Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  “All right. What else?”

  “The material released on site did considerable damage, but that was only a fraction of a single container. I estimated the onsite contamination in Al Qutayfah to be roughly fifty terabecquerels—that’s a measure of radiation.”

  “I’m no expert,” Slaton said. “How much is that?”

  Nassoor took another long draw on his Marlboro. “You recall the nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl?”

  “Of course.”

  “Cesium-137 was the principal source of contamination in the aftermath. Eighty-five thousand terabecquerels were released. In Al Qutayfah, I estimated that roughly five thousand grams of cesium remained encased in the fifty-five canisters—that would equate to roughly sixteen thousand TBq.”

  “That’s still a lot.”

  “It’s a nightmare. Two decades after Chernobyl, cesium-137 still renders more than fifteen hundred square miles either uninhabitable or unfit for agriculture. Cesium chloride is unique in the threat it presents. It is a salt, and therefore easily soluble in water. In an explosion, as happened in Chernobyl, it can be aerosolized and carried on the wind. Once on the ground, it has a particular affinity for seeping into clay substrate.”

  “And so,” Slaton surmised, “if someone wanted to use this as a terror weapon?”

  “It would be devastating. Once introduced into the environment, cesium is very difficult to recapture. During a much smaller release in Goiânia, Brazil, hospitals were overwhelmed by over one hundred thousand panicked people when word of the contamination was made public. In wide areas topsoil had to be scraped away, and countless buildings and homes were demolished. It took years to clean up.”

  “What did you do when you realized what you’d found?” Slaton asked.

  Nassoor hesitated mightily, his nerves crossbow tight. “Some would say I should have told the authorities. But you have to remember, during that time, in Syria—God only knows where this material would have ended up. I also had other considerations. Earlier that year a man had come to my home. He said he had a business opportunity for me. At the time my position at the hospital was in risk of being cut, so I listened.”

  “Was it Grossman?” Slaton asked.

  Nassoor nodded. “Yes. He talked about the conflict in Syria, and the spill-over into Lebanon. He said there were a great many complications, and since I was one of the few specialists in the country who dealt with nuclear materials, there was a chance I would be approached at some point to give advice. People might come across things, have crazy ideas about what to do with them. Grossman said he had the backing of a country, a major power that wanted very much to recover any such materials. I assumed it was either the United States or Israel, but it made no difference to me. No scientist can function here without remaining apolitical. He made a convincing argument—if I came across any dangerous radiological material, it could be made safe, and in the course of this I would earn a significant ‘finder’s fee.’ Those were the words he used.”

  To Slaton it all made perfect sense. “So the cache of material from Al Qutayfah?”

  “It was sitting outside, completely unguarded. As long as the source material remained in canisters it was secure, and the release had so far been manageable. But sixteen thousand terabecquerels … something had to be done. The owner of the property and his wife were both dead, so I talked to their relatives. I said there was a small chance that chemicals in the canisters could be responsible for making everyone sick. I was careful to avoid any definite link, and never mentioned that nuclear material was involved. They begged me to take it away. So I did. I borrowed a truck from a friend and put the material in storage.”

  “In your parking garage?”

  Nassoor stared harshly, and Slaton recognized his mistake.

  “Yes,” Slaton said, “I saw where you kept it. But what happened then? Why did Grossman not take it as planned?”

  The Lebanese seemed on firmer footing, his voice increasingly charged with truth. “He sent an initial payment, ten percent.”

  This meshed with what Slaton had seen in the accounts—fifty thousand dollars paid on a commitment of five hundred thousand. A hefty amount for a midlevel man on a civil servant’s salary. “But the rest never came,” he surmised.

  “No,” said Nassoor. “I kept trying to contact Monsieur Grossman, through the autumn of that year, but he never responded.”

  “Because he died during the summer.”

  Nassoor now wore the look of surprise.

  “It was cancer, all very sudden,” Slaton explained.

  The Lebanese seemed suddenly unnerved. “What kind of cancer?” he asked.

  “I don’t think the primary site was ever identified. I only know it advanced very rapidly, nothing to be done.”

  The physicist put his hands over his face.

  “What?” Slaton asked.

  “It was my fault.”

  “What—the cancer? How could you be responsible for—”

  “It wasn’t cancer … I sent him a sample.”

  “A sample?”

  “Grossman was a cautious businessman. He sent the ten percent, but insisted that further payments were conditional on getting a sample of what he was securing.”

  “You’re telling me you sent him radioactive cesium … through the mail?”

  Nassoor nodded. “A very small amount, by overnight express. There was a chance it could have been discovered, but I am quite familiar with how our screening systems work here in Lebanon—in fact, I created them. The safeguards are rudimentary at best. There was no way to properly shield the material for transport. It would have weighed far too much and generated suspicion. I simply placed a sample of the powder in a tiny lead source container—we use them occasionally at the hospital—then inserted the container into one of the chocolates in a gift box. I sent Grossman an e-mail in advance explaining how to handle the package.”

  The two men stared at one another, both seeing what had happened. Grossman had gotten a box of chocolates, one containing radioactive cesium chloride, but the warning e-mail had gone lost in cyberspace. In his years of intelligence work Slaton had seen a good share of fiascos, but this broke new ground.

  Nassoor ended the silence. “The symptoms and organs that would be affected, a rapid systemic deterioration—it could easily have been mistaken for advanced-stage cancer of some unknown origin.”

  “Or perhaps Grossman realized what had happened, knew his fate was sealed, and told everyone it was cancer for the sake of convenience.”

  Nassoor nodded. “Tell me—Grossman worked for Israel, did he not?” When Slaton didn’t answer right away, Nassoor said, “As I told you earlier, I am not a political man. Israel keeps material like this in almost every hospital, and for a country with a hundred nuclear weapons … I know they could have no other intention than safekeeping.”

  “Only now it’s not safe,” Slaton argued. “But yes, Grossman was working with Israel. Tell me what happened when you realized your deal with him had fallen through.”

  Nassoor heaved a sigh. “What could I do? The material sat in my storage room like … like some kind of unexploded bomb. I contemplated getting rid of it, perhaps dropping it in the sea or burying it in the desert, but the risks seemed too high. Imagine being caught moving such a cache—I would be tortured and killed, probably my family as well. So I left it where it was, hoping for some escape. Then, two months ago, I received a phone call from a man who said he was aligned with Grossman. He told me he would come soon to collect the canisters and pay the balance of what I was owed.”

  “Two months ago, you say?”

  “Roughly, yes. He said he would call again to arrange payment in cash. He also asked where I kept the material.”

  “And you told him?”

  “No,” Nassoor said, “of course not. I was frightened, but I also wanted to finish this whole affair. I took my family away and arranged for an absence from work. We stayed with family and friends.”

/>   “That was a good move.”

  “Was it?” Nassoor heaved a sigh. “Another call came a few days ago. They were ready to make the exchange. I was to personally hand over the cesium in exchange for the money. Only I couldn’t do it … not like that. I simply told them where it was and said to leave the money in the closet. When I went home yesterday—”

  “The storage closet had been emptied,” Slaton finished.

  Nassoor nodded. “There was no money, of course. But I was so relieved that the canisters were gone—I didn’t even care.”

  Slaton remembered the transfer of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a Beirut bank. Money that was likely now in Ben-Meir’s pocket. “You never saw who took the cannisters?”

  “No, we only spoke by phone.” Nassoor crushed the remains of his cigarette into the dirt with a toe. “What do you think will happen?”

  “To the material? I think it will be weaponized. You’ve already said it can be dispersed as an aerosol in an explosion.”

  “Yes, it would be frightfully easy. Or as I said, cesium chloride is a highly soluble salt. It could be used to contaminate a water supply, or … or God knows what.”

  Nassoor was visibly shaken, realizing his complicity in some impending catastrophe. One that could cost hundreds, even thousands of lives. “I was so relieved when I saw the empty closet,” he said reflectively. “It was as if a great burden had been lifted. I brought my family home only this morning thinking the nightmare was over. Then I realized you were following me. I didn’t know if you were here to give me four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to arrest me, or … or worse. That is how it will always be. Tomorrow, the next day. Some of life’s missteps follow a man to the grave.”

  Slaton said nothing.

  With a half turn, Nassoor looked endearingly at his family. “My son, Ameer, he is a good boy. But he has many troubles. Very expensive troubles. In the West there is help for such things. But here…” He looked back at Slaton. “Would you have done differently?”

  Slaton thought about this for some time. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never faced a choice like that.”

  “What will you do with what I’ve told you?” Nassoor asked with the weight of a confession.

  Slaton was unable to give absolution. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to find that material. And the people who took it.”

  “Then I should tell you one more thing. Last night I spoke to one of my neighbors—she is a widow, a busybody who sees herself as the concierge of our building. She saw a black truck leave the garage yesterday—something rugged, for desert travel. Because it was not a resident’s vehicle—she knows them all by heart—she tried to see who was driving. It was a man. Not young, not old. He had a trimmed beard and wore glasses.”

  Slaton nodded, quietly satisfied that he had tracked Ben-Meir so accurately. “Anything else? A license plate number? Writing on the truck?”

  “Only one other thing,” Nassoor said. “She said the truck turned north, onto Armenia Boulevard. The driver would only do that if he was heading north, away from the city.”

  “That’s helpful,” Slaton said, wishing for more.

  “Do you think there is any chance the money will come?”

  “I think you know the answer.”

  Nassoor nodded, and after a long hesitation he asked, “What will become of us?” The inclusion of his family in the question lent it a tragic quality.

  Slaton remained silent. He stood to leave, but then paused and looked solemnly at the slight physicist. “I don’t know, Moses. Really I don’t. But I wish you the best of luck.”

  FIFTY

  The winch cable was a thing of beauty. Ghazi had cut two ten-foot sections, then interlaced the braided-steel cable through a series of holes that Tuncay had drilled along the rim of each door. In the end it looked akin to a pair of industrial-grade shoelaces drawing the bomb bay-like doors together. After adjusting the tension twice to manipulate the gap, everything looked ready.

  “All right,” Ghazi shouted. “Now!”

  With a loud clunk, the uplocks released, and he watched the big doors droop ever so slightly. He quickly moved in and measured the gap at three intervals. “Yes, that is perfect. Less than two centimeters.”

  Tuncay came down from the flight deck, and Ben-Meir was already there—the ever-surly Israeli had left his guard station in the hillside scrub for an early afternoon progress report. In the closed position the doors kept a tight seal, important for keeping leakage to a minimum, and when the release mechanism was activated they parted less than half an inch. Ghazi wondered if this would vary in flight under low pressure generated by the passing slipstream. Or would dynamic pressure perhaps push the doors upward? Without flight testing, there was no way to tell. There was also the question of how everything would perform under a load. He desperately wanted to fill the tank once with water for a wet test, but, according to Ben-Meir, the nearest spigot was four miles away.

  “Very impressive,” said Tuncay.

  “Yes, a wonder of modern engineering,” added Ben-Meir sarcastically. “But why are the agitators still not in place?”

  “The agitators are next,” Ghazi replied.

  “How long will it take to pump the water into the tank?”

  “I estimate two hours. Then another hour to put the cesium into solution. That must be left until the very end, and once the process is complete no one can go near the drop tank.”

  Even the ever-stoic Ben-Meir appeared unnerved, and Ghazi smiled inwardly. There were two kinds of people—the relative few who understood and respected radiation, and the majority who feared it irrationally. But then, that was what they were all counting on.

  “Do you have protective gear?” Ben-Meir asked.

  “Of course,” Ghazi replied, “and I have partially opened one of the canisters to validate my procedure.”

  “What about you?” Tuncay asked Ben-Meir. “Have you spotted any threats?”

  “Two boys and a goat walking to a nearby well,” he replied. “When they saw me coming with a gun they ran for the hills.”

  Smart boys, Ghazi thought. He said, “Everything will be ready by midnight.”

  “Good,” said Ben-Meir. “Eight more hours—then you and I will have done our part. I’ll have you at a club in Beirut before sunrise, with whiskey pouring down your throat like a river.”

  “You can have your whiskey,” Ghazi replied, irritated as ever by Ben-Meir’s goading. “Tomorrow morning I will be far from here. When the world becomes aware of our work, I want to be on the opposite side.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Ben-Meir, “we’ve made sure the blame will fall elsewhere.” He strode away purposefully, ready to resume his watch over the hills.

  Ghazi pulled one of the tank agitators from its crate—it looked like an anemic outboard motor with a flat-bladed propeller on one end. He sighed, and said to Tuncay, “When this began, I truly believed we could escape any consequences. None of us would have gotten involved otherwise. But now … I am not so sure.”

  “Why?” asked a cautious Tuncay.

  “You heard Ben-Meir this morning. Three of his men are dead. One in Malta and two in Switzerland. This assassin he talks about … this kidon … he is formidable.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Tuncay replied.

  “Why?”

  Tuncay cocked his head in a circumspect way. “We only have Ben-Meir’s word. Does it not strike you as convenient that the only member of our tactical team to survive is the token Israeli?”

  Ghazi set aside the agitator. “You think he is colluding with the kidon?”

  Tuncay looked cautiously to where Ben-Meir had disappeared into the scrub. “You are good at math. The smaller the divisor, the greater the profit for those who remain. I say the assassin has had help. Never forget—they are both Jews. You and I talked about this once, the first time we met. We wondered if there could be more than seven in the group.”

  “You think
he is the eighth? This kidon?”

  The pilot shrugged. “Who can say? But on that first meeting I heard Ben-Meir take a phone call. He was outside on a balcony, thinking he was alone.”

  “What was said?”

  “That is my point—I don’t know because he was speaking Hebrew.”

  “Hebrew? You are sure?”

  “I know enough to recognize it.”

  “He might have been talking to family, his banker, even a mistress.”

  “All I will say is this, my friend. When you drive south with Ben-Meir toward Beirut tonight, make sure you do not fall asleep. You might wake to find yourself in Tel Aviv—if you wake at all.”

  Ghazi shook his head. “No, you are wrong. If I know anything, it is that Israel has no part in this.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because the equipment you see here—the lead, the agitators, the special pumps—it all came from Iran.”

  A stunned Tuncay looked questioningly at the chemist.

  “I was there,” Ghazi said. “Nighttime deliveries in the marshes outside Basrah. I can’t say exactly who is involved, but this equipment definitely came from Iran.”

  Neither man said anything for a time, and Ghazi went back to unpacking the machinery. In the silence his thoughts swirled. An Iraqi chemist, pilots from Turkey and Syria, an Israeli who hires thugs from eastern Europe—he didn’t even know their nationality, may God have mercy on their souls. It was as disparate a group as could be imagined, which was probably why they’d so far gone undetected by Western intelligence agencies. But Iran? It had been in the back of his mind, ever since his first visit to the marshes of Haziweh. Could there be such a silent partner, one known only to Ben-Meir? He said in a half-whisper, “I don’t know who has dreamed up this madness. All I can tell you is that it will end soon.”

  “Yes,” Tuncay agreed, casting a wary eye toward the fifty-two canisters stacked nearby. “A few more hours. What could go wrong?”

  * * *