Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (4 page)

He left money
on the bar. ‘I believe you,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Let’s go
somewhere quieter and safer and perhaps get cleaned up
properly.’

She pulled
free. ‘And what if I don’t want to go with you?’

Duggan smiled
down at her. ‘I will arrest you. Come.’

They sat in
the coffee shop of Duggan’s hotel, Elli jittery and Duggan
intrigued. It was late and they were alone. The red upholstered
chairs and dark wood fittings marked a hotel overdue for a refit.
He ordered coffees and a club sandwich to share. When the food
arrived, Elli grabbed a tranche of sandwich. She balanced the
sandwich in one hand, trying to cover her over-large mouthful with
the other. Duggan spoke in German, grateful for his fluency. ‘It’s
been tough, then.’

She nodded,
reaching for a napkin, then her coffee. He waited for her to wash
down the food. ‘Yes. I am trying to be polite for you.’

He pushed the
plate at her. ‘Don’t bother. Eat.’

‘
Alone?’

He smiled,
picked up a fry and dipped it in ketchup. ‘No. But I think your
need is perhaps greater than mine.’

She paused,
uncertain, the food held up to her mouth. He looked away, beckoned
the waiter and ordered a bottle of sparkling water, fussing over
the brands the hotel offered precisely so she could have some time
to eat, his glances confirming she was famished and yet desperate
to maintain some sort of decorum.

Finally she
leaned back and wiped her mouth. ‘Thank you.’

‘
It is
nothing.’

She appraised
him, the corner of her mouth turned up a little. She wiped her
hands, checked her chipped nails and frowned. She leaned forwards,
her chin on her clasped hands. Her blue eyes caught the light. ‘So
who is Charles, the gallant knight who rescues fallen women and
threatens to arrest them?’

‘
I work for
British Customs and Excise.’ He thought the words sounded pompous,
the formality at odds with her amused interest in him. ‘I had some
business in Hamburg.’ He leaned forward. ‘Now, tell me about your
father.’

Duggan sensed
her nervousness, her constant glances across to the reception and
the revolving door to the street. It was quiet, the night staff on
reception murmuring. She pressed her hands together and rocked as
she talked.

‘
My father
owns a business, he is an entrepreneur. The business makes luxury
boats for rich people. He has built this business from nothing by
working hard. He and my mother lived in a caravan at the boatyard.
That was where I was born, in a caravan. I am a gypsy, you
see?’

He nodded. ‘I
see.’

‘
Five years
ago my mother walked out. My father was having an affair with a
woman he met during an inquest into an accident at the boatyard.
This woman was married but she was very attractive and much younger
than her husband. She was younger than my father, too. Her name is
Hilde. Her husband died, which was very convenient for her, because
she was free then to put her claws further into my father. He
carried on the affair with Hilde for two years before my mother
found out. When she did, my father told her to live with this
affair. He started to invite this Hilde to visit even when my
mother was still in the house. She could not stand it. After she
left, Hilde moved in. Am I boring you?’

He shook his
head. ‘No. Go on.’

‘
She was
fast, this Hilde. She liked eating in fancy places and she loved to
buy horses and diamonds and she paid surgeons to make herself
perfect for her ‘little Gerty’. I hated to hear my father called
this. I hated her. She gambled. His business suffered, all the time
with her wanting this and wanting that, this expensive holiday,
that expensive car. They gambled together. He gave her everything
until Luxe Marine was rotten and there was debt. The market had
changed but my father wasn’t looking. The orders stopped coming. He
owed millions. He was desperate. He needed money and the bank would
not help him anymore. He knew where there was a store of guns and
bombs from the cold war, from when he played as a child. He decided
to try and sell this store and the bitch’s brother helped him to
find a buyer, because he is involved in such things and he has a
taste for fine things like she does.’

He watched
her as she talked to herself, her anger or perhaps the warmth of
the lobby bringing red spots to her pale cheeks, her full lips
moistened by her flicking tongue.

‘
The night
Meier came to the house with the news he had found a buyer in
Beirut, I was listening at the door. I didn’t like the smell of him
and wanted to know what he was getting up to. He opened the door
and discovered me. He hit me in the face. My father did nothing to
protect me. He joined Meier in shouting at me. They locked me in my
room, but I escaped across the roof.’

‘
Meier is
Hilde’s brother?’

She blinked.
‘Yes, yes he is.’

‘
So how do
you know your father is trying to kill you?’

Elli sighed.
‘I stayed in a hotel that night and went to work the next day, as
usual. I didn’t think to be scared, but there were men there who
tried to make me get into their car when I left the office. I ran
away, but there were more men at the hotel waiting for me, in the
car park. One of them had a gun and this is how I finally realised
my life is in danger.’

Duggan
shifted in his chair. ‘Why did you stay in Hamburg? Why not flee
to, oh, I don’t know, Berlin?’

‘
They plan to
move these bombs in one of my father’s boats, the ones he makes.
They are big yachts for the luxury market, thirty metres and more.
I have a friend in the ports department here who will tell me when
this boat comes downstream through Hamburg. When it does, I will
recognise it and tell the police. Until then, I have to live. So I
sell myself.’

It was said
so simply he almost missed it. In these four words, she gave up
everything that was hers to keep and award for love. Duggan felt
old-fashioned and stupid. He ran his hand across his forehead to
clear his conflicting thoughts. How could someone throw away so
much with so little consideration?

‘
Could you
not have borrowed from your friend?’

‘
No. I cannot
even meet him. It is too dangerous. I call him every day from a
different place.’

‘
Why did you
not go straight to the authorities?’

She looked up
at him with such simple candour, he wanted to reach out to her. ‘I
am scared, Charles. I can’t trust them. Meier has connections. I
have no proof. Only with proof will they listen to me.’

‘
I
understand. I think.’ He rubbed his face. ‘Look, it is late. We
shall go to the authorities in the morning, I will talk to my
liaison here. We can start to discover what’s going on and make
sure you’re safe. For now, I think it best you stay here with me.
Nothing funny. I shall sleep on the sofa, you can take the
bedroom.’

He rose and
offered his hand, which she took, turning it to examine it closely.
Elli squeezed and let go, following him to the lift. She dropped
her gaze as they rose silently, following Duggan out of the lift
and down the corridor. He opened the bedroom door for her and
followed her into the room.

She turned to
him. ‘You have been very kind. Thank you.’

‘
It’s
nothing. This is the bedroom. Is there anything you would
like?’

‘
Do you mind
if I wash? I still feel dirty from the road.’

‘
Please.’

As the shower
started, he pulled the winter over-blanket and spare pillow from
the cupboard and made up the sofa as best he could. He took his
mobile charger from the bedroom. Coming back with it, he met her,
wrapped in a towel and wearing hotel slippers, her clothes held
against her in a bundle. She smelled of lemons. Her short hair was
damp and she laughed at him.

‘
You look
like you have seen a ghost.’

He smiled.
‘Good night, Elli.’

‘
Good night,
Charles.’

She walked to
the bedroom and he watched her slim legs and the slow swing of the
towel on her shapely body, silhouetted against the bedroom lights
for a second. The door closed behind her and he sighed, wondering
how much of Elli Hoffmann’s wild story he could believe. He washed
and turned in, fidgeting as he tried to fit his long frame into the
short sofa.

FOUR

Lynch sipped
his beer, screwing up his face as he surveyed the minimalist
surfaces around him. The purple mood lighting highlighted the
bottles in alcoves across the wall. The bar was quiet, but Lynch
knew it would soon fill up with the eager, loud voices of young
bucks competing for the attention of scantily clad girls with
pumped tits and lips.

‘
Why do you
drink in these places, Tony?’

Tony Chalhoub
sighed as he leaned on the bar. His voice was gravelly, his accent
spiced by a curl of French. ‘I’m Lebanese, Gerald. I suffer from
the inherent need to celebrate life with each passing moment. You
should take the glass rod out of your British ass and try it
sometime.’

Chalhoub, the
deputy head of Lebanon’s police intelligence division, raised his
bottle to clink against Lynch’s. Lynch laughed and shook his head
at his friend’s taunting. Over the years, the two had shared good
times, information, cases and even on one occasion, long ago,
women.

‘
That’s a
filthy habit.’

Chalhoub lit
the cigarette, blowing smoke high into the air. ‘What the fuck
happened at Michel Freij’s place, Gerald? His office manager has
lodged a formal complaint. I had to burn valuable markers to get
the police case dropped.’

‘
GCHQ in
Cheltenham picked up a number of Internet microbursts which turned
out to be a stream of small payments to a company in Germany about
ten days ago. Looking at it from the German side, it would have
seemed like ordinary international e-commerce traffic, but we
tracked the payments back to a tiny range of IP addresses, all here
in Beirut. Each of the bank accounts they used had received
transfers from a British Virgin Islands company. It was clever
stuff, virtually undetectable unless you are looking very hard for
it. The BVI company is Falcon Finance, a subsidiary of Falcon
Dynamics. Falcon is a Lebanese defence systems company – Selim
Hussein and Michel Freij.’

‘
How
much?’

‘
Eighty
million US.’

‘
And the
German company?’

‘
An
e-commerce website, sells home security stuff and gadgets. And it
belongs to Michel bloody Freij and his fat friend. Another Falcon
subsidiary.’

‘
So what’s
the problem? It’s their money, isn’t it?’

‘
Come on,
Tony. Don’t be bloody daft. They laundered offshore money to
Germany using a complex Internet scam. Why? To avoid regulators?
Us?’

Chalhoub
shook his head, his hand raised in negation, the smoke trailing
from his cigarette. ‘No way, José. These people are legit, Gerald.
They don’t need to launder money. Falcon Dynamics is a highly
respected company and close to the government here as well as the
Americans. Freij and Hussein are heroes. They’re the successful
business partnership that transcended sectarianism and outdid the
Israelis at their own game, the defence business. Christ, Michel
Freij is running for president. And he’ll do it, too. This One
Lebanon party of his is already strong in the coalition and they’re
likely going to piss the elections next year. He’s
untouchable.’

‘
I don’t
care. They’re fucking crooks. My masters want to know why Falcon
sneaked eighty million dollars into Europe through the back door.
And I want to know why they’d kill to protect that
reason.’

Chalhoub
paused. ‘Kill?’ He peered at Lynch across the frosted green neck of
the bottle he had been about to drink from, understanding dawning
on his baggy-eyed features. ‘This dead journalist. Stokes. He’s one
of yours.’

Lynch drank,
nodding. ‘The dead journalist is one of mine.’

‘
Now I get
it,’ Chalhoub drew on his cigarette. ‘Finally. You must think I’m
slow, yes?’

‘
No. I
don’t.’

‘
Kazab.
Liar. You were trying to
flush them out, but they bit you on the ass.’

Lynch
signalled the barman for another Almaza. ‘Whatever.’

‘
This Stokes
guy. He was close?’

Lynch studied
the label on his beer bottle intently. ‘Yes, yes he was. Move on,
Tony.’

‘
How are you
so sure it was Freij?’

‘
They left a
little note with his name on. A little vellum note in fine
calligraphy.’

Chalhoub
whistled. ‘That was Raymond Freij’s thing, wasn’t it? The little
notes? You think Michel’s started doing the same his father used
to? That’s crazy, Gerald. It just points the way straight back to
him.’

‘
I went to
Stokes’ apartment yesterday. Two militia thugs let themselves in
just after me. They had a key. There were no keys or papers left on
Stokes’ body. I followed them up into Ashrafieh.’ Lynch pushed a
scrap of paper across to Chalhoub. ‘Here. It’s a new building in
Abdul Wahab El Inglezi Street. There are a large number of
high-tech CCTV cameras watching it. Check it out, but I bet you a
hundred bucks it’s something to do with Freij.’