Assassin's Silence: A David Slaton Novel (40 page)

There were two possibilities as to what lay inside. He might be looking at a command center, a place where senior officers met occasionally to strategize, and more frequently to drink strong coffee and discuss the latest rumors. The other option, and the one more to Slaton’s liking, was that this was an armory. Given the condition of the building, and the fact that the only vehicles outside were two beaten trucks, he leaned toward the latter being the case. Like all armies, the militias of Lebanon positioned their arsenals thoughtfully, situated near enough to the front lines that arms could be brought to bear quickly, yet not so close that they could swiftly be overrun by an enemy.

Slaton was studying the place, trying to verify its purpose, when the answer was gifted to him. Two men emerged from the building, each cradling an armload of weapons. One after the other, they dropped an assortment of rifles, two with grenade launchers, presumably not loaded, into the bed of the lead truck, a dusty Isuzu pickup that was missing its tailgate.

He watched intently as the men went back inside. They soon returned with a second load—another armload of rifles for one, and the other struggling with a pair of metal ammo boxes. After depositing everything in the Isuzu, they bantered briefly with the guards, the sentry with the phone now done with his text.

Having worked with all variety of military units, Slaton thought he understood what was happening. There was an outside chance this cache of weaponry was being moved to a new location, but the far more likely answer aligned with the workings of an infantry unit, which was effectively what these militias were. No foot soldier was useful until he could shoot straight, and that required training. Target practice, however, was not an urban exercise—too many innocent bystanders, not to mention a watchful enemy two blocks away who might dangerously misinterpret a hundred-round barrage.

Slaton was convinced that the trucks he was watching would depart soon, probably heading east. Sometime tonight, in a nameless sand swale somewhere in the desolate Bekaa Valley, a rendezvous would take place. Squads of new recruits would be briefed by the equivalent of noncommissioned officers. An old sergeant would hold up an older rifle and explain where to find the trigger, although not before emphasizing which end was to be kept pointed downrange at all times. When the talking was done, the rest was straightforward. Teenage boys and out-of-work waiters would spray bullets for an hour in the direction of ill-lit paper targets and spent gin bottles. After a brief intermission, more advanced firepower would be demonstrated by the instructor cadre, and sometime before midnight two dozen weapons, hot-barreled and laced in the acid tang of spent gunpowder, would be dumped back into the truck for the return trip to the armory. Mission complete.

Slaton began moving along the relatively quiet sidewalks of Independance Street—even years after the end of hostilities it remained a no-man’s land. He crossed the street on an angle, masking behind a slow-moving produce truck. The four men chattered for a time, until one went to the cab of the Isuzu, which was now fully loaded, and pulled it twenty meters forward along the curb. Slaton adjusted his pace, anticipating that the driver’s partner would reposition the other truck, a Mitsubishi SUV, directly in front of the entrance.

That was exactly how it happened.

The rest was no more than timing. On reaching the adjacent sidewalk, Slaton governed his pace and concentrated on the Isuzu. When the driver got out and headed back to the entrance, Slaton noticed what was not in his hand. He was ten steps from the truck when both men disappeared inside, leaving only the guards—one had gone back to his phone, and the other was watching Slaton, but not in an anxious way. Peace had a way of softening men.

Slaton glanced into the cab of the Isuzu and took inventory: windows open, doors unlocked, rearview mirror, shift lever of a manual transmission. Best of all—a set of keys hanging loose in the ignition. Slaton bolted toward the cab.

He had the motor cranking before the first shout. By the second Slaton had a hand on the wheel and another on the gearshift. Lying flat across the bench seat, he adjusted the mirror to see what was happening behind him. The guard who was standing had reacted first, and in the oblong reflection Slaton watched a Kalashnikov come level, followed by a hesitation while its operator fiddled with the fire selector. As Slaton popped the clutch the soldier got off one wild burst, more an alarm to the others than a threat. The truck lurched into motion, and the AK’s barrel dropped when the guard realized what was happening—tires squealing, the Isuzu was coming straight at him in reverse.

Slaton spun the steering wheel and the back left tire bounded onto the curb. There was a flash in the mirror as the second guard, having clambered out of his chair, made the only sensible move—he dove for the safety of the entrance alcove. His partner was right behind him, the Kalashnikov clattering to the sidewalk. The truck gained speed, and Slaton spun the wheel hard right. In a perfect strike, the Isuzu’s right rear quarter-panel smashed into the other truck. Slaton slammed the shift lever into first and floored the accelerator. Steering back into the road, he ventured a look back and saw the left front wheel of the Mitsubishi cocked at a hopeless angle.

The guards recovered and shots rang out, the rounds absorbed somewhere in the truck’s light frame. Slaton looked up only once to gauge a turn onto the first side street. He misjudged slightly and the Isuzu clipped the curb, vaulting onto two wheels before the undercarriage crashed back to earth. With the guards’ line of fire broken, Slaton sat up straight and drove for a mile like a Formula 1 madman. Another turn put him on a busy Yerevan thoroughfare, where he slowed to the pace of the local madmen.

Two miles later he found what he wanted—a large retail store, Swedish furniture apparently, with a loading dock at the rear. Slaton steered toward a spalled concrete platform where twin receiving doors were locked down tight. The truck wasn’t handling well—something had given way in the chassis—and he clipped a Dumpster before grinding to a halt in a hiss of steam.

He got out, walked quickly to the Dumpster, and began foraging. An eight-foot-long box that had once held a floor lamp he discarded as too cumbersome, and a rectangular wooden crate he deemed too small. Slaton settled on a beach umbrella sleeved in a colorful four-foot nylon carrying bag. He removed the umbrella and found it in two sections, a lower pole meant to screw into the sand, and an umbrella that was damaged, its fabric detached from a floral of plastic ribs—no doubt the reason it was here. Slaton ripped the multicolored fabric from its frame, kept the nylon sleeve, and tossed the rest back into the Dumpster.

He eyed the truck’s bed like a child at an ice cream counter. Rifles predominated, mostly AK-47s, but also a pair of Turkish-made Kalekalip sniper rifles. Slaton was reaching for one of these when he spotted a third type—a compact SVDS. The Russian-made marksman’s weapon was common here, although this particular item had, quite literally, been through the wars. The SVDS was a respectable long gun, rugged and tight, and after a brief inspection he deemed the weapon serviceable. Better yet, it was topped by a night-vision scope—not a complex IR illuminator, but a more reliable starlight scope, a passive system designed to amplify low levels of ambient light. When Slaton uncovered a box of standard 7.62 millimeter cartridges in the first ammunition box, his decision was made.

He divided thirty loose rounds into four pockets, slipped the gun inside the umbrella fabric, and that into the nylon sleeve. Slaton drew the drawstring tight. The shape of the sheath was slightly altered, but hardly noticeable. He saw a beaten six-pack cooler in the cab of the truck, opened it, and found the remains of someone’s lunch.

One minute later he was walking along General Chehab Street. He passed beneath the long shadow of the Lebanese Canadian Bank, and near an empty police car he discreetly dropped the Isuzu’s keys into a poorly managed hedgerow. With one more right turn, Slaton was strolling a beachside path with an empty blue cooler in one hand and an umbrella in the other, a brick-red sun kissing the shimmering sea.

FIFTY-EIGHT

There are three ways to mitigate exposure to radiation: time, distance, and shielding. With the first two implausible, Ghazi relied on the last. He used extreme caution with the first canister. He was forced to manipulate the transport casks by hand until they were nearly open—simple enough once you knew how the assembly operated, and with the right tool to key the retaining ring and initiate aperture rotation. That done, Ghazi began the most delicate part of the operation.

His work area was shielded by eighteen inches of lead brick, with a small viewing port constructed of lead-lined drywall and special glass that also contained lead. He worked with industrial tongs, and once the first container was open he moved it with great care toward a mixing chamber fashioned from one of the fifty-five-gallon drums. Inside the barrel, two agitators ran continuously to dissolve the cesium chloride, a readily soluble salt, into thirty gallons of water. Behind him on the amidships deck were the three two-thousand-gallon bladders, each filled with ordinary water and connected by a network of pumps to the hopper tank. Ghazi would initiate that transfer soon, before takeoff, but the drum laden with the slurry of radioactive material would be combined after takeoff using a remotely activated switch. Ghazi expected some leakage from the doors, and he thought it best to reserve as much radiation as possible for their target.

“Is it working?” called Tuncay from fifty feet away. Ghazi had told him to keep a distance once this stage was reached—in truth, more because he didn’t want to be disturbed than any kind of safety hazard. Radiation had its benefits.

“Yes,” shouted Ghazi. “Everything is fine.”

“I will tell Ben-Meir and Walid you’ve begun the final stage. How long will it take?”

“Two hours,” Ghazi called out. “No more.”

The pilot disappeared down the painter’s ladder.

The first canister took nine painstaking minutes. When it was done, Ghazi could not help but glance at the dosimeter attached to his shirt. So far so good—the reading was moderate. Once he got a rhythm, he was sure the others would go more quickly.

“One down, fifty-one to go,” he muttered into a wall of lead.

*   *   *

An hour later Slaton was seated comfortably in the lounge of the five-star Phoenicia, enjoying a café au lait and, more importantly, a commanding view of the hotel entrance. He had quickly solved one of his problems, that of firepower, while waiting for actionable intelligence from Langley. Now he needed transportation.

Renting a car was out of the question, as he had not even entered the country legally. His dwindling supply of cash precluded purchasing a vehicle without papers, and while Donnelly and the CIA might eventually offer something from the embassy motor pool, that would come with strings attached and cost valuable time. As was his custom, Slaton opted for a more direct approach.

For twenty minutes he watched the valet parking stand outside the Phoenicia’s entrance, where two young men in white uniforms were busy on the evening rush. Slaton saw a Porsche and a Mercedes arrive, and a Jaguar depart. He watched the flow of the operation, noting that it took four minutes for the attendants to make a round trip to their parking area on that ever-purposeful trot demonstrated by valets around the world.

The fourth car to arrive, an Audi sport sedan, drew his close interest. Or more precisely, its occupants did—a middle-aged Lebanese man and a well-dressed woman. Neither carried baggage, and after leaving the Audi in the care of the taller of the two valets, Slaton watched the man slip the claim ticket into the side pocket of his suit coat. The couple then headed straight toward him, the coat pocket passing within six inches of his shoulder before ending on the opposite side of the lounge where a large group of equally fashionable people were mingling.

Slaton repositioned to a different chair, bettering his view, and he ordered a Coke from a waiter, ignoring an urge to ask for ice—only Americans did that. The air was carved with expensive scotch and even more expensive perfume, the staccato clink of stemware a constant backdrop. He watched a twenty-dollar martini spill on a two-hundred-dollar tie, and saw a minor drug deal take place across the bar. But mostly, Slaton watched the suit coat.

He watched it for a full twelve minutes, at which point the driver removed his coat and draped it over the back of his chair. Slaton stood and circled to the far side of the room. He waited.

The man’s date drifted to chat at a nearby table. Slaton edged closer.

A shapely waitress in a low-cut blouse approached with the man’s starter martini.

Slaton picked up his pace. At the moment she bent over to deliver the drink, along with a considerable display of cleavage, Slaton brushed past the chair.

Ninety seconds later he presented the Audi’s claim ticket to the smaller valet, a smiling young man named Andre. The ticket was wrapped in a twenty-dollar bill, and instead of mirroring the kid’s smile, Slaton gave him a
be-careful-with-my-car-or-else
glare. With his partner off on a retrieval, a purposeful Andre trotted away flashing an index finger to a fresh queue of arrivals—an Aston Martin and a Ford—to tell them he would be right back. Things would be very busy for the next few minutes.

Which suited Slaton perfectly.

*   *   *

The Audi was small and quick. Slaton steered the car to a side entrance and parked near a pair of hotel courtesy busses, one of which had a flat tire and looked as though it had been out of service for months. With the Audi acting as a screen, he went to the derelict bus’s rear luggage bay, which had until recently been empty and locked. He retrieved the umbrella-encased rifle and placed it on the Audi’s rear floor.

Slaton soon had the car merging onto the coast road, and he set a quick pace to the north. The phone in his pocket weighed heavily, but he decided not to turn it on. Not yet. North of town he sped through Maameltein, and past the Casino du Liban, famous for its black ties and flush clientele. Soon the lights of Beirut went dim in his mirror.