Dynamite Fishermen (44 page)

Prosser held Ulla’s hand in both of his and kissed it lightly. She pressed his hand as well, but she turned her head away as tears welled up and spilled onto her cheeks. He remained still.

After a few seconds she regained her composure and stood up. They met in a brief embrace and, just as quickly, she led Prosser to the door.

“Goodbye, Conrad,” she said.

“Good luck to you, Ulla,” he answered and closed the door behind him.

Chapter 32

The wail of sirens seemed very far away as Abu Ramzi turned away from the collapsed chancery building and made his way back toward the embassy gate. Volunteer civil defense workers, each wearing a white hardhat and a white canvas tunic emblazoned with a red crescent, ran past him carrying axes, ropes, and fire extinguishers. A pair of soot-covered firemen followed closely behind, unrolling a patched canvas fire hose from a wooden spool. Other relief workers returned from the smoldering ruins bearing stretchers shrouded in white.

The stretcher bearers lifted their feet high in an effort to avoid tripping on scattered chunks of rubble. They hugged the inner curb of the U-shaped driveway and marched resolutely with their heads down to avoid the dense clouds of suffocating black smoke that blew toward them from the charred remains of the embassy car pool.

A trio of Fatah militiamen nearly knocked Abu Ramzi off his feet as they came at him from the side dragging fire hose. Abu Ramzi grabbed hold and joined them in pulling it across the driveway and toward the remains of the chancery until heat from a row of burning automobiles blocked their advance.

Around the northwest side of the chancery, where a head-high heap of brick and stone spilled out onto a blacktop parking lot, Abu Ramzi watched five Red Crescent paramedics clamber over the pile in a search for survivors. As he watched, all five suddenly scurried to the same spot and began working frantically to remove the debris surrounding some unrecognizable object that protruded from the pile.

Abu Ramzi ran to their aid at once and, seeing that the object was a man’s trousered leg, began to follow their example in picking up broken pieces of concrete around it. A moment later one of the relief workers tugged gently on the protruding limb. It came away in his hands and the worker dropped it in horror. Without a word, his coworkers dispersed and took up new solitary searches.

As Abu Ramzi climbed down from the pile of debris, he noticed a shiny disc about the size of a dinner plate lodged between two slabs of reinforced concrete. He reached into the crevice and wrested from it a scratched brass plaque mounted on a cracked slab of hardwood veneer. Upon rubbing the brass with his sleeve, Abu Ramzi recognized immediately the engraved likeness of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein suspended over a stylized map of the Arab world. Abu Ramzi had received such a plaque himself a year before in this same Iraqi embassy chancery building.

The Iraqi diplomats who presented the plaque to him and who had arranged for monthly subsidy payments to the Arab Front for the Liberation of Palestine were almost certainly dead now. He had thought of them as good Muslims, good Arabs, and good men. For more than a decade Iraq had backed the Arab Liberation Front, at first against the Phalange, then against the invading Syrian army, then against the Lebanese Communists, and now against the Shiite fanatics. Abu Ramzi was not so naïve as to believe the support was altruistic, but he was grateful all the same, and he had respected the bravery of the Iraqi officials he had known. He did not know who had killed them here, but he knew who stood to gain. And he knew that the Damascus regime would not stop until its domination of Lebanon was complete and every dissenting voice had been silenced.

* * *

Prosser stood facing the brightly lit display window, peering at the expensive Nikons, Yashicas, Olympuses, and Canons arrayed before him. As he turned his head slowly from left to right, he scanned the deserted street out of the corner of his eye for signs of movement. Seeing none, he rounded the corner and walked at an unhurried pace toward the darkened entrance of a nearby office building. He unlocked the heavy iron-grate door and, without switching on the lights, crossed the lobby to the rear stairwell.

Something had changed. Despite the semidarkness, he could feel by the smoothness of the marble floor that it had been washed and waxed. And the usual pile of trash no longer obstructed the approach to the elevator. Most disturbing of all, a folding metal chair had been left leaning against the wall just behind the front door, where a concierge might be expected to sit. Until now the building had had no concierge.

Prosser mounted the stairway and upon reaching the fourth floor turned on the hallway lights. He stopped at the end of the corridor outside a door bearing a brass plaque labeled “Interfabrik Technical Consultants, Ltd.” and unlocked the safe house where he met agents from time to time for extended debriefings.

Until now the place had been a superb safe house. Tucked in the middle of a nondescript block off rue de Baalbek, the building stood only a block and a half from the main shopping area of rue Hamra, where nearly any Arab or Westerner of any social class could easily blend into the crowd. Moreover, since the building employed no full-time concierge, whoever had a key to the front door could enter at any time without being challenged. Now, it appeared, such privacy may have been lost.

Ulla Hamawi had found the place for him the previous fall after he dropped a hint that an American businessman was seeking an office to rent in West Beirut and would offer a sizable finder’s fee to anyone who could help him find a suitable one. After she proposed the building, Prosser informed her that the businessman had already selected a place across town in East Beirut but would make good on his promise, anyway, as he might need her for other services later. Prosser handed her an unmarked envelope with a thousand dollars from the fictitious businessman and she accepted the money without question. Now, in retrospect, Prosser realized that something about their relationship had changed that day and now he thought he understood what it was.

After locking the office door behind him he turned on the lights in the reception area. The office had been arranged exactly as he had directed. Recent newspapers and magazines had been stacked in the bookcase. Paper, pencils, and office equipment were deposited around the place in sufficient quantity to make it look occupied. He entered the kitchen and brought out a bamboo tray laden with two tumblers of ice, a bowl of pistachios, and an assortment of bottled mineral water and fruit juices.

Some fifteen minutes later, after reviewing his notes for the meeting one more time, he heard steps in the hallway, followed by a muffled knocking at the door. Through the peephole he saw Abu Ramzi, dressed in black trousers and a red batik shirt unbuttoned at the throat. The tall Palestinian twisted the ends of his dark mustache as he waited for the door to open and then followed Prosser into the inner office before either of them spoke.

“
Ahlan wa sahlan,
Abu Ramzi.”

“
Ahlan fiik
, Wally,” the agent replied. He set his zippered purse on the glass table in front of him and took a place on the sofa across from Prosser. His face was drawn, and the dark circles under his eyes gave him a menacing look.

“Are you feeling all right, Abu Ramzi? You look like you could use some rest.”

The Palestinian nodded slowly. “For the past two days I have been in Sidon receiving a shipment of weapons. By Allah, it was miserable work. We worked without a stop and filled seven large transports, not including the armored vehicles and the self-propelled artillery. We finished only this morning.”

“Do you have a list of what you received?”

He pulled an envelope from the leather pouch. “I made an extra copy of the list I prepared for Commander Abd al Rahim. The other papers inside address last week’s questions.”

“Excellent,” Prosser replied as he removed the documents, folded them and stuffed them into his pocket. “By the way, Abu Ramzi, you didn’t see anybody else in the building on your way up, did you?”

The agent hesitated.

“Well, did you? After what happened to us at the last safe house, I’d rather not take any chances being seen coming and going.”

“I did see one man,” he answered with a faint smile. “The new concierge was placing bricks in the street to prevent cars from parking outside the building’s entrance. But that is of no importance, Wally. He is just an old man.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Only to wish him a good evening.”

“And did he ask you where you were going?”

“Of course, but I told the old fool that I was an officer of Fatah security making an investigation of the building. I am sure he will not tell anyone. He is just a simple old man from the village.”

“All right, Abu Ramzi. What’s done is done, but let’s make this a short meeting, just to be safe. The old goat might decide to call Fatah to check your story.”

The agent shrugged.

“Before we go on, I just want you to know that I heard about the explosion at the Iraqi embassy this afternoon. Our ambassador has already issued a statement condemning it, and I expect our secretary of state will do the same. Perhaps you knew some of the Iraqi officials who were killed. In any event, please accept our deepest sympathy.”

Abu Ramzi looked at the floor and did not speak for a long interval.

“Have you been there since it happened?” Prosser asked at last.

“I was there for three hours searching for survivors,” the agent replied gravely. “We found only one. He is badly burned and will probably die.”

Prosser put down his pen. “How could an explosion like that have happened in a place so well guarded, Abu Ramzi? I don’t understand how anyone could have brought in such a large quantity of explosives without the Iraqis detecting it. That embassy had the tightest security of any building in town.”

“The explosives were not concealed inside the chancery building, as some have reported. They were carried onto the compound by a truck that crashed through the embassy gate and exploded directly in front of the chancery. No one expected any attacker to be so fanatical as to blow himself up with his own bomb.”

“Do the Iraqis know yet who was behind it?”

“Can there be any doubt?” Abu Ramzi replied with barely suppressed rage. “It was the Ayatollah. But such a huge quantity of explosives could not have been smuggled into Beirut without the acquiescence of Syrians. It has already been determined that the truck passed through at least five Syrian checkpoints on its way to the Iraqi embassy without having been inspected even once.”

“Is there any other evidence linking the explosion to the Syrians?”

“The investigation has barely begun. When more evidence has been uncovered, I will inform you. Of course, it is likely that the Shiite militias also took part. Some who saw the driver of the truck before it arrived at the Iraqi embassy described him as a young man with a beard like that of a mullah.”

“Do you think Colonel Hisham might have been involved?”

The agent scratched his temple. “Possible, but unlikely,” he replied. “I saw the colonel’s cousin three days ago, and he said that until the end of last month, the colonel was in Damascus recovering from wounds he received in the Israeli air raid on Fakhani and Tariq el Jedide.”

“What has he been doing since then?”

“Nearly every day he has been traveling between his office in Shtaura and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where he has been holding secret meetings with certain Shiite political leaders. His cousin believes he is bringing special weapons and equipment from Syria to the Shiite militias, but perhaps it was explosives.”

“Was there any sign that Colonel Hisham might still be planning to assassinate an American official?” Prosser asked.

“The Syrians are not so stupid as to risk such an operation against an American. And Colonel Hisham is not one to carry out a project for which he will not be paid.”

“Tell me this, Abu Ramzi. How much do you think the Iranians might have been willing to pay to destroy the Iraqi embassy in Beirut?”

“From such an operation,” the Palestinian replied, pouring out a glass of mineral water, “I think one could become a wealthy man.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, Abu Ramzi, but I’ve seen some information that makes me wonder if Colonel Hisham was involved in some way in putting together that truck bomb that exploded today. Did you know that Hisham has already carried out an operation for the Syrians against Iraqi targets? According to our sources, Hisham and his friend Maarouf Zuhayri were the ones who arranged the assassination of the three Iraqi diplomats in the Hamra district a couple of months ago.”

“The ones who were shot in their car?” The agent uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.

Prosser nodded. “And a third gunned down in the street a few blocks away. The order to kill them was given by a brigadier in Syrian military intelligence. According to our information, Colonel Hisham and Zuhayri were also hired for another operation against the Iraqis and one against the Saudis as well. The new operations were said to involve explosives and were to be carried out in collaboration with one of the Shiite militias. I brought a photo of one of the assassins involved in the shootings on Hamra Street. His name and some information about him are written on a card taped to the picture.”