Dynamite Fishermen (7 page)

In Abu Ramzi’s view, however, it was neither Syria nor Iraq, nor even Israel, that held the key to creating a Palestinian homeland on the West Bank and Gaza. It was the United States. The two thousand U.S. dollars Prosser paid him every month doubtless also helped to foster a positive attitude toward America. The money provided financial security for Abu Ramzi’s family and an ample source of funds for the many small gifts and favors he dispensed to cultivate the personal loyalty of his junior officers and troops. Abu Ramzi believed that someday, however, the Americans would prevail upon Israel to permit a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. When they did, he believed, the individual Palestinians who were favorites of the Americans would become the fathers of their fledgling country, and he intended to take his place at the head of the list.

While Abu Ramzi’s intelligence assignments for the Americans were often onerous and time-consuming, he never shrank from any reasonable task. Above all, he relished the opportunity to explain PLO strategy, to offer insider gossip about Palestinian leaders and factional feuds, and to pass along the PLO’s own intelligence assessments regarding the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalists and the Syrian army. He also brought lengthy handwritten reports to each meeting and served up purloined copies of secret PLO and Iraqi intelligence documents whenever he could.

Prosser quickly scanned the twenty pages of photocopied reports Abu Ramzi had brought tucked inside his boots. Then he folded the documents twice and stuffed them into his jacket pocket. “We have many subjects to cover, Abu Ramzi,” he began once the documents were tucked away. “First, the car bombs. Twice as many exploded last month on both sides of town. Why? Who’s behind them?”

“Surely you must know that responsibility lies with the Syrians, Wally. Their aim is to convince the Lebanese people that only the Syrian army is capable of providing security for West Beirut. Syrian military intelligence plants the bombs, then the Syrian army claims credit for discovering them. What could be simpler? Of course, some of the bombs must explode from time to time to demonstrate the importance of this service.”

“What makes you so sure it’s the Syrians?

“How could it not be? So very many booby-trapped cars could not possibly be assembled or moved about the city without Syrian complicity.”

“Then how do you explain the wave of bombings on the East Side, against the Phalangists?”

Abu Ramzi gave Prosser a reproving look. “Syria has agents there, too, of course. Just this week I read a report that Syrian military intelligence has recruited a new explosives expert to manufacture bombs for use against East Beirut. He is said to be a Palestinian, formerly in the Resistance. He produces the bombs in West Beirut, then has them smuggled across the Green Line by Christian members of the Syrian Baath Party who live in East Beirut and are able to pass easily in and out. Believe me, Wally, these are facts I am giving you,” he boasted with a self-satisfied smile. “Solid facts.” He leaned back on the sofa and took a handful of pistachios.

“What else do you know about this explosives expert?” Prosser inquired. “Can you give me a name or a description?”

“I have no more than what I have told you. But as for the Christian smugglers, before the Syrian occupation they worked closely with Fatah, training cadres in demolitions work. There are three brothers. The eldest lives on rue Furn el-Hayek in Achrafiyé, where he owns a garage and petrol station. The other two live in Jdaide. Their family name is Naaman.”

“Give me their first names and dates of birth.”

“By Allah, I do not remember their names, but they are young men, not yet above thirty. You can find the name of the eldest brother on the sign above his garage, near the Nôtre Dame du Liban.”

Prosser recorded the names in his notebook. “How many other people in your organization know about the Naamans?”

“None. I know about them only because my brother-in-law is an officer in Fatah. He worked directly with them last year on some joint operation in the mountains.” Abu Ramzi grew pensive, as if trying to recall some forgotten detail. “One other thing. After the bombings on the East Side, there will be an operation in West Beirut against a foreign target.”

“What kind of target? An embassy, an airline office, a school? I need details.”

The agent shrugged. “The report did not say.”

“For God’s sake, Abu Ramzi, you’re going to have to do better than that,” Prosser chided. “First of all, find out if it’s targeted against Americans. Then follow up on that explosives expert. Report any fragment you hear, even if it’s bazaar gossip. Understood?”

Abu Ramzi leaned back and observed Prosser coolly. “Always you ask first whether there is any danger to Americans. Do you truly believe your American lives are more precious than ours, or that foreigners should be immune from the shelling and sniping that the rest of us face? Forgive me for saying so, Wally, but perhaps if more Americans died in Lebanon, your government would take a harder stand against those responsible for the killing.”

“And by that you mean the Syrians, of course.”

The Palestinian seemed surprised by Prosser’s skeptical attitude. “Was it not your secretary of state, Mr. Kissinger, who invited the Syrian army across the border five years ago? At that time he said it was a temporary measure to stop the fighting. Now five years have passed and the fighting is still going on, with the Syrians in the middle of it. I think that you Americans could send them home again if you wanted to. Yet they remain.”

Prosser took a long sip of apple juice while he collected his thoughts. “Whether the Syrians come or go is none of my concern, Abu Ramzi,” he replied at last. “If you want to talk policy, call the ambassador. I’m here to collect information.” He turned over a fresh page in his notebook. “Okay. Next topic: arms shipments,” he began.

Five minutes later, as Abu Ramzi was about to conclude his summary of arms shipments that the PLO had received over the past month, the doorbell rang.

Prosser gestured for the Palestinian to hide in the bathroom, then tiptoed slowly to the end of the corridor and peered out through the peephole. On the landing outside he saw the mustachioed faces of two Lebanese youths in their early twenties. He considered ignoring them, but he quickly rejected the idea and opened the door. They wore T-shirts and faded blue jeans, and each held a folding-stock Kalashnikov rifle by its pistol grip with the barrel drooping toward the floor.

“
Salaam alaikum
,” one of them greeted Prosser deferentially. “We do not wish to disturb you,
siidi
, but we are looking for someone,” he announced in excellent classical Arabic. “Have you seen a Palestinian, about my height, maybe forty years old, wearing a blue pullover?”

“I don’t believe so,” Prosser lied, trying to keep his face from showing anxiety.

“We think he entered the building less than an hour ago,” the Lebanese persisted. As he spoke, his companion peered past Prosser into the apartment.

“Are you alone?” the second one demanded in a gruff voice.

“Yes.”

The first youth hesitated and looked at his comrade, who shook his head as if to say there was no point in pressing the issue. “I am sorry for disturbing you,” he continued. “But, please, if you see this man or one who looks like him, find us at once. We will be in the lobby.”

“Certainly,” Prosser replied as they turned to leave.

Prosser locked the door again, returned to the rear of the apartment, and knocked lightly on the bathroom door to let Abu Ramzi know it was safe to come out. The Palestinian smiled confidently as they took their seats at the table. Prosser took a sip of juice before speaking.

“Listen carefully,” he began in a low voice. “There were two armed men at the door just now. They seem to be searching for somebody who looks very much like you. Tell me, Abu Ramzi, did you have any troubles on your way up here?”

“Not at all. I spoke only to the concierge and no one else. He asked me where I was going, and I told him I wanted to visit Dr. Hamdoun on the third floor, as you and I agreed.”

“Perhaps the concierge was suspicious because of your Iraqi accent. With so many bombings around here lately, one would rather expect them to be jumpy.”

A mischievous smile crept over Abu Ramzi’s face. “Well, perhaps there was something else. Perhaps he noticed this as I entered...” He stood up and pulled up the back of his sweater a few inches, revealing a Soviet-made Makarov pistol tucked into the waistband.

Prosser sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “There is nothing we can do about it now. Let’s finish our work and decide later how we’ll get out of here.”

He gestured for Abu Ramzi to sit down and resumed the debriefing, recording significant details in a nearly indecipherable scrawl in his pocket-sized notebook.

Twenty minutes passed. The doorbell rang again. Prosser put the notebook back in his trouser pocket, pointed Abu Ramzi to the bathroom, and returned to the door. On the other side of the peephole he saw four faces: the two original visitors and two of their comrades in green-and-brown-mottled camouflage uniforms. One of the uniforms bore an insignia that Prosser recognized as belonging to the Murabitoun, one of the radical Nasserist organizations that competed for dominance in the neighborhood.

The same youth who had spoken before spoke again, but he seemed bolder and his voice held no tone of deference. “
Salaam alaikum
. Have you still not seen the man I described? The one with the blue pullover, about forty years old?” He craned his neck to look past the American into the apartment.

“No.”

“You are certain of this? He entered the building not long after you did. We have asked all the tenants about him and have checked some of the empty apartments, but no one has seen him leave.”

Prosser shrugged.

“You are alone here?”

“I already said I am. Why, is there some problem?”

“Perhaps. The concierge called us because he had suspicions about the man we are looking for. We need to speak to him.” He paused and looked Prosser in the eye as if to challenge him. “If you see him, you will contact us, no?”

“Certainly,” Prosser replied. “May Allah give you strength.”

The visitor nodded and gestured for his comrades to follow him up the stairway to the next floor.

Prosser returned once more to the bathroom door and knocked lightly. “It was the same bunch,” he said. “Nasserists, by the looks of them. The concierge must have called them for help.”

He gestured for Abu Ramzi to take a seat. Fighting back the panic that threatened to shut down all ordered thought in his brain, he attempted to think out loud of a means to escape. “Look, my friend,” he began, momentarily surprised at his own self-possession. “The way I see it, we have two choices in trying to get out of here. Either we march down to the lobby together, or you could try to make your exit through the window while I stay here. It seems possible that you could lower yourself from one balcony to another without anyone seeing you. Of course, they might have somebody covering the outside of the building, but my guess is that they’re all in the lobby or out in front. Still, if it were up to me, I would go downstairs together and try to convince them I misunderstood their Arabic. What do you say?”

Abu Ramzi cracked open a pistachio and popped the kernel into his mouth. He appeared unruffled, even amused, by the visits of the young militiamen. “The matter is not important,” he replied, taking another pistachio. “I have experience with boys like these. Let us finish our discussion quickly so that I will not be late in returning to my unit. Then we will leave together, as you propose.”

Twenty minutes later Prosser tore out the pages of his notebook containing his notes and watched them swirl around the sides of the toilet bowl before disappearing down the drain. By now he had memorized the high points of the debriefing and could reconstruct the rest. Next he cleaned off the table, closed the windows, and switched off the fan. Before they stepped out into the hallway, he quizzed Abu Ramzi once more on the time and place for their next meeting. Then they rode the elevator to the ground floor.

As they emerged Prosser spotted the concierge standing across the foyer with the two camouflage-clad fighters who had earlier knocked on his door. The two civilians who accompanied them approached from the left, where they had been lurking at the foot of the stairs. Their rifles were held waist-high with muzzles leveled at Prosser and Abu Ramzi. The concierge identified Abu Ramzi to the militiamen as the man in the blue pullover he had seen entering the building.

“So now you are together,” the civilian declared triumphantly, as if he had known it from the start.

“Together?” Prosser repeated in Arabic, as if slow to comprehend. “Of course we are together.”

“But when I asked you before, you said you were alone,” the Lebanese retorted, taken aback by the contradiction. “Twice you said it. Now you claim this man was with you?”

“Excuse me, but I do not understand what you are saying,” Prosser lied. “Speak slowly, please.”

The others stared at him, momentarily bewildered. He felt as if his heart had stopped beating and would not resume until the lead militiaman spoke again. But before he could answer, Abu Ramzi stepped forward to address the man in a confidential tone. Within moments, the older officer’s air of relaxed authority began to deflate the youth’s self-importance. Soon the young militiaman stopped asking questions and found himself answering them instead. He listened to the Palestinian with eyes averted, his replies reduced to monosyllables.