by Nathan Ronen
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14Instrument Landing System
15“Go fuck your mother,” a common Russian curse.
Chapter 14
Operation Bakery, Chad
The minister of defense’s office manager looked toward his master, who signaled him with a nod of his head. He walked off with an embarrassed smile, exposing two rows of yellow teeth. The Africans realized that they had arrived with an insufficient force compared to the number of warriors and their fire power. There was no option for a dirty trick.
“Shall we start loading, your excellency, Mr. Minister of Defense?” Tal flattered him.
The minister of defense pointed at a convoy of trucks loaded with blue barrels, secured with metal wires, to heavy wooden pallets parked about a hundred yards away. The office manager gave the signal, and the trucks began to approach at a slow crawl.
Tal blurted out another brief command, and two giant forklifts emerged from the plane on the tracks, driven by technicians in green vests, who began to unload the barrels from the trucks.
An Iranian translator emerged from the minister of defense’s limousine, approaching Tal. He began to talk to him in Farsi. Tal smiled in embarrassment, nodded and immediately turned away. Major Ali Hassan Larijani, commander of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, instantly saved the day. He hugged the Iranian translator and called him “my brother.”
Soon, a warm conversation in Farsi ensued between the two, while the Mojahedin members surrounded him and isolated him from Tal Ronen and the Israeli Kidon members. The Mojahedin team members were happy to discover that the translator was a local businessman who had come to assist the minister of defense in case the guests did not speak French.
Tal pointed at two different barrels from two random pallets, which were taken off the pallets and placed to the side. Once again, he uttered a brief command, and a strange figure emerged from the belly of the plane, waddling forward, resembling an astronaut in a spacesuit. It was Dr. Moshe Kushnir, a scientist from the Weizmann Institute, wearing a hazmat suit. He used a long metal crowbar to open the latches on the lids of the barrels. A heavy smell of sulfur rose from the barrels. Dr. Kushnir produced a test kit from his bag, taking a random sample from the two barrels. The material in the barrels was not yellow, but a brownish black. He melted it using a liquid he mixed into it. The consequent mixture bubbled, emitting a repulsive smell. The result arrived several seconds later. The material was indeed yellowcake. The second barrel tested yielded an identical result.
“Don’t you trust me?” the field marshal grumbled.
“Of course we trust you,” Tal replied with a confident smile. “This is just another means of enhancing the friendship between our two people,” he added with a cynicism that did not escape Idris Ma’alum.
The field marshal muttered indistinctly, but his face expressed the affront he felt.
Tal Ronen issued an order to keep loading the plane. The pallets on which the blue barrels were placed were pushed by a plane technician onto rails with steel wheels and transported to the far ends of the aircraft floor. After two hours of work, the loading was complete. The plane’s technical crew tied and secured the pallets to the plane floor and walls.
The briefcase of cash was handed to the office manager. He rushed to count out its contents on the Mercedes’s hood. Several minutes later, he smiled, signaling to the minister of defense that all was well.
“So, tell me, no little bonus among friends?” the field marshal asked with a wink.
“Of course. Here you’ll find an official letter from our president, inviting you and your family to come to our beloved homeland and receive political asylum immediately,” Tal said without batting an eyelash, handing him an envelope and a document artfully forged by the Mossad’s Documentation Department, printed on the official stationary of the Bureau of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The document was written in Farsi. It was passed on to the translator, who interpreted it out loud for the benefit of Field Marshal Ma’alum, using overly formal and flowery French.
A smile of satisfaction spread across the field marshal’s lips. The last month of fighting the rebels, who had already come dangerously close to the presidential palace, had filled him with fear. He was seeking an option providing a rapid escape for him, his three wives, and his ten children. Iran wasn’t his preferred destination, but the French were taking their time responding to his request for political asylum, and now he thought he had an immediate alternative for escape. A small bird in the hand was always better than three big birds in the bush.
“I have another little personal surprise from me to you. I’ve got some good stuff I brought with me from our friends, the members of the ‘Party of God,’ better known as Hezbollah, from the Lebanon Valley.” Tal handed him a small cloth bag containing about seven pounds of hash in baggies, each bearing the symbol of the Cedar of Lebanon in green and red, along with the digits 5/5, signifying the highest quality. His office manager hastened to place the cloth bag in the trunk.
“Really, it’s always fun to do business with you!” the field marshal said.
Tal stood tall and saluted the field marshal, who responded with a French salute, his palm facing up.
The Ukrainian flight crew told Mossad representative Sasha Yarshanski, nicknamed ‘Trotsky,’ that the cargo was secured, and the plane was ready for takeoff. The jeeps were brought back onto the aircraft, along with the forklifts, and all were tied down. The monster’s head was lowered, and the pilots were already assuming their positions, checking the instruments and waiting for the passengers. Sasha transmitted to the small receiver in Tal’s ear that everything was ready for takeoff, asking for permission to start the engines. As a longtime Mossad operative, Tal knew that in Africa, haste was considered a demonic trait, and that customs, ceremonies and rites should be carried out slowly, in a manner respectful of the local spirit.
It was now time for the ceremony marking the closing of the deal. In accordance with the local custom, Tal and Larajni were offered hot, fragrant, dreadfully sweet coffee, cooked by the soldiers in a cezve: a small, long-handled pot placed over fire for preparing black Arabica coffee. The aromatic coffee was served in a finjan, a small ceramic coffee glass.
Folding chairs were produced from the Mercedes and a massive sun umbrella opened above them. As they sat leisurely, sipping the sweet, steaming coffee with a vocal slurping sound, Major Hassan Larijani extracted a pack of Bahman Iranian cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to the field marshal. However, Ma’alum preferred to pluck a fistful of green, fragrant khat16, offered to the guests by his office manager. Chewing the leaves of this plant was considered a social activity in the Sehal countries and in eastern Africa, accompanying most male gatherings.
“We call men chewing together tachzina,” Idris Ma’alum said, spitting aside a stream of green, stinking juice. He did not fail to notice that Tal did not touch the desirable green leaves. Thinking he understood Tal’s preference, he signaled his office manager, who quickly produced a baggie of hash and tore open the white cloth wrapper. He produced some wrapping paper from his pocket and rolled Tal a cigarette. Tal hesitated, but it would not be considered polite to refuse to smoke a cigarette in your host’s company. In this part of the world, smoking together was considered a gesture of male bonding, especially when the country’s minister of defense was rolling you a joint with his own two hands.
They smoked quietly, looking around at their leisure, while in the background, explosions and the sounds of machine-gun fire gradually approaching the airport sounded again and again. Tal felt himself growing dizzy, and therefore decided the time had come to get going.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Our shared French friend, Brigadier Eddy Constantine, sends his warm regards,” Tal said, hugging the senior Chadian official’s shoulders warmly.
“Right. He called me yesterday evening and told me you would be a
rriving this morning,” Ma’alum replied.
Tal smiled to himself enigmatically.
The field marshal couldn’t even have imagined that he had been talking to a ghost the previous day. Eddy Constantine was already buried in Paris’s military cemetery. As far as the field marshal knew, he had talked to his French partner on Constantine’s personal cell phone yesterday. For him, it was business as usual.
His late partner, Eddy Constantine, head of the DGSE’s Special Operations Division, was a former colonel in the Foreign Legion who had once been Idris Ma’alum’s commander. Eddy was an illustrious spy and a longtime operative who decided to ensure his financial future before retiring. He turned his personal acquaintance with government personnel in Africa into a tool for procuring a different sort of financial future. He conducted shady deals with international mining corporations in Africa, contacted the rebels who attacked the mining companies, and extorted protection money from the mining interests. He promised to supply weapons to corrupt governments and regimes in Francophone Africa, solely in order to extract bribes, fees, and bonuses from all sides. Within a short time, he was a rich man.
Eddy Constantine joined up with Idris Ma’alum, Chad’s minister of defense and a stockholder in the state-owned uranium mining company. Together, they discreetly sold the Iranians 200 tons of yellowcake concealed in a storehouse near the airport. The Iranians had agreed to let the two store the yellowcake cargo for them until after the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the International Atomic Energy Agency conducted their inspection of Iranian nuclear facilities, following the nuclear agreement signed between the United States and Iran.
After the agreement was signed, the United States encouraged the UN Security Council to acknowledge Iran’s right to a nuclear program, and, indeed, Iran reconfirmed its commitment not to weaponize its nuclear capabilities, while failing to reveal that it was hiding an immense amount of enriched uranium in Chad. It also did not reveal its intention to smuggle the yellowcake to its secret facilities in Iran after it received the okay from the inspectors and before the election of a new American president, who might be less tolerant toward Iran.
Idris never imagined that the conversation he had conducted yesterday with the person he thought was Eddy Constantine was in fact faked. In actuality, he had been talking to Arik Bar-Nathan. Arik had indeed been calling from Constantine’s phone in Paris but had talked to the field marshal through voice-altering software installed on the Chameleon, the Mossad’s operational phone, which was equipped with an app that accurately imitated Eddy Constantine’s voice. Even if Ma’alum had been suspicious, there was no one who would check up on the caller’s identity, for that same day, Paris had been celebrating the 14th of July, Bastille Day, in which all government offices were closed, and Constantine’s SIM card was in Arik’s hands in Paris.
A blast of mortar fire suddenly went off several hundred yards from the control tower, interrupting the goodbye ceremony and the ongoing male bonding. The nervous pilots immediately began the process of starting the engines. It was a clear sign that a hasty goodbye was now in order.
The warriors, headed by Tal Ronen and Hassan Larijani, bid a speedy farewell to the Chadian delegation, exchanging hugs, and hurried to board the plane.
Four and a half hours later, in a direct flight covering 1,842 miles, the Antonov AN-225 landed in Nevatim Military Airport, near the city of Arad, in the Israeli Negev Desert. Air Force Commander Yoav Gad, accompanied by the members of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and Ministry of Defense Security Authority, took responsibility for the remainder of the operation. Twelve massive trucks were already parked next to the runway. The base was hermetically sealed. Road 25 South, through Rotem Plain to Dimona, was blocked by police and military police cruisers, accompanied by hazmat vehicles from the fire department and emergency services. All 200 tons of yellowcake disappeared within the underground cellars of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona.
Due to the heavy cargo and the distance involved, the plane needed to be refueled. The refueling was carried out by a military tanker. The aircraft was loaded with food, drinks, and cartons full of seasonal fruit, and then headed north once more, empty of cargo, toward Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The only passengers were the flight crew and the twenty-five Mojahedin-e Khalq warriors.
Sasha Yarshanski, Mossad operative and deputy commander of the Mossad’s Azerbaijan bureau, joined the cockpit crew, sitting down in the flight engineer’s chair. He handed out stopka shot glasses to the aerial crew, filling them with frozen Beluga vodka and telling them dirty jokes in Ukrainian. The mood was elevated. The creaky monster’s pilots couldn’t wait to reach Baku, unload their passengers, and fly straight to their home port in Ukraine, on the coast of the Black Sea. The significant financial bonus awaiting them motivated them to keep their mouths shut. They had been passive partners to a brilliant operation whose essence they did not quite understand. The only thing they understood was that crossing the Israeli Mossad was a terrible idea. They knew that the Israeli Mossad did not issue any warnings; it went straight to killing.
***
In the cafeteria of Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, Arik Bar-Nathan was sitting with a worried expression. Eva was still connected to a ventilator, her face now assuming a spectrum of purple and black coloring due to the hematomas.
Arik drank a short espresso and looked at the screen of the large TV tuned to the French news channel. His Chameleon operative phone buzzed in his pocket.
The incoming text message was from Tal Ronen, who, as far as he knew, was currently located nearly 3,000 miles away from France.
Arik looked at the screen and a broad grin of pride and satisfaction spread across his worried face as he read the words: “Operation Bakery is complete. All cakes are in place. We’re home.”
He remembered a decree of Jewish law mentioned in the Mishna: “He who steals from a thief is exempt from punishment.” The verdict exempted anyone who stole from a thief from having to pay double the cost of the theft, unlike a regular thief, who had to return the stolen object and also pay a fine totaling double its worth. The only diplomatic question they would have to raise with the prime minister was whether they needed to update the Americans.
Arik believed it would be better to recommend that the political echelon adopt the DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) policy, characterizing the relationship between the Mossad and its American equivalent, the CIA.
Another covert operation had ended successfully. But despite the pride and satisfaction of completing it, it would remain an unrevealed event, about which they could never tell anyone other than a handful of authorized confidants. Arik Bar-Nathan had long known that Israel’s policy of vagueness regarding sensitive security issues was a wise one, as it left the enemy a “space of deniability.” Therefore, impacted countries were not obligated to retaliate for painful damage sustained, for which Israel had never claimed responsibility. Arik would always choose a Vipassana meditation workshop over any boastful conversation regarding the Mossad’s successes.
Along with the feeling of pride in his people, some concern also snuck into Arik Bar-Nathan’s heart. He was afraid that the Israeli politicians would not hold back and would see the operation as an opportunity for public disclosure, in order to take advantage of it to enhance their image as security hardliners in preparation for their election campaigns. If this was the case, the Iranians would be unable to maintain their silence and would be obliged to retaliate for the echoing slap their dignity had sustained.
However, presently in Paris, Arik had more significant personal concerns to deal with that anchored him far from his professional home, the Israeli Mossad Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.
The bonds of blessed routine that had tied him for years to his demanding job at the Office, a place of employment that rewarded his total devotion with satisfacti
on and a fistful of adrenaline, had recently come abruptly undone. The confounding reality in which he lived, creating a conflict between the demands of the job and familial demands, had created a need within him to prioritize his loyalties, forcing him into a situation in which he was now obliged to choose a single priority, which certainly wasn’t easy for him. With all due respect to the major success in the top-secret operation he had initiated, he was still facing a whole other kind of war: a war over the health of his beloved wife, Eva.
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16Khat is a plant with chewable leaves that produce a low-to-medium psychoactive effect. Some feel joy and cheer while chewing it, while others experience a slight euphoric feeling, excitement, heightened alertness, improved concentration, self-confidence, friendliness, satisfaction, increased inspiration and loquaciousness.
Chapter 15
A Prayer for Healing
Arik entered the lobby of the Intensive Care Unit. He donned latex gloves, sterile cloth galoshes over his shoes, a disposable medical cap, and a mask that covered his face. He then punched in the code. The door into the ICU opened silently before him.
A medley of high-frequency electronic beeping assaulted him, rising and falling incessantly with troubling discordance. The instant the door closed behind him, Arik felt he had entered a different world, disconnected from the bustling world outside. In here, time had stopped. No sunrise, no sunset, no day or night, only a large white space, illuminated by neon lights that were on twenty-four hours a day. The instruments were what sustained life here and were the only elements conveying signs of life from Eva. A day-to-day war of a different kind was being waged here: a war over the patients’ lives.