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Rapp stopped moving. "Say that again."
"Don't stop moving, kid. They could be on their way here right now, and I don't think we want to be standing around talking when they show up." He opened the box and pulled out clothes that matched his. "Here ... put these on. I'll grab your shit." He tossed the clothes on the bed and went to the closet, retrieving Rapp's suitcase as well as the beat-up leather case.
Rapp's mind was swimming upstream trying to process what he'd just learned. "But..."
The man turned on him, a frightened, wild look in his eyes. "No buts," he hissed. "No questions, no nothing. We need to get the fuck out of here, and I mean now."
Rapp nodded and began putting on his clothes. This stranger was right, of course. He quickly put on the brown uniform and stuffed his clothes in his suitcase, while the stranger wiped down the doorknobs. In just under two minutes they were out the door and on their way to the street. The stranger went out first and after casually looking up and down the street motioned for Rapp to follow. They threw the suitcase and empty box in the back of a simple white minivan, then left. Rapp glanced at his rental car and almost said something, but thought better of it. They had bigger problems.
CHAPTER 53
MUGHNIYAH refused to come to Martyrs' Square, so they had to go to him. Sayyed could hardly blame him. He couldn't wait for the standoff to end, and the hostages to be out of his care. He was tied to them like a mother to her breast-feeding brood. Still, there was something very exciting about the work that lay ahead. Bill Sherman was a once-in-a-lifetime experiment. The American intrigued and horrified him at the same time. Sayyed had participated in close to a hundred interrogations, and he'd never seen anything even close to what he'd witnessed today. The other man, the younger one, was fairly straightforward. A few threats, some punches and kicks, and one fingernail was all it took to get him talking. He'd gotten a name out of him. Several, actually. It was possible that they were both fake, but he didn't really care at this point.
The important thing was that the great and powerful America had once again failed. They had tried to interfere in the affairs of tiny Beirut and he had beaten them at their game yet again. And this one would hurt. Cummins was one thing, but Bill Sherman would have secrets to tell. Secrets that Moscow would have to pay for.
They were in the cellar of a bistro on General de Gaulle Boulevard--the west end of town, just a block from the ocean. The civil war followed the same patterns as any war, but on a much smaller scale. Two blocks either side of the Green Line was virtually destroyed, buildings blown to pieces from high-explosive artillery shells and mortar rounds. Nearly every building had the pockmarks of small-arms fire, but beyond the Green Line you could find a street devastated by the war, yet there would be one building untouched. That one would survive while six or eight in either direction fell made no sense, but it was an undeniable fact of war that some men, and some buildings, seemed to have an almost invisible shield around them. Farther away from the Green Line, entire neighborhoods had made it through the war with far better success, losing only a building or two from the random shelling. Mughniyah loved these buildings. He noted them and used them for his most important meetings.
This restaurant was that kind of lucky building. Sayyed had been initially irritated by all of the extra security measures. They were brought to three different locations and forced to switch cars before they arrived at the bistro. Mughniyah was the most paranoid of the group by a long shot. They found him in the back room with Badredeen. Plates of hummus, ackawi, roasted nuts, kibbeh, baba ghanouj, and spiced fish were waiting. After the last few days Sayyed could barely contain himself. He dug in, using the flatbread to scoop up the hummus and then some olives and cheese.
Mughniyah watched with interest as Sayyed devoured the food, and Radih sat sipping his water. He had heard of the deplorable conditions at Martyrs' Square. He'd spent the better part of his life living in abject poverty, so it wasn't that he was above slumming it with the men. And he despised the Maronites as much as, or more than, any of them. It was the American prisoners who kept him away. Those men would attract too much attention. The Americans would be looking for them, and if they got lucky--well, the building would be leveled with everyone in it.
"Radih," Mughniyah asked, "why aren't you eating?"
"I'm not hungry."
Mughniyah could tell there was something else bothering him, but he was extremely unsympathetic to the problems of others. He stabbed out his cigarette and asked, "Can we be sure he is the same Bill Sherman who escaped the embassy bombing in '83?"
Sayyed nodded while he washed some baba ghanouj down with a glass of water. "It's him."
"And did you learn anything from him today?"
"We should kill him," Radih said. "He is the devil himself. We should not tempt fate a second time. Give me the word and I will kill him tonight."
Mughniyah had no idea what had precipitated such a drastic statement from a man who loved to barter for the lives of hostages. He turned to Sayyed. "And what do you think?"
"Mr. Sherman is an interesting man. A professional liar and provocateur, for certain, but he is also an extremely valuable asset."
"The man is a curse on all of us," Radih proclaimed. "I am telling you we should rid ourselves of lies and kill him tonight."
Thinking it would be a good idea to change the subject, Sayyed asked, "Where is Colonel Jalil?"
"He will not be joining us." Mughniyah turned and shared a knowing glance with Badredeen.
They had been conspiring. That was plain enough to Sayyed, and if it meant leaving the Iranian out, that was fine with him. Sayyed watched as Mughniyah's mood turned dark. He'd seen it before, and when he was sour like this he could be prone to violence. Like some fifteenth-century sultan, he could on a whim ask for someone's offensive head to be s
eparated from the rest of his body. No hierarchy had ever been established for the group, but there was nonetheless a natural order to things. Mughniyah sat atop the food chain for the simple reason that he was the most ruthless among a group of men who were no strangers to violence.
The key, Sayyed had learned, was to think very carefully before answering him when he was in one of his exceptionally surly moods. "What do you have in mind, Mustapha?"
Before he could answer, Radih said for the third time, "I think we should kill him." He did not bother to look at the others. His voice was eerily devoid of his normal youthful passion. "I think the man is the Shaitan himself. We should take him out to the statue tonight and disembowel him. Leave him to a slow death. He can howl his lies at the moon. Let him be an example to the Americans and anyone else who wants to send their assassins to Beirut."
Sayyed held his breath. His eyes darted back and forth between the upstart and the lion. Radih was not a deeply religious man, and his proclamation that the prisoner was the devil was likely to give the duo from Islamic Jihad pause, but then again Mughniyah did not like being interrupted.
"Assef?" Mughniyah asked Sayyed.
Sayyed pulled in a quick breath and said, "I'm not sure I would go as far as to call the man Satan, but on the other hand there is undeniably something very wrong with Mr. Bill Sherman." Glancing at Radih he added, "I can appreciate why Abu might think that would be a good idea, but I'm afraid we would be destroying a very valuable commodity."
Mughniyah grinned knowingly. They were of the same mind.
