by Greg Dinallo
“No,” Nidal said after Moncrieff had revealed the three-way proposal. The terrorist had listened without comment, his expression noncommital throughout. “We don’t want another territory,” he said calmly. “We want our homeland. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I’m aware of that,” Moncrieff replied, undaunted. “As I explained, this would be a significant step in that direction. I strongly urge you to consider it.”
“I’ll say this once,” Nidal responded evenly. “The currency you seek will be used to ransom Palestine, not to lease Libyan desert.”
“Unoccupied Libyan desert,” Moncrieff corrected, with the cool detachment of a diplomat brokering a treaty. “A viable alternative to living in police states; an end to violence and the slaughter of your young.”
“And the destruction of our homes, and confiscation of property, and demeaning identity cards,” Katifa interjected, bitterly rattling off the list of injustices.
“You overlooked curfews and unlawful detention,” Moncrieff said gently. “My point is, your people are tired of fighting tanks with stones. It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t flock to a sanctuary where they could lick their wounds and heal.”
“And become soft and complacent,” Nidal said in a derisive tone. “It’s the inhumanity that drives them.”
“Yes, in lieu of leadership. As I understand it, there are those who believe reuniting Palestinians with their leaders is vital to your cause.”
“Ah,” Nidal said knowingly, his face a haunting mask in the moonlight. “Arafat . . . you’ve spoken with him, haven’t you? Of course you have.”
Moncrieff nodded matter-of-factly, unshaken by the challenge. “He views the proposal favorably.”
“I’m not surprised. We’ve often differed on these matters.”
“With good reason, I’m sure. But the fact remains that despite your having the currency in hand, neither the Americans nor the Israelis have budged.”
“Yes, they’re still chasing Hezbollah, aren’t they?” he said with a sly smile. “They’ll do more than budge when they find out who really has the currency.”
“I disagree,” Moncrieff said, maintaining his cool demeanor. “It’s becoming clear that a strategy based on lawlessness will ultimately fail.”
“We think of it as courage,” Nidal snapped angrily. “We’ve fought for forty years and we’ll fight for forty more if need be; without the interference of outsiders. And if seven hostages aren’t sufficient . . .” He paused, letting the words trail off ominously.
“We’ll acquire more,” Hasan said intensely, unable to resist finishing his mentor’s sentence.
“Abu Nidal is right,” Katifa chimed in. Despite thinking the proposal of some value, despite her feelings for Moncrieff, her almost lifelong allegiance to Nidal gave undue weight to his argument. “The Americans and Libyans wouldn’t accept inequities. Why should we?”
“For your people. ‘A nation’s leader should never put his pride before them,’” Moncrieff answered, paraphrasing. “Mohammed.” Then, shifting his look to Nidal, he said, “The offer stands. Though I’m not sure for how long. Let me know if you reconsider.”
The terrorist glared at him with cold hatred, then broke it off and took Katifa aside. “Binti el-amin,” he began, addressing her as My loyal daughter to emphasize his disappointment, “why did you bring this shetan to me?”
“Because I don’t presume to speak for Abu Nidal.”
His eyes softened in approval, then drifted to his watch. “The Saudi is wrong,” he declared in conclusion. “Pragmatism is a poor substitute for passion.”
Katifa nodded dutifully and handed him the package of pharmaceuticals.
Nidal went up the gangway into the casino, continuing through the main gaming room to the amphitheater where he entered a backstage room that served as a communications center. A radio operator sat at a console. It was precisely 9:00 P.M. when the radio crackled.
“This is the Exchequer,” the caller said, using the code name Nidal had given the Palestinian in charge of the hostages. “This is the Exchequer. Do you read?”
“Yes, go ahead,” Nidal replied, taking the phone.
“Your currency is secure,” the Exchequer reported as he did daily at this hour, reciting the cipher that meant all was well with the hostages.
“Very well,” Nidal said, clearly pleased. He had no questions or instructions to impart and abruptly ended the transmission to minimize the chance of intercept.
AFTER LEAVING CASINO DU LIBAN, Katifa and Moncrieff drove back to the city in stony silence.
Far from beaten, the Saudi was keenly aware of Katifa’s divided loyalties and decided to let her live with the ambivalence for a while before provoking her.
“Arafat was right,” he finally said as they entered her apartment and settled on opposite ends of a sofa in the living room. “Nidal is addicted to the violence. The day this is settled, he becomes nothing; a terrorist without a cause.”
“He just wants what is best for Palestinians.”
“No. That’s what your father wanted,” Moncrieff replied slyly, baiting her.
“My father?” she asked indignantly. She had often spoken of him when they were students and resented the inference. “What does he have to do with this?”
“If he had lived, Katifa,” Moncrieff replied, starting to reel her in, “if he had been captured by the Israelis, what would have happened?”
“They assassinated him,” she snapped bitterly.
“Humor me. What if they hadn’t?”
“He was respected by both sides. If anyone had a chance to resolve the differences between—”
“Right. He would have compromised,” Moncrieff interrupted; then he locked his eyes onto hers and pointedly added, “That’s why Nidal executed him.”
“What?” Katifa leapt from the sofa and hovered over him angrily. “How can you make such an accusation?”
“I have it on good authority.”
“Arafat?” she ventured cautiously.
“He was there, was he not?”
“So was I,” she retorted, lighting a cigarette.
“He doesn’t remember it quite the way you do,” Moncrieff said gently. “He told me the story just yesterday; he said that your father and Nidal were holding off the Israelis while Arafat loaded the settlers into a helicopter. As soon as they were aboard, Arafat began firing at the Israelis, pinning them down so that your father and Nidal could run to the helicopter. Nidal managed to get aboard; then the Israelis began firing at it. The pilot panicked and lifted off, leaving your father behind. When Nidal saw he was about to be captured, he went to the door with his machine gun and shot him.”
Katifa gasped, unwilling to accept it, the words of angry protest sticking in her throat.
“When Arafat demanded an explanation,” Moncrieff continued, “Nidal said he was concerned your father would break under torture and reveal the names of other Palestinian activists. Of course, he told you and your brother that the Israelis had killed him.”
Katifa was stunned. She turned away like a wounded animal, staring out a window into the darkness. “That is a vicious lie,” she finally protested in a dry rasp. “Abu Nidal took us in and raised us as his own children. He was everything to us.”
“That’s why you never suspected the truth. If Abu Nidal is so dedicated to your father’s principles, why did he turn me down?”
Katifa winced, knowing the Saudi was right. “There would be no currency without Abu Nidal,” she replied defensively.
“Granted; but he has served his purpose. It’s your fight now; you’re the one who must spend it. Where are they, Katifa?” he said forcefully. “Where are the hostages?”
She looked at him for a long moment, the smoke from her cigarette filling the space between them as she decided. “They’re not in Beirut.”
Moncrieff was stunned. CIA had long believed the hostages were being held somewhere in the southern slums; and he expected Katifa knew the e
xact location.
“Then where?” he demanded angrily.
Katifa shrugged. “They were brought to Casino du Liban and taken away on Abu Nidal’s boat.” She paused, deciding. “It was given to him by the Syrians.”
“Is that where they are? Syria?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve heard Abu Nidal say the shetans could turn the entire Middle East over stone by stone and never find them. No,” she went on, anticipating Moncrieff s next question. “It wasn’t a figure of speech. Nidal wasn’t bragging; he stated it as a simple fact.”
“The hostages are under Syrian control,” he prompted.
“Yes. It was part of the agreement for Assad’s support,” Katifa answered, referring to Syria’s radical leader.
“Assad can authorize their release?”
“Not without clearing it with Abu Nidal first. There’s a Palestinian in charge of the hostages who reports to him daily. He’d know if Assad went around him.”
Moncrieff nodded pensively. The more he learned about the hostages’ whereabouts the more of a mystery it became. He was thinking he should call Larkin and inform him of the impasse when his eyes came to life with an idea.
“Then Nidal must authorize it.”
“Impossible.”
“Is that what your father would have said?” the Saudi challenged, knowingly.
7
THE STORM that had been drenching all of Europe was blowing across the runways in sheets when the military 707 landed at Templehoff, the United States Air Force base in West Berlin.
The time was 5:26 A.M. when Colonel Larkin came down the boarding ramp and cleared passport control.
The CIA station chief in the American consulate on Clayallee had made several arrangements at Larkin’s request, ground transportation among them. The Audi sedan was waiting in slot T-44 in the terminal parking lot. The major found the keys under the floor mat, opened the trunk, and removed a rumpled Adidas gym bag. It contained $10,000.
He drove north into the city through the rain that slowed traffic on the Mariendorfer Damm to a crawl.
About an hour and a half later he parked along the S-bahn tracks near the Tiergarten and walked through the flea market to No. 42 Potsdamer, an unkempt row house just west of the city’s infamous wall. He rang the buzzer for the street-level flat. Shortly, the security peephole flickered, then the dead bolt clanked.
The woman who opened the door had a tired face that Larkin had once thought attractive; she balanced a baby on her hip. The pocket of her apron sagged with the weight of a pistol.
“Richard?” she said with a warm smile. “I was surprised when I got the message you were coming. Wie geht’s?”
“Hanging in there,” Larkin replied as she bolted the door and led the way inside. His head filled with the aroma of gun oil and blued-steel that came from crates stacked against the walls of the apartment. He set the gym bag on a table and pushed it toward her.
“If you would,” she said, handing Larkin the baby. “He cries if I put him down.”
She unzipped the bag, removed the money, and put it in a drawer. Then she made a phone call, whispering just a few words in German before hanging up.
“He’s coming soon,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.” She went into the kitchen, leaving Larkin holding the child, its tiny fist clenched tightly around a bullet.
LATER THAT MORNING, after meeting with Larkin, a middle-aged man with sad eyes and a wispy mustache crossed the border into East Berlin and spent some time working with a colleague in the cable room of the Libyan People’s Bureau on Unter Den Linden.
That evening, the woman went to Kufurstendamm, the hub of West Berlin’s notorious nightlife. As always, it was crowded with tourists, prostitutes, and off-duty military personnel. She stood near the entrance to La Belle Club, her foot tapping to the beat of the rock music that boomed from within. It was 12:21 A.M. when she spotted a young, sensitive-looking American soldier hesitating to enter the disco.
“Go ahead. It’s a great club. You’ll love it,” she said. “My husband’s in the band.”
“It’s that obvious I’m new, huh?” the soldier replied with an embarrassed smile.
“No, you just looked a little uncertain.”
“Thanks,” he said, turning toward the entrance.
“Oh, could you do me a favor?” she asked, holding out a rumpled gym bag. “My husband sweats so much when he plays. He forgot his towels and change of clothes.”
“You want me to give that to him?”
“If you would,” she replied, gesturing to the baby sleeping peacefully in a canvas carrier slung across her chest. “The music will wake him if I—”
“Sure, no problem,” the congenial fellow agreed, taking the bag. “Heavy,” he said, somewhat surprised.
“The water. A big Thermos of it,” she explained shrewdly. “They take a break about one. Oh, how silly of me,” she said as if she had forgotten. “My husband is the drummer.”
“The drummer,” the soldier repeated with a smile, backing his way into the entrance.
The woman waved and hurried off.
The shy soldier went to a table, ordered a beer, and set the gym bag on the floor behind his chair.
Inside it, amid a few soiled towels, a cheap wind-up alarm clock lay ticking. The plastic lens that covered the face had been removed and a thin, pliable wire affixed with airplane glue to each of the hands. The insulation had been stripped from the tips, exposing about a quarter-inch of copper; one of these prongs had been bent slightly downward to ensure contact would be made when they coincided. As beer flowed and dancers gyrated, the minute hand slowly brought the tips of the two wires closer and closer together.
It was exactly 1:04 A.M. when the young soldier waved the waitress over again.
“Think this set’s ever going to end?”
“I sure hope so,” she said, leaning over so he could hear her above the music.
His eyes darted shyly to the swell of her breasts, the smooth skin almost brushing his cheek. He was hoping fervently it would and was fantasizing how it might feel when the clock hands moved to within a few ticks of coinciding, and an impatient purple-green spark jumped across the gap between the contacts.
The 9-volt charge surged through the wire and tripped the detonator, which was plugged into a 15-pound chunk of C-4 plastique called Semtex. It was part of a 20-ton shipment of the deadly explosive that one of the renegade CIA agents had procured for Qaddafi. RDX, the main ingredient of the off-white putty, was unmatched in destructive potential save for nuclear weapons.
It erupted in a thunderous explosion.
The music and blinding strobes masked the sound and flash of the blast, but the torn bodies hurtling through the air like dolls left no doubt as to what had happened. Within seconds, La Belle Club was a roaring inferno filled with screaming people.
Scores were injured.
Two American soldiers were killed.
8
THE NEXT MORNING, an entourage of civilian and military advisers assembled at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
The president had spent the weekend relaxing. He was dressed casually when he joined them in the library, where, despite the crackle of hand-split logs, a damp chill prevailed.
“Intercepted a few hours ago,” Lancaster said, handing him a red folder marked KEYHOLE TOP-SECRET TALENT, the code name given intelligence collected by KH-11 spy satellites. It contained a cable that read:
WE HAVE SOMETHING PLANNED THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.
“When am I going to get one of these that will make me happy?” the president asked, settling in his chair. “I thought we had castiron coverage on these people?”
“We do, sir,” Kiley replied. “Repositioning that KH-11 really paid off.”
“Not for those two soldiers, it didn’t!” the president snapped in a rare display of acrimony.
“My apol
ogies, sir,” Kiley said, stung by the reply. “I meant we can prove that cable was sent from the People’s Bureau in East Berlin to Qaddafi in Tripoli.”
The president’s posture softened, his head tilting slightly, re-considering his remarks.
“As was this one,” Lancaster said, exhaling a haughty cloud of smoke as he handed him a second cable. Like the others present, the NSA wasn’t aware of CIA’s involvement in the bombing and believed the cables to be genuine.
AT 1:05 AM AN EVENT OCCURRED.
YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULT.
“That’s the exact time the disco was bombed, sir,” Kiley said incriminatingly.
“Do we have any proof that Qaddafi gave the order?” the president asked.
“I’d say it’s implicit, sir,” Kiley replied.
“In other words, Bill, we don’t have irrefutable evidence that Qaddafi was behind this.”
Kiley’s lips tightened in a thin red line. “No, sir.”
“Be advised,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “the La Belle Club is a hangout for black servicemen. Libya has never targeted minorities. Pick off a cable going in the other direction—an order from Qaddafi saying, ‘Bomb a disco tonight’—then come talk to me.”
“Dammit,” Kiley snapped. “Why do you people always need a Pearl Harbor as an excuse to go to work?”
“Mr. President,” the secretary of state began in his ponderous cadence, “we’ve tried diplomacy, public condemnation, a show of military strength. None have worked. It’s time for military action.”
“We have an interservice strike force on alert,” the defense secretary chimed in. “It can be launched on short notice to drop a few hot ones right in Qaddafi’s lap.”
“Not from any of my aircraft,” the CJC retorted. “Not without a smoking gun.”
“You already have one,” Kiley said emotionally. “Hundreds of them. Two hundred and fifty-three marines! A navy diver murdered in cold blood! A man in a wheelchair thrown into the sea! Innocent travelers gunned down in airports! Blown out of planes! College professors, journalists, one of my own people kidnapped and tortured by these animals! Two soldiers blown to bits in a nightclub! How many more? The wrong guns are doing all the smoking! And I’m damned sick of it!”