Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (9 page)

‘
Congratulations.’ Freij’s glance was sardonic as he lit up.
‘Mr Lynch, I have a proposal to make to you. As you likely know, I
am launching a significant political campaign and I have no
particular desire to be under constant surveillance by the British
or any other intelligence organisations. I will ask my people to
try and trace Paul Stokes’ murderers and place the resources of my
family and company behind the search for justice. But please, no
more bursting into offices or wild accusations.’

‘
Political?
Like your father? The Phalange?’ Lynch inhaled the sweet smoke from
Freij’s cigarette, feeling like a Bisto kid.

Freij stopped
in his tracks, stabbing the cigarette at Lynch. ‘No. Not the
Phalange. A new way, a centrist way. A voice against sectarianism.
Selim and I built Falcon Dynamics together. Selim was the technical
genius. I provided the resources, marketing and sales. He is a Shia
Muslim. I am a Maronite Christian. Together we have shown by
casting aside sectarianism we Lebanese can forge true success. I
want to give that opportunity to our nation. A new Lebanon. One
Lebanon.’

Lynch
couldn’t keep the surprise from his face. He hadn’t expected
idealism, not from this polished son of privilege. Leila’s Lebanon
was idealism and activism – Freij’s Lebanon was power, control and
rapacity.

Freij
grunted. ‘You see? We mean change and a new hope for the future.
There are many men who would like to see us fail. I will not let
that happen. Do not join their ranks, Mr Lynch.’

Lynch
followed as Freij turned and made his way back towards the car
park, leaving a fine tendril of blue-grey smoke rising from his
cigarette, slow-moving in the still air. ‘Not that it is any of
your business, you understand, but part of the funds we transferred
to Germany were used to pay for a new corporate identity and
communications campaign for the One Lebanon Party. I am going to
win, Mr Lynch. I am going to cure the greatest ill that has ripped
our nation apart. A strong government that truly represents the
people and welcomes them regardless of belief or origin. A strong
Lebanon that can stand up to its neighbours and can rebuff Israel
and Syria alike. One people brought together under one nation, not
divided by sectarianism.’ Freij flicked the butt onto the grass,
his Rolex rattling. ‘I did not, and do not, want our opponents
knowing how we are disbursing funds to support my
campaign.’

The large
Mercedes was waiting in the car park, the driver standing by his
open door.

‘
I am going
to win, Mr Lynch. And I am not going to let this,’ Freij gestured
at the cemetery, ‘get in the way of winning.’

Freij offered
his hand. Lynch took it, automatically, his mind revolting too late
at the gesture.

‘
Goodbye, Mr
Lynch. My people will be in touch.’

Footsteps
approached from behind, turning as the bulky figure passed and got
into the front of the car. The big guard pulled the door shut as
Lynch glimpsed the unmistakeable bulge of a shoulder holster. He
hadn’t spotted the security and was glad he hadn’t given in to his
initial urge to give Freij a slap.

Lynch watched
Freij’s car leave. He paused by his own, shook his head and fetched
the wheel a savage kick.

EIGHT

Peter Meier
liked to drive down Unter Den Linden; it gave him a sense of
history and perspective. Berlin could be a fine city, he reflected.
A lady of rare taste and breeding. She could also be a harlot.
Meier could deal with either quite happily, his expensive lifestyle
masking a life born into poverty and grown up on theft.

Meier thought
of fat, stupid Hoffmann and the fortune the man had made him. He
settled into the soft leather seat and imagined the sound of hooves
and iron wheels, the creak and clatter of the tack as Germany’s
beau monde took the air in Europe’s first and finest boulevard,
whiskered gentlemen upright in their smart uniforms as their women
smiled and waved with grace and sensibility. Turning right with a
sigh, he found himself once again back in modern East Berlin, the
glass and steel architecture a rude awakening from his period
daydream. A young couple necked passionately on the street
corner.

Meier guided
the Mercedes into the narrow street at the rear of the prestigious
building that housed his elegant offices. He raised the remote
control for the basement car park, but paused in the act of
pressing the button as he noticed the back of a police car tucked
into the parking area of the apartment block opposite.

Men are
usually born of instinct or logic. Meier was unusual in that he
comprised both. An accountant’s eye for detail and a constant need
for order sat alongside a predator’s ability to distinguish
opportunity from danger. He dropped the remote and drove on. He
turned at the end of the alley into the main road and parked a
short distance away in front of a row of shops. Walking back, he
sniffed the air: fresh springtime tainted with exhaust fumes, a
strong whiff of coffee as he passed a busy café and turned into the
sunlight and the wide pedestrian area to the front of his offices.
He strode past the boutiques and restaurants, then peered into the
smoked glass frontage of his office building. He stepped through
the sliding door into the atrium.

Meier veered
away from the marble reception desk and the two men talking to the
uniformed security guard. His purposeful stride took him to the
lifts and he waited impatiently, watching the numbers on the
display counting down. He controlled the strong urge to flee. The
lift door opened.

‘
Herr Meier!
Herr Meier!’

It was the
security guard. Meier entered the lift, turning to catch the man’s
idiot face and his raised arm. The two suited men talking to the
guard turned. One started to run. The other, unsure, was swept
along by his colleague’s momentum. Meier punched at the fifth floor
button. The lift doors closed on the sound of skittering feet. A
body thumped against the door. Meier watched the display count up,
tapping his fingers on the wall as the impersonal female voice
announced the fifth floor and the doors opened. He crossed the
corridor to the opposite bank of lifts, slammed the down button and
waited, shifting his case from hand to hand and biting his lip. The
doors opened to reveal a woman in a suit. Meier lunged inside and
shoved her out. She screamed, flailing at him with her bag as his
thrust sent her flying backwards to smack against the steel doors
opposite. He hammered the basement button, pushing G twice to
cancel the woman’s request. The door shut out her shocked
face.

Meier cursed
his stupidity in trying to reach the office when he had sensed
something wasn’t right. Caution in everything, care above
everything. Now, with so much at stake, he had let himself
down.

The door
opened and Meier peered out, scanning the basement. He turned left
along the wall, following the carefully planned route that avoided
the CCTV cameras his own company had installed at a sizeable
discount for the building owner.

Emerging from
the ramp up to the street, he squeezed past the car scanner and
number plate camera. Meier ignored the two men in the police car.
He turned left down the street, walking at a harried businessman’s
pace and checking his watch. A car door opened behind him. He
walked on. The cry he dreaded didn’t come and Meier rounded the
corner, his own car in sight along the busy main road where he had
parked.

It had been
too close. Meier never took risks like that. He threw his case onto
the front seat and pulled out into the traffic. He dug at the call
button on the centre console. The line answered after three
rings.

‘
We leave
tonight at six.’

The dusty
voice on the line was factual. ‘The paint won’t be dry.’

‘
I don’t
care. It can dry as we drive. Tonight at six. Tell them
all.’

‘
You’re the
boss.’

Yes
, thought Meier as he cut the
line.
I most certainly am.

Lynch woke up
with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He spent a full
thirty minutes in the shower, letting the jet massage his neck and
shoulders. He packed and went downstairs to check out at the
hotel’s functional front desk. He had a last job to do before he
travelled to Hamburg. Lynch never went back to the UK without going
over to Belfast, his home town. He left Nathalie a note at
reception before he headed for the airport:
Thanks. See you in Beirut.

Alone and the
master of an entire row of empty seats on the plane to Belfast,
Lynch stared at the grey clouds below him and thought about her.
They had eaten together at the hotel, a nondescript Sofitel near
Vauxhall after they had met for a few drinks at the bar. ‘We might
as well get to know each other,’ Lynch had told her. ‘We’re going
to be in each others’ pockets for a while.’

She had
agreed. He drank pints while she drank gin and tonic. She
pronounced it ‘jeene’, which delighted him.

She lifted
her drink. ‘So you must not be pleased to work with me, I
think.’

Lynch bobbed
his glass at her and took a deep pull. ‘I have absolutely no
problem with that at all. Sure, and this game can be lonely at
times. I respect the way the DGSE trains its people. I’ve worked
with your guys before in Beirut. I’m sorry about the Levesques
scandal. I understand you’ve had to virtually start your Beirut
operations again from scratch.’

Nathalie
Durand inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘However, I am not
like the DGSE people you have worked with before, I think. I work
in network intelligence, online security, digital networks. It’s an
office job. I do not really become involved in knocking down doors
and these things. My team just knocks down computers. Like
skittles.’ She sipped from her glass with an impish peek at him
over the rim. She wiped the condensation from her slim fingers on
her jeans.

No rings,
Lynch noted. She wore a long black leather jacket, a plain t-shirt
and black cowboy boots. She pulled a stray curve of hair back from
her mouth.

‘
What about
you, Mr Lynch? You knock down doors, is it not?’

He nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do.’

They had
dinner at the hotel’s ‘international restaurant’, drinking too much
to compensate for the appalling food. After they parted, Lynch
stayed up in his room, popping miniatures from his mini-bar and
channel-hopping. He had finally settled on the ‘premium
entertainment’ channel.

The plane
approached the runway in drizzle, streaks on the rounded windows. A
tendril of vapour streamed over the wing as they came down. A
little over two hours after he had dropped his hire car at
Heathrow, Lynch carried a set of keys from the Hertz office in
Belfast and headed for the car park, an unusual cash
customer.

Driving under
the surly grey sky with his lights on, Lynch left the drab city
behind him. The road was slick, the sparse drizzle intermittent.
The wipers squeaked across the windscreen and he switched them off.
He left the motorway, turning by the outskirts of the town into the
long driveway up to the sprawling red brick building. He shivered
as he passed the gates.

His shoes
crunched on the loose stones as he reached the steps to the front
doors of the convent. He paused at the bottom to take a deep
breath. The memories threatened to engulf him. His chest tight, his
hand flew involuntarily to his open shirt as he cleared his throat
to speak to the big, cow-eyed nun at reception.

‘
Sister
Helena Mary, please.’

The smell of
wood polish and frankincense and a vague hint of institutional
cookery brought the sound of hushed children’s voices back to him,
echoing in the corridors down the years. He took the seat she
offered, steadying himself as he pushed back the tide of memory, as
he always did.

A nurse
appeared. ‘This way, please Mr—?’

Lynch
followed her in silence, the light shining off the wooden floor
polished by a million childish feet. The room was airy, the walls a
cornflower blue. The tiny woman in the hospital bed twisted her
sparsely haired head to see him enter. Her skin was lined and
yellow.

‘
Ah, I
wondered what all the noise was. Gerald Lynch, you always did sound
like a herd of elephants in a terrible tear.’

Her voice was
reedy and her breath came in gasps after she spoke, but the
strength in her eyes was astonishing. He sat on the bed and took
her emaciated little hand.
Like a monkey’s
paw
.

‘
How are ye
keepin’, Sister?’

‘
Sure, ye
know yerself. The days are gettin’ shorter as me life’s gettin’
longer.’

He picked at
the blanket, pulling it up over her chest. ‘I brought you some
Kendal Mint Cake,’ he said, laying the white plastic-wrapped bars
out on the side table.

‘
Are ye
married yet?’

He shook his
head, smiling at her. ‘Ah no, Sister. Sure, amn’t I busy enough in
Beirut?’

‘
Is that
where you are now?’ She noticed the nurse hovering by the door.
‘Thank you, Simone.’