Easy Day for the Dead (18 page)

Alex hurriedly made one last visit to the intel shed before gathering the Outcasts and Leila. The five of them met in one of JSOC's secure meeting rooms, where Alex gave the mission brief. John and Leila entered the room talking and smiling. Cat and Leila avoided eye contact with each other, and Alex avoided prolonged eye contact with either of them. Pancho showed up last, hungover.

“Before I begin the mission brief, intel gave us photos of the three enemies we ran into in the Tehran hospital: Major Gholam Khan, Captain Nasser Fat'hi, and Lieutenant Saeed Saeedi,” Alex said. “Any one of them is bad news.”

Alex gave the Outcasts the mission outline JSOC gave him,
including copies of the general's photos. Then he continued with the rest of his brief.

“. . . SIGINT reports that Hezbollah terrorists and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are holding Dr. Khamenei's husband, Hassan Khamenei, hostage in the Sheikh Abdallah Barracks in Baalbek, which is located in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, just across the border from Syria. The Activity has reported that cardboard has been used to cover up the windows of a building north of the compound. Hezbollah has used this building to hold hostages before. JSOC believes the hostage is being held there now.”

Alex showed them a digital three-dimensional building plan. “This is what JSOC's architects and engineers generated. No one has seen the inside of that building, but JSOC used sophisticated software to generate this model.” JSOC had a computerized database of thousands of properties.

“Considering the situation in Lebanon, and considering that JSOC can't or won't give us additional team members, we're going to need some help from the locals for this rescue. Of course, we won't get help from the Shiites or Hezbollah supporters there, but Tripoli is nearby, and it's the home of Lebanese Sunnis. JSOC has provided us with information for a Sunni contact there.

“Cat, Leila, and I will fly into Beirut on a civilian flight as the advance team of our film crew. Then we'll check into an apartment in Tripoli and meet up with our Sunni contact. Pancho and John will travel separately, disguised as hospital corpsmen attached to a Marine unit that will launch from the USS
Kearsarge
, anchored off the shore of Lebanon. Pancho and John will come ashore with their unit to train with the Lebanese Army. Once on land with all our goodies, Pancho and John will change into civvies, separate from the Marines, and link up with us at the apartment in Tripoli. At Byblos, Lebanese marine commandos will extract us using their boats—the extract team will think this is part of the training exercise, and we need to try to keep them thinking that way. They'll take
us to the USS
Kearsarge.
” The USS
Kearsarge
was a Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) amphibious assault ship that could carry almost nineteen hundred Marines. It was like a small town on water—with an armament that included a variety of missile systems. Also, the
Kearsarge
had dental and medical services, including emergency operating rooms.

“Nurses,” Pancho said. “I feel another Purple Heart coming on.”

“The last time we were in Lebanon,” Cat said, “we almost didn't make it out alive.”

“This time will make last time feel like lifeguarding at the kiddie pool,” Alex said.

A
FEW HOURS LATER,
Cat wore a black wig and brown contact lenses. She rode with Alex and Leila in a chartered van from Stuttgart to Berlin, where they boarded a Lufthansa flight. Cat and Leila engaged in superficial chitchat, but they still seemed uncomfortable with each other. Riding the plane with both at the same time made Alex uneasy, too.

The three landed at Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, named after the Lebanese prime minister assassinated by Hezbollah in 2005. On their last visit, Alex and Cat had passed through immigration without any trouble, but this time Alex noticed an older immigration officer, who looked like the boss, standing behind the other officers. The boss looked no-nonsense as he swooped into an immigration booth and escorted an arriving person into a side room.

When Alex reached the front of the line, he stepped forward and handed his passport to the young immigration officer in front of him.

“Are you three together?” the officer asked.

“Yes.”

The officer pointed to Cat and Leila. “Tell them to come here.”

Alex motioned for them to join him.

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I'm the producer and director of a documentary we're filming,” Alex said.

“What movie name?” the immigration officer asked.

Alex looked up to the ceiling for effect before answering. “Wonderful World Heritage Sites.”

“Bad title.”

“Well, it's a working title.”

“Need better working title.” He looked at Cat and Leila. “Passports.”

Cat and Leila handed him their passports.

Alex felt anxious, but he pushed it deep down inside himself. He knew their passports were immaculate. Cat had done this before, so she would be okay. Leila seemed cool under pressure, too. Even though he knew they should be okay, deep down inside he was anxious.

Suddenly, the older officer with the no-nonsense attitude hovered near the officer in front of Alex.
Is something wrong?

The young officer examined Cat, then her passport photo. “What your job?”

“I'm his assistant.”

“What does assistant do?” the officer asked.

Cat purposefully avoided speaking Arabic so the officer would be at more of a disadvantage and tire more easily. “Whatever he needs.”

The officer leered at her and let out a creepy snicker.

“Within reason,” Cat added, forcing a smile.

The officer leered at Leila. “Are you assistant, too?”

“No. I am the camerawoman.”

“Do you take pictures of director and assistant?”

“No.”

“You take my picture.”

“I have to pick up my luggage.”

“Can I be in movie?” he suddenly asked.

“That is not my decision.”

The boss moved in closer to the Outcasts.
What's wrong?

“Okay,” the young officer said. He turned to Alex. “You director. Can I be in movie?”

Alex pretended to give it some thought. He just wanted to get past immigration, but maybe having a government minder with them would be a blessing in disguise. Who would suspect them then? “In Hollywood, anything is possible.”

The young officer beamed. “Great.”

Standing behind the young officer, the boss cleared his throat. The young officer noticed and quickly waved the Outcasts through.

Outside the airport, taxi drivers stood by their cabs offering rides to the Outcasts. Rather than let one of them choose him, Alex chose a cabbie. “How about this one?” he asked Cat.

Cat shook her head and pointed to another cab. They walked over to it, and she spoke to the driver in Arabic. “This one,” she said. “He said it'll cost about fifteen thousand Lebanese pounds from the airport to Tripoli.”

Alex made a shortcut calculation in his head by dropping the zeroes—roughly fifteen dollars. His shortcut wouldn't be acceptable in a bank for converting money, but adding or dropping zeros made it quick and easy to mentally process currencies around the world. “Okay,” Alex said.

Cat sat next to the driver, so Alex sat in the backseat. Leila joined him. The cabbie drove north through Beirut then north along the western coast of Lebanon. Alex enjoyed watching the sun setting on the Mediterranean Sea. The first sunset he'd seen in Lebanese waters was when he and Cat sat alone on a yacht, kissing as the sun melted into the water. Later on that mission, they rendezvoused with
Pancho and John to begin reconnaissance of their target. Days later, they took out their target and were running and gunning for their lives, driving up the same road they were on now. Alex wanted to say something to Cat about the memories they shared, yet he wanted to be sensitive to Leila's feelings, too. Moreover, this was a military operation, not a vacation. So he kept his mouth shut. Maybe the driver sensed the mood, because he was quiet, too.

After thirty minutes, they passed a Christian town named Amsheet, where Alex, Cat, Pancho, and John had hidden from the enemy.

Alex looked at Cat. She looked at him. Leila noticed them looking at each other and they stopped.

Amsheet was as far north as Alex had ever traveled in Lebanon. Another thirty minutes later, they arrived in Tripoli, Lebanon. Buildings here appeared to be a mix of Arabic and European architecture. Strings of lights descended from towering buildings like loose cords from the tops of tents, out to posts in the ground. The driver turned east into the city, which was bathed in illumination of various shapes and colors: crescent moons, stars, rainbows, reds, magentas, violets, and more. There was so much to take in and the cabbie was driving so fast that Alex couldn't process it all.

The driver stopped in the parking lot of their apartment building. The three exited with their luggage and Alex paid the driver. JSOC had already rented their apartment, furnished it, and left the key with the building manager. The Outcasts located the manager's apartment on the bottom floor behind the front office, and Cat retrieved the key and a large envelope, probably containing their contract, insurance, and other paperwork.

Inside their apartment were three bedrooms. The apartment was clean and furnished. “This looks like the best room in the house,” Cat said. “Leila, would you like to share it with me?”

Leila paused, staring at Cat. Leila nodded.

Alex took one of the other rooms. While lying in bed, he heard the sound of talking coming from Cat and Leila's room, but it wasn't loud enough for him to make out the words, so he wondered. Then he put Cat and Leila out of his mind. Tomorrow he'd be meeting with their Sunni contact.

M
ajor Khan, Captain Fat'hi, and Lieutenant Saeedi flew on Iran Air from Tehran to Damascus International Airport in Syria. It was a far more dangerous flight than it had been before the civil war now tearing Syria apart. Khan had little sympathy for the plight of the Syrian people. They were not of his faith and so their deaths meant little to him. Not because of his faith in religious principles—Khan knew he was damned. He knew that the other religious groups constantly jockeyed for power, and he didn't like being jockeyed with. Islam had two major denominations, Shia and Sunni. Major Khan was a Shiite, a member of the Shia, the most popular denomination in Iran. Within Shia there were various sects, the Twelvers, which he belonged to, being the majority. Twelvers believed in the twelve imams, those directly succeeding the Prophet Muhammad. Only eleven were known to date, but Khan knew, as all Twelvers knew, that the twelfth and final imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, would soon appear. On that glorious day, peace and justice would reign. Until then, Khan would gladly kill anyone who wasn't a Twelver. He wished his government had the courage to destroy the other sects because he believed that deep down inside, they wanted to destroy the Twelvers—it was only a matter of time.

Outside Iran, the Sunnis outnumbered the Shiites, and Major
Khan hated it. When he was a child, it was a Sunni who framed him, sending him to jail, where he was tortured and raped by a prison guard—the beginning of his transformation.

A Syrian soldier drove them to a checkpoint on the Lebanon border. With the civil war still raging, the border looked like a desperate outpost made for last stands. Khan doubted they would have gotten through if arrangements hadn't been made ahead of time. The Lebanese guards passed them through after checking their papers. All the guards at that checkpoint were Lebanese, but they were loyal to Syria. Their Syrian driver continued to Beirut, where he dropped them off at a hotel. It would have been faster to ride straight from Damascus to their final destination in Baalbek, but they didn't want the Syrian soldier or anyone else to know their final destination.

After checking in and renting a car, the three sat in their hotel. “B018,” Lieutenant Saeedi said.

Pistachio smiled.

Major Khan stared at them. “What's B018?”

“Nothing,” Lieutenant Saeedi said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

Major Khan ignored him and continued with his meal.

“We should go to B018 tonight,” Lieutenant Saeedi said.

“It's a great club,” Pistachio added.

“Great?” Lieutenant Saeedi said. “It's better than great.”

Khan shook his head. This was no time for debauchery. “No. We go out to dinner, and then back here. We leave here tomorrow at oh-seven-hundred to lay an ambush for Alex and his friends at the Sheikh Abdallah Barracks,” Major Khan said.

Lieutenant Saeedi frowned.

Pistachio sighed, then nodded.

They walked to a local restaurant and took a table at the back. It was a simple place, the walls dull from smoke and dirt. Khan knew Pistachio and Saeedi were unhappy with him, but he didn't care. They could play all they wanted after the mission was over.

“Just an hour?” Saaedi asked.

Khan ignored him.

“It's not that far from here. It's in the Karantina district.”

The Quarantine district. During the French occupation, ships' crews and their cargo were quarantined before being cleared to enter the country. Later, Armenian refugees camped there before settling inland. After that, Palestinian refugees arrived and stayed. During Lebanon's civil war, more refugees settled in Karantina, until fighting broke out between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Christian militias, who massacred the PLO and their neighborhoods.

Khan had been there before. The place always smelled like death.

“No.”

While the other two sulked, Khan studied the restaurant. Seven tables, a single narrow door at the front, no windows, and the kitchen in the back. It was simple, but the smell of the food told him it was good.