They Came to Kill

7

In the front seat of the parked taxi, Carl Lyons sipped sweet French coffee flavored with nutmeg and vanilla. He watched the street and the apartment house while he savored the warm spicy drink. His eyes were always searching, flicking from the apartment entry to the balconies and rooftops overlooking the street, then scanning the sidewalks and doorways before returning to the street door. Sometimes he glanced at the rearview mirror.

The neighborhood appeared deserted. No cars moved on the street. Debris from rocket strikes — glass, concrete, pieces of furniture — littered the asphalt. Wads of bloody bandages on the sidewalk marked the site of the tragedies and suffering during the night.

Lyons glanced at his watch. Six-thirty in the morning. The start of the morning traffic rush. Fifteen minutes had passed since the young woman arrived in a taxi and then entered the agent's apartment house. Five minutes since Lyons poured his third cup of spiced coffee.

Three hours before, Able Team had flown from Cyprus via private plane. Now, with cameras and tape recorders as props for their roles as American journalists, they waited outside the apartment of the renegade CIA agent, Lyons and Blancanales watching from the taxi, Gadgets maintaining electronic surveillance from the rooftop.

The taxi driver — Pierre, a Phalangist agent provided by the Agency — slept over the steering wheel, snoring. He shifted in the seat, then opened his eyes and glanced around. He returned to sleep. Blancanales slept in the back seat. He would take the next surveillance shift.

An electronic buzz started the driver awake. Lyons set down his coffee. Gadgets's voice came to them through the encoding circuits of the hand radios Lyons and Blancanales carried.

"He's coming down. That girl's with him."

"You got a mike on them yet?"

"On his car. I'm up on the roof now. I'll go into his apartment while you're following them."

"See you later."

Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. Designed and manufactured to the specifications of the National Security Agency, their hand radios employed encoding circuits to scramble every transmission, to decode every message received. Without one of the three radios Able Team carried, a technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

"Hey, Pol, wake up," Lyons said to his partner.

"I'm awake. I'll stay down until we're moving. You see him?"

In the back seat, Blancanales turned on a VHF receiver-recorder unit. The radio received the transmissions from the miniature microphones placed by Gadgets and recorded the monitored conversations.

"No problem," Lyons told him. "We'll watch him for a while. Watch and listen. Got anything yet?"

Blancanales turned up the volume of the monitor. The tiny speaker issued static and the sounds of distant voices and a clanging metal gate. Footsteps echoed in a garage.

"But we cannot take him," Pierre protested. "One way, other way, the girl is a problem. A witness. It would be better if no one knew."

"We have time," Blancanales answered. "The Agency wants information. We'll get some."

"Then we'll get the man," Lyons added.

They heard distinct voices and footsteps. As they listened, car doors opened and closed. Then they heard the voice of the agent.

"...understand, it's not that I don't trust you, mademoiselle, it's just that I don't know what to expect. So pardon me if I take a little look-see around his place before we go waltzing in."

"That's your prerogative."

As the car's engine started, as the voices continued, Lyons turned to Blancanales. "I've heard that voice before! This Powell guy, you think — remember that Marine out at Twenty-Nine Palms that time? The captain who spoke all those languages? Reminds me of him."

"There was nothing in the background dossier about that," Blancanales said.

Lyons listened to the agent making conversation with the woman. "Wow, maybe it is. And I thought that Marine was a stand-up fellow."

A battered black Mercedes left the apartment building's underground garage. Pierre waited a few seconds, then started the engine and put the taxi in gear. As he followed the Mercedes, he glanced to the two Americans and said, "Yes, this Powell was a Marine. Before he worked for the CIA. Before he betrayed us and joined the Communists. Very strange, isn't it?"

Lyons and Blancanales exchanged glances. After a moment Lyons finally agreed. "Yeah, strange."

"Who is it we're going to meet?" Powell asked her as they drove through the cold gray streets. "How 'bout breaking down and telling me his name?"

"I will introduce you when you meet."

On the boulevards, they had finally encountered traffic. An hour of quiet had persuaded the citizens of Beirut to brave the streets. Now, bumper-to-bumper lines of Mercedes sedans, Fiats and rusting Cadillacs wove through the rubble of collapsed buildings. Hulks of burned cars and trucks lined streets devastated by shellfire. At an intersection Powell wove his Mercedes through a jam of ambulances, medics and work crews digging through a pile of broken concrete that had been an apartment house.

Powell glanced out his window and laughed. He pointed. "There's someone who's taking their share of the spoils."

"What?" Desmarais asked. She couldn't see what he meant.

"That dog... there!" Powell pointed in front of the car. "Think I could get rich, marketing that brand of dog food? Export Beirut's number-one product."

The young woman leaned forward. Finally she saw, and gasped.

A dog ran through the traffic with an arm in its teeth. Severed below the elbow, the hand and forearm trailed a ragged strip of skin and tendons. The hand still had rings and nail polish.

"Take a picture!" Powell told her. She turned away. Powell leaned across the seat and grabbed her Nikon. "Come on, take one! That'll look great on a front page. 'Beirut Goes to the Dogs, Piece by Piece.' "

A Kalashnikov popped. As Powell idled past, a militiaman kicked the dead dog. He picked up the arm and stripped off the rings, then dropped the arm beside the dog.

"So what do you think of Beirut, Mademoiselle Desmarais?" Powell joked.

"Are you proud, American? Do you not feel even the slightest shame for what your country has done to the Lebanese? The rape of their country, their traditions? You and your Israeli friends?"

"Bitch! Shut up! I read history books. All this started a long time before there was even a U.S. of A. Before Columbus. Before..."

"Oh, you can read?"

Turning onto a side street, Powell slowed for a moment as he buttoned his overcoat to conceal his uniform, then he accelerated. After two more turns, he snaked through an unmanned roadblock of oil drums and sandbags. He stopped at a second roadblock and rolled down his window.

Militiamen in mismatched uniforms and weapons approached the Mercedes. As one watched the interior of the car, another took the plastic-sealed pass Powell offered. Other militiamen — teenagers in jeans and leather coats and stained Lebanese army coats — stood back several steps, casually gripping their Kalashnikov and M-16 rifles.

A Shia officer who knew Powell waved and called out in Arabic. Powell ignored his friend's greeting. Confused, the officer leaned down to look at the face of the bearded, shaggy-haired American.

Powell spoke loudly. "Don't want no problems, Commander. Just taking my girlfriend on a tour of the Casbah."

A militiaman translated for the officer. Understanding, the Shia grinned and nodded. He said in broken English, "Very good, sir. Very good. Have good day. Hello."

Powell accelerated away.

As the taxi slowed to a stop at the roadblock, Lyons watched the Mercedes disappear around a corner. The voices of Powell and the woman faded as Blancanales turned down the monitor volume and covered the receiver-recorder with a camera-equipment case. Militiamen surrounded the car and looked inside.

"Journalists," the Phalangist driver called out.

The officer pointed at the taxi driver and gave him an order in Arabic. The driver waved his pass. Militiamen jerked open the door and dragged out the driver.

An AK muzzle tapped Lyons's window. A militiaman shouted, "Out! Get out!"

Explosions blasted away the shouts. Militiamen ran for cover, but the officer and two men still held the driver. American dollars appeared in the taxi driver's hand. Waving the money, he stood up. The officer returned the pass and took the handful of twenties. The three men waved the driver on, then coolly walked to the shelter of their sandbag emplacement.

As bits of concrete rained down, Pierre threw the taxi into gear and sped away, skidding around a corner, then weaving wildly through pedestrians running for cover. Lyons could not see the Mercedes, but Powell's voice returned as Blancanales turned up the receiver.

"Sounds like one-twenty mortars. Maybe two gangs banging at each other — hear that? That's the tube pop, but if they're the ones targeting the Green Line, they're firing way, way short. If they're trying to kill Christians. But then again, maybe it's Muslims fighting Muslims. Who knows?"

The woman's voice answered. "A profound analysis, Mr. Powell."

Blancanales switched on another receiver. An electronic tone wavered.

"What is that?" the taxi driver asked.

"It's the signal from a directional transmitter. Follow it and you'll find our man."

"You Americans!" the Lebanese marveled. "You have everything. Very modern. That is why your country is so rich. We want to be just like you."

Lyons looked around to the devastated streets, at the civilians cowering in doorways, at the militiamen waving rifles and RPG launchers. A Japanese pickup truck fitted with a Soviet 12.7mm heavy machine gun sped past. Weathered posters of Khomeini fluttered on the doors.

Lyons turned to the Lebanese taxi driver. "I think there's more to it than gizmos."

"Very modern and Christian. The world's most powerful nation. United by faith in Our Lord and Savior. When we liquidate all these filthy Mohammedans, we will also have modern nation, then we can prosper as the Lord intended for his Faithful..."

"Hey! Quiet!" Blancanales interrupted the discussion of culture and economics. "She's giving him directions..."

Speeding past the address, Powell scanned the rooflines and windows. He continued to the next street and wheeled a quick right, then a left. He went around the block and approached the tenement from the opposite direction. One block short, he slowed to a stop. Again he scanned the rooftops and windows and doorways for an ambush.

"Why would I lead you into a trap?" Desmarais demanded.

"To get me wasted."

In the distance, the mortar exchange continued against a background of hammering heavy automatic weapons. Sirens screamed through the center of the city. But on this street, only a few blocks from the squalor of the Sabra refugee camp, workers went to their jobs. Shopkeepers stood in their doorways listening to the outbreak of fighting a few kilometers away. Then they resumed placing their furniture and cloth and dishes in sidewalk displays. Other vendors continued putting out baskets of fruit and vegetables. Powell saw nothing indicating a trap.

"An ambush is not my purpose. I want your story, not your death."

"But wouldn't that be a story?"

"Why would your death be a story? You are nothing."

Powell looked at the young woman and laughed. "Out. You're coming with me. What happens to me, happens to you."

Taking his short Galil autorifle from the floor, he set it on the roof. He pulled off his coat, then buckled on a bandolier of ammunition and grenades. Now he looked no different than the Shia soldiers who had checked his pass at the roadblock. Desmarais raised her camera to photograph him.

"No!" He blocked the lens with his hands. He grabbed her sleeve and dragged her toward the tenement.

"But why not?" she protested.

"Don't you know American law? If an American citizen carries a rifle in a foreign army, he could lose his citizenship."

"But you are already breaking the law. You are a deserter from the Marines."

"Correction. I am AWOL. But that's only the brig. That's only a dishonorable discharge. If I get popped under the Neutrality Law, I can't go home."

"But still you serve with the militia. Why? What is the true reason?"

"Because..." Powell began as he watched every doorway. He stumbled over broken asphalt as his eyes looked everywhere — the windows, the balconies, the rooflines. Despite the cold, he felt the pistol grip of his Galil become slimy with his sweat. "Because I like the guys I'm with. They talk different, they act different, they eat different food, their Sunday is on Saturday, but you know, they're just like my people back home. Don't matter what the facts are, what's important is what it says in the Bible. 'Cept for them, it's the Koran."

"Interesting. I have never heard an American say anything like that. If you will give back my recorder, perhaps I'll interview you. There, that is the man's door."

"You don't want an interview with me, I'm nothing."

Powell glanced into a delivery van parked at the curb. He saw no one inside. He let the woman step into the stairwell first. Then he snapped a glance inside. Pausing on the stairs, she looked back at him.

"This is not a trap."

"We'll find out. Go on up to his door. Take a look."

She ran up the stairs. Powell stood in the doorway watching the street, watching her, listening. A musty smell, combined with the aroma of cooking food came to him. He heard her knock on a door and then call out in French.

"Je suis ici, Oshakkar. Avec I'autre Ame'ricain!" No answer. She called out again. "Oshakkar!"

A door squeaked. Boots rushed across concrete. Even as the woman screamed, Powell took two strides across the sidewalk and went low behind the bumper of the parked delivery van. He scanned the street, saw no one.

He heard men rushing down the stairs. In a squat, Powell pivoted and pointed his Galil at the doorway and the delivery van's back door flew open. He tried to block the door, felt the sheet-steel corner of the door gouge his left hand, then the door smashed into the side of his head and he went down.

Powell saw a blur of motion above him and boots jumped on his chest. He tried to point the short Galil, but a boot kicked it as he pulled the trigger, spraying a wild burst of high-velocity 5.56mm slugs whining off stones as the boot kicked again and other hands grabbed the rifle. Powell pulled the trigger again, emptying the 30-round magazine, then lashed out with the rifle, felt it hit. He released it and rolled away, coming up with his Colt Government Model.

Flat on his back in the street, he snap fired .45 ACP hardball into rushing forms, saw men go down. An AK muzzle flashed. ComBloc slugs tearing past his head, he fired, and a full-auto burst went wild, the muzzle sweeping in a circle as the gunner spun, slugs hammering steel, punching through other men. Powell scrambled for his own rifle.

Steel slammed the back of his head.