Ultimatum (14 page)

Ruth Meyer regarded the Ambassador with mixed feelings. She was in on the ground floor in London. She didn’t want to get off it. ‘How will Shalom manage without me?’ she asked.

The Ambassador turned to Ascher. ‘What do you say?’

‘You’ll have to give me Micky Kagan. We can’t do a twenty-four hour surveillance with less than three operatives.’

The Ambassador looked at Ezra Barlov. ‘It’s your pitch, Barlov. What do you think?’

‘Ascher’s right. We’ve nothing that takes precedence over this.’

‘Good,’ said the Ambassador. ‘Kagan is yours, Ascher.’

When they left the Embassy an hour later they took Michael Kagan with them. Not, when he’d changed, quite the dapper well-groomed Kagan the Embassy knew but nevertheless a cheerful Kagan. He disliked the desk work associated with the Embassy job, and hankered after action. Where Shalom was, action was likely to be. That made Kagan happy.

During the taxi journey back to Vauxhall Bridge Ascher was silent, going over in his mind the discussion at the Embassy. Questioned by the Ambassador about the nuclear warhead he had been emphatic that it was not in Spender Street. ‘There are several reasons why I’m sure it’s not there. One – if it was, some of them would remain with it throughout each twenty-four hours. They don’t. They’re still working a normal seven/eight-hour day. All go home at night. Two – if it was, some hint of it would come through on the tapes. Nothing has. Three – the only taped reference so far suggests that Ahmad and Rudi – whoever and wherever they may be – have it. They are the only two we haven’t seen. The only
names we can’t tie up. Four – we’ve been watching Mocal night and day now for a long time and nothing big and heavy like a nuke could have been taken in without our seeing it. The warhead’s not there. Ambassador. Believe me.’

That, finally, had satisfied both the Ambassador and Colonel Barlov.

Soon after one o’clock on Tuesday, November 9th, El Al’s 747 from London touched down at Lod Airport and
disgorged
its passengers and luggage. Ruth Meyer had no difficulty in recognizing the sleek hair and rounded features of Bar Mordecai at the baggage checkpoint, notwithstanding dark glasses, sun-shirt and sandals.

There was no greeting. He came up, took her bag and she followed him to the dusty, dented Chevrolet. They’d driven several hundred yards before he said, ‘Glad to see you, Ruth. Good journey?’

‘Oh, it’s heaven to be here. Hot sun and dry earth.’ She remembered his question. ‘The journey? Okay. Usual anxiety and discomforts. Leaky loos, draughts, cigarette smoke, plastic food, plastic people. You’re so tanned, Bar. Lucky you. All this sun.’

‘I swim a lot. Did you bring the stuff?’

‘Everything you’ve not already had.’

‘Good. We see Jakob at once.’

‘Suits me. I’m back to London tomorrow.’

‘Things warming up there, huh?’

She looked at him sideways. ‘Forty-eight hours to go, and the twitch count rising.’

‘I know. Jakob keeps telling me. It’s as if he’s waiting for labour pains.’

‘I wouldn’t know. Never had them.’

They were old friends and for the rest of the journey into Tel Aviv they talked about colleagues, mutual friends and their work.

They passed the tall block of the Bank Leumi Le-Israel, turned left off the Jaffa Road and entered the industrial
area. From long habit Mordecai followed a complex route before parking the Chev outside the red-brick building she knew so well.

‘That wasn’t really necessary, Bar,’ she smiled. ‘I know the route blindfolded.’

‘I vary it every time. Call it a compulsive obsession.’ He opened the boot, took her air-bag from it and led the way in. They negotiated two sets of guarded security barriers, went through a steel door at the back and arrived in the sandy courtyard. As they crossed it she saw the decaying oil drums and rusty remains of the bicycle still under the old fig tree.

‘Lovely garden,’ she said. ‘Nothing changes. Really makes me feel I’m home again.’

‘Great, isn’t it?’ Mordecai pressed the bell-push beside the steel door in the concrete building. They stood waiting under the scrutiny of unseen eyes. The door opened, they went in, passed a security barrier, went left and right down passageways, then through another barrier and on to the lift. They came out on the second floor. Mordecai spoke to the woman at the reception desk. ‘Okay?’

‘He’s waiting for you. Go right in.’

Ruth Meyer reported to Jakob Kahn and Bar Mordecai on developments in London after the British Prime Minister’s address to the Nation, in particular the Israeli Ambassador’s discussions at Number Ten and his appreciation of the situation thereafter. She gave them transcripts of the latest Mocal tape, interpreting the verbal shorthand used by the Palestinians. After that she explained the set-up and routine in Mocal’s Spender Street premises. Zeid, she said, the key figure and the man who’d posted the ultimatum, remained unidentified despite their efforts.

They considered the copies she’d brought with her of the morning’s London dailies giving first reactions to the Prime Minister’s broadcast. Little in them was new to Kahn. Earlier in the day he’d received transcripts of relevant radio broadcasts from the communications division of Israeli
Intelligence which monitored radio services world-wide as a matter of routine. Kahn was discussing reaction in
Washington
and Moscow when his secretary came through on the intercom. ‘Hassfeldt’s waiting.’

‘I’ll see him now,’ replied Kahn.

A thin man with sunken eyes and a limp came in, laid a pack of blown-up photos on Kahn’s blotter. ‘Top one was taken by Ruth Meyer in the stationery shop near the Aldwych yesterday,’ he said. ‘We’ve computer-selected these five from micro-files on the basis of her shot and description. The scar is key data. We’ve arrowed him in all of them.’ He said it apologetically, the thin husky voice matching his general air of debility.

Kahn looked at the photos with a magnifying glass. Two were street shots, one a desert shot – group of armed Arabs in burnouses in the foreground, large passenger aircraft burning in the background – another was a campus picture, undergraduates sitting self-consciously in three tiers. The fifth, a portrait of a young man in cap and gown. Each was dated and captioned.

Kahn’s cheroot trained round swiftly seeking a target. It settled on the thin man. ‘Who is he, Hassfeldt?’

Hassfeldt read from a typed sheet. ‘Zeid Barakat, alias Simon Dufour, alias Simon Dufour Charrier. Born September 7th, 1948, in Philippeville, Algeria. The “Zeid Barakat” comes from his mother. Daughter of a Palestinian merchant settled in Algiers. His father, Paul Dufour, was a
pied-noir
– Frenchman born in Algeria. Charrier was his paternal grandmother’s name. Zeid Barakat is a top-echelon member of the SAS. Close to Mahmoud el Ka’ed. Educated Beirut and the Sorbonne where he took a degree in electronics. Worked for some time with Aerospatiale in the missile and rocketry divisions. Last operation was in September when he led the SAS raid on the Turco-Ottoman Bank in Istanbul. One and a half million dollars of bullion taken. Two bank clerks and one customer killed.’

‘Give me that note. Where did the scar come from? Hi-jack?’

‘No. He’s been involved in a couple of those. But this was way back. An early operation with the SAS. Border raid on Quiryat Shmona. Knife wound, Israeli inflicted. He got away.’

‘Pity,’ said Kahn. ‘Maybe we get him this time.’ He sighed, looked at his cheroot, rubbed his chin. ‘So he’s Zeid Barakat. Worked at Aerospatiale. They produce Pluton. No wonder he’s in charge in London.’ He passed the magnifying glass and photos to Ruth. ‘You’ve seen him at close range. Satisfied he’s the man in these?’

She examined them carefully. ‘Yes. That’s him all right.’ She smiled shyly. ‘He’s very good-looking.’

Kahn shook his head. ‘Don’t let that affect your judgement, Ruth. Maybe he’s a nice guy, too. But they’re all poison to us.’

‘I know, I know. Don’t worry.’

‘Okay, Hassfeldt. That’s all. Leave the photos with me. Thanks for the help.’

When the thin man had gone Kahn said, ‘We know from the Mocal tape that Zeid Barakat phones Brussels. Why?’

‘Shalom thinks it’s a communications link,’ said Ruth.

‘So do I,’ said Mordecai.

Kahn nodded. ‘Makes sense. Barakat’s in charge of the London end. He needs to communicate on a more-or-less immediate basis with Ka’ed. So Brussels acts as linkman.’

‘Probably more than one link.’ Mordecai winked at Ruth Meyer as he borrowed Kahn’s favourite adverb.

‘Like what?’

‘Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Nicosia – you name it.’

‘Method?’

‘Phone, I’d say. To avoid radio monitoring. Trouble is we can’t locate Ka’ed. Salamander says the Deuxième Bureau reckon he’s still in the Lebanon, most likely in Beirut.’

Kahn leant back in the swivel chair, swung it through 180 degrees to look at the large-scale map of Europe and the Middle East covering the wall behind him. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Whatever the linkage the end of the line’s Ka’ed – that’s
probably Beirut. Phone? Yes. Radio? No. We monitor all radio traffic into and out of Beirut. Soukour-al-Sahra’ hasn’t anything as sophisticated as computer scrambling and squirt transmission. Not because they can’t afford it, but they’re a hunted organization and they’ve no HQ. They’ve got to be mobile. If they use the air it must be steam radio. We monitor all that stuff and there hasn’t been a whiff of this in it. So okay. It’s phone linkage, probably.’

Mordecai smiled. ‘Highly probably, Jakob.’

Kahn frowned, not amused, twisting the cheroot in his mouth ‘We have to find Ka’ed – and damn quick. Bug his room, tap his phone – if he has one. Then maybe we get in on his spiel with Barakat in London.’

‘That’s the crunch.’ Mordecai spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘We don’t know where Ka’ed is. Not for want of trying. And we’re not the only ones. Others are after him. Lebanon’s Deuxième Bureau and the French’s DST. The CIA and the Brits’ SIS. Like a pack of
bloodhounds
. But nothing we know of has come up so far. And the clock doesn’t stop.’

Kahn looked at his second-in-command speculatively, his eyes narrowing in a half smile. ‘We know
something,
Bar. It came through at lunchtime. You were out at Lod.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Salamander’s found Georgette Taaran’s apartment.’

‘Who in hell’s Georgette Taaran?’

Kahn exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. He was enjoying this. ‘A girl. El Ka’ed’s girl. Salamander learnt about her last night. We didn’t know he had a girl friend. She lives up at Baabda in the hills outside Beirut. In her parents’
penthouse
in the Miramar apartment block. Father’s a wealthy merchant. He and her mother are on a world cruise. Georgette has a phone.’ He leant forward, his eyes bright. ‘Salamander’s going to bug it. Today.’

Ruth Meyer said, ‘I may be dumb but how’s that going to help in the forty-five hours we’ve got left?’

Kahn shook his head in mock despair. ‘Ruth, don’t you know about love? Odds are Ka’ed phones her or she him
every day. Salamander listens. Finds out where Ka’ed is. Then, maybe, we chip in on his exchanges with Barakat in London. We learn, maybe, where the nuke is. We don’t get anything if we don’t try. It’s the rule of the game. So we never stop trying.’

She said, ‘Sorry, Jakob. But I think we have a better chance in Spender Street listening to the Mocal chat. Any minute now Shalom reckons they’ll give us a lead.’

‘Maybe Shalom’s right. Maybe we are. If we put an ear on Ka’ed’s girl there’s always a chance of a dividend.’

‘Hope you’re right, Jakob. What’s Knesset policy if we find the nuke?’

‘They haven’t discussed it. Maybe they won’t. Depends on the PM. I
can
tell you Cabinet policy. For the time being we don’t tell the Brits or anyone else
anything.
We’ve got to find that nuke ourselves. So far we’ve made all the play. We’ve found Mocal and we’ve got them under surveillance. We’re way ahead of the Brits, even if they’re really trying, which maybe they’re not. We’re not sure of them or the US. We reckon this thing may have been set up as a screen for a deal. You know. The Brits and the US regret that under pressure of the nuclear threat they had no option but – of course with the greatest reluctance and tears in their eyes – to sell Israel down the river in exchange for Arab goodwill which interprets as Arab oil. If we find that nuke – and our chances of doing that don’t look too bad right now – we bargain from a position of strength. There won’t be any selling of Israel down the river then, I can assure you.’

‘I can’t fault that,’ said Ruth. ‘Our reaction last night in Palace Green was along the same lines.’

Kahn’s cheroot moved in small circles of approval. ‘You know, Ruth, ours is an intelligent race. It has to be to survive.’

Going down in the lift after they’d left Kahn she said, ‘Salamander’s a code name, isn’t it?’

‘Of course,’ said Mordecai.

‘Do I know him?’

‘No, you don’t. And if you did I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘You know the rule. The more you know, the more you blow. Doing anything tonight?’

She looked at him quizzically. ‘I’d like to phone the family in Galilee.’

‘Sorry. We don’t want them to know you’re here.’

‘In that case I’m not doing anything.’

‘Come and have something to eat with us. Lea would like to see you. I’ll drive you back in the moonlight.’

‘Thanks, Bar. I’ll come. But no stopping in the moonlight.’

He laughed and she thought of Shalom Ascher and was sad.

The man in blue overalls sitting in the small telephone department van enjoying the afternoon sunshine saw from his watch that it was five minutes to four. His was one of several vehicles parked beneath a clump of pines in a lay-by high up on the road which climbed the hill to Baabda. The stone-parapeted lay-by was a vantage point overlooking the whole spread of Beirut including the coastline from Jeideideh in the north to Shuneifat in the south. Beneath him, to his right, he could see the Miramar apartment block. He knew she was there because he’d phoned earlier. She’d answered and he’d said it was the telephone
department
. Defects in the automatic exchange. She said there was nothing wrong with her phone. He said the fault was in the exchange, not at the subscriber’s end. The relays on a number of lines in the Baabda area were, he explained, giving trouble on the board. Not releasing automatically when the handsets were replaced. Something to do with humidity. This meant that her calls could be overheard by other subscribers if the relays at the switchboard end of
their
lines were also defective.

She expressed concern and hoped the fault would soon be rectified. He told her he would be working on the Baabda
lines all day and would be calling at the Miramar apartment. She said she would be going into Beirut that afternoon at about four o’clock but would tell her servant to expect him if he’d not called by then.

Soon after four he saw her come out of the front door of the Miramar and go to the garage space under the building. Minutes later she backed a red Alfa into the driveway, turned and made off down the hill. He waited ten minutes then drove the van down to the apartment block and parked in the driveway. He lifted out a satchel of tools, went into the building and took the elevator to the penthouse. An Arab man-servant opened the door in response to his ring.

‘Telephone department,’ said the man in blue overalls. ‘Is the occupier in?’

‘No. Madame has gone into Beirut. She told me you would be coming to fix the phone.’

He went in, saw the instrument on a table in the hall. ‘Are there any extensions?’

‘Yes,’ said the servant. ‘There is one in the master
bedroom
.’

‘Show it to me.’ The telephone man was small and
unimpressive
but he spoke with the authority of minor
officialdom
. The servant took him to the master bedroom, showed him the phone on the bedside table. They went back into the hall together.