Beirut - An Explosive Thriller Read online

  ‘Gabe. Great job last night.’

  Lentini threw his rucksack down and sat. ‘Thanks. But we didn’t get what we were looking for, did we?’

  ‘No.’ Lynch shook his head. ‘We have to keep that very, very quiet. London’s in a massive panic about it. At least we know the boat’s going nowhere.’

  Tomasi cleared his throat and reached for his water glass. ‘Well, not right now, Gerald. We can only hold the crew for forty-eight hours.’

  Lynch turned incredulously. ‘They’re a bunch of damned pirates, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Gerald, they’ve done nothing wrong. Without the cargo you were expecting, they’re clean.’

  ‘What about kidnapping Elli Hoffmann? What about Boutros saying the captain tried to rape her?’

  Tomasi fidgeted. ‘There’s a problem. The Hoffmann girl’s medical history means she wouldn’t have stood as a reliable witness. She was travelling on Hoffmann’s yacht on her way to meet her father, according to Gonsalves, the captain. He says Boutros was hired as a nurse to look after her properly and he was a troublesome and disaffected employee who left the boat in Valetta in a huff. They were to meet Hoffmann here at Valetta and he claims not to know Hoffmann was dead. The boat is registered in Freij’s name, there’s a valid contract of transfer, the papers are all in order. The public prosecutor has advised that he doesn’t believe we have a case to bring charges. To be frank, he told me to drop it like a stone. We’ve nothing to link any of them to Elli Hoffmann’s murder. In fact, they have an impeccable alibi – we had them under close surveillance all day. We have to let Gonsalves and his crew go, Gerald. There are no legal grounds to hold the Arabian Princess.’

  Lynch tried to keep his face impassive while he struggled to digest the information and map it to the events playing out around him. Now doubt was making him feel sick. If those warheads weren’t on the yacht, where were they? Lynch found himself back in the damp of a cold war bunker talking to Branko Liberec, the huge doors that had guarded the missiles, the tyre tracks and churned up forest floor around the loading entrance, damp leaf mould and urgent voices. Men and women in white coveralls moving in taped-off zones.

  Lynch gazed across to the hotel’s reception area with sightless eyes, lost in thought. A figure standing there brought him back to reality. A tall figure, suited with a tiny gold tie stud. Wealthy. A goatee beard and brushed back hair. Michel Freij was laughing with the reception clerk. A portly man in his fifties next to Freij followed him from the reception desk to sit in the front area of the lobby. Lynch tried to rein in his racing mind, his heart thumping with the surge of adrenalin, the need to act coursing through his veins.

  Michel Fucking Freij. The cheeky bastard.

  Lynch marched across the lobby, suppressing the urge to slide the Walther from its holster under his left shoulder. The balding man talking to Freij was making a point, karate chopping one hand with the other. Lynch confronted them. Freij looked up with a quizzical smile that faded as he placed Lynch.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Lynch spat. ‘You think you can just fly in here, arrange a couple of convenient murders and nip off home?’

  Freij glanced across at the balding man, who was staring open-mouthed up at Lynch. ‘I am sorry, John. This is Mr Gerald Lynch. He represents British Intelligence. He is becoming rather a nuisance.’

  Tomasi and Lentini caught up with Lynch and paused behind him. He pointed at Freij, his Northern Irish accent thickened by his anger, his raised voice turning heads in the lobby. ‘There is a dead girl upstairs in this hotel and a man murdered outside and do not tell me you didn’t know it.’

  Freij smiled up at the three men standing in front of him. ‘I am so sorry, gentlemen, but this has absolutely nothing to do with me.’ He rose and smoothed his jacket. ‘Mr Lynch, I rather think that is enough. John is my legal counsel here in Malta, where we have today made a substantial investment in the Smart Village technology park. I have been in meetings with government representatives and developers for the past two days and can account fully for my movements. Your wild accusations are not only baseless but actionable. If you do not leave, I will instruct John to indeed act.’

  Tomasi put a hand on Lynch’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Gerald. We can’t do anything here.’

  Lynch stepped forward and for the first time the brown eyes flickered. He stabbed his finger into Freij’s face as he ground out the words. ‘You’re cool, Michel. But I am going to fucking nail you. So help me God I am going to nail you.’

  He turned on his heel and strode across the lobby. Tomasi and Lentini stayed looking with curiosity at Freij, who sat down again. Ignoring them, he turned to his lawyer. They followed Lynch, the hotel staff frozen in a shocked tableau.

  It was an uncharacteristically grey spring morning, the air carrying a mist of fine droplets, the precursor of rain. Lynch clicked the remote and crossed the road as the car beeped twice. The stippled sea was behind as he mounted the steps to the house, the green sward blowing in the freshening breeze.

  He knocked on the front door and waited, surveying the sea and the patchy, wan sunlight dotting its surface. Lynch had a dreadful premonition. Someone had, indeed, been ‘cleaning up’ and he had been drawn back to the little house by the coast in Sh’ayra precisely because Scerri hadn’t answered Lynch’s repeated calls.

  Lynch knocked again, cupping his hand over his eye to see into the dark interior. He picked his way through the garden rubbish along the side of the house, the air shimmering above the rusty heating flue. He pressed down on the kitchen door handle and felt it give, pulling it towards him and letting the warmth escape from inside.

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over his nose and mouth.

  Striding through the kitchen and across the dining room, he pushed the living room door open to see the body of Joseph Scerri slumped in his chair, the carpet dark with blood. Stuffing was spread in an arc on the floor behind the armchair. He felt oddly dispassionate at the sight of Scerri’s violent end. The old man had lost control of his bowels at the moment of death.

  Most of them do.

  Belatedly, the reaction hit him and the room seemed to spin, bile forcing its way up his throat, an acrid tide he managed to stem as he turned and fled for the fresh air.

  It had started to rain, the light drizzle carried on the cold breeze and Lynch held his face up to catch the water, rubbing himself in a washing ritual which didn’t take away the dirt of Scerri’s violent death or the memory of the cloying stench in the over-warm house. He called Tomasi.

  ‘Gerald.’

  ‘Scerri’s dead.’

  ‘Natural?’

  ‘If shooting’s natural.’

  ‘You touch anything?’

  ‘Nope. Looks like Scerri told Freij where to find the Hoffmann girl.’

  ‘If it was Freij, Gerald.’

  ‘Nobody else had a reason to want her dead, Paul.’

  ‘What about the German? Meier?’

  Lynch stood rooted to the spot, the cold drizzle making him shiver. Meier, the man they’d lost somewhere in Europe. The man who had killed Hoffman and his wife, Meier’s own sister. There had been no billets doux left by the corpses in Malta, if that was truly Freij’s pugmark. Meier, a deadly shadow.

  ‘Gerald? Gerald? Look, I’ll send our boys up. You’d better make yourself scarce if you want to avoid spending the rest of the year filling out paperwork.’

  Lynch wiped the rain from his face again and used his coat sleeve to wipe the door handle. He walked along the side of the house and down the steps to the road and his car, staring at the grey horizon and the dark clouds gathering overhead.

  Glad to leave the stench of death behind him, he drove quickly. Lynch had a flight home to catch and, at the end of it, an invitation to meet Leila in a sunny little apartment in Hamra.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Relieved to be back in Beirut, Lynch left the airport terminal and breathed the cool evening air, remembering his l
ast arrival at the airport with Nathalie in tow. He was startled to see Tony Chalhoub walking towards him. Chalhoub’s car was parked illegally on the kerbside directly outside arrivals. As head of police intelligence, Chalhoub rarely faced the consequences of his sloppy parking habits and, in fact, a policeman stood on guard beside the car. Chalhoub was grim-faced as he approached and Lynch’s stomach tightened with the premonition of bad news. Chalhoub took Lynch’s hand in a two-handed press.

  ‘Gerald, I’m sorry. Leila’s dead.’

  Lynch opened his mouth to speak, but his lips felt glued together. He shook his head, tears filling his eyes. Chalhoub’s hand was on his shoulder propelling him towards the car, the policeman standing aside and saluting. Lynch wasn’t there. Leila on top, smiling down at him. Leila laughing as they raced down the bumpy piste at Feraya, she skiing like a professional and he, militarily trained, rusty and less fluid in his movements. Her middle finger raised at him in triumph as he caught up with her at the bottom of the slope.

  God, but she was gorgeous.

  Lynch was silent as Chalhoub pulled away from the terminal, ghosts filling his head with perfume and softness and tears coursing down his cheeks.

  The body on the gurney looked tiny, covered in green and washed by the morgue’s greyish light. The attendant was about to pull the cover back, but Chalhoub stayed her with a peremptory palm. His baggy, sad eyes asked Lynch if he was sure and Lynch nodded. Yes, he was. He wanted to see her.

  The cloth was folded back. Lynch felt he was outside himself looking down on them both, he fearful and she in repose. The assistant, her eyes downcast, left the room. Chalhoub stayed.

  Her face was calm. Lynch stepped forward, touched her icy cheek, her hair. He spoke for the first time since leaving the airport. ‘How, Tony?’

  Chalhoub winced. ‘Heroin. A big dose. I know, she wasn’t a user. No track marks. Did you ever know her take drugs at all?’

  Lynch shook his head. ‘No. Never. She wasn’t against them per se. Just didn’t do anything for her. Liked whisky. Smart girl.’ His lips trembled. He shut his mouth, his lips tight.

  Chalhoub cleared his throat. ‘There was ... there was a note.’

  Lynch nodded. Of course there was. Oh Christ, please not let this be because of me, because of us. He wondered where she’d got the heroin. Why heroin? Why suicide, come to that? Lynch’s mind was reeling. Leila was about life. ‘What did she say?’

  There was something desperate in Chalhoub’s eyes. ‘No, not suicide. One of those notes. She was tied. Cable ties, from the marks.’

  Lynch stared at Chalhoub. Those notes. The vellum, the thick paper with its flowing calligraphy. He whispered, ‘No.’

  Chalhoub held him close. Lynch clutched at his friend, resting his chin on his shoulder. Chalhoub patted his back. ‘I’m sorry, Gerald. I’m sorry.’

  Unseen by Tony Chalhoub, Lynch’s eyes were dry and his face was set hard.

  Lynch rounded the corner of the cobbled street, his eye distracted for a second by the sun reflecting off the little pair of blue enamelled plaques on the pale stone wall. Every street in Beirut had them, one in French and one in Arabic, displaying the area and road number in white lettering. Nathalie was waiting for him at the café. Lynch was profoundly grateful she hadn’t been there when he had returned to the apartment the night before. He had picked up a bottle and a glass, filled a bowl with ice and shut himself in his bedroom. He ignored her knocking on his door in the morning, but he had felt strong enough to talk to her by noon and had taken her call.

  Nathalie glanced up from her seat under the striped red and white awning. ‘I am sorry, Gerald. They told me.’

  His head hurt and he had a raging thirst. He leant on the table, his face creased with a winning grin. ‘Well, an’ that apart, it’s a lovely day to meet a beautiful woman for lunch in this fantastic old city. So why be caught in the doldrums, eh? Why waste all this life we have?’

  Her shocked face told him anger had made him loud, couples turning to see what the fuss was about. For a second his head dropped and then he caught her gaze, his voice quiet. ‘She was killed with an overdose of heroin. Freij’s killers left her a little note. I will have my day yet.’

  Nathalie was patently at a loss for words and Lynch reached out to touch her hand. ‘It’s okay, Nathalie. It’s something I’ll have to deal with one day when there’s time. Right now, I just want Freij. No,’ he said as her mouth softened ready to form a platitude, ‘I really want Freij.’

  Lynch tried to rein in his feelings at her uncertain reaction to his cold passion. He needed an ally right now, even a shoulder to soak up the tears when they came back. He didn’t know when they would, but for now anger had dried them up. He tried to lighten for her, paused to control himself. Lynch knew his voice was too bright. ‘Did you get anywhere with Scerri’s phone records?’

  She shook her head, her eyes wary. ‘No, not yet. My team is looking for any connection with Falcon Dynamics and this company Scerri had called in Albania, an oil company called PIL. He had placed several calls there over the past ten days.’

  There had been a scar on Leila’s arse where she had fallen on glass as a child. In the war. It was a tiny sideways cicatrice like a smiley. He used to find it in the dark, like a blind person finding ‘5’ on a mobile or F and J on a keyboard.

  Lynch forced his thoughts back to the present. ‘So what else have we got to go on?’

  Nathalie leaned forward slightly. ‘The night before you left, I met with Ghassan Maalouf. And he wants Freij as well. He wants him very badly.’

  Lynch’s eyebrows raised, an appreciative look at her. ‘But your father doesn’t want Maalouf. He’s made that clear before. Why’s Maalouf so interested in Freij, anyway?’

  ‘We met in Jounieh, at the Casino du Liban. For dinner. He is an interesting man, you know? He knows we are going hard after Freij. And he, they, want us to succeed.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The powerful Christians. They don’t trust him. Falcon has close ties to a number of American companies and right-wing think tanks. It is true Freij has been courting both America and Israel. But at the same time, his business partner Selim Hussein is Shia and he has been visiting Damascus and Tehran. The people aligned to Maalouf have a large dossier on Freij. There is much that is unexplained. Beyond this, a number of the more powerful Christian families are concerned at how much popular attention Freij has managed to attract. There are many vested interests. Many jealousies.’

  ‘So what’s on the table?’

  ‘Maalouf has given me a contact, a man we can use to gain access to Falcon Dynamics’ networks. The Lebanese don’t have the advanced digital resources we do, but they do have extensive human intelligence. He has offered their cooperation in return for an equal share of our product. And Freij’s head.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘The alternative is that he’d arrest us, which he has the authority to do. They’re aware we’re involved in an operation against Freij. They could make it look bad for us. He made this quite clear. He knows our operations and networks in Lebanon are all compromised.’

  Lynch was sharp. ‘Our? Is that a European ‘Our’ or a French ‘Our’, I wonder?’

  Nathalie tutted. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  The waiter arrived with their drinks and a breadbasket, fussing around the table and laying out cutlery.

  ‘Steak et frites,’ said Lynch.

  Nathalie pointed to the menu. ‘Le poulet, s’il vous plait.’

  The waiter’s features softened perceptibly. ‘Mais vous etes bien sûr Francaise, Madame.’

  ‘Oui.’ She smiled. ‘Bien sûr.’

  ‘Bienvenu! C’est mon plaisir de vous servir.’ He retreated, beaming.

  Lynch glowered at the waiter’s back. ‘Christ on a bike, what did you people do here to make them so bloody grateful to see you?’

  ‘Us? The French? Honestly, Lynch? We took sides. We were clear. Something you English never managed to
do. At least the Lebanese Christians love the French. In the Monde Arabe, everyone’s agreed on what they think of the English.’

  ‘That’s not true and I’m not bloody English.’

  Nathalie broke a bread roll and delicately changed the subject. ‘The French Embassy people are unhappy about my team. We have set up a mobile surveillance unit in the grounds of the Résidence des Pins. They are bureaucrats, these people. They are very old-fashioned. Papa says things were better in his day.’ She grinned at Lynch. ‘It always is like this, non? It is always better in the old days, as they say.’

  Lynch finished his beer and signalled for another. ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t quite had my day yet.’

  Nathalie popped a piece of bread into her mouth and sat back, one eyebrow raised at Lynch. ‘We could benefit from the help of the Lebanese now. Falcon Dynamics is highly secure and we have not been able to gain access to any systems at all. It also has an Internet footprint that is very vague, with little information that bears the scrutiny. Many third party sources and reports, blogs and so on can be traced back to Falcon Dynamics itself or become the dead ends – they have created their own legend. You call it this, non?’ Lynch nodded and she continued. ‘So, there is this legend on the Web. When we look at known contacts, there exists almost nothing. Every senior associate we have investigated has been pure as the snow. We have only one contact who is viable, and likely still has security access to Falcon and that is the man Maalouf told me about. We are, after all this effort, reduced to one man.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  The waiter arrived, Nathalie acknowledging his bowing and scraping, Lynch’s plate delivered without ceremony. Ravenous, he started to eat, the steak tender and the fries breaking with little puffs of steam.

  Nathalie picked up her fork. ‘He is a lecturer in Middle East history at the American University of Beirut. His given name is Anthony Najimi, but he is known as Spike. He is something of a character, apparently. A big rebel figure. A folk hero to many of the students.’