Enemy of Mine

the meeting. It didn’t require any special skill to pick them out. Twentysomething tough guys at every corner, holding drinks they didn’t touch and glaring around. No training whatsoever.

I, on the other hand, looked like a sissy-boy. Fake glasses in place, Birkenstocks, and a hippy shirt with long sleeves. They sized me up and ignored me in the same glance.

The cafe itself contrasted starkly with the cinder-block houses and businesses jammed together just across the coast road. It was elegant and clearly old, with vaulted ceilings, wood moldings, and pillars scattered throughout the room. It reminded me of a Disney set for Aladdin. It wasn’t particularly crowded, but had enough people to keep the waiter busy. One man, at the opposite corner, caught my eye. Seated by himself, he was doing nothing overtly suspicious, and I wondered why I had keyed on him. Frail and skinny, he looked more like a pussy than I did, but I had learned to trust my instincts, and for some reason, he had pinged.

I surreptitiously watched him for thirty seconds, then went back to the room. He had done nothing but sip his coffee, showing no interest to anything going on. Certainly not at my end of the cafe.

Getting paranoid.

I had decided to put the meeting table to my back and use the camera on the screen side of the computer. Samir’s intel said the meeting would last no more than five minutes, and it would make me look less conspicuous. The position also afforded me the ability to watch the entrance without turning around every few minutes. I’d let them get seated, then hit record, leaving the computer running while I went to the men’s room.

Five minutes before hit-time I got movement around me. More men came inside, taking the tables to the left and right. Hard-looking guys, who spent all their time peering out from the table instead of focusing in and talking to one another.

The hit-time came, and a couple of older men entered and took a seat at the target table. They ordered something to drink and waited. My pulse started to pick up.

Here we go.

So far, I appeared to be good, with nobody paying me a second glance. Two minutes after hit-time, a large Arabic man came through the entrance, oozing outward machismo. The only thing stopping the effect was the set of coke-bottle glasses he wore. They made him look ridiculous, like a demented Mr. Magoo. He swaggered in and settled his eyes on the target table.

That’s him. All bluster and bad attitude.

My heart rate began to hum, but I showed no outward sign. I stroked the keys, waiting on the last one, and focused on my screen, running through the mission in my head. I began to second-guess my camera angle, my distance, and everything else. We would only get one shot, and if I screwed this up there’d be nobody to blame but myself.

The man settled himself directly to my back, facing away from me, which sort of sucked because I wouldn’t get a facial recognition shot of him, but I knew the embedded microphones would pick up the conversation.

They did the usual Arabic greeting, and I hit the final key, standing up quickly to avoid spoiling the view. I slowly walked toward the restrooms, pretending I didn’t know where they were. I flagged a waiter and asked. Given directions, I made my way at a leisurely pace. I entered the bathroom and looked around, dismayed to see there wasn’t a stall I could hide behind for a time.

I was pondering how I could kill five minutes when an explosion rocked the place, sending plaster from the ceiling.

What the hell?

I raced back to the main room and saw my little corner table was on fire, with torn bodies from the meeting lying all over the place. The explosion had been small, but forcefully directed against the target table. Coming from my table, where the computer had been vaporized. Coming from a screen I should have been facing. The rage came instantly.

Those fuckers…

That’s why the damn computer weighed so much. It hadn’t been old-school technology. It had been ball- bearings and explosives. And Samir, my friend, had given it to me.

I had time later to sort it out. What I needed to do first was get out of the area before anyone remembered I was the one at that table.

I fled outside and saw I was too late. Seven of the toughs providing security earlier closed on me before I could react. Two grabbed me, and one swung a club at my head.

Sitting on a park bench down the street, Jennifer heard the explosion and stood up, trying to vector the specific location. When she saw smoke rush from the target cafe, she took off at a sprint.

On the opposite side of the street, she reached the front in time to see Pike exit. She shouted his name, but was drowned out. She watched helplessly as he was viciously clubbed around his head and body, a group of men kicking and punching him on the ground until a van pulled alongside. He was unceremoniously thrown in the back, and the van raced away.

She was at a momentary loss, trying to piece together the chain of events. She pushed through the crowd and caught a glimpse of the carnage at the target table, realizing what had happened. Realizing they had been used.

She knew that Pike had very little time before he was killed, and the clock was ticking. Now. She exited the cafe, getting free of the crowds, and saw Samir across the street. She sprinted right at him.

Samir saw her coming and shouted, “Jennifer! What happened? Where’s Pike?”

Before he could react, she wrapped one arm around his waist and grabbed his elbow with the other. She rotated around, levered her hip against his groin, and whipped his body up and over hers through the air.

He thumped the ground hard, and she straddled his waist. “Where did you take him?”

When he shouted nonsense, she began striking, just like a training day, blocking his ineffectual attempts to stop her and hammering his face over and over again, each blow bouncing his head off the concrete. One of his men arrived and grabbed her forearm, halting the assault. She rotated her arm in a quick circle, breaking it free at the same time she trapped his wrist. She violently twisted against the joint, hearing a rewarding crack as the wrist shattered and the man went to his knees.

She returned to Samir, who had now put his arms across his face, shouting, “Stop, stop! I didn’t do anything!”

“Where is he?”

When he said nothing, she began striking him again, this time with less effect as his arms prevented her from direct contact. Two other Druze arrived and began to battle her. It took three before she was pulled off of Samir.

15

The Ghost’s ears were ringing from the blast. Having lived his entire life in Beirut, his body had reacted instantly, hitting the floor even before his conscious mind knew why.

The initial shock over, he peeked from underneath his table, seeing the carnage across the cafe. So far, nobody in the restaurant had reacted. Still shocked, they simply cowered and whimpered. He saw the briefcase the men had brought lying underneath a body, apparently intact.

When initially given the meeting location, inside the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, he’d been happy with the choice. Reflecting on the location after he’d left the Dahiyeh, the Ghost had balked, telling the Hezbollah leadership he’d meet, but on neutral terrain. They’d come up with this cafe, but he still wasn’t completely satisfied.

He’d decided to send someone else to the meeting. Someone with the physical characteristics the men would be expecting. A tough guy with a swagger. He knew the main identification method would be the glasses his bad genetics forced on him. It had been very little effort to find someone in the camp who met the specifications and needed money. He’d given him instructions and paid him up front, sending him into the meeting wearing glasses with thick lenses.