Dynamite Fishermen (35 page)

“And what card might that be?”

“I once knew a man who is now close to Zuhayri. I think I have something he desires very much.”

“And is the man willing to deal?”

“I do not know. I have not spoken to him in nearly five years.”

“Then what makes you think he’ll help you?”

“Because he has wanted something from me for a very long time. Once he even tried to kill me for it.”

Prosser nodded respectfully. “Rima told me about your experiences during the events. You’re talking about Jamal al Ghawshah, aren’t you?”

Husayn did not have to respond. Prosser could see in his eyes that his guess was correct.

“It so happens that I am also very interested in Major Jamal—or Colonel Hisham, as he calls himself these days,” Prosser said. “We might be in a position to help each other.”

The Lebanese scooped up a handful of almonds from the dish next to his drink and pondered the offer as if he had expected it to be made. “What would you want from me?” he asked.

“Information.”

“And what do you offer in return?”

“Name what you want. I’ll do my best.”

“The only thing I want is to collect my father’s debts and to leave this useless country. Do you think you can arrange it?” he asked with a bitter smile.

But before Prosser could respond, Rima emerged from across the dance floor with Harry and Layla in tow.

“There he is!” the vice consul greeted Husayn boisterously. “Where have you been keeping yourself, Husayn? I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”

They shook hands and then Harry introduced him to Layla. Meanwhile, Prosser called the bartender and ordered a round of drinks for the newcomers. As he did, Layla launched into a conversation in Arabic with Husayn. Prosser despaired of getting him alone again to speak. But when one of Rima’s legion of male acquaintances asked her to dance, Prosser seized the initiative and suggested quietly to Harry that he and Layla disappear for a few minutes. Accustomed to Prosser’s occasional lapses of etiquette when transacting government business, Harry grabbed Layla’s hand and set out with her for the center of the dance floor.

“Listen, Husayn,” Prosser began again when the two men were left alone. “We don’t have much time to talk, so I’m going to lay it right out for you. I want to ask a favor from you. I can’t even tell you why I’m asking, only that it won’t involve doing much beyond what you’re already planning to do. Where is the meeting tomorrow going to be?”

Husayn sat with eyes lowered for what seemed like an eternity before he abruptly raised his head and emptied the rest of his drink. “In his office in the Bekaa. Near Shtaura.”

“Does he know you’re coming?”

Husayn nodded. “I arranged it through a mutual friend.”

“What reason did you give for wanting to see him?”

“I said I had an offer to make to him. It concerns a personal matter between the two of us. If you know about Jamal and me, then Rima must have told you about what happened during the capture of the Holiday Inn.”

“She told me about the prisoners on the roof.”

“That is only part of the story,” Husayn continued. “What Rima does not know is that throughout the Battle of the Hotels, while I was assigned to assist Major Jamal, as we called him then, he hid from the battle while I issued orders in his name. For nearly two days Jamal cowered alone in a cellar, paralyzed with fear. Finally, on the last night of the fighting, after our men had cleared a path up to the roof, I went to his hiding place to persuade him to come out and give the appearance, at least, that he had led his troops bravely in battle. Jamal refused, and in the end I had to drag him out and force him up the first few flights at the point of my bayonet.

“Once we reached the roof, I left him there to gather his wits while I went back down to join those who were liquidating the last pockets of resistance on the upper floors. When I returned to the roof and saw what Jamal had done to the prisoners, I was so disgusted that I could barely control myself. Later that night I paid a visit to a Fatah brigadier and reported the torture of the Phalangist boys, still mentioning nothing of Jamal’s previous cowardice and how I had covered it up.

“Within a few days Jamal tried to recruit two of my own men to kill me. They refused and reported the matter to me at once. I went to stay with my parents in Tripoli until matters could be set right, but within days there was an attempt on my life in the Tripoli souk. I realized then that it was only a matter of time before he tried again, so I took the next ferry to Larnaca and from there flew to Germany. A few weeks later Jamal was relieved of his command and forced to resign from Fatah. Some time after, I heard that he joined Saiqa and began working for the Syrians. But I doubt that even the Syrians know their Colonel Hisham for the coward that he is.”

“Does he realize that you’ve kept silent all this time about his hiding from battle?” Prosser asked.

“I expect so. But he still hates me for having forced him out of Fatah and probably fears that someday I will humiliate him before the Syrians by revealing his secret. It is for that reason that I propose to offer him my silence in exchange for his influence over Zuhayri.”

Husayn examined Prosser’s reaction carefully.

“I don’t know, Husayn,” Prosser answered cautiously. “If all he wants is to keep your mouth shut, I would think it might be easier for him to kill you and be done with it.”

“Perhaps so. But I believe there is something else he desires from me even more: my respect. Do not forget, Conrad, he and I were once very close. If he feels he has regained my comradeship, perhaps it may be possible for him to respect himself.” Husayn saw the skeptical expression on Prosser’s face and lowered his eyes. “But I see that you think me foolish for taking such a generous view of him.”

“Foolish is too kind a word, Husayn. Colonel Hisham is a killer. Self-respect is the last thing on his mind.”

“He has killed. But so have many others who took part in the Events. And for those of us who cannot easily forget what we did, self-respect and the respect of our comrades is a precious thing. I cannot believe Jamal has so easily forgotten what happened between us five years ago.”

Prosser said no more but did not attempt to conceal his disbelief.

“I see you take a different view,” Husayn continued, “but my decision is made. Jamal expects me tomorrow, and I will see him. As for your favor, tell me what you want, and I will tell you whether I am able to comply.”

“I want the precise locations of the buildings where Colonel Hisham lives and works. Wherever it is that he takes you—his office, his house, his garage, whatever—I want you to remember exactly what it looks like from the inside and outside and to pinpoint its location for me on a map. If you can make a sketch or two, so much the better. What do you say, Husayn? Can you handle it?”

Husayn met Prosser’s gaze and held it. “You are asking me to betray him.”

“You don’t owe a duty to cover up for him anymore, Husayn. And besides, if you’re meeting him at his usual place of business, it can hardly be so great a secret.”

“And it’s also no secret what you will do with the information.”

“Don’t be so sure, Husayn. We’re not going to send a gunman there to shoot him, if that’s what concerns you. We just want to know what he’s doing. And if you help me, I promise I won’t do anything at all with the information until after you leave for Germany on Monday. How about it? Will you make the map and sketches? I will do any reasonable favor in return. For you or for Rima.”

Husayn looked across the dance floor at Rima dancing the twist with the friend who had taken her onto the dance floor. He turned to face Prosser. “When I return tomorrow, you will have the map and the sketches,” he said. “Once I leave Lebanon, use them in any manner you think best.”

Without thinking, Prosser reached for Husayn’s hand to shake it, then quickly thought better of it. Each man reached for his drink. Husayn’s long fingers trembled as they raised the last swallows of diluted whiskey to his lips. A tense silence followed.

“What time are you meeting him?” Prosser asked at last.

“Early in the morning. I expect to be back by late afternoon.”

“The minute you get back, call me at my home number. When I pick up the phone, ask in Arabic for Samir Sabbagh. I’ll reply in Arabic that nobody by that name lives here. Fifteen minutes later I’ll pick you up in a gray Renault in front of the Cinema Versailles on rue Tannoukhiyine. Do you still have my home number?”

“Yes. I have the card you gave me.”

“Write down the number somewhere else, disguised as a bank account or an address or something, and throw out the card. And if you can’t call me by tomorrow night, call on Friday or as soon as you’re free.”

“Will you...” The music stopped and Husayn looked up to find Harry and Layla making their way through the crowd toward him. Husayn signaled to Prosser with his eyes that he had no more to say and summoned the bartender to ring up his tab.

A few moments later, Rima deserted her dance partner to rejoin Prosser and the others. “Are you never going to ask me to dance?” she inquired of Prosser with a stage pout as she picked up her nearly untouched Campari soda.

Prosser laughed. “I guess I’d better, before someone else makes off with you.”

The disc jockey selected a slow-moving Joe Dassin ballad and dimmed the lights. Out of the corner of his eye, Prosser watched Layla slip her arm affectionately around Harry’s waist as he led her back onto the dance floor.

“Did you have a good talk with my brother?” Rima asked a moment later.

“Yes, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to help him very much. He had some legal questions that I had no idea how to answer. I told him to ask Harry.”

“Did he say anything else about his plans to leave Lebanon?”

“Nothing special. Monday still seems to be the big day.”

She said nothing further. Prosser let his attention wander from face to face among the dancing couples.

He was beginning to wonder exactly how late it had become when he spotted a familiar figure by the bar across the room. The figure was leaning over to whisper in the ear of a beautiful young woman seated at the bar. No, he thought, he must be mistaken. It couldn’t be Ed Pirelli. Ed was married and had two kids. The man’s lips drew back from the woman’s ear and moved down to nuzzle the base of her neck. She giggled and twisted free long enough for Prosser to see her full face. It was the dark-eyed young consular secretary who recently had been assigned to Harry’s visa section. If he hadn’t seen them with his own eyes, he would never have believed it.

* * *

Soon afterward Prosser and Rima left the Hamra Cellar, returned to the parked Renault, and headed slowly down the ill-lit alley toward rue Hamra. It was shortly past midnight, and every street they took through West Beirut’s main shopping district was deserted. As they approached the Saudi embassy on rue Bliss, they noticed that even the second-floor discotheque of the Hotel Concorde, usually open well past this hour, was dark.

A driverless taxi parked outside the hotel with its motor running blocked the narrow entrance to rue Maislin and their access to the Hala Building. Prosser brought the Renault to a stop a few meters behind the taxi, but its driver was nowhere in sight. “To hell with the driver,” he grumbled after waiting for only a few seconds. “Let’s go back down to the Corniche and circle back up rue Henry Ford. We can park by the Saudi embassy and walk the rest of the way.”

“
D’accord,
” Rima replied dreamily.

They accelerated around the stalled taxi past the row of low apartment buildings and villas that separated the Concorde Hotel from the Minara lighthouse and then rounded the bend where rue Bliss began its winding descent toward the sea. Below them was the Renaissance Tennis Club, home of the Red Fursan.

From the moment Prosser noticed that the first sandbagged sentry post at the top of the hill was vacant, his suspicions were aroused. He tapped the brakes and downshifted. As he rounded the next bend, he spotted two Volvo sedans parked end to end across the road in a makeshift barricade some 120 meters ahead. The cars were flanked on either end by four men in civilian clothes carrying folding-stock assault rifles. When they saw the Renault coming, they raised their rifles.

“Put your head down and hold on,” Prosser snapped. Rima hesitated, then lowered her head to her knees. Prosser braked sharply. Because the road had begun its downhill grade, the car seemed to take twice as long to stop as it should have. He cursed himself for not having slammed on the brakes the instant he saw the first empty sentry post.

“What do you see?” Rima asked with alarm, her head still below the level of the dashboard.

“Stay down,” he hissed.

As soon as the Renault came to a halt, Prosser yanked the gearshift into reverse and accelerated backward up the hill, burning rubber much of the way. Over the roar of the engine and the screech of the tires, he heard the half-muffled pops of rifle fire behind him and the sharp cracks of bullets passing low overhead, but they all sounded faint and distant as if they were merely part of the familiar nightly action in the commercial district. With his left hand he gripped the steering wheel and with his right the edge of Rima’s seat, craning his torso and neck around to steer the car backward around the bend.