Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (2 page)

‘
Where the
fuck is he?’

He relaxed
his grip enough for her to breathe, her voice gurgling.
‘G—Germany.’

‘
Where in
Germany?’

‘
Berlin.’

‘
Why?’

‘
A
meeting.’

Lynch
squeezed again, her creamy skin rucking under his hard fingers.
‘Who with?’

‘
H—Hoffmann.
That’s all I know. At the Landsee.’

A man’s voice
called. ‘What’s going on here?’

Lynch let go
of the woman. He turned to face the black-uniformed security guard,
the badge glinting on his chest.

‘
Fuck off,’
Lynch snarled, prowling forwards.

The guard
blocked the exit, slapping a black nightstick in his hand and
smiling grimly. ‘You’re going nowhere.’

Lynch kicked
him hard in the crotch and brought his fist scything down to
connect with the guard’s face, catching his downward momentum to
drive the man to the floor. Lynch ground his foot into the writhing
man’s stomach and stepped over him..

Outside the
smoked-glass building, Lynch caught his breath and scanned the busy
street. His knuckles were raw, but he was feeling better about
Stokes’ death already.

TWO

It was late
in the afternoon as Gerald Lynch hopped along the uneven paving
that lined Gouraud Street, the heart of Beirut’s bustling Gemayze
area. He wore jeans and a leather jacket against the chill spring
air, his hands in his pockets as he squeezed between the parked
cars.

Gouraud’s
bars, as ever, welcomed those who wanted to party and forget the
woes of a world where violence and conflict were a distant memory
but a constant worry. Orphaned by Belfast’s troubles, Lynch
appreciated Beirut’s fragile peace and sectarian divides, the hot
embers under the white ash on the surface of a fire that looked, to
the casual observer, as if it had gone out. Lynch scowled as he
passed a poster carrying Michel Freij’s smiling face, encircled in
strong black script: ‘One Leader. One Lebanon.’

The sky was
fading to the dull aubergine of dusk; the bars lining the street
glowed a welcome. He glanced around, crossed a side street then
peeled left off Gouraud to slip into the entrance of an ancient
Ottoman building. The rusting iron railings on the ornate stone
balconies wept streaks down the lichen-tinged walls. Bullet holes
still peppered the stucco. Brick showed through where shell bursts
and, in places, time had peeled off the tired facade.

Lynch stole
up the stone stairs to the first floor and paused by a battered red
door, holding his ear to it for a second. He crouched to pick the
lock with quiet efficiency. He rose a few seconds later, pushed
into Paul Stokes’ flat and closed the door softly behind him. Like
many apartments in Beirut, the drabness of the exterior belied the
opulence inside. Stokes had rented the place from a Lebanese family
living in the Gulf and it was furnished to their taste, packed with
ornate furnishings, cut glass and deep-pile carpets. Tapestries
lined the walls and gold statuary decorated the green marble
fireplace.

Stokes’
writing table stood against the window overlooking Gouraud’s busy
length. His laptop was still open and switched on, the screensaver
drawing neon swoops. Lynch picked up the voice recorder by the
laptop and pressed ‘play’. The memory of the dead thing in the
cupboard rushed back with Stokes’ voice and Lynch hit the stop
button. He composed himself before pressing ‘play’ again to hear
Stokes say, ‘Interview with Michel Freij. March fifteenth.’ The
volume varied, Lynch guessed, as the recorder was moved to face the
interviewee.

Lynch placed
the recorder on the inlaid rosewood coffee table in front of the
sofa. He had sent Stokes to conduct this interview and prepared him
with the information to use. It had been the young man’s death
warrant. As the voices from the recorder played out their
encounter, Lynch wandered over to the cabinet by the fireplace and
poured himself a stiff scotch. He returned to the sofa as Freij was
halfway through answering a question. Lynch folded himself into the
sofa, the whisky burning in his throat as he listened.

‘
My
partnership with Selim Hussein started when we were at university.
Selim is an unusually talented engineer and we quickly established
Falcon Dynamics as a key contractor to the Lebanese military,
particularly in the field of remotely operated devices such as
drones. We have expanded that to a broad portfolio of defence and
homeland security systems. The success of our partnership is
precisely why I believe we, as a nation, can come together and join
hands across any sectarian divide.’

Stokes’ voice
was measured. ‘Falcon Dynamics has been phenomenally successful,
and now you have services and hardware contracts with the Saudis,
the Syrians and the Egyptians. Will you target other markets, such
as Europe?’

‘
Yes, why
not?’ Freij’s rich voice was expansive. ‘Our aim is to build the
company. As you say, we have business in services, but also in
security analysis and threat response procedures. We have major
interests in software systems together with key partners in America
and Germany and now we are growing our capabilities in tactical
delivery systems. In all of these, we are at the forefront of
developments and we can compete with European companies if we have
a level playing field. Imagine, other Lebanese companies could
follow this example, if provided with a government that would
support innovation and entrepreneurialism.’

Stokes
shifted gear a little, his eagerness apparent. ‘But you already
have one European subsidiary, don’t you?’

There was a
long silence. Freij’s voice was low. Lynch imagined the man’s
frosty smile and quizzical expression. ‘I am sorry, I do not
understand.’

Stokes’ voice
in the recording was louder, Lynch guessed as the journalist leaned
towards Freij. ‘Two years ago, you launched the successful German
online retail operation, kaufsmartz.com.’ Again, silence. Stokes
pressed. ‘Did you not?’

‘
What has
this to do with our defence business, Mr Stokes?’

Stokes’ voice
was airy now as he moved in for the kill. They had rehearsed the
question together and Lynch winced as he acknowledged ownership of
the words that had resulted in the brutal death of the young
journalist and, yes, Lynch’s agent. ‘Over the past two weeks,
millions of transactions have taken place from customers in the
Middle East ordering one product from Kaufsmartz, a door alarm
device costing nine dollars ninety-five cents. That device is
ostensibly manufactured by Falcon Dynamics.’

Stokes paused
and Freij shifted, a chair creaking. Lynch imagined him pushing the
call button. Stokes became urgent. ‘Over eighty million dollars of
orders took place in that period. It was a successful marketing
campaign by any standard, wasn’t it? Mr Freij?’

Michel
Freij’s chair scraped back, his hands banged on the desktop as he
shouted. ‘This interview is terminated.’

Stokes was
relentless. ‘Except there was no marketing campaign was there, Mr
Freij? Every single transaction took place from one of twenty IP
addresses in Beirut, every one of them owned by Falcon. Not one
product has been shipped, has it Mr Freij? Because this was no
online marketing success, it was
hawala
taken to the Internet age.
You transferred eighty million dollars to yourselves in a flood of
micro-transactions that bypassed all of the conventional financial
controls and regulations you would normally be expected to comply
with for a transfer of this size.’

‘
Enough. This
is finished.’

Lynch grinned
at the phrase.
Hawala taken to the
Internet age
. It was the ability to turn a
phrase like that which made Stokes a good journalist.
Hawala
, the ancient
trust-based Arab system of transferring money from location to
location remained a highly effective international funds transfer
network. Once untraceable,
hawala
transactions now came under intense scrutiny by
security agencies, particularly the US, precisely because it made
money movements so hard to trace. Freij’s ingenious method of
moving funds was just as effective. The listeners at Government
Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham had been lucky to catch
the fleeting flood of transactions as eighty million dollars
bypassed the conventional banking system on its way from Beirut to
Germany, transferred and laundered in microsecond bursts of
Internet traffic. But catch it they had.

Lynch focused
on the recording, the sound of the door bursting open and the ugly
voices and scuffles, the violent crackle as Stokes grabbed his
voice recorder.

Freij’s voice
was furious. ‘Get him the fuck out of here.’

Stokes was
shouting as he was manhandled from the office, the sound quality
patchy as the recorder bounced in his pocket. ‘Why did you need
eighty million dollars sent secretly to Germany, Mr Freij? What
were you buying with this illegal money?’

More scuffles
and the echo of voices shouting in a corridor, Stokes’ muffled ‘Get
your hands off me,’ before the sound died out. Lynch looked at the
red LED blinking on the little silver voice recorder for a long
time. He leaned forward and switched it off.

Lynch was
puzzled. Freij’s thugs must have let Stokes go, then. The recorder
showed he had time to get back to his apartment, yet he hadn’t had
time to call Lynch. There was no sign of a struggle and certainly
Freij’s people hadn’t come and lifted Stokes’ laptop or the record
of the interview that had been so incendiary it had forced Freij to
call in security to terminate it.

Lynch pushed
himself up from the sofa and looked out of the window across
Gouraud Street, the drink in his hand. Dusk had deepened to night
as he had listened to a dead man goading a living one. Did they
know where Stokes lived? How had they picked him up?

The
streetlight picked out two men striding across the street towards
Stokes’ apartment building. Lynch recognised the type, both men
burly and crew cut, one wearing a forage cap and camouflage
trousers. Militia. He dodged back as one of the men stared up at
the window. Lynch grabbed Stokes’ laptop and slid it into the bag
lying on the floor. He drained the tumbler and slipped the voice
recorder into his pocket, leaving the apartment with the laptop bag
on his shoulder. He just made the corner. The men’s footsteps rang
on the stairwell. They were making no effort to be quiet. He held
his breath and listened to them unlock the door and enter the
apartment. The door banged shut.

They had a
key. There had been no key on the corpse. Had it taken them this
long to figure out where Stokes lived? Lynch reached instinctively
for the Walther P99 nestled under his armpit, the lightweight grip
smooth in his hand. The urge to action gave way to rational
thought. Lynch waited and, when they left the apartment a few
minutes later, followed them into the darkness.

Lynch tailed
the two men down Gouraud Street, dancing on and off the pavement to
avoid groups of early revellers. He used the parked cars as cover.
Many of the bars and restaurants were already busy with the evening
shift, office workers clustered along the counters. The traffic was
ponderous down the narrow street, the ebb of rush hour a press of
cars, scooters and tatty vans.

The man in
the forage cap bunched his fists as the pair barged their way down
Gouraud. Lynch guessed they hadn’t found what they’d gone to
Stokes’ apartment for. Sure they hadn’t. It was hanging on his
shoulder. He loped after them.

The pair
flagged down a
servees
, the broken-down shared taxis which ply Beirut’s streets,
cheaper than regular private cabs because they’d stop for any other
passenger going in your direction. Lynch strode past them as they
got into the car, tempted to hop in and join them. Another
servees
drew up a few
cars behind to set down a balding man and his pretty companion.
Lynch slid into the back. ‘See that
servees
in front of us?’

‘
What of it?’
The man’s yellowed fingers tapped on the wheel, his voice a low
rasp.

‘
Follow
it.’

The driver
chuckled, a wheezy rumble. The engine whined as they pulled away
and he wrestled with the juddering steering wheel. ‘So we are in ze
movies?’

Lynch glanced
at the grubby grey jumper and the wisps of yellow-grey hair
escaping from his woollen hat. ‘You could say that. I’ll pay you
twenty dollars to be a movie star. How about that?’

The driver
chuckled again. ‘Sure. Suit me.’

The
servees
in front turned
right, picking up speed in the thinner traffic. The driver fought
with the noisy gearbox, the ancient engine screeching in protest as
he tried to keep up, muttering in throaty Arabic. The smell of
exhaust was becoming overpowering – Lynch turned to wind down the
window but there was a ragged gap in the door panel where the
handle should be. The far-side door handle swung uselessly. Lynch
gave up and focused on the car drawing away ahead of them on the
long, straight road through the city. As Lynch craned to catch
sight of it, they were plunged into darkness.