Beehive Page 11

  Amir had his doubts about this whole journey. “They will kill you and then they will kill me.”

  “Is that worse than their killing you first and then me?”

  “That’s not an answer. I don’t want to go at all. At night? Into Dahya? With an American? I must be crazy!”

  But still he drove. “You tell me how much money it will cost to get you to do it.”

  “You Americans! Always a matter of money!”

  “How much?”

  He drove ahead in silence. We passed a Syrian checkpoint, a very easygoing operation; the guns muzzles stayed outside the car. “If we get out of this alive,” Amir finally said, “then I will set my price.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  He smiled, I saw in the rearview mirror. We sat back-and-front on Amir’s insistence. It made us look less like conspirators and made him less likely to be hit by bullets aimed at me. “Then I will make Hell very unpleasant for you.”

  The scene looked just as Avai described it, the checkpoint — marked by a small fire and the dull glint of steel — in eyesight beyond the closed gas station. There were no lights. The gas station seemed not to have been used for years, though in Beirut, where two-thousand-year old hovels served as storefronts and new hotels for shell practice, any use was possible. The pumps, glass broken or perhaps shot out of their faces, hugged the wall like the witnesses to the Paris Hotel shooting.

  Amir slowed down as soon as he saw the flame of the checkpoint a quarter of a mile ahead. “Now that we are here, we should decide how we will do this.”

  “You have nothing to do but keep the car running and not leave me here.”

  “I will leave both doors open and stand beside the car with my hands up, so they will see I am not armed.”

  “I hope it won’t matter.”

  “In such foolishness, every little thing matters.”

  I did not expect Avai, somehow. He had seemed like just a functionary. But there he stood, a solid ghost in Amir’s dim sweeping headlights. Perhaps his function wasn’t over. Perhaps only he spoke English. Perhaps he worked alone, scamming Western liberators. Amir stopped the car ten yards from the man, solitary in the dark, flashlight in hand. The field, as far as I could tell, was a packed-dirt lot with a handful of ruined cars. Other victims? I stepped out.

  “Mr. Avai.”

  “Welcome, welcome, Mr. Stutzer. You will not mind walking toward me slowly with your hands ahead of you?” I took half a dozen steps. Now Avai said something in Arabic and Amir stepped out of the car and into the headlights, hands raised. He did leave the car doors open, at least.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stutzer.”

  “I have your money, Mr. Avai. Do you have the tape?”

  “Still impatient, Mr. Stutzer! Please greet my associates!” Three young men in traditional garb emerged from the shadows around the junked cars. They all carried those square, frightening weapons. I heard Amir murmur behind me. “Do not worry of the guns, please. They only illustrate our position.”

  “It would be easier not to worry if I knew the weapons were not loaded.”

  Avai chuckled in the dark. “Yes, but not knowing is perfectly your position.”

  “What now?”

  “Follow the light of my torch if you please. Stay walking in the circle.” He aimed the light at my feet and reeled me toward him. I felt the envelope of money — surprising how little space $25,000 can take — bobble against my side in the pocket of my light jacket. Two arms-lengths from him he stopped me. “Please stand to there,” Avai said to me and then he said something quickly and gruffly to his three youths. They surrounded me and patted me down. Without a fumble they took the cash and handed it to Avai. He put his flashlight under his arm and ran his thick fingers through the cash, not so much counting as weighing the dollars.

  “You are a most co-operative negotiator, Mr. Stutzer. You have kept your bargain.” He reached behind him, under his coat inside his belt. I expected a gun and a quick flash, but there in his hand was a videotape. Waving the envelope at me, he said, “At our table, you must pay before the roll of the dice.” He barked something to his boys.

  One of them swung his gun and hit me hard just below my right knee. That was the one I hurt the most my years on the football field. I crumbled to the dirt. Before I could respond I saw two guns pointed at my face. The darkness around me was daylight compared to the fathomless dark of those gun barrels. I was on my left side, both hands holding my right calf, where they hit me.

  Avai stepped up close to me and dropped the tape under my chin. He shone his light into my eyes. I could see nothing else.

  “You will find there what we want next of you. May Allah preserve you.” He clicked off his light and disappeared. The flashes in my eyes didn’t stop me from feeling what happened next. A cold gun barrel lay flat along the back of my neck and then exploded into the dirt behind my right ear. The world went blue, then red, then grey. I could not breathe. Then the world fell into a gun barrel, black all around.

  54.

  The pain brought me to. At first I felt I was in the nurse’s office at my elementary school being poked searingly on my back because I had welts there. I don’t ever remember remembering that before. They were welts my father raised with the leather tip of a cloth belt. “How did this happen?” the nurse asked. Her name drifts away from me now, but I remember she smelled like the powder that came in the plastic pink cylinder my grandmother kept on her dresser.

  “I don’t remember.” That became my motto for pain. Frustrated the hell out of my trainers later. They always wanted to know how you hurt yourself. “I don’t remember.” And I didn’t remember anything about being hit by my father when I was a boy A moment after I grasp the memory of that nurse’s office, it closes off again into darkness and I open my eyes.

  I’m at the barracks where Andrea first took me, where I spent my first night in Beirut. American institutions are painted the same color everywhere in the world. I lay on my right side. My neck felt on fire. Voices mumbled like the hum of bees in the cold, punctuated with a small sharp ping. My left ear rang with a panicky shrillness and felt ragged, as though I’d forced my head through a space too narrow for it. Andrea lowered her face to my line of sight and then stood up again. I thought I heard her voice somewhere. Seeing her did not surprise me. My pain did

  A man in a white coat came from behind me and put his face near mine. He was Arab It sounded like he said, “You will be all right.”

  People have heard that so many times it lacks any power to reassure. I started to say something, but a huge ache welled up at the back of my jaw. The ache set up a chain reaction of pain: jaw, ear, neck on fire.

  Some kind of gel slipped on my neck and eased the fire. I smelled the rubbing alcohol before I felt the cool sting on my ear, the warming trickle down my face and the front of my neck.

  I think I faded out again. The next I remember, I lay on my back propped up on pillows. The side of my head, from just in front of and above my ear to the base of my neck, cowered under a bandage. I saw Andrea and the Arab doctor sitting in the two bent-chrome chairs by the door and an American soldier standing at arms behind them.

  He was not nearly as reassuring as you might think.

  I tried to speak out, but the ache flooded back. Did I break my jaw? No, it moved, but hurt like hell when it did. I spoke with it still instead.

  “Where is Amir?”

  Both Andrea and the doctor broke from their conversation and came over to me, Andrea to the right and the doctor standing to my left. He prodded the edges of the bandage and shone a small penlight in my eyes. Like Avai. No one said a thing. I repeated my question; maybe I mumbled more than I thought. “Where is Amir?”

  Andrea said, “Your driver?” I tried to nod, but my neck burned. “He filled us in on what happened, and we sent him home. Some of Commander Faid’s men will
take you home when the doctor says you can go.” She pointed her chin at the Arab. He said something. I couldn’t hear it.

  “What did he say?”

  “He says you’ll be all right.”

  His mouth moved again, and I thought I caught some words. “I can’t hear what he’s saying. The bandage.”

  “He can’t hear you on that side.” Andrea went to the soldier at the door, who stepped out. The doctor took Andrea s place by my other side.

  “You have received quite a trauma, Ron Stutzer,” the doctor said. He had slicked his thin hair close to his skull and spoke with an odd accent which sounded almost French. “The gun shot directly into the ground behind your head. This scattered the pebbles and dirt against your neck and ear. I have removed as much of this as I could see. We will have to wait a day for the healing to push out what I could not find.”

  “My jaw.” Andrea came to the foot of the bed.

  “We thought you might have broken it for a while,” she said, her voice sounding like a neighbor’s in a thin-walled apartment building. “But the doctor says it’s just bruised.”

  “Yes, back here, on the other side.” His finger touched the corner of the jaw just below my right ear. I tensed for pain, but none came. A gentle touch. “I believe that a large rock kicked up by the bullet struck you there. I felt no chips or fragments, but you will need an X-ray in confirmation.”

  “We can get you one tomorrow.” Andrea’s voice again sounded distant.

  “My ear?”

  “There will be some scarring. Cartilage always heals slowly, so it will be a month, maybe more, before you know what will become of the ear. You might desire reconstructive surgery.”

  I said again what I meant before. “My hearing.”

  “Ah.” Andrea perched herself on the foot of the bed, careful not to rock me. “This we cannot yet say. The bang of a gun comes when the bullet comes out of the barrel, just at that point. So your ear was very close to the bang. I looked to see if there was trauma to the eardrum, puncture or what have you, but I could find none. That does not mean we can be sure. You will need a more careful examination.”

  “So I’m deaf.”

  Andrea put her hand on my ankle, for comfort.

  “I would not say so. It could be that you have only a temporary deafness from the loudness of the noise. It could be the loud noise caused permanent loss of only part of your hearing, and in the next week you will get it back up to that point. That is, unless there is some actual damage to the ear I did not find.” The doctor cleared his throat. “The good news is that the worst of your pain will heal the soonest. You received a burn across your neck. These people must have held the gun against you for ten seconds after they pulled the trigger. The burn is slight, but painful. I have ordered some pain relievers for you.”

  “What should I do now?”

  “Medically? Stay off your feet for two days, recover from the trauma, and then go someplace fine for treatment. But I do not know that you will have that chance.”

  Colonel Harbison came in then, followed by the soldier Andrea had sent to fetch him. Andrea stepped away saluting, and Harbison came to the foot of the bed. “I see our neighborhood terrorists gave you a welcome party.” I said nothing. The doctor shrank back; clearly the patient had been taken from his hands. “That was one very stupid maneuver, Stutzer. I thought you knew there was no dealing with these people.”

  “Not your way, maybe,” I mumbled.

  “What did you say, Stutzer?”

  Andrea said, “He’s been injured, sir. He’s speaking as clearly as he’s able.”

  “So what did he say, Captain?”

  Andrea hesitated. “‘Maybe not your way, sir.’”

  “The local Arab population has declared war, Stutzer. We have not. I wish we had, then I could evacuate you. I’ve talked with the Ambassador about your case. While he’s mulling over what to do, I recommend you stay close to home. I don’t want to hear you’ve been trying to buy a hostage with twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “The tape.”

  “We’re taking care of that,” Harbison spat. “I’d like to see you and the doctor in my office after he’s been taken home,” he said to Andrea on his way out.

  “Yes, sir,” she said to the closing door.

  “Where’s the tape?”

  “Your driver left it when he dragged you to the cab and brought you here. He had no idea how badly you were hurt.”

  “Did you go get it? It might be where he left it.”

  “It was. People are looking at it right now.” She looked at the doctor. “It doesn’t look like much. The first few minutes were pornography.”

  “Pornography?” Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I thought of Elizabeth, forced into a sexual performance. “What do you mean, pornography?”

  “Porn. They use those tapes sometimes. The Arabs love American pornography, but the Hezbollah regards it as a crime. They confiscate the tapes and record over them, but they usually bury their message in the middle somewhere. They think it makes us look bad. It does, too.”

  “So, nothing but porn?”

  “Not that I know. I haven’t checked. The record tab hole has been taped over, so there’s hope. They messed up the tape a little with their shot into the ground. Lots of dust.”

  “Could you find out?”

  She hesitated. “Sure, if you do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Hussein’s people will take you home. When you get there, get some sleep. I’ll come in the morning with whatever news I have.”

  The doctor handed me a pill and some water. I took it.

  55.

  This time Andrea woke me with the doorbell before coming in on her own. She called my name. I was refereeing a struggle between my pain and my robe when she found me in the bedroom.

  “I had to let myself in because I don’t have a lot of time. Sorry.”

  “It’s OK.” My head was logy, whether from the pain or the medication I couldn’t say. Even my left shoulder ached a bit this morning.

  “I could get in big trouble telling you this Harbison said he doesn’t want you to know.”

  “Know what?” I tied my robe as though I really cared about it.

  “Is there anything here to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Nothing.” I had eaten next to nothing since I had arrived in Lebanon and felt starved too. “What? The tape?”

  Andrea gave a quick nod, looking around. “Yeah. A half an hour into the porno there’s thirty seconds of your friend sleeping and them waking her up. The guy who wakes her has his back to the camera. He tells her in Arabic to say she’s all right. She says, ‘I’m fine,’ and then the porno comes back on.”

  “That’s it? There isn’t more?”

  “Did they tell you there would be a message on it?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “A man named Hussein Moussavi, who runs Islamic Amal, one of the militias backed to the hilt by Iran, appears briefly on the tape ten minutes later. He says they will never negotiate your friend’s release, except in exchange for prisoners in Israel. They know your friend’s family has business interests there.”

  “Does he mean it?”

  “There’s no way to know. We’re checking out whether that bit from Moussavi was dropped in from something else. We don’t think he’s in Beirut right now.” We said nothing for a breath and then she said, “You can’t tell anyone you know any of this. Call Harbison in an hour and ask him about the tape. Use whatever he tells you as your story. You’re fighting a war in his trenches and he doesn’t like it, so watch yourself.”

  “Whose side is he on?”

  “The military’s. He runs an intelligence/counter-terrorist outfit. Secret even at the Pentagon, as far as I can see. State and the CIA see him as a dangerous amateur, which is h
ow he sees you. He wants to prove they’re wrong about him. He might have to show you up to do it.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Leave?” My face showed my shock. “No, I know you won’t. Just rest and watch your back very carefully, that’s all.”

  “I can hardly turn my neck. I’ll be lucky to cover my sides.”

  “Remember to call Harbison.” She went for the door. “I need the protection.”

  56.

  After Andrea left, I called Brian, the doctor, Amir and Harbison. The weather cooperated again. The cloud cover meant Brian would stay close to home. He seemed pleased to hear from me and invited me over.

  “My God!” he exclaimed when his houseboy ushered me back to the sunny patio where he sat. “What did they do to you?”

  “The doctor’s still not certain.”

  “No permanent damage, I hope.”

  I gave my first laugh since I’d been shot. It came off thin. “The doctor’s still not certain.”

  “Did you at least get something for your trouble?”

  “The videotape.”

  “What did it say? Was your friend on it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.”

  “Did you lose it somehow? What happened?”

  “My driver left it at the drop when he dragged me to the car. He drove me to the American compound. They questioned him and went after the tape themselves.”

  “They found it?”

  “Could I have some tea?”

  “Certainly.” Brian gestured to his servant, who wore a white tunic and royal blue pants. Brian wore white pants, even cleaner than the servant’s tunic, and a royal blue shirt of polished cotton. His feet were encased in worn and neutral espadrilles.

  “You haven’t changed your hair yet.”

  “I have an appointment later today, and stop changing the subject. Didn’t anyone tell you what the tape said?”

  “Colonel Harbison did.”