Beirut - An Explosive Thriller

Beirut - An
Explosive Thriller

Alexander
McNabb

Copyright ©
Alexander McNabb 2012

The moral
right of the author has been asserted.

All rights
reserved.

No part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

All
characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Smashwords
Edition

The Levant
Cycle

Olives – A
Violent Romance

Beirut – An
Explosive Thriller

Shemlan – A
Deadly Tragedy (2013)

What
reviewers said about
Olives – A Violent
Romance

“
McNabb has
created a world that is uniquely Arab and foreign at once. He
obviously understands the region, its politics and its culture. And
that is its greatest strength. It is able to draw in the reader
early on, creating a world that is at once familiar and
strange.”

Joseph Mayton
writing in BikyarMasr

“
The
intensity of Paul and Aisha’s love story is the novel’s defining
strength with their intimacy heating up to a feverish pitch as
disasters escalate and put them at risk.”

The National
newspaper

“
If you take
Tailor of Panama, add a sprinkle of Lawrence of Arabia, introduce
rich and memorable characters, a modern concern about water
scarcity, and bring up the speed, you will get Olives – A Violent
Romance by Alexander McNabb. Reading this book was an absolute
delight, with an intriguing ending that still keeps me
thinking.”

Hanging Out
Globally

My mother has
put up with an awful lot from me over the years. This is for
her.

ONE

The smell of
death was everywhere. Gerald Lynch wrinkled his nose, his eyes
adjusting to the darkness inside the villa. He picked his way
through the rubbish, shaking his head at the clatter of Palmer’s
blundering outside. The small washroom off the entrance hall had
overflowed.

Shit and
death.

Lynch tiptoed
across the hallway and gingerly opened a door, yanking it shut
against the buzzing cloud of flies. The next entrance led to the
kitchen, the floor strewn with empty cans and water bottles,
plastic cups, rotting food and, oddly, a number of dried teabags
stuck to the ceiling, flicked up there when they had been hot and
wet, their little yellow and red printed tags dangling from
tea-stained strings.

He winced as
Palmer stumbled into the building.

‘
Lynch?’

Moving back
into the hallway, Lynch found Palmer smoking in his white,
open-necked shirt. The younger man had a linen jacket slung over
his shoulder and a look of disgust on his reddened face. Lynch
grabbed the fat arm, digging his fingers into soft flesh. He
hissed, ‘Shut up, would you?’

Palmer’s
nervous laughter was a bark. ‘What, you think they’re here, do you?
You reckon they’re hiding in the bog waiting for us? We wouldn’t
have got within a mile of this place if they were still
around.’

Lynch shoved
the young man away. ‘Shut up. And don’t touch anything.’

Shaken by
Lynch’s violence, he whined. ‘Okay. Anything for a quiet life. I
wouldn’t have to be here at all if the Embassy hadn’t taken that
call.’

Lynch stole
into the living room. The furniture was scattered; the
terrazzo-tiled floor littered with clumps of stuffing from the
destroyed sofa. He searched for the TV remote, gave up and walked
over to the set. He pulled a pack of tissues from his pocket and
wrapped one around his finger to switch the set on. The sound was
almost deafening in the hot gloom: urgent Arabic, Hezbolla’s
Al Manar
channel.
Snapping the set off, he turned to speak to Palmer, but the Embassy
man had left. Whispering a curse, Lynch followed him to the bedroom
doorway.

‘
Christ,’
said Palmer.

Lynch pushed
past. The rich stench was appalling. The overturned bucket in the
corner of the room spilled waste onto the burn-pocked carpet. Rusty
streaks arced across the walls. Something darker, likely more shit,
completed the artwork. Eyehooks were set into the wall at the
opposite corner to the bucket, a long tangle of Day-Glo yellow rope
coiled on the floor below them. The bed sheets were streaked with
filth.

Lynch flicked
the newspaper on the floor with his foot:
The Beirut Times
, 22nd March. Five
days old. He reached towards the piece of expensive-looking paper
folded on the bed, halted by the sound of Palmer puking. Lynch
wheeled, the rebuke dying on his lips as he took in the opened
cupboard and the thing, once human, slumped inside. Pulling the
paper tissue over his face, he shoved the retching man’s bulk aside
and stared into the cupboard. The corpse stank, even through the
scented tissue. Fat bluebottles crawled over sightless eyes. Dark
rivulets crazed the marble white flesh. The slashed throat, an
obscene second mouth, grinned blackly at them.

Palmer
stumbled from the room. Lynch stared at the body, his mind and
heart racing, his stomach knotted. The shock numbed him, his lips
drawn tight and an unpleasant pricking sensation in his eyes. He
tensed against his stomach’s impulse. Unlike Palmer, he had done
this before. Bending to pat down the pockets, he ran his fingers
against the distended flesh and checked for documents. He turned to
the bed and picked up the fold of paper. Opening it revealed the
name ‘Paul Stokes’ in calligraphic script on the textured
surface.

The note was
familiar, the parchment placed beside the victim of every murder
ordered by Raymond Freij. The old man had inscribed dozens of them
throughout the long Lebanese civil war, before cancer had written
its own note in fine tendrils to crush his wracked body until he
could breathe no more. Raymond was said to have had a teak Indian
clerk’s
desk he liked to sit at
cross-legged to as he wrote each death warrant with a fine quill
pen. The calculated flamboyance added to the fear and legendary
status the warlord had courted. The humility of a
babu
’s desk, each death
so ordered reduced perhaps, then, to a clerical error.

‘
I’m sorry,
Lynch. Truly.’ Palmer’s bulk framed in the doorway, his face turned
away from the cupboard. His voice faltered. ‘I know Stokes was your
agent.’

Lynch
reviewed the pathetic earthly remains of Paul Stokes, journalist
and latterly spy, and smiled despite the lump in his throat. At
least Paul was reunited with Aisha, the girl he had loved and lost
so completely. Anger welled up in Lynch as he ran his thumb down
the rough edge of the vellum in his hand.

Freij. Like
father, like son.

Michel must
have done this. Michel Freij, the joint head of the biggest defence
technology company in the Arab world and Raymond Freij’s pride and
joy. When cancer carried Raymond the great warlord away, it brought
his son Michel the loyalty of countless Lebanese Christian mountain
villages and towns. Michel also inherited his father’s sprawling
business empire and the keys to a political career Michel had lost
no time in developing. Stokes had been rattling Michel’s cage, a
little job for Lynch on the side. And Michel had rattled back.
Hard.

Lynch strode
outside, stooping to inhale the clean air. Palmer burst from the
house a few seconds later, gasping. ‘So that’s it, is it? You just
walk ... walk away now?’

Lynch stared
into the hills, dotted with gnarled trees, the sky bright blue
above. He breathed in the warm Mediterranean spring air.

Palmer
manoeuvred to face him down. ‘Is that it? Job done, Gerry? Write
off your joe and piss off back to your nice, comfy flat in Beirut?
What was there to smile about back there? Stokes was a fucking
human being. He was a good man, dammit.’

‘
Don’t call
me Gerry. It’s Gerald.’ Lynch handed the boy a tissue and watched
him blow his nose. Tears welled up in the washed-out blue eyes, the
dark rings and puffiness around them at odds with his puppyfat
features. Every man has the face he deserves by forty, thought
Lynch. Oscar Wilde. At this rate, Palmer would look like a
Vietnamese pot-bellied pig.

‘
Th-thanks.’

‘
Come on.
Time to head back home. The Lebboes can clear this lot
up.’

Palmer
pocketed his tissue. ‘Does Stokes’ death truly mean nothing to you,
man? Are you intelligence people all so cold?’

Lynch spoke
gently, but his fists were clenched. ‘We all have different ways of
dealing with events.’ He strode across the dusty roadway to the car
and pulled open the door. He waited for Palmer to move, watching
the boy support himself against the concrete wall, great dark
patches under the arms and spine of his jacket. Palmer pushed
towards the car as Lynch started the engine.

In the dark
quiet of the villa, a mouse started to move, scurrying across the
warm tiles at the very moment Lynch, racing up the track onto the
Saida Road with Palmer huddled beside him, decided to pay Michel
Freij a personal visit.

Lynch left
the car with Palmer and jumped up the steps fronting the Freij
Building. He shoved the glass doors open and strode across the
echoing marble hall to the lifts. A woman got into the lift with
him. She seemed nervous. He turned his glare back to the stainless
steel doors as the robotic voice announced, ‘Executive Offices.
Doors opening.’

Lynch stormed
through the open-plan office, ignoring the insistent flunkies
asking him if they could help him. The brass placard glittered on
the double doors to the ‘Executive Suite’. He slammed them behind
him. The picture windows looked out over Beirut harbour, the blue
sky reflected in the polished, minimalist office furniture. Lynch
whirled to face the secretary standing behind her desk, a file
pressed to her breasts. The desktop hosted a single hyper-thin
screen and matte black keypad.

‘
Where’s
Michel Freij?’

She snapped
him a clinical smile, perfect teeth framed by pumped lips. ‘I’m
sorry, Mr Freij is not in the office right now. Who can I tell him
called?’

Lynch’s voice
was a low snarl. ‘I will ask you one more time nicely. Where is
Michel?’

‘
I’m sorry,
Mr?’ She stepped back, her smile faded. ‘I think you had better
leave.’

She raised
her head to call but Lynch moved fast around the desk and grabbed
her throat. He pushed her hard against the shelving unit. The file
flew from her hands, her face coloured under the pressure of his
grip. Her painted nails scrabbled at his strong wrist.