by Nathan Ronen
“Monsieur Admiral, this is Arik Bar-Nathan. This morning, I went to see Eddy Constantine, and he basically threw me down the stairs. The entire plan we agreed on about the Moroccan king has been shot down by the head of your Special Operations Division.”
“No way!” Lacoste yelled in fury. “It’s true that Brigadier Constantine presented me with an alternate plan, but I told him I would think about it, and in the meantime, I’ve approved the current plan, according to our determination, for execution. As far as I know, the plan has been approved by the minister of defense and the president of the republic.”
“That might be the case,” Arik said, “but I returned from my meeting with Constantine a few hours ago, and the reality he was describing to me was entirely different than what we agreed on.”
“Enculé de ta mère!” Lacoste blurted out a juicy street curse.
“Admiral Lacoste, we conducted an inquiry, and uncovered the fact that three cells of the Maghreb Jihad are already in Morocco. We know where they’re concealing their weapons, we know how it’s going to go down, and it’s all taking place less than a week from today,” Arik said in desperation, fervently hoping that whoever was listening in on the conversation was not passing on its contents to terrorist elements. He was highly disturbed by the open way in which the exchange was being conducted.
“Let me look into it and get back to you. But I doubt I’ll be able to contact anyone at the office today. Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
“Admiral, sir, you do whatever you need to do. I only want a discreet confirmation from you that we’ll be there as well. I suggest we take the king out of play. Otherwise, we might find ourselves confronting a new, uncontrollable reality.”
The line went quiet for several seconds other than murmurs in French. It was clear that the admiral was consulting his president.
“Okay, my president confirms it in principle, but he conditions it upon agreement from the king of Morocco. After all, it is an independent, sovereign country.” The admiral clearly begged to differ.
Tzur nodded, and Arik murmured his affirmation into the receiver. “Will your president talk to the Moroccan king in the spirit of what we’ve agreed upon?” he added.
More mumbling in French was heard in the background.
“Okay. My president suggests adopting the Clinton doctrine in regard to our topic.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral Lacoste, I’m not sure I got you there.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Lacoste said.
“Sure, understood,” said Arik Bar-Nathan. “Officially, we won’t be there at all, although it’s very important that the commander of your French taskforce is aware of our presence.”
“That’s entirely clear. We wouldn’t want any friendly fire between our two forces,” Lacoste said. “How are you going to get there?” he asked curiously.
“Admiral,” Arik smiled, “we just agreed on a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”
“Of course,” Lacoste stammered out. “You’ll be the field commander, I presume.”
“I hope so, but my manager still has to approve it.”
“On our end, I’m sending your friend Louis-Pierre to be the senior commander onsite. Talk to him directly. I approve it.”
“That’s excellent,” Arik said in satisfaction, “but it’s still not too late to invite Kadiri to see you in Paris, and try to flip him against his pals, followed by your president warning the Moroccan king,” Arik said.
“I understand. I’ll get back to you on that,” Lacoste concluded, realizing he must cut short his tour of Martinique and return to Paris as soon as possible in order to re-establish control over his agency.
Chapter 61
The Digital Fortress Extension in Paris
In the basement of the Israeli Embassy in Paris, between logistics warehouses and rooms housing secured communication equipment, was the Mossad’s Special Ops room, accessible only to a selected few. This was the Holy of Holies, whose very presence in the embassy basement was known only to a handful of people, on a need-to-know basis. The room was accessed via a tunnel connected to a structure located across the street, at the corner of the park. From afar, it looked like an old municipal toolshed, serving the park’s maintenance personnel, and surrounded by tall fences.
Judith Even-Chen, the officer on duty, a graduate student at Sorbonne University, was settled late at night to monitor the target known to her by the codename “Gucci.”
She heard the voice of a French man talking on an international call with N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. Someone was talking to “Gucci” through a voice masker. The resulting voice was distorted and robotic, a deep bass speaking good French with an African accent.
She activated the Swallow software, which easily overcame the simple voice scrambling program her surveillance subjects were using. The conversation began with a discussion of the decrease in share value for Glencore, the international mining corporation, and Thyssenkrupp, a German company manufacturing mining equipment used by governments in the Sahel region, at the south edge of the Sahara. It then continued to a discussion of attacks by armed militias disrupting the manufacture of uranium yellowcakes35, causing their price to skyrocket in the global market. The African requested military aid from France in order to train his forces to protect the country’s mines. He reminded Eddy Constantine of the French president’s promise for defense aid after the rebels’ attack on the capital and the presidential palace a year ago. However, the part that truly got Judith’s attention was the question, “What’s happening with the deal for our Iranian friends?”
Judith, who had once been a Signal Intelligence officer on IDF’s 8200 Unit, understood instinctively that this was an important matter, as well as a lead. There was one more thing she had to do before issuing an urgent operational report to the Intelligence and Research Division in Tel Aviv.
She entered the Mossad’s database of voices and images, inputting the African man’s robotic voice pattern into the deciphering app. Within several minutes, the software had cracked the scrambling code and matched the voice to that of Field Marshal Idris Ma’alum, Chad’s minister of defense. She then called Haya Calmi, her boss, sitting six floors above, to report this important piece of information.
The next morning, in the Office HQ in Tel Aviv, Arik Bar-Nathan received a flashing red alert on his screen, indicating the highest degree of urgency. He opened it and grinned in exuberance. Eddy Constantine, aka “Gucci,” had been snared. Arik considered what he should do with the information, and whether Eddy Constantine was a traitor or merely a corrupt bureaucrat putting his own agenda before his duties. On the other hand, the man was an illustrious, experienced spy. Would he really be talking so openly with his business partners on an unsecured line? Perhaps he was intentionally trying to entrap those monitoring him? Or had the Goddess of Hubris taken control of his professionalism, and he truly did not believe that anyone would dare eavesdrop on him?
He called Yoni Souderi, head of Tzomet Division, which managed field agents through its handlers.
“Yoni, do you have anyone in Chad?”
“I do, actually. We have an asset working for us as the head engineer of the Thyssenkrupp company in Chad, in cooperation with BND36, Germany’s federal intelligence service. We sent him there in order to monitor the supply of uranium to Arab countries, primarily Iran. Why do you ask?”
“I want you to provide me some information on Field Marshal Idris Ma’alum and his connections with the French security agency, the DGSE. But be discreet about it, since I suspect the French might have a mole,” Arik said.
“How urgent is this? I’m leaving for a round of meetings in Europe with my handlers at our European stations in a week, and…”
“No, no! This is urgent. I need an answer today or tomorrow,” Arik replied impatiently.
His next phone call was to Dr. Alex H
aimovitz, head of the Intelligence and Research Division. “Alex, I think the Iranians are buying yellowcakes from Chad. I’m assuming they’re doing it through a French shell corporation. I want you to check for me whether the corporation is listed under the name of Eddy Constantine, his wife or children. I need the information ASAP. Would you look into it?”
Alex called him back an hour later. “Yoni Souderi checked with our source, who claims that there are rumors that 200 tons of yellowcakes are being stashed in barrels, waiting to be collected at a secret warehouse near Ndjamena Hassan Djamous International Airport. The Iranians’ problem is how to get around Euratom, the European agency supervising the distribution of nuclear weapons. These days, Iran is apparently conducting secret negotiations with the United States for the elimination of the sanctions against them, and will agree to supervision in return. But immediately after the agreement is signed and the supervisors conduct their visit, it’s safe to assume they’ll smuggle all the yellowcakes to Iran, to a secret facility deep in the ground.”
“…And what’s going on in the meantime?” Arik was impatient.
“We’re tracking one Ali Akbar Salahi, supposedly an Iranian businessman living in Switzerland. He’s the Iranians’ straw man, carrying out their purchases for them. At the moment, a company listed under his name called Biscayne Trading Corporation recently purchased a small, unimpressive cargo ship flying the Liberian flag. They’re supposed to pick up the yellowcake cargo at Port Sudan, Chad’s neighbor. Our people have looked into it and found that he registered the ship with the help of a Swiss lawyer, using a mysterious Turkish middleman and a Norwegian shipping agent to obscure their identities and cover their tracks.”
“Is there a timeline on this thing?” Arik asked.
“Supposedly, the cargo should be in Port Sudan in a month, and by then, the ship will already be waiting for it at the port.”
“We have to do whatever it takes to prevent that cargo from getting there,” Arik concluded. “Start summarizing the reconnaissance intel for me as soon as possible, and update Jonathan Arieli, head of Operations, and Big Boss Galili. At the moment, my priority is to focus solely on Morocco.”
* * *
35 Yellowcake, or Urania, is concentrated uranium powder produced through the filtering of uranium ores, and used to produce nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons, among other purposes.
36 Germany’s federal intelligence service is the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND.
Chapter 62
Caesarea Operations Division, Mossad Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations HQ
Caesarea headquarters was located in the western section of Mossad HQ’s pentagon-shaped building. Arik had once headed the division, and its employees now greeted him with smiles and a hug or a clap on the back, in accordance with the local custom.
In the office of Jonathan Arieli, the current head of the division, nothing had changed other than the photos of his family, now displayed on the humble bookcase.
“Did you get the intel regarding the yellowcakes from Alex?” Arik asked.
“I did, and I’ve got a team working on it. How urgent is it?”
“We’ll focus on it after we’re done with the Moroccan operation. For now, let’s concentrate on the matter at hand. We have less than five days to organize this. Meaning that if you don’t count the day we arrive on the scene, we have less than four days to set up Operation Dialena37. I need a plan based on a small force or, even better, one that’s split up according to the different tasks, but with the ability to generate a large amount of firepower if necessary,” Arik said.
“Jonathan, I need you to coordinate it with the army. The political echelon on our end and the French one has greenlighted it. And I have an idea how to get there in an official capacity, without anyone having any idea they’re dealing with an Israeli force.”
“Give us twenty-four hours to get going on this,” Jonathan Arieli said, “and we’ll hand you a proposal for a smart attack plan.”
“You’ve got two hours,” Arik said, and returned to his executive office at the top of the hill. Claire had already prepared him a sandwich on dark rye with sliced vegetables, spicy Dijon mustard and pepperoni slices, along with a strong macchiato, just the way he liked it.
“Claire, you’re the best. Contact ‘Georgi’ in Azerbaijan for me,” Arik requested, “and ask Avi Oron, head of Tevel, to come here and be present during the conversation.”
“Good morning, my good friend,” answered Dato Zerekidze, office manager for the president of Azerbaijan. “Please accept my condolences over the death of your prime minister. We considered attending the funeral, but as I’m sure you understand, our president, Nursultan Babayev, has a problem. He’s chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and it wouldn’t really look good when officially, we don’t have diplomatic relations with you.”
Arik knew he had no choice but to play the patience game. In the culture of the Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union, some things were stated circuitously, and manners dictated listening to the entirety of the small talk comprised of an endless exchange of compliments. They considered the Israeli ‘no nonsense’ approach as an insult to the essential rules of basic manners.
“But our president will never forget the medical treatment he received in your country more than three years ago, treatment that saved his life.”
“I’m glad President Nursultan Babayev feels well,” Arik said patiently.
“I assume you are also pleased with our financial arrangement, and we thank you for the defense aid.” Georgi was alluding to the fact that the Azeri president was allowing Israel to lease a former Soviet airport in the southern part of the country for the use of the Israeli Air Force, as well as establishing a surveillance station for Unit 8200 at the northern border of Iran, in return for the precision-guided munitions they had received from Israel in response to the security threat posed by their neighbor Armenia.
“We’re very pleased. Please convey our admiration to President Babayev for his courage,” Arik concluded, preparing to transition to the matter at hand. However, this did not prove to be the case.
“Did I hear right, and you’re no longer working for the office of your prime minister?” Georgi teased him.
“You’re right,” Arik flattered him. “You’ve got good intelligence. I’m back at my previous place of employment, and I’ve been promoted. And you, Georgi, are you pleased with the little personal gift I sent you for Feast of the Transfiguration38?”
“Yes, but it’s not enough. As you know, I have many expenses,” grumbled Georgi, who had been a Mossad agent for many years now, an operative of Georgian origin who was always demanding more. “My mother really liked the golden cross in an olive wood box that you sent her from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I thank you on her behalf. Now, tell me, what can I do for you, Arik my friend?”
“I need you to lease me your largest cargo aircraft, bearing the insignia of Azerbaijan’s air force, for a week.”
“How big?”
“Big enough to carry a command and control vehicle and about fifty crew members and their equipment, for a distance of about 2,500 miles without landing, within a short time.”
“Are you going to conquer Beirut again? Actually, considering the distance, maybe you’re planning to come visit us?” Georgi asked, cracking himself up.
Arik did not respond, and Georgi understood that the matter was a serious one. “We have a few Ilyushin Il-76 airlifters. Does that work for you?”
“Sounds good to me. I need it here with me, ready for operation, within two days, with the best, most discreet flight crew. They’ll get their instructions and the route of the flight over here.”
Now, it was Georgi’s turn to stay silent, which, in the protocol of Central Asian negotiation, meant he was expecting his interlocutor to specify the full compe
nsation for his efforts. Arik did so, and promised to provide an extra bonus for the flight crew, as well.
“I need one more little thing. I need the plane to get here with fifty blank, ‘legit’ passports from you, including all the required stamps.”
“That complicates the whole matter…” Georgi said.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get a special bonus if you help me.”
The scent of money always made Georgi’s ears and heart more open to suggestions. “You’ll get what you requested,” he said.
The moment Arik hung up, the phone on his desk rang again. It was Claire, his administrative assistant.
“Alex is asking if he can come in for a few minutes for a personal conversation.”
“Tell him to come now, as long as it’s short,” Arik grumbled. His mind was already occupied with the Office’s latest operation, Dialena, in Morocco.
“What’s going on, buddy?” Arik asked when he saw the glum face of Dr. Alex Haimovitz, head of the Intelligence and Research Division, who was usually an optimistic, cheerful person.
“I want to talk to you outside. I want us to go out to the grove. I don’t know who’s listening in on us here,” he whispered.
“But it’s hot and humid out there,” Arik tried to find an excuse.
“I didn’t remember that you were made of sugar,” Alex said, signaling Arik to get up.
They left the building and strolled down the surrounding patrol route serving the security vehicles near the electric fence circumscribing the site.
“Why are you being so mysterious? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you getting a divorce?”
Alex burst out in bitter laughter. “Never ever. I’ve been happily married to Daria for thirty-seven years this week, touch wood.”
Arik increased his pace. It was his way of discharging stress. The heavyset Alex was having a hard time keeping up.