I might be completely crazy, but this kinda sounds like fun to me..
At 3 a.m. I get the call. Shortly after, I meet the man in the lobby. I'd been expecting an ex-Green Beret -- somebody with a thick neck, steel grey eyes, a tattoo saying "He Who Dares Wins," an aged Dolph Lundgren type, all business and mysterious past. We're expecting a midnight drive in a flatbed truck, maybe hidden under a tarp. Bribes at the border. A next-day rendezvous with a blacked-out helicopter. The man I meet is a short, nebbishy type -- he looks like someone you'd meet at an office supply convention. He has two cars out front -- his, and another driven by a woman associate. We load out quickly and race through empty streets, blowing through traffic lights -- no directionals, last-minute turns -- to the other side of town, to Le Royale, a mammoth hotel on a hill in the Christian section, fairly close to the American embassy. This, as it turns out, will be our home for the next week.
Nearly a week later, they've brought in a polka band to play in the dining room of the "Mexican"-themed restaurant at Le Royale. Outside, on the pool deck, though the bar is unattended, they keep the radio cranked up to drown out the sounds of bombing -- so as not to scare the kiddies. We wake up to molar-vibrating percussions and go to sleep to distant thunder. Afternoons, we watch as Beirut is dismantled. Bit by bit. First the sound of unseen jets flying overhead. Then silence. Then a "Boom!" Then a distant plume of smoke. Black, brown, white ... the whole city south of us slowly growing more indistinct in the midday light under a constant, smoglike haze.
It's called "Kwik-Clot," Mr. Wolfe tells us. And in case of arterial bleeding, it's essential gear. He's thinking of issuing us some -- in case one of us should catch a bullet or shrapnel to the femoral artery. Mr. Wolfe has lived in Fucked-Up Country One and done work in Fucked-Up Countries Two and Three. He lives in the Most Legendarily Fucked-Up area of Lebanon -- where they have a Hezbollah gift shop, for chrissakes. So we take him seriously -- though this is not the kind of morale-boosting patter we want to hear. "Just pour in wound!" he tells us cheerily. It's not, however, that harsh a segue from the "Know Your Exits" lecture, in which we are advised to "casually" explore all the nooks and crannies and "avenues of egress" from all points in the hotel.
Or the "Vary Your Routines" briefing, where we are instructed to use a different elevator or service stairway when going to breakfast or meetings or heading to the pool. We are to eat, drink, swim at unpredictable times as we wait for news. "It takes three days of planning and surveillance to set up a kidnapping" says Mr. Wolfe, lowering his voice suddenly when a lone gentleman in casual clothes enters our area of the balcony and sits at a nearby table. "Amateur," says Mr. Wolfe. "Look at how he's got his face pointed straight out at sea, his ear cocked in our direction. Clumsy. Obvious." Sure enough, the guy does seem suddenly suspicious, the way he moves closer to snap a few panoramic vistas with his cellphone camera. "Probably ISF," sneers Mr. Wolfe. "Local boys." Mr. Wolfe's amusement -- and pleasure in scaring the living shit out of us -- rises in direct proportion to our paranoia. A room has been reserved for armed security -- should we need it, he assures us. And our own rooms moved around so as to be close to each other -- with one of them designated as a meeting point should we have to assemble at short notice. "We don't want to be meeting in the lobby with everybody else." We've practiced running down and through a rabbit warren of service exits, stairwells and passageways to Mr. Wolf's "vehicles" in a sub-level of the parking lot. A security guard has been taken care of so as to lift the gate of a back entrance should circumstances require our fleeing through a back way. We are to stay close together -- and be on time for meetings and briefings. There's even a pop quiz: Mr. Wolfe hands out photographs of various design features and landmarks in the hotel and challenges us to tell him where, exactly, those locations are, and how we might exit from each. When Mr. Wolfe is not within shouting distance, his female associate keeps a close eye on us -- even when we're by the pool.
