‘Naturally. So how did you find us? As if I couldn’t guess. Dad promised to say nothing.’
Leonora regarded her son steadily. ‘He didn’t want to tell me. Eventually I wormed everything out of him.’
‘How everything is everything?’
‘That you’ve got some madcap scheme to steal drawings of a fighter. I’m here to find out what’s going on. And if you’ve got anywhere, to see if you need help.’
Relations between Leonara and Raquel improved rapidly during the day. They were on good terms by nightfall when Leonora had seen everything and even helped behind the bar. It was closing time before she returned to her hotel.
While they were getting ready for bed, Raquel commented to Daniel: ‘Your mother’s nothing like a typical Jewish momma, is she?’
‘There’re very few typical Jewish mommas in Israel these days,’ Daniel admitted. ‘They’re all appearing in Neil Simon plays on Broadway.’
It was gone 1.00am when Leonora put through a call to the moshav from her hotel room. ‘Hallo, darling,’ she said when she heard Emil’s voice. ‘Don’t be cross with me but I think you might be a poor man after my shopping spree in Zurich.’
Emil chuckled. Leonora’s discussion of her shopping exploits was their prearranged identification. ‘Hallo, darling,’ he replied, avoiding using her name. ‘Did you find them?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And you met the manager?’
‘I did indeed. And his assistant. He’s well and sends his regards. Brace yourself, darling, but he’s already got some samples lined up ...’ She heard Emil groan. ‘He told me that he could supply the entire order. And from what I’ve seen of the production methods, I think his confidence is fully justified.’
There was a long silence from the other end.
‘The entire order?’ For once Emil sounded nonplussed.
‘That’s right,’ Leonora replied, secretly pleased. ‘You know, darling, I think he takes after his mother.’
‘I think I might have something to say to her about her son when I next see her.’
‘You can tell your contacts that method of shipment is going to be the big problem,’ Leonora continued blithely. ‘And finance of course. They’re under-capitalized.’
‘By how much?’
‘Five hundred.’ They had agreed to talk in thousands of dollars. Another long pause, then: ‘You had better come home.’
‘In the new year. That way I’ll miss the Christmas travel rush.’ ‘You have to come home now!’
‘Just a few days. Merry Christmas, poppet.’
‘Poppet!’
Leonora hung up. She would have willingly given up all her purchases in Zurich to see Emil’s expression.
17
BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 28 December 1968
Mike had had a lousy Christmas.
All he wanted to do was board the Saudi 707 and get home. So the 707 would be dry. What the hell - so long as it flew. Typical bloody Arab hypocrisy. They swarmed into European cities wearing tea towels and Hush Puppies, shoved their miserable little Allah- blessed, camel-buggering cocks between every pair of legs that could be opened with money, and got themselves as pissed as newts in a brewery.
After five years working in the Gulf States, Mike had had his fill of Islam. How any religion could be based on the teachings of a charlatan like Mohammed was beyond him. But then an empire had been founded briefly on the teachings of that other loony, Hitler. Curiously there was much in common between Al Koran and Mein Kampf. Hitler and Mohammed would’ve got on well together. Right now they were probably in hell making death miserable for everyone. Before the century was out there would be the most terrible war between Islam and the West that would end with a programme to deislamize the planet in exactly the same way that Germany had been denazified.
He joined the queue of passengers leaving the terminal building and filing on to the standee bus that would ferry them out to their aircraft. It was 9.15pm. A wind was gusting across the tarmac, drying puddles and rippling oil-film-iridescent coloured reflections of the terminal building and the aircraft.
Four days before, on Christmas Day, Mike had been sitting in an El Al Boeing, waiting to take off at Athens. Frank Borman’s message of peace and goodwill broadcast live from the Moon was being played over the cabin PA system when the jet had been attacked by Palestinian terrorists. Rifle shots had hammered through the fuselage, killing a passenger. The screaming confusion that followed nearly drowned the sound of the grenade exploding beneath the aircraft. It destroyed a main gear leg causing the jet to settle on the concrete like a wounded eagle. Miraculously the fuel didn’t ignite, enabling Mike and the other passengers to chute to safety. The event had effectively scuppered Mike’s plans to be with his family in London on Boxing Day.
He was about to board the bus when the heavy beat of helicopter rotors made him look up into the black sky. There were two of them. Large military machines. No lights. No markings. Turbines screaming. Dropping out of the night so fast that Mike was sure they were going to crash. The pulsating thunder of their thrashing rotors reverberating against his eardrums was of an intensity that blurred his vision. The two machines braked their mad plummet. Soldiers clutching automatic rifles were leaping from the open bays like a disciplined avenging tide of destruction. They fanned out into groups. Two of them ran towards Mike’s bus. These couldn’t be Palestinians - not with helicopters.
‘Israelis!’ a panic stricken voice wailed. ‘They’ll kill us all!’
Some of the passengers about to board the bus broke away and began scattering in all directions.
‘Halt! Halt! ’ an amplified voice boomed in Arabic from one of the soldiers. Mike saw the horn of a loudhailer slung from his waist. He swung it around like a weapon. ‘Halt or we shoot!’
The fleeing passengers halted and stood there dazed, bathed in blinding white light from searchlights mounted on the helicopters.
‘Return to the terminal building! All passengers must return to the terminal building! Do as we say and you will come to no harm!’ The blunt message was repeated by the soldier in English and French. It had the effect of calming the passengers. A child started crying and was quickly hushed. The passengers began disembarking from the bus. Arab men, who never normally showed any consideration towards their wives in public because their religion forbade it, put their arms around their womenfolk and helped them down from the bus. Mike joined the orderly group trooping obediently on the orders of a soldier towards the terminal building. He risked a quick glance around. Soldiers were pushing boarding steps up to the doors of a Middle Eastern DC-9 that had just started its pushback when the helicopters arrived. Another standee bus, this one loaded, described a circle inside a ring of soldiers and headed back towards the terminal.
There was chaos inside the final departure lounge. Women were weeping hysterically, clutching their terrified children. Mike got himself near a window. Under the watching eyes of Israeli soldiers, passengers were filing off a Lebanese 707 and forming a line of confused humanity shuffling uncertainly towards the terminal. The behaviour of the soldiers suggested that they had orders to avoid creating a panic; no threatening gestures with their rifles; no random shooting into the air. Thirty unreal minutes passed. By now the lounge was packed but much calmer. He guessed that the new arrivals had been disembarked from at least six aircraft.
‘Hands up!’
Mike turned. A small boy dressed in a Christmas-present vinyl spacesuit was pointing a fearsome-looking futuristic blaster at him. The device was all flashing lights (batteries not included) and businesslike plastic bobbles. ‘Phuttt! You’re sterilized,’ the boy declared.
‘That’ll save on packets of three,’ Mike commented. ‘Go and use it on the Arabs.’
The boy stared at Mike for a moment and slouched off in search of more compliant victims. He turned back to the window. A note of incongruity was struck with the take-off of a BOAC VC-10. Its lights strobed like pulsars into t
he night and disappeared. Another fifteen minutes passed. The only figures moving about outside by now were soldiers. A flurry of movement in the lounge followed by a sudden hush diverted Mike’s attention. Six Israeli soldiers had entered. They headed towards the cafeteria. The boy with the blaster sterilized them all in turn. Passengers waiting to be served quickly forgot their thirst and absorbed themselves into the crowd. Wide- eyed waitresses served the soldiers with drinks which they calmly paid for and sat down, grinning around them at the surrounding sea of startled expressions. Their presence even silenced crying babies.
The helicopter searchlights obligingly played on each of the parked Arab-owned aircraft in turn, providing light for the soldiers as they carried packages aboard. One of the soldiers hitched an airport tug to a darkened Air France Caravelle and hauled it clear of the Middle East Airlines DC-9. For a few minutes there was no activity. The soldiers emerged from the airliners and headed back towards their helicopters. The six Israelis in the cafeteria finished their drinks and left after a cheery wave at the crowded lounge. The 707 that Mike had been about to board seemed to glow from within. Suddenly the inferno inside the jet that had been time-switched into existence burst through the top of the fuselage and geysered a blinding magnesium fireball into the sky. Two more Arab-owned airliners copied the performance, followed closely by several more.
The Israeli helicopters rose above the holocaust like avenging creatures from the pit; the glare from the burning aircraft tracing arcs of sparkling light on their whirling rotors. The machines swung clear and climbed to a safe height. Secondary explosions followed as fuel tanks caught fire. The blasts shook the building and triggered a stampede for the windows. Mike was oblivious of the gasping, horror-struck crowd pressed around him to witness the climax of the brilliantly planned and executed operation. His mouth was dry with admiration. Jesus Christ - the Arabs deserved this. At Athens he had thought that he had been about to die. Thirteen Arab aircraft burning with the ferocity of dry guncotton. One hundred million dollars’ worth of destruction without a single shot being fired and no one being hurt. The hellish light played on the silvery flanks and tailplane of the Air France Caravelle that had been towed to safety.
Mike’s immediate worry was what his wife would say when he returned to London without the Persian rug Christmas present he had promised her. The illogical concern made him smile to himself.
Happy 1969, Israel, he thought. Bloody good luck to you.
18
JERUSALEM January 1969
De Gaulle moved swiftly after the attack on Beirut International Airport. He announced that the partial embargo on the supply of arms to Israel was now total. That the Israelis had taken great care to ensure no one was hurt in the raid, and that it was in retaliation for attacks on El Al aircraft in which innocent people had been killed, was of no consequence. He ordered that nothing could leave French shores that could be of the slightest use to the Israeli war machine. The ban covered everything from communications equipment to drugs and hospital supplies - even bandages. In particular he singled out the fast attack craft under construction at Cherbourg, although he agreed that the team of Israeli engineers could carry on working at the construction yard until the question of compensation had been settled. News of the loss of the boats led to Eshkol having to preside over a stormy Cabinet meeting. The loss of the Eliat meant that there was a gaping hole in Israel’s naval defences that only the missile-carrying boats being built at Cherbourg could fill. After the meeting, Eshkol called Emil to a private meeting in Conference Room 1.
‘You’re to get those boats out of Cherbourg just as soon as possible after they’re ready for sea,’ said Eshkol grimly. ‘I don’t care how you do it so long as you do it. I take it you’ve got a plan worked out?’
‘That’s what you ordered, sir,’ said Emil stiffly. ‘That’s what I’ve done.’ He was surprised that Eshkol had questioned whether or not his orders had been carried out, but seeing the Prime Minister close to brought home to him just how sick the old warhorse was. His eyes had lost their lustre and there was an alien greyness about his craggy face.
‘Good. Let me have the overall details tomorrow. Don’t bother to put them in writing - come and see me at seven-thirty tomorrow evening. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Emil briskly. ‘Any cost considerations at this stage?’
‘None,’ said Eshkol flatly. ‘As Roosevelt once said: the only way to win is if we abolish the dollar sign from our plans.’ He scowled. ‘At least it was something like that. And another thing - this report of yours on the Mirage project that your son has launched in Switzerland—’
‘If you want my resignation, sir, you shall have it as soon as I’ve initiated the plan to get the boats out.’
‘Don’t talk crap, Emil.’
Emil remained impassive. Such language from Levi Eshkol was virtually unheard of.
‘At least he’s got somewhere,’ Eshkol continued. ‘Give him whatever help he needs.’
‘In that case you’ll have to accept my resignation, sir,’ said Emil stiffly.
Eshkol’s answer was to crash his fist down on the table. ‘Forget your bloody pride, Emil! The boy has got somewhere! This time I’m ignoring your recommendations. You’re to give him all the support he needs - regularize the operation.’
‘My son has virtually committed us to paying someone unknown half a million dollars for the drawings,’ Emil pointed out.
‘Didn’t I just say that we’re taking the dollar sign off our conduct of this damned war?’ Eshkol shot back. ‘We’ll pay it, Emil. But we pay it when we’ve got all the drawings out. By God - half a million dollars is dirt cheap at the price if it gives us our own fighter, and it’ll be one hell of a smack in the eye for de Gaulle.’
Emil left the government building ten minutes later. It was the last he would see of Eshkol. Within six weeks the old politician would be dead.
19
WINTERTHUR
Avrim Harriman was one of Emil’s best professionals: a lean, hard- nosed forty-year-old veteran of virtually every major Mossad operation since 1955. He arrived at Winterthur posing as a travelling salesman for a Dutch photographic supplies company. His DAF van was stuffed to the roof ventilator with a huge variety of samples that included industrial cameras and enough thirty-five-millimetre film to shoot a remake of Gone With the Wind. His orders were straightforward: he was to check on the security of Daniel’s set up, and to provide him with all the expert help he needed and to assess what additional resources were required. His most difficult task was at the personal request of Emil and involved Leonora.
‘No,’ said Leonora firmly. ‘I’m happy at the Krone Hotel.’
‘But you have to return home, Mrs Kalen,’ said Avrim desperately.
‘Why?’
‘You’ve done your go-between bit. This is a dangerous operation.’ ‘Oh mercy’s sake,’ said Leonora, throwing up her hands in mock horror. ‘Whatever shall I do?’ She paused and skewered Avrim to the wall with an icy glare. ‘Listen, Mr Harriman, I was facing danger
- real danger - when the only risk you were taking was leaning too far out of your high chair. If my son’s in danger, then I’m staying right with him.’
Avrim shuddered inwardly. How was it that all these amateurs had got themselves mixed up in this operation? ‘Mrs Kalen - my orders are to send you home.’
‘Whose orders?’ Leonora demanded frostily.
‘My director.’
‘Yes - well let me tell you, Mr Harriman, it just so happens that your director, whoever he is, isn’t my boss. I’m a free citizen. If I choose to stay in Switzerland, then I shall stay for as long as I like. Now, as I’ve decided to stay, you might as well make use of me.’
Avrim considered his options, such as they were. Suicide was the easiest way out. Emil Kalen had warned him that his wife ‘could be difficult’. ‘And my son,’ Emil had added. ‘They’re as bad as each other.’
‘Well, Mr Harriman?’ Leono
ra demanded.
‘Have you got any money?’
‘Enough.’
‘In that case, Mrs Kalen, I will make use of you. Take yourself off to a garden centre and buy an incinerator. A large one, please. And don’t buy it in this town.’
During the following two weeks, Avrim concentrated on putting the operation on a sound professional footing. He started by reassuring Albert that he would receive payment in full when the operation was over. There was no question of him being paid anything on account. Numbered Swiss accounts and all that nonsense were all very well provided one wasn’t actually living in Switzerland. It needed only one nosey bank official to wonder where Albert’s money was coming from to blow the whistle on the whole business. Curiously, Albert did not seem unduly concerned about the money.
Like Daniel, Avrim had no real problems photographing the small drawings, but working full-time in the spare bedroom meant that he was able to catch up with and clear the backlog that Daniel had been piling up. Albert delivered on average ten parcels each week - sometimes more, sometimes less. By the end of January Avrim had assembled a complete set of parts lists which enabled him to tick off all the drawings as they were received. Daniel helped with the selection of those large drawings which could not be photographed and which were likely to be the most useful to send home first. Working with Avrim made Daniel realize that the success of the operation depended as much on efficient and methodical clerical procedures as on actually photographing the drawings.
The large drawings were piling up. They were a real problem. Avrim tried several techniques of photographing them but without success.
‘We’re going to have to ferry them out of the country as they are,’ he admitted to Daniel.
‘Which is exactly what I said right at the beginning,’ Daniel replied. ‘Have you thought how?’
‘We’re working on that,’ said Avrim enigmatically, eyeing the folded prints. ‘Next problem - the rolls of film.’
Mirage Page 30