Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (7 page)

Channing
turned the lighthouse of his smile on Yates. ‘Can Mrs Bryson rustle
up a pot of tea, do you think, Yates?’

Yates backed
out of the room. ‘Course, sir.’

Brian Bloody
Channing, thought Lynch as he stared into the cold fireplace.
Dapper deputy director for security and public affairs, consummate
politician and the most genial host ever to slide a knife into his
guests’ backs and twist it even as he smiled and served them more
drinks and dips.

Lynch had as
little as he could do with Channing. Most of their conversations
revolved around some form of rebuke or another, one more rule Lynch
had broken or petty bureaucrat he’d pissed off. Their relationship
was often stormy, but Lynch had once met Channing’s secretary out
on the town with the girls and she had later confided in Lynch, as
he lay by her, that Channing thought the world of him. The
knowledge sustained him through the darker days.

Channing
settled into his high-backed chair. ‘His Excellency the Ambassador
not too pleased with you right now, Gerald, truth be told. Seems to
think the Secret Intelligence Service should be secret and,
well,
intelligent,
apparently. Not thrashing around beating up billionaire
presidential hopefuls’ secretaries. That sort of thing.’

Lynch opened
his mouth to reply but Channing held up his hand. ‘Old-fashioned,
is our St John, I know. But perhaps you might take his ability to
cause an almighty stink in Whitehall into account next time you
decide to tase yourself in a china shop or whatever it is you
thought you were doing.’

Lynch
frowned. ‘A good man flew back here with me, Brian. He was lying in
a box in the hold of the plane. And Michel Freij killed
him.’

‘
Gerald, I
understand your feelings. It’s never easy to lose an agent. But
Freij has complained formally and my minister has officially
instructed me to, and I quote here, Gerald, “Get my dogs off
Freij”. Lynch leaned forward, but Channing’s hand was still up.
‘No, Gerald. I won’t hear it. We don’t have a great deal of time.
Down the corridor, a meeting is taking place, which you will join
in due course. It is a meeting of EJIC, the European Joint
Intelligence Committee. It’s our newest toy and it represents a
quite unprecedented step forwards in European cooperation. In my
personal opinion, it also represents the surrender of the last
shred of our sovereignty, but then I suppose I am out of sync with
the times on that one.’

Lynch
grinned. ‘Jesus and am’t I Irish? I could care less about your
sovereignty.’

‘
You’re a
British bloody subject and public servant, Lynch.’

Lynch sat
back. ‘So is this about the Falcon Dynamics transfer?’

‘
Go to the
top of the class, Gerald. The committee’s current chair is French,
a certain Yves Dubois. He’s heavyweight. The French have few if any
active assets in Lebanon at this moment following the Lévesques
debacle. That whole network being exposed by Al Jazeera has blown
their Levantine operations sky high. It’s remarkable. Apparently
the French embassy in Beirut is almost empty without its usual
complement of watchers and hoods. We can expect European Joint
Intelligence to use its ownership of this operation to include some
form of attempt to rebuild French operations there. You will be
offered “resources”. Kindly accept the offer
graciously.’

‘
You mean
I’ll get a French shadow?’

‘
Precisely. And you are, of course, to cooperate fully
and
report
fully
on what he gets up to.’

‘
Does it
matter? I mean, Beirut’s not exactly the jewel in SIS’ crown, is
it? I’m a one-man show most of the time. It’s a far cry from back
in the days when we had the language school in Shemlan and all that
carry on. You know yourself, you’ve mothballed pretty much every
source I’ve come up with since the Jordanian water affair blew
up.’

‘
Don’t be
bitter. It doesn’t suit you.’ Channing leaned forward. ‘Another
thing. Dubois is on the warpath. Watch the bastard. He’s empire
building and I won’t have it.’

The door
opened and Yates pushed a small, creaking trolley into the room.
Channing rose, brushing imaginary dust from his trouser. ‘I’m going
down the corridor. Join us after your cup of tea, twenty minutes or
so. Be pleased to see me. I know you’re a natural actor, so it
shouldn’t be too onerous.’

Lynch glared
at Channing’s back as he left. He grimaced at the teapot on the
trolley and winked at Yates. ‘Yates, can you fix that
scotch?’

‘
Course,
sir.’

‘
Good man,
yeself.’

SIX

Lynch barged
into the meeting room. The faux-Georgian table hosted a collection
of ghost-faced waiters and watchers. Brian Channing was halfway to
his feet, surprised by the speed of Lynch’s entry, his mouth half
open. To his right, frozen in immortal tableau was Jefferson from
customs. Lynch had met him once, some shitty security conference in
a tatty Northern hotel, an internal affair. Next to Jefferson was a
big, sandy man wearing a beige jacket. Lynch guessed he was another
customs type and a stranger to the rest of the group, his big hands
cupped the cheap porcelain coffee cup in front of him.

‘
Top of the
morning to ye,’ Lynch said, thickening his Northern
accent.

Channing’s
smile took in the room. ‘Everybody, I’d like you to meet our head
man in Beirut, Gerald Lynch. Gerald, I shall make the
introductions. You know Nigel Jefferson from Customs and Excise, to
his right is Charles Duggan. This is Yves Dubois, the chair of the
European Joint Intelligence Committee and to his right is Nathalie
Durand.
Nathalie represents
the technical directorate of the
Direction Générale de la Sécurité
Extérieure
.
Herr Dieter Schmidt represents the
Bundesnachrichtendienst
.’

Lynch took
his place, stretching to help himself to sulky spurts of coffee
from the battered canteen.

‘
Shall I
summarise our discussion and bring Gerald up to date? Gerald, I
think I can speak for us all when I offer my condolences on the
death of your colleague. It was really most
unfortunate.’

Channing
picked up a pencil as a baton for his exposition. Lynch settled in
for the long haul, a glance round the table confirming a similar
air of resignation among the listeners and earning him a
tight-lipped smile from Durand. Her lipstick was carmine,
offsetting her alabaster skin, her hair shoulder length and jet
black apart from a single red streak. A little badge of
individuality there, thought Lynch as he idly wondered why she was
in the room.

Channing
extended his hand. ‘So, for Gerald’s sake, Mr Duggan here is a
customs officer involved in high-risk operations against organised
criminals in cross-border situations. Whilst on leave following his
injury in an unfortunately concluded operation in Hamburg, he
encountered a young lady who claimed to be the daughter of a
certain Gerhardt Hoffmann, a German businessman who is the CEO and
sole shareholder of Luxe Marine, a manufacturer of high-end luxury
yachts. The young lady claimed her father was trying to kill her
after she discovered he was in the process of selling illegal arms
to Arab buyers and shipping them using one of Luxe Marine’s yachts.
The arms in question, she claimed, were looted from a cold war arms
cache near the Czech border. She has subsequently been reported as
missing, believed abducted. Dieter?’

‘
We have
preliminary results from electronic surveillance of Hoffmann’s
personal finances as well as his business interests. Both were a
problem until before two weeks. At this time a deposit counting
eighty million US dollars was made to the Luxe Marine business
account from Bankhaus Löbbecke. The payment was justified as a
deposit against an eighty million dollar order from a pair of
Middle Eastern businessmen, Michel Freij and his partner Selim
Hussein, for a fifty-metre yacht. The price of almost two million
dollars per metre is very high – significantly in excess of two,
even three times the market rate, I am informed.’ He smiled.
‘Although I am, sadly, no expert in luxury yachts.’

Lynch joined
in the dutiful rustle of amusement that passed around the table.
‘The Bankhaus Löbbecke payment originated from a German dot com
company, Kaufsmartz.com. You know this company I think, Mr
Lynch.’

‘
Sure and I
do. Kaufsmartz is owned by Falcon Holdings, an offshore investment
vehicle owned by Falcon Dynamics, which belongs to Freij and
Hussein. We tracked the transfer they made to top up Kaufsmartz’
account – they were using a stream of micropayments to make the
transfers surreptitiously.’

‘
Quite so. We
also have tracked a payment of forty million dollars made almost
immediately afterwards by Luxe Marine to a certain Peter Meier,
Hoffmann’s brother-in-law. Meier has long been known to us in
connection with a number of cases involving the shipment of arms.
We have found no trace of the girl.’

Lynch glanced
around the people in the room, his attention drawn to the big
customs man, Duggan, who was running his hand distractedly through
his ginger-blond hair and looking like he might explode at any
second. A physical man, a man of action cooped up with dull
talkers, Lynch conjectured. Duggan caught his eye and glanced
away.

Channing
brandished his pencil. ‘Thank you, Dieter. Now, while investigating
Luxe Marine, Mr Duggan also made brief contact with a person who
identified himself as Gonsalves. There is a known associate of
Peter Meier’s, a Joel Gonsalves. He is an experienced ship’s
captain and a man with, let us say, a chequered past. We believe on
this basis he is commanding the yacht, which is called the
Arabian Princess
. It is
obviously early to draw any concrete conclusion from what is, at
this stage, highly circumstantial evidence. We have an unusual
transfer of money that is not, as far as I am aware, strictly
illegal, from Beirut to Germany. We have an order for an overpriced
luxury yacht. But we also have a missing girl who claims her father
has become an arms smuggler. She was, incidentally, a
prostitute.’

Duggan was on
his feet, Jefferson pulling at his sleeve. He shook Jefferson off.
‘What the hell does that change?’

‘
Nothing, Mr
Duggan. Please, be seated.’ Dubois’ voice was a surprise. Insidious
and smooth, it flowed like mercury into the room. His accent was
faint, but Lynch reckoned women would find it attractive. He
wondered if Nathalie of the night-black hair and green eyes had
heard Dubois talking dirty in those low, musical tones.

Dubois waited
for the big man to settle. ‘You are suggesting we proceed in
monitoring only, Brian? The man you employed to investigate this
matter in Beirut was killed, is it not so Mr Lynch?’

Lynch glanced
at Channing. ‘May I speak openly?’

‘
Of course, Gerald. We’re with friends,
partners
, here.’

‘
Yes, he was
killed. His throat was slashed. Paul Stokes evidently struck a
nerve when he interviewed Freij. I obviously had no idea of the
ferocity of the reaction it would trigger. I have a transcript of
the interview. Stokes rattled Freij when he started to talk about
the money transfer from Falcon to its German subsidiary Kaufsmartz,
but Freij terminated the interview the second Stokes brought up the
micropayments. His reaction was mad altogether. I believe Michel
Freij had Stokes abducted and killed.’

‘
Michel Freij
is a significant public figure, Mr Lynch.’ Dubois’ voice was no
less smooth but he leaned forwards, his eyebrow raised. ‘As well as
being a successful businessman, he is a high-profile political
player. You are laying a very serious charge.’

Political
player my arse, thought Lynch. Tony Chalhoub had called Lynch’s
mobile as he waited for his flight that morning and confirmed the
address he had asked Tony to look into was the new headquarters of
Freij’s One Lebanon party. The building was so new, Lynch had
missed the signage going up by a day. Now its entrance was capped
by the new One Lebanon logo. Apparently there had been a shooting
near there the evening before, Chalhoub had continued. Did Lynch
know anything about it? If he heard anything, he’d be sure to call
Tony first, wouldn’t he?

‘
Michel is
the son of Raymond Freij, one of the most feared Christian warlords
during the Lebanese civil war. He was a prominent Phalangist.’
Lynch turned to the others in the room. ‘The Phalange is a
far-right Lebanese political movement, supported by the Christians.
Its militia has long been notorious for its brutality.’

Dubois’ voice
was sharp, ‘I am aware of that. What of it?’

Lynch gazed
at Dubois. He pulled a folded piece of textured vellum from his
inside pocket and slid it across. ‘This was next to Stokes’
corpse.’

Brian
Channing was on his feet, craning his head to catch sight of the
document. ‘What the hell is it?’

‘
It is a
death warrant.’ Dubois sat back and examined the elegant
calligraphy. ‘The type Michel’s father used to write. Raymond died
over ten years ago of cancer. He was a cruel man and fond of grand
gestures. This has the name Paul Stokes written on it.’