Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  Emily’s informants advised that the Black September terrorists who were now on the termination list were divided into hard and soft targets. “Hard” targets, she knew, were valuable individuals who might be using security teams, disguises and varied routines to avoid capture and who probably were well armed. They invariably operated at an extreme level of covert “tradecraft”, were adept at detecting surveillance alternating their schedules to avoid a sting operation. “Soft” targets conversely were individuals who did not hide their allegiances to a specific cause; in this case they lived a comparatively open life style. Their activities were generally predictable and usually didn’t include security measures as they always meant to be easily accessible.

  The assassination teams were dispersed throughout Europe, each member targeting familiar regions in order to develop “sources” of reliable information to support the mission. Emily discovered through the Heidelberg terrorist grapevine that one such “source” was a “fast mover’ in the Baader-Meinhof spin-off, “The Red Army Faktion”, and already had been identified by British Agents in Heidelberg as a human intelligence potential to be developed for eventual turnover to their Frankfurt station. There was little doubt the Red Army Faktion was continually looking for start-up funds and as Emily verified, public opinion was now generally running against them. When the group was founded in the late sixties it was acceptable to rob banks and use stolen money to finance student political causes, but it was now deemed inappropriate in the “New Germany” to murder civilians in order to achieve a political goal.

  Emily had been shocked to hear that one person of particular interest to British and potentially Israeli intelligence as an asset was the girl she had known as Verena Stoltz. Her background was pieced together by Emily based on the same information gathering techniques she had used for several years, local students with left wing leanings and friends sympathetic to the former Baader-Meinhof gang. Emily now knew that Stoltz was a former ballet student who had been abandoned pregnant by an American serviceman and further traumatized by a botched second trimester abortion performed by one of the African medical students. The student, whose name Emily had not learned was well known in the Heidelberg leftist community for this particular skill. He had panicked when things went awry and fled, callously leaving Verena to die in her apartment along with her malformed fetus. The girl was found in time and upon recovering, had assumed a tough as nails, hate everyone persona. In her vulnerability, she had been easy prey for RAF recruitment in student “lokales”. Even Shallal had gleaned reliable information on the girl through his own sources, but it was her pro-terrorist attitude in the wake of the 72 Olympic Massacre that ultimately brought her to the attention of Mossad.

  Everything Emily had learned about this new “fast mover” in the Red Army Faktion ranks matched her first hand knowledge of Verena Stoltz perfectly, including the girl’s reluctance to use a code name. How like Verena to be so blatant, Emily thought, recalling the girl from her days working at Ulla’s boutique. Emily had recently been observing Verena as a viable information source inside the Baader-Meinhoff/Red Army Faktion and had still maintained a certain amount of sympathy for her until the young woman had been seen standing a round of drinks for those students who generally occupied the bar stools, “In honor,” Verena shouted quite loudly, “of the deaths of the Israeli Athletic Team at the hands of Black September!” Emily was so sickened by the toast that it took little imagination to believe that the rumors surrounding the girl were probably true and she was in all likelihood offering terrorist services in any capacity to anyone who would hire her. But now Verena Stoltz was the only key member of the Red Army Faktion under regular scrutiny by British intelligence and she was wholly Emily’s lead. The British spy network made the decision to refer Verena to Mossad as a potential “source”.

  British Intelligence had determined that it was vitally important that Stoltz be monitored on all assignments she undertook for the Red Army Faktion. Knowing that she was both lonely and impressionable, it was agreed that she should be introduced in the future to a “Middle Easterner” posing as an acquaintance of Emily’s. The attractive young man, who was in fact Jewish and not Anglo-Arab had strong emotional and family ties not only to Israel but to Zionism. As was sometimes the case after the ‘67 War, he had been “selected” by Israeli Intelligence. Mossad, as Emily remembered did not use military intelligence. It is exclusively a civilian service. While Mossad’s key staff all serve in the Israeli Defense Force, the organization relies on recruiters at various levels to seek out loyal Zionists worldwide, to commit them to their cause. In this case, the young man in question was recruited at Leicester University and “sponsored” financially for several years by what was known as “The Collections Department”, whose job it was to develop and oversee the espionage operations and to direct case officers at stations worldwide and the agents they control. On receiving his degree, the young man, at the suggestion of his Mossad case officer applied to the British Civil Service for employment. With his excellent language skills and his love for Middle Eastern culture he was deemed not only employable but also a considerable potential asset to British Intelligence.

  Now as an Israeli informant working within unsuspecting British intelligence, with a cover that would withstand close scrutiny from not only MI6 but insiders of the Red Army Faction, his “legend “ was that of British and Arab ancestry and very sympathetic to the Palestine cause. He indicated that he was looking for an “in” with the left-wingers, with a view towards financing attention-seeking activity including robbery and murder for hire. That introduction provided the basis for his total acceptance in the German underground and eventually every Palestinian terrorist network in Europe. Once committed to the cause, he became the closest confidante and sole responsibility of Verena Stoltz. The young man, as an operative was given the identity of Nadir Shah and he reported directly to Wilfred de Crecy.

  Shortly after Shah achieved acceptance, the Israeli assassination team’s coordination committee, who were still engaged in their search and destroy mission, met in their Paris Headquarters. They had isolated a terrorist operating in Rome as their first “soft” target. His name was Wael Zwaiter. The team traveled separately to Italy and met in Ostia, a picturesque town in the heart of the countryside some twenty miles from the nation’s capital, a town whose existence dated back to the second century A.D. Being a major tourist attraction with unspoiled views of the Forum, the Roman Baths and the Amphitheater, it was easy for them to blend in with the tourists. They arranged individual lodgings, but contacted each other daily. A weapons specialist had located five Berretta .22 caliber semi-automatic pistols with additional ammunition and magazines to be transported into Italy through a private network of arms dealers. The German branch of the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction had unwittingly provided the team with organizational support and target surveillance, without knowing that the target was a member of Black September! This vital point would remain unknown until several days after the “hit”.

  Shah drove an unidentified passenger, who was part of the ‘hit squad’, to a rendezvous with the team’s controller, who was now waiting with an additional shooter on standby at the apartment building where Zwaiter lived. The passenger left the vehicle, which then sped off to the Via del Mare, where it was abandoned in a nearby parking lot full of tourist buses. Shah, the driver then took the Ostia Antica subway to Magliana, changed at Metro B for Rome where he took a chartered flight back to Frankfurt and then drove his own Volkswagen Beetle back to Heidelberg to meet with an unsuspecting Verena Stoltz.

  The target’s movements and routine had been monitored daily. The controller had conducted a building reconnaissance half an hour earlier. The team had been advised that the local telephone company had disconnected Zwaiter’s phone for non-payment two weeks ago and that he routinely went to the local bar on his way home to make telephone calls. His routine had not varied this evening. On completion of his calls, Zwaiter walked leisure
ly to his apartment. At Zwaiter’s apartment building the controller walked away from the building slowly, giving the final signal that Zwaiter was approaching and that he was alone! The two shooters entered the building ahead of Zwaiter and took position in the building’s lobby. They waited in the darkened lobby, switching on the main light as Zwaiter entered. Zwaiter was immediately startled by the sudden light. The second ‘shooter’ asked him if he was Wael Zwaiter. The man responded that he was. No sooner had the words came out when the assassins drew their weapons and shot fourteen rounds into their quarry with their custom designed .22 caliber bullets. They exited the building and squeezed into a waiting scruffy looking Ferrari Daytona which transported them to a safe house for a change of clothes and identity before leaving in separate cars on different routes for Rome Airport and a flight to their Paris headquarters. A forth member of the team then took over. His role was the “sweeper”, who would check for any incriminating evidence left behind by the assassins. In less than five minutes he too had joined his colleagues in the safe house where he reported the area ‘cleared’. He was transported to Rome Airport where he boarded a flight to Tel Aviv within four hours of the assassination.

  Emily Desai removed her trench coat along with her blue Hermes scarf and seated herself at a table in the outdoor café opposite the ruins of Ostia’s ancient Roman baths. A tall man in a grey suit sauntered up to her table.

  “Mr. Shah’s business meeting was a success, I hear.”

  “Yes Mina, I understand it was. Care for a Granita?”

  “That’s fine. Did you ring the office?”

  “Of course. I’m the professional James Bond, not you. The mission was a success. The Israeli team did not suspect anything unusual with the switch. It wasn’t particularly special, just a building reconnaissance, but it enabled me to identify all the participants and of course photograph them. Are you going back to the Bundesrepublik?”

  “Possibly. Why?”

  “Just wondered if you wanted to spend the night here?”

  “Fuck yourself Shallal!” And with that, she got up and hailed a cab.

  “I probably will,” he said to the darkness as she left.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Several weeks after her return from Ostia, Emily learned from Verena Stoltz, now back to hanging out at Ulla’s Boutique, that the Red Army Faction was sending her to Paris to continue to work, this time as a mercenary. The girl bragged about this openly to Emily, once more in the hopes of luring her into the ‘trade’ herself. She had, of course, no idea that Emily had in fact baited her or that they were on opposing sides of the same covert coin.

  The RAF had established a contact with an underground organization called “Le Group”, whose leader was a former World War II French Resistance member. Their business was buying and selling information on terrorists and included additional forays into weapons trading, surveillance, document procuring, clothing, security and the sale of information. They also had access to a vehicle chop shop. Another specialty was procuring safe houses throughout the European continent. ‘Papa Remy”, as the old man was called, had only one moral conviction; that he would not place his services in the hands of any official government. Instead, for an undisclosed sum he provided information for the next six targets to be assassinated as independent missions under the Meir directive. One of the six, Zaid Muchassi was not on the original list, but was allegedly a PLO contact for the Soviet Union KGB and their replacement for Abad al-Chir, who was targeted and had been assassinated some weeks previously. On Papa Remy’s recommendation, it had been deemed acceptable for Muchassi to be terminated as he replaced al-Chir, who was also a “hard target.”

  Unfortunately, during the operation the target’s KGB contact officer was killed when he was seen reaching for his weapon as he sat in his car outside the Hotel Aristides in Athens shortly after Muchassi had been killed by an explosion in his hotel room. Upset by the team decision to assassinate on their own volition, Mossad decided to restrict them in future action by radically changing the operational procedure.

  In July 1973, after an extensive year long search a highly reliable source allegedly advised the Mossad that the architect of the Munich massacre, Ali Hassan Salameh was residing in Lillehammer, Norway. Chief Zwi Zamir, now under extreme pressure from the Prime Minister immediately deployed the team. Surveillance specialists followed the individual into a local swimming pool where he met with an obviously pregnant woman. Later in the afternoon the ‘team’ was advised that the man and the pregnant woman had gone to a movie theater. When the movie ended, the couple left the theater still under surveillance and took a bus to an area a few yards from their apartment. Just as they alighted from the bus, two members of the team jumped out of a stationary vehicle and fired at the man with their standard Beretta pistols. The woman screamed and desperately tried to revive her husband, making enough noise for neighbors to call the police, who arrived in minutes. Much to the future embarrassment of the Israeli Government, the team had not killed Ali Hassan Salameh! They had murdered instead a waiter named Ahmed Bouchike, who bore a slight resemblance to the target. The victim, a Moroccan, was married. The pregnant woman was his wife.

  The Mazda getaway car was exchanged for a rented Peugeot and the two team members escaped to a safe house out of the area. However, the Peugeot had been spotted by police driving to the scene in the opposite direction. With singular stupidity two team members used the same car again to drive to the airport the next day. They were identified and arrested. Under interrogation, one of them, Marianne Gladnikoff broke down and confessed she was working for the State of Israel. The police, based on information extracted from her raided the safe house and arrested the entire team. In total violation of “tradecraft” rules, the Israelis were carrying keys to other safe houses, readily identifiable by labels with addresses. Further contact was made with French authorities to confirm the legitimacy of one of the addresses and the French police became involved. Information was discovered linking the Israeli Government with other assassinations of Palestinian terrorists. The six arrested team members were tried and convicted and details of their operation were made public.

  Perhaps, Emily thought, Mossad was somewhat overconfident by the initial success of the “Le Group” and the independent assassination teams, but the Salameh misidentification was a major setback to the mission and one she felt sullied the excellent reputation of the Israeli secret service. She heard on the grapevine of a significant meeting in Beirut of three of the original list of Black September members involved in the Munich Massacre. The assassination team by now had been replaced by Mossad and Israeli Defense Forces. “Le Group” however, respecting the principles of its leader, Papa Remy, refused to reveal any further surveillance or intelligence to Israeli government taskmasters. As a result, the “team” was reassembled and summarily brought back in as logistical support, working in conjunction with Papa Remy.

  Forty Israeli commandos, probably from the “Metsada” branch of Mossad, who specialize in assassination, sabotage and paramilitary projects landed on a beach near Beirut. Their clandestine objective was the assassination of multiple Palestinian guerillas, thereby striking a major psychological blow against the P.L.O. hierarchy. One hundred Palestinians were killed, as well as the three intended targets from the original list, Mahmoud Yussuf Najjer, Kamal Nasser, and Kemal Adwan. Collateral damage, Emily discovered, included one dead female civilian and three others wounded. In spite of this the mission was considered a success.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  Emily spent the next few months walled up in between her home and her tiny office overlooking the busy Haupstrasse analyzing data on terrorism, building up her list of contacts and gleaning information under the guise of political research and analysis. She worked in conjunction with radical students, learned academics and the more scurrilous information traders. Her strange ability to make people feel comfortable enough to pour out their soul on a vast array of subjects, from their work to
their personal lives would have made her a brilliant espionage agent, but that was not her interest. Her work, in some macabre act of contrition had fueled Emily’s desire to know what motivated people to become freedom fighters or terrorists and in order to discover why, she had to analyze every minute detail leading up to the troubled times in which she lived. Like many of her peers, she wanted worldwide peace and understanding. There was room in the Middle East for a peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew. She was committed to being part of what made that happen, but in her own way she felt she was exacting a certain amount of revenge on the various intelligence services too lazy to dig deeper into the reasons why.

  It came as no surprise when Colonel Beresford rang to let her know he was in the area and wished to see her. Beresford, like her father, was shocked by the extremity of Mossad’s continued commitment to the Meir Directive. Several of the assassination teams, he related to her, had discovered they were not acting alone and that they were being used in conjunction with other highly trained hit squads to secure the same targets.

  “Hell hath no fury like misused assassins,” Beresford began, his long thin fingers encircling the hot cup of tea Emily handed him. “I feel my dear, that Mossad’s use of controlled and independent teams for the same job might destroy the entire network. The Israelis don’t follow history.”