Authors: Ken Follett
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Thrillers, #General, #Espionage, #Unknown
VUPLE
man could take: he could not be invisible. In the lobby of the Alfa Hotel in
Luxembourg he bumped into someone who knew him.
He was standing at the desk, checking out. He had looked over the bill and
presented a credit card in the name of Ed Rodgers, and he was waiting to
sign the American Express slip when a voice behind him said in English, "My
Godl If& Nat Dickstein, isn't it?"
It was the moment he dreaded. Like every agent who used cover identities,
he lived in constant fear of accidentally coming up against someone from
his distant past who could unmask him. It was the nightmare of the
policeman who shouted, "You're a spy!" and it was the debt-collector
saying,"But your mother is in, I just saw her, through the window, hiding
under the kitchen table."
Like every agent he had been trained for this moment. The rule wag simple:
Whoever it is, you don't know him. They made you practice in the school.
They would say, "roday you are Chaim Meyerson, engineering student," and so
on; and you would have to walk around and do your work and be Chaim
Meyerson; and then, late in the afternoon, they would arrange for you to
bump into your cousin, or your old college professor, or a rabbi who knew
your whole family. The first time, you always smiled and said "Hello," and
talked about old times for a while, and then that evening your tutor told
you that you were dead. Eventually you learned to look old friends straight
in the eye and say, "Who the hell are you?" -
Dickstein's training came into play now. He looked first at the desk clerk,
who was at that moment checking him out in the name of Ed Rodgers. The
clerk did not react: presumably either he did not understand, or he had not
heard, or he did not cam
A hand tapped Dickstein's shoulder. He started an apologetic smile and
turned around, saying in French, "I'm afraid you've got the wrong---~"
The skirt ot her dress was around her waist, her face was flushed with
pleasure, and she was kissing Yasit Hassan.
"It is youl" said Yasif Hassan.
And then, because of the dreadful impact of the memory of that morning in
Oxford twenty years ago, Dickstein lost control for an instant, and his
training deserted him, and he 59
Ken Folleff
made the biggest mistake of his career. He stared in shock, .and he said,
"Christ. Hassan."
Hassan sniffed, and stuck out his hand, and said, "How long ... it must be
... more than twenty yearsl"
Dickstein shook the proffered hand mechanically, conscious that he had
blundered, and tried to pull himself together. "It must be," he muttered.
"What are you doing here?"
"I live here. You?"
"I'm just leaving." Dickstein decided the only thing to do was get out,
fast, before he did himself any more harm. The clerk handed him the
credit-card form and he scribbled "Ed Rodgers" on it. He looked at his
wristwatch. "Damn, Ive got to catch this plane."
"My car's outside," Hassan said. "I'll take you to the airport. We must
talk."
"I've ordered a taxi .
Hassan spoke to the desk clerk. "Cancel that cab-give this to the driver
for his trouble." He handed over some coins.
Dickstein said, "I really am in a rush."
"Come on, then!" Hassan picked up Dickstein's case and went outside.
Feeling helpless, foolish and incompetent, Dickstein followed.
T'hey got into a battered two-seater English sports car. Dickstein studied
Hassan as he steered the car out of a nowaiting zone and into the traffic.
The Arab had changed, and it was not just age. The gray streaks in his
mustache, the thickening of his waist, his deeper voice--these were to be
expected. But something else was different. Hassan had always seemed to
Dickstein to be the archetypal aristocrat. He had been slow-moving,
dispassionate and faintly bored when everyone else was young and excitable.
Now his hauteur seemed to have gone. He was like his car: somewhat the
worse for wear, with a rather hurried air. Still, Dickstein had sometimes
wondered how much of his upper-class appearance was cultivated.
Resigning himself to the consequences of his error, Dickstein tried to find
out the extent of the damage, He asked Hassan, "You live here now?"
"My bank has its European headquarters here."
So, maybe hes still rich, Dickstein thought. "Mich bank is thair,
60
TRIPLE
"Me Cedar Bank of Lebanon."
"Why Luxembourg?"
"It's a considerable financial center," Hassanseplied. "Me European
Investment Bank is here, and they have an interna~ tional dock exchange.
But what about you?"
"I live in Israel. My kibbutz makes wine-rui sniffing at the
Possibilities of European distribution."
'raking coals to Newcastle."
"I'm beginning to think so."
"Perhaps I can help you, if you're coming back. I have a lot of contacts
here. I could set up some appointments for
YOU."
"Mank you. rm going to take you up on that offer." If the worst came to
the worst, Dickstein thought, he could always keep the appointments and
sell some wine.
Hassan said, "So, now your home is in Palestine and my home is in
Europe." His smile was forced, Dickstein thought.
"How is the bank doingT' Dickstein asked, wondering whether "my bank" had
meant "the bank I own" or "the bank I manage" or "the bank I work for."
"Oh, remarkably well."
They seemed not to have much more to say to each other. Dickstein would
have bled to ask what had happened to Hassan's family in Palestine, how
his affair with Eila Ashford had ended, and why he was driving a sports
car; but he was afraid the answers might be painful, either for Hassan
or for himself.
Hassan asked, "Are you married?"
"No. You?"
"No."
"How odd," Dickstein said.
Hassan smiled. "Were not the type to take on responsibilities, you and
V
"Oh, Irve got responsibilities," Dickstein said, thinking of the orphan
Mottie who had not yet finished Treasure Island.
"But you have a roving eye, ehT' Hassan said with a wink.
"As I recall, you were the ladies' man," Dickstein wild uncomfortably.
"Ah, those were the days."
Dickstein tried not to think about Ella. They reached the airport, and
Hassan stopped the car.
Dickstein said, "rhank you for the lift!' 61
Ken Folleff
Hassan swiveled around in the bucket seat He stared at Dickstein. "I
can!t get over this," he said. "You actually look younger than you did
in 1947."
Dickstein shook his hand. "I'm sorry to be in such a rusk" He got out of
the car.
"Don't forget-call me next time you're here," Hassan said.
"Goodbye." Dickstein closed the car doorand walked into the airport.
Then, at last, he allowed himself to remember.
7le four people in the chilly garden were still for one long heartbeat.
Then Hassan's hands moved on Eila's body. Instantly Dickstein and Cortone
moved away, through the gap in the hedge and out of sight. The lovers
never saw them.
They walked toward the house When they were well out of earshot Cortone
said, "Jesus, that was hot stult"
"Let's not talk about it," Dickstein said. He felt like a an who, looking
backward over his shoulder, has walked into a lamppost: there was pain
and rage, and nobody to blame but himself.
Fortunately the party was breaking up. 7bey left without speaking to the
cuckold, Professor Ashford, who was in a comer deep in conversation with
a graduate student. They went to the George for lunch. Dickstein ate very
litfle but drank some beer.
Cortone said, "Listen, Nat, I don't know why you're getting so down in
the mouth about it.' I mean, it just goes to show shes available, right?"
"Yes," Dickstein said, but he did not mean it.
The bill came to more than ten shillings. Cortone paid it. Dickstein
walked him to the railway station. They shook hands solemnly, and Cortone
got on the train.
Dickstein walked in the park for several hours, hardly noticing the cold,
trying to sort out his feelings. He failed. He knew he was not envious
of Hassan, nor disillusioned with Eila, nor disappointed in his hopes,
for he had never been hopeful. He was shattered, and he had no words to
say why. He wished he had somebody to whom he could talk about it
Soon after this he want to Palestine, although not just because of Eila.
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TRIPLE
In the next twenty-one years he never had a woman; but that, too, was not
entirely because of Efla.
Yasif Hassan drove away from Luxembourg airport in a black rage. He could
picture, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the young Dickstein: a pale
Jew in a cheap suit, thin as a girl, always standing slightly hunched as if
he expected to be flogged, staring with adolescent longing at the ripe body
of Eila Ashford, arguing doggedly that his people would have Palestine
whether the Arabs consented or not. Hassan had thought him ridiculous, a
child. Now Dickstein lived in Israel, and grew grapes to make wine: he had
found a home, and Hassan had lost one.
Hassan was no longer rich. He had never been fabulously wealthy, even by
Levantine standards, but he had always had fine food, expensive clothes and
the best education, and he had consciously adopted the manners of Arab
aristocracy. His grandfather had been a successful doctor who set up his
elder son in medicine and his younger son in business. The younger,
Hassan's father, bought and sold textiles in Palestine, Lebanon and
Transiordan. The business prospered under British rule, and Zionist
immigration swelled the market. By 1947 the family had shops all over the
Levant and owned their native village near Nazareth.
The 1948 war rained them.
When the State of Israel was declared and the Arab armies attacked, the
Hassan family made the fatal mistake of packing their bags and fleeing to
Syria. They never came back. The warehouse in Jerusalem burned down; the
shops were destroyed or taken over by Jews; and the family lands became
"administered" by the Israeli government Hassan had heard that the village
was now a kibbutz.
Hassan's father had lived ever since in a United Nations refugee camp. The
last positive thing he had done was to write a letter of introduction for
Yasif to his Lebanese bankers. Yasif had a university degree and spoke
excellent English: the bank gave him a job.
He applied to the Israeli government for compensation under the 1953 Land
Acquisition Act, and was refused.
He visited his family in the camp only once, but what he !aw there stayed
with him for the rest of his life. They lived in a hut made of boards and
shared the communal toilets.
63
Kon Folio"
11ey got no special treatment: they were just one among thousands of
families without a home, a purpose or a hope. To see his father, who had
been a clever, decisive man ruling a large business with a firm hand,
reduced now to queuing for food and wasting his life playing backgammon,
made Yasif want to throw bombs at school buses.
The women fetched water and cleaned house much as al-ways, but the men
shuffled around in secondhand clothes, waiting for nothing, their bodies
getting flabby while their minds grew dull. Teenagers strutted and
squabbled and fought with knives, for there was nothing ahead of them but
the prospect of their lives shriveling to nothing in the baking heat of
the sun.
The camp smelled of sewage and despair. Hassan never returned to visit,
although he continued to write to his mother. He had escaped the trap,
and if he was deserting his father, well, his father bad helped him do
it, so it must have been what he wanted.
He was a modest success as a bank clerk. He had intelligence and
integrity, but his upbringing did not fit him for careful, calculating
work involving much shuffling of memoranda and keeping of records in
triplicate. Besides, his heart was elsewhere.
He never ceased bitterly to resent what had been taken from him. He
carried his hatred through life like a secret burden. Whatever his
logical mind might tell him, his soul said be had abandoned his father
in time of need, and the guilt fed his hatred of Israel. Each year he
expected the Arab armies to destroy the Zionist invaders, and each time
they failed he grew more wretched and more angry.
In 1957 he began to work for Egyptian Intelligence.
He was not a very important agent, but as the bank eXpanded its European
business be, began to pick up the occasional tidbit, both in the office
and from general banking gossip. Sometimes Cairo would ask him for
specific information about the finances of an arms manufacturer, a Jewish
philanthropist, or an Arab millionaire; and if Hassan did not have the
details in his bank's files he could often get them from friends and
business contacts. He also had a general brief to keep an eye on Israeli
businessmen in Europe, in case they were agents; and that was why he had
approached Nat Dickstein and pretended to be friendly.
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