That didn't seem too difficult, but I was sure I didn't have all the details. Details were not one of Hawk's strongpoints. "That shouldn't be too hard to stop, should it? Just order extra security checks and identification data on everyone entering the country with a Lebanese passport."
"It isn't as easy as that, Nick."
I knew it wouldn't be.
"All their passports are American. They're forged, we know that, but they are so good we can't tell the false ones from the ones the government issues."
I whistled. "Anyone who could do that could make a small fortune in his own right."
"Whoever is doing it, probably is," Hawk agreed. "But the Mafia has lots of small fortunes to put out for such services."
"You could still put out a stop order on everyone coming from Beirut. It shouldn't really take too much interrogation to determine that the guy on the passport really comes from Sicily instead of the Lower East Side of Manhattan."
Hawk shook his head patiently. "It's not that easy. They bring them in from all over Europe and the Middle East, not just Beirut. They start in Beirut, that's all. Once they have their new identity papers and passports, they're often flown to another city, then put on a plane for the States. Mostly, they've been coming in on return charter flights, which lack so much basic organization to begin with that they're hard to control.
"Usually they have a group of them aboard the big cruise ships when they return to the States, too," he added.
I took a long swallow of my brandy and soda and pondered the situation. "You must have an agent on the inside by this time."
"We've always had agents inside the Mafia, or — that is — the FBI has, but they're pretty hard to maintain. Either their cover gets blown somehow, or they have to blow it themselves in order to testify."
"But you do have someone in there now," I pressed.
"The FBI does, of course, but we have no one in this pipeline that's bringing in the new recruits. That's one of our prime concerns."
I could see the direction in which things were going now. "Then that's what you want me for? To get into the pipeline?" Hell, that shouldn't be too hard. It was a project that would take some thought, but certainly one that could be done easily enough.
"Well," Hawk was equivocating, "yes. I mean, basically that's it. You see," he continued slowly, "the original plan called for us to get a man into the pipeline, then expose it, break it up, whatever. And it had to be one of our men. You know the FBI is out of the question when we're dealing in a foreign country."
I nodded.
"It could have been the CIA, of course, but it's too tied up with that Argentina thing right now, and anyway, the President…"
I finished the sentence for him. "And anyway, the President isn't too happy with the CIA these days, particularly with Grefe."
Bob Grefe was the current CIA chief and his differences with the President had been in every Washington «insiders» column for a month.
"Quite right," Hawk said, looking grim. "So they decided it was a job for AXE."
"Okay." But that left a lot unsaid. Why me, for instance? There were lots of good men in AXE. "What else?"
"Well," he said. "This whole idea of AXE planting a man in the pipeline had to be brought to the President's attention, of course, since there's a State Department angle involved." Hawk paused, searching for the right words, I guessed. "He thought it was a great idea, but then he said as long as we were going to do that, we might as well carry it a step further right on through to the top."
Somehow, I didn't like the sound of that. "What does 'right on through to the top' mean?"
"It means you wipe out the Commission," Hawk stated bluntly.
I sat for a moment in stunned silence. "Now hold on a minute, sir! The government has been trying to get rid of the Commission since 1931, when they first found out it existed. Now you want me to do it?"
"Not me." Hawk looked smug. "The President."
I shrugged with a show of indifference which I didn't feel. "Well, then I guess I'll have to give it a try."
I looked at my watch. "I've got to make out my report on Raschid and the Dutchman," I said. 'Then I guess I'd better catch a flight to Beirut, first thing in the morning."
One last night with Betty Emers, I thought. Betty with those exquisite breasts and her neat, businesslike approach to life.
Hawk stood up, also. He took an envelope out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me. "Here's your ticket to Beirut," he said. "It's the KLM flight out of Karachi. Arrives here at six-twenty-three this evening."
"This evening?"
"This evening. I want you on it." Surprisingly, he reached over and shook my hand. Then he turned and let himself out the door, leaving me standing in the middle of the room.
I drained my drink, set the glass down on the counter, and went into the bathroom to pick up my clothes from the floor and start putting my stuff together.
As I picked up my bush jacket, the aluminum container of heroin I had taken from Haraid Raschid's broiled carcass fell to the floor.
I picked up the tube and looked at it, pondering what to do with it. I'd thought of turning it in, but now I had another idea. I realized I was the only one in the world who knew I had it.
All I needed were a couple of cigars that came in that type of container and it would be like playing the old three-shells-and-the-pea game at the carnival.
I smiled to myself and tucked the heroin away in my hip pocket.
Then I retrieved Wilhelmma from her spring holster on my dresser and began cleaning her meticulously, my mind racing.
Chapter 3
The flight to Beirut was uneventful. I spent the two hours trying to push thoughts of Betty Emers from my mind with attempts at mapping out a plan of action once I got to Lebanon.
In my business, of course, you can't really plan too far ahead. Nonetheless, a certain amount of direction is needed to get started. After that, it's more like Russian roulette.
The first thing I would need would be a new identity. Actually it shouldn't be too difficult. Charlie Harkins was in Beirut, or had been last time I had been there, and Charlie was a good, working penman, very good with passports, false bills of lading, that sort of thing.
And Charlie owed me a favor. I could have implicated him when I broke up that Palestinian bunch bent on overturning the Lebanese government, but I had deliberately omitted his name from the list I'd turned over to the authorities. He was small fry anyway, and I figured he might come in handy some day. Those type of people always do.
My second problem in Beirut was a bit more formidable. Somehow, I had to get myself into the Mafia pipeline.
The best way — I guessed the only way — would be to pose as an Italian. Well, between my naturally dark complexion and Charlie's penmanship, that could be arranged.
I fingered the metal tube of heroin alongside the two identical tubes containing expensive cigars. That heroin could be my entree into the charmed circle.
My thoughts drifted back to Betty Emers and the muscle in my thigh jumped. I fell asleep, dreaming.
Even at nine o'clock at night, Beirut Airport was hot and dry.
The Government Business overlay on my passport drew a few raised eyebrows from the Lebanese customs personnel, but it got me through the long lines of white-robed Arabs and business-suited Europeans. Within minutes I was outside the terminal building and trying to cram my legs into the back seat of a tiny Fiat taxicab.
"The St. Georges Hotel," I ordered, "and for Chrissake, take it easy." I had been in Beirut before. The stretch of precipitous road that snakes down from the airport to the city edges along plummeting cliffs is one of the more hair-raising routes devised by man. The cab driver turned in his seat and flashed me a grin. He was wearing an open-necked, bright yellow sport shirt, but on his head was a tarboosh, the conical red fez of Egypt.