Beirut Incident

Chapter 1

The wind was hot and dry on my face, parching my lips in the 130-degree Saudi Arabian heat. For the third time I brushed my fingers reassuringly across the searing butt of Wilhelmina, my 9mm Luger. If I ever caught up with Hamid Raschid and the Dutchman, I wanted to make sure she hadn't been jolted out of the spring-loaded shoulder holster I wore under my bush jacket. The potholes on that two-lane strip of macadam that twisted across the desert were teeth-rattling.

I gripped the wheel harder and pressed the little Jeep accelerator to the floor. Reluctantly, the speedometer needle edged up toward seventy.

The shimmering desert heat waves distorted my vision, but I knew that somewhere down the highway ahead of me was the big SAMOCO truck I was chasing.

Hamid Raschid was a cunning Saudi, small, dark, thin-boned, a homosexual. He was also a sadistic killer. I remembered the mutilated body of one of the oil line guards we had found in the desert just three days before.

Sometimes you have to kill, granted But Hamid Raschid enjoyed it.

I squinted through my sunglasses and tried to will more speed from the Jeep. Coming up in the distance were a group of the towering, wind-swept sand dunes that dot the Saudi wasteland, interspersed with stark, hard-packed rocky ridges not unlike the mesas of Arizona.

If I didn't overtake the truck before we reached the dunes, there would be an ambush waiting for me somewhere along the thirty-seven-mile stretch of road between Dhahran and Ras Tanura. And Hamid Raschid knew he'd been flushed. Before the day was over, one of us would be dead.

The Dutchman. In his own way, the amiable, blond-bearded Dutchman — Harry deGroot — was as deadly as Raschid. The breakdown on the Dutchman had come through just the night before in a coded message from AXE, America's elite counterintelligence unit:

K-1 was the key. In AXE's cryptic style, it meant "ruthless and professional." K-l was equivalent to my own Killmaster rating. Harry deGroot was a well-trained assassin.

The geology background, of course, explained why he had been posted in the Mideast.

Raschid, too, was an oil expert. His studies fifteen years before at the American University in Beirut had dealt primarily with petroleum exploration. It is an ever-popular subject in that part of the world.

It was also what had brought me to Saudi Arabia on a Priority One urgent assignment from AXE. It had started innocuously enough on April 17, 1973, when, according to The New York Times, "unknown saboteurs tried to blow up the Saudi-American Oil Company's pipeline in southern Lebanon."

Explosive charges had been set off under the pipeline four miles from the Zahrani terminal, but little damage had been done. Initially, that bungled attempt at sabotage was written off as just another harassment by Yasir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Front.

But that turned out to be only the first of a long series of incidents. They weren't aimed at disrupting America's flow of oil. The October, 1973, War and the ensuing boycott by the Arab states had already done that. The goal was to cut off Western Europe's flow of oil, and the United States couldn't afford that. We needed a strong, economically expanding Western Europe to offset the power of the Soviet bloc, and the oil that kept the NATO nations alive came from Saudi Arabia. So even though we weren't getting the oil ourselves, the American oil companies in the Arab countries were committed to keeping our Western Allies supplied.

When terrorists leveled the oil depot at Sidi Behr, my irascible boss at AXE, David Hawk, called me in.

My job, Hawk told me, was to get the ringleaders, cut the plant off at the roots. It had been a long trail, leading through London, Moscow, Beirut, Teheran and Riyadh, but now I had them — racing ahead of me down the highway toward Ras Tanura.

The truck was getting closer now, but so were two towering sand dunes and a rocky ridge leading off to the right. I leaned forward to keep my desert-parched face behind the small windshield of the Jeep. I could see beyond the lurching blue shape of the big stake track to the sharp curve in the highway, where it disappeared between the dunes.

I wasn't going to make it.

The truck hurtled into the curve at high speed and disappeared between the dunes. I cut the Jeep's ignition so that only the sound of the truck's laboring engine could be heard in the silent heat of the desert.

Almost immediately that sound, too, was cut off, and I slammed on the brakes, skidding half off the road before I came to a stop. Raschid and the Dutchman had done just as I had suspected they would. The truck was stopped now, probably broadside to the road. Raschid and the Dutchman would be racing to the shelter of the rocks on either side of the road, hoping I would come slamming into the blockading truck.

I wasn't about to. Hidden by the bend in the road, just as they were, I sat for a moment in the Jeep, considering my next course of action. The sun hung brightly in the cloudless sky, a relentless ball of fire baking the shifting desert sands. Sitting still now, I could feel the sweat running down my chest.

My mind was made up. I swung my legs out of the Jeep and moved quickly to the foot of the towering sand dune. In my left hand I carried the jerry can of extra gasoline that was standard equipment on every SAMOCO vehicle in the desert. In my right hand was the canteen that was usually hooked in its bracket under the dashboard.

By now, Raschid and the Dutchman, anticipating a big crash — or, at least, my wildly careening effort to avoid one — would have realized that I was on to them. Now they would have two choices: either wait for me, or come after me.

I calculated they would wait: The truck provided a natural barricade and the road, with dunes on either side, served as a deadly funnel to feed me right into the muzzles of the two AK-47 rifles which had been strapped under the seat of the truck cab. To circle the dune on the left would take an hour, maybe more. The dune on the right, banked up against a long finger of rock, would be impossible to drive around. It extended for miles.

There was only one other way to go — up and over the top. But I wasn't sure I could make it. The sand dune looming above me stood more than seven hundred feet high, rising precipitously with sides carved out steeply by schamaals, the searing desert wind storms that sweep the red-brown Saudi wasteland.

I needed a cigarette, but my mouth was as dry as parchment already. Crouching at the foot of the dune, I drank hungrily of the brackish water in my canteen, letting it sluice down my throat. I poured the remainder over my head. It ran down my face and neck, soaking the collar of my bushjacket, and for one grand moment I felt the relief from the insufferable heat.

Then, quickly unscrewing the top from the jerry can, I filled my canteen with gas. When I put the top back on the canteen I was ready to go. I hooked it onto my belt and started up.

It was incredible. Two steps up, one back. Three up, two back, sand sliding out from under my feet, throwing me face down against the burning slope, the sand so hot it blistered my skin. My hands clawed at the steep pitch, then jerked away from the scorching sand. This wouldn't work — I couldn't climb the dune going straight up. The running sands wouldn't support my footholds. To move at all, I would have to stretch, spread-eagled on the slope in order to gain maximum adhesion; but to do so meant burying my face in the sand, and the sand was too hot even to touch.

I twisted around to lie on my back. I could feel the nape of my neck beginning to blister. The entire dune seemed to be pouring under my bush jacket and down my pants, caking on my sweating body. But on my back, at least, my face was out of the sand.

Lying backward on that mountain of sand, I began to inch my way uphill slowly, using my arms in wide sweeping motions and my legs in froglike kicks. It was as if I were swimming on my back.

The bare power of the sun beat at me implacably. Between the sun pouring out of that, trackless sky and the reflected heat of the sand, the temperature as I struggled up the hill must have been around 170 degrees. According to the Landsman Ratio, desert sand reflects roughly one-third of the heat of the surrounding air.

It took me a full twenty minutes before I reached the crest, panting, dehydrated, thirsty, and covered with sand. Cautiously, I peered over the top. If either the Dutchman or Hamid Raschid happened to be looking in my direction, they would spot me in an instant, but it would be a difficult shot for them, shooting upward.

It was just as I had figured. There was the truck, angled crossways across the road, both doors open. Hamid Raschid, a small figure in his white galibeah and red-checkered kaffiyeh, trotted from the side of the road back toward the truck, and positioned himself so that he could aim down the road through the open doors of the cab.

The Dutchman had already taken up a defensive position underneath the truck, protected by the big rear wheel. I could see the sun glinting on his glasses as he peered around the overblown sand tire, his white linen suit and striped bow tie incongruous against the battered body of an aged truck in the empty desert.

Both men were concentrating on the highway. They weren't expecting me at the top of the dune.

I leaned back behind the protection of the crest and got ready for action.

First I checked Hugo, the stiletto I always wear in a chamois sheath strapped to my left forearm. One quick twist of my arm and Hugo can be in my hand.

I eased Wilhelmina out of her holster and checked the action, making sure she wasn't clogged by sand. An exploding Luger would rip a gunman's hand from his wrist. Then I took the Artemis silencer from my bush jacket pocket and carefully brushed the sand from it before fitting it over the muzzle of the pistol. I wanted the extra precaution of the silencer so I'd be able to get off three or four shots before Raschid and the Dutchman realized where they were coming from. The bare explosion of the Luger would give my position away prematurely.

There was one more operation to perform before I was ready to go into action. I unscrewed the top from the canvas-covered canteen, twisted my handkerchief into a six-inch rope and jammed it into the spout. My mouth and throat were rasping dry. Without water I wouldn't last five hours in that desert heat, but I had good reason for replacing the water with gasoline. The canteen now made a fine Molotov cocktail.

I lit the makeshift wick and watched with satisfaction as the gasoline-permeated handkerchief began smouldering. If I could get far enough down the slope before I threw it, the sudden motion of the actual throwing should slosh enough gasoline out of the mouth of the canteen to explode the whole thing. But if my descent turned into a wild plunge down that slope of sliding sand, the gasoline would slosh out of the can while I held it — and it would explode in my hand. I said a silent prayer and set my smouldering bomb in the sand beside me.

Then I rolled over on my stomach in the blazing sand and inched my way to the crest, keeping as flat as I could, Wilhelmina extended before me.

I was ready.

Hamid Raschid and the Dutchman were still in place, but they must have been getting restless, wondering what I was up to. The sun glinted off Raschid's rifle, extended out the open door of the cab, but I could see nothing of Raschid himself except a small patch of the red and white checkered kaffiiyeh he wore on his head.

The Dutchman offered a better target. Crouched down behind the rear wheel of the big truck, he was at a bit of an angle to me. Part of his back, his side and his hip were exposed. Shooting downhill through shimmering heat waves didn't make him the world's best target, but it was all I had.

I sighted carefully. A lucky shot would crush his spine, a very good one would smash his hip. I aimed for the spine.

I squeezed the trigger slowly and deliberately.

Wilhelmina bucked in my hand.

Sand spurted at the Dutchman's feet.

Involuntarily, he jerked backward, partially upright. That was a mistake. It made him a better target. The second shot hit him, and he spun halfway around before he dived again for the cover of the truck wheel. The third shot kicked up more sand.

I cursed and put my fourth shot through the cab of the truck. A lucky ricochet just might put Raschid out of action.

I was up and over the crest of the hill now, plunging, sliding, half up to my knees in pouring sand; I was straining to keep from pitching forward in the loose footing, with Wilhelmina clutched in my right hand, and my canteen firebomb in the other, held gingerly aloft.

Three shots from Hamid Raschid's rifle thundered in the desert stillness. They spat into the sand ahead of me in rapid succession. The range wasn't too bad, but a man lurching downhill from above is an almost impossible target. Even the finest marksmen in the world will invariably shoot low in such circumstances, and that's what Raschid was doing.

But now I was closing in and nearing the bottom of the hill. I was within thirty yards of the truck, but still I could not see Raschid as he fired again through the open doors of the cab. Bullet-wind ripped at the pocket of my bush jacket.

Twenty yards now. The ground was suddenly level, and much harder. It made running easier, but it also made me a better target. A rifle boomed to my right, then again. The Dutchman had gone back to work.

Now I was fifteen yards from the cab of the truck. The muzzle of Raschid's AK-47 extended across the front seat spouting flame. I threw myself to the right and onto the hard-baked ground just a half second before a bullet whined overhead.

As I went down to my knees, I swung my left arm in a long, looping arc, lofting the canteen firebomb gently into the cab of the truck.

It landed perfectly on the seat, tumbling across the barrel of Raschid's rifle toward the wiry Saudi.

It must have been only inches from his dusky, highboned face when it exploded in a roaring geyser of flame. One earsplitting shriek of agony ended eerily, cut off at the high crescendo as Raschid's lungs turned to ash. I was already moving, leaping for the shelter of the big SAMOCO truck hood.

I leaned against the heavy front bumper for a minute, gasping for air, the blood pulsing in my forehead from super-exertion, my chest heaving.

It was the Dutchman and me now. Just the two of us playing cat and mouse around an old blue stake truck in the middle of the empty Saudi Arabian desert. Only a few feet away I could smell the acrid stench of burning flesh. Hamid Raschid was no longer a player in this game, only the Dutchman.

I was at the front of the truck, exhausted, winded, covered with sand, frying in my own sweat. He was nicely positioned behind the rear wheel of the truck. He was wounded, but I had no way of knowing how badly.

He was armed with a rifle. The chances were also damned good that he had a pistol. I had Wilhelmina and Hugo.

There were only two choices open to each of us: Either stalk the other or sit and wait for the stalker to make the first move.

I knelt quickly to peer under the truck. If be were moving, I would be able to see his legs. He wasn't. The tiniest bit of pant leg, just a glimpse of white linen, peeked out from behind the right wheel.

I removed the silencer from Wilhelmina for better accuracy. Holding onto the bumper with one hand and leaning almost upside down, I squeezed off a careful shot at the scrap of white.

At best, I might get him on a ricochet or perhaps even cause a blowout that would startle him enough to break cover. At worst, it would let him know exactly where I was, and that I knew where he was.

The shot reverberated in the silence as if we were in a small room rather than one of the emptiest spaces in the world. The tire wheezed air and slowly flattened, canting the big truck over at an awkward angle toward the right rear. The net result was that the Dutchman had a slightly better barricade than before.

I stood up against the heavy grill and counted back. I had fired four shots so far. I would much rather have a full clip, no matter what happened. I fished some shells out of my bush jacket pocket and began reloading.

A shot rang out, and something nudged the heel of my shoe, sand spurting up out of nowhere. I jumped, startled. I cursed myself for being careless and leaped onto the bumper of the truck in a half crouch, keeping my head below the level of the hood.

The Dutchman could shoot under trucks, too. I was lucky. If he hadn't been shooting from an extremely awkward position — as he must have been — he could have cut my legs out from under me.

For the moment I was safe, but only for the moment. And I couldn't remain clinging to that unbearably hot metal hood much longer. Already my body felt like it had been charcoal broiled.

My alternatives were limited. I could drop to the ground and He there, to peer under the truck and wait for the Dutchman to make his move, hoping for a shot at him underneath the chassis. Except that with his rifle, he could reach around the protecting wheel and pretty well spray any vantage point I might choose without exposing much of his body.

Or else, I could hop down off that bumper and leap into the clear on the left, so I would have a full view of the man. But no matter how I jumped, I would land somewhat off-balance — and the Dutchman would be kneeling or prone, and steady. He had only to move the muzzle of his rifle a matter of inches for a dead-on shot.

If I went the other way, circling the truck and hoping to catch him by surprise from the other side, he would shoot the legs out from under me the moment I moved in that direction.

I took the only other route open to me. Up and over. With the Luger in my right hand, I used the left as a lever and clambered onto the radiator hood, then up to the cab roof, to drop silently to the bed of the truck. With luck, the Dutchman would be fairly low in the sand behind the deflated right wheel, his attention riveted on the space under the truck bed, waiting for a glimpse of me.

There was no shot, no flurry of movement. I had apparently made my move undetected.

I peered through the space between the slats of the high-staked truck bed. Then, slowly, I crept across to the right rear corner of the vehicle.

I took a deep breath and stood up to my full six-feet-four so that I could look down over the top slat of the sideboards, Wilhelmina at the ready.

There he was, spread-eagled at an angle from the wheel, flat in the sand on his belly. His cheek was firm against the stock of the rifle — the classic prone position for marksmanship.

He had no idea I was there, just three feet above him, staring at his back.

Carefully, I raised Wilhelmina to chin height, then extended my arm over the side of the upper slat of the truck. I aimed at the back of the Dutchman's neck.

He remained motionless, waiting for the first sign of movement that he could spot underneath the truck. But I wasn't coming that way. He was as good as dead.

I squeezed Wilhelmina's trigger.

The gun jammed! Goddamned sand!

Instantly, I shifted my weight from my left foot to my right and snapped my arm downward to release Hugo. The stiletto slid neatly into my left hand, its pearl handle hot to the touch.

There was no way Hugo could jam. I grasped the knife by the haft and cocked my arm, holding the stiletto ear-high. I usually prefer a blade-throw but at this distance, with no interval for the standard end-over-end flip, it would be a haft-throw, straight down, three feet, right between the shoulders.

Some sixth sense must have warned the Dutchman. He suddenly rolled over on his back and stared up at me, his AK-47 arcing toward me as his finger began the trigger squeeze.

I snapped my left arm forward and down.

The needle point of the stiletto pierced the Dutchman's staring right eyeball and drove its three-sided razor-sharp blade into his brain.

Death twitched the saboteur's finger, but the shot echoed harmlessly in the desert sand.

For a moment I hung on with both hands to the top slat of the truck, my forehead pressed against the back of my knuckles. My knees suddenly felt very shaky. I'm fine in action, well-trained, never hesitant. But after it's all over, I always get a very shaky, nauseated feeling.

In one way I'm very normal. I don't want to die. And each time there's the flood of relief that I got them and it wasn't the other way around. I took a deep breath and went back to my work. It was just routine now. The job was over.

I retrieved my knife, wiped it clean, and returned it to its forearm sheath. Then I examined the Dutchman. I had hit him in that wild shooting charge down the hill, all right. The bullet had ranged along the right-hand rib cage. He had lost a lot of blood and it roust have been painful, but it was hardly a crippling wound.

It didn't really matter, I thought to myself. What did matter was that he was dead and the job was over.

There was nothing of importance on the Dutchman, but I transferred his wallet to my pocket. The boys in the lab might learn something interesting from it.

Then I turned my attention to what was left of Hamid Raschid. I held my breath while I made a distasteful search of his clothes, but found nothing.

I stood up, fished one of my gold-tipped filter cigarettes out of my bush jacket pocket and lit it, figuring out my next move. Just leave things as they were, I finally decided, inhaling the smoke gratefully despite the parched condition of my mouth and throat, I could send a sadiki crew back to pick up the truck and the two bodies once I returned to Dhahran.

Raschid's red checked kaffryeh caught my eye and I kicked at it with the toe of my shoe, flipping it over in the sand. Something gleamed, and I leaned over to examine it more carefully.

It was a long, thin metal tube, much like the sort of thing that expensive cigars are packed in. I took off the cap and peered at it. Looked like granulated sugar. Wetting the end of my little finger, I tasted the powder. Heroin.

I replaced the cap and balanced the tube in my palm thoughtfully. About eight ounces. It had been, undoubtedly, Raschid's payoff from the Dutchman. Eight ounces of pure heroin could go a long way toward making an emir out of a' beggar in the Middle East. I stuck it in my hip pocket and wondered how many of those tubes the Arab had received in the past. I'd send it back to AXE. They could do what they wanted with it.

I found Raschid's canteen in the front seat of the truck and drank it dry before tossing it aside. Then I climbed into the Jeep and headed back down the highway to Dhahran.

Dhahran hung low on the horizon, a dark green silhouette about eight miles down the road. I pressed harder on the accelerator. Dhahran meant cold showers, clean clothes, a tall, cool brandy and soda.

I licked dry lips with a parched tongue. A day or two more to get my reports in order and I'd be out of this hellhole. Back to the States. The fastest route would be by way of Cairo, Casablanca, the Azores, and finally, Washington.

Not one of those cities would rank with the garden spots of the world, but I had plenty of time coming to me if David Hawk didn't have an assignment ready and waiting. He usually did, but if I took my vacation in bits and pieces all along the route home, there wouldn't be much he could do about it. I just had to make sure I didn't accept any telegrams or cables along the way.

In any case, I thought, there's no point taking the dry-throat non-fun route. I'd go home the other way, by way of Karachi, New Delhi, and Bangkok. After Bangkok, what? I shrugged mentally. Kyoto, probably, since I have never cared much for the smog and clamor of Tokyo. Then Kauai, the Garden Island of Hawaii, San Francisco, New Orleans and finally, Washington, and an undoubtedly furious Hawk.

Before all that, of course, there was still tonight — and probably tomorrow night — in Dhahran. Muscles tightened involuntarily, and I grinned to myself.

I'd met Betty Emers just a week ago, her first night in Dhahran after having been in the States on a three-month vacation. She had come into the club at about nine o'clock one night, one of those women with such a sexual aura that somehow, in that special, subtle way, communicated the message to every man at the bar. Almost in unison every head in the place turned to see who had come in. Even women looked at her, she had that kind of presence.

I'd been attracted to her at once, and she hadn't sat alone at her table more than five minutes before I walked over and introduced myself.

She'd scanned her dark eyes over me for a brief second before she returned the introduction and invited me to join her. We'd had a drink together and talked. I learned that Betty Emers was an employee of one of the American-owned oil companies — and I learned that her life in Dhahran had lacked an important element: a man. As the evening progressed and I found myself becoming more drawn to her, I knew that that would soon be remedied.

Our evening ended with a night of furious lovemaking in her small apartment, our bodies unable to get enough of each other. Her deeply tanned skin was as soft as velvet to the touch, and after we'd spent ourselves, we'd lain quietly, my hand gently caressing every inch of that wonderfully smooth skin.

When I had to leave the next day, I did so with reluctance, showering and dressing slowly. Betty had wrapped a wispy robe about her, and her farewell had been a hoarse, "See you again, Nick." It had not been a question.

I thought now of her perfect body, the flashing eyes, her short black hair, and I felt her full lips under mine when Td taken her in my arms, crushing her to me as we lingered long and deep over a farewell that promised more delights to come…

Now, driving down the Ras Tanura road in a hot, dusty Jeep, I was sweaty again. But it wasn't the same. I grinned to myself as I drove through the Dhahran compound gate. It soon would be.

I stopped at the security office and left word with Dave French, SAMOCO's chief security officer, where to pick up Raschid and the Dutchman. I brushed off his congratulations and desire for details. "I'll give it all to you later, Dave, right now I want a drink and a bath, in that order."

What I really wanted, I told myself as I climbed back into the Jeep, was a drink, a bath, and Betty Emers. I had been too busy with Hamid Raschid and his gang to have spent more than a few phone calls with Betty since that first night. I had a little catching up to do.

I halted the jeep outside my Quonset hut and clambered out. Something was wrong.

As I reached for the doorknob I could hear the strains of Bunny Berrigan's "I Can't Get Started" coming through the door. That was my record, all right, but I certainly hadn't left it playing when I went out that morning.

I pushed open the door, furious. Personal privacy was the only surcease from the steaming cauldron of Saudi Arabia and I was damned if I would see it violated. If it was one of the sadikis, I told myself, I'd have his hide, but good.

With one motion, I threw open the door and stormed in.

Lounging comfortably on my bed, a tall, glistening drink in one hand and a half-smoked cheap cigar in the other was David Hawk, my boss from AXE.