Bride of a Bygone War (38 page)

“I’ll take it. See you at eleven sharp,” he answered cheerily and backed away to leave.

“Oh, but while you are here, I have a question about the flight the consul requested for you this afternoon. I am helping in the travel section today and—”

Prosser’s face fell. “The flight’s not for me, Claudette. You should talk to Harry.”

Claudette smiled knowingly. “Oh, I apologize. I was hoping I might have a faster answer by speaking with you. You see, the first-class seat we booked to Rome a quarter of an hour ago is unavailable and has been downgraded to standby, with a guaranteed seat in coach. Do you think that a coach seat might be acceptable to your…passenger?”

Prosser was momentarily at a loss for words. “I don’t know, Claudette,” he answered vaguely. I’ll pass it on and have someone get back to you.”

But instead of letting the matter go, Claudette gave Prosser a penetrating look. “Tell me, Conrad, do you know this American traveler, this William Conklin?”

Prosser was startled but did his best not to show it. “No, can’t say I do,” he answered with a quizzical smile. “Why, do you?”

“Perhaps so,” she answered earnestly, “but I canot be certain. The name is one I remember from years ago, before the Events.”

When Prosser declined to comment, Claudette Hammouche’s face froze into a hard mask.

* * *

By the time Prosser reached the dispensary, he found no sign of Lukash. He went next to the embassy’s front entrance and, upon reaching the reception area, caught a glimpse through the open door of his colleague leaving in the company of the nurse and an embassy driver.

Prosser checked his watch, then waved to the marine guard as he passed through the reception room and waited at the door for the embassy sedan to leave the porte cochere. But as he finally stepped outside and turned toward the Corniche to fetch his Renault, he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end as if he were being watched. He turned around in time to see a grim Claudette Hammouche staring at him through the half-open door at the opposite end of the waiting room.

Chapter 22

Walter Lukash crossed the street from the rear door of American University Hospital and walked slowly to the west along rue Maamari. From a block away he spotted Conrad Prosser’s silver Renault. As it approached and slowed to a halt ahead of him, he stepped onto the street between two parked cars just in time for the car’s passenger door to open from inside. Peering into the shaded interior, Lukash was startled to see that the driver was not Prosser, but Ed Pirelli.

“Hop in, Walt,” the station chief suggested amiably.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lukash blurted out before taking his seat.

“Driving you to the airport,” Pirelli replied coolly. “I ran into Connie on the Corniche as he was leaving to pick you up. He said you’re on the three thirty flight to Rome, so I guess we’d better hustle.”

Pirelli let out the clutch and set off to the east. “I’ve been trying to reach you and Bud for the past twenty-four hours,” the chief added with a troubled glance at his passenger. “Where the hell have you been?”

“You don’t know? Connie didn’t tell you?” Lukash asked incredulously.

“All he said was that you came across the Green Line this morning and called him to pick you up when you had car trouble. Oh, and that the two of you ran into some trouble at a roadblock and you got whacked in the head.”

“Yeah, that’s about right,” Lukash replied warily.

“Well, I’m glad you made it in one piece, Walt, but right now we have some serious catching up to do. I want to know what the hell has been happening over there between you and Bud and the Phalange. It’s not like either of you to be out of touch for so long. And where are those handheld radios of ours? Did you get them back from the Phalange yet?”

Lukash drew a blank. “Get them back? We just handed them over. Why would we want them back?”

“Because I ordered Bud to retrieve them, for God’s sake. Didn’t he tell you?”

Lukash shook his head. “Haven’t seen Bud in two days. Never got the message.”

“Shit…Where are the radios now?”

“Don’t even ask. You really don’t want to know.”

“It’s not what I want, Walt. It’s what Headquarters and the ambassador want.”

“Okay, okay,” Lukash replied slowly. “But first let me get this straight: you mean nobody from the Phalange has talked to you about last night?”

“Goddamnit, Walt, don’t play games with me,” Pirelli snapped. “I’ve been calling everybody I know over at Phalange headquarters and nobody will talk to me. Colonel Faris and Major Elie have disappeared. From the look of this morning’s intercepts, there was some sort of skirmish last night in the Sannine Mountains that got the Phalange pretty riled up, but that’s all I have. Is that what you’re talking about?”

“I’m afraid so. I was there. With Elie. And the damned radios.”

“So where are they?” When Pirelli saw the expression on Lukash’s face, he paled. “Don’t tell me they—”

“Yes, the Syrians have them, along with the rest of the equipment the Phalange gave to the Syrian Free Officers. We were ambushed out there, Ed. Faris set us up, big-time. He engineered the rendezvous with the Free Officers to plant a couple sleds’ worth of American arms and equipment on them, and then he tipped off Syrian intelligence to ambush them, along with Major Elie and me. An American officer being killed while helping the Phalange arm the Syrian opposition: what better way to goad the Syrians into attacking American interests in Lebanon?”

“Knowing that Uncle Sam would respond by knocking Syria’s bloody block off,” Pirelli added.

“Amid loud cheers, no doubt, in the White House and Tel Aviv.”

“The White House, maybe, but not Headquarters,” Pirelli corrected. “Which explains why Twombley ordered the radios back and would have wanted you recalled so fast.”

“You mean my recall wasn’t about—?”

“Don’t kid yourself,” the station chief scoffed. “Twombley couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Lorraine Ellis. Listen, you may be a bad boy from time to time, Walt, but as long as Twombley’s on your side, he can keep your personnel file smelling like a rose. That is, so long as you do the right thing by him.”

“Which would be…?”

“Lay the blame for the handoff on Faris. Deny you knew anything at all about the Phalange’s plans to supply the Syrian opposition with our radios or played any role in carrying it out. Can you do that?”

“It would certainly be convenient,” Lukash answered thoughtfully. “But I’m not so sure I can. It was clear from the start that the Phalange intended to supply the Free Officers. We just didn’t know the colonel would go so far as to give them our best radios—or me. My concern is that no matter how good a story I might come up with, when the lid comes off, the story may not hold up. And if it doesn’t, I expect I’ll be cast as the rogue officer who messed up. While Twombley will doubtless prove that you and he are perfectly clean.”

“I think you’re overdramatizing, Walt,” Pirelli assured him. “All you need to do is tailor your story enough for the Agency to claim plausible denial in supplying the Free Officers. If you can do that, everybody on our side gets what he wants. The administration gets to smack down the Syrians for stepping out of line, and the Agency avoids responsibility if it doesn’t work out right. And you get your career back on track. All Twombley asks is to help the Agency come out looking clean.”

“I get it. Just follow the script.”

“Which will be made as easy as possible for you,” Pirelli offered with an obliging smile. “There is one other requirement, though. Before Twombley can tidy up your personnel file, you will have to do something about that Ellis woman. And the same goes for your Lebanese ex. A clean break with both. Understood?

“Muna is not an ex. She’s my wife. You know perfectly well that there’s never been a divorce.”

“Then fly to Reno and get it done,” Pirelli ordered coldly. “Twombley can only keep the counterintelligence and security pukes off your back if you wipe the slate clean. Do yourself a favor, Walt. Find some nice American girl to mess around with. Even better, find one at Headquarters so she comes fully equipped with a security clearance and a sense of what we do around here.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I suggest you give it some serious thought. If you buck Headquarters on this again, there’s not much I can do to help you.”

“I remember accepting your help five years ago on this very subject, Ed,” Lukash answered pointedly. “I took your advice. I boarded the plane to Saudi Arabia and left Muna behind. But it was wrong, Ed. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. If I had been man enough, I would have put my wife first and my job second. So here we are, five years down the road, and you’re telling me to desert another woman, one who has been completely honest with me and as loyal as any man could possibly hope for. The answer is no. If I were to drop Lorraine the way I dropped Muna, I could never look in the mirror again. You and Twombley and the Agency can all go to hell.”

“And throw away your career? After eight years overseas? Hell, with a year or two more at Headquarters under your belt, you could go out again as a COS or a base chief. Wouldn’t it be foolish to—?

“In your eyes, I’m sure it would be,” Lukash interrupted. “But when I took your advice five years ago, it was the wrong choice. I know you were trying to help me, Ed, but the entire concept was wrong. And even if I didn’t know it then, I do now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pirelli challenged. “Your personal choices are your own responsibility. Let’s face it, Walt, you’ve always been a coward when it comes to women. You use them and lose them, and then you forget about them. You can hardly blame me for that. And if you want to throw away a promising career, too, that’s your call. You’re on your own, pal.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to hear you say that. When the chips are down, I rather suspected you might toss me overboard. Honestly, I don’t care what you or the Headquarters brass may think of me. All I want to do at this point is tell what really happened out in those mountains last night, face the consequences, make a clean break with the Agency if it comes to that, and get on with life as best I can. And I’m ready to do it with Lorraine, if she’ll still have me.”

“Look who’s throwing who under the bus now—some husband,” Pirelli retorted dismissively. “All I can say is, go ahead, Walt. Do your worst. We’ll see where it lands you.”

At that moment the Renault pulled into the first of several security checkpoints leading to Beirut International Airport and entered a long queue of waiting cars.

“Okay, as soon as we get past these clowns, I’ll drop you at departures,” Pirelli said.. “Leave the keys to your flat and your car on the dashboard. I’ll have your personal effects shipped back to you.”

When at last the car pulled up outside the aiport departures area, Lukash grabbed his small black duffel, stepped out without looking back, and marched quickly toward the terminal entrance.

Ed Pirelli watched Lukash enter the terminal and suddenly slammed his right hand onto the dashboard with such force that the keys left there jumped before sliding onto the floor. “Damn him!” he muttered while reaching down to recover them.
 

In the same moment, a white Peugeot sedan pulled up to the curb behind him, and he heard a man shout out the window in French-accented English. “William! William Conklin! Stop! William!” the man cried out. But the noise of jet engines overhead were considerably more powerful than his voice.

Raising his head to look in the rearview mirror, Pirelli could see a prosperously dressed middle-age Lebanese man who looked vaguely familiar to him. The man continued to shout well after Lukash was out of sight. Then he stepped out, slammed the Peugeot’s door, and set off hurriedly after the American.

Pirelli ran to intercept the Lebanese and grabbed him by the shoulders from behind. Once stopped, the man spun around to face his pursuer, allowing Pirelli to step between him and the terminal. At that moment Pirelli recognized the older man as Victor Hammouche, Claudette’s husband and the brother-in-law of Cèsar Khalife, the late father of Lukash’s wife.

“Not so fast, Victor,” Pirelli warned, laying his hands on Victor’s chest and giving him a shove backward.

Hammouche gazed upon Pirelli with an expression of puzzlement and alarm, which soon gave way to recognition, as he had dined with Pirelli more than once with his wife and brother-in-law before the civil war.

“You, you…devil!” he challenged Pirelli. “You are the one who brought that man into our family!” he accused in French, then proceeded to curse Pirelli and the entire American embassy for lying to his family about Bill Conklin since the man’s disappearance five years before. “Let me pass!” he demanded. “I demand to know where that man is going.”

“He’s here to catch an airplane and doesn’t have time to waste with you,” Pirelli answered in an unruffled voice as he removed his hands from Victor’s chest. “Now, exactly what business do you have with him?”

“He deserted my niece, and by all that’s holy, he won’t escape without paying a price for it!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Pirelli warned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”