessions toward the non-Christian elements—along with economic and military guarantees for the Christians, of course. The obvious drawback of such a scheme is that Syria would likely come to play a leading role in the new Lebanese state; thirty thousand Syrian occupation troops would give Damascus a very strong voice at any form of Lebanese constitutional convention.

“There are others in the administration, however, who share the views of certain Israeli leaders that a political solution in Lebanon has become impossible. This faction, if one can call it that, is convinced that the Phalange represents a solid core of pro-Western Lebanese who, if given the means to impose a new political order by force of arms, might be capable of inducing their former enemies to join in creating a new Lebanese state. Such a state, they predict, would be more sympathetic to Western—and, no doubt, Israeli—concerns than the existing Lebanese state while at the same time allowing for a gradual relinquishment of Christian political and military hegemony over time—again, in return for security guarantees. But under this scenario, the U.S. and Israel would play the major role in determining the shape and timing of the reforms. Both the Syrian occupation troops and the PLO military machine would be expelled, presumably by the Israeli Defense Forces, with assistance from the Phalange and possibly from other Lebanese elements.”

The ambassador paused to frown gravely and then continued on a lighter note. “Whether one subscribes to one or the other schools of thought—or neither of them, as I do—it is not difficult to comprehend why the national security advisor has proposed an exploratory effort to see whether expanded cooperation with the Phalange leadership might bear fruit. Increased intelligence cooperation is clearly the starting place. The points of contact already exist. As I understand, the Phalange leadership is enthusiastic about closer ties. And a modest amount of new funding would likely go a long way toward ingratiating the new administration to our Phalange counterparts—and, as I expect, to their Israeli principals. Furthermore, whatever intelligence might be extracted from the Phalange could be pointed to as an example of the benefits to be reaped if we expand the scale of cooperation.

“By this time, Walter, you will doubtless have deduced the sort of thing that is expected of you. You have been selected by your agency, on the advice of Mr. Pirelli here, to act as the United States government’s day-to-day intelligence representative to the Phalange. Your primary duty will be to arrange whatever intelligence support your Lebanese counterparts may request—subject, of course, to my prior approval and the prior approval of your agency’s leadership. Second, you are to encourage your Lebanese opposite numbers to believe that further American support—perhaps substantial amounts of it—will be contingent upon the letter and spirit of their cooperation. And, third, you are to report the results of their cooperation and any other information of intelligence value that you can glean.

“That, Walter, is what you will be doing for the next two years, or until the intelligence cooperation is terminated, whichever occurs first. Now, do you have any questions?” The ambassador leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap with a look of feline self-satisfaction.

“Well, at the risk of seeming backward,” Lukash began after a long moment’s hesitation, “I would like to confirm for the record that my temporary assignment has now been made into a full two-year tour of duty. You see, my orders are for a sixty-day TDY, and this is the first time I’ve heard anything different.” He paused again, his tone changing to good-natured resignation. “Odd as it may seem, after eight years in the field, I was rather looking forward to my month of home leave and a quiet year or two at a Headquarters desk.”

Lukash knew that the offhand tone and the mention of home leave was a mistake the moment it left his mouth. He could see the ambassador rearing back, waiting to knock the ball out of the park.

“I’m sure you appreciate that the needs of the government often must come before our personal plans,” Ambassador Ravenel began after casually uncrossing and recrossing his legs. “In this case, your agency has assured the Department of State—and the national security advisor, I should add—that you were identified as the best-qualified person for this rather sensitive position.” The ambassador paused, as if to add a few words of personal advice, and then seemed to change his mind. “But I see that your chief of station would like to put in a word.”

Pirelli had nodded solemnly at the end of each one of Ambassador Ravenel’s sentences, as if he were making a running tally in some concealed notebook. He had stopped nodding when Lukash spoke up, his earnest expression slowly changing into one of thinly concealed exasperation.

“As the ambassador said, Walt, the needs of the government definitely have to come first in this kind of situation. Now, you have the right to decline the assignment, but you ought to think long and hard before taking a step like that. The Agency’s entire personnel system is based on putting the right man in the right place at the right time, and Headquarters is not accustomed to hearing the word ‘no.’ If I know Tom Twombley—and I think I do—he’d likely take your rejection as a slap in the face.”

Lukash took a deep breath and prepared to deliver his response. As he had expected all along, he wasn’t being given any choice in the matter. If Headquarters wanted him in Beirut, they’d make his life miserable if he insisted on anything else. He opened his mouth to announce his capitulation. But before he could say a word, Pirelli cut him short.

“No, don’t give me your answer yet, Walt. Since you haven’t been given any notice of what will be expected of you here, I want to make sure that you’ve heard the whole story before you agree to it. You see, you’ll be getting a good deal of attention at a very high level in this assignment. But on the other hand, it’s not just Washington’s attention you’ll be getting. The Phalange will be over you like stink on shit. They’re clever bastards, and they’re going to look at you as if you were their key to the United States Treasury. You can bet your last Lebanese lira that since Twombley and I called on them this morning, they’ve come up with a wish list of American-made equipment as long as your arm. They’ll wine you and dine you, plead with you, cajole you, get you laid, threaten you, and try to compromise you seven ways to sundown to get what they want out of the U.S. government.

“What’s more, you’re going to be out there on Phalange turf all by yourself. Your phone will be tapped and your flat will be bugged. Nearly everybody you meet will be a Phalange loyalist or under Phalange control. Your neighbors will watch your comings and goings. Your Lebanese girlfriends will be brought in for questioning and forced to report against you. Anything you say, no matter who you say it to, will have the potential to get back to the ears of your liaison sidekicks. And once your presence at Phalange headquarters becomes known to the Syrians, they’ll keep an eye out for you at the Green Line checkpoints as well, in hopes of nabbing you. No doubt about it: you’ll be stuck over there on the East Side on Phalange turf for as long as you’re in-country.

“Now, having said all that, Headquarters is confident that you can handle that kind of situation—and so am I, or I wouldn’t have asked them to send you here. Prosser and I will be commuting over to the East Side several times a week, so it’s not as if you’ll be totally out of contact with the station. But if you have any doubts about your ability to stay the course, you ought to tell me now. If there’s a good reason why you’re just not up to it, there’s always the chance that Twombley will understand and won’t hold it against you.”

Lukash heard out the chief of station but said nothing. It had all happened too quickly for him to find a way out, and now he was stuck indeed. He let out a deep sigh.

“Good. Then it’s settled. Congratulations on your new assignment, Walt.” Pirelli turned next to Ambassador Ravenel. “Mr. Ambassador, do you have any other questions for Walter before he leaves us?”

“Just one,” the older man replied. “When you were here before as a language student, did they send you out under your true name?”

“No, I was out here as Bill Conklin in those days,” Lukash responded after a moment’s hesitation. “I was expecting an onward assignment to Egypt under the same nonofficial cover as soon as I finished Arabic training. Instead I received orders to report to Saudi Arabia.”

“Do you think it likely that anyone here will remember you as Bill Conklin?”

Lukash realized at once that this was his opening. While cover problems were sometimes brushed aside at Headquarters, the job of chief liaison officer to the Phalange was not one in which the Near East Division could tolerate a flap. He did indeed have a cover problem in the new assignment, but what possible justification could he give for it? He felt the blood drain from his face and both his hands turned cold.

When he had left Beirut in 1975, it was if an enormous fissure had opened in the earth, swallowing him up and filling in after him. He had left behind no forwarding address and remained in touch with no one he had met in Lebanon. But the problem remained. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he ransacked his memory for some acceptable justification for why Headquarters should break his new assignment. But it was of no use. After all, what difference would it make to the Phalange that he had used an alias five years earlier? To them, that was ancient history.

“A few people might remember me,” Lukash answered the ambassador at last. “But not many. My Arabic tutor would, I expect, but she moved to Kuwait with her husband the week before I was reassigned to Jeddah. And since I lived on the West Side back then, most of the locals I knew were Muslims and Palestinians. Even before the war they didn’t spend much time on the East Side. So I doubt that I’ll run into any of them over there now.”

Lukash’s attention strayed. He found himself staring at the rows of black-and-white glossy photographs on the wall above Ambassador Ravenel’s head. There was one of Ravenel as a middle-ranking diplomat shaking hands reverentially with JFK in a receiving line. Another showed a slightly older Ravenel seated next to a grinning Hubert Humphrey on an ornately carved oriental divan. A third had Ravenel in a dark overcoat and homburg waiting stiffly at the base of an airline passenger stairway while a grinning Richard Nixon descended toward the tarmac of some frozen airport in northern Europe. There were others, but the lamp on the table at Ambassador Ravenel’s elbow was not bright enough to illuminate all of them. Somehow Lukash managed to recapture his train of thought and continued speaking.

“By now, I suppose, many of the people who knew me back then will have emigrated, either to Europe or the Gulf. And as for the ones who stayed on through five years of civil war…I’d have to question how many of them would remember an American student named Bill Conklin.”

Pirelli flashed a confident look at the ambassador and then turned once more to Lukash. “Then it’s resolved. You made the right choice, Walt. Unless you have anything else to say, Mr. Ambassador, I’ll take Walt downstairs and show him around the communications center before we head across the Green Line to his new digs.”

Ambassador Ravenel rose slowly from his leather armchair and buttoned his suit jacket before extending his hand one last time to his newest subordinate. “This may well be our first and last meeting, Walter. As you may know, an ambassador’s term is served at the pleasure of the president. I submitted my resignation in January along with every other ambassador appointed by the outgoing president. I have a notion that our new chief executive will name my successor very soon.

“The new man will doubtless champion the project in which you are now taking part. In any event, you have my full support for as long as I remain chief of mission. And if you ever wish to reach me, I encourage you to do so through Mr. Pirelli.”

The ambassador released his hand and Lukash knew the interview was over. “Thank you, Ambassador Ravenel. You can count on me to do my level best.”

Pirelli indicated to Lukash by a nod that he wished to remain behind for a moment for a private word with the ambassador. Lukash pulled the heavy door shut and found himself alone in the darkened outer office, all the lights having been extinguished but for two brass sconces flanking the exit.

On an impulse he strode to the glass doors and watched the thinning crowds of Arab youths strolling idly along the Corniche below, drinking coffee and spitting sunflower seed husks onto the sidewalk. Then he stared across the Bay of Beirut toward the sparkling crescent of Antélias and the eastern Phalange-controlled suburbs. For a brief instant something about the view reminded him of Jeddah, as seen from the south along the Red Sea coast. But as he continued to look across the water, he knew there was little objective resemblance between the two cities. The only trait they had in common was that both looked their best at night and from a distance.

Suddenly Lukash wondered if the fourth-floor embassy offices were still arranged as they had been five years ago when Pirelli, then the deputy chief of station, had handed him his orders to Saudi Arabia. Then, as now, the change in assignment had come like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. He recalled sitting alone in Pirelli’s sparsely furnished, windowless office for nearly half an hour in sweaty indecision, pondering whether to accept the job or not while Pirelli met in another room with the chief of the political section.

The Saudi-Yemeni border was the last place on earth he had wanted to be. And why, in heaven’s name, a covert action program? He had absolutely no paramilitary experience then. In an instant the offer had upset every assumption he had cherished about his future in the Agency. He had been asked to take the assignment or leave it—no other alternative was offered. They needed an Arabic-speaking officer, and he was it. As the implications of the cable gradually rippled out to the far reaches of his mind, he had realized that there was to be no Cairo, no home leave, no Headquarters consultations, no opportunity to arrange his affairs, follow through with his plans, or honor his commitments.

Now five years had passed. He had accepted the assignment, spent his year in a dust-choked camp in the Saudi desert, another year and a half in Jeddah, then sixty days of home leave and then off for two years in Jordan. Now he was back where the troubles had started: Beirut. And once again he was completely off balance and unprepared for what lay ahead.

Through the walnut-paneled walls he heard a young woman’s musical laugh, followed by the muffled shout of a deep-voiced young marine in the stairwell. “Party up!” the marine’s voice shouted. “Give us some tunes, Gunny! Hot damn!” Then the driving beat of Prince set the walls vibrating and overwhelmed everything else.

* * *

“Mr. Pirelli has just pulled up, sir,” the black marine corporal announced. The marine followed the movements of a late-model American-made sedan in a row of television monitors on the counter inside his bulletproof cubicle; then he pressed a button under the counter to release the hardened steel bolts securing the door to the lobby. Lukash picked up his bags and shoved the door open with his hip.

A plainclothes Lebanese security guard wearing a low-slung Western-style pistol belt sat on a folding chair to the left of the granite steps. He nodded a silent greeting to Lukash as the latter tossed his bags onto the backseat of Pirelli’s four-door Chevrolet sedan.

Lukash noticed the extra thickness of Lexan bonded to the inside of the car’s windows and felt the added weight of the door when he slammed it shut. On the streets of a city like Beirut, the Chevrolet would be as conspicuous as Pirelli’s drip-dry seersucker suit and brogue shoes. But regulations dictated that the chief of station’s car had to be bulletproofed. And since no foreign supplier was cleared for bulletproofing automobiles to Agency specifications, the CIA’s senior spy in Lebanon would have to drive to his secret meetings in an enormous Chevy sedan.

“Beirut’s not quite the place you left, is it, Walt?” Pirelli observed sympathetically when they had turned east onto the Corniche. “Take a good look. These people had everything going for them before the fighting. Now all they do is sit around and blame us and the French and the Russians for what they’ve done to each other.”

“So what made you come back?” Lukash asked. “I thought you’d had enough of the Arabs and wanted to get back to the subcontinent.”

“I did. When my tour in Beirut ended, Headquarters offered me the chief’s slot in Bombay. Then two years later it was chief of Colombo Station. When they asked if I’d go back to Beirut, I wasn’t at all sure. In many ways it seemed as if I had just left. But when I talked to people around the division, they all said it was an opportunity not to be passed up. ‘Lebanon is ready to heat up again; take it,’ they all told me.

“I don’t know yet whether they’re right or wrong, but for what it’s worth, the ambassador seems to agree. He says it’s a matter of months before Lebanon hits the front pages again. And Twombley thinks so, too. He told me last night that the new director spent a half hour grilling him on Lebanon before he left. So what I’m telling you is this: recruit us a couple of topflight Phalange agents while you’re here, Walt, and you could find yourself riding the crest of a very big wave. What is your rank these days anyway, GS-12?”

Lukash nodded. “The list just came out last month.”

“Well, if you can turn in the kind of performance here that you had in Amman, there’s every reason to believe that your 13 won’t be far away.”

“Good thing I’m not superstitious,” Lukash added with an uneasy grin.

Pirelli swerved to avoid a cluster of potholes before the darkened hulk that was once the Phoenicia Hotel, then he turned south onto rue Fakhreddine.

Lukash gazed up at the twin towers and at once recalled a dinner party in the Phoenicia’s twelfth-floor nightclub two nights before he left Lebanon in 1975. It had been well past ten o’clock, and the Egyptian orchestra had just begun to work up toward the feverish intensity that usually had to be reached before the first belly dancer would consent to appear on stage. He recalled the mustachioed waiters wearing Ali Baba pantaloons, curly-toed slippers, and elaborately embroidered tunics right out of the Arabian Nights. He remembered the combined aroma of garlic, cardamom, lemon, and mint surrounding the twenty-dish mezzé that Claudette Hammouche and her husband had insisted upon for the occasion. And seated beside Lukash with her slender arm resting lazily on his shoulder, he saw...His breath caught in his throat. How long had it been since he had been able to conjure up her face?

“Yup, recruitments are what this business is all about,” Pirelli said with complete self-assurance, as if he were lecturing a newly minted career trainee. “That’s about all they look for through the rank of GS-13. Above that level other things count, too, but a really big recruitment will always get you a promotion, no matter how high your rank. What I’m saying is, don’t fret over the fact that you’re not running a base or a station yet, Walt. Bagging agents is still the name of the game at your level. That’s why I brought you here. The Phalangists have given us a wide-open shot to pick off a few of their officers, and we need a proven recruiter to go in there and sign them up.”

Lukash looked askance at the station chief. “Hold on a second, Ed. I thought my job was to make sure the Phalangists are happy with the support we give them and to get them to pass more information to us. When the ambassador talked about reporting against the Phalange, I didn’t get the idea he meant me to put the arm on them. If I pitch some Phalangist I’ve been in liaison with and he puts up a fuss to his bosses, what’s to prevent Washington’s whole grand scheme from flushing down the toilet?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Pirelli answered impatiently. “I know what the ambassador said. But you don’t work for him, Walt. You work for Headquarters. And what Headquarters wants is a high-level recruitment inside Phalange intelligence. The cooperation between us and the Phalange that the ambassador talked about may or may not pan out. Whether it does or not, the policy makers will judge the Agency on one thing: having access to the Phalange’s secrets. Unless we turn you loose to make recruitments, putting you inside Phalange intelligence is like having the key to an empty room.”

“You know I’ve always been ready to do whatever Headquarters wants,” Lukash answered slowly. “If recruitments are what they want, I’ll do my best. After all, the worst the Phalange can do is toss my butt out of the country, right?”

Pirelli narrowed his eyes, as if unsure how to answer. “Don’t worry about what they might or might not do. I visit the chief of Phalange intelligence at least once a week, and we’ve got his communications covered like white on rice. Believe me, if he suspects you of anything, I’ll know.”

The Chevrolet’s headlights cut through the gloom as the sedan climbed the long hill toward the entrance of the crosstown Fouad Chehab flyover. Then, instead of turning at the underpass that marked the start of the flyover, Pirelli stepped on the gas. Lukash opened his mouth to question the move when he noticed the head-high earthworks blocking both sides of the underpass. Only then did he remember reading a year or two earlier that the flyover had acquired the nickname “Death Alley” for its popularity with snipers and that authorities on both sides of the Green Line had closed it to prevent foolhardy commuters from risking their lives to shave a half hour from their daily crosstown commute.

Pirelli continued south across Avenue de l’Independance and toward the Corniche el Mazraa. “By the way, in case Prosser hasn’t already told you, he will be your inside contact. Did you know each other very well when you were in Saudi together?” Pirelli asked with studied casualness.

“Not very well. But we did work together on an operation a few weeks before I left the kingdom. Connie helped me out of a tight spot, and we both caught some flak for it. But that’s history. I’m sure we’ll do fine together.”

“I hope so. Prosser hasn’t been here long enough for me to get a very clear picture of him. He writes well and is a damned quick study. Works like a mule, too. But I’m not quite sure yet if he has the predatory instinct that makes for a good agent recruiter. Keep an eye on him and tell me what you think.”

The Chevy turned left onto a brightly lit avenue that Lukash recognized as the Corniche el Mazraa and the two men fell back into silence.

Chapter 2

In his dream, Lukash stood alone in the center of a sand-swept blacktop lane flanked on both sides by high, dun-colored walls. The road curved gradually to the left across flat terrain, and he realized that he could not be seen by anyone located fifty meters to his front or rear. Apart from the road and the walls and the cloudless sky, nothing else was within his view but an ancient battleship-gray Land Rover and a rust-eaten white Mercedes sedan parked head-to-head across the full width of the asphalt and blocking the way.

Lukash stepped toward the barrier with painful slowness, as if he were wading through waist-high water against a powerful current. He stooped to lower his center of gravity yet was scarcely able to put one foot ahead of the other. Just beyond the makeshift barrier, a Fiat and a Renault waited at the curb. Still farther, a dark four-door Volvo stopped ten meters short of the barricade while a black-hooded militiaman a few paces away trained his Kalashnikov assault rifle on the Volvo’s driver.

Suddenly the Land Rover’s rear door flew open, and Lukash saw a group of five Lebanese civilians herded at gunpoint from the Volvo toward the Rover. Muffled shouts issued from the militiamen’s loose-fitting hoods, but nothing Lukash heard was intelligible.

At the back of the group, a slender woman of about twenty-five in a sleeveless flowered sundress stood in profile to Lukash. From a distance he studied her familiar Mediterranean profile, small-boned ballerina’s figure, and lustrous chestnut hair tied at the nape of her neck. But now her cheeks were ashen, her jaw firmly set. He could see the terror in her eyes. Her hands rested on the shoulders of a child no more than four or five years of age, evidently her daughter, who reached up and grasped her mother’s wrists.

Lukash tried to advance more quickly toward the barricade, but his legs would not respond. He attempted to shout a warning, but no voice came forth. The hooded militiamen and their captives behaved as if he did not exist, as if no act of his could possibly affect what would happen. Yet he knew that unless he intervened, the woman and child were lost.

* * *

An artillery shell exploded at close range, perhaps as little as a block away from Lukash’s East Beirut apartment, and reverberated the length of Avenue de l’Independance. Lukash sat erect and swung his feet onto the floor. With no light illuminating the room but the moon shining through the half-open French doors to the balcony, he found it difficult to remember where he was. The heavy floor-length curtains drawn back on either side of the glass doors swung in unison like gigantic pendulums set in motion by the shock of the blast.

Lukash reached for the lamp beside his bed. It took him two or three seconds to recognize the chrome-and-glass coffee table where his half-empty tumbler of duty-free Glenfiddich now rested, the pair of cordovan leather armchairs over which he had draped his jacket and sweater, and beside them the black lacquer étagère with its bare shelves. All the furniture appeared European, most of it of modern Scandinavian design.

Lukash dimly recalled Ed Pirelli’s account of how the flat’s owner, a middle-age men’s fashion importer, was leaning over the sink to shave one morning when a stray .50-caliber armor-piercing slug slammed through two solid hardwood doors and lodged itself in his upper thigh. A few centimeters to the left, and it would have hit the femoral artery; a few to the right, and it might have converted him from a baritone to a contralto. The importer had put the flat up for lease the next day.

On their arrival at the flat, Pirelli had taken Lukash onto the veranda to point out how many stray bullets had hit the western side of the building, the one facing the port and the Green Line. A dozen or more spent rounds lay at their feet like dead insects, misshapen from their fatal collisions with the building’s stone facing. Because the flat comprised no less than four bedrooms and three full baths, the practical solution was to close off the westernmost rooms and live on the sheltered eastern side of the flat.

Lukash switched off the light once again, stretched out on his back, and cradled his head in his folded palms. Somewhere to the west, beyond the port, another explosion sent out shock waves in his direction. What on earth am I doing here? he asked himself as his ears followed the trailing hiss of the echo. Nobody had twisted his arm when the idea had first been broached. He could have said no and Headquarters might have found someone else.

Perhaps it had been the flattery. Lukash recalled the back-channel message that had said he was everyone’s first choice for the job. Perhaps the implied promise of full pay for less than a full measure of work had also factored into his decision. The message had implied that the two-month TDY would be almost a vacation. Two or three hours at Phalange headquarters each day, a car meeting near the Green Line with his inside contact, an hour or two spent at the typewriter, and the greater part of his work would be finished. He could spend the rest of the day skiing at Farayya or swimming or boating at Kaslik, for it was the time of year when the winter snows had not yet melted in the mountains but the sun was already approaching summer strength at the shore. An hour and a half of driving was all that separated the two extremes. And his evenings, of course, would be free to allow him to enjoy Beirut’s celebrated nightlife.

An irregular series of muffled pops interrupted his reverie. They sounded like grenades or mortar rounds landing in the next neighborhood. Then the crackle of small arms fire arose from no place in particular and before long seemed to be all around him. He tried to separate out each constituent sound, but soon his concentration lapsed and he drifted back into sleep.

In his dreams Lukash found himself back on the sand-swept lane between the dun-colored walls, watching mother and child step toward the gaping rear door of the Land Rover. The woman turned, as if startled by the presence of someone behind her, and focused a reproachful glare upon him. Lukash started, opened his eyes, and took a deep breath. He felt the same sense of impotence, of utter inconsequentiality, that he had felt outside the Sabra refugee camp on the way north from the airport. He thought he had known what to do then, but he no longer felt quite so confident.

He rose a second time and strode across the room to the coffee table. Beside his tumbler of whiskey was the black pigskin shaving kit. He upended it and poured its contents onto the table. Taking up a steel nail file, he slipped it between the leather bottom of the kit and its leather sides and worked it around until he heard a click and the bottom swung open.

A small manila envelope and a blue-jacketed U.S. tourist passport fell onto the glass table. Setting the passport aside, he pried open the envelope’s metal clasp and carefully emptied its contents into his hand. First to fall out was a slim gold wedding band engraved on the inside with the initials, M.R.K. and W.F.C., and a date, 3-15-76. He slipped the ring onto his finger, slowly removed it, and then set it aside.

Then he slipped from the envelope a delicate gold chain, handmade in the traditional style of the Arab goldsmiths of Aleppo. He stretched it out to full length between his hands and laid it out on the glass tabletop.

Finally he removed a glossy black-and-white photo of the type sold by itinerant photographers in Lebanese nightclubs. It showed a jubilant party of six gathered around a circular table. How long had it been since he’d last looked at the photo? Three years? Four? The resemblance between the woman beside him in the photo and the woman he had seen in his dream was uncanny. Now that he was back in Beirut, the memories were returning. If he were going to stay here much longer, there would be no avoiding them.

Lukash gently scooped up the ring and the chain, dropped them into the envelope, and did the same for the photo after one last penetrating look. Then he returned the envelope and passport to their cavity in the false bottom of the shaving kit, pressed the bottom shut, and replaced the razor, toothbrush, soap dish, and other toiletries.

At last he returned to bed, thrust the memories out of his mind, and fell back into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter 3

A Lebanese army officer in an old-fashioned leather tank driver’s helmet and goggles peered out the hatch of a parked Panhard armored car and followed Conrad Prosser with his eyes as Prosser’s Renault climbed through the pine forest toward the gate of the American ambassador’s residence. The steep mountain road from the Damascus Highway to Yarzé was always heavily patrolled, not so much for the ambassador’s benefit as for that of his nearest neighbor, the Lebanese minister of defense.

Prosser downshifted when he saw the stretch of parked cars that lined the road outside the residence gate. Nearly all of them were chauffeur-driven Mercedes and BMW town cars with liveried drivers who passed their idleness by playing cards with one another on the polished hoods of their splendid driving machines. In the fading glow of the setting sun, Prosser scanned the diplomatic license plates and made mental notes of the numerical country codes he recognized and those he did not. First was the Egyptian ambassador’s black Mercedes, just behind it the French chargé d’affaires’s cigar-shaped Citroën, and three spaces farther along was the Argentinean ambassador’s silver Jaguar. It was rather a high-toned crowd for an evening of Dixieland jazz, he thought.

As soon as Prosser reached the gate, a uniformed guard popped out from the whitewashed sentry box and pulled open the rivet-studded sheet-metal gate. He returned Prosser’s nod of acknowledgment with a ragged salute and wasted no time in closing the gate as soon as the Renault was inside.

Prosser parked in the staff lot, tucked well out of sight behind the residence, then backtracked along the service road to the building’s monumental white marble façade, terraced gardens, and sweeping panorama of the Bay of Beirut to the north and west. Noting that the receiving line had already dispersed, he shut the front door quietly behind him and advanced through the entry hall. All at once a low, rhythmic chant, accompanied by the steady beat of tom-toms and the clacking of wood on wood, reached his ears from the sitting room ahead. Dixieland jazz it was not.

“Conrad, you’re just in time. They started only moments ago.”

It was Muriel Benson, Ambassador Ravenel’s secretary, looking surprisingly elegant in a sleeveless black cocktail frock that flattered her ample but shapely figure. Tonight was Muriel’s night to play hostess, as the ambassador’s wife was away on her quarterly shopping excursion to Florence and Rome. Muriel was playing the role for all it was worth.

“Come along quickly, now, and I’ll find you a seat. You won’t believe these people, Conrad, really you won’t. Yesterday the ambassador was nearly apoplectic when Damascus cabled that the jazz quartet was canceling, and all we could get for tonight was the Great Plains Indian Dancers. Imagine Red Indian dancers, here, of all places! I thought the ambassador was going to drive across the border and personally wring the information officer’s neck. But you should listen to him now. ‘Everybody has Dixieland bands these days,’ is what I heard him tell the minister of defense a few moments ago. ‘The French have them. Even the Russians have their pale imitation, but only America has honest-to-God Red Indians!’”

“Do you suppose the minister knows the difference between a Red Indian and the other kind?”

“Don’t be silly. Hollywood Westerns are as popular over here as they are in Kansas City or Pittsburgh. John Wayne is practically canonized among the Maronites, and Clint Eastwood is box office gold on both sides of town. But come along, now, Conrad, have a seat. The show is only an hour long and you’ve already missed the first two numbers.”

The dancers were very much as Prosser imagined they would be, draped in buffalo hide and decorated with war paint and dancing a samba-like step inside a circle of five chanting elders. He soon lost interest and let his eyes wander around the room. At Ed Pirelli’s urging, the ambassador had promised to add to the guest list the names of three or four junior Arab diplomats for station officers to meet and, if possible, invite to lunch or drinks to assess them as possible recruitment targets.

Prosser spotted a few younger Arabs in dark suits who looked like the ones he was after and etched their facial features in his memory so that he could approach them during dessert after the show. As he scanned the faces in the crowd, he also kept his eyes open for good-looking women. Such an occasion was not to be entirely wasted on business.

“The next dance in our program tells the story of two tribes.” One of the dancers was speaking now, a tall, imposing young man with high cheekbones, a hawkish nose, and shoulder-length straight black hair tied loosely behind his neck with a rawhide thong. Yet as Prosser watched him speak, the prominent nose seemed less Native American than Semitic and his accent less Great Plains than White Plains.

“The two tribes summered for many generations on opposite sides of a Great River that produced an abundance of fish and attracted great herds of buffalo, flocks of waterfowl, and more than enough game for ten tribes. Still, from time to time, each tribe would send raiding parties against the other to steal horses, food, and women. As a result, those on both sides of the river who had lost family members or valuable property became accustomed to taking their revenge. And so the raids became ever larger and more frequent, until at last it came to war.

“Summer after summer the fighting continued, ceasing only in the winter when the tribes went to their separate retreats. At last the chief of the first tribe called upon the Great Spirit to bring a scourge upon the other and to remove it forever from the banks of the Great River. Soon the chief’s prayer was answered, and the White Man made war on the second tribe and drove it from the opposite side of the river to a place many days’ ride to the south. At this the chief ordered a feast of thanks to the Great Spirit, but no sooner did the first tribe sit down to its feast than the White Man’s army returned and massacred the gathering down to the last man, woman, and child.”

The young Indian, if that is really what he was, paused and scanned the faces of his audience as if he were telling the story for the first time and had found a particularly sympathetic listener.

“I see that your city has a river. They tell me that fighting often rages between tribes to the east and west of the river and that revenge has taken root in many hearts. I counsel you: remember the story of our ancestors and learn from our errors.”

He abruptly broke off his speech, gave a nod to the drummers, and took up a monotonous wailing chant. The Lebanese government officials and foreign diplomats in the room exchanged meaningful glances with their wives and colleagues.

The River Dance was a sluggish, swaying affair, and the river that it conjured up in Prosser’s mind was shallow and murky, with malodorous marshes along both banks. His attention wandered and he caught sight of a slender, frizzy-haired brunette in a green silk dress, obviously not an Arab, four rows ahead and to his right. There was something about her that he recognized even from behind, and he wished she would turn around even slightly so that he could see her in full profile.

All at once Prosser became aware of a low rumble coming from the open French doors in the foyer. It rose rapidly into an insistent roar that mounted and fell in waves and from time to time resembled the crackle of radio static. A few heads in the rows ahead of him glanced nervously behind them, as if to determine whether anyone else had noticed that Beirut’s monthlong East-West cease-fire had just collapsed.

Prosser let his mind wander during the remaining dance number, pondering first whether tonight’s battle in the commercial district would stand in the way of his plans to cross the Green Line early the next morning. Having decided it probably would not, he went on to size up which of the young Arab diplomats in the room looked most approachable. If he could elicit from just one of them his date and place of birth, previous postings, current areas of responsibility, and a few trivial bits of personal background, he would have enough for a name-trace request that would create for Headquarters the illusion of movement on the agent-recruiting front.

At last the drums of the Great Plains Indians fell silent and the dancers’ shuffling feet ceased to stir. They took their final bow and disappeared into the guest quarters of the residence to change out of their costumes and join the audience for dessert and coffee. Prosser tried to imagine a conversation between a Plains Indian, born and raised on a parched reservation somewhere in Oklahoma or South Dakota, and a Lebanese plutocrat whose time was divided evenly between Beirut, Paris, Cannes, and Mégève.

“Have you seen the ambassador?” He felt a gentle tug at his elbow and found a pale and jittery Muriel Benson at his side. She was at the head of the milling crowd that had begun to file past him toward the dining room, where cake, cookies, and coffee were being served.

Prosser shook his head. “Would you like me to look for him?”

“Would you mind terribly? Tell him Raymond needs him in the kitchen right away,” she whispered. “There’s a problem with the cake.”

“The cake? Golly, I’ll let him know right away, Muriel. I’m sure he’ll want to drop whatever he’s doing.”

Muriel ignored the sarcasm. “You are such a dear, Conrad.”

Prosser let the crowd file by. The ambassador was nowhere in sight. At last he followed the other guests into the dining room and lined up at the bar behind an impeccably suited Arab with a Vandyke beard whom he recognized from Pirelli’s description as the first secretary of the Saudi Arabian embassy. The Saudis had made themselves particularly scarce in Beirut since a carload of pro-Iranian fanatics had winged one of their economic attachés during a recent kidnap attempt. With their own civil war temporarily in abatement, the Lebanese had felt compelled to take on the conflict of their distant neighbors, Iran and Iraq.

Prosser watched with keen interest to see whether the Saudi, whose culture demanded strict adherence to the strictures of Islam, ordered fruit juice or scotch at the bar. If the latter, he resolved to pursue him for all he was worth. If the former, he would make a beeline for the Egyptian in the corner swirling a snifter of cognac.

But before the outcome was clear, Prosser’s attention was drawn to the sight of Raymond, the ambassador’s moon-faced Lebanese chef, entering the room with a gigantic sheet cake decorated as Old Glory. The ambassador followed him into the room with his customary pomp, two steps back, with Muriel at his heels. No sooner did he pass through the door, however, than he stopped short. His face grew crimson, and it became apparent that the chief of mission was seething with some suppressed rage. At the same time, Muriel’s usual bright-eyed, capable air seemed to have deserted her. A titter of embarrassed laughter arose from among the guests standing around the dining room table as the cake was laid to rest.

Prosser peered over the shoulders of a pair of overdressed Lebanese matrons loading their plates with petit fours and saw at once what had so disturbed the ambassador: a wag in the bakery had substituted six-pointed Stars of David for the five-pointed stars in Old Glory’s field of blue. By so doing, the prankster had deftly called attention to the U.S. government’s hypocrisy in professing to uphold Lebanon’s territorial integrity against the Syrian occupation while turning a blind eye to the Israeli-occupied security zone in South Lebanon. It was the ambassador’s job to present the U.S. position as a single consistent fabric—yet here was an irksome thread dangling before everyone’s eyes.

“What would monsieur like to drink?” the white-jacketed bartender asked as soon as the tittering died down.

Prosser noticed the bearded Saudi carrying away an orange juice and cursed under his breath. “Remy Martin, please, neat,” he replied. He took his drink and backed away from the table, intending to pursue the Egyptian in the corner. A trio of giggling college-age girls in strapless cocktail dresses now occupied the spot where the Egyptian had been. An elderly Lebanese couple directly ahead of him disappeared around a corner into the foyer, and Prosser decided to follow them onto the terrace.

As he passed through the French doors, he heard the low rumble of faraway shelling and realized that what had drawn so many guests outdoors was not the cool night air but the spectacle of tracer fire leaping back and forth across the Green Line. From the port in the city’s north down through the Forêt des Pins to Hazmiyé in the south, even from a distance of seven or eight kilometers the arcs of brilliant light pouring into the no-man’s-land held the onlookers entranced.

Two or three minutes passed and the battle’s hypnotic effect began to wear off. Prosser turned his back once more on the city, and almost at once he spotted the missing Egyptian, waving his snifter in one hand and a panatella in the other, driving home a point to Eric Alleyn, a quick-witted young political officer from the British embassy. Prosser sensed that Alleyn would welcome having someone take the Egyptian off his hands, so he set off to join them.

“Guido? Is that really you, my dear? Guido Novara?”

An oddly familiar woman’s voice called out from only a few steps away, but because she was backlit, Prosser did not recognize her until she was directly upon him. Then he remembered the name on the Italian passport he had borrowed some two years ago in Jeddah.

“Guido! Yes, it is you, Guido! I could have sworn I saw you during the show, but I wanted to be certain before I made a complete fool of myself. You do remember, don’t you? Tullia Novara? Jeddah airport? After all, we were husband and wife, Guido, if only for an evening.”

“My God, Lorraine!” Prosser exclaimed. “What in God’s name are you doing in Beirut? I thought you had gone back to London or Dublin or someplace civilized.”

He laughed and she joined in. Her laughter had a gay music to it, and the way she threw her head back gave the impression that nothing could disturb her sense of well-being. Even on the night two years before in Saudi Arabia, when she faced the prospect of a brutal interrogation by Saudi security forces and a lengthy sojourn in a Saudi women’s prison, her laugh still held the magical power of somehow making it all go away, at least for a few shining moments.

“I’m flying again, with Middle East Airlines. I’ve gone back to what I did when I first came out to the Middle East. Ghassan insisted that I quit when we were married. But once all that was behind me and I found myself back in London without a job, it seemed the best thing for me was to go back to the work I’ve always loved doing.”

“But for heaven’s sake, Lorraine, why Beirut? The airport here is closed nearly as many days as it’s open. MEA can barely meet its payroll.”

“Oh, it’s only a ten-week contract. They need an in-flight services trainer for their new class of air hostess trainees. As soon as Walter’s TDY is finished, we’ll go back to Washington and I’ll find a job flying out of Dulles.”

Lorraine must have seen the cloud of confusion pass across his face. In the moment before she held her hand up to silence him, her green eyes took on an expression that passed quickly from doubt to understanding to resignation.

“Don’t tell me. I already know what you’re thinking, Guido. You see, the reason Walter didn’t say anything to you about my coming is that he didn’t know about it. I’ve been in London these past four weeks seeing old friends and working out the details of my return. I haven’t breathed a word of it yet to Walter. He has arrived by now, hasn’t he?”

Prosser felt himself redden. Suddenly beads of perspiration began forming on his upper lip despite the cool offshore breeze. He drew in a deep breath. “Lorraine, I don’t exactly relish being a shit, but I can’t talk to you about what Walt may or may not be doing. If he told you anything, that’s his business. But whatever he said, I can’t confirm or deny it.”

“That sounds so very official of you, Guido. Certainly you can let Walter know I’m here, can’t you?”

“If I said I could, I’d be confirming to you that he’s in-country. Didn’t he leave you a forwarding address or give you some kind of contact instructions?”

Lorraine let out a deep sigh, and within an instant all of her innate charm and buoyancy seemed to escape her. “You know how unreliable Walter can be. Before I left Amman, he said he’d meet me in London on his way back to the States. But after a week I grew tired of waiting.”

Prosser avoided her gaze. There was something troubling about a woman who felt compelled to follow a man to a country in the midst of a civil war when he hadn’t even given her the courtesy of a forwarding address. “So how long have the two of you been together?” he asked in an effort to break the silence. “You left Saudi Arabia at the end of ’77, wasn’t it?”

“January 4, 1978, to be precise. I went back to work for British Airways in London in mid-January, and ten weeks later I looked up Walt on my first flight to Amman. When the airline refused to base me in Amman, I quit and got a job flying for Royal Jordanian. Walter and I have been together ever since.”

Prosser cast a quick glance toward the dining room and its cake with six-pointed stars. “Listen, Lorraine. The party is winding down. Let me take you back to town and we can catch up on what’s been happening. You’re staying in West Beirut, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“Hotel?”

“The Riviera, on the Corniche.”

“That’s only a couple of blocks from my apartment. Come on. When we get back, I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll see what we can do about straightening out old Walt.”

At the mention of Walt’s name, the magical smile lit up Lorraine’s face, and she took Prosser’s arm as he led her toward the door.

* * *

“Do you suppose they intend to carry on like this all night?” Lorraine inquired, turning away from the red glow of tracer fire as Prosser rejoined her on the balcony of his fourth-floor flat and gazed out over the Mediterranean. The din held steady but was not overpowering; rather, it was as if a thunderstorm was passing somewhere offshore.

He handed her a fresh gin and tonic and settled into the wicker armchair beside her. “The shelling generally tapers off before dawn, around four or five in the morning. But don’t worry. After a few days, you won’t even notice it unless it comes within a couple blocks of you.”

“Don’t shells ever land in this part of the city?”

“Not many since I’ve been here. Where you’re sitting right now is quite safe. You see, incoming rounds almost always arrive from the southeast, from along the Green Line. There’s a hell of a lot of bricks and mortar between us and the southeast side of the building. Unfortunately, the Riviera Hotel isn’t quite as well shielded as this building, but unless you’re in an eastward-facing room, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Lorraine stood up to inhale the fragrant blossoms of the potted frangipani tree at her side. She didn’t look reassured. “You have a lovely apartment, Conrad. Did you find it yourself?”

Prosser leaned back in his wicker chair and took another sip of bourbon. “The embassy has it under a long-term lease. My predecessor lived in it, and so did his predecessor, and the fellow before that, most probably. Not ideal from a security standpoint. But you couldn’t find a better view of the Corniche anywhere in West Beirut.”

“Conrad, please tell me if what I’m about to ask would create a problem for you or embarrass you in any way. But would you mind terribly if I spent the night on your lovely American sofa?”

Prosser laughed and reached out to take her hand. “Of course not, Lorraine. But why don’t you take my bedroom and I’ll stay on the sofa? I rather like sleeping out here in the salt air from time to time.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it. But I will accept your offer of the sofa. I simply can’t bear another night in that hotel. There are only three of us on the entire floor, and the other two give me gooseflesh. Thank God Muriel has invited me to stay with her for the next week until Walter arrives.”

Prosser let the reference to Lukash pass without comment. “I’ll fetch you a towel and washcloth and some fresh bed linens. If you need a toothbrush or anything, help yourself to what you can find in the medicine cabinet.”

* * *

Prosser had not quite passed from twilight consciousness into a deep sleep when he heard the latch on his door click open. Through half-open eyes he saw a silvery glow spread across the wall opposite the partially open door. A slender figure in an oversize white terry robe approached from the moonlit corridor and entered the bedroom.

“Conrad? Are you awake?”

“Yes. Is anything wrong?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“The shelling?”

“I don’t think so.” She fell silent, as if weighing her words, and sat at the edge of the bed. “Conrad, have I ever asked you whether you’re married?”

It was his turn to be silent. He rolled over onto his side and faced her. “I can’t recall if you did or not,” he answered at last. “Anyway, I’m not. I was once but not anymore. My divorce decree arrived here shortly after I did.”

“I’m sorry,” Lorraine replied with the proper note of sympathy. “Do you miss her?”

“Oh, once in a great while, I suppose. Not as often as I expected.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

Prosser looked up at the loose mess of hair spilling over Lorraine’s shoulders and then noticed a spark of anticipation in her eyes. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I ever was. No, I just married her.”

Lorraine bent over him and placed her palm flat against his cheek. He put his own hand over hers, hodling it there for a long moment before reaching down to tug on the belt that held the terry robe around her waist. It fell open, revealing the glowing whiteness of her thighs and the outlines of her small, conical breasts. She shrugged her shoulders and let the robe slide down her back and onto the floor.

* * *

The sun lit up the borders of the heavy curtains like the corona of an eclipsed sun. When the alarm buzzer sounded, Prosser sat bolt upright and shielded his face from the band of blinding light where the curtains failed to reach the floor. Without opening his eyes, he managed to find the clock and turn off the rasping buzz with a deft tap of his fingers.

“Good morning,” Lorraine greeted him huskily. She rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her slender hands.

“Sorry about the alarm. It has a nasty bark, but I need it to cut through the morning haze sometimes. Did you sleep well?”

“Beautifully,” she replied. “And you?”

“Never better. I guess I was more tired than I realized. Listen, Lorraine, I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t say it. There’s no need to be sorry. All I wanted was someone to hold me and listen, and you were wonderful.”

“It’s kind of you to say that. But I don’t generally have this sort of problem, so I don’t know exactly what to say. Maybe it takes a while before the subconscious realizes that a divorce decree is intended to set you free again.”

Lorraine looked at him as if she were trying to read his mind. “If it’s Walter you’re thinking about, don’t give it another thought. As I said before, Walter can be thoroughly unreliable. I’ve had to learn not to depend on him when I feel the need to be close to someone. It’s not that I don’t love him, because I believe I do, but I also believe a woman is capable of loving more than one man. And right now, Conrad, I find myself growing rather fond of you.”

She pulled herself on top of him and sat with her ivory thighs astride his waist, twisting the curly hairs on his stomach around her fingertips. “Why don’t you leave me a message at the Riviera this afternoon and let me know if you’ll be free tonight. Or tomorrow night, for that matter. I’m not going anywhere for a while. Heavens, for all I know, there may not even be a Walter Lukash.”

Chapter 4

Prosser switched on the car radio as he entered the refuse-strewn wasteland opposite the Saint Simon bathing beach, three kilometers south of the city. He turned up the volume and listened carefully for the tone that announced the beginning of the eight o’clock news. The morning broadcasts always carried a complete listing of the hot spots that Beirut’s morning commuters should avoid if they wished to escape sniping, shelling, kidnapping, car bombs, and other local hazards.

According to Radio Liban, the unofficial casualty figures from last night’s battle were two Phalangist fighters dead and five wounded, and from the National Movement, four fighters dead and eight wounded. The civilian totals would be higher, the announcer predicted, but those numbers would not be available for another twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, civil defense workers were laboring around the clock to collect the remains of the noncombatants who had cowered in cellars and windowless interior rooms until shell, rocket, or bullet had found them.

With new cease-fire talks not having yet begun, both the port and Sodeco crossings remained closed to morning commuters. Since Prosser knew this generally created mile-long backups at the National Museum checkpoint, he opted for the more distant but less frequented Galerie Semaan crossing, located six or seven kilometers southeast of the city. After a mere twenty-minute delay in the slums of Shiyah before reaching the Syrian checkpoint, he found the crossing open for business and was soon across the Beirut River moving north toward suburban Sinn el Fil, in Christian East Beirut.

Five years of civil war had stripped away more than a few layers of civilization from Lebanese society, among them the enforcement of speed limits and traffic regulations. The cardinal rule of the road was to trust one’s horn, floor the accelerator, and yield only to superior mass. Prosser merged aggressively into the Sinn el Fil traffic circle and peeled off to the right toward Jdeidé and the coastal autostrade.

A few moments later he found himself amid a barren tract on the outskirts of suburban East Beirut that was neither agricultural, residential, nor industrial, yet possessed the least attractive features of all three. Half-built warehouses abandoned at the outbreak of hostilities and shabby stone farmhouses with haphazardly tended truck gardens dotted the low hills, each surrounded by rusting carcasses of dead Fiats and Peugeots.

Prosser drove on, reaching the coastal suburb of Jdeidé with half an hour to spare. Instead of continuing north along the Mediterranean, he passed through the tidy bedroom community that occupied the thin wedge of fertile land between the coastal autostrade and the foothills of the Sannine Range, then started up the narrow mountain road toward Ain Saadé and the summer resorts of Beït Meri and Broummana. After only five minutes of climbing, the humid coastal air became drier and took on a perceptible chill.

Halfway to Ain Saadé, Prosser steered the Renault off the road at the crest of a hill overlooking the commercial port and parked on the gravel shoulder. Directly below him was St. Georges Bay and the southern terminus of the autostrade, while to the north lay the prosperous seaside suburbs of Jall ed Dib and Antélias. Barely visible in the haze beyond them lay the thriving harbor town of Jounié. Prosser turned his eyes west, where a huddled mass of whitewashed houses clung to the steep slopes of Jebel Achrafiyé, just east of the Green Line separating East and West Beirut, their red tile roofs blazing in the brilliant rays of the morning sun. As many times as he had looked out over the city from this or one of the other hills above Jdeidé, he never ceased to marvel at the rugged beauty of the land and its wondrous faculty for concealing the wounds inflicted by five years of armed conflict.

Having nearly squandered his half-hour head start, Prosser retreated to the coast, keeping a vigilant eye open for any clues that he might be under surveillance. He picked up the autostrade at Jdeidé, rode it for just under five minutes, and exited to the north at Antélias. Reasonably certain by now that he had not been followed, he backed into a parking space two blocks south of his Lebanese agent’s twelve-story apartment block.

The time was ten minutes after nine, and any residents of the building who held down jobs would already be on their way to work. Prosser entered through the rear door. The concierge’s chair on the opposite side of the lobby was unoccupied, as were both elevators. He entered the elevator to the left, rode to the tenth floor, and then walked down two flights of stairs to César Khalifé’s eight-floor apartment to throw off anyone who might have seen him enter.

He rang the bell and a melodic young voice called out something unintelligible. Then footsteps rapped a hasty beat across the hardwood floor. The door opened and a slender, dark-eyed woman in her late twenties stood before him, dressed modestly in a charcoal wool skirt and a white silk blouse, a leather art portfolio slung over her shoulder.

Prosser had seen César’s daughter only once before. As he recalled, her long chestnut hair had been gathered behind her neck with a brightly colored silk scarf, as it was now. And, as before, her erect carriage and uplifted chin conveyed an air of aloofness tinged with disdain, as if she knew what he was about and wanted no part of it.

“Sabah al-khayr, Muna,” he began. “Is your father at home?”

“Sabah an-nour,” she replied with studied politeness. “Entrez, s’il vous plait.” Her smile was businesslike and devoid of any spark of interest in him or the work that had brought him there. “My father is expecting you and will join you in a moment. Would you like some coffee or some mint tea?” she continued in French.

“No, thank you. I’ve already had some this morning. Besides, you look as though you’re on your way out.” He spoke in English because he knew her English was at least as good as, if not better than, his French or Arabic.

A wry smile formed at the corners of her mouth and her aloof expression softened. Beneath Muna’s businesslike façade was a woman of considerable allure, Prosser thought. He wished he could see more of her, but could not imagine how it could be done as long as her father remained an agent of Beirut Station.

“Oui, c’est ça,” she replied with a careless shrug. “Au revoir, monsieur.”

Before he could tell her to call him by his first name, Muna Khalifé was past him and on her way to the lobby.

Prosser looked around the room. The decor was typical of the Levantine merchant class—Louis of Lebanon, as he had once heard Muriel Benson call it—a profusion of oriental rugs, ornate woodwork, gold leaf, and red velvet along with an untidy collection of souvenir knickknacks from France, Switzerland, Japan, and North America, balanced by the melancholy of painted icons of the Maronite Catholic Church. The decor showed the influence of César’s late wife—nothing had been moved or replaced since her death two years before, when a car bomb exploded outside the bakery where she had gone to buy bread.

“Bonjour, bonjour, mon ami,” came an unexpectedly jolly voice in the corridor. Prosser caught sight of a short, barrel-chested man with a florid complexion and shiny gray hair combed back in marcelled waves. He seemed the picture of the Levantine merchant in his raw silk suit, tailored white shirt worn unbuttoned to the breastbone, and wraparound Alain Delon sunglasses worn on top of his head.

According to César’s file at Headquarters, before the outbreak of civil war in 1975, César had been a reasonably prosperous importer of electric appliances, owning a showroom and warehouse off rue Weygand in the heart of the old commercial district. The building had been gutted by fire in the first week of the war and now stood near the center of the no-man’s-land separating East and West Beirut. Because César’s wealth had been almost completely tied up in his building and inventory, the loss of merchandise and real estate had forced him to liquidate all of his other investments and even to sell his ancestral mountain villa near Beït Meri to pay his creditors. Having managed to retain little more than his Mercedes and his furniture, César moved his wife and daughter into a high-rise apartment in Antélias on the strength of a mortgage to his sister and brother-in-law.

With the loss of his business, César threw himself into the war effort with abandon, commanding a battery of Chamounist artillery in the hills around Beït Meri from May of 1975 until the autumn of the following year, when the arrival of Syrian tanks brought temporary peace to Lebanon and gave the Christian alliance between the Chamounist National Liberal Party and the more powerful Phalange Party sufficient time to unravel. By the end of October, César had found it impossible to work with his Phalange counterparts, who baited and harassed the Chamounist NLP officers at every opportunity. He resigned his commission, went back to being a rank-and-file member of the NLP’s political organization, and set about rebuilding his electrical goods business.

Around the same time, Prosser recalled from the file, César had found an occasion to visit the American embassy’s consular section, where he met a mid-level consular officer named Edwin Pirelli. During the winter of 1976–1977, César had spent many evenings at Pirelli’s apartment pouring out his bitterness toward the Phalangists and their relentless drive for political dominance over the Lebanese Christian community. Pirelli was nothing if not a patient listener, and his penetrating questions also displayed an astute grasp of Lebanese history and politics, which further endeared him to the merchant-warrior.

From time to time, Pirelli pressed César to back up his opinions with facts that Pirelli could cite to his superiors at the American embassy to show that he had his finger on the pulse of Lebanon’s political life. Before long, César found himself canvassing his friends and relatives regularly about their views on specific political issues and cultivating those of his acquaintances who held positions in the Phalange Party or militia.

One evening, after a particularly enjoyable meal at Pépé’s, a celebrated fish restaurant overlooking the Roman Harbor at Byblos, César confided to Pirelli his recent difficulties in holding on to his most lucrative distributorship, that of a French kitchen appliance manufacturer. Owing to his distressed financial circumstances, he was no longer able to carry the manufacturer’s full line of products or to keep ample levels of inventory in stock, nor could he adequately promote the products that were coming under intense competitive pressure from the Japanese. As a result, the manufacturer threatened to take away César’s exclusive franchise for Lebanon—or, at the very least, to divide it between two or more regional distributors. César had tried to procure a loan to support an increased level of business, but the interest rates the local banks were charging were nothing less than extortionate. After servicing the debt, he would have been left with little or nothing with which to support himself and his daughter.

Pirelli had asked what rate the banks were charging and how much money César would need to maintain his current living standard in the event that he committed himself to a loan on the banks’ terms. César named a figure and Pirelli nodded once. A moment of silence followed, and then Pirelli offered to pay César a handsome salary for doing nothing more than continuing his political reporting. A smile of happy disbelief spread slowly across César’s face. He agreed at once and ordered two glasses of the bar’s best Armagnac to seal the bargain. Within a few months, César became one of the station’s most productive reporting agents in East Beirut.

Prosser, whom César knew under the alias of Charles, was the third Agency case officer to handle him since his recruitment. Now he took a seat on the sofa and waited while the affable Lebanese laid a manila envelope between them.

“Yesterday I received the reports from both Jubran and Salim,” César said. “There is much to tell you, Charles. Shall we go to my study?”

“No, let’s stay here. If anybody comes to the door, I’ll wait in the kitchen until you can get rid of them.”

It was a beautiful morning, with the sky the deepest, clearest cobalt blue Prosser had ever seen. The study, he knew very well, was an airless, windowless cell. Under the circumstances, he saw no need to be overly meticulous about security.

“As you wish, mon ami,” César replied “Shall we begin with Jubran, then? It is all written in his report, of course, but if you wish I can make a précis for you until you have time to translate it properly.”

“Please do,” Prosser answered, drawing a checkbook-size notepad and a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket.

César recited the highlights of Jubran’s report. For the most part, it discussed the talks held aboard an Israeli gunboat three days before between the deputy director of the Mossad and the chief of Phalange intelligence. According to Jubran, a distant cousin of César who worked as a Phalange political organizer in the mountainous Metn district, the main item on the agenda had been the reconfiguration of Israeli military and intelligence assistance to the Phalange in exchange for the promise of American aid. The Lebanese wanted the Israelis to maintain current aid levels; the Israelis argued for cutbacks in areas where the Phalange could expect American aid. So much for the secrecy of the Agency’s newest liaison relationship, Prosser thought as he listened to the report.

A second topic discussed aboard the gunboat was said to be a Phalange proposal for destabilizing the Syrian regime by delivering communications equipment and technical advice to the Muslim Brotherhood and other internal opponents of the Damascus regime. “If we want a war with Syria, we would prefer to launch it ourselves,” the Mossad official had replied icily. He cautioned his Lebanese counterpart that if the Phalangists nonetheless mounted such a campaign on their own, the Damascus regime could be expected to respond with overwhelming force against Lebanese Christian population centers, most likely even worse than the summer-long shelling of densely populated Achrafiyé in 1978.

Finally César recited the main points of recent reporting from Salim, a major in the Phalange-dominated Lebanese Forces artillery, which laid out the order of battle of Lebanese Forces artillery units in the Kasrawan and Metn. When he had finished, he shuffled the papers into a neat pile and returned them to the manila envelope. “Now I will bring our coffee. After, I shall have a story to tell you.”

“Would you like me to help you in the kitchen?” Prosser offered.

“No, no, no, the coffee is all prepared. Please, relax.”

César disappeared into the hallway and returned promptly with a well-worn silver-plated tray and two demitasse cups filled to the brim with thick, cloyingly sweet Arab coffee. He placed the cups on the edge of the table in front of them and pushed the tray to the side. “Let me start by asking you a question, Charles. Has Edouard ever talked to you about how he and I began our work together?”

“I seem to recall that you and Ed met in our embassy’s consular section during the Events, when Ed was a visa officer. Is that correct, or do I have things mixed up?” Prosser recalled that “Edouard” had been the alias Pirelli used with César.

César ignored Prosser’s question and posed another of his own. “And do you know the reason why I visited your consulate?”

“For a visa, I would expect. Why else would anyone who isn’t an American citizen bother to stand in those outrageous queues for the privilege of talking to rude people hiding behind bulletproof windows?”

César disregarded Prosser’s attempt at humor and looked to the floor with a sadness that Prosser had never seen before in the usually jovial Lebanese. “How I wish the matter were as simple. I went to your consulate because I needed help in finding a missing person: Muna’s husband. You see, Muna married an American.”

Prosser took his cup from the table and sipped the steaming black liquid with his full attention on César.

The agent’s eyes glistened and his hand appeared to tremble as he reunited cup and saucer. “Next month will be five years since William has been missing, yet we know scarcely more now about what became of him than on the day he left. On that afternoon, William was booked to depart on the Alitalia flight to Rome to attend some sort of meeting with his company. He and Muna had just returned from their honeymoon in Corfu the day before. And on the evening of their return, we all went to dinner together to celebrate—my wife; my sister, Claudette; her husband, Victor...”

“The sister who taught Arabic at the American embassy?”

César nodded. “Yes, though she and Victor live in Kuwait now. They left early in the war—even then Victor could see what was happening...” For a long moment César stared abstractedly out the window at the clouds’ violet underbellies, as if recollecting the events. “Please, excuse me,” he said, coming back to the present. “My mind wanders. I meant to tell you about Muna’s husband, not my sister, Claudette. In any event, hours passed after William left for the airport, and still we did not hear whether he had caught his flight. The checkpoints were already very dangerous in those days, particularly in the southern suburbs and around the airport.

“We called the police to see if he had been detained at a checkpoint en route to the West Side. No, they said, no Americans were on their list. Then we thought perhaps the telephone lines to the airport had been cut and his calls to us had not gone through, so we contacted the telephone company. The lines to the West Side were intact. We called Alitalia to verify that the flight to Rome had departed. It had. We waited longer, by now sick with worry—all of us, but Muna most of all.

“And then we turned on the radio and learned that Phalangist gunmen had massacred a busload of Palestinians in Aïn el Rummaneh earlier that afternoon. When we heard about the bus and the wave of revenge killings spreading across the city, our fears increased that William might have been captured at a roadblock before reaching the airport. We telephoned everyone again—the Lebanese Sûreté, the NLP and Phalange offices, even friends with ties to the Palestinians and the National Movement—but no one was aware of an American taken hostage that day. We called Alitalia once more to verify that William was aboard their flight. His name was on the manifest, they told us, but he never boarded the aircraft. We tried every other airline that had a scheduled flight departing that afternoon after. But his name did not appear on any manifest.”

Prosser nodded gravely. “That must have been a terrible time for you and your family,” he said. But César continued without acknowledging the comment.

“After two days and two nights spent at the telephone, I decided I must cross to West Beirut and make my inquiries in person. If any American had been captured or killed since the fighting began, the American consul would surely know. So the American embassy was my first stop.” The agent gave a dark laugh. “Of course, I was still very naïve in those days.

“In the beginning I had difficulty in finding anyone at the consulate to listen to me, as every counter was flooded with people seeking visas to America. At last one of the American secretaries lost patience with the crowd. She stood on a chair and made an earsplitting sound with a police whistle, then she demanded in a loud voice which of us did not want a visa. I was the only one to raise my hand. She led me into a vacant office, listened politely to my request, and then directed me to a door at the end of the corridor. It was the door to Edouard’s office.

“To be sure, I was so relieved at having found someone who was willing to listen to me, I think I would have done anything he asked. He told me to sit on the sofa and to tell him my entire story from the beginning. I told him how we had met a young American through my sister, Claudette, who gave him Arabic lessons in her home every day, and how she invited him one Sunday to join us for a family dinner at our mother’s house in the mountains.”

“Just a moment, César,” Prosser interrupted. “Was Muna’s husband doing anything else in Beirut besides learning Arabic? It seems rather odd to me that he would have come all the way to a city on the brink of civil war just to take language lessons. If you can give me his full name, I’ll check it against our consular records and ask Washington to run a name trace on him.”

“The name on his passport was William Conklin, but we all called him Bill in those days. When we first met, he said that he was a salesman for a company in New York—or was it New Jersey?—and that the company made refrigerators and freezers for hotels and restaurants. He told me the company’s name once, but I no longer remember it. He said they had a very profitable line of commercial refrigerators that they planned to market to hotels and restaurants and hospitals in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Since William had experience selling the products and enjoyed traveling, he had volunteered to make sales calls in Jeddah and Riyadh. Within a month, he had received large purchase orders from two of the new hotels being built in Riyadh.

“When he returned to New York, he convinced his superiors that he could sell many more units in the Middle East if he could travel regularly to the cities where new hotels and other large institutions were being built. For this, however, he said he would need to study the Arabic language and learn something about how Arabs do business. His company agreed, and it was decided soon afterward that he should move to Beirut.

“That an American company would be willing to accept a delay of nearly a year to prepare one of its salesmen to do business properly with the Arabs did not seem odd to me at the time. I knew several Japanese who learned Arabic under similar circumstances. Nor did it seem odd that William made no attempts to sell equipment while he was in Lebanon. He would spend four or five hours a day in class with Claudette, then another five or six studying at home, all in addition to the tasks of daily living and his going out at night and over the weekends to relax with Muna and their friends. There was no time for selling his refrigerators.

“At the end of February, William told us that his company had decided that Beirut would not be suitable as a base for traveling to the Gulf and that he was to move to Kuwait by the beginning of April. This seemed to upset him, as by then he and Muna had begun to talk of marriage and they both wanted more time before making a final decision. William sent many letters and cables to New York in an effort to persuade his superiors to reverse their decision or at least to delay it until summer. But in the end the only concession they made was to have him return to New York for one week before traveling on to Kuwait in mid-April.

“As you might imagine, Muna was extremely upset over the idea that William might move to Kuwait so suddenly. She is a very persistent girl, and I think she made life very difficult for him then. One night soon afterward, I was at home reading when they returned after midnight from dinner at the Casino du Liban, laughing and singing like drunken sailors. I noticed at once the diamond ring on Muna’s hand.

“Believe me, Charles, when William asked permission to marry my only daughter, I had not the slightest reason to doubt he would treat her well. If someone had told me then that he would leave her a week after their wedding night and never return, I would have thought such a thing less likely than the sun coming up in the west. Even today, in my heart of hearts, I feel certain that William must have been captured and killed before he reached the airport. Because if he were alive, I know he would have found a way to return to her. As much as I reject the idea of his death, to think that he deserted my Muna—his wife of only one week—without so much as a word of explanation, is simply inconceivable. Yet, from time to time I see him in my dreams, lying on the beach in California or Brazil or Australia, or drinking champagne in a nightclub, surrounded by beautiful women. In each dream, he appears pleased to see me and invites me to sit with him and have a drink. But when he speaks my name, I cannot resist lunging for his throat and squeezing with all my strength, then watching his complexion turn from bronze to red to blue and then to black before I wake up.”

César took the last sip of his coffee but continued to hold the cup and saucer in his lap and stared blankly at the muddy grounds covering the bottom of the cup. “It seems odd to me now as I think of it, but Muna was never quite as upset as I expected her to be over William’s disappearance. The first day was hardest for her, of course. Once it became clear that no group had taken responsibility for having captured an American, Muna took heart and convinced herself that he was safely out of Lebanon and that she would hear from him soon. Days passed, then weeks and months, now years, but Muna still has maintained an unshakable faith that William will someday come back to Beirut. She will not tolerate a harsh word to be said about him, and has refused even to discuss an annulment of the marriage—that is, until this week.”

Prosser set down his cup and looked up at César with fresh interest.

“You see, another young man has declared his intention to marry Muna, and she realizes that before long she must decide whether to go on waiting for a man who may never return or to open her heart to someone very close by who cares deeply for her. Until now I have not told you about Elie—that is the young man’s name—because I did not want our business together to interfere with my daughter’s future. But now the time has come for it, and for showing my trust in you and in Edouard.

“You recall the series of reports I have sent you lately about Phalange intelligence and its operations against the Syrians?” César continued.

“The ones from Jubran’s cousin?” Prosser asked.

“Jubran has no cousin in Phalange intelligence,” César replied. “Those reports are from Elie. Whenever he joins us for dinner, we drink arak and discuss our progress in the struggle to expel the Syrian occupiers from Lebanon. Although I have never been a Phalangist, Elie respects my service with the Lebanese Forces during the Events and considers me as much a Lebanese patriot as he is. Whenever he visits, he always says more about his work than he intends. But that is hardly surprising, as we have known each other since he was a small boy growing up in the same village.”

“And the expenses that were paid to Jubran as reimbursement for entertaining his cousin?”

“I expended them for entertaining Elie, just as Jubran would have done for his cousin. All are accounted for.”

“All right, all right,” Prosser conceded. “I won’t question the expenses. Just tell me Elie’s full name and date and place of birth so that I can have them for our records.”

“I will tell you that in due time. It will suffice for the present that Elie is a middle-ranking officer in Phalange intelligence and participates directly in their operations against the Syrians and Palestinians. He has direct access to the information he gives me.”

“When do you plan to tell me the rest?”

“As soon as I know that he will become my son-in-law,” César offered. “But even if he does not marry Muna, it may still be possible for me to continue meeting Elie as a friend and to recruit him at some later time.”

“Do you think he’s recruitable?”

César replaced the demitasse cup on the silver tray and leaned back on the sofa to consider his answer. “I believe so. But particularly so if he and Muna marry. Muna already knows of my work for you, so that should pose no obstacle. And if they raise a family, they will need the added income that work for your government would bring. Which brings me to the reason why I have spoken to you at such great length about Muna’s American husband.

“The matter is this: two nights ago, she and I discussed for the first time Elie’s intentions to marry her. At the end of our discussion, Muna promised me that if you and Edouard can persuade her that William is dead, or even if you fail to find compelling evidence of his existence after a thorough search of your government’s records, then she will agree to seek an annulment of her marriage to William and accept Elie’s proposal. So I ask you, Charles, will you conduct such an investigation for me…and my family?”

“Certainly,” Prosser assured him. “Just get me Muna’s marriage certificate and any other documents she has that show her husband’s full name and any biographic details about him. If we can come up with a full name and Social Security number, we’ll soon know whatever there is to know about him. If he’s dead, Muna may even be entitled to what’s left of his estate—pension benefits, life insurance proceeds, and any savings he may have had. And if he’s alive—well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. For all we know, the bastard could still be out there somewhere selling freezers and refrigerators.”

César smiled, but his eyes remained as hard as flint. “Charles, I tell you from my heart, sometimes I think it is better for all of us if we find he is dead. If he lives, so long as he remains in the United States, it is something that I could accept. But, Charles, if he lives and ever dares come to Lebanon, by God’s Holy Word, I...” César broke off suddenly, looked away, and seemed spellbound by the odd play of light and shadow cast by the Venetian blinds against the wall. “If he comes back, Charles, I will squeeze his throat until his eyes fall out of his head.”

Chapter 5

By the time Lukash started from his apartment toward Place Sassine, the sun had been up for two hours and the morning chill had long since left the air. The pushcart vendors, having staked out their positions on the sunny side of rue Furn el Hayek, were doing a brisk business in pirated music cassettes, smuggled German beer, and local oranges and lemons. Lukash stopped at a white-tiled coffee bar on the far side of the square, downed the shotglass-size cup of muddy Arab coffee in two gulps, and continued along rue Sioufi as it began its gradual descent down the eastern slope of Jebel Achrafiyé toward the Beirut River.

Lukash saw the beige Chevy Caprice coming up the hill and resisted an urge to consult his watch. He had set his watch by the BBC World Service before going to bed and was certain it could not now be many seconds past the stroke of nine o’clock. Pirelli had always been compulsively punctual. When a man has spent the better part of twenty years meeting agents on street corners, stairways, trains, buses, and elevators, it should hardly come as a surprise that punctuality might rise to the level of an obsession. Lukash stepped off the curb as the station chief’s Chevrolet slowed down opposite him.

“Hop in,” Pirelli greeted him as soon as the passenger door opened. “Too bad the militias chose your first night in town to break the cease-fire. Were you able to catch any sleep at all?”

“Slept like the dead,” Lukash answered with an easygoing smile. “It took me a little while to tune out the bigger blasts, but not as long as I might have expected.”

“Good for you. Most people need a couple of weeks to adjust to the sound effects.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to say I’m adjusted,” Lukash conceded. “Now that I’ve had a decent rest, tonight will probably be quiet along the Green Line and I’ll be kept awake by the ticking of my watch.”

Lukash noted that they had already reversed direction and were heading west on Avenue de l’Independance, back toward Place Sassine.

“By the way, you might want to make note of the route we’re taking to Phalange intelligence,” Pirelli said. “Tomorrow you’ll be on your own. The guards at the main gate already have your license plate number and a description of your car. And today you’ll be issued an ID card to get in and out of the place. Obviously, you don’t ever want to let that card get out of your hands except when you’re inside a Phalange installation. And for God’s sake, if you ever have reason to go back across the Green Line to West Beirut, leave it behind. It would be like wearing a narc badge to a Hell’s Angels convention.”

Pirelli turned right at the square and began the descent down rue Furn el-Hayek toward the Lebanese foreign ministry. Lukash knew Phalange intelligence headquarters was located in the Qarantina district somewhere in the vicinity of the port, but he was soon lost as they began winding their way downhill through the web of cobbled streets to the base of the hill on which Achrafiyé’s residential neighborhoods had been built.

“You mentioned yesterday that you took Twombley to see the chief of Phalange intelligence. What did he and Colonel Faris have to say to each other?” Lukash inquired as the slope of the hill began to level off.

“Oh, the usual slogans,” Pirelli answered airily. “You’ve worked liaison before, Walt, so you know the drill when a visiting honcho makes an appearance. Twombley started out waxing poetic about how glorious life had been for him in Beirut as a junior officer before the Palestinians and the Syrians ruined the neighborhood. Then he dusted off his old war stories about how Camille Chamoun botched the 1958 Lebanese Crisis. Of course, Faris wolfed it all down as readily as those honey-soaked Lebanese pastries he always keeps in his office. Twombley even managed to dredge up a story about meeting Faris’s father ten or twelve years ago at a wedding. That one alone probably bought enough goodwill to justify the cost of Twombley’s airfare.”

“How about Faris himself? What is he like to work with?”

“Oh, he’s decent enough,” Pirelli continued. “He ran an insurance agency most of his life, so, generally speaking, he knows how to get on with people. But he’s strictly amateur hour when it comes to the intelligence business. His primary qualification for the job is that he married Bashir Gemayel’s aunt. I’ve heard it said that Bashir would have fired Faris long ago, except that Shaykh Pierre rather likes having Faris around to look over his son’s shoulder for him.”

“I didn’t think the old man still had that kind of influence with Bashir,” Lukash observed.

“He probably doesn’t anymore, and Faris knows it. One of these days, Bashir will find an excuse to replace him with a younger man who owes his loyalty to nobody but Bashir and is smarter, more ambitious, and more ruthless than Faris. So keep your eyes open and try to stay on good terms with the younger officers you meet.”

“What would happen if Bashir fired Faris tomorrow?” Lukash probed. “Any chance that Bashir would cancel the expanded liaison program and send me packing?”

“No way,” Pirelli responded emphatically. “Bashir’s already given the ambassador the green light for you to start work, so I doubt he’d back out at this point. But you have to remember that the biggest booster by far of having an Agency officer inside Phalange intelligence has been Faris himself. It’s probably part of a last-ditch effort to hold on to his job.”

The Chevy turned left onto Avenue Charles Helou and headed toward the port. The avenue had once been a major artery from the largely Christian eastern suburbs into the heart of Beirut’s commercial district, and its broad median strip was still lined with two evenly spaced rows of palm trees. But most of the palms had been destroyed by fire, shelling, and lack of water during the Events, and only stumps remained the closer the two men approached to the port. What had once been an immaculately landscaped median, with carefully tended flowerbeds rivaling those found along the French Riviera, was now a barren strip of parched clay where only a few dust-caked palms and prickly pear cactuses eked out their survival.

Lukash was so absorbed in observing how far the neighborhood had deteriorated since the outbreak of civil war that he failed to notice the chief of station clench his jaw and cast a sidelong glance at him.

When Pirelli spoke again, a note of unease appeared in his voice. “Walt, in case we don’t have another chance to talk in private for a while, there’s one more thing we ought to discuss. Twombley tells me that the counterintelligence staff and the Office of Security have raised some questions about a certain lady friend of yours. A woman named Lorraine Ellis. Irish national, good-looking, early thirties. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

Lukash nodded once in acknowledgment. His eyes focused on Pirelli for a long moment, then he looked out over the Mediterranean as the station chief continued.

“A visiting fireman from Headquarters ran across this Ellis woman not long ago in Amman and ran a name trace on her. According to her Headquarters file, she’s the wife of a Syrian national who was ringleader of the plot to assassinate King Khalid a couple of years back. While her husband was off planning the operation, she was shacking up with one of our Arab agents. Anyway, the Saudis got wind of the plan somehow and made a couple of low-level arrests, but Ellis and her slimeball pal managed to get out of the country. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

Lukash nodded again.

“Then you must realize how the rest of the story must look to folks at Headquarters: a couple of months after she flees Saudi Arabia, Ellis turns up in Jordan as an air hostess for Royal Jordanian Airlines. By the time traces come back, she has already joined the American Club, befriended at least three station employees, including the station chief’s secretary and ops support assistant, and is shacking up with a certain Arabic-speaking case officer. Am I right or not?” Pirelli turned to Lukash with a look of avuncular concern. “You’ve got to admit, Walt, if you were riding a counterintelligence desk back at Headquarters, you’d be just a little suspicious, eh?”

“Let them suspect whatever they like,” Lukash answered calmly. “Yes, Lorraine lived with me for a while in Jordan. I made no attempt to conceal it; every expat in Amman knows Lorraine. But that’s over now. Lorraine is in Amman and I’m in Beirut. If Headquarters doesn’t believe I’ve severed ties with her, they can call me back to the States and ask me in person. A round-trip ticket to Washington and a few days of leave would suit me just fine.”

“Don’t get huffy now, Walt. All Twombley wants from you is a short cable addressed to the Office of Security detailing your relationship with this Ellis woman. They want to know where she comes from, how you met her, who her friends are, what she might have learned about your work—you know, all the details that the security screws think they have a God-given right to ask. And when you finish with it, I suggest you write Lorraine Ellis a nice letter saying you’re being transferred to Madagascar or Zanzibar and expect to be out of touch for a few years. If you do as you’re told, Twombley assures me that he’ll make the whole episode go away. That’s all he wants from you, Walt; just help him out a bit.” Pirelli gazed into Lukash’s eyes as if to transmit the division chief’s will along the chain of command.

“I’ll think it over,” Lukash answered.

“All right, you do that. Take a day or two. But don’t wait too long. You have a good reputation in the division, Walt. You always put the government first, do what has to be done, and ask no questions. Headquarters likes that in a young officer. So don’t go raising any doubts about your attitude at this stage in the game, all right?”

The Chevy turned off the main road and Lukash spotted the walled Phalange intelligence compound two blocks away, its high, black sheet-steel gate flanked by a pair of armored personnel carriers whose sides bore the stenciled green cedar-tree emblem of the Phalange. Pirelli stopped the car at the gate while the gatekeeper rolled back the sliding steel barrier.

As soon as they entered, a bearded sentry waved at them from a concrete cubicle just inside the gate and directed them to a vacant parking spot opposite an unremarkable two-story stucco building that resembled a suburban middle school more than the headquarters of an intelligence organization engaged in a brutal civil war.

Inside the reception area, a balding duty officer in a khaki safari suit stood with arms akimbo between two lanky teenage Egyptian tea boys dressed in olive drab fatigues several sizes too large. Pirelli greeted the Lebanese with a handshake, from which the latter withdrew his hand and touched his heart as if he were wiping his fingers on his shirt after some noxious contact. Only a fawning smile that lingered on the man’s face indicated that the gesture was one of respect rather than contempt.

“Le directeur, s’il vous plait,” Pirelli announced in heavily accented French. His four-month conversational French course in Washington had been intended to get him through just such formulaic exchanges as this, and little more. As an afterthought, Pirelli pointed to Lukash and added, “Je vous presente mon confrère, Monsieur Lukash.”

The Lebanese extended his hand to Lukash, who took it and asked in Arabic for the man’s name. The Lebanese had already replied before he realized that Lukash had not spoken in French. He did a double take worthy of Larry, Curly, or Moe. The sound of the foreigner’s distinctive Arabic accent also appeared to amuse the two Egyptians, the taller of whom, a dark-skinned Nubian whose bright eyes sparkled with intelligence, inquired boldly where Lukash came from.

“America.”

“But you talk like an Arab, siidi. Where did you learn to speak our language?”

“Right here. My teacher was a Lebanese.”

The Egyptians conferred in low voices, grinning like schoolchildren. “Say the word for tomato,” the taller of the two asked playfully.

“Banadura.”

The two Egyptians burst into laughter while the Lebanese desk officer stood red-faced before them.

“Filistini!” the taller Egyptian exclaimed, pointing at Lukash as if he were a freak.

“Don’t pay any attention to the boys,” the Lebanese reception officer insisted. “They have never before heard a European speak with a Palestinian accent. The only Palestinian voices they hear are those of the prisoners.” He turned to the larger boy and addressed him affectionately but firmly. “No more nonsense, now. Muhammad, take the foreigners to Major Elie’s office and tell him they are here to see Colonel Faris. Then ask them if they want any tea. Quickly, now. I have other work for you when you come back.”

Muhammad led them up a metal stairway to the second floor and then down a stone-tiled corridor painted the same drab shade of green that the people who decorate government buildings seem to favor everywhere from Washington to Baghdad. The teen stopped halfway down the corridor, knocked twice, and listened carefully with his ear pressed against the door before going in.

He led the two Americans into an airy outer office furnished with nothing more than a cheap gray sheet-metal desk, a four-drawer safe, a linoleum-topped map table, and an overstuffed sofa covered in crimson velour. Behind the desk sat a Lebanese of about thirty or older in a tailored khaki safari suit. He was almost as tall as Lukash, broad at the shoulders, and darkly handsome behind his neatly trimmed beard, although he carried a few surplus kilos of fat around his midsection and had a severely receding hairline, which he attempted to conceal by combing strands of hair from one temple to another. He came out at once from behind the desk with his hand outstretched.

Something about Major Elie’s smile looked oddly familiar, and it was only when he spoke in his low, gravelly voice that Lukash recalled how closely the man resembled Samir Bino, the Jordanian agent Lukash had handled in Saudi Arabia—the one who had both seduced Lorraine Ellis and collected the information that enabled Lukash to break up the Islamic fundamentalist operation to assassinate King Khalid. Although it had been two years since he had last seen Samir, he suddenly remembered how much he had enjoyed his weekly meetings with him.

He and Samir had met at a party on the Saudi Arabian Airlines residential compound in Jeddah, where they had each hoped to meet British air hostesses and American contract nurses. To the disappointment of both men, the few single women in attendance were unattractive as well as vastly oversubscribed. Lukash remembered having struck up a conversation with Samir while pouring bootleg siddiqi into his paper cup and having been struck by the contradiction between the Arab’s tastes for alcohol, loose women, and rock and roll and his espousal of Islamic fundamentalist politics.

Over the next few months, Samir often visited Lukash’s villa for a glass or two of scotch and an hour of English conversation. More than once he confessed that he considered himself under no obligation to forgo earthly pleasures in this life for the sake of paradise in the next. Lukash was not at all surprised when, after a long discussion of Saudi and Jordanian politics, Samir accepted his offer of an all-expenses-paid excursion to Bangkok in exchange for a confidential debriefing on Islamic fundamentalist groups in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Samir was so enthusiastic about his discoveries in the topless bars, live sex shows, and massage parlors of Patpong Street that in return for the promise of a second trip later in the year, he agreed to Lukash’s suggestion that he join a particularly virulent cell of anti-monarchy fanatics who met at the mosque that Samir attended sometimes on Mecca Road. The cell, led by a fellow Jordanian of Chechen descent, soon put Samir to work casing Saudi government buildings and observing the comings and goings of high-ranking Saudi officials and members of the royal family. Samir and Lukash both exulted in their success at stealing some of the clandestine group’s closely guarded secrets.

The Phalangist major who now sat opposite Lukash possessed the same angular features and dark coloring as Samir, as well as the crow’s-feet wrinkles around his perpetually smiling eyes. Samir’s smile had been one of devilish mischief, as if he had just laid a snare and was waiting for you to fall into it. The major’s smile was more relaxed, as if you had already fallen in and he wanted to hear from you exactly how it felt.

Lukash and Pirelli gave their names, and the Phalangist introduced himself in turn as Major Elie Musallam, chief of the External Branch of the intelligence service.

“It’s odd we haven’t crossed paths before, Major,” Pirelli began in a routine effort to elicit Elie’s biographical information. “I thought I had met everybody in the External Branch.”

The major let out a low laugh from somewhere deep in his chest. “For the past year I have had only rare occasion to appear at our headquarters. Until last week I was assigned to the third security zone in the mountains above Zahlé.”

“Ah, yes,” Pirelli replied. “I recall Colonel Faris talking about your work against Syrian military intelligence—or at least I assume it was your work. The car bombing ring based in Shtaura? About two months ago?”

“Yes, two of my men found the workshop where the Syrians fabricated concealment devices for the explosives. It required eight months of slow and painstaking work, but afterward we were able to trace each vehicle back to their shop. Now the bomb makers work for us—in our prison workshop, teaching us their methods.”

Lukash nodded respectfully while shuddering inside at how the Phalange were likely to apply their newly discovered knowledge against their enemies.

“And now that you are assigned to Headquarters?” Pirelli continued.

“It’s different now. Since coming here, I follow the activities of Syrian intelligence from my office upstairs.”

Lukash recognized in Elie’s voice the note of resignation that every experienced case officer feels when he leaves behind the autonomy of fieldwork and surrenders to the ordered rigidity of headquarters life.

“I admit that I have not yet adapted fully to the new point of view. Here in the External Branch, we have far too little information coming directly from Damascus and far too much hearsay and speculation.” A note of polite irony was detectable in the major’s voice. “But our director has promised that this will change very soon.” He stepped toward the door. “Come, perhaps if you ask him, the director will be kind enough to explain how he expects this improvement to come about.”

Major Elie beckoned his visitors to follow him into the director’s inner office, a spacious, sun-drenched room furnished identically to the outer office except for the addition of two armchairs of the same red velour and the substitution of a dark wood-veneer desk for the one of metal.

“Welcome, welcome, Mr. Pirelli,” began Colonel Faris Nader, the director of Phalange intelligence, in a disconcertingly unctuous tone. “And Monsieur Lukash. It is a great pleasure to have you among us at last. My good friend Tom Twombley has given you the highest recommendation.”

Lukash stepped forward to shake the colonel’s carefully manicured hand and found it surprisingly soft and weak. “You can call me Wali, Colonel. It’s sort of an Arabic version of Walter, my American name. And I would suggest that you divide by three anything Mr. Twombley tells you about me.”

“Tom Twombley has been known to exaggerate from time to time,” Pirelli added with a smile.

“But surely not about a matter of such importance,” Colonel Faris replied, only half in jest. “If Tom Twombley recommends someone to us, I feel there is no more need for questions. Khalas. Finis. Do you know why? Because Monsieur Twombley understands the situation here. He understands us, the Christian Lebanese, as well as we understand ourselves. Maybe better.

“As I have told your ambassador many times,” the colonel went on, “your American government does not fully appreciate who its friends are in the Middle East. Billions of your American dollars go each year to Israel, and they are not even Christians! We Maronites have looked to the West for ten centuries—since the Crusades. It is time that America recognizes that we—the Lebanese Christians, the Phalange—are its truest friends in the Middle East.

“I have told your ambassador and my friend Tom Twombley this simple truth: that the survival of every Christian and Jew in the Middle East depends on the fate of the Maronites in Lebanon. If the Syrians succeed in annexing Lebanon into a Greater Syria, not a single Christian or Jew in the region will be safe. Our churches and religious institutions will be razed or turned into mosques, the French and English languages will be eradicated from our schools and public life, our unique heritage will be purged from the history books, and the very idea of a separate Christian Lebanese race will be denied in the name of Pan-Arabism and Islam.

“The campaign has already begun, and it is plain for anyone to see: the incessant sniping, the shellings, and these unholy car bombs everywhere, making life miserable for us. Do you think it is Lebanese who are committing these outrages against their fellow countrymen? Never believe it! Never! The Syrians are at the bottom of all these troubles. They have a plan and they will stay with it for as long as they must until the Lebanese people say at last, ‘Enough! We cannot endure any more of it. Bring in the Syrian army to occupy all of Lebanon, and let us have peace as a province of Greater Syria.’ Then—mark my words—the violence will end overnight and it will be obvious to everyone that the Syrians caused it from the very beginning.

“Now, I tell you, the only way to end the reign of terror without destroying the Lebanese Christians as a race is to carry the battle to Damascus. As long as the battle is on Lebanese soil, Syrian losses can never be heavy enough to rid us of their occupation forces. I have stated this conclusion to the chief of the Mossad and to Monsieur Twombley, and I repeat it to you now. Your ambassador has always refused to accept these basic truths, but now that the new channel of communications between our two organizations has been opened, I hope that together we will be able to convince the new American president that we are right in this.”

Ed Pirelli sat forward in his chair and waited for his host to finish. “Faris, before you say any more about carrying the battle to Damascus,” he began deliberately, “you’d better understand that our business here is intelligence gathering—no more, no less. If you want to work with us to recruit an agent in the Syrian Ministry of Defense or bug their presidential palace, we’re with you all the way. Joint operations, financial aid, technical assistance: they’re all yours. But the moment you try to involve us in a car bombing or an assassination against Syrian leaders, Washington will cut you and your outfit off so fast you won’t even hear a dial tone. Those are the ground rules. I don’t mean to be impolite about this, Colonel, but I’m afraid you’ll have to take it or leave it.”

“Ah, my good friend, you misunderstand me,” Colonel Faris answered, evidently unfazed. “Not for a moment was I speaking of your involvement in terrorism. We Maronites would never stoop to terrorist methods. What I have in mind is merely the formation of contacts with Syrians who are already working against the villainous al-Asad regime and giving them whatever assistance we can render. What we need from you is merely replacements for the equipment that we would give to them. Today, radios are what they need most. Handheld units with voice privacy, like the Motorola units you gave us last week. With such equipment Syrian oppositionists would have much less reason to fear the regime’s security organs.”

“What kind of oppositionists are you talking about, Faris? The Muslim Brotherhood? As much as we would like to see a new regime in Damascus, I doubt that Washington has much interest in replacing the Baath Party with a mob of raving religious fanatics.”

“There are others, many others, besides the Muslim Brothers, believe me. We have reports of a new underground movement among junior officers in the air force, to name only one. One of its leaders is expected here within the week. If you are interested, perhaps Monsieur Wali can be among those who meet him when he comes to Beirut. One of Major Elie’s agents is arranging the visit.”

Pirelli nodded. “What do you think, Walt?”

“I’m game if we can get it cleared. Why don’t I chase down the details with Major Elie after our meeting here is finished?”

* * *

A corral of low concrete planters separated the sidewalk Café La Chasse from the swirl of Fiats, Renaults, and Citroëns negotiating the traffic circle at Place Sassine. The white enamel tables still gleamed, having been placed in service only three days earlier, when the restaurant reopened after five kilograms of Semtex exploded in the trunk of a stolen Saab parked opposite the restaurant’s side entrance. Six patrons and a waiter had died in the blast, and at least a dozen more were burned or slashed by flying glass.

“We’ll take this one,” Major Elie announced to the white-jacketed waiter as he stopped at a table near the main entrance that commanded the best view of the square. “And bring two bottles of Almaza lager right away. My friend is very thirsty.”

“Are you sure you want to eat outside, Major?” Lukash inquired in the moment before the Phalangist took a seat. “It seems rather exposed, considering what happened here last month.”

“Inside we would not be able to see what is around us,” the Phalangist replied, assuming a paternal tone, although Lukash suspected he was the older of the two men by a year or more. “In my opinion, the best defense against terrorist attacks is the ability to detect the person or object that is out of place. Besides, Wali, if the Syrians intend to strike this place again, they will delay a few more weeks or months until the waiters and the patrons are no longer as vigilant as we are today.”

“So you’re convinced it was the Syrians?”

Major Elie gave him a reproving look. “All the car bombs in East Beirut originate with the Syrians, mon ami. Oh, they may coerce or dupe some poor Palestinian or Lebanese Shiite into actually bringing the bomb across the Green Line, but be sure of one thing: the plans were made and the orders given in Damascus.”

“You have proof?”

Major Elie nodded impatiently and was about to speak when the maître d’hôtel, a tonsured Lebanese of about fifty years in an ill-fitting black dinner jacket, arrived with a flat stainless steel dish of salted almonds, a pair of long-necked brown beer bottles, and two slender tumblers bearing the red, white, and black logo of Beirut-brewed Almaza beer. The major waited until the tray’s contents were unloaded onto the table before he ordered mezzé for both of them.

“The usual selection, Major?” the maître d’hôtel inquired.

“Yes, unless my friend has any favorite dishes he would like me to add.” The major looked expectantly at Lukash.

“Actually, I’d love to have some of your—”

“Assafeer?” the headwaiter asked with a knowing smile. “And perhaps a dish of kebdé nayyé?”

Lukash stared at the headwaiter in blank astonishment. Few foreigners relished suspending grilled baby sparrows in the air by their spindly legs and eating the entire bird in one mouthful, bones and all. And fewer had developed a taste for purplish chunks of raw liver served on a bed of leaf lettuce. Yet somehow the waiter had divined that these were two of the mezzé items that Lukash savored most.

The headwaiter returned Lukash’s stare and chuckled. “You once ordered mezzé at my restaurant in the Place Riad Solh. The young lady beside you insisted that you try our assafeer, and you ordered a second platter after finishing the entire first platter by yourself. The kebdé nayyé disappeared quickly as well. I thought you might enjoy tasting how we prepare them at La Chasse.”

“By God, I do remember,” Lukash muttered softly. “But it’s been five years. And it was the only time I ever ate there. How could you possibly recall—?”

“Boulos remembers every customer he has ever served over the last thirty years,” Major Elie interrupted. “Am I not right, Boulos? You remembered what my father ordered when he brought my mother to your restaurant for the first time, before I was even born. Have you ever forgotten a face?”

An inscrutable smile passed across the fat man’s face, as if he were weighing his words with a very specific purpose in mind. “I have forgotten many. But some are easier to remember than others. Foreigners, for example. And beautiful women.”

Major Elie shook his head and gave a good-natured laugh. “If Boulos wished to become a blackmailer, he would be the richest man in Beirut. In the evenings he works at the most expensive restaurant in Achrafiyé.”

“But as you see, gentlemen, I am only a waiter. Which proves, I think, that your secrets are safe with me.” With that, Boulos left the two younger men and rushed to greet an elderly couple who examined the menu posted at the restaurant’s door.

“So back to the Syrians,” Elie said as soon as the headwaiter was out of earshot. “You asked about proof. I can show you signed confessions if you like. The stories are remarkably similar. Syrian military intelligence has taken over nearly all responsibility for car bombings in Christian territory. The bombs themselves are fabricated in and around Shtaura, in the Bekaa Valley, for the most part. Being an American, you may not approve of the methods we use in extracting the confessions, but once you read them, you will recognize that it would have been impossible for such details to have been fabricated merely to satisfy the interrogator.”

“What kind of methods are we talking about, Elie? Beatings? Electrodes? Isolation?”

Major Elie poured Lukash’s beer carefully down the side of the fluted pilsner glass and then poured another for himself. “You will not report this to your State Department, of course...”

“I won’t say a word of it to anyone unless you want me to.”

The major popped an almond into his mouth and cracked it between his teeth before speaking. “You should understand that we have three categories of hostile interrogation. In the first category belong the well-known methods that you and the Soviets and the British use—or at least those that you admit you use.” Elie smiled and took another almond. “Deprivation of sleep, deprivation of the senses, manipulation of temperature, manipulation of diet, and the various psychological techniques. Such methods are generally effective, though not quite as effective as you and the Soviets would have us believe.

“For those who resist Category One interrogation, or with whom time is of the essence, we use a second category of interrogation that includes certain types of beating that leave no permanent mark. Category Two interrogations are also effective with most subjects, although usually not with those who have successfully resisted a week or more of Category One treatment.

“Finally, in extreme cases, where speed is of critical importance and the information required is simple and easily verified or, in other cases, where the subject will be executed regardless of the outcome, we sometimes resort to Category Three. This includes physical methods that entail a substantial risk of permanent bodily injury or death. As you might expect, when a subject has been assigned to this level of interrogation, there is no question of his future release. Most Category Three subjects are already under a death sentence when interrogation begins and are executed shortly after it is completed, although some are kept alive for longer periods if they may be of use in the future.”

Major Elie leaned back in his chair and peered through the window as a procession of fashionably dressed women moved from boutique to boutique across the square, some with neatly scrubbed children in tow.

Lukash wondered what the major was thinking. Was he reassuring himself that torture, while repugnant, was necessary to defend the Christian Lebanese community? Was he also weighing whether a society that relied upon torture for its self-defense was worth defending? Five years ago Lukash would have known where to stand on these questions. Today he was no longer quite so sure.

“You are not shocked,” the Phalangist observed, a wry smile returning to his lips.

“We just finished a war in Southeast Asia, Elie. I wasn’t there, but some of my friends tell me that intelligence work is different in wartime. When the war is a civil war, I suppose it’s even worse. America hasn’t had one of those in a hundred years.”

“You fought in Vietnam?”

“No,” Lukash replied, almost apologetically. “I was prepared for it, but I was a lucky winner in the first draft lottery. The Viet Cong would have had to take the beaches at Malibu before the army called me up. It seems odd to me now, but even after I drew a winning number, I tried once to sign up for Army Officer Candidate School. That was 1970, and by then all the reserve and OCS programs were fully subscribed. Every able-bodied man with a college degree was trying to become an officer to avoid the draft.”

“I sense that perhaps you regret not having fought in the war.”

“I ought to have sense enough not to,” Lukash responded agreeably, “but, in a way, the Vietnam War was the defining event for my generation. And I wasn’t a part of it—I wasn’t even part of the movement to stop the war. Looking back, I think that my sitting out the war may have had something to do with my going into intelligence. I was unbelievably naïve; I had no idea what intelligence work was about. But I had this feeling deep in my gut that someday we’d be at war with the Russians, and that, no matter what, I was not going to miss out on the Big One. Well, maybe we’ll fight them someday and maybe we won’t. Either way, that’s how I became a spy, and now I’m in for the duration, whatever that is.”

The major tilted his head back and gave a hard laugh. “Your life and mine are like two caravans passing in the desert going opposite directions. I entered manhood in the militia and gave it up to become a spy. I know very little of your army or your war, but I could not have endured our own war for a single day longer than I did. When Colonel Faris offered me a commission in the Intelligence Department, it was like being pulled out from a pit of wild beasts.”

“Did you see much action during the war?”

“More than some, less than others. I was a lieutenant in an Ahrar militia unit raised from Antélias and Jall ed Dib. We fought in Aïn el Rummaneh, the Burj, and the hotel district, and later laid siege to the Palestinians at the Tel al Zaatar refugee camp. Seventeen months of combat. I joined the Intelligence Department in August, just after the camp fell. By then I was more than sick of combat.”

“Were you with the men who entered Tel al Zaatar?” Lukash asked, unable to suppress a morbid curiosity about the notorious siege and massacre.

The major scowled momentarily and then let out a deep breath. “My platoon was at the forward edge of the assault. Even from a distance, the camp was an appalling sight. After nearly two months of steady bombardment, hardly a wall remained that did not show gaping holes from shellfire. The streets were filled with Palestinian dead; afterward we counted more than twelve hundred corpses. The enemy’s leaders had proclaimed throughout the siege that their fighters would resist to the last man and that this would be the Maronites’ Stalingrad. Every Palestinian inside was armed—even the grandmothers and small children.

“In the first minutes of the assault, we saw a white flag wave from behind an earthen berm and ordered their fighters to come out without their weapons. Four white-bearded old men appeared over the top, hands on their heads. But as soon as they came within thirty meters of our line, a machine gun raked us from the right flank and one of the four old men lobbed a grenade at us. After that we saw only two other white flags. We paid no attention to them.

“The international press claimed that what we did was a massacre—that we lined up our prisoners against the earthworks and shot them, and that we charged around the camp knocking down doors, bayoneting infants and pregnant women, and mutilating corpses. Well, we did knock down doors and we did use our bayonets. But I saw no prisoners lined up against walls, and the only corpses of children I saw had weapons in their hands. The fault lies with the Palestinian leaders for not surrendering when they had the opportunity. We would have given the old women and small children safe passage if they had been willing to take it.”

“And the other prisoners?”

“I imagine we would have offered some in trade for our own men captured in earlier fighting. As for the rest, I do not know. For some, interrogation, no doubt.”

“Category Three?”

“I was not involved in such matters then.”

“And now?”

“Still not,” Elie replied, meeting Lukash’s eyes as he raised his glass to drink. “I prefer to let others deal with the prisoners. Men who specialize in such work. Not that I hold such work to be unimportant, Wali. Not at all. If someone did not carry it out, our organization would be placed at a serious disadvantage. Perhaps the very survival of the Christian Lebanese community would be put at risk. But, taking that into account, I prefer not to stain my hands with the blood of others any more than necessary. Let every man judge whether the ends justify the means in his own work. As to my own activities, I have convinced myself that they do not offend my own scruples or God’s laws. If another man can say the same of combat or interrogations, it is not for me to question his participation in them.”

“And do you employ many such specialists in your organization?” Lukash persisted.

“No more or less than necessary,” the major replied steadily. “In fact, you will be meeting some of them within the hour. For as soon as we have finished our lunch, we will make a delivery to a friend of mine who commands a sector of the front lines from his bunker downtown in the Burj. He, too, was at Tel al Zaatar.”

* * *

Major Elie parked his olive drab Range Rover at the stone curb before a two-story shell of a building whose ground floor now comprised a row of five blackened and rubble-filled merchant stalls. The roll-down steel door of each stall had been torn off its tracks and lay like a crumpled sheet of cardboard before its gaping entry. Lukash stepped out of the Range Rover and looked around while Elie reached behind his seat for a canvas rucksack before standing and slinging the sack over one shoulder.

Lukash tried to recall from distant memory the spot where they were now standing in the old commercial district. He remembered that these streets east of Martyrs’ Square had once teemed with merchants’ stalls, much like those in the Damascus souk or Cairo’s Khan al-Khalili, where one could find every conceivable type of goods, from auto parts to pungent spices to electrical equipment to children’s clothing, in a hotchpotch of totally unfettered commercial enterprise. Now thorny weeds grew waist-high in the cracks between the cobblestones, and the sidewalks were knee-deep in rubble that had been bulldozed to either side of the narrow lane to clear a passage down the center of the street.

One block away a massive concrete-and-sandbag shelter sprawled across the intersection of two weed-infested boulevards. A pair of helmeted heads peered out over shoulder-high sandbagged walls to watch with cold suspicion as Elie and Lukash inched forward along the wall on the eastern side of the street.

Thirty meters before reaching the barricade, the major held up a hand and halted opposite an alley no wider than his shoulders to speak in a voice barely loud enough for Lukash to hear. “At the end of the passage, we will turn right and enter a house. Follow close behind me and watch your step because it will be dark. First we will descend into a cellar. Then we will follow a tunnel to the observation post.”

Lukash did as he was told, following Major Elie down a short flight of concrete steps and then along a corridor reminiscent of an old mine shaft, with wooden crossbeams every two meters. At last they ascended another short flight of steps and Major Elie pounded his fist on a wooden trapdoor overhead. Lukash heard heavy footsteps approaching and suddenly the underground passage was bathed in bright sunlight.

“Bonjour, Elie,” a friendly voice spoke from the light. “Did you bring the radios?”

“Radios, radios, radios. Is that all you care about, Fadi? Don’t you care that your old friend Elie is here to see you for the first time in nearly two weeks?”

“Of course I care,” the voice continued in a tone that suggested exactly the opposite. “So long as you brought the radios. Did you?”

“Not only radios, but an expert from America to show you how to use them,” the major boasted. “Fadi, meet Wali. He will be working with us to help modernize our equipment.”

“Marhaba. Kiifak,” Lukash said in greeting.

By now Lukash’s eyes were adjusted to the light. He saw that he was in a small L-shaped room with windows on the long side facing to the west. Both the glass and the metal frames of the windows had long since been destroyed by gunfire directed at the militiamen within. Even the shapes of the holes were distorted; narrow loopholes punched through the cinder-block wall for laying down defensive fire had become nearly oval from the steady erosion of thousands of incoming bullets during five years of fighting. A half dozen other fist-size apertures marked where rocket-propelled grenades and antitank rounds had penetrated the wall.

“Wali, Captain Fadi is a captain in our Special Forces and specializes in commando operations.”

Fadi took his eyes away from his own loophole long enough for Lukash to see his face. It was broad and flat, with widely spaced eyes and a roguish smile, and covered by a trimmed full beard flecked with premature gray.

“So, an American expert,” Fadi noted with irony. “During the Events we had several foreign experts with us. None lasted longer than a month. They knew a good deal about weapons and tactics, of course, and offered us advice on every possible subject, but very little of their advice was suited for the kind of war we faced. They wanted to teach us the tactics of Korea and Vietnam when what we needed to learn were those of Algiers, Berlin, and Stalingrad.”

“I don’t claim to be a military expert, Fadi. But I do know a little about radios, and there are none better than these,” Lukash proposed, perhaps a bit too eager to please. “They’re the latest secure-voice handhelds from Motorola. You can send a man anywhere in the city and talk to him as if you were on the telephone, and not even the Russians will be able to follow what you’re saying. If you have a few minutes, I’ll show you how to key in the daily cryptographic tapes and how to set them up.”

“Wait, wait, not so fast, my friend,” Fadi answered. “You Americans work too hard. First we will drink some tea.” He approached the window and shouted to someone outside to brew a fresh pot. “Come, let us go into the command post. I have something to show Elie.”

With Lukash close at his heels, Captain Fadi led the way back down the stairs into the darkness and then through ten more meters of blackness to an open trap door. They emerged into a courtyard with a granite fountain in the center, a colonnaded walk on four sides, and in each corner a giant earthenware vessel containing a live evergreen.

Lukash’s eye was attracted immediately to the ornate tiles on the floor surrounding the base of the fountain.

“Fantastic, eh? We bring water every day from the Collège Sacré-Coeur.”

“This fountain actually works?” Lukash asked.

“Not the fountain. We bring the water for the arz,” Captain Fadi replied.

“The cedars,” Major Elie translated. “Fadi is a fanatic about cedars. He joined the Guardians of the Cedars militia when he turned fifteen. Now he is a Phalangist, of course, but I think he would fight harder to defend those bloody trees than he would to defend all of Achrafiyé.”

“Over here,” Fadi interrupted. “Take a look through this.” He had moved across the courtyard and was standing in a trench dug along the far wall, eyes glued to a pair of twenty-power naval binoculars mounted atop an aluminum tripod. The binoculars were crammed into a narrow aperture in the limestone wall the size of a paving brick. Within easy reach of the binoculars, a bolt-action rifle with a hefty match-weight barrel hung from a hook by a leather shooting sling.

As soon as Lukash lowered himself into the trench, Fadi moved aside to let him look through the massive binoculars. “What do you see?” Fadi asked with the eagerness of a schoolboy.

“It looks like a pile of sandbags that somebody ripped open with a knife.”

“No—to the left, about ten meters.”

“A cinder-block hooch with sandbags across the entrance. Oh, now I see it. There’s a dummy in tiger-striped camouflage fatigues propped up in a chair.”

“Would you like to test your aim?” Fadi invited. “I myself zeroed the rifle this morning. All you have to do is aim dead-on and squeeze.”

Lukash picked up the rifle, worked the bolt to slide a round into the chamber, and slipped his arm through the sling. The rifle was heavy in his hands and the action as stiff as it needed to be to fire a tight shot pattern at five or six hundred meters. “Which slot should I shoot from?” he asked.

“Use this one, over here,” Fadi answered. “Lean across the sandbags and shoot before I count to five. If the Syrians see us opening the slot, they’ll aim for the reflection of your scope, so fire quickly.”

Lukash rested his chest and his left elbow on the coarse burlap and wrapped the leather sling around his wrist so that there was a fixed angle between his upper arm and forearm. He tried to peer through the telescopic sight, but all was dark until the firing loophole opened.

“Ready?” Fadi asked.

“Open up,” Lukash replied.

Lukash found himself staring at a gargantuan Sony logo covering the third and fourth stories of an office building that he recognized from many hours of wandering five years earlier through the streets around Martyrs’ Square and Place Etoile. He lowered the rifle into place and moved the upright aiming pillar of the telescopic sight minutely to the left until the dummy came within view. There could be no mistaking it.

“Three...four...Wait! A Land Rover is moving across the square at two o’clock. Range is fifty meters beyond zero. Look for the driver and lead him by half a car length. Hold your aim steady about ten centimeters above his head…Now go ahead, blast him!”

Lukash swung the muzzle the width of the square and spotted a Land Rover speeding to the south, veering erratically from side to side in a serpentine pattern. He set the upright pillar of the telescopic sight level with the Land Rover and followed it, then he led the vehicle until the tip of the pillar was half a car length ahead of the driver’s head and ten centimeters above it. He felt his fingertip squeeze the trigger. Suddenly a thunderclap erupted and the recoil of the muzzle blast punched his shoulder hard. He lost sight of the square for a moment, and by the time he lowered the rifle muzzle far enough to see it once again, the Land Rover was gone.

“Perfect kill against the mannequin, but you hit the wrong target,” Fadi observed drily. “Too bad. If you had tried, you could have taken the driver.”

“Maybe so,” Lukash answered in a conciliatory tone. “Anyway, I’m just an observer here. I’m not at war like you guys.”

“Well, at least you made Elie happy,” Fadi replied with a glance toward the major. “He hates that mannequin. He thinks the bastards who set it up are baiting him because his father-in-law owns the building where the dummy sits. As if the Syrian peasants over there were capable of such subtlety. But, then, Elie has always taken the war far too personally.”

“If by that you mean I will not make a sport of war,” Elie rejoined sharply, “then perhaps I do. As for Fadi, he never takes anything personally. The past five years have been a sort of field exercise for him. Eh, Fadi?”

“Why not? And now we have entered the final round, my friends. Phalange against Syrian army. Whoever wins the next event takes home the grand prize.”

“Don’t listen to his nonsense, Wali,” Elie replied, shaking his head and smiling. “Fadi is a brilliant street fighter but completely unreliable for anything else. And don’t believe that nonsense about a father-in-law, either. I have never even been engaged.”

“The devil, you say! You are practically married,” Fadi roared. “You won’t even look at another girl. And don’t think for a minute she doesn’t know it.”

“Congratulations, Major Elie,” Lukash ventured. “Who is the lucky girl?”

“Her name is Muna,” Elie answered, blushing. “She has not yet agreed to marry me, but I hope that soon she may.”

Chapter 6

Walter Lukash looked down at the half-filled grocery cart. In it were a half dozen liter packs of long-life milk, two boxes of corn flakes, a kilo of sugar, a baguette, a foil-wrapped brick of butter, a jar of instant coffee, a jar of English marmalade, and a tin of Danish butter cookies. All were essential: he would need breakfast food regardless of how long he stayed in Beirut. Pirelli and the ambassador had told him it would be two years. But the more he thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.

Lukash stopped at the end of the aisle and removed a case of German pilsner from a partially unloaded pallet. Turning up the next aisle, he found a six-pack of quinine water and dropped it alongside the milk—then a cellophane-covered box of English water crackers, a jar of salted almonds, a foiled block of Westphalian pumpernickel, and three bottles of Moët White Star Brut—before steering the cart to the checkout area.

Perched atop a stool behind the cash register sat a fortyish woman whose beehive coiffure, thick mask of makeup, and sleeveless black dress would have been more appropriate at a Phoenicia Street nightclub. “Four hundred sixty-five lira, twenty piastres,” the woman announced before tearing the sales tape from the register and handing it to him.

“Wait a second. I think I have a twenty-piastre coin in here somewhere,” he replied in Arabic as he counted out the bills and fished for the coin among the keys in his trouser pocket.

“Maalesh,” the woman answered, brightening at his use of Arabic.

Lukash began packing his purchases into a cardboard carton but stopped short when the woman called out for one of the teenage packing boys in the rear of the store.

“Let the boy do it,” she told him as if he were breaking a house rule. “Give him your car keys and he will put the boxes in the boot. What kind of car is it?”

“A silver BMW, parked in front of the patisserie next door.” He handed her the keys, still fastened together by a chrome paper clip from Pirelli’s desk.

“Yaa, walad, vite, vite,” she repeated for the benefit of the three schoolboys arguing heatedly over which one would earn the foreigner’s tip.

Lukash accepted his change and stuffed the crisp banknotes into his wallet while the boys went on with their dispute. “As long as I’m waiting, would you mind if I take a look at your telephone directory?” he asked the woman, offering her his most charming smile.

She smiled in return and then cocked her head lazily toward a tiny office behind him. Inside, a row of gray metal file cabinets towered over a plywood desk piled high with European-style two-ring loose-leaf binders. “It’s by the desk somewhere. Look underneath the telephone. If not, try the bottom desk drawer.”

Lukash thanked her and entered the office. He found a glossy catalog from a Danish wine and spirits merchant on the edge of the desk, along with two similar catalogs from competitors in Trieste and Malta. He peeked under sheaves of invoices, inventory printouts, and correspondence until he was certain that the telephone book was not hidden among the clutter on the desk. Then he ran his eyes along spines of volumes lined up in the waist-high bookcase behind the desk and soon spotted the old phone directory on the second shelf, its tagboard cover torn off at the spine.

He opened it to the K’s. There were dozens of entries for “Khalifé,” spelled at least four different ways, and two entries for “Khalifé, César.” One carried a business address near Place des Martyrs, now in the heart of the city’s bombed-out no-man’s-land, and one an address in the Khalifé family seat of Beït Meri. Lukash called the second number and heard a strident rapid-fire buzz that indicated the number was out of service. He closed the telephone book and then reopened it and scanned the first few pages for a publication date. He found it on the back of the third page: March 1974.

Lukash stood in the doorway and held up the telephone book in one hand. “Do you have anything more recent? This directory is more than five years old.”

The woman shrugged. “It was the last one. The Events, you know...” She let her words trail off, and then rallied. “Of course, they haven’t replaced the Parliament since then either. Or repaired the streets. Or replaced the street lamps. Believe me, there’s a lot to be done after five years of hell.”

Lukash gave the woman a sympathetic smile, then ducked back inside the office to return the directory to its shelf. Yes, indeed there was much to be done. How much he didn’t know yet. And it frustrated him that he wasn’t even sure where to begin.

* * *

A white Mercedes sedan waited at the taxi rank, a twenty-year-old warhorse that had somehow survived the hazards of five years of civil war with its gleaming finish intact and no more dents and scratches than if it had spent the war years in a garage. The sedan’s silver-haired driver swept grit from its broad hood with a feather duster and waited for his next fare to appear. Lukash waved the driver off while he advanced a few paces beyond the line of taxis and gazed toward the west.

The sun was already below the horizon, and the purple glow in the western sky was rapidly fading to gray. The trickle of automobile traffic at the Sodeco crossing had dwindled to only one or two per minute, and in a short while the crossing between the city’s eastern and western sectors would be closed until morning.

Lukash watched another taxi, this one a battered white Peugeot station wagon, pull to the curb at the near side of the no-man’s-land and disgorge a single passenger, who was impossible to identify as a man or woman in the semidarkness. The lone figure approached the Phalange checkpoint without haste, apparently unaware that snipers often harassed the final hour of the checkpoint’s operation.

Lukash squinted in an effort to identify the figure that had arrived from West Beirut. At last he discerned a hemline just below the knee, then the side-to-side swaying of an oversize shoulder bag. The woman stopped to show her papers at the sentry bunker, and in the same moment, the Peugeot’s driver turned toward Lukash as if aware of being watched from somewhere in the darkness. A brief exchange of words followed between driver and woman, the woman paid her fare, and the driver returned to his Peugeot. The woman continued through the checkpoint to where Lukash waited just outside the illuminated semicircle of a street lamp.

“Walter, is that you?” came a soft voice with a lilting Irish accent.

“I’m here, Lorraine,” Lukash answered.

Lorraine Ellis emerged from the darkness.

“You’ve cut your hair,” he said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

She looked at him with tolerant affection, as if she had known all along that he would say something as unromantic and mundane as this, yet forgave him for it. “Do you like it?” she asked.

“It makes you look nineteen again.” He stretched his arms out toward her and she grasped him tightly around the neck. The fervor of her embrace surprised him, as if they had been separated for two years rather than a mere two weeks.

“I missed you,” she half whispered in his ear, still clinging to his neck.

“I missed you, too, Lorraine, but for God’s sake, whatever possessed you to come? There’s a war going on over here. I thought I told you to stay put till I got back in touch.”

She let her arms slip away from his shoulders. “Please don’t start in on that,” she chided him, rolling her eyes. “I’ve been in Beirut for nearly four days, and if I’ve heard that ‘there’s a war on’ line once, I’ve heard it a dozen times. Aren’t you going to ask me how long I’ll be staying?”

“I already know. Ten weeks.”

“My, aren’t we clever?” she mocked. “If you knew that, then you must have known where I’ve been lodging. You could have called me, you know.”

“I didn’t arrive till last night. Connie Prosser called me this morning to tell me that you were here. I must say, for someone who dropped into Beirut out of the blue, you managed to find me awfully quickly.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a rapid kiss, then he steered her around toward the side street where his BMW was parked. But after inserting the key in the door, he hesitated. “Listen, Lorraine,” he began as they crossed the darkened street. “Your coming here really wasn’t such a good idea. Beirut isn’t like Amman. You could get hurt.”

“Why would anybody want to hurt me? I’m Irish. You don’t know of anyone here who has any grudge against Ireland, do you?”

“Come on, Lorraine. Do you really think the trigger-happy kids who man the roadblocks in this town care whether you’re Irish or Iranian? When the place heats up, anyone and everyone is fair game.”

“All right, Walter. I get your point.”

Lukash turned the key in the passenger door, opened it for her, and then went around the rear of the car to the driver’s side. “I booked a table for us at eight o’clock. A Lebanese I work with suggested a place not far from here.” He looked at her skirt and plain white cotton blouse. “The only problem is that it’s rather fancy. Would you prefer we try a bistro instead, or maybe a garden restaurant?”

“Not at all. I have everything I need right here. You don’t think I would come all the way across town without a little black dress, do you?” Lorraine patted her black leather shoulder bag confidently. “All I need is fifteen minutes to create the effect.”

“In that case, maybe we should stop off at my flat first. We’ll have an apéritif while you work your magic.” Lukash drew his fingertips slowly from her knee up the inside of her thigh.

She took the hand and pressed it against her soft flesh. “Can’t you make this car go any faster?” she asked.

* * *

Lorraine Ellis raised herself onto one elbow and watched Walter Lukash as he lay naked on his back beside her. She reached out and stroked his cheek.

Lukash felt the gentle touch of her fingertips and wondered if she had been surprised by his new growth of beard. “How do you like my new look?” he inquired lazily. “Do you think I could pass for a Phalangist fighter?”

His hands were clasped behind his head and his ankles crossed, the bed sheet pulled to just above his waist. He turned his head to look at Lorraine lying beside him, her dark hair spilling over one shoulder and hiding her diminutive breasts.

She was thirty-two but still had a luminous creamy complexion and firmness of skin tone that few women retained beyond their early twenties. He watched her examine him with what appeared to be a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, as if she thought he was concealing something from her that she might be able to discover by a sufficiently thorough study of his demeanor.

“Frankly, a beard always makes me wonder what a man is trying to hide,” she observed.

“An intriguing concept, Lorraine, but it won’t get you very far in Beirut. Two-thirds of the men over here have taken to letting their whiskers grow. Don’t ask me why. As for mine, I just thought a beard would be a useful way for me to blend into the landscape.”

“Walter, you seem to come equipped with a plausible cover story for every conceivable thing you do. But, knowing you, dear, I’m not convinced.”

“Fine, then, don’t believe me. But if I’m hiding something, what could it possibly be? I’ve hardly been here more than twenty-four hours, for heaven’s sake.”

“I don’t know exactly what it is,” she answered, wrinkling her brow. “But I just get a feeling that you’re holding something back. I hate to disappoint you, darling, but you’re not nearly as enigmatic as you think.”

* * *

Lukash stopped the BMW opposite the entrance to L’Olivier, allowed the restaurant’s doorman to open Lorraine’s door, and then turned over the keys to a white-jacketed parking attendant. He slipped each a ten-lira note and led Lorraine across the sidewalk into the dimly lit restaurant.

Lukash had been told five years earlier that L’Olivier was one of the better French restaurants in Beirut. Now it was the only French restaurant he knew on the city’s East Side, and that only because the headwaiter, Boulos, had mentioned it at lunch. He let the door close behind him and approached the maître d’s stand with Lorraine on his arm. Boulos was busy scribbling but after a moment lifted his eyes and recognized Lukash instantly. He wore the same threadbare black dinner jacket that he had worn at La Chasse during lunch, but it had been freshly pressed and a white carnation was pinned to the lapel. His chest seemed to swell with pride at seeing the two foreign guests.

“What a happy surprise to see you again so soon, Mr. Walter! And how lovely mademoiselle looks tonight. Voila! I have reserved one of our best tables for you, in a corner—very quiet and very secure. You may be interested to know that the walls of this restaurant are made of limestone, nearly a meter in thickness. You need not be concerned about shells or stray bullets; such things have never troubled us at L’Olivier, even at the worst of times. Follow me, if you please.”

They followed the headwaiter down a long, narrow room past a dozen candlelit tables set with gold-rimmed Limoges china and white linen. Only two tables were occupied. At one sat a pair of stout Lebanese merchants in blue serge suits who eyed greedily the bottle of Burgundy that the wine steward was preparing to open before them. At the other sat an elderly Lebanese couple, elegantly dressed, together with a fiftyish woman, possibly their daughter, and a handsome silver-haired Lebanese in his mid-fifties, whom Lukash guessed to be the woman’s husband. Three of the four were too busy spreading liver paté on toast and passing around a bottle of white Bordeaux to notice the newcomers.

The silver-haired Lebanese, however, appeared to give a start upon seeing Lukash as he passed by. Despite the low light, Lukash, too, found something disturbingly familiar about the man’s face. It was a common enough type in Beirut, yet there was a certain distinctiveness about the jutting jaw, prominent widow’s peak, and thin, hard line of his mouth that Lukash felt he had come across before.

Lukash and Lorraine took their seats and Boulos returned with a wine list. When he looked at the Lebanese again, the man’s back was turned to him.

“Whether it’s any good or not, I insist on having a bottle of Ksara Blanc de Blancs,” Lukash said. “It was my favorite before the Events.”

“It is still available, I am happy to say,” the headwaiter answered. “The fighting has not affected the region around Jdita. The harvests go on as before.” Boulos gave a perfunctory bow and left them, informing the wine steward of their selection on his way back to his lectern by the door.

“Your enthusiasm over the wine is the liveliest response you’ve shown all evening,” Lorraine began with characteristic directness. “Are you still sulking over having been assigned here, or are you unhappy that I came?”

Lukash did his best not to change expression. Still, he knew Lorraine would spot the guardedness in his unblinking gray eyes that generally signified his unwillingness to tell the whole truth. “Let’s put it this way,” he began. “Since I have no choice about being in Lebanon for the moment, I’d rather have you here than not here. You’re about the only person I can vent to without getting myself in hot water. In Amman they promised me I would be here for a two-month TDY. Now they expect me to stay for a full two-year tour. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I can last here that long, Lorraine. I’m tired. I’ve been in the field for eight straight years. I’ve had enough.”

“Can’t you tell them that you’re only willing to stay for two months, as you originally agreed? Surely they can find someone qualified to replace you. I should think there would be a surplus of ambitious young men in Washington eager to prove themselves at a posting like Beirut.”

“Not as many as you might think,” he answered while glancing again toward the table with the two Lebanese couples. “Besides, when you’re offered an overseas assignment, you’re expected to accept it unconditionally. When I entered the organization, I signed a pledge that I’d be available for service anywhere in the world. And at the moment, Headquarters wants a journeyman-level case officer who has served in Lebanon before, speaks Arabic fluently, and has experience in both liaison and paramilitary operations. There simply aren’t that many guys out there who fit that profile, and if any of them had been available, I rather doubt that Headquarters would have turned to me. So if they tell me it’s Lebanon, basically it’s Lebanon or nothing.”

Lorraine’s eyes flashed with irritation. Lukash knew what she was thinking: that he was knuckling under without a struggle—and, even worse, without being willing to discuss it with her.

“So what are you going to do, Walter? Salute the flag and tell them you’ll stay the two years with the greatest of pleasure?”

“I don’t know, Lorraine,” he answered dully. “I need time to think.”

“In that case,” she responded, “I have the same question I put to you two months ago, long before anyone even mentioned Beirut: What about us, Walter? What about Washington?”

“I haven’t forgotten, Lorraine. We’ll still get to Washington, believe me.”

“Yes, I’ll be there in ten weeks, as soon as my contract here expires. Let there be no doubt about that. But what about you, Walter? When? Two years? Two and a half if there’s a problem in replacing you? Don’t you see, if you’re as serious about leaving the Agency as you say, time is running short. At thirty-four you could still study for an MBA or a law degree and start a new job at thirty-six.

“There are plenty of opportunities in the Gulf for someone who speaks Arabic and knows his way around. If you have any doubt of that, I know several people you could talk to. Any American oil company or defense contractor would be fortunate to have someone like you to help them handle the Arabs. The American businessmen I knew in Jeddah and Riyadh didn’t know a tenth of what you know about how to get on with the Saudis.”

Lukash set down the salad fork he had been toying with and leaned back in his chair. He had heard the argument before and suspected there was a good deal more to selling American aircraft, tanks, and missiles to the Arabs than met Lorraine’s untrained eye. As for his own qualifications, he was neither a trained engineer nor a military man, nor did he have any experience in business, despite having once claimed to be a refrigeration salesman.

“I’d prefer that we not get into the MBA scenario again, Lorraine,” he said. “I’d be crazy to quit the government and blow my savings on a graduate degree just so I could spend my days drinking tea in some raghead prince’s outer office waiting for an audience that might never materialize. Hell, fifteen years from now I can retire with a full pension. That’s not so far off. Let’s say I have to spend the rest of the year here. After that there will be two or three years keeping a desk warm at Headquarters, then a couple more tours overseas, then back to Headquarters again, and I’ll be ready for my farewell tour.”

“Now I’ve heard everything,” Lorraine replied, casting her eyes at the ceiling. “Fifteen years until retirement. Retirement, you say! If you truly can’t abide spying, Walter, why should you want to spend fifteen bloody more years doing it? And if you won’t go back for another degree, why not talk to your friends in the State Department about a job in the consular corps? I’ve heard you say scores of times that you’ve never enjoyed a job more than the one you had running the visa section in Delhi. Why not write to Jack Tate? Or Nick Latigan—I’m sure either of them would be more than pleased to help you.”

This was not the first or even the second time Lorraine had made the suggestion. Lukash had never openly rejected it, but he knew in his heart that it wouldn’t work. Once having known the thrills of agent meetings, planting listening devices in hostile embassies, and running paramilitary operations behind enemy lines, he knew he could not issue tourist visas for the rest of his working life. As much as some aspects of his job repelled him, there were other parts of it that he could not imagine living without.

The wine steward arrived with a bottle of Ksara in a stainless steel ice bucket. He cut the lead cap from around the neck and removed the cork, then he poured enough to cover the bottom of Lukash’s glass. It was full-bodied and fruity but otherwise without much character. How memories deceived, Lukash thought. He smiled at the wine steward and beckoned him to fill the two glasses.

“Ten weeks,” he announced, raising his glass. “Let’s make the most of them.”

Lorraine touched her glass gently to his and drank. Her eyes were moist with tears.

“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to the chief about it,” Lukash relented. “He won’t want me to leave short of a full tour, but he knows how much of a stink I could make if I set my mind to it. Maybe we can reach a compromise.”

Lorraine nodded and then abruptly snatched up her purse. “I’ll be back in a few moments. If the waiter comes, order me a salade Niçoise and some broiled fish. Whatever looks good.” With that she sped off toward the back of the restaurant, asked a busboy for directions to the ladies room, and disappeared.

As if on cue, Boulos approached Lukash’s table with a tray densely packed with whole fish and crustaceans: sea bass, grouper, swordfish, tiny sultan brahim, shrimp, and a lobster in the center. Under his arm were tucked two folio-size menus, each bound in hand-tooled Egyptian red leather.

“Would you like to make a selection of fish tonight, monsieur?” he asked, lowering the tray from his shoulder and inclining it toward Lukash to afford him the best possible view.

“Which do you recommend for broiling? Mademoiselle prefers broiled.”

Boulos set the tray on the table and withdrew a thick swordfish steak from the mass, then he laid a slender filet alongside it. “This one is for mademoiselle—grillé. But for you, monsieur, I recommend this one, sautéed in butter and garlic.”

“Both will be fine, Boulos. Bring them with a hearts of palm salad for me and a salade Niçoise for her.”

“Anything else, monsieur? Some mineral water, perhaps?”

“Yes, whatever you have, as long as it’s gazeuse.” Lukash paused a moment, looked at the foursome across the room, and added in a low voice. “One more thing, Boulos. Do you happen to know the name of the man sitting with his back to me at the table by the kitchen door? I feel I’ve met him somewhere before.”

Boulos seemed to hesitate before answering. “His name is Victor Hammouche. A civil engineer. He lives in Kuwait since the Events.”

“Hammouche,” Lukash repeated, then bit his lip. “And is that his wife sitting next to him?”

“No, his sister. His wife took ill tonight.” Boulos spoke slowly now and seemed to focus on Lukash’s reaction to his words. “For some years his wife taught Arabic and French at the American embassy. Claudette Hammouche—perhaps you have met her. Claudette knew all the Americans in Beirut in those days.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Lukash replied coolly, lowering his wine glass to the table to stop his hand from trembling. “I didn’t go to the American embassy very often then.”

For a fleeting moment, Lukash remembered himself seated at a crowded table along the edge of the dance floor in the Phoenicia Hotel’s penthouse nightclub, a twenty-piece Egyptian orchestra playing at full volume only a few meters away. On that night the matronly Claudette Hammouche had winked at William Conklin across the table before raising her fluted champagne glass in a toast. Victor Hammouche used the moment to seize the bottle of Lanson Brut from the cooler by its linen-draped neck and filled his niece’s glass until the bubbly foam cascaded down the side and over her delicate fingers. César Khalifé discreetly raised a manicured hand to signal the need for a fresh bottle.

“Your flight does not leave until tomorrow afternoon. There is more than enough time for another bottle,” César had assured him.

“But this is our last night together, Papa,” Muna protested with a demure laugh. She was wearing the white sleeveless dress he had bought for her in Athens, and it took all his self-control not to reach out and bury his face in her perfumed hair where her shoulder met the base of her neck.

Suddenly Boulos loomed once more beside Lukash in his timeless black dinner jacket, watching him closely as if he had guessed that his guest’s thoughts had been somewhere else.

“You still remember, don’t you, Boulos? The woman you said I brought to your restaurant five years ago for mezzé. You not only know her; you know her family, don’t you?”

The maître d’hôtel remained expressionless.

“Please, Boulos, don’t say anything to them. For once, pretend that damned photographic memory of yours failed you. Believe me, it will be better for everybody.”

Chapter 7

Harry Landers stood before his office door like a nervous watchdog whose ears have already detected a suspicious rustling somewhere in the bushes. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw Conrad Prosser approaching. “He’s been here nearly a half hour, Con. He insists on talking to the military attaché. I told him Colonel Ross isn’t available but I’d find somebody else he could talk to. Pirelli said to call you.”

“Who is he?”

“He has a Syrian passport in the name of Mazen Barghouti. Date and place of birth: 1954, Aleppo. Occupation: engineer. Religion: Sunni Muslim. Passport is genuine, but it was issued last week, so it’s hard to say much more. He insists he has important information for us, but that’s as far as he’ll go.”

“He’s been frisked?”

“Twice. Once when he came into the visa area and once again before coming up here. Do you want me to call a marine to stand outside the door?”

“When you get a chance. Meanwhile, I’ll go in and hear him out. Don’t stray too far; when we’re finished, you’ll need to show our visitor out the back way.”

Prosser entered the office and closed the door behind him. At the far end of Harry Landers’s leather sofa sat a tall and very lean Arab in his mid- to late twenties, legs crossed, blowing rings into a billowing haze of bluish-gray cigarette smoke. His long face had an intense, almost ascetic look that seemed oddly inconsistent with his ultrashort military haircut and the brown tweed suit that appeared to have been made for someone ten or fifteen pounds heavier.

Without apparent nervousness or haste, the Syrian parked the cigarette in an ashtray on the low table before him and stood to face Prosser. His dark eyes met the American’s and left an immediate impression of intelligent self-assurance.

“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Barghouti,” Prosser began in Arabic as he took the opposite end of the sofa and scribbled a few words along the margin of his legal pad. “My name is Bill Armstrong. I hope you will excuse me for having kept you waiting.” He offered his hand and the Arab took it long enough for a single up-and-down movement.

“As Harry probably told you, I work closely with the American military attaché. I understand you have some information you would like to share with the attaché.”

“Yes, but I wish to speak to him directly.”

“I understand that. But, unfortunately, Colonel Ross is not in the building this morning. If you will tell me what you would like to discuss with him, perhaps I can arrange for you to meet him another time.”

“You are in the American army, then—or in the mukhabarat.”

“I am with American intelligence. Whatever you say to me will be passed on to the proper person in the American government. But first I need to know a few things about you. For example, is Barghouti your real name?”

The Arab shook his head.

“I didn’t think so.” Prosser went on. “Your government doesn’t issue passports to men on active military duty, so if you are who you say you are, the passport couldn’t be yours. What branch are you in: army, air force, defense companies?”

“I am a flight lieutenant in the air force. The passport was issued to my cousin, who resembles me but is still a student.”

“Then you have taken some risks to come here, haven’t you, Mazen? You can call me Bill, by the way. Bill isn’t my name any more than yours is Mazen, but there’s no harm in that. So tell me, was coming to the American embassy your own idea, or did you come on behalf of your organization?”

A wry smile began to form at the corners of Mazen’s mouth and spread slowly across his face. “I was opposed to coming here. The others insisted that I do it. They said that without help from the Americans or the Phalangists, we would all be captured and killed over the course of time without achieving any of our goals.”

“What others? And what are the goals that you want us to help you achieve?”

“We are a secret organization of young officers, mostly in the air force and army, and we call ourselves the Syrian Free Officers’ Movement. Our objective is to overthrow the criminal Hafez al-Asad and his band of Alawite gangsters. We ask your government for no money or weapons, only defensive materials: radios, medical supplies, and some specialized equipment that we need to help us carry out our activities.” The Syrian stopped and looked expectantly at Prosser, as if awaiting a decision from him at that very moment.

“Why don’t you tell me some more about this movement of yours, Mazen? How many members does it have, and what are their ranks and unit affiliations? What operations have you carried out so far?”

“I am prepared to tell you everything you may wish to know about us, but only after you agree to help us.”

Prosser let out a short laugh. “I think you may be putting the cart before the horse, Mazen. The people who will be deciding whether to help you are in Washington, not here. And before they can decide to do anything for you, they will want to know every possible detail about you. That’s why I’m here to help you. I will write it all down, send it by satellite to Washington, and let you know their answer as soon as it comes in.” He flashed the Syrian his friendliest all-American smile.

“If I reveal these details to you and you decide not to help us, how can we be certain that what I have told you will not somehow find its way into the hands of Hafez al-Asad’s security organs?”

“Listen, Mazen,” Prosser continued amiably. “The United States is not at war with Syria. We have our embassy in Damascus, and Syria has its embassy in Washington. Friendly governments simply do not go around giving material support to insurgent groups aiming to overthrow each other. Besides, how do I know that you haven’t been sent from Damascus to find out whether the American embassy in Beirut is arming Syrian opposition movements? If you have been, and I offer to help you, it seems likely to me that somebody in Damascus might just arrange to have me assassinated as a warning to others not to arm Syrian oppositionists. See what I mean? All I can promise you is that I will relay your information to Washington and that we will keep it a strict secret. You have my word on that. The rest is up to Washington.”

The Arab smiled weakly at Prosser’s suggestion that he might be an agent provocateur and then seemed to weigh his alternatives. “There are not yet many of us, and we lack experience in these matters. Yet we cannot succeed without your help. Tell me again what you wish to know about us and I will answer what I can.”

Chapter 8

“Hey, Connie, get on over here,” Harry Landers bellowed in a voice that could have been heard by the street peddlers on the Corniche eight floors below. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Prosser stopped his progress toward the dining room, where he had caught a glimpse of their host, Muriel Benson, supervising her Lebanese steward as the youth gingerly lowered a heaping platter of curried lamb onto the sideboard. Harry’s voice had come from the balcony. Prosser turned that way and was amused to find the burly vice consul backed against the iron railing by a middle-aged Lebanese couple whose cross-examination appeared to have him on the ropes.

The husband had a jutting jaw, bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows, a matching mustache, and a head of thick, silver-gray hair with a prominent widow’s peak. Something about the man’s thin-lipped slit of a mouth, however, put Prosser on his guard. At the same time, the man’s wife, a full-bosomed woman dressed in an expensive-looking dress of dark blue silk chiffon, to all appearances seemed a warm and good-humored soul, ready to cajole where her husband appeared intent upon intimidation.

The couple renewed their questioning while Harry gestured for Prosser to approach. Despite the vice consul’s gay smile and apparent bonhomie, Prosser detected a note of exasperation in his voice.

Recalling the numerous favors Harry had done him recently, and thinking ahead to those he intended to extract from the visa officer in the future, Prosser stepped through the open French doors onto the balcony. As he did, a gentle breeze stirred from offshore and brought the smell of sea salt to his nose.

“Connie, I’d like you to meet somebody you’re going to be seeing much more of. This is Claudette Hammouche and her husband, Victor. Claudette used to teach Arabic at the embassy before the Events. For the last few years they’ve been living in Kuwait, but now they’ve moved back to Beirut and Claudette has been hired again to give Arabic and French lessons under the post language program. You take Arabic lessons, don’t you, Connie?”

“Three days a week, until Ghada quit last month,” Prosser replied. He turned to Claudette with a friendly smile. “I hope we can start soon. I’ve been slipping back into bad habits, and I have a feeling that my Arabic vocabulary is getting smaller every day instead of larger.”

“Then come to my office on Monday morning. Bad habits are my specialty.”

“Don’t fall for that false humility act of his, Claudette,” Harry said. “Connie is the best Arabist in the embassy. What he considers bad habits would raise my test scores a full grade.”

“And will Mr. Prosser work with you in the consular section, Harry?” Victor Hammouche inquired with the ingratiating sort of smile that Prosser recognized as portending a visa referral for some friend or relative.

“I’m afraid not, Victor. Connie works in the political section. So I doubt if he’ll be in a position to help you with your particular question.”

“I was a consular officer in my last posting, if that means anything. What sort of question do you have, Victor?”

Harry frowned and Prosser knew why. Harry knew him well enough by now to realize that Prosser had no scruples about recommending an ineligible visa applicant or promising some other consular favor if it would help him cultivate a relationship or acquire a piece of information he coveted. To Prosser, U.S. visas represented a sort of fiat currency that could be dispensed in nearly unlimited amounts to gain advantage with the locals.

“Actually, it’s not visa advice that Victor needs,” Harry broke in. “What he wants is for somebody to look up a name for him in our card file of American citizens registered in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the card file is covered by the Privacy Act, so neither I nor anybody else in the embassy will be able to help him.”

“My dear Harry,” Victor pressed, “I understand your position perfectly. I would not think of asking you to violate one of your American laws. I ask only that if you meet such a person in the future, or if you hear his name, you should inform me. Surely there can be no American law against doing such a small favor for a friend, eh?”

“But you still haven’t told me why you want to know about this person, Victor,” Harry protested. “For all I know, he may be an old beau of Claudette who makes you insanely jealous.”

At this, Claudette chuckled and Victor appeared to soften.

“Who is it you want to know about? Maybe I’ve already run across him on the cocktail circuit,” Prosser offered.

Harry’s smile vanished. “I rather doubt it, Con,” he interjected. “Victor says the fellow left Beirut in 1975. That’s well before your time.”

“Yes, but I am certain it was he whom I saw last night at L’Olivier,” Victor insisted doggedly. “He is here in Beirut. I know it.”

“His name?” Prosser asked.

“William Conklin,” Claudette answered. “He was once a student of mine.” She glanced uneasily at Victor. “And the husband of my niece, Muna.”

“Then can’t you find out from your niece where he is?” Prosser suggested.

“She has not seen him since he disappeared on his way to the airport five years ago,” Claudette replied. “We do not wish to speak to her until we know more, but at the same time, we cannot leave it alone.”

“Her father must be told, Claudette,” Victor insisted. “If you will not tell your brother, I will call on César myself tomorrow.”

* * *

“Campari with a twist, on the rocks,” Prosser told the Filipino waiter, after having made his way back to the sideboard that served as a bar in Muriel Benson’s spacious apartment.

“That sounds delicious. May I have a taste of yours?” asked a woman’s voice directly behind him. Prosser turned around to find Lorraine Ellis. She kissed him on both cheeks, but for an instant looked as if she was unsure what sort of response to expect.

“Make that two Camparis,” he told the waiter.

“Is it very strong?” she asked.

“Only the taste. Try it. If you don’t like it, you can pour it into mine and I’ll get you something else.”

She held the tumbler up to her lips and drank the bitter red infusion. “Does it mix with anything? I like the flavor but perhaps not as much as you do.”

“Then how about a Campari Tonic?” he asked, adding the contents of her glass to his.

“Smashing,” she replied. But there was still an odd chill in her voice, a hesitancy that suggested a change of heart from the night before.

“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t call you yesterday,” he volunteered in an effort to break the ice. “Something urgent came up shortly after lunch, and it didn’t give me a moment’s rest until after dinner.”

“To be perfectly frank, Conrad, I was quite prepared to strike your name from my list at five minutes after three when you didn’t call as you had promised. I held pen in hand, poised to strike, when the messenger came to the rescue with your note. It was a damned near thing, I should say. I was crushed that you were standing me up but delighted at finding Walter’s new phone number at the end of your note. Thank you.”

“Were you able to reach him?”

“We had dinner.” She looked Prosser carefully in the eye, as if to measure his reaction. Then the bartender held out her Campari Tonic and she took a cautious first sip. “Much improved,” she declared.

“And Walter? Also improved? Or the same as always?”

“Mmmm. Do you really want me to answer that?” she teased.

“I suppose it serves me right, leaving you alone for an evening. Will you let me make it up to you by taking you out for a nightcap after the party?”

“So late? Muriel tells me that after eight o’clock only gunmen and dope addicts venture out onto the streets.”

“Muriel has never been out after eight; that’s one of her problems,” Prosser replied dismissively. “So how about it? Are you game?”

“Thanks, Conrad, but really, I can’t. I promised Muriel I would help her tidy up after the guests leave; it’s what a well-mannered houseguest does, you know.”

“How about tomorrow?” he pressed.

“Muriel and I are going to the Casino du Liban with a group from the consular section and spending the night in Jounié.”

“Sunday, then?”

“Why don’t you call me sometime Sunday afternoon? I’m not sure yet if Muriel has anything planned.”

“Your being so busy wouldn’t have anything to do with Walt being back in touch, would it? No, you don’t have to answer that one. After all, Walt was there first.”

“At times I could hardly say he’s there at all,” she replied wearily. “Walter hasn’t yet made up his mind about what it is he wants. I believe he’s still reeling from the shock of finding out he’s expected to stay here for two years instead of two months. It has quite upset his calculations.”

Suddenly Prosser spotted Ed Pirelli sidling up to them with a blissful smile on his face. Pirelli was the kind of drinker who reached mellowness after the first double scotch and remained a friend of all the world for the rest of the evening until his eyes glazed over and his knees buckled beneath him.

Prosser turned his back to Pirelli and told Lorraine not to move. “Just smile sweetly and don’t say a thing.”

“Say, Ed,” Prosser began affably as soon as the station chief pulled up beside them. “Have they finished setting up the buffet?”

“Muriel sent the rice back for further fluffing,” he replied, taking pains to bring off the alliteration successfully. “She says it won’t be long.” He sipped his scotch and stared intently at Lorraine.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lovely friend, Connie?” he asked with boozy familiarity.

“Oh, excuse me, Ed. I thought you had met. Lorraine, allow me to introduce Ed Pirelli. Ed works in the economic section, in case you ever need the latest numbers on the Lebanese national debt in a hurry. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Ed, I was about to show Lorraine where Muriel keeps the telephone.” He took her by the elbow and began nudging her forward, but, to his surprise, she would not budge.

“You wouldn’t be the Ed Pirelli who served in Delhi, would you?” she asked boldly.

“I’ll admit to that,” he answered, drawing himself up to his full five feet, nine inches. And you must be the Lorraine—”

“Lorraine Ellis. I believe we have a mutual friend, Walter Lukash. Before Walter left Amman, he must have told me a hundred times how he looked forward to working with you again.”

Prosser watched Lorraine switch on her Irish charm and turn up the dial.

Upon hearing Lukash’s name, Pirelli suddenly seemed to recover his sobriety, then just as quickly retreated behind a protective mask of drunken affability.

“Lorraine has a training contract with Middle East Airlines for the next few weeks and is going to be a houseguest of Muriel Benson’s,” Prosser said. “Now, Lorraine, wasn’t there an important phone call you had to put through?”

She ignored him.

“Then you’ve seen Walt recently, Miss Ellis?” Pirelli probed.

“Yesterday at dinner. Walt has a marvelous flat in East Beirut, by the way. Have you seen it?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. To be honest, I haven’t seen very much of Walt since Delhi,” he said, lying without a trace of self-consciousness. “You wouldn’t happen to have his new phone number, would you?”

“It’s in my purse in the next room, but I would be happy to copy it for you after dinner if you’d like. I just got it myself.”

Prosser winced and Pirelli sent a malevolent glare in his direction. “I would be very grateful if you could do that for me,” he answered. “If we miss each other after dinner, just give it to Conrad here. He’ll make sure it gets to me. Again, it was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Ellis.”

* * *

The Filipino bartender laid out a dozen empty brandy snifters in two rows on the sideboard between the coffee service and a silver tray piled high with baklava and a dozen varieties of treacly Arab pastries.

“Cognac, sir?”

“A small one, please.”

He poured a little more than a centimeter of Remy Martin into the glass closest to Prosser.

“Is the brandy any good?” Muriel Benson asked with the air of satisfaction that comes to a hostess when dinner, dessert, and coffee have all been served and the kitchen help has begun to tackle the dirty dishes.

Although Muriel was well into her forties, she was an energetic woman who regularly played tennis, swam, and walked twenty minutes to and from the embassy every day. One day at the Coral Beach Hotel Prosser had seen her in a bathing suit and had been surprised that such a shapely figure had been kept so well concealed beneath her baggy cotton print dresses. Tonight she wore a knit cocktail dress that clung to her hips and rode high over her knees as she sat cross-legged on the sofa. Suddenly he realized that he had not heard anything Muriel had said and quickly tried to piece together what he had missed.

“The PPS liquor kiosk wanted a hundred lira per bottle, the thieves,” Muriel continued. The Parti Populaire Syrien, a leftist militia espousing union between Lebanon and Syria, ran a sidewalk liquor stand on rue Sidani to help finance its activities. It was generally able to offer rock-bottom prices because its merchandise consisted of stolen and smuggled goods on which no duty had been paid.

“That’s not bad,” Prosser replied. “I’ve paid as much as two hundred, when I could find it.”

“I thought as much. I recognized the label from your dinner party last week and bought it. It was such a pleasant surprise to be invited, Connie,” she added, blushing faintly. “You always bring together the most fascinating collections of people at your parties. The only disappointment was that the two of us didn’t get more of an opportunity to talk.”

“That’s something we can easily correct. Why don’t you grab yourself one of those glasses and come sit. Let the staff do the work.”

“I’d be delighted,” she replied, reaching out to touch Prosser’s hand. “But first, please do me a favor and take off that jacket and tie of yours. And in case I get called away in a few minutes when the guests start leaving, please don’t think you have to go too.”

As if on cue, a half dozen guests appeared from the living room to thank their hostess and bid her a good night. Prosser carried his cognac onto the balcony and watched the espresso sellers on the Corniche below dismantling their equipment for the night. Far to the east, he saw flashes of light from mortar and artillery shells falling in the former commercial district, but he heard none of the roar or rumble that signified heavy fighting. Occasionally a burst of automatic rifle fire disturbed the calm but failed to draw answering fire. When at last he finished the cognac and returned to the sideboard for more, no other guest was in sight.

“Ah, there you are,” Muriel greeted him brightly as he closed the double doors behind him. “Why don’t you come over here where we can relax?”

Without waiting for him to follow, she started across the room. He poured just enough brandy to give color to his glass and then took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa. Muriel was facing him with her feet tucked under her legs and one arm draped around an oversize throw pillow held in her lap.

“Why don’t you take off that jacket and tie, Conrad? I’m so happy that we finally have a chance to get to know each other. You know, I recall vividly the moment you first stepped out of the elevator to report to Ambassador Ravenel. I don’t know if I should say this, but I thought you were the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on. I remember that you had flown in directly from Jeddah, and I said I had served there, too.”

She brushed a strand of hair from her face, and all at once Prosser noticed that Muriel’s hair was unpinned. In the dim light the streaks of gray were hardly visible, and the tiny sunburst wrinkles at the corners of her eyes had totally disappeared. There was an odd gleam in the woman’s eye, and Prosser thought he knew what it meant.

The clack of heels on the marble floor announced the approach of the Filipino steward and his wife. Each carried two large shopping bags, and from one of them protruded the baking sheets they had used to heat canapés.

“Good night, Fernando. Good night, Felisa. I left an envelope for you on the table by the door. Will I see you again next Friday? I’m expecting sixteen for a buffet dinner, plus or minus one or two.”

“Friday at two, Missy,” the steward replied. “We do marketing first, then come here. Cook for twenty.”

“Excellent. Now, have a good weekend, both of you.”

From somewhere behind him, Prosser heard the snap of a deadbolt being opened and a door slamming shut. “Are they finished cleaning up already?” he asked with surprise. “I was rather expecting to roll up my sleeves and pitch in with the dishes. Lorraine said the two of you expected to be in the kitchen for hours after the guests had gone.”

“Lorraine said that? I can’t imagine why. She left with the first wave right after coffee so that she could pack her things tonight. Tomorrow she’s checking out of the hotel and staying with me for a few days until she’s able to move back in with Walter.”

Prosser considered the full meaning of this before continuing. “When did you meet Lorraine? Back when you were posted to Jeddah?”

“Yes, three or four years ago she volunteered to help with a charity fashion show the embassy women were organizing. She was quite a lot of fun, and seemed to have plenty of time on her hands, so I invited her to play some mixed-doubles tennis and come swim in the embassy pool from time to time. When I was transferred to Rabat, it didn’t seem likely I would ever see her again. So when she wrote me from Amman to say that her beau was being sent to the American embassy in Beirut for two months of temporary duty, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“Did the letter mention who her beau was?”

“No, but it didn’t take very long to figure out. As soon as she found out he was coming to Beirut, she flew straight to London and arranged a job with MEA so that she could be with him. When it comes to Walter, Lorraine is hopelessly lost.”

“How did she take it when she found out that his assignment was extended to a full two-year tour?”

“This morning she seemed rather upset. Of course, that may all change again by tomorrow.”

When Muriel saw the confused look on his face, her cheeks reddened. “Oh, I thought you knew…the ambassador is considering sending Walter back to Washington early after all. I believe he told Mr. Pirelli this afternoon. I just assumed you knew, since apparently you’re the one who carries messages back and forth to Walter.”

“I was away all afternoon.”

“You won’t let anyone know I told you, will you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Muriel,” he answered easily, touching her hand where it played idly with the hem of her dress just above the knee. “You don’t plan on sharing the news with Lorraine just yet, do you?”

“Absolutely not,” she insisted, taking his hand between hers and stroking it softly. “It’s confidential, and, besides, I think she’d be far better off if she stopped being so patient with him.” Now she shifted his hand to a place farther up her thigh.

He felt the firmness of her flesh and sensed something stirring where he sat as well. “What makes you think the ambassador would let him go so soon?” Prosser asked, doing his best to ignore momentarily the sensations she was arousing in him. “He’s scarcely been here forty-eight hours. What could he possibly have done wrong?”

“I doubt if it’s anything he’s done. The ambassador’s primary concern is not to provoke the Syrians. If they find out that we’ve been aiding the Phalangists, they may do something to the embassy in retaliation. Look at what happened in Tehran when we helped the shah.”

“Well, if that’s what is bothering him, then I don’t imagine he’ll want anything to do with the proposition I sent up to him this afternoon,” he said, more to himself than to Muriel. “So much for that day’s work.”

“Oh, you mean the Syrian dissident fellow? The ambassador spoke with Mr. Pirelli about him this afternoon. He was very worried that the Phalangists and the Israelis are looking for some means of dragging the United States into Lebanon to settle their old scores. He was really quite adamant about it: ‘No American is to have any contact whatsoever with the Syrian Free Officers,’ or whatever they call themselves.”

“We’ll never know what they can offer us unless we feel them out.”

Muriel looked across at the bulge in his trousers and giggled. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”

“You’ll never know unless...”

Prosser freed his hand from hers and drew his palm along the side of her thigh and over the curve of her hip to her waist. She closed her eyes, leaned against the back of the sofa, and smiled contentedly. His right hand reached behind her back.

“You’ve had something in mind all along, haven’t you, Muriel?”

“Maybe,” she teased him. “If you’re in the mood.”

He leaned toward her and she fell backward. She was underneath him now, arching her back and wrapping her legs around his hips. Her fingers deftly unfastened the buttons of his shirt, then she went to work on his belt and drew off his trousers. No sooner had she finished doing so than she raised herself from the sofa, grasped the waistband of her pantyhose with both hands, and pulled them to the floor with one uninterrupted motion.

Prosser knelt in front of her, took hold of the hem of her dress, and gradually rose to lift it inch by inch up her hips, above her waist, and then over her head. In an instant she released her brassiere and let it fall to the floor. Prosser now held the full length of her soft fullness against him and felt the desire in him grow as she pressed her mouth against his.

“Slowly,” she whispered in his ear as she lowered herself to the floor, welcoming and warm, with Prosser close upon her.

Chapter 9

“So, Elie, what is your opinion of our new American?” the Phalangist intelligence chief asked his deputy when the tea boy left the office.

“A sympathetic fellow, and intelligent as well. But he has big eyes, one might say, and they take everything in at once.” Major Elie sat uncomfortably in an armless metal chair opposite the director’s desk.

“That is to be expected. He was sent to spy on us, was he not? The question is, will he help us?”

“It is too early to know,” Elie replied. “He states few opinions, and none about our politics.”

“They said he studied Arabic in Beirut before the Events. If so, he must have a reasonable understanding of our situation—enough to hold an opinion.”

“According to Monsieur Pirelli, he rented a furnished apartment in a Christian neighborhood in those days, but whether it had any influence upon his political views remains to be seen.”

“You have taken him to dinner and the show at the casino? What did he say after you poured the wine and the brandy?”

“He behaves with caution, as one would expect from a man in his situation.”

“And was he as cautious with the women?”

Elie shook his head. “We were alone. Muna and a woman who works with her were to join us Saturday at Farayya for skiing, but the American called to say he was ill. I sensed that perhaps he was lying, but...”

“Are you still pursuing the daughter of the Chamounist Khalifé?”

“Muna belongs to no political party. As for her father, he was a friend of my father even before I was born. He is no longer a young man fit to bear arms against the party.”

“No, but you are, and you fought alongside him. Tell me, what am I supposed to conclude from that and from your continued ties to Chamounists like Khalifé?”

“You know my record. I renounced any loyalty to the NLP years ago when I joined the Phalange.”

“Yes, I know all that. Still, I shall give you a sound piece of advice: stay away from Khalifé and the rest of the Chamounists—far away. Ask me no more about it; just heed what I say. Now, one more thing: I want you to contact the young Syrian who came to see us last Wednesday. You know the one. Tell him we will have the equipment he wants by the end of the week…all of it.”

“Including the radios from the Americans?” Major Elie asked incredulously.

“Everything,” the director replied. “Arrange another meeting with him as quickly as possible, and tell him that delivery will be made in the mountains, near Zahlé, one night very soon. You yourself will be delivering it, Major. You and your new American friend.”

* * *

The sign was written in three languages: Hagop Hagopian & Fils, with the same in Arabic and in an odd indecipherable script that Lukash recognized as Armenian. The shop was in Burj Hammoud, one block south of the rue du Fleuve, and sold all manner of electrical household appliances, from Italian-made refrigerators and washing machines to Japanese coffee grinders and juice extractors. Lukash held up a Braun portable mixer as if to inspect it, then he looked out the window at the pushcart vendors lined up along the curb. A single line of traffic moved slowly along the one-way street.

“German? English?” came a voice from behind him.

An insistent young man of about twenty whose coal black hair hung in ringlets over his forehead blocked his exit.

“American,” Lukash answered automatically. The word came out of his mouth before he could stop it. Now it would take that much longer to escape the store. He wondered how long Prosser would be willing to wait for him if he was late.

“You like this mixer, American? I make special price, just for you. One hundred seventy lira. Special just for you.”

“No, thanks,” Lukash replied with a shake of the head. “I don’t cook.”

“For your wife,” the youth countered. “I make you very special price: one hundred fifty lira. Best price in Burj Hammoud.”

“I’m not married,” Lukash snapped. “Perhaps another time.”

“Another time maybe mixer not here. I give you mixer for one hundred Lebanese lira. Last word. Khalas.”

Lukash handed the mixer back to the young Armenian, quickly sidestepped him, and then slipped out the front door. He turned right, facing the one-way traffic, and peered intently through the windshield of each automobile for the face of Conrad Prosser. He had covered two blocks and had nearly reached Ecole Mesrobian, the Armenian grammar school, when he spotted Prosser’s silver Renault in the distance. As soon as it came within reach, Lukash stepped off the curb and took his place in the car’s passenger seat.

“I was beginning to think I’d missed you,” Lukash began. “Traffic hold you up?”

“Traffic, hell. I’ve been around the block twice already waiting for you. And don’t think these people don’t notice a palefaced stranger in their neighborhood. What time do you set that watch of yours by, anyway?”

“Radio Moscow. Doesn’t everybody?” Lukash gave his wristwatch a rapid shake and then gaped at it as if it had stopped. “Listen, Con, I spent half an hour trying to find a parking spot in this rat’s nest. If we’re going to be meeting like this once a week, we’ve got to find some meeting places that are a bit more convenient.”

“We can have convenience if you want it,” Prosser replied icily, “but I thought you’d be more concerned about security. Since Armenians tend to keep their distance from the Phalange, I thought you’d find the Armenian Quarter a good place for picking out Phalangist surveillance.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about surveillance quite yet. I just arrived, for heaven’s sake. This isn’t exactly Moscow or East Berlin.”

“Don’t be so sure. Some people around here move faster than you’d think. The night after you arrived, for instance, Lorraine Ellis had me up against the wall, pumping me about where to find you. She said you told her all about your new assignment here. I had no way of judging whether she was bullshitting me or not.”

“Lorraine told me about your giving her my phone number. It’s cool by me,” Lukash answered wearily.

“I know I shouldn’t have done it,” Prosser conceded, “but I thought it might be better if you two worked things out between yourselves before Ed comes and wades into the middle.”

“Oh, God, don’t tell me Ed knows she’s here.”

Prosser winced. “They ran into each other at Muriel Benson’s dinner party last night. Ed had already downed a few drinks, so her name may not have fully registered, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Well, I suppose it was just a matter of time. Now that she’s here, it’s just as well that she found me. I told her before I left Amman that I wouldn’t be able to see her for at least two months—I thought that would buy me some time, and that we could meet up afterward in the States. It never occurred to me that she could turn up so damned fast.”

“Walt, it’s really none of my business,” Prosser went on. “But Lorraine said you two were living together in Amman. In fact, she made it sound as if you were taking her back to the States to get married. Is that really—?”

“For a while it was. Before they sent me here, at least. But things have a way of changing in this business.”

Prosser was aghast. The chances of Lukash keeping his security clearance, and thus his job, if he married Lorraine Ellis were next to zero. Even cohabiting with a foreign national was sufficiently against the rules to draw an official reprimand, and Lorraine was not just any random foreigner. Her former marriage to a notorious Islamic extremist had made her persona non grata with Headquarters and virtually every other Western intelligence service.

“Last-minute assignment changes are something you come to expect from Headquarters. But luring you to Beirut for a two-month TDY assignment and then telling you the day you arrive that it’s been converted into a full tour of duty is pretty rotten, even for them,” Prosser added sympathetically. “What do you intend to do, Walt? Knuckle under or find a way out?”

“I don’t know,” Lukash replied with a shrug. “Right now I can’t think of any way out.”

“What about Lorraine? I mean, you haven’t proposed to her, have you?”

“Of course not,” Lukash retorted. “Lorraine’s a foreign national; I’d have to get it cleared first. And there’s no goddamned way Headquarters is going to clear Lorraine, at least not while I’m posted out here. For Christ’s sake, for six years she was married to a guy who plotted to kill the king of Saudi Arabia.”

Prosser was relieved to hear that Lukash at least seemed sensible about the predicament he was in. “So then what’s the point of taking her to the States at all? What would it accomplish?”

“Once she’s within the FBI’s reach, the security types at Headquarters may feel more at ease that she can’t do any mischief without being caught at it,” Lukash explained. “And once people in the division get to meet her under more relaxed circumstances in Washington, they may stop thinking of her as the ex-wife of an Islamic radical. There’s no guarantee, of course, but I hear the clearance process for foreign marriages is getting more lenient these days. In time we may be able to turn things around.”

“Wouldn’t you still be required to submit your resignation along with the clearance request?”

Lukash nodded. “That’s still the rule, which is why I’m in no hurry to propose. Once we’re back in the States, I expect I’ll be able to get an idea of whether it will fly or not. If it looks hopeless, we may have to wait a bit longer.”

“Does Lorraine know anything about the clearance process?”

“She knows that all prospective Agency spouses have to get a security clearance. What she doesn’t know is that if they were to turn her down I’d be out of a job. I didn’t want to lay a guilt trip on her.”

“Some outfit we’re in, eh?” Prosser observed drily.

Lukash grinned with unexpected cheerfulness. “It has its drawbacks, sure, but can you honestly think of anything else in the world you’d rather do for a living?”

The Renault entered the traffic circle and dodged the swarms of Polish Fiats, Suzuki three-wheel delivery wagons, and white Mercedes taxis that seemed to be constantly accelerating in order to pass the cars in the outside lanes and escape the circle.

“Okay, we don’t have a lot of business to cover together this morning, so I’ll try to keep it short,” Prosser said. “As Ed told you before, he wants you to concentrate on getting the Phalange to be comfortable with you. Meet as many of them as you can, and try to spend social time with them in the evenings and on weekends to find out which of them might be recruitment prospects down the road. Don’t worry about picking up reportable intelligence in the first few weeks. Once they get to know you and trust you, the reports ought to be there for the taking.

“There is one thing Ed wanted to alert you to, though. Yesterday we had a walk-in who claimed to represent a dissident faction within the Syrian military. He says the faction calls itself the Syrian Free Officers’ Movement and it wants help from the U.S. to overthrow the al-Asad regime—radios and medical supplies, in particular. I talked to the fellow myself; he claimed to be a first lieutenant in the Syrian air force and seemed quite clever. Too clever, maybe. I’m not sure.

“Anyway,” Prosser continued, “Ed suspects he’s a fabricator, and the ambassador is scared witless that he’s a provocation sent by Damascus to find out whether we’re aiding the Syrian opposition so that they’ll have an excuse to shell the embassy to smithereens. At any rate, Ed and the ambassador have decided to turn the guy down, and they want you to let us know if he turns up on the Phalange’s doorstep. If he does, find out as much as you can about the group and what the Phalange plans to do with them. Just in case he might be a ringer from Syrian intelligence, though, don’t attend any meetings with him. Or if you do, don’t say anything that will give him the idea that you’re an American. We don’t want to risk tipping off the Syrians that we’ve got an American working full-time at Phalange headquarters. At any rate, as soon as you hear that these Syrian Free Officers are in contact with the Phalange, give me a buzz and I’ll get a list of requirements out to you.

“And one more item. Headquarters sent back traces on Major Elie Musallam, the guy you and Ed met on Thursday. They didn’t have much on him, except for name, date, place of birth, and the information he submitted on a tourist visa application back in ’77. What’s more interesting is that one of our unilateral agents is a good friend of this Major Elie of yours, and the major has been an unwitting subsource of several of his reports in the past few months. Do you know anything about PBSLEET?”

“I’ve heard the cryptonym a couple of times, but that’s it.”

“Ed Pirelli recruited SLEET himself in ’76 when he was deputy chief here during the fighting. SLEET was a fairly high-level officer in the Chamounist militia who had lost just about everything he owned when the fighting engulfed the commercial district: his business, apartment, even his wife, poor guy. Ed spotted SLEET when he came to the consular section with a missing persons inquiry. It seems his only daughter married an American just before the outbreak of fighting in ’75, and within a day or two after returning from the honeymoon, the husband disappeared without a trace. Never been heard from since.

“That’s where Major Elie comes in. The major is apparently an old friend of the family and has had a thing for SLEET’s daughter since she was a teenager. SLEET wants to settle this business with the missing husband one way or another so that the way will be clear for the major to marry his daughter. Small world, eh?”

Lukash’s face remained expressionless. “And SLEET has asked you to help him track down the missing husband?”

“He’s given me every scrap of information he has on the guy. Of course, it’s no more than what he gave Ed five years ago, at the time he was recruited. But Headquarters has all kinds of new computer capabilities now, and there’s a good chance that the guy will have left some sort of paper trail. I’ve asked Headquarters to check with the passport office and the FBI, as well as their own files. If there is or ever has been a William F. Conklin who meets SLEET’s description, something is bound to turn up on him.”

Chapter 10

The turbaned Pakistani carwash wallah opened the car door even before Prosser had brought the Renault to a complete stop in the parking lot.

“Lavage, monsieur? Lavage?” He was barely out of his teens, painfully thin, with a pencil-thin mustache setting off rows of gleaming white teeth. He wore a faded blue-and-white-checked shirt of the thinnest gingham, with a sort of skirt wrapped several times around his waist, and carried a tin pail half filled with murky gray water. Prosser guessed he might be one of the Pakistani stevedores from one of the illegal Phalangist ports trying to earn some extra pay between ships.

“No, thanks, friend,” Prosser replied, tilting back his head and clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth in a poor imitation of the Lebanese gesture of dismissal.

“Your car very dirty, siidi. Make car clean—ten pounds.”

“Four pounds, and you fetch a fresh bucket of water first, eh?”

“Eight pounds, siidi. Rice, ghee, tea…all very expensive here, siidi. This car very, very big one.” He stepped back from the four-door and swept it from front to back with a respectful eye as if it were an eighty-foot motor yacht.

“Five pounds. If you do a good job, maybe more. But first, dump that filthy liquid right here where I can see it and go get some clean water.”

The Pakistani bowed hastily and promptly overturned the bucket with the sole of his tire-tread sandal, narrowly missing Prosser’s khaki trousers with the gobs of mud that spread to either side of the toppled bucket. He picked it up again just as quickly and trotted off toward a palm-shaded garden, where an underground sprinkler system was watering a dense jasmine hedge.

Prosser glanced at his watch. Ten minutes after one—still too early for most Lebanese to eat their big midday meal, although he could see through the Libramarine Swim Club’s massive iron gate that a dozen or more bathers had already abandoned their white terry-covered chaises longues for lunch tables sheltered under a cobalt-blue-and-white-striped awning.

As he made his way toward the high-rise Libramarine condominium hotel, he stopped briefly to peer through the gate to the walled-in swim club and scanned the pool, the deck area, and the open-air café for a stout Lebanese of about fifty-five years with a bald spot on top of his head and curly ringlets of gray around the sides and back. Moments before he was ready to give up the effort, he found César Khalifé, aka PBSLEET, seated across from a man of approximately the same age whose back and arms were covered with a dense growth of curly gray and black hair.

César had used his electronic signaling device the night before to summon Prosser to a meeting at the Libramarine Club at one thirty that afternoon. The club had long been agreed upon as their emergency meeting site but until now had never been used. Since the place was a favorite watering spot for wealthy backers of Camille Chamoun’s National Liberal Party, César often met his Liberal friends there for lunch to glean whatever he could about their rivals in the Phalange. Although the swimming pool and lunch area were open only to those who owned flats in the high-rise or who had paid a substantial fee to join the Libramarine Swim Club—as César had, at U.S. government expense—Prosser intended to spend the next quarter of an hour drinking a beer at the public bar just off the lobby, as if waiting to meet a member.

To his discomfort, he found the barroom nearly empty and was relieved when at last he spotted the bartender, a dour little man with the belligerent expression of a diminutive Mussolini. Prosser ordered a bottled French beer and carried it back to a table near the window, where he could see César and his luncheon companion laughing uproariously over some witty remark one of them had unleashed.

At twenty-three minutes past one, Prosser’s glass was still half full. When he saw César rise from his seat, slip on his shirt, and excuse himself from the table, Prosser downed the remains of his beer and laid eight Lebanese pounds on the table.

The entrance to the men’s toilet was only a few steps from the door to the bar. Prosser entered and took up position in the middle of the three toilet stalls. Less than a minute later, he heard the door open, and then someone occupied the stall farthest from the bar.

“Merde, no toilet paper again,” a voice complained in a patois of French and Arabic.

“None here, either, brother,” Prosser answered in Arabic.

“Then perhaps you would like to take some of this,” the voice replied. A hand reached under the partition to offer Prosser a rolled-up section of newspaper.

He unrolled it quickly, removed a half-dozen sheets of onionskin stationery folded neatly three times, and slipped them into his rear trouser pocket. He handed the newspaper back to César Khalifé. “What do you have for me today?” Prosser whispered.

“Several important pieces of news,” César replied in a low voice. I had coffee this morning with my second cousin, who is a member of the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies. The man loves to hear himself talk. There was so much to write that I did not have time to use the invisible writing technique you showed me. It seemed more important at the time to bring you the news quickly.

“Anyway, he said that Bashir Gemayel has a plan to lure the United States into joining the Phalange in a conflict with Syria, and that Bashir’s intelligence chief is the one charged with carrying out the plan. No details, of course, but perhaps you may use this information to obtain details from other sources. My cousin also said that the Phalangists are plotting an operation against those of us who are still loyal to Camille Chamoun rather than the Gemayels. Something like what they did to Tony Franjiyé and his family. That is why I intend to leave Beirut this afternoon to spend the next few days in the mountains.”

Shortly before dawn on a summer day nearly two years earlier, a platoon of Bashir Gemayel’s Phalangist shock troops had crept through the early morning stillness to attack the summer retreat of rival militia chieftain Tony Franjiyé. Despite a desperate defense by Franjiyé’s bodyguards, he and his wife, his three-year-old daughter, their maid, chauffeur, and family dog were machine-gunned to death in the courtyard of the house while still in their bedclothes. When the shooting stopped, fourteen people lay dead.

“You did exactly the right thing, César. Don’t worry about not using the secret writing this time. Your papers will be safely concealed when I cross the Green Line. Just send me a signal when you’re back in town and have something new for me to pick up.”

“But of course,” César replied, proud for having transmitted his reporting so rapidly.

“Now go, before somebody comes in. I’ll leave in a few minutes.”

Prosser heard water rushing down the drainpipe and a moment later César’s stall door slammed shut. He considered opening the sheaf of onionskin papers to read while he waited, but thought better of the idea and resolved to wait calmly until he could be certain that César was clear of the lobby.

At last he pulled up his trousers and took a position before one of three gaudy clamshell-shaped washbasins, whose faucet handles were crafted of glazed ceramic to resemble starfish. He washed his hands, splashed some cool water on his face, and looked around. To his left, beyond the toilet stalls, was a second exit. He opened it just far enough to see that it led to a darkened restaurant with a raised platform at the opposite end where musicians played on nights when the restaurant featured belly dancers.

Prosser consulted his watch once more: nearly forty past one, time to leave if he was to beat the rush-hour traffic through the port crossing. He took a deep breath, pulled open the door to the lobby, and fixed his gaze upon the huddle of Pakistanis jabbering to one another on the blacktop just outside. He was already abreast of them when he heard a woman scream, and then another, from somewhere near the pool. A rifle shot, followed at once by a string of shots fired on full automatic, drew his attention to the parking lot.

A hand suddenly seized his elbow and spun him around. “No, siidi, go back inside! They shoot now! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

“What’s going on? Who is shooting?” he demanded upon recognizing the Pakistani who had offered to wash his Renault.

“Men with—”

At that moment the Pakistani’s eyes opened wide with horror and he dove for cover. Only then did Prosser realize that automatic rifle fire was converging rapidly on the Libramarine Club from three sides. He ducked back into the lobby, retraced his steps to the men’s toilet, and just as quickly dashed through the rear door into the darkened restaurant. Without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he scanned the unlit room for a hiding place. The tables and chairs offered no real shelter. He tried a door, but it was locked. He tried another, a storage closet.

Then his eyes stopped at the musicians’ platform and he thought of the crawl space between platform and floor. Dashing to the far side of the platform, he used his pocketknife to slit open the black vinyl that sealed off the crawl space then lay on his belly and backed into the darkness, feetfirst.

He had maneuvered himself nearly to the center of the platform when three or four simultaneous bursts of automatic rifle fire shattered the silence. The shots blew out the row of high windows along the rear wall, knocked over several chairs, and blasted chunks of plaster that fell like hail onto the bare tabletops. He heard the scuffle of a half dozen pairs of boots as a squad of gunmen gave the room a cursory search. His heart nearly stopped when one of the gunmen leaped onto the platform and fired a three-round burst into the floor less than two meters from his head. When he opened his eyes again, feeble rays of light penetrated through the splintered holes.

“Yalla, shabab, avance! Emile, a la cuisine! Les autres, suives-moi a la piscine!” a young voice shouted directly above him. Prosser’s first reaction was to wiggle his fingers and toes to verify that he had not been hit, and then to hold his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to stop them from ringing.

Before another burst could be squeezed off, the squad leader jumped from the platform and followed the shooters out the same way they had come. Meanwhile, the background of rapid gunfire continued, punctuated by the muffled explosions that Prosser assumed were grenades being tossed into rooms and stairwells to stun their occupants before finishing them off with gunfire. Shrieks of terror and cries of pain carried through the open windows and blended into a hellish wail. Outside the rear wall of the dining room, a long howl ended with a sickening thud as someone jumped or was hurled from an upper-story window. The chaos dragged on for minute after minute while Prosser cowered motionless under the bandstand.

At last the gunfire receded toward the south, spilled over into the parking lot, and then was mixed with the muffled roar of truck engines. Moments later, silence descended upon the place, but the calm lasted no longer than a few seconds before moans and murmured sobs rose from the pool deck and the open-air restaurant. A klaxon horn blared somewhere far off and grew nearer.

At last Prosser crawled slowly toward the open end of the bandstand and peered out. The tabletops and floors were littered with plaster dust, broken glass, and brass shell casings. He stepped softly toward the lobby door, wincing at the loud crunching sounds made by his feet as they crushed lumps of plaster and shards of glass. He prayed silently that no Phalangist still lurked in the shadows.

Prosser stopped just behind the frame of the door to the lobby and looked out. The body of an elderly Lebanese in what only minutes earlier had been an immaculate white terry robe lay dead at the foot of the registration desk, with three gaping exit wounds in back and a broad swath of crimson covering his left side from the waist to shoulder. Prosser had never seen a fresh corpse up close before, and certainly not one that had met a violent end. He had expected to have more of a visceral sensation, but it was as if some sensory overload switch had already been tripped, leaving only numbness. His nerves were refusing to respond to something as inconsequential to his own survival as another person’s mortal remains.

He glanced around the corner into the bar and saw the heap of broken glass—all that remained of the shelved whiskey and apéritif bottles that had been arranged in such careful rows—and then he stepped back into the lobby. He peered behind the registration desk. Two more lifeless figures were piled in the corner, their backs facing him, with skulls so horribly smashed by rifle bullets that he felt compelled to turn away. His eyes fell on a five- or six-meter-long smear of still-moist blood that led to a turbaned corpse sprawled at the edge of the semicircular driveway. Prosser saw the mangled shoulder and the shattered thigh first and pressed two fingers against the young Pakistani’s neck to check for a pulse. He held his breath and waited five seconds, then a few more, before giving up and moving on.

He turned back toward the swim club’s iron gate. The massive double doors had been forced half open. As he approached, the first thing he noticed was the color of the water in the pool, a dull, murky shade of pink that gathered and dispersed in swirling clouds. Only when he stepped to the edge did he realize that he was losing control. He felt his gorge rise, and his breakfast spilled out onto the deck in a gut-wrenching fit of vomiting.

Yet he could not stop himself from looking again, for just beneath the surface of the pool, poised in a sort of jellyfish float, lay the facedown corpse of a tanned and athletic young woman in a lime-green string bikini, with delicate wisps of crimson still playing about the entry wounds in her lower back. As he stared at the drifting corpse, he caught sight of the hairy back and shoulders of a thickset figure in red bathing trunks—César Khalifé’s luncheon companion. Barely an arm’s length beyond that corpse, a barrel-chested body stretched its arms across the surface of the water, its gray ringlet-covered head bobbing and rolling like an apple on a loose tether of purplish muscle and sinew that was all that remained of a neck. He did not need to see the face to know it was César.

A wave of horror, panic, and revulsion passed over Prosser, threatening to sweep all rational thought from his mind. He quickly looked away from the two dead men and then just as quickly forced himself to look again. Surrounding César on all sides, and distributed randomly around the pool, lay some twenty or more other corpses, all suspended at various depths, their movement propelled with infinite slowness by minute underwater currents. Many wore bathing costumes; a few were fully clothed. Men outnumbered women; youth predominated over the aged, including at least a half dozen children. Many of them, he thought, were doubtless unrepentant Chamounists who had resisted the will of the Lebanese Christian community and rejected the infallible leadership of the Phalange Party. But to punish them like this…

* * *

Prosser remained at the Libramarine Club for a half hour or more to help find and tend to the survivors of the massacre while waiting for ambulances to arrive. In any event, he dared not leave the club so close on the heels of the departing gunmen, and with César dead there was no longer an agent’s secrecy to protect. Within a few minutes after the gunmen’s departure, a crescendo of sirens and klaxon horns rose in the distance.

Prosser described for the first Public Security Forces officer to arrive on the scene what he had seen and heard, then exercised his privilege as an accredited diplomat in the Lebanese Republic to leave the Libramarine compound and to make any further statement at the American embassy. The officer, who as a representative of the rump central government of the Lebanese Republic was doubtless accustomed to cleaning up the bloody messes left by the country’s unregulated militias, reluctantly accepted the American’s business card and let him drive away.

* * *

Some forty minutes later Prosser unlocked the deadbolt on César Khalifé’s apartment door and entered, carrying a thick, brown Samsonite briefcase. He shut the door behind him and listened. There was no sound other than that of an air conditioner droning in the dining room, and the place generally looked as if it had not been disturbed since César had left that morning for the Libramarine Club.

Prosser walked softly along the carpeted hallway to its end and turned left into César’s windowless study. He switched on the overhead lamp and scanned, one by one, the titles of the books on the uppermost shelf above César’s desk. Near the middle of the shelf he found a dog-eared copy of Camille Chamoun’s Crise au Liban and took it down to examine it. Inside the front cover he found three blank sheets of white paper, each marred by countless tracings of handwriting, like a sheet of carbon paper that has been used to copy dozens of handwritten letters. The sheets were, in fact, a particular form of carbon paper, impregnated with specialized chemicals of the kind used to prepare the invisible writing of spies. Prosser took the sheets, folded them twice, and slipped them under the waistband of his underpants.

He crossed the hall to César’s bedroom and surveyed its contents: an elaborately carved wardrobe, an overstuffed velvet settee, a matching pair of straight-backed rosewood chairs, a teak writing desk, a lacquered nightstand, and a black leatherette hassock resting on tiny plastic casters. César had been correct: the hassock was clearly out of place among the other furniture. Prosser wasted no time in dragging it out into the middle of the floor, flipping it onto its back, and unscrewing the four fasteners that held the hassock’s Masonite bottom in place.

He pulled the Masonite out, twisted a pair of metal fasteners, and lifted out a false bottom to reveal a cavity that held a textbook-size digitally tuned radio, an ultralight headset, a flexible whip antenna, a spare set of batteries, and a tiny code book smaller than a deck of playing cards. Prosser removed each item in turn from its padded niche and arranged them in his Samsonite briefcase so that there was just enough room for the briefcase to latch shut. Then he reassembled the hassock concealment device and replaced it between the chair and the nightstand.

Having no further materials to recover, Prosser had started back down the corridor toward the door when he heard the deadbolt tumblers turn and the door open. The clatter of a woman’s heels on the parquet floor gave away Muna’s presence. Prosser remained where he stood and waited for the door to slam shut and the bolt to click into place. The click of her heels became louder.

Prosser stood motionless, briefcase in hand.

The clatter of heels began again and suddenly stopped. Muna gasped, letting the oversize leather art portfolio slip out from under her left arm as she raised both hands to cover her mouth.

“Excuse me, Muna,” Prosser said evenly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Your father had given me a key, in case...” A view of César’s lifeless corpse flashed before his eyes and he caught himself in mid-sentence as the aftershock of the massacre gripped him. He swallowed hard and resumed what he had planned to say. “…In case anything happened to him and I had to remove some special materials of ours from his study.”

“Do you mean to say that my father....”

“I came directly from the Libramarine Club. Your father and I met there before.”

Muna’s face turned a chalky white and she seemed ready to crumble at the knees.

He took her arm and helped her to the velvet settee.

“Then the news…the radio…?”

“Yes, I was there,” Prosser answered gently. He bit his lower lip and continued. “Your father and I met briefly before the gunmen arrived. I was inside the hotel and found a place to hide before the shooting started. Your father was eating lunch by the pool. They shot everyone in sight, Muna—women and children included. No one at the pool was spared. I saw your father’s body before the civil defense ambulance took it away; there is no question of his death, Muna. The Public Security Forces are taking all the bodies to the hospital in Jounié. You can find him there.”

Muna buried her face in her hands while her chest heaved in silent wracking sobs. First her husband’s disappearance, then her mother and her young child killed by a bomb, and now her father murdered. All she had now was extended family, her work, her apartment, and the deeds to a pair of worthless buildings in the no-man’s-land of downtown Beirut. Muna was young, beautiful, intelligent, and strong; yet at this moment she could not think of a single reason why she would not trade the rest of her life for just a single day with her father if she could only bring him back to life.

“The men who shot my father, they were Phalangists?” she inquired.

“They wore no markings on their uniforms, Muna, but I heard them talk to each other. It couldn’t have been anyone else. Just yesterday we received a report that an operation was being planned against high-ranking Chamounists. I warned your father about it, and he was planning to take you to the mountains for a few days as soon as he came home this afternoon.”

“Are you saying that I might be in danger?” she asked calmly.

“I don’t know. Once a purge like this starts, it’s rather hard to predict when and where it will stop. If I were you, Muna, I would leave the city for a while. Maybe visit your relatives in Beït Meri for a few days. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know if it’s safe to come back or if you should consider moving abroad. Watch for the emergency signals your father and I taught you this winter. Do you have enough cash to buy a plane ticket if you need to?”

“Yes. There are a few thousand dollars that we keep hidden for an emergency.”

“Good,” Prosser replied. “I can get you more in a day or two. Your father also had some back pay coming to him, along with a retirement annuity and some life insurance he bought through us. They’re yours now. And we ought to hear within another week or two whether your husband left anything when he disappeared. If he did, most likely that will be yours, too.”

Muna looked up at him and pressed her lips together angrily as if he had just insulted her.

“Excuse me, Muna. César asked me last week to confirm once and for all whether Bill Conklin is dead or alive and to find out whether he left any kind of estate. If he did, you might be entitled to something.”

“My father never forgave Bill for leaving me,” she said with lowered eyes. “I think he and my uncle Victor would have killed him if they had thought he were still alive.”

“And you? Do you think he is still alive somewhere?”

“I have always believed it. He is my husband. I must believe it.”

Prosser picked up his briefcase to leave. “Will I be able to find you at your grandmother’s house if I need to see you in the next few days?”

She nodded. “But the telephone there does not work. You must call the neighbor, Mrs. Khaal. Her number is—”

“I have it in the file. I’ll call you no later than Friday. Just get out of here as soon as you can, and don’t come back until I give the all-clear.”

Part II

Chapter 11

The Egyptian teaboy Muhammad poured the dark, syrupy tea into a child-sized tumbler, added a sprig of mint, and set it on the corner of the gray sheet-metal desk at Lukash’s side. It was nearly six in the evening and Colonel Faris Nader’s secretary had already gone home, but the red light on the secretary’s telephone was still lit to show that the Phalange intelligence director was on the line in the next office.

Lukash picked up a copy of Monday’s L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper and tried to make sense of a front-page article about the weekend fighting between two Shiite Muslim factions in Beirut’s southern slums. He was struggling with the lead sentence of the second paragraph and had begun to search the bookshelves for a French-English or French-Arabic dictionary when the outer door opened and Major Elie Musallam entered the room.

The major slammed the door behind him without so much as a glance at Lukash and was a step away from entering the colonel’s inner office when Lukash spoke.

“He’s on the line with somebody at the war council, Elie. His secretary asked me to wait until he was finished, but you go on ahead.”

Major Elie’s cheeks were flushed with anger. “There’s been a clash with the Chamounists at the Libramarine Club. Twenty or more dead. We have reports of fighting breaking out afterward in Aïn el Rummaneh and Baskinta as well. Something must be done at once to stop this madness, or the Syrians will be sure find a way to use it against us.”

Lukash nodded. “Yep, sounds like you’d better go in.”

“Do you know who the colonel is speaking to at the war council?”

Lukash shook his head.

Elie appeared distracted, as if torn between two competing imperatives. “Do you still plan to accompany me to the mountains tomorrow to inspect the transmitters?” he asked Lukash.

“Of course, if you still plan to go. I’m expecting you at my place tomorrow morning at eight.”

“My driver will pick you up. If I am delayed, please go with him; I will meet you on the mountain.” Elie looked at his watch, then at the colonel’s closed door. “Wali, a close friend of mine is missing. He may have been at the Libramarine. I must find him for his family’s sake.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Lukash offered.

“I think not. I will tell you more tomorrow on the mountain. Did you remember to rent some skis and boots?”

Lukash grinned. “First thing this morning.”

Major Elie smiled back, gave one more glance at the red light on the secretary’s telephone, and opened the door to the colonel’s inner office.

* * *

A soft sea breeze blew at Lukash’s back as he left Jouniyé’s yacht harbor and crossed the quayside road on his way to the town’s restaurant district. Makeshift sidewalk cafés with flimsy folding chairs lined the two-lane street, each café lit from above by a string of colored lights that resembled out-of-season Christmas decorations. For the Lebanese, who, like most Mediterranean races, seldom dined before nine or ten o’clock, it was not yet the dinner hour, but the sidewalk cafés were already filling with small groups of men swilling pastis from short, thick glasses and couples sharing a carafe of local rosé before dinner.

As he rounded the bend, Lukash’s eyes fell at once upon the familiar forest-green corduroy sports jacket with leather elbow patches that was Ed Pirelli’s uniform when not wearing one of his drip-dry suits. Although the distinctively foreign outfit might contribute to Pirelli’s safety, since the Lebanese tended to leave foreigners outside their feuds, Lukash questioned how safe it was for Pirelli’s Lebanese agents to be seen with someone so easily identifiable as a foreigner. Now that he himself was trying to avoid attention, Lukash felt the apparent contradiction more keenly. He walked past the chief of station without greeting him and continued at a leisurely pace toward the commercial district.

He had covered nearly two blocks before he stopped to look in a store window and saw Pirelli trailing him on foot at a distance of some fifty meters. He crossed the street and unlocked his BMW. A few moments later, Pirelli caught up and took a place in the passenger seat while Lukash put the car in gear and headed toward the coastal highway.

“How did it go?” Pirelli asked as soon as they were under way. “Were you able to slip the thing in?”

“I never made it in to see him. I could have taken apart and reassembled every stick of furniture in his secretary’s office while I was waiting, but I never got inside the colonel’s office. I’ll have to try again on Monday.”

“You do that. And take some time over the weekend to make sure the listening post is set up right. There’s no point in taking the risk to slip a bug into the chief of intelligence’s desk unless you can pick up a clear signal of what’s being transmitted.”

“Is there any particular reason why we’re in such a hurry to do this?” Lukash inquired. “I thought you wanted me to make some sketches first, and to run a couple of tests from my own office to make sure the range is right.”

“We don’t have time for that anymore,” Pirelli replied. “Reports have been coming in that the Phalange has some kind of scheme afoot to drag the U.S. into a confrontation with Syria, and that Colonel Faris is in on it. Once we can listen in on the colonel’s conversations, maybe we’ll find out what they have in mind.”

“Do you suppose this business with the Syrian dissidents might figure into it?” Lukash proposed. “If Damascus thought we were arming an opposition movement, they might take the news rather badly.”

“That’s exactly what the ambassador is worried about. When he heard that Connie sat down in the embassy with somebody from the Syrian Free Officers’ Movement, he nearly went through the roof. From now on, nobody from the embassy is allowed to so much as give the time of day to a Syrian dissident. Tell me, Walt, are you sure the Phalangists are talking to these Free Officers?”

“No doubt about it,” Lukash affirmed. “Major Elie has a meeting set with them in a couple days to make a shopping list of what they want. Since most of what the Phalange intends to give them comes directly from us, I could probably arrange to sit in on the meeting if you’d like me to.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple anymore. If I told you to participate and it ever got back to the ambassador, there might be hell to pay. On the other hand, if the Phalangists decide to help the Free Officers, we’re hardly in a position to forbid it, are we? The important thing is to stay informed about whatever aid the Phalangists actually give them.” He paused. “Walt, do you think you could get the major to talk out of school and tell us what happens in his meeting with the Free Officers?”

“Maybe. I’m nowhere near ready to try a recruitment pitch, but I think I might induce him to open up a bit.”

“Then do it,” the station chief ordered. “Do you think he’s recruitable?

“Don’t know yet. At this point he doesn’t seem to have the usual vulnerabilities. He’s not an egotist, or venal, or obviously disaffected. But there is one thing that might work in our favor: Elie didn’t come up though the ranks as a Phalangist—he started out fighting for the Chamounists. I heard about the purge at the Libramarine Club yesterday, and Elie mentioned that one of his NLP friends may have been among the casualties. Something like that might give us leverage with him.”

“Then take him aside and probe him a bit,” Pirelli suggested. “If he’s sensitive about it, see how far you can take him toward saying something disloyal. For all we know, he may feel vulnerable about his Chamounist background and want to hedge his bets. Sure, it’s early to be plotting a recruitment scenario, but a revenge motive often doesn’t take long to gel.”

“I’ll get started tomorrow,” Lukash said. “In the morning the two of us are going off into the mountains together to check some Phalangist listening posts and transmitters not far from the ski slopes at Qanat Bakiche. While we’re there, I’ll try to draw him out.”

“Do what you can. And don’t forget about the Free Officers. I have a feeling that Colonel Faris has some interesting plans for that outfit.”

“He most certainly does,” Lukash agreed, “which is why I still think the best way to find out what’s going on between the Phalange and the Free Officers would be for me to go along to their meeting. I’m pretty sure I could persuade the colonel to let me attend as an observer. I’d wear a Phalange uniform, of course, and keep my mouth shut. I really don’t see how the Syrians would know the difference.”

“The ambassador would never stand for it, Walt. Forget it.”

“What if the colonel insisted on having me along for technical reasons? After all, our equipment is at the head of the agenda.”

“Now, that might be a little different,” Pirelli answered cautiously.

“Then screw the ambassador, Ed. Headquarters would want me to attend, and you know it.”

“I hear you. Go ahead and talk to the colonel about it. Just don’t quote me. And for God’s sake, don’t let anything get back to the ambassador.”

The BMW approached a T-intersection and turned right. They were out of the congested town center now and passed rows of glass greenhouses that hugged the sandy bluff between the highway and the sea. Lukash accelerated and shifted into fourth gear.

“By the way, Walt, I met a friend of yours at a party the other night,” Pirelli mentioned casually. “ An old friend of yours from Amman…and Jeddah.”

“Don’t tell me,” Lukash replied wearily. “I can guess.”

“Really? Were you expecting her so soon?”

“Come off it, Ed.”

“She told me that you were looking forward to working with me again, like in the old days,” Pirelli added mockingly. “Excuse me, Walt, but I thought we were both supposed to be operating under cover over here.”

“I haven’t told Lorraine any of your secrets, Ed, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“It’s not my secrets or yours we’re talking about here, Walt. They’re the government’s secrets, and Lorraine Ellis isn’t cleared for any of them. Have you drafted the cable yet that Tom Twombley wants from you—the one where you agree to drop her?”

Lukash shook his head and awaited further scolding.

“You realize, don’t you, that it’s going to look a hell of a lot worse for you now that she’s shown up over here? She’s not living with you again, is she?”

“Look, Ed,” Lukash protested. “I told her not to follow me and she promised me she wouldn’t. I had absolutely no idea she would come anyway.”

“Don’t bother with the excuses,” Pirelli said. “Just put it all in a cable to Headquarters. And this time make it perfectly clear that you’re cutting her off—unequivocally, absolutely, and once and for all. Can you do that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“A try isn’t enough, Wally boy. I need a cable this time. On my desk, by the close of business on Friday. No excuses.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Lukash objected. “Lorraine and I—”

Pirelli held up his hand. “No, not to me—to Twombley. By Friday.”

Chapter 12

The headlights of Major Elie Musallam’s fifteen-year-old Mercedes touring car peered through the clouds as if searching for some assurance that the pavement would still be intact around the next switchback. A bullet-scarred concrete milepost indicated that they were only four kilometers from Bikfaya, which was about half the distance to the winter resort of Qanat Bakiche. Now at an altitude of about eight hundred meters above sea level, the rain had already turned to sleet, and where the road hugged the windswept northern slopes of the Sannine Mountains, Lukash saw scattered patches of glare ice.

“After Bikfaya, we cannot rely on finding benzine,” Elie said. “A cousin of mine owns a filling station on the far edge of town; we will stop there. For us, there will be benzine regardless of rationing.”

Beyond the switchback the road widened and began a gradual descent past the boarded-up roadhouses and auto repair workshops that had once catered to a lively summer resort trade and now remained derelict awaiting the day when the fighting was over and the tourists returned. The road broadened into a sort of boulevard with a muddy median strip.

Through the mist Lukash could discern the outlines of massive limestone villas lining both sides of the town’s main street, each one with an identical red tile roof. “The town has a prosperous look to it,” he said. “Where did the money come from?”

Elie laughed. “Lebanon has no oil or gas. Most of these villas were built by émigrés who made their fortunes abroad as merchants, mainly in Africa and South America. The newer ones belong to Phalangists who profited from the war. If you don’t believe the Events have made some people rich, just look around you.”

He pointed toward the long stucco wall that extended an entire block to the right. “Behind that wall is the villa of Walid Nader, brother of the director of intelligence. Walid owns a company that imports munitions from Belgium and China.”

He downshifted and veered off to the right, where another broad thoroughfare continued in roughly the same easterly direction. “Look carefully ahead, behind the iron gate. The director built that villa last year for his wife. My cousin told me that it cost five million lira. He has six children, and each of them has a separate bedroom.”

“You mean he commutes from here to Beirut every day?”

“Sometimes. But he also owns a flat in Achrafiyé. I have visited him there. Other flats in the building cannot be bought for less than one million lira. It was his blessing from God to have married Shaykh Pierre Gemayel’s favorite cousin.”

They passed through the center of Bikfaya, where most shops had not yet rolled up their corrugated iron shutters for business. Then they continued to the far edge of town and pulled off the road at a grimy, one-story, cinder-block hut that faced a pair of ancient gas pumps bearing the faded logo of the state-owned gasoline company. A curly-haired teenage boy in a greasy red ski parka over navy overalls glowered at them from behind a battered aluminum storm door.

“I see my cousin’s oldest boy,” the major said. “Wait here while I arrange things with him.” Elie opened the door and a blast of frigid air forced its way into the Mercedes, scattering a handful of tiny ice crystals over Lukash’s black ski pants.

Lukash spread out the map on the dashboard. Not far beyond Bikfaya, he knew, they planned to leave the main highway and follow a secondary road to the market town of Baskinta, where Elie intended to install tire chains for the final ascent to Qanat Bakiche, perched some eighteen hundred meters above sea level. This winter resort village was now a major Phalange artillery base, from which the Christian militia’s U.S.-made 105-millimeter guns could provide covering fire for the Christian enclave of Zahlé, at the edge of the Bekaa Valley, or strike at Syrian positions in the heart of the Bekaa and along the Beirut-Damascus Highway. From Qanat Bakiche there was also a clear line of sight to the neighboring resorts of Farayya, Faqra, and Zaarour, the last now under Syrian occupation.

Lukash saw Major Elie leave the hut, his cousin’s oldest boy following directly behind. He considered for a moment staying in the car while the boy filled the tank but thought better of it and joined the two Lebanese at the pump. Many an agent recruitment could be traced back to a case officer taking the time to befriend a clerk or a receptionist or another little gray person who happened to have access to someone or something of intelligence interest.

“Jibran, this is my friend Monsieur Walter,” Elie told the boy. “He has never skied before in Lebanon, so I am taking him up the mountain to Bakiche. What do you know of the snow conditions there?”

“Of Bakiche I know nothing,” the boy answered woodenly. “Since November it has been impossible to reach the upper slopes without a special pass. Beyond the first roadblock it is a forbidden military zone.”

“Tell me, do you ski, Jibran?” Elie continued.

The boy’s face suddenly came alive. He nodded with enthusiasm.

“Would you like to have a pass to enter the military zone for skiing on the weekends? I’m told they run the téléski on Saturdays and Sundays.”

“But I do not belong to a Phalange unit, Major. How could I get such a pass?”

“Leave the matter to me, Jibran. All I ask of you is that you tell me the license plates of any other cars you see today traveling toward the Baskinta road with skis. And if anyone asks about us or follows us, say nothing and report it to me upon my return. Agreed?”

The teenager gave his best stiff-armed Fascist salute.

* * *

The brownish tracks of the snowplow were the only discernible features around them as they crawled up the mountain in first gear, the beat of the windshield wipers and the rhythmic jingling of tire chains offering the only distraction from the engine’s muffled snorts and growls. With each hundred meters in altitude, they plunged deeper into the dense clouds and found the snow piled higher on the sides of the road.

“Are you sure anybody is going to be up there when we arrive?” Lukash asked as the Mercedes narrowly missed the chiseled edge of a rock face at the top of a desperately tight hairpin turn. “The only other tracks belong to the snowplow, and it seems to have been on its way back down to Baskinta.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll be waiting for us,” Elie assured him. “They have probably already dug their equipment out from the snow and will be ready to begin the day’s work. Do you notice how the sky has lightened and the snow has stopped falling? Here the storm is almost over.”

Lukash looked up and saw that the major was right. While before they had seemed engulfed in a pale gray mist, now he could see the road ahead for at least fifty meters. A brilliant white glare began to envelop them.

Elie turned toward Lukash with a triumphant look. “Have you ever before had an entire mountain to yourself the morning after a snowstorm? Let us finish our work quickly and seize the chance to ski.”

After climbing for another three or four kilometers, they emerged above the clouds onto a sizable plateau, at the far end of which rose the peaks of the Sannine Range. Soon the road leveled out and they approached a settled strip of chalets and small pensions. A string of olive drab jeeps and pickup trucks lined the street where the snowplow had made a couple of extra passes to create two rows of parking spaces. The sky was now a deep azure, and the sunlight reflected with blinding power off the endless expanse of snow. Lukash reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a pair of mountain climber’s sunglasses with leather side coverings.

“It’s a pity we were compelled to close this place to skiers,” Elie began as he parked the Mercedes opposite a stone hut between the twin T-bars at the base of the piste. “As a boy, I came here every weekend from January through March. From our house in Beït Meri, the drive was little over an hour. Then, during the Events, we used this place as an artillery base to shell the leftists and Palestinians in their bases to the south. There is even a road that can be used to smuggle weapons over the mountains to Zahlé, in the Bekaa Valley. In winter a few men with snowmobiles can bring in enough shells and ammunition for an entire summer of fighting. The Syrians are helpless to stop us; they hold the mountains in summer, but in winter the heights are ours. While we Maronites are bred to the hardship of mountain winters, the Syrians cannot abide the cold.”

Elie pointed toward a range of minor peaks to the south. “Do you see the high mountain in the distance, the one with the télésiège leading to the summit? That is Zaarour, a winter resort that opened just after the Events. I skied there for two seasons, until the Syrians seized it for use as an artillery base last year. Not long ago there were four places to ski within an hour-and-a-half drive of Beirut; now there are only two.”

“So is that also why Qanat Bakiche was closed for skiing, because of the risk of Syrian shelling from Zaarour?”

Elie’s face took on a look of self-satisfaction. “Of course that is what we tell everyone. But come with me, and I will show you the real reason—a secret ten times more damaging to the Syrians than our artillery fire could possibly be.”

They buckled their ski boots and removed their skis from the overhead rack. As Elie had predicted, the T-bars were functioning but without an attendant anywhere in sight.

“Come, we will travel to the top and then climb a few hundred meters more on foot to our destination. After we finish our work and make the first descent by ski, there will be coffee and brandy for us below at the hut. Yalla, let’s go!”

They carried their skis to the lift, stepped into their bindings, and stood side by side to catch the next T-bar, an old-fashioned fixture of solid oak that stung Lukash’s gloved hand when he caught its heft. Suddenly the line grew taut and the two men were yanked forward so violently that they nearly sprawled across the pristine surface of the untracked snow.

Lukash looked down at the major’s skis, a new pair of the latest GS-cut racing skis from France. “Where did you get the new Rossignols? They don’t carry equipment like that in the local shops, do they?”

“Of course. Skiing is very popular here. Many of my friends buy new skis and bindings every year. As for me, this is the first new pair I have had since I returned from my studies in Grenoble after the Events.”

“I didn’t know you studied in France, Elie. What was your field?”

“Chemical engineering. But I did not stay in France long enough to earn my degree. When the fighting started in 1975, I had completed only two years. I came home to fight the Palestinians and never returned.”

“Have you ever thought of finishing your degree?”

Elie laughed. “Many times. Even when I was in Grenoble, I dreamed of studying at MIT. But the Events made it impossible to continue, even in France. You see, a friend of my father had given me a loan to study abroad, but his showroom and all his goods were destroyed during the first weeks of fighting in the commercial district. He lost everything.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Isn’t there any engineering school here in Lebanon where you could finish your degree?”

Elie let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “There is, in West Beirut. But until security conditions change...”

“I know what you mean. Wars have a way of wrecking all sorts of plans.”

Elie slipped the straps of his ski poles over his end of the T-bar and thrust his gloved hands into his jacket pockets. “I have often thought in these last days that I made a grave error—that I should have remained in France when the war started. The fighting would have gone forward in exactly the same way whether I was there or not. And now I would have an engineering degree from a French university and perhaps a job in France, a French wife, a French passport.”

He sighed and looked off into the distance toward the glistening snow-covered peaks to the east. “But I was a brave young fool; I thought the Christians of Lebanon needed me. I could not leave my relatives and close friends, and my beautiful Muna, defenseless against the Palestinians and the Communists and the Nasserists and the Shiites and all the other rabble who had taken over the western side of Beirut. Now five years have passed, and sometimes I feel that I play the fool every day that I remain here.

“Anyway, when I returned from Grenoble and discovered that Muna had married a foreigner, I simply could not bring myself to believe it. It is true that I had not written to her during the year I was away, but I had always known in my heart that we would marry. And though her father knew of my intentions toward her, he did not send me so much as a word of warning about the American. Yet, as it happened, by the time I returned from France, Muna was already married and her husband had been missing for many weeks. And I was left standing by helplessly like an ass.

“That is my story. When the fighting ended in the autumn of 1976, and I was able to take up my life again, there was nothing for me to do but become like a brother to Muna and wait for her to either accept that her husband was dead or arrange an annulment. The priests could be expected to refuse, of course—since a child had been born, no one could deny that the marriage was consummated. But these things can be arranged in Lebanon if one is patient and knows the proper people.”

Major Elie continued to look straight ahead with a look of concentrated thought, as if he were at that moment deciding what to do with the remainder of his life.

“You never mentioned before that Muna had a child by the marriage,” Lukash said softly.

“Yes, but the little girl died from a car bomb two years ago, along with her grandmother, while they waited to buy bread at a bakery in Jall ed Dib. They were thrown against the rear wall of the bakery and killed instantly.

“Oh, my God,” Lukash gasped almost inaudibly.

“The Muslim boys who placed the bomb were captured within hours and confessed that an officer of Syrian military intelligence gave them the bomb. Captain Fadi and I conducted the interrogation ourselves and it was extremely thorough. But of course nothing we could do could bring back the child or César’s wife.”

The color drained from his Lukash’s face.

Elie went on. “Even so, Muna has always had a very strong character. She mourned the baby for two months and then went back to her job at the advertising company where she had worked since before the child was born. She spends nearly all her time there now. But even when she is not working, one hardly ever sees Muna laugh or smile as she did before the Events. She attends mass every day—something she never did before the Events. But she has not become bitter and never blames the Muslims or the Syrians or anyone else for the little girl’s death.”

They reached the end of the lift, dismounted from the T-bar, and skied a short distance to the base of a second ski lift. As before, the snow beneath their skis and everywhere else around them was pristine and untracked. The machine pulled them another fifty or sixty meters before Lukash broke the silence.

“I know it’s a sensitive subject, Elie, but can you explain to me what happened to the Chamounists yesterday at the Libramarine Club? I don’t get it. It isn’t like the fighting between Lebanese and Syrians, or even between Christian Lebanese and Muslims. I mean, how can the Phalange do something like that to other Lebanese Christians? The Chamounists no longer have any armed forces—they represent no threat to Bashir’s power. What on earth was it for?”

Elie turned away, a look of suppressed anger in his eyes. “Perhaps you should ask Commander Bashir yourself. Some are saying that what he did was designed to prove to the Americans that he is the sole leader of the Christians in Lebanon.”

“So the Americans are responsible? Is that it?” Lukash challenged.

“Forgive me. I did not intend to imply such a thing. No one is responsible but Bashir and those who carried out the operation under his orders. If I am angry, it is because César Khalifé, Muna’s father, was among those whose bodies we found floating in the swimming pool.”

“Your anger is the only reaction that a decent human being could be expected to have, Elie.”

“But I am a Phalange officer as well as a human being,” Elie replied with suppressed fury. “And I have learned that my own commanding officer, Colonel Faris, is the one who planned this butchery. I confronted him about it yesterday as soon as I returned from the Libramarine. He laughed and said I was squeamish because I was once a Chamounist. It took all my strength to control myself and not throttle him in his chair.” Elie said as he struggled to keep his bitterness in check.

Lukash waited a moment before breaking the silence. This was the moment he and Ed had hoped for: Elie was more than disaffected and seemed to no longer owe any loyalty at all to the Phalange. “So what do you intend to do?”

Elie’s look seemed to acknowledge the risk he was taking by giving the American a frank answer. “Lately I have been thinking about resigning my commission and emigrating. César told me a few days ago that your vice consul promised to inform him very shortly whether he was able to find any record of Muna’s husband in the United States. If there is none, I plan to ask Muna to marry me and to leave Lebanon. To France, or possibly Canada or Australia.”

“Have you considered the United States?”

Major Elie looked askance at Lukash. “I have been told such a thing is nearly impossible unless one has close relatives in America. And I have no close relatives outside of Lebanon.”

“There are other ways, Elie. If you are interested, I could look into them. All it takes is a word from you.”

“You mean, through your organization?”

“If you would like me to,” Lukash replied. “America is a rather expensive place to live. It would be smart to build up a savings fund before you went. We could help.”

“How long would it take to arrange such a savings fund, as you call it?”

“To work out an agreement? Just a few days. But, frankly speaking, it might take a year or more before you would be in a position to pick up and move, if you know what I mean. How soon were you thinking of leaving?”

“I cannot say,” Elie mused. “Such a thing depends on whether Muna would agree to come with me. I would imagine in a year, though perhaps sooner.”

“I think you and I just might be able to help each other, Elie. Come, let’s finish our work here on the summit as soon as we can so we can go down to the lodge and drink some of that brandy you bragged about.”

They rode the remaining hundred meters of the T-bar in silence, then dismounted onto a steep slope just below a ridgeline. After descending the slope, Elie pointed with his ski pole for Lukash to remove his skis and climb to the lip of the ridge. Once there, Lukash spotted a bunker-like ski hut made of reinforced concrete that lay half buried under shoulder-high drifts of snow. A pair of black electrical wires led from the top end of the ski lift to a corner of hut, just above its sliding door.

Elie reached into the zippered breast pocket of his ski jacket and removed a pair of keys. He used one to open a fist-size padlock on the door and used the second to unlock the door itself. He yanked hard on the long metal lever, but when it failed to budge, he removed an alpinist’s ice ax from his belt and used the ax to chip ice from the door’s edges. On the third try the door slipped open and Elie beckoned for Lukash to follow him inside.

Lukash shut the door behind him and felt claustrophobic for a moment on hearing the solid click of the latch reseal the insulated door. He found himself crammed into a tiny airlock vestibule with Elie where not a single ray of light could penetrate and where there was barely enough room for one man, much less two. A moment later an inner door opened and Elie switched on an overhead light. Along the far wall stood a metal rack stacked nearly from floor to ceiling with electronic equipment. Lukash, who had spent much of his two years in Saudi Arabia tending electronic eavesdropping devices, recognized the sensitive radio receivers and transmitters as American-made equipment that had been considered obsolete by the Agency for nearly a decade.

“From this location,” Elie said, “we are able to intercept Syrian military communications all over Lebanon and western Syria, and to receive clandestine radio broadcasts from our agents operating at locations in the Bekaa Valley and Damascus. The problem with our equipment is that despite all the insulation and our climate control system, the radios are not reliable in the winter months. Very shortly the colonel will request that your agency replace the radios you see here with the latest American-made models. What he fears, however, is that the new equipment you give him will also enable your technicians to capture the messages we receive from our Syrian agents. For this reason, he has asked me to show you the intercept equipment and to help you in selecting replacement equipment, but to conceal from you those systems of ours that handle agent communications. So shall we begin? You brought your notebook and camera?”

Lukash circled the metal racks and examined the equipment closely. “Ready when you are.”

Elie waved his arm as if offering the entire hut for Lukash to do with as he pleased.

“Excellent. Elie, I can sense your nest egg growing already.”

Lukash attached an electronic flash to his government-issue Pentax camera and lowered himself onto his haunches to bring the equipment on the rack’s bottom rung into focus.

A mounting roar like the sound of an approaching diesel locomotive all at once penetrated the heavily insulated walls of the hut and startled Lukash sufficiently to throw him off balance. A sort of low-level vibration electrified the air as if everything in the hut were resonating with the roar outside. Lukash had never experienced an earthquake before, but he recalled that Lebanon was indeed earthquake country. Some two thousand years earlier, an earthquake had devastated the Roman city of Baalbek, little more than one hundred kilometers to the east in the Bekaa Valley. If this was a quake, he thought, he had not picked the safest place to sit it out.

Lukash regained his balance and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Major Elie bolt out into the sunlight without bothering to close the double doors behind him. Lukash followed, and the moment his head was out in the open, he realized that the roar had been caused by an avalanche. He quickly closed the doors to the hut and followed Elie to the edge of the narrow plateau that spanned the top of the ridgeline and gazed down toward the snow-covered base hut. The avalanche had started a few dozen meters below the upper station of the ski lift, where his and Elie’s skis had sliced diagonally across a slab of newly fallen snow. The right side of the slab had apparently sheared away and started a chain reaction that spread at a forty-five-degree angle as it raced down the mountain.

“Look—there at two o’clock—they are in its path!” Elie gasped, pointing to a pair of skiers in olive drab parkas two-thirds of the way up the lower-stage ski lift. “Can’t they see it? Why don’t they escape?”

At that moment, the skiers split away from each other, and both set off obliquely across the mountain with the apparent intent of outflanking the avalanche. They crouched in racing position, heads down, hands held out before their noses, and elbows tucked into their ribs as the seething front edge of the avalanche followed them, resembling for a brief moment two surfers riding a giant wave off Oahu’s north shore. And as every wave must eventually break against the shore, the avalanche soon broke over the two skiers and carried them forward another two hundred meters before stopping barely fifty meters from the row of stone huts that lined the road.

“Come on, Elie, we’ve got to find them before the snow hardens. In a few minutes it will be like concrete down there.”

“Wait. We can see them more easily from here than down below. The snow was not so deep when it overtook them; perhaps one of them will be able to push up a baton or a leg for us to see.”

No sooner had Elie spoken than Lukash spotted a dark form burrowing out from under the scrambled snow, arms flailing wildly as if the person to whom they belonged was desperate for his next breath of air. Then forty or fifty meters farther down the hill, another dark figure encrusted with snow raised himself unsteadily to his feet.

“I see two of them now,” Lukash noted with relief. “For a moment I thought those guys were goners.”

“Imbeciles. They had orders to wait until we were finished before starting up the lift. Yalla, Wali, let us finish our work here and go soon. I no longer have a good feeling about this place.”

Chapter 13

The intercom buzzer sounded and Lukash rose from the dining room table to answer it.

“It’s me. Bud.”

“Come on up,” Lukash replied. “Take the stairs. The elevator isn’t working.”

Lukash returned to the table, gathered the papers that were spread out upon it, and inserted them into a zippered portfolio. He carried the portfolio to an inconspicuous end table in a dark corner of the room, unfastened a hidden latch, and lifted the top of the table to reveal a hidden compartment some three inches deep. He laid the portfolio in the compartment and latched the top shut. It was inconvenient to write his intelligence reports by hand and to not be able to keep extensive reference files, but he was getting used to it. In some ways it made his work simpler than if he were working from an office in the embassy, and simplicity was something for which he felt a powerful longing these days.

He heard Bud Strickland’s knock at the door and crossed the room to let him into the flat.

“Sorry it took me so long, old buddy,” Strickland began breathlessly. “I meant to be across the Green Line by now, but your pals over at Phalange intelligence kept me busy for two hours with their questions about radio intercepts.” He looked around the room. “Say there, I hope I’m not disturbing anything. You don’t have some Lebanese honey lined up to come over and cook you dinner, do you?”

Lukash smiled. “A couple of those same Phalange pals offered to fix me up tonight, but I told them I’m trying to cut back.”

“Yeah, I know about that one, too. I have an ex-wife in Tennessee who’s been wanting me to do that for years.”

“And have you?”

“Now and then, but never for long. A man needs companionship when he’s on the road, especially in the shithole places where I get sent. Hell, I’ve done so many TDYs in the last year, I had to get me some extra pages in my passport for all the visas.”

“Bud, you sound like a man in need of a drink. Pull up a chair. What will it be? Beer, bourbon, gin and tonic?”

“Bourbon and water, if you don’t mind. But before we get too relaxed, let me deliver your mail.” Strickland pulled a folded manila envelope from his waistband and dropped it on the table. “Connie told me to make sure you got this by the end of the day. Most important is the list of equipment that Headquarters is prepared to offer the Phalange, along with delivery dates. And there’s also some personal mail that arrived in yesterday’s diplomatic pouch.”

Lukash ripped open the sealed envelope, scanned each message from the station briefly, and then glanced at the return addresses on each piece of personal mail. “It’s all routine stuff. Let’s call it a day and pour some drinks. Bourbon and water coming up.”

Lukash left Bud Strickland seated at the dining room table while he filled a small ice bucket with ice. He returned with the bucket, a bottle of Old Fitzgerald, two crystal tumblers, and a dish of Lebanese roasted nuts.

“Walt, I don’t mean to pry,” Strickland started as he reached for a handful of nuts, “but Connie asked me to remind you of the cable Ed wanted you to write about that Irish gal who followed you here. He asked me to pick it up from you if it’s ready to go.”

“It’s not,” Lukash answered abruptly while he filled their glasses with ice and poured three fingers of bourbon in each.

“Okay,” Strickland replied, backing off. “Is there anything I can tell them by way of explanation?”

“It’s gotten to be such a mess, Bud, I don’t even know where to start.” Lukash swirled the ice in his glass and took a long sip of bourbon before continuing. “Do you remember the assassination plot against King Khalid two years ago in Jeddah?”

Strickland nodded.

“Lorraine was married to the ringleader. She was also sleeping with our agent, who was one of the plotters. Of course, Lorraine had nothing to do with the assassination plot, but to Headquarters her name will always be tarred by her association with Islamic militants and terrorism. But what bothers them even more is that after Connie and I helped her escape from Saudi Arabia, Lorraine showed up in Amman and started appearing on the cocktail circuit.

“You see, Lorraine has this uncanny way of fitting into any social group and ingratiating herself with just about everybody. Within days after arriving in Amman, she got herself a job with Royal Jordanian Airlines and was turning up regularly at the American Club. I’m telling you, if she were working for the U.S. government, she’d recruit more agents than any of us.

“So, anyway, one night she and I had a long talk at the American Club about her old life in Saudi Arabia. We hit it off pretty well, and after that we kept on running into each other. One thing led to another and after a while I let her move in.”

“Excuse my asking,” Strickland interrupted, “but didn’t the chief of station have anything to say about that? Wherever I’ve been posted, there’s been a rule against case officers shacking up with foreign nationals.”

Lukash took another sip of whiskey. “Maybe so. But this COS didn’t seem to care, and the DCOS had his own share of foreign sweethearts, so he didn’t push it either. It wasn’t till a new chief arrived that anyone thought to do a name trace on Lorraine. Soon after that, Headquarters warned me to drop her if I didn’t want major trouble with the Office of Security. But by then I was getting close to the end of my tour of duty, and I was thinking a lot about returning to Washington.

“Lorraine must have figured out what was going on, too, because she started leaning on me…hard. The ironic thing is, I might have taken her back with me if they hadn’t sent me over here. I’ve never met anybody who suits me nearly as well as Lorraine. Yeah, it would have been an uphill battle getting a security clearance for her so I could marry her without having to quit the Agency, but those kinds of things can be arranged if you’re at Headquarters long enough to see it through. There’s always a way. I just needed some time to work things out.”

“Walt, you can tell me to go to hell if you think I’m out of line,” Strickland said, “but I was in Ed’s office when he read the cable from the division chief about Lorraine showing up in Beirut. Believe me, if you don’t drop her fast, Headquarters will be hauling your ass home regardless.”

“Let them. I’m not dropping her,” Lukash asserted.

Strickland downed the rest of his bourbon and Lukash did the same. He refilled both glasses and added more ice to each.

“Is there something I’m missing here, Walt? It seems to me that you can’t possibly win this.”

“Maybe not, but there’s a reason why I’m doing what I’m doing, and it’s something that I’ve never talked about with you or Connie or anyone else. If I tell you, will you promise to keep it to yourself until I get all this worked out? It would mean a lot to me, Bud. Will you promise me that?”

Strickland hesitated. “This isn’t anything that the counterintelligence staff or the FBI ought to know about it, is it? Because if it is, I can’t make you a promise like that. You realize that, don’t you?”

Lukash gave a mirthless laugh. “I haven’t been spying for the Russians or stealing government funds, if that’s what you’re worried about. It may be just as rotten, in a way, but it’s definitely not a federal offense.” He watched Strickland nod his assent and suddenly stood up with glass in hand. “Bud, top up your glass and come with me.”

Lukash opened the sliding door to the east-facing balcony and carried a pair of chairs and a portable stereo cassette player out the door. He turned on a tape of local belly dance music and beckoned Strickland to take a seat. “Bud, were you ever in Beirut before the Events?”

“A couple of times, in transit. Spent a few days at the Hotel St. Georges, checked out the casino and the nightclubs, that sort of thing.”

“Do you remember what it was like here then, how free it made you feel, as if there were absolutely no rules and anything was possible?”

Strickland nodded in understanding.

“I was sent here in 1975 to study Arabic under cover as a student,” Lukash continued. “They gave me a tourist passport under the name of Bill Conklin, told me to stay away from the embassy, and to come back in a year with fluent Arabic for assignment to Cairo under nonofficial cover.” Lukash swirled the ice in his glass nervously, and felt a shiver run down his back. He rubbed his cold hands together and then went on.

“I hired an Arabic tutor and took lessons in the morning and afternoons, preparing my homework in the evenings after dinner. I worked nonstop, and in a few months I had made good progress with the language but was starting to burn out. I decided to cut back to morning lessons only, with homework in the afternoon, and to spend the evenings on the town, practicing my Arabic, getting a feel for the local culture, and having some fun.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Strickland noted.

“No joke. Anyway, my Arabic tutor at that time was a middle-age woman named Claudette Hammouche, who also taught part-time at the U.S. embassy. We got along well enough, and she had me over to the house a number of times for lunch or for coffee. Not long after I started going out in the evenings, Claudette arranged a blind date for me with her niece, Muna, who had just graduated from Beirut University and was working as a graphic artist for a local advertising agency.

“Muna was a lovely girl—extremely bright, full of energy and ambition. She would practice her English on me, and I’d practice my Arabic and French on her. We never ran out of things to talk about, and she never seemed to tire of my stories about the U.S. and the places I’d visited in Europe and Asia. And she was such a beautiful girl that I simply couldn’t take my eyes off her. Or my hands, for that matter.”

“Uh-oh. I see it coming,” Bud broke in.

“No doubt about it, the bachelor life in Beirut had gone to my head. I had a terrific apartment, a decent salary, time on my hands, and a city that was full of excitement. Muna and I went out to restaurants and nightclubs several times a week, joined a private beach club, and took ski trips on the weekends. I thought it would never end. Even when it started getting close to the time for my reassignment to Cairo, somehow I assumed that I’d be able to arrange for Muna to go there, too. Of course, I never told her that I worked for the Agency, but at the same time, I never told anyone in the station or at Headquarters that I might be getting serious about this Lebanese girl that none of them knew I was even seeing.

“Then one day Muna came to me and said her period was three weeks late. Well, you know how those things go. We sweated and sweated, and in the meantime we started talking about the possibility of getting married. And when her period finally came, she didn’t stop talking about it. That was about a month before my reassignment was due. In a matter of days I was scheduled to travel to Headquarters for a ten-day TDY to take my Arabic examination, talk to the Egypt desk officers, and study the files of the agents I was supposed to take over in Cairo.”

Bud Strickland held up his hand to interrupt. “Wait a second. What sort of work did Muna and her family think you did for a living?”

“The cover story I told everybody in those days was that I was a salesman for a refrigeration equipment company and had been sent to Beirut to learn Arabic in preparation for a sales assignment in the Arabian Gulf. As I recall, my plan at the time—to the extent that I had one—was to return to Headquarters, tell them about Muna, wait for her security clearance to come through, and then get married before we moved to Cairo together.” Lukash added more bourbon to his glass.

“Pretty naïve, eh?” he added, looking to Strickland for a response and finding none. “In hindsight, what I did back then makes no sense at all. Maybe it was Muna’s persistence. Maybe I thought I would be able to force the issue once I got back to Headquarters. But whatever the reason, I proposed to Muna and we scheduled a wedding date for a week after my return from the U.S.”

Strickland swallowed hard.

“And as fate would have it, Headquarters postponed my trip to Washington until after the planned wedding date. I had outmaneuvered myself. I couldn’t think of a way out, so I went through with the wedding and we flew off to Corfu for our honeymoon. It seems completely unreal to me now, like a dream from long ago. I remember the scenes, but it’s difficult to believe that I was really there.”

“What about your family or stateside friends? Weren’t any of them at the wedding?”

Lukash shook his head. “My parents are divorced. My dad would never have come to Beirut, and my mom wouldn’t have been able to afford it even if she had wanted to. So I punted and didn’t tell either of them—or my brother or any of my friends. And especially nobody from the embassy.”

“Jesus,” Strickland murmured. “So what happened when you finally got back to Headquarters? What did they do when you told them you had married a foreign national without getting it cleared in advance?”

“I never got to Headquarters. The day I was scheduled to leave, I said good-bye to Muna and her parents, left my car at my apartment, took a taxi to the embassy, and went up to the station to pick up my plane ticket and any last-minute instructions from my inside contact, who happened to be none other than Ed Pirelli.” Lukash downed the remaining bourbon in his glass and refilled it hastily. His eyes took on a dreamy, watery look.

“I was taken completely by surprise by what Ed had to say. He said the division had changed its plans for me. Changed its plans. Such a simple thing…for them.” Lukash pressed his lips together for a few seconds and went on.

“He said there was a covert action program going on in the Saudi desert and that it needed a trained Arabist. It would be a joint effort with the Saudis, so I could go back to working under my true name and carrying an official passport and being attached to the embassy. And if I could stand living in the desert for a year or so and didn’t screw up, I could probably count on an early promotion.”

“And what did Pirelli say when you told him you were married?” Strickland asked expectantly.

“I didn’t,” Lukash replied flatly “I started to explain that I had become attached to a Lebanese girl—‘attached’ was the word I used, just like being attached to the embassy at Jeddah—but Ed cut me off. He said that the Agency had paid me well to take the year off to learn a foreign language and now it was payback time. He reminded me that availability to serve anywhere in the world was a condition of my employment and that my only options were yes or no. ‘Yes’ meant a promising future in the Agency, and ‘no’ meant a one-way ticket to some menial job at Headquarters and eventual dismissal.”

“Okay, so you went,” Strickland broke in. “What then? Did you contact your wife after you got there? What happened when your work in Saudi was finished?”

“I arrived in Saudi in 1976, when the Lebanese civil war was still at its worst. The embassy in Beirut had been evacuated. They never would have given me approval to go back there.”

“How about when the war was over?”

“Lebanon has been a state of civil unrest ever since,” Lukash replied. “I would have needed Headquarters approval even to set foot here, and they would never have given it except on official business.”

“Did you write to her, or try to send her a message through a friend?” Strickland pressed. “Even if you couldn’t get in, she could have traveled out to meet you, couldn’t she?”

“I thought about it many times, Bud, believe me. But I never knew quite what to say. What possible reason could I have given for disappearing the way I did? So I said nothing. And after a while I decided she was better off thinking I was dead and moving on with her life.”

“And is she? Have you been able to find her and ask?”

“As for her being better off, I can’t say,” Lukash concluded. “All I know is that she’s living in East Beirut and that she’s apparently still waiting for me to come back. So I’ve decided to go see her. I don’t know what I’ll say, and I have no idea how she’ll react to seeing me. But whatever it is she may want from me, I feel I owe it to her. I know I’ll never be able to set things straight again, but I do need to try.

“The first step is to stop imagining that Muna and I occupy separate worlds. It’s like those married guys who go away on road trips and fool around, thinking that as soon as they leave their hometown they enter some parallel universe and can do whatever suits them, and then return to their home world refreshed and ready to greet their wives and children. There’s only one universe, Bud, and whatever you do in one corner affects what happens in the rest of it.”

Strickland reached out and held Lukash’s wrist. “I’m not going to tell you I understand, because I don’t believe that any man can truly understand another. But I know a fair bit about that parallel universe you’re talking about. Hell, I entered it every time I left Dulles Airport on a TDY. Then one day my wife found out about it, divorced me and took the kids with her. Now I’m stuck over here in this universe and don’t have the old one to go back to.”

“The Agency has become your world, Bud, and Agency people have become your neighbors, friends, and relatives, all rolled into one,” Lukash answered. “Wherever you go, the station is your home away from home. I used to see it that way, too. But I don’t anymore. For me, the Agency has become like one of those weird religious cults you read about on the West Coast. There’s a system to those cults, you know. First they round up a bunch of lonely people with a need to belong, and then they give them heaps of praise, a clear set of rules, and an endless supply of work to do. And once they’re hooked, the cult leaders demand that they give up everything they have to remain part of the group—not just their worldly possessions and the fruits of their labors, but their initiative, their personal identity, and their values.

“I used to be one of those people. I used to feel that if I left the Agency, nothing could make up for the loss. It would be like being banished from paradise or descending the mountain from Shangri-La and never being able to find it again. But now I feel like I have to leave if I’m ever going to find my own way. If that means giving up the secrecy, the intrigue, the special perks, and all the self-glorification of being a spy, I’m ready. What’s more important is who I am and what I’ve accomplished, and those are things that nobody can take away from me. All the rest—the diplomatic passport, the big house overseas, the car, the servants—they’re all just government-issue and someday I’ll have to turn them in anyway.”

“So where does this leave your friend Lorraine? Have you told her what you’ve told me?”

Lukash shook his head. “But I plan to, once I’ve talked to Muna.”

“Which means that if Muna wants you back, Lorraine will be out of luck?”

“I don’t see any other way, Bud, if we’re all living the in the same universe. Avoiding tough choices is what got me into trouble in the first place. But if Muna decides she doesn’t want Bill Conklin back after all, perhaps Lorraine and I could start over. In Washington or maybe somewhere else. Whether the Agency gives her a security clearance or not. Beyond that, I just don’t know.”

Chapter 14

The air was cool and crisp as Lukash and Lorraine walked arm in arm past the sandbagged entrance of the Embassy Supermarket and continued past the shuttered shops of rue Sioufi toward Place Sassine. Although it was only six o’clock and the evening sky still glowed in the west like a distant bonfire, the shopkeepers had heard the sporadic artillery fire in the commercial district and were closing their doors early, unwilling to risk catching a stray bullet or shell fragment for the sake of selling one last loaf of bread or carton of milk.

“We could find a shawarma stand somewhere and buy some sandwiches to take away,” Lorraine suggested, fastening the topmost button of her gray woolen coat against the damp.

“No, they always bring me shawarma for lunch, and I’m sick of it.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t leave us much choice. Nothing else seems to be open tonight.”

They had already walked by at least three other restaurants and each was closed. When they reached Place Sassine, the normally bustling traffic was so sparse that Lukash concluded the restaurants on the square had all taken the same cue.

Then he saw the lights at La Chasse. After his previous encounters with Boulos there and at L’Olivier, he had not intended to return, but Lorraine suddenly began walking briskly ahead of him toward the lights. Now she peered through a window and raised her arms in a mock victory salute.

“Success!” she called out to him, holding the door open for him to follow her inside.

He tried to think quickly of a reason to veto her choice, but as soon as he stepped through the door, a familiar voice sounded from the shadows beyond the headwaiter’s station.

“Bon soir, Monsieur Walter. Two for dinner?”

A stout figure in a new black dinner jacket with a vast expanse of satin lapel emerged from the shadows to greet them. It was the ever-present Boulos, but his greeting seemed measurably cooler than when they had seen him at L’Olivier the week before. Lukash wondered if the headwaiter had further refreshed his memory about the dinner with Muna in West Beirut five years ago.

“Well, hello there, Boulos. What a nice surprise. I thought you would be at L’Olivier by now.”

The headwaiter laughed as if he had caught Lukash in an attempt to deceive. “Oh, I will be there soon enough. My work there begins in earnest in about an hour. But I can see that you are both already very hungry. Would you like to sit by a window, or away from one?”

“Away, please. And on the eastern side, if you have something there.”

“Of course. This way, please.”

He led them to a table along the dining room’s eastern wall and then excused himself to tend to the next guests, a foursome of bearded young men with closely cropped hair who seemed to belong in uniform. As he left, however, Lukash noticed the headwaiter’s eyes dwell just a moment too long on Lorraine’s hands, as if he were scanning them for a wedding or engagement ring.

Lorraine waited until he was halfway across the room before speaking. “There’s something creepy about that old man. He has the look of an informant, like he’s waiting for you to let some secret drop so he can snatch it up and offer it immediately for sale. Do you know him well?”

“Not really,” Lukash replied misleadingly “He’s a friend of a Phalangist officer I work with sometimes. I think he sees me as an old friend because I ate in his restaurant once before the war, when he owned a place downtown.”

Lukash glanced toward the door and unexpectedly caught Boulos looking directly at him while talking in a low voice over the telephone. The coolness of the headwaiter’s greeting, the lingering glance at her hands, Lorraine’s intuition of distrust, and now this whispering over the telephone unnerved him. Lukash realized that it was a bad mistake to have come here. But as he considered whether to stand up and leave, a curly-haired waiter of about eighteen with a simpleminded expression brought menus and a plate of pickles and raw vegetables. It was too late to leave without making a scene.

Lukash ordered a basic mezzé for two and a plate of shish kebab without opening the menu. “And a couple of bottles of Almaza beer,” he added. “Unless you would prefer wine,” he added as an afterthought, turning to Lorraine.

She shook her head and he could sense that the evening was going to be tense. Something was weighing on her mind, and it appeared to be more than the distant gunfire or Boulos’s odd manner. Lukash considered quickly whether it was better to precipitate the discussion now or wait until they were back at his apartment. Whatever happened, there was no prospect of her returning to West Beirut tonight. The artillery fire made it certain that all the East-West checkpoints would be closed at least until morning.

“How are things shaping up at the airline?” he asked blandly, finding a well-ripened tomato among the heap of raw vegetables and cutting it into wedges. “Are you running training sessions every day, or do you get to do some flying from time to time?”

“I’ve only had two flights so far. One to Riyadh and one to Paris two days ago. Oh, by the way, while I was there, I phoned my old roommate, Claire. She said to give you a big kiss. You know, Claire always had a soft spot for you, Walter. You never went to bed with her, did you?”

“Lorraine! What made you come up with a question like that? I scarcely said more than ‘Hello, how are you’ to Claire the whole time I knew her. Besides, you two only roomed together for a couple of weeks before you moved in with me.”

“But she stayed in Amman for another six months before taking the job with Air France.” She continued to fix Lukash with a determined look.

“If you must know, the answer is no. Of course, if I had known then that Claire was hot for me, I might have been tempted,” he added, merely to provoke her. “But, alas for me, I wasn’t clever enough to figure it out in time to act on it. Next question?”

“Do you think it’s so odd that I don’t completely trust you, Walter? When you drive off nearly every night after dinner for an hour or two and the only word of explanation you ever give is that you’ve been to see a ‘friend’? Or when you fly off to Beirut for two months and tell me not to visit you or even phone you? And now, when you plan to fly off again to Washington and don’t even tell me you’re going?”

The young waiter returned and swiftly unloaded Arab bread, hummus, mutabbal, tabboulé, and a plate of grilled shish kebab from his tray. A moment later he returned with two bottles of chilled Almaza beer and retreated promptly to the kitchen.

“What ever gave you the idea that I’m going to Washington?” Lukash asked, relieved that the premise of her last question, unlike her first two, was unfounded.

“Then you deny that you’re going?”

Lukash gave a hearty laugh. She had so much with which to reproach him, he thought, yet when at last she chose to confront him with an accusation, she picked one without any basis in fact.

“If I am, nobody has told me about it. But I’m more than ready to go. Then at least I’d have a fair chance of convincing Headquarters to let me out of here before two years are up.”

“And if you did convince them?” Lorraine pursued.

“You would be the first person I’d come to with the news, believe me,” Lukash replied, scooping up some tabboulé with a piece of bread. “But what makes you think I’m going to Washington in the first place? Since when has Ed Pirelli been letting you read his cable traffic?”

“I know I shouldn’t be telling you this—and the only reason I’m doing it is because I know you won’t say anything to anyone—but I heard it from Muriel. She saw a memo from Ed Pirelli to Ambassador Ravenel saying that your division chief is bringing you back for consultations and that it’s not clear when you will be coming back, if at all.”

“If Muriel Benson is leaking classified information like that, I’ll see to it that she’s sent back to Washington before I am,” Lukash snapped, furious that the ambassador’s secretary would reveal the contents of a classified personnel memo about him.

Lorraine ignored his anger. “But why would they call you back now? You’ve just arrived.”

“Frankly, I have no goddamned idea,” he lied. “I just wish they had never sent me here in the first place.” For a moment he considered telling her about the cable that Tom Twombley had ordered him to write pledging to sever contact with her, but he decided against it.

She sensed his hesitation. “Walter,” she began, “before you left Amman, you told me you wanted us to be together in Washington. We even talked about getting married. Now you’re acting as if none of that ever happened. Tell me truthfully, have you changed your mind?”

“Of course not,” he answered, facing her straight-on. “But as I’ve said before, we can’t get married until you have a security clearance, and for that we need to lay the proper groundwork. Remember, Headquarters still has a notion that you’re mixed up with a bunch of crazy Islamic terrorists. And it may take some time to convince them otherwise, despite the fact that you were never part of Ghassan’s cell and haven’t seen any of them since the Saudis threw them in jail. Once you’re in the States, the security screws may eventually come to realize that you were never involved with any of Ghassan’s troublemaking. And again, as I’ve said before, after spending six months or a year in D.C., they might be inclined to make a reassessment and give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“But why can’t we apply for the security clearance right away?” she persisted. “Wouldn’t it be better to get the process started first and find out what’s necessary to speed up the approval?”

Lukash felt a mounting urge to change the subject. But he knew that once the matter was on the floor for discussion, Lorraine would never let it rest until a decision had been reached.

“Only if we’re prepared for me to lose my job,” he answered bluntly. “Remember, Lorraine, along with my official request for clearance to marry a foreigner, I’ll have to submit a signed resignation. If they clear you, they’ll tear up my resignation and forget about it. If they don’t clear you, they’ll accept the resignation and I’m out on the street. And Washington is a very expensive place to be an unemployed former civil servant.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand why you sound so different on this subject now than you did a month ago, Walter. Then you said you weren’t sure you wanted to stay in the Agency. You said that if you were going to start a new career, now was the time to do it, while you were still in your middle thirties and before you had children and a mortgage to worry about. You talked about finding a job representing an American company and selling their products in the Middle East. You said that’s what you’ve wanted to do ever since you learned Arabic. Have you changed your mind about all that, too? I need to know, Walter, because before I uproot my own way of life, I have to know what you’re planning to do with yours.”

“Damn it, Lorraine,” Lukash shot back. “It’s just not as simple as you make it out to be. Sure, I feel burnt out. And, sure, I think I could do better for myself on the outside. But remember, I’ve been an overseas case officer for more than eight years. I’ve paid my dues now. When I go back to Headquarters, I’ll be part of management; they’ll give me a country desk to run. The next time I go overseas I’ll be a deputy COS for sure, and maybe chief at a smaller post. But if I quit, it’s permanent. I could never get back in. I wouldn’t carry a diplomatic passport anymore, I wouldn’t have a top-secret security clearance, my old friends would treat me like a stranger, and my résumé would read as if I was a complete washout as a Foreign Service officer. I’d have to start all over again. I just don’t know if I could do it.”

“Then why don’t you just come out and admit it? You have no intention of leaving the Agency, and probably never did. And it’s not because you love your work so bloody much; it’s because you don’t have the courage to try something different. And that’s something I never expected from you, Walter. When I first met you, you were so brave and optimistic and free of commonplace worries, it took my breath away.”

“Those were the days, my friend…” he sang mockingly.

“Walter,” she continued, ignoring him. “I know that you didn’t have to help me escape from Saudi Arabia. Far from it—you did it without any authority from your government. No, you helped me because you thought it was the right thing to do, and because Samir was your friend, and, by God, for the sheer sport of it! You had so much spirit then!

“But from the day you received the cable ordering you to Beirut, something seems to have knocked that gallant spirit right out of you. Now you’ve become just like the Agency higher-ups you used to tell me were so lazy and complacent and corrupt. Lately I see you recreating yourself in their image, following in their footsteps, clawing your way up the ladder so you can be a chief of station someday just like them. But marrying a foreigner with a security problem puts all that at risk, doesn’t it? As long as you stay overseas, out of sight, you can have it both ways, living in the style that suits you and making your professional mark at the same time. But now you have to make a choice. And decisions have never been your strong point, have they, Walter?”

Lukash listened intently while Lorraine spoke. When she finished there was no anger in his eyes, only sadness and a lingering irony that kept him from appearing completely deflated.

“You know me too well, Lorraine,” he answered calmly. “No, I’m not very good at decisions. And I know that I’ve been unfair to you. But be patient just a little longer. I can’t tell you all the details yet, but I’m aware of where I’ve gone wrong and I’m doing my best to set things straight. I just need a little more time.”

Lorraine made no reply.

They ate in silence for a minute or more until Lukash poured the last of the beer into his glass and pushed his plate away. Lorraine set down her fork as well and wiped the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin. “I’m not very hungry, either,” she said softly.

Lukash left some banknotes on the table and followed Lorraine toward the door. The young waiter, who was unloading an elaborate mezzé two tables away for a family with four young boys, squinted to make out the denominations of the bills that had been left for him.

Lorraine was already out the door when Lukash heard a familiar voice call out somewhere behind him. “William. William Conklin—un moment, s’il vous plaît.”

It was as if a powerful blast of wind had caught him full in the chest and thrown him back a step. Lukash stretched out his hand for the doorframe to steady himself, but before his fingers could close around it, a hand closed around his shoulder and held it firmly in place.

“Monsieur. You will please excuse me, but a patron of ours insists on having a word with you.”

It was Boulos. He released Lukash’s shoulder, but only after pulling him far enough around that Lukash noticed a portly Lebanese of about fifty-five years wearing a blue serge suit and a paisley bow tie standing with his back to the wall behind the headwaiter’s station. The man fixed him with a malevolent glare, and Lukash could see that it was Victor Hammouche.

Victor rose slowly without taking his eyes from Lukash. “William,” he began, staring into Lukash’s eyes as if he half suspected the younger man might actually have risen from the dead. “Yes, it is you,” he said in French. “A bit heavier, perhaps, and older. But the eyes, the eyes are the same.”

“Excuse me, but I think you have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Walter Lukash.”

“What he says is correct, Victor,” Boulos interrupted, still in French. “I have seen it on his American Express card. Yaa, Allah, I should never have agreed to let you bother this poor man. You not only embarrass me, Victor, but you embarrass your niece. I tell you, Monsieur Walter is also a friend of Major Elie Musallam. He could not possibly be the same man as the William you talk about. If he were, it is inconceivable that Major Elie would not know of it.”

The argument appeared to shake Victor’s confidence only slightly. “But Elie was in France in those days. He never met William Conklin.”

“Surely he has seen photographs,” the headwaiter argued.

“Perhaps. But see how this man has cut his hair and grown a beard to alter his appearance. If I had not sat down with him so many times...”

Lorraine reentered the door and seemed confused by Lukash’s confrontation with the two Lebanese. “Is there some problem with the check, Walter?” she asked after an awkward silence on the part of the three men. “I have cash if you need it.”

Lukash answered her with a brave smile. “No, it’s just a case of mistaken identity, as far as I can tell. This gentleman seems to think I’m somebody he used to know.”

He turned to Boulos with an expression of ironclad self-assurance. “If your friend would like, I would be more than happy to answer any questions that might lay his concerns to rest. I wouldn’t want to leave here without setting this unfortunate thing straight.”

Lorraine shrugged her shoulders. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer to wait outside.” She turned on her heel and went back out the door.

As she did, Lukash saw Boulos aim a baleful glare at Victor Hammouche, as if his old friend were a child who had misbehaved unforgivably in public. “Thank you, Monsieur Walter, but I believe Victor is quite finished. I’m sorry if he has disturbed you. He meant no harm.”

“No harm, you say!” Victor exploded. “If César were alive, you would see what harm would be done to this man! Yes, this man, William Conklin, who married my niece and deserted her when she was carrying his child! Deny it if you will, but I am not so easily deceived. I know you, William Conklin, and the next time we meet you will answer for what you have done!”

* * *

Lukash unlocked the French doors of his flat and opened them for Lorraine to step onto the balcony. He followed her out and they stood at the rail surveying the view to the city’s commercial port, a broken canopy of tiled rooftops held up by cracked walls smudged with black soot. Lukash felt something hard under his instep and lifted his foot. A steel-jacketed machine-gun bullet lay on the marble floor, its sharp nose undamaged by the impact with which it had struck the stucco wall. He picked it up and presented it to Lorraine.

“I’ve found more than a dozen of these since I moved in,” he remarked easily, as if the bullet were a seashell he had found on the beach after the latest storm at sea. “God knows how many of them are on the west balcony. Nobody’s been out there to look since the French doors were boarded up the month before I moved in. And I’ll board these doors over, too, if the glass ever breaks. No sense in throwing good money after bad.”

“What did that man want at the restaurant?” Lorraine interrupted as she rolled the bullet absently between index finger and thumb.

“Oh, he seemed to think I was somebody he knew named William. I told him I was perfectly content to remain a Walter.”

“Wasn’t he the same man who kept staring at you last week when we ate at L’Olivier? Don’t you remember? The table by the entrance?”

Lukash scowled at her, irritated that Lorraine had not only noticed the man but remembered him.

“Walter, stop looking at me like that; you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Why is he so interested in you? Did you know him when you were here before?”

“How would I know?” Lukash evaded, tilting his head back derisively in the Lebanese manner. “It’s been five years; people change, memories fade. He could have been a neighbor of mine, or a shopkeeper downtown somewhere. You know how it is in the Third World. A Western diplomat is a sort of celebrity; someone you nod to on your way to work will turn up a month later to hit you up for a visa.”

“If you really had so very many Lebanese acquaintances when you were here before,” Lorraine pressed, “it seems odd that I’ve never heard you talk about them. After spending nearly a year here, I would think you would have known at least a few people well enough to want to look them up when you came back five years later.”

“Oh, I had friends, but they were mostly a party crowd—not exactly the type who become faithful pen pals after you move away. In those days I used to do my Arabic tutorial in the morning, study all afternoon, then drop in at the Pickwick or the Charles for a drink or two and join a group to go out for dinner and a little dancing. I’d do that four or five nights a week sometimes, since I didn’t have any agents to meet up with after dark. By the time I left Lebanon, I had a list of phone numbers as long as your arm. But since then the telephone system has been reduced to utter ruin. I tried a few of the old phone numbers the first couple of days after I arrived here—couldn’t get through to a single one.”

“But it’s just not like you to isolate yourself like this, Walter. In Amman you knew flocks of Jordanians and people at all the Western embassies. We always had somebody joining us for dinner. Here you live like a hermit. It’s as if you were hiding from something.”

“My assignment here requires a low profile, Lorraine. If the Syrian army and the Palestinian Resistance knew what I was doing here, they might well take offense. I’d rather they didn’t find me.”

“Yes,” Lorraine conceded, “but the way you’ve been acting still doesn’t add up. Until you were reassigned here, I can hardly recall you ever saying a kind word about working a country desk at Headquarters. Or staying in the Agency until retirement. You always said that the only part of the job that interested you was being a case officer overseas. Not being a station chief—you said that the title of chief simply entitled a person to do twice the work for half the fun, and that you didn’t like the kind of people you saw your friends turn into when they became chiefs of station.”

“So maybe I’ve grown up just a little since then,” Lukash responded testily. “Maybe I don’t want to be a case officer knocking out reports on Syrian order of battle when I’m forty. It’s not that far away anymore. There are guys my age with a lot less experience than I have who are already being sent out as station chiefs in the Gulf. There’s no standing still in a big organization—either you move up the ladder, or you fall off and become a nobody.”

“Oh, Walter, why has it become so difficult to talk to you? One day you say it’s too early to discuss a topic, and then the next day, without the slightest warning, you adopt a fixed position and won’t entertain a single contrary thought.”

“And are you so different?” Lukash challenged. “This must be the ninth time I’ve heard you talk about going to live in Washington.”

“Now you are just being mean. Is your memory so short that you don’t remember asking me to move back to Washington with you? We were going to find a little house to renovate somewhere along Reservoir Road, not far from Chain Bridge, so that you could drive in to Langley every morning—and we’d still be close to Georgetown. I would find a job flying the North Atlantic route out of Dulles Airport. You were so excited about it that I became excited, too. It was the one constant I could look forward to amid all the changes I’d been through. Well, this time I’ve made up my mind: I’m moving to Washington when my contract is finished here whether you come along or not. It started out being your idea. but, by God, I’m going to carry it through with you or without you.”

“I envy your freedom, Lorraine,” Lukash answered with a weary smile.

“You are free to do whatever you want, Walter. You just have to decide what is important to you.”

She spoke forcefully, but Lukash could see that her anger toward him was mostly spent. Before he could think of a suitable reply, a flash lit up the sky to the west. A second later the distant report of a massive explosion drove the words back into his throat.

“Their aim seems to be a bit off tonight. We’d better get inside,” he said, taking her by the elbow. He shut the double doors behind him and released the roll-down wooden slats that served as a storm shutter covering both doors.

“Once again I didn’t think to bring home a movie for the video machine,” he said.

“Never mind, I have a book,” she replied without looking at him.

“Would you like a glass of white wine or some port while you read?”

“Thank you, no. If I need anything, I know where to find it.”

“I’m going to write a couple of letters in the bedroom,” he offered. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

“You could get me a sheet and a blanket, if you wouldn’t mind. I think I would prefer to sleep on the sofa tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

Lukash looked at her as if she had stung him deeply and then he assumed a resigned expression. “The beds are made up in two of the spare bedrooms. Take your pick. Or if you really do intend to sleep on the sofa, the linen closet is at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you,” she replied without emotion. “And don’t worry about taking me back to the port crossing tomorrow morning. It’s not really on your way. I can phone a taxi.”

“Don’t be absurd, Lorraine. This isn’t London. What time do you need to be at work?”

“Half past eight.”

“We’ll leave here at a quarter past seven.”

Chapter 15

A fine mist fell from a ceiling of slate-gray clouds that extended across the Mediterranean as far as Lukash could see from the hill overlooking the Port of Beirut. He fastened the top button of his raincoat and peered out over the quays, warehouses, cranes, and stacked shipping containers toward the no-man’s-land at the heart of the divided city. His attention was drawn at once to the morning’s first commuters who careened at top speed around the curve between the port’s second and third basins to evade any snipers who might not have gone to sleep after fighting all night along the Green Line.

By now the taxi that had taken Lorraine westward from the port’s Phalange-controlled eastern gate would almost certainly have been waved through the western gate and was probably coming within view of the first Syrian checkpoint at rue Allenby. The Syrian sentries, similarly bleary-eyed and eager for the eight o’clock shift to arrive, could be expected to let the taxi continue on its way.

Lukash knew from Lorraine’s silence as he drove her to the taxi stand just outside the port that she would not be coming back anytime soon. Her complaints of the night before had been made calmly and without the heat of sudden emotion. Her resentment against him, having gathered during their time together, had coalesced and precipitated as naturally as the soaking winter rain that now covered the morning landscape.

He felt somehow lighter, as if freed from a burden he had carried long enough to have nearly ceased noticing it. Now that it was gone, his unconscious mind seemed to be taking the measure of his strength and looking ahead. What other unacknowledged burdens remained to be shed? At once the answer came back and burst through into his conscious mind with dazzling clarity. He knew what he needed to do.

He stepped back into the BMW and turned once again onto Avenue Charles Helou. No one would expect him at the Phalange intelligence compound for at least an hour, maybe two. If he drove quickly, he could be in Anteliás by half past eight. That would be early enough. How long would he need? Maybe an hour, maybe less than a minute—it was impossible to know what he would face there. But once he was finished, he would be free in a way he had scarcely dared to imagine for the past five years.

As he crossed the Beirut River at the Qarantina Bridge, he noticed the oncoming traffic becoming heavier, as if Radio Liban had given the all-clear signal and all the westbound commuters had left their driveways in Achrafiyé, Burj Hammoud, and Sinn el Fil at the same moment to form the queue now behind him at the port’s eastern gate.

His breath came more quickly and his pulse stepped up its beat as he muscled through the traffic circle at Dora and continued eastward toward the autostrade. He tried to imagine how the scene with Muna would play itself out: how he would feel, what he should do and say, how to know when the time had come to leave, and what would remain unsaid when it was all over. But the closer he came, the harder he found it to concentrate on anything beyond maintaining his resolve to go forward.

He parked the BMW directly opposite the front door of the apartment block and looked at his watch. It was twenty-five past eight, ten minutes before the time he had observed her leaving for work a week earlier. He put his hand on the door handle and then took it away. What if he ran into her coming down the walk, or in the lobby? Would she recognize him? Should he stop her, or let her pass and come back another time? Set-piece encounters seldom ever played out according to plan, no matter how many moves had been plotted out in advance.

He stepped outside the door, locked the car behind him, and advanced rapidly toward the building’s entrance, as if he feared someone might be following his movements from an upper-story window. To his relief, no concierge occupied the folding metal chair just inside the lobby door. He advanced toward the twin elevators, confirmed from the indicator lights over the doors that neither was in use, and then pressed the call button. The door on the right opened at once. He stepped in and pressed the button for the eighth floor.

No sooner had the elevator door slid shut than panic held his chest in a vise grip. He thought he would know how to react if she were too shocked to speak, or sullenly resentful, or even actively hostile. But what if she were truly happy to see him after his five-year absence? He reminded himself that his purpose in returning to her was to regain his freedom, not necessarily to renew old obligations. But now he felt confused again. He went over his planned speech one more time, wondering what he would do if she refused to believe it.

The elevator door opened with a hollow thud. He stepped out onto a narrow corridor of unpolished stone tiles and went forward until he came to apartment 8D.

He scarcely had time to take in a deep breath after ringing the bell before he heard her footsteps approach and then stop. The door opened a few inches and Muna Khalifé looked at him, her eyes opened wide in shock. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth and she remained motionless for an endless moment before Lukash saw tears welling in her eyes. Without a word she opened the door wider and a trace of a smile formed at the corners of her mouth.

“William?” Muna whispered, as if he were an apparition likely to disappear the moment she invoked his name.

Without waiting for an answer, she stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck and held him with desperate strength. Lukash stood immobile before her, no longer able to think what to do next. For all the time spent anticipating how she might react to his return, he had spent scarcely any anticipating his own feelings toward her when they at last came face-to-face. Before she could sense his indecision, he picked her up in a joyful bear hug, lifting her feet off the ground and burying his face in the soft hollow between her shoulder and neck. Her hair was as soft and fragrant as it had been five years before, and the fullness of her breasts against his chest aroused him as Lorraine’s boyish flatness never had.

Muna responded by holding Lukash even more tightly, her arms frozen as if in some involuntary spasm. At long last she released him and stepped back to take another look at the face she had not seen for so many months and years. She kept him at arm’s length, seizing his left hand, then his right, as though by releasing her grip for even for a moment he might drift off again and be lost. Lukash used his free hand to close the door and to gently lead her back into the foyer.

Muna Khalifé’s outward appearance seemed to have changed remarkably little in five years. She still wore her chestnut hair tied behind her head with a silk scarf and, unlike most of her countrywomen, resisted the urge to wear makeup other than lipstick and a touch of eye shadow. Her figure, a bit too angular for his taste five years before, had been much improved by the addition of a kilo or two at the hips and bust line.

But the most striking change in her, he thought, was her eyes, which now carried a look of placid dignity, as if she had relinquished the illusions of her youth and was resigned to what would take their place. But no sooner had he sensed this change in her than the old sparkle seemed to return to her eyes and she was once again the twenty-three-year-old girl he had met in 1975. To his surprise, he could not recall ever having felt as close to her as he did now.

“William, tell me it is you!” she said in Arabic, interrupting his thoughts. Then she caught herself and switched to English. “Say anything, habibi, but I must hear your voice before I can believe that this is not a dream.” She raised a hand to his face and stroked the softness of his stubbly beard.

“It’s no dream, Muna.”

Muna giggled softly as she slipped her arms around his waist and held her cheek against his chest. “If it is not a dream, it is something impossible to believe. One week ago I was prepared to abandon any hope that you would return. After five years of waiting, I could no longer remember your smile or the sound of your whisper in my ear or the feel of your arms around me. I thought that this must be how they said it would feel when at last I would be ready to turn my back on the past. I thought that perhaps now my life would move forward. Perhaps I would leave Beirut, maybe even…remarry.” She giggled again, with greater abandon than before.

So this is my wonderful sense of timing, Lukash thought. After five years Muna had finally found her freedom, and in five minutes he had managed to steal it back. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,” he said. “Maybe it was wrong of me to intrude on you like this after so long.”

She let out a shrill laugh that was in stark contrast with her easy confidence a moment earlier. “Intrude?” she asked. “Do you see anything here that could suffer from your intrusion?”

“You said you were about to move forward. I don’t want to stand in the way, Muna.”

Muna gave him a searching look. “Did you think that I can forget your face one day and call for a priest the next? I have thought of marriage to another man only because of the emptiness these last years—and because others expected it of me. William, do you remember the boy I used to tease you about just to make you jealous, the boy my father wanted me to marry since I was a schoolgirl?”

Lukash’s face went blank.

“No, you never met him, because he was studying in France in those days,” she continued. “Well, after all this time, Elie has asked me to marry him.” She gave the same forced laugh again. “I think my father must have urged him to propose to me, because Elie could not have had any reason to believe that I would accept. Imagine, William—my father, a man who hated Phalangists even more than he hated the Syrians, encouraging his only daughter to marry a Phalangist officer!”

Lukash said nothing and Muna went on. “But Father insisted that Elie was different from the others,” she said bitterly. “On the very morning they murdered him, he assured me that Elie was not a Phalangist in his heart, because he had first been with Father in the Ahrar.”

“I heard about your father’s death, Muna. I’m very sorry,” Lukash said. “But it’s not fair to blame Elie. I’m sure he could not be responsible for what happened at the Libramarine Club.”

She shook her head. “No, Elie is no commando. But it is all the same. If one Phalangist has killed your father, every one of them has had his hand on the gun.”

“Come, let’s sit down, Muna,” Lukash offered, changing the subject. “It’s been so long, I don’t know where to begin.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and led her into the living room, where a luminous shaft of morning sunlight streaming through the open French doors pointed the way to the sofa. He waited for her to sit, then he took his place beside her.

“Do you still work for that advertising agency in Jall ed Dib, the one owned by that ridiculous Parisian with the handlebar mustache?”

Muna smiled. “Antoine left at the beginning of 1976, during the cease-fire when the Phalange lifted the siege of Tel al-Zaatar. The poor man was taken from his car on his way to work one morning and was held for two days by Palestinian fighters. He left not long after.”

“It’s odd, but Antoine was one of the few Europeans I was certain would still be here,” Lukash remarked. “He loved Beirut so much, I didn’t think anything could shake him loose.”

“There were many like Antoine in those days,” Muna observed sadly. “They vowed they would never return to the clouds and rain of Paris or Brussels or Amsterdam. When the fighting started, they said it was a passing incident and that we shouldn’t be worried. Then when their friends were captured at roadblocks or injured in the shellings or killed by snipers, one by one they departed. Antoine never returned to the office even to wish us farewell.”

Their eyes met, then Muna looked away quickly, a faint flush visible on her cheeks. “Jean Malouf bought the agency from him. Jean is the fellow you liked so much—from Jezzine—the one who gave us the set of Jezzine knives with the carved handles at our wedding.”

“Oh, yes. I do remember Jean. So Jean is your boss now...” Lukash felt like the engineer of a train that has derailed inexplicably on a straight and clear stretch of track. Why was it so difficult to say what he had come to tell her?

She nodded. “Jean and I and Anaïs and the two account managers are the only ones left from before the Events.”

A gap of silence followed, and Lukash moved quickly to fill it. “You used to talk about working for your uncle’s ad agency in Cairo. Did you ever go there after the fighting started?”

“I might have, but when the Muslims set fire to Father’s warehouse, there was no longer any money. We had to sell everything to pay our suppliers for the inventory that we lost. The chalet at Farayya was sold first. Later my grandmother’s house in Beït Meri. Then when Mother was killed, I could no longer think of leaving Father alone.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, unable to think of anything else. “When did it happen?”

“She died two years ago this June,” Muna answered. Then, interrupting her own train of thought, she said, “Would you like some coffee? Tea?”

Lukash shifted his weight around to face her. “We have a great deal to talk about, Muna. I don’t even know where to begin.”

Now she sat facing him with her knees nearly touching his and gazed with longing into his eyes. He began to speak again, but she held two fingers to his lips. “There will be plenty of time for talking. Let it wait.”

She ran her fingertips across his lips, over his temples and bearded cheeks, and then through his uncombed hair, where gray had lately begun to infiltrate. Then she let her hands slip level with his chest and pressed her palms softly against his pectoral muscles, and from there down his abdomen to the line where his shirt met his belt. She grasped the shirt with both hands and tugged sharply, pulling the shirttails out from his trousers while her lips sought the flesh of his belly. Lukash leaned back and let her climb astride him as she worked her way, button by button, up toward his throat.

“I said I forgot how it felt to touch you,” she whispered. “I was mistaken. I remember everything now.”

She pulled one sleeve free, then the other, and tossed his shirt to the floor. Lukash felt his hardness grow and could not wait any longer. He reached under her dress and jersey and pulled them over her head.

“Do you remember this?” she demanded.

He unhooked her brassiere and took a nipple in his mouth, then he ran his tongue in concentric circles around its edges until it was erect and did the same for the other breast. She stiffened for a moment and then grabbed his face with both hands, pushing him gently onto his back.

“Slowly now. It has been so long,” she said.

* * *

A cloud blocked the sun, and Lukash suddenly felt a chill on his naked body. He glanced at Muna lying beside him with her head on his chest and wondered whether they had lain there for an hour or only for a few minutes. He had scheduled a meeting with Elie at eleven to make a final inspection of the electronic equipment they would be taking into the mountains. He felt a twinge of guilt when he thought about Elie’s feelings toward Muna and then a superstitious unease: would his face somehow betray what he and Muna had done?

Suddenly it occurred to him that his BMW was still parked across the street almost directly in front of the block of flats. He reached for the scattered clothes on the floor in the hope of finding his watch. He found his shirt, a shoe, panties, a leather belt, but no watch. Then he remembered that his watch was in his trouser pocket, and that the trousers were somewhere beneath them. He took Muna’s hand from his chest, laid it softly beside her, and slowly slid out from under her. The trousers were beneath Muna’s leg and impossible to pull free without waking her.

A quick survey of the room showed no sign of a clock, so he set off toward the bedrooms in search of one. The first bedroom off the central corridor was clearly Muna’s. Lukash recalled seeing the same 1930s art deco travel posters of Switzerland at her grandmother’s house in Beït Meri. He approached her bedside table and began to look for an alarm clock among the thicket of framed photographs. There was a color photo of César and Muna, another of Muna and her mother, and a large black-and-white photo of Muna with her aunt Claudette and uncle Victor at the Sea Castle in Sidon.

Then a small color photo of a child caught his eye. The little girl could not have been more than a year old, but the shape of her face and the intense curiosity of her brown eyes bore an odd resemblance to his own. He scanned the other photos on the table quickly and turned to leave, but then another cluster of photos atop Muna’s chest of drawers caught his eye. As he approached, he could see that all of the photos showed the same little girl, either as an infant or as a toddler. The largest of the photos was in a clear plastic frame and showed a two-year-old with loose ringlets of mahogany hair clinging tightly to her forehead. The resemblance to his own baby pictures was unmistakable.

But how could it be? Muna had been fitted with a diaphragm long before their honeymoon and, as far as he knew, she had never missed a period.

He looked at the photo again and then carried it back to compare it with the one in the silver frame. It was the same child. He turned the plastic frame over and looked for a date stamp on the reverse side. “Studio Manoukian/5–17–77” was printed along the bottom edge.

He heard the soft padding of feet behind him and looked over his shoulder. Muna was standing in the doorway.

“From the day I brought her home, everyone said she favored you. See the eyes and the shape of the chin?”

Lukash put the photo back on the table and turned around slowly to face Muna. “I had no idea...” His voice sounded foreign to him, as if it had been recorded and were being played back at a much slower speed.

“You have seen all that I have of her. One morning two years ago, while I was at work, my mother took her shopping. They were at a bakery not far from here when a car bomb exploded in the street outside. My mother and Marie-Claire and three others were killed.”

“Dear God,” Lukash whispered.

“I do not remember much else that happened at that time. They would not show us the bodies at first, so it was difficult for us to believe there had not been some mistake. Finally, Elie arranged through a colleague of his to take my father and a cousin of mine who is a physician to the place where the Civil Defense Office kept the bodies until their investigation was complete.

“The first thing I remember after that was the mass for the victims at the Eglise Mar Maroun. I was in such shock that I found it hard to believe my mother and daughter were gone. At some moments I blamed myself, and at others I felt a terrible rage against the Syrians and Palestinians and the Muslims in West Beirut who would not let us Christians live in peace. I remember hearing the priest speaking time after time about how God’s vengeance would fall upon those who had sent the shells and rockets from West Beirut, and I looked across the aisle.

“Sitting in the row behind us was a group of five or six Phalangists whom I had known as boys in school. Among them was Elie’s friend Fadi, the one who had arranged for my father and cousin to identify my mother’s and Marie-Claire’s remains. I turned around for some reason, and I could see written on their faces their intention to take God’s work of vengeance upon themselves. Somehow I knew that the next day or the day after or perhaps the following week, some mother like me or some husband like my own father would take their places in a mosque in Bab Idriss or Zarif or Moussaitbé to mourn those killed in revenge by the Phalange. I felt a heaviness in my heart and a tightening in my throat, and I felt I would suffocate if I did not leave that very instant.

“As soon as I pushed open the heavy wooden door of the church and breathed the fresh night air, I felt in my soul that if I ever allowed myself to desire revenge for what happened to my child and my mother, I would be no different from those who murdered Marie-Claire—in fact, from that time forward I would share responsibility for her death. I remembered that Jesus taught forgiveness, but it seemed that our Maronite Church had allowed itself to be persuaded by the politicians that forgiveness no longer applied between Christians and Muslims. So I vowed to forgive those who killed Marie-Claire and to beg God’s mercy for them.

“Almost at once my mind cleared, and I was able to accept what had happened. I went home and slept until the evening of the following day. When I awoke, I felt as if I had climbed the last in a series of mountain ranges and, for the first time, could view the valley on the other side. Only then did I realize that I still had not yet forgiven you for leaving me.

“Until that day, I had never doubted that you were alive. Somehow I imagined that you had struck your head or contracted some disease that made you forget me and our life together. I was certain that you had never intended to leave me as you did. But as much as I tried to imagine what had happened to you and where you had gone, I could not do it. But then after the mass at Mar Maroun, I was free from worrying about what had happened the day you went to the airport—all that mattered to me afterward was that you should return.

“And now that you are here, what has happened before no longer matters to me. What is important is only that you are here. I do not expect you to stay forever, William—only long enough so that I can remember your face if I should ever lose you again.”

“Muna, I don’t know what to...”

She held up an outstretched palm. “Don’t speak. Just hold me.”

Chapter 16

Conrad Prosser reached over his shoulder and pulled a can of diet cola from the nylon ring of a six-pack sitting atop a stack of eight or nine cases in the corner of the communications center. The station chief, having recovered from a peptic ulcer on his previous tour of duty, had sworn off coffee and now kept a sixty-day supply of caffeinated soft drinks on hand at all times in case the commissary ran out. Although U.S.-made diet cola was available in supermarkets throughout Beirut, the local price was nearly double the price charged by the heavily subsidized military commissary system.

Prosser pulled off the ring top and tossed it back into the half-filled cardboard flat. Three stacks of classified cables lay in front of him. The first consisted of outgoing messages from Beirut Station since close of business on the previous day. The second was incoming top-secret signals intelligence material, mostly summaries prepared at Headquarters, but also a few raw intercepts obtained locally against the Syrians and the PLO. The third stack contained incoming messages from Headquarters and other CIA field stations, sorted in order of precedence, from “Immediate” through “Priority” and “Routine” to “Telepouch.”

Prosser scanned the headlines of the signals intelligence materials rapidly and rearranged the stack to appear as if it had been untouched. Like a head of household rising late on a Sunday morning to find that someone had dared to tamper with the newspaper before it reached him, Ed Pirelli always insisted on having the first look at the morning cable traffic. Next Prosser checked the stack of outgoing messages to confirm that the cables he had drafted the day before had been released. They had—without revision, as far as he could tell. And finally he leafed through the stack of incoming cables.

The first two incoming cables were circulars directed to all Agency stations worldwide, one asking for any information that might affect the security of the president on his visit to the Far East the following week, and the other calling attention to recent Soviet setbacks in the Afghan war and the improved outlook for recruiting new spies as the morale of Soviet officials posted abroad deteriorated. Then, hidden between the stapled pages of the third message, he found a single sheet, barely a half page in length, which began “EYES ONLY COS.” It had obviously been overlooked by the communicator, who would normally place every “Eyes Only” message in a sealed envelope. Prosser stood up to take the cable back to the communications center but could not resist the temptation to read it first:

EYES ONLY COS

FROM: CHIEF/NE DIVISION

SUBJECT:SIDNEY R. JUNGHANS

REFS: A. AMMAN 45503

B. BEIRUT 68175

C. DIRECTOR 127841

1. HAVING RECEIVED NO EXPLANATION FROM JUNGHANS CONCERNING HIS RELATIONS WITH IRISH NATIONAL WHO IS SUBJECT REF A, WE FIND REF B SUFFICIENTLY DISTURBING TO JUSTIFY JUNGHANS IMMEDIATE TRAVEL TO HEADQUARTERS CITY TO EXPLAIN POSSIBLE VIOLATION OF AGENCY REGULATIONS RE MARRIAGE TO FOREIGN NATIONAL.

2. OUR FILES INDICATE YOU WERE SUPERVISOR TO JUNGHANS DURING HIS PREVIOUS BEIRUT ASSIGNMENT. DID HE REPORT CONTACTS WITH LEBANESE NATIONAL WHO IS SUBJECT REFS B AND C TO YOU OR TO ANY OTHER STATION OFFICER AT ANY TIME? PLEASE EXPLAIN FULLY.

3. LIKEWISE, HAS JUNGHANS DISCUSSED RECENT WHEREABOUTS OF SAID IRISH NATIONAL WITH YOU OR ANY OTHER STATION OFFICER? RELIABLE INFORMATION INDICATES THAT SAID IRISH NATIONAL RECENTLY DEPARTED AMMAN FOR BEIRUT IN PURSUIT OF JUNGHANS. PLEASE PROVIDE FULLEST DETAILS ASAP.

4. AS YOU MAY RECALL, JUNGHANS WAS SELECTED FOR CURRENT SENSITIVE ASSIGNMENT ON BASIS OF HIS PAST DISCRETION AND GOOD JUDGMENT NOT LESS THAN HIS TRACK RECORD AS RECRUITER. REFS INDICATE SUCH BASIS FOR HIS SELECTION MAY HAVE BEEN IN ERROR. AS DECISION MUST BE TAKEN SOONEST RE POSSIBLE NEED FOR REPLACEMENT, PLEASE ARRANGE FOR JUNGHANS TDY RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS CITY ASAP. DUE TO SCHEDULED CHIEF/NE TRAVEL IN COMING DAYS, MUST REPEAT MUST ARRANGE JUNGHANS ARRIVAL IN HEADQUARTERS CITY IN TIME FOR CONFERENCES TO BEGIN NEXT MONDAY. IN DIRECTING JUNGHANS TO REPORT TO HEADQUARTERS FOR CONSULTATIONS, YOU MAY DISCUSS WITH HIM IRISH NATIONAL WHO IS SUBJECT REF A BUT DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT DISCUSS WITH HIM LEBANESE NATIONAL WHO IS SUBJECT REFS B AND C.

5. NOTWITHSTANDING ABOVE, STATION APPEARS HAVE MADE GREAT STRIDES RECENT WEEKS. NEW LEAD TO SYRIAN OPPOSITION GROUP PARTICULARLY ENCOURAGING. GIVE MY THANKS TO AMBASSADOR FOR HOSPITALITY ON RECENT SWING. HIGGINS.

Prosser did not need to have the cables referred to in the message in front of him in order to know that the Irish national in question was Lorraine Ellis and the Lebanese national was Muna Khalifé. The message was from division chief Twombley, whose pseudonym was Higgins. The Amman cable, he supposed, was probably a warning to Pirelli from the station chief in Amman about Lorraine’s impending arrival, while the Beirut cable was doubtless Prosser’s own message, sent two weeks earlier at César Khalifé’s request, seeking traces on William Conklin. Judging from the reference number of the director’s cable, it would almost certainly be found further down in the stack. Prosser thumbed through the messages until he found it.

CITE DIRECTOR 127841

SUBJECT: TRACES

REF: BEIRUT 68175

SUBJECT REF IS WALTER LUKASH. EVENTS DESCRIBED IN REF ARE SUBJECT OF SEPARATE CLOSED-CHANNEL MESSAGE. DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT DISCUSS CONTENTS OF REF OR OF THIS MESSAGE WITH LUKASH UNTIL DIRECTED FURTHER BY HEADQUARTERS.

As usual, the Headquarters trace results had come too late to be of much use. Prosser already knew who Bill Conklin was. More than that, he had already said far too much about Lukash to Lorraine Ellis. No doubt Walt would tell the division chief how Prosser had helped Lorraine find him, and then it would be Prosser’s turn to be called onto the carpet. Perhaps Lukash would leave Prosser out of it, but why should he?

Prosser pushed back his chair and had started toward the exit when he heard someone punch in the three-digit combination to the Simplex lock in the outside corridor. Suddenly the latch clicked and the door burst open. It was Pirelli, and judging by the scowl on his face, Prosser guessed that a visit to the ambassador’s office had been the cause for the chief’s tardiness. Behind him was Bud Strickland.

Prosser pointed out the three stacks of paper neatly arranged on the desk. “The cable traffic has already been sorted, Ed. Here, you can have the desk all to yourself. I was on my way to a meeting anyway.”

“Wait. Before you run off anywhere, I need to know your schedule for the rest of the day in case I have to reach you. I’m sending Bud over to Lukash’s apartment right now. If Lukash isn’t there, all three of us may have to drop everything and find him.”

Pirelli grabbed a yellow legal pad from atop the nearest four-drawer safe and took his place at the desk that Prosser had vacated. “Let me fill you in on what’s going on,” the chief began. “The ambassador read a report in this morning’s signals traffic indicating that somebody in Syrian military intelligence thinks we’re helping the Phalange to run anti-Asad dissidents over the border from Lebanon into Syria. The Syrians are sending a senior officer here to investigate, and if he decides that’s what we’re doing, he’s supposed to recommend some sort of ‘action on the ground’—you can imagine what that means—to make us stop.

“The ambassador practically foamed at the mouth when he talked about what he would do if he ever caught the Agency supporting Syrian opposition movements in Lebanon. I’ve never seen anything like it: eyes bulging, veins popping out all over, face as purple as a beet…and cursing like a gunny sergeant. Anyway, he’s scared to death that the Syrians will start blaming the Agency for the success of their dissident movements and may take out their frustration on the American embassy in Lebanon.”

Prosser and Strickland exchanged serious looks.

“What we have to do,” Pirelli continued, “is make sure that none of the equipment that we’ve already given the Phalange is passed along to any Syrian opposition group. Conrad, you remember the Syrian walk-in you talked to a week or two ago who said he represented a dissident officers’ movement? After we turned him away, he appears to have gone straight to the Phalange. And according to Lukash, the Phalangists are planning to give his outfit some of their own equipment as well as other gear that we’ve been giving the Phalange.

“What we have to do is come up with an excuse to recall our equipment from the Phalange until the ambassador can work something out at a higher level. Bud says that we can recall the secure-voice radios under the pretext of replacing the coding key input device. The radios are what the dissidents seem to want most of all. As for the rest, we’ll just have to think of something.”

“Roger that, sir,” Strickland replied.

“Connie, can you report back here at 1300 hours in case I have to send you over to find Lukash?”

“No problem,” Prosser replied.

“All right, then,” Pirelli went on. “Bud, hustle on over to Lukash’s apartment and work out some plan to get those radios back. Go with him to Phalange intel headquarters if you have to, but call me as soon as you know what you’ll be doing. If you’re able to make the recall, just say you’ve ‘found the technical problem and are bringing the faulty part back to the office’ or something like that. If you don’t have any success, say you ‘haven’t found the technical problem yet.’ In that case, I’ll call Colonel Faris for an appointment and try to work the recall from my end. Can you remember all that?”

Strickland cracked the knuckles of one hand and then the other. “Creating technical problems is never a problem, Chief,” he drawled. “Is there any other equipment over there you’d like to see break down?”

Pirelli smiled. “Just concentrate on those damned handhelds. Find them, and don’t let them out of your sight until you talk to me again.”

Strickland touched his eyebrow with his forefinger in a highly unmilitary salute and then winked at Prosser on his way out the door.

Pirelli immediately began sifting through the stack of signals intercept cables to find the report that had caused Ambassador Ravenel so much distress. It was only the second cable down, and he read it with intense concentration. At last he raised his head, still pensive.

Prosser interrupted him. “Excuse me, Ed, but I found an ‘Eyes Only’ in the pile that the communicator forgot to envelope, and I couldn’t help notice that it was about Walt. The cable says Twombley is recalling Walt for consultations over his ties to Lorraine Ellis; I’ll say no more about that. But the other reason has to do with César Khalifé’s daughter. Do you remember her? She’s the girl whose American husband disappeared five years ago at the start of the civil war.”

Pirelli said nothing, so Prosser continued.

“A couple of weeks ago, César asked me to do an updated name trace on the missing husband, just to make sure he hadn’t surfaced somewhere. Headquarters’ response arrived today. Brace yourself for this, Ed: it said the girl’s husband is none other than Walter Lukash.”

Prosser watch Pirelli’s expression closely. It did not change.

“So now Headquarters wants to know whether any of us knew about it,” Prosser began tentatively. “You were his supervisor in those days, Ed. Did you have any idea...?”

Pirelli’s face remained impassive, and for a moment Prosser thought that he hadn’t heard the question.

“That he married her? God, no,” the station chief replied sourly. “That they were seeing each other? Of course I knew. The girl was the niece of Claudette Hammouche. Claudette bragged to all of her language students about her niece’s dashing American boyfriend. Later, when the time came for Walt’s transfer out to Saudi Arabia, he seemed a shade too upset over the change in plans, so I asked him point-blank whether he might be leaving a girl behind. He denied it. But a few months after that, César told me about how his daughter’s husband had disappeared and it all came together for me. Still, by that time Walt was long gone and I thought the whole thing was behind us.”

“But what about when Walt was nominated to come back here for a second tour of duty?” Prosser persisted. “After all, César Khalifé was still our agent, and Walt was going to be operating right in his backyard. Did you really think Walt could spend two years here without running into somebody who used to know him as Bill Conklin? Or that the Phalange wouldn’t look into what he was doing here back in 1975?”

“When Walt’s name was first proposed, it was only supposed to be for two months, so I didn’t see a problem, especially since his orders called for him to keep a very low profile. Besides, I couldn’t very well object to something I hadn’t done anything to stop when I was his supervisor. So if Headquarters wanted Walt to go back to Beirut and Walt had the nerve to come, I wasn’t going to stand in their way.”

Prosser shook his head ruefully. “All right, then, read the ‘Eyes Only’ message and tell me what you want me to do. There may still be time to catch Bud on his way out if you want him to tell Walt to book passage home.”

Pirelli found the cable in the third stack of cables and read it quickly. When he raised his head, the scowl that he had brought into the room had returned. “Go find him,” he ordered Prosser. “The son of a bitch will never make it to Headquarters in time unless he catches tonight’s boat to Cyprus.”

* * *

“Finish your breakfast, Jabril. It’s time to go.”

The two boys stood on opposite sides of a red 250cc Kawasaki motorcycle, the long black leatherette seat serving as their makeshift dinner table. Two paper cups of orange soda remained balanced on the seat, and a pair of helmets dangled from the upswept handlebars.

“I’m still hungry,” said the younger, a curly-haired youth of about eighteen whose widely separated eyes, protruding ears, and thick nose gave him a distinctly simpleminded appearance. “Wait a second—I’m going back for a Mars bar.”

The older boy, perhaps nineteen or twenty, caught Jabril’s arm above the elbow to draw his attention and then released it. The former was tall and wiry, with broad, skinny shoulders, slender hips, and a skier’s tan that failed to reach all the way to the collar of his polo shirt.

“Come, on Jabril,” he wheedled the younger boy, poking him not so gently in the arm with his forefinger. “Did we make a deal or didn’t we? Huh? Huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the curly-haired boy answered impatiently. “But what’s the hurry, Michel? I said you could ride with me as long as you want. I don’t have to show up at the restaurant to work for another two hours.”

“We agreed to start at seven thirty, Jabril,” Michel answered with a nervous glance at his stainless steel military watch. I had to wait for you nearly a half hour. Yalla. We’re late.”

“All right, all right,” the younger boy said. “But can I wear it now?”

“Not till we’re finished,” Michel answered. “That’s part of the deal we made, remember?”

The younger boy glared at his companion, then he snatched the plain white bubble helmet from the handlebars and pulled it onto his head. The other boy took the remaining helmet, a sleek, metallic-black racing job that extended past the chin.

“Are you sure you remember what you’re supposed to do?” Michel reminded.

“Follow him. And don’t let him see me,” Jabril answered.

“That’s right. And if you’re ever in doubt about what to do next, just don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll catch up to you on foot if I have to.”

Jabril boarded first and kicked the engine into life. His passenger raised his feet onto the rear foot pegs and held on with white knuckles as they set off at a high rate of speed through Achrafiyé toward Place Sassine.

“Stop! Stop right here! Do you hear me?” Michel rapped his knuckles against the hard white shell of Jabril’s helmet. The motorcycle stopped abruptly as a navy blue BMW sedan performed a U-turn in the rue Furn el Hayek and stopped at the curb five or six car lengths ahead. Suddenly the BMW’s brake lights grew dark and the driver’s door opened. A brawny figure in khaki slacks, running shoes, and a white polo shirt emerged, looking around as if he half expected to have been followed. He combed his long sandy hair carefully across from left to right to cover the bald spot at the crown.

“Is that him?” the passenger whispered fiercely into the white helmet in front of him.

“I think so. It looks like him. And that’s his BMW, isn’t it?”

“You tell me, Jabril. The paper said it was a gray BMW. This one is blue. And it said he had black hair, not brown. He looks like an American, all right, but is it him?”

“Yeah, it’s him,” Jabril affirmed.

“Then jump off and follow him, for God’s sake. And remember, if there’s any trouble, I’ll sound the horn three times and meet you at the shawarma stand by Sodeco.”

“And that’s when you’ll give me your racing helmet? Promise, Michel?”

“I promise. Now, go, and don’t let him out of your sight.”

The curly-haired Jabril left the motorcycle and his white helmet with his older companion and followed the American to the apartment block, pausing just inside the entrance. As soon as he heard the elevator doors open and shut and the whirr of the electric motors begin, he stepped into the lobby and watched the digital readout above the stainless doors advance slowly through the single digits and hold at six. Jabril started up the stairwell.

He had stopped to catch his breath on the landing between the third and fourth floors when the whirring began once more. Was the American descending, or had someone on a lower floor used the call button? What should he do now? If the American managed to escape, he would have failed this simplest of missions. On the other hand, if the elevator were descending empty, he would be able to pick up the American again in the lobby. The choice being clear to him, he raced down toward the lobby. But as he emerged onto the landing between the first and second floors, suddenly a sixtyish Lebanese in a gray gabardine work jacket held a push broom across his path.

“What’s the big rush?” he asked, an avuncular grin wrinkling the folds of his heavy jowls. “Perhaps I can help you. Which one of our tenants did you come to see?”

At nearly the same moment, Bud Strickland emerged from the elevator into the lobby below and paused to adjust his eyes to the dazzling white sunlight outside. The tall boy sitting astride the Kawasaki fifty meters away started involuntarily at the sight of him. He watched the American take long visual sweeps left and right as he approached the BMW, keys in hand.

Instantly the motorcycle rider lashed out with his foot at the starter, heard the engine roar to life, and then swung the Kawasaki into the street. By the time the American stepped off the curb, the Kawasaki was on its kickstand two meters behind the BMW.

“Monsieur, êtes-vous Americain?”

“Sorry, no parlez francais,” Strickland answered perfunctorily as he stood by the car door without giving the boy in the black helmet a second look. He slipped the key into the lock, twisted it half a turn to the right, and opened the door.

The black-helmeted youth pulled the trigger twice, heard the pistol roar, and saw the American crumple sideways against the automobile, right hand still in his jacket pocket. The foreigner’s lifeless body faced Michel momentarily as it collapsed to the pavement, a pair of crimson stains forming on its shirtfront, a fixed and unseeing stare in its eyes, showing neither pain nor surprise nor anger. The smell of fresh blood rose to Michel’s nostrils, and for a moment he thought he would vomit. Instead, he took a deep breath, sank to one knee, placed the pistol muzzle ten centimeters from the base of the American’s skull and fired again. He felt bloody fragments of skin and bone spray against his trouser leg and all over the hand that gripped the pistol.

“Michel!”

Jabril’s voice penetrated the dense fog that had momentarily taken over Michel’s brain. The pistol dangled loosely at his side.

“Are you hurt?” Jabril asked, seeing the blood on his friend’s hand and trousers.

Michel looked up and watched the expression on his companion’s face change from concern to relief to horror. His ears still rang from the pistol shots.

“I lost him,” Jabril began uncertainly. “Then I heard the elevator again and...” He looked down at the body, unable to speak.

As if awakened from a dream, Michel leaped to his feet, tucked the pistol into his waistband, and wiped his blood-spattered hand on his dark trousers. Then he seized the white motorcycle helmet from the Kawasaki’s handlebars and thrust the helmet into Jabril’s belly so hard that the latter gave a startled cough.

“Yalla, shabab,” Michel ordered as he wiped his hand and wrist one last time. “I will get off at Jdeidé and we can trade helmets there.”

“Helmets?” the curly-haired youth replied dully.

“Once we get out of here, I won’t need this one anymore. It’s yours, as we have agreed. But now climb on behind me. We go.”

Chapter 17

The gray granite cobblestones in the courtyard of the Phalange intelligence compound glistened with the moisture of a late morning shower as the sun sent squadrons of purple-edged rain clouds retreating out to sea. Walter Lukash sat on a metal jerry can and watched a team of Phalange logistics men load the three Land Rovers that were to make the trip into the mountains. The logistics men had divided all the crates, boxes, and duffels earmarked for the Syrian Free Officers into three waist-high stacks, one opposite each vehicle.

Each stack was considerably larger than Lukash had expected it to be. The radios, even with ample packing materials, surely could not occupy so much volume. And the same applied to the medical supplies, which he assumed consisted primarily of pills, vials, powders, and salves, along with some bandages and surgical instruments. Lukash looked carefully at the crates on the bottom of each stack. They bore a close resemblance to ordnance crates, and the rope handles on each end testified to their considerable weight. But the crates were newly sanded and bore no markings. Lukash winced at the thought that the Phalange might be sending offensive weapons to the Free Officers, but he had no authority to prohibit it and so said nothing. If the Phalangists intended to play hardball with the Syrians, that was their business. He would report his observations to Headquarters and let them decide what the next steps should be.

Alongside each stack earmarked for the Free Officers was a smaller pile of weapons and ammunition apparently intended for defensive use by each two-man team. Lukash examined the nearest pile and recognized a pair of M-16 rifles, an M-79 grenade launcher with wooden butt stock, and a five-inch-diameter aluminum cylinder not much longer than a baseball bat, whose U.S. Army markings identified it as containing a shoulder-fired LAW, or light antitank weapon. He also distinguished five canvas ammunition pouches and a grenade belt containing a half dozen grenades.

Lukash spotted Major Elie emerging from the main entrance to the two-story headquarters building, arm in arm with his friend Fadi. Both men appeared completely relaxed and carefree, like schoolboys whose impending football game later in the afternoon could not possibly cast a shadow over events taking place before lunch. Lukash made eye contact with Elie from halfway across the courtyard, waved a friendly greeting, and stood up to receive the two men.

“No, don’t get up,” Elie said after Lukash had already risen to his feet and offered Fadi his hand. “Captain Fadi will be joining us on our mission this afternoon. He has been assigned to the third vehicle as security officer.”

Lukash wondered whether the expression on his face had betrayed his surprise at Fadi’s presence, because Elie immediately set out to explain.

“Believe me, there is no one better for the job. If we are attacked, it will be Fadi and Lieutenant Ilyas who will stay and fight while we make our escape with the equipment.”

“But you have left out my most important role, Elie,” Fadi gently reproved his friend. He turned to Lukash with a wolfish smile. If a smile like that meant Fadi was your friend, Lukash thought, then he preferred to remain a distant acquaintance. The man was a killer and no doubt had volunteered solely in the hope of having an opportunity to shed Syrian blood.

“You see, I am also the chef de cuisine for the mission,” he clarified. “On the way into the mountains, we will stop in Baskinta to buy provisions for dinner, and while we wait in our mountain hut for the rendezvous signal from our Syrian friends, I will prepare the kebab.”

Lukash nodded politely and then turned away from Fadi to glance at his watch. “How much time do we have before kickoff?” he asked Major Elie. “If there’s time, I would like to drop off my car at my flat before we leave.”

“Follow me. I will escort you in my Range Rover,” Elie volunteered. “The others can finish loading the vehicles without us.”

Elie took an obscure shortcut through the back streets on the north slope of Jebel Achrafiyé, and the two vehicles arrived at Place Sassine several minutes sooner than they would have by Lukash’s usual route. Lukash overtook the Range Rover as they roared though Place Sassine past the Café La Chasse then began the descent on rue Furn el Hayek. A few blocks farther, Lukash lowered his window and gave Elie a hand signal directing him to double-park the Range Rover while he found an empty spot at the curb for the silver BMW.

* * *

Across the street from Lukash’s apartment block, Conrad Prosser sat in his Renault listening to a Voice of Palestine announcer describe the damage caused by the latest Israeli air strike against coastal villages in South Lebanon. Israeli warplanes had flown mock air raids over Beirut that morning, as well, causing traffic jams that delayed Prosser’s crossing into East Beirut by more than an hour.

He raised his eyes when a silver BMW drove by and spotted a Range Rover following close behind. The BMW looked like Lukash’s, he thought, but he had not looked up fast enough to be certain Lukash was inside. And who was in the Rover? More than that, why was Bud Strickland’s blue BMW still parked farther down the street when no one had answered Prosser’s knocks at Lukash’s apartment door?

Prosser watched Lukash leave the car and come his way. But as he lowered his window in anticipation, the Range Rover pulled over between Lukash and the Renault. The driver was a tall Lebanese in civilian clothes, Since he was probably one of Lukash’s counterparts from Phalange intelligence, Prosser did nothing. For if Phalange intelligence were able to identify him as an Agency officer by association with Lukash, they would doubtless add his name and a description of his Renault to their watch list at every checkpoint in East Beirut.

Then the Range Rover’s passenger door opened and Lukash hopped in. A moment later both the Rover and Lukash were gone, as was any chance Prosser might have of warning him.

* * *

By the time Lukash and Major Elie returned from dropping off Lukash’s car and eating a lunch of grilled chicken and tabboulé salad at a white-tiled food stall a block from the Phalange intelligence compound, the three Land Rovers were packed, fueled, and ready to go. The two point men played skat with Fadi and Lieutenant Ilyas, using the hood of the lead Rover as their card table. The point men were black-bearded, beetle-browed bruisers in their middle twenties who had doubtless honed their fighting instincts to a fine edge during five years of skirmishing along the Green Line. The way they kept their eyes fixed on Fadi, their familiar laughter at his offhanded wit, and the nearly identical arrangement of combat knife, grenades, and ammunition pouches on the three men’s cargo suspenders led Lukash to conclude that these were not just any Phalangist thugs. They were trusted henchmen who had fought alongside Fadi in countless firefights.

“Is the checklist complete?” Major Elie called out across the cobbled yard.

“We finished a half hour ago,” Fadi boasted loudly. “You told us to be ready by half past one.”

“So I did,” Elie replied in a flat voice, perhaps sensing the same hint of insubordination in Fadi’s tone that Lukash detected. “Well, as soon as we change into uniform and stop by to see the colonel, we’ll be off.” He turned to climb the steps into the headquarters building.

“You don’t need to bother with the colonel; he’s already gone to Bikfaya for the weekend,” Fadi shouted back.

Major Elie and Lukash went directly to Elie’s office, where two sets of starched olive drab fatigues had been laid out neatly on his desk, in contrast with the tangle of web-gear cargo suspenders and pistol belts left on the seat of his swivel chair. Elie checked the sizes of the fatigues and handed Lukash the set that had been selected for him.

“Do you want a sidearm? I know you don’t usually carry one, but you might want to make an exception this time. The rendezvous site is just on the edge of the no-man’s-land between us and Syrian-held territory. You Americans would call it a ‘free-fire zone,’ I think.”

“Let’s bring one, and I’ll decide later whether to strap it on,” Lukash replied guardedly. “Which model are you offering?”

“What would you like? A Browning Hi-Power? Czech 75? Beretta?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a U.S. Army GI .45, would you?”

“For you, habibi, of course.” Elie twirled the dial of the four-drawer safe behind his desk and rolled open the topmost drawer. From it he brought out a .45 autoloader and a black leather GI holster with button flap. “How many magazines would you like?”

“Four, if you have them.”

“Here are four, and a box of cartridges.”

They dressed quickly in the starched fatigues, strapped on the holsters, and carried the webbed belts out with them. They had descended the stairs and were on the way to the lobby when Lukash hesitated.

“Excuse me, but I would like to stop at the colonel’s office for a moment.”

“But Fadi said the colonel is gone,” Elie replied.

“Ed has been trying to set an appointment with the colonel all week. Perhaps he has left a message for me. It will take just a moment.”

The two men turned down the first-floor corridor and entered the first office on the left. The balding male receptionist in the khaki safari suit whom Lukash had met on his first visit to Phalange intelligence headquarters sat behind the desk usually occupied by the colonel’s aide. A tabloid newspaper lay spread across the desk and, to the right of it, a glass of mint tea in a saucer. A Japanese clock radio played tinny Arabic music from a shelf behind his head.

The receptionist looked up. “The colonel is away,” he said in a perfunctory tone that indicated he considered himself off duty.

“When did he leave?” Lukash persisted.

The receptionist shrugged. “An hour, perhaps two? Ask outside to see the log. It will be written there.”

“And do you recall whether Monsieur Pirelli spoke to the colonel this morning before he left?”

The Lebanese shrugged again. “The colonel’s aide would know. He will return tomorrow morning. You can ask him then.”

“Do you know if Monsieur Pirelli left any messages for me? Would the messages be kept at the reception desk, too?”

“Yes, but there are no messages for you. Monsieur Pirelli called and asked to speak to you, but Captain Fadi told him you were gone and would not return before tomorrow.”

“Exactly what did Pirelli say when you spoke to him?” Lukash asked, trying not to show his rising anxiety.

“He said nothing more than that he needed to speak to you. You and Major Elie were not here, so I gave the telephone to Captain Fadi. The second time he called, Captain Fadi was gone and so I told him the same thing Fadi told him before.”

“When was the last time Monsieur Pirelli called?”

“Maybe twenty or thirty minutes ago.”

“Do you mind if I use your phone?”

“As you wish, siidi,” he replied, lifting the telephone and setting it down at the far edge of the desk.”

Lukash heard it ring once, twice, and then a woman’s voice with a Virginia Tidewater accent answered. “American embassy, economic section.” As odd as it seemed, it was the sound of home and for a brief instant he sorely missed it.

“Hello? Is Ed Pirelli available?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pirelli has stepped out of the office. May I tell him who is calling?”

“Tell him it’s Walt. Ask him to call me when he gets in. He has the number.”

“Certainly, sir.” She started to say good-bye, but he spoke first.

“I know you have rules about what you can and can’t say, but do you suppose you would be able to tell me whether Ed is somewhere around the building, or whether he’s out on an appointment? You see, I’ll be driving past the embassy before long, and I thought I might drop in if he’s likely to be back anytime soon.”

“Well, I don’t suppose I would be breaking any rules if I told you Ed left the building about a half hour ago. He didn’t say how long he would be, but he put away the papers he was working on, so I suspect it might be some time. I’m sorry, but I will make sure Mr. Pirelli sees your message as soon as he returns.”

Lukash hung up the phone. “Damn it. He’s probably on his way over here.”

“Then he is probably sitting in traffic somewhere on the other side of the port or the museum,” Major Elie added, “because all the crossing points are closed. Didn’t you hear the explosions as we were sitting down to eat? It sounded like our 155s.”

“Rats. How long do you think he could be tied up?”

“It depends,” Elie replied. “If the fighting were to end at this moment, I suppose he could be here in an hour or two.”

Lukash gritted his teeth and looked across at Major Elie as if he had a substantial favor to ask.

Elie saw what was coming and shook his head. “We can’t delay our departure that long. Maybe a half hour, but no more. We have to be settled in the hut by nightfall, and there are stops to make on the way.” He looked at his watch. “If you wish, we can delay until two thirty.”

Lukash strode purposefully to the casement window and opened it. He could hear the rumble of distant shellfire reverberating between the headquarters and its outbuildings. “No, forget it,” he answered. “We’ll leave at the scheduled time.”

* * *

The late afternoon sun shining in a cloudless Mediterranean sky cast a warm yellow glow across the snow-covered hills laid out before Lukash and created purplish shadows too dense for his eyes to penetrate. The trio of Land Rovers had been on the road for more than two hours and were still five kilometers short of Baskinta, a town of about seven thousand Maronite Christians perched on the south-facing slopes of the Rouaïs Mountains. While the Rovers were sure-footed beasts that never balked at steep slopes or sharp switchbacks, they were clearly not designed for the sort of quick acceleration and easy maneuverability that Lebanese mountain roads often demanded.

“After two or three kilometers, just before we enter Baskinta, there will be a benzine station on the right,” Elie said. “We will stop there. Most of us are well known in town and would attract attention if we stopped farther on to buy benzine or provisions. Across the road from the station is a small supermarket and butcher shop where Fadi can buy meat and anything else he may need for our dinner.”

“Do you mind if I leave you alone to buy the fuel?” Lukash said. “I’d like to ask Captain Fadi why he told Ed Pirelli I couldn’t be reached and why he didn’t inform me that Ed was trying to contact me.”

“I’m sure he had good reason,” Elie replied. “Maybe the old man was mistaken about what Fadi actually said. Or maybe Fadi was just being cautious. After all, if you received a telephone call at the American embassy from someone claiming to be Colonel Faris Nader, would you take him at his word?”

“Perhaps not. But he could have told me someone claiming to be Ed wanted to reach me.”

“Forget about it, Wali. It’s just your nerves. In another hour we will arrive at the hut, eat a delicious meal, and take a nap. By midnight we will be on our way to the rendezvous point, and by one o’clock our work will be done. At no time will we be outside the perimeter of our own territory. And if the Free Officers have the ill fortune to be detected by the Syrian army before they are able to reach us, we can always choose to abort the mission. That would be a setback for the Free Officers, of course, but all along the risk has been on their shoulders, not ours. So come, let us relax and have something to drink while Fadi finds us some food.”

They drove on for another two kilometers before the filling station came into view on the right. Fifty meters behind it was a sheer cliff, and across the valley to the north the S-shaped tracks of skiers were clearly visible on the slopes of Mount Zaarour. Apparently the Syrian occupiers had a few sportsmen among them. Someday, Lukash thought, when the Lebanese patched up their differences and sent the Syrians packing, he would return and ski Farayya, Faqra, Qanat Bakiche, and Zaarour, all in the same day.

On the opposite side of the highway, scarcely ten meters from the shoulder, stood a pair of low cinder-block structures whose last coat of white paint appeared to have been baked, blistered, and blown away many seasons ago. The larger structure was labeled “Supermarché” in professionally painted lettering while the other, unlit and padlocked, bore the hand-painted inscription “Baskinta Ski Center/Location de Ski.” Extending from the eastern side of the market was a concrete terrace resembling a carport with a concrete slab roof supported by two reinforced concrete pillars. Flayed carcasses of a sheep and a goat hung side by side from sturdy meat hooks attached to the roof. The hides of the animals were thrown to one side while a butcher went to work carving chunks of raw meat from the animals and tossing the chunks onto newspaper spread on the concrete floor.

“That’s Raymond Lahhoud,” Elie pointed out as they waited in the Rover for the pump attendant. “When we lived up here before the Events, my mother wouldn’t buy our meat from anyone but Raymond and, before Raymond, from his father. As a young man, Raymond learned the trade at Les Halles in Paris and bought his own food stall near the Place Riad Solh. He lost it all during the Events and came back to Baskinta.

“But lately business has been bad for everyone in the mountains. Some say Raymond is more interested in brandy than his business. My aunt refuses to buy goat from him anymore; she claims he has taken to feeding the goats grape mash from the arak distillery at Zahlé. Gives the goat an odd flavor, she says—a dreadful combination, goat and anise. Anyway, Raymond’s mutton and lamb are apparently still good; my aunt says the sheep won’t touch the grape mash.”

Lukash laughed. “I think I’ll follow your aunt’s example and pass up the goat. In Amman I lived downwind from a big herd of the filthy beasts. Now I can’t stand the taste or smell of anything connected to goats.”

Elie pulled up at the filling station while the other two Land Rovers dropped off Fadi and one of the two bearded point men at the supermarché. The gunman carried his M-16 carelessly by its pistol grip, its muzzle pointed downward and hanging only a few centimeters off the ground.

A moment later the teenage pump attendant appeared, took the key to the Rover’s locking gas cap, and began his work while Lukash climbed out and started across the highway. The American found a place to sit at the edge of the concrete terrace just as Fadi had begun to question Raymond about the relative merits of the two carcasses.

“Which is mutton and which goat?” Fadi began as he stared at the heads of the two animals and their hides a few meters away.

“This one is mutton,” Raymond answered without looking up from his work.

“Cut me a piece from the liver.”

Raymond reached a bloody hand into the abdominal cavity and pulled out a wriggling purplish mass the size of a small trout. He held it tightly in his left hand and sliced off a thumbnail-size chunk with a primitive wood-handled butcher knife and then offered the chunk to Fadi on the knife’s flat surface.

Fadi chewed it, murmured approval, and nodded to the bearded point man at his elbow. “Now a piece from the shoulder.”

Raymond shaved a thin slice of mutton from the animal’s shoulder and held out the knife once more to his customer.

“Mmmm. A young one,” he observed after tasting it. “Give me the same from the goat, then finis.”

Raymond scowled at the militiaman but kept his silence and offered up the slice of bloody meat.

“Ahh, very tasty. And not a hint of anise.” Fadi’s smile was full of disdain as his eyes ran quickly from the butcher to his bearded companion to Lukash. “Give me three kilos of kebab from the goat. Vite-vite. We will wait inside.”

Raymond glared back at Fadi, one hand steadying the suspended goat carcass and the other holding the massive knife vertically in the air. “As you wish,” he muttered with ill-concealed resentment before lifting one of the goat’s forelegs and hacking away at the surrounding bone and sinew.

Fadi pretended to ignore the butcher’s ungracious attitude and made for the entrance of the supermarché with the rifle-toting militiaman in tow.

Lukash decided the moment was not a good one for raising the issue of Pirelli’s telephone calls. He recrossed the highway and tried to figure out what it was about Fadi that had changed since the afternoon in the bunker along the Green Line. But all he could think of was the “Butcher of Tel al-Zaatar” stuffing the chunk of raw liver into his mouth.

* * *

The convoy reached the hut, a primitive one-room structure patterned after a Swiss mountaineering refuge, a half hour before sunset. Most of the men, including Lukash, spent the time before darkness fell gathering firewood, loading M-16 magazines, and peering over the side of the mountain at the road leading down into the Wadi Chakroub. They ate Fadi’s kebab in silence. Though the meat was tender and flavorful, Lukash had little appetite for it. All he could think of was the operation that lay ahead and his growing sense that something about it was terribly wrong.

According to the plan, shortly before midnight, an hour after the moon rose above the horizon, one of the two bearded point men would lead the way on foot down the snow-covered road while the three Land Rovers followed with headlights out. Near the base of the mountain, only two or three hundred meters above the shoulder of the wadi, they would wait for the Free Officers to arrive on snowmobiles trailing cargo sleds. The specially muffled snowmobiles belonged to Phalangist mountain warfare units based in Zahlé, a Christian enclave in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley, on the eastern slopes of the Sannine Range. The snowmobiles had already been transported secretly to a staging area high in the mountains where roads were impassable from November through April.

The Free Officers would travel through nominally Syrian-held mountain valleys to the Wadi Chakroub. From there they would be guided to the rendezvous by a beam of infrared light flashed by one of Elie’s men and rendered visible by special goggles obtained from the Zahlé-based Phalangists. The radios, medical supplies, and other equipment were calculated to be easily towable on sleds by three snowmobiles, or more slowly by two machines if one were to break down. When the equipment had been safely transferred from the Land Rovers to the sleds, Elie’s team would have accomplished its mission. The team would then withdraw up the mountain to their hut, wait until dawn, cook a hearty breakfast, and return to Beirut. The Syrian Free Officers would retreat in their snowmobiles across Syrian-held terrain to Zahlé and from there smuggle their goods across the Bekaa Valley into Syria.

At midnight, Lukash slung his M-16 over his shoulder and stared at the myriad stars in the clear winter sky as the moon inched its way above the crests of the highest peaks in the Sannine Range. He felt chilled to the bone, having woken from a shallow sleep a quarter of an hour before and emerged from the hut into a moisture-laden west wind against which his woolen commando sweater and long French army parka seemed far from adequate. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the weather could be far worse than this. The wind was mild compared to what it could be during a spring blizzard in these mountains. He thought of the day he’d spent skiing with Elie on newly fallen snow two days before and recalled how bright sunny days and balmy nights also brought the risk of avalanches like the one they had seen at Qanat Bakiche. But as he felt the weight of the M-16 in his hands, his thoughts turned from nature to the man-made dangers he faced.

Elie approached from the shadow behind the stone hut and spoke in a low voice, his face close to Lukash’s ear. “Have you inspected our equipment since we arrived?” Elie asked.

“No,” Lukash answered. “Shall I run through the checklist one more time?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. I’ll wait here.”

Lukash propped his rifle against the side of the Land Rover and climbed into the backseat. Then he sorted through the gear that he had spread out there so that it would be within easy reach of the two front seats. “The LAW is missing,” he called out from inside.

“Only the LAW?”

“Yes. The rifle magazines, grenade launcher, grenades, and the other items are exactly as I left them.”

Elie stepped up close to the Land Rover and once again spoke softly to avoid being overheard. “Fadi insists on having all three of the LAWs in the third Land Rover. He says he will need them if we are attacked, because as security officer he is responsible for engaging the enemy while the rest of us withdraw.” From the tone of Elie’s voice, Lukash could tell that he was not persuaded by the argument.

“I should think the LAWs would be better positioned in the point vehicle,” Lukash answered. “If Syrian troops take us by surprise as we make our approach, they’ll be firing from below, in the wadi. And if we beat a retreat, the point vehicle is the one that will have to stay behind while the other two Rovers climb out of the valley in reverse. There’s no way anyone’s going to turn around or pass anyone else on that goat track.”

“That is precisely what I told him. But Fadi refuses to listen. He insisted that Colonel Faris has given him complete authority over security for the mission and that he knows more about firefights than any of us.”

“So what then?”

“I told him to bring me the LAW or I would order him to stay behind at the hut. Then I asked him why he never told you that your embassy was trying to reach you on the telephone. He denied that he ever spoke to someone from your embassy. It was a lie—and a stupid one, at that. Fadi’s behavior troubles me. I feel I can no longer trust him on this mission. Yet I fear that if there is trouble with him, the other fighters may take his side—Lieutenant Ilyas and the two in the lead vehicle are his handpicked men.”

“So what do you propose we do?”

“We go forward, with Fadi or without him. And we watch.”

Lukash gave a quick look through the windshield, reached down, and slowly pulled the leather flap of his holster away from the GI .45. “Don’t turn around now,” he said to Elie, “but your man is coming toward us with a LAW under his shoulder.”

If Captain Fadi had been at all disconcerted by his earlier exchange with Elie, there was no sign of it in his expression. He exuded brash confidence, as he had all evening. “Tfaddal,” he said as he extended the thick brown tube toward Elie. His grin seemed to mock them. “If you desire it, it is yours.”

“What about the point men? Did you return theirs, too?”

“They do not desire it. Why? Would you like a second LAW?”

“Give it back to them anyway,” Elie commanded.

“So, my friend. I see you do not trust me in this. That saddens me, because I have always thought that you and I were much alike. Now, it seems, you prefer the company of foreigners who hold their noses in the air because they disapprove of our methods and cannot abide the smell of goats. As you wish, Elie. You have made your choice. Come, let us give these Syrian devils their due and settle our differences on our return to Beirut.”

Fadi tossed the metal tube in the air and Lukash caught it by its webbed shoulder strap. Elie said nothing as Fadi walked past them and took his place in the passenger seat of the third Land Rover.

“Yalla, shabab!” Elie shouted to the point men as he handed up the two M-16s to Lukash. Then the major climbed in, turned on the ignition, and followed the lead Land Rover up the hill.

They drove for a quarter of an hour before either man spoke again.

“It’s no use. I have been trying to think of—”

Lukash laid a hand on Elie’s shoulder to silence him and then took the pencil from the clipboard at his feet, scribbling a short message in large block letters barely visible in the moonlight.

“FADI CAN HEAR US. LIVE RADIO? ”

Elie motioned for the clipboard and wrote with one hand while Lukash held the board steady. “PERHAPS. I HEARD WHAT HE SAID ABOUT YOU AND GOATS.”

“HE ALSO SPOKE OF ANISE. HOW LIKELY IS THAT?”

Elie frowned and gestured for the clipboard again. “OPEN THE LAW. IF TROUBLE, HIT FADI’S ROVER FIRST.”

Lukash felt instinctively for his pistol and then for the two grenades in his parka pockets. He removed two more grenades from the grenade belt at his feet and tucked one in each of Elie’s cargo pockets.

“Merci, ktiir,” Elie said with a grim smile.

The incline was less steep now. Around the next bend Lukash saw the road widen as it emerged onto a shelf fifty meters wide, crossed a shallow ravine over a double-pylon concrete bridge, and then continued through a similar shelf a hundred meters farther on before starting the final descent toward the Wadi Chakroub.

Lukash watched the bearded point man mount the bridge on foot, examine it closely for telltale wires or explosive charges, and then wave his partner in the first Land Rover across. By now Elie and Lukash had traveled a quarter of the length of the first shelf. In the side-view mirror, Lukash spotted the third Rover coming around the bend behind them. They stopped, and the Rover stopped a few dozen meters behind them.

The point man, still on foot, waved to Elie and they advanced again. Ahead of them the point man directed his partner in the first Land Rover to back into the deep shadow of a small canyon on the far side of the bridge and turn around. As Elie’s Rover crossed the bridge and drove onto the second shelf, they were directed into the canyon to do the same.

As a result, the first two Rovers were soon pointed back up the hill while Fadi’s third Rover remained above them facing downward on the western side of the bridge, parked behind a rocky outcropping that largely hid it from view of the road and valley below.

“Now we wait,” Elie said.

Lukash looked at the luminous dial on his wristwatch and said nothing. It was a quarter before one. He looked out the window in time to see one of the point men take up position behind a boulder at the far edge of the shelf and flash his infrared signal down into the Wadi Chakroub.

It seemed like an eternity before Lukash heard the muffled whine of the first snowmobile. It started as a barely audible drone, then grew in volume and before long added the crunch of treads breaking up crusted snow. A moment later the tracked vehicle appeared around a switchback and the point man waved it into the shadowy canyon. The second snowmobile arrived a few seconds later and followed the tracks of the first to the tailgate of Elie’s Land Rover. The snowmobiles were painted entirely in white, and the three men who rode them wore white camouflage snowsuits, doubtless also provided by the resourceful Phalangists of Zahlé.

The officer who had identified himself to Conrad Prosser as Syrian air force lieutenant Mazen Barghouti, and who had later negotiated with the Phalange over the terms of the equipment transfer, was the first of the three Syrian oppositionists to step forward.

“We lost one of the snow machines,” he said in Arabic, dispensing with the usual greetings and formalities. “Engine trouble in the wadi a couple of kilometers from here. We shall have to take all that we can on two machines. Come—let us put the heavier pieces behind the first sled, as its machine has only one rider. If all else fails, it is the sled that must get through.”

“How was the trip, Lieutenant? Did you run into any of your countrymen?” Elie asked.

The lieutenant shook his head soberly. “No tracks, no lights, no noises, no nothing,” he announced. “Perhaps we should have seen more. But…we are here.”

“Those machines of yours are quieter than I expected,” Elie remarked. “I doubt any sentry would hear you in this wind unless you passed close enough to kick snow in his face. Now, can I offer your men some hot coffee or tea?”

“That would be very kind of you. We are airplane pilots, not alpinists. I believe I have never been so cold in my life.” He stomped his feet and slapped his hands together inside gigantic white mittens.

Elie reached under the driver’s seat of the Land Rover and brought out a metal thermos. He poured the cup two-thirds full and handed it to the lieutenant, who passed it to his two companions before taking a sip.

“All right,” Elie declared, “let’s pack the sleds and put these men back on the path they came from.”

While the Syrians looked on, the three Lebanese and the American worked quickly to arrange the load on the sleds behind both snowmobiles so that neither was overburdened or in danger of overturning on a sharp curve. The entire loading process took less than fifteen minutes. It was shortly after one o’clock in the morning.

“As soon as you drop out of sight around that first curve, we will start back up the mountain,” Elie told the lieutenant. “When we get back to the main road, we will watch the valley until dawn to be sure that you have made it across. May Allah be with you on your journey, Lieutenant.”

The two men embraced, and then each Syrian embraced each Phalangist in turn, including Lukash. As Elie had promised, the two Land Rovers remained in place until the point man saw the second snowmobile disappear from view. With that, the point men took their places in the first Land Rover and led the way back across the bridge.

Moments later a flash of light directly ahead drew Lukash’s attention, and in the next instant he saw the Land Rover draw a lazy arc through the air and land on its side twenty meters to the left of the road, near the eastern edge of the shelf, its undercarriage ablaze. A split second later the shock wave of the explosion sent rocks, dust, and slivers of shrapnel against the windshield of his own Rover, turning its safety glass suddenly white with a thousand minute cracks.

Before Lukash could respond, Elie had whipped the steering wheel around sharply to the left and sent the Land Rover charging down the shoulder of the road into the shallow ravine beneath the bridge in search of a place where it was shallow enough to cross. Thirty yards farther on, the vehicle swung violently away from the stream, then back again, and charged across the shallow streambed. For a fleeting moment Lukash felt the earth drop out from under him. The worn-out shock absorbers bottomed out and the Rover pitched and bucked, but it kept moving forward through the slush and rotten ice. A moment later, its forward momentum by no means spent, it clawed its way up the opposite bank and onto an access road that led up to the western bridgehead.

Lukash and Major Elie looked back to the east across the bridge at the flaming hulk of the first Land Rover and stared open-mouthed at the glowing red tracer bullets still pouring into the wreck from machine guns hidden in the hills above them to the north and east. Minutes later, as they examined the wreck from the relative protection of a massive boulder, it seemed impossible to Lukash that either of the two point men could have survived the explosion, the crash, or the subsequent machine-gun fire.

Elie pulled his Land Rover back onto the main road and at once Lukash heard something resembling the distant clatter of a jackhammer, followed almost instantly by the eerie whistle of a bullet tumbling end over end as it passed them by. Now a trail of heavy machine-gun bullets raked the rock wall behind the Rover, sending rock fragments clattering against Lukash’s side of the vehicle.

“Where’s Fadi, for God’s sake?” Elie burst out. “Why isn’t he returning fire?”

Around the next bend, a hundred meters ahead of them, the third Land Rover was angled across the roadway at its narrowest point. Fadi and the driver scrambled out the doors, rifles in hand, and took up positions behind the vehicle’s engine compartment, aiming straight for Elie’s oncoming Land Rover. The rifleman on the left fired a short burst from his M-16, and the bullets crackled like firecrackers as they flew past Lukash’s open window.

“Don’t stop! Ram them! Aim your right fender for their rear wheels—it’ll swing them around. Faster!” Lukash screamed.

“It’s too narrow!” Elie shouted back as he reached across the steering wheel with his left hand and seized the hand brake with his right. In a single movement, he spun the wheel violently around and jerked up on the hand brake so that the Rover spun around and showed its rear end to the two gunmen. As the Rover’s rearward momentum slowed, Elie shifted into first gear and headed back downhill toward the bridge.

“We must find cover,” he told Lukash. “When we stop, take up your rifle and follow me.”

One of the machine gunners on the next hill began firing regular three-round bursts that skipped along the ground to the left of the Land Rover. Elie brought the steering wheel around hard and sent the Rover skidding broadside into a mound of knee-high boulders. Lukash gathered up as many sacks of ordnance as he could hold from among those piled in the backseat and swung his legs out the door. Elie tumbled out behind him.

They had no sooner toppled forward onto the rocks than strobe-like muzzle flashes cast their flickering shadows against the snow-covered hillside behind them. An instant later a scattering of bullets hit the exposed side of the Land Rover, scattering tiny fragments of safety glass over their legs and backs. The muzzle flashes came from the direction of Fadi’s makeshift barricade, and Lukash could tell from the extremely rapid rate of fire that the bullets were being shot from a Phalangist M-16 and not from a Syrian AK-47.

Then a moment later the firing stopped, and the only sound they could hear was that of the wind fanning the gasoline-fed flames of the burning Land Rover.

“The Syrians will come for us soon,” Elie said. “First they will pin us down with mortar and machine-gun fire, and then they will send a squad of troops up the road to flush us out. They will have orders to take us alive—I am sure of it. For you, that is not so terrible. You would bring a high price from your government, and the Syrians know how to drive a hard bargain. Maybe they will be able to extract a confession from you. But for me there will be no ransom, no bargaining, no exchange—only torture and death. For me the only chance is to get past Fadi and Ilyas and stay hidden among the rocks farther to the rear until our local boys along the next ridge hear our gunfire and come to retake the road from the Syrians. This is Phalange territory; once our boys arrive, the Syrians dare not remain.”

“Then let’s keep moving,” Lukash replied.

Elie looked askance at Lukash, as if he had expected the American to surrender, and then flashed an animated grin. “Do you still have the LAW?” Elie asked.

Lukash groped among the pouches, slings, and ammunition belts he had retrieved from the Land Rover but could not find the metal cylinder. “I can’t find it; I must have left it in the Rover.”

But Elie did not hear him. He seemed to be straining his ears to pick up some distant sound in the valley. “There it is. Do you hear it? Automatic rifle fire, below in the wadi.”

“Do you think the flight lieutenant...?”

Elie lowered his head. “The Syrian army must have waited until the transfer was complete. Now Damascus will have exactly what it wants. And perhaps Colonel Faris as well. For I believe the colonel warned them of our arrival and ordered Fadi not to let us return alive.”

“But why? If the colonel had wanted us dead, he could have had us killed in Beirut or on the road to Baskinta or back at the hut. Why here?”

“To give the Syrians proof of American aid to their oppositionists,” he suggested. “And perhaps because he discovered my assistance to American intelligence.”

“But that’s impossible, Elie. We never even spoke of it until Wednesday, and that was on a mountaintop with nobody else within a kilometer of us.”

“But we spoke of it in your automobile, on the way back to Beirut. Do you remember the Mercedes that followed us from Baskinta to the end of the autostrade?”

“A bug…in my car?”

Elie nodded. “Not long ago we caught a traitor by installing a small tape recorder under the passenger seat of a French intelligence officer’s Peugeot. It was activated by a pressure switch so that it would record whenever a passenger rode in the car. We changed the tape every time the Frenchman came to see us.” He paused, his voice filled with self-reproach. “Your car is in our compound every day, Wali. I should have thought of it from the beginning.”

“What happened to the Frenchman?” Lukash asked facetiously. “Was he taken out to the mountains and shot, too?”

Elie laughed with bitter irony. “Of course not. Your situation is entirely different from that of the French officer. Colonel Faris wants you killed or captured tonight to prove to the Syrians that your government is helping the Syrian Free Officers. Don’t you see it? The Syrians now have the lieutenant, the radios, the medical supplies, and the other equipment, and soon they will have us as well. Ah, it is so simple! Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

From the wadi came the crump of a mortar round being fired.

“They will test the range with a single mortar tube. Once they have bracketed their target, other mortars will join in. And when that happens, the air above us will be so thick with shrapnel that it will become impossible for us to raise our heads. Now, before the mortars find their range, we must advance quickly to kill Fadi and IIyas or at least drive them back up the mountain.

“Listen closely: when I go forward, open fire at the Land Rover in short bursts until you run out of ammunition or I have dropped to the ground. Then insert a fresh magazine and move forward along the rock face while I cover you. If we succeed in outflanking them, they must retreat or face death. Believe me, they will retreat.”

At that moment they heard a voice calling out from somewhere near Fadi’s Land Rover. “Leave them, Captain! Surely they must be dead by now. We must go!”

“Take the car five hundred meters back up the road,” came the reply. “I will follow.”

A few seconds later Lukash heard the throaty engine of Fadi’s Rover being started, and a moment later it was out of sight. From across the valley came another crump, and then yet another a few seconds later, as the Syrian mortar adjusted its range.

Major Elie leaped to his feet and ran toward the place where the Rover had been.

The two men advanced as Elie had proposed, one after the other. Twice Captain Fadi was able to fire off short bursts from his M-16 before being pinned down again. Lukash saw a dark form retreat around the next bend in the road.

Then the first mortar shell dropped into a deep snowdrift some twenty meters above the roadway where Elie and Lukash had left their disabled Land Rover. The explosion triggered a minor landslide of snow, rock, and dirt onto the abandoned vehicle. A second mortar shell fell just below the lip of the road, sending a hail of stones harmlessly in all directions. Additional rounds fell behind them as the two men advanced up the roadway.

Fadi saw his chance to gain safety around the next bend and raced across the forty meters of road that separated him from the next rocky outcrop. Elie let loose with his M-16, but his aim was high and Fadi made good his escape.

As the mortar rounds had by now nearly found the spot from which Elie and Lukash were firing, both men rose and headed around the curve with their rifles held ready to fire from the hip. Just short of reaching cover, a mortar shell detonated behind Elie, lifting him off the ground, spinning him in a cartwheel, and setting him down roughly on the exposed shoulder of the road. This time Elie did not get back up.

Lukash, having already dropped to the ground, looked back for his partner and found no one. He was out of the range of the heavy machine gun, but not out of range of the mortar’s high-arching trajectory. He peered back around the corner and saw Elie lying motionless. “Elie, just another ten meters and you’re in the clear,” he called out. “Can you make it?”

A string of heavy machine-gun bullets pounded the granite wall behind Elie, sending a stinging shower of rock fragments onto his legs. Elie did not move.

Lukash put his rifle down and set out crawling across the road on his belly toward Major Elie. As soon as he reached him, he shook the Phalangist by the shoulders. Though Elie failed to stir, Lukash thought he heard a faint moan from him.

He tried to drag Elie forward by the collar of his French army parka, but the man was too heavy and the ground too rocky. The next mortar round fell just beneath the lip of the road, spreading its deadly shrapnel without harm into the valley below.

“Hold on,” Lukash said as he turned Elie onto his back, hoisted him onto his shoulders, and staggered back toward the rocks.

Elie awoke and shrieked with pain; Lukash felt the man’s body stiffen with the effort of screaming. He carried him another ten meters around the bend, out of mortar range. Somehow he knew Elie would not be able to travel any farther, but if he could only hold on, perhaps the local Phalangist contingent would retake the road from the east. In the faint light of the cloud-covered moon, Lukash examined Elie’s head, neck, chest, and back for wounds, found none, and moved on to the arms and legs. The damage was to his right leg: crushed to a pulp above the knee. Lukash stripped Elie’s web belt from his trousers and began looping it around his leg to serve as a tourniquet.

“Elie, can you hear me?”

No response.

“Elie, listen to me. I’m going to stop the bleeding in your leg. This belt of yours is going to do the job just fine. Now, all you’ve got to do is just hang on, okay? I’ll be here with you, so don’t worry about a thing. Lots of guys have survived wounds worse than this one, okay? So, just lie down and—”

The crack of a single rifle bullet passing over Lukash’s left shoulder startled him and made him drop the belt before he had a chance to tighten it. He turned in the direction of the gunfire and saw another muzzle flash about eighty meters up the road. He flattened himself and in the same instant heard a second sharp crack as another bullet passed a few inches over his head.

He rolled over and grasped his rifle and then fumbled for the selector switch to put it back on semiautomatic. Fadi had it right, of course: in the dark, at eighty meters, with your target taking cover behind rocks, the only chance of scoring a hit was to fire a single round at a time. He waited in the silence for his eyes to readjust to the darkness, saw a slight movement near where the previous muzzle flash had been, and squeezed off a round from his M-16.

A moment later a mortar round fell about a hundred meters ahead, illuminating Captain Fadi from behind. Lukash fired instantly, kicking up a wisp of dust at Fadi’s elbow. Then he heard a deep rumbling roar unlike anything he knew. It came from behind Fadi, and after a moment Lukash reasoned that it must be the sound of an avalanche set in motion when the latest mortar round exploded in an accumulation of wet snow.

He watched as tons of snow and ice poured down the mountainside onto the road and cascaded into the valley. It was only a minor snowslide, lasting fifteen seconds or less, but to Lukash it seemed far longer. And now the road behind Captain Fadi had suddenly become impassable for a stretch of thirty meters or more, closing off his line of retreat to the waiting Land Rover.

Fadi fired another round at Lukash, but this time it passed several meters wide. Lukash held his fire as Fadi clambered up the head-high wall of snow and ice. Though agile, the Phalangist had apparently underestimated how difficult it would be to traverse the thirty-meter field of slush, which was already hardening into a cement-like consistency in the frigid night air.

Lukash advanced at a trot while the Phalangist scrambled clumsily across the slushy mess. He heard Fadi shout to Lieutenant Ilyas with a note of panic in his voice. “Wait! Ilyas! Don’t leave me! Climb up those rocks and cover me, for God’s sake!”

The driver did as he was told, within moments appearing silhouetted against a snow-flecked boulder as he raised his rifle to fire at Lukash. The Lebanese pulled off a short burst on full automatic, but the rounds went high. Lukash dropped to one knee, fired a single shot to the militiaman’s chest, and saw his body lift before falling backward onto the snow. Fadi looked up, saw his fallen companion, and redoubled his desperate effort to traverse the icy mush. He fell on his face in the snow, rose, lost his balance again, and began crawling on all fours, rifle slung across his back, the sound of his heaving breath audible to Lukash from twenty meters behind.

Lukash advanced in the holes made by Fadi’s feet and soon had a clear line of sight at the man’s retreating back. He fired a round overhead and ordered Fadi to halt.

“Stand up, hands in the air, and unsling your rifle slowly with one finger.”

The captain gasped for air, his chest heaving as he rose, and did as he was told.

“Now kick the rifle toward me and do the same with your ammo belt.”

Again, Fadi followed instructions, his breathing now less convulsive than before.

“Now the parka. Unzip it and let it drop. Slowly…”

Fadi pulled the zipper deliberately from his neck to his waist with his right hand and stopped short. He brought his left hand forward, as if to force a jammed zipper, but instead found a grenade inside, pulled the pin, and tossed it at Lukash’s feet.

Lukash dove away from it, stayed down until the grenade had detonated harmlessly in the snow, then raised his head to find Fadi, who was now within three paces of reaching the other side of the packed snow. Lukash held his breath, aimed his rifle at the center of Fadi’s back, and fired.

He watched the Phalangist’s body topple forward. But the detonation of yet another mortar round between him and the Land Rover reminded him that he was far from being out of danger. He picked himself up, slung his M-16 over his shoulder, and crawled toward Captain Fadi. Pulling out his GI .45-caliber pistol, he held it to Fadi’s temple as he felt the man’s throat for a pulse. There was none. He holstered the .45 and headed toward the edge of the avalanche ice.

Lukash had no sooner arrived at the edge of the ice, within twenty paces of the surviving Land Rover, when he remembered Major Elie. He looked back across the ice. How would he be able to carry Major Elie across it? Three more rapid-fire crumps sounded in the valley. The Syrians were stepping up their barrage.

He looked across the fallen snow once more, trying to remember exactly where he had left the major. Who could possibly blame me for escaping? he thought. Besides, who would ever know what really happened? By now Elie had to be a goner.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, and retraced his steps across the ice, praying that the mortar rounds would keep their distance.

Finding his way back to the major went much more quickly than he expected, since the slushy mix had hardened to a large extent. He reached the place where he and Fadi had clambered onto the avalanche field and spotted Elie’s booted leg extending from behind a rock not far away.

The major’s throat was already cold when Lukash attempted to take his pulse. The belt lay loose around his leg, just as he had left it. Major Elie had bled to death. Recognizing his fatal error, Lukash bellowed in frustration and slammed his fists against the icy ground. “God forgive me,” he muttered and then turned around wearily to recross the avalanche debris for a third time.

He was halfway across when the next salvo of mortar shells rained down on the road behind him. They followed him across the icy debris of the avalanche until at last he reached the far side and dashed up the road to the still-intact Land Rover in which Captain Fadi and Lieutenant Ilyas had intended to make their escape.

Lukash started the Rover and headed back up the mountain toward the hut just as the Phalange’s big 155-millimeter howitzers began firing from Qanat Bakiche, sending huge shells into Wadi Chakroub that quickly silenced the Syrian mortars. Each shell sounded like a freight train as it passed overhead, sending shock waves reverberating from every rock wall as it exploded. Before long Lukash passed the hut where his team had spent the evening and soon after crossed the ridgeline separating Wadi Chakroub from the Phalangist heartland.

After an hour of creeping forward without daring to use headlamps, Lukash at last saw the lights of Baskinta twinkling in the distance. Less than a mile ahead he spotted a wood fire in an oil drum where an informal roadblock had been set up. He considered briefly whether the troops who manned it were more likely to be local Phalangists or Colonel Faris’s intelligence men. But the distinction was probably irrelevant, because in either case they would likely turn him over to Colonel Faris. And if they did, his fate would be sealed.

Finding a ravine whose boulder-strewn bottom was only poorly visible from the road, he pulled the Land Rover onto the shoulder and stepped out. Removing as much M-16 ammunition from the vehicle as he could reasonably carry, he stashed it on a ledge that was out of sight from the road. Then he seized the Rover’s steering wheel and pushed the vehicle down the shallow incline until its front wheels dropped over the edge. A moment later the Rover gained speed and tumbled forward into the ravine, bouncing off one rocky surface after another for more than a hundred meters before coming to rest in a crumpled heap.

Having thus disguised his back trail, Lukash started up the mountain with his M-16 and spare ammunition and set off on a course calculated to bypass the Phalange roadblock and bring him back to Baskinta.

Chapter 18

Lukash stood motionless at the side of the road, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his French military parka, and listened to the trailing murmur of the old truck whose grizzled driver had given him a ride through Baskinta on his way toward the coast. It had been a long night and he was cold, hungry and exhausted, but Wadi Chakroub was far behind him now. The air was heavy with a seaborne mist that climbed the pine-studded hills in sluggish clouds yet seemed never to rise above treetop level. Although somewhere east of Damascus the sun was rising, in the hill town of Bikfaya, family seat of the Gemayel clan and spiritual home of the Phalange Party, the skies failed to show the light.

Lukash advanced on foot past an uneven row of snow-covered automobiles and approached the lighted windows of the filling station. Through the window he saw the grease-stained red ski jacket and immediately recognized the oldest son of Major Elie’s cousin slouched on a tall stool behind the cash register reading a comic book. The sound of boots splashing through heavy slush alerted the teenager to Lukash’s approach, and he raised his eyes without apparent curiosity or alarm.

“Sabah an-nour, Jibran,” Lukash greeted him, relieved at being able to remember the boy’s name.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” the boy replied dully.

“Did Major Elie come by here last night to tell you I was coming?”

The boy titled his head back a few degrees, looked out through hooded eyes, and made a “tsk” noise that in the Levant signified a rather bored “no.”

“Were you working here last night?”

The boy repeated the gesture.

Lukash stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He must have been in too much of a hurry to get up the mountain. I need to follow him. Can you give me a ride to Qanat Bakiche? I’ll pay you: fifty lira.”

The boy scowled and shook his head. “I cannot leave the pumps. Our customers need to fill their tanks before setting out for Jounié and Beirut. With the rationing, it is difficult to buy benzine there.”

“Then do you have a car you can let me use for the day? I will pay you for it, of course.”

The boy gave Lukash a hard look, and then a faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Use my car. Three hundred lira the day, plus benzine.”

Lukash unbuttoned his breast pocket and removed a money clip with a folded wad of Lebanese banknotes. He picked out three one-hundred-lira notes from the center and handed them over. “Where is it? For that kind of money I expect a car that runs without problems.”

The boy pointed to a huge Mercedes touring car that looked as old as Lukash but whose polished, ivory-hued finish seemed to fairly glow in the semidarkness. It was a car for a bank director or a militia chief, not an eighteen-year-old pump jockey.

“When you will bring it back?” the teenager asked.

“Tonight,” Lukash answered. “If I am not here by closing time, you can reach me through Major Elie. You have his number?”

The boy nodded perfunctorily, stuffed the bills into a zippered pocket in the arm of his ski jacket, and fished a key ring out of his trousers.

Lukash took it and, without another glance at the boy, started across the slush-covered asphalt toward the Mercedes.

At first he drove eastward toward the intersection with the secondary road leading to Baskinta, but after less than a kilometer he circled around and headed back toward the western side of town, where the largest of the walled villas lined the town’s imitation of Beirut’s Corniche. There he surveyed one side street after the next, avoiding the main road as much as possible to avoid the appearance of loitering, but never straying far from the villa of Colonel Faris Nader. By seven o’clock the westward traffic on the Corniche became noticeably heavier. If the colonel was in his villa and expected to reach Phalange intelligence headquarters by eight thirty, he would have to leave very soon.

Lukash spotted a pushcart vendor near the western end of the Corniche and stopped to buy a bag of sunflower seeds. In Beirut a Mercedes was the least conspicuous model of car on the road—sometimes it seemed that fully half the city’s population of cars consisted of white Mercedes sedans. But here on Bikfaya’s main street he wondered how long he could wait and circle, circle and wait, wait and circle around the colonel’s villa before somebody noticed the mint-condition touring car.

Lukash leaned across the leather seat to roll down the passenger window for the pushcart vendor, a wizened old man whose olive military parka closely resembled his own. As he handed over a five-lira bill, he heard a car kick up a spray of slush against the Mercedes as it passed and looked up in time to recognize the colonel’s gold Volvo sedan.

“God be with you,” he told the old man as he took the bag of seeds from him and rolled up the window without waiting for change.

The car’s five-liter engine had better acceleration than he expected of a thirty-year-old car. Lukash was able to keep the Volvo in view while he caught up to it, then maintained a standoff distance of about two hundred meters as they climbed the first grade before beginning the long descent toward the coast.

He knew he would not be able to hang behind the Volvo for long. The colonel would surely notice the white Mercedes in his rearview mirror kilometer after kilometer while other cars either passed him or dropped out of sight. Lukash would have to come up on him soon and make his move. But how? Possibly a glancing blow against the front fender while passing on an outside curve. Or maybe he should come abreast with the Volvo and blast away with his .45. But that would require him to score with his first shot or two, because the colonel would surely have a Kalashnikov or a machine pistol on the seat beside him.

The Mercedes was in fourth gear now, and it was becoming more difficult to maintain the pace as the Volvo accelerated around the rocky foothills of the Sannine Range. The suspension had doubtless been the best available in 1950, but it was unresponsive and sloppy now, and Lukash’s hands ached from gripping the steering wheel as if someone were trying to wrest it from his hands.

He heard the screech of rubber and realized he had entered the curve going too fast. He was less than a hundred meters behind the Volvo now, but he despaired of ever closing the distance. To descend any faster on such treacherous roads would be suicidal. The road leveled out again and then swept around to the right in a 200-meter straightaway before disappearing into the black hole of a two-lane tunnel. Lukash stepped on the accelerator and raced to beat the Volvo to the tunnel’s mouth.

Fifty meters in front of the opening, he pushed the accelerator to the floor. As he nosed ahead of the Volvo, he saw the colonel cast a sideward glance to see what kind of rustaud was passing him at the entrance to tunnel. A momentary look of confusion passed over the colonel’s face, then panic as Lukash twisted the steering wheel savagely to the right. The right rear fender of his Mercedes crumpled against the left rear wheel of the Volvo. The colonel slammed on his brakes but, possessing neither enough time or space to avoid the collision, ran the Volvo head-on into the tunnel’s stony buttress.

Lukash stopped the car inside the tunnel and shifted into reverse, backing out rapidly until he saw daylight again, and pulled in behind the Volvo. He stepped out of the Mercedes and removed the .45 automatic from its holster. Very little time remained before the next car might come along.

An eerie silence surrounded the wrecked Volvo, its engine compartment now foreshortened to half its depth where it pressed against the mountain. The colonel hardly had enough time to know what hit him, Lukash thought, and he steeled himself for the sight and smell of bloody mayhem. He tugged on the driver’s door and, to his surprise, it opened easily. The colonel lay slumped forward, still held at the waist by his seatbelt, his bloodied brow resting on the car’s dashboard beneath the skullcap-size indentation it had created in the shattered safety glass.

Lukash laid two fingers along the colonel’s throat and drew them back, surprised that the colonel could still be alive after a head-on collision of such force. The flow of blood was light and came primarily from shallow cuts just above the colonel’s hairline. In a few minutes another motorist would likely come by on his way to the coast and take the victim to the nearest infirmary, where the colonel might conceivably revive and have the presence of mind to report Lukash’s escape. If so, the colonel’s organization would be certain to alert all Phalange-controlled checkpoints to arrest Lukash on sight.

Once he was in custody, Phalange intelligence would doubtless spin a stirring tale of the late Walter Lukash’s courage under Syrian fire for the benefit of Pirelli and Ambassador Ravenel, but no body would ever be produced. If the Phalangists took him alive, he would be locked away in the cellars under the Phalange intelligence compound and not even his screams would emerge.

Lukash poked the colonel in the ribs with the muzzle of his .45 but evoked no response. He pulled his combat knife out of his pocket and made a small cut in the man’s ear. Still no reaction. He aimed the .45 at the base of Colonel Faris Nader’s skull. But he could not bring himself to pull the trigger.

Lukash returned to the Mercedes, inserted his key in the trunk lock, and opened the lid. Then he went back to the Volvo, seized the colonel by the wrists, dragged his limp body toward the open lid, and dumped it in. For good measure, he stripped the colonel of his narrow leather belt, wrapped it tightly around the man’s wrists, and knotted it behind his back before slamming the lid on the trunk.

He drove cautiously the rest of the way through the coastal hills, having no idea how soon, if ever, the colonel would awaken. He feared that a curve or a bump taken a bit too fast might elicit a frenzied fit of screaming or kicking or possibly even a daring escape attempt while the Mercedes was bottled up in heavy traffic. But as he drove, a plan was forming in his mind. Twenty minutes later the Mercedes swung in a wide left arc onto the coastal autostrade and joined the slowly advancing traffic toward Beirut.

Every time the cars ahead of him stopped, his doubts and fears returned. If the colonel were to stomp his feet against the door or emit a stream of muffled shouts within earshot of the early morning commuters, he might attract a great deal of attention, and no matter what kind of tale Lukash told, the Lebanese would likely take the colonel’s side against that of a foreigner. But before long, traffic moved freely again, and at last the autostrade came to an end at Jdaidé. Lukash breathed a sigh of relief and turned east toward the port crossing.

Before he attempted to cross the Green Line into West Beirut, he would need to shed his parka and Phalange uniform and find some civilian clothes. Lukash wondered whether Phalange intelligence would have already placed his apartment and the silver BMW under surveillance. Might they already suspect that he had survived the mountain ambush? Possibly, he thought, if they had searched the ambush site by morning light and done a body count. But they would have had no reason to alert the checkpoints to stop him unless the colonel had already known of his escape before setting off for Beirut. And the look of surprise on the colonel’s face when Lukash forced him off the road revealed that he had not.

The sun began to burn its way slowly through the thin cloud cover and the air temperature rose steadily. Lukash wondered about the temperature in the car’s trunk and prayed that the colonel would not wake up from the heat while the Mercedes was parked within a block or two of Lukash’s apartment building. Once he had his civilian clothes and his American passport, in a matter of minutes he could be back over the Green Line and into West Beirut, where no Phalangist would dare to follow.

Lukash climbed the eastern slope of Jebel Achrafiyé, driving through Place Sassine and past Café La Chasse on his way to the apartment building on rue Furn el Hayek. He made a rapid pass on the street behind the building, and his heart leaped at the familiar sight of his silver BMW. He made sure that no one was watching from any of the parked cars on either side of the block and then swung around and double-parked opposite a shawarma sandwich stand, whose young proprietor he had cultivated for just such an occasion as this.

Stepping past a polished red motorcycle parked at the curb, Lukash strode up to the counter in his olive drab parka, its hood pulled over his head. The proprietor, a tall, wiry youth of about twenty with broad shoulders and slender hips, dressed in jeans and a soiled white apron, gazed up at him with cautious deference.

“Michel, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Wali? Is that you?” the youth asked, startled to see his American customer dressed as a Phalangist fighter. “But why are you—?”

“Never mind,” Lukash interrupted. “I need you to help me get me something from my car. Could you bring me the black zippered bag in the trunk? It’s parked around the corner. If you do it right now, it’s worth fifty lira to you.”

The boy recovered his composure, pulled the apron over his head, and hung it from a nail on the door. “Perhaps someone’s boyfriend or husband is looking for you?” he asked with a knowing leer.

“Maybe,” Lukash answered mirthlessly as he handed over the keys. “It’s a silver BMW, license 613151. And if anyone tries to talk to you or follow you, just walk past the car without doing anything and come back here. I’ll pick the bag up later.”

Michel returned a few minutes later with a black parachute-cloth duffel and a broad grin on his face. No one had followed him, he said. Lukash took the bag, gave the youth a fifty-lira note, and drove off in the direction of the museum checkpoint.

As soon as the Mercedes was out of sight, the curly-haired shawarma stand operator stuffed the note into his apron pocket and picked up the telephone. “Monsieur Hammouche? This is Michel. I have seen him.”

* * *

Halfway down rue Sassine, on the south-facing slope of Achrafiyé, Lukash turned off the road and stopped the Mercedes behind a half-built stone wall. There he shed his uniform in the sedan’s backseat and dressed in his civilian clothes, patting his trouser pocket to confirm that his wallet was still there. He did the same to the breast pocket of his jacket and felt the stiff cover of his diplomatic passport.

Not until he was fifty meters from the bottom of the hill and about to enter the Corniche Pierre Gemayel did he notice a black-helmeted motorcyclist and passenger coming upon him from behind on a midsize motorcycle. He slowed down to let the cyclists pass, but the distance between the Mercedes and the motorcycle seemed to remain constant. Lukash turned right and watched the motorcyclists follow him into the traffic circle opposite the Palais de Justice.

Lukash went halfway around the traffic circle and returned the same way he had come. This time the motorcycle did not follow him. He continued eastward along the Corniche for nearly a kilometer and then stopped again at a takeout food shop. There he bought two cans of guava juice, guzzled them down immediately, and gave the cashier a coin to use her telephone.

He tried the embassy first. The economic counselor’s secretary answered the phone and reported that Pirelli was not expected in the office until early afternoon. On his next try, the receptionist for the political section blithely remarked that she had not seen Conrad Prosser all morning and suggested that Lukash try the phone at Prosser’s apartment. She recited the number and Lukash wrote it on the back of his hand. On the fourth ring someone picked up.

“Connie? What are you doing at home, man? Another one of those vodka hangovers?” Lukash forced a smile and tried to behave as if the call were purely social.

“No, I was just making myself a bite to eat before I drive a friend to the airport.”

“Amazing. I’m on the way there myself. Do you suppose you could take a few extra minutes and meet me on the way—say, in about twenty minutes? I’ll be parked on Avenue Camille Chamoun, between the Cité Sportive Stadium and the old parcel post building.”

The tone of Prosser’s reply was anything but accommodating. “Could we make it about an hour later, old pal? The person I’m taking to the airport has to catch a one o’clock flight, and I’ve got to swing by the embassy on the way. Unfortunately, the timing is already a bit tight. In fact, she’s someone you know.”

“Where is she going?”

“London.”

“Call her back and tell her to take a cab. Connie, I need to see you in twenty minutes. Please.” Lukash hung up the phone and gave another coin to the cashier.

Chapter 19

Prosser put the phone down and stared out the balcony toward the Corniche and the Mediterranean beyond. The call from Lukash had come only a few minutes after he had returned from his morning run. He had not yet had time to cool down, eat breakfast, shower, or dress. And now he would have to drive all the way to South Beirut and back before showing his face at the embassy. He wolfed down the slice of toast he had spread with jam before taking Lukash’s call and washed it down with the remains of a can of orange juice.

Just as he stepped out of the kitchen to take a shower, he remembered Lorraine and picked up the phone to dial.

“Don’t tell me,” she said upon answering his call. “Something has come up and you can’t take me to the airport.” As Prosser had feared, Lorraine Ellis’s Irish temper was flaring, and the morning had barely begun.

“Yes, I’m sorry, Lorraine, but I have to go out for a while, and I’m not sure how soon I can get back,” he replied. “I really hate to say this, but I think you’d best take a taxi to the airport. I’ll meet you there. When did you say the flight to London leaves?”

“It leaves at two, but it boards at half past one. Latest check-in is at one. Think you could meet me at passport control by then?”

“I’ll make a point of it,” he assured her.

“What about Walter?” she continued apprehensively.

“I really don’t know, Lorraine,” he answered abruptly “All I know is that I have to run. Ciao, I’ll see you at the airport.”

Prosser opened another can of orange juice and downed half of it before depositing the opened can in the refrigerator. Once again he took two steps toward the bathroom before the telephone rang. He put his hand on the receiver, scowled, and took a deep breath before picking it up, half expecting it to be another call from either Lukash or Lorraine.

But it was neither. The call was from Muna Khalifé.

“Is this Conrad?”

“Speaking,” he answered, caught off guard by her call and concerned that she might divulge information best left unsaid over the telephone.

“I would not have called, except…I have heard the most terrible news,” she began with evident distress in her voice.

“Tell me,” he replied.

“And I need to know if it is true,” she went on as if not having heard his answer. “The mother of a…mutual friend…has just been to see me. She claims that the Syrian army surprised a team of our boys last night in the mountains near Sannine.”

Muna paused, awaiting his response.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Muna, but I haven’t heard a thing. Of course, I haven’t been to the embassy yet this morning, so I’m at a bit of a loss.”

“No, you don’t understand, Conrad,” she insisted, raising her voice. “She is the mother of someone important. A friend at the war council informed her that her son was among those killed. And that an American expert was with them. You must tell me. Is it true? And the American…?”

“Muna, I don’t know,” he answered, eager to get off the line. “Listen, I’ll be at the embassy soon. Why don’t you call me there in an hour? Right now I’ve got to go.”

Without waiting for her response, Prosser hung up the phone and dashed to his closet to find some clothes. This already had the makings of a day to try one’s soul, he thought, and wondered what kind of a jam Lukash had gotten himself into this time.

Chapter 20

The moment Lukash stepped back out into the daylight from the takeout food shop he saw three young schoolboys gathered behind the Mercedes, ears cocked and legs tensed to take flight, as if they’d heard some strange and horrible sound coming from inside. He moved closer and heard it, too: a low moaning sound, not quite distinguishable as human.

“What’s the matter with you boys?” he chided them, coming up behind them by surprise. “Haven’t you ever heard a goat before? He is crying because he is unhappy at being served up for dinner. Perhaps one of you would like to volunteer to take his place?”

The boys looked at each other, at Lukash, at the Mercedes, then again at each other and ran off toward the nearby filling station shrieking with laughter and feigned terror. Lukash backed the car out of its parking slot and doubled back toward Palais de Justice Circle. He was not a hundred meters past the filling station when he noticed the two black-helmeted motorcycle riders behind him once again. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor, depressed the clutch, and shifted into fourth gear. Pulling into the passing lane, he overtook a tank truck, then a minibus, and finally a Toyota pickup before veering back into the center lane, which had reverted to its typically sluggish midday pace. Seeing him succeed at the maneuver, a BMW and a Renault followed his example and dropped in close behind him.

He pulled the .45 out of its holster and rolled down his window. If the motorcycle appeared in his mirror again, he would be ready to fire on it. The Phalange’s best chance to stop him had been outside his apartment. Now if the colonel’s men intended to stop him and rescue their leader, they had little time left. In a minute or two he would be inside the Lebanese army’s security zone, where the Phalange’s magic held no power. The army sentries who manned the checkpoints by the Lebanese National Museum, Muslims all, would quell any disturbance that bore so much as a whiff of the Phalange.

The Mercedes edged forward. He was only four or five car lengths from the nearest Lebanese army roadblock now. If he were arrested there, diplomatic immunity might actually count for something. But unless the colonel put up a sudden fuss in the trunk, Lukash did not expect to be stopped. The sentry would recognize that he was a foreigner and wave him through without even asking for a passport or a foreign ministry card.

Suddenly the delivery van directly in front of the old Mercedes came to an abrupt halt, and Lukash slammed his foot on the brakes. The heavy chassis pitched and bucked on its 1950s suspension, and in the same moment he thought of Faris Nader being tossed about in the trunk. Perhaps the thought had a telepathic effect, for in the next instant he heard a thumping from behind the rear seat and then a drawn-out and painful lowing like that of an injured cow. Lukash watched the line of vehicles ahead of him move forward again, and he made a mental estimate of how long the sentries would likely remain within earshot of the colonel’s moaning and thumping—five seconds, maybe a bit more.

He hung back and let the delivery van get a head start, intending to accelerate past the checkpoint upon coming into the proper range. But a middle-age woman with a beehive hairdo in the car directly behind him leapfrogged her Peugeot adroitly past him into the gap. He tried again, this time allowing a gap only half as large, but once more a driver pulled out from behind him into the open space. Again he let the interloper take the spot.

Meanwhile, the thumping grew more violent and began to jostle the Mercedes perceptibly on its soft leaf springs. Lukash felt beads of sweat gather on his upper lip and prayed that he could get past the Lebanese army sentries without being asked to open the trunk.

A horn blared behind him, then a second and a third. Lukash peered out the window at the side-view mirror and saw the black helmet coming up rapidly in the outside lane. But now his car was completely hemmed in, front and back, with no room to maneuver. He shifted into neutral, took his foot off the clutch, and wheeled around, .45 in hand.

The passenger on the motorcycle, now only two car lengths behind the Mercedes, raised a stiffened arm as if preparing to shoot. Lukash took aim at the rider in front and prepared to squeeze the trigger. But before he could let off the first round, the Subaru behind him blocked his line of sight, its driver having spotted the opening created when the line of traffic ahead of Lukash’s Mercedes resumed its forward movement.

In the driver’s haste to fill the gap, he had pulled out too quickly to notice the advancing motorcycle, which slammed into the Subaru’s rear bumper and sent its black-helmeted riders careening into a row of striped oil drums that bordered the two-lane corridor. All at once horns blared from every direction. The line of vehicles in front of the Mercedes advanced, while those behind stopped where the Subaru blocked both lanes.

Moments later a distracted Lebanese army sentry waved Lukash past the checkpoint without so much as a glance at the black-jacketed American diplomatic passport he held out for inspection.

* * *

Lukash’s first thought on entering West Beirut was the recollection that he had had eaten nothing since dinner at the mountain hut the night before. Memories of the descent into Wadi Chakroub and the violence that followed had already begun to fade into unreality. In an hour or two he hoped to step onto an airplane bound for Europe and connect in due time with an onward flight to New York or Washington. Some at Headquarters would doubtless condemn him for having accompanied Elie into the mountains and allowing the transfer of U.S. equipment to Syrian oppositionists, but Lukash remained hopeful that when told the full story they would not make him a scapegoat for the damage to U.S. interests resulting from Colonel Faris’s treachery. Of course, his position might be strengthened considerably if the colonel could be induced to confess.

The pounding and shouting in the trunk that began in earnest when the Mercedes approached the Lebanese army checkpoint had subsided as soon as the vehicle gained speed to cross the no-man’s-land between the National Museum and the Barbir Hospital. Lukash had overheard a few tentative outcries when the Mercedes reduced speed before the Syrian checkpoint, but they subsided as soon as the car came to a stop. The Syrian and Palestinian accents of the laborers reinforcing the sandbag bunkers along the median strip may have been enough to silence the colonel.

As soon as Lukash passed the Cité Sportive Stadium, he looked for a suitably quiet place to stop. He found one opposite a vacant lot. As he approached the trunk, keys in hand, he was met with an eerie silence. He inserted the key into the trunk lock, turned it sharply, and stepped back, ready for anything.

But there was no violent kick aimed at knocking the key from his hand and no frenzied rush for his throat. Instead, the colonel raised his eyes and squinted up past Lukash’s head into the dazzling midday sun.

“Come on out, Colonel. You are free to go,” Lukash offered, training his .45 on the Phalangist.

Colonel Faris Nader reached over his head with both hands, grasped the fender of the old Mercedes, and raised himself up, squinting in Lukash’s direction as his eyes adjusted to the midday brightness. “Ah, Wali,” the colonel sighed reproachfully. “You should not have done this. After your ordeal in the mountains, I was prepared to consider letting you go free. Now I am no longer so inclined. You can kill me, of course, but if you do, I assure you that you will never leave Lebanon alive. So I will make you a fair offer. Drive me to the nearest telephone, let me call my office, and I will tell the officer of the day to cancel the order for your arrest. Drop me wherever you like after that, and you will have the benefit of as much time as I shall need to find another phone and reinstate the order. Instead of certain death for us both, one of us will live, and maybe both. Do you accept?”

Lukash laughed. It was a confident, carefree laugh, devoid of any resentment or bitterness, and it brought a puzzled look to the colonel’s face.

“You think perhaps that because you hold a pistol you deserve more?” the colonel challenged. “Tell me, then, if you intend to kill me, why am I still drawing breath?”

“Because I want to make a different kind of deal,” Lukash answered curtly, taking another two steps back from the Mercedes. “Take a look around, Colonel. Does the place bring back any memories?”

The colonel’s eyes first fell on Cité Sportive Stadium and then scanned the Avenue Camille Chamoun from north to south in stunned silence. “No, it can’t be,” he said, his face draining of color. “But this is...West Beirut!” He pointed to the stadium and fell silent.

“You are lucky that my offer is more generous than yours,” Lukash continued. “If you tell me what I want to know, I will give you the keys to the car and you can test your wits by finding your way back to East Beirut. For a professional like you, it shouldn’t be so hard. On the other hand, if you prefer not to cooperate, I keep the keys and you get to walk.”

He looked at the colonel’s rumpled beige suit and shook his head in mocking disapproval. “How untidy,” he observed. “But, then, an elegant gentleman like you on foot in a neighborhood like this might attract attention. Without proper identification, the local militia might even pick you up for questioning. And once they determine who you are....”

“What do you want to know?” the colonel asked sharply, showing only the faintest trace of anxiety.

“How did the Syrians know we were meeting the Free Officers last night at Wadi Chakroub?”

The old expression of arrogance and contempt returned to the colonel’s face. “We control many of their agents in Lebanon. It was easy enough to let them learn of the rendezvous.”

“And why did you send me with them to be killed? Was it your own idea, or did someone higher up order you to do it?”

“The answer to that is obvious,” the Phalangist declared. “The decision to alert the Syrians came from the highest levels.”

“And Major Elie? Was he also aware of your plans?”

The colonel snorted in contempt. “You Americans are no different from the French. You think you are the cleverest persons on earth, daring to bribe and buy our people wherever and whenever it suits you. Do you think we are so stupid that we have not learned to monitor your telephones and install microphones in the places where you meet your agents? Elie was a traitor and a fool. He deserved worse than the quick death he received from the Syrians.”

“And did I deserve the same because I gained his trust?”

The colonel laughed. “Not at all. You see, I am a realist. Your job is to recruit spies. Mine is to neutralize them. Your success in seducing Major Elie could no longer do me any harm once I became aware of it. So from that point of view it is a matter of indifference to me whether you live or die.”

“But certainly you could not have believed that Washington would simply shrug off the loss of one of its officers and go on sending you money and equipment as if nothing had happened.” Lukash challenged.

“On the contrary,” the colonel answered confidently. “I expect them to send us even more. As indeed they will, regardless of what happens today between the two of us.”

“Then you don’t know Washington, Colonel. They aren’t in the habit of throwing away good money after bad. They will definitely want to know how you lost a half million dollars’ worth of their equipment, not to mention trying to kill off one of their officers. I doubt they’ll buy your answers.”

“You will excuse me for saying this, Walter, but I think you are the one who does not understand. Your division chief, Mr. Twombley, has known from the very beginning that the equipment you sent us would be lost. He would not have sent it to us otherwise. The very purpose of the equipment, and of your own presence here, has always been to convince the Syrians that your government is supporting anti-regime forces in Damascus. Mr. Twombley has said that your new president believes such a step is essential to bringing Hafiz al-Asad to his senses and making him treat seriously whatever peace initiative that your government may put forward in the coming year.”

Lukash felt his face flush but said nothing. Though the claim was shocking, he found it plausible.

“In my view, and that of the war council,” the colonel continued, “your government is completely mistaken in its belief. On the contrary, al-Asad will view America’s support for Syrian oppositionists as an intolerable affront to Syrian sovereignty and will retaliate harshly, most likely against your embassy in Beirut. The result will be a new alliance between your country and ours against the Syrians. Where our words have failed over four years to convince the American government to evict the Syrian occupiers from Lebanon, an attack on your diplomatic mission by assassins from Damascus is bound to succeed.”

“Thanks, Colonel, I’ll pass that along. Perhaps they’ll listen this time,” Lukash replied.

“I doubt it. Of course, to me it would have been preferable if the Syrians had found your body with the others in Wadi Chakroub. That would have offered further proof of American involvement in helping the Syrian Free Officers. But your leaders and ours will not let the extreme claims of a discredited junior officer stand in the way of their larger objective.”

The colonel heaved an exaggerated sigh and then held out his hand for the car keys. “The keys, my friend. I am already late in appearing at the war council, and when my automobile is found, my people may fear the worst.”

Lukash clenched his jaw in anger. “On second thought, it may be too easy for you to get back to East Beirut. Maybe you need a little handicap to even the odds, like the one you gave our team last night.” Lukash pulled his .45 out of his waistband and took aim at the two nearest tires on the Mercedes. He fired twice and the old car listed sharply to port.

A handful of small boys who were gathered around a cake seller’s pushcart some fifty or sixty meters away stopped eating momentarily to see who had fired the pistol shots. A hundred meters beyond them, Lukash spotted Prosser’s silver Renault four-door. He waved with his free hand and a few seconds later saw the car pull away from the curb and approach at a measured speed.

“Salope,” the colonel hissed, his confidence evidently shaken. “If you wish to kill me, do it now with a bullet from your pistol. Do not leave me at the mercy of these filthy animals.”

“You should have thought of that before you sent us up to Wadi Chakroub, Colonel. I hope the brutes skin you alive.”

Lukash turned his back on the colonel and started off at a trot toward the Renault. After a few moments he turned and watched the colonel remove the jack and spare tire from the trunk of the old Mercedes and begin changing the damaged rear tire. Meanwhile, the young boys and the pushcart vendor moved closer to the Mercedes and a handful of idle adults appeared out of nowhere to form a loose circle around the colonel.

A pushcart sweets vendor crossed Prosser’s path, making haste toward the group. “Be careful, Uncle,” Prosser warned the elderly Kurd. “That one does not belong here. I suspect he may be a troublemaker from the Phalange.”

Prosser’s Renault stopped at the curb and Lukash stepped in without looking back at the Kurd, who was now shouting at the gathering crowd.

“What was that all about?” Prosser asked when Lukash was on board and the Renault had completed a hasty U-turn back toward the north. “Shouldn’t we have offered some help to your friend back there?”

“Not on your life,” Lukash answered. “Let’s go to the airport. Is Lorraine still booked on the MEA flight to London?”

“As far as I know,” Prosser replied. “Until you called me this morning, I was planning to drive her to the airport. To tell the truth, Walt, she was pretty upset when she called me last night to ask. Sometimes I honestly don’t understand why she puts up with you.”

“Nor do I, Connie. But I intend to make it up to her. And if Headquarters continues to insist that I drop her, it may just be time for a career change—that is, if the Agency doesn’t fire me for what I just did to the chief of Phalange intelligence.”

“The guy back there with the flat tires?” Prosser exclaimed. “What the hell would the Phalange intel chief be doing on this side of town?”

“I went up to the mountains last night with five of his men to deliver some equipment to the Syrian Free Officers. A few minutes after we handed it over, Syrian army patrols hammered us. Nobody from our side made it back but me. Somebody in Phalange intelligence clearly double-crossed us, so I decided to take it up with the colonel. You can imagine his surprise.”

Lukash removed a pocket cassette recorder from his breast pocket and laid it on the dashboard. “Con, do you have any idea how much equipment Washington has been funneling to the Phalange this year?”

“I have a pretty good idea,” Prosser replied warily.

“Well, what you may not know is that Headquarters appears to have given the Phalange a green light to pass some of it to the Syrian opposition. The idea was to show Damascus that we’re prepared to stand up to al-Asad in the next round of peace talks. But the Phalange has been playing both sides against the middle. Their intention is to provoke al-Asad into retaliating against the U.S. so that we’ll have no choice but to get in bed with the Phalange. Which is why the colonel tipped off the Syrians to last night’s delivery, even at the sacrifice of his own deputy, three more of his men, and three Syrian Free Officers—not to mention the American liaison officer who was stupid enough to go with them.”

“The colonel told you all that?” Prosser gasped.

“I have it on tape.”

Prosser shook his head in astonishment while Lukash brooded silently over what had happened and what might come next.

“How long before we’re at the airport?” Lukash asked nervously a few minutes later.

“Ten minutes, if the checkpoints aren’t backed up. According to the radio, there was some trouble around here yesterday with illegal roadblocks taking civilian hostages. I hope you brought your dip passport.”

Lukash patted his breast pocket and felt the stiff cover of the diplomatic travel document.

“If we get stopped, you’ll need it,” Prosser added.

Before they had gone another kilometer, Lukash spotted a half-tracked armored personnel carrier parked diagonally across the road some two hundred meters ahead.

Prosser also saw it and braked immediately. “Let’s try another way, just to be on the safe side,” he offered. “A half a click behind us we passed a side street that ought to take us to a road parallel to the one we’re on.”

They retraced their path and turned onto a newly paved side road that led west toward the Mediterranean. Abandoned villas, some only partially completed, rose amid a vast expanse of flat, treeless terrain. The area apparently had been next in line for residential development before the outbreak of civil war, but the decline of the Lebanese economy over five years of intermittent fighting had left the acreage all but worthless.

As they drove farther, the road curved gradually to the right until Lukash could see that they were traveling nearly due south. Neither man spoke, and Lukash let his mind drift—first imagining his favorite watering holes in downtown Washington and Georgetown, and then the mob scene he would face at the airport ticket counter to book his ticket back to the United States. His American Express card would cover the airfare, but he worried that his wallet might not hold enough Lebanese lira to bribe his way on board if today’s flights to Europe were fully booked.

Lukash had paid little attention to his surroundings for several minutes when at last he looked up and saw something that both thrilled and frightened him. On either side of the road was a two-meter-high stucco wall. A hundred meters or more in front of them was one of the improvised roadblocks he had first seen in the days just before the outbreak of civil war in 1975. It consisted of two cars parked astride the road in a way that enabled a few armed men to halt the flow of traffic along the road and question all travelers before allowing them to pass.

What unnerved Lukash about the place was not the roadblock itself but that he had seen it before in a recurrent dream that had plagued him since the first night after his return to Lebanon. The dun-colored walls were exactly as he had imagined them each time he had traveled this road in his dream. The vehicles blocking the path ahead were also familiar to him: a rust-eaten white Mercedes and a battleship-gray Land Rover. Just beyond the barrier, a Fiat and a white Peugeot were parked at the curb, with a dark Volvo sedan waiting farther down the road.

“Let me handle this, Walt,” Prosser declared as they approached the roadblock. “And this time, stay in the damned car. No more stunts like the night you arrived.”

He glanced across at Lukash, whose eyes were fixed on a huddle of eight or ten detainees, including a young woman and child, lined up behind the Land Rover as if they were waiting for its tailgate to open and swallow them all. A tall, skinny militiaman wearing a baggy black hood over maroon-and-green-camouflage fatigues aimed his Kalashnikov rifle nervously at the center of the group.

The Renault came to a stop opposite a short but sturdily built gunman in a disheveled khaki uniform. He wore no helmet or hat or insignia of rank, and the cast of his eyes through the cutouts in his black hood was as cold and cruel as that of a medieval executioner. The hoods and lack of insignia meant that the roadblock was not a routine security check by a recognized military authority but most likely a hostage-taking operation. Lukash felt a surge of adrenaline suddenly erase the feelings of weariness, hunger, and thirst that had nagged at him since he crossed the Green Line.

“Hawwiyatak,” the gunman demanded of Prosser. Your identity.

Prosser drew his foreign ministry card out of his shirt pocket and presented it. The sentry gave it a cursory look and returned it, paying no attention to Lukash.

“Yalla, yalla,” the sentry barked impatiently, waving the Renault through with the muzzle of his AK-47.

“Shukran,” Prosser replied, quickly shifting back into gear.

But when the Renault drew abreast of the huddled detainees waiting behind the Land Rover, Lukash suddenly seized the steering wheel. “Stop the car,” he demanded.

Prosser tried to dislodge his grip. “Don’t be insane, Walt. Leave them alone. They aren’t our people and this isn’t our business. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Lukash reached between the two front seats and yanked the handle of the emergency brake. The car skidded sideways to a stop on the sand-strewn pavement and he threw open his door. “Wait here. I think I see somebody I know.”

Lukash could hardly believe his eyes. The hostage scene was just as he had dreamed, time after time, including the lovely young mother in the sleeveless flowered sundress with the long chestnut hair tied at the nape of her neck. He could see that, with her small-boned ballerina’s figure and classical Mediterranean profile, she bore a distinct resemblance to Muna Khalifé. Just as in the dream, the woman’s slender hands rested on the shoulders of a little girl three or four years old, who reached up and grasped her mother’s wrists. Tears stained the daughter’s cheeks, while the mother’s color was ashen and her jaw firmly set.

As Lukash approached the Land Rover, its tailgate opened and the cluster of hostages surged forward under the prodding of a pair of hooded guards. Lukash addressed the guards. “The woman and the small girl are my neighbors. Can you tell me where you are taking them?”

The shorter of the two men redirected the muzzle of his rifle toward Lukash, who slowly raised his hands above his head. The sentry shouted into the van and a short, heavyset militiaman wearing similar maroon-and-green-camouflage fatigues and a red beret emerged into the sunlight.

Lukash held out his black U.S. diplomatic passport to the man, whose only weapon was a holstered pistol. As soon as he took it, Lukash pointed to the young mother. “I am a foreign diplomat. This woman and her little girl are my neighbors. I don’t know where you are planning to send them, but I am willing to pay you if I can take them with me. How about it?”

The militiaman listened and then shook his head and handed back the passport. “If you know them, tell me their names.”

“I can’t,” Lukash answered. “We just say hello when we pass in the street.”

“Then why do you care so much about them?”

“Because I do. What have they done that you must take women and children as prisoners?”

“Their papers show they are Maronite Christians. My orders are to collect Christian hostages. They must come with me. Please, go now, or it will be the worse for you.”

“No,” Lukash insisted, holding his ground. “If it’s Christians you’re after, why don’t you take me in their place and let my American friend over there take the woman and girl back to Beirut. Surely it’s Christian men you want, not women and children, no?”

The Arab reddened and anger colored his voice. “But you are not a Lebanese. We are not interested in foreigners. Go, I say; I have no more time to waste on you.”

But Lukash did not budge. “I have two thousand lira here in my pocket, and my friend in the car has more. How much do you want for the woman and the girl? Name your price.”

Instead of replying, the militiaman gestured angrily toward Lukash and barked out an unintelligible order to the shorter of the two riflemen, who swung his rifle butt around with lightning speed against Lukash’s left temple, knocking him to the ground.

Though too dazed to get up, Lukash saw that his passport, some folded banknotes, and his Phalange intelligence building pass had fallen out of his breast pocket. His hand shot out to retrieve the pass, but it was too late. The stylized cedar-tree emblem of the Phalange imprinted on the document had already caught the eye of the Arab in the red beret, who scooped it up before Lukash could reach it. He studied the card for what seemed like an eternity while Lukash waited. Suddenly he drew his pistol, angrily pulled back the slide, and pointed the muzzle inches from Lukash’s chest. Again the rifle butt crashed against Lukash’s head. This time he lay still.

The Arab in the red beret barked out another order, and the short rifleman picked up the cash, passport and other papers that had fallen from Lukash’s pocket and stuffed them into the deep cargo pockets of his fatigue blouse.

Meanwhile, the other gunmen herded their detainees into the back of the Land Rover, leaving the young woman and daughter for last. As if it were an afterthought, the leader waved them apart from the others when their turn came to board, pointing them toward Prosser’s Renault a few dozen meters away.

Prosser watched the woman and child approach, hesitantly at first, with furtive glances back at the gunmen, who were now busily dismantling their makeshift roadblock and closing the doors of the Land Rover on their luckless prisoners. The militiaman in the red beret climbed into the driver’s seat of the Land Rover while the other men removed their black hoods and prepared to depart in the other vehicles.

Prosser held open the passenger door of the Renault for the terrified mother and daughter, all the while watching Lukash’s inert body for signs of movement. He started the engine and stood by to retrieve his fallen colleague as soon as the gunmen left the scene.

Then the Rover’s engine roared to life and its driver swung the car around to withdraw in the direction of the Cité Sportive. At the same moment, Prosser saw Lukash lift his head and slowly rise to his knees. He knelt at the side of the road, just wide of the Land Rover’s escape route. In a few seconds the Rover would be past him and Prosser would be able to move forward to take him on board.

But in the next instant Prosser looked on in horror as Lukash drew a pistol from his belt and fired twice at the Rover from where he knelt. The Rover swerved suddenly toward Lukash, horn blaring wildly, and struck him as he attempted vainly to scramble out of its path. The horn abruptly stopped on impact and the Land Rover drove on with the Volvo closely behind, leaving the motionless Lukash in their dusty wake.

Chapter 21

The moment the kidnappers were out of range, Prosser raced to Lukash’s side and put his fingers against the man’s throat. Despite the tremor in his hand, he detected a faint pulse beneath his fingertips. At once he waved the young mother to his side and instructed her in mangled French to help him drag Lukash to the car with the least possible jostling to his head. With considerable effort, they laid him on the rear seat and folded his legs so that the door would close.

While the woman settled her little girl in the front passenger seat, Prosser fetched an old jacket and a dusty blanket from the Renault’s trunk and positioned them carefully around the unconscious man’s neck to prevent his head from moving when the car hit a bump. The moment her mother left her side, the doe-eyed little girl rose promptly to her feet and watched Prosser’s every move from over the seat back.

During the minute or less required to arrange the makeshift padding, the young mother, eyes brimming with tears, made the sign of the cross over her wounded rescuer and said a fleeting prayer while holding her palm against his dust-caked forehead. Out of the corner of his eye, Prosser noticed the child staring fixedly at Lukash with a puzzled expression. Then, all at once, she broke out into an excited babble of Arabic and French that rose in volume until her mother grasped her by the shoulders in frustration and sat her down.

To Prosser’s amazement, Lukash moaned softly, blinked several times, and then drew his dangling right arm across his chest before losing consciousness again. With renewed hope for Lukash’s recovery, Prosser summoned the woman to rejoin her daughter in the front seat and prepared to set off for the American embassy.

Once they were safely on the main highway, Prosser noticed the child peeking at Lukash again from between the front seats and recalled her excited babbling when she had focused her attention on him at the start of the drive. Curious about the girl’s interest in Lukash, Prosser asked the woman what her daughter had said to her.

“She said she knows this man,” the woman replied with a bewildered look. “She said she has seen him in her dreams and knew he would come for her someday.”

“Wow, the things kids come up with,” Prosser muttered in English, then he returned his attention to the road ahead.

* * *

During the thirty-minute drive, Prosser discovered that the young mother could be extremely helpful in talking their way through the numerous roadblocks along the coastal road. A young couple with a small child presented no apparent security risk, and their injured passenger was considered a nuisance best shuffled off to the next checkpoint. When at last the final roadblock on the coastal road was behind them, Prosser deposited the mother and daughter at the entrance to the four-star Summerland Hotel, where they could safely report their abduction to the authorities and call for family to bring them home.

Upon reaching the embassy Prosser cleared the series of roadblocks outside the front entrance and summoned a pair of contract security guards to help him convey Lukash to the first-floor dispensary. There, Asma al-Tawil, the embassy’s American-trained contract nurse, would be on duty to offer first aid and arrange for more serious medical attention, if necessary, at the American University at Beirut Hospital just a few minutes away.

Prosser entered the chancery behind the guards and vouched for Lukash with the marine guard on duty in the absence of any identification papers for Lukash. Then he returned to the Renault and parked it along the Corniche a block west of the embassy. By the time he returned, the contract guards were back at their post under the porte cochere, and the marine guard buzzed him back in.

Upon arriving at the dispensary, he found Lukash sitting on an examination table with his legs dangling over the edge while Nurse Asma conducted a preliminary neurological exam. First she tested the movements and reactions of Lukash’s eyes and examined them with an ophthalmoscope. Next she held a succession of small glass vials under each nostril to test his sense of smell. Lukash identified correctly the fragrances of mint, citrus, cedar wood, garlic, and vanilla, but gagged when the vial of vinegar was opened, causing the nurse to spill nearly half the vial on the floor.

Then she asked her patient to extend his arm at shoulder height and touch the index finger of each hand to his nose, which he did despite a noticeable tremor in his left hand. Then she directed Lukash, in rapid succession, to smile, frown, whistle, stick out his tongue, and clench his jaw. Through clenched teeth he asked if the exam was over yet. The nurse glowered back at him and, without responding, proceeded to palpate the neck muscles involved in moving his head.

“Damn, that hurts!” he exclaimed, recoiling suddenly and seizing her wrist.

“The pain is hardly surprising, considering that someone knocked you on the head twice with a rifle butt and ran you down with an automobile. Tell me, how long were you unconscious, Mr.—”

“Lukash,” he answered. “How long? How should I know? I was out cold.”

“Give us a guess,” Asma responded with annoyance.

“Oh, I suppose not more than a minute or two. I kept my eyes shut a while longer, but only because my head hurt so bad.”

The nurse did not appear to believe him.

“Whether you believe me or not,” he went on, “I know I was awake, because I could feel every damned pothole.”

The nurse turned her gaze to Prosser, who confirmed the patient’s testimony.

“That’s right,” Prosser acknowledged. “Once we got him onto his feet, he seemed to snap out of it and looked a lot better.”

Nurse Asma narrowed her eyes but stopped short of accusing the pair of collusion. “All right, Mr. Lukash,” she announced. “You don’t seem to be in any immediate danger from your injuries, but I strongly recommend that you see a neurologist right away for a more thorough examination. I’m going to ask you to lie down and remain as still as possible while I make an appointment for you at AUB Hospital and arrange with the motor pool for a ride.”

“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.”

“I think you’re overdramatizing, Walt,” Pirelli assured him. “All you need to do is tailor your story enough for the Agency to claim plausible denial in supplying the Free Officers. If you can do that, everybody on our side gets what he wants. The administration gets to smack down the Syrians for stepping out of line, and the Agency avoids responsibility if it doesn’t work out right. And you get your career back on track. All Twombley asks is to help the Agency come out looking clean.”

“I get it. Just follow the script.”

“Which will be made as easy as possible for you,” Pirelli offered with an obliging smile. “There is one other requirement, though. Before Twombley can tidy up your personnel file, you will have to do something about that Ellis woman. And the same goes for your Lebanese ex. A clean break with both. Understood?

“Muna is not an ex. She’s my wife. You know perfectly well that there’s never been a divorce.”

“Then fly to Reno and get it done,” Pirelli ordered coldly. “Twombley can only keep the counterintelligence and security pukes off your back if you wipe the slate clean. Do yourself a favor, Walt. Find some nice American girl to mess around with. Even better, find one at Headquarters so she comes fully equipped with a security clearance and a sense of what we do around here.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I suggest you give it some serious thought. If you buck Headquarters on this again, there’s not much I can do to help you.”

“I remember accepting your help five years ago on this very subject, Ed,” Lukash answered pointedly. “I took your advice. I boarded the plane to Saudi Arabia and left Muna behind. But it was wrong, Ed. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. If I had been man enough, I would have put my wife first and my job second. So here we are, five years down the road, and you’re telling me to desert another woman, one who has been completely honest with me and as loyal as any man could possibly hope for. The answer is no. If I were to drop Lorraine the way I dropped Muna, I could never look in the mirror again. You and Twombley and the Agency can all go to hell.”

“And throw away your career? After eight years overseas? Hell, with a year or two more at Headquarters under your belt, you could go out again as a COS or a base chief. Wouldn’t it be foolish to—?

“In your eyes, I’m sure it would be,” Lukash interrupted. “But when I took your advice five years ago, it was the wrong choice. I know you were trying to help me, Ed, but the entire concept was wrong. And even if I didn’t know it then, I do now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pirelli challenged. “Your personal choices are your own responsibility. Let’s face it, Walt, you’ve always been a coward when it comes to women. You use them and lose them, and then you forget about them. You can hardly blame me for that. And if you want to throw away a promising career, too, that’s your call. You’re on your own, pal.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to hear you say that. When the chips are down, I rather suspected you might toss me overboard. Honestly, I don’t care what you or the Headquarters brass may think of me. All I want to do at this point is tell what really happened out in those mountains last night, face the consequences, make a clean break with the Agency if it comes to that, and get on with life as best I can. And I’m ready to do it with Lorraine, if she’ll still have me.”

“Look who’s throwing who under the bus now—some husband,” Pirelli retorted dismissively. “All I can say is, go ahead, Walt. Do your worst. We’ll see where it lands you.”

At that moment the Renault pulled into the first of several security checkpoints leading to Beirut International Airport and entered a long queue of waiting cars.

“Okay, as soon as we get past these clowns, I’ll drop you at departures,” Pirelli said.. “Leave the keys to your flat and your car on the dashboard. I’ll have your personal effects shipped back to you.”

When at last the car pulled up outside the aiport departures area, Lukash grabbed his small black duffel, stepped out without looking back, and marched quickly toward the terminal entrance.

Ed Pirelli watched Lukash enter the terminal and suddenly slammed his right hand onto the dashboard with such force that the keys left there jumped before sliding onto the floor. “Damn him!” he muttered while reaching down to recover them.

In the same moment, a white Peugeot sedan pulled up to the curb behind him, and he heard a man shout out the window in French-accented English. “William! William Conklin! Stop! William!” the man cried out. But the noise of jet engines overhead were considerably more powerful than his voice.

Raising his head to look in the rearview mirror, Pirelli could see a prosperously dressed middle-age Lebanese man who looked vaguely familiar to him. The man continued to shout well after Lukash was out of sight. Then he stepped out, slammed the Peugeot’s door, and set off hurriedly after the American.

Pirelli ran to intercept the Lebanese and grabbed him by the shoulders from behind. Once stopped, the man spun around to face his pursuer, allowing Pirelli to step between him and the terminal. At that moment Pirelli recognized the older man as Victor Hammouche, Claudette’s husband and the brother-in-law of Cèsar Khalife, the late father of Lukash’s wife.

“Not so fast, Victor,” Pirelli warned, laying his hands on Victor’s chest and giving him a shove backward.

Hammouche gazed upon Pirelli with an expression of puzzlement and alarm, which soon gave way to recognition, as he had dined with Pirelli more than once with his wife and brother-in-law before the civil war.

“You, you…devil!” he challenged Pirelli. “You are the one who brought that man into our family!” he accused in French, then proceeded to curse Pirelli and the entire American embassy for lying to his family about Bill Conklin since the man’s disappearance five years before. “Let me pass!” he demanded. “I demand to know where that man is going.”

“He’s here to catch an airplane and doesn’t have time to waste with you,” Pirelli answered in an unruffled voice as he removed his hands from Victor’s chest. “Now, exactly what business do you have with him?”

“He deserted my niece, and by all that’s holy, he won’t escape without paying a price for it!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Pirelli warned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stand aside and let me pass!” Hammouche demanded, his frustration mounting.

“You’re after the wrong man,” Pirelli insisted while continuing to position himself between the Lebanese and the terminal door. “The man who just went inside is not who you think he is.”

At that moment Hammouche stepped back, drew a Czech 75 pistol, and pointed it with both hands at Pirelli’s heart. “No, it is you who have the wrong man, I think!” Hammouche exclaimed.

Pirelli raised his hands and took a step back. “Calm down and lower the pistol,” he ordered.

But Victor Hammouche was determined not to let his quarry escape. He fired a warning shot over Pirelli’s head and stepped past him toward the terminal. “If you follow me I will shoot!” he warned as he left Pirelli behind.

By now convinced that Victor might indeed do him harm, Ed Pirelli retreated slowly toward the Renault, hands still held high and his eyes wide with fear.

Across the road and some fifty meters distant, a pair of Lebanese Internal Security Force troops heard the gunshot and tossed away their lit cigarettes. In a moment they spotted Victor Hammouche and set off toward him. When they had closed within ten meters they fired their M-16s in the air to gain his attention and ordered him to drop his weapon.

Seeing the two well-armed troops, Hammouche froze, and his face took on a panicked expression. He lowered the pistol and let it fall to the pavement.

Within moments, another half dozen ISF troops appeared as if from nowhere and marched Victor Hammouche off to a nearby sandbag bunker for questioning. An ISF officer and one troop remained behind to question Pirelli, who handed over his foreign ministry identity card and explained smoothly that the entire incident seemed to be an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. The ISF officer listened indulgently to Pirelli’s story for a few moments and permitted him to leave the airport with their apology for the unfortunate disturbance.

Pirelli pulled away in a dark mood, beset by black thoughts about what Lukash might do and say upon his return to Headquarters. As bad as Lukash’s career prospects looked, his own might not be much better once it all came out.

* * *

Conrad Prosser parked the station chief’s Audi sedan in the small section of the parking lot reserved for foreign diplomats. Not seeing Pirelli or the silver Renault, he set off at a brisk pace toward the departures terminal. Once inside, he paused to take in the entire scene at a glance, searching for familiar faces in the crowd as well as potential threats, and allowing his intuition to mark anything that might merit attention.

The departures terminal was packed with outbound passengers, family members, well-wishers, expediters, porters, and chauffeurs along with vast heaps of well-worn baggage. Along its perimeter walls, migrant workers from Egypt, the Sudan, and Yemen camped out, many for days at a time, awaiting their homeward flights. Failing to spot Lukash or Pirelli, Prosser waded through the mob toward the check-in counters for MEA’s Europe-bound flights.

He stopped first at the counter for the afternoon flight to London and interrupted a tall, lissome, thirty-something ticket agent who was busily sorting through bundles of tickets, cash, and credit-card receipts. The woman looked up briefly and, seeing that he was a foreigner and a reasonably attractive man close to her own age, put away her professional scowl and brought forth a serviceable smile.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Prosser began, “but could you possibly do me a favor and confirm for me that check-in has closed for the two o’clock flight to London?”

The woman held up a document that Prosser took for the flight manifest. “Oui, monsieur, c’est fermé,” she responded curtly.

“I hate to trouble you further, miss, but I would be very grateful if I could ask you one more question,” he continued with as charming a smile as he could muster. “You see, a friend of mine, who happens to be an MEA employee, was planning to fly standby to London today, and I was hoping to arrive in time to see her off. Perhaps you might know her: Lorraine Ellis. She’s from Ireland. Anyway, I was delayed in traffic and I wondered if you might be able to tell me if my friend boarded the flight.”

At this, the ticket agent’s demeanor appeared to soften. “We had no standby passengers on today’s flight. It checked in full,” she replied. “Perhaps your friend rebooked to another destination.” The agent lowered her gaze as if to continue working, but then looked up again. “Or perhaps she will rebook for tomorrow’s flight. If so, you might find her yet,” she added with a hopeful smile.

Prosser thanked her warmly and moved down the line to the counter for the MEA flight to Rome. As he took his place in the first-class queue behind an elderly Italian couple and an elegantly suited Lebanese businessman, he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He turned and, to his surprise, found Muna Khalifé gazing up at him with an expression of mild reproach.

“You said you would ring me,” she said with a note of petulance. “I waited hours for your call.”

“I’m sorry. There was no opportunity—”

“Beirut is a modern city,” she interrupted. “Telephones can be found in every corner store.”

“I suppose so,” Prosser conceded. “My apologies for not responding. Anyway, you seem to have figured things out well enough without my help. May I ask what prompted you to come to the airport?”

“I received a call from my aunt Claudette, who advised me that the American embassy had booked a ticket for a passenger named William Conklin on today’s flight to Rome.”

“Your aunt is a resourceful woman,” Prosser answered, irritated that Claudette would divulge confidential travel information so readily.

“She also informed my uncle,” Muna broke in again. “I came because Uncle Victor’s heart is filled with such a vicious hatred for my husband that I feared for both men should they ever meet again. Can you help me?”

“How long have you been here?” Prosser questioned.

“Only a few minutes.”

“And you haven’t seen your husband here, either?”

She shook her head.

“Then let’s work together. First we should check with the agent to see if he’s boarded the flight to Rome, and then we can decide what to do about your uncle.”

Within a few minutes, the Italian couple and the Lebanese businessmen had checked in and were headed for passport control with their tickets. Upon reaching the head of the queue, Prosser handed the ticket agent his foreign ministry identification card and explained that he was from the American embassy and was responsible for assisting American citizens with emergency travel. He asked whether the American passenger William F. Conklin had checked in yet for the flight to Rome.

The agent, a plump Lebanese matron approaching fifty, listened attentively but hesitated before responding. “I would like to help you,” she replied sympathetically, “but, you see, we are forbidden to answer questions about passenger names.”

Prosser was considering which approach to try next when Muna stepped up to the counter beside him.

“I understand that you are not permitted to reveal passenger names, madame,” she began gently, “and I would not want to cause trouble for you or the airline. Still, perhaps there is a way for you to help us without breaking your rules. You see, the passenger is my husband. He is traveling to be at the bedside of his mother, who is gravely ill and not expected to live more than a day or two. I received a telephone call this afternoon from Bill’s father, who said that my mother-in-law is hanging on to life desperately in the hope of seeing her only son before she dies. I gave them my assurance that Bill would travel to Rome this afternoon and would be at his mother’s side in Philadelphia not later than tomorrow evening. Tell me, please—if not for my sake, then for the sake of a dying mother—is there any chance that my husband will arrive in Rome in time to catch his connecting flight to Philadelphia tomorrow morning?”

The ticket agent nodded sympathetically, and Prosser thought he detected a gleam in her dark eyes. “May God keep your promise for you, Mrs. Conklin,” she said. “Your husband left the counter not five minutes ago with his boarding pass. You may still find him at passport control if you go quickly.”

Muna offered the ticket agent her most heartfelt thanks and set off at once across the crowded hall toward passport control with Prosser in tow.

“Nice bit of work,” Prosser congratulated Muna when they had traveled several paces from the ticket counter. “But how did you know the story about his ailing mother?”

“My aunt,” she replied.

“Ah, of course,” Prosser reflected.

“Now, about my uncle Victor…” Muna began.

“I’ll watch for him outside,” Prosser volunteered. “You go on ahead to passport control and come find me when you’re done.”

She nodded her assent, and they went off in opposite directions.

By the time Muna arrived at the passport control section, the queue was nearly ten meters long. Toward the front, a few places ahead of the elderly Italian couple she had seen at the ticket counter, stood her husband. Quietly she fell in line beside him, took his left arm gently in hers, and squeezed his hand three times in greeting.

Walter Lukash turned to look at her. Surprise turned to relief and then to delight as he saw her familiar smile. He dropped his duffel, kissed her on both cheeks, and drew her into an embrace. “This is not at all the sort of meeting I intended for us,” he admitted, painfully aware of how such a departure must appear to her. “Honestly, Muna, I intended to stay longer.”

“I know, Bill,” she said. “I know what happened to you and Elie last night. Elie’s mother called me.”

“I’m so very sorry, Muna,” he continued, all at once feeling the full measure of his long-repressed remorse for having abandoned her and their unborn child five years before. And now he was leaving again, deserting her a second time—taking from her the one remaining man in her life who adored her and longed to offer her a fresh start in life.

“I did not come here to stop you,” she assured him. “I know it is no longer safe for you in Lebanon.”

“Yeah, now both sides are after me, and my own government isn’t so happy with me either. Another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.”

“It will pass, William, and better things will come of it. I did not come to reproach you. I came only to stop my uncle from harming you.”

Lukash looked at her without comprehending.

“My aunt Claudette knew of your travel plans and informed Uncle Victor that you would come here. His hatred for you has no limits. I came only to stop him from doing you harm under the pretext of upholding our family’s honor.”

“My debt to you is more than I can ever repay, Muna,” Lukash confessed. “How can I possibly begin to satisfy it?” he asked, approaching despair. “I would do anything. If you believe we can make a new start together, I am ready to try. We could live in the U.S., Europe, the Gulf, anywhere you like.”

Muna gave him an affectionate smile but shook her head. “Nothing is expected, nothing is demanded of you, Bill. What we started five years ago is finished. You and I are free. Go to America and begin your new life with my blessing. I, too, will leave Lebanon in the near future. I have decided to accept an offer of work from a former client in Dubai and will go soon. So, you see, my life moves on, also.”

As Muna spoke, Lukash looked over her shoulder and noticed a pair of muscular Arabs appearing to stare at him from a distance. Their closely cropped hair, military bearing, and loose-fitting batik shirts raised his suspicion that they might be from Syrian intelligence. Suddenly he felt a fresh sense of urgency to be on the other side of passport control.

But no sooner did the thought enter his head than the queue advanced, leaving Lukash face-to-face at last with the passport control officer. The young Lebanese took Lukash’s blue tourist passport and leafed through it, looking first at his name, date, place of birth, and photo, and then at the pages containing entry and exit stamps. He stopped at the page containing the only Lebanese entry stamp, dated January 1975, and no corresponding exit stamp.

“You are William Conklin?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” Lukash replied.

“You come here first time in 1975?”

“That is correct,” Lukash replied.

“You stay here five years, no leaving?”

“Yes,” Lukash lied.

“You are brave man, I think, no? You stay here through all our Events—five years shooting and bombing! Very brave man,” the officer affirmed. “May Allah preserve and keep you, my friend. This is your home—you are Lebanese!” The officer returned his passport with a respectful nod and waved the next passenger forward.

Lukash heaved a sigh of relief as he recovered his passport and stepped through the turnstile into the security zone. The moment he reached the other side, however, he remembered Muna and wheeled around to wish her farewell. But it was too late. He could not even catch a glimpse of her slender figure retreating through the crowd.

* * *

Lukash dreaded boarding commercial passenger flights in the Middle East. Though all seats were assigned, the boarding of most any flight at a Middle Eastern airport turned into a brawl, with as much jostling and elbow-throwing as a rugby scrum. Since the first-class section of today’s flight to Rome had checked in full, Lukash was relegated to coach, despite having paid a first-class fare. But rather than jeopardize his seat by complaining, he had reluctantly agreed to apply for a refund for the extra fare upon arriving at his destination.

The seat assigned to Lukash was located in the smoking section at the rear of the plane. The news came to him as no surprise, as his was the last ticket sold, but all the same it put him into a foul mood for the trip. Even worse, it was a middle seat, and when Lukash arrived at his assigned row, he found that his fellow passengers had already stuffed their excess carry-on baggage into the space at his feet. After repeated requests, ignored at first on the pretext of a language barrier, the parcels were eventually withdrawn and Lukash was able to take his seat.

No sooner had he done so, however, than the Italian youth in the window seat to his right lit up a cigarette. Rather than remonstrate with him and risk escalating hostilities as the flight wore on, Lukash turned his face toward the corpulent grandmother on his left and timed his breathing so as not to inhale when the smoke floated past his face.

While the boarding continued, Lukash examined carefully each of the passengers who entered the rear of the plane, still wary of suspected Syrian or Phalange agents. But few travelers came close to fitting the suspect profile. After what seemed like an hour, the chief steward announced that the aircraft door was closed, and a few moments later the plane was backing away from the gate.

As the airliner taxied across the tarmac and down the runway in preparation for takeoff, Lukash felt the accumulated tension in his neck, back, and limbs relax by degrees, leaving only the residual pain of his injuries. The likelihood of any further intrusion or interruption, he calculated, was becoming more and more remote. As soon as the jet was airborne, Lukash would be able to close his eyes and keep the pain at bay until the first round of drinks was served.

But to Lukash’s alarm, the airplane soon braked to a halt. A minute passed without forward movement, then two, then five. A murmur rose among the passengers, but no announcement came over the loudspeaker. Toward the front of the plane, Lukash noticed an air hostess and a male steward enter the coach section through the curtain that separated first class from coach and made their way toward the rear, curtly deflecting all questions from impatient passengers along the way. To Lukash’s surprise, they stopped at his row and seemed to be checking his seat number against a list.

“Monsieur Conklin?” the steward asked with a serious mien. “May I ask you to please find your cabin luggage and come with us?”

“And may I ask you what this is all about?” Lukash responded uneasily. “Isn’t this something we could straighten out once we arrive in Rome?”

“If you would please come with us, monsieur,” the steward replied with an unctuous smile, “everything will be quite in order.”

“Listen, I paid a fortune for this seat,” Lukash protested. “Unless you can tell me what the fuss is about, I’m not inclined to give it up until we land in Rome.”

“But of course, monsieur,” the air hostess chimed in with a reassuring smile. “Indeed, our records show you have paid for a first-class ticket. Though we had no first-class seat for you at check-in, it is your good fortune that one passenger has failed to appear. So if you would please accompany us, we will escort you to your new seat in the first-class cabin.”

Lukash let out a self-conscious laugh. “Oh, I see,” he replied with a smile. “In that case, I’ll be right with you.”

He pulled his duffel out from under the seat before him and made his way to the aisle, attracting envious looks from everyone around him. “Thank God,” he muttered under his breath. “Now, if we’d only get moving...” And no sooner did he pass through the curtain into the first-class cabin than the airplane lurched forward again.

The air hostess led him to the second row on the right, where the aisle seat was vacant. Next to it, the window seat was occupied by a young woman with tousled hair whose face was pressed against the window, as if exploring the distant hills with intense concentration. He tossed his zippered duffel under the seat ahead and leaned back in the soft leather recliner. For the first time in days, he felt at ease. Soon the craft would be in the air and he would be safe for the first time since he had come here. Safe to walk the streets, safe to talk to strangers, safe to tell Headquarters the truth of what had happened to him, safe to start his life over—if he could only figure out how.

Lukash turned again toward his fellow passenger and realized that something about her looked oddly familiar. He took a deep breath and inhaled the woman’s fragrance. Then, leaning against her and speaking softly so that only she could hear, he spoke to her in a thick Saudi accent. “Miss, I like you too much. I offer you one thousand dollars to join me for champagne in my suite. Will you come for me?”

Lorraine Ellis turned around to face him. Upon seeing Lukash, her eyes lit up and her face broke into a mischievous smile. “Never mind the suite,” she purred. “Come sit closer.”

Noticing a hostess passing by with a bottle of Lanson champagne on a silver tray, Lorraine called out to her. “Kate, my dear, would you please pour Mr. Conklin a glass?”

The hostess poured two glasses and held them out on the tray. Lukash and Lorraine each took one, clinked to each other’s health, and drank.

“So how did you do it?” Lukash asked when each had taken a sip.

“Do what?”

“All this,” he replied, waving expansively with his free hand. “How did you arrange for us to be together, on this flight?”

“Oh, I didn’t. When I missed the flight to London, this was the only one available. They had no seat in standby, so I bought a seat in first at the employee discount. I had no idea you were on board until Kate told me you were the bloke being upgraded from coach.”

“Unbelievable,” Lukash replied, shaking his head.

“I should say so. As of this morning, I had quite given up on you,” she declared.

“Then let’s not blow our second chance. Will you spend the week with me in Rome, Lorraine? Really, I mean it.”

“A week and then…?” she asked cautiously.

“A week and then Washington. Come with me. I don’t know if I’ll have a job when I get there, but we’ll figure out something. What do you say? Shall we drink to it?”

Lorraine Ellis raised her glass. “The French say a great love affair starts with champagne,” she answered, looking into Lukash’s eyes.

“As I recall, ours started that way some time ago,” he replied, returning her gaze.

“Then it’s only sensible to keep it going with another glass,” she proposed, catching Kate’s eye to refresh their drinks.

“Lorraine, at this moment, I couldn’t possibly agree more.”

Author’s Biographical Note

I wrote Dynamite Fishermen and Bride of a Bygone War to clear my head after eleven years of government service in places like Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, Jeddah, and Amman. I had already decided to write novels at age fourteen, during my first year as a boarding student at Exeter. My English instructor, a World War II combat veteran, advised those of us who wanted to follow the path of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway to first go out and live some adventures so that we would have stories that people might want to read. My adventures started in the Middle East and continued in Washington, Europe, the Russian Far East, Maui, Utah, New York and Boston. Particularly in the Middle East and Russia, I saw failed states and failed societies but was often surprised at how much their people had in common with Americans. This made me think about whether America might someday suffer its own sort of failure. During the 1930’s, Americans watched Germany, Italy and Russia and asked, “Could it happen here?” Today, one might look around and ask the same. In writing Forty Days at Kamas and Star Chamber Brotherhood, my greatest concern has been that the novels gain a readership before the events they describe come to pass.

A Final Word: When you turn the page, Kindle’s “Before You Go” feature will give you the opportunity to rate this book and share your rating and comments on Facebook and Twitter. If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment to let your friends know about it. Better yet, post a Reader Review on Amazon.com, Goodreads.com or LibraryThing.com. If the book gives others a few evenings of enjoyment, they’ll be grateful that you reached out to them. And so will I.

With best wishes, Preston Fleming

Questions for the Author?

Email me at preston@prestonfleming.com

Other Books by Preston Fleming

Dynamite Fishermen

Classic Espionage. “Civil disorder in 1980s Beirut. An extraordinary novel, each page as eruptive as the city providing the setting.” KIRKUS REVIEWS
http://www.prestonfleming.com/novel-dynamite-fishermen.html

Bride of a Bygone War

Realist Spy Thriller. “CIA agent in Beirut fears his past has caught up to him. An intelligent thriller teeming with vigor. KIRKUS REVIEWS
http://www.prestonfleming.com/novel-bride-of-a-bygone-war.html

Forty Days at Kamas

Dystopian Political Thriller. “Moves at a solid clip. An overtly political story that succeeds as entertainment.” PACIFIC BOOK REVIEW
http://www.prestonfleming.com/novel-forty-days-at-kamas.html

Star Chamber Brotherhood

Dystopian Assassination Thriller. "An engaging fast-paced thriller. Readers will spend pleasant hours rooting for a team of assassins." BOOKPLEASURES.COM
http://www.prestonfleming.com/novel-star-chamber-brotherhood.html

Table of Contents

Copyright

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part II

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Author's Biographical Note

Other Books by Preston Fleming