Instruments of the State

By D. W. Aossey

As the Cold War fades into memory and a New World Order looms, a ruthless gang of power-brokers scheme to exert ever more control over the world's resources. First, though, they must convince the American people -- the paymasters of the lone remaining superpower -- that their security is at risk. Americans must fear a new enemy like none they have ever known. And so they shall . . . Follow the espionage and suspense from the killing fields of Vietnam to the trafficking rings of Beirut to the fateful morning of September 11th, 2001 and find out why reviewers are calling Instruments of the State a "blockbuster".

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. W. Aossey
• Release date: Jul 12, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452484617

D. W. Aossey

D. W. Aossey has a graduate degree from the University of Iowa and attended UCLA. The author has written for numerous journals, newspapers and magazines and has completed several works of fiction. He lives with his family in California and is currently at work on his next novel, Invisible Hands.

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INSTRUMENTS

OF THE

STATE

D. W. Aossey

Smashwords Edition

Copyright© 2010 D. W. Aossey

www.dwabooks.com

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Disclaimer

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are imaginary or intended to be used within a fictional context. Any similarity to actual locations or persons, alive or dead, is coincidental.

For

Aliana, Gabby, Lisa

Laila and Joe

INSTRUMENTS

OF THE

STATE

PROLOGUE

Vu

Newark, New Jersey

September 7th, 2001 - 4:10 AM

Manhattan looked like a box of broken toys in the distance. The Midtown skyscrapers floated in a gray patchy haze, sparkling with a thousand lights like shimmering bulbs on a Christmas tree; lights dimming with the break of a new autumn day. Across the river stood the Empire State and the Chrysler Buildings - concrete and steel monuments to America’s great century - and downtown, the granite structures of finance hunkered silently in the mist.

From the George Washington Bridge to the 51st Street ferryport the lights stretched for miles along the waterfront, all the way down to the Financial District and Battery Park. And there, at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, looming over the historic Hudson stood the square, white towers of the World Trade Center. The heartbeat of American Capitalism, of money and power and excess and greed - the economic pulse of the ‘free world’ - lay just across the river through the Holland Tunnel.

He’d seen the same cityscape before, the shadow of a man at the wheel of a white Ford delivery van. In a gray worker’s uniform he stared through the windshield as the van traveled north along the New Jersey Turnpike. Every inch of the route from Newark Airport to the roof of the Trade Center had been choreographed that morning; every mile marker committed to memory.

A gaunt looking man sat in the passenger’s seat. Dressed in the same gray work shirt and slacks, his pale white face was visible through two days of facial growth. And behind, in the cargo hold, were two more technicians. Wedged between spools of telephone wire, they sat in the dark on wooden crates, wobbling with every bump in the road.

The crates contained a sophisticated radio transmitter that would soon send homing signals from the top of the World Trade Center out over the Hudson River Valley - pulses that would beckon a new era in American history. And as the orange glow of daylight crept over the horizon, the van continued past the swamplands and chemical tanks that lined the Turnpike, merging with the gathering traffic towards Jersey City, the Holland Tunnel and the Towers.

So the saying goes: ‘If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.’

Later that morning, at the service entrance to the Trader Center, the driver listened carefully to one of the security guards.

Now, head down to level three and follow the signs, the guard said with an icy demeanor and lingering suspicion. He pointed toward the South Tower. Security’s down there already. Unload the van in the marked areas and use the service elevator for sixty-eight to eighty-two. Got it?

Got it, the driver replied. He cranked the ignition switch to restart the van.

The elevator for roof access is on the other side of the loading platform - they’ll show you when you get down there.

The driver nodded, then smiled and shifted the van into gear. Of course, details regarding roof access and everything else about the building were already branded into his memory.

As the van pulled forward the tower loomed overhead like an indestructible beast, its shiny facade stretching to the clouds. Like a metal curtain, the giant delivery door at the base of the building began to rise, exposing the South Tower’s dark interior. The driver leaned forward, gazing up through the windshield. He’d stood beneath the massive structure before but still could only marvel at the great white monster above.

The van then zigzagged through a narrow path of cement barriers - security put in place after the 1993 bombing - and as it crossed into the Trade Center, the driver was suddenly transformed. A Zen-like bliss had descended upon him; a magical cloak of forgiveness, he imagined, as impervious as the tower itself.

Redemption takes many forms, and for the driver of the delivery van, it came in knowing that the South Tower would soon be gone.

_______________

Paris, France

September 4th, 2001 - Three Days Earlier

". . . so it must be understood, said a voice from an old cassette recorder, that the more we seek to define our enemies, the more illusive they become . . ."

Vu found himself mesmerized by the crackly recording. From the small, round window in his office-apartment he gazed over the evening lights of Paris, smoke rising from his cigarette. His gut told him the tape held a secret message, a last minute detail or an order, perhaps. Bertolli had left it in the black carry case the day before. It was a ‘gift’ of sorts, if such a thing existed. But Vu knew that when Bertolli started handing out gifts, it was best to be concerned.

"In other words, the act of acquiring knowledge - about our surroundings, about people, even about ideas - actually changes the very things we seek to understand . . ."

The voice was that of Dr. Jakob Geller, the Hungarian social scientist and the brains behind modern psychological warfare. The world had become too crowded and too complicated for the US and her European allies to dominate by military means alone, he proposed. So in the struggle for the world’s resources there could be no more boundaries, and no more rules.

Vu leaned back in his broken-down office chair, gazing trance-like out the window, his mind flashing from past to present.

"Scientists call this phenomenon, Uncertainty. That in order to possess something, even just a drop of water falling from the sky, it must be altered in some way . . ."

Dr. Geller paused, ". . . and sometimes, it must even be destroyed."

Bertolli claimed he recorded the tape at CIA headquarters a few years earlier. Dr. Geller’s work was required training for all field agents, he said. But Bertolli had made a lot of claims over the years, and Vu was well aware of his deceit.

"So it follows, Dr. Geller’s tinselly voice continued, that to conquer and control, we too must change - and, sometimes, we must destroy the very things we seek to protect . . ."

Vu thought back to the prior afternoon; to the sidewalk café where he and Bertolli last met. He thought about how he slipped up, how he should have noticed the scruffy American even before the man arrived. But the shape of the building provided cover and, then again, Vu had always been the one to wait.

This time, though, Bertolli was there first.

In a wrinkled green t-shirt and worn out jeans he still struck Vu like a college kid. Unshaven, a little dirty, so American yet, as always, so unnoticeable. Whether it was a heroin transaction in Pakistan, a press briefing in Washington or a slave exchange in Moldova, no one blended-in like the cagey American - and when Bertolli wanted to meet, all roads led to the master.

Now, one day later, everything made perfect sense. In Vu’s hand he held a copy of the Paris Evening Post. He pressed the worn newspaper up over his mouth and nose, shrouding himself from the outside world; shrouding himself as he had done his entire life.

The headline said:

TERROR MASTERMIND ABU AZZAM BEHIND

DEADLY ROME BOMBING

Vu had read it a thousand times. It had seeped into his brain and lodged itself in his subconscious. ‘Terror Mastermind Abu Azzam Behind Deadly Rome Bombing.’

Meanwhile, the voice of Dr. Geller wobbled in the background.

"And soon we’ll discover that our friends and enemies are just two sides of the same coin - no different, really, than drops of water falling from the sky. The more we seek to define them, to grab hold and confine them, the more they will change."

Beneath the newsprint a look of concern had returned to Vu’s face.

"Yet the question remains - Dr. Geller continued, how do we out-maneuver our adversaries without directly engaging them? And I will submit to you that WAITING for them to act is never the right answer . . ."

Vu had convinced himself that the headline wasn’t real, that the words on the front page of the Evening Post were just a coincidence. But he was no newcomer to the ways of Bertolli. The code was now complete - ‘AZZAM’, the final piece of the puzzle, had been revealed - and he knew there was no escape.

But how will I know? Vu could still hear himself asking so long ago. How will I know the operation has begun?

Believe me, the shadowy Bertolli replied in his smirking manner, it will be unmistakable. I’ll make sure of it.

Vu hated Bertolli’s sinister confidence. He hated it for he knew him like no one else; he knew his dark heart and his material sickness. Yet, he also knew that without Bertolli, there was no Vu.

‘Unmistakable?’ Vu wondered. The headline in the Post was certainly that. He took a drag from his cigarette, staring out the window as smoke drifted slowly over his face and hair.

The operation was beyond compare. Like insatiable beasts the powers-that-be had grown accustomed to ever more treachery and, like addicts in need of stronger medicine, they would not be denied.

"So you see, the voice of the late Dr. Geller returned, in a world of Uncertainty, reason and understanding must be abandoned and we must ask ourselves: What is the truth?"

The recorder momentarily went silent. "Or more appropriately: Does the truth even exist?"

Dr. Geller’s words seemed to captivate Vu as he absently stared out over the lights of Paris. But then, all of a sudden, he broke from his trance. Turning in his chair he reached for the cassette player on the desk and fumbled with the small recorder. He pressed the ‘STOP’ button and the warbly voice of Dr. Jakob Geller came to a halt.

Nervously, Vu stood up and faced the constricting walls of his office-apartment. The prior day and a half had tested his resolve. He took a deep breath and lifted his face to the ceiling, then looked back down.

On the desk in front of him was a photograph. It showed a group of handicapped children standing before a small thatched hut. ‘Nha Trang Disabled House For Children’, read a hand painted sign in French. Vu picked up the photo and stared at it, then tossed it back on the desk next to a pad of pink papers.

The pink papers were invoice slips, embossed with the seal of the ‘Ecole Du Religion’ - Vu’s money-laundering front company - and on top of the invoices sat a small wooden box. Vu took another cigarette from the dwindling pack as he stared at the ornate little box, so cleverly inlaid with mother of pearl in the North African style, and again his tormented mind began to wander.

Inside is your future, grinned the Arab. It was eight years earlier in far-off Morocco. He stared at Vu as the Arabs always did, baffled by his small stature and strange Asian looks.

Next to the Arab sat a pitiful young boy, his deformed head so big it fell to the side under its own weight. Drool dripped down his face as he sat hunched on the ground like a wounded animal, his legs bent backward at impossible angles.

It was a blistering hot afternoon in the old market in Tangier and the man and the boy were peddling a pile of the small wooden boxes. Vu knew better than to talk to the peddlers but the kid caught his eye, gazing up from the grimy sidewalk, beaming with a distant smile as he struggled to hold one of the boxes for Vu to see.

Take it, my friend, the whiskery Arab prodded. Inside is your future.

Vu was caught flat-footed, and for the first time since he was a child - the time before the firebombs had rearranged his own mind - he felt fearful. As the kid struggled more desperately to hold up the box, Vu suddenly yanked a wad of bills from his pocket and tossed them at the Arab. He then grabbed the ornate little box from the boy’s outstretched arms and took off through the market, racing with all his might until he reached the sea.

For months he kept the box close to him, but did not look inside. Vu knew the evil that lurked within and he knew he must wait. Only after he found his way to Paris would he finally summon the courage to lift the tiny gold clasp and open the lid. And when he did, just as the Arab promised, he found his future - a tiny scrap of paper, waiting like a sleeping virus. A tiny scrap of light blue paper with a mysterious message written in ballpoint pen.

The paper said ‘ABU’.

Vu had no idea what the writing on the blue paper scrap meant. But now, eight years later, in his Paris office-apartment, he looked down at the small wooden box as if it really did hold his future. Then, he once again lifted the lid. This time, though, there were two faded scraps of paper inside.

With the smoke from his cigarette floating to the ceiling, he pinched the tiny blue papers between his fingers and took them from the box. On the first scrap the familiar blue letters said ‘ABU’, and on the second one - ‘AZZAM’.

Together they read: ‘ABU AZZAM’. It was the code name of the operation from the headline in the Evening Post.

Vu had grown obsessed with the tiny scraps, for he knew that Bertolli had spoken. The headline had been pulled straight from Dr. Geller’s playbook, and put there by Bertolli, himself.

And as smoke collected overhead Vu held the scraps to the yellow ceiling lamp, studying every tear and rupture just to be sure. They were withered with time but there could be no doubt. The code was complete. The countdown had begun.

Abu Azzam, Vu whispered as if uttering God’s holy name.

Reckoning day had finally come.

PART I

BYRUM

JUERGONSEN

ABU AZZAM

1

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

January 20th, 1993 - Eight Years Earlier

Listen. Byrum was always telling people to ‘listen’. This gene marker shows up in about ten percent of Asian birds. But the chance of actually contracting the bird flu is still only one in a million.

Making small talk before the meeting got started, Robert Byrum sounded more like a biologist than the head of pharmaceutical giant, Senocal, and the one topic no one could escape was the bird flu vaccine Senocal was pushing through the FDA.

Isaac Boaz was skeptical, though.

Sure, inoculating school kids is a moneymaker, the Israeli replied. I mean, we’ve financed it before. But you said the strain in the US was dormant. So why the vaccine? Boaz loved to play devil’s advocate.

Dormant, schmormant! Byrum shot back. Would you take chances with your kid if you didn’t know any better? And every so often we find a sick bird on this side of the world and bingo - we’re in business!

So, first find the cure, then look for the disease, Boaz joked, standing beside his chair in the conference hall at the Grand Teton Resort.

"First find the cure, then make the disease," Byrum sneered without missing a beat.

Boaz had known the silver-haired Byrum for over twenty years, but he still wasn’t sure when the guy was joking and when he was about to draw and shoot.

I was just kidding, Bob, the dapper Isaac Boaz backpedaled with a friendly smile. Lighten up. Like everyone else, he always regretted shadow boxing with Byrum.

You know I don’t joke about money, Kiko, Byrum leered with a crooked smile, then gave his friend a pat on the shoulder. But I’ll keep you posted - and thanks for making the trip over.

‘The son of a bitch,’ Byrum whispered under his breath as he ambled toward a grand leather chair across the room. The others had arrived with their aides and assistants; it was time to get the meeting started.

Friends and colleagues, Robert Byrum’s gravely voice rose to the pinewood rafters a few moments later, "first I want to thank you all for coming today. I think we all recognize that it’s time we got together on a more formal basis - or less formal as the case may be."

The men at the table, political and financial power brokers from the United States and Israel, sat like royalty in their large leather chairs with their aides in plain dark business suits seated quietly behind.

I think I can safely say, Byrum continued, that, together, we in this room represent the most influential group of private citizens in America today, and at this juncture we need to think about consolidating some of that influence.

Leaning sideways against the arm of his chair he struck an angular pose, one of deep concentration.

The clouds are gathering, my friends, and we are duty bound to move our nation in the right direction. It’s time we take action.

Of course, Robert Byrum was nothing if he wasn’t grandiose. On the other hand, that was how business was done in the rarefied world of international politics. But though prone to overstatement, his assessment was right. Those in Jackson Hole that day did represent the pinnacle of worldwide wealth and power - and they were dead set on acquiring more.

Flying in from New York was Marcus Berg, former Secretary of the US Treasury and now Chairman of a top Wall Street investment firm, and from Washington, Admiral Harold McMurphy was also there. McMurphy served as Navy Secretary in the 1980’s, and recently retired as CIA Chief. From Israel, Isaac Kiko Boaz also made the trip. Boaz was an Israeli Army general and a former Prime Minister, not to mention one of the wealthiest living Israelis.

But, while everyone at the table was certainly rich and powerful and connected to the System like few others, one man towered above them all, the true political celebrity of the group, Sherman Chase.

One of the most accomplished political operators in American history, Sherman Chase was a life long politician and a former US Vice President, though he was currently filling a lucrative post in the private sector as Chairman of American Logistics, Inc., the nation’s largest government contractor. And as Byrum continued his monologue, Chase sat quietly at the antique cherry wood conference table, staring down at a tarnished brass bullet casing he held in his hand, contemplating his colleague’s ominous words.

I don’t know how else to put it, Byrum carried on in his gritty manner. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, America has been beset by a disaster - a disaster that we’re only beginning to understand. His words began softly then grew in volume. After every war this century Congress has cut defense spending - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam - and with the end of the Cold War the new Administration is going to do the same thing. Byrum leaned forward and set his elbows on the table, leveling his stare as if looking into the future.

It’s part of the political cycle, or so the experts say. But this time, my friends, we have too much at stake - personally and collectively. Byrum paused to work up a little more drama.

Trouble looms for the economy, and that means trouble for us. We simply can’t wait any longer, Byrum warned. We need to get focused on the issues. Our economy - our American way of life, for Christ’s sake - is under attack. And, mark my words, if we don’t pay close attention, the fall of the Soviets and the end of the Cold War will be the fall of America, as well.

As Byrum concluded, he leaned back in his chair scowling at the men around the table and at their aides and their assistants behind them. He meant business. While those in the room had traded in their government titles for private sector riches, they still represented a constituency. One that neither nominated nor elected their candidates, but rather handpicked representatives from among its members; the top one-tenth of one percent of wealth holders - those who possessed almost all of the world’s assets.

They owed no allegiance to any nation and would gladly dump America’s gilded shores as long as profits were to be made elsewhere. But with the demise of the Soviet Union, they faced a dilemma. As Robert Byrum said, this time things were different.

The floor was open and the men in the room stared across the table at one another with somber expressions. But even the rich and powerful have a pecking order and, like an oracle ready to cast his wisdom upon mankind, a pale, angular face with cold blue eyes sat measuring his words. Everyone was focused on the most powerful man in the room.

He’s right, Chase finally exhaled, his characteristic sneer somehow propelling his words. "I hate to be so blunt, but the so-called peace dividend is, and always was, a fallacy."

He took a deep breath and put the small brass bullet casing he was holding on the table.

Globalization is inevitable, he continued, leaning forward, but it’s a double-edged sword. With the end of the Cold War, the rest of the world is going to demand a seat at the table - and they’re going to get it. With or without us the pie is shrinking, he said in a dour tone. "And if we don’t steer the ship properly, the word disaster - as in economic disaster - is going to be the right one."

Chase drew a deep breath, then spoke again. The question is: What are we going to do about it?

As Sherman Chase finished, the room momentarily went quiet.

Listen, gentlemen, Admiral McMurphy was first to break the silence, "I know we all touted the peace dividend when the Soviet Union began to crumble. I mean, most of us helped map out policy, for God’s sake. But even if things haven’t turned out as planned, I’m not ready to declare a disaster just yet."

The Admiral was as blunt as they came. He was Navy Secretary and then CIA Chief during some of the most turbulent times in American history. He knew that chaos and turmoil were moneymakers, so while others spoke of ‘disaster’ McMurphy was a tough sell.

Listen Harry, Byrum interrupted, there’s no need to parse words. The peace dividend sounded nice at the time to me, too. It was a good tag line - too good, really. I mean let’s face it; we didn’t appreciate how much we needed the Soviets. The fall killed everything. Byrum hated stubbornness, in others.

Gentlemen, I have to agree, Marcus Berg, the ex-Treasury chief interjected. "It’s an oxymoron. There is no dividend for peace. It’s like Arab Government, or military intelligence - no offense Harry."

Like Sherman said, though, Byrum again interrupted, the peace dividend, or Globalism, or whatever you want to call it, is worse than we imagined. It’s an outright threat. It’s gonna kill the economy. Mark my words; we’re all going to suffer if we let it take hold.

And so, the gentlemen gathered at the Grand Teton Resort that February day faced a dilemma. They could see what the future held, and in the aftermath of the Cold War they began to see their victory over the evil Red Empire for what it was - an empty promise.

As the Cold War dragged on for decades, no one was more anxious to bring the Soviets to their knees than the Americans. A Cold War victory not only fed America’s God-given sense of exceptionalism, but it validated capitalism as the one true path to prosperity. No one wanted to admit, though, that Capitalism had always been Communism’s biggest beneficiary. And now, with the Soviet Empire in ruins, they knew that the end of the Cold War meant one thing and one thing only: The end of America’s military-industrial profit center, and the end of American Capitalism, itself.

The meeting at the Grand Teton Resort continued through the morning. The men at the table - the Gang of Five, as Byrum would call them - had waded through little more than preliminaries, but that was how things were done. Consensus by convention was the rule and the power of suggestion could, and would, move mountains.

Listen, my friends, Byrum pressed forward, the Gulf War was clearly a step in the right direction. The Soviets were dead on the vine and we all know how much the Saudis paid us to save their sorry asses from Saddam Hussein. The conversation had again shifted, this time from Globalism to war profits and the Middle East.

We get it, Bob, Chase replied impatiently. The Soviets are haunting us from the grave and somehow we let Iraq get away from us. But the question remains, what do we do about it?

I think he’s saying we need another war, Admiral McMurphy offered with an ambiguous smirk.

Well, just look at what we have now, Harry, Byrum was growing frustrated. This Oil For Food deal is a crock of BS! He was referring to the Iraqi oil for food exchange the Europeans and the Iraqi regime itself, were still enjoying for supporting the Gulf War.

Oh, come on now, Marcus Berg eagerly protested. Building a coalition-of-the-willing isn’t as easy as some may think. I mean, we had to cut the French and the Germans in somehow."

That wasn’t a personal dig, Marcus, Byrum leveled his glare across the table as though the straight-laced banker should have known what he meant. "I know we had to include our allies, but things have changed. I mean, the Europeans are making out pretty well for not having done much. Hell, why aren’t we exchanging oil for food?"

Who was it that said nations don’t have allies, they only have interests? Isaac Boaz spoke up as Berg and Byrum glared at one another.

"We are exchanging oil for food, Robert, Berg replied, ignoring Boaz. We’re just not managing the program."

Shit, Marcus! Byrum couldn’t hold back. That’s where all the money’s made - excuse my language.

Berg may have been one of the chief planners of the Oil For Food program but, despite having soaked the Saudis and Kuwaitis for the full cost of the Gulf War, he hadn’t been able to live-down suspicions that the US had left money on the table after the pull out - a lot of money.

Marcus, the UN and the Europeans have fallen into a hell of a deal here, Chase broke the deadlock. He could smell an opportunity to plunder with the best of them. We just need to make sure they don’t overstep their bounds.

I know, Sherman, but we can’t always walk away with everything and still expect our allies to go along, Berg replied. The new Administration wants to show a little give and take.

Berg would have loved to take the whole bag like the others, but he knew when to lean toward equity, and when to shoot a friend in the back. The Oil For Food arrangement, though, had become a sticking point. The end of the Cold War was bad enough, but Chase and Byrum still couldn’t understand how the US had given the Europeans so much after the Gulf War.

That’s fine, Marcus, Sherman Chase was being diplomatic. We have other things to discuss. But, as far as Iraq’s concerned, we ran the show from the start. We need to keep an eye on what’s going on. We wouldn’t want to be leaving any more money on the table, if you know what I mean.

Berg looked perturbed, but stayed silent.

Oh, by the way, Sherman, Boaz jumped in, I hear that picture of you and Saddam Hussein exchanging pistols in Baghdad is still hanging in your bedroom. He was trying to lighten the mood with his usual dry humor.

Sometimes, Mister Boaz, Chase shot back without a second thought, I wish it was.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

It’s just a joke, Sherman, the Israeli apologized. After all we are not communists. But no one was laughing, and as Boaz looked around the table he found Sherman Chase staring back at him with a wicked leer.

Good one, Kiko, Chase replied with a sarcastic wit that only he could properly deliver.

2

Beirut, Lebanon

Fall, 1983 - Ten Years Earlier

A chemical stench filled the air in an ancient catacomb near Beirut’s deep-water port. The smell of strychnine, a catalyst in the distillation of narcotics, and kerosene, a separating agent, floated from plastic buckets stacked against the wall. Light bulbs were strung along the ceiling by frayed electrical cords and down below, strainers and sieves stood beside an old dehumidifier, clunking like a half-dead mule as it sucked the moisture from the white paste spread about the tabletops.

An iron door, three hundred years old, was situated at one end of the long, narrow room. Rust-covered through the centuries by the salty sea air, it was like a suit of armor, impenetrable. Only the turn of a forged steel wheel could unlock the giant facade and beside the wheel, on a stool made of bent wood and cowhide, sat a bleary-eyed old man in a button down shirt. ‘U’mu,’ they called him with a reverence reserved only for elders. It meant ‘Uncle’ in Arabic.

Kee-fik U’mu, the Armenians would offer with the humility they had so perfected. My father sends his warmest regards. Gold chains and ornate Eastern crosses dangled from their necks as they bent to shake U’mu’s leathery hand. Their fathers were always sending their warmest regards.

Salam’u a’laikum, U’mu, another group of young men in the goose down ski vests and wool skullcaps later offered. Stooping to one knee and bowing their heads, they greeted the old man, waiting between the call to prayer for their packages.

The ancient city of Beirut - its name derived from Phoenician meaning ‘the wells’ - had been continuously inhabited for ten thousand years, and for all of those ten millennia, contraband had gone in and out of her seaport to the ends of the earth; gems for the wealthy and powerful since the beginning of time.

The Phoenicians were great seafarers and they built cities along the Lebanese coast - Tyre, Sidon, Tripoli. But Beirut was the greatest of all. It was the soul of the Lebanese people, situated on a large bed of rock jutting into the Mediterranean, beckoning the sea and her riches.

When the rival city-states of Sidon and Tyre began to decline around 1000 BC, Beirut reached ever-greater heights. By the time of Christ, the city had become a center of Roman learning, attracting artisans and scholars from throughout the Empire. By the fourth century the Byzantines had taken over and by 700 AD, Arabs occupied the area.

Crusaders later laid siege to Beirut and held it for 200 years. The Turks followed, and eventually French colonial forces took over after WWI. Yet, through the ages, the citizens of Beirut and all of Lebanon maintained their spirit of independence - one brought about by trade, commerce and a refusal to ever give up or give in to any foreign occupier. For the lure of Lebanon had always been one of great profit, not just from the sea but also from contraband and the black markets. And the most profitable of the contraband, the most precious and valuable commodity of all, was the silky white extract of the opium poppy - heroin.

In many ways the heroin from the rich poppy paste of Afghanistan and Kurdistan was a universal equalizer. It provided a forum in which everyone intermingled, and in a weird way it gave those who shared in its riches the opportunity to shed differences and unite. The traders and merchants scoffed at those who purported to godliness; a commodity worse than any drug, yet one that persisted in the Holy Land of Lebanon, the site of Mount Olive and the Cedars.

Amongst one another, however, there was no scoffing, only the satisfaction in knowing that business was business and that demand was being served just as it had been for ten thousand years. U’mu and others like him knew this as well as anyone and sitting before their big iron doors, thumbing through ivory prayer beads or sipping tea, they were content just to oversee their small fiefdoms.

Ya, Aisha! the old man would cry out on occasion. Don’t let the children play near the gazouz.

‘Gazouz’, was U’mu’s name for the white powder - soda pop in the local slang - and his raspy voice was aimed at the women working over the gas flames or sifting through the drying paste.

With little to do but keep an eye on things, he often took to scolding his daughters and nieces and grand daughters and grand nieces, directing his watery glare at them from across the room. For while the men made hay in the streets above, it was the women who labored in the dank basement enclaves and side rooms beneath Beirut’s old market. In headscarves and jeans they rinsed and filtered the murky liquid narcotic, curing it in chemicals and spreading the paste over the tables to dry.

As the famous Middle Eastern saying goes: The Egyptians know how to sing and dance, but the Lebanese know how to cook.

Four or five times a day the couriers came by. It was all done by appointment, and when a hollow thud echoed from the other side of the iron door, the old man slowly stood to turn the wheel. Young men, relatives or friends, would stop for tea and leave with a couple packs of the finest white powder ever made, usually to be sold to the Israeli soldiers that ran drug rings from the Beka’a Valley back into Israel. But the big time deals were packed in wooden crates marked Producto Di Italia or Caution - Waste Products, and hauled out by a motorized dolly.

At a warehouse near the docks the crates were left with those from a hundred other operations and managed by another cast of characters who handled the shipments from the busy port. By the time U’mu released the merchandise the money had already been wired to banks in the city center from Tel Aviv and transferred to accounts in the UAE. Every transaction was verified and reverified by more relatives working in the bank offices.

A third of the money went to pay the American and Israeli arms dealers that supported the civil war, and a third of it made its way back to Lebanon in US $20 bills - trucked in from Israel by the US Army. The rest was left in the accounts of the rich and powerful Gulf Arabs, Turks and Europeans who financed the drug cartel itself.

From the docks of Beirut’s port, cargo ships then took the narcotics to port cities in Europe - Naples, Nice, and Varna on the Black Sea. If there was anything left it was shipped to America, where corrupt officials and Union operatives oversaw delivery to a network of distributors. The powder was then diluted and trickled down to the major urban areas, most notably cities with heavy minority populations.

After all, only through the magic power of narcotics could Western governments control their minority masses.

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On the grounds of a 10th Century stone castle built by Crusaders in the hills above Beirut, Vu stood gazing out over the horizon. From the mountains, a breathtaking panorama unfolded, and through his binoculars he watched a small point in the Mediterranean Sea a couple of miles out - a point that turned yellow with flames and smoke as it launched yet another massive artillery round deep into the hills around Beirut.

Like a giant penis the American battleship New Jersey lurked off the coast of Lebanon, exposing itself, sunning itself, showing-off as it blasted the hills above the city in a gut-wrenching display of military pornography. Vu marveled as the yellow-orange glow of the world’s biggest gun barrels lit up in the distance, then two tons of high explosives leveled the landscape for miles around.

The Lebanese civil war had been raging for almost a decade but, even in the darkest most violent depths of battle, nothing as destructive as the two-ton projectiles from the guns of the USS New Jersey had ever been unleashed on the Lebanese people.

The trouble began in the Beka’a Valley. Up until the mid 1970’s the flow of raw opium along ancient trade routes from Kurdistan and Afghanistan ended in the Beka’a. There it was refined into fine, white Heroin #3, then transported to Beirut for shipment to Europe. Once the Israeli’s moved in, though, things began to change. Heroin shipments once destined for Europe were rerouted from Beirut to the Israeli port of Haifa. From there, they were first sent to the US and only afterward to destinations in Europe, if supplies allowed.

Traffic through the port of Beirut quickly dwindled and realizing they’d been cut out of the lucrative back-end of the trade, the Lebanese factions were determined to win it back. It was a trade they owned before the Israelis took control, and when Israeli agents assassinated one of the Lebanese trafficker-kingpins, a Maronite Christian Army General, all hell broke loose.

The Iranians, the Syrians and the Turks eventually came to the aid of the Lebanese, and so began the Lebanese civil war of 1975. But war is a great facilitator of contraband trafficking, and contrary to the US plan to subvert the heroin trade in Lebanon and funnel through Israel, the number of heroin labs in and around Beirut only increased.

Drug traffic through the port of Beirut soon doubled, meanwhile shipments from the Israeli port of Haifa shriveled. The ploy had backfired on the Americans and Israelis, and with the migration of the Haifa supply back to Beirut, shipments once destined for America were shifted back to France, Italy and Eastern Europe.

This created a problem for the Americans, and by 1982 Uncle Sam had had enough. He wanted his supply back.

But as far as Vu was concerned, Lebanon was still just a riddle. Taking part in his first ‘official’ operation he looked over the cosmopolitan city of Beirut, at the mansions and the estates that dotted the surrounding hills, and he wondered how so much wealth could have been gained during the horrendous fighting that consumed the tiny nation. How could it be that some of the world’s wealthiest men lived in Lebanon?

While Vu was new to the game, though, he wasn’t stupid. He knew Beirut’s port was like a magnet, attracting raw materials and sending out finished goods. It was a pipeline for narcotics from all over the Middle East and Asia, smuggled across trade routes set up centuries before, with everyone along the way getting their cut.

Vu had traveled the routes from Iran to Iraq and Turkey and down through Syria to the Beka’a Valley. The collection of points along the way were known as the ‘Spice Islands’ by the locals - a mocking reference to the Southeast Asian island chains supposedly named by the Dutch for their culinary riches. In reality, though, the Spice Islands were narcotics centers set up by the European merchant powers to subvert and control their colonial holdings.

Likewise, Vu knew that the trade of illicit drugs and contraband was a pillar of the Lebanese economy; a parallel economy with no ledgers or receipts. Drug money was used for every imaginable purpose from arms shipments to pension payments to agricultural projects. It was also used to pay for CIA and MOSSAD operations that could never be funded with clean money; operations which, themselves, supplied a wealth of cash for the Americans and the Israelis. For they, like everyone else, knew that where there’s heroin there’s money - lots of money.

BOOM! The yellow glow of cannons again flashed in the distance, and once again Vu felt the sickening howl of an overhead projectile. An ungodly explosion soon followed and the impact caused him to widen his stance to keep from stumbling. The giant warship was imposing its will, but Vu knew it was just a facade; the beaten carcass of a dead dream, more proud than strong despite her powerful cannons - cannons that could never subdue a determined population.

He knew that the USS New Jersey was merely exacting revenge. The American generals were a jealous lot. They were greedy and envious and sought revenge against the Lebanese - just as they had a decade before against his own Vietnamese people. And their lust for revenge had always intoxicated them, more so even than the fine white heroin they so desperately craved.

Vu moved his binoculars from the USS New Jersey south toward the Beirut Airport - a heap of punctured tarmac and collapsed aircraft hangars. At the edge of the airport stood what was left of a once sizable administrative building. Only a month before, the very same building housed a US Marine expeditionary force, sent to convince the Lebanese of their mistaken aim in taking back the heroin supply. That building, too, was now rubble.

They say it’s the Iranians, a scruffy man with a short black beard nervously offered. It was Vu’s driver. The Iranians are training rebels in the hills around Beirut, he said, but the taxi driver was just probing. He, like everyone in Lebanon, knew why the largest projectiles known to man were pounding the hills around the capitol.

Vu looked through his binoculars without responding. ‘Funny,’ he thought to himself, ‘I heard everyone in Lebanon was a rebel.’

Maybe they seem too close, with a cigarette between his lips Vu’s driver spoke once more. He was waiting in the rear near his orange and white taxicab. His words were ones of caution, though he began to seem more relaxed as the sun hung lower over the vast Mediterranean Sea. It was getting late.

The bombs - maybe they get too close, the cab driver called from behind. We should go to Beirut now.

But Vu just stood in the purple dusk looking out over the city toward the sea, then back again to the airport. The castle was supposed to be off limits as far as the artillery was concerned, though Vu knew that such an understanding meant little. Maybe the Americans had a message to send to the French that day, who knew?

Not likely, though. So he waited.

The place was maintained by the French government through donations collected by the Catholic Church. The man who tended to it was a Shi’ite named Ali. He and his family lived in a tarpaper shack behind the maintenance shed on the castle grounds - grounds that served as a playground for his eight young children, constantly running around the place, laughing and yelling at one another. Vu was there to meet a Lebanese Army commander to deliver the payoff. It was Vu’s last task before he left Lebanon for good. But for the third day in a row, the commander hadn’t shown.

Fucking asshole, Vu whispered, knowing time was again running short.

But just as he was about to give in to the taxi driver’s pleas, along the narrow road below the castle he spotted a cloud of dust, then a vehicle. It was a dark green jeep - the type used by the Lebanese Army. Exactly who would be traveling in a Lebanese government vehicle, though, was never clear until they arrived.

The jeep raced up the hill, spewing dust in its wake. Vu and his nervous driver watched from above, and as it drew closer, Vu could see two men inside. With his binoculars he followed the vehicle until it reached the top of the hill and then maneuvered around some trees to enter the castle gate. Rolling through the iron gate, it came to a stop along a patch of green grass beside the taxicab.

Vu had made his connection.

The men in the jeep hopped out and walked toward Vu in a menacing manner. It was the Lebanese Army commander in charge of the area and another man in a Lebanese Army uniform. The insignia on the second man’s uniform indicated he was a colonel, but he said nothing and had a certain disconnected look.

‘Probably Israeli,’ thought Vu.

Who are you? the Lebanese commander abruptly ordered, standing before him.

I’m with Bertolli, Vu casually responded.

Good, the commander replied. Where’s the money?

Where’s the money? Vu had come into the habit of answering questions with the same question.

The commander looked over at the other man in the Lebanese Army uniform. He had kinky reddish hair and an impatient snarl on his face.

‘Definitely Israeli,’ Vu was certain.

Don’t play games, the man interrupted in a condescending manner, his Hebrew accent unmistakable. You owe us for the bombers. That was the deal. Now pay up or maybe you’ll be driving the next truck.

In the background, the New Jersey had fired another round from her massive cannons. It whistled in the distance and struck the ground about ten miles away, shaking the earth beneath the men’s feet. Then, dead silence.

Vu noticed that the children who earlier ran loudly around the grounds were nowhere to be seen, and his driver sat nervously in