Triple (40 page)

TIUPLE

and spoke Me senators. He was at once hopeful and fearful that they would

adopt his plan: hopeful because it would be the fulfillment of twenty

years of vengeful dreams; fearful because it would mean he would have to

do things more difficult, violent and risky than the work he had been

involved in so far.

In the end he could not stand it any longer and he went outside and

squatted in the mean yard, smelling the night and the dying fire. A

little later there was a chorus of quiet voices from inside, like voting.

Mahmoud came out and sat beside Hassan. "I have sent for a car."

"Oh?"

"We must go to Damascus. Tonight. There is a lot to do. It will be our

biggest operation. We must start work immediately.99

"It is decided, then."

"Yes. The Fedayeen will hijack the ship and steal the uranium.$#

"So be it," said Yasif Hassan.

David Rostov had always liked his family in small doses, and as he got

older the doses got smaller. The first day of his holiday was fine. He

made breakfast, they walked along the beach, and in the afternoon

Vladimir, the young genius, played chess against Rostov, Mariya, and Yuri

simultaneously, and won all three games. They took hours over supper,

catching up on all the news and drinking a little wine. The second day

was similar, but they enjoyed it less; and by the third day the novelty

of each other's company had worn off. Vladimir remembered he was supposed

to be a prodigy and stuck his nose back into his books; Yuri began to

play degenerate Western music on the record player and argued with his

father about dissident poets; and Mariya fled into the kitchen of the

dacha and stopped putting make-up on her face.

So when the message came to say that Nili Bunin was back from Rotterdam

and had successfully bugged the Stromberg, Rostov used that as an excuse

to return to Moscow.

Nik reported that the Stromberg had been in dry dock for the usual

inspection prior to completion of the sale to Savile Shipping. A number

of small repairs were in progress, and without difficulty Nik had gotten

on board, posing as an eleo-

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trician, and planted a powerful radio beacon in the prow of the ship. On

leaving he bad been questioned by the dock foreman, who did not have any

electrical work on his schedule for that day; and Nil had pointed out that

if the work had not been requested, no doubt it would not have to be paid

for.

From that moment, whenever the ship's power was onwhich was all the time

she was at sea and most of the time she was in dock-the beacon would send

out a signal every thirty minutes until the ship sank or was broken up

for scrap. For the rest of her life, wherever in the world she was, Mos-

cow would be able to locate her within an hour.

Rostov listened to Nik, then sent him home. He had plans for the evening.

It was a long time since he had seen Olga, and he was impatient to see

what she would do with the battery-operated vibrator he had brought her

as a present from London.

In Israeli Naval Intelligence there was a young captain named Dieter Koch

who had trained as a ship's engineer. When the Coparelli sailed from

Antwerp with her cargo of yellowcake Koch had to be aboard.

Nat Dickstein reached Antwerp with only the vaguest idea of how this was

to be achieved. From his hotel room he phoned the local representative

of the company that owned the Copareffl.

When I die, he thought as he waited for the connection, they will bury

me from a hotel room.

A girl answered the phone. Dickstein said briskly, 'This is Pierre

Beaudaire, give me the director."

"Hold on, please."

A man's voice, "Yes?"

"Good morning, this is Pierre Beaudaire from the Beaudaire Crew List."

Dickstein was making it- up as he went along.

"Never heard of you."

'rhat's why I'm calling you. You see, we're contemplating Opening an

office in Antwerp, and I'm wondering whether you would be willing to try

us."

"I doubt it, but you can write to me and-"

"Are you completely satisfied with your present crew agency?"

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TRIPLE

"They could be worse. Look here-"

"One more question and I won't trouble you further. May I ask whom you use

at the momentr,

"Cohen's. Now, I haven't any more time--~"

"I understand. Thank you for your patience. Goodbye."

Cohen's! That was a piece of luck. Perhaps I will be able to do this bit

without brutality, Dickstein thought as he put down the phone. Cohenl It

was unexpected--docks and shipping were not typical Jewish business. Wen,

sometimes you gotlucky. ,

He looked up Cohen's crew agency in the phone book, memorized the address,

put on his coat, left the hotel and hailed a cab.

Cohen had a little two-room office above a sailor's bar in the red-right

district of the city. It was not yet midday, and the night people were

stiff asleep-the whores and thieves, musicians and strippers and waiters

and bouncers, the people who made the place come to life in the evening.

Now it might have been any run-down business district, gray and cold in the

morning, and none too clean.

Dickstein went up a staircase to a first-floor door, knocked and went in.

A middle-aged secretary presided over a small reception room furnished with

filing cabinets and orange plastic chairs.

"I'd like to see Mr. Cohen," Dickstein told her.

She looked him over and seemed to think he did not appear to be a sailor.

"Are you wanting a ship?" she said doubtfully.

"No," he said. "I'm from Israel."

"Oh." She hesitated. She had dark hair and deep-set, shadowed eyes, and she

wore a wedding ring. Dickstein wondered if she might be Mrs. Cohen. She got

up and went through a door behind her desk into the inner office. She was

wearing a pants suit, and from behind she looked her age.

A minute later she reappeared and ushered him into Cohen's office. Cohen

stood up, shook hands and said without preamble, "I give to the cause every

year. In the war I gave twenty thousand guilders, I can show you the check.

This is some new appeal? There is another war?"

49rm not here to raise money, Mr. Cohen," Dickstein said with a smile. Mrs.

Cohen had left the door open: Dickstein closed it. "Can I sit down?"

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Ken Folleff

"If you don't want money, sit down, have some coffee, stay all day," said

Cohen, and he laughed.

Dickstein sat. Cohen was a short man in spectacles, bald and clean-shaven,

and looked to be about fifty years ol(L He wore a brown check suit that was

not very new. He had a good little business here, Dickstein guessed, but,

he was no millionaire,

Dickstein said, "Were you here in World War ur,

Cohen nodded. "I was a young man. I went into the country and worked on a

farm where nobody knew me, nobody knew I was Jewish. I was lucky."

"Do you think it will happen againr'

"Yes. It's happened all through history, why should it stop now? It will

happen again-but not in my lifetime. It's all right here. I don't want to

go to Israel."

"Okay. I work for the government of Israel. We would like you to do

something for us."

Cohen shrugged. "So?-

"In a few weeks' time, one of your clients will call you with an urgent

request. They will want an engineer officer for a ship called Coparefli. We

would like you to send them a man supplied by us. His name is Koch, and he

is an Israeli, but he will be using a different name and false papers. How-

ever, he is a ships engineer-your clients *Will not be dissatisfied."

Dickstein waited for Cohen to say something. You're a nice man, he thought;

a decent Jewish businessman, smart and hardworking and a little frayed at

the edges; don't make me get tough with you.

Cohen said, "You*re not going to tell me why the government of Israel wants

this man Koch aboard the Coparelli?~

"No."

There was a silence.

"You carry any identification?"

4wo.90

The secretary came in without knocking and gave them coffee. Dickstein got

hostile vibrations from her. Cohen used the interruption to gather his

thoughts. When she had gone out he said, "I would have to be meshugah to do

this."

G#Wh3q*

"You come in off the street saying you represent the government of Israel,

yet you have no identification, you don't

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even tell me your name. You ask me to take part in something that is

obviously underhanded and probably criminal; you will not tell me what it

is that you're trying to do. Even if I believe your story, I doet know

that I would approve of the Israelis doing what yop want to do."

Dickstein sighed, thinking of the alternatives:, blackmail him, kidnap

his wife., take over his office on the crucial day ... He said, "Is there

anything I can do to convince you?"

"I would need a personal request from the Prime Minister of Israel before

I would do this thing."

Dickstein stood up to leave, then he thought: Why not? Why the hell not?

It was a wild idea, they would think he was crazy ... but it would work,

it would serve the purpose ... He grinned as he thought it through.

Pierre Borg would have apoplexy.

He said to Cohen, "All right."

"What do you mean, 'all right?"

"Put on your coat. Well go to Jerusalem."

"Now?"

"Are you busy?"

"Are you serious?"

"I told you it's important." Dickstein pointed to the phone on the desk,

"Call your wife."

"She's just outside."

Dickstein went to the door and opened it. "Mrs. Cohen?"

"Yes."

"Would you come in here, please?"

She hurried in, looking worried. 'T17hat is it, Josef?" she asked her

husband.

'17his man want me to go to Jerusalem with him."

'Vhen?#9

"Now."

"You mean this week?"

Dickstein said, "I mean this morning, Mrs. Cohen. I must tell you that

all this is highly confidential. I've asked your husband to do something

for the Israeli governmen

Naturally he wants to be certain that it is the government that is asking

this favor and not some criminal. So I'm going to take him there to

convince him."

She said, "Don't get involved, Josef---w"

Cohen shrugged. "I'm Jewish, I'm involved already. Mind the shop."

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Kon Fens"

"You don't know anything about this mant"

"So I'm going to find out."

"I don't like it."

"There's no danger," Cohen told her. "Well take a scheduled flight, we'll

go to Jerusalem, IT see the Prime Minister and well come back."

"The Prime Ministerl" Dickstein realized how proud she would be if her

husband met the Prime Minister of Israel. He said, '11iis has to be secret,

Mrs. Cohen. Please tell people your husband has gone to Rotterdam on

business. He will be back tomorrow."

She stared at the two of them. "My Josef meets the Prime Minister, and I

can't tell Rachel Rothstein'r'

Then Dickstein knew it was going to be all right.

Cohen took his coat from a book and put it on. Mrs. Cohen kissed him, then

put her arms around him.

"It's all right," be told her. "This is very sudden and strange, but it's

all right.-

She nodded dumbly and let him go.

They took a cab to the airport. Dickstein's sense of delight grew as they

traveled. The scheme had an air of mischief about it, he felt a bit like a

schoolboy, this was a terrible prank. He kept grinning, and had. to turn

his face away so that Cohen would not see.

Pierre Borg would go through the root.

Dickstein bought two round-trip tickets to Tel Aviv, paying with his credit

card. They had to take a connecting flight to Paris. Before they took off

he called the embassy in Paris and arranged for someone to meet them in the

transit lounge.

In Paris he gave the man from the embassy a message to send to Borg,

explaining what was required. The diplomat was a Mossad man, and treated

Dickstein with deference. Coben was allowed to listen to the conversation,

and when the man had gone back to the embassy he said, "We could go back,

rm convinced already.-

"Oh, no," Dickstein said. 'Now that weve come this far I want to be sure of

you."

On the plane Cohen said, "You must be an important man in ISMCL"

"No. But what Im doing is important."

Cohen wanted to know how to behave, how to address the

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