Dynamite Fishermen (33 page)

“Not on your life! The valley was crawling with armed patrols, and all the main roads had checkpoints every couple miles. Those folks don’t take kindly to people carting off the cash crop. No, we just happened to stop at a roadside hooch to buy something cool to drink, and before we could say ‘
kiif haalak
,’ the teenage kid in charge asked us whether we wanted to score some hash.”

“Right over the counter?”

“Well, there wasn’t exactly a counter, but he certainly wasn’t furtive about it. He went into the back of the hooch and came back with a cigar box full of processed hash rolled into little balls the size of golf balls. We bought three of the things for a little more than ten bucks.”

“Tourist prices, Harry. Next time you ought to try bargaining him down. For ten bucks he should have sold you the whole box. If you don’t believe me, send somebody over to the Raouché souk to pick some up for you. It’s a buyer’s market these days.”

Prosser noticed that Harry had not yet lit up his joint. “Go on; light up and enjoy yourself,” he urged his guest. “I’m going to swim a few more laps before we head out.”

He pushed off toward the center of the pool and started into a powerful breaststroke. When he finished the twelfth lap he looked up and saw Harry sitting alone, towel over his shoulders and beach bag at his feet.

“Are you almost finished?” Harry called out. “The girls have gone downstairs to change.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you up.” Prosser lifted himself languidly out of the water, reached for his towel, and pulled it around his shoulders.

“By the way, I thought this might be a good time to return your hardware,” Harry suggested, lifting his gym bag onto a low table between them.

“Thanks. I almost forgot about the damned things. By the way, I appreciate your holding on to them while I was in Cyprus.”

Prosser fetched his own canvas beach bag from under a deck chair and set it alongside Harry’s. Then he removed two matte-black .45-caliber Colt semiautomatic pistols from Harry’s bag, along with six loaded magazines, and spread them out on the table. He worked the action of the first pistol, shoving the slide all the way back to cock the hammer, and then inserted a magazine. Next he depressed the slide release to jack a round into the chamber and thumbed on the safety catch. He loaded the second pistol the same way.

“Are they government issue?” Harry asked when the pistols and spare magazines were tucked away inside Prosser’s beach bag.

“Are you kidding?” Prosser replied. “Headquarters is totally paranoid about issuing weapons in the field. As far as they’re concerned, if we need weapons, we shouldn’t be out here. They wouldn’t even issue a sidearm to Bill Thorson last year when he had a PFLP death threat hanging over his head. I had to bring these from the States in my checked luggage.”

“You don’t pack heat when you’re walking around town, do you?”

Prosser shook his head. “Not now, anyway. The main reason I brought them was so that I could defend myself if somebody ever came after me in my apartment. Out on the street a pistol would probably do more harm than good.”

Harry’s expression turned pensive. “You know, I manage to piss off dozens of people every day, but I’ve never worried much about somebody coming after me. It’s the car bombs that scare the living crap out of me. There doesn’t seem to be any defense against them, short of leaving the country. I heard on Radio Lebanon just this afternoon that the Syrians intercepted one this morning armed with more than fifty kilos of TNT. They caught the driver and he says the Phalange ordered him to park the thing right on Hamra Street, near the Étoile Cinema. Can you imagine? A hundred and ten pounds of bloody TNT going off in the middle of Hamra?”

“Did they say where the car was intercepted?”

“I think it was at one of the roadblocks by Galerie Semaan.”

Prosser gasped, then caught himself and gave his friend a skeptical look. “Sounds like Syrian bullshit propaganda to me. Listen, Harry, if the car came via Galerie Semaan, it could just as well have originated in Syrian-held territory as with the Phalange. If any explosives were intercepted at all, the Syrians probably captured one or their own bombs by mistake. Car bombs just aren’t the Phalangists’ style. They much prefer howitzers.”

“Well, whoever was behind it,” Harry continued, “what gets my back up is that they’re dropping off the damned things right here in Ras Beirut. We could all be blown to shreds just strolling down rue Bliss minding our own goddamned business.”

Prosser reached into his rear trouser pocket, withdrew a three-by-five index card, and handed it to Harry. “Sorry to change the subject, but I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot,” Harry replied with a vaudeville wink.

Prosser groaned and went on. “Do you remember the time I came to your office about five or six weeks ago while you were grilling a Palestinian kid about his forged police clearance? As I recall, his first name was Radi or Rami or something like that. Could you dig up his visa application and make a photocopy for me?”

“I think I remember the one you’re talking about. Sure, I can probably fish it out.”

“Good. Favor number two is this: I need to know whether you’ve ever had a visa application from either of the other two men listed on this card.”

“Jamal al Ghawshah. Pretty common name, but I’ll try. Maarouf Abdel-Latif Zuhayri. Zuhayri,” he repeated to himself. “Say, isn’t that the same Zuhayri who caused the stir at my party awhile back?”

“That’s him.”

“What a piece of work that guy was. I’m still not sure who let him in.”

“Come on, Harry. You told me yourself that Layla brought him. They were tight back then, don’t you remember?”

“Suppose I do remember. What of it?”

“Nothing much. I just thought you might want to keep in mind who her friends are.”

“Look, Con, I hardly know Zuhayri. If I saw him around town, I’d say hello, and that would be it. It’s my job to be friendly to everybody.”

“Well, Zuhayri’s not exactly a friend of Uncle Sam. First, he’s been putting money into Fatah’s special operations for five or six years now. What he’s getting in return, we don’t know, but bankrolling those thugs is definitely not the moral equivalent of giving to the United Way. Second, since the Iraqis blacklisted him this winter, Zuhayri has been in contact with Syrian military intelligence on several occasions, and also with an outfit called the Eagles of the Revolution that appears to be a Syrian-sponsored terrorist outfit of some kind. Judge a man by the company he keeps, Harry.”

“I never heard that Zuhayri was blacklisted in Iraq. I thought he made his money selling used construction equipment to the Iraqi war ministry. That’s what Layla has been saying anyway.”

“What else does Layla say about Zuhayri?”

“For one thing, she says he couldn’t care less about politics. She says he just cultivates political types to help him make money.”

“Do you always believe what she tells you?”

Harry bristled. “Come on, Con. Don’t be a shit.”

“A shit? Is that what I am when I warn you to watch out for yourself? Can you honestly say to me that you know what Layla’s relationship is with Zuhayri? Don’t you suppose it’s conceivable that he could have directed Layla to get close to you because his friends in Fatah or Saiqa told him to?”

“What a rotten thing to suggest, Con! Why should I give a rat’s ass about Layla’s old boyfriends? She broke up with Zuhayri months ago, before she went to the States, and last week she told me she hasn’t seen him since. That’s good enough for me.”

“I’m not trying to impugn your manhood or your powerful appeal to women, Harry, but Uncle Sam does have a certain interest in knowing whether somebody might be trying to use someone like Layla against the embassy. All I’m suggesting is that you might want to find out more about her relationship with Zuhayri. Nobody can force you to, but if you don’t, it’s only a matter of time before Ed will have to tell the ambassador about his concerns.”

“And since when do you and Ed Pirelli have the authority to tell Foreign Service officers who they may and may not associate with?”

“As I said, nobody’s telling you what to do, Harry. But if you won’t hear it from me now, you’ll be hearing it from the department later, and when you do, the message will go straight into your security file.”

“I suppose you’ve checked out Rima, too? And you’d be prepared to drop her if Ed Pirelli took a dislike to any of her friends?”

“I’d try to talk him out of it, but it would be his call.”

Harry seemed appalled. “I’m not sure I heard you right, Con. You’d drop Rima, just like that?”

Prosser said nothing.

“I don’t suppose you realize that Rima has fallen in love with you.”

“She’s a big girl,” Prosser said. “I’m sure she can handle it.”

Harry shook his head in bewilderment. “You really don’t understand, do you? Rima is crazy about you. She probably thinks she even has a fighting chance of marrying you someday if she can hang on long enough. Although I’m beginning to wonder why on God’s earth she’d want to.”

“Marry? Rima?” Prosser asked sharply.

“Is that such a foreign word to you? She wants to be your wife, you jerk! She’s seen other American diplomats with foreign wives, so she thinks why not her?”

“I’ll tell you why not, Harry. Because the day I broke news of the engagement, I’d be out of a job, that’s why. The chances of Rima getting a security clearance are about as great as mine of being elected to the senate.”

“And how the hell is she supposed to know that? State doesn’t have that kind of rule against marrying foreigners. Only you people—”

“Well, I can’t exactly inform her about it,” Prosser interrupted. “It’s classified.”

“But you don’t seem to have a problem letting her dream on, do you?”

“How did we get on this subject anyway, Harry? It’s becoming quite tedious.”

Harry opened his mouth to reply but thought better of it.

Without a word, Prosser rose, picked up the thermos jug and carried it to the edge of the roof. There he slowly poured its remaining contents over the wall and watched the liquid fall while Harry finished dressing.

* * *

Harry’s Polish Fiat hung close behind the Renault as the two cars sped eastward along rue Ibn Sina through the darkened former nightlife area of Phoenicia Street and past the looming hulk of the Holiday Inn. At the next block they turned off the seaside road and wended their way up a potholed side street for three blocks before coming to a stop opposite a massive pre–World War II apartment building. No light issued from its wrought-iron door or through its shuttered windows. Nor could the long-dead streetlamps shed any light on the enamel number plate fastened to the wall beside the door.

Layla and Harry remained in the Fiat with the doors locked and windows rolled up. When Prosser and Rima approached the building on foot, Harry lowered his window a few centimeters.

“Cover us; we’re going in,” Prosser deadpanned.

“Are you sure it’s open?” Harry asked.

“Sure I’m sure. See those parked cars at the corner? They wouldn’t be there if it were closed. Come on, let’s go in.”

Prosser pushed open the heavy wrought-iron door and groped along the wall of the darkened lobby for the light switch. At last he found it: a timer button that gave thirty seconds of light each time it was pressed. Harry rapped the elevator call button and started the antique wooden cabin on its descent from the fourth floor. His relief was evident when he saw the hand-painted sign attached to the outer elevator door: “Chez Jean-Paul, 4 étage.”

Prosser was ready to swing the massive lobby door shut when he heard an old man’s voice calling insistently from across the street.

“Yaa, siidi! Yaa, siidi!”

Prosser and Harry stepped outside and saw a long-bearded Arab man in flowing black pantaloons and a black-and-white-checkered Arab headdress approach them from the vacant lot across the street with arms gesticulating wildly.

“Forbidden! Forbidden!” the old man repeated breathlessly in Arabic as he crossed the street.
“Interdit, verboten!”

“What is forbidden, Uncle?” Prosser answered in Arabic.

The Arab pointed to the pavement, where a line of bricks defined a no-parking zone outside the apartment building’s entrance. Prosser had disregarded a similar line of bricks in taking up his parking spot across the street. Such informal parking restrictions had sprung up outside thousands of buildings throughout the country as the fear of car bombs had spread.

“Security,
siidi
—parking is forbidden here. You must move your car at once.” The old man’s face bore an expression of simple earnestness, and when he saw that Prosser was not angry about being asked to move, it relaxed into a tentative smile.

Prosser took out his diplomatic identity card and held it up to the old man’s view. “Don’t worry, Uncle, I am a diplomat, not a terrorist. I promise you I am carrying no bombs in my car tonight. Would you like me to show you?”

He smiled and circled around to the rear of the car to open the trunk for the old man’s inspection and then gave him a copy of his business card with his name written on the back in Arabic. The Arab man nodded perfunctorily at the empty trunk and glanced at the card without any sign of comprehension.