The Other Side of Deception

A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda

The Other Side of Deception

A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda
by

Victor Ostrovsky

Copyright © 1994 by Victor Ostrovsky
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. First Edition: November 1994
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 9780061093524
CHAPTER 1
THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1986
The tiny cell was hot and musty. In a dim corner, by the barred window, an old dingy-looking fan rattled, barely moving the foul-smelling air. I was trapped.

Three days earlier I had arrived in Cairo on an Air Lingus flight from New York. I was whisked away from the airport terminal by two burly men in short-sleeve, gray safari suits. One of my seemingly friendly gorilla escorts spoke English. He said they had been sent to take me to a safe place. They held firmly on to my arms and ushered me to a small white car parked at the curb outside the main doors.

"Welcome to Egypt," said the English-speaker, who shared the back seat with me as the car took off. That was all he said until we cleared the airport complex. Then he handed me a blindfold and asked me to put it on.

In the murky waters of the espionage world you come to expect these things. For the next thirty minutes I sat in the dark. I assumed we were on our way to meet the brass of the Egyptian intelligence and security service. The sole purpose of my visit to Egypt was to sell out my former employer, the Mossad, Israel's famous intelligence agency.

It isn't every day that a Mossad case officer appears on their doorstep, ready to deal. I had expected the proverbial red carpet treatment, and this was not it. With my hearing unimpaired by the blindfold, I could hear the hustle-bustle of a large Middle Eastern city loud and clear. The noisy blend of honking cars and merchants announcing their wares sounded familiar to me. The sounds commingled with the smell of charcoal stoves and camel dung. I was reminded of Jaffa or East Jerusalem.

After a while, the sounds faded and there was only that of the scorching air rushing by the open window. At one point I could swear I heard the revving sounds of a diesel engine and the squeaking of tank tracks. I had spent enough time in the military to know we had entered a military base.

When my blindfolds were finally removed, I saw we were parked in the inner yard of what looked like an old British-style compound. The large square yard was surrounded by a dilapidated five-storey building.

I was taken up a dark staircase to the third floor. Two uniformed guards armed with sub-machine-guns greeted us and led the way through a long dim corridor to a green metal door. I expected we would enter an office, where I would be meeting my hosts. Instead, I found myself in a ten-by-twelve cell. The heavy metal door slammed behind me. Then came the hollow sound of the key turning in the lock and the footsteps of my escorts as they walked away.

At first, I thought this was a temporary holding room. There was a stench in the air of old urine and human excrement. All I could see from the small barred window was the inner yard. The big iron bed that filled most of the cell was not a good sign; there was something alarmingly permanent about it. Panic started to set in. At that instant I realized I was a captive and no one on the outside knew where I was.

I walked through an uneven opening knocked through the thick wall into what seemed like a crypt. I found a shower stall closed off by a stained plastic curtain. Facing the shower there was a sloping floor with a hole in the center, known in the army as a shit hole, a primitive toilet. I leaped out of there once I realized that the hole, which was the source of the stench, was swarming with cockroaches.

My heart started to pound furiously when I heard the key turning in the lock. That's it, I thought, they are here to get me out and apologize. I decided to accept their apology and brush it off as just one of those things.

An old man wearing a white galabiyya walked in, carrying a tray of fruit and a large glass pitcher of cold lemonade, and a single glass. Clearly I wasn't expecting company. He smiled and put the tray on the end table by the bed. A uniformed guard stood at the door watching. The old man entered the tiny, crypt-like shower, and hung up the towel he had slung over his hand. I tried to speak to him, but he would only smile and nod his head. Several hours later he returned with more food and fresh pitcher of lemonade. By nightfall on the first day I had evaluated my situation and the prognosis was not good. There was no logical reason for the way I was being treated, unless they knew something they shouldn't have and were now playing some sordid game. What were they up to? I was in total isolation and nothing made any sense.

From the window I could see a uniformed guard seated on a wooden chair by the large gate. Occasionally he would open a small side door in the gate and talk to someone.

The big gate opened noisily every morning at nine, letting a white car, similar to the one that had brought me here, enter the compound. I would get dressed and wait for someone to come and talk to me. But no one did. At six p.m. the car would leave. I shouted and banged on the bars with the metal tray, but no one seemed to care.

The heat didn't let up, even after dark. I put the rattling little fan on the end table and directed it toward me. I then lay on my back in my underwear, wetting my face and chest with a damp towel. My head rested on a hard pillow as I tried to sleep.

By the end of the first day I didn't notice the stench anymore. The swarming cockroaches didn't bother me either, as long as they stayed in the shit hole and away from my food. At night a multitude of thoughts would run through my head, keeping me awake.

One question kept torturing me. How the hell did I end up in this ten-by-twelve hell somewhere outside Cairo? I couldn't shake the terrifying thought that this was where I'd spend the rest of my life, that my wife and children back in Canada would never know I hadn't run away, that I was trapped.

I couldn't tell where or when all this was going to end, but I could almost pinpoint the time, if not the precise moment, it had all started.
* * *
It was six months previously, Monday, February 3, 1986. I was at the Sun Hull Hotel in Larnaka, Cyprus. I was there to meet a Belgian terrorist, and I had a false British passport under the name of Jason Burton in my pocket. The Belgian was a member of a left-wing terrorist organization called the Communist Combatant Cells (CCC).

According to my passport I had arrived at the Larnaka airport the day before. And I had the Olympic-Air ticket and boarding pass to prove it. The Belgian would receive from me a key to a car parked in Brussels, loaded with untraceable plastic explosives and several thousand top-of-the-line detonators. In exchange I was to receve proof that two million and some odd dollars had been transferred to a Swiss bank account.

It was a sting operation, and I was a full-fledged Mossad case officer at the time. It was on this assignment that things started to go haywire. I had actually arrived in Larnaka by boat and not by plane. I made most of the way from the Ashdod harbor in Israel, aboard a 'Dabur' patrol-boat. I then transferred from the Dabur to a yacht fifty miles south of the Cypriot shore. The yacht had a Greek registry, and regularly anchored in the Larnaka harbor. It was a floating safe house for Mossad operatives. Renting apartments and keeping secrets on such a small island was difficult.

I was only a pawn in this game planned by the Belgian desk in Melucha_. Once the CCC members approached the car in Brussels, their entire ring would be nabbed by the Belgian police and security services. Another group would be arrested simultaneously by the Dutch police. The two police forces were already on the terrorists' trail, thanks to a series of tips the Belgium desk in the Mossad was feeding them.

There was more than one reason behind the sting. The CCC were involved in selling and buying arms from the PLO and other Palestinian groups. Putting them out of business would be a major victory for Mossad in combating terrorism.

Anther reason for the operation was more sinister, and I learned about it much later. Itsik Efrat, head of the Israel desk, handled that part. It involved a veteran case officer named Barda, who in 1984 had tracked down and contacted a band of Belgian renegade lawmen who were originally formed by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as an anti-communist body to be activated in case of a communist invasion.

The activation of the dormant cell was made with the consent of the Belgian state secret service and the Mossad's anti-terrorist advisory section.

Barda made it clear to the Belgians that in order to get a strong reaction, that would call for the strengthening of the security services, extreme measures were needed. "Hesitation should be left to environmentalists and bleeding-heart democrats," he would say. "Hit hard and retaliate even harder. You win both ways. You get more power to deal with left-wing elements and bolster the right."

In addition to the NATO cell, the Belgian secret service had a deep well of right-wing fanatics to draw from, in the form of a fascist party called Westland New Post (WNP). The new combined right-wing element carried out a series of robberies with extreme violence. These terrorists became known as the Murderers of Brabant. In September and November of 1985, they hit several supermarkets and also carried out a political assassination of a Belgian minister. They carried out several truck hijackings attributed later to other crooks who were "killed in the chase." The attacks were not financially motivated. Their purpose was terror and the destabilization of the Belgian government. Several members of this right-wing terrorist group were active policemen. Three members of the group had to leave the country in 1985. They escaped to Israel and were given new identities by the Mossad, as part of the initial agreement made with the Belgian counterpart.

The Belgians' request that the Mossad find a way to pass arms to the right-wingers, while keeping the Belgian authorities out of the picture, lead to this sting.

Barda gave the right-wing terrorists the location of the CCC stashes of arms the Mossad had sold them. He told them they could help themselves to the goods while the communists were getting stung.

The day before, after a ten-minute struggle to transfer from one rocking boat to another on a choppy sea, I met Ze'v Alon. He was in charge of special technical operations, and on his way off the island. His presence on the boat was highly unusual. I was in the recruitment department and not part of special operations. He, on the other hand, provided services from his Proudot subdivision, mainly to combatants_ from the highly secretive Metsada_ Department. They would normally employ combatants in Arab countries on special Kidon_ operations.

Ze'ev briefed me on a new secondary assignment. I was now going to be a so-called relay station or back-up relay station for an operation which, due to circumstances, had been hastily put together at the last minute.

"Cyprus is not a hospitable place for us," he said. "The fewer people we have there the better."
Libyan leader Moamer al Qadhafi had called for a three-day summit of what he called the Allied Leadership of the Revolutionary Forces of the Arab nation. In other words, it was a meeting of all the terrorist kingpins. The Mossad was watching, drooling over this full house of goodies they couldn't wait to get their hands on.
A combatant was dispatched to Libya for that occasion, posing as a reporter for the French-language paper Afrique-Asie. The combatant found out that after the conference, several Palestinian terrorist leaders would fly to Syria aboard a private Gulfstream II executive jet. The Mossad convinced Prime Minister Peres to approve the skyjacking of the plane.
Because of the extremely sensitive nature of the operation, the Mossad chief wanted to have positive eye-witness verification that the people in question were on board. The combatant would watch the actual boarding of the plane. Then he would transmit a message via a special mobile burst-communication device. A merchant marine ship making its way to Gibraltar would receive the communiqu‚.The need for a back-up was due to previous communication problems with the same type of device. It was dependent on good weather and that was not in the cards at the time. I was to be the back-up system. It was to be a simple and solid operation. The combatant, after seeing the men on board, would activate the signaling device and also call me at the hotel. If they were on board he would say that the chickens had flown the coop. I would then use a beeper to send the signal affirming the acceptance of the message.
After briefing me, Ze'ev wished me luck and transferred to the Dabur and back to Israel. No doubt there was yet a third back-up that I was not part of.
The meeting with the Belgian and the transfer of the key went well. Nine days later, February 12, 1986, the Belgian police nabbed the man and his CCC colleagues. The terrorists had in their possession over two hundred pounds of explosives and thousands of detonators. Simultaneously, Mossad's right-wing criminal partners entered several warehouses in the Antwerp area. The fascists got two truckloads of light weapons and several tons of ammunition.
It was during the secondary operation that I got into hot water. While at the hotel in Larnaka, I had made an approach to, or, as we called it in the field lingo "established contact with" a Palestinian businessman from Amman, Jordan. He was one of the few tourists in the hotel at the time. Such unauthorized contact was regarded as a no-no, but it was known that case officers do it all the time. Take the risk. If it works, you are a hero; if not, you don't tell anyone.
It turned out that the businessman had just come from Libya and had contacts in the PLO. I learned from him that there was to be a trick played on us in Tripoli, Libya. He said something like, "the Israelis are going to eat shit tomorrow." I knew such a trick was a possibility considered in Mossad Headquarters, but no one gave the Palestinians that much credit.
I tried to contact everybody I knew in the system to stop what now seemed inevitable. I struggled with the endless buffers Mossad puts on a command and control center during an operation. It was somewhat ironic that the buffers put in place to enhance security were now blocking a warning. The command center was in Mahaneh David military air base. I couldn't help but think that someone wanted things to go wrong. And, sure enough, the plane was brought down and the big prize was not aboard.
After getting the call from the combatant and relaying his message, I left Cyprus on board the yacht to rendezvous with the Dabur. Someone didn't want me back in Israel just yet, so the Dabur was instructed to stay out at sea for several days. The Dabur captain was informed by navy command that he had developed "engine problems." I knew that this was to allow someone time to set me up as the fall guy for this botched operation.
I couldn't see how that was possible unless the combatant changed his story. Then I would be the one blamed for supposedly misunderstanding the message. When we finally docked in Ashdod, Oren Riff, who was then chief of staff for the Mossad head, was there to greet me. It was his job to fill me in on what my duty to the Mossad was. I was to take responsibility for the foul-up, knowing I was doing it for the good of the office_. I had no choice in the matter and so I agreed.

CHAPTER 2

The naked light bulb dangling from the moldy ceiling flickered momentarily. I heard a faint scream somewhere in the bowels of what I had thought to be an empty building. The barely audible shrieks instantly drenched me in cold sweat. I lay on my back, my eyes following a large brown cockroach making its way across the ceiling.

Then the old man was back with a fresh pitcher of lemonade and a food tray. I was waiting for such an opportunity. I had to do something to get someone's attention. When the old man was attending to the shower, I tossed the loaded food tray out the door, barely missing the guard. For an instant, I was sure he was going to use his weapon and cut me down where I stood. Instead, he looked surprised and shouted something to the old man, who hurried out of the cell. I lay back on the bed. The fan abruptly stopped working and it was too hot to do anything about it. The cockroach on the ceiling was gone.

I had to think this thing through. The answer to my predicament might be hidden in the past. It must have slipped my mind and I wasn't aware of it. Besides, thinking it through was a great way to escape the horrible reality of it.

It was some time later when I learned the reason for the treatment I was getting in Cairo. In fact it would be several months after I had left Egypt that I got the whole picture. The Egyptians never gave me any explanation, except to say it was a misunderstanding.

What really happened was that someone had tipped them off that I was a Mossad operative still working for the Mossad. I was to disinform them and cause havoc inside their organization by pointing the finger at someone who I would say was a mole working for the Mossad.

The decision was to hold me in isolation and see what they could extract from the Mossad by devious means. They informed the embassy that they had found the body of a man answering my description who had come to Egypt on the same flight as I had and who was a resident of Canada. They also said that they believed he might be an Israeli. The message made its way to the Mossad and because they had no-one in the area answering the description they did not respond. After four days the Egyptians were convinced that I was not with the Mossad, because they would have not waited this long to respond and they would have at least asked to see the body. All that came back from the Israeli embassy was that no Israeli answering that description was missing and that the Canadian authorities would be a much better bet. My accomplice in Headquarters was climbing the walls thinking that I had somehow slipped, revealing my true identity, and was not coming out or, much worse, that - as he later put it - I had sold him out.
* * *
By mid-February the "Cypriot screw-up," as it came to be known, had become a thing of the past. I, however, was placed under constant watch. Things became very difficult with that cloud hanging over me.

I was still a probational rookie, except that now I was under special observation. Most other rookies didn't want to be paired with me because of the extra supervision I brought along. "You can't always be perfect," Arik, one of my colleagues said to me. "You're bound to slip and then they'll be all over you. Why don't you just give up and quit?" I knew he was right but I wasn't about to give up. To me, serving in the Mossad was the highest achievement a person could make. We would joke that if there was a second coming the man would probably be Mossad.

I was working at half my ability, double-checking every move I made to ensure everything was as perfect as could be. If someone in the Mossad worked by the book - keeping in mind there was no book to work by - it was me. I was determined not to give the shitheads the satisfaction of catching me in a mistake.

I knew they would be happy to be rid of me because of my political leanings. I was center, but in Mossad terms I was left, if not extreme left. However, I was determined not let them hide behind the excuse of my operational failure. If they wanted me out of the Mossad, they would have to come out with it, and kick me out themselves.

The constant pressure was taking its toll. I was pegged as a has-been, a goner, by people I had to work with. My operational thinking was still sharper than that of most but my reaction time to crises was falling behind. When teams were selected for operations, my name wasn't coming up. I was a jinx. And when I did participate in them they were of secondary importance.

My home life wasn't much better. With the pressure the first place to suffer was the home. As a rule all case officers in the Mossad must be married before they can serve abroad, but few have a happy marriage. Most have a bad one and it's usually not their first. I began coming home later than usual, spending what little free time I had sitting with the guys at one of our regular hangouts. It was like working with a bunch of old gossips: the first one to leave was the one everybody talked about and slandered. The best protection you had was to stay to the end.

Working in the Mossad there was always an excuse for coming home late. Instead of turning to the one person who was my real friend, my wife Bella, I turned away from her. And she didn't like anyone from the office; she could see through them.

Since I couldn't change the reality I tried to change the perception. I told myself that it was her view that was wrong, that she should see things the way we did. After all, I was a member of the Mossad, the elite, the select few. At home I wasn't Mossad, and that was all I wanted to be.
* * *
We were in the middle of one of those lesser operations in the one place the Mossad was not allowed to work: in Israel. Though there are no laws guiding the activity of the Mossad, this is an unwritten one which is guarded vigilantly by the Shaback (Israel's internal security body). So in the event of a foul-up the operation would be made to look like a mere exercise.

This particualr operation was to benifit a company called El Op. They were developing a special device to broadcast and receive Digitized Photographic Images (DPI). They were also developing a similar system for the Mazlat. Mazlat is a Hebrew abbreviation for unmanned remote controlled plane. It was a co-operative development project between IAI (Israeli Aeronautical Industries), a subsidiary of the Israeli Military Industry, and an American company called AAI Corporation of Baltimore, Maryland, owned by United Industrial Corporation. The development of the DPI proved to be extremely expensive and was running into technical difficulties as well. IAI was on the Mossad support list because of its enormous financial and defense potential. The Mossad devised a plan to get the proverbial wagon out of the mud.

Israeli Military Industry (IMI) was advised to reach a development agreement with Recon Optical Industries. Recon, an American leader in the technology field El Op needed, was also involved in the JSIP (Joint Services Image Processor), a secret American development project which would enhance the tactical and strategic intelligence capability of the American military, also an essential component of what was called the next generation total battlefield reconnaissance and targeting. Recon was contracted by the Israeli air force in an unrelated project financed by American military aid to Israel. Because the customer for the joint project was the Israeli air force, it was acceptable that Israeli air force officers would work with the Americans. Their capacity would be as observers and quality controllers.

Before our particular exercise, several Mossad teams had already entered a base in Ramat Gan, a city adjacent to Tel Aviv, and placed El Op personnel files into the air force reserve bank. This was done so that El Op engineers could go to the States under the guise of air force officers and help steal American know-how.

Arik and Amir showed up in guards' uniforms with the proper documentation at the gate, in time for the changing of the guard. The real guards had been detained by other members of our team posing as military police. The sergeant major in charge of the guard detail received a telephone call from manpower assigning two new men - Arik and Amir. I made that call from a pay phone and the man took it at face value. All he really cared about was having two warm bodies at the gate.

We were heading for the main office building when Yosy said to me. "I want you to meet someone."
"Now?" Yosy and I were in military uniforms, both of us at the rank of corporal.
I remember him nodding and smiling. He didn't seem to think there was a problem.
"Look, Yosy," I whispered as we slowly walked up a small hill to the administration building. "We're in the middle of an exercise, and we have a real job to do. How about we do this another time? We can enter this base any day of the week. All we have to do is flash our I.D."
"Yes," he smiled lecherously to one side of his baby face. "I know that, but we're here now. I planned it so that we'll have the time." He paused as a pair of officers came near. We saluted lazily as they passed us. They didn't bother saluting back.
When they were several steps down the road, Yosy continued. "If things go according to plan, we should have about ten minutes before we have to leave."
"What can we do in ten minutes?"
"I want you to meet someone."
"What if I don't want to?"
"I'm not going to force you to do anything. I can tell you, however, that I'm sick and tired of your long dreary face and your beat attitude. I just want to pump some life into you."
"I appreciate it, but no thanks."
"I'm talking about a woman who is aching for it."
"I don't have to break into a military base in the middle of the night for that."
"This one's different, trust me. She's worth all that and besides, once we set her up, we'll all use her. We need someone like that, we'll be a big happy family. Happy, think happy."
Yosy stopped. We had reached our target building, a three-storey British relic, tan in color, square, with three rows of small windows. The eucalyptus trees that filled the grounds rustled in the wind. The floodlights along the road and on top of the high fence threw the tree shadows onto the fine stucco walls, creating swaying images to match my state of mind.
Yosy turned serious. This was work, and to my relief he plunged into it.
"Do you have it with you?" he asked.
I slid my hand into my shirt just to feel the large plastic envelope. "Yes."
"Let's do it."
We walked straight to the small stairwell. We had to be careful as we walked up the stairs; on every second turn we could be seen from the ground. The building itself was not a high security zone but if a patrol had spotted us on the staircase or inside, it could be a problem. Three patrols were making their rounds.
Once inside we moved fast. First we checked to make sure there were no necking couples around. The room was filled with four-drawer filing cabinets. At the far end was a large gray safe. Yosy walked to the desk by the door and pulled out the drawer. "Get over there and open the safe. I'll read you the combination."
I walked over to the safe and bent down, setting the dial at zero. "How did you get it?"
"That is the difference between a case officer and a burglar. I made contact with the girl working here and spent some time with her."
"Really?"
"Don't laugh. I sacrificed a lot," Yosy said.
"Sacrificed?"
"You should have seen her. Believe me, it was a sacrifice." He chuckled.
"You didn't have to take her to bed."
"It wasn't a bed. Besides, I can't help myself. For me a woman is a woman is a woman."
"So why are you whining about it now?"
He shrugged and looked at the bottom of the drawer he was holding. "Seventeen to the right, four to the left." He went on until the lock opened. I spun the chrome wheel and pulled the door open. There was a stack of manila files inside. We did the switch in less than five minutes and then we were ready to leave.
Suddenly there was a noise from the outer door. We both froze. We didn't know if the patrols made a round inside the offices or only checked to see if the outer door was locked.
"Did you lock the outer door?" I whispered to him.
"Yes, I braced it!"
We moved quietly to the window and looked outside. It was a long drop. After several seconds of testing the door, the patrol moved away. They were women soldiers. We sighed in relief as we saw them walking out of the building. Everything had gone well. All I wanted to do now was to get the hell out of there. I lit a cigarette and we started for the gate.
Yosy looked at his watch. "We still have about twenty minutes, much more than I planned for."
"What are you talking about? We finished. What are we waiting for?"
"Dov said we should not leave before ten."
"You want to tell me they are planning a tail on us now?" The thought frustrated me. To take full advantage of the jobs/exercises, Mossad training personal would throw extra obstacles into otherwise simple operations. They liked to test us, to see if we knew we were being followed. Similar exercises were carried out in Europe while officers were involved in routine operations. Knowing they might be followed by Mossad testers put case officers on their best behavior.
"Anyway," Yosy said, "we're not to leave before ten and then only one at a time. If we're clean we'll meet somewhere. If not, then you do what you have to do. I will be leaving last, like a good commander. Now would you follow me? I have someone I want you to meet."
"Forget it, Yosy. I'm not in the mood."
"Then do it for me. Haim and I can't handle this alone; we need a third party."
"Why don't you call Jerry?" I smiled.
"We have a woman, what we need is an extra man. Come on."
He headed for a gray-colored prefab office structure half-way between the main building and the gate. It started to rain. I stood at the edge of the covered platform, behind Yosy who was about to knock on a door.
"Come over here," Yosy whispered to me. "I don't have time to fill you in on the cover story. Just remember we're from the Shaback. It would be better if you don't say anything. Oh yes, we're not married, any of us, and don't use you own name, family name that is." He knocked on the door.
A soft feminine voice answered. "Who's that?"
"Yosy."
"Come on in."
He opened the door slowly, turned, and winked at me, and entered.
"Carmit, how are you?" He walked over to a slim, beautiful blonde seated behind a large metal desk. She was wearing an oversized green army sweater with sergeant's stripes loosely pinned to her sleeves. A pair of tight faded jeans wrapped her long legs, which stretched out under the desk almost touching a small glowing electric heater.
Yosy bent over and kissed her on the cheek. He then stood behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders, and said, "This, my beautiful candy, is my friend Dan."
I smiled at her and she smiled back. I felt awkward, out of place, yet excited, hypnotized by those deep blue eyes. There was a reddish glow to the room and I was starting to feel hot.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Yosy.
"It's an inspection. We're here to check if the place is secure."
"Is it?"
Yosy thought for a moment, leaning closer to her. "Not to worry, you're safe as long as we're here."
She stared at me, smiling. Yosy leaned over and kissed her on the lips. The kiss went on and on. As I turned to leave, I saw her slowly raise her hands and hold his head. He slid one hand through her shirt collar onto her breast and massaged it. I waited outside for a few seconds before I heard him say, "Listen, my flower. One of us will come over to your place, around twelve?"
"Okay. If I'm not there you know where the key is, right?"
Yosy came out, smiling as he closed the door behind him. "Well buddy, if all goes well it will be Carmit at midnight."

CHAPTER 3
22.00
On leaving the compound I took steps to see if I was being followed. By now this activity was second nature to me. After verifying I was indeed clean I called Dov. The phone rang twice. "Yes?" Dov answered in his somewhat husky voice.

"It's Kid here."
"What's up?"
"I just wanted to tell you I'm clean."
"Positive?"
"No doubt."
"Where are you now?"
"At the Elite intersection. Will there be anything else? I want

to get out of this stinking uniform."
"On what side of the intersection are you?"
"By the diamond exchange."
"Okay. Just a minute." There was a two-minute pause on the line. When he came back he just said, "have a good night. I'll see you in the morning." His voice was slightly cynical; that was Dov's way. He'd picked it up from Mousa, his boss, and carried it a little further.

I hadn't even put the receiver back into place when a police car screeched to a stop by the phone booth. I watched as the uniformed policeman got out and headed for me. I slowly hung up the phone and turned to face him. I knew the routine; it was a typical training exercise to get us used to the kind of harassment we might encounter abroad. I was smirking; it wasn't a good idea to do that but I just couldn't help myself. I knew what was coming, and yet I didn't care. I knew I could handle it.
"Hey, you!" the policeman called as he swaggered closer.
I found the situation comical. I could still remember when encounters like this got me exited and scared. "What?" I started to chuckle. "Are you talking to me?"

"What's so funny, soldier boy?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"You think it's funny, do you? I'll show you how funny this

is." He slammed the booth door open to one side and stuck his bulldog face almost touching mine. Trained over and over to handle such situations, I was supposed to be overly co-operative, friendly, whimpish: soothe the man and get the problem to shrink as fast and as far as possible. But I wasn't in the mood for that. "Are you talking to me?" The words just came out and the smile on my face widened.

He grabbed my shirt collar and slammed me against the back of the booth. The metal shelf under the phone hit my lower back, sending bolts of pain through my legs. "Do you have papers?" His face was twisted with anger at my smile. He turned his head to his partner, who was slowly getting out of the car. "We got ourselves a smart alec here. Should we take him downtown or feed him some knuckles first?"

The second policeman was a giant. "Well, little soldier," he said. "I can see you want to play games."
"Are you talking to me?" I wasn't smiling any more. His huge open hand came from behind, while the smaller cop was still holding me, and hit me on the top of my forehead. My head snapped back, slamming against the glass pane. I could hear the glass crack. The insides of my head vibrated; I was starting to lose consciousness. I wasn't sure if it was because of his choke-hold or the semi-trailer that had just hit me.
Suddenly both cops backed up, yanking me out of the booth. The sudden contact with the cold air brought me round.
"You're coming with us, soldier boy," one said as I was tossed into the back seat of the small Ford Escort patrol car.
"Where are you from, soldier boy?" He forced my head between my knees and cuffed my hands behind my back, closing the cuffs tight.
"Are you talking to me?"
A fast jab to the ribs brought a short cry of pain from me. When I tried to raise my head he pushed it back down, hitting my lip on my knee. I could taste the blood. I stayed down. Whatever happened I couldn't have them leave marks on my face. My face was the most important tool I had in this strange trade of mine. I could not do my job with a black and blue face. I knew they were instructed not to harm me or leave me visibly bruised, but often these cops would get carried away.
I felt like telling them, "I know the routine; let's get it over with," but all I could say was "Are you talking to me?" My mind wandered. Meanwhile the bastard was slapping the back of my head and punching at my ribs. From time to time a sharp pain would drag me out of my thoughts and force me to face what was taking place. I knew I could stop this by playing along, but something inside didn't let me.
It was almost a full hour of sheer agony before we got back to where they had picked me up. The car stopped, the driver turned, grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head up. My vision was blurred and I had a pounding headache.
The gorilla was sweating profusely.
"What were you doing here, you little bastard?" He spoke right into my face, tightening his grip on my hair.
"Are you talking to me?" I mumbled. I could see they were confused. This was not the way things were supposed to go. They weren't sure if I was doing it wrong or they. The gorilla was now staring out the window, clearly worried that he might have overdone it.
"Yes, you little shit, I'm talking to you," he finally said. I didn't realize how much I needed that little victory.
"Why didn't you say so?" I smiled faintly.
He smiled back in relief, and let go of my hair. His friend took off my cuffs and opened the door. He then got out of the car and gently helped me out. Before he closed the door he looked at me. "You okay? No hard feelings?"
"No hard feelings." I shrugged and staggered back into the phone booth. The cracked pane was staring me straight in the face. It seemed so long ago, I had almost forgotten how it started. I dialed, and on the second ring Dov answered.
"It's Kid." I said.
"What's up?"
"You son of a bitch. I just got off a roller coaster."
"What took you so long?"
"I don't know. I guess there was a communication problem with the operator of the amusement park."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm tired, you ass-hole. What do you think I mean?"
"Are you okay?"
"As well as could be expected. I will live, though."
"Okay, just put it all in the report. I'll see you in the morning." He hung up.
I dialed again, this time to the phone in the Academy's main hall. Yosy or Haim was supposed to be there. It was a pact we had that we waited for each other until the last one was done. It was 23.40 and Yosy answered after the fifth ring. He was breathing hard, as if he had run.
"Yes?"
"Yosy?"
"Hey, Victor, where the hell are you? We were ready to give up on you."
"Who's we?"
"Haim and me, who else?"
"Why are you breathing like you just ran a marathon?"
"We've been playing ping-pong. So what are you up to?"
"Not much. I need rest."
"Where are you now?"
"I'm at the Elite intersection in Ramat Gan."
"We'll meet you in ten minutes at the London mini-stores complex."
"See you there." I hung up and waved down a cab. Several minutes later I was standing at the corner, staring north up Even Gvirol Avenue. The Jeep came to a screeching stop just behind me.
Haim was sitting in the back. He stuck his balding head out, looking back at me. "Come on, come on, we don't have all night. We've got a job to do."
"A job?"
"There's a lawyer's office, we have to enter the building and photograph some of his files."
"When did this come up?"
"Yesterday."
"How come I never heard of it?"
"You're not on our team. It's a non-elected setup; we didn't choose it, we were assigned."
I could feel the long blade slowly making its way through my back. Yosy, Haim and myself had been a team almost from day one. There was no reason to break us up; we complemented each other. The only thing that I could think of was that someone was trying to isolate me. I was not paranoid. Had this been a legitimate move they would have brought it to my attention and given it an explanation. Because it was done behind my back it was sinister. But there was nothing I could do now; accepting it was the only rational move.

CHAPTER 4

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1986
07.45
I reached the Academy and ran into the building, my coat over my head for protection from the rain.

Dov, our training instructor, looked angry - not an expression regularly seen on his rounded face. He stopped me several feet from the coffee pot.

"Where the hell have you been?"
"Did we have a date?" I asked dryly.
"I don't need a date to fuck you." He had a point, and also
my attention. "I'm talking about last night?"
I paused, looking at the ceiling. "You missed me? I'm touched."
"You weren't home when I called."
"What do you mean? You called me at home? Who do you think you are, calling me at home? What did you tell Bella?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you."
"What am I supposed to tell her now?"
"If you'd been there, you wouldn't have to tell her anything."
"Fuck you, who made you the sheriff? Trust me, Dov, coul calb bigy youmu (every dog has his day). I'll find a time to look for you too. Oh sorry, I forgot you're married to your right hand and a bar of soap." I poured myself a cup of coffee. The man was clearly furious. "Okay, now you found me. What do you want anyway? I don't have all day." This was getting far more complicated than I thought.
"What did you think you were playing at last night, with the cops?" Dov was trying to keep his voice down.
"Nothing. They took me for a ride and then brought me back, why?"
"Is that how you deal with hostile police? After years of training, that is all you came up with? 'Are you talking to me'?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"Don't start with me. You're walking the edge and you know it, so don't push me."
I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him away. I leaned over closer to him and spoke in a low voice. "Listen to me, Dov. You're on loan to the Mossad from the internal security because of your expertise in operational security, right?"
He nodded.
"I'm a Mossad officer. In a few weeks I will be posted, and even if I'm not, I'm still a colonel. I outrank you ten times, you little pipsqueak." He tried to pull away, I held on. "You can tell me whatever you want, that's your job. However, if you don't want me to break your neck, and trust me I will, you treat me with respect. Am I making myself clear?"
"Get your hands off me." He backed up.
"You'll get my report shortly and if you don't like what you read you can do whatever you bloody want, but you can't shout at me. Now if you'll forgive me I have a coffee to drink and you, my friend, can kiss my ass." I walked back to the main area. This confrontation had made me feel great and I wasn't going to let anything change that.
There were some loose ends I had to tie up, which was the main reason I had come to the Academy in the first place. It had to do with a conference that had taken place at the Country Club the month before. The conference hosted the representatives of the South Korean Unification Church of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, known as Moonies, and their sordid entourage of international scumbags. Meetings had taken place with right-wing Knesset members and some military personnel. Also taking part on our side were representatives of the intelligence community and dignitaries such as Yehuda Blum, the former Israeli ambassador to the UN. An ex-colonel from the Korean central intelligence agency (KCIA) and several retired American generals were there too. One man I really couldn't stand was a Frenchman called Pierre Ceylac who was a member of an extreme right-wing French fascist party. The man constantly wanted me to get him things. He thought that liaison meant having a servant or something. He had placed a request with the Mossad for a computer program that would help him communicate and store data. Ceylac needed to keep the data secure from the French secret service. I was supposed to get the program that had been modified for him by Sitex and send it via diplomatic pouch to the Paris station. They would have the program delivered to him.
I didn't understand why we dealt with such scum to begin with. But David Biran, who had hosted the conference, said the benefits were far greater than the smell. It was not my place to question but to obey, and so I did. Most of the time, when things were going well, I had no problem with that concept. I also knew I had a stain on my record but that would be fast removed with the first success I had in the field.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Mossad Headquarters, King Saul Boulevard Tel Aviv
"Hey, Victor," Yehuda Gill, a veteran Katsa and one of the living legends of the Mossad, called as I was about to pass through the security post at the entrance to the building. I turned and he waved at me, pointing to a corridor that led to the photographic department. The man was involved in just about every operation that called for elaborate planning. Yet he was one of the more modest people in the organization.

I smiled and walked in his direction. He put a hand on my shoulder and. "Come with me. I'm going to have my ugly face photographed for a new American passport. I want to talk to you."

We entered the empty photo studio. "The photographer will be here in a few minutes," he said.
"What's with the American passport?" That was a very rare thing to get. The Mossad tried to avoid as much as possible the use of American passports.
"I'll be working in the States for the Al department. We've got a big cleanup job there."
"I never heard of any screwups there. What's to clean up?"
"The Pollard thing."
"I thought that was LAKAM_?"
They made the mess, but we have to clean it up. I have to contact the famous Mr. X and see to it that he doesn't get caught."
I knew something about the case. The LAKAM had recruited a man named Pollard, an American Jew working in U.S. Navy intelligence, and had worked him as a spy. He was captured in 1986 by the FBI, after being refused asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington. That refusal was the direct result of Mossad intervention, although the affair was handled outside the Mossad. There was rumored to be a link between Pollard and the Mossad, known as Mr. X. We never got the full story, and what did come through was buried in paper.
"So there is a Mr. X?" I said.
"In name only. Mr. X is not one person. Eitan_ took from us lists of Sayanim_ when he left. He used them as sources. They would tell him where things were and he would have Pollard bring out the hard copy."
"They agreed?" I knew it was a dumb question the moment I asked it.
"Agreed? A sayan is there to serve, not to question. If we don't move fast others will end up in jail cells next to Pollard. So I have to go out there and see that it doesn't happen. How many Jews do you know in America who are willing to be branded a traitor, and spend time in prison for the glory of Israel?"
I nodded in understanding. "So what can I do for you?" "Nothing. I just want to talk to you about you."
"Me? What's to talk about?"
"I heard some things about you and I think you should know about them."
"What things?"
"First, you have Mike Harari_, whom you played for a fool. He's still after your hide. The man is spreading stories about you. Then there are all the people you rub the wrong way when you talk politics." Yehuda looked at me like a teacher looking at a young rascal. "You have the right to keep your stinking opinions. But since you're from the wrong side of the spectrum you should keep them to yourself."
I knew that it was a myth that an organization such as the Mossad, with all that power, could exist without becoming fascist. Yet I needed the myth to keep going. "So what are you telling me? That I should shut up? Isn't Israel a democracy?"
"It is, but you're not in Israel, you're in the Mossad. Until we get a chance to clean house things will get worse before they get better. My advice to you is, duck, my boy, duck until the rage passes."
"What if I don't?"
"You'll be out on your ass faster then you can believe. Or much worse."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means? We deal in death and deception every day. Think about it." He smiled sadly. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions. But just then the photographer walked in.
"Thanks for coming to say goodbye," he said to me and turned to face the photographer. I knew our little talk was over.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16
08.00
I was posted to the Danish desk in Country_ in Mossad headquarters. I reported to work first thing in the morning. After the ritualistic coffee and chatter in the corridors I was handed my assignment for that day. For my first job on this desk I was given a pile of Danish visa applications that were shipped to us via diplomatic pouch. They were photocopies of the originals and were part of a so-called service we were performing for the Danes.

All the applicants were of Arab descent and we would compare their names with our own data base. We had a new system installed only some months before and the cross-referencing of the information was extremely fast. The computer had over one and a half million names in its memory. It took only a few seconds to get a cross-reference with the new program, which was said to have been freshly stolen from an ally.

After several days, Benny S., second in command of Country, told me to contact Hombre - code name for our man in Scandinavia, - and have him request a new bugging on a leading Danish judicial figure by the name of Gammeltoft Hansen. This man was a pro-Palestinian advocate and a professor in some university. The Danish police, or secret police, had installed a listening device in his office for us several years previously. "Study the file," Benny said, "then you recommend what should be done. We believe Hansen suspects his office is bugged from the way he conducts his conversations. If we bug his home we're sure to get better results."

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17
From what I found in the Danish secret service file, I could see that we had a "good friend" in Denmark, much friendlier and more co-operative than the Israeli Shaback was to us. The Danes had a small service that wanted to play in the big leagues but didn't have the know-how or financial backing to do so. On the other hand they could gather information inside Denmark and do things without getting caught that we couldn't dream of. In return for getting things done for us, we made them feel important.

Hombre's answer to my request for a second bug came back the same day. They were working on it. They had placed the first one in the professor's office at the end of 1984. It was done by an agent we had inside Danish intelligence. His name was Schmidt, and he was code-named Oil Paint. He sent a police team to place the bug, making up a story that the bug had been requested by the man whose office it was, supposedly to stop some phone harassment. He gave the wrong office location, so when they had installed the bug it was in the professor's phone. No one but Oil Paint, and Hombre of course, knew about it. The tapes were transferred directly, untouched, to Hombre every two weeks like clockwork and everybody was happy.

The second request that I had made to Hombre was to try and get more information regarding Korean dissident activity in Denmark. This was a request from liaison to fill a promise made to the Moonies. A similar request had been made in 1982 but the Danes wouldn't give us anything then. This time they were much more helpful. They replied that they would oblige. They also wanted us to know how sensitive the information was. They were collecting it exclusively for the CIA and didn't want to get caught in the middle.

I double-checked with Amnon Peleg, the liaison to the CIA. He said the CIA would shoot us all if they knew we were giving this stuff to the Moonies.

Peleg asked me to delay the transfer of the information. By evening this was starting to take on a crisis format. Head of liaison insisted on giving it to the Moonies. He said the information was promised to him by Shabtai, head of Melucha. Shabtai was out of the country and out of reach. He was in Rome, a guest of the Italian head of intelligence. It was a working visit. Shabtai had taken Menahem Dorf with him who was head of Sayfanim_. They had information tying Sabry El Bana (better known as Abu Nidal) to the December 27, 1985, attack on the Rome airport. The information was solid, although many gaps were artfully filled, tying the man to other terrorist acts that had taken place in Italy. From Rome, Shabtai was heading for France to do almost the same thing there.

Finally the decision came on the side of the Moonies. Head of Country decided to go ahead and tell Hombre to activate Schmidt and have him steal the material if necessary.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
The information for the Moonies arrived before noon and was passed on directly to Traksin (Mashov's_ department for paraphrasing information). Paraphrasing was done to eliminate the possibility of tracing the source of the information. I then passed it on to liaison, who sent it to Japan where the Mossad liaison officer to the Far East - from the Dardasim section - handed it in person to his contact in Dr. Moon's church.

That same day, Hombre sent a fax through a secure line in the Israeli embassy in Denmark. He informed me that the special anti-terror unit of Purples-A_ had entered and installed a Glass_ in the professor's house. In the fax he said the action was made under protest by an officer named Delsgard, but the man did nothing more than that.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21
The Danish visa forms that were found problematic made their way back to my desk. Several of them had names that were also in our computer, meaning that they were of some interest to us. The procedure was to double check, because Arab names are extremely confusing. It was necessary to see if other details such as date and place of birth matched. That would eliminate almost 80 percent of the so-called hot files. The women at the typing pool had no clearance to call up the files they were working on. All they could do was enter information, not retrieve it.

Once the name was regarded as hot and verified, it was added to a roster with all the relevant information. The roster was then passed on to operations center every second day. There they analyzed the new names to see if they wanted to recruit immediately or put them on hold. If the decision was to recruit immediately, the Danes would not be given an answer regarding the person in question. They were to assume that all was well and they would approve the visa. Once the applicant was on Danish soil and under our surveillance, the Danes would be informed he was a dangerous person. They would automatically cease refugee proceedings, and bring him in for questioning. A Mossad officer would then attempt to recruit him in the Danish holding tank. If the recruiting was successful he would be released and act as an agent for the Mossad inside the Palestinian community in Europe, or elsewhere. If not recruited the man would be threatened and then released; usually they then escaped to another Scandinavian country where the Mossad had similar arrangements. There the process would start all over.

"We have in this way recruited over eighty Palestinians this past year," my boss had bragged. "It's too easy to be legal."
It wasn't, but when I asked if this sort of thing couldn't backfire on us, I got the usual answer you would get in the Mossad to just about any question: "So what?"
Over the next few days things started to become somewhat of a haze. I was working almost around the clock preparing for my planned trip to Sri Lanka. I was to escort a large shipment of mines to the Tamil Tigers and receive payment for them. I was learning my cover story and being questioned on it by my section head.
It seemed that the whole building was going berserk. Everybody and his dog were looking for information that could stop King Hussein's efforts for a peace initiative. This caught the Mossad off guard; we had understood from sources in the United States that it was a farce. They had said it was dead in the water almost a month ago. But somehow it sprang to life again, and although Arafat would not recognize Israel, he had agreed to a meeting with Hussein. The word was that it was a ploy by Hussein. All he wanted, they said, was to get his request for a two-billion-dollar arms purchase from the Americans approved. We had guaranteed the Prime Minister that this would not happen. The entire Jewish lobby in the U.S. was mobilized. The man in charge of that was Tsvy Gabay, head of the foreign office intelligence section. He was given lists of Sayanim and pro-Zionist organizations that he could mobilize.
This was not an easy task. The Jordanians could purchase the arms anywhere they wanted. They were not begging for a grant, they wanted to spend money in the U.S. They were looking for a cash deal. We knew that if they succeeded, they would have access to an American market that was more than eager to sell. And so this deal never stood a chance.
The American Jewish community was divided into a three-stage action team. First were the individual Sayanim: if the situation was reversed and they were Americans working in Israel they would be regarded and treated as spies. Then there was the large pro-Israeli lobby. It would mobilize the community in a forceful effort in the direction the Mossad would point them. And last there was B'nai-Brith. They were the ones to make friends among the non-Jews and tarnish as anti-Semitic whoever they couldn't sway to the Israeli cause. With that sort of one-two-three tactic, there was no way we could strike out.

CHAPTER 5
THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1986
Two months had passed since the Cyprus fiasco. The system was in torment over dealing with me. On the one hand, they had invested a great deal in bringing me to this point. And I had responded well meaning I was a good product of the system's training and modeling process. However, there was high-ranking officers, against Ephraim Halevy, made it his personal crusade to expel me from what he called the first family of the State.

He had somehow been made my assessor and was not happy with things he had found in my file. He said that I was inflammatory and that my political outbursts were a menace to morale. He agreed that I had the makings of a good case officer but since I leaned to the left in my views, I would be a danger to the system. a strong current, led by several me. One I barely knew, named

The Mossad is a small organization with thirty to forty case officers, each an important member of the field family. Whatever happens to one affects the rest. My situation was well known and was a topic of discussion at almost every gathering where I wasn't present. I learned about it from friends, but I didn't have a so-called horse (a brass member who wanted to advance me as part of his clique) who would speak for me.

By now I knew I was going to get the boot. I stood outside the large wooden doors of the academy, at the edge of the staff parking lot. I stared at the winter sun sinking slowly into the Mediterranean. The light was fading fast.

I had dreaded this moment, but in my inner pessimistic soul I somehow always knew this day would come. They revoked my probation and I was about to find myself on the outside. How was I to know I was about to start the most frightening and dangerous roller coaster ride one could imagine? It would take me across borders, breaking taboos I would otherwise never have breached. The start of this ride was still about an hour away and its terrible shriek still out of earshot.

The sun had long faded into the black waters, taking the pale red glow from the edge of the horizon. I heard some of my "friends" passing behind me, trying to ignore me on their way to their cars.

I was on my own. They knew I was being badly treated. They also knew that talking about it might put them in the same predicament.

"Victor," came a call from inside the main hall. I turned. It was Dinur, someone I had regarded as a friend. I was sure he still was.
"What?"
"They want to talk to you." He nodded in the direction of the offices.
"Is the chief there?" As a case officer on his way out, I had the right to speak one-on-one to the head of the Mossad. If that were denied, I would activate my second privilege and ask for a hearing with the Prime Minister.
"No, the boss isn't there. David Arbel is."
"I have the right to speak to Rom." I used the chief's code name.
"Why don't you listen to what Arbel and Gideon Naftaly have to say?"
"Naftaly? What the hell is Naftaly up to?" Naftaly was head of the psychiatric department and a quack if there ever was one. In the cadet course, one cadet, a psychologist, had made manipulating the little twerp into a sport.
"Look Victor, don't ask me all these questions. Get in there and ask them."
I nodded and started for the hall, stopping by the coffee table to take a cup and use some napkins, partially drying my hair. Dinur was walking by me. I felt like a man on his way to the gallows.
Gideon popped his head out of the office. "Victor, we're waiting for you. Can you please come in here now?"
"Go ahead," said Dinur, pushing me toward the office. "go, man."
I nodded and entered the room. "You called?"
"Yes," said Arbel in his heavy, self-important voice. "We want to talk to you about the termination of your contract with the Mossad."
"When will I have my talk with the boss?"
"You won't," he said in a casual tone, as though he were telling his secretary to get him someone on the phone. "This will be your final talk."
"What are you talking about? You're not the boss, and this clown shouldn't be here anyway."
"Watch your mouth, Victor. I'm not one of your lousy friends."
"Nor could you ever be, you...."
"That's enough." Arbel's eyes were shooting sparks. I could see that he felt the control slipping between his fingers. "I wanted to talk to you before you leave. If you don't want to answer that will be okay with me. In fact, I would be grateful if you didn't. Now listen to me and never forget what I say to you."
I leaned back in my chair. I found his manner offensive, but the power was his. "Once on the outside you'll forget everything you have learned, done, heard or otherwise understood is taking place here."
"I thought I'd get a chance to tell the boss what I think is wrong," I returned. "I know that what I say might not amount to much, but at least he could make a face like he's listening, the way he does when Brains here talks to him."
Naftaly shook his head but didn't say a word.
Arbel went on. "Well, as you can see, that isn't going to happen. Why don't you just spit out whatever it is you want to say? I'll pass it on to him."
"How about talking to the Prime Minister, if the boss won't talk to me ...."
"You'll talk to me and that's it." He was losing his patience.
"In my employment contract, it says that upon involuntary termination of the contract I will have a meeting with the head of the Mossad and/or the Prime Minister. It says the meeting will take place before final termination of employment." I moved closer to him, subconsciously defying his unlimited power.
He smirked at me. "I don't give a shit about your contract. Who are you going to complain to?" His voice was low. "Can't you see? We made that promise, and we can break it. We can do with you anything we want. I could put you in jail now and throw away the key. You know it happened to others. You're like a mosquito on my head. You're starting to become a nuisance and I'm about ready to crush you. So listen, Victor, get moving while you still have time."
"So does that mean no?" I knew I was pushing it.
"Are you hard of hearing? I said you're not talking to anyone. You're out of the loop, you're out of the game, and if you don't watch it you'll be out of this world."
"What are you telling me?" I was almost whispering. "You'll kill me if I don't play it your way? If that's what you said, it's a first. I might have flunked the course and maybe even screwed up an operation if that's the way you want to hear it. I'm still a patriot, whether you like it or not, and it's starting to look like you might not be one. You might be responsible for the security of our country but nobody has yet made you king." I got up and headed for the door.
"Don't you walk out on me." Arbel was now on his feet, shouting after me.
"Fuck all of you," I answered, not even turning around.
When I reached the door, Naftaly was at my side, breathing hard. The short run was too much for the little couch potato. I stopped and turned to face him. "What is it?"
"There is something I have to tell you, shall we say out of professional courtesy."
"I'm listening, but hurry up. I have a life to start."
"When I met you in the final testing stages I wanted you out of the game. I knew you would be trouble but I was overruled; they saw great operational potential in you, as they put it."
"Well, I'm out. That should make you very happy."
He turned red. "I'd like to take the credit for this, but unfortunately I can't. There were several high brass functionaries you turned against you all on your own."
"So what do you want from me?"
"I have a good psychological profile of you by now. After all, I have been observing you for several years. I know you have learned a lot in the courses and the short time you have spent in the field. Now you're an expert on how to kill, steal, forge, recruit and break into places. Having learned all that, you're sent into the world with no real use for it."
"Does that scare you? Are you worried that I'll be coming for you or something?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I just want to tell you that you have a basic problem and you should look after it or it will kill you." He paused then went on, "You have what I call in novice's terms a fear deficiency."
"What?"
Not one muscle moved in his pudgy face. "I'm not kidding. It was one of the main reasons they picked you in the first place. Most people in the system have the same problem, but they have the system to take care of them. You don't have that anymore. Before you learned all the things you did in the Mossad, it didn't matter." He paused. "You have gotten and will get into trouble because you're not afraid of the consequences. If you would consider the fact that fear is a protective mechanism we have, the lack of it is a deficiency. What you should remember, is to analyze everything you are about to do. You don't have natural fear to rely on."
"So what you're telling me is, find a job doing something that doesn't call for what I've learned here?"
"Yes, that will be preferable." He lowered his head and looked at the tips of his shoes.
"Tell your boss it didn't work. You're probably right, nothing seems to scare me."
"It will kill you if you don't watch out, Victor."
"And a good day to you." I headed for my car. I was angry.
Once I was inside the tiny blue box of my car, it hit me. This is it. Once I start my car and drive the three hundred feet to the gate it will all be over. Everybody I knew in the Mossad will now be a stranger to me. From this point on all my access to information and the power that came with it will be gone.
I couldn't comprehend it. Life after the Mossad - it sounded like an oxymoron. I felt like a figure plucked from one of Dali's surrealistic paintings and set down in the real world, a world where people are only the size they were born to be and can do only what is allowed, a place where rules are meant to be followed, not broken. I felt like throwing up and at the same time I wanted to punch someone. I started the car and headed for the gate. I remembered entering this place a happy cheerful man, curious and anxious like a child allowed into Aladdin's treasure cave. Now here I was heading in the other direction, bitter, beaten and betrayed.
I stopped at the gate, waiting for it to open. I was staring ahead when I heard a knock on my window. It was a perimeter guard. I rolled down my window, not even looking at the man. "What?"
"I was told to get your entry card, please."
I wanted to say something mean, but his expression was apologetic. He wasn't sure what to do or say. I drew the white card out of my pocket and handed it to him. "Now could you guys open the bloody gate and let me out of this shit hole?"
The gate moved quickly. Not waiting for it to open all the way, I slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The small wheels spun and I sped into the night.
I knew I should be heading home, but I just couldn't go there yet. I knew that once I told Bella I was out it would become a full reality.
The rain did not let up. I drove slowly through the streets of Tel Aviv. Everything seemed gray and dull. Before there was a challenge in everything, now there was nothing. No one was following me, and I had nowhere to report. I was a mortal again, kicked out of heaven. It was time to go home and try and put my life back together.

CHAPTER 6

It was almost midnight when I reached my apartment building in Herzelia. I drove into my parking stall under the building. As I locked the car, I heard someone calling from inside the storage room, "Victor."
I stepped back.
"Don't be alarmed, I'm here to pick you up and take you to a meeting."
I tried to see who was talking to me. All I could see was a dark figure leaning on the wall inside the storage room. I reached over and flicked the switch to turn on the light. I wasn't surprised when it didn't work. "Who are you?"
"I'm only a messenger. I can't answer any of your questions but you have nothing to worry about...." He stopped talking for a minute, listening to something through a receiver he had in his ear. "Like I said," he went on, "you've got nothing to worry about. You weren't followed on your way here. Except for myself, there was no surveillance on this building either." He opened the screen door and stepped out closer to me. "Shall we go?"
"Is this some sort of stinking joke?"
"Believe me, it's no joke. Look, if we wanted to harm you, we could have done it even before your meeting with Arbel, okay?"
Nobody outside the Mossad could have said what this man just did. I could feel adrenaline rush into my system. Deep inside I hoped the Mossad was calling me back.
"There's a black Lancia parked across the street. Get in the back seat. They'll take you to the meeting."
"Why can't I take my car?"
"Don't worry, they'll bring you back."
"Okay, but first I need to tell my wife I'm going. She'll be worried if she sees my car and I'm not around."
"As long as it doesn't take too long."
"Look, buddy," - I was ready to get mad at anything at that point - "it will take as long as it takes. You on the other hand can go back into that little room over there and lay an egg as far as I'm concerned."
"Sorry, go ahead. We'll wait for you but please make it fast, okay?"
His tone sounded much better; for a moment there I thought I'd found the face I was supposed to slug that day.
I rang the intercom. "Yes?" Bella's voice sounded tired.
"It's me."
"Aren't you coming up?"
"I will in a while. Some people from the office were waiting for me here. We're going for a short ride. It's okay."
"You don't sound okay. Are you sure you should go with these people?"
"It's nothing to worry about."
"Why don't they come up? I'll make some coffee."
"I don't think that would work. They're waiting. I have to go. I'll be back soon. Don't worry, everything's fine." She didn't answer. I knew she had given up. No other woman would have put up with me as long as Bella has. I stood there, staring at the silent black intercom. I wanted to run upstairs, hold her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her. I turned and headed for the car.
By the time I reached the car I felt nothing. It was what we'd call operational numbness. You have a small pain in the base of your chest, more like a slight discomfort. That's your personal feelings. They're compressed into a small controllable zone, your so-called tragedy spot, while your consciousness is in receiving mode, pumped up and ready to take in information that will decide how you should react.
It was as if I had awakened from a dream and then, while still awake, stepped back into it. At this stage there could be only two options: either they wanted me back, or they were going to have a "talk" with me. By "talk" I mean straighten me out so that I wouldn't start something that could damage the Mossad.
After a ten-minute drive we came to a stop. we were behind an abandoned warehouse in the industrial area of Herzelia. A car was parked by the building. I saw two men seated in it when our car shone its lights on them momentarily. "They're waiting for you over there," said the driver, not turning his head.
I got out and headed for the parked car. One man was now standing by the car, his back to me. When I got to about five feet from him, he turned to face me. He then opened the car door just enough to turn on the interior light. What I saw was not registering. It was Ephraim, the officer who had tried constantly to get me fired. Seated next to him was a uniformed officer I recognized instantly. It was a brigadier-general from the tank brigades. I had respected the man for a long time and had had several opportunities to work with him during combined exercises of the armored divisions with the navy.
I stepped into the back seat. The driver closed the door behind me and headed over to the other car.
"I'm Ephraim Halevy, and I'm very happy to meet you again." He said extending his hand to me.
I was dumbfounded, a situation I don't find myself in very often.
"Well, aren't you going to shake my hand?"
"No, I don't see why I should. You are a liar. You said things about me that weren't true, and they believed you because you are a big high-ranking shit."
The General was silent, relighting his pipe every few minutes, filling the car with a sweet cherry smell. Ephraim was a heavy-set man about five foot nine. His hairline was receding and his thin light hair was neatly combed to one side. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that he kept tucking back up into place with his index finger as they slid down his nose.
His voice was soft and he appeared overall to be a pleasant man. "Okay, I'll get straight to the point, then you can ask all the questions you want. Are you up to thinking?"
"Is this a trick question? Can I stop thinking?"
"No, but after what you went through today you might not be thinking too clearly. Never mind." He offered me a cigarette and took one himself. With a friendly smile, the General stretched out his hand and lit my cigarette.
"You didn't flunk on your own," Ephraim went on, "you were set up. Don't kid yourself, though. You would have gotten yourself kicked out sooner or later. It was better all around that it be sooner." He paused, looking at me over his gold-rimmed glasses. "Before we go any further I want you to know that there's nothing you or I can do about it. So whether you help us or not you can't go back."
"Wait, you're going too fast for me. Who set me up? Why? What the hell do you mean, I can't go back? If you know I've been set up you could turn it around, I will bloody insist you fucking do that. Do you have any idea what being a Mossad case officer means to me? What are you, some sort of a shitface god?"
"Cut the crap, Victor. What you want is the life that comes with the job. You want to keep your dick employed and have the glory like the rest of us, and that's okay."
"So how come, when it's the rest of you it's okay, and when it's me I'm out?"
"You're not out because of that." The two men exchanged glances. Ephraim went on, "There are those who believe the Mossad exists for them to use. We have to stop them, before it's too late."
"Too late? Too late for what?"
"They'll lead us into a war, just as they have done already in Lebanon."
"One minute, please." I raised my hands as if I were trying to stop a ball headed for my chest. "What does all this have to do with me? I'm out of the game or, as that jerk Arbel said, I'm out of the loop."
"Don't believe everything you hear, or see for that matter. There is a lot you don't know. You're going to have to trust me."
"Trust you? I don't know you from a fucking hole in the wall, and what I do know of you I don't really like. You lied about me and you were probably the reason behind me getting kicked out of the Moss...."
Suddenly it dawned on me: he did get me kicked out. He wanted me for himself, for something he wanted me to do outside the system. I'd heard of things like this done in other agencies. When there's a problem in the system, you get a man kicked out, then you use him to do things for you - he's well trained, knows the business, and remains ditched.
"Look, I know how you feel, but you'll have to trust me, which is why I brought the General. You know him, don't you?"
I looked at the rugged face staring at me from the front seat. His eyes were piercing through me. I nodded.
"Good, now listen carefully. We don't have much time."
"Why, what's the rush?"
"Your friends are not so sure about you. Some think you might be back, others think you might become very noisy, with what you know."
"What are you telling me?"
"They want you out of the way. You know, dead. You wouldn't be the first one."
"So what, they'll shoot me? Or run me over?"
"No, they'll have you called for reserves and posted as a liaison officer to the South Lebanese Army. How long do you think you'll live in South Lebanon?"
"They know me there as Mossad," I smiled bitterly. "Probably a few hours. Sure would be a neat way to do away with me. There is only one flaw in that plan."
"Really?" Ephraim smiled.
"Yes, according to regulations I can't be called up for reserves before I cool off for one year. Then I can only be posted in what is regarded a safe environment."
"You have friends in the navy, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you call one of them and see if you're being called up or not. Just so you know, the paperwork is already on the way. If you're not out of the country in a day or two, you're a dead man."
It was starting to sink in. Up to this point it was as though we were talking about someone else, a hypothetical situation. But we weren't. We were talking about me and about my demise. I didn't feel scared. I was tense, the muscles in my neck stiffening. I stared out the back window into the black night. In my mind I could see myself in a ditch on the side of the road leading to Marj Uyun.
"What can I do?" I was calm. "If the papers are already in preparation the military won't give me a release. Without that bloody paper and computer confirmation, I can't get out of the country. I would appreciate if you could take me home now so I could spend what little time I have left with my family."
"Do you really think we'd drive out in such a night, sit in a car and wait, just to tell you what is going to happen, without some sort of a solution?"
I smiled. "I'm listening."
"When you get home, you'll tell your wife that you were kicked out of the Mossad. You will then tell her that you just met with some friends who told you that you should get out of the country fast."
"What do I do for money?"
"Sell that little shitbox of a car."
"What can I get for a shitbox?"
"Just to get out of the country you'll need about five grand."
"The car isn't worth more than two."
"Put a sign on it and sell it for six. Trust me, you'll sell it. Then get a ticket on Tower Air to London. You will arrive at Gatwick Airport. Stay at the Skyway Hotel, I'll contact you there."
"Why are you doing this? What's in it for you? What do you want from me?"
"You have my offer. I recommend you take it. I'll tell you the rest when we meet in London, that is if you get there." He got out of the car and walked around to the driver's seat.
"Do what he asks you to, Victor," said the General in a rasping voice. "Trust him, it'll be good all around."
"What about the military release?"
Not turning his head, Ephraim now in the driver's seat handed me a small manila envelope. "The papers are in order and registered on the computer. They will expire in seventy-two hours and - if you're not on your way to London before that - so will you."

CHAPTER 7

I walked silently back to the parked Lancia and got in. I ignored the two men in the front and lit a cigarette. I could feel my temples thumping. I had received so much information without the time to analyze it yet. It wasn't the kind of information one could remain cool while dealing with. Yet, I knew that was the only way I must deal with it. If I decided to go along with Ephraim and his people, and it was clear to me that there were more people involved than just Ephraim and the General, I would have to do it to the end, whatever that was. This was the ultimate decision: if you're right you live, if not you're dead.

If what he said was true, and I had little doubt it was, then there was a good chance that even his help wasn't going to get me out of this mess. He headed a powerful clique in the Mossad but he was apparently not the strongest one, or I wouldn't have any need to run away. And there was always a chance that this was a setup to get me to run so they could nail me.
The car came silently to a stop about a block away from my building. Staring ahead, the driver said, "Last station."
He didn't want to be seen near my house, should it now be under surveillance. I stepped out into the cold night. I put my hands in my pockets and walked slowly home. What was I supposed to tell Bella now? "Honey, they kicked me out and now they want to kill me, so I'll be leaving for England."

I stopped by the intercom, my insides churning. What the hell was I supposed to say to someone I loved and at the same time had kept out of everything until now? My excuse was always that I wanted to protect her; what bullshit - I knew that it had been easier not telling her, until now.

I found myself standing there, looking for a new story, rather than the truth. I was beginning to think that there was no truth left in me. Maybe it would be better just to go up there and say nothing, do nothing and wait for the call from the Army that would solve everything. I would answer my country's call, put on my uniform and go where they sent me. By the weekend it would all be over. A military funeral with all the honors. It was even possible that the Prime Minister would show up for that; after all, I was a colonel. He would have it exactly the way he wanted it, he could talk and no one would answer.

Why go through the hassle of trying to stay alive? What was the point? This might just be the best thing that had ever happened to me; I would do something right, permanently.

But I was not the type to lie down and play dead. If there was a chance I could make it, I was going to go for it, no matter how slim that chance was. So there I was, my cigarette almost at its end, and still with no idea what I would tell Bella.

I prayed she wouldn't give up on me. I threw the cigarette butt into a small puddle, and headed upstairs. I knocked on the door and Bella, after peeping through the spy hole, opened. She left the door open and walked into the living room. She was in a soft white robe, her dark hair shining. Her fresh clean smell made me feel even more like a swamp monster.

There was no smile on her beautiful face; it seemed as though there hadn't been a smile on that face for quite some time.
She sat on the sofa, pulling up her legs and folding her arms across her chest. I was uneasy yet at the same time I knew this was my place, I belonged. Everything that was dear to me was in this cozy apartment.
I remembered the first time I laid eyes on her. I was sixteen and she was walking towards me on the sidewalk with a good friend of mine. She wore a dark a blue sweater with a white stripe across the chest and a white ribbon in her black wavy hair. Before she said a single word I was in love. Remorse for the agony I had caused her was gnawing at my chest. I knew she could see through me.
"So what was that all about?" she asked, her voice carrying an ironic tone as if to say, why don't you tell me another story?
I sat across from her; my mind was already made up. "They kicked me out." I felt the lump in my throat as I said the words. "I'm no longer with the office."
She stared at me, not knowing how to take it, her legs lowered as she leaned forward. "If they kicked you out, why did they come and talk to you downstairs?"
"Someone came to tell me that it would be a good idea if I got out of the country."
She was up on her feet, one hand running through her hair as if to find a solution to a problem that suddenly was hers to solve. "What are you talking about, leave? Leave where, why, when?"
I got up and went over to her. I took her in my arms. There was something radiating from her that soothed the dull pain in the base of my chest. She was drawing me out of the melancholic coma I'd been in for so long. "Calm down, it's all going to be alright."
She pushed me away. "Where will you go? What about us? I told you this would happen. It's all those so-called friends of yours, Yosy and Haim and all the others. What will they do to you if you stay?"
"I don't know. You know what they can do."
She dropped back into the sofa. "Where will you go?"
"I thought to fly to England and from there to the States. I'll stay with my dad for a while and then we'll see."
"Why England?"
"That would be the cheapest flight. And then I could get a charter from England to the States."
"So when will you be leaving?"
I sat next to her on the sofa and pulled her toward me. "The day after tomorrow."
She threw her head against my chest. She was crying. I wanted to pull her face up so that I could kiss her but she wouldn't let me.
"I love you, Bella," I said, the lump in my throat growing, choking me. I hugged her as hard as I could. I wanted the moment to last. I knew reality was going to tear us apart and I had no idea for how long. In the back of my mind I wasn't sure I'd get to see her again. I didn't even want to think about what Ephraim had in store for me. Had it been merely terrible, he would have told me about it and given me a chance to volunteer.
We sat there on the sofa for a long time, holding each other. We were married when we were nineteen and had gone out since we were sixteen; I always saw us as two parts of a single human being, I the Yang and she the Yin. I knew she loved me in a way I never deserved, and I loved her more than anything.
We had two beautiful daughters who were now, so I hoped, asleep. The apartment we were living in was rented and except for the car and a few pieces of furniture we didn't have much. The Mossad salary was good but didn't allow for a lot of luxury. That was reserved for the case officers in the field, not for their families.

FRIDAY, MARCH 28
I got up early and showered before my daughters were up. I wanted to wake them up with a kiss and start their day off on the right foot. I was in the state of mind of a man who is about to die, and has accepted the fact.

It was the memory of a loving father that I somehow wanted to burn into their minds. I wanted to do it fast in an instant, with one big hug, because there was no way I could reach back into the past and hand them all the time I had stolen from them. I swore that should I make it through this, whatever "this" was, I would never leave their side again.

Less than an hour after I had put the "for sale" sign on the car and parked it on the curb across from my building, the phone rang.

"I'm calling about the car," said what sounded like a young man.
"What would you like to know?"
"How much are you asking for it?"
"Six thousand American," I said, trying not to laugh.
"Can I come and take it for a spin?"
"Sure, when did you have in mind? You see, I have things to do and...."
"In about twenty minutes."
"Great, I'll meet you by the car."
"My name is Boaz, and you are...?"
"Victor, my name is Victor."
"See you, then." I had no doubt it was one of Ephraim's people coming to take the car and give me the money so that I could leave. This whole charade had to be played because the home phones of Mossad officers were frequently monitored by Mossad security. I knew that if they were listening they too would laugh at the price but they would probably think I had landed a sucker.
By noon that day I had purchased my tickets and was back home, stuffing a reduced version of my diary and a set of photographs of almost all Mossad field officers into a stash I had prepared in my suitcase. It had to be perfect. I couldn't afford to be caught with such a stash on hand. I had kept the pictures after I used them to preparing a comical graduation photo for our case officers' course. This was going to be my insurance; if Ephraim turned out to be not what he seemed or if anyone at any stage tried to stop my family from joining me, I would strip the Mossad of all its field personal in one day, forcing it to cease operations for a very long time.
There was more explosive material packed into that suitcase than had ever hit the Mossad in a single blow.
My flight was Sunday at noon, the day after tomorrow. Bella and I decided to tell the children the morning of my flight; she would keep them home until she knew my flight had taken off. There was no point in spreading the news; many of my ex-comrades were living in the same area as I was and I wasn't sure who might try and stop me if they could.
SUNDAY, MARCH 30
I got out of the cab at the airport. I licked my lips and tasted Bella's perfume that had rubbed off when I kissed her tiny earlobe. The girls were sad to see me go again, but they didn't notice a difference from the other times I had packed and gone on duty. I took solace in that.
I had two suitcases with me and a carry-on bag. I headed for the Tower Air counter, at the eastern end of the Ben Gurion terminal. The flight was to leave at 14.00 and it was now only 11.30. It was standard procedure in the Israeli airport to request that passengers arrive two to three hours before departure. Most passengers had sent their luggage the night before, at the special counter adjacent to the North Tel Aviv train station. There was no way I was going to leave my luggage somewhere overnight with the papers I had stashed in it, nor would I want to give anyone the opportunity to plant something in it.
The Tower Air ground crew wasn't there yet, and there were no more than five passengers standing in the lineup waiting to check in their luggage and get their boarding cards. In fact, there were two lines and I was the first in one. I sat on the stainless steel table used by the security people to go through the luggage. I usually felt good at this airport.
I knew most of the security watch commanders and most of them knew me. I had brought into the country and taken out scores of people, most of whom could say they were never in Israel. And except for some photos stored in the Mossad filing system no one could prove them wrong. The feeling I had that day was very strange. Here I was in a place where only a few days ago I would walk around like a peacock in heat, an arrogant snob, with the ability to move around and have things done at a snap of my fingers. I was a member of the elite, a Mossad officer, and the airport was especially dear to most of us as a place where they knew we were Mossad, something which was not so in most places. So here we could really spread our wings.
Today, however, was different. I was already on the run, and even though no one was visibly after me I knew it was a race against time. It turned out I was extremely lucky; at the beginning of the month I'd had to get a real passport for a job, and had picked it up on the eleventh of that month. As I'm a dual citizen, I had also requested a new Canadian passport some time around the tenth, and had received it on the twentieth. This totally fortuitous action would allow me to leave the country at the speed that I was about to attempt. I was starting to feel the strain of the place, expecting a group of ex-friends to burst into the terminal and carry me away, or maybe the military police claiming I was a deserter. This would be just perfect. I was starting to have my doubts, doubts that were eating at me from the inside. I had to keep a calm face if I didn't want the security people, who were due any moment, to strip search me and to tear my suitcase apart because of a sweaty forehead or a pale face. What if Ephraim was in fact setting me up? This would be where I would be caught, to be tossed into some dungeon and not to be seen again for a generation or two. But why go to all that trouble? They could just lock me up, make up a story, and document it properly; they were wizzes at that. I realized that it was now "they" and no longer "us."
This was going nowhere. I looked across at the other line, where a heavy-set blond bearded man was standing at the head of theline,nervouslytappingonhispigskinattach‚case.
The security watch officer's face was beaming as he walked in my direction. "Hey there, how are you?"
I guess he doesn't know yet, I thought - not that telling the security at the airport was high on anyone's list. "I'm fine. How are you?"
"Good, good," he paused. "Are you on business or pleasure?"
"A little of both, I guess. Why do you ask?"
"I wanted to ask you a favor." This was starting to sound bizarre.
"How can I help?" I trying hard to keep smiling. I was also grateful for the short conversation that bridged the abyss of self-doubt and fear. I knew I didn't have to put on a show for him. He knew I couldn't really refuse him, even if I wasn't thrilled.
He leaned closer to me, and in a low voice said, "We're breaking in a couple of new security people, a guy and a chick." He winked at me. "She's really something, you'll see." He leaned even closer. "And you wouldn't believe it if you saw her; she looks like a good girl, but I have it from friends in the security school that she really puts out."
"So you want me to test-screw her or something?" I felt a deep dislike for the man and I wanted him to get the hell away from me as soon as possible. On the other hand, I couldn't alter the fact that I had a stash in my suitcase that could get me a life sentence in a dingy prison, and he was leaning on it.
He laughed. Apparently he found what I said amusing, not taking the offense intended in my tone. "No, buddy, I can do that. In fact I probably will very soon. What I'd like you to do is exchange your passport with that clown over there." He nodded at the big guy heading the other line. "And then we'll see if the two of them realize what has happened, or for that matter if they notice anything."
"Did you talk to him?"
"What, you think he'd say no?"
I looked at the man. "No, I don't think he will. Sure, what the hell, I'll do it." As he was about to turn to the other man I held him by the shoulder. He turned and faced me, smiling. "What?"
"If I do it, I want you to run me through to the other side like I was here on business." What I meant was that he should take me through all the stations, flashing his I.D. card and clearing the way for me.
"Sure, buddy. No problem."
I smiled, feeling the blood drain out of my face. A cold sensation took hold in my chest, as though a chill breeze was glowing through it.
This teeter-totter of emotion was something we were trained to deal with in the Mossad, as a officer always has personal feelings that would get in the way of the job he has to do. You learn how to create new feelings that will compensate for the ones you lack.
Less than one minute after the security officer had handed me the passport belonging to the big slob and given mine to him, the new crew arrived. I glanced quickly at the passport I'd been handed. It was an American passport and the photo was a colored close-up of the man standing next to me. The beard he now wore was not on the passport photo. That could stump the new crew. I read the name and tried to remember it. This was extremely amateurish; my real name was on my suitcase and my ticket was in my real name. They would have to be extremely daft not to notice - unless there was something else behind it.
"Sir, your passport please," said the woman, who was indeed very pretty. Her attitude was cordial and quite professional for someone who was the first time on the job. I could see what the officer had meant. There was no way I would believe she had the reputation she had. I stepped forward, leaving my luggage behind, my arm outstretched, passport in hand. I smiled at her. Her expression didn't change as she took the passport.
In the corner of my eye I caught sight of Ephraim, leaning on the counter some forty feet from where I was. He was watching me. I couldn't make out any expression on his face. Was all this a charade to get me in the slammer, was all the Lebanon story a ploy to get me to run and then catch me in this stupid exercise at the airport? I could hear it now as I tried to explain in court that a security officer had asked me to help in an exercise, etc., etc., and there would be no such officer to verify my story.
She took the passport, and I could see the big man handing in my passport to the other security officer.
"Your name?" She asked me.
"Robert Freidman."
She closed the passport and put it on the metal table in front of her. "Could you please place your luggage on the counter?"
"Sure, no problem." I turned to pick up my suitcases when I heard the other security man raise his voice at the big fellow. "Don't move, raise your hands above your head." He drew his gun, and within seconds several police were on the scene.
"What's the matter? What's going on?" asked the first to arrive, gun in hand.
"This man is traveling on a false passport." He turned to the big fellow, who was now feverishly searching for the security officer. His face was wet with sweat, his eyes staring down several gun barrels.
"This is a big mistake. Please don't shoot. This is only a game, ask him." He nodded to me, and at that moment the duty officer came back on the scene. "Everybody calm down. David, put your gun away." He turned to the policemen. "Everything is under control, this was only an exercise. You sir." He was now talking to the man whose passport I was holding. "You can put your hands down. It's all over. Good work, David." He then turned to the girl. "Well, Sarah, would you mind giving that passport another look?"
Her eyes opened wide with the realization she had done something wrong. She slowly picked up the passport and looked at the photo and then at me. I knew at that moment that no matter what might happen in the world over the next one hundred years, I couldn't get a date with that girl as long as I live. She was silent.
The officer returned my passport to me and handed the big fellow his. He then said to Sarah, "I want you to report to me after work at my office in the prefabricated building. You know where that is?"
She nodded; there seemed to be a tear ready to roll out of the corner of her eye, but somehow she managed to hold it back. When the officer and myself turned to head for the ticket counter I saw her wiping her eye with the sleeve of her dark blue sweater.
The officer stuck to his promise and after my ticket was in order and I got my boarding card he escorted me through all the stations, getting my passport stamped and avoiding the body search that everyone else was put through. We had a cup of coffee on the second floor in the departure lounge and after I'd got myself a fresh pack of cigarettes and a copy of Time magazine, he got up to leave.
"Have a good flight, man, and thank you for the help."
"You're welcome, any time." About then some of the other passengers made it to the departure area and were sitting themselves down, getting ready for the almost two-hour wait for take-off.
I began to feel a slight sense of relief. It wouldn't be over until I was actually aboard the plane and over the Mediterranean, but it was quickly getting there. Ephraim was seated at the far end of the departure lounge, reading a paper. It seemed to me at that stage that he was more like a mother goose watching over her young, wanting to be sure that I got out safely. For now, his presence gave me a sense of security.
I called Bella from the pay phone on the outer wall of the duty-free store. I could hear from the tone of her voice how she was holding back the tears. The sound was more painful than if she had sobbed on the phone but that was not her style. We had a lot to say but this was not the forum, given that we were probably not alone on the line. I knew they were not set up for a trace, so as long as we didn't say where I was calling from and talked as if I were merely on my way to Elat, we were okay. Again I wanted to reach through the lines and hold her tight in my arms.
"I'll call you when I get there, okay?"
"Do it right away. I'll be waiting for your call."
"I love you."
"I love you too," she said. "Look after yourself and pay attention to what you wear so you don't look funny."
I chuckled. "Okay, I'll do that. Don't worry, I'll call you then."
"'Bye."
I waited to hear her hang up, I couldn't hang up on her. Why such a precious woman loved me was far beyond my imagination. Looking back on our life, I hadn't really done much for her; I had never bought tickets to a show I knew she wanted to see or taken her on a surprise trip or had a surprise birthday party for her. In fact, I wasn't even there for her when she needed me, when she had an operation. Somehow I had other things to do that seemed so much more important. They had to do with the security of our country. What bullshit, and not only did I dish it out, I believed it myself. And here I was, running away, possibly never to see her or my children again. And all in the name of patriotism, loyalty, and other words that are usually carved on tombstones or planks in various corners of the globe. For God and country, and here I was leaving the country I'd sworn to protect, a pawn in the hands of someone playing a far larger game that I didn't necessarily agree with. Could that friendly-looking man now browsing through the duty-free store, staring at me from time to time, be the mastermind behind it all? Could he have twisted my life around so much as to have me facing the opposite direction and still thinking I'm heading forward?
Two police officers entered the cafeteria where I was sitting. I could feel the blood pressure rising in my veins. Had someone noticed me and advised someone else? Were they here to stop me? I could smell the disinfectant used in Israeli prisons, having spent time in the cells as part of the exercises. Then there was that time in the military when I was caught without a hat and made to spend ten days in the military brig. I could hear the echo of the locking doors as metal hit metal. The policemen ordered coffee. Ephraim tensed too as he followed them with his eyes. I knew he was nervous and wanted to see me out of the country already.
I didn't catch the first announcement of the flight but by the second I was already in line, moving in the direction of the gate.
Within twenty minutes we were aboard and taxiing to the runway. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to look at the tarmac and worry that every car crossing the runway would be the one that was there to stop the plane and take me off.
The person seated next to me seemed to be consumed by the view from the window. The person on my right was reading a newspaper article about the Swiss rejecting their government's proposal to join the UN. Nobody was bothering me, and that's the way I wanted to keep it. In general I'm quite a talkative person but in airplanes, trains and buses I prefer to keep to myself; the captive audience syndrome always jumps into my mind.
Seeing the sky through the window around the head of my neighbor was very much like staring into paradise. I was free, outside their reach.

CHAPTER 8
MONDAY, MARCH 31 GATWICK, ENGLAND
Twenty-four hours had passed and still no word from Ephraim. His restriction, that I should not call home before we talked, was making my life difficult. I hadn't spoken to Bella since calling her from the Ben-Gurion airport before I left. By now she must be climbing the walls with worry about me. Ephraim was concerned that my home phone may be bugged (and there was little doubt it was) and they would know I had made a prolonged stopover in England on my way to the States. Should something go wrong, the fact that Ephraim had also come to England might not sit well.

I scanned the television for something to pass the time, but I found it difficult to concentrate. At about ten-thirty in the morning I decided to head for the city and get my mind off things for a while. I needed to loosen up, walk around, get something to eat. When Ephraim came he would just have to wait.

I took a train into the city. The thirty-minute ride brought me to Victoria Station. From there I took the Underground to Piccadilly, changing at Green Park. I wandered the streets aimlessly, eventually returning to the tube station. I had a "Wimpy," which is the British answer to McDonald's, but then their claim to fame has never been their cuisine. After several hamburgers I headed back to the hotel.

In the elevator I noticed the sweet aroma of cherry tobacco. It got stronger the closer I got to my room, at the end of the pale green corridor. Standing at my door I could all but taste the pipe. The only smell as strong as the cherry was the smell of the freshly painted walls, hanging heavy in the air.

I stood by the door and listened: Ephraim and the General. It was more the smell of the tobacco than the sound of their voices that brought recognition.

I entered the room quickly. They sat staring at me, bewildered.
"Why are you so surprised to see me?" I said. "Who were you expecting?"
"I asked you to wait for me at the hotel." Ephraim's voice was on the harsh side.
"I don't work for you, my friend. I'm here as a favor to you."
"I saved your life, remember? May I remind you of Lebanon?"
I tossed my coat onto the bed and sat on the edge. "You only got me out of something you put me into, and probably in order to get me into something else." I smiled at him. "For the time being I'm here to listen, then I'll make up my mind who I work for. So what I suggest you do is come out with it. Or, you could get the hell out of my face."
"Look here, Victor, you...." Ephraim started at me. The General put a hand on Ephraim's shoulder "The man's right, why play games? We know what we want and why we want it. You've got a job for him, fill him in, bring him onside."
I could hear the tradition of the Israeli military speaking out of the Brigadier-General's mouth: an informed soldier is a good soldier.
"Listen to your friend," I said. "He's right. Because if you don't, I'll be out of here and on my way to the States."
Ephraim stared at me silently for a minute. He then leaned back and glanced at the General, who was re-lighting his pipe. "Let's start from the beginning, then."
"Just a minute," said the General, producing a large thermos from a brown leather tote bag at his feet. "Get some glasses from the bathroom. I need a coffee."
"I could use one too," I said, moving quickly to fulfill his request. Coffee was served.
"I'm listening." I said, sitting back on the bed.
"This all started in 'Eighty-two. You were still in the navy then. You probably know we were all preparing for the war in Lebanon. At that time the operation was still called "the Cedars of Lebanon" and we in the Mossad had a close relationship with Bashir Gemayel's Christian Phalange. Our man dealing with the S.O.B. was Nevot. He was setting things up as liaison to Gemayel in order to get Israel involved in what he and his boss Admoni, head of Mossad liaison, called the best war we'll ever have.
"They saw Israel as the policeman of the Middle East. Prime Minister Begin loved the idea of appearing as someone who's saving Christians from the savage Muslims, which went well with his right-wing colonialist ideology. Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Defense, was all for it."
He paused to sip the hot coffee. Then he drew on his cigarette, letting the smoke out as he spoke. "Hofi, then head of the Mossad, was against the ploy, saying that the Christian Phalange in Lebanon was not a reliable ally. Military intelligence agreed with him. But Hofi, who'd been in office for almost eight years then, was on his way out.
"Many people in the Mossad at the time were hoping that this time they would get an insider to run the show. As you well know, until that point it was always an outsider that was parachuted into office."
I knew this was the only measure available to the outside world to have any control over the Mossad. A new chief from the outside (meaning the military) was a way to clean house.
"Many were hoping that an ex-Mossad officer would be brought in, someone like David Kimche who was then director general of the foreign office and had been a department head in the Mossad before he had a clash with Hofi. Then there was Rafael Eitan, whom Begin admired but thought was too close to Ariel Sharon. Begin was worried that Sharon would have too much power if his friend was head of Mossad.
"Begin decided that he would keep with tradition and have an outsider take office." Ephraim paused. When he started to talk again, there was something different in his voice; he sounded angry, restless.
"Nahum Admoni was also deputy chief. At that point, when the war was about to start and Hofi already had one foot out of the Mossad, Admoni managed to shuffle people around, placing his cronies in positions of power.
"In fact, all of us in the Mossad were getting tired of having our future plans shattered and changed every time a new boss came. Meantime Admoni and his clique were not going to give up what they had grabbed. It was a coup d'•tat, the only difference being that there was no•tat to coup at the time.
"General Yekutiel Adam, or Kuti, as he was called by his friends, was appointed to be head of the Mossad and was supposed to take office sometime at the end of June, 1982. The war in Lebanon started on June 6, and by the second day of the war, Kuti had a run-in with Sharon regarding the attack on the Syrian anti-aircraft missiles in the Beka'a. Kuti believed and stated clearly that this might lead to all-out war with the Syrians. He was speaking out against what the Mossad had worked so hard to achieve over the last several years with the Lebanese. The top clique in the Mossad realized what was coming if this man should become the new chief. Someone decided that it was not to be."
"Kuti was my best friend," the General spat out angrily.
"He had friends in the Mossad," continued Ephraim, "people who were preparing working papers analyzing the situation so that he could take drastic action once he took office and not spend time wasting the lives of young soldiers who were at the time being used as canon fodder for Admoni and his clique's dream of a Mossad-run state in Lebanon.
"It was clear that the reign of Admoni's clique was threatened with an abrupt end; once Kuti took control he would pass an honest assessment of the situation to the government and to Sharon, who wouldn't want to be the first Israeli Minister of Defense to lose a war." Ephraim paused sipping his coffee. "The opportunity came on June 10. The army had entered the outskirts of Beirut and there was a ceasefire in effect. Kuti, appointed to head the Mossad but not yet in office, requested a farewell visit to his troops in Lebanon. It was the Mossad's job to organize it."
"Why the Mossad? Why not the IDF?_" I pondered.
"Because he was already the responsibility of the Mossad security and out of the hands of the military."
"If he had been our responsibility," the General interjected, "he would still be alive today."
"They planned the visit for the next day." Ephraim's voice was low. "When he arrived at the location, he was killed in an ambush. The attacker, a fourteen-year-old kid, was killed on the spot by the guards."
"You're crazy." I got up. "That's crazy, I knew it was an accident." I could not believe what he was implying. It was too weird.
He looked straight at me, his voice low and hoarse. "They found a photo," he said, "a photo of Kuti on the kid. Who else would have known Kuti was there except the people who planned his little trip? They killed him, there is no doubt in my mind about that."
"So you wait four years and then tell me about it?"
"No, you're the latest step that we are taking. You have to realize that working against the Mossad from the inside is not the easiest thing in the world to do."
"So no one asked how come there was that photo in the killer's pocket?"
"That was one piece of information that was kept from the investigative committee - one bit of information that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not a coincidence, but in fact a calculated murder."
I sat back on the bed. I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead. What he was telling me was unbelievable. The front line of the Mossad command conspires to kill the newly appointed head? That was far too much to accept.
"You're crazy."
"He's not crazy," said the General. "I know, because he's not the only one who told me. I found out more about it when I interrogated a captured Hizbullah fighter in the south of Lebanon in the beginning of 'Eighty-five. He was talking about how, when he was in Nabih Berri's Amal Shi'ite militia, he was supposed to go with a kid on a mission to kill an Israeli general, and let me tell you the man was not lying."
"How do you know?"
"Because he knew he was going to die, and the question was whether it was going to take all night or just a few minutes. And, he thought that I knew about it anyway."
I stared at the General for a few seconds then turned to Ephraim. "How come you didn't go to the Prime Minister?"
"And say what? 'Sir, the head of the Mossad, my boss, and several of his cronies have just hijacked the Mossad, killing the appointed head.' What do you think he would say? 'Thank you for telling me. I'll call the bastard and fire him.' Besides, there was a war going on at the time, remember. Within the next day or two, at the most, I would have had an accident of my own."
"How do I know you're not just setting me up and it's you who wants to do a coup-d'•tat?"
"You have to trust me. We can't do this without someone on the outside."
"I'm listening."
"I think this would be a good time to have something to eat." Ephriam said.
I wasn't hungry and wanted him to go on, but I decided to play it his way for now.
"The hotel has a restaurant," I said. "I just hope their dinner is better than their breakfast."
The two men laughed. "No," said Ephraim. "I don't think we can go out together and eat. There's always the chance that someone will spot us, and that we cannot afford. Ramy will go out and bring us something." He turned to the General. "If that's okay with you?"
"I'm on my way," Ramy said slowly, the pipe in one side of his mouth as he spoke from the other. He put on his coat. I couldn't help but notice how unimpressive he was in civilian clothing.
"So what do you guys want to order?" He smiled, slightly uncomfortable in the role of gofer.
"I don't really care," said Ephraim, "as long as there's lots of it. I'm starving. Oh, and yes." He handed the General the empty thermos. "Some coffee, if you don't mind."
"And you?"
"I'll have the same, hold the mayo," I said.
"What mayo?" asked the General.
"It's just an inside joke. We always used to say that, to maintain your American cover, you should say 'hold the mayo'."
The General left, still somewhat bewildered.
"You screwed up my life," I said to Ephraim.
"I did no such thing. All I did was pick you out of a specially selected group of people, just before you were going to self-destruct anyway. And you were right for the job."
"But you never asked me. How do you know I wouldn't prefer to be on the other side of the barricade, fighting people like you who supposedly want to relinquish control of the Mossad into the hands of parachuted amateurs rather than leave it in the hands of professionals who rose through the ranks?" I stopped and stared into Ephraim's almost skull-like face, with its thick pale skin deeply lined like that of a veteran sailor parched by the salty sea air.
"I have your psychological profile, remember. I know you probably better than you know yourself, Victor. You would not fit into that category."
"The Mossad's psychological profile of me stinks. It's not worth the paper it's written on."
"If you turned out to be a psychological mistake I'd go to Phase Two."
"And what is that?"
"I can't tell you yet. But let me tell you a short story, before our friend the General comes back."
"Why? You have secrets from him too?" I was as sarcastic as I could be.
"Yes, in fact I probably have more secrets from him than I have from you. He's not from the inside and there are a lot of things he cannot understand. I don't want to destroy the Mossad, which is something he would be happy to do. I want to fix it."
"Why?"
"Because I believe our country needs a Mossad, a strong Mossad with teeth that can tear our enemy apart. But above all it needs a leash so that it can be kept under control."
"You were going to tell me a short story."
"In 'Eighty-two, before the war in Lebanon, we had a man working the turf, trying to get some sort of a dialog started. He was one of my clique then. I wasn't the top man of the clique at the time but we had the blessing of Hofi and some people in the foreign office who were waiting for a breakthrough. We had the Palestinians so scared of what we might do in Lebanon that they were willing to start talking."
"So you were attempting to make a link?"
"Yes, not with the Christians, with the Palestinians. We put one of our better men forward. His name was Yakov Barsimantov. He was stationed in Paris, working liaison."
"He couldn't make contact and be trusted by any Palestinian. If he was liaison, they had to know he was Mossad," I interjected.
"He wasn't working directly with them. We had an American go-between who had volunteered to give this thing a nudge. Barsimantov presented it to him as a sort of dare, during a cocktail party at the French foreign office."
"And he agreed?"
"He jumped at the opportunity. Mind you, he himself was not in the best position to talk to the Palestinians. It was against State Department regulations, but he went for it anyway."
"Why didn't you use some other contact, like the Romanians or something? They were working both sides of the fence and you had dealings with them."
"They were tied directly to head of liaison, Admoni. All he wanted was to back up the Phalangists and Bashir Gemayel. He was infatuated with the respect they paid him when he went to visit Juniyah, north of Beirut."
"Who was the American?"
"His name was Charles Robert Ray. He was assistant militaryattach‚and a very dedicated man. He believed that peace in the Middle East was in the strategic interest of the U.S."
"There's a twist on military thinking."
Ephraim chuckled, "Right. But that was the case. Someone in the foreign office must have leaked it out, and both Barsimantov and the American were shot, before they could make the first contact with the Palestinians. So we know for sure it wasn't the Palestinians." He ran his fingers through his hair then over his face. He suddenly seemed older, more tired than before. "They killed Ray in January and when Yakov was about to make a new contact they killed him too. Yakov was a good man, yet on April 3, outside his apartment, he was gunned down like a dog by his own people. Our own hit team took him out."
"But the Kidon_ wouldn't kill an Israeli."
"They didn't know who the target was, and later it was said to be a mistake. After they killed Yakov they stashed the Czech-made gun in the apartment of a Lebanese revolutionary, pointing the finger at him. They went so far as to claim responsibility for the hit under the name of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction, informing the French intelligence that the LARF was a faction of the pro-Syrian SSNP (the Syrian Social Nationalist Party)." He turned and gazed out the window. "Do you know, they had the audacity to try and use the killing as the provocation they were waiting for to start the war in Lebanon. If there was ever something you could call chutzpah, that would be it."

What surprised me most was the fact that what I'd just heard didn't surprise me one bit. I believed him and yet I almost said, so what? What I did say was not that different. "Okay, you told me a short story. How in hell is that supposed to explain why I should want to do anything for you? Why don't I just open that window over there and jump, saving us all a lot of grief and hassle." I took a cigarette and leaned back on the bed.

"You got it all wrong. What I wanted to tell you is that I can't use someone from inside because I don't have a clue who I can trust. The General has been a buddy of mine for years and he was a close friend of Kuti's. So he's clean as far as I'm concerned. You I have taken straight from the womb, you're not yet tainted and, unlike most of your friends, you didn't come in on the back of a horse_ on the inside but through the normal recruiting process. You came in because you were a patriot and not because you wanted to make a career."
"Well, I wanted that too. I wanted the job, the life, the fun."
"If you want the life, stick around. You'll get more than you can handle."
"So what now? Are you going to offer me a job?"
"That is exactly what I'm doing. Your cover will be you. Everything you do will be on your own; you have no net and no tether. I will hand you an assignment and help you as much as I can but you will be out there on your own."
"Doing what?"
"You'll be putting the Mossad out of business."

CHAPTER 9

There was a knock on the door. Ephraim stiffened. I walked to the door and stared through the peep hole. It was the General. I swung the door open and he entered as though the corridor were on fire. He clearly didn't enjoy playing the spook.

For the next hour we ate. Very little was said and the atmosphere was like the beer, lukewarm. I was trying to place myself in the scheme of things, but I didn't see a purpose or an end result. Sure, I knew he said he wanted to fix the Mossad, but what did that mean?

From what I could guess he was out to destroy it first, and that I could relate to. What I wasn't sure of was whether the Mossad he wanted to build out of the ashes would be any better than the one we had. Was his notion of a cleaner and better Mossad the same as mine? And if not, why should I hitch myself to this man? I was out on my own; why not stay that way?

I decided to listen to whatever Ephraim had to say and then do what I wanted. I was a Canadian citizen with a valid Canadian passport and at this point he could not intimidate me.

At the same time, there was a voice inside me that said I had tasted the life and I liked it; it was hard to turn your back on it. I was like the soldiers whose war ends on them too soon, before they've had a chance to get it out of their system, so they roam the world looking to keep that war alive, to live on the edge, and the sharper the edge the better. Was I one of them now, testing the limit, or was I always one of them?

"So what next?" the General asked, wiping his hands. Smears of ketchup stuck stubbornly to his fingers. Ephraim stood up, "We'll be leaving shortly, and Victor here will leave tomorrow."
"I will?"
"Yes, you are going to New York and then you will go visit your dad in Nebraska."
"Why New York?"
"Because that way we'll know if someone is onto you or not."
"You're not sure? What do you mean?" The General sounded alarmed. This was one thing he hadn't considered. Suddenly fighting the Mossad had taken on a whole new meaning.
"We're never sure, my man, but there is a way to find out."
"How?" the General asked. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like the answer.
"Victor here will go visit the PLO office in New York. If all the lights and bells go off in Headquarters we'll know that he has a tail."
"I thought you people could check these things yourselves?" The General's face was serious.
"We can," Ephriam said, "but we can never be sure. There is a limit to what we can do. If the team on our tail is big enough, we cannot detect them. That is something we cannot risk."
"What if someone in the PLO office is working for Mossad, what then?" I asked.
"We don't have anyone working there. And even if we did, it would take time for the message to get through and by then you'd be out of there."
"Okay." I tried to strengthen my point. "What if someone runs with the information and volunteers it to the embassy? I'll be history before I can leave the city."
"You will not tell them who you are. What you will do is go in and tell them you are an Israeli sympathizer, something along those lines."
"But how will that help what we want to do?" The General was now sucking hard on his pipe as if he wanted to turn it inside out. He kept looking at the door. I could see this wasn't his game; he liked to see his enemy and measure him up. A brave man, no doubt, but somewhat afraid of the dark.
"Victor here will be asked to do things in the near future that are extremely dangerous. He will have to do them in places much less hospitable than New York. Before I send him to those places I want to be sure. If there's a problem with his cover or if someone suspects him of wrongdoing, this is the time to find out about it when he is in the United States where it is more difficult for the Mossad to operate. If they are watching us now they will want to see what comes next. So we will hand it to them on a platter; if they're on our tail, as soon as he enters the PLO office they will almost instantly arrest me and you." Small beads of perspiration appeared on the General's forehead. Ephraim continued: "If that happens, then of course we will not contact Victor. That will be his sign that it's time to get lost, and I mean lost. But if nothing happens, we know that we're clean."
"How will he get lost?" The General's voice quivered slightly.
"He shouldn't have a problem with that. After all, he did get what probably amounts to the best training for that in the world, or at least we'd like to think so."
The General cleared his throat, then asked, "What will they do to us?"
"We went through that before." Ephraim was getting annoyed. "I though you understood?"
"I do. It's just that I didn't...." He hesitated.
"Didn't what? Do you want to back out? Because if you do, say so now, before we make one more move. After today there won't be a way out. We are rapidly approaching the point of no return. Once Victor leaves for New York we're committed."
"That's very nice of you." I raised my voice angrily at Ephraim. "You're letting him back out and you didn't even let me decide if I want to get on board? How the hell do I get off this crazy ride?"
"Oh no, you don't understand. I was talking about him. If he wants out he can get out, but we are committed. In fact, if he leaves now and we are under surveillance, then he'll be put away just like I will, and like they will try to do to you. He can however walk away if it turns out we are clean."
The General got up, shaking his head. I had a feeling he was starting to get my drift, and was worried it would not be reversible in a matter of seconds. "I don't want out. It's just that it's starting to get very real to me now. I never played this game before, and I had no idea what I was getting into. It's not what we are about to do that gives me the creeps, it's how. What I want to know is this; if they catch us, what do you think they will do to us?"
"You can relax if you're worried about standing trial, because you won't. They can't afford that. They will settle matters with us behind closed doors; an accident, perhaps, or maybe we'd be admitted to an asylum for an undetermined length of time. Almost anything is possible, except a trial."
"Not a very promising future," smiled the General.
"Well, that is if we are caught before we finish what we have set out to do. I believe we will not fail; the cost to our country, let alone ourselves, would be too great."
For the next few minutes we were all silent. Then I got up and turned to Ephraim. "There is something I want from you before I plunge into this."
"You are in it already," he replied.
"I might be, but I promise you I will not do one more thing for you until you do one thing for me."
"And what might that be?"
"You have to put me in contact, right now," I pointed to the phone, "with someone I know personally from your clique in the Mossad."
"What?"
"You heard me. Someone that I know. I want to be sure you're not setting me up."
"What about the General? I thought you trusted him."
"With all due respect, we both know that you could have tricked this man ten ways from Sunday. I want someone from the Mossad, someone who knows the ropes."
"I can't just expose someone to you like this."
"In that case, I'm walking."
Ephraim paused. "You know I can't let you do that, not with what you know."
"Kill me then, but if you want me to work with you, you better call somebody on that phone now."
Ephraim stared at me silently for several seconds. He then walked over to the phone and, after getting a line from the operator, dialed a number. He waited with the receiver to his ear. "Reuven?" he finally said, and waited. "Hold it for one minute." He turned to me. "Do you know Reuven Hadary?"
"Yes."
He spelled it out to the man on the phone that I wanted verification that there were others in the Mossad working with Ephraim. Reuven, a man I knew and liked, confirmed it. I insisted on getting Reuven's number so that I could call in the event of a mishap and not be totally dependent on Ephraim. They agreed, and by the time we had hung up I was satisfied. This was not a set-up, but a legitimate effort to bring down the Mossad, in order to make room for something we all hoped would be better.
I opened the window - I needed some fresh air badly. After the cigarettes, the pipe and the fish and chips, the smell was getting to be overwhelming.
"Just one more thing." I said. "How many are involved in this?"
"About ten people. But only the three of us know what is really going on, or should I say four. No one outside this room, except for Reuven, knows about you, if that's what you're asking."
I didn't answer. I sat by the open window and stared out at the gray concrete housing project that was the best view this hotel had to offer.
"You'll arrive in New York on April 2. From that point on, you will be on your own. I will not recommend a hotel for you. In fact, I don't want to know."
I nodded, and kept my eyes on the view outside. "Are you listening to me?" Ephraim asked softly. I nodded.
"Here's the number I want you to call after the meeting in the PLO offices." He handed me a business card. "There is a number like that in New York; it's a bakery. Dial the same number in Tel Aviv, and I'll be there."
"And if you're not?"
"Call back three times, once every four hours, never from the same place. After the first time start your disappearing act; by the last call you should be gone."
"What should I do if they get you?"
"Just try to stay alive and out of their hands. This I can tell you, you'll be better off than we will."
"That's cold comfort for me. What about my family?"
"If we're caught you don't have one. Or rather they don't have you; for them you will be as good as dead."
"Does it have to be so drastic?"
"No, I'll be there to answer the phone. I won't lose you, my boy."
Several minutes later they both left. They did so without fanfair; a simple handshake sent me on a journey that at times I wish I had never taken.

CHAPTER 10

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2
NEW YORK
I arrived in New York feeling like a wreck. I was exhausted, plastered from the endless stream of little rum bottles and half-filled plastic cups of Pepsi I had consumed on the flight.

The large terminal at the end of the long gray corridor leading from the docking bay came suddenly. The smell of a hot dog in a fresh bun replaced the smell of jet fuel and recycled air, causing my mouth to water. I automatically lit up a cigarette to kill the craving that could only be satisfied somewhere on the other side of the United States of America's bureaucratic defense line, also known as Customs and Immigration.

I could barely keep my eyes open, kicking my small carry-on bag forward every time the line moved up. I eventually found myself facing the immigration officer, who at that moment looked as though he would be more than happy to kick me back to wherever I came from.
"Passport, please." His voice was mechanical.
I put my Canadian passport on the counter, having returned to being a Canadian from the moment I landed in Gatwick, England. It was a good feeling indeed; that little blue document with the gold Canadian crest on it gave me a sense of relative security.

"Business or..."
"Just a vacation. I'm going to visit my dad."
"Canada?"
"No, he lives in Nebraska. He's American."
"How long will you stay?"
"I don't know yet. Why, is there a problem?"
The man handed me my passport back after stamping it with
a red seal. "Have a nice time, sir." He signaled me to continue.
Customs was not much of a problem either. It seemed that even though I was slightly drunk I managed to make a fairly good impression on the officials. Besides, I didn't have anything to hide, that is if you didn't count the documents hidden in the special compartment in my suitcase.

After a short taxi ride I ended up at a small motel not too far from the airport. I dropped on the bed fully dressed, apart from one shoe I had managed to get off, and fell asleep.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3
The first light coming through the loose top of the curtain jolted me into consciousness. I realized instantly that it was almost a week since I had talked to Bella. Considering the way I had left, and the state I had left her in, I felt like a heel. I slowly got off the bed, trying not to move my head too fast as the pain above my eyes was killing me. The alcohol was taking its revenge.

I stared at myself in the peeling mirror and realized I actually felt much better than I looked. The alarm radio on the small wooden table by the bed glowed seven a.m. I tried to figure out the time back in Israel but just couldn't concentrate enough.

Ephraim had told me that I could call home after six a.m. on the third. I badly needed to make that call.
I lit a cigarette and sat at the end of the bed, clutching my head in my hands. I put the cigarette in the chipped glass astray and noticed that several of the previous patrons of this establishment had missed the ashtray altogether, leaving short burnt lines on the wooden table top. Some had even managed, it seemed, to put out their cigarettes on the thin, worn-out greenish carpet. How the hell did I find this place? When I'd told the taxi driver "inexpensive" I should have qualified that. On the other hand, this was good in that no one would look for me here, unless of course they were already onto me.
I made the call collect; should they be listening this was something I wanted them to hear, it was something Ephraim wanted me to verify. "They must have confirmation that you are in New York if we're to find out anything." It had made sense when he'd said it, but at the moment I couldn't reconstruct the logic. All I could manage was the mechanical action of dialing the number.
Her voice was fresh, like a breeze of cool air dissipating the clouds of pain in my head. I wanted to keep listening to her voice; it was soothing. It didn't matter much to me what she said as long as I could cling to the sound. Her image flashed in front of my tired eyes: her dark wavy hair, her feminine body, the spark in her deep brown eyes. I could hear she was tired, worried, pained that I hadn't called before. She complained only briefly and then, once she realized that she was not going to get a full explanation, she asked, "So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to be in New York for a day or so and then I'll go visit my dad."
"What are you planning to do there?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe I'll get some sort of job or something. Don't you worry, everything will be fine."
"They came here yesterday with your call-up for military reserves."
"Who did?"
"An officer from the navy. They hand-delivered it to me."
"Really? I never heard of it being done that way before."
"I told them you were abroad. They didn't believe me at first."
"What did they say?"
"They asked how you left without getting a release form from them."
"I got a release from them. The bloody bureaucrats don't know their hands from their legs."
"Did you call your dad yet?"
"No, I'll do it right after I hang up with you."
"I hope he's home. He might be out of town or something. What will you do then?"
I could feel she wanted to talk almost as much as I did. "Don't you worry. Things will be fine," I lied. From where I was at that point, things were not looking up. Suddenly I wanted to end the conversation; I was afraid I might say something that would aggravate her. I couldn't handle it now. As far back as I could remember I had always managed to place the blame in her lap for whatever failure I was responsible for. I promised to call back the next day.
She had told me it was almost two in the afternoon in Israel. I started to orient myself to my new surroundings. At first I made up my mind to go back to sleep. Now that I'd had my dose of home, I needed to calm my nerves. But my aching head wouldn't let me keep my eyes closed; it somehow increased the level of pain. I realized from the look of the place that room service was out of the question. I was still fully clothed from the night before; I slipped my foot into the shoe I found by the door and peeked out onto the long porch that connected the rooms in this section with stairs leading down to the motel office. I could see the big red Coke machine at the end of the porch. I was hoping for a candy machine; I needed some nourishment to mix with the alcohol still playing havoc with my head. A couple of cold drinks to wash out my system wouldn't hurt either.
I got my wallet and key, and headed for the small office. I thought I'd never get to the end of the porch and couldn't help but feel sorry for myself for having to go all the way back to the room later.
At the office they told me about the diner next door. It was a greasy spoon but at least it was open and few of the customers were dressed any better than I was. Had I gone there after a shower and a shave I would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
After the bacon and eggs I'd eaten in Gatwick, it seemed that the fast food cook in this establishment was a Cordon bleu chef. I gobbled down the food and topped it off with an extra portion of crisp bacon and several servings of toast and jam, washing it all down with numerous cups of good hot coffee. My head was starting to clear. By the time I was back in the dingy room, my headache was all but gone and the place seemed even worse than it had before.
I took a long hot shower. Within twenty minutes I was ready to walk out, positive that should I run into someone I had seen in the diner not so long ago, they would not recognize me.
After looking at the photocopy of a map I found in the squeaky drawer by my bed, I realized that the location of this motel was ideal for me. It was close enough for me to get around by cab, and at the same time it would not be a pleasant location for a surveillance team should they decide to follow me. The constant wailing of sirens proved it was in an area where you don't want to sit in a stationary vehicle, even at a red light.
I called the front desk, and told the man I wanted to keep the room for a few more days. Then I asked him to call me a cab.
In less than half an hour I was in front of the UN building. From there I walked to the PLO offices. I knew I could get most of the way back by subway and then use the cab for the last leg, but going there I wanted to be relatively quick and make sure I did not lose any tail I might have. After all, if they were after me and I took the subway and then a cab, there was a good chance that they would lose me. And then we'd think we were clean because they didn't report me entering the PLO offices. But that false sense of security could bring worse calamity further on down the road.
The sun had come out and it was slowly turning out to be a nice day, in New York terms, of course. There was still a slight chill in the air, which kept whatever amount of freshness the city would allow.
I knew what was expected of me and I was not about to fool around. This was something I had to do and I wanted to get it over with. I found the address of the PLO office and entered a small coffee shop across the street. I had to take my time. As before, if the team following me was slightly behind, I wanted to give them time to catch up and take position so that they could see exactly what was going on.
After another coffee and an excellent croissant, I started slowly across the street. I was nervous. I had dealt with Palestinians before but always from a position of strength, with the entire military or Mossad mechanism close behind me. Today was very different. It was possible that the Mossad was still behind me, but for totally different reasons. And the PLO people I might meet were not in any way subject to my power or will. I was armed only with self-confidence and the hope that things would go smoothly.
The reception area of the suite was lined with brochures and posters, the light blue and gray colorings giving the place a sophisticated aura. The front room was deserted for several minutes until a tall, well-dressed man entered. His gold-rimmed glasses dropped slightly on the bridge of his nose as he looked at me over the top of his bifocals. He was about six foot two, on the heavy side. His black suit was well tailored and he smelled of an expensive aftershave. I felt slightly out of place in my jeans and black leather jacket.
"Can I help you, sir?" His voice was deep, friendly and without any traceable accent.
"I'd like to talk to someone in charge, please."
"I'm in charge. My name is Yasin. What can I do for you?"
"Well, can we talk freely here?"
"That depends on what you want to say. I'm sure that there are more people listening in on this room than are present," he said, smiling.
I drew my Israeli passport out of my pocket and handed it to him. "I wonder if you might join me for a coffee," I said. "There is a nice little place just across from here."
He seemed somewhat surprised as he leafed through the document. He then handed it back to me, smiling. "Actually," he said, "I was just on my way out. There is an even better place down the street. Would you care to join me?"
"I would be delighted," I smiled back, feeling great. I had made contact, and if the Mossad were in fact watching me, they would see me with a man whom I had no doubt was known to them. We would know for sure in a very short time what was going on, if anything.
"Let me just get my coat," the big man said and disappeared down the hall. I looked out the window at the street below. Even though the streets were not overly crowded, there was no way I could spot any surveillance. I had no doubt that the Americans were watching this office - the feds, certainly, and probably also the city police, wanting to observe any subversive activity stemming from this place and at the same time attempting to stop any attacks on it.
The only thing that worried me was that should they get a photo of me with the PLO man and send it to the Mossad, I would be in deep trouble. Even though Ephraim had promised me that this particular aspect of the operation was covered, I knew that the graveyards were full of irreplaceable people, lying next to those who had good intentions.
This was the point of no return for me and I was happy to have passed it. From now on it was the life again.
We didn't speak on the way to the small restaurant, which was about a block away from the office building. The place was badly lit and looked like a scene from a Bogart B movie. I ordered a coffee and he did the same. I got the impression he wanted to get this meeting over with as fast as possible.
"So what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"As you know, I'm an Israeli."
He nodded. "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to give you a warning." His eyebrows arched slightly, hardening the look in his eyes.
"Nothing personal or imminent, just a general warning, that's all."
"About what?"
Ephraim had made it very clear that I was not to go into any detail, only give the general information and then throw in an example or two to make them realize I was not some loony off the street.
"It's important that you tell your top brass that everything they say, on any phone they use is listened in on. Just to give you an example, when your people were talking to Felitsia Langer_ before the war in Lebanon, right up to the actual invasion, it was all recorded. So were the talks between Arafat and the King of Saudi during the siege on Beirut, and so were the calls made by Arafat from Tripoli, Lebanon, to Damascus during the Syrian siege of Tripoli. And today all the calls from Tunis to wherever."
"We know that. What do you think we are, stupid? Who are you, anyway?"
"All I can say to you is that not everybody who is against you is your enemy. There are those who think that even though we are on two sides of the barricades, we will have to live together, or at least next to each other, in peace."
"Look, we have many enemies, and the various authorities in this country are looking for any excuse to kick us out of here and make a mockery of our cause. I will have to end this conversation with you for that reason."
"I understand. Only one more thing that you must take back, and that is that only in Tunis is Arafat safe."
"You people are funny," he smiled. "You know more about us than we do; you know our history, our customs, our daily habits. You know the location of every tree in the Palestinian forest, but you can't see the forest. You can't comprehend us as a people, nor do you understand anything about us." There were several seconds of silence. The man stared directly into my eyes, as if he were trying to solve some puzzle or find a way out of some darkened maze. "All I can tell you is that there are many on our side of the barricade who feel the same. We want to live in peace and be a free people. There are those who think that this can only be achieved over the dead bodies of your people. Most of us do not, but we will never break ranks to be slaughtered by you. We ask for respect, and a place we can call our home. Let me send a warning to you, and it is nothing personal. But, trust me, it is imminent. There will come a time, and it is not that far off, when the street will dictate to us what we are to do and the extremists will take our place. And then all you will have to talk to will be your ancient wall. Tell whoever sent you to seize the moment." He got up and held out his hand across the small table, his face still frozen. I stood up and shook his hand, noticing the small smile on his face as I did so. He nodded. "Tell them," he said, "if they want to see who we really are, all they have to do is look in the mirror." He turned and walked out.

CHAPTER 11

After Yasin walked out of the restaurant, I remember feeling a strange sensation, having met a PLO man face to face on an equal footing, and realizing he was a nice person.

I kept looking at him as he made his way outside, past the restaurant window. I leaned to one side and saw him turn the corner.
I had about two hours to kill before making my scheduled telephone call. Ephraim had calculated that two hours were more than enough time: if the alarms in Mossad headquarters didn't go off by then, we were safe. This was a crucial and dangerous point in the operation. If anything went wrong the entire program would be eliminated, Ephraim would probably rot away in some jail cell, and I would make it to the top of the Mossad hit list.
Time, it seemed, was at a standstill. Under normal circumstances, when a Mossad case officer is working in the field, he either is on his way to another appointment, and has barely enough time to get there, or he has a safe house to go back to, where he writes reports or give an account of the meeting to his superiors. With the exception of the short time a case officer is on his way to or from a meeting, he is rarely alone.
I'm not one for window shopping, which always made this part of the job more of a burden to me. While waiting, I had very little patience for anything. I walked slowly, searching for something to take my mind off things, while time pass at its snail's pace. I considered making a call to my dad in Nebraska. The time was right, as there's a two-hour time gap between Nebraska and New York. But then I decided against it. Should something go wrong, there was no point in implicating him in all this. I would call him once I knew I was clean. I trusted Ephraim to do the right thing, and I'd do whatever....
My thoughts snapped abruptly. Across the street a man in a long black coat caught my attention. He was standing by a street vendor and busily dumping mustard onto a hot dog. I had seen him before, entering the restaurant where I sat with the PLO man, and seating himself at the back.
He was clearly trying to avoid looking directly at me, a true mark of an amateur. I moved closer to the wall, out of the pedestrian traffic, and watched him. By my estimation he should have started on that hot dog already, unless he was loading it with mustard simply to buy time at the stand. I remembered he hadn't been alone in the restaurant: he was with another man. I began to scan the street slowly, searching for his partner. The man with the long coat and the hot dog had a Middle Eastern complexion. That could make him just about anything from a New York cop of Italian descent to a Syrian intelligence officer -- or a Mossad man, for that matter.
I kept turning slowly, scanning the street, moving casually. I noticed a man standing by the entrance to a bookstore, holding a small bag in his hand. He stared at me through the reflection in the store window. The man was less than ten feet from me. His presence jolted me: I hadn't expected to find him so close. It was the other man from the restaurant. In a strange way, the unprofessionalism of his positioning offended me - he wasn't playing by the rules. I assumed that they were either amateurs, or else members of a lesser organization.
I stepped into the bookstore, passing right by the man. I had to find out who the hell these clowns were working for.
I leafed through a book for several minutes, running options through my mind. I had to forget most of the things I was trained to do in situations like this, such as call for backup or set up a surveillance locator exercise_. I was on my own. It all boiled down to not having protection from the local authorities, nor from anyone who felt like taking a shot at me.
From the bookstore, I saw the man toss the hot dog into a trash can as he rushed to cross the street. The one by the door moved towards the intersection, waiting for his partner to arrive. They spoke for several seconds, then the long coat pointed at the bookstore. The man with the bag pointed down the street and shrugged his shoulders. The long coat nodded and moved closer to the store door, while his partner headed in the direction he had just pointed.
What do you know? The dummies actually think. Not good enough, though. I felt like walking out and talking to the long coat, straightening him out, giving him a short lesson and sending him back to try it again. There was a part of me that would get a kick out of doing something like that. This, however, was neither the time nor the place to do it; for all I knew they were planning to snuff me out, for whatever reason. It doesn't take a genius to kill someone. I had to concentrate and make my move, and I didn't have all day. I was just hoping the two were not some fancy decoy someone was setting up for me to grab.
I knew for certain they had been tailing me at least since I entered the restaurant, and it was more than likely that they were onto me from the time I left the PLO office building. Time was suddenly moving very fast. I had only an hour before I had to make my call, and by then I had to have some answers.
The plan came to me in a flash. I walked out of the bookstore and headed south for about ten minutes, occasionally stopping to look in a window, just to make sure I didn't lose the jokers. I walked at a slow pace to make sure of that. Around Forty-Seventh Street I made a sharp turn and stepped into the first store I came to. It was a large electronics discount store. I was now out of sight. If there were more than the two of them, my constant movement in a single direction would more or less put them to sleep, operationally speaking, and string them along behind me. There was a slight chance that someone would move ahead of me but it was very slim. In fact I didn't really believe there were more than the two I'd seen. Now I was ready for the second stage.
I waited for the man with the bag to pass the store and stop, realizing he had lost me. He was looking in all directions until his coated friend arrived. They stared into the electronics store but didn't see me. As I had anticipated, the man in the coat sent his friend to search for me down the street while he started in the other direction. I had split them up. One down and one to go.
I stepped out of the store. The coat was with his back to me and the bag man had just entered a store in the other direction. I walked briskly, passing the coat at the crosswalk, heading east on 40th Street. If he didn't want to lose me he would have to come on alone, and he did.
I had only gone fishing once in my life, and that was with my dad on a short visit I made to the States - and then it was my dad who caught the fish. But I could feel the pleasure now as the fish took the bait and I slowly reeled him in. We walked in single file for another five minutes. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between him and his partner. We were almost at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, not the best neighborhood in the world, with its endless array of adult bookstores and peepshow parlors. The terrain was extremely good for my purposes, and I prepared to do my second disappearing act.
At the corner of 7th Avenue and 41st Street I made an abrupt stop at the pedestrian crosswalk. I wanted to make sure the coat was still with me. It was lucky that I'd stepped to one side, or my fish would have swum right into me. Speaking of operational sleep, this man was absurd. He was an amateur if ever I saw one. But he had determination.
Even the most backward agency in the Middle East had the privilege of learning basic surveillance techniques from either the French, the Soviets or the Americans -- not to speak of the ones we had trained in our time. This guy was private_ and he must have gotten his training from TV movies or cheap paperbacks.
I wasn't happy about having to deal with amateurs; they're so unpredictable. I would have preferred to encounter professionals any day -- at least it's not personal with them. You feel much better if you know that whomever you're confronting is after something, and once he gets what he came for, he's off your case. Should your termination be what he's after, at least it will be done quickly and neatly.
The little green man appeared in the traffic light and I crossed the street, my tail close behind. I made a fast left into the first street after the light, and then a right. I stood at the entrance to a large adult book and video store. I waited for my tail to show up on the corner, and once I was sure he had noticed me I entered the store.
I knew he would stand outside for some minutes before entering, since at this point he had time to think and he knew he was alone. This was a one-on-one now.
In a glass showcase that doubled as a counter I saw a large array of kinky sex paraphernalia, from strange-looking male organs to spiked condoms. In the corner of the showcase was a pair of silver handcuffs. I bought a handful of tokens and the cuffs from the clerk, who handed me my change and was happy to return to his magazine. Who said shoemakers go barefoot, I thought, smiling to myself. I walked to the back where the red neon sign read "movies," and turned down a long dim hall lined on both sides with a row of small booths that looked much like the stalls in a public washroom. Each booth had a number on it and a small framed picture by the door depicting a scene from the explicit sex movie showing inside.
I walked in such a way that my tail would think that I knew my way around and therefore might use a back door to slip away, or maybe meet someone inside. He had to come in after me. The fact that I didn't know the place and was not meeting anyone there didn't change a thing.
I entered the booth at the end of the hall and latched the door behind me. I put a token in the slot and pressed the start button. The booth was not much bigger than a toilet stall and had a small three-legged chair tucked against the corner. The walls were painted black and opposite the door, about four feet from the ground, was a television screen almost flush with the wall. There were no controls on the set and as it turned out the sound was not adjustable. The show started while my thumb was still on the start button. It began with a threesome involved in a elaborate act of lovemaking. The male was extremely well endowed and seemed to impress the two women in the movie very much -- their moaning was quite loud. I looked around the small cubicle, searching for a crack of some sort through which I could look out and see what my friend was up to. The plywood wall had a small cavity in it where a nail had fallen out at the joint.
I stood on the stool and peered out -- just in time, too. I saw the coat look around; after going all the way to the back and realizing there was no door there, he tried the door of the cubicle just across from me. Finding it occupied, he tried my door, and then settled for the one just ahead of me across the hall.
He entered and I could see that he had left the door slightly open and was watching the dim hall. I had to admit it wasn't a bad move at all, for an amateur.
I waited for several minutes, letting him get comfortable. Then I opened my door and walked out, staying in his blind spot. I closed the door behind me, clutching the small batch of tokens in my fist. I was alone in the hall, but I had to move fast -- someone could pop into the hall or out of a booth at any moment. I took a deep breath and stepped across the hall, grabbed the knob of his door and pulled it open hard. I could feel him lose his grip and his balance too. It seemed that he was crouched by the door, staring at the hall ahead, completely taken by surprise.
There was no gentle way to do this; I had no gun or other weapon with which to impress on him the seriousness of the situation. I walked right over him into the cubicle, closing the door behind me. I hammered my coin-filled fist on the top of his head before he had a chance to utter a single syllable. My quick action had the expected stunning effect on him; he was on his knees in shock, facing the dark screen.
I latched the door, grabbed his hand and twisted it high behind his back, pinning his face hard against the screen and placing my knee on his shoulder. I was now in total control.
I dropped a token into the small slot under the screen and pressed the illuminated red button with my thumb. The movie started instantly, but I could hardly see what was taking place on the screen as my friend's face was smeared over most of it. He was motionless -- not that he could have done much even if he'd wanted to, but it was very clear to me he didn't want to. Things were happening far too fast for him even to think. I leaned forward closer to his ear so that he could hear me above the moaning of the big-breasted woman on the screen, who was being rocked back and forth by someone I couldn't see.
"What's your name?"
The man was silent. I could see he was closing his eyes tight in expectation of a blow.
"You can close your eyes, asshole, but your ears are open. I'll ask you one last time. What's your name?"
"Marvin." His voice trembled.
"Who do you work for, Marvin?"
"Nobody, I don't work for nobody."
"Why are you following me, Marvin?" My voice was steady, low, almost friendly.
He tried to turn his head and look at me, so I pushed his hand up as high as it would go without breaking, and he let out a sigh of pain. "Were you with the guy from the PLO?" he said.
"Who are you working for, Marvin?"
"I told you, nobody. I'm a detective. I'm on a case."
"What case?"
"I can't tell you. That's privileged information. Let go of my hands. I have rights, you know."
I realized that the man thought he'd been caught by a policeman. I pulled out the cuffs I'd purchased and cuffed the hand I was holding behind his back. Now I held the empty cuff in the same hand with which I grabbed his hair, so that when he pulled his hand down he was pulling on his hair. With my free hand I took out a Bic pen from my coat pocket.
"Would you like my autograph, Marvin?"
"What?"
"Do you want my autograph?"
"What would I do with your autograph?" His body was starting to move as he attempted to get up, so I pressed my knee harder on his shoulder. Now I could see the big black man who was rocking the woman on the small screen, her moans getting louder. Someone tried to open the door. I applied a little more pressure to the hand. I didn't want him to start screaming.
"You're breaking my hand, man, you're breaking my hand. Please let go of my hand."
"This is a pen, Marvin." I spoke again in my monotonous voice, as I placed the nib on his cheek. The big-breasted woman was starting to move faster. "I will now place this pen in your ear, and then I will push it in slowly until such time as I autograph your brain. Think about it, Marvin."
"What are you talking about?" Panic was getting into his voice as he felt the tip of the pen in his ear. I knew that at this point he was sure he was dealing with a psycho who would derive pleasure from his pain. "Whadda ya want? Whadda ya want from me?"
"You followed me, Marvin, and I really don't like that. I want to know why, and who sent you." I pushed slightly on the pen, holding tight onto his hand. The little room was getting hot and the heat was making me nervous. I wanted an answer, although I already had an idea of what I was dealing with.
"I told you." His voice was whiny. I could see a tear, shining in the blue light of the TV, rolling down his face. The woman was reaching her orgasm, the black man just kept on going, and it was hard to make out what Marvin was saying.
"I told you. I am a detective."
"And I want to know who you are working for. Hercule Poirot?" I pushed the pen deeper: a few more millimeters and it would start to cause damage.
"Let go of me. You can't do this."
I moved the pen, and he pushed hard against the screen as he tried to get away from it. The little red light started to flicker, reading "add token," so I did. The show must go on. "I will be very clear with you, Marvin. If you don't start talking to me I will take this pen out of your other ear and I'll still get my answers from your friend. In fact, my friends are probably getting those answers right now."
I could see he was thinking. His eyes were wide open and he was terrified. Any thought that his friend might save him was gone. He realized I knew more than he did. He was trying to analyze the situation -- this was not what I wanted. I had to do something to move things along faster. I left the pen sticking out of his ear, raised my hand and hammered him over the head again. This shocked him
-- it was totally unexpected. Then, when he thought he would start talking, he was hit over the head yet again.
"I'm from the JDL, you know? The Jewish Defense League. We're watching the offices of the Palestinian scum. We saw you come out and we though you worked for them or something so we wanted to know...."
"Know what?"
"Who the fuck you were, we wanted to know who the fuck you were. How were we to know you were a cop?"
"Who sent you?"
"The rabbi, he tells us what to do. Nobody cares what happens to us, we have to take care of ourselves. Jews have to take care of themselves or the Goyim will eliminate them. Are you Jewish?"
"No," I answered.
"Well, you don't know that the Palestinians have a plan to exterminate all Jews. And the American government is a party to the scheme."
"What the hell are you talking about? I think I hit you over the head too hard."
"We will not let that happen! You just wait and see! We will kill them all first, we will." The man was starting to lose it. I eased some of the pressure on his hand. By keeping my knee hard on his shoulder and pinning him down, I could put some distance between us.
I stood up took my knee off him and pulled him up by his twisted arm, the pen still in his ear. There was nothing in the room to tie him to and I couldn't render him unconscious without risking killing him. He was not a threat to me, so killing him would not be even a consideration, not to speak of its being messy and who knows what else.
I let go of the pen again and undid his belt.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm undressing you, my boy."
"What for?" There was fear in his voice, "What'll you do to me?"
"Nothing, if you behave yourself. Now undo your pants and drop them."
His pants fell to the floor. After about five minutes of wrangling, with my keeping his hand pressed behind his back, he was buck naked. I put all his clothes inside his big coat and held the bundle under my arm. He was down on his knees, facing the screen, his hands cuffed behind his back.
"I will leave you now," I said, and put several tokens in the slot. "You have about ten more minutes of entertainment, then you're on your own."
"You can't leave me like this. Please don't take all my clothes. Please." He was begging. The place was extremely hot, yet he was trembling. I was worried that he might start to defecate on the floor and on my shoes. He smelled bad enough as it was.
"Well, it's either that or kill you. You understand that I can't just let you walk out of here with me, so which would you prefer?"
There was no answer; he was now sobbing silently. I got out of the cubicle and slammed the door behind me. I heard him drop to the floor, moaning -- or was it the woman with the big breasts finally getting what she was after? I wasn't sure. I felt pity for the guy; after all, this wasn't the best neighborhood in which to walk around naked. But I knew I couldn't have done it to a better man. I hated the JDL people or, as they were called by many, the Judeo-Nazis (somehow the biggest paradox of our time). I passed by the clerk at the counter, and spoke to him without looking in his direction. "There's a man in Number Four who is bugging people back there." The clerk stared at the closed curtain leading to the hall. From the door I said, "He's naked and is asking to be punished or something."
He didn't even stand up -- he was not about to leave the cash register for nothing. He picked up the phone and started to speak. No one paid any attention to me as I blended into the lunchtime crowd now moving through the streets like a human torrent. I dropped the bundle of clothes into the hands of a street person huddled in a narrow alley between two red-brick buildings. His glazed eyes didn't realize what had fallen into his lap until he slowly started to unfold it. As soon as he felt the wallet he moved faster, thrusting the whole thing into a shopping cart and disappearing into the alley.
I hopped on a bus and was back at the Chrysler Center just in time to make my call. It was afternoon in Israel; I got through without a hitch, and Ephraim was almost instantly on the line. The sound of his voice came as a relief -- someone familiar. And the fact that he was there to answer said it all. Only then did I realized how nervous I was of what the consequences would be of what we were doing, should we be caught at such an early stage of the game.
"I guess you did what you had to?" He was inquisitive; there was always the possibility in his mind that the reason he hadn't been arrested was not that I wasn't being tailed, but rather that I hadn't made the move I was supposed to.
"Yes, I did. I went into the office and met the man that was working there. Then we went out for a coffee and I gave him the message."
"What did he say?" Even though the phone line Ephraim was talking on was secure and I was calling from a randomly picked pay phone, we were still playing it safe.
"Well, he wasn't surprised with what I had to say. He knew all that and so does his boss, apparently."
"Anything else he said?"
"Just that we should know that in his firm there are people that want what we want, but the time to do business might be limited. What he was hinting at was that the market has a say in the matter, and that he might undergo a hostile takeover which would leave us to deal with someone we might not like."
"I see, I had expected as much. At least he knows there are those in our firm that want to do business too." I could hear him smiling; he was clearly as relieved as I was. "Did you run into any problems?"
"Well, I had a visitor and it turned out to be a member of this radical group here."
"From our people?"
"You could call them that. They were Meir's people." I was referring to their leader, the so-called rabbi Meir Kahane.
"You're kidding me."
"No, I'm not. I got rid of them, it's okay. Did any of our people see anything?"
"Apparently not. I found out we don't have the place watched at all, and if someone else does, they're not reporting to us. It's regarded as a political location, nothing we really care about."
"I guess that's what those loonies from the JDL are watching."
"Okay, Victor. Now get out of sight, just get lost," Ephraim said slowly, over the phone. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes."
"Will you be going to visit someone now?"
"Yes. I'll call him later today and fly there tomorrow. When will I hear or see you?"
"Have patience, it won't be long. I'll call you there. Just remember what I told you, stay there until I say you can leave. Is that clear?"
"Yes, but give me an estimated time," I pressed. "When I come to visit I need to know a timeframe, something."
"I can't tell you."
"What? Days, weeks, what?"
"Shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks."
"That's a hell of a long time."
"We have a hell of a big job. I'll call you there."
"How about I call you to check how we're doing?"
Ephraim knew the importance of a live link for someone out in the cold; the fact that you had a place to call and didn't have to sit and wait made all the difference. "Call and leave a message if I'm not here, the message we agreed on."
"I will." The line went dead. I was alone again in New York. It was night in Israel. I headed back to the motel. I could feel the numbness the afternoon's activity had given me starting to dissipate.

CHAPTER 12

I called my father from the motel. He was happy to hear from me, and surprised to learn I was in New York. He offered to pay my ticket so that I could come out and visit with him, (my dad always offers to pay for everything, and quite often does). But I said I could handle it and that I planned on arriving in Omaha the following day.

I was not exactly enthusiastic about this visit. Not really knowing where my life was parked at that moment and not being able to tell my father how long I actually planned to stay put me in an odd situation. I told him that I was actually between assignments and was waiting for a call from a friend who was also my boss. As an ex-officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force and then in the Israeli air force, he knew not to ask too many questions.

Once my friend called, I explained, I would know where I was supposed to go. I told him and his wife Gigi that my friend would be arriving in Washington shortly, and if there was any problem about my staying with them I could wait for my man in Washington. I found myself apologizing almost constantly, even though there was no need to.

I had never really spent much time with my dad before. My parents had separated when I was about five and my mother had taken me with her to Israel. It wasn't so much that she wanted to raise me but rather she didn't want my father to do so. In fact my maternal grandparents were saddled with that job.

It was they who ingrained in me the love for Israel and the Zionist movement. I also received a heavy dose of Judaism which I'm grateful for to this day, although they were not what would be considered orthodox Jews.

At the same time, fearing that if my father had any direct contact with me he would want to take me to the United States, they made sure that such a connection did not exist. All communication with him was severed until I reached the age of seventeen and found a letter from my father addressed to me, hidden in a drawer, along with a monthly child support cheque. Up until that point I was led to believe that he didn't want to have anything to do with me.

Years later I would learn that such a letter had arrived monthly for years and that my father, having seen that the cheque was cashed without any reply, was sure I wanted nothing to do with him. He never imagined I was not made aware of his letters.

Shortly after finding that letter I initiated a telephone call to him, and visited him just before joining the army. Since then we had met several times for short periods of time, but somehow were never able to bridge the gap that time had put between us.

On this visit I didn't feel much different. I could feel his frustration at not being able to get through to me. Nor could I get through to him. We seemed like two opposing magnets trying hard to lock. I couldn't sit him down and run the truth by him, much as I wanted to and probably should have.

The quiet harmonious life my dad was living, in an affluent neighborhood in Omaha with all the trappings of a success story and the serenity of having arrived at the American dream, only intensified my feelings of frustration at being ripped from my family to dangle on a thin string over a bottomless pit.
WENSDAY, APRIL 8
OMAHA
I made a call to Ephraim from the pay phone at the mall. I'd been in town for almost a week and I hadn't heard from him yet. I'd held back as long as I could but it was starting to get too much.

"I'm glad you called," he said. "I have something I want you to do."
"Why didn't you call me then?"
"I was about to. I want you to make a call to a man in New York."
"Do I know him?"
"I don't think so. His name is Avraham Bar-Am. He's a reserve brigadier-general."
"Another one of your friends?"
"Not at all. The S.O.B. is trying to sell arms to the Iranians. He submitted the names of his contacts to us and is waiting to hear if they're approved. He actually brought one of them here for a visit a while back."
"So what do you want from me?"
"I want you to call him in New York and tell him that it's all been approved. He might record the call, so be brief."
"What do you mean, it's all approved? If it is why don't you people call the shmuck?"
This didn't feel right. It seemed more as if I was doing the Mossad's work for them than going out to get the bastards. I had a strong feeling that Ephraim was using me for other things, as if to say "since you're already there...."
"The man knows me; it's a set-up. The office started this situation. I was the one who made the contact for him. What I learned today was that the contact was turned by the FBI and is now an informer. He used to work for the CIA before."
"So why don't you warn your man, this Avraham guy?"
"I would, but that wouldn't serve our purpose."
"Why not?"
"I want him to get caught. It's going to be a blow to the office. If they try to help him they will look dirty in the eyes of the Americans, and if they let him hang out to dry I have no doubt he will sing and implicate them. And since it's my call, I'm going to let him hang."
"I see. So that is what I'm to expect from you too, when the time is right?"
"Don't be ridiculous. This is a different matter; the man is in it for the money and he deserves what he gets."
"Okay," I said.
There was a short silence on the line. Then Ephraim's voice sounded like a snake on sand. "Call him and tell him that you're a friend and that the connection is cleared. He's to go ahead as planned." He gave me the number to call and the rest of the information that I might need. "And I'll call you soon," he said.
I just hung up. I stood there thinking for several seconds about what I was about to do. Then I picked up the receiver and made the call.
The phone rang several times before it was answered. A woman's voice came on the line. "Yes?"
"Can I speak to Avraham?"
"Who wants him?"
"A friend of his."
"Do you have a name?"
"No, just a friend with an answer."
She didn't say a thing. After several seconds there was a click on the line. "Hello?"
"Avraham?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"A friend with a message."
"Who is this?"
I started to speak Hebrew. "I have a message for you from your friends. They say that the contacts you have submitted check out and that it's a go."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm only a messenger. It's not my father's company. Take it or leave it."
"Thanks."
I hung up. I was sweating. I knew he was walking into a trap. I had an urge to call back and shout at him that it was all a hoax. I didn't.
I drove back to the house and went to my room. It wasn't really my room; it belonged to my half-brother, Mike. but he wasn't living there at the time. The housekeeper had the day off and both my father and Gigi were out. I sat there staring at the silent pictures on the television screen.
* * *
On April 23, 1986, twelve men were busted by the FBI in a sting operation for attempting to sell arms to Iran. The story was all but lost in the big bang that followed the Americans' bombing of Libya and the nuclear accident in Chernobyl on the same month. I heard that General Bar-Am pleaded not guilty and presented the documentation that had supposedly authorized him, in the name of the Israeli military industry, to deal on their behalf. The official Israeli response was that the man was a liar and that the documents he presented were issued indiscriminately to anyone who wanted to deal in arms. They added that such a document did not grant him the authority to finalize a transaction, only to act as a sales representative. In short, the man was hung out to dry. But there was no shake-up in the Mossad, and the end of the tunnel was nowhere in sight.

I do suspect, however, that this was part of a bigger plan that Ephraim and his clique were part of. I knew that Ephraim's channel to power was Amiram Nir, advisor to the Prime Minister on terrorism. While this dirty affair with Avraham was taking place, Nir was traveling with a Bible autographed by President Reagan to Teheran, without the knowledge of the Mossad or the CIA, in what later became known as the Iran-Contra affair. Using the General as a patsy to pacify the American intelligence was ingenious; it took the focus away from Amiram's secret dealings, and once he was out of CIA view, there was no way for the Mossad to find out.

The telephone talks I had with Bella were getting to be more and more frustrating; she wanted to know when things were going to start moving. I could not fill her in on what was really going on and so I had to build up a cover story for her. I kept telling her I was looking for a job and that I had a plan which I was about to present to a friend of my father's. The friend in question was the owner of a national travel reservation company based in Omaha, Nebraska.

I did in fact talk to this man. My plan was to offer a secured flight package to passengers, as air piracy was affecting the industry. I suggested we set up several teams that would rotate between various major destinations and would escort and secure specific travel routes. For instance, there would be a chartered flight every day or every second day leaving New York for London or Paris and one returning. We would not establish an airline as such, but only the security package. I would train the teams and we would work out a schedule. I had no doubt that during these times of fear and uncertainty the flights would be full even if we charged a slightly higher fee. We could then turn to the major airlines and offer them a similar service on a per flight basis.

It sounded great, but I had a distinct feeling my father's friend was going along more to appease my father than anything else. I sensed that nothing would come of this, but it served my purpose as a cover for Bella and I also managed to confuse just about everybody else regarding my visit.

There was one thing I had not considered, although I should have. I had always regarded Bella as a person who would not pass on any information about us, simply because she was a very private person who believed that the less anyone else knows about you, the better off you are. She regarded our little family as the center of the universe, and it was almost impossible to get anything out of her unless she wanted to say it, and that was very seldom indeed. I should have remembered that she too was running through a very dark and scary tunnel, probably darker and more frightening than mine. I at least had the benefit of knowing what this was all about, or so I thought. She was disconnected from me and yet could read me like an open book. She knew something was not exactly as I was telling it and that there was more to it than I was letting on.

One day she called me in Omaha. Gigi, my father's wife, answered the call. Having always gotten along, they struck up a conversation in which Bella, thinking that everybody in Omaha knew I was out of whatever I'd been doing before and that I really was looking for a job there, made a statement to that effect, asking if Gigi knew how things were going. I had never told Bella not to ask that, nor did I tell her that it was not common knowledge that I was looking for work. It turned out that the two women surprised each other.

I had been to the shopping center, where I had called Ephraim from a pay phone to let him know I was fed up and if he wasn't about to get moving, I was.

I didn't reach Ephraim, but there was a message for me to meet him in two days in Washington. He would be waiting for me in a hotel somewhat out of the way: the Holiday Inn in Silver Springs, Maryland.

Back at the house, I received a call from Bella. She was both wrathful and concerned; she told me about her conversation with Gigi, and warned me that my secret had been revealed. She demanded an explanation and started to cry on the phone; the faint hope I had built up in her regarding our future was dashed again. I tried to explain and at the same time I was thinking what to do. I knew that when I faced Gigi, she would not be the pleasant gracious hostess I had seen before. My dad would probably be incensed at my having lied to him. This was not a situation I was looking forward to. The only consolation I had was in that message Ephraim had left me: things were in fact starting to move.

I pulled myself together. "I can't tell you anything now," I said. "You will just have to take my word for it. Trust me just this one more time, please."

"But how can I? What do you want me to do? If only I could sleep until all this is over, whatever 'this' is."
"Please trust me, everything will be fine. I'm leaving here tomorrow and I will call you when I get where I'm going, okay?"
"I know this is the end," she said, her voice as sad as a human voice could be over a wire stretching thousands of miles. "I will never see you again, will I?"
"Don't talk like that. What are you talking about?" Deep down I had the feeling she might just be right; there was a strong possibility that whatever Ephraim was getting me into had no way out. Would she know what it was that killed me, or would they leave her to wonder, to think that it was me who had chosen to vanish and that I was living somewhere?
That thought was too hard to handle. I could feel the tears running down my cheek as I tried to control my voice. "That is not true. We will see each other sooner than you can imagine." I wanted it so badly it must have come through in my voice, because when she answered me she sounded somewhat relieved.
"So what are you going to do about what they know now?"
"There's not much I can do. I'll just have to face the music and make as fast an exit from this place as I can."
My dad came in as I hung up. We had a brief exchange of words; I could see in his face that he didn't exactly know how to handle this. On the one hand, there was the lie he couldn't understand, and on the other there was the fact that I had made him look bad in front of his wife.
It was clear to both of us that the sooner I left, the better for all concerned. He took me to the airport just as soon as I could get my things together. He put a thousand dollars in my hand and, trying to keep his voice from cracking, told me that no matter what he was my father and that he loved me. I told him I loved him too, and left him sitting in his car as I entered the terminal.
I was hoping he would come after me and try, in whatever way he could, to drag out of me what the hell was going on, and say he could help or get me out of it or something. But he didn't; I was a mystery to him, a memory of a relationship that had gone sour many years ago.

CHAPTER 13

SUNDAY, APRIL 20
WASHINGTON D.C.
It was raining in Washington when I landed. I was a lonely stranger in an unfamiliar place, feeding on my own silence.

I took a cab from the airport to the Holiday Inn in Silver Springs. Being registered in the hotel under my real name during an operation made me feel naked. I was there to do strange things, and would have felt much more comfortable had I gone under an alias from which I could walk away if things got hairy.

My cover story in the hotel was that I was looking for a site on which to build a restaurant. I represented a group of investors who were into building specialty gourmet restaurants, getting them to run and become profitable, and then selling them off at a large profit. I said I would probably stay in the hotel for several days, if not weeks. Not knowing what exactly was going to be my assignment, I decided to remain in my room except for meals, for which I came down to the dining room on the main floor.

I called Bella and gave her the number of the hotel; if someone was listening they would not suspect a thing. It was not unusual for someone with my background and knowledge to be in Washington in search of work in the field of security. After all, how many people around could provide the level of protection I could for executives and other high profile personalities?

There was a relief in being alone, almost as strong as the feeling of safety I had had at my Dad's house. I didn't have to keep up appearances. I could smoke as much as I wanted and drink myself to sleep, which I did.

MONDAY, APRIL 21
09.00
The phone rang. Ephraim was on the line. "So I see you arrived early," he said, not bothering with any niceties. "Yes. When did you get here?"

"I just came in from the airport. Did you have company?" "No, I'm fine. How about you?"
"I'm fine too. Why don't we have breakfast? I'm starving." "Sure, give me ten minutes or so. I'll meet you in the dining
room."
He hung up. I jumped out of bed. At last things were starting to move. The sooner I did what had to be done, the sooner it would be over and I could get on with my life, whatever was left of it.

I made my way directly to Ephraim's table, which was across the dining-room in a corner, just by the door leading to the hotel bar.
He greeted me with a big smile. He was alone with a cup of coffee. As I sat down the waiter arrived with our breakfast.
"I took the liberty of ordering for you. I didn't want to wait; we've got things to do."
I stared at my plate with the bacon and eggs over easy and raised my hand. "No problem. I see you ordered exactly what I wanted anyway." I found the place a bit dark for breakfast, but the aroma of fresh coffee and country bacon brought on an appetite I didn't think I had.
"So, what are we going to do?"
"After breakfast we'll go to my room and talk."
I nodded, and dug into my breakfast.
We took a couple of large styrofoam cups of coffee with us so that we wouldn't have to call room service. His room was on the sixth floor. In the corner I saw a small carrying bag. "Where is your luggage?" I asked, curious, as I knew Ephraim was a dresser and there was no way he could get more than one day's worth of clothing into that little bag.
"There." He pointed at the bag. "I'm not going to stay long. I'm here to instruct you and then once you're on your way, I'm out of here."
"I'll have no backup?"
"You have me, and the training you got. What more do you need?"
"How do I have you if you're back in Israel?"
"I'll get to that. Once you understand what your first assignment is you will...."
"Woah, woah," I interrupted. "First assigment? Did you say first assignment?"
"Yes, what did you think it was going to be: bang, and it's over?"
"Don't give me the lecture, okay? I need to know a timetable."
"What difference would that make? You have a job to do, it will all be over when the job is done, and that will be whenever it will be. You weren't promised a rose garden when you joined."
"I know, and I'm not asking for one now. When I joined the office they put Bella through a gruelling security check and they gave her a clearance just as high as mine. We were always told that the wife was part of the team and that there were no secrets from her." As I spoke, Ephraim was nodding at me over his glasses. "Now you say that I can't even tell her I'm still working for the Mossad." I paused. "Am I still working for the Mossad?"
"No, you're not working for the office, you're working for me. And about Bella: you're one hundred percent right. But the rules have changed; this is a different ballgame." He leaned back and pushed his glasses back into place. "Does Bella know about Carmit, or Ruty or all the others? Does my wife know about my sweet little secretaries? No, they don't. Do they know the risks we take out in the field? Do you come home from a job and tell Bella, 'you know, I was almost killed last night in Austria,' or 'there is a good chance they will get me on my next trip to Spain?' No, you don't. When you are called out on patrol in the military and you are given an assignment from which you might not come back, do you call your wife and tell her about it? We make decisions every day that affect their lives and we do not consult them. We say to ourselves, 'if something happens to us they will understand we had to do it.' That's the way it works. Now can we put this aside and get down to business?"
"I need a timetable," I insisted.
"Three weeks and you're on your way," he finally snapped, clearly not pleased at having to tell me that.
"On my way where?"
"What difference does that make? You will be with your wife and children, I promise you that."
I felt a wave of optimism taking over, rejuvenating me. You never realize how bad things are in your mind until a moment like this.
"Okay, I can live with that." I now wanted to put a lid on my high. "So what is it we're getting into this time?" I could feel myself grinning.
"You'll volunteer to work for a foreign country."
"Work?"
"Intelligence. You will volunteer as an ex-Mossad officer. You'll offer to work for them, tell them how we do things, structure personnel, and so on."
"You mean sell out, become a traitor." I found saying the word hard.
"Yes, that's exactly what you'll do."
"Who for?" I raised my hand as if to say, 'let me guess.' He didn't say a word. "Okay, who could it be? the NSC? No, they wouldn't deal with me. CIA? I don't think so. Must be FBI; for sure it's the FBI. I could be valuable to them regarding the AL department_."
"No. You're going to have a chat with the KGB." He got up and faced the large window. The glass was wet; it hadn't stopped raining for the last twenty-four hours.
I was stunned. It hit me like a ton of bricks. "No, really?" I said, trying to keep my composure. I was barely able to talk.
Ephraim stayed by the window, only turning his head slightly. I could see his profile; he wasn't smiling. "I told you. The KGB, the Soviets. What's so hard to understand?"
"I don't get it, that's what. Why would I want to do that? I mean, what makes you think they would buy me?"
"If you do it right they will. Think about it. How could they turn you down: fresh out of the Mossad you're an asset. With all the Arab partners they have, they will swallow you like gravy."
"What if they want me to go to Moscow or something? They might just work like we do."
"So you go. Just remember you are doing it for the money, always think about that or they'll suspect you. You will use your real name and your real story to back yourself up."
"What if they just pump me for information and then throw me out? I mean, what will we have gained then? Think about it. I have no access to information any more. What good will I be to them?"
"Well, you tell them you are still working."
"What are you saying? You want me to tell them about you?"
"No, of course not. Tell them your story but instead of saying you were canned, tell them you're on probation, just so they think you still have a way back. Then they'll try to recruit you."
"Ephraim, listen to me." I wanted to do the job but on the other hand I was not going to walk blindly into anything any more. If I was to be killed or locked up forever it would be because of something I agreed to do. "I need to know what it is I'm doing." I knew he was listening. "You must trust me, Ephraim. My life is in your hands and you say yours is in mine, so let me in on the secret."
He thought about this. I got up and headed for the washroom. I had to get rid of the coffee that was filling my bladder. When I came back Ephraim was opening a new pack of cigarettes. We lit up.
"Okay," he said finally, placing the smoldering match in the overflowing ashtray, "Okay. We'll do it your way."
"Thank you." I was watching his expression as he spoke. It was very possible he had anticipated that I would react this way, and had a story ready that would make me feel good. If that was the case there was little I could do about it, but at least he would have to make up a good story; that elevated me in my own eyes from a robot to a human being, although how vulnerable remained to be seen.
"To be honest with you," he began - I was never happy when people said that, but I reserved judgement - "this job is not as hard as you might think. The only obstacle is the FBI observation station overlooking the Soviet embassy. They will photograph you and then send the photo to reference. They will try to match your picture to their files and if there is no match they will file it away electronically." He shrugged. "That's no big deal. If it were an Arab embassy they might send the photos to us; I mean the people we have there would do that, nothing official of course."
"So there won't be a need for a costume or anything?"
"No, no, you can just go in. Don't forget, the Soviets are looking too so don't take your time casing the place; once you get there, just go in."
"Well, I'd probably do that anyway."
"Good. Now to answer the question of why. I know from a friend I have in the FBI that they've found information they gave us in the hands of the Soviets. My friend was sure the Americans gave that information only to us. We were the only possible source for the Soviets."
"A mole in the Mossad?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing; I never believed that could be possible.
"Well, that's what it looks like. And if we could flush him out, the scandal would force the top brass of the Mossad to resign."
"Okay, but how will my volunteering to work for them help with this? All we'll be doing is giving them more information. You don't expect them to tell me that they have a mole and who he is."
"If you come to them with a good story, and play your part well, they'll want to verify whether you're out of the Mossad or just on probation like you said." Ephraim was starting to get exited; I hadn't seen him like this before. He was turning red in the face. "You see, if they think you're still in the Mossad, then you're a very valuable asset."
"But you said they have someone in the system."
"So what's wrong with having two? That way they can spread the risk. We don't know how many they have. We're only assuming they have one. And, to be honest with you, I doubt very much that who they have is a case officer; I would think he is some clerk or something like that." He paused and stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray. "A live case officer: if they can verify that, it will be the catch of the year for them."
"How will they verify?"
"They'll go ask their mole." He was pleased with himself. I could almost hear him purring like a big cat. It suddenly all came together.
"So I'm the bait?"
He nodded. "Does that bother you? I thought you wanted to know?"
"What did you expet me to say? That I'm thrilled?"
"So what will it be?"
"I'll do it. What else is there to do?" I leaned over in his direction and said in a low voice, "Just one thing. If you're not telling me the truth, Ephraim, and you're playing some game with me, you better think about it some more and maybe even consider taking me out. Because if you're not one hundred percent above-board with me, I swear to you I will kill you, if I have to dig my way back to Israel with my bare hands."
There was a soft smile on his face, as if a window had momentarily opened onto the man behind the facade. I had a feeling that this was the side of him his family and friends knew. "I would never do anything to hurt you. I know what I'm asking for is hard, and I can only imagine what you're going through. But this is not a game, and I'm not pulling anything. This is the real thing and we're losing ground by the minute. I don't want to start waving the banner but there is a far bigger thing at stake here than just you and me. If we lose, everything is lost and if we win we might not get to eat the fruits of victory, you know that."
"I figured as much." I wasn't sure how to feel. On the one hand he had won me over, lock, stock and barrel, with that outburst. On the other hand I was fearful of being a patsy. I knew I could put on just as good an act as he could, at a moment's notice. Still, I chose to buy in. I was smiling. I could feel the fog clearing out of my head. Now I knew what the game was and therefore I could play it. A clear directive was always easier to execute than some vague instruction that you had to work out yourself.

CHAPTER 14

The game plan was simple. I would go to the Soviet embassy and make contact with the resident KGB. We knew, in general, what takes place when someone comes to volunteer in an embassy. After all, it's a daily occurrence in just about every Israeli embassy in the world. We had to assume that it wasn't much different with the Soviets.

"I'll wing it," I said. "What the hell can happen? The worst-case scenario is that they will keep me there and try and ship me to Russia in a box or something."

We both laughed; this method had been used by the Mossad to smuggle people back to Israel several times.
"I doubt that very much," said Ephraim, whose sense of humor was not his best trait. "I mean, if they want to take you in a box that means they really want you." This time I alone was laughing. It took me several seconds to realize the man was not kidding.
"When do you want me to go in?"
"I have to get back to Israel before you make your move. I do have someone in archives who will report to me before he answers any request for files or anything, but still I'd feel better if I was there."
"Why? If you're covered, wouldn't it be better if you stayed here in case something went wrong?"
"What if the inquiry comes in from an unexpected direction? What if our mole is a case officer after all? Besides, the reason for my visit here is almost over." He smiled at me. "I'm here to insure we get the bid for the Mazlat with the American navy. I'm here to make sure that the right man gets the money and the other one is scared enough to do what he has to." He lit another cigarette; the room was hazy with smoke.
I nodded. I knew about the Mazlat deal, and I knew we were getting some help from the inside. I would have preferred to have him stay. But I could manage without him.
"So when will you be leaving?"
"I'll leave right after I buy you a meal."
"Where are we going?"
Ephraim picked up the receiver. Turning to me, he asked "What would you like?"
"Not bloody room service," I whined.
"That's all I have time for."
"Fine," I grumbled. "Get me a hamburger. Or, no, I'll have a club sandwich."
We were halfway through the meal when he looked at his watch. "I have to run. I have a dinner appointment with a very greedy young man."
"I'll make my move the day after tomorrow," I said. "That should give you ample time to get everything in order and stand ready."
"Right. Now, you watch yourself. This is not some exercise in the Academy, you know." I could sense a genuine concern in the man's voice.
"Don't worry, just make sure things are tight on your end. One more thing, what do I do for money? I'm running out very fast."
"We'll see about that." He handed me an envelope. "Here's some money to tide you over, for the time being. We'll figure something out later. Let's just get this one under our belt."
I nodded and headed for the door, bringing my half-eaten club sandwich with me. I stood there for a moment, wondering if there was something I had forgotten. I couldn't think of anything. I opened the door and walked out. I was alone again.
* * *
There was very little for me to do in Washington. I didn't know anyone. This was the worst kind of operation imaginable. My cover was my real identity; I had no elaborate expense account. All Ephraim had handed me in the envelope was five hundred dollars, barely enough to keep me in the hotel. I was starting to feel down again; the whole thing was more of a partach_ than anything else.

I was trying to act like a combatant in enemy territory, totally disconnected from his country and family. But I was worse off than any combatant. A combatant's job is clear and very well defined; he knows who he is working for and against whom he is fighting. Besides, he has no financial problems and his family matters are, as far as he knows, in good hands. The fact that the people who are supposed to take care of his family back in Israel will be busy trying to get his wife into bed if she only looks slightly better than Godzilla is something that can't bother him because he is not aware of it, and probably never will be.

To kill time, I walked the streets of the city, somehow always ending up in a large square where yuppies and homeless people sat together on wooden benches, the yuppies trying to get some fresh air as they munched their sandwiches, the homeless staring at them, hoping they would not finish so that a meal could be picked out of the garbage.

I had an urge to pass by the Soviet embassy, just to see where it was and how I should approach it. But I knew that it would be exposing myself to whoever was watching the place. It was better that I come there on foot at the last minute and just walk straight in.

I took the subway to Silver Springs, heading back to the hotel, only to find that I was far too restless to sit in the room and watch television. Tomorrow I was to make my move; I wanted it to be that time already.

In the evening the downtown city took on a different look. The men were still wrapped in suits and ties, although most collars were worn slightly open. But the women had changed, going through a total metamorphosis, unless, as was very possible, it was a whole different breed of woman out there. They were long and sexy and moved more like cats than any other animal, and the so-called watering holes (better known as meat markets) were full.

I made passes at some of them, and sat for a while in conversation. But I was too edgy to get anywhere, and by eleven I realized it was time to head back. I promised myself a treat the next day if all went well in the embassy.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23
I got up early and by the time I was dressed and into my third cigarette, I was starting to get over my habitual hangover.

The sky was cloudy and there was a constant drizzle; the weather couldn't have been better if I had ordered it myself. I was wearing casual pants and a simple shirt with a yellow sweater. I was also wearing a gray wind jacket with a fold-in hood. I would wear the hood when entering the embassy; that way, no surveillance could actually see who I was or photograph my face.

By eleven, I was in front of the embassy. The weather had started to clear, but there was still reason enough for the hood.
The iron gate was open and the surveillance cameras didn't move in my direction. I walked quickly up the marble stairs and entered the main door.
The place was virtually empty; there was no one but me and an unimpressive blonde woman behind the counter. She stared at me, smiling, I walked straight up to her.
"Can I help you, sir?" she said, in a heavy Russian accent. I knew that the Soviets prefered to employ Soviet citizens in their embassies, whenever possible.
I was fairly sure the waiting area was bugged by the Americans as the access to it was so easy. "I would like to get some brochures on the Soviet Union," I said.
"What sort of brochures?"
"Whatever you have."
Her smile faded somewhat. "Just one moment, please." She turned and disappeared behind a small wall. I saw a notepad on the counter and a pencil on a string. I took the pencil and scribbled the words "I want to talk to security" on the notepad. When she came back, she handed me a thin booklet which looked as though it came straight from a printing house in the fifties. If this was a travel brochure it wasn't very appetizing. I turned the small pad to face her. "Thank you, is this all you have?" I said.
Her smile was not there when she raised her eyes and stared back at me. "Why don't you have a seat, sir. I will see if there is anything else I might have."
"Thank you very much." I turned and headed for the wooden bench under a poster of Lenin's tomb at night. The woman disappeared behind the small wall again. When she came back, several minutes later, she sat down in her chair, ignoring me. I couldn't see what she was doing behind the counter but it took all her concentration.
I had to wait patiently; at least she hadn't ask me to leave. I was hoping that they hadn't misinterpreted the note as a threat to their security and called the police. Well, if they did I had a story ready for them, albeit one I would prefer not to use.
After about fifteen minutes a well-dressed, solid looking man came in from a door behind the receptionist. He leaned and spoke to the woman and then he left. She stood up and, smiling again, signaled me to come over.
I moved fairly fast and leaned on the counter. "Yes?"
"We need your passport for identification if you want more information."
Without hesitation, I pulled out my Israeli passport and handed it over. "Here."
"Thank you." She got up. "Please have a seat." She nodded in the direction of the bench I had just left. I was tapping the side of the bench this time, not as calm as before. The woman reappeared shortly, and several minutes later the man came out and beckoned me over. When I reached the counter he raised the flap and allowed me to enter. Then he signaled me to follow him. Not a word was said.
We walked into a narrow hall and then climbed a flight of stairs. The carpet was worn and the banister was slightly loose. Our steps echoed loudly on the squeaky floorboards - not at all what you would expect in an embassy of a world power.
I was ushered into a small bright room with a large mirror on one wall. I realized I wasn't nervous; in fact I was very calm and quite cheerful. So far, I was doing well.
At last my host smiled at me, and pointed to a wooden chair on the other side of a plain wood table facing the mirror. "Would you please sit down, Mr. Ostrovsky."
"Thank you."
"So what brings you here today? Is there some threat to our security?"
It was turning out to be almost identical to the routine we would do in our embassy. "No sir, no threat."
"So, what then?"
"I want to work for you people."
The man slowly sat down and leaned back in his chair. His smile was warm and friendly.
"And who exactly do you mean by 'you people'?"
"KGB. I want to work for the KGB."
"In what capacity?" The man was doing extremely well in keeping a straight face. He must have been the first buffer, as they probably got their fair share of intelligence nuts per day.
"Well, you will have to help me there. I can only tell you where I'm from. Where I'm going we will have to plan together."
"I see that you are an Israeli, Mr. Ostrovsky."
"I'm a member of the Mossad." I paused. "Have you heard of the Mossad?"
His smile turned into a grin. "I have indeed. How do I know you are not just making this up? The world is full of, shall we say, funny people." The man's English was excellent, but his accent was heavy. I had to concentrate to get every word as he was talking fast.
This was the part that Ephraim and I had worked on, and I was ready. "Well, there is not much in the way of documentation that I could show you, as you can well imagine. But I could probably prove it to you by going into some details regarding methods of operation - without of course revealing too much that I might later want to be paid for." I smiled at him.
"I understand."
"Are you at a level where you can make any decisions, or should I talk directly at the mirror?" I said, a slight irony in my voice. The man smiled. There was an unspoken understanding between us, as if we belonged to a strange cult that had bizarre rituals. And although we might have been on different sides of the barricade, we were still somehow related.
"No, it's not up to me. But I will get the information from you and then we will see."
We talked for almost a full hour. He made little notes on a yellow paper block. "I will be back in a short while," he said as he got up. "Could I get you something to drink or eat, maybe?"
"Coffee, just some coffee, if that is not too much trouble."
"Not at all." He nodded and walked toward the door.
"One more thing."
"What?" He stopped and turned back.
"Please don't mention my name on your communication to the Motherland."
"I don't understand."
"The Mossad broke your embassy code a long time ago and is updating itself every time you make a change. So if you don't mind, I would very much appreciate it if you didn't use my name in your broadcasts."
"What you're saying is impossible." He raised his chin in defiance.
"Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, once said 'the most difficult we'll do at once, the impossible might take a little longer.'"
"I'll see what I can do." He seemed very unhappy when he left the room.
Several minutes later the receptionist walked in with a hot cup of coffee on a silver tray with a creamer and a sugar bowl. I wasn't sure at first if I should drink the coffee as it could be laced, but then I realized that if they wanted to knock me out there was very little I could do about it in this place. All I had to worry about was that the man I was talking to (or the one behind the mirror) was working for the Mossad, or CIA, or the FBI, or all of the above. And that he wouldn't decide to defect minutes after I left the building. But that was the risk one had to take in this business. I grimaced to myself as I wondered whether I was still in the business, or on the outside being used.
I stirred some drops of cream into the coffee, and raised the cup in a gesture towards the mirror. I had no doubt that I made someone behind it either smile or feel uncomfortable.
When my friend came back he had a series of questions.
"Is the coffee okay?" he asked, playing the gracious host.
"Surprisingly so."
"Why surprising?"
"I would expect the tea to be good, but the coffee I find a very nice surprise."
"Very well then." He sat down. "This shouldn't take too long."
I lit a cigarette and offered him one.
"Thank you." He took the cigarette. "Americans never offer a cigarette."
"That's because they all have plenty if they want them."
He nodded, smiling. "Well, what my friends would like to know is, are you still in the employment of the Mossad or are you now on your own?"
"I'm on my own in the employment of the Mossad. What do you mean, 'friends'? Is this in front of some bloody committee or something?" I was playing a part I knew well from contact with Mossad agents. No one wants his name or the fact he is involved in a situation like this made public, and a group of several people is regarded as public.
"No, no. It's as you say, a figure of speech. Just my boss and me." He looked at the mirror and said to me, "He says cheers to you too."
"Okay, so I'm on probation. The bloody assholes think they are God. I made one small mistake and they shafted me. Let me tell you, I'm going to show these bastards where the fish pisses from."
"How long is your probation?"
"Six months. That way I lose my rotation turn this year, so I'll have to sit in Headquarters for another three years, before I'm rotated abroad."
"So what are you doing in America?"
"Visiting my father and trying to get recruited by a foreign agency."
This seemed to amuse him. "What do you expect to make doing this?"
"What are you people willing to pay?"
"That will depend on what you bring in. If of course we decide to make a deal."
"I'll be very frank with you. Your reputation is not very good as a source of income, but it is said that you do take care of your own. I mean I wouldn't want to work for somebody who would have nothing to trade if things went wrong."
"That is a very valid point." He nodded at me and at the mirror. It seemed that I was giving all the right answers. The conversation went on for almost a whole hour, during which time I learned the real reason that the Americans would not offer the man cigarettes. He almost finished mine without once offering me any of his, which were in his shirt pocket and in plain view. He was one of the types we in the army used to call the Yours Filter smokers.
"Okay, my friend," he said, "one last thing. We know that your company puts everyone in it through a lie detector test every six months or so."
I nodded in approval. The bastard knew his stuff. Ephraim hadn't been sure if this would come up. "Don't worry about that. I thought about it before I set foot in this building."
"Okay then, what's your solution?"
"What they ask is fairly routine. You have to be sure not to lie, so when they ask me if I have made contact with an enemy agent I will say yes."
"And?" He frowned.
"After the questioning they will want me to explain. I will tell them about the brochures. It's a thing in the Mossad to bring brochures. You bring as many and from as many places as you can. They end up in the library and help officers to build up their cover stories. I had placed your country's name on my list of promised brochures several weeks ago."
The man was clearly amused with the solution. I, on the other hand, was very happy he bought it because I had no idea if the trick would have worked. I knew, though, that they wouldn't much care if it didn't; as long as I was satisfied and willing to take the risk it was no skin off their back.
"We will think this over and contact you at your hotel room. How long will you stay there?"
"Not long, I hope. Once I get your answer I'm out of there. If you don't call me in three days I'll know there is no deal."
"Here." He scribbled a number on a small piece of paper and handed it to me. "Before you leave, call me. We don't want to lose you just because of a technical problem in communication."
"Thanks." I took the paper and followed him down the steep staircase. Before letting me out of the building he handed me a pile of brochures. "Don't forget what you came for."
"Thanks again." I took the brochures and headed out into the rain, my hood pulled tightly over my head and my face to the ground. I was happy to be out. The fresh air was a blessing. After turning the corner I started a testing course. I wanted to see whether I was being followed or not. You can never be too careful.
I was very hungry. After realizing that no one was after me, I stopped at the xxx square. I had my traditional hot dog and headed back to the hotel. The subway station in Silver Springs was almost deserted. I stopped at the pay phones on the station wall, taking the last one in the row and facing the empty hall. I dialed the operator, gave her the number and asked for a collect call. Ephraim was on the line almost instantly.
"Well, my boy, what do you have to say?"
"I visited my uncle from the old country." I knew there was no need for speaking in code as my line was picked at random and therefore clean, even if I was being followed, and his was a secure line - he had to make sure of that. Still, it was a hard habit to kick.
"How did it go?"
"If there is no way for them to check at your end, I have no doubt I'm their next Filby."
"It went that well?"
"What did you expect?"
"So now we have to sit and see what happens next. I have a good feeling about this."
"I'll get back to the hotel. I don't want them to call and not find me."
"Well, you shouldn't sit there all the time. If you played it the way we decided they'll be expecting a playful person, not one who will pass up a good time in the city for his work. Go out and enjoy yourself. After all, you have a reputation to keep up. We have a series of jobs for you after this one."
"With the few dollars I have, it's not easy to play the playboy."
"That's okay, you'll be getting money soon. Just use what you have to build your image."
"When will I see you?"
"Once this little episode is finished, I'll come over."
"What will you do if you find what we're looking for?"
"That's a problem in itself. I can't just waltz in and accuse someone. I'll have to manipulate someone I know in the Shaback, and put them on the trail without letting out much. But don't you worry about that. If he's there I'll nail him and we'll chalk one up for you."
"Yeah," I replied. "A lot of good that will do me, that chalk mark."
"It will mean a hell of a lot when you come in from the cold."
There was silence on the line. I could feel myself choking up. I had figured that I would do whatever it was I had to do, and then I would fade into oblivion, living with Bella and the kids somewhere in Canada, doing something or other. Coming in from the cold had not been in the cards for me, not until he said it over the phone as if it were a given, something he had always thought would happen. "You never said anything about coming back."
"What did you think?"
"I don't know. To be honest with you I didn't think about it."
"Do your job, my boy, and we'll talk about it later. This call is getting too long for my system. I'll call you if anything happens. You call me if there's anything new, too."
The line went dead. I stood for several minutes, receiver in hand, trying to comprehend what I had just heard. There was to be a way back into the life; suddenly things were not as black as I had believed they were.
I was in a very good mood when I left the station. I decided to have a good time that night. It was part of the job, as Ephraim had said.

CHAPTER 15

My spirits were high when I got back to the hotel. It amazed me how I could be on an emotional high while walking so close to the edge. It was probably the old sense of power, which I hadn't felt for some time. But the doubts I still had were giving me a pain in my gut. I was a pessimist by nature, though I led my life taking risks as though I were the biggest optimist that ever lived. I was curious to know what was happening in the Soviet embassy.

I had little doubt they had sent a communication to Moscow, passing on all the information collected in our meeting and asking for instructions.

After spending some time in the hotel bar, I decided to stay in that evening and not head out to the city. It was the first time I had stayed at the hotel after the happy hour, and I was surprised at how the place filled up. There was more to do in this little place than I could have found in the city. I was sitting at a table meant for five, and it didn't take long for some newcomers to join me. I made a new group of friends: normal regular people, the kind you find in any American city: honest, fair and very vulnerable. One was a painting contractor and another a slightly odd guy who had a part-time job with the city's gardening department; he was newly divorced and extremely strung up.

The contractor, a big burly guy, was friendly and very protective of his odd friend. He would spend most of his time telling anyone who would listen how much money he had made that day not working that hard. In fact, when he described what he'd done it seemed to me he earned every penny he made. After he was finished telling about that, he went on to talk about what was planned for tomorrow. Somehow the simplicity and basic integrity of these people was like a breath of fresh air. I envied their uncomplicated life: the fact that they could plan for tomorrow with some certainty. Being in their presence rubbed some of that on to me. I couldn't help wondering what they would have said had they known who I really was and what I was up to.

For the next four days there was nothing. I was starting to get restless and called Ephraim. He wasn't there and the answering machine did not take my call. By the fifth day the line was disconnected. This could mean nothing but trouble. Were they onto Ephraim at Headquarters?

Reacting to such a situation is the hardest thing to do. You are in what you might regard as a relatively safe situation in a fairly comfortable place. Suddenly, without knowing whether there is a real danger or just some mistake or mechanical problem, you must get up and leave it all behind. The odds are even that it is a mistake. The price for not reacting to a real problem, however, is high.

That morning I had paid my hotel bill and realized that I had about fifty dollars left. I was starting to get very worried. It was one thing to be disconnected but it was far worse to be totally broke while it happened.

At that point I had to consider the possibility that the gamble hadn't paid off. Even though there was nothing new when I had spoken to Bella, and that was somewhat reassuring, I had no doubt that if they learned about my trip to the Soviet embassy they would not want to tip me off. I could see it in my mind's eye: Ephraim, now trying to get his ass out of the fire, getting on the bandwagon and suggesting ways to bring me in. If there was anyone I should worry about it must be him.

At this point, if they were aware of my contact with the KGB, they would want above all to have a talk with me and measure the amount of damage my escapade had caused. That is a normal procedure called damage control. On the other hand, if it were left up to Ephraim, he would want to have me eliminated. That was natural and very understandable; I knew I would have done the same. I had to disappear and stay in contact at the same time. I wanted to see what might happen in the hotel, but not be around if anything did.

There was a small plaza in front of the office building across the street from the hotel. Remembering the Mossad had access to the reservation set-up of just about every hotel chain in the world, I had no doubt that my exact location could be found in a matter of hours with nothing more than a few phone calls. I was going to spend my days in the hotel and the nights on a bench on the edge of the small plaza overlooking the hotel. If they were going to come for me it was going to be at night, and if that happened I wanted to see it not from the confines of my room but from a safe distance.

Because of the delay in communications I had to consider the option that when Ephraim renewed the contact he might be attempting to trap me. I could feel that I was becoming paranoid, but for good reason. I tried Ephraim's phone again. The line was still disconnected. If things didn't clear up by tomorrow I had two choices: I could just fall out of sight for a while and see what happened, or I could call my friend Rolly, the Mossad liaison to the CIA stationed at the Israeli embassy here in Washington. I would meet with him and bring everything out into the open. I had it all planned out in my head; I would bring along a newspaper reporter so that I could not just vanish and my problem be solved somewhere outside Tel Aviv.

But there was time for that later. Now I had to make sure I was out of the hotel once it got dark. During the day I'd gone over to a Salvation Army store and bought myself a long ragged overcoat. I brought it back to the hotel wrapped in a regular shopping bag. I also placed a supermarket cart at the end of the outdoor parking lot by the hotel's back door. I didn't shave that day and had a mickey of Cutty Sark rum in the shopping bag along with the overcoat. Once it got dark, I took the elevator to the underground parking lot and there I took the coat out of the bag. By the time I came out of the back door of the hotel and threw a pile of laundry into the shopping cart, I was indistinguishable from any of the other homeless people who invisibly filled the streets.

I positioned myself on the hard bench and got ready for the night, warming myself with an occasional sip of rum. It was cold and lonely. More than anything, the night out on the street is long. I wanted to make sure that I didn't fall asleep so that I could see if there was any activity around the hotel, the kind of activity someone with a Mossad hit team after him might expect.

Nothing happened, nothing that was of any interest to me, that is. Drugs were bought and sold on the street, a car was stolen not twenty feet from where I was located and another homeless person wanted to get into a fight with me over what he claimed was his bench.

By four-thirty in the morning I realized they were not coming, or if they did come I didn't see them. There was always the chance that they were waiting for me in my room, so I was not going to go back until I could get someone to come up to the room with me. There was at least another four hours to go before I could do that. The bench was getting much too cold. I walked the few blocks over to the subway station, where I spent the rest of the night on the floor, leaning against the large ticket dispenser. I left the shopping cart outside and was sure I would not have it in the morning when I came out. At seven-thirty I woke up, realizing that I had been asleep for some time now with commuters rushing all about, ignoring me as if I weren't there. It was as though I had clocked myself out of existence. This was something I would not soon forget; that sort of device could come in extremely handy in the line of work I was involved in.

THURSDAY, MAY 1
I slowly staggered back to the hotel. The cart was untouched. I left the cart by the back door and went into the underground parking, where I got back into being myself. I entered the lobby. Using the house phone I called for someone to please come and fix the tap in my room because there was no water. I watched as the service man walked out of his tool room. I joined him in the elevator. I waited at the end of the hall while he went to my room and knocked on the door. When he got no response he opened the door with a pass key and entered. I ran to the door and went in after him.

"Did you call with a problem, sir?" he asked, looking somewhat bewildered.
"No water," I said, pointing to the closed washroom. I scanned the room; it was empty. The service man checked the taps and informed me that all was well. I apologized and he left. I needed to use the washroom and badly wanted a shower. Afterwards I called room service. At that point I could have just about eaten a horse.
There were no messages for me, and no sign that anyone was in the room. I will call the embassy at eleven, I decided; I will try Ephraim one more time, then it's over. The big breakfast I had ordered could very well be my last. The waiter was at my door. I opened and turned back into the room. Before he could close the door, I heard him talking to someone behind me. "Excuse me sir, you can't just...."
I turned on the spot, moving slightly out of the way, ready to duck around the corner. I was expecting to see a gun pointing in my direction; instead, I caught the big grin on Ephraim's face. "It's okay, it's okay," he was saying to the surprised waiter. "The man is expecting me, right?" He turned to face me.
"Sure, it's okay. Would you care to join me for breakfast?"
"No thanks, I'll just have a coffee."
The waiter put the tray on the table and turned to hand me the check. I signed the paper and ushered him out. I turned on Ephraim. "Do you have any idea how close you came to blowing the whole thing? Can you even imagine what would have happened if I'd decided that yesterday was enough?"
"Things were out of my hands. I couldn't get in touch with you."
"What about the bloody phone? Who disconnected the phone?"
"What are you talking about? The phone is fine."
I handed him the receiver. "Show me."
"Not from this phone. We'll go out later and I'll call from a pay phone."
"You call now." I wasn't backing off. My tone was harsh. I wasn't ready to take any more bullshit.
He grabbed the receiver and dialed direct, using his calling card number. After listening for several seconds he seemed flustered. "You're right! What the hell is going on?" He dialed another number and waited. "What the hell is the matter with number twelve?" he snapped at someone on the other end. He listened for several seconds, then said, "Do you know that could have cost us a life? If something happens to my man because of you, then you'd better not be there when I come back."
I could hear the incoming voice but couldn't really make out what the man was saying, all I could get was the panic in his voice. "No," Ephraim went on, "I don't want the line restored, you get me a new one and I want it now, and it better be working if I call it in the next hour."
He listened, then grabbed the pen from the night table and scribbled a number on the hotel pad. While he was still talking he handed me the pad. When he hung up I was already seated, buttering the toast and taking the cover off the order of eggs and triple bacon. I ate while he spoke.
The only comfort I could draw from what had happened was the fact that, had this been a Mossad operation and not one run by a rogue element within the Mossad, it never would have happened. I could trust him now, but it was funny that it was trust by default.
He poured coffee into the glass I had brought from the bathroom.
"I'm sorry," he said, trying to catch my eye. I was staring into my plate, dipping the toast into the soft egg yolk. "Someone screwed up. These things happen."
I looked at him. "You should have made sure they didn't. If you were only a few hours later getting here, the whole thing would have been over."
"What were you going to do?"
"That's none of your business. I was going to take care of myself. What did you expect?"
"We're on the same side." He had a slightly embarrassed look. "What did you plan to do?"
"What brings you here?" I asked, ignoring his question.
"I just got saddled with the tail-end of some stinking operation," he said.
I wasn't going to say anything until he was finished. "It's the old Trojan dick trick." He lit a cigarette.
"What's that?" I couldn't help smiling; I had never heard it called that before.
"I knew that would get your attention." He smiled. "Shimon activated 'Operation Trojan' in February of this year."
I nodded. I'd still been in the Mossad when that order was given, and because of my naval background and the fact that I was personally acquainted with most of the commanders in the navy, I participated in the planning for the operation as liaison with the navy.
A Trojan was a special communication device that would be planted by navy commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP._ The pre-recorded transmissions would originate from an IDF navy ship out at sea. The ship would use an undetectable digital transmission that could only be picked up by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country. The transmission would then be picked up by American tracking and listening station in England and elsewhere.
The Americans would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine (in this case Libyan) communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythological Trojan horse. The content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad. The Trojan itself would have to be located as close as possible to the normal origin of such transmissions, because of the sophisticated methods of triangulation the Americans would use to verify the source.
If it was properly placed there was no reason for the Americans to doubt the authenticity of the transmission. Over the years the code names for the Trojan would change, but in shop talk it was still referred to as Operation Trojan.
Two elite units in the military were responsible for the delivery of the device to the proper location. One was the Matkal reconnaissance unit and the other was the naval commandos. In this operation, Flotilla 13 (better known as the naval commandos - an Israeli equivalent to the American seals) planted the Trojan device in Tripoli, Libya.
It was on the night of February 17 - 18 that two Israeli missile boats, the SAAR 4 class Moledet, armed with Harpoon and Gabriel surface-to-surface missiles, an anti-missile Vulcan Falanx system, twenty-millimeter cannons and 0.5' guns, and the Geula, a Hohit class missile boat with a helicopter pad and helicopter, in addition to the regular SAAR 4 class armament, were on what seemed like a routine patrol of the Mediterranean, heading for the Sicilian channel and passing, as was routine, just outside the territorial waters of Libya. The warships had slowed down to about four knots just north of Tripoli in the dead of night. As they were visible to radar both in Tripoli and the Italian island of Lampedusa, they slowed down just long enough to allow a team of twelve naval commandos in four wet submarines nicknamed pigs (also known as subskimmers) and two low-profiled speedboats called birds to disembark. The pigs could carry two commandos each and all their fighting gear. The birds, equipped with an MG 7.62 caliber machine gun mounted over the bow shoulder-carried missiles, could while towing the empty pigs. They would bring them as close to the shore as possible, thus cutting down the distance the pigs would have to travel on their own. The pigs were submersible and silent but relatively slow.
Two miles away was the Libyan shore. The lights of Tripoli were glistening to the south-east. Eight commandos slipped quietly into the pigs and headed for shore. The birds stayed behind at the rendezvous point, ready to take 'violent action' should the situation arise. The eight commandos, armed to the teeth in their black rubber wetsuits, made their way to a beach west of Tripoli and less than a mile east of the Sidi Bilal naval base, home of the Libyan naval commandos. The unit left their cigar-like transporters submerged in the shallow water and headed inland, carrying a dark green cylinder six foot long and seven inches in diameter. It took two men to carry the Trojan.
A gray van was parked on the side of the road about one hundred feet from the water, on the coastal highway leading from Sabratah to Tripoli and on to Benghazi. There was hardly any traffic and an array of anti-tank facilitate six commandos each, at this time of night. The driver of the van seemed to be repairing a flat tire. He stopped working as the team approached, and opened the back doors of the van. He was a Mossad combatant. Without a word said, four of the men entered the van and headed for the city. The other four returned to the water where they took a defensive position by the submerged pigs. Their job was to hold this position, to insure an escape rought for the team now headed for the city, should problems arise. At the same time a squadron of Israeli fighters was refueling south of Crete, ready to assist. They were capable of keeping any ground forces away from the commandos, allowing them a not-so-clean getaway. At this point the small commando unit was divided into three details - its most vulnerable state. Were any one of the details to run into enemy forces, they were instructed to act with extreme prejudice before the enemy turned hostile.
The van parked at the back of an apartment building on Al Jamhuriyh Street in Tripoli, less than three blocks away from the Bab al Azizia barracks that also were known to house Qadhafi's headquarters and residence. By then the men in the van had changed into civilian clothing. Two stayed with the van as a lookout and the other two helped the Mossad combatant take the cylinder to the top floor of the five-storey building. The cylinder was wrapped in a carpet.
In the apartment the top section of the cylinder was opened and a small dish-like antenna was unfolded and placed in front of the window facing north. The unit was activated and the Trojan horse was in place.
The Mossad combatant had rented the apartment for six months and had paid the rent in advance. There was no reason for anyone except for the combatant to enter the apartment. However, if someone should decide to do so the Trojan would self-destruct, taking with it most of the upper part of the building. The three men headed back to the van and to their rendezvous with their friends on the beach.
After dropping the commandos at the beach, the combatant headed back for the city where he would monitor the Trojan unit for the next few weeks. The commandos wasted no time and headed out to sea. They didn't want to be caught in Libyan waters at daybreak. They reached the birds and headed at full speed to a prearranged pick-up coordinate, where they met with the missile boats that had brought them in.
By the end of March the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan. The device would only be activated during heavy communication traffic hours. The Mossad transmitted a long series of terrorist orders to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples' Bureaus). The transmissions were deciphered by the Americans, giving them ample proof that the Libyans were behind terrorist activities all over the world, thus confirming Mossad reports.
The French and the Spanish were not buying into the new stream of information. To them it seemed suspicious that suddenly, out of the blue, the Libyans, who had been extremely careful in the past when it came to communications, would start advertising their future actions. They also found it rather suspicious that several times the Mossad reports were worded in a strangely similar way to the coded Libyan communications. They argued that had these bits of information been true, then the terrorist attack on the _LaBell discotheque in West Berlin on April 5 could have been prevented. And since it wasn't, then it must not be the Libyans who did it, and the new communications were, as they had thought, bogus.
They were right. The information was bogus, and the Mossad didn't have a clue who planted the bomb that killed one American service man and wounded several others. But the Mossad was tied in to so many of the European terrorist organizations, knowing that in the volatile atmosphere that had engulfed Europe, a bombing with an American victim was just a matter of time.
Heads of the Mossad were counting on the American promise to retaliate with a vengeance against any country that could be proven to support terrorism. Trojan gave them the proof they needed. The Mossad also brought into the equation Qadhafi's lunatic image and momentous declarations, which were really only meant for internal consumption; they used all that to bring about the right atmosphere for a strike. It must be mentioned that Qadhafi had marked a line in the water at that time, closing off the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters and calling the new maritime border the line of death (an action that didn't exactly give him a moderate image). The Americans fell for the ploy head over heels, dragging the British and the Germans somewhat reluctantly in with them.
Operation Trojan could be regarded a success. It brought about the air strike on Libya that President Reagan had promised. The American attack achieved a triple result for the Mossad. It derailed a deal for the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, thus keeping the Hizbullah (Party of God) as the number one enemy in the eyes of the West. It also sent a message to all the Arab world, telling them exactly where the United States stood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thirdly, the office came out of it as the big hero that saved the day, having provided the U.S. with vital information in the struggle against world terrorism.
It was only the French that didn't buy into the Mossad trick and were determined not to align themselves with the aggressive American act. The French did not allow the American bombers to fly over their territory on their way to attack Libya, and in doing so placed themselves in clear opposition to the action.
On April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. The attackers bombed Tripoli international airport, Bab al Azizia barracks, Sidi Bilal naval base, the city of Benghazi and the Benine airfield outside Benghazi. The strike force consisted of two main bodies, one originating in England and the other from flat-tops in the Mediterranean. From England came 24 F-111s from Lakenheath, 5 EF-111s from Upper Heyford, and 28 refueling tankers from Mildenhall and Fairford. In the attack the Air Force F-111s and the EF-111s were joined by 18 A-6 and A-7 strike and strike support aircraft, 6 F\A-18 fighters, 14 EA-6B electronic jammer planes and other support platforms. The navy planes were catapulted from the carriers Coral Sea and the America. On the Libyan side there were approximately forty civilian casualties, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter. On the American side a pilot and his weapons officer were killed when their F-111 exploded.
After the bombing, the Hizbullah broke off negotiations regarding the hostages they held in Beirut and executed three of them, including one American named Peter Kilburn. On the other hand the French were rewarded for their non-participation in the attack, as we would learn later, by the release at the end of June of two French journalists held hostage in Beirut. (As it happened, a stray bomb hit the French embassy in Tripoli during the raid.)
Ephraim had spelled it all out for me and confirmed some of the information I had already known. He then went on. "After the bombing of Libya our friend Qadhafi will stay out of the picture for some time now. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We're starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time but in the end there's no doubt it'll work."
"But isn't Saddam regarded as moderate toward us, allied with Jordan, the big enemy of Iran and Syria?"
"Yes, that's why I'm opposed to this action. But that's the directive and I must follow it. Hopefully we'll be done with our little operation before anything big happens. After all, we have already destroyed his nuclear facility, and we are making money by selling him technology and equipment through South Africa."
"That still doesn't explain why you played hide-and-seek with me."
"I was incommunicado in Belgium, instructing an Iraqi shitface how to hit the oil pipeline in Kuwait. As you can imagine, I wasn't alone there and no one was coming or going until the man was on his way."
"One man?"
"Yes, one. He'll instruct his friends when he gets back there."
"And you trust him to do the job?" It sounded fishy to me. It was almost standard procedure in the Mossad that acts of sabotage were carried out only by our people and the locals were set up for the fall if something went wrong. Sending a team to get second-hand training was suicidal.
"He'll do the job."
"I'm willing to bet that he either blows himself up or gets caught."
"I sure hope you're right, because that is exactly what I was banking on. What I mean is that he'll probably get caught, and by the time he is finished spilling the beans the Kuwaitis will be positive that the man is working for the Iraqis, and that he was there to try and help overthrow the Kuwaiti Royal Family."
"And what the hell would be achieved by that?"
"Agitation, my boy, agitation, what else? Then we'll see where we can take it. After all, there's still a war going on and the Kuwaitis together with the Saudis are paying for most of it."
I was now dumping large quantities of marmalade onto the remaining toasts and washing down the loaded triangles with hot coffee. I was starting to see the end of my appetite coming close. But I still couldn't seem to get the night chill out of my bones. "So what happened with our little escapade?"
"Did the Russians call you back?"
"No."
"Call them now."
I got up and took from my wallet the scrap of paper the Russian had given me. I dialed the number and waited.
"Hello?" came a heavy Russian-accented voice.
"I was waiting for your call."
"Is this Victor?"
"Yes. Do you have anything for me?"
"I'm sorry, but we will not be talking to you any more. I'm sorry." And he hung up. He couldn't know how happy he made me feel.
"Well?" Ephraim was craning his head in my direction as though he could catch what I had to say faster if he was closer. He also helped himself to a piece of my toast.
"They don't want me."
"Yes!" He got up, punching a fist at an imaginary opponent. "Yes! we got the bastard."
"Who did you get?"
"I told you it couldn't be from operations. We got a request from the Prime Minister's office for information on several people that were let go from the Mossad in the last year. We sent up four files; yours was one. I had someone from Prudot (technical), using some half-assed story, set it up so that we could see which of the files were handled and by whom. The result was as I had expected. Only yours was opened. It was ordered by the man in charge of security for the Prime Minister's office, a guy by the name of Levinson."
"Is he from Shaback?"
"No, he's office security, documentation, telephones, that sort of thing. They couldn't get someone in better position if they recruited the head of the Shaback."
"What now?"
"It will take a while, but we will nail him before the end of the year. I passed a warning to my friend in the Shaback. I told him I got it from a liaison but he can't use it formally because that would burn the source. He knows the situation, but he'll have to catch him on his own."
"So we did it," I exclaimed. "We actually did it, didn't we?"
He nodded. "Yes, it seems we did."
I was happy. After all, it wasn't every day that you nailed a Soviet spy. And it was so easy, thinking back on it now. It was a stroll in the park.

CHAPTER 16

I lit a cigarette and sat on the end of the bed. There were several minutes of silence, except for the dripping sound of a bad faucet. "Okay. Now for your next assignment," said Ephraim.
"What is it?"
"You will make a short visit to our British friends and offer them your services."
"The British? They're allies. What the hell do you need from them?"
"Nothing in particular. It's just that we know that they are suspicious we might have had something to do with the attempt to put a bomb on an El Al flight."
"The one that was foiled at Heathrow?"
"That's the one."
"But didn't El Al security prevent that at the last moment?"
"Exactly. There is a rumor running around that we did it to embarrass their security and show off our own, and at the same time to pin the terrorist tale on the Syrians."
"Did we?"
"Quite possibly. I have no idea, but the rumor has to stop."
"So you want me to go in there and tell them we didn't do it?" I was smiling; I found the whole thing amusing.
"No. You will tell them more or less what you have told the Soviets, except you will tell them you are no longer working for us here." He handed me a manila envelope. "These are some papers you can give them to prove that you worked for the Mossad."
"Why don't we let them just ask their man in the Mossad to check me out?" I was now laughing.
"This is a simple job." He was serious. "I need you to do it as soon as you can. I will be here while you do it and leave after you are done."
"You know, this job doesn't quite jive with what you're telling me about the reason we're doing all this."
"And what's that?"
"I thought we were out to put the Mossad in the shit and force a change in the command. Suddenly we are protecting their reputation?"
"We are killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, we're cleaning up the reputation of Israel when it comes to this sort of unacceptable act, as well as putting the lid on Syrian diplomatic relations in England. Then, at the same time, we're giving you a good in with the British. If you don't come on as just a man on a vendetta now, you'll have more credibility with them later. We'll use that credibility to embarrass the office and blow the London station out of the water."
"Will I have to wait long for the next job? I'm losing my patience in this shitty place. I want to see the end of the tunnel, or at least a facsimile of it."
He smiled. I could see it wasn't easy for him - smiling, that is. He was involved in a world that was changing every moment and he had to adapt. It was a lifestyle that took a big chunk out of a man's personality.
"Your next job is in the making as we speak. After it's done you will get back together with Bella and the kids."
"What's it going to be?" I was anxious.
"Not yet, Victor. First we have this British thing to do."
I wanted to press the point harder and see if I could get more out of him, but he leaned back in his seat. His rounded face seemed slightly amused, as though he were watching a Roadrunner cartoon for the tenth time, knowing the fate of the fox but still going through the motions. His stare made me feel like the fox, making a futile effort to catch the stupid bird and knowing full well he would soon be taking the short way to the bottom of the canyon. I decided to let it go.
It seemed that he felt this was a time for a pep talk, as he now said: "You asked me once why don't we just leak things to the media and bring the Mossad down that way."
I nodded.
"We can't tear down the organization from the outside - it has too much credibility in Israel. No matter what we say, we can't even scratch its Teflon surface. It has to be shown for what it is: an incompetent, lazy, oversized, greedy monster. And that can only be done one step at a time. What we are starting now is an assault on the Mossad from its flanks. We will be hitting it from all directions, cutting the medusa's heads off one at a time. We are betting our existence against the incompetence of the Mossad."
"How do you mean, 'betting'?"
"If the office is as incompetent as we say it is, they will never know what hit them. If they are as good as they want everybody to think, then," he smiled, "we are toast."
"What about the reputation of the State? Not everybody can distinguish between Israel and its Mossad."
"That is true, but we will be dealing only with intelligence agencies, and they will know the difference. After all, we don't want to destroy the State in the process. We have to be very careful what we do. It is much like a demolition crew that must bring down a highrise in the middle of a city. One way will destroy the city center, the other way takes a professional. If we're hasty we could end up causing a breakdown in relations between Israel and every country in the world that the Mossad is screwing. And that would be just about every country in the world that we have a relationship with, plus a few more that we might have one with in the future. Our target is the office and only the office as it is now."
I sat and stared at him. I felt exhausted. I had no doubt as to what I was facing, but I was glad he put the effort into explaining the situation the way he did. I volunteered for the Mossad for that exact reason: to protect my country - not to protect the Mossad or its bosses but my country. And if the Mossad was a threat to my country then it was the enemy. I had volunteered for the navy after I came back from Canada for the same reason. I believed that what you truly love deserves to be defended.
"There is one more thing." His voice was back to normal. There was not a trace of the emotion he had just shown. He spoke like a teller counting someone else's money. "There is a Kidon team running around New York searching for a man they believe has made contact with the PLO."
I could feel the blood turning to ice in my veins, and my knees were shaking. I raised my hands and shook my head. "What did you say?"
"You heard me." He kept his matter-of-fact composure.
"You're taking this very well, considering it's not your ass the Kidon is after."
"Well, as things stand at the moment, they aren't after yours either."
"Whose, then?"
"Apparently the PLO man you spoke to was not as smart as you might have thought, or he didn't really give a shit. Anyway, he passed the information on to Tunis and it was picket up by Unit 8200._"
"You want to tell me the jerk actually phoned them about me?"
"Yes."
"Did he identify me?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. No, he only gave a description and that wasn't too good. I believe the team will try and pick him up and see if they can get a better identification from him."
"Did he tell them who I said I was?"
"Yes, they know he reported a so-called Israeli intelligence officer, but they aren't sure. You know that every little fart says he's from the Mossad. I'll bet you half the Israelis living in New York have told that to someone at one time or another. It's the Israeli Mayflower, everyone was on it when it hit Plymouth Rock. And yes, they called for a code white._"
He smiled, but I suddenly wasn't in the mood to do so. I knew he was trying to make light of it, but the Kidon team would not give up easily. Their reputation was not that of losers. "What about the Kahane people, the ones that were watching the PLO office? Has the office gotten to them?"
"Not yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar they will. I don't want to scare you, or on the other hand give you a false sense of security, but I really don't think you have too much to worry about. The Kidon team will do their little song and dance and then go home. There are much more important things for them to do than chase the wind."
"If they can get a good description of me they will not exactly be chasing the wind. What if they ask the Kahane man, the one I left to piss in that peep show?"
Ephraim smiled. "Him you don't have to worry about. He wouldn't say anything."
"Why not? He got a good look at me and so did his friend."
"Well, like I said, I don't think he'll be telling that to anyone, not the way it happened anyway. You see, when his friend finally came to get him, he said that he was attacked by a whole group of Palestinians and he said that you, or the one who entered the PLO office, was a Palestinian leader or something. It made him a hero in his tiny little circle of Judeo-Nazis, and he didn't have to admit it was done to him by one man that he was supposed to be following."
It was good to hear, but it didn't really calm me down. In fact I was starting to get more edgy the more I thought about it. "It appears that someone in the office is taking it seriously, or they wouldn't have sent the Kidon team to the U.S. That is sensitive terrain. What do they have? I mean, if it was me doing the investigation, I would first try and find out where the hell I, Victor Ostrovsky, was. I'm the last man out of the system and here, before you can say Jack Robinson, someone answering my description pops up at the offices of the PLO in New York."
"Well, that is probably what they're thinking, but to be able to pin something on you they have to find you first."
"So I am a fugitive now?"
"No, but watch out. Make your security checks and don't slip into some euphoria just because you're on American soil. I know that Mousa from security is trying to get a hold of you; he had someone call your wife asking her to pass a message on to you that he wants you to call him. But for some reason or other, I guess she hasn't passed it on to you."
"No, I didn't get the message. It's possible she thinks he wants me back in the system and she prefers I stay out. I have no idea."
"Just make sure you don't ask her or you'll blow the whole thing."
"Will you be informed about what the Kidon team are doing, or will you just find out after the fact?"
"I'm in the loop, if that's what you mean. I will have some knowledge beforehand and, yes, I will warn you if things get hot."
* * *
It turned out that this little game with the British was no less dangerous than the Soviet exercise. In fact, it was considerably more difficult. We were facing a very sophisticated agency that had good if not excellent connections with the Mossad. The fact that there was growing concern in that agency regarding the Mossad's dirty tricks was not something we could latch on to right away. It would be necessary to dig a little first.

I had to have a reason for coming to them, and be able to prove that I was Mossad. Ephraim gave me several documents that I could use to convince them that I was who I said I was. One was a photocopy of a British passport that I had used in an operation in Europe almost a year earlier. Ephraim handed it to me, with a backgrounder form for the passport.

I was also to use the contact I had made with the British representative to the Middle East in charge of the Empire's graveyards. In the office it was believed that he was working for British intelligence and was gathering tactical data in the area. Posing as a Canadian filmmaker, I had contacted him during an exercise and had tried to milk him for information. Ephraim had no doubt that if the gentleman was indeed working for British intelligence, as we thought, he would have reported that incident and would be able to identify me.

We decided that I would play the man who has two reasons for coming to them. One would be money, the other revenge. I would also say that I was worried that Mossad activities in the U.K. could bring about a wave of anti-Semitism if things got out of hand and a British version of a "Pollard" case would explode, exposing British Jews in the service of the Mossad.

There was no doubt that such an event would lead to the revival if not the materialization of the "Elders of Zion."_ What made this easy was the fact that I knew that I was telling them the truth and it was indeed only a matter of time before such an event took place. Having the local authorities aware and ready would maybe prevent it.

There was no way that the British intelligence would use such information to launch an anti-Jewish campaign. But since Araleh Sherf was the new head of the Tsafririm department, and he was known in the system as a militant who believed that using the Jewish diaspora was Israel's God-given right, he would push the activity in that field to the limit and cause something to break somewhere.

"So what do I tell them if they want to know more about this subject? I mean, there's no way we will hand them sayanim [Jewish helpers] on a platter."

"No, but we'll show them how to find them if they look. It's far better that they warn people than catch them. Suppose they caught a Jew working in their military industry and passing on information to Israel against the best interests of his country (or firm, for that matter). Such a case, working its way through the court system with the media coverage it would receive, would put every Jew in the Western world under suspicion. No doubt in the trial information would come out that would prove he wasn't the only one. And then only God could help us, and the way we have been behaving in the last thirty years I doubt very much if we could count on him."

It was about two in the afternoon when I got out of the cab and walked the two blocks to the British embassy. The light blue glass building was set slightly back from the road. I walked up to the main entrance and was allowed into a glass waiting area. I had to make my initial conversation through an intercom. I told them that I would like to talk with the representative of the British security and that I had information I was sure would interest him.

I waited in the room, looking at the people going in and out, hoping not to meet a familiar face or be recognized by someone I didn't know. After about ten minutes, I decided this was the wrong way to go about this and I walked out and down the block, contemplating my next move. I came across a pay phone, found the number of the embassy in a phone book and dialed. In less than two minutes, I managed to get through to the man in charge of security.

The chances were negligible that the phone was bugged. "I have been fired from the Mossad and I want to talk to someone in British intelligence. I have some information that I think might interest you."

The man on the other end didn't hesitate for a moment. "Are you in Washington?"
"Yes, in fact I'm not that far from the embassy right now."
"Would you care to come down here?"
"Sure."
"How long would it take you to get here?"
"About ten minutes." I wanted to see if there would be any activity outside the embassy before I walked in. I had checked myself before and I knew that I was clean. So if there was someone after me later I would know where I picked up the surveillance.
I gave the man a description of what I was wearing and told him my first name. He said he would wait for me in the main entrance and that I should have some I.D. handy.
I was there in just over ten minutes, having grabbed a hot dog from a stand near the phone both. This sort of activity made me hungry. I would usually lose my appetite once real danger was involved, but as things were I felt fine. I was wearing a pinstripe suit and a pair of black shoes, a tan raincoat and a yellow tie with small black symmetrical dots on it - the standard yuppie tie of the time. Paisley would have been my second choice; it appeared to have been the first choice of the gentlemen who was waiting for me. Other than that we were dressed almost the same. He must have been scratching his head when I gave him my description on the phone. No doubt he even had a similar raincoat hanging somewhere in the large building. He smiled as I approached, waiting for me inside the reception area while I went through the security section. There he greeted me with an even larger smile and an outstretched hand. After the initial niceties he led me toward a second set of doors where he had to bend down to run his tag through a slot. It seemed that the thin chain on which it hung around his neck was too short.
We took the elevator to his office, and there was the raincoat, just as I had thought. He had a set of planters on the window, just as we used to have in the Mossad building. There is apparently something about the game of espionage that makes you want to grow things.
"I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone about you, but I will take the initial information from you and based on that we will decide what the next step will be. Does that sound fair?" He was in his late thirties, a very British-looking chap, his smooth blond hair combed neatly to one side where it kept falling slightly over his forehead. He would occasionally push it back into place. His shirt collar was somewhat larger than his neck, which could have been the result of a diet he was on which was working faster than he had expected, or perhaps someone else was doing his shopping for him. Whatever the reason, he turned out to be a very pleasant person.
"Would you care for a cup of tea or something?"
"I'd love a coffee."
Edward popped his head out the door and spoke to someone on the other side, conveying the request. He then came back and took a block of paper out of his desk drawer, opened the passport I had handed him and copied my name and all other details onto the top of the form. I was itching to crack a few jokes about writing regulations and strict code demands which we would usually say in the Mossad on such occasions, but I held back. I had no idea who this man was or what he was like. The fact that he was at the front end of some intelligence agency only meant that he wasn't part of the offensive but rather the defensive team and, to compare with the Mossad, he was a second or third stringer. This man could indeed be frustrated and not open to some types of humor. In fact, he might take it as a personal insult.
The tea and coffee arrived.
"So, Mr. Ostrovsky, what is it you would like to talk to me about?"
I lit a cigarette, tossed the smoldering match into the ashtray, leaned back and said, "Like I said on the phone, I was a member of the Mossad until a few weeks ago, when for various reasons I was sacked."
He was busy writing on his pad, not looking at me. "Why did you leave?"
"I was let go because of a series of fuck-ups and because of my own big mouth."
"Meaning?"
"I voiced my political opinions, which are hardly fitting for a member of an organization with very right-wing leanings such as the Mossad." Ephraim had made it clear to me, as I also knew myself, that we were dealing with a sophisticated intelligence agency. There was going to be some sort of psychological analysis of the information I would be providing, so all the personal information about me and my opinions would have to be accurate. My cover story, after all, was my real story and I had to remember that.
The man did not react at all, which made the interview very strenuous. All he did was write and ask questions. At times he would raise his hand, asking me to slow down so that he could catch up with the writing. I hated when people did that. Today, with the advancement of technology and the availability of recording equipment, I found his way of working archaic and very inefficient. But this was his office and he represented a group of people I wanted to talk to, so I was not about to complain.
The interview lasted almost three hours. I presented him with a single Mossad document, the false passport cover page that Ephraim had brought me. It was a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper with a photocopy of the first page of a British passport. The original passport was false and the top part of the document gave a short rundown of who I was under that cover. On the back there was a map identifying my exact address on a section of a London map. Attached was a color photo of my house and imaginary family, with a few words about each of them. The document was what we would call a tutorial cover. This would normally come with or before your false passport to the safe house_ where you would go over the last details of the cover story before going out on an operation. This was regarded as a thin cover, not what you needed if you were going to cross a border or be placed under more severe scrutiny. Nevertheless, this document was extremely professional and anyone in the businesses who saw it would definitely be convinced that the bearer was not an amateur.
"I want to thank you very much, Mr. Ostrovsky, for what you have told me up to this point. I will surely pass this information on to the people that need to know. I'll be back in touch with you once I know what they want to do."
I knew this would be the procedure and therefore did not tell him anything beyond personal and peripheral information that was meant to establish who I was. The inquisition would come later.
"What now?"
"Where can I reach you?"
"I'll call you. When would you like me to do that?"
He thought for a minute. "How about tomorrow, at about the same time?"
I got up. "Tomorrow, then."

CHAPTER 17
SUNDAY, MAY 4
Ephraim was not in his room first thing in the morning, but had left me a message with the front desk. It said that my friend had had to leave very early but would be back for a late breakfast. It was said to be from David, the code name Ephraim and I had for a message that was legitimate. Had he left a message from Mark I would know there was trouble.

I decided to stay in my room and wait for his call, which came at about ten thirty. He was waiting for me in the dining room downstairs. It turned out that he had not had a minute's sleep; a mission in the Far East had bungled up and he was called to take care of it. Having dealt with the Sri Lankans before, he made contact with their security service and was trying to recover the body of a Mossad case officer who had been in Sri Lanka assisting the local government in rounding up the leadership of the Tamil Tigers, a resistance group fighting for a self-governed area in the north of the tear-shaped island. The case officer had been shot in his hotel room in Colombo at the same time as a bomb exploded in a Lanka Air jumbo jet on the runway.

The main problem was not that the man had been killed, but rather that the Mossad was supposedly there under the auspices of the CIA station and the American delegation, yet was carrying out this activity without the knowledge of its American hosts.

By the time we were seated for breakfast Ephraim had managed to get things under control. The body was on its way (said to be an apparent casualty of a car accident) on a chartered plane to Australia, from where the friendly local security service would help ship it back to Israel. He lit a cigarette and said, "Did you ask them for money?"

"Ask who?"
"The British."
I stared at him for a long minute. "No, it never came up." "Well, next time you mustn't forget to bring up the money

right at the beginning."
"Why? We know that no one actually pays until the
information is evaluated. I'm supposed to be a professional and
know these things."
"Still, you have to bring it up so that they don't think you're
some conscientious volunteer. They need to think they have a hook
in you so they can ask the questions they want to ask, and not just sit
there and listen to you. You see, if they think you're only
ideological, how would they know if you have an agenda or not?
You need to make them think it's the money, so they understand the
reason for your coming to them."
"I could probably get much more from the Syrians. Wouldn't
that come up in their minds when they hear I only want money?" "There would be several reasons why you would not go to
the Syrians."
Our discussion took us into the afternoon and I was starting
to get tired. However, the nagging doubts that I'd had before had
almost completely dissipated. Ephraim had armed me with some
more documents for the meeting tomorrow. After dinner he retired
to his room, which this time was on the same floor as mine. Ephraim wanted to be present the next day when I made the
call to the embassy, just in case there was something we had
overlooked.
I made the call, and was asked to come to the embassy as
soon as I could; two men had been sent over to talk to me. Ephraim was satisfied. "We're going to kill several birds with
one stone," he said.
"What will the birds be?"
"First, we'll let them know that we did not orchestrate the
incident at the airport and that it was really an attempted act of terror
that we prevented. Then we get rid of the London station head, who
is one of Admoni's main men. If we can stifle the London station
then we might just tarnish that clique enough to have an outsider
sent in to clean house."
"Are you sure about that?"
"We'll be using the same technique Admoni used to get rid
of Kimche in 'Eighty-two: tossing garbage into the wind. You're
from the navy; you know what happens when you do that." He was
grinning, stuffing his mouth with the end of a Coffee Crisp
chocolate bar.
I wanted to see Bella and the girls; I was starting to grow
more and more impatient in that regard. It would attack me suddenly
when I least expected it. I had big problems with the TV commercial
for the AT&T phone company. They would show sentimental
pictures of families together and then apart, reaching out for each
other, under the slogan "reach out and touch somebody." I felt so
lonely when that ad came on that I preferred not to turn the set on
when I was alone.
* * *
It was the same chap who greeted me at the main entrance when I came. He was wearing the tie that I'd had on the previous day and I wore the paisley that he'd worn then. Other than that we kept to the "uniform."

"Nice to see you again," he said, bending to get the door open.
"Won't they give you a longer chain?" I asked.
"No, they like to keep our chains rather short," he chuckled and swung the glass door open, allowing me to enter ahead of him. He led the way to the elevator, but today we went to a different side of the building. He let me into an office very similar to his own, except that there were no planters and no papers on the large, somewhat scruffy-looking desk. The man seated behind the desk got up as we walked in and stretched out his hand, smiling. "I'm Steve. Nice of you to come back at such short notice."
I took his hand. "I'm Dave. Nice to be called back." I was smiling too.
"Dave? But I was under the impression that your name was Victor?" He looked down at the paper on the desk in front of him.
"Just kidding," I said, sitting down. "Dave was my 'Steve,' you see."
"Ahha." His smile broadened. "So it is Victor?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything we can get you?" He sat behind his desk.
"I would love a coffee." I took out my cigarette pack and placed it on the table, only to notice I was down to my last cigarette. "And would you happen to have a cigarette machine somewhere in the building?"
"I will see what I can round up," said the young man, and left.
"I understood that there would be more than one man here today."
"Yes. My colleague might come in a little later; he has a certain thing he wants to show you and get your opinion on."
"Will you be handling this case?"
"We'll be doing it together. Why do you ask?"
"There is the matter of the money. We need to discuss that before we go any further."
"I can assure you that we will be more than grateful for your help. The money will depend totally on the value of what you have to say to us."
"Could you be more specific?"
"I'm afraid not. You see, we are not the ones who make that decision. After all, this is a friendly country and we do not normally gather information about Israel as it is an ally."
I lit the cigarette, speaking to him through a puff of smoke. "Why don't we cut the bullshit right off the top," I said. "We're here for a reason. You want something that you know very well I have. You want to verify first that I am who I am. Then you want to know what you can get out of me."
"I would prefer to think of it as an exchange...."
"Come on, we both know that if you could get me on a rack and beat the information out of me, you would. And apart from money, there is nothing I want from you. If you paid me now I would leave and let you keep that neutrality you are talking about. So, where would you like to start?"
"From the beginning, I suppose. What was your rank and position in the Mossad?'
"My rank was colonel but that was because I carried my rank over from the military, where I was a lieutenant-colonel. At the time I left the Mossad I was working on the Danish desk and occasionally doing jobs for other desks."
"Is there a British desk?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?"
"Did you work on that desk?"
"From time to time."
"Is there a clandestine station in London?"
"Yes. In the embassy."
"How many officers?"
"Five, as of about two months ago. I can't be sure at the moment, but no more than six."
"Who is the head of the station?"
"I'm really bad with names, you know," I smiled.
"Would you be able to recognize him from a photo?"
"Sure, do you have one?"
"We have photos of most of the diplomats. It is fairly standard for them to give us a photo when they come to get their diplomatic credentials."
"Let's make life simple. You show me photos, I'll identify the men. What next?"
"Why are you coming to us? Why not the Americans or the French? And if it's money you want, why not some Arab country? I mean, they'd probably pay you a bundle."
"I don't like to deal with people when I'm on their soil; they have too much control. Besides, you're an ally so in effect I'm not really betraying my country, I'm only selling you information I think you deserve to know. Like they say Pollard_ did."
The young man came back with coffee and a new pack of cigarettes. He apologized for not having American cigarettes but these were all they had in the canteen.
After he'd left, Steve and I established a more relaxed dialogue. A few minutes later, Steve's partner stuck his head round the door, smiling, and entered the room. He was roughly the same height as Steve, about six foot, well built and very tanned. It was as if he had just returned from a trip to the Caribbean - either that, I thought, or he has some odd skin disease. His blond hair had almost completely turned silver. It was combed the same way as the young man's hair, only it seemed to be more used to the position as it hardly moved.
Steve brought him up to speed and we went on with the conversation. Robert, the newcomer, opened a large folder and pulled out several cardboard sheets with passport photos on them. "Would you mind looking at these and telling me if you can recognize anyone?"
I glanced at them and then them back on the desk. "Yes, I do."
"Well, would you be so kind as to point them out to us?"
"Why don't you tell me who you think the head of the station is, and I will take it from there."
"But," said Steve, obviously taken aback and staring at Robert, "that would be very unusual."
"You mean you get Mossad case officers waltzing into your offices every day and that is why you flew all night from England to talk to me?"
"Why should we tell you anything?" Robert asked.
"That way we will get over the credibility part. If I can prove to you that I know what I'm talking about, we will have a much easier time."
"This one." Robert pointed to a photo.
"You can do better than that," I said. "I never saw this man in my life. He must be foreign office or something, you can see that by his tie."
"His tie? You mean Mossad people have a special tie?" He was chuckling at the thought.
"No, but back at Headquarters we don't go to work with a tie. So when they take a photo for a passport or something we wear the ties in the photo studio and they have only about three ties there. So once you know what the ties look like you will have no problem in picking out the Mossad people."
The two Brits were smiling as though they had just discovered America.
"Okay," Robert mumbled, pointing at another photo. "We believe it's him."
"And you are right, this is Yair." From my shirt pocket I pulled out a photo that Ephraim had given me just before I left for the embassy. I laid it next to the photo he was pointing at. "Here, you see?" It was the same photo, only mine was a slightly bigger print.
Credibility was established right there and then.
"Where did you get this?"
"That is not the question now, is it?"
"We would very much like to see more of the same." His tone was extremely polite.
"That is not possible at the moment. I have no intention of handing you the station on a platter."
"What, then?"
"I will tell you how you can get the information yourself. That way, when you do, it will be solid."
"Okay," Robert nodded. "Let's get this on the road properly. There are several things we would like to ask you first, and then we'll take it from there."
I nodded and put out my cigarette.
"First." He opened a second file he had taken out of the drawer. "There were rumors in the field that Mossad does not keep third party agreements._"
"Well, what we do is modify the information and then sell it. It is never passed on as is."
"I thought you were not working for them any more?"
"I'm not."
"Then why do you refer to them as 'we'?"
"Habit. I haven't been out of there very long. It is possible that even in my own mind I haven't really accepted it, and that is why I'm playing these games with you."
"Do you still have friends there?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Are you in contact with any of them?"
"Not at the moment, but I guess I could make contact if I wanted to."
"What do you know about the attempt by the Palestinians to smuggle a bomb aboard an El Al plane in Heathrow?"
"The security caught it, didn't they?"
"El Al security did, not the airport."
"Well, what do you expect? El Al security is the best, isn't it?"
"Is it at all possible that they could have staged this thing to make us look bad? I mean, would the Mossad do that?"
"And bring a real bomb that close to a plane? Never in a thousand years. Besides, why would they want to do that?"
"We have to look at things from all angles. So you're quite sure they wouldn't?"
"I can't stand them, as you might have noticed, and believe me I would be the first one to tell you if they had done such a thing. But unfortunately they didn't. The security is just good, that's all there is to it. They don't rely too much on electronics."
"But they do have all the most sophisticated devices."
"I didn't say they don't use technology, I said they don't rely on it. After the technology does its thing, they go over it again manually. Looking the passenger in the eye, so to speak." This was a strange situation; here I was, supposedly selling out my country's most precious secrets and at the same time taking pride in the achievements of its security apparatus. The two stared at me with some apprehension.
The questioning went on for several hours. We went in detail into the way the Mossad activates, maintains and recruits its more than three thousand Jewish helpers, called Sayanim, in Great Britain, how it maintains over a hundred safe houses in the Greater London area and services the recruitment needs of other smaller stations in Europe.
The safe house situation was one that seemed to bother them, as it was sending so-called white noise into their anti-terror system. Neither did they like the fact that such heavy clandestine recruiting activity by the Mossad was taking place under their noses. I could detect somewhat of an injury in their tone, and a determination to do something about this.
"If we wanted to clean up, where would you say we should start?"
"First you have to get your politicians to realize that moving against the Mossad is not a move against the State of Israel, that the Mossad is a loose cannon and that it is extremely damaging to whoever comes into contact with it."
"I believe we have already established that. What we're asking about is the operational information. What is the flaw in the system? Every system has one, however hard they try to cover it up. What's the flaw in the Mossad that will allow us to sit back and watch they are doing - and stop them whenever we want to?"
"What aspect of their work would you want to stop?"
"It is not ecceptable to us that they should use British subjects in their operations. And targeting an entire minority such as the Jewish community is despicable. Secondly, we cannot sit idly by as they recruit diplomats who are under our protection and put our relationships with those countries in jeopardy."
"Well, you need to catch them in the act."
Robert had a cynical look on his face. "I should think that was obvious."
"What you need to do is watch the safe houses."
"I would tend to agree with you. But how do we find them?"
"You follow the Bodel."
"What's a Bodel?"
"The word Bodel comes from the word Lehavdil which means to separate. The Bodel is a separator, your so-called flaw in the system. He is the one who takes packages and things from the Mossad station in the embassy to the safe houses and back. He is the secret gofer. Usually, if not always, fresh out of an elite military unit, he is a young Israeli who had received special anti-surveillance training and is the best there is in that field. He makes most of the trips to the safe houses during the day and most of the pick-ups during the night. He rarely uses embassy vehicles and does not have any specific pattern of work."
"So go and chase the wind, is what you are telling us. And you call this a flaw?"
"That is what the man is supposed to do, that is not always what he does. The safe houses are also manned by Israeli students who will make sure the houses are well stocked with food and other essentials, so that when they are activated they are ready. They live in some of the houses and visit the others to collect the mail, turn the lights on and off and make phone calls, so the place is in use and does not raise suspicions when it is used by the case officers. They are usually the same age as the Bodel and will meet with him socially. What I'm telling you is that several places that he will go to in his free time, and he will do that from his home, are in fact safe houses. Place them under surveillance and if he comes there during the day you have your safe house. There is always the possibility of following him with a very big team, never letting him see the same person or car twice. But I don't know if you guys are up to it."
The room was silent for several seconds while they digested all this.
"This is a very sensitive area." Robert was scratching his head. I was the only one in the room smoking but the air was heavy with smoke. It was easy to see that the two of them were very uncomfortable.
"What do you mean?" I leaned back in my chair, a thin grin on my lips. I was very satisfied with myself, I knew I had accomplished what I'd been sent to do and I'd had a good time doing it. Until now, that is: it wasn't over yet.
"So, if we follow the man and uncover the safe houses, what will we find? I mean, can you imagine the scandal if we uncover several Pollard-style cases?"
"We will be branded anti-Semitic on the spot," Steve remarked, a serious expression on his face.
"That will not happen," I returned.
"Why not?" Steve stared straight at me, clearly in disagreement. "I mean, when you go fishing you can't be sure what it is you will pull out of the water."
"The station will not use the safe houses for their sayanim. They meet them in their own houses and under regular everyday circumstances. Rarely will they meet clandestinely, unless of course the sayan is in the process of bringing in vital information from his place of work. The safe houses are used purely for debriefing or field planning sessions with case officers that do not enter the embassy. On rare occasions they will be used to interrogate an agent, but in that case they will be almost always be discarded right after that. The safe houses, I mean."
It was getting dark outside and we all realized that there was little more that we could say at this time. Information had to be analyzed and more questions would came up after that. For now we were starting to grind water. It was time to call it a day.
"What now?"
Robert pulled a white envelope from his pocket and put it on the table in front of me. "This is a small token of our appreciation for the time you have given us. We would like to talk to you again in the near future and ask some more questions, and of course pay for the ones you have answered."
"Could you be more specific when you say 'again'? When exactly do you mean?"
"Several days, perhaps."
"I can't be sure that I'll be here that long. I'll call you before I leave, and give you my forwarding address."
"What is your address now?"
"I'm here and there. I'll call you tomorrow and give you an address, how's that?"
"Well, we will not be here tomorrow but you can give it to our friend. He will pass it on to us. In fact, he could be our Bodel." We all laughed.
* * *
I counted the money in the envelope outside the embassy building and realized how cheap the British were. Although eight hundred dollars was much more than I had at the moment, I knew I had handed them a golden pickaxe with which to dig the Mossad's claws out of their soil. At one point Robert had said that they would pay me in the millions for a list of the Sayanim, but he was laughing, joking that it was hardly likely that the Mossad would let me back into Headquarters to pick up such a list.

But it certainly made me appreciate the batch of photographs of just about all the Mossad case officers that I had stashed away in my hotel room. This was something that even Ephraim didn't know about. And he wasn't about to find out.

I knew that I had single-handedly managed to destroy the Mossad's capability in England for some time now. They would start to run into problems in the near future, and if I read the Brits right they would not let the Mossad know where the problems were coming from. This was fulfilling my duty and tasting the sweet taste of revenge at the same time. I scared myself in realizing how much I hated them. I hated the people who had taken me away from the streets of Tel Aviv and a life I was happy in, with all the small everyday problems I had just like anyone else living in a country as volatile and tense as Israel. I hated them for shaking my belief in the Zionist dream that had been placed in their hands to protect.

Ephraim was half asleep on the bed, the television was muted and the lights were off. He had probably fallen asleep several hours ago; there was no smoke in the air.

CHAPTER 18
"What are you doing?" Ephraim asked when I picked up the receiver. He sounded groggy.
"Ordering some coffee. The Brits don't have a clue how to make it right."
"So you trust the Americans with that?" He chuckled.
"Would you like something to eat? I'm ordering a hamburger. I'm starved."
"Sure, order me one of those club sandwiches. So how did it go?"
I made the order and told him everything. I was starting to get impatient with the need to go over things this way. It didn't seem the same as it was when I was still in the Mossad. There it was more organized; first there was the written report, then you'd go over it answering questions. This was more like merely satisfying the man's curiosity. My feelings toward him were swinging from respect to dislike and back to appreciation.
"What did they say when you handed them the picture?" he asked.
"I think I did it well. I let them show me his picture first, then I pulled out the one I had. I think that closed all the gaps, if there were any left by then."
"Did they bring up the El Al thing?"
"Just like you said, they believe the Mossad is capable of this kind of trick."
"They're right."
"You mean we did do it?" I was taken back.
"I didn't say that. I said we are capable of it and we did similar things in the past."
Ephraim was asking me questions, his mouth full of club sandwich. He might be an educated man, Ephraim, but table manners he didn't have. I was taking my time answering as I wanted to enjoy the food. By the time I finished and he was satisfied, he knew about everything that had taken place at the embassy, the remaining coffee was cold and I was out of cigarettes again.
"You go get some cigarettes, and then we'll talk about the big job I was telling you about," said Ephraim.
I walked to the door. He called after me. "You did a great job, Vic. Even though you enjoyed it, which you shouldn't have, you did a great job."
So he did notice the fact that I liked what I had done, and I thought I had him fooled. I got two packs of cigarettes and hurried back up. This was going to be "it," the final job, the one that would end this state of oblivion I was in, as a gofer for the rebels.
I stopped myself before I entered that cesspool of doubt again. It wasn't that I had no doubts any more, it was just that I really didn't have too many options at the moment. Should Ephraim want to nail me, he could do so now, in spades, after my latest escapades.
It was the first time I saw Ephraim like this. Until this point he had been a tower of self-confidence. Yet now he seemed different, worried, uncertain.
"What's with you? Losing your cool?" I was trying to make light of it. This was no time for him to go sour on me. He had no right to be down in a situation like this; that privilege was mine alone.
"I'm just thinking about the next stage. There are so many unanswered questions. I think we might just have to put it off for a while."
"What are you talking about? What does that mean to my timetable?"
"A short delay; a week, maybe ten days." There was a note of doubt in his voice. It was very possible the man was testing me to see what I would do, hoping that I would be so anxious to get this thing over with that I would take on any danger, no matter what, just to end it. Later he would be able to say that he had wanted to postpone it and that it was me who'd wanted to go ahead. After all, we did get our training in the same school and even though I was a rookie in comparison to him, we did think alike.
"No." I was determined. I could play the same game as he did, if indeed this was a game. "You decide now. We go for it, whatever it is, or I'm out."
"Look, Vic." He had a serious expression. "It's not as simple as that. What we have to do is only part of the bigger picture. If you go out and start to solve a problem that doesn't exist yet, you will be suspected of double dealing when it turns up. And where you're going this is not something you want to happen."
"You better be more specific, Ephraim, or you are going to be talking to the wall in a very short time."
"We have done that for thousands of years." He smiled.
"And a lot of good it did us," I smirked back.
"Let's go for a walk."
His offer surprised me. He had never before wanted to be seen with me outside - for good reason. But I wasn't about to question him; he was the senior and it was dark outside by now.
"Where are we going?"
"Just for a walk. You go first. I'll catch up to you." Several minutes later he was walking beside me. We passed the subway station and stopped at a small greasy spoon, taking a booth at the end, well hidden by an over-loaded and smelly coat rack.
"Shabtai and his friends managed to kill the Jordanian peace initiative and render Peres helpless. The man was made to look like a fool; nobody else will touch this thing for a long time."
"I could figure as much from listening to the news."
"Up to that point you could still call this a fair game. Some people believe we should have peace with the Palestinians and some think we should just kick their butts, but what it comes down to is, what are our right-wingers willing to do to get what they want? As you well know, the people who do want peace are made to look like traitors while the other side is made out to be the patriots."
"Well, you have enough friends in the media. If you have an image problem why don't you just use them?"
"We do, but it isn't enough, not for what they are planning now." A waitress in a stained white apron took our order, chewing on a huge piece of gum. We waited for her to finish pouring the coffee and serve the large slices of apple pie we had ordered. She was conversing with someone in the back as she did so; before leaving she forced a smile at us.
I lit a cigarette and stared at Ephraim. He was keeping his voice down, causing me to lean forward slightly.
"They want to force the 'Jordan is Palestine' thing. They have political support for this and an alliance with some right-wing radicals that would guarantee massive support from the diaspora, especially in America."
"But that idea has been around for some time now. I mean, it was shouted from the Knesset podium many times. What's the big deal? Where do we fit into this?"
"As long as it was political it was fine, but now the Mossad is plunging headlong into this shit. They have decided that it's time to destabilize Jordan to a point of civil anarchy."
"Destabilize? How?"
"A high influx of counterfeit currency, causing distrust in the market, arming religious fundamentalist elements similar to the Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, to force a crackdown. Assassinating leading figures who are symbols of stability, causing riots in the universities and forcing the government to respond with harsh measures and lose popularity. You know what I'm talking about; everything you learned about and more. "
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to tell the Jordanians about it so that they can stop it before it's out of control. I know that they are planning to do the same with Egypt to prove that a peace accord with an Arab country is not really worth the paper it's written on, but I'm involved in that one and we still have time before the plan is implemented."
"I heard about that. Wasn't the Mossad running weapons to the Egyptian fundamentalists through Afghanistan or something?"
"That's right."
"So you still didn't explain how the hell I am going to tell the Jordanians this and have them believe me. Why don't you tell them? You have channels to the Jordanians."
"That isn't good enough. This has to be an ongoing thing. Every time they manage to stop one thing, our people will come up with another. You will have to get them to recruit you. This time it's not just a short exercise; this is for real."
I was speechless. This was far more serious than I had imagined: I was setting myself up for a hanging. No matter what might go wrong or whoever might catch me, the result would be the same.
"Is this your idea? Did you think this up yourself, or have you discussed it with someone?"
"I have, and we are in a consensus that this is the only way to go. I haven't told them who I will designate to do this, as not to compromise you."
"What other options do you have?"
"You're not the only one doing what you're doing."
That was a revelation to me; until that point I'd been positive that I was the only one on this trip.
"How many are we?"
"Enough to get the job done. This time we have to go all the way, and time is not on our side. On the one hand, you can't really do much until you know specifically what it is you have to stop, but at the same time there is only a short time for you to get in there and have a really good chance of not getting detected."
"What do you want me to do?" I had made up my mind to stop piling problems in his way and do what he asked.
What he told me was no music to my ears. I was to totally sever all ties to everything. I would start a fast descent into the gutter, from where I would appear to be much more appealing and believable to my new "masters."
Ephraim was sending me out the street without a cent. "You make contact when you're hungry and after you have gotten the link call this number and we'll meet."
After making the call, I was to wait one day and then come to the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Washington D.C. I had the name of the guest I was to ask for. Ephraim would wait for me there. There was to be no other contact with him. I was to make a new group of friends on the street so in the event of an accident of some sort there would be someone who knew me and would call my family. I was still under my real identity and I was to keep a loose contact with Bella. That was the only point that I found difficult. I couldn't tell her anything on the phone because no doubt her phone was being listened to. She was not to know what was taking place. I couldn't even tell her this was coming closer to an end.
I was going to start this whole charade the next day, so I decided to have one last night out on the town before I moved to Scum Alley.
I went down to Rumors, a well-known watering hole in downtown Washington D.C. I plunged into a bottle of tequila and some tall glasses of Coke. I was hurting all over from fear; I was scared of what I was getting into and at the same time ashamed of being scared. I wanted out; I wondered what would happen if I just walked over to the bus terminal and got on the first bus out of there, getting off at the last stop, wherever it was. It would probably be the best solution for everybody. My family needed me like they needed a hole in the head; I had been nothing but trouble for them as far back as I could remember. I could feel self-pity taking over, which made things even worse. The big emptiness in my chest was drowning all other emotions. I was lonely, scared and very depressed. I had to do something about it yet I couldn't move; it was as if I was glued to the seat and the only motion I could make was to bring the tequila shot to my mouth. My body was starting to feel numb.
She asked me if the seat next to me was taken. What happened next is not something I have stored away in my memory. All I can remember is getting a positive response. In the cab on the way to my hotel, some time later, alarm bells were going off in my mind. This is too easy, it's a set-up. She is here to kidnap me, take me back to Israel. There was no way such a beautiful lady would just fall for a drunk like myself, leaving behind the girlfriend she'd come out with, and going halfway across town to his hotel. Unless something I had said that I couldn't remember had made a big impression on her. I decided to take the risk. If she was working for the Mossad it was only a matter of time before they got me anyway, so I might as well take the easy route and go with her.
As it turned out she wasn't working for the Mossad. She was as hungry for sympathy as I was, and took just as much out of that night as she put into it. I vaguely remember taking her downstairs and getting her a cab back to the city. By morning it was molded into my dreams; I could hardly tell what had really happened and what I only dreamed after she had left.
This was going to be my last breakfast before I hit the street. I was on my own, pointing at a target I had no idea how to hit. I had packed all my clothes in the suitcases and was wearing my pinstripe suit. I would roll in the gutter with it and after several days I would look like a man who had lost it all.
It was then that I realized I was going about this the wrong way. Ephraim had given me a task and had told me how to carry it out. The way he had suggested would work for him but not for me. Had this been a regular operation in the Mossad, we would have discussed it and, after several hours of brainstorming, would have come up with the best method for me to carry out the task. That did not happen, and I was not ready to do things his way. If I was destined to be a street person it would be out of despair, and that would show. If I tried to play the part it just wouldn't work.
I was going to take the head-on approach that I knew I could handle. I put my Israeli passport in my pocket and headed for the subway. I got off at the xx station and walked over to the xx shopping center. I was going to have a cup of coffee and then make my move. Twenty minutes later I was getting out of a cab at the gate of the Jordanian embassy, less than one hundred yards from the Israeli embassy. I was questioned by the guard inside the main entrance as to who I was and what was my business there. I said I had to talk to the person in charge of security. He insisted on knowing what was the purpose of the visit.
"I need to talk to someone from security," I repeated, pulling out my Israeli passport and showing it to the guard.
He reached out to take it, but I put it back in my pocket. "Only to the man in charge of security."
He hesitated for a moment, then picked up the phone and spoke in rapid Arabic for several seconds. Then he turned to me. "Just one minute, please. The person you wanted is on his way. Would you please walk through the gate?" He pointed to a metal detector gate, like those used in airports, situated in the center of the hall, just by the four stairs leading up to a second level. After going through that I was checked by a second uniformed guard with a hand-held detector. A tall thin man in a dark blue suit stepped into the hall. He stopped several feet from me. "What can we do for you?"
I took out my Israeli passport again and handed it to him. "It's more like what can I do for you."
He opened the passport and leafed through it, looking at the photo and again at me. A smile appeared on his face, hesitant at first but gradually broadening into a grin. "Would you care to follow me, please?"
"I would love to."
He walked up the few steps and led me to what seemed to be the quiet office section of the embassy. We entered a small room with a desk and several chairs around it. The curtains on the large window were shut but the room was well lit. On the wall behind the desk was a large photo portrait of King Hussein in his military uniform, smiling at the camera.
The place was as foreign to me as a place could get. I had felt more at home in the Soviet embassy. The tall elegant man sat under the King's portrait and pointed to the seat opposite him. He was far too elegant for this office. "Would you care for something to drink, or perhaps a snack?"
"A coffee would be great," I smiled back.
He spoke to the guard who had escorted us to the room and sent him on his way. He then put my passport on the desk in front of me. "What brings you to us," he glanced at the passport again, "Mr. Os...rovvasky?"
"Ostrovsky," I corrected him. "You could say that greed brought me here, also a good dose of wanting revenge."
"Revenge, now there's a nice word. Who do you want to take your revenge upon?"
"My former employer."
"And who might that be?"
"The Mossad."
I could see the color of his face change from a healthy tan to a dusty gray in a matter of seconds. Had I chanced upon a mole the Mossad had in Jordan? That was always a possibility, albeit a remote one. Ephraim didn't say there were none, all he said was that it wasn't high on the priority list. I would not live very long if this was the case. He got up from behind the desk and walked to the door. "I'll be back in a minute," he said, a slight tremble in his voice. I had clearly made an impression on the man. If he was indeed a mole and worried that I was a Mossad defector who could uncover him, he would be out of the building and on his way to the Israeli embassy, which was probably visible from the window if I moved the curtains.
I got up and stared into the hall; there was no one there. Then the guard showed up with the coffee, putting it on the table and next to it a large bowl of Oreos. The combination of the Oreos and the traditional small cup of coffee made me smile. Somehow the Oreos were out of place, just like I was.
Almost fifteen minutes later the man returned. He had his color back and was smiling again. "How do we know that you are who you say you are?"
"I have some documentation that you can see, and I'm willing to answer any questions that you may have."
We both lit cigarettes and the questioning started. I make it clear right off the bat that I didn't know the names of any Mossad agents in Jordan, or in any other Arab country, for that matter. Nor was I about to give them names or descriptions of Mossad case officers whom I had worked with. He was mostly interested in finding out about the Mossad's intervention in the fundamentalist movement in Jordan and what influence the Mossad had on the political agenda of Israel. He made it very clear to me that they had no trust in the Israeli politicians who were saying they wanted peace, because of the leaks. He explained to me that it was made clear time and time again, to all the Israelis they had met, that leaking details of the meetings or even the fact that the meetings took place would jeopardize them and render them invalid. And yet there wasn't a single time that they were not leaked. The only conclusion the Jordanians could come to was that the people they were meeting with, at great danger to themselves, were not at all sincere and that the day was not far when such meetings would be a thing of the past.
After several hours the man was satisfied that I was who I said I was. "Now I'll call my boss. He might have some questions for you."
A pleasant gentleman in his late fifties entered the room. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and a light gray suit. His forhead shone, his receding silver hair neatly combed back. He had a small mustache and a friendly smile.
The younger man stood to attention. "Mr. Ostrovsky, Brigadier-General Zuhir."
The newcomer extended his arm to me. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Victor. I hope we will have a long and fruitful relationship." The man was good; right off the bat he came across as a friend, first impressions and all. "I hope that my friend here has treated you well?"
"Yes, indeed."
"I understand from him that you are a Mossad officer, or rather an ex-Mossad officer?"
"That is correct."
"Do you know Washington?"
"I do."
"I know him too. I met him at a party at the State Department last Christmas."
"Well, that wouldn't be my friend."
"Why is that?"
"He wasn't here last Christmas. He only came here about three months ago."
The man smiled. It was clearly a trick question that very few people could have answered correctly. "Now that I know you were a member, how do I know you are not one any more?"
"You have to trust me, I guess."
"What are you offering us?"
the liaison officer of the Mossad in
"I could help bring your intelligence agency into the twentieth century, and at the same time prevent some bad things from happening to your economy and your King."
The instant I mentioned the word king his face turned serious. "What do you mean when you say that about the King? Is there any danger to the King?"
"Yes. Nothing imminent or anything that I could tell you about at the moment. But, yes, there are those who would like to see him dead."
The room fell silent. The General was thinking. The younger man stared at him, waiting for him to say or do something. The tension was rising; even the guard standing at the door was serious.
"Would you be willing to go to Amman and see someone there?"
"Amman?" The question came at me like a locomotive. Amman, the capital of Jordan, so close to Israel yet so far away. How the hell would I get there, and would I ever come back? Was there a way to get out of this? Could I say no and still pull it off? The General could see I was hesitant. "Think about it. I will be here all day tomorrow and you can call and tell me what you have decided."
"If I say yes, when will I be going?"
"I didn't say you will, I just wanted to know if you would agree. I have to talk to the right people about this."
"Will you be using the phone line to talk about me?"
"No. I will use the embassy's coded system."
"Don't, that is if you don't want to kill me. Your code was broken a long time ago and all your 'secure' lines are anything but."
"So what do you recommend?"
"Use your diplomatic pouch or send a messenger."
"That will take longer."
I got up. "I'll call you tomorrow with my answer. I don't really see any problems. I might just need some guarantees."
"Okay. Until tomorrow, then."
"One more thing. Would you see what you can do to take care of my greed, should things work out?"
"Don't worry. We will not leave you hanging, if you will pardon the expression." They smiled but I couldn't get myself to do so. "What will you call yourself when you call?" the General asked.
I thought for a moment. "Isa. I'll say it's Isa."
"See you soon then, Isa." The General smiled and walked out of the room. The younger man escorted me to the front door. "Should I call you a cab?"
"Could you give me a ride instead?"
We went to his car around the back, and he drove me to the nearest subway station. I gave him the address of the hotel and my room number in case they needed to get in touch with me in a hurry. Then I got out of the car as fast as I could and entered the station. The ball was rolling; I had hit it half way across the court and now I would wait and see what would become of it.

CHAPTER 19

Ephraim was supposed to have delivered money to me, but for some odd reason he hadn't done so. Had this been a normal Mossad operation he could have gotten as much money as he wanted from a bank sayan (a Jewish banker who is regarded as trustworthy and will open the bank for you at any time and provide as much money as needed. He would be reimbursed the following day, once the station got the money from Headquarters. They were used only for special emergencies.) But this was not a normal operation and so I would have to wait for Ephraim to arrange things, or use whatever I could get from the people I was supposedly working for.

The money situation almost caused a rift between me and Ephraim, because of what he considered to be a brilliant idea. He wanted me to end up without any money so that when I dealt with the Jordanians I would appear genuine; I would be stressed to the point where I would be extremely convincing. I explained to him that, after all my training in the Mossad, he should at least trust in my ability to create a cover which would convince someone that I was broke when I wasn't.

The man was stubborn and would not budge. I had to explain to him how broke I was before he agreed to give me a few hundred dollars so, as he put it, I would not starve.

"So you're giving me this money because you don't want me to end up on the street?" I asked.
"That is right." He nodded.
"So you understand that without this money that you are giving me I will be on the street?"
"That is what I just said, isn't it?"
I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and peeled off twelve bills of one hundred dollars each. His eyes widened. I smiled at him. "Well, Ephraim, I guess you might want to reconsider. If I could make you think I was broke, don't you think I could make that point to just about anyone else?"
He started to laugh, and that was supposedly the end of his stupid idea. But now the money was late and I really was broke, having just paid my hotel bill, which had grown rapidly. I had the suspicion that he was going to play his little game whether I liked it or not. He knew very well that I would not stop the operation because of lack of money and he probably wanted to make the point that it was he who had the last word.
I couldn't help but find the situation somewhat ludicrous; here I was, interacting with the top brass of intelligence agencies of several countries simultaneously, and I didn't have enough money for a proper meal. Things would have to start to move fast or I'd end up on the street before I knew it. According to my estimation I could stretch my stay at the hotel for a few more days and then that was it.
I forced myself into a joyous mood and called Bella. She wanted to know what was going on, what I was doing, and what she was supposed to do for money. Ephraim had promised to arrange a cheque for her that would look as if it had been sent from me. I was to tell her that it was an advance for the security advising job that I was doing for some company. There was no reason for her to suffer a lack of funds. If I had been working for the Mossad, she would have been well taken care of, and if I hadn't been I would get a job and do it myself. But in this situation of limbo Ephraim had to do it. As it turned out, Ephraim never got around to it, but at the time I was still under the impression he would.
At three a.m. I decided to check and see if the Jordanians had placed someone to check me out. I got dressed and walked out of the hotel. The streets were deserted and no one came after me. If they had put a tail on me, he was either blind or asleep.
I made a call to the British embassy the next day and asked for an appointment with the gofer. I wanted to meet him somewhere outside the embassy and give him some information. He asked me to call back in an hour or so. When I did, he told me he would not be able to come out and meet me but that he would be waiting for me at the embassy whenever I would like to come. I realized that they regarded me as dangerous, and suspected that I could in fact be teaming up with someone who might harm them. I couldn't risk entering another embassy just then, so I said I would give him the information over the phone.
This was a snippet that Ephraim had left me just before he went back to Israel. As terrorism was on the increase in Europe at the time, there was a great demand for information regarding terrorist activity, and the Mossad was more creative in that field than most. As Israeli targets were what the Mossad regarded as sacred, they were willing to deal with just about anyone to get advanced warning about attacks on such targets.
It was a standing order for field personal at the time to make contact, under false flag,_ with whatever terrorist organizations they could. The only restriction was that the meeting be held in a secure environment, meaning that the case officer would have to get clearance from the Mossad European center in Brussels as to the danger level of the said terrorist, and the officer in charge of field security would have to arrange the security for the meeting.
Once the contact was established, case officers were authorized to make any exchange for information that would lead to the prevention of an attack on an Israeli target. Although it was the Mossad's policy to let it be understood that they regarded Jewish targets as having the same level of urgency as Israeli targets had, that was not the case. In fact, officers were on numerous occasions made to understand that it was not part of the job to protect Jews; that was the job of the locals. Under no circumstances was anyone allowed to burn a source who could one day bring in a warning about an Israeli target, in order to save a Jewish one.
In some cases there would be an extra restriction, when it was believed that the terrorists might have an alliance with other terrorists who would be willing to hit Israeli targets. That restriction was that they were not to be given demolition materials. In those cases the only thing that could be exchanged for the information would have to be in the logistical sphere, mainly documentation.
None of this was new to me; it was the same as I had been instructed, and for which I had approved requests many times when on the desks. As part of that drive a deal was struck with a French group called Action Directe, for a series of blank, first-grade British passports, in exchange for information about possible attacks on Israeli targets. Action Directe were led to believe they were dealing with a South American group that wanted to exchange the information for arms from Israel.
A dead letter box_ was planned for the passports in a phone booth in West Germany. We left it up to the Brits to get the Germans to do something about it. They would probably tail the Mossad drop man, then try and catch the Action Directe men who would come to pick up the passports. Ephraim didn't want the Action Directe to think they'd been tricked by their South American connection. If they did think that, they might try and kill the messenger, who was in fact a Mossad officer. Ephraim was going to have the Action Directe people warned, so that they wouldn't think it was a trap and then take revenge on the Israelis for setting them up.
Ephraim was hoping (and so was I) that an incident, even if it didn't come home to haunt the Mossad, would at least put them in some very hot water. We knew, however, that to break the Mossad's hold on the government would not be a short process. Even the passport drop was planned about a month ahead; it was explained to the terrorists that it would take time to prepare and that would give them time to get the information that would be regarded as payment for the papers.
The British gofer was out of breath by the time I was finished. "Do you want our people to contact you or anything?" he asked.
"I'll call back in a few days. If they have a question, tell them to leave it with you so you can ask me. If I can, I'll tell you ahead of time when I'm coming, although I doubt that very much." There was a silence on the line. I realized he didn't exactly know what he was supposed to do. I hung up, and called the Jordanians. "Can I talk to Zuhir, please? This is Isa."
"Just one minute please, Mr. Isa." I could tell from the woman's voice that she knew this was important. Seconds later a second woman came on the line. "Mr. Isa? I'm Lorraine. The General will talk to you in a minute." Things were going much better than I could have imagined. I knew that if Mousa, my field activity instructor and now head of security in Europe, could see me he would be extremely proud of how I was working. But I prayed that he wouldn't, because if he did I would be stretched out on a slab in the morgue, with a twenty-two caliber bullet planted deep in my skull.
"Hello, Isa. How are you today?"
"Very well, and yourself?"
"Fine. I'm getting ready for Ramadan. You know this?"
"Sure. I hope you have an easy fast."
"Thank you. What did you decide?"
"What can I tell you? I was always a sucker for a nice trip."
"Does that mean yes?"
"Yes, it does."
"Great. Now I'll tell my people and we will get back to you. Will you be at the same place as before?"
"Yes, only I'm running out of money. If I don't make some very soon I'll have to leave."
"Where will you go?" That was one question I didn't want to hear. What it meant was that there was a possibility it would take longer than a few days. At that moment I was perplexed; I couldn't understand the laxity with which I was being handled. Maybe I was used to an extremely aggressive agency that would grab at almost any opportunity; the man doing the grabbing could probably see an opportunity for personal advancement in every move. The General wasn't part of this mechanism. He was a true soldier, doing what he thought was right, but not making decisions for others who were not under his command.
I was frustrated and it showed, the more so as I was not making any effort to hide it. I realized then what Ephraim wanted to achieve by placing me in this situation without any means of support; he wanted me to rely on the success of my mission. I hated him for that.
"I have no idea at the moment, but I will try to solve my financial problems as fast as I can." I could see that he didn't really understand what I meant. "I need to make some money to live on and I can't work in the U.S., so I'll have to go to Canada and find something there."
"Will you tell me where I can find you there, in case the answer we are waiting for is delayed?"
"If you don't have one before I go, then just forget it." I could feel my insides starting to heat up. I was getting more and more restless. I had to be watching my back like a hawk.
I had known that before I walked into the embassy, but I was so hyped up on what I was sent to do that I didn't give it much thought. I had expected them to grab me with two hands and get me working right on the spot. It hadn't happened that way and things were starting to get sticky.
The process was now irreversible; the information was on its way to Amman and the Jordanian intelligence offices there. As this was no doubt high-priority information, it would be handled by the top-ranking officers in that service, and if the Mossad was worth its weight in salt it would hear about it, either from an officer that was recruited or from one of the assistants working for him. And if that wasn't covered, the opportunity of having an Israeli spy working for them would most likely be brought before the King. And there, for sure, the Mossad would have an ear of some sort. Knowing what I knew and could give away, it would become a prime directive to stop me. A team could be preparing to grab me or eliminate me as we spoke.
"Call me when you hear something. I hope I'll still be there."
"Will you call before you leave?"
"Okay." I hung up, feeling as though someone had let all the air out of my balloon.
* * *

The call came at eight-thirty in the morning. It was Zuhir. "Are you ready to go?"
"When?"
"How about tomorrow afternoon?"
"That's fine with me." I had made it a condition that he would go with me. I sensed that he was an honorable man and the promise of safe passage was something that I needed on a personal level. In the short time I'd known him, I realized that he was someone who would readily die rather than go back on his word or lose his honor.
"I will pick you up at your hotel at twelve."
"For how long are we going?"
"A week. Is that okay?"
"Sure, see you tomorrow." I hung up the phone and sat there for several minutes, trying to digest what had just happened. I was about to go to a country I had always regarded as an enemy, and be a guest of the intelligence agency on the other side. I was going to the other side: that was what I was about to do. If there had been a way to explain everything that I had done up to this point, what I was about to do was unexplainable. For the moment, I thought, they (the Mossad) didn't know about me. On the other hand, if they did know about me they couldn't say much as it would expose a source. But then what I could give away was much more than any source could provide, so they couldn't afford to let me go over. If they could tolerate my activity to this point, there was no way they would allow me to land in Amman.
I was now stepping into an abyss from which the climb back might not be at all possible. I had twenty-four hours in which to prepare for the trip, and really nothing that I could do to cover myself.
I took a shower and quickly got dressed. I had to get to a phone and call Ephraim. It was a Saturday and I hoped that he would be there. The phone rang several times, but there was no answer. I couldn't make a call from the hotel, nor could I tell Bella what was going on. I decided to try again later. I walked back to the hotel and waited in the room. Time stood still. What if I can't get him? What if they are waiting for me and this is all a trap just to get me there so someone can hand me over? I wasn't thinking straight. I was too excited and scared. It was like walking on the rim of a volcano with your eyes closed. I could feel the danger but I couldn't see it.
By six in the afternoon I got Ephraim. I was exhausted from the tension.
"What's up?" He sounded cheerful; something had apparently gone right for him.
"I'm on my way tomorrow."
He didn't say a word for several seconds, then in a slow and low voice, "Do you mean what I think you do?"
"You bet. I was called this morning. I'm leaving some time around noon tomorrow."
"I'll be damned. We don't know nothing about this, not even a hint. Do you know that, even if you don't go, it's already the biggest farce in this organization's history?"
I knew exactly what he was talking about; the myth that the Mossad knows exactly what is going on in Arab countries (in this case Jordan) was just that: a myth. This was supposed to ring every alarm bell in the bloody Mossad, yet no one had heard of it. I took a deep breath; I couldn't express my relief. "But you do want me to go?"
"Yes, that is, if you think you're up to it."
"And you want me to proceed according to plan?"
"Yes, just like we planned it. That is, if they will let you."
"So I'll call you when I come out."
"I'll wait for you. How long?"
"The man said one week."
"Just remember that there are other people there, and if they put you in a hotel stay out of sight. We might not have anyone in their system but we sure have people in Palestinian circles, and they are all over the place. I still cannot believe we didn't hear about this." He was laughing. "What a bunch of bullshitters. I wonder now how many of the so-called agents we have are bogus."
I hung up and went back to the hotel.
* * *
It was eleven forty-five. I was waiting in the hotel lobby. I had made arrangements for the hotel to hold my room and they had prepared a bill. At twelve sharp a limousine pulled up out front and Zuhir's assistant, the tall slim man, walked in and greeted me.

"Are you ready?"
"Yes, but there is the matter of the hotel."
"What is it?"
"I have no money and I have to hold the room until I return. I

spoke to the General about that."
He went back to the limo and then returned to me with the
General's credit card. "The General said to put it all on his card." "They will want him to sign."
"I'll sign for him. You go ahead to the car."
I did. Zuhir was seated in the far corner. I could barely see
into the car but his smile was shining through. "Ahalan w' sahalan,
my friend," he said, stretching out his hand to greet me. "How are you?" I smiled back. There was just no way of not
liking this man.
"We'll be flying to New York first and from there we're
going to Amman. I have made all the arrangements. We'll be picked
up at the airport. All will be well."
"Do you know the people who will be picking us up at the
airport?"
"They are all my friends, people you can trust. And, here."
He handed me a set of tickets: they were in a red folder with the
Jordanian crown printed in gold and the word Alia in English and
Arabic. This was not the sort of thing I wanted to flash around in the
airport, not in Kennedy anyway.
"Would you mind keeping this for me?" I handed him the
folder, slipping the tickets inside my coat pocket. He smiled. "You
spies have to think of everything."
"Well, that is if we don't want to hang."
"Don't you worry, my friend, you are with me. No one will
touch you."
I smiled back. "Would you drop me off at the entrance to the
Sheraton? The one by the airport?"
"Sure." There was a tinge of wariness on his round face. He
was puzzled, trying to figure out what I was up to.
"I just want to take a cab from there to the airport. After all,
we don't know who we might meet there and I don't want to be seen
with the most senior Jordanian military man in the U.S. boarding a
plane. You will agree with me that that would not be a good idea." "I should have thought of it myself, but of course you are
one hundred percent right. What about Kennedy airport? What will
we do there?"
"We are travelling first class?" I took out my tickets and
looked at them.
"Yes, of course." Zuhir smiled.
"So we will meet in the Alia lounge. Where is it?" "Alia doesn't really have a lounge but we do use the Air
France one. There is no Air France flight so we'll be there alone, I
mean only people flying to Amman."
"So I'll see you there." I looked out the window. Zuhir
instructed the driver to stop first at the Sheraton. His assistant then
said something to Zuhir in Arabic and Zuhir turned to me. "Do you
know where the Air France lounge is?"
"No, I'm afraid I don't."
"Do you know where the El Al counters are?"
"Yes." There was a slight hesitation in my voice. "Well, the Air France counters are on the one side and the
lounge is on the other. So when we go to the flight we will pass by
the El Al counters." He gave his assistant a worried look, then said
to me, "What do you propose to do?"
"Nothing. I'll meet you in the lounge and when the time
comes we'll go for the flight. What else can we do?"
The car came to a stop under the large concrete canopy of
the Sheraton and I got out. The chauffeur got my suitcase out of the
trunk. Not looking back at the car, I walked into the lobby. I waited
there for several minutes, then walked back out again and hailed the
first cab that was waiting at the end of the ramp. There was no
chance that my friends from the Mossad could have arranged for
that cab to be there; there was no time. If someone was following
me, and at this point I doubted that very much, the stop at the hotel
would have confused them completely. It sometimes sounds
childish, all these games of cat-and-mouse, but when it's your life that is at stake the games stop being fun. Every move that you can make to throw off whoever is after you (if they are there or not) is a blessing and might just buy you enough time to stay alive. There had been times when I was positive that I was clean and went about my business, still keeping an eye open, only to realize that there was in
fact a tail I hadn't identified.
The cab ride took only five minutes but it turned out to be a
smart move. As I handed my ticket and passport to the security man
at the airport I felt a tap on my shoulder. I was sure it was Zuhir or
his assistant wanting to tell me something. I didn't want to turn and
see them, as this would have worked against all the evasive moves
we had taken.
"Vic." A voice now accompanied the tapping. I knew the
voice, it was someone from another world, another life. I turned my
head, putting a broad grin on my face. Was this coincidence or
something else? "Rolly! How are you?" I put my suitcase on the
ground and took his outstretched hand. He shook my hand
vigorously. He was once a good friend; we had spent much time
together talking about things at the top of the world. I never worked
with Rolly; he was liaison and I was a case officer. But we'd run into
each other quite often when we worked at Headquarters. He was
doing liaison with the Scandinavians when I was working the
Danish desk.
"I heard about your bad luck. I'm sorry." He was genuinely
concerned.
"That's life. How are things with you?" He was the Mossad
liaison to the CIA and I knew he wasn't about to spill his guts to me,
but I asked anyway. What else could I say? Here I was, on my way
to Jordan with a Royal Jordanian Airline ticket in my pocket, and
who do I meet?
"Nothing new, just the usual."
I thought back to the brigadier-general who had been selling
arms to the Iranians. I did feel somewhat guilty about him, as it was
I who had made the call for Ephraim to the FBI. "What is going on
with Bar-Am?"
"Who?" Rolly, a six-foot-one stringbean, leaned forward as
if he wanted to hear better. His voice got low as though he wanted
mine to do the same.
"Avraham Bar-Am, the general, the one who was arrested for
arms dealing with Iran or something."
"What about him?"
"Aren't you guys going to help him out? After all, he did
work for us."
"I thought you were out of this game?" He smiled, squinting
his eyes as if thinking that maybe all was not as he had heard it. "I am out, but that doesn't mean that I can forget it all
overnight, you know. I did a lot of work for him in Headquarters,
way back when. I thought that if you put someone in shit it would be
half decent to be there to get him out."
"As of when does the game work that way? I never saw
Bar-Am being forced into this thing with a gun to his head. He went
in to make a profit and cash in on his connections. It didn't work out
the way he wanted to, that's his tough luck."
"How did they get him?"
"I have no idea. One day they were doing great; the next day,
out of the blue, came the FBI and it was all over. I have a hunch it
was someone from the inside who wanted the deal off. It was getting
in the way of Blue Pipeline._"
"That would be stupid. It would surely make the Americans
think that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing." I was
hoping he would confirm this. After all, that had been the main
reason behind our little exercise.
"You bet that is what they think." I could see by his face that
he realized he had talked too much already, and to an ex who might
not be.
"Hey, Rolly, it's me, Victor! What are you worried about?
You think I will take what you just told me and fly with it to
Amman or something?"
We both started to laugh.
There was more to the Blue Pipeline than just sending
ammunition to the Iranians: at that point the Mossad was training
Iranian pilots in Germany. The contact was made by the German
BND, their so-called secret service. It was not made through the
upper echelons but through the working level of department heads.
That was the way the Mossad liked to work; it would give the
intermediates the ability to bring in good information and help their careers, and keep the top brass out, their so-called political
conscience clean.
The Iranian air force consisted mainly of American-made
fighter jets such as the Phantom, which until some years earlier had
been the leading fighter in the Israeli arsenal too. It was imperative
for the Iranians to be able to train their pilots in a safe environment
and also receive parts for their crumbling air force. Israel was happy
to oblige, using the Germans as intermediaries so that the Iranians
would not have to admit to themselves that they were getting help
from the Zionist devil himself. In the scenic state of Schleswig
Holstein, Israeli pilots were training
locations. At two airfields they were
specially modified Sesnas, and at the third they were training in five
simulators brought specially from Israel.
At the same time, parts for the decimated Iranian planes were
making their way overland from ports in Italy, all the way across
Germany and into Denmark where they were loaded on Danish
ships. Other parts and weaponry were transferred directly from
Israeli-leased ships to Danish ones in the Danish port.
The local police authorities in the northern German state
were well aware of the activity but had no qualms about it, as long
as there were no terrorist activities in the area and the operation was
pumping money into their personal pockets.
Rolly nodded his head. "Look over there."
"Where?" I asked, turning my head slowly so as not to attract
attention. Rolly was never good at field activity. He didn't really
need to be: he was liaison.
"Over there in the corner, standing with that tall man." "Yes?"
"That is Zuhir, the Jordanian military attache. I wonder
where he's off to?"
"You want me to make contact and find out for you?" "You would, wouldn't you? You are one crazy
son-of-a-bitch." He grinned. "Stay away from him. We don't need
some international incident, about which I will have to write endless
reports."
I knew he would have to write a report about his meeting me,
where he thought I was going and, almost to the word, what we had Iranian pilots in several getting flight training in said. The fact that he recognized Zuhir and would try and find out where he was heading was not very promising for me. I was going to
make light of it. "Give my regards to Mousa."
"I don't work with Mousa."
"He's head of security in Europe now, and you will mention
me in your report, so send him my regards. Trust me, he will get it.
By the way, are you coming or going?"
"Neither. I'm here to pick up my wife. She's coming back
from a trip to Israel."
It was my turn at the ticket counter. I was glad to hear him
say, "There she is. I'll be seeing you."
I shook his hand and handed my ticket to the stewardess
behind the counter. After getting my boarding pass and walking
through security, I stood at the gate waiting to board. Zuhir didn't
acknowledge me, just as we had decided, but I could see by his face
that he was more than curious as to who it was I had met. It was dark by the time I walked across the long hall in
Kennedy airport and entered the Air France lounge on the second
floor. The El Al waiting area was full and I was praying that no one
in the large crowd would know me. All I could hope for was that the
El Al flight would leave before the Alia one, so that I would not
have to walk along the aisle with all the people going to Jordan, in
front of some three hundred Israelis, one of whom was bound to
recognize me.
Zuhir was anxious to hear about my encounter, and found
what I had told him very amusing. "Of all the places and all the
times to meet a friend." He started to laugh. "Fate, that's what it is.
And there is nothing we can do about it. We are in the hands of
Allah, to do with as he wishes."
"I sure hope he is in a good mood today; I'm still not out of
the woods, as they say."
"They don't say that where I come from." He laughed again,
clearly in a happy frame of mind. He was after all coming home
with a trophy, an Israeli secret service agent. I could imagine what it
was like by thinking the other way, as if it were me bringing him. I
would probably be walking on the clouds.
We stayed in the lounge for more than an hour. At last it was
time to board the plane.
"Do you know?" I turned to him, speaking in a low voice.
"Did the El Al flight leave already?"
"No. They will leave almost an hour after we do." He knew
what I was thinking. "Would you like to put on some special
clothing or something?"
"Do you have a spare Kafia?"
He opened his attache case and took out the red and white
headwear. He handed it to me. "Will this do?"
I wrapped it over my head, making it hard to see my face
from the side. It made me feel much better. "Thanks, it will indeed." When we walked past the Israeli airline waiting area, almost
all the passengers waiting for the El Al flight were staring. It wasn't
every day they got to see the enemy this close. I recognized a friend
from Holon in the crowd and I was sure he recognized me. But it
didn't matter: as long as he wasn't working for Mossad or Shaback
he would not have anyone to tell it to. Besides, he knew I worked in
some secret place and he would think this was part of my job. I
knew that he would wait for the day when he would meet me on the
street in Holon and tell me how he saw me boarding a flight to
Jordan, and how smart he was for not making a move that would
probably have blown my cover.
We were finally ushered into what was in fact an Alitalia
airplane chartered by Alia with a Jordanian crew. When the plane
actually took off and was in the air I realized that there was really no
way back. Next stop, Amman.

CHAPTER 20

TUESDAY, MAY 20
It was getting dark at the end of a long flight. I could see land as the plane banked slightly to the right. We were now heading east. I felt a twitch in my stomach when the plane crossed the shoreline. The pilot made an announcement telling us where we were at that point. I already knew exactly where we were: that gray land below, dotted with the sun's last rays, was Syria.

The concept was hard for me to comprehend; here I was, an Israeli, seated in the first-class cabin of the Royal Jordanian Airline, over Syria, accompanied by the Jordanian military attache to the U.S. At that point in time there were many who would have haggled over who would hang me if they found out what I was really up to.

Several minutes later the wide-bodied plane made a second turn and was now heading south, beginning the descent into Amman, Jordan. We had in effect flown around Israel. From my window I could see Israel passing by as the sun set on the other side of the Moab mountains. I was so close to Bella I could almost touch her, yet I was further from her and my children than I had ever been. It was then that the proverbial mountains of darkness took on a whole new meaning.

By the time the plane had touched down in Queen Alia International Airport south of Amman, it was dark. Once the plane came to a complete stop the stewardess who had served us diligently all the way from Kennedy airport in New York stood behind us blocking one aisle while the purser blocked the other, curtaining off the rest of the passengers from us.

"They will make sure that no one gets off the plane before we clear the terminal," Zuhir said to me, pointing in the direction of the open door. We headed out of the plane alone. Zuhir shook the hands of the pilot, who by then was standing at the door smiling as though he were about to meet the King himself. At the other end of the gangway we were met by several officers in full parade uniform who stiffened like a steel spring and saluted as soon as they caught sight of my escort. He gestured back and was quick to shake their hands. It was clear that the officers were responding to more than just the man's rank: there was admiration present. We were ushered swiftly through the small terminal. My passport was in Zuhir's hands and was not stamped - quite a standard procedure in this business.

At that point we were shown into a large V.I.P. room where we were greeted - or rather Zuhir was greeted - by a group of uniformed officers, several of whom were generals and most of the others colonels. While Zuhir was mingling among his peers I stayed somewhat in the background. A tall, slim, dark-haired gentleman with a neat black mustache and a large smile walked up to me. "It is an honor to meet you, Isa. You must call me Albert."

I smiled back at the man and shook his outstretched hand, nodding to him. "Pleased to meet you, Albert."
"Do you speak Arabic at all, my friend?"
"I'm afraid I don't."
"In that case I hope you will forgive my English, and allow me to ask the meaning of words I don't understand."
"No problem," I said. "From what I can hear, your English is nothing you need apologize for."
"You are too kind." He smiled.
I was not about to start the game of names with this man in this strange place, not until I got to know some of the ground rules a little better. A smile could be very deceiving, hiding something very cynical behind it. I was keeping one eye on Zuhir. It was his personal guarantee for my safety and the trust I had in him as a man of honor that had convinced me to make the trip. I didn't want to lose sight of my security blanket. I trusted Zuhir mainly because he was a military man and not part of the intelligence apparatus. I had no doubt that, if he lost sight of me, things might happen that would be beyond his ability to change and then the system would provide him with a story to calm his conscience. I was not going to let that happen.
Once I caught Zuhir's eye, I gestured to Albert as if to ask the General if he thought I could trust the man. Zuhir nodded to me, smiling, then he left the group of officers and walked over to me. "This man will take you to the hotel and will take care of you. I know him and hold him personally responsible for your well-being." He put an arm around my shoulder. "Welcome to Jordan." He then turned and walked back to his comrades.
Albert led me out of the terminal into a warm night. There were several parked cars and about ten men in civilian clothes standing by the cars waiting. When we came closer they noticed us, and one man opened the door of the second car in the row for us. Then his companions all got into the other cars. The small convoy made its way for almost twenty minutes on what reminded me of the roads in the Negev_. The cars stopped in front of the Regency Palace Hotel in Amman. I didn't get to see much of the city as we drove in, but as far as I could tell there wasn't much to see. It wasn't a city in the American sense of the word, with high-rise buildings and neon lights, but rather what looked to me at first glance like a very big village. Albert explained that, as it was Ramadan at the time, there was very little activity at all - not that it was a hopping place at any other particular time.
Much to my surprise and somewhat to my dismay, I was registered under my real name, even though I had been "Isa" all along. I was handed a key to a room on the eighth floor. Albert walked me to the elevator and then said that he would be back in about an hour with some people who would like to talk to me. He suggested that I get some rest; if I wanted I could order food from room service. "I think you should stay in your room until we get everything sorted out."
"How come I'm under my real name?"
"I don't know, I didn't make the arrangements. The man who did will be coming with me later. You can ask him." The fact that they might have just made a blunder that would cost me my life didn't seem to bother Albert much. "What is your rank?" I threw at him just as he was about to leave.
He turned to me, puzzled. "Why do you want to know?"
"Since we both carry a rank it would be nice to know where one stands." It was utter bullshit, but for people in military organizations things like that matter. I was shooting in the dark.
"I'm a captain. What are or should I say were you?" There was a faint irony in his tone.
"Colonel." His eyes opened slightly. I knew it had worked; a small hierarchy was established. "One more thing."
"Yes?"
"I need a phone number or something in case of an emergency."
"Sorry. But of course." He took out a small pad and a pen and scribbled something on it. "Here, this is the number of the security police headquarters. I should be there in about ten minutes. You can ask for Albert. But, as I said, I'll be back in an hour."
The room was almost identical to the one I had left behind in Washington except for the selection on the television. I was hoping to get Israeli television but it wasn't available. On the radio, however, I could hear the voice of Israel and almost all the other stations, including Aibi Natan's Voice of Peace. There was a basket of fruit in the room and a beautiful view of the desert night. The air was warm, and had a sweet taste to it. I took a shower and ordered a dinner that consisted of hummus and kufta, which I knew better as kabab. I was seated at the small table the waiter had rolled in when there was a knock on the door.
It was slightly more than one hour from the time Albert had left me at the elevator. I got up and walked to the door. Through the peephole I could see Albert and another man. I unlocked the door and stepped back into the room. Albert and three other men walked in; apparently two had been standing to one side, out of sight of the peep hole. They shook my hand, nodding and smiling, then walked in and sat around a small coffee table by the French window. After the introductions they all insisted I finish my dinner. I offered to order some food for them. They said they would eat after their friend Fadllal had joined us.
They asked if they could smoke and within minutes the room was filled with the familiar cigarette smoke. It appeared they were all smoking Marlboros. I stuck to my Camels. One of the newcomers was a young chap about twenty-five; he was apparently the assistant of a heavy-set man in a black suit whose smile seemed to have been tattooed onto his face. The third looked like Albert's older brother, with silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses. By observing their posture and manners it was easy to see that they were officers. I politely pushed away what was left of my food, explaining that I had in fact eaten on the plane and wasn't that hungry. The truth was that I was very hungry, but I had decided to get this thing off on a good footing and eat later when they did.
"So, Isa," the heavy-set man turned to me, patting his mustache with one hand. At this point I realized that we all had mustaches, all of which were very much alike except for that belonging to the one who looked like Albert, which was a longer, British-style mustache with what seemed to be waxed sharp ends pointing up.
"I read the report Zuhir sent in," continued the man, "and I find that we have so much to talk about I just don't know where to begin. What would you recommend we do first?"
"Well." I took a cigarette out of my packet and tapped it on the table. "What I would recommend is to see what it is I cannot do for you, so that you don't have expectations that I cannot meet."
"Sounds logical," the sharp mustache said, looking at the older man. "What, for example, do you think that we would like to know and you cannot help us with?"
I could see where this was going. It was a very good technique. One of the biggest dangers in questioning is letting the person being questioned in on what it is you do and don't know. They handled this technique well, not revealing anything about themselves.
"First, I assume you would like to know if the Mossad has agents in your midst and who they are."
"That would be a fair assumption," the youngest one said.
"Well, I can tell you that according to the reports there are many agents in your system, mainly in the field command. Because of the way the Mossad is constructed I couldn't know who they are unless I worked directly with them, in other words, unless they were my agents. I can tell you I was never in that position, so I can't help you there. I can however put your mind at ease in one regard, and that is that intelligence officers are not good targets and are rarely sought by the Mossad."
"And why is that?" the heavy-set man muttered.
"Well, they are usually suspicious and on the look-out, they are well aware of the techniques used and once they have been recruited they don't have that much information that is vital to the big picture. So in other words the results are not worth the hassle."
There was a knock at the door, all eyes were turned to it and I wanted to get up and open it but Albert stood up instead. "I'll get it. It's probably Fadllal."
"So, you were saying," the young man said, as though he wanted to keep the conversation going. I turned to face him. "What I said was that I can't really help you much in the way of names."
I could hear the door open and a short conversation at the door in what sounded to me like an angry voice that Albert was trying to calm down. I saw astonishment in the faces of the people facing me. Before I could turn my head around to see what was going on I felt something hard press against my head, almost at the top. A strong hand grabbed the back of my collar. The man said something in Arabic that sounded like an order of some kind. The voice was harsh. I could feel all the blood rush out of the top half of my body and the cold sweat everywhere.
"What the fuck is going on?" I called out, making sure not to move my hands. It seemed to me that the gun was of small caliber, but even a twenty-two at this range was more than enough to scramble my brains. I had no idea what was going on and I forced myself not to try and figure it out. I had no doubt that I would be told in a very short time, or I would be shot, in which case it really didn't matter much.
Albert translated, trying in vain to imitate the harshness of the man's voice. "He says you are a Mossad agent and that you are here to trick us."
"It's not a secret that I come from Mossad." I was trying to keep a tremble out of my voice; I could feel my bottom lip getting stiff with fear. "I mean, if I wasn't, would we all be here?"
"He says you are here to trick us, he says he has it from a good source."
This was it, as far as I was concerned. Either the man was bluffing or else he had something, in which case there was nothing I could do. It wasn't as though I was on a legitimate job for the Mossad, in which case some political safety net could be thrown in to save me. If the Mossad got their hands on me they would probably do to me the same as the Jordanians would, and no one would say a word. I put the cigarette I had just taken from the pack in my mouth; I hadn't yet had a chance to light it. Moving only my eyes I looked at Albert and, with the best smile I could muster, I said, "Tell your man to shoot me or light my cigarette, whichever, but please do it fast. I need a smoke."
Everybody in the room began to laugh, the gorilla with the gun too. He put the gun back in his belt and moved to stand in front of me. His hand was stretched out and he was grinning. "It is my job to try and catch you, see? No hard feelings, I hope?"
I took his hand and shook it hard. "None at all. You do your job and I'll do mine." He took a lighter out of his pocket and lit my cigarette.
"Can we get something to eat around here?" Fadllal said in a loud voice. "Why don't you just order a table," he said to Albert. "We are going to be here for some time."
When Albert went to the phone to make the order Fadllal turned back to me. "Tomorrow we will see if we can really trust you. The two of us will go on a day trip and then we will know for sure."
"Where are we going?"
"That you will see tomorrow. Now we will eat, and," - he opened the small bar in the room - "have a drink. What will you have?"
"I'll have a tequila, if there is one."
There was more than one and we all had a drink except the heavy-set man and his assistant, who declined on religious grounds.
"So, Isa, what can we do about the Mossad agents that we have in our midst?"
"You can find them." Ephraim had gone over this with me several times; we were not giving them anything that they couldn't arrive at on their own. It was standard procedure and there was no way around it. But coming from me it was like hearing it from the burning bush. If they did go according to this procedure, agents would be falling out of the few trees they had in this piece of desert, something that would more than likely force a re-evaluation of the Mossad leadership.
"Well," asked Albert, sipping his brandy, "How do you propose we do that?"
"First you have to identify the group they belong to. What I mean is that there are several types of agent. One is the basic type, working in a menial job at a hospital or a fire department. He could pass on what is called tactical information. For example, if a hospital gets ready to take in casualties by expanding the number of beds it has, or the fire department calls in the reserves, we can see the first stages of a country going on a war alert. To find these people you would have to spend the next five years interviewing and pounding the sidewalks. The results will be negligible, especially since most of them don't realize what it is they are doing."
They were looking at me and nodding; up to this point I wasn't teaching them anything new. "Then there is the second level of recruits. They are from the civil service, what I mean is the foreign office, diplomats, etc. Again, they would be difficult to detect. At the top of the hierarchy we find the military officers who have been recruited and are working at the moment. They are the most important group and the most vulnerable to detection."
"So how is that done?" the heavy man asked, leaning forward, his face taking on a pinkish color. The man was hooked, I could feel it. I was about to tell him exactly how it could be done, but then I remembered what Ephraim had repeated again and again; you are there to make money, don't lose sight of that. "Well, I would really like to oblige you, but I seem to have a slight problem."
"What is that?" Albert quickly asked, seemingly ready to tackle whatever it was.
"What will I get out of this? I came here in good faith and I want to know what it is you are willing to pay me."
Fadllal was smiling. He put his hand back on his gun. "The first thing you already got was your life, my friend."
"That is a lot of bull and you know it. I came here under the protection of Zuhir's honor, and unless you can prove that I am not what I say I am, it is as if this conversation is taking place in Washington. You do not have the advantage here, my friend. So back to my question." I paused and looked around the room. "What will you pay me?"
"What do you want?" It was the man I nicknamed in my mind Albert B.
"I want a lump sum and then a salary for one year, after which we will renegotiate."
"What is the lump sum?" the young man asked.
"Twenty thousand U.S. Sort of pocket money." I knew I could ask for ten times that much, but I wanted to make things easy on them. "Then five thousand a month."
"Will you stay here in Jordan?"
"No, I'll go back in about a week, like we agreed before I came here, and I will do whatever we decide should be done."
"If we agree, what will you do in return for all that money?" Albert wanted me to get it, I could see it in his eyes. He was going to be my case officer and this assignment was going to propel him to the top of his organization. He wanted me and was going to make sure he got me.
"That will depend on what you want. I can help you install a system that will prevent anyone from recruiting your people and help you catch those who have been recruited already, almost guaranteeing that any you do not catch will quit on their own. That will be stage one."
"So there's more?" It was Fadllal, wiping_ some hummus, looking at me with his small black eyes as if he wanted to see right through me. The man didn't trust me and wanted above all to be the one to nail me. From the way he was staring at me, I was almost certain he had a way to do that. Maybe he was going to the following day.
"Yes, there will be more. Once you have secured your rear you have to go on the offensive; what I mean is, actively recruit Israelis. First you will need a good basic level of military expertise, and then from there the sky is the limit."
"What about recruiting Palestinians?" It was the young man again.
"What about it?"
"What if we want to recruit Palestinians? Could you help us there?"
All eyes were on the young man. He almost instantly realized he had made a mistake. I felt sorry for the guy; he had revealed to me a problem they had, which was more than they had wanted to do. I wanted to get him out of it and calm the atmosphere. "Very funny. What is this, a trick question? What next, will you pull a gun or something? Me recruit Palestinians, like you really need my help? What do you take me for?"
The young man could feel the soft landing. He smiled. "You can never be too careful, now can you?"
I changed the subject. "Okay, what do you say? Do we have a deal or do you people have to go and talk it over with your bosses?" I could see I hit a raw nerve there with the heavy man, who was probably a top-ranking officer, if not the top man in the Jordanian service. Even though I had worked on the Jordanian desk for a short while during my time in research, I didn't know much, if anything at all, about the Jordanian service. I was sorry about that now.
"Twelve-and-a-half thousand walking money," the heavy man said, his face frozen in a blank expression. The tattooed smile was gone. "Three thousand five hundred a month for six months, then we renegotiate. Take it or leave it. We will talk again tomorrow night if you are still here." He got up, signaling to his assistant. "Meantime, my friend Isa, enjoy your stay in Jordan and if you decide not to take the deal have a nice trip home."
I shook his hand and he headed for the door. The young man made a mock salute as he trailed him. Albert B left almost immediately after them and Fadllal stood up, smiling. "I will pick you up tomorrow at six-thirty in the morning. Dress casually." He lit a cigarette and dropped the almost full packet on the table. "I see you are almost out of cigarettes. Allow me to offer you mine."
"Thanks. I can use them." He walked straight for the door where he stopped. "Don't go out of the hotel on your own, and lock the door."
"Will do," I said, but he didn't stick around to listen. What was the S.O.B. preparing for me for tomorrow? Albert was now seated on the larger chair where the heavy man had sat before. "We need to talk," he said, sounding worried.
I sank into a chair opposite him and opened another of the small tequila bottles from the mini-bar. "What's on your mind?" In fact, I was quite satisfied with myself at the moment, thinking that under the circumstances I had handled things pretty well.
"I have been assigned to you. What I mean is that from here on I will be your...." He hesitated, searching for the right word.
"Case officer, handler, operator?"
"Yes, exactly." He seemed relieved that I knew what it was all about. "I know you come from an agency that is very sophisticated, but now you are working with me. We will be doing things my way and at my pace. We are working together, not against each other. So work with me, okay?"
"Look, Albert, I like you and it's true that I come from a more sophisticated agency, but you're not my boss and I will not do things your way. I didn't leave the Mossad to be bossed around. There are things that I can do for you and others that I will not. If you want something all you have to do is ask." I raised my glass. "Here's to the King."
"That," his face was grim, "is not a joke here."
"I didn't mean it as one. So, Albert, what is it that worries you so much?"
"I'm worried about Fadllal. He doesn't trust you and I don't want him to harm you. The man is a little crazy; he sees a spy under every bed."
"So what do you suggest I do?"
"Just be careful, that's all. I don't want something to happen to you and then have Zuhir after me." The psychological game they were playing was not bad - a little crude, but not bad at all. Albert was the good cop, and Fadllal was the bad cop. In telling me to be careful, Albert was making the bad cop even worse. Then, to make things worse still and knowing that I got my self-confidence from the fact that I came here under the auspices of Zuhir, he showed me that even so something could happen. I knew it was a game, yet it really was effective, especially on top of several tequilas and a very urgent need for sleep.
"I'll be careful. I mean, I do have a vested interest."
"I'll be in the next room if you need anything." Albert got up. "Do you want me to help you get the things out of the room?" He pointed to the rolling table loaded with leftovers.
"Forget it. I will handle it in the morning. Can you arrange for a wake-up call for me, say at five-thirty?"
"Sure." He headed for the door.
"Where do you think we will be going so early?"
"I haven't a clue, but wherever it is, you watch out for him. He is full of surprises. I know the man and he would be happy to trip you up even if he knows you're okay."
"So what are you telling me?"
"Just be careful."
"Do you think Zuhir knows what we are going to do tomorrow?"
"I don't think so. Fadllal doesn't answer to anyone but head of security. All I'm saying is, be careful." On that ominous note he left the room. I was so tired my eyelids hurt, but still I couldn't fall asleep. I was so close to Bella I could almost smell her yet there was no way for me to tell her where I was. What if something goes wrong tomorrow and I end up as a John Doe on a slab in the Amman city morgue or whatever it is they have here? As far as she is concerned I will have run out on her and the kids.
I was starting to go out of my mind with worry and grief. Here I was already moaning and feeling sorry for myself, and I hadn't even begun to do what I came here to do. I knew that if I didn't do something now to alleviate the stress I would not be able to function by morning. I grabbed the phone. The hotel operator was on the line almost instantly. "Can I help you?" she said after saying something I didn't understand in Arabic.
"I want to make a call to the United States."
I gave her the number of the Holiday Inn in Silver Springs, where I still had a room. I was surprised how fast they connected me.
"Holiday Inn, Silver Springs."
"This is Victor Ostrovsky from Room Eight-O-five."
"Yes sir. What can I do for you?"
"I'm expecting a call from my wife some time today. Will you please give her a message for me?"
"Sure, Mr. Ostrovsky."
"Will you tell her that I'm in a place where I can't call her from, and that I will call her the moment I get back, which will be in about a week."
"And what is her name?"
"Bella."
"Okay, Mr. Ostrovsky, will do."
I hung up and dropped on the bed. By the time my head hit the pillow I was asleep, but almost as fast, it seemed, I heard the phone ring. They won't let me sleep here, I thought. It was my wake-up call. At first I almost lay back to grab just a few more minutes of sleep. But I knew that the moment I did I would be unable to get up until much later. I didn't want to keep Fadllal waiting. I dragged myself sluggishly to the shower and was dressed and ready to go with time to spare. I ordered coffee and a toast to the room and was finished when there was a knock on the door. I looked through the peep hole and it was who I had expected. Fadllal was especially cheerful this morning and was very happy to see I was all ready to go. I offered him a coffee but he turned me down, saying we had no time for that and that we would have coffee on the way, or in Jerico.
I wasn't sure I'd heard him right and even if I had, I assumed he was talking about some coffee place in Amman named after the King's favorite winter house in Jerico.
"Here." He handed me a passport, a British passport.
"What is that for?"
"For you. You can't use your Canadian one - it was issued in Israel."
"Where are we going that I need a passport?"
"I told you. We are going for a coffee in Jerico."
My blood was turning to ice. If this man meant what he said then we were about to go to the West Bank. There couldn't be a more dangerous place for me on earth. I was going to have to enter and exit Israel with a false British passport, escorted by a Jordanian intelligence officer. This was just too much. "No way, my friend, that you will get me to go to the West Bank. I'm a dead man there. I told you the Mossad wanted me to go to the south of Lebanon so that they could eliminate me. Now you want me to cross and re-enter Israel so that you can play some little game? You're crazy."
"I don't believe a word you're saying. I think that you were sent by the Mossad to mislead us and that you will cause havoc in our midst, sending us on a wild goose chase after traitors we do not have. If you are who you say you are then you have nothing to fear; the passport is good and you will have no problem crossing. I'm the one who has to be afraid; if you are working for the Mossad it is me who will not be coming back."
"What if you're a traitor yourself and you are taking me and escaping back to Israel?"
He said something in Arabic and two armed soldiers entered the room. "We are going. If on the other hand you don't want to, I will tell them to shoot you and we will say it was an accident of some sort. You have a choice: come with me on a trip, or die."
"I'm coming, but it still doesn't make any sense. What the hell do you think you will be gaining? I mean, if I am working for the Mossad, all I have to do is go with you on the trip and then when we come back I'll have a clean bill of health."
He didn't say a word, but walked out of the room. The soldiers waited for me to follow and then closed the door behind me. We got into a cab outside the hotel and were driven to a bus station in the downtown area. The city was still very much asleep and except for vegetable merchants preparing their colorful displays there was hardly anybody around. From the smell in the air it was clear that the bakeries were already working at full steam, making some of the most phenomenal pita bread to be found anywhere.
The bus was almost full and it seemed that I was the only foreigner on it. I still couldn't believe what was happening: this was like my worst nightmare. I was hoping that I would wake up in the hotel in Amman, or better yet in Washington. I would then call Ephraim and tell him to shove it. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in some rat-infested jail cell somewhere in the Negev, kept secretly alive like some zombie. I knew that was the fate awaiting me if things didn't go right.
I tried to remember my name, the one on the passport I had stuck in my shirt pocket. I couldn't. I had to take it out and look at it again. Steven Emmens. How the hell was I going to remember that name? I tried repeating it to myself over and over. I would use an address that I remembered from another cover I had once had. All this was relevant if he wasn't setting me up. It was very possible that all he wanted was to get me across the border before I showed them how to clean house because he was really an agent for the Mossad. Things were not looking good.
King Hussein Bridge, the driver announced, and the bus came to a stop. I knew it as the Alenby bridge; I had served some time ago on the other side when I was an officer in the military police. The thought caused me to break out in a cold sweat again. What if one of the reserve military policemen on the bridge recognizes me? What if the man from the Shaback station on the bridge recognizes me? What if one of the Mossad people here to meet an agent sees me?
Calm down, I said to myself. Go over your cover story before it's too late. The one thing you do not want to do in front of a border policeman or a soldier who is checking your papers is stutter. I was on a day trip and was meeting some merchant whose card I had in my pocket. He had religious artifacts for sale and I was in that line of business. I was referred to him by his brother in Amman. That was the whole story.
I wasn't the only one on the bus who was uneasy. For the first time I looked at the people around me, who had been talking quite cheerfully until a few minutes ago. I hadn't paid much attention to them until this point, absorbed as I was in my own problems. The silence that overcame all the chatter was suddenly very tense. I could almost feel the heartbeat of the passengers. We were approaching a place that somehow seemed dark, frightening. Up to this moment entering Israel had always been something that I associated with security and strength, never with fear. Yet now I was surrounded by that exact feeling. You could see it in every pair of staring eyes. I had always thought that the stare was hate, because I never thought that there was a reason to fear me. When I was a soldier I didn't want to harm anyone, all I wanted was to do my job. Only if someone had ill intentions did he have reason to fear me.
A Jordanian policeman boarded the bus and made a short inspection. Then he directed the bus to the narrow forty-meter-long bridge. We made our way slowly, under the watchful eye of the Israeli military policeman on the other side. I could hear the orders shouted out in Hebrew. "Meshulam, you check the bus. We strip this one."
What I heard was not good news for me. The bus stopped and all were ordered off. The military policeman was a reserve soldier, there to do his thirty or sixty days. He wasn't looking to earn any medals. He just wanted to get the day over with so that he would be one day closer to going home. I knew the feeling: I'd been there too. He was polite and courteous to me and to the other passengers. A young regular soldier was teasing him. "Why don't you carry their suitcases while you're at it?"
"Why don't you shut up," the older soldier answered. "There is no reason to treat people like your mother treats you."
"Don't talk like that about my mother, you son of a whore."
A sergeant walked over and shouted at them. "Shut up, you two, and get to work. The day has just started and already you two are at it."
When I showed my passport the sergeant pointed to a small shack at the end of the long canopy that provided shade for the customs tables. "Over there, please."
I knew he was sending me to the foreign tourists' shack. As I started to walk he called me. "You Englishman?"
"What is it?" I turned to him, smiling at the term he used.
"You no have luggage?"
"No, I'm only going to Jerico for a few hours."
"What if bridge close before you come back?"
"Then I will have a problem, won't I. Why? Is the bridge going to close today?"
"You never know."
I turned and walked over to the hut. Fadllal was being body searched, as I could see when I entered the small building. The young soldier inside asked me a few questions, for which I was well prepared. I was grateful that he kept using my name all the time; it helped me remember it. I asked him not to stamp the Israeli seal on my passport, so he put the seal on a separate piece of paper that he then slipped into the passport. It was a given that people coming across the bridges who wanted to go back the same way wouldn't want the Israeli seal in their passport. That could be a problem later. Had I not asked for that it would have seemed very strange. "Have a nice visit to Israel," the soldier said.
"I didn't know the West Bank was considered Israel," I heard myself say.
"I'm an Israeli soldier; you're crossing the border I protect. Where the hell do you think you are?" He laughed scornfully.
"When we were here this wasn't regarded as England."
"You see?" He smiled at me with what looked like pity. "If it was regarded that way you might still be here, right?"
I walked out to the other side and to the waiting taxis. The taxi filled up and then we were on our way to Jerico. Fadllal was the last passenger to enter. From the time we had boarded the bus, almost three hours earlier, we had not exchanged a word. It was about nine-thirty now and we were at the entrance to Jerico. The cab was hot and the traffic was slow. We were driving behind a long military convoy laden with tanks and half trucks on trailer trucks. They were covered but it was hard to mistake a Merkava tank for anything else. They were probably returning from an exercise up north.
Fadllal started a casual conversation with me. One thing led to another; we arranged to have lunch in a restaurant he recommended. Then he said he would take me to the store I wanted. The conversation was to benefit anyone in the cab who might be an informant or just a curious person with some connection to the authorities, whom - I found it hard to comprehend - were hostile to me. I had a constant pain in my stomach; I knew it was fear. Fadllal led me to a restaurant filled with Israeli soldiers. The convoy had stopped for a break and most of the soldiers were seated around the large open marble balcony, shaded only by a vine weaving its way trough a wire pergola.
"What will you have?" Fadllal asked as the waiter approached us.
"Whatever you have, I will try." Fadllal didn't argue and made the order in Arabic.
"So what now, my friend?" I asked, feeling it was time to run some sweat down his forehead. There was no way that this man was a Mossad agent or he would have handed me over already. He was as calm as if he were still in downtown Amman and not in the occupied territories surrounded by well-armed enemy soldiers and seated across from a man he didn't trust.
"We eat. Then I take you to the store you are to see, then we go for a walk in Jerusalem and then back home."
"And what did you achieve by that?"
"A good meal, a nice trip, and a new friend."
"What makes you so sure now that I am what I say I am? That is if we get back."
"I am head of a department in the Jordanian secret service. I'm too big a fish to pass up." He was not even keeping his voice down. I was getting worried one of the soldiers might overhear us. The food, when it came, smelled great but I could barely eat. All I could think of was that small cell I had seen on several occasions. The overpowering smell of disinfectant and urine etched an everlasting impression on my mind, always returning when I felt in some danger of losing my freedom - something that was happening very frequently lately. There was a phone on the counter at the restaurant. I felt like using it to call home; the urge was almost uncontrollable. Then I thought I could call Ephraim; what if Fadllal was right about being a prize worth having? I tossed that thought out of my mind; the Mossad as it was today was far more dangerous to the State of Israel than the Jordanians could ever be.
We walked over to the jewelry store that I was supposed to visit to reinforce my cover. I was starting to relax; there was no reason at the moment to feel any apprehension. That would come later, when we would have to go back and over the bridge again. I couldn't help but think what would happen if we were fingered. I had a plan all set up in my mind: I would have to make it to the southern city of Elat and from there cross to the Jordanian side. That was the only way to get out if something went wrong.
We talked to the merchant, who believed I was who I said I was, especially since I'd been sent to him by his brother. He showed me several items he thought would interest me and then gave me some photos of the items I had showed interest in, as well as a small gold broach as a gift in the hope of good deals to come. He wouldn't let us go without first drinking hot sweet tea and eating home-made sweets. When we left the store, Fadllal led me to a small garage not far down the road. Everything in Jerico is not far down the road. A young man was awaiting us, next to a white Peugeot 404 with Ramallah license plates. "My friend here will give us a ride."
Within a few minutes we were out of Jerico on the road leading northwest. It was the road to Ramallah; I had taken it endless times when I served in the Jordan Beka'a, many years ago. The road now was in much better condition but the view was the same.
We drove for about twenty minutes, during which time Fadllal explained to me that this for him was still Jordan and he didn't really feel he was in a foreign land. "We have many friends here who are as loyal to the King today as they were before 'Sixty-seven," he said. "Actually, they are probably more so today as they had to put their lives on the line for His Majesty and did so, and are still doing so." Fadllal tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to a fork in the road, then said something to the man in Arabic. He turned to me. "We'll stop there for a coffee and then head back. I have seen enough; you could have sold me out ten times and you didn't. I trust you. I need to see one of my people here and give him some money. I make this trip almost once a month, you know." The man was clearly proud of his ability and courage, entering enemy territory in such a nonchalant manner. I felt a sense of relief; I only had to get back to Amman in one piece and my mission was almost guaranteed success. I had reached a higher stratum in the Jordanian intelligence in a short time than had any Israeli up to this point.
The car came to a stop in front of a two-storey building in the village of Dir Jarir. Children were playing soccer in the dusty field at the end of a short row of houses, right next to what looked like an abandoned mosque. Several old men were seated across the 'street' in the shade of a green pergola at the entrance of what was probably the local grocery. They were unimpressed with the visitors and kept on sipping at their tiny cups of coffee.
It seemed as if I were walking through a dream. There was something surrealistic about it all. Fadllal knocked on the metal door and was almost instantly greeted by our host, who wore a long white galabiyya and a smile from ear to ear. After an extended series of greetings, we were ushered into a large living room. The furnishings were extremely loud and ornate. It could have been a showroom for Italian velvet furniture. Within minutes coffee and sweets were brought into the room by the host's wife, who set the treats on the dark wooden coffee table. Smiling at us, she backed out of the room.
Fadllal was not one to waste time. The moment the woman was out of sight he took a large bundle of American dollars from his pocket and handed it to the host. He then said something to the man in Arabic and signaled me to drink, saying, "We will be leaving in a minute, so drink your coffee and have a sweet. We will go back to Jerico and spend the rest of the day there and go back to Amman in the evening, after the shift change of the guards at the bridge."
I nodded and sipped the hot coffee. Suddenly a loud crashing sound came from the front door. Fadllal's eyes opened wide. The host's face was horrified. Something was wrong. Within seconds there were several Israeli soldiers in the room, pointing their weapons at us and shouting in Hebrew to others outside. "We got them," the officer shouted. "Search the rest of the house, go, go, go." Soldiers were all over the place. We could hear the women's cries and the sounds of breaking dishes.
One of the soldiers was quickly tying our hands behind our backs with plastic disposable handcuffs. "What the hell is going on?" I shouted in English. "I protest. I'm a British citizen and I demand to know what is going on."
"You will be quiet," said the officer, pointing his automatic weapon at me. "Bring him in," he said to someone behind him in the hall. One of the old men I'd seen sitting on the other side of the street was brought in. He stood there for a second, hesitant. The officer shouted at him in Arabic. The old man pointed to Fadllal, and said something.
What I had dreaded had happened; nothing could be worse than what was taking place. There was no way out of this. My only hope was to stick to my story and bluff it out as a British subject. The soldiers were speaking Hebrew between them. "He's a Jordanian officer," they said. "The others are probably his men. We'll get more out of them in Ramallah." I knew that I had to do something. I would jump out the window and risk being shot, which would be better than what awaited me in the interrogation rooms of the Shaback in Ramallah.
"Take him downstairs," said the officer, pointing at Fadllal. "And him," pointing at the host. They left the driver and myself on the floor, guarded by two soldiers. Once the others were out of sight, the driver started crying to the soldiers, talking in Arabic. One said to the other in Hebrew, "He says he's a stinker._ He wants us to call the boss." The soldier who spoke Arabic walked over to the driver and picked him up by the collar, placing the rifle at the back of his head and pushing him toward the door. Suddenly he slipped and at the same instant his weapon discharged. The sound was deafening and the wall around the door was at once covered with blood. The driver's head was half missing. The soldier let go of the man, who slumped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The soldier started shouting at his friend, "You are crazy! Look what you did! You are crazy!"
"It was an accident," the soldier shouted back. "A fucking accident." He ran to me, grabbed me by the collar and shouted at me in Hebrew, "Accident, right? Accident!" I couldn't say a word, only nodded. The other soldier shouted in Hebrew, "Shoot him, you have to shoot him. He is a witness and he will tell. Shoot him, you idiot, or I will." He lowered his gun and came at me. I could hear the sound of running up the stairs. The officer was at the door, but he just stopped and stood there. I could see the soldier's finger tightening on the trigger. I hoped it would be over fast. I felt calm; there was nothing I could do. I said to myself, "Bella, I love you, I'm sorry for everything." The soldier pulled the trigger. I heard the knock of the hammer on the empty chamber.
There was a moment of silence. I had my eyes shut tight, expecting the final blow. Then I heard the loud laughter of Fadllal. In a single instant it became clear to me this was all a test. But how the hell did he get the soldiers to play along?
Fadllal walked over to me and helped me up. He then gently removed the cuffs from my hands and ushered me out of the place and into the car. There was a new driver behind the wheel and we drove off. Fadllal explained it all on the way. The soldiers were Palestinians from a special unit of the Jordanian intelligence; they had been working in the West Bank almost from 'Sixty-eight. They had several storage locations with Israeli uniforms and arms, and would assist in all kinds of reconnaissance jobs. They worked all over the country, and all of them spoke excellent Hebrew. At first they were to be an asset in case of war, like the Germans had behind American lines, but when they started to work in the territories it was decided to use them all the time. They monitored exercises and brought in ample tactical information regarding the front line.
The driver was a real traitor and he had been under suspicion for some time now. Fadllal had decided to use the elimination of the traitor to test me. He had no doubt now that I was not working for the Mossad.
Crossing back into Jordan was as much of a strain on me as was the crossing into the West Bank. The guards were different but they were just as thorough and the clearance seemed to take forever. Once on the other side we took a taxi to a place called Tel Nimrim, where a light blue air-conditioned limo was waiting for us at the side of the road. I slept the rest of the way to Amman. Fadllal woke me up when we got there and said that we would all have dinner in the main dining room in about an hour, so I should change and come down then.
They were all there: Zuhir, Albert, Fadllal and the heavy-set man and his young assistant. My head was till aching and the sound of the shot in the house in the West Bank that had literally wiped the expression off the driver's face was still fresh in my mind. I wasn't in shock; endless training in the Mossad had taken care of that, but it was still something I couldn't just shrug off. Not to speak of the Jordanian unit that I'd seen, like Israeli soldiers in every way. I suddenly had a new respect for the people seated around the table. Gone was that sense of arrogance that had been part of my whole attitude until early that morning. I was seated with a very capable group of people, and very dangerous.
Nothing was said about my little trip that day, unless it was hinted at from time to time in a smile or a wink. After dinner everybody left except Albert, who walked with me to the bar on the main floor of the hotel. We sat in large wicker chairs by copper tray tables. I ordered a beer and Albert had another coffee: no drinking in public for him.
"I heard about your day," he said finally, after the coffee and beer were served.
"Not a trip I would like to repeat," I said, lighting a cigarette.
He then leaned forward and nodded his head toward the other side of the bar. Several people were seated around a small table, seemingly in deep conversation. "Do you know who that man over there is?"
"I can't say I do, although the big one with the big mustache seems familiar. Who is he?"
"Habash, George Habash. Would you like me to introduce you?"
My first reaction was to jump at the opportunity, then almost against my own instinct I said, "No thanks, I would prefer if we got out of here now."
"Why?"
"If he is here there is a good chance someone from the Mossad may be watching. I have seen endless photos of PLO and other Palestinian leaders in just about every location. I don't want someone to identify me in such a photo taken in Amman." Without waiting for his reaction, I got up and walked out of the bar. He caught up with me at the elevators and we agreed to meet again the following morning. "I will come for you at, say, eight?"
"No, I'll call you. I find it hard to fall asleep here and I need to rest. I'll call you when I wake up."
He nodded and walked back to the bar. I went to my room and called the hotel in Washington. They'd given the message to Bella when she called - at least, that's what they said. I undressed and walked into the shower. I stood under the hot running water for the longest time. I was tired and couldn't get the sight of the soldier shooting the man in the back of the head out of my mind. I wanted to cry but I couldn't. I just stood there thinking of everything and nothing. All I wanted was for this whole thing to be over and a memory, nothing more than a memory.
* * *
Over the next two days we put together a security mechanism similar to the one used in the Mossad to prevent moles. They were going to start running lie detector tests on a regular basis, and also sporadic checks in the military units, mainly in the lower command echelons. Then they were going to start a systematic check of all personnel that had served in Jordanian embassies around the world, especially Europe, as just about all the agents recruited by the Mossad are people serving in embassies and students studying abroad, mainly military people. As the Mossad has no time to develop talent in the hope that people will get into a position where they can provide information, but rather want people already in that situation, the targets are fairly easy to identify.

I had no doubt that once they implemented the system they would almost instantly eliminate all agents working for the Mossad in one fell swoop. The fact that such agents were discovered would not be made public for some time. As I had come to know them in the short time I spent with them, I realized that they would try and turn as many agents as possible, and then feed the Mossad false information for as long as they could. I was quite sure, as was Ephriam, that they would share most of the new-found information with their Syrian and Iraqi counterparts, who would then start their own house cleaning. The Syrians had a lot of work in front of them, but the Iraqis would be chasing the wind because Mossad had hardly any agents there. As Iraq was considered a hard intelligence target it was at the bottom of the Mossad's priority list.

My last two days in Amman were spent putting forward a plan to recruit Israelis who would supply the Jordanians with as much tactical and technological information as possible. They wanted to have all the military base locations and to know what was done in each. They also wanted to find out all they could about the stages of the reserve calls in case of an emergency and the deployment of special forces in reconnaissance activates as they crossed their borders, especially regarding the placement of TRS's._

It was decided that I would return to the United States and then settle in Canada, as was my original plan. Albert would run his part of the operation in Mexico and we would use several of Fadllal's special soldiers in the operation. I named it Operation Joshua, because we were sending spies to tour the land from the same location and direction Joshua did, and I had no doubt that the result would be the same. The spies returned to tell of a land that eats its own inhabitants; it seems that nothing changes.

On my last night there I heard on Israeli radio that Margaret Thatcher was visiting Israel and that Ronald Reagan had vetoed Congress's block on arm sales to Saudi Arabia, mainly the sale of fighter jets.
* * *
By now I knew that what Ephraim was after was working: we were inoculating Jordan from the dangers of the Mossad. Even if we were not able in the long run to make changes in the organization itself, we would have removed its fangs.

CHAPTER 21

The flight back to the United States went without a hitch. We arrived in New York's Kennedy airport sometime after seven in the evening. The first thing I did was call Bella from the courtesy phone in the VIP room at the terminal, where I was waiting with Zuhir for our flight back to Washington.

The conversation was brief. She told me that she was coming out to the States the next day and that nothing in the world could stop her. I for one was not even going to try. The mere though of seeing her again was more than I had hoped for. I didn't want to get too emotional on the phone, especially not in front of Zuhir who was watching me. I had to make the call short. All I could say to her was that I was in New York, that I was on my way to Washington and that I would call her once I got back to the hotel. After I had hung up I could feel a surge of joy run through my whole body. I could have jumped up and kissed everyone present in the room, including Zuhir.

By the time we reached Washington it was after ten and I was famished. Zuhir would meet me the following day to bring me the money we had agreed on. Then it turned out that I would have to wait one more day as it was Memorial Day and all the banks were closed. It didn't matter to me that much; I had some money left from what Ephraim had finally sent me. Even so I made an issue out of it to Zuhir, so that he would not think that suddenly I had money when before I'd put on a show of being someone who didn't. I told Zuhir that I would be changing hotels the next morning, and that I would call him the day after to tell him where I was so that he could have the money sent to me. We said good-bye on the plane, not wanting to walk out of the terminal together.

I reached the hotel just before eleven and managed to buy a MacDLT and a shake to go. I was so hungry I could have eaten the burger in the wrapping. After eating and taking a shower, I called Bella again and she told me that she was arriving in Washington the day after tomorrow.

I told her that I was going to change hotels and that I would pick her up from the airport. She was going to call me the next day before leaving for the airport, and I would not leave this hotel until she did. I started to count the minutes. After I had hung up I wanted to sleep, only to realize that I was too tired even to do that. When Bella called again at four a.m. I was still watching television. She was leaving for the airport and Arik was going to take her there. That was a surprise to me, as contact between ex-Mossad members and active workers was prohibited. You were not expected to ignore the person if you met him on the street, but neither were you to create such a situation, not with the person nor with members of his immediate family. There had to be more to it than that. The phone, however, was not the proper tool with which to do the asking.

I had a bad feeling that someone might be trying to play a dirty trick. There was only one man who I could turn to and see if things were as they appeared to be: Uri, my friend from Al. If there was any operation planned for the United States, at any time, he would be the one to know about it and I was sure that I could get him to give me a warning. He was a man who has seen it all. The only problem was making contact with him. It wasn't as if he had a number I could call or an address he could be reached at. The man was a Katsa_ at work. All I knew was that he was in the United States. There was one other thing I knew about him: he had a lady friend in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which wasn't that far from where my hotel was. Reaching him through her had a double significance: she was working in a sensitive position in the Pentagon and was Jewish, which made his personal relationship with her something of a no-no. Not to mention the fact that her husband was a prominent Washington lawyer, and a volunteer in AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). I found the address in the phone book and headed out to the house. There was no point in trying to do it over the phone; I knew I would get nowhere because the woman would have been told in her training not to respond to anyone on the phone except for Uri. I had the cab wait about a block away; I walked up to the large, redbrick, mansion-like home.

The quite neighborhood was clearly home to the more affluent members of society. I rang the bell and waited in the cathedral-like entrance way. The heavy wooden door opened; a glass door still separated me from the very elegant blonde woman who was now staring at me with a faint smile. "Yes?"

She was about five-foot-five and small figured. Her brown eyes were large and shiny, and she appeared to be very cheerful.
"I would like to ask you to please give a message to Uri, if you could."
Her smile faded instantly. She wanted to know who I was, and what was my connection to Uri. A tall slim man with a graying beard and mustache and a receding hairline came to the door as we spoke; it was her husband. She told him that I was a friend of Uri's. He seemed to know who that was and asked if I would like to come in.
I had gained his instant respect just for being Uri's friend. I agreed to come in, saying that it would have to be only for a moment as I had to be on my way. The woman was clearly uncomfortable, not sure whether I knew she was having a fling with my friend Uri. The husband was obviously not in tune with what was going on, and from the way he spoke it sounded as if he wouldn't notice if he was present when it did. He left us in the round vestibule to answer the phone. I could see part of a tastefully decorated living room through a large arched doorway. On a small table by the wall, beneath a large gilded mirror, was a photograph of the couple standing on either side of President Ronald Reagan, in what seemed like a black-tie state function.
I declined a drink and a cool invitation to dinner from the woman. My declining seemed to make her very happy. I jotted my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. "I would very much appreciate if you could pass that on to Uri."
The husband was not in the room when she said that she had no idea when she would see him.
"Use the emergency phone," I said and headed back to the door. I was relieved to be out of there; the awkwardness of the situation did not at all amuse me. I could understand what Uri saw in her and, after meeting her husband, I realized how easy it must have been for Uri to get her.
I knew she could get hold of him as she had to have an emergency call set up; after all, she was a sayan. I had never intended to use this contact, but I was worried that they were up to something and that Bella and the girls might get caught in the middle. I had to make a move.
The first time I had met Uri was when I was still in the military police, in 1968-69. I was serving in the Jordan Valley in a base called Giftlick, later renamed Arik after a colonel named Arik Regev who was killed by a Palestinian guerilla in a chase. The colonel was killed with another officer, with whom I'd had a run-in on my first day in the valley, by the name of Gady Manella. Gady was very much what is called today a hotdogger, doing things by the seat of his pants, the ultimate Israeli warrior. During that time Uri was the intelligence officer for the paratrooper battalion stationed in the Giftlick and I was the commander of the military police post on the base.
At that time, chasing Palestinians who infiltrated the border to carry out acts of sabotage was almost a daily occurrence. Most of the time the infiltrators would be killed during the chase, or in short skirmishes that would take place in the parched dessert and were a regarded as a blessed occurrence to break the monotony of the service in that bleak territory. There were cases, however, in which the terrorists would be captured alive; nevertheless, most of the time, even if they were taken alive they would be announced as dead over the radio so no one would await their return.
That was where I would come in as a military police officer; my job was to take them to a holding facility in Nes Ziyyona, a small town south of Tel Aviv. I had always assumed that it was an interrogation facility for the Shaback. We all knew that a prisoner brought there would probably never get out alive but the brainwashing we had gone through in our short lifetime had made us believe that it was them or us; there was no gray area.
It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Ziyyona facility. It was, as he called it, an ABC warfare laboratory, ABC standing for Atomic, Bacteriological and Chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines; because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The Palestinian infiltrators were just the answer that the people in the facility were waiting for. They could make sure the weapons they were developing worked properly and they could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient. What scares me today, looking back at that revelation, is not the fact that it was taking place but rather the calmness and understanding with which I accepted it.
Years later, I met Uri again. This time he was in the Mossad, a veteran katsa in the Al department, and I was a rookie. He had come back from an assignment in South Africa. I was then a temporary desk man in the Dardasim department in liaison, helping him prepare for a large shipment of medication to South Africa to accompany several humanitarian work Johannesburg. The doctors were to assist in treating patients at a clinic which was an out clinic for the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, a few blocks away from the houses of Winnie Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu. The hospital and the clinic were suported by a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, which also served as a cut-out_ for the Mossad. Uri was on a cooling-off period from the United States.
"What is the Mossad doing giving humanitarian assistance to blacks in Soweto?" I had asked him. There was no logic to it; no short-term political gain (which was the way the Mossad operated), Israeli doctors in Soweto, who were headed for some a black township outside nor any visible monetary advantage.
"Do you remember Nes Ziyyona?" His question sent shivers up my spine. I nodded.
"This is very much the same. We are testing both new infectious diseases and new medication that cannot be tested on humans in Israel, for several of the Israeli medicine manufacturers. This will give them the edge in the world market and they will know if they are on the right track, saving them millions in research."
"What do you think about all this?" I had to ask.
"It is not my job to think about it."
Even though he didn't say it, I knew his heart was not in it, at least I hoped not. The fact that he was barred from the States by the Mossad for this cooling-off period after the Pollard affair was not doing his career much good. He was the one who had brought Pollard into the fold in 1982.
When they first met, Jonathan Pollard was an American Jew who believed whole-heartedly that there was a holy alliance between the United States of America and the State of Israel. He did not see a conflict between total loyalty to the United States and to the State of Israel; to him it was one and the same. This ideology did not spring out of itself; it was a result of a long process of indoctrination many Jewish youths are put through with the generous help of the State of Israel in the form of shlichim, or, as they are known, messengers of Alia. These are people who work within the Jewish community to instill a love of Israel in the hearts of the Jewish youth. In Jonathan Pollard's case they were extremely successful.
The young man had volunteered in 1982 to AIPAC, a pro-Israeli lobby group, another link in the chain of organizations manacling the Jewish community to Israel in general and to the Israeli right wing in in particular. Pollard, already a member of the American intelligence community, had volunteered his services for the benefit of the State of Israel. As is the procedure, his name was passed to the security section in the Israeli embassy in Washington and from there it was passed on to the Mossad as a potential Sayan. After thorough checking, also using the Mossad's connection in the Anti-Defamation League, it was decided that he was a good candidate and would fit in well, especially with Operation Reindeer, which was meant to re-establish the ties between the American intelligence establishment and that of South Africa. Not that the two didn't have a link of their own, but this one would be monitored by the Mossad and would be much more secure and lucrative.
There was no hesitation on Pollard's part once Uri made contact with him, bringing in a reference from a friend Pollard had in Israel. The AIPAC was notified that the Mossad was not interested in Pollard and Pollard was instructed not to contact the Jewish organizations again. He was now a sayan for the Mossad or, as he was told, for the security organization of Israel.
At the time Pollard was not getting any money for the work he was doing, as it is a clear Mossad policy not to pay Jewish helpers. That way it could never be said that they are doing things for any reason but love and concern for Israel.
Uri had supplied the South Africans with photos (which the Mossad had received from the Danish intelligence) of the SSC-3 Soviet weapons system that the Americans were eager to get at the time. This was all part of Operation Reindeer, in which the South African intelligence was endeared to the Americans using Pollard's school contacts.
For some time Uri went on using Pollard for obtaining various pieces of information, never overstraining the relationship to the point where the man might be placed under suspicion. In his reports Uri constantly warned - just for the record - that he was not sure if Pollard was telling him all of the truth all of the time. That was dangerous because he might be getting himself into trouble, trying to get information he wasn't asked to get. Uri would not be able to help him because he was not aware of the danger.
Sometime in 1984, Uri had decided with the agreement of his bosses that Pollard was too volatile to handle and therefore he was put on the dormant list as a sleeper. Pollard was informed that he had been of great help to Israel and that for his own safety the Israeli intelligence had decided he needed a cooling-off period. Should they decide at a later date that it was again safe for him to work, they would contact him and revive the activity.
Pollard was not thrilled at the prospect but according to Uri he didn't make a fuss. It must be remembered that up to that point he was not paid one red cent and was doing it all out of sheer ideology.
Not long after the file was rendered dormant, Rafi Eitan got his hands on it. Even though he was no longer a Mossad officer at the time, as the saying goes once a Mossad always a Mossad. He had access to Mossad files, both because of his past in the Mossad and because he was the adviser on terrorism to the Prime Minister and also the head of the LAKAM.
For him finding the dormant Pollard file was like striking gold. Not bound by Mossad rules of conduct when it comes to Jewish helpers, he activated Pollard through his reviving code word and arranged to create a so-called natural setting for him to meet his new operator, Avian Sellah. Sellah, a decorated Israeli pilot who had taken part in the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear plant in Osirak, was a natural for the job. He wanted to study in the United States and would be working for the LAKAM at the same time. He didn't have to recruit Pollard, only activate him, and the meeting between the two was set up by Eitan to look like a coincidence brought about by a third party, a relative of Pollard's who had attended a speech by Sellah. The reason that Sellah was chosen to be the operator was that he was an expert in targeting and could talk shop with Pollard. The fact that he was not a trained intelligence man also contributed to the fall of Pollard, who was now getting paid and was in fact almost running himself.
The Mossad had heard from sources in the CIA that they were closing in on Pollard but preferred to stay out of the picture, hoping the affair would be settled quietly, behind closed doors, putting the LAKAM out out of the game. In order to buy time once things started to go haywire, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. was sent on a lecture tour to France and the running of the embassy was left in the hands of a lower ranking diplomat, Eliyakim Rubinstein, who could not make a policy decision on his own. Once all the LAKAM people had fled the United States Pollard was left behind to fend for himself. He fled to the Israeli embassy in Washington. Once he was inside, the security people turned to Mr. Rubinstein for instructions, who then turned to the representative of the Shaback to see what he had to say. That man turned to the representative of the Mossad, who, without checking back with Headquarters and assuming things had not changed, told the Shaback man that Pollard was not Mossad and therefore was none of his business. The Shaback then said that they had no claim over Pollard and as all the LAKAM people had left the country and were not to be found, it was up to Rubinstein. He also mentioned the fact that the embassy was surrounded by the FBI.
Rubinstein was not able to contact Israel on the secure channels which were controlled by the Mossad liaison, who said they were down. So Rubinstein decided to take the initiative. He had Pollard and his wife sent out of the embassy into the hands of the stunned FBI. Much later I learned from FBI people involved in the Pollard investigation and capture that they were almost as surprised as he was that he was sent out; at that point they had been ready to negotiate some sort of compromise with Israel. It was also learned later that a large portion of the information that Pollard had handed over to Israel made its way to the Eastern bloc in exchange for the release of Jews from those countries. That knowledge, and the fact that admitting it would verify the information that was now in the hands of the Soviets, was the reason Casper Weinberger, the American Secretary of Defense, asked for the maximum sentence for Pollard and was not able to explain why publicly.
Uri was forced to leave the United States then, as the Mossad was worried that Pollard, in order to get a shorter sentence, would spill the beans about the Mossad connection. He didn't, which is why the Justice Department did not feel it was obligated to stand up to its side of the plea bargain they had struck with Pollard. Now the affair had quietened down and Uri was back in the States, actively running large numbers of more reliable and more discreet sayanim.
At ten a.m. I was packed and ready to go when the phone rang. It was Uri, and he was furious. How dared I call his operative? He said I had scared the shit out of her and that she was thinking about quitting. I tried to calm him down for a while. Then, as if someone had waved a magic wand, he changed his tone. It was as though the man had shot out all his anger and then was overcome by serenity.
"So, Victor, what's new?"
"Apart from being out of the Office and on my own, searching for the meaning of life, not much."
"So what brings you here?"
"The never-ending search." I was joking and he knew it. "What can I do for you? And what's the damage in it?"
"No damage, really. I need to know if there is something planned for Washington in the next twenty-four hours?"
"In what way?"
"You know what I mean. Anything out of the usual, that they would warn you to stay away or something?"
There was a short silence on the line. "What are you up to, man?"
"You didn't answer my question!"
"Nothing that I know of." His speech was slow, as if he was thinking.
"Where are you now?"
"In my hotel. You just called me, remember?"
"I called, but I don't know where this Holiday Inn is. Can we meet somewhere?"
"How about the lobby of the Four Seasons downtown?"
"That's fine with me. When?"
"How about two this afternoon?"
"See you there." He hung up.
I settled the bill and left the hotel. I took a cab to the Sheraton overlooking the airport. I got a room there and headed back downtown. At two I entered the Four Seasons. Uri was waiting for me and led me into the dining room at the far end. Uri was in his late forties, five foot nine and stocky. He had shining silver hair and a high forehead; in his gray suit and his horn-rimmed glasses he was very distinguished looking. We were led to a table but Uri had a preference for a corner one. Once we were alone he shot straight out: "What can you tell me about Ephraim?"
I stared at him for a moment. "What can you tell me?"
"If I tell you that I'm in his clique, will that mean anything to you?"
"Are you?"
"Yes. Are you the loose property he's talking about?"
"I could be, but then I believe I wouldn't be the only one." I leaned forward. "What can you tell me about Kuti?"
"You are the property," he smiled. "I would never have guessed. Yes, I believe the man was murdered by our people."
"Let's not tell Ephraim about this conversation," I said. "I would prefer to have someone in the clique that he doesn't know I know."
"I don't have a problem with that. Don't you trust him?"
"I do today. But, as you well know, things change."
Very little else was said on the subject after that. We decided that the woman would be our contact point and that he would tell her this was just a way to make sure she was safe. He would call to see if I had left messages for him, and I could do the same. At last I had a second lifeline, someone I could trust and who would eventually keep me alive.

CHAPTER 22

TUESDAY, MAY 27 1986 Washington National Airport As I was waiting for Bella to arrive, a man stood next to me in the terminal leafing through a book. It was the latest LeCarr‚that had just come out. I found the title somewhat ironic, given my situation: it was The Perfect Spy. I remembered how much I used to enjoy that kind of book, before I joined the Mossad and learned how different the real world of espionage was from the fiction and fantasy of the so-called spy novel. Reality was far more dangerous and unpredictable than any fiction could be. I remember thinking how it would be almost impossible to describe the complexity of the tangled web of intelligence.

A crowd of passengers that had arrived on a flight from New York emerged, and a few minutes later Bella appeared. She was breathtaking. Her smile was the light I'd been seeking at the end of the tunnel. I was happier than I could remember ever being before. At some point in this bizarre journey I had lost hope of seeing her again and here she was. I held on to her and was going to keep holding her that way for as long as I could.

We both knew that we had made a leap across a vast abyss to be with each other. She didn't know the depth of the chasm that had separated us but she could sense its enormity. We hardly said a thing until we reached the hotel, and there we sat facing each other. She wanted to know where I'd been and what was going on. I could not tell her. I had to keep her out of it and so I told her that I had visited Zaire and was a security adviser to some people from there. I told her I was going to get some money the following day, and then we would leave for Canada.

The next morning I went downstairs to meet with Zuhir and get the money from him. I then went up the block and bought a car, paying cash. It was a 1985 Pontiac 6000, metallic gray. After arranging for insurance and temporary plates, I returned to the hotel. The following day we headed up to Canada. I was extremely anxious to leave Washington D.C. The memories I had of the place were not altogether pleasant.

It was like a second honeymoon, although we had never really had a first one. We couldn't seem to get enough of each other. After a three-day drive we arrived in Ottawa, the beautiful capital of Canada. It was a city that Bella had once seen in a television program and had always wanted to live in. Since there was no particular importance in the location we were to choose, Ottawa it was.

We spent the first few days in the downtown Holiday Inn on Queen Street. Then we found a three-bedroom apartment, also in the downtown area, in a modern apartment building called Kent Towers.

As far as Bella was concerned, I would have to travel from time to time in my advisory capacity, but otherwise would be able to devote my free time to what I had always wanted to do on a full-time basis, and that was sketch and paint. By the end of July we were all living in the apartment on Kent Street: Bella, myself, and our daughters Sharon, who was then seventeen, and Leeorah, twelve. The girls were not very enthusiastic about the change but such was life and they accepted it.

From time to time I would call Ephraim from the pay phone across the street to see if all was going well and to receive instructions as to what was to be my next step. At the time not much was happening. He wanted me to make contact with the Egyptians but I kept putting that off. I wasn't comfortable about working with two Arab countries at the same time. We had no idea what the relationship was between them and as far as we knew they were in full co-operation. From the little we saw of any Jordanian activity, we realized how little we knew.

But as we were not ready to set up the spy ring for the Jordanians just yet, I couldn't put Ephraim off much longer. He felt that there was a need to inoculate Egyptian intelligence against the Mossad. That had to be done before some incident ocurred which would expose the Mossad's assistance (mainly logistical) to the Muslim fundamentalists through contacts in Afghanistan. The peace with Egypt was pressing hard on the Israeli right wing. In itself the peace, so vigilantly kept by the Egyptians, was living proof that the Arabs are a people with whom peace is possible, and that they are not at all what the Mossad and other elements of the right are trying to portray them as. Egypt has kept its peace with Israel, even though Israel became the aggressor in Lebanon in 1982 and despite the Mossad's warnings that the Egyptians were in fact in the middle of a ten-year military buildup that would bring about a war with Israel in 1986-87 (a war which never materialized). The Mossad found itself in a position that called for action on the Egyptian front. The organization realized that it had to come up with a new threat to the region, a threat of such magnitude that it would justify whatever action the Mossad might see fit to take.

Supporting the radical militant elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad's general plan for the region. An Arab world run by fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. And if they could have the Hamas (Palestinian fundamentalists) take over the Palestinian streets from the PLO then the picture would be complete.

Mossad activity in Egypt was extensive. Now that there was an embassy in Cairo, the walk-in traffic was heavy. Egypt was being used both as a source of information and as a jumping-off point to the rest of the Arab world. It would be much easier and much less suspicious to have an Egyptian who was recruited under a false flag in Cairo and had never set foot outside the Middle East carry out intelligence-gathering in other Arab countries.

That in itself was a "legitimate" part of the game, but once the Mossad began trying to undermine the fiber of Egyptian society by motivating and supporting the fundamentalists, also under false flags, it was something completely different. It was more like cutting off the branch on which you are sitting.

SUNDAY, JUNE 29
Bella had gone to Israel for a week to get the rest of our things together and bring them back to Canada. The last time she had left, it had been in haste and all she wanted to do was find me, having been almost totally cut off from me when I was in Jordan. She was due back in Canada on July 1. At about noon I received a telephone call at my house.

"Vic?" I recognized the voice instantly. But I was surprised that Ephriam was calling me at home.
"What?"
"How about we have lunch?"
"Where are you?" I could feel my body turn on to an alert state.
"I think that if you look out your window you will see me. I'm in a phone booth across from a store called Canadian Tire."
I looked down at the street, and there he was, in a light blue pinstripe suit.
"Where did you find the suit?" I chuckled.
"Are you coming down or should I come up there and drag you down?"
"Do you realize how close we are to the Israeli embassy?" I asked.
"Sure, it's about a block down the street. But the man in charge of security is now on a shooting range in New York State with most of his men and our liaison is in Washington. The coast is clear. We can eat anywhere you want to."
I was down in a few minutes. It was a beautiful day. We ended up on the mezzanine level at the Westin Hotel. We had a light lunch and after giving me the gossip and the small talk, he came to the point, namely the reason for his visit. "You have to make the move to Egypt now. We can't wait any longer."
I had in fact already made contacts in the
Egyptian embassy in Washington, and had been there twice. But at the time, on Ephraim's advice, I had declined the invitation to come to Cairo. There were more important things that we were involved in just then and, as Ephriam put it, the time was not right. I had a standing invitation from the then military attache to come for a visit.
According to Ephraim, the man who had made that invitation was about to be replaced, and since we had no knowledge of who he was going to be replaced by, but already knew for a fact that the acting attache was not working for the Mossad, the window of opportunity for a safe entry into Egypt was fast closing.
"You have to get in there and point out the connection with the fundamentalists. I'm getting some bits of information from time to time and I need a way to let them have that information from a source they will trust."
"Are you going to plant information to make a point?" I had to know; if he was planning to use me as a tool for spreading disinformation, he could count me out. I had no special feelings for the Egyptians; it was just that I didn't believe in the Mossad's way of doing things. I didn't think that what was bad for the goose was okay for the gander.
He assured me that this was not the case; the information that he had would lead to the arrest of several fundamentalists and the exposure of the armaments supply line from the Mujahidin in Afghanistan to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
"That is a long way to carry arms," I noted.
As it turned out, it wasn't a full circle, as a large portion of the Mujahidin's weapons were American made, and were supplied to the Muslim Brotherhood directly from Israel, using as carriers the Bedouin nomads who roamed the demilitarized zones in the Sinai.
The Mossad could of course also supply Soviet-made equipment from the spoils of the PLO stores seized in the 1982 war on the PLO in Lebanon. Once it was on Egyptian territory, the mat‚rielwas passed to an intermediary who would make the final delivery. In payment for the armaments, the Mossad would contract targets to be hit inside Egypt.
"Destabilize, destabilize, destabilize," Ephraim said. "That is all they are doing, all the time. No matter what anyone says, all they can think about is creating a shambles. They don't understand that this jungle they are creating will one day swallow them too."
"Bella is due back on the first. I will take her and the kids on a small trip to Washington and pick up my visa there. That is if my contact is still working."
"Don't delay. I hear you've been talking to Uri."
His statement caught me totally by surprise. I wasn't quite sure what to say, if anything. "Do you have a slow ignition or something? That was a long time ago."
"Not that long. Have you been in contact with him since?"
"Ask him."
He didn't say another word about it. At the end of the day he had me drive him to the airport and off he went. He was going to give me some information about the armaments transfer after I got back from Washington and had a firm date to travel.
* * *
We took our little trip to Washington on Friday, July 4, entering the United States on a very festive occasion. I planned to drive down on the weekend making it to the Egyptian embassy first thing Monday morning. The drive went without a hitch. I had told Bella that I was to meet some diplomats from Zaire and arrange for my trip there. At the embassy things went smoothly. After handing my passport to the security man at the door I was escorted by my contact into a large room fancily decorated in light blue. I was asked to wait under a gold-framed portrait of the smiling President Hosni Mubarak. Several minutes later the attache came in and greeted me warmly. He was curious as to whether I was superstitious at all. I assured him I was not. He said that my flight to Cairo was scheduled for July 13, which was but one week away. I felt a slight weakness in my knees, but I wasn't going to let on that I had any problem with that.

My tickets would be waiting for me at the Aer Lingus counter in Kennedy airport but I would have to pay for them; they were going to make the reservation only. He handed me an envelope with two thousand dollars in it. I was to come back on July 20, according to him, and would be picked up at the airport and taken to a safe place. He promised me that I had nothing to worry about and that the matter of payment for my services would be discussed by the authorities when I got there. He made it very clear that, because of his diplomatic status and the respect he had for the U.S. as their guest, he was not able to get involved in this matter beyond the liaison stage.

"As long as your heart is pure when you deal with us," the man said with a smile, "you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

That statement as it was said scared me more than any threat I had ever received. It was a veiled threat if ever I heard one - or was it because I was the thief with his hat on fire that I took it that way?

I was very preoccupied on my way back to Ottawa. I had a strange sense of doom about me. At last I had settled in a place where I felt comfortable and started a new life, and here I was to leave it all behind, and embark on a journey back into the hell I had so recently left. But I knew that this new life was only make-believe and that I was still a soldier on the most remote outpost of his country's border, a border so distant and murky that it was not clear at any moment which side of it you were on. It was the kind of border you needed philosophy to define, and I didn't like it at all. SUNDAY, JULY 13, 1986
I arrived in New York in the afternoon and picked up my ticket at the counter, just as planned. I was to go aboard Egypt Air Flight 986, departure time 22.00. I had some time to kill. I felt very uncomfortable about what I was about to do. Leaving the safety of the United States was something my whole body rebelled against. I had been exposed to far too many intelligence agencies in the last while to feel safe on such a trip. It was almost impossible that the Egyptians, who had a very efficient although somewhat obscure intelligence agency, had not heard about at least one of my escapades.

The flight took off on time and I was trapped in it, heading inevitably for whatever awaited me. I couldn't sleep all the way, feeling guilty about not telling Bella where I was going. But it was more a selfish thought than one of concern: I would at least have had someone besides Ephraim who knew where I was.

We flew into daylight above the sparkling blue Mediterranean. The pilot announced the beginning of our decent into Cairo International, and the stunning yellow landscape of Egypt took over from the cool blue sea. The closer we got the more hazy the scenery became. By the time we landed, you didn't have to be outside to know how hot it was.

FRIDAY, JULY 18
It was already four days since I'd been thrown into this cell. The possibility that this might be "home" for the rest of my life was terrifying. I was in the midst of a fantasy of how things were working out. I think it was sometime in the early afternoon when the door opened and a large man in a light gray short-sleeve suit entered the room. I had just got out of the shower and was still half-dressed. I was taking a shower every few hours, and only dressed sufficiently to be decent, in case I had a visitor. By now my training had kicked in and I was numb to my surroundings. I had in a way turned off my thought processes, leaving open only what I deemed necessary to maintain myself.
"Mr. Ostrovsky?" the large man said with a friendly smile.

His shining bald head was well tanned and so was his face. I could tell from his tan line that he normally wore a T-shirt and not the V collar that he wore now.

I turned my head as if looking for someone behind me. "I guess you must be looking for me?"
His smile broadened. "I must apologize for the delay in coming to greet you."
I stared at the man without a word, still in the dormant mode I had adopted. This man could leave at any minute and not come back, leaving me to my torment all over again. I decided that I would do anything to get out of that horrible place. Still in the back of my mind I was worried that this was a hallucination becoming too real to handle, and that I was in fact going mad.
"If you would get dressed, I will escort you to meet some people who are expecting you."
I nodded and within minutes was following him down the hall into a large conference room. At the end of the long table was a pile of Bamahaneh_ magazines. The room appeared to have been plucked out of a modern office building; it was fresh and clean, and seemed quite out of place in this dilapidated old structure. There was a coffee maker in the corner and the aroma of American-style brewed coffee hung in the air. The big man offered me a cup and then pointed to the tray with milk and sugar. To the right was a large wall mirror. Someone opened a door behind the mirror, causing the mirror to be transparent for a split second. I saw several people sitting behind there and a camera on a tripod set up in the corner.
"What are the magazines for?" I asked. The man told me that they were for me, and that I could take them to my room after we were finished today. What he said had an ominous ring to it. I didn't want to go back to the stinking cell; I wanted out of the whole rotten place but I had to keep my cool.
Things began to move very fast. The Egyptians handed me a pile of photographs and asked me to identify people from the Mossad. They were not playing games as most of the other agencies would. Each photo had a name under it in both English and Arabic. There were less than five photos that I couldn't identify. And I was told that they were serving in Europe so it was quite likely that I didn't know them. They also had a chart of the Mossad departments and the floor plan of the building on King Saul Boulevard. They wanted me to show them where I used to sit when I worked on the Danish desk.
At that point it was clear that they had already spoken to someone who had worked in the building, and were quite up to date on the organization. My host became much more relaxed once he learned that I could not name any Egyptians working for the Mossad. And he was more than happy to get the information about the weapons infiltration for the Muslim Brothers.
He then wanted to hear as much as I could tell him about Robert Maxwell, the British newspaper magnate. The reason he gave for that was that they were aware of the constant Mossad interest in purchasing media so that they could both influence public opinion and use journalism as a cover for inserting agents into countries. He identified Maxwell as a Mossad agent and also reminded me of other occasions on which the Mossad had been behind the purchase of newspapers in England. As an example he gave the Eastern African, which was bought with Mossad money by an Israeli businessman by the name of Arnon Milchen (who incidentally was also involved in the funding of the Rambo movies). The purchase was made in order to assist the South African propaganda machine in making apartheid more palatable in the West. Suddenly the sinister nature of what was being done with Maxwell became clear to me. In his zeal to co-operate with Israel, and even though he was not an agent himself (as the British had made clear when I had spoken to them in Washington), Maxwell was a sayan on the grand scale. The Mossad was financing many of its operations in Europe from monies stolen from the man's newspaper pension fund. The Mossad got their grubby hands on the pension funds almost as soon as he had made his purchases (initially with money lent to him by the Mossad and on expert advice he received from Mossad analyses). What was sinister about it, aside from the theft, was that anyone in his news organization, anywhere in the Middle East, was automatically suspected of working for Israel and was only one rumor away from the hangman's noose.
I explained to my host, as I had to the British, that in the beginning the Mossad would help Maxwell purchase the newspapers by lending him money and causing labor disputes and other problems, making the target purchases more vulnerable. Later the tactics changed; they would target in advance a paper that he was to purchase and start it on a collision course with bankruptcy using all available strategies, starting with workforce agitation and ending with pull-back of funds from the paper through bankers and advertisers sympathetic to the Mossad. Then, once the target was softened they would send Maxwell in for the kill.
That night my host took me on a drive into the city of Cairo. I knew the man felt safe with me when he took me in his car, just the two of us out in the big city. For the first few minutes he had me blindfolded; and the same was done on way back. The city didn't really impress me, nor did the Pyramids. I was far too frustrated and tense to take much of it in. But I enjoyed the open spaces and the semi-free feeling I had. By midnight I was back in my cell, with my host's guarantee that he would be back in the morning and that I would in fact be on board Egypt Air Flight 985 to New York on Sunday.
I lay on my back in the cell, staring at the ceiling, wearing only my underwear. I had a feeling that the man had not lied to me and that I would indeed be on that flight but as things so far had not gone the way I had anticipated, there was no guarantee that they would start now.
I made a pledge to myself that if I got out of this place I would not leave Canada again as long as I lived. I had been a normal human being when I had entered the Mossad, maybe a bit on the naive side, placing my trust in just about anyone. The Mossad had changed me; they had programmed me for survival, which meant I could no longer trust anyone for anything. They had made me callous and the most important thing that my training had given me was a built-in tenacity. Once I had a goal, nothing but death could stop me from reaching it. In the Mossad they had thought that, together with this committment to achieving the goal that they had instilled in me, (as they had in every officer of the Mossad), they had also managed to brainwash me into agreeing with their twisted political agenda. In that they failed, and as a result they created what they would later call their worst nightmare: a man with the perseverance of a Mossad officer who is devoted to the destruction of the Mossad. Only when you realize the lengths to which I would go to disable them and the risks I am willing to take as a matter of course, only when you consider that there are many just like me on the other side, just as dedicated to their goal, can you begin to understand how dangerous the Mossad is.
I knew there and then, in that small cell, that the only way to kill the Mossad would be to expose it. By now I knew that they were not the organization they wanted everyone to think they were. Yes, they were dangerous. Yes, they were vicious, but they were not efficient. Nor were they what they pretended to be: an intelligence agency dedicated to warning the State of potential danger.
I was put on the flight to New York as promised. I was given ten thousand dollars for my help. I had to sign a form saying that I had come to Egypt of my own free will, had been well treated and had received the sum of ten thousand dollars as a gift.
When the plane touched down in New York I wanted to kiss the ground, and would have done so, but I didn't want to attract attention. I had promised the Egyptians that I would come back if they wanted me to, and go over some things with them if they felt the need. But I knew when I said it that if I could help it my foot would not touch Egyptian soil again.

CHAPTER 23

It took me several days to get used to being a free man again. I was never again going to be a puppet on a string, for anyone. I was going to participate only in things that I knew would hurt the Mossad. I knew now that the Mossad was a deadly machine without a purpose, and if Ephraim was not going to work with me the way I wanted, he could go to hell and I would do it on my own. I made it clear that I would not co-operate in any more activities unless they were directly detrimental to the success of the Mossad.

He wanted to know whether I would continue to work with the Egyptians and I told him I would not unless it was to pass on information to them that could hurt the Mossad. I would, however, continue my activities with the Jordanians, since I thought that it could help bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and Jordan. If the Mossad succeeded in bringing down King Hussein there would never, ever be peace in the region. The fundamentalists would prevail and that would be the end of that.

I also said that I would be happy to provide information to the British and to make contact with the French. As it turned out, that did not happen for some time.

I made contact with the Jordanians and arranged a meeting with Albert in Ottawa. At first he was reluctant to come, fearing a trap, but he eventually agreed and was supposed to arrive in Ottawa in mid-September. I contacted a local gallery owner, a Mr. Koyman, who had several galleries in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. I brought him some samples of my work. He had them framed and began to sell them through his main gallery in Ottawa, at the Rideau Center. At the same time I would write in any official documents that I was a security adviser to foreign countries. That was the truth; I had started work on an analysis paper of the political situation in the Middle East and the significance of the various political activities in the area, mainly analyzing what was behind the statements of Israeli politicians. This paper would allow the Jordanians thereafter to plot their decision-making on a realistic picture of the political arena, and not on what some far-fetched, overpaid and one-sided American media analyst would say. If you turned on your television set at any given time, you would hear them babble on and on about how they saw the picture, while it was clear to anyone with a brain that they were feeding on each other.

Albert came to Ottawa, and I gave him a two-week crash course in how to analyze the analysts. In many Arab capitals they were delivering a lot of rhetoric for internal consumption but at the same time eating up what the so-called experts were saying about what other Arab leaders were saying. For some reason they had stopped relying on their own common sense.

Albert was starting to press me for the Israeli intelligence network information that I had promised him, and he also had a request. His people were extremely anxious because of the forthcoming change in government in Israel. As the Israeli election about two years previously had completely indecisive, the two major parties the (Labor on the one hand and the Likud right wing on the other) had agreed to a unity government in which their leaders would share power in rotation.

It was decided that Shimon Peres would be the Prime Minister for the first two-year term, and that Yitzhak Shamir would be the Foreign Minister. Then after two years, Shamir would become Prime Minister and Peres would be Foreign Minister. Yitzhak Rabin was to be Minister of Defense for the full term. The time was approaching when Shamir would become Prime Minister. They wanted me to come to Amman and analyze what that would mean to them. They were happy with my written analysis but for this occasion they wanted me there.

As far as they were concerned, there was no reason for me not to want to come. They had treated me well when I was there and they had upheld their end of the bargain in every way. I agreed but said that I would need a few days to set the date. After all, what was the point in coming if I didn't have all the information needed for the analysis? I also wanted to get Ephraim to help me set up that spy-ring we has talked about, or at least get a list of people and give the Jordanians several operational options.

After Albert left on September 30, Ephraim arrived. We had several meetings in his hotel room at the Holiday Inn. He said that things were getting a little turbulent back home and that he would have to stay there for some time now, so Eli was going to be my contact man. He would be arriving in town on Friday 3. I knew Eli from the Academy; he was an instructor there during my first course and we'd had a good relationship. I had no idea he was part of this and if I'd had to guess I would have never picked him. I always regarded him as a hard-line right winger.

Eli was very happy to be in Canada; he was here as a tourist and was staying in the Holiday Inn on Queen Street (later to become the Radisson Hotel). As far as Bella was concerned, I was meeting with some people on business.

We placed ads in several Jewish papers and also one in the Hebrew language papers in the U.S. and Canada. We were calling for Israelis with a military combat background to work for a security company named International Combat Services (ICS). We gave a post office box in Ottawa as an address and within days were inundated with letters from Israelis across the continent and from Israel, giving their resumes in Hebrew to a strange company they didn't know. They gave us their names, addresses and military rank, and many were not shy to put in their exact military background, names and locations of their military units and what they were specially trained as. That in itself was a fountain of knowledge that would normally take a well trained and well oiled intelligence apparatus to collect. There was no doubt that some of the information was bogus and some of the writers were boasting connections or experience they didn't have, but from what I knew of the naval command and other units in the military, I could tell that most of it was right on the nose.

Eli took most of the letters with him and had them faxed to Ephraim, who was to prepare a list that I could take with me to Amman. It would consist of seven names that I could use. And if this thing actually materialized, and we recruited them, then they would have good information, but not such as would endanger the State of Israel.

I was getting ready for the trip. Ephraim had insisted that I leave on October 20. He said that two of the three Kidon teams were on ice after the Vanunu case and the third was on standby. Also, because that was the day Shamir and Peres were to exchange jobs, it would take at least forty-eight hours to get approval for any activity should something go wrong. At the time he wouldn't expand on the Vanunu case. Only months later, after the Vanunu affair was a mater of public record, did I hear more about it from Uri.

As it turned out there was quite a rift on the matter between Shamir (then still foreign affairs minister) and Peres (then Prime Minister). Vanunu was a technician in the Israeli secret nuclear facility in Dimona. He had realized that Israel was developing nuclear weapons and because he realized that even though Israel appeared to be a sane democracy, it would not take much for some extremist leader to lose his cool and plunge the Middle East and the world into nuclear war. He realized that this game that Israel was playing of hide-and-seek with the world regarding its nuclear capability was allowing the situation to deteriorate. As long as the West could pretend it had no proof that Israel had nuclear weapons, it would not have to take steps to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region.

Vanunu decided to expose the facts and force the world to acknowledge it and therefore act on it. He took some 50 photographs inside the secret facility and, after leaving the country for Australia, he contacted the London Sunday Times. The paper brought him to London, planning to publish the revelations and then put Vanunu in front of the media to answer questions, which would reinforce his credibility. Prime Minister Peres, who had learned of the affair and realized that there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, wanted to take advantage of the situation. He would verify to the world, and especially the Arab world where several countries were busy developing other weapons of mass destruction such as poison gas and bacterial weapons that Israel did indeed have the capability to annihilate them. He wanted to let the story run but also to get Vanunu back to Israel so that he could not talk. That way he figured that he could kill two birds with one stone: the world would have good reason to fear Israel and at the same time Israel could still keep denying the fact because the man behind the story would not be around to verify it. Shamir was totally against Peres's plan; he wanted Vanunu and his story killed.

Peres realized that there was a hesitation on the part of the newspapers to run the story, mainly because they did not want to be duped and end up realizing after the fact that they had been used for some disinformation ploy. Peres called the editors of the Israeli papers and asked them to keep the story in low profile, hoping that information would reach the British publisher and prove to him that it was a serious story since the Prime Minister of Israel wanted it kept quiet. At the same time, Shamir contacted his friend Robert Maxwell, the British media tycoon, and had him run a story in his paper in an attempt to spoil Vanunu's credibility and expose him as a charlatan. He also wanted the man's photo in the paper, so that Vanunu, who was not a professional in the spook business, would panic.

The Sunday Times ended up publishing the story on October 5, a week after Maxwell's Daily Mirror did. The Mossad, who was on Vanunu's case with the Kidon team that had arrived in London on September 20, lured Vanunu to Italy using a woman named Cindy. From there they kidnapped him and took him to Israel. Mordechai Vanunu was tried and sentenced to 18 years in prison, a term he is serving in solitary confinement. It was only years later that I learned about the Shamir-Maxwell connection, only then realizing that in fact I had known about it all along.
* * *
My visit to Jordan this time felt somewhat casual. I flew to New York and then via Alia, the Jordanian airline, to Amman aboard Flight 264 leaving New York at ten-forty p.m. The only problem I had with this trip was that the ticket, which was sent to me from the Jordanian embassy in Washington and purchased from a Golden Eagle travel agent in Washington, did not have a date of return. It was left open, something that after my latest experience in Egypt made me somewhat uneasy, especially in view of the fact that I knew Egypt and Jordan had co-operated on many matters in the past.

The flight was as pleasant as a flight can be. I sat across from an Air Canada captain who was going down to Jordan to arrange a delivery by air of a herd of Canadian cows as part of a Canadian agricultural assistance program.

Albert was supposed to meet me at the airport. But he was late, which caused me to feel extremely anxious, mainly because I was traveling on my Canadian passport, which was issued to me in Tel Aviv as was clearly stated on the first page. If I had to go through the passport check, things would start to get messy. The Amman airport is not a very busy place, and after a few moments of waiting I was alone in the arrivals section. The terminal police were starting to stare at me in a strange way. In the nick of time, just as one of them was about to come over and start questioning me, Albert showed up. He was pale and extremely apologetic about miscalculating the time of my arrival.

He ran me through passports and customs, waving his I.D. card. Minutes later we were on our way to the city and the Regency Palace Hotel. The hotel was full this time around, and it seemed that most of the guests were from Saudi Arabia, in their white tunics with thin gold trim.

The first day was spent in niceties and meeting people I had met on my previous visit - except that this time we were like old acquaintances. The feeling of anxious anticipation dissipated before the day was over. The next morning I was taken on a trip to Petra, which is an ancient city carved out of the red mountains. Its colossal palaces and giant columns are all of a piece with the mountain. It is a breathtaking sight and a reminder of how short our visit on this planet is. For the builders of this wonder in the desert are no more, as if they had just drifted away into oblivion one day, leaving all this behind.

We ended up in the city of Al-Aqabah, across the Gulf of Aqaba from the Israeli city of Elat, where I had spent two years of my youth. The two cites are very close to each other. I remember when I lived there and one evening was on the beach (where the youth of Elat spend most of their time) and there was a power failure in the city. Tourists pointed out to Al-Aqabah, only a few kilometers away, and asked why there was light in that neighborhood.

It was again an eerie feeling to sit on the porch of a beautiful white villa on the beach of Al-Aqabah, a cold lemonade in my hand, with friends from the Jordanian intelligence and look across the bay at Elat and the navy patrol boats leaving the military portion of the harbor. I could even see the bow of a Saar Class missile boat on the giant dry dock.

In those very comfortable surroundings we discussed the repercussions that could be expected due to the change in government that had taken place the day before. It was the Sharon philosophy that had them worried. What Arik Sharon was trying to push through was that Jordan was Palestine, and because almost seventy percent of the Jordanian population was of Palestinian decent they should overthrow the King, create their own state there and forget about the West Bank. I explained that as far as Shamir was concerned, too, they should forget about the West Bank but he really didn't care if Jordan was to become Palestine or not. If he cared either way then he would prefer things as they were. The Jordanians had been somewhat worried about the Hindawe affair (Hindawe was a Palestinian who had placed a bomb in his girlfriend's luggage as she was to board an El Al flight from London) because Hindawe was a Jordanian citizen and in this world of intelligence you never know which way things would end up, and in whose hands. They were now quite pleased because the affair ended up pointing the finger at Syria (as a result of which the British had severed diplomatic relationship with Syria that day).

We spent two days in Al-Aqabah and then it was back to Amman. My old friend Fadllal was waiting for me at the hotel. He came straight to the point.

"What about the spy ring you promised us?" His face was smiling but his eyes were not. I took a sheet of paper out of my attach‚case and handed it to him. "This is a list that I have compiled of Israeli officers who are presently in Europe and the United States and who are willing to work in the security field for whoever will pay them the most. What you need to do is get some of your men who can speak Hebrew, preferably with an American accent. You will send them to Mexico and from there you will contact the men on this list. You will bring the Israeli officers to Mexico, on your account of course, and interrogate them one-on-one as if it were a job application. Have them stay in a nice hotel and give them some spending money."

"What makes you think they'll talk?"
"If you have them convinced that they are in the presence of Israelis, and from what I have seen you can do that, they will not stop talking. You must remember, however, not to overdo it. If any of them want to leave at any time, you must not stop them. And, most important, you must not let them meet each other. Make it so that the interviews are on individual basis."
We spent the final days in Amman going over this plan. Albert, who saw several of the video tapes made during the interrogations in the hotel in Acapulco, told me that his people had said that at last they were starting to understand what Israelis were all about. At first analysis they appeared to be overgrown children with a lot of self-confidence and hostility, but still very friendly. They also realized that Israelis were extremely prejudiced against everybody who wasn't Israeli and even then there were internal prejudices.
My somewhat uneventful visit was just about over when I got the scare of my life. On the day before I was to leave, I walked out of my hotel room and encountered a maid coming out of the adjoining room, heading back to her loaded service cart. Out of habit and without realizing I greeted her in Hebrew, saying Boket Tove which means good morning. She hardly paid any attention, but two hotel guests standing by the elevator turned their heads. I walked back into my room so that I would not have to take the elevator with them, but as I was a guest of the local intelligence I was not too worried. I went down to join Albert at the breakfast table in the wood-panelled dining room on the second floor. The tables were round and were meant to seat eight but we were just the two of us; Fadllal might join us later.
I made a trip to the circular buffet in the middle of the room. I sat down to have my breakfast, and then I froze. I could hear two men seated behind me at the other table whispering to each other in Hebrew. My first instinct was to turn around and see who it was. I stopped myself in the nick of time. I had no intention of telling Albert about it; I was not about to hand over Israelis who were there, for whatever reason. One thing I had no doubt about; they were not there for me. If they had been they would not have sat behind me and would surely not speak in Hebrew. They must be there on official business and it was not with the Jordanian Muchabarat. It had to be with the foreign office. On my next trip to the buffet I glanced in their direction and got my second shock. This one almost caused me to lose my balance: I was looking directly into the face of a man I knew from the Mossad. I had no doubt that he was in the Mossad; I was sure I used to see him regularly. I thought that he was a much better actor than I could ever be; he didn't even move a muscle. He turned back to the men he was seated with, the same ones who had whispered in Hebrew, and went on talking to them in English.
"Did you see a ghost?" Albert asked once I got back to the table.
"No, I just think I had too much to drink last night and it's coming back to haunt me. I think I will excuse myself, if you don't mind, and wait for you in the room."
"Sure. I'll be there in a while," he said with his usual politeness.
I lay on the bed, trying to figure out what it was I was seeing. It finally hit me. I knew the man but he didn't know me. It was Amnon P. or, as I knew him by his code name, Hombre. He was the liaison officer in Denmark and Scandinavia and I had stared at his photograph every day of the week while working on the Danish desk. It was a method of work in the Mossad that photographs of officers in the overseas stations were plastered on the wall over the desks that serviced them, to give the desk officers a face to relate to while they were dealing with the men in the field. I knew his face but he didn't know mine. I could not figure out what he was doing here, nor could I imagine why the other two Israelis were here. There was no way I could ask without running the risk of burning them; they could be there under cover.
I stayed in the room as much as possible until I left the following day.

CHAPTER 24
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1986
I flew flight back to the United States. I had received ten thousand dollars as a bonus from the Jordanians, given to me in cash and in Canadian currency. I declared it when I entered the United States and even filled out a special form, as I intended to stay in New York overnight. But after calling Bella on the phone, I decided not to stay in New York but to fly straight to Canada that day. I did not declare that I was taking the money with me out of the country. I did however present it upon arrival in Canada.

Several days later, and much to my dismay, there was a knock on my door at my apartment in Ottawa. An RCMP man escorted a U.S. Customs officer from the American embassy who wanted to ask me a few questions. The RCMP man made it clear to me that I didn't have to co-operate with the American but if I wanted to this would be appreciated. I could see my cover blowing right in front of my eyes. If this American wrote some report that ended up in the hands of the Mossad just because he needed some verification, and they realized that I had been to Jordan, my life expectancy would shrivel right there to a matter of weeks. I decided that I on the other hand had no choice but to co-operate and hope that it would not get into the hands of the Israelis. In fact, I made a point of explaining that it was imperative they didn't pass this information on. I told them that I was a security advisor, that I had just come back from helping the Jordanians improve their security (which was true), and also that I had trained them in the latest techniques in VIP protection (which was also a fact).

The two seemed to accept my story and they explained that, because of my short stay in the States and the fairly large sum of money I had brought in but apparently, on paper, not taken out, they were mainly worried that I was involved in drug dealing or something of that nature. I know today they believed me because I never saw nor heard from them again.

Ephraim was very disturbed when he heard about this incident and wanted me to cool it for a while now. We had a regular contact with the Jordanians and there was no need to over-stress the situation. As he put it (and even though I couldn't see his face over the phone I could imagine his angered expression), "Shamir has just instructed the liaison department to start a relationship with the KGB. The man actually wants to co-operate with them. He says it will help bring out the Soviet Jews as the contacts with the Romanians are proving fruitless. But in fact we all know that this was something he wanted to do a long time ago."

"He doesn't have to look far," I said. "He had a KGB man in his office. All he has to do is have a talk with Levinson. Or was this Levinson's_ idea to start with?"

But Ephraim didn't appreciate my little joke. "You stay out of things," he said. "It is getting much too hot here and I can't have things happening all over the place at the same time. I will need you to re-establish contact with the British and bring them up to date about an operation that is taking place in London. But I still don't have all the information and I don't want to get one of our people killed."

"Who is running it?" I asked.
"Barda," he said flatly, as if to say that in itself would cause the operation to crumble. The ex-taxi driver turned spy was a flamboyant, self-serving opportunist. He had been caught several times with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar but because of his connections always got off with a light reprimand.
"But there is not much the Mossad can do at the moment without getting nailed," I said, referring to the fact that the British knew their methods of operation from our meeting in Washington and the use of a bodel was no longer a guarantee of cleanliness. By now the British should have just about all their active safe houses under surveillance.
"Two bodlim had realized that they were being followed. So a Yarid team came in to check things out and they realized that two safe houses were under surveillance. So they have cooled things down and now Barda will run this operation using two other attack case officers_ from Brussels."
"So what do want me to do?"
"Like I said, once I have more information you will call your English friends and pass the information on to them. For the time being, just do whatever it is you are doing now. Service the Jordanians on a regular basis and wait."
I waited for the next several months and enjoyed life. I started a small T-shirt business, designing and printing shirts for businesses and for the Ottawa tourist trade. I named it after a combination of the names of my two daughters, Sharon and Leeorah. It was named Sharlee Creations and it was doing quite well. It wasn't turning a big profit but it gave me something to do that I liked, we were living well from the money coming in from the Jordanians, and all my expenses were covered by Ephraim.
But it wasn't as long as I had hoped it would be before Ephraim was back and we were on our way to put another dent in the Mossad's Teflon armor.
* * *
Monday, 5 JANUARY, 1987
I had made a call several days before to the British embassy in Washington and passed on a message to my friends. I had to talk to them because there was some new information that they needed to know.

Ephraim had provided me with a file on Operation Domino, which was supposed to play itself out over a period of a year in England. The end result of this operation was for a Mossad team to carry out the assassination of a Palestinian cartoonist working for a Kuwaiti newspaper and lay the blame on the PLO, or as the buzzword was at the time, on Force 17. This operation was to be a long and elaborate one and it involved several elements of the Mossad. There was no doubt in our minds as we were going over this operation plan that if the British managed to catch the Mossad in the act it would damage Anglo-Israeli relations for some time, but there was no way that the Mossad leadership would be able to survive such a scandal. This would be the straw that would break the pig's back.

Ephraim got a room at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa and made me promise him that I would come to see him the moment my meeting with the British was over.

At about noon the Brit arrived at my apartment building. I buzzed him in and went downstairs to meet him. We sat in an area on the mezzanine floor outside the pool. I wanted our first talk to be in a place that I knew and was comfortable in. Later on we would move to my apartment or to a hotel room, also at the Westin, that Ephraim had already taken under my name.

I didn't know the man. He introduced himself and said that his people were very thankful for the information that had brought about the passport catch in West Germany. I asked him if they had done anything with the information I had given them regarding Maxwell and the large sums of money that he was transferring to the Mossad station in London.

The man assured me that although he was not privy to that information he had no doubt that it was taken care of. He was extremely anxious to hear what it was that I had to say, or, as he put it, the cause for my alarm. This was slightly too hot a subject to handle in our present location so I suggested that I drive the two of us to a hotel room I had secured for us. I was very surprised at the speed with which he agreed to go with me to the hotel, without taking any precautionary steps.

I drove us over in my car, parked in the underground lot and went to the front desk to get my key. We got a corner suite and once we were there we wasted no time. We ordered coffee and sandwiches and after they had arrived we got down to business. I handed him the file that Ephraim had brought me. It detailed several aspects of the operation that was already under way in England.

Most of the players were already in place. Probably as a result of the information I had given the British in Washington, they had managed to follow the bodlim leaving the Israeli Embassy and uncover several safe houses which they were now keeping under close surveillance. That meant they were aware of most of the station's routine activity. However, several weeks earlier a bodel had realized that he was being followed and reported the incident to his station chief, who had a Yarid team come in from Israel and check the integrity of the security of operations. Mousa, head of European operations, came in from Brussels to handle the job. It was realized that several safe houses were under surveillance and they were dropped. The reason given for this was that one of the case officers must have been neglectful during his routine testing to verify if he was clean and had picked up a tail. Now that the territory was cleaned they were confident that they could carry on, but to be safe they brought in three attack case officers from the Brussels headquarters who would be working outside the embassy, meaning that they would not be part of the embassy staff as were the case officers at the London station. Several days after the Yarid sweep, the British were back on their trail because they knew who the bodlim were and as long as the station followed security procedures they were going to be discovered by the British.

Mousa, knowing that the British were watching, had decided to offer the operation to the Mossad heads as a double blind operation, hence the name Domino. No doubt the official operational name was some computer-generated word that would appear on all official documentation, but it was nicknamed Domino.

A new face came on the scene, a PLO officer who had been recruited by the Mossad during the war in 1982 with very few options left to choose from. The man was a second lieutenant in the late seventies, had been a member of the Sa'iqa, then graduated from the Fatah military academy and served in the Palestinian armor unit in the Syrian army. In 1978 he was moved, still with his military unit, to Lebanon where he was recruited by the Mossad. They had him ask for a transfer to Force 17, which he obtained. The man's name was Muhammad Mustafa Abd-al-Rahaman, serial number 13952.

The man's only contact in Britain was a Palestinian named Sawan, who had already been working for the Mossad for some time. Mousa assumed (and was probably right) that Sawan was under some sort of observation because he was in contact with Barda, his case officer, who in turn had used the safe house that was under surveillance. From this point on Abd-al-Rahaman was going to be portrayed as the villain and the one with the direct tie to the PLO and Force 17.

He was going to bring weapons into England and have Sawan keep them for him in his apartment. This would be giving the British a false sense of security: they would not act as long as they thought they knew what was going on and might reel in some bigger fish on the hook they had already baited. Moreover, they were confident that they were doing it all without the knowledge of the Mossad. At the right time both Sawan and Abd-al-HRahaman would leave the country and a Mossad Kidon team would come in and carry out the assassination, leaving it to be blamed on Abd-al-Rahaman, who would be the stooge. But by then he would be resting in a comfortable, unmarked grave in the Gaza strip.

As good friends should, the Mossad would then provide the British with all the information they needed for the investigation, and would deliver the weapons stash into their hands, throwing in Sawan as a double who was meant to bring in the information but didn't.

The Brit was taking all this down, as well as having the tape recorder running all the time. He hurled an endless barrage of questions at me, wanting above all to know where this information came from. As best I could, I answered his technical questions, but when it came to the sources I had to make it clear to him that it was none of his business.

Instead, I told him I had a new tie pattern for him. I handed him a passport photo with the face cut out.
"What is that for?" he asked, staring at it.
"Give this to the people I met in Washington. Tell them this is a new pattern. They will know what I'm talking about."
I had shown them in our meeting in Washington that all the Mossad people whose photos they had were wearing one of four tie patterns. This was because, in the photo lab where everyone came to get his photo, there were some ties and jackets, as it is very rare in Israel to come to work with a tie. But a photo handed in to foreign authorities of a new diplomat working in the embassy has to look dignified. That is why the Mossad people can be easily identified by their ties. I knew that this had helped the British identify the new bodlim, and now Ephraim had brought me this new photo of himself, wearing a new tie someone had donated to the photo lab.
"How about coming to London for a few days?" The man was smiling as if he were awarding me a prize of some sort. "All expenses paid, of course."
"Why? So that I could end up like Vanunu?"
"What are you talking about? We had nothing to do with that." He sounded almost insulted.
"Don't give me that crap. You had the London station under observation at the time and you watched several of the safe houses. There is no way in the world that you didn't know that the girl he was meeting, the notorious Cindy, was not what she said claimed to be. You had to know; I gave you people enough information for you to realize that she was going in to meet people from the London station after she had meetings with Vanunu. She was being briefed and debriefed in a safe house and you had to have him at least under surveillance, so please don't give me this crap about 'we had nothing to do with that.' Keep that for your dummies in Parliament."
The man kept a straight face, but it was clear from his posture he was very uncomfortable. He handed me an envelope. "Our friends wanted you to have this, I know it's not much but we just want to say thanks." The envelope contained eight hundred American dollars. We left the room together and he said he could find his way from there. I knew he was going to hurry to the British High Commission and send his report as fast as he could get it written. Befor we said goodbuy, I gave him the name of the target so that they could have him protected in case all else failed.
I walked over to the Byward Market in Ottawa, a small but delightful place where I did a quick exercise to see if I was being followed. I was clean, and I headed back to the hotel and Ephraim's room. I gave him a thorough rundown and told him that I hoped they would manage to stop Operation Domino. I asked if he didn't think that we should call Scotland Yard and inform them that such an operation was taking place.
"That, my boy, will defeat our purpose. They will stop the operation before it even starts and then the Mossad will come out of it smelling like a rose again. You mustn't worry, they will handle it right. You gave then more than they need for that. I am not happy, however, with you blowing your top about Vanunu."
Ephraim left the next day. I would not hear about what happened next until later. It was July 22 that Ali Al Ahmed, a cartoonist for a Kuwaiti newspaper critical of the PLO leadership, was killed, supposedly by Abd-al-Rahaman and a large team of Palestinian assassins. There was uproar in the Palestinian community. The British woke up from their long sleep and kicked the entire Mossad station out of London. I always wondered after that if they would have made such a big show of anger if the fact that Sawan was a Mossad agent hadn't make its way to the press as a result of his open trial in June 1988. One thing is sure, and that is that the British intelligence is just as responsible as the Mossad is for the death of that cartoonist, because they could have prevented it. It reaffirmed what I already knew, that any organization that came into contact with the Mossad was affected in a way that was not to the benefit of the country it served.
After I met the British I had a strong gut feeling that they were not going to be the source of anyboody's deliverance out of the darkness of the Mossad's shadow. The task would eventually fall to those who really cared, individuals who would have to take a stand as good men should and expose the monster for what it was. And expose it not to the rotating bed partners that this contagious maniac called the Mossad had, but to the public. I had decided, conceited as it may sound, that I would go to the people. At first I assumed that the fastest way to do this was to make a movie. Let the public know the truth about the Mossad, and what better way to reach as many people as possible than through a movie?
I did a bit of research, not informing Ephraim of my plans, and eventually I had a meeting with a gentleman in Montreal called Robin Spry. The man has a small motion picture company named Telecine. After checking his background I thought that he was sufficiently far removed from Hollywood and the Jewish community that he could be regarded as relatively safe.
We met in his office in a renovated old building in Montreal. He was very courteous and extremely enthusiastic but he made it clear from the start that he would prefer to handle it as fiction, because he would not be able to take the kind of heat this might generate. I asked him to make me an offer and a proposal, and decided that if all else failed I would take this route.
My next stop was a publisher in Toronto. I arranged a meeting with two representatives of the publishing house and we met in Toronto in the Prince Hotel.
Having a temporary case of cold feet, I had decided at the last minute to present the idea as fiction based on a real story. It was a bad idea and the publisher turned me down. "Since you have not written anything before with which we can compare, we would need to see a full manuscript," they said, and they were quite right. I abandoned the effort for the time being and decided that I might just as well bring Ephraim in on my idea and take advantage of his vast wealth of knowledge and his well-placed connections.
Ephraim was not enthusiastic about my book idea and at first tried in every way he could to dissuade me. He told me that the Mossad was not going to take such an act sitting down. Never before had anyone struck a blow of such proportions against them and succeeded. We had a long history to draw on and it was full of examples of men who had tried to go against the grain. Most of them are well planted six feet under and others are in little bits littering some God-forsaken piece of desert. The only one ever to have written a book on the Mossad and lived to tell about it was the ex-head of the Mossad, Isar Harel, who was universally regarded as senile. And the only reason he could do that was because he had sterilized his story enough for it to be no more than a song of praise for the Mossad. What I was intending to do was completely unheard-of and would not be recognized by anyone in Israel for what it really was; an attempt to rid the country of a pest.
"They will call you a traitor," Ephraim said. "The name Ostrovsky will be synonymous with the name Benedict Arnold in the United States."
"And what if they find out what I have been doing for the last two years, because of some screw-up by you or one of the others? What do you think they will call me then?"
"But that will not happen. You are not at all at risk. Things are going just great at the moment."
I looked at him and I knew he could see the anger in my face. "Are they really so great? We spent over two years playing games your way, and we have achieved nothing. I think it's time to get the real show on the road. Whatever you decide is okay with me. I just want you to know that no matter what you say I am going to attempt to do this. If you stick around I will consult you as to what will go into the book and what to leave out because we have, in the end, the same agenda."
He sat silently for a moment, his cigarette slowly burning away in the ashtray. Then he looked at me and smiled. "What the hell, let's kick some butt."
I had not felt that good for a long time. I knew I was back on the high road. Now things were going to come out into the open. The only problems that were still unsolved were small ones.
Or so we thought at first. But the more we thought about it the larger the problems got. Who would actually do the writing? I was not in a position to do it myself, I wasn't confident enough in my abilities and I wanted a new man who would be able to tell the story in the simplest way and give it the maximum impact. He couldn't be Jewish, for security reasons, and he would have to have balls. Then there was the need to find a publisher who would be willing to take on the Mossad, to keep all of this under wraps while it was being handled, and not to speak about what we were going to put in the book. Then there was the question of how we were going to get people to believe it at all. At that point we had no doubt that the Mossad's official reaction would be "Victor Ostrovsky? We've never heard of him, but you might check with the mental health department in the Ministry of Health."
Little did we know what was in store for us.

CHAPTER 25
Sunday, April 3, 1988
Ephraim insisted that the book I was about to write be handled by as many of the clique as possible. He also laid down the rule that, since it was going to be my ass in the sling, I had a veto on what was going to go into the book and the last word on how it was going to be handled.

We were sitting in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel. Present were Ephraim and Uri (who made it clear that he could not stay more than a few hours so we would have to listen to him first). Then there was Eli, who still thought this was a crazy idea and wanted to be on record as being vehemently against it (so I guess this paragraph would make him extremely happy), and myself.

I was somewhat preoccupied. I had told Bella that I was intending to write a book about the Mossad. I had assured her that it was going to be fiction, but told her that still it should be kept a secret. When I said that she stared at me as if I were a man in a straight jacket making a comment about fashion. I knew she did not believe for one minute that I would actually be able to get a book published. Now I was going to write one that was not fiction and I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to tell her and when. I was also worried that once I started to work with someone it would be harder to keep it from her. And as she was very much in love with the State of Israel I did not know how she would take it.

"So what we are going to do here today?" Uri asked. "I need what is known in this field as an outline," I said. "Some sort of rough sketch of what the book is going to be about, in headline form. I will need more headlines than I will actually use so that the person I work with can have a say and influence the outcome."
Eli wanted to know what was the purpose of the book, and Ephraim agreed that that was one of the first things we should be talking about. Then we could find the right stories to achieve that goal. "There are a million stories out there," he said. "But most of them would put anyone to sleep and many others are just routine sort of the same lady in a different coat."
"I want to show what the Mossad is," I said. "Give people who have no idea what an intelligence agency really does a taste of what is going on. I have no doubt that many will find it fascinating and repugnant at the same time. Then we will also give all the people we cannot reach, in all the intelligence agencies that are working with the office, a reason to reexamine the relationship they are in. I don't believe the Danes or the Germans would be very proud to know how they are being used. And even if the people of Israel think of me as a traitor, at least they will have to examine the facts in the book and that will do the job. I mean, after this kind of expos‚there will be no way in the world that someone will not go in and clean up the Mossad."
"I have to agree with you," Ephraim said. " I recommend that in the beginning you give some of your own background, and then go into operations. You have to pick the ones that people have heard something about or at least know the end result of, like the Iraqi nuclear reactor."
"I agree," I said, and wrote down OPERATION SPHINX on my yellow pad.
Uri lit a cigarette. "We should have one story from each department so that we get a full coverage. Why don't you list the departments, and we'll find one that will be fitting from each?"
Ephraim turned to Uri. "Will you be able to cut short your turn in the States and come back to Tel Aviv?"
"I'm due back in a month, anyway. Why?"
"We will need a good warning system while he's writing this thing because he is going to involve outsiders. We must be prepared to let him know the moment this becomes known at the office."
"I thought that you might have that under control?"
"I do, but I don't have a handle on your friend Aaron Sherf from Tsafririm."
"How does he tie in?"
"The information might come back to us from one of the Jewish organizations we are tied in to, like B`nai Brith or the UJA. And then there are all the others that are handled by the schlichim (messengers). I mean, the moment a member of the Jewish community anywhere in North America gets a whiff of this they will run to their organization and tell them about it. They will be sure they are doing their Zionist duty. And Sherf is the one telling them what to do."
"I see. That will not be a problem. I'll be there anyway."
After that was put to rest we made a small chart of the Mossad on a piece of hotel letterhead and taped it to the television screen. We then began to chart the stories that would be told according to the departments. It was also decided that the operations picked should have a larger scope and cover as much of the clandestine operation as possible, including the planning and decision-making part, so that the potential reader would understand the degree of corruption that has taken over the Mossad.
"I think," said Ephraim, "that Operation Hanibal and its abrupt closure would do for a nice chapter." He turned to Uri. "The way Ran H. nailed that German politician would make a great story."
I knew Ran from the Academy; he was a chubby guy with brown hair and gray eyes. He was one of the German speakers and even had the rosy cheeks and pale complexion that so typifies Germans. Before joining the Mossad he was in charge of El Al security in Germany and Austria, and spent several years there. The fact that he didn't work on the planes in direct contact with the passengers allowed him to work in the Mossad.
I knew about Operation Hanibal from my days on the Danish desk. It was a combined operation that included liaison and clandestine field activity on behalf of Melucha. It involved the co-operation of three countries and their respective intelligence agencies. To be more accurate, it was the intelligence agencies that were co-operating and not their countries.
Operation Hanibal was in itself an arms deal between Israel and Iran, using the German intelligence agency as a cut-out for the operation. As Iran was in need of parts for their dilapidated air force and since Israel had the spare parts, mainly for the F-4 Phantom, a sale was a natural occurrence, since prolonging the Iran - Iraq war was a clear goal of the Mossad, not to mention the possibility of making a profit in the proses. Because of the fact that Iran and its Ayatollah Khomeini were not especially enthusiastic about dealing directly with Israel, which they vowed morning and night to destroy, the Germans were a natural go-between. The BND, which is the German federal intelligence agency, was the one chosen to do the job, even though the Mossad was keeping the local police intelligence in both Hamburg and Kiel fully in the picture. The reason for this was that a relationship of this level was a fairly new thing with the BND, which was usually kept in the dark regarding Mossad operations in Germany.
In the Mossad, the BND were regarded as untrustworthy, because the Mossad was sure they were deeply infiltrated by the Stasi and also because they were very close to Helmut Kohl and he was not a big fan of the Mossad. In Operation Hanibal, however, there was a BND liaison who was himself recruited and he was also working on the side running some shady deals, through ex-Mossad officer Mike Harari, with the Panamanian leader General Manuel Noriega.
In this operation the jet parts (ranging from electronic elements for on-board radar all the way up to full-size jet engines and wing assemblies) were shipped overland to insure delivery and to hide the source of the shipment should it be caught before it reached its destination.
At first the shipments were loaded on board Israeli ships at the Ashdod harbor, prepackaged in special containers. The containers were of the kind that could be taken off the ships directly to waiting trucks and become a part of the truck. The ships would arrive at various Italian ports and there the Italian secret service (SISMI) would handle all the necessary document approval to verify that the containers were in fact loaded with Italian agricultural products headed for Germany. Signs to that effect were by now affixed to the trucks, depicting Italian produce. The manpower for the operation and the drivers were supplied by a Mossad Italian ally, the right-wing followers of a man named Licio Gelli and a group, by then outlawed, called Propoganda Duo, and a second group (a NATO offspring like the one in Belgium) named Gladio.
The drivers were to deliver the trucks to a warehouse area in Hamburg where they would be taken over by a new set of drivers, Israelis this time. The Mossad called these drivers OMI, which is the abbreviation of Oved Mekomy, meaning a local worker. To be a local worker you must be a student who has come on his own to the country in question - and you really have to be a student. Students then apply to the Israeli embassy for work and if the Mossad needs help they will have the Shaback run a security check on the applicant. If all is well they can be employed to do low-echelon jobs such as drivers and occupiers or inhabitants of safe houses.
From Hamburg the trucks would head for an abandoned airfield some twenty minutes outside of Kiel, where an Iranian who had studied in the United States and received a degree in aeronautical engineering would come from Kiel and inspect the shipment.
Once it was approved for delivery, half the money for the parts would be paid in cash at the field. The second payment would be made once the shipment had arrived in Iran. The entire operation was carried out in co-operation between the mid-level field operatives of the BND and the Mossad liaison in Bonn. Historically it must be mentioned that Helmut Kohl approved co-operation with the Mossad in combating terrorism, and therefore the top brass of the BND agreed to allow the Mossad to assist their field stations and regarded Mossad's seminars on terrorism (given to the BND people without any charge, as guests of the Israeli intelligence community in Israel) as a great gesture of friendship.
What the BND brass didn't know was that these seminars that the Mossad were holding in the friendly environment of the Country Club were in fact well-oiled recruiting operations that had brought into the Mossad's bank of manpower hundreds if not thousands of law enforcement personnel from the United States, where they were recruited by the B`nai Brith, and all the way across the Atlantic to the intelligence agencies of Denmark, Sweden and many other countries.
In the intelligence field, what really counts for a possible promotion is the ability to prove that you have managed to thwart a terrorist attack. And so with that promise in hand, the Mossad went ahead and manipulated the mid-level of the BND into co-operating, letting them understand that the top brass wanted this to take place but could not sanction the operation officially. Also, having the undivided co-operation of the local authorities had always convinced the BND mid-level personal that the Mossad was in fact correct.
The shipments were going fine and there were no problems with them for a long time. From Germany the trucks would make their way to Denmark, where they would be loaded onto Danish ships under the watchful eye of the Danish intelligence and their liaison to the Mossad, Paul Hensen Mozeh. From there they would be delivered to Iran. At some point the Iranians asked their BND connection to see what could be done with regard to training Iranian pilots, preferably outside the war zone. The BND contact then turned to the Mossad contact and asked the same question. At first there was a proposal to carry out the training in South America, in either Chile or Colombia where the Mossad could obtain both the necessary airfields and the local approval for such an operation. But the proximity to the American activity in that hemisphere caused the Mossad a change of heart.
After conferring with experts from the Israeli air force and getting more information from the Iranians as to the level of their pilots it was decided that most of the training could be carried out in simulators and therefore could be done in Germany. It was suggested that the same abandoned airfield with the large empty hangars used for the checking of the parts on their way from Israel to Iran be used to house the five simulators and all the related equipment needed. The Iranians were to purchase the simulators outright and pay for all the installation and other expenses, aside from the training itself.
It was calculated that a team of at least twenty Israelis would have to be on hand to operate and train the Iranian pilots and they would live independently in both Kiel and Hamburg while the Iranian pilots (who the Germans were afraid would draw attention) would stay at the airfield for the duration of the training.
The BND contact man was now working directly with the Mossad liaison in Bonn, who was in turn passing the information to the Mossad clandestine station, also located in the Bonn embassy. The Germans were saying that, for security and the smooth running of the operation, the prime minister of Schleswig Holstein should be brought in on the secret. This man's name was Uwe Barschel; he was also a close friend of Helmut Kohl. In order to guarantee his co-operation it was agreed that the BND would use its influence to secure a committment of federal monies to save a faltering shipping company, which would be a feather in Barschel's cap. Then there was the matter of a large new international airport in the area. They also made several other promises which were not of any interest to the Mossad or to Ran H., who was now running the operation.
When I left the Mossad the training of the pilots was in full swing. In addition to the simulators there were several specially modified Cesna planes that were used in training the Iranian pilots at a second airfield some forty- five minutes from Kiel. I remember very well that as I was on my way out of the Mossad, Ran was becoming a star.
Ephraim then filled me in on what had happened since. According to him (with several details introduced by Uri and to the obvious dissatisfaction of Eli), Ran had realized at some point in March of 1987 that there was trouble on the horizon. There was growing dissatisfaction in the Mossad and in the right-wing elements of the government regarding the behavior of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who was defying direct Israeli threats regarding his relationship with the Austrian leader Kurt Waldheim, who had been branded a Nazi. (The branding was done by a field unit of Al which entered the UN building on Park Avenue South in New York and placed several incriminating documents that had been removed from other files into that of Waldheim - and a few other individuals - for future use. The documents were then "discovered" by Israel's ambassador to the UN, Benjamin Netanyhu, as part of a smear campaign against Waldheim, who was critical of Israeli activities in southern Lebanon.) Kohl had brushed off these Israeli threats as nonsense and caused fury in Israeli intelligence circles, where he was described as a stupid klutz with a big mouth and a bad upbringing.
Ran was told that he must get into direct contact with the local authorities, namely Mr. Barschel. However, this was not as easy as it appeared, since the BND man was on his guard, not wanting to be cut out from the ongoing operation.
It was assumed that this co-operation at mid-level could be continued for some time even if the BND brass called for a halt in relations. However, a new independent political link that could be managed by the Mossad to replace the deteriorating hold the BND had on Barschel was the order of the day.
So many birds could be captured in this bush that it was extremely tempting. The Mossad could take the lead in controlling the politician, and bring in the BND as a partner, which would leave no doubt as to who was calling the shots. They would eliminate from the scene a troublemaker, namely Barschel, who was co-operating but not for the right reasons. He wasn't really bought, as they like to have their politicians, but he was extracting from the situation what he thought would be the best for his constituents, and at the same time shoreing up his political support. His removal would also be a blow to Helmut Kohl who had just recently won an election and therefore would be even more obnoxious than he had been in the past.
Ran at that point made contact with the opposition party, getting into a close relationship with one of the leaders of the opposition and feeling him out to see if, in the event he was elected, he would be willing to co-operate with those who had helped put him in power and repay them for the favor. It was made clear to that opposition politician that the BND was behind the people who were making the approach and that it was all done in the best interests of Germany. The response expected: the opposition Ran received was more than he had politician, thinking there was no real chance of his party winning the election anyway, was willing to promise anything. With that politician securely in Ran's pocket, at a cost of a new pipe and some fresh tobacco, it was time to get Barschel out of the political arena.
Yoel, a case officer from the Bonn station, was called in for this operation and was given the task of passing himself off as a Canadian with a German background who was very wealthy and was about to emigrate back to Germany. Before making the big move, this Canadian wanted to start a new business in Germany and wanted to become acquainted with the political establishment so that he could maneuver his business in the proper manner and take as much advantage of his move as possible. A political apparatchik in Barschel's party, whom Yoel and Ran nicknamed the Whistler, was their target. Ran supplied Mossad liaison with a list of all the people working around Barschel who had direct contact with him, and asked them to run the names through the Hamburg and Kiel police files and see if something damaging could be found on any of the names. It was the Whistler's name that came back with a blotch on it. As it turned out the man had been accused of assulting a prostitute in Hamburg but, since someone had managed to pay the hooker off, the file was closed without any formal charges being laid.
Yoel was introduced to the Whistler through a sayan who had the Whistler's name on his Mossad file as someone he knew. After a short period of buttering, Yoel told the Whistler that he had to return to Canada, and introduced the Whistler to Ran, who was posing as Yoel's business adviser in Germany. If the Whistler needed anything at all he could turn to Ran in Yoel's absence and he (Ran) was authorized to help him.
Several days after Yoel supposedly left the country, Ran called the Whistler and arranged to meet him. In the meeting Ran made it clear that he was not in favor of the Whistler's political affiliation and in fact he was a supporter of the opposition. Ran then explained that he was obligated to take care of Yoel's best interests and so he had carried out a small investigation of his own. He had found out about the incident between the Whistler and the prostitute, and he knew that should such information get out his political career was over and whatever Yoel would have invested would also be lost. He then proposed that the Whistler help get Barschel ousted. Ran was surprised at the enthusiasm with which the Whistler greeted the proposal. The Whistler made it very clear he was not a fan of Barschel's, and would do whatever he could to nail the bastard.
Ran, who already had a plan in place to remove Barschel, went through the motions with the creep he had just recruited to make the man feel as if he were part of the planning process, thus giving him a feeling of self-importance and also setting him up to shoulder the blame if things did not go right. He was told that because this process might affect his own political future he would be handsomely taken care of financially. Ran let the Whistler understand that he was part of some Mafia-type organization, and that there was no way he could change his mind or undo what had taken place. Nor would he be able to talk about Ran at all.
All this time the Mossad was feeding the local intelligence services false information regarding Barschel's supposed secret dealings with arms and other illegal transactions, implicating his brother in the activities as if he were a gofer for Barschel.
The plan was approved by Mousa, who was in charge of operations security in Europe and at that time acting head of European command
At this stage the BND was kept out of the picture. Ran had the Whistler start to leak false but damaging information regarding the opposition leaders in general and the top leader in particular to the local media without revealing the source of the rumors or even letting it be known who the leaker was. As the election drew near, a Mossad team was brought in from Belgium to play private detectives that Ran had recommended to the Whistler to hire. They acted in a very flamboyant way, driving expensive flashy cars while on surveillance and gathering information about the opposition leader in a very amateurish way that attracted attention to themselves..
It was done in such a way that only a reporter for the Braille Times would not be able to see it for what it was: a smear champaign. At the last minute, when denials by Barschel would be too late to be make a difference at the ballot box, the Whistler admitted that he was behind the dirty tricks and said that he was sent to do it all by Barschel, thus bringing to an end the career of a politician who wouldn't deal, and putting into office one who would
- and getting an opportunity to embarrass Kohl in the process. All Barschel's protests that he was an innocent man were ignored and brushed off as political rhetoric.
"I think this would make a great chapter," I said. "This has all the dirty elements of Mossad activity in a friendly country."
"That will not be possible," said Eli. "Ran is still in the field and that would expose him and also Yoel."
"We could alter the story a little to make the point, but hide the location and the exact information," Uri suggested.
"Then forget it," I said. "If we can't tell the full story then we won't tell it at all. We could, however, separate the two parts and tell about the training of the Iranian pilots in Germany."
Ephraim went on to tell me that in September of the same year there was a political crisis in Denmark. The local intelligence agency got cold feet and asked to stop the arms shipments through Denmark temporarily, until they knew what the new political atmosphere was like. Uwe Barschel was requested by the BND to allow the use of the shipping facilities in his state for the transfer of arms to Iran, something he was opposed to. The Mossad didn't think there was any need to consult Barschel about this, but the BND didn't know that the Mossad had already secured the co-operation of the local intelligence. So thay asked him anyway, also telling him more about the shipment than they were supposed to. They had miscalculated Barschel's resolve in this matter. When he refused they began to panic, realizing that he may be a threat to them if he should find it necessary to inform Helmut Kohl about all of this.
After his defeat in the election (a direct result of the campaign that Ran had organized), Barschel had contacted his BND connection and threatened to expose all of their wrongdoing if they didn't take action to clear his name. The BND, which was getting information from the local intelligence - the same information that was fed to the locals by the Mossad, had no doubt that Barschel was dirty and called on the Mossad for help.
The reason that the BND had to use the Mossad to handle this situation was that the threat leveled against the BND by Barschel would have affected the mid-level that was keeping in contact with the Mossad against the direct orders of their superiors, so they couldn't go for help to their own people.
The BND contact told the Mossad liaison that some hearings were going to take place in several days, and if Barschel was not satisfied before the hearings he would use them to spill the beans. The timetable was too short for the Mossad to wind down the operation in the two airfields and get all the Israeli crews and equipment out of there in time. Barschel had to be stopped before he could testify.
The BND gave the Mossad liaison the location of Barschel, who was on vacation in the Canary Islands, and the phone at which he could be reached. He was staying in a house loaned to him by a friend.
Ran called Barschel on the island. The first call went unanswered, and Ran assumed that Barschel must be out or something. He called back one hour later and someone answered and said that Barschel was not available at the moment. It was a woman and she assumed, according to Ran, that he was an acquaintance. On his third try, Ran made contact with Barschel and told the man that he had information which could help clear his name, and he introduced himself as Robert Oleff.
He insisted that Barschel come to Geneva. He, Oleff, would have him picked up at the airport. Barschel wanted more information before he would commit himself and so Ran said that there might be some interested Iranians involved in the deal. This led Barschel to realize the matter was serious and that the man he was talking to was well informed. He agreed and the details of the trip were discussed.
The Kidon team was already waiting in Geneva, dispatched directly from Brussels. After examining the field files regarding Geneva they had decided that the Hotel Beau-Rivage would be their best bet for the activity they had in mind. A few blocks away from the hotel a major construction was taking place. This was always a good location for dumping whatever it was you wanted to get rid of in a hurry. Two couples took rooms at the hotel, one on the fourth floor close to an exit to the roof. The second couple came in the same day Barschel did, and took a room on the third floor, adjacent to the room Ran had reserved for Barschel.
The rest of the team scouted the area and located themselves in the vicinity, ready to play out their separate parts as they were called upon. Ran met Barschel in his room on the afternoon of of October 10. After ordering a bottle of wine to go with the cheese he had brought with him, he made a gentle pitch to Barschel in which he tried to convince him to take the fall. He, Ran, would guarantee him a very lucrative return for that. He tried to tell him that, after all, what he was alleged to have done was not such a big deal outside the realm of politics and so he would be far better off letting it go and taking the money. Ran was sure to use the regular phrase the Mossad so likes to use, that money was no object.
Barschel was agitated. He insisted that Ran present him with the evidence that would clear his name or get lost. He was not interested in profiting from this affair, but he definitely was going to get even with whoever framed him.
At that point Ran realized that there was no way to sway the man. The operation had to move into the next phase, which was the termination with extreme prejudice of this man, who now was a threat to the safety of the Mossad personnel in the field. Thus there was no need for approval from outside the Mossad for the assassination. Ran, however, wanted to get clearance from the head of the Mossad, who was kept closely informed and had come to Geneva that same morning. He was staying at the Des Bergues Hotel, just down the road from where Barschel was being handled. He was registered under the name of P. Marshon.
By the time the wine arrived in Barschel's room, it had already been spiked by a Kidon member, either in the kitchen or on its way up to the room. Some of the other team members were bringing bags of ice to their rooms in preparation for the final act. Ran told Barschel that he was only testing his resolve and that he realized he was dealing with an honest man and therefore he would help him. Barschel was still aggravated and refused to deal with Ran unless he presented, right there and then, some proof that he in fact had a way to clear his name.
Ran made a call to the Mossad liaison, who was waiting in a safe house, and asked the liaison to contact his man in the BND and have him call Barschel in his room and tell him that things were going to work out just fine. The liaison, who was expecting this call and had previously talked with Ran regarding this option, had already called the BND man in advance and had him on standby, telling him that something important was going to take place.
Several minutes after Ran called the liaison, the BND man called Barschel's room and told him that things were going to be straightened out. Barschel, who thought he was getting a new lease on life, had a drink of the wine. Ran declined to do so, excusing himself with a story of a problematic stomach, but he did take some of the cheese he had brought.
Ran knew that Barschel would be out cold in about an hour and he wanted to get direct approval from the head of the Mossad to finish the job. He told Barschel that he was going to get some of the papers that would clear Barschel and he would be back in an hour.
Ran contacted the head of the Mossad and met him in his hotel room. He gave the chief the rundown on what had happened and said that there was no way to stop Barschel from talking about what he knew in front of the committee in a few days. Ran could not guarantee that all the evidence pointing to Israel could be eliminated from the airfields in the short time that was left. The risk of exposure in such a case was far too great for the Mossad, and so the head of the Mossad agreed that the man had to be eliminated.
Ran called the couple on the fourth floor at Barschel's hotel and informed them the operation was a go. They waited until sufficient time had passed for Barschel to be asleep from the sedative that was in the wine. They then phoned his room to verify that he was not awake. Then they entered the room.
Barschel was on the floor, on the right hand side of the bed. He had apparently passed out and had fallen off the bed. The team put a plastic sheet onto the bed and placed the unconscious man on top of it, legs facing the headboard to make the next steps easier. A rolled towel was placed under his neck, positioning him as if he were about to get mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At that point five members of the team were in the room. Four were attending to the target and one was filling the bath with cold water and ice, the noise of which was drowning out any noise the others might make. A long, well-oiled rubber tube was slowly pushed down the sleeping man's throat, carefully so as not to choke him. One man was pushing the tube while the others were holding the man down in case of a sudden convulsion. They had all done this before.
Once the pipe had reached the man's stomach they attached a small funnel to the top of the pipe and started to drop a variety of pills into the tube, adding water from time to time to ensure the pills reached his stomach.
After this stage was complete, the man's pants and underwear were pulled down. His legs were held up by two members of the team as a third inserted a suppository of concentrated sedative and a fever-causing agent into the man's rectum. His pants were then pulled up again and they waited for the medication to work, putting a thermometer band on his forehead to observe his temperature.
Within an hour he had developed a high fever. He was then placed into the ice bath. The shock caused his body to jolt. The sudden change in temperature, together with the influence of the medication, brought about what looked like a heart attack. After a few minutes of observation the team determined that he was in fact dead and began to clean up the room behind them, leaving no evidence of what had taken place. They realized that they made a mistake in not taking off Barschel's clothing before placing him in the bath but it was too late to change that now. They also realized that the replacement wine bottle that they had brought with them was a Beaujolais, but not the correct brand, so they did not have a bottle to leave behind.
Things were getting tense. They had spent several hours in the room and some of them had left and returned several times. It wasn't an explicable situation that they were baby-sitting a dead or dying person.
After leaving the room and closing the door behind them, leaving the "do not disturb" sign on the knob, they all went their separate ways, one couple checking out that night and the other doing so first thing next morning. The other members of the team who were not staying at the hotel had left the city by car that same night, heading back to Belgium and the safety of the Mossad European headquarters. Ran was informed that the mission was completed, as was the head of the Mossad, to whom one of the team members delivered a Polaroid photo of the dead target.
"I think this will make a great chapter for the book," I said.
"We'll see. For the time being, leave it out. You can use the story about the navy base in Sudan that was used to get the Ethiopian Jews out, in Operation Moses," said Ephraim. I realized that there was no point in arguing at this point, especially with Eli present.
We went on to prepare a list and by the end of the day it was done. There wasn't much I needed to write down at the time, because I knew most of the information myself, and was not going to present myself in the book as more than a junior officer. If there was any need later on for more information Ephraim would supply it to me. He also insisted that he go over every page of the manuscript before it got handed in.
I brought up my greatest worry, that the Mossad would not respond at all to the book, leaving me hanging out to dry. Ephraim suggested that I include in the book some documents, such as the Danish intelligence report and a questionaire that was prepared for a top Syrian agent regarding the Syrian military.
"There is no expert in this world," Ephraim said (and Uri nodded as he spoke), "who will doubt you once they see the questionnaire. You have to be from the Mossad to be able to know so many things to ask about."
I had to agree. We hashed over more subjects. It was important that we didn't enter things into the book that might bring about anti-Semitism - at least, that was the way we saw it. We all agreed, for example, that the subject of testing medications on blacks in South Africa was too much and would strike too hard a blow against Israel, as the so-called Mengeles they were sending to Africa would be associated with the State and not understood as being totally controlled by the Mossad. The same treatment was given to the Pollard case and the direct links the Mossad had with the Kahane people, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai Brith, the AIPAC and the UJA. The only subject we decided that needed airing was the Frames_ and the youth camps called Hets va-keshet (meaning bow and arrow) that the Mossad organizes to bring young Jewish kids to Israel for the summer and, after filling them with a large dose of militant Zionism, send them back as the spies of the future.
They all agreed that I should include in the book all the names of case officers that I knew were burnt. That meant people whose photos I saw in Egypt, in Jordan and in the British embassy. Ephraim would make sure they were not in the field when the book came out. Having their full name in the book would prevent them from working outside the country again, which was good for their own protection.
"So what do you think will be the biggest point that this book will make?" asked Eli.
"I have to say, that it will expose the co-operation the Mossad gets all over the world from the Jewish community and the way it takes advantage of that trust." They all agreed with me. And we were all wrong.
I headed back home from the meeting and hid the list that I had prepared at the meeting in a safe place where Bella would not find it. She was still at the store we had opened on Bank Street in downtown Ottawa. It was a T-shirt store; we only sold T-shirts and sweat-shirts that I had designed.
The following day I scouted the book stores and the library for names of local authors, in search of a man with the writing ability and the courage to join me in this effort to right wrongs. I knew it was not going to be an easy task. It had to be a man with a good reputation who had a nose for politics but was not an expert on the world of intelligence so that he would not try and make the book fit his idea of espionage. He had to live in the area, not be Jewish, and have the time and the interest to do it.
I saw a book at a store several blocks from our place on Bank. It was called Friends in High Places and it was about the Canadian Prime Minister. The author was a local reporter working in the Parliamentary press gallery by the name of Claire Hoy. I decided to call the man and see what happened. He responded well and we had a meeting at a small coffee shop on Bank Street. After I had explained to him what this was all about he was all for it. I had a partner and I was on my way to putting a real dent in the Mossad's armor. We were going to attack, from the outside, the only place that the Mossad is vulnerable, and that is under the spotlight.
We spent almost a month preparing the first chapter of the book and tightening the outline. Then we made our first approach to a publisher.
We had a meeting at the publisher's offices in Toronto; it was Claire's publisher, the one that had published Friends in High Places. She turned us down. At the time I was very nervous as I realized the secret was starting to get out. There was no guarantee that the publisher who had turned us down would not talk about what we had told her in the meeting. All I know today is that if she did talk, then someone was asleep at Mossad headquarters, because they did nothing.
Claire and I started to do the work, while Claire tried to set us up with a new publisher. His work was cut out for him because he couldn't tell the publisher much and he had to find one that would be willing to do this in secret. The fact that we had come out of the meeting with his first publisher in one piece was more a matter of luck than anything, as was the fact that I couldn't detect the Mossad anywhere in the vicinity. Nor did it reach the ears of Ephraim or Uri, who by then was back in Mossad Headquarters.
"We have a meeting with a man by the name of Nelson Doucet," Hoy said to me one day. "He's from a publishing house in Toronto called Stoddart and he's a good man." By then I had come to know Claire and I trusted him, something I have never regretted. We met with Nelson at a restaurant in Ottawa called Hy's, and over a great steak (which I hardly got to eat because I was doing all the talking) and a bottle of good French wine, we closed a deal. Claire and myself were going to be fifty-fifty partners as far as the authorship was concerned and Stoddart was going to give us a $80,000.00 advance. Nelson believed the book would cause quite a stir. They had had experience with another spy book, called Spycatcher, which they had kept secret up to publication date, and then it was banned by the British. He was sure they would be able to handle this one much the same way. "You don't suppose you will be able to get the Israelis to ban your book, do you?" he asked as we were about to leave, each on his own way. I laughed. "I don't think so," I said. "After all, they have the British experience to learn from: the ban made the book a bestseller."
"I suppose you're right," Nelson said.
Once in the car I wanted to jump up and down and shout for joy. Things were going great and I was moving forward fast. I made a collect call from a pay phone to Ephraim, giving him the whole story. I was in the booth for almost an hour and someone was going to get a big phone bill.
Ephraim agreed with my assessment that they would not try to stop the book, but he promised that he would think of a way to at least make a loud bang, drawing attention to it. If this thing worked we would all achieve what we wanted.

CHAPTER 26

SATURDAY JULY 2, 1988
Some time in the afternoon the phone rang; Eli was on the line. He was calling from New York and wanted me to call him back in an hour. That was a pre-arranged message and I knew that I should go to a clean phone and call him. I had the number and he would accept the charges.

He was as unpleasant as usual and I couldn't help but imagine his square face with its thin crows-feet wrinkles and steady squint, as though he were in the glaring sun even when he was seated in a semi-darkened movie theater. Before all this had happened I knew him to be a pleasant man and quite a joker, but this whole activity was troubling him. Even though he thought it was right he would have preferred, as probably every one of us, to be left alone and not to know anything about it.

"Did you hear what happened in London?" he asked. He was referring of course to the fact that the British had expelled just about all of the Mossad London station and pointed to two of the three case officers loaned from the European headquarters in Brussels. The British had posted, in a very obtrusive fashion, police officers outside seven of the safe houses the Mossad was holding in London at the time. Even though they were unofficially pointing to only seven out of several hundred, the message was clear enough.

There was no way for the Mossad to know from that point on how many of their assets were compromised or whether any further meetings with sayanim would endanger them.

"Yes, I heard." I said. "How long before they have a new station in place?"
"That is none of your business," Eli replied.
"I don't like your attitude," I said. "It's only a matter of luck that I'm here and you're there. It wouldn't take much to have our roles reversed, you know."
There was a short silence on the line. "I'm sorry if I sound like that. It's just that the...."
"I really don't give a shit." I cut him off. "Just say your piece, and let's get this sorry conversation over with."
He said that now that the London station was cleaned up it was time, according to Ephraim, to hit the Paris station. He also said that the London station would have to work for the next few months from a new safe house and not from the embassy because they couldn't just send in a new batch of case officers all at once; they would have to do it gradually. They believed they would have the station back in operation by January 1989.
We talked over what was to be said to the French and how the contact should be made.
"I think that you should do this one," I said to Eli.
"What are you talking about?"
"You speak French, don't you?"
"Yes."
"I don't. I'll call Ephraim later and tell him what I think. I mean, what difference will it make? You talk to them."
"You're crazy," he said, but I could detect a tone of anxiety in his voice.
Later that day I talked to Ephraim, who explained that if Eli was caught it would mean an execution because he was in active service. It would be a much worse scenario than if I was caught. After all, I was already outside the organization. His explanation didn't hold water but since I'd raised the matter only to aggravate Eli, I let it drop. But I did ask not to have to talk to Eli again.
On Wednesday July 6, I called the French embassy in Washington and got to talk to the person in charge of security. Having done this several times before, I was becoming trained in the matter and by the end of the week I had a visitor from Washington in Ottawa. After several hours of conversation with me, he said he would get back to me but wanted to know if I was willing to take a short trip to France.
I arrived in Paris on July 28 and was met at the airport by a very friendly Frenchman who reminded me of the French comedian Burville. After finding my luggage, the man had my passport stamped in a small office away from the crowd. Then he took me in his small Renault to Paris.
I lodged in a hotel by the name of Jardin de Eifel, next to a local police station. The small but charming hotel was within walking distance of the Eifel Tower.
For the next week I was driven after breakfast from the hotel to what looked like an abandoned two-storey office building outside the city. It was a thirty-minute drive to the building, which was attached to a small listening base somewhere north of Sarcelles - not far, I understood, from where Madame Pompidou has her country estate. The drive there was like a ride on a roller-coaster. I grew up in Israel, where driving is a martial art, but this was crazy.
At the "farmhouse" I spent the day with Burville and three other people. I knew that they were from the French secret service, nicknamed le Pisson. They were extremely courteous and had apparently prepared a long list of questions in anticipation of my arrival. We would break for lunch every day at the same time, walk over to the listening base, and have a great lunch served to us in a small but elegant dining room. The commander of the base almost always joined us for lunch and the opening of the wine bottles that someone different brought every day was a ceremony. Over the week I developed a good relationship with one of the hosts in particular; he would be my contact after I left. As we both smoked more than the others he got the code name Cendrier.
First we mapped out the departmental chart of the Mossad. There were many sections that they knew about and others they were curious about. They were mainly interested in the Komemiute_ and Tsafririm_ departments.
Before long they were versed in the structural tree of the organization and they could see the logic of the flow charts, which must be very similar from one organization to another. They found it extremely hard to believe the lack of compartmentalization in the Mossad. But after a while they realized that the quantity and the quality of the information I was giving them was indicative of the fact that there could be no compartmentalization, since I knew so much.
The second day was almost entirely spent viewing photographs of Mossad people. It was there that I learned that Mousa was stationed in Brussels. There were so many Mossad officers in their books that I felt naked. Here was a photo of Oren Riff walking down a street in Paris with Admoni and Biran. The three were totally unaware of the fact that they were under surveillance. I wondered who they were going to meet and how many agents and Jewish helpers they burned in that one visit to Paris. Then there were piles of photos taken from outside the Mossad building in Tel Aviv. There were sets of photos: one would show a man entering the Mossad headquarters on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv, then there was a blow-up photo of his face, and next to it a passport photo of the man and his diplomatic papers.
They knew more Mossad people than I did. I remember when Cendrier said to me, jokingly, "Look at all this." He was pointing at the list of diplomats from the Israeli embassy and comparing them with the photos and the personal documents. "Israel is one of the few countries where you find such a large number of older juniorattach‚s.How stupid do they think we are? What do they think, that we are not watching?"
"They don't really care," I said, and that was a fact. They didn't. It was almost as though they were amused. I couldn't help but ask, "If you know so much about them, how come you haven't done anything?"
"Because, as for as we know, the ones we know about don't do very much. Vidal, the head of the Mossad station, is hardly ever in the country and the new man, Aaron B., only deals with the Jewish community. And we don't really want to stir things up with them."
All in all they had over fifty of the Mossad field personal pegged and located. They had them in other embassies as well, all across Europe. It was the co-operation between the Mossad and the Action directe that they didn't know about, and the co-operation with the fascist elements in France, that they found to be disturbing.
By the end of the week I was ready to go, and it appeared that they had gotten from me all that they were going to. I realized that I had given them much less than I had given the British, simply because they were much more suspicious in dealing with the Mossad to begin with. I knew they were not going to have a big showdown with the Mossad the way the British had, but that they would clip the Mossad's wings in a much more subtle way.
It was on my last day there that I remembered that I had to talk about the money they were to pay me for my help. They promised to do something about it and the following day, at the airport, they gave me an envelope with three thousand American dollars. They also said that someone would be contacting me in a short while to see if I could do some odd jobs for them, and he would bring me the rest of what they felt they owed me. As Ephraim had instructed, after they had given me the money I told them at the airport about the Mossad's involvement in the killing of a leader in the Pacific island of Vanuatu because of the Mossad suspicion that he was trying to make contact with Qadhafi. That was the official reason for their involvement; the real reason for the assassination was that particular leader's resistance to an Israeli arms dealer who wanted to use the island as a storage base for his arms sales to the region. The dealer was an ex-Mossad officer and he had the contacts inside the organization to pull it off.
Back in Canada, I was visited several weeks later by a French contact man who invited me for a meeting in Montreal. First he handed me an envelope with seven thousand dollars, telling me that they had decided to pay me ten thousand for my little trip. If I thought that was not enough I could send a message with him back to Paris or call my friend Cendrier at the number they had given me.
"No need for that," I said. "This will be enough for now. What is it you want me to do for you?" I knew the man had not come all this way just to deliver me a package. He pulled out a sheet of paper and asked if I could act as a private investigator. After all, I did get what could be regarded as the best training in the world in gathering information.
"That depends on what it is you want me to investigate. If you want to find some information that is available to me without breaking the law, I will be more than happy to liberate you from as much money as I possibly can in the process. However, if this means gathering political or military intelligence in North America, then forget it."
He said that he didn't know, but would get back to me in a few days. And he did. This time we met in Ottawa. He brought with him some photographs and a small file. First he wanted me to look and see if I knew the man in the photographs. I recognized the man and said that we had already identified him in Paris as Ran S., whom I knew the Jordanians and the Egyptians had a photo of.
He had been seen meeting with a prominent leader in the Jewish community in Paris. Before approaching the man and telling him that they knew who he was meeting with and that he should stop this activity, they wanted to be sure that they had the right man and not just a look-alike. They were now making such approaches to many of the Jewish leaders that the Mossad officers I had identified were meeting with. They were also turning Arab and Palestinian agents whom they had witnessed meeting with Mossad officers. I realized that they were going about it in a big way, and I knew I had hit a home run in Paris.
In the file that he had brought with him was what he called my next assignment. They wanted me to see what I could gather on a list of people whom they were worried were out to destabilize their South Pacific colonies. These people's plan was to privatize a small country as a model for the world and at the same time make money on it in various ways. This was for the French a very sensitive area and they would prefer someone from the private world to try and find out more.
The first name on the list was a prominent American by the name of Robert Pool Jnr. The man was the leading advocate of privatization in the United States and was behind the privatization of the American aviation industry. He was the president of a foundation named the Reason Foundation, located in Santa Monica, California.
The second name was that of Alfred Letcher, the president of a company called the Letcher Mint, originally located in Alaska but later moved to Lancaster, California.
Then there was a man called Harry Donald Schultz, whom they suspected of dealing in drugs. He was living in the United States and, from time to time, in Monaco. Schultz's partner was a man by the name of Riner Dienharts. The Frenchman also said that all this tied in somehow with a Canadian foundation in Vancouver, B.C., called the Phoenix Foundation.
He wouldn't expand on what they were looking for or what they were suspicious of, but wanted to see what I could find out on my own. He said that if he told me what they knew (or rather, thought they knew) then I would follow in their footsteps and find things that they wanted to be found. It was in the nature of the intelligence game, he said, for the information collector to try and please the customer.
I knew he was right, and still it made no difference to me whether he was or wasn't. All I wanted was to keep the link open so that, if there was a need according to Ephraim, or if I saw a way myself, I could use it to nail the Mossad.
Ephraim told me to do what the man wanted and see what I could collect for him. I decided to take a short trip to the States and see what this was all about.
I soon realized that this was a far more complex business than I cared to be a part of. Mr. Pool was a member, if not a leader, of the Libertarian Party, which in itself was reason enough for me not to want to work on the case. From what I found I could hardly believe that there was no intelligence involvement already.
It appeared that this particular Mr. Pool had graduated from MIT in 1967, after which he worked at Sicorsky and then from 1970 in the General Research Corporation in Santa Barbara, during which time he obtained control of the Reason Foundation, a privatization think-tank.
I found out the foundation had supported a leader by the name of Jimmy-something in the New Hebrides, against a communist yet popular leader by the name of Father
Walter Lenny. It was the desire of the Reason Foundation to start a Libertarian Party on the island. When that attempt failed, they attempted to create a republic on the Minerva reef 800 miles from Fiji, and name it the Republic of Minerva. According to the records I found, the Letcher Mint from Lancaster, California, which also owned a copper mine in the Hebrides, was the one to mint the coins for the republic, which, after the new citizens of Minerva were kicked off the reef by a patrol boat from Togo, became what is known in the numismatic world as a fantasy coin.
It was after this episode that Mr. Pool became an advisor to President Reagan on privatization. I also found out that the owner of the Letcher Mint, Alfred Letcher, had served with the U.S. navy in the South Pacific in 1944. The deeper I dug the stranger things were getting. Names of various organizations were starting to come up, such as the Kanuk in New Caledonia which was regarded as a terrorist organization. That was as far as I was willing to go. I got back and handed over to the French everything I had managed to dig up. At a meeting in Ottawa I told the man that I would not be able to do any more for him in this matter. I was willing to help in any way possible to bring an end to Mossad activity in France, but I would not work for them as a soldier of fortune on unrelated matters.
I notified Ephraim of what I had told the Frenchman. I also asked him to try and get me some of the training schedules that I had during the training at the Academy, so that I could use them as notes for the book. He complied, and I went back to work on the book with Claire.

CHAPTER 27

Claire and I had gotten ourselves into somewhat of a routine. After we had established the correct chronology of the book, we would meet several times a week in my rented house in a small city outside Ottawa where I had moved, called Nepean. I would tell Claire the details of the events that we had designated for this particular chapter and then, over numerous cups of coffee, he would ask me an endless stream of questions. Several days later he would come with a typed chapter for me to go over and at the same time we would talk about a new one. Then on the next visit I would return the chapter to him with my remarks and corrections which we would then discuss. Ephraim would pass his comments on the chapter to me and I would either accept or reject his comments, depending on their validity. All I was interested in was making sure that what we were committing to paper was the truth and nothing but the truth.

It was a difficult task to tell the story of the Mossad as it really was, to demystify it and show how flawed it was in its activity and how it endangered anyone who came into contact with it. Yet even in Claire's eyes I could see the fascination that the Mossad had. I knew I was in a uphill struggle that would never end, but at the same time I knew it had to be done.

Uri visited me several times and informed me that as far as the Mossad was concerned I was making T-shirts in Canada and that was all. They were extremely busy at the time preparing for what they called Operation Brush-Fire. This was an all-out LAP (Israeli psychological warfare) attack aimed at getting the United States involved militarily in the Middle East in general and the Gulf area in particular.

The war in the Gulf was over. It seemed that the Iranians had had enough and were happy to agree to end it as the Iraqis wanted. The Mossad played along with the Americans, pretending that they wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, while at the same time passing on information to his Muchabarat from the Israeli embassy in Washington, warning him about various attempts on his life and on his regime. The Mossad regarded Saddam Hussein as their biggest asset in the area. He was a crazy man and totally irrational as far as international politics was concerned.

What the Mossad feared was that his gigantic army, which had survived the Iran-Iraq war and was being supplied by the West and financed by Saudi Arabia, would fall into the hands of a leader who might be more palatable to the West and still be a threat to Israel.

The first step was taken in November 1988, when the Israeli foreign office was told to stop all talks with the Iraqis regarding a peace front. At that time secret negotiations were taking place between Israelis, Jordanians and Iraqis under the auspices of the Egyptians and with the blessings of the French and the Americans. By cutting that line, the Mossad meant to lead the Americans to believe that Iraq had a different agenda, and to blame Iraq for the severing of the talks. By January 1989, Saddam was starting to be portrayed as a tyrant and a danger to the world by the Mossad LAP machine. The Mossad activated every asset they had, in every place possible, from volunteer agents in Amnesty International to fully bought members of Congress and senators. Sadam had been killing his own people, the cry went; what could his enemies expect? The gruesome photos of dead Kurdish mothers clutching their dead babies after a gas attack by the army of Saddam Hussein were real and the acts were horrendous. But the Kurds were entangled in an all-out guerilla war with the regime in Bhagdad and had been supported for years by the Mossad who sent arms and advisers to the mountain camps of the Barazany family; this could hardly be called an attack on their own people. But, as Uri once said to me, once the orchestra starts to play all you can do is hum along.

The media was supplied with inside information and tips from reliable sources on how the crazy leader of Iraq killed people with his bare hands and how he used missiles to attack Iranian cities. What they neglected to tell the media was that most of the targeting for the missiles was done by the Mossad with the help of American satellites. The Mossad was grooming Saddam for a fall, but not his own. They wanted the Americans to do the work of destroying that gigantic army in the Iraqi desert so that Israel would not have to face it one day on its own border. That in itself was a noble cause for an Israeli, but to endanger the world with the possibility of glogal war and the deaths of thousands of Americans was sheer madness.

Towards the end of January the British called and wanted to talk to me. They said it was urgent and asked if they could come the following day. I had no problem with that. I decided that I would at that meeting try to convey the information I had gotten from Uri to them, requesting that they pass it on to the Americans, with whom I didn't want to work because of the geographical closeness.

We met in the dining room of the Chateau Laurier Hotel in downtown Ottawa. "What can I do for you?" I asked the man, whom I had met once before.

"I have only one question for you and even though you might think it's off the wall, I was told to ask you."
"Go ahead."
"Do you believe or think or know if the Mossad may have had any involvement in what happened to Flight 103 over Lockerbie?"
I was dumbfounded. It took me several seconds to realize what the man had asked me. I responded almost automatically. "No way."
"Why?"
"No reason. Just no way, that's all. Up to this point every time Israel or the Mossad were responsible for the downing of a plane it was by accident, and related directly to the so-called security of the State, like the Libyan plane over the Sinai and the Italian plane (thought to carry uranium) in 1980, killing 81 people. There is no way that they would do this."
"Are you speaking out of knowledge or are you guessing?"
"Wait right here." I said, leaving the table. "I'll make a phone call and we'll talk after that."
I made a collect call from the lobby of the hotel and after a few minutes I had Ephraim on the line. "Did we have anything to do with Pan Am 103?"
"Why are you asking?"
"Just tell me. I have to know, because if we did this will be the end of the Mossad."
"No," he answered without hesitating. I knew he was telling me the truth. He would not pass up such an opportunity to smear the organization.
"Thanks. I'll call you later."
I got back to the table and told the man what Ephraim had told me.
"So you're still connected?" he smiled.
"Which is probably why I'm still alive," I smiled back. "There is something I think you should know about. It's called Operation Brush-Fire." I spent the next half-hour giving the man the rundown on what I knew, asking him to pass the information on to the Americans too, if he would. He made no promises but said that he would do his best. That was enough for me.
For several months after that I was busy with the book; we were getting closer and closer to the end. I was getting more tense as I knew that the day was coming fast when I would be hit by the spotlight and God knows what else.

SUNDAY APRIL 1, 1990
I met with Uri in downtown Ottawa. We sat in my car in front of the Ottawa library for several hours. He had a story for the book that had just taken place and he wanted me to have all the information.

Uri is an extremely calm man, and had never shown a sign of fear for as long as I could remember him. From the stories I heard about him in his military career, he was not one to whine. But now, sitting in my car, he was extremely nervous, staring back and forth all the time like an amateur cadet. He was reading from notes and then tearing them into small bits and thrusting them into hisattach‚ case. I soon realized why he was so nervous. This was extremely sensitive and explosive material.

Last August (1989) a contingence of the Matkal and several men from the naval commando headed up the Euphrates in a small boat purchased by a Mossad combatant from a local merchant. Their target was the city of Al-Iskandariah and an explosives factory there. This was one of five Iraqi targets the Mossad had fingered as a possible chemical or nuclear facility. The others were further north and harder to access, in Salman Pack Fallujah and Samarra. From information the Mossad received from American intelligence as Jumbo_, it was learned that every Thursday a small convoy of trucks would come to the complex to be loaded with explosives that were then transferred to Karbala for the purpose of manufacturing cannon shells.

The objective was to take position in the proximity of the base on Wednesday August 23 and wait until the next day when the trucks would be loaded. At that point several sharpshooters with special silenced rifles would fire one round each of an explosive bullet at a designated truck, causing it to explode. The target would have to be in the process of loading so that there would be a carry-on explosion into the storage facility; the loading doors into the facility would be open at that point and there would be several tiers of high explosives inside the bunker leading to the main storage area.

This operation was as close to a suicide mission as Israeli military would ever come. The main escape route, which was back downriver, was secure as long as the Iraqi security apparatus believed that the explosion was an accident. Later they might realize it was not, but by then the unit would be in the clear. There was no back-up rescue mission in the planning, and that was explained to the soldiers, who were all volunteers.

The operation was extremely successful and the explosion generated the sort of publicity the Mossad was hoping for in attracting attention to gigantic and powerful Saddam's constant efforts at building a military arsenal. The Mossad shared its "findings" with the Western intelligence agencies and leaked the story of the explosion to the press, putting the number of casualties resulting from it in the hundreds.

As this was a guarded facility, access to it for Western reporters was minimal, thus making it an attraction. At the beginning of September the Iraqis were inviting Western media people to visit Iraq and see the rebuilding that had taken place after the war. A man calling himself Michel Rubiyer, saying he was working for the French newspaper Le Figaro, approached Farzad Bazoft, a 31-year-old reporter freelancing for the British newspaper The Observer. Rubiyer was non other than Michel M., with whom I trained and who was originally from France (where he and his family had moved when he was a toddler from Romania). Michel moved to Israel and joined the IDF, to be posted in Sigint Unit 8200. Using his connections in the intelligence community he was recruited to the Mossad and finally landed a job in the Paris station.

Michel told Farzad Bazoft that he would pay him handsomely and print his story if he would join a group of journalists heading for Bhagdad. The reason he gave for not going himself was that he was blacklisted in Iraq and that he was after a story that would be very big. He pointed out that Bazoft could use the money and the break, especially with his criminal background. Michel told the stunned reporter that he knew of his arrest in 1981 for armed robbery in Northhampton, England. Along with this implied threat he promised the reporter that he would be able to publish the story in The Observer as well.

He wanted Bazoft to collect information regarding the explosion in Al-Iskandariah, ask questions about it, get sketches of the area and collect earth samples. He told the worried reporter that Saddam would not dare harm a reporter even if he was unhappy with him. The worst that Saddam could do would be to kick him out of the country, which would in itself make him famous.

"Why this particular reporter?" I asked.
"He was of Iranian background, which would make punishing him much easier for the Iraqis, and he wasn't a European whom they would probably only hold and then kick out." In fact, Bazoft had been identified through a Mossad search triggered by his prying into another Mossad case in search of a story. He had attempted to gather information on an ex-Mossad asset by the name of Dr. Cyrus Hashemi, who was eliminated in July 1986. Since Bazoft had already stumbled onto too much information for his own good, or the Mossad's for that matter, he was the perfect candidate for the job.
Uri went on to tell of how Bazoft made his way to the location as he was asked to and was arrested, as might be expected, along with his British girlfriend, who was a nurse working in a Bhagdad hospital.
Within a few days of the arrest a Mossad liaison in the U.S. made a call to the Iraqi representative in Holland and said that Jerusalem was willing to make a deal for the release of their man who had been captured. The liaison also said that the deal was only for the man, as Israel had nothing to do with the nurse. The Iraqi representative asked for time to contact Bhagdad and was called again the following day, at which point he was told it was all a big mistake and contact was severed. Now the Iraqis had no doubt they had a real spy on their hands and were going to see him hang. All the Mossad had to do was sit back and watch as Saddam proved to the world what a monster he really was.
On March 15 1990, Farzad Mazoft, who was held in the Abu Ghraib prison some twenty kilometers west of Bhagdad, met briefly with the British ambassador to Iraq. A few minutes after the meeting he was hanged. His British girlfriend was sentenced to 15 years in prison. His body was delivered to the British embassy in Bhagdad and the official spokesman said, "Thatcher wanted him alive and we have just delivered his dead body to her."
The world was shocked, but the Mossad was not done yet. To fit in with the story of the brutal hanging, a Mossad sayan in New York delivered a set of documents to ABC television with a story from a reliable Middle Eastern source telling of a plant Saddam had for the manufacturing of uranium. The information was convincing and the photos and sketches were even more so. It was time to draw attention to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Only three months before, on December 5, 1989, the Iraqis had launched the Al-Abid, a three-stage ballistic missile. The Iraqis claimed it was a satellite launcher that Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was helping them develop. Israeli intelligence knew that the launch, although trumpeted as a great success, was in fact a total failure and that the program would never reach its goals, thus rendering the big bang nothing more than that. But that secret was not shared with the media. On the contrary, the missile launch was exaggerated and blown out of proportion, telling the world that now all the pieces of the puzzle were fitting together. Here was this maniac who we all knew for a fact was developing a nuclear capability (cf. the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981) and chemical warfare (as seen in his attacks on his own people, the Kurds), the man who despised the Western media, regarding them as Israeli spies. This maniac was going to have the ability to launch a missile from anywhere in Iraq to anywhere he wanted in the Middle East and beyond. The waves of antagonism towards one who not so long ago had been the savior of the Gulf were growing stronger; a monster was being created. Then it was reported that Abu Nidal, the notorious terrorist, was now residing in Bhagdad which had become a haven for all terrorists.
While all this was taking place Saddam's eye, which was capable of observing things only on a local and internal level, was totally blind to the bigger picture. Like a good but not very bright puppet, he was dancing the steps that he was expected to do to the music. Like the man said, once the orchestra starts to play, all you can do is hum along.
After the arrest of Bazoft, Gerald Bull, who was also working on the Iraqi big gun project called Babylon, was visited by friends from his past co-operation with Israel (the same ones who had put him in contact with the South Africans on a mutual mobile long-range gun the South Africans called the G-5 155 mm, and the self-propelled G-6 155 mm which were originally built in Israel by Sultam). The visitors, one of whom was David Biran, then head of liaison, and the other Ron Vintrobe, the head of the Iraqi desk in Mossad headquarters, had come to deliver a visible threat to the man. They were both known to Bull as members of the Israeli intelligence community. But they were not from the field, so that while their threat was very real, they themselves would not be in danger of exposure, as they were not operators engaging the enemy directly.
The Mossad psychological department had studied the position Dr. Bull was in, and analyzed what was known about his character, and it had arrived at the conclusion that if threatened he would not pull out of the program he was involved in, but would rather carry on his work, with very little regard for his personal security. That was not to say the man would not be worried. On the contrary, the department concluded that he would be terrified by the threats and they might cause him to experience high levels of stress but he would not be stopped that way.
That was exactly what operation co-ordination had been waiting for. They wanted just that, a man who would be visibly warned by Israel to stop what seemed to be a deadly and unjustifiable project. He then refuses and is terminated with extreme prejudice. That would be blamed no doubt on the Mossad but the link could never be proven.
From all this the only beneficiary would be Israel, as the eyes of the world would be focused, through the bullet-riddled body of Gerald Bull, on his work, the Iraqi giant gun project called Babylon. The timing had to be right; it had to come right after an act of terror by the regime in Bhagdad, an act that could not be mistaken for an accident or a provocation. The hanging of the Observer reporter on March 15 would be that act.
After the execution in Bhagdad, a Kidon team arrived in Brussels and cased the apartment building where Bull lived. The job had to be done in a place where it would not be mistaken for a robbery or an accident. At the same time an escape route was prepared for the team, and some old contacts with the right-wing element in the Belgian police were revived to make sure that they were on duty at the time of Bull's elimination so that if there was a need to call in a friendly police force they would be on call. They were not informed as to the reason for the so-called alerte but would learn later and keep silent.
Some members of the Kidon team had rented a vacant apartment next door to Bull's apartment. The couple that had rented the apartment never actually moved in, but they did receive the keys to the main entrance to the complex. Eight days after the hanging of the reporter in Bhagdad (while the British intelligence was close to closing a sting operation in which the Iraqis would be caught attempting to smuggle some nuclear switches from the States, very similar to the switches Israel was caught smuggling only seven years earlier) a Mossad hit man was in the vacant apartment next to Gerald Bull's, waiting for a message from another member of the team who was outside watching the entrance. A third man was securing the staircase while two more were seated in two getaway cars waiting down the road.
When Dr. Bull reached the building at eight-thirty p.m., the man watching the entrance signaled the man waiting in the empty apartment on the sixth floor that he should get ready: the target had entered the building. The shooter then left the vacant apartment, leaving behind only an empty pack of cigarettes and a matchbox from a hotel in Brussels. He then hid in an alcove, waiting for the target to reach his collision point.
Almost immediately after the elevator door had closed behind Dr. Bull, the shooter fired point blank at the man's back and head. The shooter then walked over to the man, who had dropped to the floor, and pulled out of his tote bag a handful of documents and other papers, which he placed in a paper shopping bag he had with him. He also collected all the casings from the floor and dropped the gun into the shopping bag.
Then he headed for the staircase, where his partner was waiting, and they left the building. As soon as he saw the two men come out, the watcher walked away and headed for one of the two cars. The two men entered the second car and both cars left the scene. They left the cars in an underground parking lot to be picked up the next day by a car sayan who had rented the cars to them without registering the rental. They then drove to Amsterdam where they boarded an El Al cargo plane back to Israel as part of its crew, leaving Europe the same way they had come in.
In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with threatening information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long he would have enough rope to hang himself. It was very clear what they were trying to pull. The Mossad wanted the West to do its bidding, just like in Libya where the Americans came in and bombed on a scale that Israel was not capable of. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power as the Americans did, and although they were capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis that was not the same. It was clear to the Mossad leaders that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil, of which up to that point he had been the protector, then the U.S. and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear.
I had all of it on paper and decided to call the Belgian police the following day and tell them all I knew. It was, after all, going to appear in my book in the near future. Uri was never as happy to leave a place as he was to leave Ottawa that day and I was extremely anxious to work this chapter in with Claire. By the next morning I had already called the Belgian police in Brussels and spent almost an hour on the phone repeating my story over and over again. I would not give them my name nor the source of my information but I held back nothing else. I had no doubt as I hung up that they would be able to substantiate my story and point the finger in the right direction.
The next day Claire was to come and work with me on the new chapter. But I got a call from Ephraim: kill the story Uri told you. I protested, but he wouldn't budge. He told me that I had to trust him on this one and that he would explain it to me some other time. I didn't use it and he never did explain it to me. Nor did the Belgian police ever solve the murder. However, what I found more disturbing than anything else was the lack of interest the Canadian press and people (and the Canadian government, for that matter) displayed in the murder of a fellow Canadian.

CHAPTER 28

By mid-March Clair and I had just about finished the book. Ephraim had approved most of the things in it and had grudgingly accepted the rest.

Nelson Doucet, our sponsor at Stoddart Publishing, told us that he had secured the services an editor who was from outside the company but still sufficiently tied in to be reliable and discreet. Her name was Frances Hanna and she was the wife of Bill Hanna, Stoddart's vice-president for foreign rights.

She told us that she had worked as an editor on another book that had dealt with the same subject matter and she was interested to know what my opinion was about that other book. It was called Vengeance.

I told her that I had read only the beginning of that book and found it so incredibly ridiculous that I saw no reason to read any further. Her reaction to what I said was at first very unfavorable, but as time passed and she got to know more about what really happens in the world of intelligence, I think she saw my point.

Once the editing of the book was complete, Bill Hanna made a trip to New York with the galley proofs in hand, to give to Tom McCormick, president of St. Martin's Press. Tom was going to read the book overnight and then I was to come to his office for a short meeting, after which he was going to make up his mind whether to get in on this venture.

Bella and I drove to New York. By then I was already very uncomfortable about security. There were so many people involved in the book by this time, and it was very possible that word would have leaked back to the Mossad without the knowledge of Ephraim and the clique. Things could be kept within another clique just as secretively as we had kept things within ours.

Bella and I registered at the Ritz. First thing in the morning, I went out for my meeting with Bill who was going to take me to meet Tom. Bella meanwhile was going out window shopping.

I was extremely tense and found it very difficult to concentrate. I had a sense that I was being followed yet I couldn't quite pin it down. I told myself it would make little difference if I was, as the fact that many people were involved could work to my advantage almost as much as to my disadvantage. I was shielded by the spotlight.

The meeting with Tom was very pleasant. He had some hard questions but as there was nothing really to hide they were fairly easy to deal with. Tom was very relaxed and he created a good feeling with his biting sense of humor and his very low and deep voice. Bill had brought him the galleys wrapped in a cover sheet from another book, one by Pierre Elliot Trudeau - a precaution Bill thought necessary. I found this rather amusing.

Almost two hours later I left the meeting. Bill stayed behind to talk business. Although I had no definite answer, I had a good feeling as I headed back to the hotel.

We checked out and left town. I called Bill from a roadside restaurant and he gave me the good news: St. Martin's was in. I informed Ephraim of the news once I got back to Ottawa and he was ecstatic. "This will do it! I have no doubt that this will bring them down," he said.

I was not so sure. "They can say they don't know me. They can say it's all lies, as they have in the past."
"Not if I can help it, they won't. You're not Vanunu and they know it. We'll just have to play it one day at a time."
"Do you know if any word has already reached them?"
"As far as I can tell, not. But you must be very careful and watch your back for the next while, at least until the book is out and you are shielded by the media."
"What you're telling me is that you have no idea if they know or not."
"That's about the size of it," he said, "but don't worry. If they were going to do something drastic I would hear about it for sure."
I knew very well what I was getting into the moment I had decided to write the book. But at least his last statement gave me some peace of mind.
* * *
SEPTEMBER 2, 1990
"It's out of the bag," Ephraim said over the phone. "They have a disk of the book and are now printing a copy of it. From what I hear things are not looking too good. It's now in the hands of the Prime Minister."

"The little bastard will tell them to have me killed," I said, and I wasn't laughing.
"He already said that, but I had someone give him a better idea and I think he has taken the bait."
"Can you be more specific?"
"I would prefer not to be, at the moment. But I want you to know that you will have a visitor in the next few days."
"Anyone I know?"
"I'm not sure, but I think that it will be."
Nothing more was said. Claire and I made one more trip to Toronto. We had a meeting with representatives of St. Martin's Press and it was decided to postpone the publication of the book for a month so that they would have a chance to get ready. At the same time, Stoddart's copies were coming off the press fast. They were stored in an empty warehouse adjacent to the publisher's building and a special guard was placed on them. The tension was mounting; we were ready to go. I felt like someone about to jump from a very high cliff and I sure hoped that there was a parachute in whatever it was I had strapped on my back.
Before we left Stoddart's, Jack came to tell us that something very strange had happened. He had just received an anonymous call from someone who said that Israel had hired the law firm of Goodman and Carr in Toronto to stop the publication of our book.
Jack was not sure whether this was for real or whether someone in the publishing house was pulling a prank. I had no doubt this was not a joke, but with nothing to go on besides this call there was very little I could do.
We drove back to Ottawa. I knew we were not being followed. The following evening Bella and I went over to the Bayshore shopping mall. I needed a breather and, knowing the genie that was about to be let out of the bottle, I wanted to take advantage of the last few hours of anonymity I still had.
I spotted them when I made a call from the pay phone at the mall: a team of at least five people, following us at all times. I knew that this was it and tonight was going to be the night. We left the mall and headed home. Several days previously I had stopped at the Nepean police station with a book jacket. I'd had a talk with the top cop at the station. I explained to him that I had written a book about the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, and that they were going to be very unhappy about it. He promised to be vigilant; they would respond to my call as fast as they could should there be a problem.
I didn't expect them to stand up to the Mossad but still the fact that they knew made me feel better. I also stopped at RCMP headquarters at 400 Cooper Street in Ottawa and spoke to a constable there. He told me that this sort of thing fell under the jurisdiction of CSIS, the Canadian secret service. They were located in the same building. I went over to their offices and informed them, the same way I had informed the Nepean police. Now I knew that whoever needed to know, knew.
At nine p.m. there was a knock on the door. I was standing in the small kitchen, getting ready to make a cup of coffee. Bella answered the door. Oren Riff and Araleh Sherf were standing there. (Oren was the personal assistant to the head of Mossad and my former cadet course commander. Araleh Sherf was head of the Tsafririm department in charge of monitoring and activating the world Jewish Diaspora, and my former Academy commander.) Oren carried a shoulder bag and Araleh was trying his best to put on a smile.
"We want to talk to you," Araleh said.
I picked up the phone and dialed 911, but before they could answer I hung up. Something was preventing me from making such a drastic move yet.
Oren leaned his head slightly to one side and said, "We came to talk."
The phone rang; it was the police calling back to see what was going on. I told them everything was okay; if there was any problem I would call back. They accepted that. I walked over to the door. I could see that Bella was turning white; I thought she might faint at any moment. By the time I got to the door, she not only hadn't fainted but was giving our visitors a piece of her mind. No doubt the hysteria caused by their sudden appearance brought on this display of anger. She knew very well who they were and their appearance on our doorstep made all her fears about the book become a reality.
"Can we come in?" Oren asked.
"No. I have nothing to talk to you about," I said.
"Please, let's be civilized," he said.
I couldn't help but laugh at that. But then I pulled myself together. I knew that while these two were at my door, the team that was planning to grab me and take me back to a stinking little hole in Israel was taking position outside in the shadows. I was not going to kid myself into believing that all they wanted was to talk. I was not dealing with amateurs; they had to have taken into consideration several options - and they would be ready to act on any of them.
"If you have anything to say to me you do it here and now," I said. "You are not coming in. And I would suggest for your own good that you be brief and then get the hell out of this area." At that moment, strange as it may sound, I was concerned for their safety. Looking back, though, I cannot forgive myself for not having called the police in immediately.
"We are at war," Araleh said, referring to the situation in the Gulf. Coming from one who was part of the mechanism that had brought that situation about, this was almost like someone who has killed his parents asking for mercy because he is an orphan.
"You're not part of that war," I said. I wanted to tell him that I knew all about the Mossad-owned airline, under Swiss cover, flying a fleet of seven Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76's, bringing what is known in the jargon as low-tech weapons to Iraq from Brazil under the facade of machine tools. I also knew that the company operated out of a base in Australia, moving drugs for the Mossad with the blessing of the Australian intelligence agency which was in the Mossad's pocket. But this was neither the time nor the place to get into such an argument with the two clowns at my door. What was important was to get out of there, and as far away as possible from the closing grip of the hit team that was by now probably ready to go into action.
"What is it that you want?" I was going to play along until I had a window of opportunity to get out of. I wanted to move the problem as far as I could from my family. When she'd heard Hebrew being spoken, my daughter Leeorah had come down the stairs, thinking that we had guests from Israel. But she ran back up as soon as she heard my angry tone.
"We want you to stop the book," Araleh said.
"I can't believe this from you," Oren had to put in his two cents worth. Araleh looked at him scornfully, as if to say, "don't anger the prey."
"It's not only my decision to make," I said, trying to act reasonable. "Besides, they have already printed the book and are ready to come out with it."
"How many copies could there be for Canada?" Araleh said. "You have to stop this book."
"It's not that simple." I was stalling for time.
"You know money is no object," Oren said. "We'll cover all the expenses plus any projected profits - you know that."
"I have to talk to some people. I need time."
They glanced at each other. "Call me at the Consulate in Toronto," Oren said. "I'll wait for your call there until tomorrow noon."
"Okay." I started to close the door. They turned and headed back to their red Chevrolet Cavalier. It had a Quebec license plate. They sat in the car for a few moments and then they took off. I knew I didn't have much time to make my move. I was expecting the team to come through the door at any minute.
I could see fear in Bella's eyes. I knew she was not afraid for herself but for her dumb husband who once again had gotten himself up the proverbial creek without a paddle. I put as much stuff as I might need into myattach‚case and sat for a while, thinking of my next move. After a few minutes of analysis I came to the conclusion that they would not break in just yet. They would wait and see if I had any protection that would spring into action after the bold visit I had just received, in which case they wouldn't want to get caught in the middle.
I decided to leave on the stroke of midnight. I needed to go to a place where they had police around the clock, and a police station was not where I wanted to be. I had to get to the airport. It was open twenty-four hours a day and they had police there at all times. I would also call whoever I could from there and try and get out of the city as fast as possible. I thought that I would be safer with my publisher. After all, he was my so-called partner in all of this.
I couldn't be sure whether my phone was tapped or not. I had to get out of there before I could think of contacting whomever I had to contact. I knew for sure that Ephraim was not the person to call at this time.
At twelve I walked out and into my car and drove off without any delay. I was followed by a small gray car and a large gray windowless van. I make several evasive maneuvers and, having the advantage of knowing the area better than any newcomer, I got away. I headed straight for the airport and the RCMP station there.
I had a short conversation with the constable at the airport, informing him that Mossad people were on my tail in the city. He promised to inform all the police in the airport to check and see every so often if I was okay. There were no flights until the next morning, so it appeared that I was going to spend the night in the airport.
I called Bella to tell her everything was okay and then I called Claire Hoy to inform him about my visitors. Nelson Doucet wasn't home, so I called Jack Stoddart. I had expected him to take some action and maybe to show some concern, but that was not to be. He informed me in a very cool and relaxed manner that he hoped all was well and he would see me tomorrow morning in the office. I couldn't believe it; the man didn't even offer to have someone pick me up from the airport. It was then that I realized that he didn't understand the gravity of the situation.
The flight took off at seven a.m. There were some problems landing in Toronto Island because of the fog. But we got there eventually. From there I took a taxi, the driver of which had a bigger death wish than mine; I was extremely grateful to get out of the cab in one piece. If someone was following me and didn't know where I was heading, they had to have lost me on the way.
At Stoddart I had to wait for a while. Eventually someone came to see me and I explained what was happening. The Mossad was on our trail and was getting into position to take steps to stop us. I felt an obligation to Stoddart to give them a way out of this situation, and in a one-on-one talk with Jack Stoddart I told him that if he should wish to withdraw from this venture, he would be handsomely rehimbursed by the Mossad, whose representative Oren Riff was still waiting for my call at the Consulate in Toronto.
Jack replied that publishing was not only a matter of money but also, for him, of principle. He had no intention of backing down; the book was coming out, no matter what.
Angel Guerra, Stoddart's chief of publicity, had already convened a small group of reporters from the major papers and television stations. They were waiting for me in a conference room. They were given a short summary of the book. St. Martin's Press were notified of the new developments and were told to move forward as fast as they could. They had a stock of about seventeen thousand copies of the book in their warehouse and decided to ship them out right then and there. The shipping was done via a system called blind shipping, in which a publisher ships books to the stores without them ordering. They are not obligated to take the books but a distribution is guaranteed.
Bill had also signed Bloomsbury, a British publisher, but he had no books and was going to wait until the book came out in Canada and the U.S.
I had just spoken to Bella who told me that Rina had called from Israel. Rina was one of Bella's best friends in Israel; she had told Bella that she, her husband Hezy, and several other friends of ours were going to be brought to Ottawa the following day to try and get me to stop the publication of the book. Bella told me that she tried to explain to Rina that the effort was a futile one and that it would be very unlikely that Rina could succeed where Bella herself had failed. Later, when Oren called looking for me, Bella told him to tell the people in Israel not to send all our friends on this stupid trip. Oren played dumb and said he had no idea what she was talking about. But she persisted, and he finally put an end to the matter.
Meanwhile I was sitting at Stoddart Publishing, feeling extremely helpless. I could almost feel the presence of the Mossad team but could not communicate with Ephraim or any of the others. There were too many ears and eyes around.
Just before I headed for the news conference, a fax arrived from the offices of Goodman and Carr Barristers and Solicitors, sent by Joel Goldenberg on behalf of the State of Israel, telling Stoddart that they had obtained an order from a judge, barring the distribution of the book and ordering me not to discuss the information in the book until things were clarified in court. I was muzzled, and for the first time in Canadian history a foreign country had blocked publication of a book - all this before a single book had left the warehouse or any of the legal participants had had a chance even to see a copy, unless it was a stolen one. The fact that my name was on the cover, and the fact that it was a non-fiction book about the Mossad, was supposedly enough to make it a danger to the State of Israel.
Before any legal steps could be taken in the States, St. Martin's Press had already shipped over twelve thousand copies to the stores. It wasn't long before Israel moved to try and block the book in the United States just as they had done in Canada.
Right from the outset it was clear to the government of Israel that this was a futile act and that they could not possibly win. But they had other plans, ones that didn't involve the courts. As things came out later in the Israeli press, the head of the Mossad had requested that some action be taken to give him time to take other steps to stop me. He had admitted to a special committee formed to investigate my case that he had sent people to Canada to try and persuade me not to publish and that money was also offered but that I had refused. He then decided to take other action.
It was later, after everything had calmed down, that Ephraim told me what the chief's plans were. He wanted the legal process to prevent me from speaking and answering relevant questions for the first few days, which would give them time to grab me and take me back to Israel. They assumed that whatever public relations damage my kidnapping might cause would be negligible in comparison to that which I could cause if I were allowed to answer questions in the media. It was more the possibility that their personal conduct would be revealed that bothered him than the revelation of so-called state secrets in my book.
Ignoring me altogether was not an option as far as the head of the Mossad was concerned. This in part due to the fact that Ephraim had said in a Rashy_ meeting that since I had incorporated several documents in my book it would be a waste of time to ignore me, and picking me up and bringing me back to Israel shouldn't be an impossible task. He pointed out the questionnaire I had translated from Hebrew that showed a knowledge of the Syrian military that could not be obtained outside the Syrian army or the Mossad.
Sally Tindel, Angel's secretary, was sent back to the awaiting reporters to request that they return the papers, including the summary of the book, because it had just been learned that Israel had taken legal steps to block the book's publication.
To my surprise, the reporters returned the papers without a murmur. We held a short news conference in which I could not say much except that this was a book that I believed had to be published and the story told. The Mossad made its move in the United States and managed to get a ban going against my book there. This was thereto an unprecedented move, but the reaction in the States was much more vocal and furious than the Canadian reaction. It was clear that Americans take their freedom of speech much more seriously than Canadians do. At the same time that I was being muzzled, a smear campaign against me was beginning to take shape around the world.
Within twenty-four hours the ban was lifted in the States. By then just about all of the twelve thousand books that had been distributed were sold out and the stores were clamoring for more. Sales were breaking all records but at the same time I was not allowed to speak about what was in the book. I was moving from one location to another in Toronto, planning my next move, my cards very close to my chest. On the first day the RCMP had taken me under their wing. They came in with the vigor of people who mean business and I presume that the field people I met did indeed mean to do their job. By the end of the day it was decided to take me back to Ottawa, where it would be much easier to protect me and my family, as they said, "in one package." We drove back to Ottawa and stopped at the Nepean police station, where the two somewhat embarrassed RCMP constables said to the duty officer that the RCMP brass had decided that it was the jurisdiction of the Nepean police to protect me and that they were leaving me in their hands.
I was told that the decision had been made during the night as we were driving to Ottawa. They didn't feel that the Mossad would dare take action in Canada, and therefore there was no need for their continued presence.
There was really nothing I could do. The constable gave me his business card and told me that if there was any problem at all I should feel free to call him at any time and from anywhere. But the Nepean police is a very small police force, as the city of Nepean has a population of one hundred thousand and a string of shoplifting cases there could be considered a crime wave. After the intervention to protect me by the RCMP, which I thought to be insufficient, I was very much on my own.
Bella was shocked to see me back, knowing full well what the score was and that I was far more vulnerable in this setting with only the Nepean police there to protect me. The next morning we took evasive action. I got to the train station as the train was about to pull out. I was back in Toronto by that afternoon and went straight to the Stoddart offices. The media blitz was at full steam; I was either doing television interviews or giving over-the-phone radio interviews to places as far as Sidney, Australia, or as near as the Toronto Jewish press. It was then that several Israeli news people showed up on the scene, acting both as reporters for their own papers and as commentators for the other media. There was one by the name of Ran Dagony, reporting for a daily newspaper in Israel called Maarive, who published an extremely devastating interview with me which he claimed to have done in Toronto. The interview covered almost two full newspaper pages. The man only neglected to mention that we never met and that I had never as much as talked to him, not even over the phone.
The Canadian judge had barred all discussion of the book for a period of ten days. I knew that this was the time that the Mossad had to try and stop me. From time to time I caught them following me and I would take steps to get away. Whenever I did, I thanked Mousa and Dov for the great training they had given me.
Before the ten days were up I realized it was time to get out of Toronto and go back home. I was running out of ways to leave the Stoddart offices and not develop a pattern. I was also extremely frustrated. By then I had been on the ABC evening news with Peter Jennings, on NBC with Tom Brokoff and just about every major network, but because of the gag order I could say almost nothing. There I was, like a dummy, in front of the whole world.
The only network that showed virtually no interest in me was the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. One of the top "talent" on the network was a devoted Zionist woman by the name of Barbara Frum, who swore that my book would not be on her show. She was a government worker, as the CBC is a government-owned corporation, and the network was as much mine as it was hers. But she was right; I never got on "her show," which was "The National." Another CBC man, this time a radio announcer, took the same attitude. It was a lesser-known talk show host by the name of Peter Gzowski, who said something to the effect that the subject was too offensive to his audience, which was mainly Jewish. To say that of the audience of a government broadcaster in a country which has less than three percent Jewish population, regarding a non-ethnic or non-religious show, was ludicrous. But then I had few expectations from my fellow Jews, who were dancing to Shamir's tune.
When I got back to Ottawa I was met by a second wave of media which was with me from the moment the plane landed.
There were Israeli reporters and also crews from the local media. What I found stranger than anything else was the fact that I was barred from talking about the contents of my book or even handling a copy, while Oded Ben-Ami, the representative of Israeli radio, was reading sections of my book over the phone to his audience in Israel (from which country the ban had originated) from his hotel room in Ottawa. The same reporter was later to become the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Yitzhak Rabin's government.
A big surprise that awaited me back home was a short message from my father, who had heard about the book for the first time through the media. "Call me," the message said; "Whatever happens I'm always your dad." I really needed that. We had already established a relationship since I had come to live in Canada. But this was something that I really hoped for. When I needed him most he was there. I called him and we took it from there, as if nothing had happened. Nevertheless, it was he who had always maintained, even after the great frenzy of victory that had swept the Jewish world after the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, that Arabs should be treated with dignity and respect, that not all Arabs are bad and not every Israeli is automatically an angel. From that telephone call on, we at last became the best of friends, something I had always wanted and realized he did too.
Several days later I managed to make contact with Ephraim. I learned that the Mossad was going to let me be for now. If any steps were to be taken against me it would be in the disinformation department and not against my person. I still knew that this was a very unstable guarantee and if I should leave Canada and venture even as far as the United States, things could change rather fast.
I began to do radio shows across the United States and Canada via phone. I managed over two hundred shows in less than three months. I also did a long string of television shows by satellite.
I did "Good Morning America" with Charlie Gibson from Toronto, and found him to be as charming an interviewer as he was a host. It was quite a treat for me, as I had watched him every morning from the day he got that position on the show. Then there was the "Larry King Show." Here things seemed to change somewhat. As someone who is hooked on news, I was a regular watcher of his show, as I was of most of the shows on CNN. Lary had brought in, as an adversary to me, someone he presented at the beginning of the show as Amos Perelmuter, a professor from the American University in Washington D.C.
It was clear from the start that in Perelmuter I was dealing with an enthusiastic supporter of the State of Israel. He was one of a long line of adversaries I had to face on the promotion circuit, people who hadn't read the book but had been told just about all they needed to say by their neighborhood Israeli representative. Perelmuter was blabbering about how I had exposed names in my book, and how it was all lies, etc., etc.
There was never enough time on any of the shows to put these spokespersons for Israel on the spot. How did they know that all I was saying was lies? I was the one who came from the Mossad, not they. Why was it that these loyal Americans were willing to accept any mud thrown at the CIA without even giving it a second thought, but were defending to the hilt an intelligence agency of a foreign country which had been known to spy on the United States (as in the Pollard case) and had not refrained from attacking American interests (such as in the case of the Lavon affair in Egypt, among others)?
Had it not been for Bella's last-minute intervention, the names of all the field personal would have been in the book. I had no problem with that, nor did Ephraim. We both knew that they were already burnt and by putting their names in we might be saving them. But I was equally happy not to put them in.
All the Perelmuters that I encountered, and those who wrote malicious lies about me in the media, were all fed by the same source in Israel, namely the Mossad.
Larry King was trying hard to appear objective, and looking back on that show, for a known Zionist who is called in Israel a true friend of the State, he performed perfectly for his masters. I had no doubt that he would have treated me much more sympathetically had I been a renegade from the FBI coming to smear that agency (America bashing is much more popular than Israel bashing on his show). Nevertheless, faced with someone who was attacking something that for Larry must have been more than sacred, he was holding himself well. At the end of the show, just as we were about to sign off, a caller directed a question to me regarding the fate of the kidnapped nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu. Knowing the background of my opponent on the show, Mr. Amos Perelmuter, I saw that question as heaven-sent. "I think you should direct that question to Mr. Perelmuter," I said.
"Why Perelmuter?" Larry queried.
"He was in charge of the manpower department of the Israeli nuclear facility in Dimona," I answered, sending Perelmuter into a stuttering rage. At least the viewers got to see who he really was and that his introduction as a mere professor from an American university was not the full story.
There were several more shows that stuck in my mind, each for a different reason. One was "Prime Time Live," which Sam Donaldson from ABC came to Ottawa to do. I had never met the man before. I found him to be a warm and interesting person to talk to. He was extremely well-informed and it was clear he was there to tell a story and not invent one. In a field so full of opportunists, it was a rare pleasure to work with a true professional. The only thing that I was constantly worried about during the entire interview (and thereafter until I saw the show on the air) was that they might use whatever researchers they had, check a few background details, and reveal my activity with Ephraim. I had good reason to think that way, as the paper trail that I had left behind stretched from Washington D.C. to Amman and back to Cairo and London, via Paris and New York. This was not the time to bring all that out, but how could I prevent it? To my relief, it never came up.
Then there were the small wars that took place behind the scenes, such as when "People" reporter Ken Gross wrote his piece on me and had to fight to keep it in, against tremendous editorial pressure or, when Sally Tindel, Angel Guerra's secretary at Stoddart, was frowned on by an old friend of hers, the daughter of Barbara Frum from CBC, and was asked how could they (meaning Stoddart) could have on taken that book. Rabbis across the country were giving sermons on the holiest day in the Jewish Calendar, Yom Kippur, demonizing me as an outcast and an enemy of the State of Israel, and never stopping to wonder if it was at all possible that what I was saying was true and their beloved Israel had long ago turned into a heartless monster. There was even a Rabbi Bulka who I am told called on his Ottawa congregation to hold a book-burning party.
And at the same time I got a stream of letters of congratulation from Jewish organizations, telling me that they were happy I was having such great success from the sale of my book, and as I had made that success from writing about Israel, I should feel obligated to donate a portion of my earnings to their organizations (one of which was the Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross). Similar letters came from various yeshivas and Jewish congregations. Then there was the offer from a Jewish "wannabe" publisher based in New York by the name of Shipolsky, who said in his letter that he thought that my book was important and should be given the proper attention, and he would like to be the one to translate it into Hebrew. All he wanted me to do was to write an additional chapter softening the blow to the Mossad, so that it would be more palatable to the Israeli public and would show how I think the Mossad should be corrected. In fact, all he wanted to do was profit from what he saw as a lucrative opportunity while staying clean in the eyes of his Israeli connections.
On the other hand, an Israeli distributor named Keter had ordered a large number of books from Stoddart and had sent an advance payment for them, only to be stopped in his tracks by his new owner Robert Maxwell. Maxwell forced the company to cancel the order, but as they had ordered the books and paid for them in cash, the books are still waiting for them in Stoddart's warehouses to this very day. Maxwell also prevented his Israeli publisher, Maarive Publishing, from trying to buy and translate the book. It made its way to Israel through Stematzky, a foreign language book distributor.
Then came a call from a Jewish host of a daytime Canadian show who was trying at the time to break into the American market. Her name was Shirley Solomon and she was the host of the "Shirley Show." She wanted me to appear as part of a panel of spies. She was going to have a KGB man and a countess who was a spy and some other people in that line of work. I told her that I was not interested in taking part in what looked to me like a ratings circus, but that I would be very happy to come if she would do a show about the Mossad and my book.
She was very obnoxious, and said that she would not have anyone dictate to her what the content of her show should be. Then she scheduled a show about my book and invited Claire and me to participate. She also invited an Israeli reporter from New York by the name of Yehezkely, who was the first Israeli to interview me after the book came out, and via satellite from Israel she had the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Report and Isar Harel, the senile ex-head of the Mossad.
The studio, which held about three hundred people, was full to capacity and there were almost another two hundred more people who couldn't get in. I was told that an invitation had also been extended to the Palestinian community, which I didn't understand the reason for. I was not siding with the Palestinians in this so-called Israeli-Arab conflict; I was simply against what Israel was unilaterally doing to them. Nevertheless, as I learned later, the producers of the show went to some lengths to prevent the Palestinians from coming. They told them that they were to organize at some community center and that the show would send a bus to pick them up. But the bus never went out, because someone said that the Palestinians had called to say they were not coming.
I was now seated in a studio facing a large group of hostile Jewish people. There was a group of students with knitted yarmulkes who were there to be my heckler section. They were clearly from the right-wing Kach movement.
Several times during the breaks, Shirley had to calm the audience down, telling them that if they didn't show some restraint the viewers would think that I was being crucified. Her one-sidedness and that of the audience came through anyway, and for many days after the show was aired I was stopped by people on the street who were angry with, as they put it, "what Shirley was trying to do to you."
Now that I had been exposed to the media and the blitz was winding down, I had a chance to re-examine what I had learned from this exposure. I would never watch television the same way again, nor could I read the paper without reading between the lines. As a Jew and yet an outsider at the same time, I had met scores of media people who were not afraid to talk to me openly even though I was Jewish. I heard endless stories of reporters who had their stories and even their careers killed because they dared to criticize Israel.
A French reporter from Radio-Canada (the French CBC, which is separate from the English CBC) ran a story using me as an expert on the Middle East. His boss received a call from the Israeli embassy the following day. He was told that it would be better if he call the embassy for information and not use Victor Ostrovsky. His reply was, "It seems, my friend, that you think you are talking to the English CBC. You are not. This is Radio-Canada; we do not take orders from foreign governments."
An Israeli newspaper man named Yair Shtern (the son of the infamous Shtern from the Shtern Gang, the terrorist group to which Shamir belonged) was in Ottawa to cover a conference on refugees. In response to a local television reporter who asked whether he was going to try and interview me, he said, "He will be killed soon and his body will be floating in the Ottawa River." He is now head of Israel's government-sponsored television. Another reporter in the so-called Israeli democracy (which is trying to portray itself as the only democracy in the Middle East) said in a newspaper editorial that someone should put a bullet in my head. Yet another said that I should be tied to a pole and that all the people of Israel should come and spit on me. Not one person in the whole State had stopped to say, "Maybe what he says has a grain of truth in it." I knew then that in such a country there will never be change; people who will not allow themselves to listen to criticism, no matter how harsh, will never learn.
The book was now being translated into scores of languages and we had met and answered questions from people around the world. As time passed more and more things that were said in the book were proving to be true.
I had moved to a bigger house and had started a new career. I was going to become an author and write a fictional book. I knew that this was a big task but I felt that I had some stories to tell and that I could do it. Stoddart had given me the okay and they committed themselves to publishing it. Ephraim told me that the commission that was put together to investigate the Ostrovsky affair had come back with the conclusion that the only problem was that I had been recruited in the first place. As far as things were inside the Mossad, there was no change. Business was as usual; the only thing that had changed was that several of the so-called moderates in the Mossad were blamed for recruiting me and kicked out. Because there was a fear that the day when there would be a Mossad oversight committee might be on the horizon, various preventive measures were being taken, with the full support of Prime Minister Shamir. Ties were strengthened with the settler movement in the territories and "spies" were being recruited in the Ministry of Defense and the military.
"I guess you still have a job to do," said Ephraim. "There are some elements around the new boss today who are far more dangerous than anyone you ever knew in your time."
"I can't do much now, with the kind of exposure I have."
"We'll see about that. For the time being, go with the flow. Just make sure you don't go under."
I took his warning seriously, knowing where it came from.

CHAPTER 29

1991 did not turn out to be a good year for the Mossad, allthough at first it looked as though it would. Even though there was a new boss on the throne, to the joy of most of the opportunists it was an insider. They had successfully managed to prevent the government from bringing in a general from the outside. This time they had their man in the top seat of power in Israel: Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime Minister, who liked to be reminded of his Mossad past (even if within the Mossad it was never regarded as more than mediocre even for a man with no imagination or vision, like Shamir).

This time the insider had taken the top position in a natural succession, making it clear to all that from this day forth there was to be no more parachuting in of an outsider boss on the almighty Mossad. A new layer of Teflon had just been added to the organization, which was always in the dirt but could not get dirty.

The new chief took office and made no changes in the organization, to the appreciation of his comrades-in-arms. What was happening, though, was an erosion of the link that had been maintained between the Mossad and the military through having a head of Mossad who was a former general. For the second time in a row, a leader was at the helm of the Mossad who did not know the military or hold much respect for it. The new head regarded the military establishment as prima donna ballerinas, in constant need of nursing and incapable of making tough decisions without wearing iron underwear (as he used to put it while still head of operations during my term in the Mossad).

"The only way we could do something of any significance now," Ephraim said, "would be to target the Mossad one country at a time and try to make a difference that way."

"We have done that already. And what happened?" "Look, I know of some activity taking place now in Norway. Why don't we use that country as a target and see what happens? What do we have to lose?"
"Did you ever consider taking over from the inside, now that all attempts to hit it from the outside have failed?"
"I always consider that. If there was a chance of my taking the scepter, trust me, I would. But they have secured it for God knows how long. As long as that jerk Shamir is in office we don't have a chance to do anything. He hates the whole world, and what better way to get his revenge than to use the Mossad? He hates Bush for humiliating him in Washington and holding him by the short hair regarding the loan guarantees. He hates the British, " he paused. "Well, he always hated the British. He doesn't trust the French and we know what he thinks of the Arabs and everybody else."
"So what now?"
"I have a friend in Norway who knows a reporter for a newspaper called the Oftenposten. I can have my friend suggest that the reporter call you and see if there might be a story there for him regarding the Mossad."
"Is there a story there?"
"Sure there is."
We sat over the details of this story, and we found several references to it in the Danish documents that I had. All I had to do now was wait for a call and take it from there. We had placed little hope in this escapade but it was better than doing nothing. And even though I was in the middle of writing my novel, I knew there were more important things to be done.
I felt that if there was a change in government in Israel then there would be a chance for some peace negotiations. So I had in some ways changed my goals. From that point on it wasn't just the Mossad I was after. I was also looking for ways to embarrass the government. For me, 1991 was going to be a very good year.
Within a few days I received a call from a reporter in Norway calling himself Mr. Stangheler. He said he was working for a Norwegian paper called the Oftenposten and that he wanted to ask me a few questions. Then followed the usual niceties; he buttered me up to assure my co-operation, telling me how he enjoyed my book and that he was hoping I would write another, etc., etc. He eventually got to the point. He wanted to know if I knew of any Mossad activities in Norway.
I explained to him that I had no dealings with the Norwegian desk and all I could tell him was as a projection from the activities of the Mossad in Denmark, which I had detailed quite extensively in the book. I also said that there was no doubt in my mind that the Mossad was in fact as active in Norway as it was in Denmark and if he wanted to put the time in and investigate, I would be more than happy to assist by directing him and helping him asses whatever information he may find. I also offered to sketch for him what I believed was going on in Norway. All he would have to do would be to color in the drawing with facts that he could find in his investigation.
The man was extremely pleased and I knew I was about to hand the Mossad another painful punch on the nose, that is if they didn't get smart on me and pull out of whatever they were doing in Norway at the time. But as usual they just went on doing what they know best, which is to abuse the friendship of a good ally and, when the time comes, to leave them holding the proverbial baby.
I told my new friend that the Mossad would have a close relationship with the local intelligence, mainly dealing at the intermediate level. He could find the links if he could obtain the names of people from the police and intelligence communities who had gone on various seminars to Israel. The second avenue I suggested was Palestinian refugees who were seeking asylum in Norway. Just as the Mossad had done in Denmark, and as I had described in my book, they would offer the local intelligence agency a service that, in the words of the Mossad, would guarantee security and the weeding out of potential terrorists from the waves of incoming refugees. What they would suggest would be that they (the Mossad) send experts who would receive Norwegian identity cards from the Norwegian secret service. These experts would interrogate the asylum seekers in a language which they understood (meaning both Arabic and brute force). The Israelis would then translate the conversations and hand them over to the Norwegians. This process would prevent the infiltration of troublemakers to Norway and keep Norway out of the bloody Middle East game.
I also told him that there was no doubt in my mind that the police and intelligence service were sure they were doing the right thing. For the safety of their friends from the Mossad they would have to keep it all secret from the politicians, who were not to be trusted in matters of security.
Stangheler was on his way to cracking the biggest intelligence scandal in Norwegian history, and he knew it. The communication between us was sporadic and he would call me at strange hours seeking advice. I knew what he was facing, as it would be almost impossible to break the code of silence that exists between such agencies and makes the unspeakable cosa nostra seem like a bunch of children. These people will not give up the power they have attained once they get a taste for it. And what the Mossad specializes in is giving them that taste, and observing them try the most potent drug in the universe. After their first encounter with power, the newcomers to the game will protect the Mossad with every means possible, like an addict defending his only pusher.
If you were to compare the intelligence agencies to each other, many would place the KGB at the most dangerous end of the scale. But you would have to look far beyond them to find the Mossad.
We started to work together on the story in January of 1991. Stangheler was ready to publish in August and he went to press at the beginning of September. The expected fury was there, as were the lame explanations given. I was correct on just about all counts, and even though I received little credit for what had taken place, I knew there was egg on the Mossad face and that was a real treat for me.
It had been exposed that the Mossad had what could only be described as intimate relations with the Norwegian secret service and police. The Norwegian secret service had provided Mossad personal with Norwegian papers and brought them into the interrogation room to interrogate Palestinians who were seeking asylum in Norway.
The Mossad officers interrogated the Palestinians in Arabic, although most of the Palestinians were fluent in English, as were the Norwegian police. Arabic, however, was a language none of the Norwegian police spoke and therefore they had no idea what was being said. The Mossad officers threatened the Palestinians with deportation if they would not co-operate with Israel - all this in the presence of Norwegian police, or in some cases without that presence, in which cases the interrogations took on a much more violent aspect.
As a result of the story the Norwegian Minister of Justice, Kari Gjesteby, called for a full investigation of the matter. This was of course to appease the so-called angry masses who saw the sanctity of Norway violated a second time by Israel (the first time being the Lillehammer killing by the Mossad of a Moroccan waiter they had mistaken for Ali Hassan Salameh in 1974).
On the night before the publication in Oftenposten, Stangheler had called me on the phone in what was the middle of the night in Norway. He sounded very strange over the phone. He was laughing and crying alternately and was asking me to forgive him and to realize he didn't really mean it, etc., etc. Then he hung up and I got very worried. I thought that perhaps someone had gotten to him just before publication and that he was in danger. As I didn't know anybody in Oslo and could not reach Ephraim to see what could be done, I called a Danish reporter posted in New York, the representative of the Danish broadcasting corporation in the U.S., named Frank Esman. I told him about the situation and he in turn called some people he knew in Norway, who then called me back and also contacted the police in the vicinity of Stangheler's residence. Several nerve-racking hours later, I learned that the police had reached Stangheler's house and found him drunk out of his wits. As it turned out, he had called me after enjoying a long celebration for completing the investigation, and that was his way of saying thank you.
The council for Norwegian organizations for asylum seekers, known as NOAS, filed a lawsuit against the secret service for willfully violating the Norwegian penal code sections 325 and 121. Within days of the expose the chief of the secret service (Overvaakintjeneste), Svein Urdel, handed in his resignation.
Although there was an attempted to put a good face on the matter by the Norwegian political establishment, as if this were all a simple misunderstanding, Ephraim told me that, in fact, the Norwegians had made it very clear through hidden channels that they would not tolerate any Mossad activity in Norway. To prove it they pulled back their liaison man from Tel Aviv and requested that Mossad liaison not visit Oslo until further notice. This was as hard a blow as the Mossad had ever received, except for the expulsion of Mossad European headquarters from Paris in the late sixties.
What happened in Norway had come on the heels of several other slaps in the face that I am proud to have participated in. All of them together have put a dent in the Mossad armor sufficiently to allow people in Israel to start doubting the invincibility of the Mossad. Its effectiveness has therefore come into question. Although it is still regarded as a god, it is a lesser god than before.
While Stangheler was doing his investigation, Eli, with whom I wanted to have nothing more to do, came to visit me in Canada and told me that he was intending to leave the Mossad, as things were getting to be all but unbearable. More than half the new recruits, he said, were from the Messianic religious sect. If I thought that the attitude of the people of the Mossad was bad when I was there, I could not imagine what it was like now. Half the Mossad members were now living in settlements in the occupied West Bank. That in itself was enough for me to realize what was going on. He wanted to know if I had a channel of communication to the American security services.
I had none, except for the occasional phone call that Ephraim had me make to pass on some information. As things were now, I thought it would be too late, since anyone that I might contact now would surely think I was looking for material for a new book or something. Besides, no intelligence agency has any real sympathy for what they call a whistle blower, as you never know who he will blow the whistle on next.
I did, however, have a circle of friends I had managed to create who were involved on a volunteer basis in trying to help the plight of the Palestinian people. Some of them might have connections. But it would have to be for a very good reason for me to pull such strings, and the people involved would have to know exactly what it was all about.
Eli said he would pass that information to Ephraim, who had sent him on this trip so that he could take advantage of the free travel to set up something for himself in the U.S. He had family there and could get a green card with no problem.
"I guess the last one will have to turn the lights out in the Ben-Gurion airport" I said, bringing up an old joke that used to be told in Israel during the depression prior to the Six-Day War, which had of course changed everything around. We both laughed for a long time, as if we were letting off steam for not being able to make a difference.
It was then, in talking to Eli, that I realized I have gone much further down the road than he has. In all the times that I had talked to Ephraim over the years, he had always maintained a certain facade, as if to say, "this is all business and nothing else matters." It wasn't the same with Eli, or Uri for that matter. They were more like the people I knew in Israel, my old friends and family. And even though they participated in what would be regarded by most Israelis as extremism, they were doing it out of the belief they had in the idea, the Zionist idea. I had realized for some time already that I no longer shared that ideology, that for me the state of Israel was no longer the fulfillment of an ancient dream. For me it was more a nightmare of prejudice, wallowing in racism and waving the white and blue flag as a banner for oppression. I wanted no part of it. What I was doing now was in order to put an end to that dream, to show the carriers of the banner their vulnerability, so that they would stop and reappraise their own purpose. Maybe then they could join the family of nations on an equal footing.
"They are planning something in Cyprus," Eli said, and handed me a small piece of paper. It looked like a page torn out of a small notebook.
"What is this?"
"That's a phone number in Cyprus, it's the police. You are to make a call to them and tell them that someone is breaking into this office building."
"What is it?"
"I have no idea and I really don't care. Ephraim said that you should make the call the day after tomorrow. Make sure you do it at five-thirty Cyprus time."
"Is that all you know?"
"I know that a Yarid team will be there and that they will be doing something they shouldn't be doing."
"That's good enough for me," I said.
Eli didn't stay long. He was somewhat ashamed that he was leaving the Mossad and the country, and I sensed the discomfort he felt around me. I couldn't explain it but I could feel it too, so I made no attempt to have him stick around, although there were a million questions I would have loved to ask him.

Tuesday, April 23
I made the call at the appointed hour and, after spending almost twenty minutes on the phone, succeeded in making it clear to the officer in charge of the police station that I thought an entry into the office building had been made by some people that I believed shouldn't be there.

The man was not especially impressed, but after checking to see what was at that address and realizing that the Iranian embassy occupied the top three floors of that building, he decided he'd better send someone to check things out. As it turned out, the Yarid team, which consisted of six members, four men and two women, was not expecting any trouble. They had registered in two different hotels on the island so as not to draw attention to themselves, a couple in each of the hotels, pretending to be tourists. Two of the men had taken possession of an apartment in a building adjacent to where a listening station was to be set up. They had already set up all the equipment, ready to receive the incoming information from the bugs the "installers" were supposed to position.

One of the couples was to enter the building and install the bugs on the telephone lines, while the other couple was supposed to stay outside and watch, so that if there was a problem they could warn the "installers." However, they were extremely lax. After all, they were members of the great Mossad. What could go wrong?

Everything could.
The couple outside were not comfortable on the street with no place to melt away into, so they decided to enter the building and give their friends inside a helping hand. This way they could finish the job faster and get on with the fun part of the operation - having a good time and charging it to the Mossad.
In fact, there was not much they could do, as one of the "installers" was a so-called expert; only he could do the actual work. Everybody else just stood around making him nervous.
He was in the process of separating the wires according to a blueprint they had brought with them and trying to identify the Iranian embassy's lines, when the policeman walked in. The four were huddled around the open telephone wire box with the tapping devices in their hands, handing them to the expert as he found the proper wires.
The policeman was as surprised at what he had encountered as were the people he had surprised. "What are you doing here?" he asked, first in Greek and then, with no answer forthcoming, again in English.
The four dropped what they were holding in their hands and turned to face the cop. They exchanged glances, not knowing quite what to do.
Ran Sofe,_ the commander of the team, was the first to speak. He was a 33-year-old veteran of Yarid. He had been supposed to stay outside with Amit Litvin, who was dressed in a provocative way to draw attention to herself in case there was a need to detain someone outside (a trick that might have worked had they done their job right), while David Dabi and Anna Dolgin were inside installing the bugs. "We are looking for a washroom," said Ran. "You know, a toilet. The girls just can't hold it, you know."
The others nodded their heads, like a group of children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, trying to sell a lame story even they can't believe.
The policeman wasn't buying. He hauled them all into the police station in downtown Nicosia.
April 24
The four were brought in front of a judge who remanded them in custody for eight days on suspicion of wire tapping.
It wasn't long before the scandal hit the news wires and all hell broke loose. The Mossad pulled every string they had on the small island to close this story and fast.

May 9
There followed several days of intense bargaining and fending off curious reporters. Eventually the Cypriot authorities released the four, after they had entered a guilty plea for unlawfully entering private property to commit a felony. They were fined the equivalent of about $800 U.S. and were released into the hands of the Israeli representative.

By the end of the day the four were back in Israel, still hiding their faces and refusing to talk to reporters.
Almost a week after the event I was contacted by a reporter from the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, who asked me if I could elaborate on what I heard had happened in Cyprus. The reason he called was that I was the only known Mossad ex-member who was willing to talk to the media. And there was no doubt that I was in fact an ex-Mossad officer, unlike many who had come forth in the past, claiming to be from the Mossad in order to get attention but having no idea of what the Mossad was all about.
I gave the reporter the story he wanted. I told him what had taken place, one step at a time. I made it clear to him that this was only a educated guess on my behalf. He went on to write an 800-word article which was stopped by the military censor. The newspaper wanted to take this to court but was advised not to by friends in the security apparatus. The paper complied, not wanting to risk losing its share of "inside information," which maintains its ability to "inform" its readers.
It seemed that, in this somewhat insignificant intervention, we had managed to puncture the Mossad armor, causing a small stream of criticism of the organization on the operational level to start dampening the soil around them. It was still far from being the torrent that would be necessary to sweep them off their feet, but it was a start.

CHAPTER 30

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1991
Madrid
Air Force One was about to touch down, followed by the second twin Air Force One. The two jumbo jets (which are identical in all but the call numbers inscribed on their fuselages; one carries the president and the second brings along the rest of the entourage and is used as a backup in case of emergency) were en route to deliver the President and a large media contingency to the Madrid peace talks that were about to start between Israel and all her Arab neighbors, including Syria and the Palestinians, who were part of the Jordanian delegation.

In the months leading up to this theatrical occasion, the American President had truly believed he would be able to bring about a change in the hardheaded attitudes that had prevailed in the region for decades. In an effort to bring the right-wing government of Yitzhak Shamir to the negotiating table in what was to be an international peace conference, the President had applied the kind of pressure that rarely has an American president been brave enough to apply. Against the wishes of an angry Jewish community, George Herbert Bush had put a freeze on all loan guarantees to Israel, which were to come to a total of $10 billion over the next five years. This was in order not to punish Israel in any way for the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip (regarded by the United States as illegal) but to force the cash-strapped Likud government to the negotiating table.

Upon making that decision, the President was almost instantly placed on the blacklist of every Jewish organization in the United States, and regarded as the greatest enemy of the State of Israel. In Israel, posters depicting the President with a pharaoh's headgear and the inscription "we have overcome the pharaohs, we will overcome Bush" were pasted across the country. Shamir called the President's action Am-Bush.

Israeli messengers in all the communities across the United States were going into high gear, preparing attacks on the President. They fed the media with an endless stream of criticism on his every move, while trying at the same time to make it clear to Vice-President Quayle that he was still their sweetheart and that what the President was doing in no way affected their opinion of him.

This love affair with the vice-president was not a new thing; it had almost been standard procedure ever since the creation of the State of Israel. Any time a president was not on the best of terms with Israel, it was the vice-president that the Jewish organizations were instructed to cozy up to. That was the case with Eisenhower, whom Israel regarded as the worst president in history. It was also behind the strong support Israel and the Jewish community gave to Johnson, who almost doubled aid to Israel in his first year as president, after Kennedy had come down hard on the Israeli nuclear program, believing it was a first and dangerous step in the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region - not to mention the fact that the Kennedy family was always regarded as anti-Semitic, starting with Joseph Kennedy, J.F.K.'s father, who was considered to be pro-Nazi.

It was behind their hatred for Nixon and their admiration for Ford. And then there was Carter, whose whole administration was regarded as a big mistake as far as Israel was concerned, a mistake that had cost Israel the whole of the Sinai in return for a lukewarm peace with Egypt.

And now this peace process, put forth by the Country Club idiot. Shamir's silent cry for help was to stop the process, which he believed would lead to a compromise that would force Israel to return more land and would not correspond with his plan, which called for peace for peace and not peace for land. The construction in the occupied territories went into full swing, with the unrelenting help of Ariel Sharon, the Minister of Housing. This was the same Sharon who was found administratively responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the war in Lebanon in 1983 and was forced out of the office of Minister of Defense.

A certain right-wing clique in the Mossad regarded the situation as a life-or-death crisis, and decided to take matters into their own hands, to solve the problem once and for all. They believed that Shamir would have ordered what they were about to do if he hadn't been gagged by politics. Like many others before them, in countless countries and administrations, they were going to do what the leadership really wanted but couldn't ask for - an Israeli version of Colonel Oliver North, only on a much more lethal level.

Bush was a thorn in their side, and Baker was a known anti-Semite (a term used loosely by Jewish organizations, which have even managed to influence the Merriam Webster dictionary, which defines anyone who is against Zionism or the State of Israel as an anti-Semite. This is a gross slander of countless good people, including many strict Orthodox Jews._)

To this clique, it was totally clear what they were to do. There was no doubt that Bush would be out of his element on October 30 when he was to come and open the Madrid peace talks. This was going to be the most protected event of the year, with so many potential enemies meeting in one place. On top of that, there were all those who were against the talks: the Palestinian extremists and the Iranians and the Libyans, not to mention the decimated Iraqis with their endless calls for revenge for the Gulf War.

The Spanish government mobilized more than 10 000 police and civil guards. In addition there was the American Secret Service, the Soviet KGB, and all the security services of all the countries involved.

The Madrid Royal Palace was the safest place on the planet at the time, unless you had the security plans and could find a flaw in them. That was exactly what the Mossad intended to do. It was clear from the start that it would be blamed on the Palestinians, ending once and for all their aggravating resistance, and making them the people most hated by all Americans.

Three Palestinian extremists were taken by a Kidon unit from their hiding place in Beirut and relocated incommunicado in a special detention location in the Negev desert. The three were Beijdun Salameh, Mohammed Hussein and Hussein Shahin.

At the same time, various threats, some real and some not, were made against the President. The Mossad clique added its share, in order to more precisely define the threat as if it were coming from a group affiliated with none other than Abu Nidal. They knew that name carried with it a certain guarantee of getting attention and keeping it. So if something were to happen, the media would be quick to react and say, "we knew about it, and don't forget where you saw it first."

Several days before the event it was leaked to the Spanish police that the three terrorists were on their way to Madrid and that they were probably planning some extravagant action. Having all the security arrangements in hand, it would not be a problem to bring the "killers" as close as they might want to the President and then stage a killing. In the ensuing confusion, it would be the Mossad people who would no doubt kill the "perpetrators," scoring yet another victory for the Mossad. They would be very sorry that they hadn't been able to save the President, but protecting him was not their job to begin with. With all the security forces involved and the assassins dead, it would be very difficult to find out where the security breach had been, except involved in the conference, such countries which assisted terrorists. With that in mind, it would be a forgone conclusion where the breach was.

As far as this Mossad clique was concerned, it was a win-win situation.
Ephraim called me on Tuesday, October 1. I could sense from the tone of his voice that he was extremely stressed. "They are out to kill Bush," he said. At first I didn't understand what he was talking about. I thought he meant that they were going to ruin the President. I had already heard of several books that were in the that several of the countries as Syria, were regarded as making on the man and there was a smear campaign regarding his alleged involvement in the Iran-Contra affair (which I knew personally to be fake).
"What's new about that? They've been out to get him for a long time."
"I mean really kill, as in assassinate."
"What are you talking about? You can't be serious. They would never dare do something like that."
"Don't go naive on me, now," he said. "They're going to do it during the Madrid peace talks."
"Why don't you call the CIA and tell them? I mean, this isn't just some little operation you don't want to be involved in."
"I will call whoever I have in the European intelligence services. I don't have friends in the American, not people I can trust, anyway."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"We are going to do what we can at our end. But nothing we will do will become public. I want you to make this thing public. If they know that the Americans know about it, there is a good chance they will not go ahead it."
I knew that what he said was correct. If I could draw attention to it and make it public, that would do more toward stopping them than all the intelligence agencies put together. The trick would be to make it public without coming on like some lunatic with yet another conspiracy theory that everyone was tired of hearing. I would have to say something in a relatively small forum and hope it would get out. If that didn't work, I would contact some reporters I knew and give them the lowdown.
It was then that I was invited to be a speaker at a luncheon held at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa for a group called the Middle East Discussion Group. It is a loosely formed think-tank supported by the National Council on Canadian-Arab Relations, headed by a former Liberal MP named Ian Watson. The aim of this group is to inform Members of Parliament and the diplomatic community on issues that might not be freely accessed by the media and to promote dialog on the Middle East.
The luncheon was attended by some twenty members of the think-tank and a few MPs. I made a short presentation in which I explained the goals of the Mossad and the danger it presented to any peace initiative in the region. I also said that in my opinion, as things stood, the only chance the Middle East had for peace would be the cutting off of financial aid to Israel by the United States. I emphasized that a large chunk of this aid finds its way to the West Bank and the settlements, which were probably the biggest stumbling block to the peace initiative. Then I opened the floor to questions.
I was asked what the Mossad would do in order to stop the process that was now taking place. I said that from sources that I had, and based on my knowledge of the Mossad, I would not be at all surprised if there was a plot taking place right at this moment to kill the President of the United States and to throw the blame on some extreme Palestinian group.
As I learned later on, one of the people at the luncheon called an ex-Congressman from California by the name of Pete McCloskey. The substance of what I had said was conveyed to him and as he was an old and close friend of the President, the caller felt that he might want to take some action.
On October 15, Mr. McCloskey called me and introduced himself. He said that he had heard from a friend what I had said about the President and he wanted to know if in my opinion there was a real threat, or was this only a metaphor of some kind, to make a point? I made it clear to him that there was no metaphor involved and that I was dead serious regarding the threat to the President. I also said that I believed that exposing this threat might be enough to eliminate it, as to carry it out would then become too risky.
He said he could come to Ottawa within a few days, and asked me if I would be willing to meet with him. I saw no reason why not and we made an appointment for October 19, which was a weekend.
I met Pete at the Westin Hotel and we walked over to a small coffee shop where we sat for several hours. The man asked me questions from every possible angle, trying to understand what I was talking about. I could see that he was looking for information he could present so as to make the threat realistic. There was no way that I could tell him that I got the information straight from the horse's mouth, but I had to let him know that I was not completely disconnected from the Mossad. That in itself was a risk; it was the first time I had allowed this to come out. I felt however that the reasoning was there and that this was something that had to be done.
The next day, Sunday October 20, Mr. McCloskey was in Washington to participate in the meetings of the Commission on National and Community Services. He stayed at the Hotel Phoenix Park, from where he called the Secret Service at the White House. He was referred to Special Agent Allan Dillon at the Secret Service offices, 1050 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C.
Pete faxed Dillon a copy of the memo he had written after our meeting in Ottawa. The same day he met with a former White House aide from the Ford era, by the name of Don Penny, who gave him the spin on me. I was not at all surprised when Pete told me later what this Don Penny had told him: that he heard about me from Senator Sam Nunn and other sources in the CIA who said that I was a traitor to Israel and totally unreliable. And that if he associated with me he would be putting a target on his own back. As it turned out, Pete later asked the Senator about me but Mr. Nunn could not recall talking about me. Meanwhile a well-known Washington columnist, Rowland Evans, told Pete that he had asked his sources in the CIA about me several months earlier and they had told him that I was "for real."
I told Pete that Mr. Don Penny was probably part of the smear campaign against me, which was reaching every sector of the political and intelligence arena, using people like Penny who no doubt had a debt to repay for a favor rendered.
Pete had an interview on October 22 with Agent Terry Gallagher from the State Department Diplomatic Protection and then, the same day, he had a meeting with Mr. Dillon from the Secret Service. On October 24 the Secret Service asked to speak to me. They placed a formal request via the American embassy in Ottawa through CSIS (the Canadian security service). A member of the secret service met with me in the presence of a member of CSIS.
I told them what I thought was going to take place, only omitting the fact that I had the information from an active member of the Mossad. But I made it clear to them that I had had my connection, which was mainly used to warn me about impending danger to me personally.
The information leaked to the media and in a syndicated column Jack Anderson gave the whole story. So did Jane Hunter in her newsletter, which is a must for anyone dealing in the Middle East in Washington who wants to be informed, with no bias, on the latest development in that region.
I was confident that by now the President was no longer in imminent danger in his visit to Madrid, although the less time he spent in that city the better. But the decision to eliminate him would not be withdrawn; it would only be postponed and a different method planned. I had pointed out to the member of the Secret Service on his visit to Ottawa that the President was extremely vulnerable aboard Air Force One, both to attack by a surface-to-air missile and to a piece of explosive luggage that could be carried aboard by an unsuspecting reporter who did not know that a piece of his recording or photographic equipment had been switched for a deadly device.
From Ephraim I heard later that after the President had landed in Madrid there was a phone call to the American embassy in Madrid with a bomb threat and that a section of the embassy was evacuated while the President was in the building. But the rest of the plan was called off, and even though the Spanish police received the names and descriptions of the three supposed assassins, they were never let out of the holding facility in the Negev. Later they were transferred to the Nes Ziyyona research facility where they were terminated.
On October 31 the President was back in Washington and was about to visit his house in Kennibunkport, which had been damaged in a storm that had devastated the entire coast. The secret service put out a memo on November 1 which was distributed to Air Force One passengers. It said, "there is a very capable system in place to beat terrorism from sabotaging the jet. However, if there is a weak spot, it would be with the personal belongings brought aboard the aircraft from the motorcade just before departure...."

CHAPTER 31
October 30, 1991
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was not in the best of moods when he received a call on a special secure line at the Israeli embassy in Madrid. It was his old friend Robert Maxwell calling from London, saying it was imperative that he meet with Shamir. He was willing to come to Madrid to do so.

The two men went back a long way. It was the young Shamir who had introduced the very young Robert Maxwell to the Irgun after the latter had managed to escape the German blitzkrieg that swept across Europe. Maxwell ended up in an Irgun safe house in Beirut, from where he was taken to another safe house in Tel Aviv and trained in various techniques of sabotage and insurgency. Then he was sent on to France where he was to join the British Army and be ready to answer the call.

After the war, Shamir, then in exile in France, re-established the tie. Hoping to plant Maxwell smack in the middle of the hated British establishment, Shamir offered to finance Maxwell's first big business ventures. For years to follow, Maxwell would receive inside information on global matters from his friend in the Israeli underground, who eventually became a member of the Mossad and, after entering politics almost at the top, the Prime Minister of Israel. Shamir code-named Maxwell the Little Czech and the name stuck. Only a handful of people in the Mossad and the Israeli intelligence community knew who the Little Czech was, yet he provided an unending supply of slush money for the organization whenever it ran low.

For years, Maxwell would hit financial lows whenever the Mossad was in the midst of expensive operations that could not be funded legitimately and when other less legitimate sources were dry, as was the case after the American invasion of Panama in 1990, which dried up the Mossad's income from drug trafficking for some time, and forced Maxwell to dig deep into his corporate pockets.

But Shamir had used his ace in the hole one time too many; asking Maxwell to get involved in a matter of secondary importance (namely, the Vanunu affair) was a big mistake, for which Maxwell would be made to pay the price.

That involvement caused suspision in the British Parliament that there was no smoke without fire, after the publication of a book by an American reporter claiming Maxwell was a Mossad agent. Maxwell retaliated in a lawsuit, but the ground was starting to burn under his feet. The Mossad was late in giving him back his money, and his usual last-minute rescue of his financial empire was looking less and less feasible.

Shamir was seated in his well-guarded hotel suite across from the palace in Madrid where peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors were being held. He was not having a good day, to say the least. He was participating in a process which he believed was detrimental to the security of the State of Israel, all because he was forced into a corner by Bush and his "anti-Semitic" Secretary of State James Baker. Outside the hotel, a small but aggravating demonstration was taking place; it was the Kahane Chai movement, led by Benjamin Kahane (the son of Meir Kahane, the racist rabbi who was shot to death in New York). At the same time, news was reaching Shamir regarding a growing scandal caused by Mossad involvement in Germany. This scandal was a result of Uri's having made a call to the Hamburg River Police informing them that a shipment of arms was about to be loaded onto an Israeli ship.

The arms consisted of Soviet tanks and equipment, concealed in large crates marked Equipment. The shipment had been arranged with the help of the BND, without the knowledge of the German government or the Ministry of Defense. It was exactly the same equipment that the Ministry of Defense had refused to sent to Israel in March of the same year, because they believed the shipment would defy the German law forbidding the shipment of war material to a conflict zone.

Shamir was not sure to what proportion this scandal would grow. He remembered very well the scandal that had occurred in 1978 when the German police had allowed Mossad officers posing as German intelligence officers to interrogate Palestinians in German prisons. If the German government could contain the situation, things would be fine. But once it was in the hands of the media there was no telling where it would go.

And then came the call from Maxwell, insisting he must meet with Shamir on a matter of great urgency. Shamir asked him to wait until this escapade in Madrid was over and he (Shamir) was back in Jerusalem, but Maxwell was persistent. He brought up a veiled threat: now that he was being investigated by Parliament and the British media, if he was not able to straighten his financial affairs he was not sure he could keep the Kryuchkov meeting a secret.

What he was referring to (and in doing so he sealed his fate) was a meeting that he had helped arrange between the Mossad liaison and the former head of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, who was now jailed in Number Four Remand Center in Moscow for his role in the August coup. Shamir had believed this meeting was a necessity. He knew that if the Soviet Union were to stop being the enemy, there would no longer be a threat from the East and the strategic value of Israel to its greatest ally, the United States, would diminish. Alliances between the U.S. and the Arab nations in the anti-aircraft Agricultural region would be a realistic prospect. Shamir believed that this peace conference he was being forced to attend was a direct result of this New World Order, in which Israel's role as the lone western-style democracy in the Middle East was coming to an end.

It was Maxwell who had helped create the ties with the now defunct KGB. Shamir realized it would be a devastating blow to Israel's standing in the West if it were to come out that the Mossad had participated in any way, as minute as it might be, in the attempted coup to stop the democratization of the Soviet Union. It would be perceived as treason against the West. Maxwell was now using that fact as a threat, however veiled, against Shamir, to force an immediate burst of aid to his ailing empire. Shamir asked Maxwell to call back in a few hours. Then he contacted the head of the Mossad and asked to be rid of the Little Czech once and for all.

The Mossad was unprepared for such an act. Shamir was told that it would take several weeks to put together a plan based on the man's whereabouts and then spring the trap to bring him down. A Mossad liaison who was traveling with the Prime Minister (himself an ex-Mossad officer) suggested that it could be done faster if Maxwell could be made to come to a rendezvous where the Mossad would be waiting to strike.

Shamir asked Maxwell to come to Spain the following day, promising that things would be worked out and that there was no need to panic. Maxwell was to sail on his yacht to Madeira and wait there for a message.

Maxwell arrived in Gibralter on October 31, 1991, and boarded his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, setting sail for Madeira as he was told. There he waited for directions. Meanwhile the Mossad was getting read to strike. On Friday November 1, a special Mossad trouble-shooting team that was in Spain to cover the peace talks was dispatched to take care of Maxwell. They flew to Morocco and were there met by the Mossad station chief in Morocco, who had already taken care of all the necessary equipment and other arrangments.

At first Maxwell was told that the meeting would take place in Madeira and that he would receive as much money as he needed in order to calm the situation. Additional monies would be advanced to him. All this was to be kept completely quiet, as there was no point in providing more material for his enemies, who would like nothing better than to show his direct connection to the Mossad.

On November 2 it was learned that Maxwell had called his son in England and scheduled a meeting with him on the island. That action had thrown a wrench into the Mossad's plans and Maxwell was told to cancel the meeting. He was also told that now the meeting with the money people would take place on the island of Tenerife.

When he reached Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife he headed for a meeting in a Hotel Mency on the island. As he dined alone in the hotel restaurant, someone walked over to him and gave him a message that next morning he was to be in Los Cristos on the other side of the island. He was to make his way there in his yacht, where the meeting would take place; the recommended route was around the island of Grand Canary.

I learned all this in a phone conversation with Ephraim. He had no idea how the Kidon team had managed to get to Maxwell at sea while the yacht was cruising at fifteen knots, but making it look impossible was part of the Kidon magic. Sometime during the night of November 4-5, Shamir's problem was laid to rest in the salty waters of the Atlantic.

After an autopsy that had raised more questions than it answered, a second autopsy was held in Israel under the watchful eye of the security apparatus. Whatever was not detected then was buried forever on Mount Olives in Jerusalem, the resting place for the nation's most revered heroes.
"He had done more for Israel than can today be said," was part of the eulogy as Shamir buried his friend and his victim.
CHAPTER 32

Uri came to visit me a short while after I had finished my first fictional book, Lion Of Judah. It had been some time since we had last met and I had had hardly any contact with the clique since 1991. The book was already on the market in the United States, Germany and Canada, and was ready to hit the market in Holland and Belgium. I was at the time about to finish a second novel and was asked to go on tour to promote Lion Of Judah in Holland. I had not crossed the Atlantic since the book By Way Of Deception had come out in 1990, and I was reluctant to do so now. Things were going great on this hemisphere and I didn't want to risk ending up in a prison cell in Israel. I had contacted Ephraim to ask for his advice and he sent Uri to talk it over with me.

"You are in no danger," Uri said flatly. "The Labor government is not the right-wing Likud; things have changed since then. You have nothing to worry about. In fact, we recommend you go, to prove the point."

I was very hesitant, but the chance to travel and at the same time get the adrenaline rush going was extremely tempting. I put together a small security team that consisted of three university students from Ottawa whom I taught to play the role of security people. They were there more for show than anything else. I knew that I couldn't rely on any professional security companies because of the high numbers of Israelis they employ, and the fact that many of them report regularly to the Israeli authorities.

I knew that if it appeared that I had a good security set-up, various fringe elements would not try anything. At the same time, if the Mossad wanted to do anything, they would, even if I was surrounded at all times by a real professional team.

Everything went well in Holland and then we went to Belgium for the two final days of the tour. Knowing the history of the Mossad in Belgium and the corruption of the Belgian police force, I knew I was walking into a snake pit. But Ephraim's promise was all the shield I needed. On the last day in Belgium I was to appear as a guest on a television show in Brussels. Nothing went wrong until the show was over and my security team and myself headed out for the car that was supposed to be waiting to take us back to the hotel in Antwerp. The car wasn't there and neither was the driver. There seemed to be some confusion regarding what had happened to the driver. Then an alternative car was suggested. This didn't smell right to me or to my team, and as the television station was not far from the Brussels international airport, we decided to move fast. We ordered taxis and split into groups. Our Belgium publisher drove one of the guys and I to the hotel, and the others took two cabs. We left the place in three different directions and even sent an empty cab off somewhere else.

All I wanted to do was get out of that city and get Ephraim on the line. If there was something going on I was sure he would know about it and would instruct me on what to do. It was after midnight when I made the call.

"Hello." I heard Ephraim's sleepy voice.
"Ephraim?"
"Yes, who is that?"
"It's me." I said, somewhat relieved that he wasn't alarmed. "Me who?"
"Victor. Wake up, man."
"I'm awake." I could hear a sudden tension in his voice.

"Victor who?"
"What is this? I'm not in the mood for games, Ephraim." "Is this Victor Ostrovsky?" He sounded genuinely surprised. "What are you playing at?"
"How are you? Where are you?"
"You know where I am."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ephriam, I'm warning you. Don't play games with me, I'm

not in the mood."
"Don't you ever threaten me." I could clearly hear the
menace in his voice. "Don't make the same mistake Spiro did. Am I
making myself clear, my boy?"
"You son of a bitch." I said and hung up. I was deeper in it
than I cared to think. Ian Spiro was a sayan who had worked with
the Mossad for many years. He was a very helpful contact to have as
he dealt on numerous occasions with various Lebanese factions. He
was a British citizen and was living in the U.S. His contact with the
Iranians and the Shi'ites in Lebanon made him a lot of money over
the years. But he had taken one cut too many.
The Mossad had given him several million dollars to pay off
some Lebanese family who could in turn bring about the release of
captured Israeli airman Ron Arad. As a result of Spiro's involvement
with the Iran-Contra affair, the Lebanese were not willing to deal
with him any more. But he held on to the money. When the Kidon
team came to his house November 7, 1992, to get the money back
something went wrong and his wife and three children were killed.
He was taken to the desert, where they extracted from him where he
had stashed the money, after he first tried to claim he had in fact
given it to the Lebanese. He was then fed some poison that he had
with him as a tool to check the purity of gold that he wanted to start
mining for.
* * *
At that point I had no doubt that my time was starting to run out. Early in the morning we all got into a cab and headed back to Holland. Crossing the Dutch border was a great relief, but I knew I was not out of the woods until I was back on Canadian soil. I made one last call from the hotel to Uri, but for some reason I was cut off.

During the flight I finally realized what had happened. I was going to take some steps to verify it but I was pretty sure I knew. There was a power struggle in the Mossad for the top job. As things had turned out over the last several years, it would be safe to say that Ephraim and his clique were probably the only ranking officers in the Mossad not to have screwed up. Due to that record, Ephraim was more than likely the man to succeed in taking control of the organization, unless a new man was brought in from the outside. It would only be a matter of time before he and the clique came gunning for me. I was the weak link, and the most vulnerable one. Now it was up to me; what I had to do was clear. I would have to put everything else aside and write this story for everyone to see. Now it's done, and it's out of my hands. You be the judge.