Free Dynamite Fishermen by Preston Fleming

it, Abu Ramzi.”
    “I said you were an American spy working for the Palestinian Resistance, and that they should forget they ever saw you or I would have each one of them arrested and thrown into solitary confinement until you were safely out of the country.”
    “Damn it, Abu Ramzi. I knew I shouldn’t have asked.”

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Prosser let the door close behind him while his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. The place seemed unusually silent as he moved past the empty bar, except for a familiar Charles Aznavour ballad filtering through from somewhere in the distance. The Pagoda restaurant, located on the ground floor of a middle-class tenement not far from the beaches of Ramlet el Baida in West Beirut, had seen a steady decline in its business since the outbreak of civil war. Although it was still a regular haunt of European and American expatriates, rarely had Prosser ever seen more than three or four of its dozen tables occupied at once.
    As he passed the bar he wished a good evening to the middle-age proprietor, a frail, birdlike Chinaman who looked up from the drink he was mixing long enough to grin obsequiously and point the way toward the dining room. Prosser advanced past ornately carved wooden tables and lacquered screens whose shabbiness was only partly masked by the half-light.
    Boisterous laughter and raised voices reached his ears as he approached through a narrow hallway, and welcoming calls of “Late as usual,” “It’s Prosser—open another bottle,” and “Find the man a chair!” greeted him as he entered the room. From the flushed cheeks of the participants and the plentiful array of wine and beer bottles on the table, he guessed that the party had been under way for the better part of an hour.
    During that time, Prosser had been sitting in a parked car about a mile and a half to the east, debriefing a junior lieutenant in the Amal militia on arms deliveries to Amal and the other Lebanese Shiite militias. But his tardiness appeared to have passed unnoticed. He had not missed dinner, so it seemed, judging from the absence of any food on the table other than shallow bowls of olives, nuts, and raw carrot slices passing from hand to hand.
    Prosser scanned the assemblage for familiar faces and then headed for the nearest empty chair, which was across the table from Harry Landers and the U.S. embassy’s chief security officer, Don Davenport. To their right, at the head of the table, sat the guest of honor, a rookie State Department bodyguard who had just finished his ninety-day assignment on the ambassador’s protective detail and would be leaving the next morning for Washington. The others at the table were nearly evenly divided between Lebanese and American nationals, with nearly all of the latter being employed by the U.S. embassy in one capacity or another.
    To Prosser’s immediate right sat a plain-looking woman of about twenty-five whom he was certain he had never seen before. As his eyes acclimated to the dim light, he noted that she looked prettier than she had seemed at first glance, having a perfectly oval face dominated by dark, almond-shaped eyes and long chestnut hair that fell over her bare, tanned shoulders. Though by no means tall, her figure was erect and superbly proportioned. Judging from her self-assured demeanor, precise manner of speech, and understated dress, he guessed she was from a wealthy Lebanese family and might have been educated in France or Italy. While he pondered how best to introduce himself to her, the security chief tapped a fork to the side of his wine glass and took the floor.
    “I just want you all to know,” he announced over the voices of those at the opposite end of the table who ignored him, “Conrad here is the only representative present tonight from the political section. I don’t know what the hell the others are doing tonight, but you can always count on Conrad to turn out for a party.”
    Prosser raised a hand to acknowledge the