Triple (39 page)

Ken Falloff

tional force, not a bunch of ragged refugees. Hassan hoped desperately

that Malimoud would accept it.

Yasif Hassan had come to propose that the Fedayeen should hijack a

holocaust

They embraced like brothers, kissing cheeks, then stood back to look at

one another.

'Tou smell like a whore," said Mahmoud.

"You smell like a goatherd," said Hassan. They laughed and embraced

again.

Mahmoud was a big man, a fraction taller than Hassan and much broader;

and he looked big, the way he held his head and walked and spoke. He did

smell, too: a sour familiar smell that came from living very close to

many people in a place that lacked the modern inventions of hot baths and

sanitation and garbage disposal. It was three days since Hassan had used

after-shave and talcum powder, but he still smelled like a scented woman

to Mahmoud.

The house had two rooms: the one Hassan had entered, and behind that

another, where Mahrfioud slept on the floor with two other men. There was

no upper story. Cooking was done in a yard at the back, and the nearest

water supply was one hundred yards away. The woman lit a fire and began

to make a porridge of crushed beans. While they waited for it, Hassan

told Mahmoud his story.

"Mee months ago in Luxembourg r met a man I bad known at Oxford, a Jew

called Dickstein. It turns out he is a big Mossad operative. Since then

I have been watching him, with the help of the Russians, in particular

a KGB man named Rostov. We have discovered that Dickstein plans to steal

a shipload of uranium so the Zionists will be able to make atom bombs."

At first Mahmoud refused to believe this. He cross-questioned Hassan: how

good was the information, what exactly was the evidence, who might be

lying, what mistakes might have been made? Then, as Hassan's answers made

more and more sense, the truth began to sink in, and Mahmoud became very

grave-

"This is not only a threat to the Palestinian cause. These bombs could

ravage the whole of the Middle East."

It was like him, Hassan thought, to see the big picture.

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"What do you and this Russian propose to dor' Mabmoud asked.

"Ihe plan is to stop Dickstein and expose the Israeli plot, showing the

Zionists to be lawless adventurers. We haven't worked out the details yet

But I have an alternative proposal." He paused, trying to form the right

phrases, then blurted it out. "I think the Fedayeen should hijack the

ship before Dickstein gets there."

Mahmoud stared blankly at him for a long moment.

Hassan thought: Say something, for God's sake! Mahmoud began to shake his

head from side to side slowly, then his mouth widened in a smile, and at

last he began to laugh, beginning with a small chuckle and finishing up

giving a huge, body-shaking bellow that brought the rest of the household

around to see what was happening.

Hassan ventured, "But what do you think?"

Mahmoud sighed. "It's wonderful," he said. "I don't see how we can do it,

but it's a wonderful idea."

Ilen he started asking questions.

He asked questions all through breakfast and for most of the morning: the

quantity of uranium, the names of the ships involved, how the yellowcake

was converted into nuclear explosive, places and dates and people. They

talked in the back room, just the two of them for most of the time, but

occasionally Mahmoud would call someone in and tell him to listen while

Hassan repeated some particular point.

About midday he summoned two men who seemed to be his lieutenants. With

them listening, he again went over the points he thought crucial.

"rhe Coparelli is an ordinary merchant ship with a regular crew?P9

"Yes."

"She will be sailing through the Mediterranean to Genoa."

"Yes."

"What does this yellowcake weigh?"

"Two hundred tons."

"And it is packed in drums."

"Five hundred sixty of them."

"Its market pricer'

'Two million American dollars."

"And it is used to make nuclear bombs."

"Yes. Well, it is the raw material."

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Ken Folleff

"Is the conversion to the explosive form an expensive or difficult

process?"

"Not if you've got a nuclear reactor. Otherwise, yes."

Mahmpud nodded to the two lieutenants. "Go and tell this to the others."

In the afternoon, when the sun was past its zenith and it was cool enough

to go out, Mahmoud and Yasif walked over the hills outside the town.

Yasif was desperate to know what Mahmoud really thought of his plan, but

Mahmoud refused to talk about uranium. So Yasif spoke about David Rostov

and said that he admired the Russian's professionalism despite the

difficulties he had made for him.

"It is well to admire the Russians," Mahmoud said, "so long as we do not

trust them. Their heart is not in our cause. There are three reasons why

they take our side. ne least important is that we cause trouble for the

West, and anything that is bad for the West is good for the Russians.

Then there is their image. The underdeveloped nations identify with us

rather than with the Zionists, so by supporting us the Russians gain

credit with the Third World-and remember, in the contest between the

United States and the Soviet Union the Third World has all the floating

voters. But the most important reason-the only really important reason-is

oil. The Arabs have oil."

They passed a boy tending a small flock of bony sheep. The boy was

playing a flute. Yasif remembered that Mahmoud had once been a shepherd

boy who could neither read nor write,

"Do you understand how important oil is?" Mahmoud said. "Hitler lost the

European war because of off.

46NO.99

"Listen. The Russians defeated Hitler. They were bound to. Hitler knew

this: he knew about Napoleon, he knew nobody could conquer Russia. So why

did he try? He was running out of oil. There is oil in Georgia, in the

Caucasian oilfields. Hitler had to have the Caucasus. But you cannot hold

the Caucasus secure unless you have Volgograd, which was then called

Stalingrad, the place where the tide turned against Hitler. Oil. That's

what our struggle is about, whether we like it or not, do you realize

that? If it were not for oil, nobody but

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us would care about a few Arabs and lews fighting over a dusty little

country like ours."

MArnoud was magnetic when he talked. lEs strong, clear voice rolled out

short phrases, simple explanations, statements that sounded like

devastating basic truths: Hassan suspected he said these same things often

to his troops. In the back of his mind he remembered the sophisticated ways

in which politics were discussed in places like Luxembourg and Oxford, and

it seemed to him now that for all their mountains of information those

people knew less than Mahmoud. He knew, too, that international politics

were complicated: that there was more than oil behind these things, yet at

bottom he believed Mahmoud was right.

They sat in the shade of a fig tree. The smooth, duncolored landscape

stretched all around them, empty. The sky glared hot and blue, cloudless

from one horizon to the other. Mahmoud uncorked a water bottle and gave it

to Hassan, who drank the tepid liquid and handed it back. Then he asked

Mahmoud whether he wanted to rule Palestine after the Zionists wen beaten

back.

"I have killed many people," Mahmoud said. "At first I did it with my own

hands, with a knife or a gun or a bomb. Now I kill by devising plan's and

giving orders, but I kill them still. We know this is a sin, but I cannot

repent. I have no remorse, Yasif. Even ff we make a mistake, and we kill

children and Arabs in#ead of soldiers and Zionists, still I think only,

This is bad for our reputation,' not, 'Mis is bad for my soul.' There Is

blood on my hands, and I win not wash it off. I will not try. There is a

story called The Picture of Dorian Gray. It is about a man who leads an

evil and debilitating life, the kind of life that should make him look old,

give him fines on his face and bags under his eyes, a destroyed liver and

venereal disease. Still, he does not suffer Indeed, as the years go by he

seems to stay young, as if he had found the elixir of life. But in a locked

room In his house there is a painting of him, and it is the picture that

ages, and takea on the ravages of evil living and terrible disease. Do you

know the story? It is English."

"I saw the movie," said Yasif.

"I read it when I was in Moscow. I would like to see that film. Do you

remember how it ended?"

"Oh, yes. Dorian Gray destroyed the painting, and then all 225

Ken Folleff

the disease and damage fell on him in an instant, and he died."

"Yes." Mahmoud put the stopper back in thebottle, and looked out over the

brown hillsides with unseeing eyes. Then he said, "When Palestine is

free, my picture will be destroyed.

After that they sat in silence for a while. Eventually, without speaking,

they stood up and began to walk back to the town.

Several men came to the little house in Nablus that evening at dusk, just

before curfew. Hassan did not know who they were exactly; they might have

been the local leaders of the movement, or an assorted group of people

whose judgment Mahmoud respected, or a permanent council of war that

stayed close to Mahmoud but did not actually live with him. Hassan could

see the logic in the last alternative, for if they all lived together,

they could all be destroyed together.

The woman gave them bread and fish and watery wine, and Mahmoud told them

of Hassan's scheme. Mahmoud had thought it through more thoroughly than

Hassan. He proposed that they hijack the Coparelli before Dickstein got

there, then ambush the Israelis as they came aboard. Expecting only an

ordinary crew and halfhearted resistance, Dickstein's group would be

wiped out. Then the Fedayeen would take the Coparelli to a North African

port and invite the world to come aboard and see the bodies of the

Zionist criminals. The cargo would be offered to its owners for a ransom

of half its market price one million U.S. dollars.

There was a long debate. Clearly a faction of the movement was already

nervous about Mahmoud's policy of taking the war into Europe, and saw the

proposed hijack as a further extension of the same strategy. They

suggested that the Fedayeen could achieve most of what they wanted simply

by calling a press conference in Beirut or Damascus and revealing the

Israeli plot to the international press. Hassan was convinced that was

not enough: accusations were cheap, and it was not the lawlessness of

Israel that had to be demonstrated, it was the power-of the Fedayeen.

They spoke as equals, and Mahmoud seemed to listen to each with the same

attention. Hassan sat quietly, hearing the low, calm voices of these

people who looked like peasants 226