Dynamite Fishermen (30 page)

“It would not surprise me if a few such bombs originated here, but I have no proof of it—such operations are handled in great secrecy. It seems more likely that most of the bombs—on both sides of the city—are sponsored by the Syrians.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I will give you an example. Since yesterday, our security men have been conducting an urgent search for two fifty-kilo car bombs fabricated last week in Shtaura by a Palestinian who also sent bombs to us this spring. Do you recall the name of Colonel Hisham?”

“I certainly do. But I thought he went out of business a couple of months ago,” Prosser replied.

Maroun shook his head. “Our sources say he has returned to Shtaura and is making car bombs again.”

“Why Shtaura? Why not Beirut?”

“They say he left Damascus only last week. He has been in a private clinic there since June, recovering from wounds inflicted during an assassination attempt. Since one of his attackers is known to have escaped, the colonel wishes to take no chances by making an early return to West Beirut, and it seems that the Syrians can protect him more easily in Shtaura. But that is of minor importance. What is significant is that he is making bombs again, bigger ones than ever before.”

“Who’s backing him?” Prosser asked as he turned a page in his notebook. “And who are his targets?”

“We presume he is still working for the Syrians. But Iran and Libya are also possibilities. As for his targets, we cannot be sure, but so far our information is that they are located in West Beirut, not here in the East. If he’s still with the Syrians, he could be aiming at the French, the Iraqis, the Saudis, the Americans, or anyone else who is lined up against the Damascus-Tehran axis. But the war council believes that it is only a matter of time before he makes trouble for us in East Beirut once again and that we must stop him, whatever the cost.”

“You mentioned the Americans. Do you think he will come after us first?”

“Possibly. But at this time we can only guess. All we know is that the colonel has discovered a devilish new method of smuggling the bombs to their destinations. He finds someone who regularly enters Beirut from the countryside, abducts a member of his family, and then offers to release the abducted family member only when the other has delivered one of the colonel’s vehicles to a specified destination in West Beirut. Unhappily, what the driver does not know is that the car is wired to explode at the moment he opens his door. He dies before he can be questioned.”

“Murderous bastard,” Prosser muttered. “And the colonel is sending these cars only into West Beirut, nowhere else?”

“Until now that is so. But we also know that two of these booby-trapped cars passed through Aley this week and have not yet exploded, so we are taking the necessary precautions. Our men search every car that meets the description of the two that were seen in Aley, and they are instructed specifically to require each driver to climb out through one of the windows while the car undergoes inspection.”

“Can you recall anything else your sources have reported about Colonel Hisham or the projects he’s working on?”

Maroun paused to organize his thoughts. “Only one other thing. I remember an unconfirmed report about ten days ago that the colonel was trying to smuggle several hundred kilos of explosives into West Beirut for a single operation. Clearly if so large a quantity is used against a single target, the destructive power would be enormous, but we have no further details.”

“Please try to find out more, Maroun, and signal me the moment you do. It’s urgent that we find out whom he has targeted.”

“Do you believe it is the Americans, Peter?”

“We have to assume it is until there’s good reason to believe it’s not,” Prosser answered. “Do you remember how furious the Syrians were said to have been a couple of months ago when they suspected us of helping the Phalange arrest the Naaman brothers?”

Maroun nodded. “As usual, our enemies are reluctant to give us proper credit for our successes,” the agent observed. “When we beat them, it pleases their vanity to ascribe our successes to the hidden hand of Israeli and American intelligence. In any event, I will try to learn more about the colonel for you.”

“Thanks, Maroun. This is one worth going the extra mile for.”

“And if you learn anything useful about the colonel from your own sources, Peter, I hope you will inform us. We have long-range guns at Baskinta and Qanat Bakiche, not more than fifteen kilometers from Shtaura. If your sources can pinpoint Hisham’s office or residence for our gunners, it may be possible to drop a few shells on him one night in his sleep.”

A faint smile formed at the corners of Prosser’s mouth. “Now, there’s an idea with lovely possibilities. Keep it to yourself for a while, Maroun. We may want to use it one of these days.”

Prosser glanced at his watch and let out a low whistle. “Damn, it’s getting late. If you don’t mind, we’d better move along to the next question. I’ve got to be out of here in less than an hour or I’m cooked.”

* * *

Fifty minutes later Prosser was walking toward Place Sassine to buy the latest issue of
International Herald Tribune
before returning to West Beirut. He had scarcely traveled two blocks when a mud-brown Land Rover bearing the stenciled cedar-tree emblem of the Phalange militia screeched to an abrupt halt in front of him. The doors of the vehicle flung open even before the vehicle ceased to move, disgorging three bearded Phalangists who set off at top speed down the side street with their M-16 rifles held across their chests and the gear attached to their web suspenders bobbing up and down as they ran.

While the militiamen raced off down the street, Prosser left his car and approached the driver of the Land Rover, a curly-haired Maronite of about forty, to ask him what was going on. The latter replied brusquely that the men were searching for a suspected car bomb and that anyone who had a brain in his head would stand back. Then, without giving Prosser another moment’s attention, he picked up a handheld radio from the seat beside him and began talking into it in French.

At the far end of the side street, where it intersected with Avenue de l’Independance, the three Phalangist militiamen surrounded a green two-door BMW. The first of the trio, a tall, slim youth probably no more than nineteen or twenty, stood in front of the car with his weapon pointed at the driver’s chest. The second, who was short and balding and probably in his early thirties, stood behind the driver’s door, his rifle muzzle a few inches from the base of the man’s skull. The third member of the patrol, a heavy six-footer who sported an untrimmed full beard and was somewhere between the other two in age, seemed to be the leader. He barked an order to his partners and then instructed the driver, a thirtyish businessman in a dark gray suit, to climb out the passenger-side window very slowly and stand with his feet apart and hands on his head.

When the order was carried out, the youngest militiaman remained behind the leader while the latter prodded the well-dressed suspect forward with his M-16 and ordered him to open the vehicle’s hood and trunk. When this, too, was done, the two marched their suspect to a doorway some forty meters behind the car for questioning while their comrade inspected the car’s engine compartment, trunk, seats, dashboard, and several other spots that were outside Prosser’s line of vision. In less than two minutes the search was complete, having revealed no explosives.

When the pair holding the driver at gunpoint heard the shout from the third militiaman that the car had passed inspection, they slung their rifles over their backs once more and stood at ease. Prosser surmised from the body language of the leader as he talked to his erstwhile captive that he was offering the man an apology. The leader pulled a pen and notepad from the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants and handed them to the driver, who wrote something on the pad before returning it.

A moment later Prosser watched the armed trio shake hands with the civilian driver and set off at an easy jog back toward the Land Rover. He continued to watch as they passed him without a word or a glance, climbed into their vehicle, and continued toward Place Sassine. Then he looked back down the side street again just in time to see the BMW turn east out of sight. The entire incident had lasted less than four minutes. If this was typical of the Phalange’s efficiency when playing defense, he understood Maroun’s alarm over Bashir’s plans to mobilize the Phalange for an all-out offensive.

* * *

Prosser pulled over to the curb to search his glove compartment for a map of the city. He cursed himself for having taken the time to buy the
Herald Tribune.
He had planned to be back in West Beirut by one o’clock, but it was nearly one now and he hadn’t even left Achrafiyé. Prosser tried to recall some of the shortcuts Rima had once shown him between Achrafiyé and Galerie Semaan, but he found himself too rattled to think clearly. Nothing on the map seemed to make sense.

For the past three days both the port and museum crossings had been closed by mid-morning because of sniping. That left only the Galerie Semaan crossing open for his return to West Beirut. But for reasons known only to the snipers, the daily potshots at Galerie Semaan always started promptly at around one thirty. Thus Prosser had at most a half hour to reach the crossing or be left stranded overnight in East Beirut.

He tossed the map aside and set out toward Palais de Justice Circle, ignoring the Phalangist machine gunner who watched him from atop an armored personnel carrier at the side of the road. Upon reaching the circle, Prosser headed south along a broad boulevard lined with imposing concrete-and-glass apartment towers that he was told had been among the most desirable in Beirut only a few years before. A kilometer farther the road became pockmarked with the unrepaired craters of artillery and mortar rounds, and the sidewalks were carpeted with broken glass. Looking up at the silent buildings, he could scarcely find a pane left intact and wondered how many times the inhabitants had replaced the glass before finally giving in to despair.

At that moment it occurred to Prosser that since leaving Palais de Justice Circle, he had not seen a single moving vehicle. He rounded a bend, and discovering a felled palm tree blocking the road some one hundred meters farther on, he realized that nobody had come this way for a long time.

Prosser slammed on the brakes, shifted hurriedly into reverse, and kept accelerating until the speedometer reached the middle of the dial. Then all at once he thrust the clutch pedal to the floor and jerked the steering wheel around sharply with his left hand to throw the car into a controlled 180-degree turn. As soon as the front end of the car swung around, he shifted into second gear. The Renault responded immediately, gripping the road firmly as it took off in the direction from which it had come.

As soon as he came within a few blocks from the Palais de Justice, Prosser spotted where he had missed the turn and began heading southeast into the working-class neighborhood of Furn el Chebbak. Within moments of entering the neighborhood, he felt as if he had entered a different city. Suddenly the streets were filled with cars, every windowpane was intact, and all the shops seemed open for business. Prosser pulled the Renault to the curb opposite a greengrocer’s stall and waved down an old man in a shabby blue jacket and matching beret who appeared to be the proprietor.

“Pardon me, Uncle,” he asked in Arabic. “Is this the way to the Galerie Semaan crossing?”

The old man screwed up his face as if the question had been asked in a strange language. Prosser asked again.

The Lebanese looked at his watch. “You are late if you intend to make the crossing.”

“I know that, Uncle, but is this the right road to reach it?”

“It is. Continue straight ahead toward Hazmiyé.”

“
Merci, ktiir
.” Prosser moved his hand to lower the window again and then stopped short. “One more question, if you don’t mind, Uncle. What about that road back there to the left. Where does it lead? I just tried it a moment ago, but it was blocked.”

The old man squinted at Prosser as if he thought the stranger were making fun of him. Then his face lit up and he let loose a high-pitched cackle. “You are French? British? From where do you come?”

“America.”

“America! America!” he repeated, as if the response were totally absurd. “
Habibi
, that street is definitely not for you. It leads to Palestine! Beyond Tayouné Circle,
habibi,
is the territory of Yasir Arafat!”

The old man pointed back toward the circle, his hollow chest heaving with laughter, and continued to point and laugh until Prosser pulled the Renault out into traffic.

* * *

A quarter of an hour later, the roadblock came into Prosser’s view underneath spreading shade trees laid out in the French colonial style to form a canopy of foliage over the narrow road. Fifty meters beyond, where the road intersected with the Galerie Semaan crossing, he saw a pickup truck speeding toward West Beirut, which indicated that the crossing was still open.

The steel-helmeted Phalangist sentry waved Prosser’s car to a stop between rows of sand-filled oil drums. “Where are you going?” the Phalangist asked.

“To the West,” Prosser responded. “Is it still safe to cross?”

The sentry looked away as if the question did not merit a reply. “There is no sniping just now,” he declared in a weary voice. “But go quickly.”