Direct Action

by John Weisman

  “Precisely.” Tom noted the look of confusion on Aricha’s face. “But, Amos, too often, when we analyze a problem, we begin the process by formulating our conclusions. I think that’s what happened in Shin Bet.”

  “You say we start with conclusions? I think not.” Aricha folded his arms on his chest. “Shabak started with explosions.”

  It was a defensive position. Tom extended his legs, shifting his own body into a nonthreatening attitude. He softened his tone. “I’m not talking about you personally. It’s a problem that’s endemic to the whole intelligence community—you, us, everybody.” He paused as he caught the confused look on the Israeli’s face. “A natural mistake, if you will. In this case, Amos, the conclusion Shin Bet drew—and it’s a perfectly logical one to reach—is that two of the three incidents are directly related to explosives and evidence of a mega-attack on Israel in the near future.” He looked at Aricha. “Am I correct in the way I characterized the situation?”

  The Shin Bet man’s head bobbed up and down. “On the money.”

  “What I’m saying is that if that’s how you see things, then all of your analysis—all the evidence—tends to support that predetermined conclusion—this is all about megaterror directed at Israel.”

  Aricha frowned at Reuven. “Again he thinks our evidence is wrong.”

  “No.” Tom began again. “Your evidence is accurate. But I think by focusing on the literal substance of the problem—the evidence, the arguments pro and con, the conclusions—we’re missing the point. We all missed the point. That’s what I mean by wheelbarrows, Amos. The security guard reached a logical conclusion: since it was a diamond mine, the guy had to be stealing diamonds. That was a logical assumption, right?”

  “From a diamond mine you don’t steal rubies. Yes—logical.”

  “But incorrect. Bad analysis. If the guard had approached the problem with an open mind—if he hadn’t boxed himself in by not considering any other conclusion than ‘diamonds are being stolen,’ he might have included the possibility that something else was being taken. Like wheelbarrows.”

  Tom watched as Aricha stroked his chin. Warily, the Israeli said, “Go on.”

  “We’ve been focusing on explosives for use in attacks against Israel. I think these people solved the explosives problem a long time ago. I think Ben Said has a formula that worked—until now. Why now? Because now we can all start devising countermeasures.” He paused, gratified to see Amos nodding in agreement. “I think what Ben Said’s been working on since August…is detonators.” Tom took another swallow of coffee. “Jerusalem—the German Arab. He blew himself up arming the detonator, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Malik. What was he doing? He was attaching the detonator to the bomb, or arming it, or something. Because the idea was for him to go to the restroom and detonate the device remotely. He was going to be a lucky survivor. Dianne was going to take the fall.”

  Aricha cut one of the figs in half, speared a piece, and put it in his mouth. “So how did the device go off prematurely, kiddo?”

  “It could have been a faulty detonator,” Tom said. “It also could have been the embassy—set off by one of the variable-frequency oscillators mounted on the embassy building.”

  “Mike’s is two hundred and five meters from the northwest corner of the embassy,” Reuven said. “I paced it off yesterday.”

  Aricha frowned. “Wouldn’t they know that? These people do target assessments, Reuven.”

  “It’s common knowledge the ambassador has forbidden VFOs on embassy vehicles, Amos,” Tom continued. “The embassy’s devices have been camouflaged to look like TV satellite dishes. No different than hundreds of others.”

  “Go on.”

  “But I decided the explosion wasn’t set off by the embassy devices. It was Malik’s carelessness. Or, the detonator was faulty. Possibly the remote—maybe there’s something awry in the circuitry. I don’t know—I’m not an explosives expert. Which brought me to the third incident: Gaza. It was an anomaly.”

  Aricha frowned. “Anomaly?”

  “There was something about Gaza that didn’t fit. I can accept that our man was killed because of the information about Imad Mugniyah. I think that’s pretty clear. But it doesn’t explain Ben Said’s presence.”

  Amos cocked his head in Tom’s direction. “A meeting with Arafat perhaps.”

  “Unlikely. Ben Said likes his anonymity. His pattern all along has been to work through middlemen. No: I believe he was here because he was fine-tuning his detonators. Two of them had failed. He came here so he could make adjustments—do the last-minute work before he puts his latest generation of IEDs into play—against the West, not against Israel.”

  Now it was Reuven who shook his head. “He came to Israel to perfect detonators? Tom, that’s preposterous.”

  “No, it’s not.” Tom was insistent. “Shahram Shahristani said as much to me last week and it totally went out of my head until now. Shahram claimed Ben Said was using Israel as his weapons lab—his test kitchen. I thought he’d gone off the deep end. But he was on the money. Spot on.”

  Amos Aricha looked skeptically at Tom. “Used Israel to perfect his explosive devices.”

  “And his detonators.”

  “Whatever. So, what’s the reason this man, who knows that if we laid hands on him he’d never get out of prison, and who knows that we have, shall I say, an extremely effective internal security apparatus—and yet still he chooses to bless us with his presence? Why is that, kiddo, since you seem to be so knowledgeable in this area?”

  Tom paid no attention to Aricha’s sarcasm. “Ben Said was testing his weapons here in Israel because he could.”

  Aricha scowled at Reuven Ayalon. “The kid’s crazy,” he said in Hebrew. Then he looked at Tom. “Listen, kiddo—”

  “Amos,” Tom interrupted, “let me posit that Ben Said is working on detonators, not explosives. Okay, so he wants to make tests—not in a lab, but under real-life conditions. Two detonators have exploded prematurely. So he wants to do some reverse engineering. See which of the steps caused the problems. He needs volunteers to assemble bombs. He won’t tell them that it could be dangerous work, that they could get killed. He doesn’t say, ‘If the detonators don’t blow up in your face, then you get to use the bombs.’ He gives them instructions and turns them loose. If the detonators fail, too bad—one or two people are killed and it’s back to the drawing board.”

  As Tom caught his breath he saw Amos Aricha give Reuven a “this guy is nuts” look. Undeterred, Tom pressed on. “Okay—what better place than Israel, or the West Bank, or Gaza, where there are hundreds of willing guinea pigs to build bombs to use against Israeli targets. Plus this: if he did his real-life testing in Paris, or London, or Madrid, or Washington, or anywhere else,” Tom said, “it would make waves.”

  Aricha interrupted him. “What about Iraq or Afghanistan?”

  “I thought about that,” Tom said. “In Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation is too uncontrolled, too chaotic. In Israel, you have a unique societal situation. The country is basically stable, but there’s also an environment in which terror organizations exist—Hamas, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah. Plus, there’s the media factor. If Ben Said tried this in Europe there’d be headlines. Governments would ratchet up the threat levels. An explosion in Israel—even if it kills someone—is a one-day story.” He looked at the Shin Bet man. “Sorry, Amos, but it’s true.”

  “Living with terrorism is an everyday fact of life here.” The Israeli nodded in mournful agreement. “We even came up with a word for it—ha’matzav—the situation.”

  “So—can you check to see whether there were any bombings between the last week of September and the October fifteenth explosion in Gaza?”

  “I certainly don’t recall any.” Aricha extracted a cell phone from his shirt pocket, punched a number into it, machine-gunned ten seconds of rapid Hebrew. He tucked the cell phone between his shoulder and neck, cut himself so
me Morbier, sliced a thin piece of sausage, and set it atop the cheese. But before he could eat, he set it on the table, grabbed the phone, and listened intently for about half a minute, pausing only to grunt in monosyllables from time to time.

  Finally, the Shin Bet man turned off the phone. He ate the cheese and sausage and washed it down with a swallow of coffee. “It was a quiet holiday season—we stopped about sixteen, seventeen individuals before they made it across the Green Line.”

  “What were they carrying?”

  “The usual,” Amos said. “Explosive vests filled with nails and bolts and nuts and screws dipped in rat poison.”

  “And the detonation devices?”

  “Batteries and a push button.”

  “No remotes? No cell phones attached just in case the perps had second thoughts?”

  “No.”

  “Can you ask anyone about remote detonations, Amos?”

  Aricha gave Tom a jaundiced look. But he retrieved the cell phone and made another call.

  6:55 P.M. Amos Aricha laid the cell phone on the table. “Just as I remembered, gentlemen,” he said. “No homicide bombings during the holidays.” He looked at Tom. “And not a single vest attached to a cell phone—or other electronic device.”

  Tom shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Ben Said’s presence. I don’t believe he’d put himself at risk for more than two weeks just to watch the Gaza operation.”

  “Wheelbarrows, Tom.” Reuven Ayalon slapped the tabletop.

  “Huh?”

  “Wheelbarrows. Amos, what about explosions in the Territories? In Gaza and the Territories?”

  “I told you: none.”

  Hadn’t McGee written something about Gaza explosions during the holidays in one of his memos? “Explosions, Amos,” Tom interrupted. “We’re not talking about attacks, just explosions. Unexplained explosions. Accidents.”

  Amos Aricha got Tom’s meaning. “Fine-tuning?”

  “Exactly.”

  The Shin Bet man’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll check.”

  They had the answer sixteen minutes later. There had been four incidents during the High Holidays. All had occurred in a remote section of southwestern Gaza that was under the control of the Bedouin Semal-Duma clan. Amos blinked and cupped his hand over the phone. “Shabak was inactive in that part of the Strip because things had been quiet.” Moreover, Amos reported, the Palestinian Authority, which routinely claimed such explosions were Israeli assassinations—targeted killings—had raised no protests, even though a total of eleven individuals had been killed—a significant number of Palestinian fatalities.

  “Press coverage?”

  “Minimal. The incidents were reported in the news roundup of what happens in the Territories.”

  Tom gave Aricha an “I told you so” look. “Anything else, Amos?”

  “By the time the Army arrived, the locations had been hosed down, swept, totally cleaned out, and the bodies removed.”

  Tom asked, “By Fatah?”

  Aricha shook his head. “No. Mohammad Dahlan’s people were nowhere to be seen.” Then he realized what he’d just said. The Shin Bet man smacked his own forehead hard. “Tembel,” 18 he said. “I’m a whatchamacallit, a dumbkin.”

  Tom turned to Reuven Ayalon. “Fine-tuning. Exactly. Amos’s information supports what Shahram told me.” He looked at his colleague. “I think we have to move.”

  “Paris.” Reuven nodded in agreement.

  “Paris,” Tom echoed. Yes. Paris was the key. Paris was where Shahram had photographed Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said together. Paris was the base of Ben Said’s support network coordinator, Yahia Hamzi.

  Tom glanced at his watch. It was just after noon in Washington. Plenty of time for tony Tony to assemble a crash team and get them on the evening flight to Paris. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “You’ll have to excuse me, Amos—I’ve got to make a few calls.”

  “To whom?” Reuven’s expression displayed uncharacteristic concern. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain later.” The plan had come to Tom in an epiphany. It was complicated; it was risky, but it might work. And he wasn’t about to say anything in front of Amos Aricha. “I’ll tell you later. I’m going to call Washington. I want them to send us a crash team.”

  The Israeli shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Why? For what I’m contemplating, we’ll need lots of backup. Eight, ten people at least. There’s communications, transport, security, counter-surveillance—”

  “Tom, grab hold from yourself.” The Israeli looked at his old comrade in arms almost apologetically. “That’s the Americans for you, Amos.”

  “Always calling in the whatchamacallit—the cavalry.” Amos laughed.

  Tom scowled. Reuven didn’t even know what he was thinking and already he was criticizing. “What’s your problem?”

  “Less is sometimes more,” Reuven said. “I’m a big believer in thinking small.”

  “We’re going to need support,” Tom said adamantly.

  “Don’t fly off the handle yet. We have our locals. There are half a dozen freelancers under contract we can call on. I still have a few friends left in the City of Light—people who know how to get things done without making ripples. Whatever it is you want to do, we can handle everything right out of the 4627 office. Believe me, boychik, two of us can make more progress—and do it a lot more unobtrusively—than a bunch of outsiders.”

  “But—”

  Amos Aricha broke in. “When you were in Paris, how many case officers at your station?”

  “About three dozen.”

  “Mossad had two—Reuven and another who’s now dead, God rest his soul. And they did pretty damn good. I think better than you most of the time.”

  Tom’s voice displayed impatience. “What’s your point, Amos?”

  “That Reuven’s right: sometimes less is more, my boy.”

  “We go to Paris,” Reuven said. “We work on whatever it is you want to do. Without attracting a lot of attention. You can always add people, Tom. It’s harder to take them out of the picture once they’re on-site. The bigger the crowd, the more attention you attract.”

  When Tom thought about it, Reuven was making sense. “But we tell Washington what we’re doing, right? Keep Tony Wyman and Charlie Hoskinson informed.”

  “Of course.” Reuven smiled. “Every step of the way. Despite how my friend here dresses, we’re not all cowboys in Israel.”

  VI

  ST. DENIS

  17

  3 NOVEMBER 2003

  8:02 A . M .

  38 RUE FOUQUET, CLICHY

  TOM’S BREATHING WAS SHALLOW as he pressed the minuterie button on the ground floor then sprinted up the first flight of worn marble stairs. The safe house—safe apartment, really—was a troisième étage (fourth floor) walk-up located about a hundred yards north of the grid-locked six-lane périphérique highway that encircled greater Paris. The 4627 Company had six safe houses in Paris—one more than CIA. But then, 4627 probably had more use for them than Langley did these days. This one was located in a run-down, anonymous working-class district favored by foreign workers and transients.

  The five-story building on a one-way street had sagging, weather-beaten shutters and a crumbly stone facade. It was a relic from the mid-1920s, and had it been located inside the beltway, even in the less-than-chic nineteenth or twentieth arrondissements, it would have been worth a pretty penny. But in Clichy, one of Paris’s more unfashionable communes périphériques, it was just another dump, similar to scores of identical buildings sandwiched in the rough triangle between two decrepit cemeteries and the perpetually bustling beltway.

  Tom had left rue Raynouard just before six to run an SDR, or surveillance detection route. It was a set, timed course that would allow him to spot any adversaries. The first leg had taken him as far east as the Île St. Louis, the second into the warren of narrow
streets off the rue des Halles, and the third as far north as Pigalle. Once he was confident no one was following—had he sensed he was being tracked, he would have broken off the route, returned to rue Raynouard, and rescheduled his rendezvous—he dropped into the metro at Abbesses, changed trains three times, and finally emerged at Porte de Clichy shortly after 7:30.

  There, he tucked his leather briefcase under his arm, braved the fast-moving rush-hour traffic on boulevard Berthier, traversed the pocked concrete of the pedestrian bridge atop périphérique, then stopped to linger over a café crème, a petit pain, and a grease-spattered copy of Le Matin at a no-name café on the corner of the rue 8 Mai 1945 that was so run-down it looked like an exterior set from the old Jean Servais movie Rififi. The coffee was weak and the bread was full of air but the interlude allowed Tom to countersurveil both people and vehicles for a quarter hour without appearing obvious.

  Confident that he was clean, he dropped three euros’ worth of small change into the saucer, tore the check in two, and strolled up the boulevard Victor Hugo, walking against the traffic. Just past the Cimetière Parisien des Batignolles, he bolted across the four clogged lanes and jogged toward the oncoming cars in rue Fouquet. At the northern end of the street, he dodged the spray from a street-washing truck, crossed the wet pavement, and punched a four-number combination into the keypad next to the graffiti-sprayed entry door of number 38.

  Forty-six-twenty-seven had safe houses in better neighborhoods, but Reuven had insisted on using this particular one because he wanted to fly well below DST’s radar. The French were damn good—and highly proprietary about foreigners running snatch operations on native French soil. In fact, DST usually became downright inhospitable when folks using aliases and false documents entered the country for nefarious purposes, as Reuven had just done.

  Tom had flown on his own passport, of course—he’d arrived on the twenty-seventh and taken a cab directly from de Gaulle to rue Raynouard. He dropped his suitcase and went straight to the office. There, he made half a dozen phone calls on the secure office line. Starting the next morning, he’d resumed a normal schedule. He telephoned MJ once or twice a day, listened to her complain about Mrs. ST. JOHN, and pleaded with her to hold on and not do anything precipitous, just for a few more weeks. He trolled his sources. He checked with his contact at DST, who claimed there’d been no progress on Shahram Shahristani’s murder. He visited Les Gourmets des Ternes and commiserated with Monsieur Marie and Jeff about the Iranian. He made certain to cause no ripples.