They Came to Kill

2

Sitting low in the back seat of the armored Mercedes, Powell waited for the mosque to empty. He held his Galil SAR ready in his hands, a round in the chamber, his thumb on the safety.

Rain drummed on the Mercedes. Powell watched the street, his eyes always moving, searching the doorways and shadows for sudden movement. A hundred meters away, where the street ended at a boulevard, the kerosene lanterns of a cafe threw yellow light into the darkness. American rock 'n' roll came from the cafe's jukebox. Two teenage militiamen stood in the cafe's entry, joking and laughing, their Kalashnikov rifles in their hands. On the rain-glistening asphalt, the long shadows of the militiamen twisted and jumped as the teenagers shifted on their feet, unconsciously moving to the rhythm of the American music.

Of the shops on the street, only the cafe remained open. The others had closed for the evening prayers. From time to time, Powell scanned the upper floors of the buildings. On one side of the street, firelight flickered in the apartments as women cooked. But on the other side, above the second floor, he saw nothing. Israeli air strikes and Phalangist artillery had shattered the apartments and workshops of the upper floors, leaving only broken concrete.

An old woman with an umbrella and a shopping bag came around the corner. Struggling with the weight of the bag's contents, she carried the parcel for a few steps at a time, then rested, then walked a few more steps. The militiamen stopped joking. They watched the old woman. One teenager ran through the rain to the woman. She turned and started at the sight of the armed man rushing at her.

The teenager greeted her in Arabic. With his right hand draped over his Kalashnikov to steady the rifle, he took the shopping bag with his left. She released the bag and staggered back. The boy spoke quickly to her. His friend's laughter rang out in the narrow street. The old woman pointed her umbrella at a doorway past the Mercedes. The militia teenager accompanied her to her door.

Powell watched them. A young girl opened the door, the oval of her face pale amber in the glow of a flashlight she held. The teenager gave the bag to the girl, then he started back to the cafe.

As he passed the cars parked in front of the mosque, the teenager glanced inside. He looked into the Mercedes and saw Powell slouched in the back seat. Taking a flashlight from his military web gear, the teenager shone the light inside.

Like the teenager, Powell wore the fatigues and equipment of the Shia Amal militia. His beard and shaggy hair covered his narrow Texan features. Taking his hand off the grip of his Galil, Powell tapped the window where he had taped up a photo of Imam Moussa al Sadr, the spiritual leader of the Shias.

The teenager nodded and returned to his post at the cafe.

Men came from the mosque. Some crossed the street to their shops and apartments. Others went to the cars. Akbar and Hussain — Powell's Shia operatives — returned to the Mercedes. Hussain strapped on his pistol belt before getting into the car.

"Ready to go," Akbar said in his idiomatic Californian English.

"Don't sweat it," Powell told him. He checked his watch. "We got time."

As Akbar drove through the devastation of West Beirut, he turned to his American friend. "Why don't you come in for prayers?"

Powell answered in Arabic. "The mosque? It would be disrespectful."

"To pray?" Akbar also switched to Arabic. "To seek the mercy and guidance of God is not disrespectful."

Powell paraphrased a verse from the Koran, "Leave me in my error until death overtakes me."

Laughing, Akbar returned to American slang. "But you're no pig-eating Christian dog. You're a righteous dude. I want to save your soul. I want you in the family. But if I don't convert you, I can't set you up with my sister. My old man'd have a shit-fit."

"What mercy would my prayers bring?" Powell continued in Arabic. "Would the prayers of a foreigner stop the killing and the suffering? Could I find understanding of all the horror in prayers?"

"Texan, you're cool, you understand," Akbar jived. But sadness touched his voice for a moment. "You're on our side, so you know."

"I'm not on your side," Powell told the Shia in English. "I'm on my side."

Hussain interrupted with a quotation, "He who fights for Allah's cause fights for himself..."

Powell finished the quote with the next line of Arabic verse. "Allah does not need His creatures' help."

The walkie-talkie buzzed. The voice of Powell's superior came from the tiny speaker. "Calling car three. Report."

Without speaking, Powell clicked the transmit key twice. "That Clayton is so stupid — let's quit the religious talk. We got work to do."

"Yeah, man," Akbar agreed. "Noble deeds."

"A noble deed would be to retire Clayton. That jerk gives the Agency a bad name. Calling for car three! That could get us wasted."

The walkie-talkie buzzed again. "Car three! Report!"

Akbar turned on the citizens-band radio mounted under the dash. Spinning the knob to a channel, he spoke quickly in Arabic, French and English code words. He got a quick answer. "They're parked where they said they would be. I guess the Libyans haven't shown yet."

"Drive up so I can talk to that shit."

After another block, Akbar left the boulevard for a side street. Shattered concrete littered the street. A falling building had crushed a truck. Akbar guided the Mercedes past a line of burned-out cars. He turned two corners. Flashing his high beams twice, he stopped beside a parked panel truck. Powell rolled down his window as his superior made an angry demand.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"Because I want to live! Don't you think there are other radios in the city with our frequency?"

"There's no problem, Powell. We change the frequencies every few days."

"You absolutely positive no one's got our frequency?"

"Absolutely." A balding middle-aged man, Ronald Clayton headed a Central Intelligence Agency surveillance unit assigned to watch the terrorist forces operating in Beirut. An informer had brought Clayton information on a meeting between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and a Libyan diplomat. Tonight they would follow the diplomat to the meeting place and attempt to identify the leader of the Iranian group.

Powell rolled up his window. "He's so stupid..."

"But he's the boss." Akbar eased the Mercedes around the corner and parked on the boulevard. He turned up the CB radio and listened to the voices and static on the channel. When they heard a voice speak in an unintelligible chaos of languages, Akbar started the car.

Clayton's voice came from the walkie-talkie. "Get ready."

Without acknowledging the instructions, Powell nodded to Akbar. They slowly cruised north on the boulevard. Few cars risked the uncertain safety of the latest cease-fire. They saw only two other vehicles on the dark street.

This section of the city had no electricity. No streetlights illuminated the roadway. No traffic signals flashed at the intersections. Buildings stood black against the darkness of the storm-gray night.

In the vacant lots, fires and lanterns lit the tents of the homeless. Groups of men with rifles gathered under shelters of plastic sheets to warm themselves around oil-drum stoves.

Past the burned-out businesses and tenement buildings, past the gutted, skeletal ruins of hotels, past the Green Line dividing the city, the skyline of East Beirut stood electric against the night. Thousands of lights marked executive suites and apartments. Swirls of neon marked the theatres, nightclubs, billboards for liquor and perfume. But for the dispossessed of West Beirut — Shias, Sunnis, Druze, Christians — the lights of the wealthy Maronite Christians meant nothing. The war had forced the peasants from the poverty of their mountain villages and thrown them into the poverty and devastation of West Beirut. They had always suffered poverty. The Maronite overlords of Lebanon had always flaunted wealth. In a Beirut divided by an arbitrary frontier called the Green Line, the traditions of Lebanon continued.

In the front seat of the Mercedes, the CB radio alerted the three men. Then Clayton spoke through the walkie-talkie. "We saw the limo. And we're moving. Where are you?"

Again, Powell did not acknowledge his officer's question. But he did rave, "He's so stupid! Why did they send him here?"

Hussain watched the rearview mirror. He glanced back to Powell, and said, "The Libyan comes."

Headlights gained on the Mercedes. They stared forward as a pickup truck with militiamen in the back roared past. Two limousines followed an instant later. The convoy continued ahead, then skidded around a corner.

Clayton followed. Accelerating, weaving past the Mercedes, the panel truck gained on the limousines. A second surveillance car, a Fiat, raced to keep up with the truck.

Powell leaned forward to Akbar. "Slow down. Let Clayton take point if he wants to."

The taillights of the panel truck and the Fiat turned. Akbar stayed two blocks back.

Suddenly, autofire and rocket blasts shattered the night. Powell saw flashes of high explosives over the buildings, and flames fuelled by gasoline. Rifles fired hundreds of rounds.

Akbar floored the accelerator. The Mercedes sped past the narrow street. Looking out the side window, Powell saw only one image.

A street of flames.