Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (17 page)

She pretended
not to notice his attention, wiping the corner of her mouth. ‘I
have been talking to some of our contacts here. Michel Freij is to
address a rally later this week. His agenda is centrist, his One
Lebanon party that will apparently bring the peoples of Lebanon
together, as Madame Chalabi said. They are running on a ticket of
constitutional reform and non-sectarian values. The rally will be
very large and take place in the
Place des
Martyrs
. It is expected over two hundred
thousand will attend.’

Lynch
harrumphed. ‘
Your
contacts?’

She smiled
sweetly at him. ‘Yes, our contacts. You surely recognise the French
government has an extraordinary relationship with Lebanon. We
founded the country, after all. My father lived and worked here
throughout the civil war. My mother was Lebanese. I probably know
more people in Beirut than you do, Monsieur Lynch. For instance,
our dinner last night was with my contact, was it not?’

Lynch snapped
the newspaper shut. ‘And here was me thinking we were
Europeans.’

‘
And so we
are. But some of us are, after all, a little more European than
others. Shall we ask for the cheque?’

Lynch caught
the eye of the man at the till, his voice genial.
‘
Antoine? L’addition, s’il te plait.
’
He leaned towards Nathalie,
his cold urgency belying the smile. ‘You know, my dear, this
isn’t
your
city.
It isn’t even what you’d call
my
city after over thirty years living here. It
never has been anything but
their
city. The sooner you grow up and realise it, the
better off we’d all be. It does not matter one shit how many
contacts your daddy scooped up during the civil war. This is Beirut
and this is now. They don’t need colonising or patronising
anymore.’

Lynch pushed
his chair back and walked out, giving the bobbing, grinning Antoine
a familiar punch on the shoulder as he wove through the little
forest of tables. Nathalie, rising, was embroiled in a moment of
confusion, catching the proprietor’s shrug and moue. She followed
Lynch down the sunny street as he flagged down a passing
servees
, a battered
yellow Mercedes.

She slammed
the door as the driver pulled away, the car’s engine coughing.
‘Where are we going?’

Lynch sat
back and gazed out of the window as the driver urged the old car
into the jostling stream of morning traffic with a hand flapping to
cajole his passage.

She was silk
and she was jasmine, ivory and frankincense, her skin a pale golden
slide for the smooth satin riding up her legs as she mounted the
stairs. Her hips moving under the wrap were a provocation, her long
hair cascaded down her mobile back.

Reaching the
top ahead of them, she strutted across the dance floor and sat on a
high stool at the bar. Lynch ducked behind the counter and started
to fix coffee at the gleaming red espresso station. This was
obviously some sort of well-worn ritual – Nathalie noticed Lynch’s
deft movements as he manipulated the machine.

The white
filter of Marcelle Aboud’s cigarette was reddened by her lipstick,
her dark, kohl-lined eyes coolly gauging Nathalie as the younger
woman waited, her hand resting on the back of a bar
stool.

‘
Come, sit,’
Marcelle purred, gesturing at the stool. Her very movements were
sensual, her voice husky, rolling and dirty. Nathalie caught the
flash of a full breast trying to escape the cascades of smooth
bronze material as Marcelle turned her magnificent face to
Lynch.

‘
So you’re
buying or selling, Lynch?’

He brought
the espresso cup over to her. ‘Her? You can have her for
free.’

Nathalie
twisted off her stool. ‘Sorry, not putting up with
this.’

‘
Sit down,’
Marcelle’s languorous voice wasn’t raised, but her tone stopped
Nathalie in her tracks. ‘Make her a coffee, Lynch, Play
nicely.’

Lynch busied
himself with the espresso machine as Marcelle examined Nathalie,
who met the dark brown eyes after they finished travelling lazily
up her body like a slow touch. The clink of the espresso cup on the
bar broke the moment.

Marcelle
turned to Lynch. ‘So what do you want, you and your
assistant
?’

Lynch waited
behind the bar with his hands laid on the marble top. Nathalie was
surprised at how he eased into the role of barman and fancied
perhaps he had worked here many, many years ago as a young
man.

Lynch was
diffident. ‘Michel Freij. He’s a customer, no?’

Marcelle’s
eyes narrowed. She lifted the espresso cup to her full lips,
watching Lynch warily. Nathalie, fascinated, was a
voyeuse
as Marcelle made
her decision, a little sag of her fine, proud shoulders. ‘Michel?
Sure. For years. Since Raymond brought him to be broken
in.’

‘
One of
yours?’

Marcelle
raised her head. In the name of God, thought Nathalie, she’s like a
horse. Proud, Arab and untamed.

‘
My fucking
business.’

‘
How
regular?’

‘
Every month
or so. Usually on a Saturday night.’

‘
What’s he
like?’

Marcelle
pulled a cigarette from her packet. ‘What do you mean?’

‘
What does he
like to do?’

‘
Just
straight. Nothing funny. He can get little rough on the younger
girls. We’ve had to pay a few extra. One girl needed some little
piece dental work.’

Lynch grinned
wolfishly. ‘You mean he knocked her teeth out.’

Nathalie
watched the tension in the older woman, the way she treated Lynch
like a hunter, was scared of him and yet seemed somehow to own
him.

Marcelle
pursed her lips. ‘Maybe.’

‘
He come
alone or with company?’

‘
Sometimes
with company. His friends. Hanging on.’

‘
Hangers
on?’

‘
Adi
, like this. So what you want,
Lynch?’

Lynch reached
into his jacket pocket, passing an envelope across the counter. ‘I
want him in our little room. I want her to sweet talk him and ask
him about Deir Na’ee. I want to know where it is.’

Marcelle slid
off the stool, the sinuous rotation of her hips pulling the soft
material up her leg as she leaned over to scoop up the envelope.
Nathalie caught a glimpse of the dark mound at the top. The rich
scent mingled with strong coffee. She started at Marcelle’s touch
on her cheek, a warm fingertip, purring. ‘Bring her next time,
Lynch, will you? I like her.’

Nathalie
couldn’t help the blush washing across her cheeks.

FIFTEEN

Beirut’s
early spring morning was cold, the soldiers hunched for warmth by
their little green huts, the growing tide of pedestrians jinking
past the red and white painted barriers and concrete blocks marking
the secure areas of Sodeco. The cobbled streets echoed to an
increasing number of feet, shuffling, striding and skipping as the
crowds grew. The tide flowed into the open spaces of Martyrs’
Square, traffic blocked by the streams of people, many
young.

The scent of
charcoal and hot sweetcorn from the vendors who had moved their
carts from their pitches on the corniche mingled with tobacco smoke
on the cold air, a faint hint of the sea behind them. The usual
early morning miasma of car exhaust was absent, the barriers
diverting the traffic from its habitual course, creating little
jams, confusions and jostling altercations around the big
square.

Banners hung
all over the huge open area, the clusters of logos intensifying
towards the large stage set up in the centre of the square. Speaker
stacks were mounted on each side of the stage, its red, white and
green decorations proclaiming ‘One Lebanon’. Traffic barriers
festooned with banners declaimed ‘One Lebanon, One People’.
Polo-shirted staff handed out decorated plastic flags at each entry
point, slapping themselves to stay warm.

Lynch and
Nathalie joined the growing throng, their breath puffing in little
clouds. The sound of
Koullouna
lil-watan
, the Lebanese anthem, started to
play tinnily across the square, the embarrassed, bastard child of
the Marseillaise and an Edith Piaf lament.

Lynch scowled
at a huge panel carrying Michel Freij’s portrait as they passed
it.

‘
Unhappy,
Lynch?’

‘
Uncomfortable. There’s a difference.’

Nathalie dug
her hands deeper into her jacket pockets. ‘Sure.’

The echo of
the parping, staccato music from the brass band on the stage
splashed back from the frontages of the buildings lining the open
area, Ottoman stone and ironwork mixed with smoked glass and
restored finery, each a unique testament to its era. Lynch brooded,
surveying the chattering crowd of excited youngsters, their breath
misty in the morning air, their faces reddened by the cold. Behind
them all, Mount Sannine glowed against the Mediterranean
sky.

Nathalie
grabbed at Lynch’s arm as the crowd grew denser and started to
gravitate toward its focus, the big stage in the centre of the
square. Militiamen in camouflage fatigues dotted with glittering
insignia, all carried the stylised green One Lebanon badge on their
arms and breasts, an upraised sword. The euphoric throng washed
against the stage. The smiling militiamen formed a benign wall,
stopping people from crushing against the steel supporting
formwork, the banners tied to it flapping lazily. Her hand was cold
and, unthinkingly, he cupped his warmer palm over it. He scanned
the solid wall of young, shaven-headed men standing arm in arm,
smiling and chatting with the crowd.

The music
stopped, halfway up its rousing crescendo. The shuffling and
murmuring died with it. Lynch surveyed the expectant faces,
registering the hope and curiosity reflected there. He focused on a
girl, pretty and lush-haired, her brown eyes flickering from the
stage to meet his as she sensed his interest. The crowd shifted and
compressed. Thousands of voices built into a gathering roar, a wave
of hands punching the air. He lost her.

‘
Michel!
Michel! Michel!’

It settled
into a rhythmic pattern, two syllables: ‘Mee shell,’ each
repetition punctuated by a handclap. Lynch hated crowds like this.
He darted a glance at the ecstatic faces and felt the first
quivering of fear, the resonance of childhood turning the massed
chants into the tinny cacophony of dustbin lids, the raised faces
losing their dusky, Mediterranean tone and gaining the pasty,
desperate pallor of Belfast.

He was back
on the Falls Road and his body prickled, sweat running down inside
his shirt. Returning to the present, he caught the concern on
Nathalie’s face, smiling reassurance at her.

‘
You okay,
Lynch?’

‘
Never
better,’ he lied. He was there again, surrounded by the shouting
throng and throwing stones, watching the bottle flying over his
head to hit the khaki Land Rover, petrol splashing across the white
face of the Brit who’d been stupid enough to jump from the big car.
The liquid ignited with a great whoomp pierced by the soldier’s
high pitched screams as he ran, flailing at himself, in
ever-diminishing circles.

The stone
fell from Gerry Lynch’s limp fingers as the thing that had been a
soldier dropped down to its knees in front of him, its blackened
face bursting with the heat. It finally fell forward. Transfixed by
the sight, Gerry was pulled away by his friends.

Nathalie was
shouting at him over the crowd noise. He let go of her hand and she
took it back, gripping it under her armpit.

‘
Ouch, Lynch,
you nearly crushed me to death. What’s wrong with you?’

Scattered
clapping broke out, welling into an ovation as Michel Freij took to
the microphone, smiling and waving acknowledgement at the crowd,
his eyes taking them all in and locking, for a sickening instant,
with Lynch’s.

Freij’s hands
descended, palm down, calming the crowd. ‘Thank you, thank you
all.’ He smiled, pausing to grip the sides of the lectern. ‘It is
my intention to speak to you today in Arabic, but I wanted to say a
few words in English first. Please, I beg your
indulgence.’

Freij scanned
the crowd. His voice rang out across the square. ‘We are here today
because we share a vision. A vision of one Lebanon. A strong
Lebanon. A country we can all be proud of. A united country, a
country whose people can finally, after all these years of
conflict, be free of fear and suffering. A country rid of the evil
of sectarianism, proud of its nationhood and unity, of its one
identity and its one people. If you are Orthodox, Copt, Maronite,
Shia, Sunni, Druze, you are all one people. South and North, Bekaa
and Chouf, you are all one people. From the camps or the cities,
the mountains or the farms, you are all one people. If you were
born in this country, you are Lebanon’s child and Lebanon shall
love you, be proud of you and nurture you. We are all, all of us,
one people. One Lebanon.’