Triple

by Ken Follett

  Hassan walked away. Suza began to follow him but Rostov said, "Not you." He took her arm and began to walk.

  She went with him, thinking: What do I do now?

  "I know you've proved your loyalty to us, Miss Ashford, but in the middle of a project like this we can't allow newly recruited people simply to go home. On the other hand I have no people here in Sicily other than those I need with me on the ship, so I can't have you escorted somewhere else. I'm afraid you're going to have to come aboard the Karla with me until this business is over. I hope you don't mind. Do you know, you look exactly like your mother."

  They had walked out of the airport to a waiting car. Rostov opened the door for her. Now was the time she should run: after this it might be too late. She hesitated. One of the thugs stood beside her. His jacket fell open slightly and she saw the butt of his gun. She remembered the awful bang Cortone's gun had made in the ruined villa, and how she had screamed; and suddenly she was afraid to die, to become a lump of clay like poor fat Cortone; she was terrified of that gun and that bang and the bullet entering her body, and she began to shake.

  "What is it?" Rostov said.

  "Al Cortone died."

  "We know," Rostov said. "Get in the car."

  Suza got in the car.

  Pierre Borg drove out of Athens and parked his car at one end of a stretch of beach where occasional lovers strolled. He got out and walked along the shoreline until he met Kawash coming the other way. They stood side by side, looking out to sea, wavelets lapping sleepily at their feet. Borg could see the handsome face of the tall Arab double agent by starlight. Kawash was not his usual confident self.

  "Thank you for coming," Kawash said.

  Borg did not know why he was being thanked. If anyone should say thank you, it was he. And then he realized that Kawash had been making precisely that point. The man did everything with subtlety, including insults.

  "The Russians suspect there is a leak out of Cairo," Kawash said. "They are playing their cards very close to their collective Communist chest, so to speak." Kawash smiled thinly. Borg did not see the joke. "Even when Yasif Hassan came back to Cairo for debriefing we didn't learn much--and I didn't get all the information Hassan gave."

  Borg belched loudly: he had eaten a big Greek dinner. "Don't waste time with excuses, please. Just tell me what you do know."

  "All right," Kawash said mildly. "They know that Dickstein is to steal some uranium."

  "You told me that last time."

  "I don't think they know any of the details. Their intention is to let it happen, then expose it afterward. They've put a couple of ships into the Mediterranean, but they don't know where to send them."

  A plastic bottle floated in on the tide and landed at Borg's feet. He kicked it back into the water. "What about Suza Ashford?"

  "Definitely working for the Arab side. Listen. There was an argument between Rostov and Hassan. Hassan wanted to find out exactly where Dickstein was, and Rostov thought it was unnecessary."

  "Bad news. Go on."

  "Afterward Hassan went out on a limb. He got the Ashford girl to help him look for Dickstein. They went to a place called Buffalo, in the U.S., and met a gangster called Cortone who took them to Sicily. They missed Dickstein, but only just: they saw the Stromberg leave. Hassan is in considerable trouble over this. He has been ordered back to Cairo but he hasn't turned up yet."

  "But the girl led them to where Dickstein had been?"

  "Exactly."

  "Jesus Christ, this is bad." Borg thought of the message that had arrived in the Rome consulate for Nat Dickstein from his "girlfriend." He told Kawash about it. "Hassan has told me everything and he and I are coming to see you." What the hell did it mean? Was it intended to warn Dickstein, or to delay him, or to confuse him? Or was it a double bluff--an attempt to make him think she was being coerced into leading Hassan to him?

  "A double bluff, I should say," Kawash said. "She knew her role in this would eventually be exposed, so she tried for a longer lease on Dickstein's trust. You won't pass the message on . . ."

  "Of course not." Borg's mind turned to another tack. "If they went to Sicily they know about the Stromberg. What conclusions can they draw from that?"

  "That the Stromberg will be used in the uranium theft?"

  "Exactly. Now, if I were Rostov, I'd follow the Stromberg, let the hijack take place, then attack. Damn, damn, damn. I think this will have to be called off." He dug the toe of his shoe into the soft sand. "What's the situation at Qattara?"

  "I was saving the worse news until last. All tests have been completed satisfactorily. The Russians are supplying uranium. The reactor goes on stream three weeks from today."

  Borg stared out to sea, and he was more wretched, pessimistic and depressed than he had ever been in the whole of his unhappy life. "You know what this fucking means don't you? It means we can't call it off. It means I can't stop Dickstein. It means that Dickstein is Israel's last chance."

  Kawash was silent. After a moment Borg looked at him. The Arab's eyes were closed. "What are you doing?" Borg said.

  The silence went on for a few moments. Finally Kawash opened his eyes, looked at Borg, and gave his polite little half smile. "Praying," he said.

  TEL AVIV TO MV STROMBERG

  PERSONAL BORG TO DICKSTEIN EYES ONLY

  MUST BE DECODED BY THE ADDRESSEE

  BEGINS SUZA ASHFORD CONFIRMED ARAB AGENT STOP SHE PERSUADED CORTONE TO TAKE HER AND HASSAN TO SICILY STOP THEY ARRIVED AFTER YOU LEFT STOP CORTONE NOW DEAD STOP THIS AND OTHER DATA INDICATES STRONG POSSIBILITY YOU WILL BE ATTACKED AT SEA STOP NO FURTHER ACTION WE CAN TAKE AT THIS END STOP YOU FUCKED IT UP ALL ON YOUR OWN NOW GET OUT OF IT ALONE ENDS

  The clouds which had been massing over the western Mediterranean for the previous few days finally burst that night, drenching the Stromberg with rain. A brisk wind blew up, and the shortcomings of the ship's design became apparent as she began to roll and yaw in the burgeoning waves.

  Nat Dickstein did not notice the weather.

  He sat alone in his little cabin, at the table which was screwed to the bulkhead, a pencil in hand and a pad, a codebook and a signal in front of him, transcribing Borg's message word by crucifying word.

  He read it over and over again, and finally sat staring at the blank steel wall in front of him.

  It was pointless to speculate about why she might have done this, to invent far-fetched hypotheses that Hassan had coerced or blackmailed her, to imagine that she had acted from mistaken beliefs or confused motives: Borg had said she was a spy, and he had been right. She had been a spy all along. That was why she had made love to him.

  She had a big future in the intelligence business, that girl.

  Dickstein put his face in his hands and pressed his eyeballs with his fingertips, but still he could see her, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, leaning against the cupboard in the kitchen of that little flat, reading the morning paper while she waited for a kettle to boil.

  The worst of it was, he loved her still. Before he met her he had been a cripple, an emotional amputee with an empty sleeve hanging where he should have had love; and she had performed a miracle, making him whole again. Now she had betrayed him, taking away what she had given, and he would be more handicapped than ever. He had written her a love letter. Dear God, he thought, what did she do when she read that letter? Did she laugh? Did she show it to Yasif Hassan and say, "See how I've got him hooked?"

  If you took a blind man, and gave him back his sight, and then, after a day made him blind again during the night while he was sleeping, this was how he would feel when he woke up.

  He had told Borg he would kill Suza if she were an agent, but now he knew that he had been lying. He could never hurt her, no matter what she did.

  It was late. Most of the crew were asleep except for those taking watches. He left the cabin and went up on deck without seeing anyone. Walking from the hatch to the gunwale he got soaked to the skin, but he did not notice. He stood at
the rail, looking into the darkness, unable to see where the black sea ended and the black sky began, letting the rain stream across his face like tears.

  He would never kill Suza, but Yasif Hassan was a different matter.

  If ever a man had an enemy, he had one in Hassan. He had loved Eila, only to see her in a sensual embrace with Hassan. Now he had fallen in love with Suza, only to find that she had already been seduced by the same old rival. And Hassan had also used Suza in his campaign to take away Dickstein's homeland.

  Oh, yes, he would kill Yasif Hassan, and he would do it with his bare hands if he could. And the others. The thought brought him up out of the depths of despair in a fury: he wanted to hear bones snap, he wanted to see bodies crumple, he wanted the smell of fear and gunfire, he wanted death all around him.

  Borg thought they would be attacked at sea. Dickstein stood gripping the rail as the ship sawed through the unquiet sea; the wind rose momentarily and lashed his face with cold, hard rain; and he thought, So be it; and then he opened his mouth and shouted into the wind: "Let them come--let the bastards come!"

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hassan did not go back to Cairo, then or ever.

  Exultation filled him as his plane took off from Palermo. It had been close, but he had outwitted Rostov again! He could hardly believe it when Rostov had said, "Get out of my sight." He had felt sure he would be forced to board the Karla and consequently miss the hijack of the Fedayeen. But Rostov completely believed that Hassan was merely over-enthusiastic, impulsive, and inexperienced. It had never occurred to him that Hassan might be a traitor. But then, why should it? Hassan was the representative of Egyptian Intelligence on the team and he was an Arab. If Rostov had toyed with suspicions about his loyalty, he might have considered whether he was working for the Israelis, for they were the opposition--the Palestinians, if they entered the picture at all, could be assumed to be on the Arab side.

  It was wonderful. Clever, arrogant, patronizing Colonel Rostov and the might of the notorious KGB had been fooled by a lousy Palestinian refugee, a man they thought was a nobody.

  But it was not over yet. He still had to join forces with the Fedayeen.

  The flight from Palermo took him to Rome, where he tried to get a plane to Annaba or Constantine, both near the Algerian coast. The nearest the airlines could offer was Algiers or Tunis. He went to Tunis.

  There he found a young taxi driver with a newish Renault and thrust in front of the man's face more money in American dollars than he normally earned in a year. The taxi took him across the hundred-mile breadth of Tunisia, over the border into Algeria, and dropped him off at a fishing village with a small natural harbor.

  One of the Fedayeen was waiting for him. Hassan found him on the beach, sitting under a propped-up dinghy, sheltering from the rain and playing backgammon with a fisherman. The three men got into the fisherman's boat and cast off.

  The sea was rough as they headed out in the last of the day. Hassan, no seaman, worried that the little motorboat would capsize, but the fisherman grinned cheerfully through it all.

  The trip took them less than a half hour. As they approached the looming hulk of the ship, Hassan felt again the rising sense of triumph. A ship . . . they had a ship.

  He clambered up on to the deck while the man who had met him paid off the fisherman. Mahmoud was waiting for him on deck. They embraced, and Hassan said, "We should weigh anchor immediately--things are moving very fast now."

  "Come to the bridge with me."

  Hassan followed Mahmoud forward. The ship was a small coaster of about one thousand tons, quite new and in good condition. She was sleek, with most of her accommodations below deck. There was a hatch for one hold. She had been designed to carry small loads quickly and to maneuver in local North African ports.

  They stood on the foredeck for a moment, looking about.

  "She's just what we need," Hassan said joyfully.

  "I have renamed her the Nablus," Mahmoud told him. "She is the first ship of the Palestine Navy."

  Hassan felt tears start to his eyes.

  They climbed the ladder. Mahmoud said, "I got her from a Libyan businessman who wanted to save his soul."

  The bridge was compact and tidy. There was only one serious lack: radar. Many of these small coastal vessels still managed without it, and there had been no time to buy the equipment and fit it.

  Mahmoud introduced the captain, also a Libyan--the businessman had provided a crew as well as a ship, none of the Fedayeen were sailors. The captain gave orders to weigh anchor and start engines.

  The three men bent over a chart as Hassan told what he had learned in Sicily. "The Stromberg left the south coast of Sicily at midday today. The Coparelli was due to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar late last night, heading for Genoa. They are sister ships, with the same top speed, so the earliest they can meet is twelve hours east of the midpoint between Sicily and Gibraltar."

  The captain made some calculations and looked at another chart. "They will meet southeast of the island of Minorca."

  "We should intercept the Coparelli no less than eight hours earlier."

  The captain ran his finger back along the trade route. "That would put her just south of the island of Ibiza at dusk tomorrow."

  "Can we make it?"

  "Yes, with a little time to spare, unless there is a storm."

  "Will there be a storm?"

  "Sometime in the next few days, yes. But not tomorrow, I think."

  "Good. Where is the radio operator?"

  "Here. This is Yaacov."

  Hassan turned to see a small, smiling man with tobacco-stained teeth and told him, "There is a Russian aboard the Coparelli, a man called Tyrin, who will be sending signals to a Polish ship, the Karla. You must listen on this wavelength." He wrote it down. "Also, there is a radio beacon on the Stromberg that sends a simple thirty-second tone every half hour. If we listen for that every time we will be sure the Stromberg is not outrunning us."

  The captain was giving a course. Down on the deck the first officer had the hands making ready. Mahmoud was speaking to one of the Fedayeen about an arms inspection. The radio operator began to question Hassan about the Stromberg's beacon. Hassan was not really listening. He was thinking: Whatever happens, it will be glorious.

  The ship's engines roared, the deck tilted, the prow broke water and they were on their way.

  Dieter Koch, the new engineer officer of the Coparelli, lay in his bunk in the middle of the night thinking: but what do I say if somebody sees me?

  What he had to do now was simple. He had to get up, go to the aft engineering store, take out the spare oil pump and get rid of it. It was almost certain he could do this without being seen, for his cabin was close to the store, most of the crew were asleep, and those that were awake were on the bridge and in the engine room and likely to stay there. But "almost certain" was not enough in an operation of this importance. If anyone should suspect, now or later, what he was really up to . . .

  He put on a sweater, trousers, sea boots and an oilskin. The thing had to be done, and it had to be done now. He pocketed the key to the store, opened his cabin door and went out. As he made his way along the gangway he thought: I'll say I couldn't sleep so I'm checking the stores.

  He unlocked the door to the store, turned on the light, went in and closed it behind him. Engineering spares were racked and shelved all around him--gaskets, valves, plugs, cable, bolts, filters . . . given a cylinder block, you could build a whole engine out of these parts.

  He found the spare oil pump in a box on a high shelf. He lifted it down--it was not bulky but it was heavy--and then spent five minutes double-checking that there was not a second spare oil pump.

  Now for the difficult part.

  . . . I couldn't sleep, sir, so I was checking the spares. Very good, everything in order? Yes, sir. And what's that you've got under your arm? A bottle of whiskey, sir. A cake my mother sent me. The spare oil pump, sir, I'm going to throw it overboard .
. .

  He opened the storeroom door and looked out.

  Nobody.

  He killed the light, went out, closed the door behind him and locked it. He walked along the gangway and out on deck.

  Nobody.

  It was still raining. He could see only a few yards, which was good, because it meant others could see only that far.

  He crossed the deck to the gunwale, leaned over the rail, dropped the oil pump into the sea, turned, and bumped into someone.

  A cake my mother sent me, it was so dry . . .

  "Who's that?" a voice said in accented English.

  "Engineer. You?" As Koch spoke, the other man turned so that his profile was visible in the deck light, and Koch recognized the rotund figure and big-nosed face of the radio operator.

  "I couldn't sleep," the radio operator said. "I was . . . getting some air."

  He's as embarrassed as I am, Koch thought. I wonder why?

  "Lousy night," Koch said. "I'm going in."

  "Goodnight."

  Koch went inside and made his way to his cabin. Strange fellow, that radio operator. He was not one of the regular crew. He had been taken on in Cardiff after the original radioman broke his leg. Like Koch, he was something of an outsider here. A good thing he had bumped into him rather than one of the others.

  Inside his cabin he took off his wet outer clothes and lay on his bunk. He knew he would not sleep. His plan for tomorrow was all worked out, there was no point in going over it again, so he tried to think of other things: of his mother, who made the best potato kugel in the world; of his fiancee, who gave the best head in the world; of his mad father now in an institution in Tel Aviv; of the magnificent tapedeck he would buy with his back pay after his assignment; of his fine apartment in Haifa; of the children he would have, and how they would grow up in an Israel safe from war.

  He got up two hours later. He went aft to the galley for some coffee. The cook's apprentice was there, standing in a couple of inches of water, frying bacon for the crew.

  "Lousy weather," Koch said.

  "It will get worse."

  Koch drank his coffee, then refilled the mug and a second one and took them up to the bridge. The first officer was there. "Good morning," Koch said.

  "Not really," said the first officer, looking out into a curtain of rain.