Beirut - An Explosive Thriller Page 5

  ‘Welcome back to Blighty, Lynch. Well, well. The youngest son gone to the colonies. What can we get you? Tea? Too early for a chota peg, really.’

  Chota peg. Christ. Channing still thought it was trendy to be a young crusty. Mind you, he was putting on the years now, good-looking for all that. ‘Scotch. On the rocks.’

  Channing turned the lighthouse of his smile on Yates. ‘Can Mrs Bryson rustle up a pot of tea, do you think, Yates?’

  Yates backed out of the room. ‘Course, sir.’

  Brian Bloody Channing, thought Lynch as he stared into the cold fireplace. Dapper deputy director for security and public affairs, consummate politician and the most genial host ever to slide a knife into his guests’ backs and twist it even as he smiled and served them more drinks and dips.

  Lynch had as little as he could do with Channing. Most of their conversations revolved around some form of rebuke or another, one more rule Lynch had broken or petty bureaucrat he’d pissed off. Their relationship was often stormy, but Lynch had once met Channing’s secretary out on the town with the girls and she had later confided in Lynch, as he lay by her, that Channing thought the world of him. The knowledge sustained him through the darker days.

  Channing settled into his high-backed chair. ‘His Excellency the Ambassador not too pleased with you right now, Gerald, truth be told. Seems to think the Secret Intelligence Service should be secret and, well, intelligent, apparently. Not thrashing around beating up billionaire presidential hopefuls’ secretaries. That sort of thing.’

  Lynch opened his mouth to reply but Channing held up his hand. ‘Old-fashioned, is our St John, I know. But perhaps you might take his ability to cause an almighty stink in Whitehall into account next time you decide to tase yourself in a china shop or whatever it is you thought you were doing.’

  Lynch frowned. ‘A good man flew back here with me, Brian. He was lying in a box in the hold of the plane. And Michel Freij killed him.’

  ‘Gerald, I understand your feelings. It’s never easy to lose an agent. But Freij has complained formally and my minister has officially instructed me to, and I quote here, Gerald, “Get my dogs off Freij”. Lynch leaned forward, but Channing’s hand was still up. ‘No, Gerald. I won’t hear it. We don’t have a great deal of time. Down the corridor, a meeting is taking place, which you will join in due course. It is a meeting of EJIC, the European Joint Intelligence Committee. It’s our newest toy and it represents a quite unprecedented step forwards in European cooperation. In my personal opinion, it also represents the surrender of the last shred of our sovereignty, but then I suppose I am out of sync with the times on that one.’

  Lynch grinned. ‘Jesus and am’t I Irish? I could care less about your sovereignty.’

  ‘You’re a British bloody subject and public servant, Lynch.’

  Lynch sat back. ‘So is this about the Falcon Dynamics transfer?’

  ‘Go to the top of the class, Gerald. The committee’s current chair is French, a certain Yves Dubois. He’s heavyweight. The French have few if any active assets in Lebanon at this moment following the Lévesques debacle. That whole network being exposed by Al Jazeera has blown their Levantine operations sky high. It’s remarkable. Apparently the French embassy in Beirut is almost empty without its usual complement of watchers and hoods. We can expect European Joint Intelligence to use its ownership of this operation to include some form of attempt to rebuild French operations there. You will be offered “resources”. Kindly accept the offer graciously.’

  ‘You mean I’ll get a French shadow?’

  ‘Precisely. And you are, of course, to cooperate fully and report fully on what he gets up to.’

  ‘Does it matter? I mean, Beirut’s not exactly the jewel in SIS’ crown, is it? I’m a one-man show most of the time. It’s a far cry from back in the days when we had the language school in Shemlan and all that carry on. You know yourself, you’ve mothballed pretty much every source I’ve come up with since the Jordanian water affair blew up.’

  ‘Don’t be bitter. It doesn’t suit you.’ Channing leaned forward. ‘Another thing. Dubois is on the warpath. Watch the bastard. He’s empire building and I won’t have it.’

  The door opened and Yates pushed a small, creaking trolley into the room. Channing rose, brushing imaginary dust from his trouser. ‘I’m going down the corridor. Join us after your cup of tea, twenty minutes or so. Be pleased to see me. I know you’re a natural actor, so it shouldn’t be too onerous.’

  Lynch glared at Channing’s back as he left. He grimaced at the teapot on the trolley and winked at Yates. ‘Yates, can you fix that scotch?’

  ‘Course, sir.’

  ‘Good man, yeself.’

  SIX

  Lynch barged into the meeting room. The faux-Georgian table hosted a collection of ghost-faced waiters and watchers. Brian Channing was halfway to his feet, surprised by the speed of Lynch’s entry, his mouth half open. To his right, frozen in immortal tableau was Jefferson from customs. Lynch had met him once, some shitty security conference in a tatty Northern hotel, an internal affair. Next to Jefferson was a big, sandy man wearing a beige jacket. Lynch guessed he was another customs type and a stranger to the rest of the group, his big hands cupped the cheap porcelain coffee cup in front of him.

  ‘Top of the morning to ye,’ Lynch said, thickening his Northern accent.

  Channing’s smile took in the room. ‘Everybody, I’d like you to meet our head man in Beirut, Gerald Lynch. Gerald, I shall make the introductions. You know Nigel Jefferson from Customs and Excise, to his right is Charles Duggan. This is Yves Dubois, the chair of the European Joint Intelligence Committee and to his right is Nathalie Durand. Nathalie represents the technical directorate of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. Herr Dieter Schmidt represents the Bundesnachrichtendienst.’

  Lynch took his place, stretching to help himself to sulky spurts of coffee from the battered canteen.

  ‘Shall I summarise our discussion and bring Gerald up to date? Gerald, I think I can speak for us all when I offer my condolences on the death of your colleague. It was really most unfortunate.’

  Channing picked up a pencil as a baton for his exposition. Lynch settled in for the long haul, a glance round the table confirming a similar air of resignation among the listeners and earning him a tight-lipped smile from Durand. Her lipstick was carmine, offsetting her alabaster skin, her hair shoulder length and jet black apart from a single red streak. A little badge of individuality there, thought Lynch as he idly wondered why she was in the room.

  Channing extended his hand. ‘So, for Gerald’s sake, Mr Duggan here is a customs officer involved in high-risk operations against organised criminals in cross-border situations. Whilst on leave following his injury in an unfortunately concluded operation in Hamburg, he encountered a young lady who claimed to be the daughter of a certain Gerhardt Hoffmann, a German businessman who is the CEO and sole shareholder of Luxe Marine, a manufacturer of high-end luxury yachts. The young lady claimed her father was trying to kill her after she discovered he was in the process of selling illegal arms to Arab buyers and shipping them using one of Luxe Marine’s yachts. The arms in question, she claimed, were looted from a cold war arms cache near the Czech border. She has subsequently been reported as missing, believed abducted. Dieter?’

  ‘We have preliminary results from electronic surveillance of Hoffmann’s personal finances as well as his business interests. Both were a problem until before two weeks. At this time a deposit counting eighty million US dollars was made to the Luxe Marine business account from Bankhaus Löbbecke. The payment was justified as a deposit against an eighty million dollar order from a pair of Middle Eastern businessmen, Michel Freij and his partner Selim Hussein, for a fifty-metre yacht. The price of almost two million dollars per metre is very high – significantly in excess of two, even three times the market rate, I am informed.’ He smiled. ‘Although I am, sadly, no expert in luxury yachts.’

  Lynch joined i
n the dutiful rustle of amusement that passed around the table. ‘The Bankhaus Löbbecke payment originated from a German dot com company, Kaufsmartz.com. You know this company I think, Mr Lynch.’

  ‘Sure and I do. Kaufsmartz is owned by Falcon Holdings, an offshore investment vehicle owned by Falcon Dynamics, which belongs to Freij and Hussein. We tracked the transfer they made to top up Kaufsmartz’ account – they were using a stream of micropayments to make the transfers surreptitiously.’

  ‘Quite so. We also have tracked a payment of forty million dollars made almost immediately afterwards by Luxe Marine to a certain Peter Meier, Hoffmann’s brother-in-law. Meier has long been known to us in connection with a number of cases involving the shipment of arms. We have found no trace of the girl.’

  Lynch glanced around the people in the room, his attention drawn to the big customs man, Duggan, who was running his hand distractedly through his ginger-blond hair and looking like he might explode at any second. A physical man, a man of action cooped up with dull talkers, Lynch conjectured. Duggan caught his eye and glanced away.

  Channing brandished his pencil. ‘Thank you, Dieter. Now, while investigating Luxe Marine, Mr Duggan also made brief contact with a person who identified himself as Gonsalves. There is a known associate of Peter Meier’s, a Joel Gonsalves. He is an experienced ship’s captain and a man with, let us say, a chequered past. We believe on this basis he is commanding the yacht, which is called the Arabian Princess. It is obviously early to draw any concrete conclusion from what is, at this stage, highly circumstantial evidence. We have an unusual transfer of money that is not, as far as I am aware, strictly illegal, from Beirut to Germany. We have an order for an overpriced luxury yacht. But we also have a missing girl who claims her father has become an arms smuggler. She was, incidentally, a prostitute.’

  Duggan was on his feet, Jefferson pulling at his sleeve. He shook Jefferson off. ‘What the hell does that change?’

  ‘Nothing, Mr Duggan. Please, be seated.’ Dubois’ voice was a surprise. Insidious and smooth, it flowed like mercury into the room. His accent was faint, but Lynch reckoned women would find it attractive. He wondered if Nathalie of the night-black hair and green eyes had heard Dubois talking dirty in those low, musical tones.

  Dubois waited for the big man to settle. ‘You are suggesting we proceed in monitoring only, Brian? The man you employed to investigate this matter in Beirut was killed, is it not so Mr Lynch?’

  Lynch glanced at Channing. ‘May I speak openly?’

  ‘Of course, Gerald. We’re with friends, partners, here.’

  ‘Yes, he was killed. His throat was slashed. Paul Stokes evidently struck a nerve when he interviewed Freij. I obviously had no idea of the ferocity of the reaction it would trigger. I have a transcript of the interview. Stokes rattled Freij when he started to talk about the money transfer from Falcon to its German subsidiary Kaufsmartz, but Freij terminated the interview the second Stokes brought up the micropayments. His reaction was mad altogether. I believe Michel Freij had Stokes abducted and killed.’

  ‘Michel Freij is a significant public figure, Mr Lynch.’ Dubois’ voice was no less smooth but he leaned forwards, his eyebrow raised. ‘As well as being a successful businessman, he is a high-profile political player. You are laying a very serious charge.’

  Political player my arse, thought Lynch. Tony Chalhoub had called Lynch’s mobile as he waited for his flight that morning and confirmed the address he had asked Tony to look into was the new headquarters of Freij’s One Lebanon party. The building was so new, Lynch had missed the signage going up by a day. Now its entrance was capped by the new One Lebanon logo. Apparently there had been a shooting near there the evening before, Chalhoub had continued. Did Lynch know anything about it? If he heard anything, he’d be sure to call Tony first, wouldn’t he?

  ‘Michel is the son of Raymond Freij, one of the most feared Christian warlords during the Lebanese civil war. He was a prominent Phalangist.’ Lynch turned to the others in the room. ‘The Phalange is a far-right Lebanese political movement, supported by the Christians. Its militia has long been notorious for its brutality.’

  Dubois’ voice was sharp, ‘I am aware of that. What of it?’

  Lynch gazed at Dubois. He pulled a folded piece of textured vellum from his inside pocket and slid it across. ‘This was next to Stokes’ corpse.’

  Brian Channing was on his feet, craning his head to catch sight of the document. ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘It is a death warrant.’ Dubois sat back and examined the elegant calligraphy. ‘The type Michel’s father used to write. Raymond died over ten years ago of cancer. He was a cruel man and fond of grand gestures. This has the name Paul Stokes written on it.’

  Lynch wondered how Dubois had known about Raymond Freij’s odd habit of writing out his enemies’ death warrants with a quill pen on vellum.

  ‘This isn’t conclusive,’ said Dubois, waving the paper at Lynch.

  ‘Isn’t it? I suppose the two thugs from Freij’s One Lebanon militia who entered Stokes’ flat didn’t steal the key to his front door from his dead body then, did they?’

  A dip of Dubois’ head acknowledged the point. ‘And yet Michel Freij would surely not link himself to the crime by leaving a billet-doux behind.’

  ‘His father did. Freij is probably more powerful than his father. And arrogant. He’s virtually untouchable in Lebanon and he knows it.’

  Channing’s gaze flicked round the room, taking the temperature. His hands layered in front of him, catlike, he turned to Dubois. ‘We have to be reasonable. We can’t surely start intercepting international shipping on the basis of some Hamburger whore’s sad luck story and mount a major operation against international terrorism because an Arab businessman buys a yacht with a bit of hooky cash? We need a deal more evidence than this before we can justify allocating resources.’

  Lynch glanced sourly at Channing. Your bloody minister’s pulling your strings there, Brian. He pushed back his chair and wandered to the window, the movement electrifying the room.

  ‘The trouble is, it isn’t just any old Arab businessman, is it? It’s Michel bloody Freij and he killed Stokes because he was pushed about that money transfer. Freij is in Berlin right now. He has a meeting at the Landsee. It’s a golf club, right?’

  ‘Ja. Hoffmann is known to be a member.’ Schmidt answered.

  Lynch turned, framed darkly against the dull daylight behind him. ‘So let’s just conjecture Michel Freij is meeting with Hoffmann at his golf club. Hoffmann the bankrupt who has just come into eighty million dollars in the nick of time and straight away paid half of it over to a known arms dealer. The same Hoffmann whose daughter says he’s selling bombs to Arabs?’

  ‘And what arms are we talking about here, precisely?’ Channing challenged. ‘Conventional? Chemical? What is this shipment that’s worth the price of two superyachts?’

  The viscous voice seeped into the room again as Dubois placed his hand on the small pile of papers in front of him and leaned forwards. ‘Mr Channing is perfectly right in this. We know too little about this affair. But I would suggest there is enough here for us to investigate. We must place Hoffmann under surveillance. Meier, too. We need to find what, if any, weapons were sold, on what basis and to whom. We also have to substantiate this story of a luxury yacht being used to transfer them. This is an ideal operation for European Joint Intelligence as it touches so many of our stakeholders. Surveillance will be handled by the Bundesnachrichtendienst who would oversee the domestic service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. Does this work for you, Herr Schmidt?’

  Schmidt nodded, his head lowered. Lynch’s lips tightened. Jesus, would ye look at him? He’s only fucking delighted.

  Dubois continued to deliver his judgement. ‘Mr Jefferson, could British customs coordinate with our European partners in the marine search for the boat and lead the liaison with the International Marine Organisation? I think this is urgent. Ms Durand and her digital intel
ligence team will work closely with Mr Lynch in Beirut on this. I would like to prioritise an assessment of the security dangers posed by any plan to import arms into Lebanon – and particularly why a respected Lebanese defence company with known American affiliations would want to become involved in the black market for weapons. Brian, as Mr Lynch is already with us here in Europe, perhaps he might care to coordinate our efforts to discover precisely what has happened at Luxe Marine? We are, as you know, very stretched for resources.’

  You wily old Froggie bugger, Lynch marvelled, you were going to do this all along. It was all mapped out ages before I came into this room. You’ve given gifts to everyone and Channing’s outgunned.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Channing, a politician conceding the battle. Lynch had worked for Channing for years, knew the man well and had rarely seen him politically bettered. This one went to Dubois. Lynch shook his head. The politics of intelligence had always revolted him. He relished Channing’s brittle smile.

  Channing sighed. ‘Well, that’s settled. It will be at least good to have some professional help for Mr Lynch when he gets back to Beirut.’

  Brian Channing had just let his pain show and Lynch’s black Irish heart sang for joy.

  Duggan sat staring from the window, a lonely figure picked out in the dull daylight. Lynch closed the door behind him and sipped his whisky. Yates had fixed him a second on his way upstairs to meet the customs man after the EJIC meeting had broken up and the guests had left the safe house.

  ‘So you’re the MI6 man on the case?’

  ‘So they tell me. What was it you were doing in Hamburg again?’

  Duggan turned to regard Lynch. ‘Isn’t that in my file? A drugs bust, went wrong and I copped a bullet in my shoulder. I was recuperating for a couple of days before I flew back.’