Triple (1991)

by Ken Follett

  He looked at his watch. It was five-twenty-five. - Suza!s diversion should begin any moment, if she could do it. He began to walk along the deck. There was some light from the ship's lamps, but one of the crew would have to look twice at him before being sure he was not one of them. He took his knife out of the sheath at his belt: he did not want to use his gun unless he had to, for the noise would start a hue and cry. As he drew level with the superstructure a door opened, throwing a wedge of yellow light on the rain-spattered deck. He dodged around the comer, flattening himself against the foeard bulkhead. He heard two voices speaking Russian. The door slammed, and the voices receded as the men walked aft in the rain. In the lee of the superstructure he crossed to the port side and continued toward the stem. He stopped at the corner and, looking cautiously around it, saw the two men cross the afterdeck and speak to a third man in the stem. He was tempted to take all three out with a burst from his submachine gun-three men was probably one fifth of the opposition-but decided not to: it was too early, Suza!s diversion had not started and he had no idea where she was. The two men came back along the starboard deck and went inside. Dickstein walked up to the remaining man in the stem, who seemed to be on guard. The man spoke to him in Russian. Dickstein grunted something unintelligible, the man replied with a question, then Dickstein was close enough and be jumped forward and cut the man's throat. He threw the body overboard and retraced his steps. Two dead, and still they did not know he was on board. He looked at his watch. The luminous hands showed five~thirty. It was time to go inside. He opened a door and saw an empty gangway and a companionway leading up, presumably to the bridge. He climbed the ladder. Loud voices came from the bridge. As he emerged through the companionhead he saw three men-the captain, the first officer and the second sublieutenant, he guessed. The first officer was shouting into the voice-pipe. A strange noise was coming back. As Dickstein brought his gun level, the captain pulled a lever and an alarm began to sound all over the ship. Dickstein pulled the trigger. The loud chatter of the gun was partly smothered by the wailing Maxon of the fire alarm. The three men were killed where they stood. Dickstein hurried back down the ladder. The alarm must mean that Suza's diversion had started. Now all he had to do was stay alive until he found her. The companionway from the bridge met the deck at a junction of two gangways-a lateral one, which Dickstein had used, and another running the length of the superstructure. In response to the alarm, doors were opening and men emerging all down both gangways. None of them seemed to be armed: this was a fire alarm, not a call to battle stations. Dickstein decided to run a bluff, and shoot only if it failed. He proceeded briskly along the central gangway, pushing his way through the milling men, shouting, "Get out of the way" in German. They stared at him, not knowing who he was or what he was doing, except that he seemed to be in authority and there was a fire. One or two spoke to him. He ignored them. There was a rasping order from somewhere, and the men began to move purposefully. Dickstein reached the end of the gangway and was about to go down the ladder when the officer who had given the order came into sight and pointed at him, shouting a question. Dickstein dropped down. On the lower deck things were better organized. The men were running in one direction, toward the stem, and a group of three hands under the supervision of an officer was breaking out fire-fighting gear. There, in a place where the gangway widened for access to hoses, Dickstein saw something which made him temporarily unhinged, and brought a red mist of hatred to his eyes. Sm was on the floor, her back to the bulkhead. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, her trousers torn. He could see her scorched and blackened skin through the tatters. He heard Rostov's voice, shouting at her over the sound of the alarm: "What did you tell Dickstein?" Dickstein jumped from the ladder onto the deck. One of the hands moved in front of him. Dickstein knocked him to the deck with an elbow blow to the face, and jumped on Rostov. Even in his rage, he realized that he could not use the gun in this confined space while Rostov was so close to Suza. Besides, he wanted to kill the man with his hands.

  He grabbed Rostov's shoulder and spun him around. Rostov saw his face. "You!" Dickstein hit him in the stomach first, a pile-driving blow that buckled him at the waist and made him gasp for air. As his head came down Dickstein brought a knee up fast and hard, snapping Rostov's chin up and breaking his jaw; then, continuing the motion, he put all his strength.behind a kick into the throat that smashed Rostov's neck and drove him backward into the bulkhead. Before Rostov had completed his fall Dickstein turned quickly around, went down on one knee to bring his machine gun off his shoulder, and with Suza behind him and to one side opened fire on three hands who appeared in the gangway. He turned again, picking Suza up in a fireman's lift, trying not to touch her charred flesh. He had a moment to think, now. Clearly the fire was in the stern, the direction in which all the men had been running. If he went forward now he was less likely to be seen. He ran the length of the gangway, then carried her up the ladder. He could tell by the feel of her body on his shoulder -that she was still conscious. He came off the top of the ladder to the main deck level, found a door and stepped out. There was some confusion out on deck. A man ran past him, heading for the stem; another ran off in the opposite direction. Somebody was in the prow. Down in the stem a man lay on the deck with two others bending over him; presumably he had been injured in the fire. Dickstein ran forward to the ladder that he had used to board. He eased. his gtm on to his shoulder, shifted Suza a little on the other shoulder, and stepped over the rail. Looking about the deck as he started to go down, he knew that they had seen him. It was one thing tp see a strange face on board ship, wonder who he was, and delay asking questions until later because there was a fire alarm: but it was quite another to see someone leaving the ship with a body over his shoulder. He was not quite halfway down the ladder when they began to shoot at him. A bullet pinged off the hull beside his head. He looked Up to see three men leaning over the rail, two of them with pistols. Holding on to the ladder with his left hand, he put his right hand to his gun, pointed up and fired. His aim was hopeless but the men pulled back. And he lost his balance. As the prow of the ship pitched up, he swayed to the left, dropped his gun into the sea and grabbed hold of the ladder with his right hand. His right foot slipped off the rung-and then, to his horror, Suza began to slip from his left shoulder. "Hold on to me," he yelled at her no longer sure whether she was conscious or not. He felt her hands clutch at his sweater, but she continued to slip away, and now her unbalanced weight was pulling him even more to the left. "Not" he yelled. She slipped off his shoulder and went plunging into the sea. I)ickstein turned, saw the launch, and jumped, landing with a jarning shock in the well of the boat He called her name into, the black sea all around him, swinging from one side of the boat.to the other, his desperation increasing with every second she failed to surface. And then he heard, over the noise of the wind, a scream. Turning toward the sound he saw her head just above the surface, between the side of the boat and the bull of the Karla. She was out of his reach. She screamed again. The launch was tied to the Karla by the rope, most of which was piled on the deck of the boat. Dickstein cut the rope with his knife, letting go of the end that was tied to the Karta's ladder and taowing the other end toward Suza. As she reached for the rope the sea rose again and engulfed her. Up on the deck of the Karla they started shooting over the rail again. He ignored the gunfire. Dickstein's eyes swept the sea. With the ship and the boat pitching and rolling in different directions the chances of a hit were relatively slim. After a few seconds that seemed hours, Suza surfaced again. Dickstein threw her the rope. This time she was able to grab it. Swiftly he pulled it, bringing her closer and closer until he was able to lean over the. gunwale of the launch perilously and take hold of her wrists. He had her now, and he would never let her go. He pulled her into the well of the launch. Up above a machine gun opened fire. Dickstein threw the launch Into gear then fell on top of Suza, covering her body with his own. The launch moved away from the Karla, undirected, riding the wa
ves like a lost surfboard. The shooting stopped. Dickstein looked back. The Karla was out of sight. Gently he turned Suza over, fearing for her life. Her eyes were closed. He took the wheel of the launch, looked at the compass, and set an approximate course. He turned on the boalVs radio and called the Coparelli. Waiting for them to come in, he lifted Suza toward him and cradled her in his arms. A muffled thud came across the water like a distant explosion: the magnetic mine. Ile Coparelli replied. Dickstein said, "The Karla is on fire. Turn back and pick me up. Have the sick bay ready for the girl--shes badly burned." He waited for their acknowledgment, then switched off and stared at Suza!s expressionless face. "Don!t die," he said. "Please don!t die." She opened her eyes and looked up at him. She opened her mouth, struggling to speak. He bent his head to her. She said, "Is it really you?" "It's me," he said. The comers of her mouth lifted in a faint smile.

  There was the sound of a tremendous explosion. The fire had reached the fuel tanks of the Karla. The sky was lit up for several moments by a sheet of flame, the air was filled with a roaring noise, and the rain stopped. The noise and the light died, and so did the Karla. "Shes gone down," Dickstein said to Suza. He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, she was unconscious again, but she was still smiling.

  *

  Epilogue

  Nathaniel Dickstein resigned from the Mossad, and his name passed into legend. He married Suza and took her back to the kibbutz, where they tended grapes by day and made love half the night. In his spare time he organized a political campaign to have the laws changed so that his children could be classified Jewish; or, better still, to abolish classification. They did not have children for a while. 'Mey were prepared to wait: Suza was young, and he was in no hurry. Her bums never healed completely. Sometimes, in bed, she would say, "My legs are horrible," and he would kiss her knees and tell her, "neyre beautiful, they saved my life." When the opening of the Yom Kippur War took the Israeli armed forces by surprise, Pierre Borg was blamed for the lack of advance intelligence, and he resigned. The truth was more complicated. Ile fault lay with a Russian intelligence officer called David Rostov-an elderly-looking man who had to wear a neck brace every moment of his life. He had gone to Cairo and, beginning with the interrogation and death of an Israeli agent called Towfik early in 1968, he had investigated all the events of that year and concluded that Kawash was a double agent. Instead of having Kawash tried and hanged for espionage, Rostov had told the Egyptians how to feed him misinformation, which Kawash, in all innocence, duty passed on to Pierre Borg. Ile result was that Nat Dickstein came out of retirement to take over Pierre Borg's job for the duration of the war. On Monday, October 8, 1973, he attended a crisis meeting of the Cabinet. After three days of war the Israelis were in deep trouble, The Egyptians bad crossed the Suez Canal and pushed the Israelis back into Sinai with heavy casualties. On the other front, the Golan Heights, the Syrians were pushing forward, again with heavy losses to the Israeli side. The proposal before the Cabinet was to drop atom bombs on Cairo and Damascus. Not even the most hawkish ministers actually relished the idea; but the situation was desperate and the Americans were dragging their heels over the arms airlift which might save the day. The meeting was coming around to accepting the idea of using nuclear weapons when Nat Dickstein made his only contribution to the discussion: "Of course, we could tell the Americans that we plan to drop these bombs--on Wednesday, say-unless they start the airlift immediately . And that is exactly what they did.

  'The airlift turned the tide of the war, and later a similar crisis meeting took place in Cairo. Once again, nobody was in favor of nuclear war in the Middle East; once again, the politicians gathered around the table began to persuade one another that therr, was no alternative; and once again, the proposal was stopped by an unexpected contribution. This time it was the military that stepped in. Knowing of the proposal that would be before the assembled presidents, they had run checks on their nuclear strike force in readiness for a positive decision; and they had found that all the plutonimn in the bombs had been taken out and replaced with iron filings. It was assumed that the Russians had done this, as they had mysteriously rendered unworkable the nuclear reactor in Qattara, before being expelled from Egypt in 1972. That night, one of the presidents talked to his wife for five minutes before falling asleep in his chair. "It!s an over," he told her. "Israel has won-permanently. They have the bomb, and we do not, and that single fact will determine the course of history in our region for the rest of the century." 'Vhat about the Palestine refugees?" his wife said. The president shrugged and began to light his last pipe of the day. "I remember reading a story in the London Times ... this must be five years ago, I suppose. It said that the Free Wales Army had put a bomb in the police station in Cardiff." "Wales?" said his wife. "Where is Wales?" "It is a part of England, more or less." "I remember," she said. "They have coal mines and choirs!, "Mars right. Have you any-idea how long ago the AngloSaxons conquered the Welsh?" "'None at all. "Nor have I, but it must be more than a thousand years ago, because the Norman French conquered the Anglo-Saxons nine hundred years ago. You see? A thousand years, and they are still bombing police stationsl The Palestinians will be like the Welsh ... They can bomb Israel for a thousand years, but they will always be the losers." His wife looked up at him. All these years they had been together, and still he was capable of surprising her. She.had thought she would never hear words like this from him. "I will tell you something else," he went on. 'Mere will have to be peace. We cannot possibly win, now, so we will have to make peace. Not now; perhaps not for five or ten years. But the time will come, and then I will have to go to Jenisalem and say, 'No more war.' I may even get some credit for it, when the dust settles. It is not how I planned to go down in history, but it's not such a bad way, for all that. 'Me man who brought peace to the Middle East.' What would you say to that?" His wife got up from her chair and came across to hold his bands. There were tears in her eyes. "I would give thanks to God,- she said.

  Franz Albrecht Pedler died in 1974. He died content. ITh life had seen some ups and downs-he had, after all, lived through the most ignominious period in the history of his nation--but he had survived and ended his days happily. He had guessed what had happened to the uranium. One day early in 1969 his company had received a check for two million dollars, signed by A. Papagopolous, with a statement from Savile Shipping which read: 'To lost cargo." The next day a representative of the Israeli Army had called, bringing the payment for the first shipment of cleaning materials. As he left, the army man had said, "on the matter of your lost cargo, we would be happy if you were not to pursue any further Inquiries!' Pedler began to understand then. "But what if Euratom asks me questionsT' 'Tell them the truth," the man said. "Me cargo was lost, and when you tried to discover what had ha~pened to it, you found that Savile Shipping had gone out of business." "Have they?" They have." And that was what Pedler told Euratom. They sent an investigator to see him, and he repeated his story, which was completely true if not truly complete. He said to the investigator, "I suppose there will be publicity about all this soon." "I doubt it," the investigator told him. "It reflects badly on UL I don't suppose we'll broadcast the story unless we get more information." They did not get more information, of course; at least, not in Pedlees lifetime.