“No. In this case, ‘infidel’ has a very specific meaning to these guys. I’m telling you the assassin
12
Back in our hotel room, Jennifer gave me a rundown of what she’d learned while I went through the SD card the agent had passed. I hated hearing the briefing secondhand, but I’d had to make a hard call on who went into the cafe and had decided that I’d do more good outside, ready to react should something go wrong. Jennifer possessed a steel-trap mind and would draw much less attention to the meeting than I would. Hot little hammer meeting a businessman was better than a roughed-up expat.
The case officer’s story certainly matched up; the SD card had a clinical report, with all primary references being the thoughts of some analyst with a fifty-pound head. No concrete information on the target or the timing, with every statement preceded by “appears to be…” or “suggests…” Not a lot of help in our decidedly fluid mission statement. I decided to do my own investigation.
“Come on. Let’s go see a guy I know.”
“Who?”
“A soldier I met a long time ago on a training package here. Before the Taskforce. Before Nine-Eleven. He’s a Special Forces guy I trust.”
We left our fancy hotel, a five-star treat that tried hard to make you forget the deadly terrain it was parked within, but failed because of the metal detectors and physical searches at the door.
Heading to the coast road, we passed the destroyed Holiday Inn, a mocking, bullet-ridden reminder of the animosity simmering just below the surface of Beirut. A testament to both the potential and the reality of the country.
Going generally south along the coast, we left the city behind us. About forty minutes later, we turned east and entered the foothills of the Chouf Mountains, home of the Druze sect.
One of the eighteen recognized sects in Lebanon, it was a monotheistic religion that was neither Christian nor Muslim. Primarily found in the Levant, the Druze were known for their fighting prowess and staunch loyalty.
Driving along winding mountain roads, full of switchbacks, we reached the small town of Deir Al Qamar. I cut north, finally stopping at a modest stone house, carved straight into the side of the mountain with a view that would command millions in the United States.
I killed the engine and said, “Hope he still lives here.”
“Really?” Jennifer said, “That’s the best you can do? How long has it been? Ten, fifteen years?”
“Yeah, but all these homes are family owned. This isn’t like America. The sects tend to stick together for survival, and none more so than the Druze. If he’s not here, whoever is will know where he lives now, and it’ll be somewhere close.”
The door of the house swung open before we were out of the car, an attractive girl of about thirteen on the stoop. She said something in Arabic back into the house, then, in heavily accented English, said, “Can I help you?”
I stopped at the base of the steps. “We’re looking for an old friend of mine. I met him when I was in the Army a long time ago. His name’s Samir al-Atrash.”
Before she could answer, Samir himself came onto the stoop. He looked exactly the same, a tall, rangy guy with jet-black hair and a bushy mustache. He stared at me without recognition for a second or two, and as I waited to see if he would remember me, I realized I was wrong. He wasn’t exactly the same.
My memory of him had been frozen decades before, and like holding an old photo to your reflection in a mirror, I saw the changes. He had some gray coming through and a few more wrinkles. Crow’s-feet around his eyes where there’d been none before.
He said, “Pike?”
I grinned. “I was beginning to think I hadn’t left an impression on you, what with all the money we wasted on your training.”
His face split into a smile. “Impression? No, you didn’t. At least not in any good way.”
I introduced Jennifer, and he led the way into his house. We settled into a small, comfortable den, the girl from earlier now teamed with a younger boy, both clinging to the armchair Samir was sitting in.
“You’ve been busy,” I said. “You were single the last time we talked.”
“Times change. Sooner or later, you realize what’s truly important. You don’t have a wife? Children?”
“No.”
He laughed and said, “You’re going to die a greasy, dirty old man. You should try it, Pike. I think you’d like the lifestyle.”
I barked a fake laugh and awkwardly changed the subject, not wanting to make him feel bad. His brow furrowed at the abrupt shift, but I pressed on, talking about our business interests instead. How we loved the travel and adventure. Jennifer helped out by asking questions about the Druze. As usual, she knew more than I did and had never even been to the country.
At a natural pause in the conversation, he whispered to his kids, then watched them scamper away and disappear into the back of the house.
“What can I help you with?” he asked, “Surely you didn’t drive into the mountains just to banter about your lack of commitment or your love of travel.”
“Well, I was hoping to run something by you. Your unit, actually. See if that intelligence fusion cell you always bragged about can corroborate anything. Surely that thing is wired throughout the country by now. Pride of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Isn’t that what you said it would be?”
He glanced at the floor, then said, “I’m not in Special Forces anymore.”
“Oh…well, can you still get access? As a regular grunt?”
“Pike, I’m not in the Army. I quit after the 2006 war.”
“Really? You would be the last guy I thought would leave the Army. What happened?”
His demeanor shifted, and not in a good way. “Israel invaded us and the Lebanese Armed Forces did nothing, letting Hezbollah do all the fighting that should have been done by the LAF. We didn’t even react when the Israelis blew up one of our convoys, killing a general. It was disgusting. Even my Special Forces unit sat on the sidelines and watched the civilians get slaughtered. If it hadn’t been for Hezbollah, many, many more would have been killed.”
The answer surprised me, not the least because of his vociferousness about the subject. This wasn’t the soldier I had left. A man all about unity and Lebanese solidarity, about a true armed force that had no sectarian leanings. Now he was siding with Hezbollah, the “militia” that started the fight in the first place by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. And it was Hezbollah that Israel went after. Not the LAF. I wasn’t looking to get into a political argument, realizing more things had changed than the crow’s-feet.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It was good seeing you again. We’ll get out of your hair.”
He sat up. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity, and I’m not confused. I’m the one who lives here. I saw it happen. Thousands of Lebanese
He was gripping the armchair hard and breathing heavy, daring me to say something against him. I recognized the signs. We were skating over a sore that I had opened, and he was about to do something we’d both regret.
I said, “I’m not looking for a fight. We’ll just leave.”
He stood up, mocking me. “Not looking for a fight? That’s not what you used to say. All that training to protect something and all you were doing was helping out the Israelis. You in the West are all alike. Train the stupid locals then leave when the hostilities get to a level you don’t like. You don’t know what suffering is.”
That was enough. Very few had suffered as I had, and the fact that he had two children walking the earth told me he wasn’t one of them. I balled up my fists, ready to go as far as he wanted to take it. I saw Jennifer jump
