by Nathan Ronen
After half an hour of walking in the endless alleys, Akil and Arik reached a large souvenir store owned by Mohammed, Akil’s uncle. “This store contains quality merchandise that my uncle collects from all over Morocco. The prices here are less than half of what you’d pay at the hotel stores.”
Arik picked up a broad selection of offerings, including hand-painted tajine pots, a beautiful red wool rug from the Berber south, a set of silver Moroccan teapots, a red velvet dress embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and hammered silver jewelry with amber stones for Eva.
As always, a lively argument broke out over the price. Akil knew that Arik was flying back to Rabat that evening, and felt nervous. He still had to receive his final instructions from his strict boss, and was afraid of being late.
“Come on already, shake his hand and we’ll have some tea?” he suggested to his uncle in Moroccan.
The uncle extended his hand to Arik and said, his voice calm, “Okay, let’s agree on 1,100 euro, and you should know you just made the deal of a lifetime. In Europe, this carpet alone is worth 2,000 euro.”
The tea ceremony repeated itself. Arik continued to smile at his hosts, praising Mohammed and his son for being excellent salesmen, in accordance with the local custom. He then quickly and quietly followed Akil back to the Mercedes, which was waiting for them in Koutoubia Avenue, close to Jemaa el-Fnaa Square. The store’s employees trailed in their wake, carrying all of the packed gifts, and the armed policemen followed behind them.
“To La Mamounia Hotel,” Akil commanded the driver after they had packed all the gifts into the trunk. His cell phone rang. Akil straightened in his seat, his face growing pale abruptly. It was clear that the call originated from some higher authority.
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir. It might be a problem to set it up in such a short time, sir,” he said in Maghreb Arabic, trying to maintain the confident façade of a poker player. The man on the other end of the line was yelling. “I’ll get it done, sir,” Akil said, his hands shaking.
The chatty Akil, previously cheerful and friendly, had gone quiet, perhaps suspiciously so. Arik’s survival instinct flashed a warning light in his brain, but he, too, remained inscrutable. “See you in an hour in the lobby?” he asked.
“Of course,” Akil replied, “and then we’ll go to the airport.”
Arik left the gifts in the lobby, thrust a fifty-dirham bill into the bellboy’s hand and asked him to take him up to his room.
In the elevator, the Chameleon buzzed in Arik’s pocket.
An unfamiliar voice commanded in French: “You have to get out of there immediately!”
Arik tensed. “Who is this?”
“No time for explanations. Drop everything. There might be an assassin in your room. My people will go up there in a few minutes and scan the place. If there’s a potential assassin in there, we’ll deal with him if necessary. Go down to the street, and don’t use the guest elevator. Catch a cab and get to the central railway station ASAP. One of my people will pick you up there, and give you money and a new French passport.”
“How will I spot him?”
“He’ll find you. He knows your children’s names. That’ll be the code. Run now! Leave everything behind!”
Son of a bitch! Arik yelled out mentally, frustrated over the betrayal of his ‘friend,’ Moroccan General Kadiri, and especially enraged at his own stupidity and recklessness in traveling without his security team. Simultaneously, he realized that Abdelhak Kadiri was part of the conspiracy against the king of which Arik had just warned him, and might even be heading this conspiracy.
Chapter 42
Marrakesh Central Railway Station
Arik was wary of going down in the guest elevator. At the end of the corridor, he found the employee elevator and took it down to floor B2, the basement floor, where he entered the main uniform storehouse, which was abandoned, and appropriated an eggplant-colored waiter’s uniform. He tossed his old clothes into a nearby laundry hamper along with other guests’ clothes. Tucking the Chameleon into the pocket of the waiter livery he had put on, he disassembled the phone that Kureishi had given him. The phone was thrown into the big employee laundry hamper, the battery landed in a hidden corner, and the SIM card went into the pocket of a hanging suit.
From there, he went up to the main kitchen. Passing through the room service department, he picked up a tray of food prepared for one of the hotel guests and raised it to shoulder level to hide his face from the security cameras outside. He went out to the pool and looked around him, as if searching for the guest who had ordered the snack. He stole a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap off an empty lounge chair, tucking the cap into an inner pocket in the uniform. Stepping over a low fence, he exited through the employee gate toward the street. The armed guards told him something in a local dialect of Berber Arabic. He smiled in reply, surprising them by placing the generously loaded food tray in from of them, casually telling them, “Bon appetit.” They looked at the tray hungrily, allowing him to slip away uninterrupted.
Arik sauntered slowly out onto the street, put on the white baseball cap, threw the uniform jacket into the trash can of an adjacent house, slipped on the sunglasses, and signaled a passing yellow taxi.
“To the airport,” he told the driver in French.
“Which terminal?” the driver asked.
“I’m flying to Rabat,” Arik said.
“Terminal One. I can turn on the meter, or else it’ll be twenty-five euro in cash.”
“Cash,” Arik said, concealing his face behind the cap and trying to speak in a throaty French accent, as much as he could. He felt for the bulge of cash in his left sock, and once again mentally blessed the guide in the basic agent course, who had repeatedly and emphatically instructed them never to keep their money and passport in the hotel safe, in case they needed to retrieve them at short notice. A secret pocket in the heel of his shoe concealed five gold Krugerrand coins.
At the entrance to Terminal One, he paid the driver and entered the air-conditioned building, looking out through the glass door to make sure that the cab that had brought him here had driven off. At a travelers’ store, he bought a colorful windbreaker, khaki pants, a new shirt and an elegant wide-brimmed straw hat. He then went into the restroom and crammed the broad, eggplant-colored waiter’s pants and the white baseball cap into one of the trash cans. Once he had exited, he bought a small wheeled suitcase at another store, and emerged with it on the Arrivals floor, next to the platform where taxis awaited the passengers who had just arrived from abroad.
“Hassan II College,” Arik said in confident English, sliding into the back seat.
“French?” the driver asked.
“No, British,” Arik replied, chatting with the driver while hoping he would not notice his foreign accent. “I’ve come here to teach Business Administration at the college this semester.”
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the entrance to the largest college in the city; Arik paid and exited the cab. He began to climb the stairs leading into the large building, taking care to peek back and confirm that the cab had departed. The empty suitcase was quickly abandoned behind a flourishing plant in a large jardinière, and Arik spun on his heels and ran across the road leading to the Marrakesh Railway Station, beyond the park. Before entering the station, he tossed his straw hat into the bushes and turned his jacket inside-out; he was now wearing a red windbreaker.
He found a store selling tourist souvenirs across from the station, and bought himself a green flat cap with the slogan “I love MK” on it, talked to the saleswoman in German and paid in euro.
He entered the platform of the large central railway station, his eyes seeking the blind spots of the security cameras spread out throughout the station. He identified a nook in a small coffeehouse shielded by a wall. Arik hoped the man he was supposed to meet would think like an operations man, as he did
, and also seek out the place he would choose as a well-concealed observation post.
A disabled panhandler was weaving his way between the café patrons, asking for handouts. As he approached Arik, he extended his hand and opened a mouth full of yellow and black teeth. His mouth reeked of pungent chewing tobacco. Arik was surprised to hear him whispering in French: “Bonjour, Monsieur Bar-Nathan. Leo—Michael—Nathalie. Follow me.”
Arik did not move.
The panhandler slowly crossed the passenger lounge, like a slug on the ground, dragging a leg and supporting himself on an old wooden brace. Arik’s eyes followed him from where he sat until the ‘panhandler’ disappeared behind a door stating “Employees Only” in Arabic and French. Arik tracked the orbit of the security camera scanning the passenger lounge. At the right moment, he ducked his head and concealed his face with a newspaper he had found on the table, crossing the lounge swiftly, blending into the tumult of the passengers.
“I have a bag here with a jellabiya, old shoes, a wig, an artificial beard and a Berber-style fez,” the panhandler said once Arik came through the door, which opened into a room full of cleaning supplies, handing him a packed plastic bag. “There’s also body adhesive to paste on the beard. Toss all your clothes, including underwear, shoes and socks, into the bag. They might have stuck a French electronic tracking device that we provided them with on your clothes, underwear, or shoes; we can’t take that chance.”
“But I’ve already changed once at the hotel,” Arik protested.
“We trained the Moroccans. We can’t risk it. Please change and throw it all away!” the ‘panhandler’ concluded, extending his hand to be shaken: “I’m Michel.” He gazed at Arik’s bare, firm body, his eyes lingering on the gunshot scar on his right shoulder, the result of being shot by a Chechen assassin, as well as on several scars resulting from past knife fights. He scanned Arik with a device resembling a cell phone and found him to be clean.
Michel helped Arik get dressed, assisted him in slipping on the musty shoes, put makeup on his face and inserted two tampons behind his lower teeth, thus expanding his jaw and changing the appearance of his face. He then covered Arik’s teeth with a set of dentures that resembled rotting black and yellow teeth. He sprinkled sterile eye drops into Arik’s eyes, propped up his eyelids and inserted contact lenses resembling dark eyes clouded with pannus into his sockets. Arik was now half-blind.
Two panhandlers, a ragged fez of sorts covering each of their heads, wearing coarse, smelly striped jellabiyas made of sheep’s wool, slowly crossed the passenger lounge on their way out. One of them was hobbling on a blind man’s cane, while the other was dragging a leg. In the alley, a truck loaded with sheep and cattle was waiting for them. They were swallowed inside a hiding spot constructed of bales of hay in the bed of the truck. The truck began driving slowly on a dirt road leading north, toward Casablanca, through the Atlas Mountains, far from the routes where Akil and his people had already set up road blocks.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Michel, assistant to Louis-Pierre Dillier, head of the DGSE’s Morocco bureau. You’re lucky we managed to reach you in time. From the moment we understood from you that this threat on the life of the king and the regime was a problem potentially impacting France’s strategic interests, we were instructed to move our spy ship Dupuy de Lome close to the coast of Morocco, opposite Agadir. We uncovered General Abdelhak Kadiri’s secret trip to Paris, but he managed to shake off our surveillance and make it to the meetings in Marseille. There he met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad, and by that point we’d figured out what was going on and started to listen in on his calls. Yesterday evening, we heard him talking to Prince Mohammed Fouad Al Mansouri, Morocco’s minister of the interior, and then realized that a hit on you had been authorized. But we didn’t know who this senior Israeli Mossad operative who was here incognito actually was. We’ve been looking for you since yesterday. And it took us quite a while to locate you, since it turned out your Mossad representatives here didn’t even know that you were in Morocco. Only the faith in my good relationship with Joe Amar, the head of your extension at the Rabat station, convinced him to give me your operational phone number, after he checked with your HQ to find out who was here. And that’s how Louis-Pierre could call you and instruct you to disappear.”
Arik extracted the contacts, which were bothering him, from his eyes, and took off the fez, as the very suspicion that it might be infested with lice was making him scratch his head.
He remembered that Galili had forbidden him from leaving for Morocco without a security team, emphasizing that he should only meet Kadiri in Paris. He had also slipped away from the Three Graces security detail, whose members had traveled with him to Paris and then stayed behind there. He was certain they were still looking for him, and perhaps had already reported to Mossad leadership that he was missing or had been abducted. He himself had already deposed outstanding agents for less. The topic of trust and reporting the truth was a supreme value in the Israeli Mossad. Arik tried to banish the thought of Galili from his head. He was currently busy evading his pursuers and surviving. The Mossad did not reward its senior operatives with special privileges. A head of division had been removed from his position after it turned out that the operational laptop he took home for work purposes had been stolen by common burglars. Perhaps Eva’s dream would finally come true if he was relieved of his duties against his will.
“Michel, where are we going now?” he asked in concern.
“In the general direction of Casablanca. But we’re not taking the main road. We’re taking dirt roads stretching in between the villages, and we’ll cross the Atlas Mountains. We’ll arrive in Casablanca in about five hours. From there, we’ll try to smuggle you through the road blocks in the general direction of northern Morocco, to Melilla or Ceuta in Spanish Morocco. From there, you can board a ferry to Gibraltar. We’ve prepared a French Laissez-Passer travel document for you. We’ve rented a car for you under the name in the Canadian passport you left behind. It’s currently being driven by a patsy we hired, on its way to the city of Ouarzazate in the south, supposedly to pick up French tourists. Simultaneously, we booked a flight for you to de Gaulle Airport through the travel agent at the hotel, under the Canadian name with which you registered in Marrakesh, as well as purchasing a first-class train ticket to Rabat. It’s all paid for with the various credit cards of our front corporations. So we’re sending Kadiri’s people on a wild goose chase in all directions.”
“Thanks so much,” Arik said, with sincere professional appreciation. “Please convey my gratitude to your boss.”
“You can tell him yourself when we get to Casablanca. Your man Joe Amar will be waiting for you there as well, along with the girls from your security team, who followed you to Morocco. While there, we’ll also assess whether the next part of your route should make use of the local smuggling network conveying African refugees to Europe through routes in the Sahara, or whether we should smuggle you by sea, in a fishing boat from Casablanca to Ceuta, and from there by ferry to Gibraltar.”
The stress of the day, the unbearable heat within the improvised hiding spot, and the flatulence of the sheep all exhausted Arik. He fell asleep, finding the straw pallet just as pleasant as the dream bed in the hotel from the night before. Two hours later, the impact of a different pungent scent hit his nostrils and woke him up. He crawled out of his hiding place. Michel was sitting among the sheep, smoking a French Gauloises cigarette. The tobacco’s pungent aroma masked the stench of the sheep.
“We’ve already reached the suburbs of Casablanca. In a few minutes, we’ll arrive at our safe house. But before then, we have to get rid of these,” he pointed at the sheep.
“Thank you,” Arik said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 43
Habous Quarter in Dar El Beida, Morocco
The French DGSE’s safe house was located in the Habous Quarter in the city of Dar El Beida23. Th
e quarter had been built in the 1920s by the French in the Medina—the New City, and was constructed entirely in the traditional local architectural style: mazes and alleys, arches, large wooden doors, stylized windows and glazed ceramic tiles.
After the sheep had been unloaded from the truck at a slaughterhouse, the vehicle drove into a large garage, the electronic doors closing behind it.
At the entrance to the apartment, Arik and Michel were received with a firm handshake from Louis-Pierre Dillier, a sturdy man with a broken nose who looked like a professional wrestler.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Arik Bar-Nathan, or should I call you by your Canadian passport name, Dr. Jean Marc Gensburger?” he laughed warmly.
“Louis-Pierre, I’m very impressed by your people’s professionalism, and I’m in your debt for saving my life,” Arik said, moved, trying to extract his own hand from the man’s enormous one.
“We’re not quite there yet. It’s not over till it’s over. Thank me when it’s over. Go shower and change. I can’t stand next to you. You both smell like libero24 cheese.”
“I escaped from Marrakesh empty-handed. I left everything behind. I have nothing to change into,” Arik said, embarrassed.
“That’s no problem. Go down to the first floor using the fire escape, and you’ll find yourself in the back of a clothing store. That’s our cover. Take what you need. I suggest you choose warm clothes, in case we have to smuggle you out tonight by sea.”
Arik went down to the store and chose comfortable clothes for traveling, including light walking shoes, as well as a warm turtleneck sweater and a well-made windbreaker.
At dinner, consisting mostly of fish, seafood and a coarsely chopped vegetable salad, they were joined by Joe Amar, the commander of the Mossad’s station in Morocco, who had brought the Three Graces with him.