Exile Hunter (3 page)

“It’s been a long
time,” Bob Bednarski began in a wary monotone as he offered Linder
a fleshy hand with a band of scar tissue across the knuckles. The
chief spoke with a thick Cleveland twang reflecting his blue-collar
origins. Linder recalled from past encounters that this vulgar bear
of a man delighted in shocking subordinates with his crude and
profane vocabulary, a relic of his combat tours in Afghanistan, the
Middle East, and along the Great Lakes during CWII. His career
largely rested on his achievements in the latter conflict, when he
was DSS Base Chief for Northern Ohio during the Battle of Cleveland.

“We’ve come a long
way since Cleveland,” Linder responded with a genial smile.

“Want a drink?”
Bednarski offered, avoiding eye contact and taking a bold swig from
the crystal tumbler. “I’ve been saving the last bottle of
Glenlivet to celebrate the end of my tour. Just can’t get decent
Scotch at home any more.”

“Sure, I’ll have
some,” Linder agreed.

To Linder’s surprise,
Denniston declined.

“Come with me,”
Bednarski said as he led them inside. “Ignore the mess.”

The corridor leading
from the front door into the library was choked with unopened boxes
of luxury goods rarely seen on the shelves of America’s
state-controlled retail stores. Even in voucher shops, open only to
the Unionist Party nomenklatura, such a variety of Irish crystal,
Swiss watches, French perfumes, English woolens, Italian leather, and
other luxury items was rarely found. The wares stacked in the
corridor must have cost tens of thousands of dollars, even at the
discounts offered by Beirut’s shady dealers in pirated and smuggled
goods. The chief’s salary certainly didn’t cover this kind of
shopping spree.

Bednarski led Linder
and Denniston into the darkened library and closed the door behind
them. Though its paneled walls were bare and its books were stacked
in boxes, an obsolete American flag showing a full complement of
fifty stars hung across the empty shelves. Bednarski filled a tumbler
with ice from a silver tray on an antique sideboard and poured three
fingers of Glenlivet before handing it to Linder. The cold glass sent
a shiver up Linder’s arm. Without thinking, he discarded half the
ice before taking his first sip.

Denniston stood two
paces behind the Base Chief, in deference to the older man. Though
he, as a Branch Chief in the DSS’s Emigré Division, ranked a shade
higher than his host, Denniston was careful not to pull rank on a man
who had once been his commanding officer and who, by Department
regulation, remained the senior DSS official in charge in Lebanon.

“I want to make it
clear that it wasn’t my idea to bring you here, Linder,”
Bednarski began, giving his visitor a stern look. “Over the past
year or so we’ve driven the expat insurgent network out of Beirut
by handling things in our own quiet way. Instead of trying to
infiltrate each of the rebel cells that operated here, we’ve
focused on the money trail, persuading the Lebanese banks not to
protect their secret bank accounts. And we haven’t lost a single
agent or prompted a single diplomatic protest doing it.”

“Good for you, Bob,”
Linder answered with a sideways look. “If things are going so well
around here, why did you send for me?”

Linder recalled that,
the last time he had served under Bednarski, the chief had blamed him
for an embarrassing setback that Linder had warned him to avoid.
Bednarski pursed his lips and eyed him warily.

“Headquarters wants
us to take one last crack at Philip Eaton before my replacement comes
and, for whatever reason, they seem to think you’re the man for the
job.”

“Ah, now I get it,”
Linder replied. “You guys couldn’t get your hands on Eaton’s
money through the banks, so you want me to help you take it out of
his hide some other way.” He fished the remaining ice from his
glass with three fingers and dumped it onto the ice bucket’s
polished silver tray.

“Well, if you could
persuade him to return to the States…” Denniston suggested.

"Eaton?
Repatriate? Not bloody likely," Linder shot back as he swirled
the pale liquid in his glass.

“All right, then, how
about luring him somewhere we can snatch him? Greece, Cyprus, Italy,
I couldn’t care less where he goes,” Bednarski replied, “so
long as we get our hands on him and Uncle Sam claims his due. But
you’d have to make it look voluntary. We wouldn’t want to spook
our Lebanese hosts.”

“Eaton is too cagey
to fall for anything obvious. It could take months to gain his
trust—if we succeed at all,” Linder said.

“Fine. You have three
days,” the chief declared. “Think of something.”

"You can't be
serious," Linder objected, setting down his whiskey glass.

"Damned serious.
Division Chief's orders," Bednarski answered.

“What makes you think
Eaton is even worth the trouble? How much money does he have left
these days?”

“Bank records show he
transferred at least thirty or forty million of his own funds out of
the country when the President took over,” Denniston reported.
“Headquarters estimates that at one time he controlled five or ten
times that in rebel funds looted from the downtown Cleveland banks.
It’s a well-established fact that Eaton masterminded the operation
and has served as a kind of trustee for the stolen money ever since.”

“So I recall,”
Linder agreed.

“Then maybe you also
recall Eaton’s new son-in-law, Roger Kendall,” Bednarski
continued, watching closely for Linder’s reaction. “He’s been
trying to put Eaton together with exile groups in the U.K. and Europe
who need funding for their stateside operations. Did Neil brief you
on your meeting with Kendall tomorrow?”

“Got it covered,
boss,” Denniston interrupted. “The plan is for me to be at his
hotel tomorrow at ten sharp with a disguise technician.”

Linder raised an
eyebrow at Denniston. It seems the latter had not told him all he
needed to know.

“In that case,”
Linder announced testily, “unless there’s more to discuss, I’d
like to get some dinner and go to bed.”

“Fine, then, let’s
go,” the chief agreed, emptying his glass and leaving it on the
sideboard.

“Go where?” Linder
asked.

“The Lido. I reserved
a table at eight. The belly dancers start at ten.”

Linder shook his head
in disbelief before making a silent appeal to Denniston.

“I don’t know,
Chief,” Denniston broke in. “We’ve got a long day ahead.
Besides, it might not be such a good idea for the three of us to be
seen together.”

“Screw security,”
Bednarski spat, waving broadly with drink in hand. “Hell, nobody
knows you or Linder around here.”

“It’s very nice of
you to invite me,” Linder responded, still not stirring from the
spot. “But, really, I ought to get some rest...”

“Nonsense. You have
to eat somewhere," Bednarski insisted. "Believe me, it’ll
be the meal of a lifetime. Tonight is Nour Al-Said’s last
performance in Beirut before she goes on tour in the Gulf. Hell, you
can't miss that."

And without another
word, Bednarski put down his drink and headed for the door. The two
younger men exchanged troubled glances, swallowed hard, and followed.
Each knew that Bednarski could not be stopped, and neither wanted to
pay the price for obstructing him.

Bednarski drove them
north in his classic 2012 Mercedes-Benz sedan through narrow lanes
and alleys to Beirut’s legendary nightlife district on Phoenicia
Street. Judging from the fawning attitude of the Lido’s parking
attendant, Bednarski must have been a regular there. The maître
confirmed this by leading the three Americans to a choice table close
to the dais where the Egyptian orchestra was playing, and snapping
his fingers at a team of liveried waiters to bring on the deluxe
hundred-dish mezzé. By now, Linder’s appetite was whetted and the
meal turned out to be every bit as delicious as the Chief of Base had
promised. With the aid of some delicious Ksara Blanc de Blancs and
Chateau Musar Reserve, the time before the start of the show slipped
by far more agreeably than Linder had expected. That the ambient
noise in the club was too loud to permit much conversation added to
his pleasure.

Though the headline
dancer, Nour Al-Said, was well past her prime, her once legendary
beauty remained evident behind heavy make-up while her ripe figure
conveyed the deep sensuality of mature experience. Nour and the three
younger dancers who followed her danced to near-exhaustion,
accompanied by a tireless twenty-piece Egyptian orchestra who played
a continuous score of deep, brooding music that set Linder's mind
wandering to far-off places and times. Each dancer began her routine
on the dance floor directly before the dais, then roamed from table
to table, making a lengthy pass at the Americans, where Bednarski, a
married man with teenaged daughters, tucked many a twenty-dollar bill
into bras and G-strings.

Though a bachelor and
no stranger to belly dance clubs, Linder kept his wallet in his
pocket, not wanting to draw added attention. After the first two
dancers, his mind wandered. Having worked under cover almost
continuously since joining the CIA more than a decade ago, and
transferring to the DSS after that, he had missed the usual range of
opportunities to form lasting relationships with women. Those with
whom he had paired off in brief casual relationships had come and
gone from his life over the years. None had loved him; of that he was
fairly certain. He could think of only one who might have, and that
was so long ago that it hardly counted any more. He tried to recall
her face, as he did now and again, but it receded into an alcoholic
haze.

At last, the final
belly dancer left the floor at the Lido, yet Bednarski still refused
to call it a night. Waving aside any security concerns or claims of
fatigue, he insisted on dragging the younger men to two more watering
holes along Phoenicia Street. Against his better judgment, Linder
went along. Without Denniston’s support, he knew that escape was
not yet a viable option and so he limited his alcohol intake by
nursing his whiskey and ordering frequent mineral water chasers.

By now, Linder had come
to notice the exaggerated deference shown to their small party by the
various touts and barkeeps they met along Phoenicia Street.
Apparently, Bednarski was a regular everywhere, acting like a rich
playboy on what Linder now suspected were the confiscated fortunes of
captured rebel émigrés. Linder found the chief’s flashiness as
dangerous as it was repellent, since it raised a host of fresh doubts
about Bednarski’s judgment in the pending operation against Philip
Eaton.

Dawn was nearly upon
them when Linder and Denniston finally stuffed the chief into a taxi
and sent him home, with a parking attendant following close behind in
Bednarski’s vintage Mercedes. Linder arrived at the Hotel Cavalier
in a separate cab just as a rosy glow began to suffuse the eastern
sky over the Sannine Mountains.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities.
Voltaire

SEPTEMBER, FRIDAY, WEST BEIRUT

When the alarm rang
at nine-thirty, Linder lowered his feet to the floor and sat on the
edge of the bed. The morning sun glared at him from the east window,
forcing him to lower his gaze to avoid the painful light. He picked
up the bedside phone and dialed.

“Room service? Send
up two cups of Arabic coffee, medium sweet, two large bottles of
sparkling mineral water and a basic mezzé for two. I’ll pay double
if you can get it here in fifteen minutes.”

Linder’s temples
throbbed and he felt as if the room were rotating. His pajamas stank
with sour alcoholic sweat. He shuffled into the white-tiled bathroom
and, for a moment, could not decide whether his stomach cramps were
commanding him to sit upon or kneel before the porcelain throne. He
wished he’d had the sense to vomit before going to bed, for now the
whiskey, arak, wine, and brandy would punish him for hours until they
were completely metabolized.

Linder opened all four
windows to vent the room’s stale air, then retreated to the shower,
alternating at one-minute intervals the hottest water he could stand
with the coldest. He had been scrubbing and shampooing for nearly a
quarter of an hour when his meal arrived. He answered the door in his
bathrobe, still dripping, and stood aside while the waiter set a
place for him to eat. As promised, Linder offered a 100% gratuity,
which the young man accepted with evident delight before he hurried
out the door.

As Linder sipped his
first cup of coffee, Neil Denniston arrived with the disguise
technician, an attractive Hispanic woman of about thirty with an
eye-catching figure. After introducing herself by first name only,
the technician opened what appeared to be an oversized purse, removed
a disguise kit shaped to fit the bag’s interior, and laid out its
contents on the coffee table. Denniston looked on in silence, his
eyes concealed behind wraparound French sunglasses that made him
appear in far better shape than Linder. Meanwhile, Linder’s eyes
strayed to the disguise artist’s shapely derriere and held their
focus there.

“You shouldn’t have
tried to keep up with him,” Denniston opened at last. “I swear,
Bednarski has the constitution of a satyr. The only way I manage to
stay on my feet is to water my drinks from the start.”

“I’ll remember that
next time,” Linder scowled. “Would you two care to join me for
breakfast?”

Denniston sniffed at
the garlic-laced Lebanese specialties on the table and waved away the
fumes with disgust. “It's not exactly what I would have picked to
soothe a troubled gut.” The disguise technician wrinkled her nose
and turned away, too.

“It’s not about
being appetizing,” Linder replied. “I need the garlic to mask the
odor of alcohol oozing from my pores. Mormon Joe isn’t supposed to
be a boozer, you know.”