Beirut
Armed with Safir’s map, Tanner slipped from the hotel and began walking west. Aside from a few late-night strollers, the foot traffic was light, so he made good time and soon reached the Omari Mosque. Its minarets towered above the surrounding ruin, pristine white in the darkness.
At Maarad Street, a quarter mile from the Green Line, he ducked inside a bombed-out grocery store and hunkered down to watch the street Several cars and pickup trucks filled with gunmen passed by, but none more than once. He saw only one pedestrian, an old woman carrying a bag of potatoes.
Was it in fact Azhar who had taken Asseal, or some group with a grudge, he wondered. He hoped it was the former, but there was another part of him—the voice of a thirteen-year-old boy—who was praying for the latter.
After another ten minutes, he slipped back onto the street and started east again.
As he neared the Green Line, he could hear the chatter of automatic weapons and the crump of grenades. He sprinted across Martyr’s Square, found another alley, and kept going, heading deeper into Christian East Beirut.
He stopped beside a burnt-out Renault and rechecked the GPS: The red square was one block north of him on Tripoli Road.
It took another twenty minutes of moving and checking until he found the correct building, an abandoned factory surrounded on three sides by vacant lots. On the fourth side stood a boarded-up building overlooking the factory. He found a back entrance and climbed six floors until he found an open window. He squatted beside it and peeked out.
On the street below were two vehicles: a pickup truck and a gray Volvo.
There was a glimmer of light in a third-floor window. Flashlight or lantern. He watched for a few more minutes, saw no lookouts, then headed downstairs.
After a quick look up and down the street, he sprinted across, slipped into the alley, and circled to the rear of the building. A long line of fire escapes stretched into the darkness. Moving slowly, his feet crunching on broken glass, he began checking them.
The first four were either so rusted or in such bad repair that his touch set them shaking. The fifth one seemed sturdier. He stepped onto the bottom rung. The scaffolding vibrated but held. He took a deep breath and started upward.
At the second floor he found some rotted boards covering the window, so he carefully pried them free, then slipped inside. He crouched down, listening and waiting for his eyes to adjust. Through the ceiling he could hear the sound of muffled voices. Silence. Shuffling footsteps. He found a stairwell and started up.
The third floor was divided by a central hallway with rooms on either side. The floor was littered with chunks of plaster, and in the dust Briggs could see a trail of footprints leading to the last room on the right.
He moved forward. The muffled voices grew louder. Three or four men, he guessed, all speaking in Arabic. He heard a sharp slap—flesh striking flesh—then a moan. He slipped into the adjoining room and pressed his ear to the wall.
The conversation was too rapid to follow, but he managed to catch a few words: Warehouse … move … And then another word that set his heart pounding: “Abu.” “Inform Abu. …”
Did they mean Azhar? In addition to being a popular Arabic name, Abu is a common alias among terrorists, who often convert the literal translation of father to mean leader.
A door banged open. There was a brief scuffle, followed by footsteps. He pressed himself to the wall. One by one, four shadows walked past the doorway. The last two were dragging a man between them. Tanner caught a glimpse of the face: Hossein Asseal. His face was bloody and bruised. The footsteps pounded down the stairs and faded.
A minute later, a pair of engines roared to life and tires squealed.
Tanner pulled out the Palm Pilot and called for an update.
The red square was moving northwest toward the docks.
Following cues from the pilot, he found himself at the city’s old wharf. According to Safir, these had long ago been abandoned in favor of the newer docks, but Like so much in Beirut, they would likely remain until they crumbled into the harbor. Through binoculars he spotted the Volvo parked beside a corner warehouse.
He found a partially collapsed bait shack across the road, crawled into the basement, made himself comfortable beside the window, and called Nourani.
“I was becoming worried,” Safir said. “Where are you?”
Tanner told him. “Are your boys willing to do some watching?”
“Most certainly. I’ll send one immediately.”
Briggs hung up and refocused the binoculars on the warehouse.
Twenty minutes later, Ahmed arrived. “Good morning, effendi,” he said.
“Morning. You’re fast”
Ahmed beamed. “I know many shortcuts.”
“I’ll bet you do. See that warehouse … the one on the corner? After the car leaves, I’m going inside to look around. I should be back in an hour. If I don’t, or something bad happens, leave and go find Safir.”
“Yes, effendi.”
Tanner checked the sky: almost two hours until dawn.
An hour later, the door of the warehouse opened, and four men came out. Asseal wasn’t among them. They piled into the Volvo, pulled onto Tripoli Road, and drove off.
He patted Ahmed’s shoulder and took off.
He sprinted across the road, into the ditch, crawled up the other side, and dashed across to the docks. He mounted the walkway beside the warehouse and followed it to the seaward wall, where he found a back door. He tested the knob: locked. A few feet away he found a small, tarnished window.
He wrapped the tip of his knife in his kaffiyeh and pressed it against the pane. The glass spiderwebbed. He stopped, listened. Nothing.
One by one, he began picking out the shards until the hole was large enough. He reached through, unlocked the window, opened it, and climbed inside.
The interior was empty. Moonlight pierced the overhead shutters and cast stripes on the floor. There’s nothing here. He spotted a trapdoor in the far corner. He walked over, grabbed the iron ring, and lifted. A ladder descended into the darkness.
At the bottom he found a dimly lit passageway bordered on each side by three wooden doors, each padlocked and equipped with a viewing slit. The air was thick with the stench of stale urine. Hanging from a hook on the wall was a key ring.
He took it, walked to the first door, and peered through the slit. It was an empty stone cell, complete with shackles bolted to the wall and a wooden waste bucket in the corner. The hair on the back of Tanner’s neck stood up. This place looked all too familiar. Keep going, Briggs, he commanded.
He found the next three cells empty as well, but inside the fifth was Hossein Asseal; he sat naked and shivering in the corner. Briggs’s hand was halfway to the padlock when he stopped. You can’t. If Asseal disappeared, they would abandon the warehouse. His stomach boiled at the idea of leaving the man behind, but there was no other way. Goddamn it.
The inside of the sixth cell was almost pitch black, so it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust. What he saw made him jerk back involuntarily. He fumbled with the keys, dropped them, found the right one, and slipped it into the lock.
The door swung inward.
Tanner had only seen the man’s picture once, but there was no mistaking the face. Hanging from the overhead beam, his neck stretched to twice its normal length, was Jusef Khoury, the agent known as Marcus.
He’d been dead for several days. His eyes bulged like Ping-Pong balls; flies buzzed in his nostrils and ears. Tanner stared at the feces-stained floor, the overflowing waste bucket, the shoe scuffs on the wall beside the body, and suddenly felt his stomach heave. He gulped hard. God, what a way to die. What a place to die.
He closed and locked the door, then stood against it for a moment, eyes closed. Keep going, stay focused. … He returned the key ring to the hook, then scaled the ladder, slipped out the window, and left.
Leaving Ahmed with a canteen of water and orders to watch the warehouse until noon, Tanner made his way back to the Commodore.
He opened the door to his room and slipped inside. The curtains were half-open, bathing the room in gray light. He stopped. Something was wrong. It was nothing apparent, nothing his senses could latch onto, but the alarm in the back of his mind was insistent. Someone was here.
He drew the Glock and stepped into the main room.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
The voice came from a figure sitting on the bed. Tanner saw the bleach blond hair and the gaudy red dress. Lena.
“Stand up slowly,” Tanner ordered. “Hands out to your sides.”
She hesitated.
“Do it!”
She rose from the chair and extended her arms.
“Move in front of the window.”
She stepped to her left until he could see her silhouette.
“What do you want?” he said.
In answer, she reached up, pulled off the blond wig, and tossed it onto the bed.
Tanner’s heart lurched into his throat.
It was Camille.