Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (37 page)

Lynch called
out hoarsely. ‘What embassy?’

‘
French. We
have total access to Falcon’s security system.’

He slid from
the bed, propping himself up against the wall as the room
spun.
Shit, arak does that. Comes back at
you with water the next day.

‘
Okay, okay,’
he croaked. ‘Give me five.’

When Lynch
emerged, red-eyed with his hair still damp, she handed him a pint
glass of orange juice and soda. He gulped the drink and wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. He turned away from her to walk
into the kitchen and refill his glass from the fridge, reaching up
to pop four Panadol from the blue packet in the cupboard. His side
hurt like hell. ‘Any coffee?’

‘
There is not
time. Come, we need to go to the embassy.’

He threw the
rest of the juice into the sink and followed her from the apartment
into the ancient lift, leaning against the wood panelling as they
creaked their way down to the ground floor, his eyes closed against
the waves of nausea.

Nathalie
brought a
servees
to a halt with a wave, opening the door for Lynch who
clambered in, noticing the crucifix dangling from the battered old
Mercedes’ cracked rearview mirror.

How does she
always manage to get fucking Christians?

Lynch sank
into the worn upholstery as they jerked through the busy streets,
the stench of exhaust fumes overpowering and the erratic driving
reawakening every wound. He noticed the driver’s hand, blue veins
standing out with age spots, blue fingertips too.
No wonder, the guy must be half dead with carbon
monoxide poisoning.

Brian
Channing had met him at the airport when he flew in from Albania
the day before, a separate embassy car from Dubois’. On the road to
Beirut, Channing updated Lynch on the progress they had made
tracking the
Arabian Princess
as she headed into the Eastern Mediterranean.
Lynch listened compliantly, the pain from his wounds keeping him
quiet. Channing dropped him at Raouché on Lynch’s insistence and
Lynch had walked home in pain. Slipping into the apartment, he had
taken a bottle of
arak
and a bottle of spring water into his room and locked the
door, then sat and thought of Leila until sleep had taken away the
pain.

Lynch paid
off the driver outside the French Embassy compound and followed
Nathalie through security and into the impeccably groomed formal
gardens of the imposing Résidence des Pins, through the dappled
shadows cast by the big trees behind the colonnaded classical
building. A guard stopped them. Nathalie showed her ID. Waved on,
they rounded a corner to a large mobile home with a whip antenna
and a brace of satellite dishes on its roof. Nathalie smiled at the
guard by the side door.

Lynch
followed her up the steps and inside, his eyes adjusting to the
gloomy interior as Nathalie closed the door behind them. An
impressive display of technology greeted him, banks of screens and
racks, displays and keyboards. Two men sat on swivel chairs at the
far end of the cramped space, wearing earphones and peering at
screens, their ghostly faces illuminated by the displays. A third
figure, podgier but younger than the other two, was stretched out
on the floor, a dreamy, delighted expression on his fleshy face as
he tapped on a Mac keyboard.

Nathalie
kicked the kid’s booted foot and his head jerked around in
surprise. He focused, peering up at them.

‘
Oh, hi.’ He
scrambled to his feet, flicking a switch on a rack and pulling off
the headphones. Breathless from the exertion, he gasped. ‘Sorry.
Rammstein.’

Nathalie
turned to Lynch. ‘This is Jean. He’s heading up our local
surveillance and interception resources. Jean, this is Lynch. He is
an English spy with bad manners.’

Lynch’s hand
met a damp grip. Brown eyes took him in and a sensual little mouth
smiled. ‘Jean Meset. Nice to meet you.’

Lynch replied
in French, trying not to breathe alcohol fumes in the confined
space. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

Nathalie
gestured to the wall of blinking electronics. ‘So where are
we?’

Meset ran a
hand through his sparse light-brown hair, grinning as his eyes
flickered between Nathalie and Lynch. ‘We have penetrated the
security system of Falcon Dynamics and we are analysing the
product. For now we are being careful so we are not detected, but I
can give you access to the CCTV system at the Deir Na’ee facility.
We believe we have layouts of the facility, too. We have not
identified any R&D systems on the networks we have compromised,
but this is to be expected. The very sensitive data would not be
directly online and would be protected with more sophisticated
layers of security.’ He sniggered. ‘I must say, the systems we have
encountered have been of a surprising sophistication.’

Lynch rubbed
his eyes. ‘Okay, let’s take a look.’

‘
Here.’ Meset
turned to his right. ‘I will scroll through screens and you can
tell me when to stop or ask where we are, okay?’

‘
Fine,’ Lynch
said.

Meset brought
up a camera view, a classroom of some sort. Next a corridor, then
another set of theatre-style seating. The screen flickered again,
an empty storage space, an entranceway then a larger
warehouse.’

‘
Stop. Can
you zoom?’

‘
A little.
It’s risky, in case they’re using this camera
themselves.’

‘
There,’
Lynch pointed at the screen. ‘Zoom there.’

Two grey
shapes became larger, more distinct. Meset licked his lips,
fiddling with the keyboard and mouse. The screen wiped down as the
pixellation hardened, blurred and then the screen redrew once,
twice.

Lynch peered
at the image in front of them, unmistakeably a mobile missile
launcher. Behind it was the soft focus outline of another. The
cradles were empty. He whistled softly. ‘It looks as if they are
waiting for something, no?’

Meset hit a
key. ‘Printing it.’

‘
Okay. More,
then.’

They scrolled
through more corridors, a series of workspaces divided into
cubicles and empty warehouse areas. Lynch stopped the procession of
grainy images in an open storage area. ‘There, no, back. Yes,
there. Enhance it.’

The shadowy
cylinders flickered as the screen redrew once, twice. Finned tails,
long bodies held in cradles. At their heads where there should have
been a nose cone, they presented a flat surface.

‘
Okay, print
that for me too,’ Lynch said.

Nathalie
Durand pressed her finger to the panel and presented her eye to the
scanner. The door clicked and they left the opulent reception rooms
of the Résidence des Pins and entered a plain white corridor, their
shoes clacking on the shiny floor. They entered a side room, a
large open-plan office filled with terminals, piles of equipment
and banks of electronics. Cabling snaked between the racks and LEDs
flashing on the black and silver panels.

Jean Meset
called out in English, his voice stilling the group of people
working at the terminals, mostly men but a handful of women, all
young.

‘
Guys, meet
Gerald Lynch from England. And of course you know our own lovely
Nathalie.’

There was a
ragged cheer from the group. Nathalie smiled and waved her hands to
silence them. ‘Okay, guys. What have we got on Falcon?
Maurice?’

A youth
wearing a torn black denim jacket and sporting a chin strip ran his
hand through his untidy hair. ‘We are proceeding carefully. We are
in and nobody knows this so we try to keep it. We have the building
security systems, as Jean will have told you.’ He raised an eyebrow
at Meset. ‘You have been in the mobile, yes?’ Meset nodded and
Maurice continued, wiping his hand on his jacket. ‘We have start to
look at email traffic and we have mirrored the mail server, so this
let us analyze the email archives offline. The financial system, it
is on a different server and we are not in there yet, but soon this
will happen. Their security, it is good, but some of the deeper
network is not well done. We also think there are other systems at
this site. It is probable there exist a supercomputer for the
modelling and other research work.’

Nathalie
nodded. ‘Janice?’

A girl rose,
grinning nervously. A London accent, skinny and nervous. Curly
hair, pale skin. ‘Um, thanks. We’ve started tracing the
subsidiaries Maurice’s team is identifying and deep diving into the
public records on each one before we assign a team to profile their
security systems. Bryony’s team is managing the subs. So far we’re
finding a lot more interests and holdings than any public source
would acknowledge. It’s a very big company indeed. And very
privately held.’

Nathalie
smiled, ‘Tha—’

‘
And
diverse,’ said Janice, wringing her hands.

‘
I’m
sorry?’

‘
Diverse.
It’s a diverse company.’

‘
Thank you,
Janice. Gerald?’

Lynch started
at the unexpected question. He tried to think of something useful
to ask. Dubois’ words to him, it seemed like a lifetime ago, came
to his aid – a comment about Falcon working for the American
defence industry.

He scanned
the room. ‘Has anyone come across any obvious links to US
companies? Particularly in the defence sector?’

Several
people threw their hands up, but it was Maurice who spoke for them.
‘Yes, a lot. There are many, many references.’

Lynch glanced
at Nathalie. ‘Can we get someone to start profiling and analyzing
the scope of that relationship? It seems odd to me that someone who
actually makes missile systems would want to steal
them.’

Nathalie
nodded. ‘Carmen? Can you make this your focus?’

‘
Sure thing.
Will I report results to you or Gerald?’

‘
To both of
us, please.’ Nathalie paused for a second to scan the room. ‘Let’s
keep the information moving, people. Carry on.’

Lynch found
himself smiling at Nathalie’s obvious command of her team as they
left the room. He had to admit he was impressed at the way the gang
of misfits looked up to her – and at the fact they seemed to know
what they were doing.

Walking in
front of him, her swinging hips a provocation, she spoke back at
him. ‘What are you grinning about, Lynch?’

‘
Ah, sure and
ye know yerself,’ he replied, watching the outline of her legs
moving in her tight skirt.

His head
still hurt, though.

TWENTY-NINE

Lynch and
Nathalie sat together on the sofa watching CNN’s Middle East
Report. Michel Freij was looking sharp, an open-necked white shirt
and black suit, composed and relaxed. The woman interviewing him
announced a report on the man who had come from nowhere to set
Lebanese politics alight, the head of the One Lebanon Party. The
programme cut away to the package, a voiceover announcing that
Freij and his unlikely partner had founded the Lebanese computer
and electronics company Falcon Dynamics when they were at
university, recruiting the brightest talent from around the Middle
East and even bringing young people back from Dubai to join in the
success of the growing defence and communications company. Freij
and Hussein crossed the sectarian divide, successful business
partners from the Christian and Shia Muslim communities who worked
together to build operations in the Middle East, West Africa,
Central Europe and now mainland Europe. Diversification had taken
Falcon into telecoms, dotcoms and even tourism and transportation.
Falcon’s significant contributions to charitable work, social
development programs and educational programs were a major element
of its work and had won it award after award.

‘
I feel
sick,’ said Lynch. Nathalie shushed him. The programme cut back to
the studio, the CNN anchor gesturing with her pen.

‘
So, Michel
Freij, you and Selim Hussein have built a multibillion-dollar
business together. Why this move into politics now?’

Freij
inclined his head. ‘Well, first let me say thank you for having me
here on Middle East Report, Tina. It is truly an honour and
privilege for me.’ He paused to smile. ‘To answer your question, it
is something that Selim and I have often discussed, that our nation
is partisan, too polarized and built around sectarian lines and
self-interest. I am already wealthy. I have no need of corruption
or what we Arabs call
wasta
. I consider myself a testament
to the success of a non-sectarian approach to building something
significant in the shape of our business and I think Lebanon has
the same opportunity to build and grow if it can put sectarianism
behind it. So I think I can make a difference.’

‘
There were
disturbances at your recent Beirut rally. What do you have to say
to those who oppose your point of view so strongly that they use
violence?’

Freij nodded.
‘Yes, thank you. I do not believe this is the solution. We all know
where violence has taken the Lebanese people in the past. I am
proposing a new Lebanon, a Lebanon that can rebuild herself. A
Lebanon of unity and prosperity, of fairness and equality because
we will be capable of repelling all outside interests, of defending
our shores against all force. Our new Lebanon will be a nation of
strength, capable of deterring others from interfering in our
rights and sovereignty.’