By the Rivers of Babylon (46 page)

Footsteps approached the door. The doorknob turned. Dobkin kept the receiver to his ear and reached up and shut off the lamp. The door opened, and a shaft of light from the lobby passed a meter away from him and illuminated the place on the floor where the girl had lain. The edge of the shaft fell on her bare foot hanging over the sofa. “Kassim! Where are you, you son of an ass?”

The Hillah operator spoke. “Babylon? Babylon? Baghdad is on. Babylon, are you there? Are you there?”

Dobkin stood motionless, not even drawing a breath.

The Hillah operator spoke to the Baghdad operator. “Babylon is gone.”

The door closed and the room went dark.

Dobkin spoke softly. “Babylon is here.”

“What? Speak up. Speak up.”

“Babylon is here.”

“Can you hear Babylon, Baghdad?”

“I hear Babylon, Hillah,” said the female operator to the male Hillah operator.

They are very up to date in Baghdad, thought Dobkin.

“Go ahead, Babylon,” said the Baghdad international operator.

Dobkin thought again about asking for an Iraqi government office, or explaining to the operator who he was and what he wanted, but he would then have to have the international operator get him a regular operator. And what government office was open at this hour? And what reaction would the operator have to his story? Several scenarios played themselves out in his mind and each one ended with a dead telephone.

“Go
ahead,
Babylon.”

“Get me . . .” There was no way that a call from the Land of Islam was going to reach Israel. Istanbul would call Israel, but he didn’t speak Turkish so he would have to speak to an Arabic-speaking international operator in Istanbul. And if Baghdad or another exchange were still listening they would become very suspicious when he asked for Tel Aviv.

“Babylon. Are you
there
?”

“Yes. Athens. Get me Athens.”

“Why are you calling Athens? Who are you?”

Bitch. “I am Dr. Omar Sabbah, young lady, and I wish to call an associate in Athens. Put me through without delay.”

There was silence for some time, then the voice said, “That will take some time, Doctor. I will ring you back when I complete the call.”

“No.” Why not?

“Why not?”

“The . . . bell doesn’t work properly here. I can never tell when I have incoming calls.”

Silence.

“Did you hear me, Baghdad?”

“Yes. Yes. Wait. I will route your call. Stay on the line, then.”

“Thank you.” He heard Baghdad speak to Damascus and Damascus speak to Beirut. Beirut, the big exchange in the Middle East, reached Istanbul quickly. There was a time—and in fact there were still days—when Beirut would have rung Tel Aviv only two hundred kilometers down the coast. But today might not be one of those days, and he didn’t want to risk it. The easy flowing Arabic became halting Turkish and equally bad Arabic as the Beirut and Istanbul international operators spoke to each other. The clock ticked on. Dobkin could not believe that he had gotten this far. He waited for the connection to be broken or the door to open. Sweat ran down his face and his mouth turned dry. He listened to his heart beat in the dark.

The card game in the next room was ending. There was another shout for the duty man. Some crying from the wounded. Dobkin thought he could hear automatic weapons fire to the north. The girl on the sofa cried out in her sleep, and Dobkin held his breath.

Istanbul spoke to Athens. Athens spoke better Turkish than Istanbul spoke Greek. Istanbul spoke to Beirut. Beirut bypassed Damascus and spoke directly to Baghdad. Hillah was no longer on station and Baghdad spoke directly to Babylon. “Athens is connected.”

“Thank you.” The last Athens operator spoke Turkish, but they automatically switched him over to an Arabic-speaking operator. “Number, please?”

Was anyone in Islam still on the line? He wanted to ask for an English-speaking operator but didn’t want to cause any confusion. He stalled to give the way stations time to get off the line. Operators were nosy and would listen until they had another call or until they were bored. “Is this Athens?” he asked in Arabic.

“Yes, sir. Number, please.”

“Can you look up a number for me?”

“Certainly, sir. Who is the party?”

Dobkin paused. He thought of an archeological acquaintance. “Dr. Adamandios Stathatos. He lives in the Kipseli district.” He spelled it out slowly.

“Hold on, please.”

Dobkin was certain that by now the Arabic operators had hung up, but there was still a chance that there was a security man on the line somewhere along the way. International phone calls were not that common in this part of the world and certainly not at that hour. Even in Israel, international calls were spot-monitored by Shin Beth.

The operator came back. “Dr. Stathatos in Kipseli. I’m ringing.”

“Stop the call.”

“Sir?”

“Stop the call. I just remembered another call.” He could have spoken to Dr. Stathatos and perhaps accomplished his mission, but he wanted more than anything in the world to talk directly to Tel Aviv, and he was so close. “Cancel that call.”

The Athens operator stopped the call. She was obviously annoyed. “Yes, sir.”

“Get me . . . Tel Aviv.”

“Tel Aviv?” There was a pause. This had happened before. It was no concern of hers. Greece and Israel were on good terms. Politics were silly. But that poor man had better be careful though, calling Tel Aviv from Iraq. “Hold on, please.” There was another transfer of operators and more clicking, buzzing, humming, and ringing down the line.

A new voice came on and said, “Tel Aviv is on the line, sir.”

A girl’s voice in Hebrew, brisk and efficient, came through very weak. “Number, please?”

Dobkin’s heart pounded in his chest. He wanted to crawl into the receiver and come out in Tel Aviv. He wanted to shout into the mouthpiece and tell this girl all there was to tell.

“Number, please.”

He controlled his voice. “Wait.” There were several numbers. His own, for one, but his wife would be with one of her innumerable relatives. There were lots of numbers. Friends, officers, politicians. But if he spoke to an intermediate party, there would be unnecessary confusion when that person spoke to the government.

“Sir, you—”

“The Prime Minister’s office in Tel Aviv.” He could not give the secure number on an international line, and he would have to speak to the regular office operator. He wondered if the government was in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. At the very least he would be able to speak to a responsible duty officer in Tel Aviv. Dobkin heard noises in the lobby again. It was only a matter of time before they found the lost Kassim. He could hear the phone ringing on the line.

“Prime Minister’s office,” said a female operator.

“Yes. Is the security meeting there or in Jerusalem?”

There was a pause. That information was in the newspapers, so there was no reason not to answer. Still . . . “Who is this, please?”

“General . . .” He didn’t know what her reaction would be to his name. “General Cohen.”

She paused. “I’ll have the Tel Aviv operator ring you through to the Jerusalem operator . . . General.”

“Thank you.” He heard a busy signal. Everyone in Israel must be calling the Prime Minister’s office tonight with advice and complaints. That happened during every crisis. Everyone in Israel thought they were Prime Minister material.

“All the lines to Jerusalem are busy, sir.”

“I’m calling long distance. Government business. Copy this number.” He gave her the secure number for Jerusalem.

The phone rang almost immediately.

“Yes,” said a tired-sounding male voice without identifying himself or his office. “Who’s calling?”

Dobkin could hear the regular operators in the background. It was a busy night there. He drew some comfort from the fact. “Listen to me carefully and don’t hang up.”

“No, sir.” The man had taken a lot of calls that evening and few of them had been pleasant, but he never considered hanging up on anyone who called on the VIP line.

“I am General Benjamin Dobkin.” He gave his code name and number.

“Yes, sir.” The man hit a button, and one of Chaim Mazar’s Shin Beth men picked up in another room.

“I am calling from Babylon. Iraq. The place where they forced the Concorde down.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you authenticated my code?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you still don’t believe it’s General Dobkin?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t blame you, son. Now listen, I must speak to someone who knows my voice and can authenticate it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dobkin spoke slowly and clearly, but not too loudly. “Write down the names of these generals. If one of them is there, put him on so that he can identify my voice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dobkin rattled off the names of a dozen army and air force generals. “If you put one of them on, he can verify my identity.” He wondered if his connection would be broken somewhere along the line. Would the operator listen in just to confirm if he was still on and hear the Hebrew? What would an operator do in that case? “All right, young man?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Internal Security man spoke to one of the Prime Minister’s aides in the conference room over an intercom while he monitored.

The aide quickly scribbled a note and handed it to the Prime Minister.

Teddy Laskov opened his attaché case and pulled out six high-level photos, each showing a blowup of a blurred Star of David, put there by an expert airbrush. He felt strangely numb and indifferent about what he was about to do. One way or the other, the ruse would be discovered sooner or later, of course. His career was already over, but after this his name would be discredited and he might very well wind up in jail. But as long as his deception was discovered
after
the operation he didn’t care. But
would
they discover it? Or would people believe that the photo was just a fortuitous illusion . . . or a miracle? In a way it was, the way it came to him that they were in Babylon, the way he was still so certain of it—so certain that he would risk jail and disgrace to make everyone else believe it. He picked up the stack of photographs on the table and straightened them. Talman, standing across the room, caught his eye. He looked sad, thought Laskov. Sad, frightened, guilty, and confused. But Talman stared at Laskov and managed a smile and a nod.

The Prime Minister pushed the note aside, unread. “Well, General? What do you have there? Color pictures and map coordinates of the Concorde delivered to Teddy Laskov by Gabriel from God? Come on. Let’s see it.”

Laskov seemed not to hear.

The Prime Minister’s aide tapped his finger insistently on the note, and the Prime Minister finally looked down at it. He picked up and read it.

Benjamin Dobkin could hear them calling for Kassim again. The girl cried out again. An Arab on the other side of the wall heard her and made an obscene remark and laughed. The sound of rapid-fire weapons rose above the wind, and Dobkin knew there was not much time. He heard a click on the line. “Jerusalem? Jerusalem? Are you still there?”

Kaplan’s ambush was deadly, but more than that, it gave the Israelis on the hill a warning.

The Ashbals nearly broke and ran under the withering fire, but the few remaining leaders, including Rish and Hamadi, kept their heads and returned the fire.

Kaplan might have been able to withdraw, but a madness overcame him as he slapped magazine after magazine into the hot AK-47. The sound and the smell and the vibration combined with the orange-red muzzle flash to mesmerize him. At the rate of about two hundred rounds a minute, he sent nearly a thousand rounds downrange, tearing into the Ashbal ranks. Hausner had not been stingy with the ammunition, and Kaplan meant to use it all.

Rish, Hamadi, and a few others had the presence of mind to notice that there was only one man firing at them. They maneuvered around and came up behind Kaplan. They rushed forward under the cover of the noise from Kaplan’s gun and the whistling of the wind and fell on him from behind.

The Israelis on the hill heard his screams above the wind as clearly as if he had been in the next trench. He was taking a long time to die, and his screams had the dual effect—as is usually the case—of strengthening the resolve of the defiant ones and shaking the will of the faint-hearted.

Hausner took the PA microphone and screamed into it. His voice carried into the wind and down to the city wall. “Rish! Hamadi! You are animals! You are subhumans! I’ll rip your balls off, Rish! When I get you, I’ll rip your balls off?” Hausner’s screams became shrill and took on a frenzied quality, almost indistinguishable from the agonized shrieks of Moshe Kaplan or the wild baying of the jackals which had begun again around the base of the mound.

Men and women on the hill looked away from one another as Hausner howled, bellowed, and roared with primeval sounds mixed with the most vulgar and obscene threats and invectives that anyone could imagine. The man had clearly lost control.

Someone—it sounded like Burg—took the microphone from Hausner and shouted words of encouragement and comfort to Kaplan. It did little good. The man continued to die slowly and horribly.

The Israelis began probing fire down the slope. The few remaining Molotov cocktails were thrown out into the night to try to illuminate the slope, but the wind and the sand smothered them before they could burn for very long.

The last of the Ashbals, fewer than forty, came up the slope in pairs, spread far apart. The wind pushed at their backs, driving them onward. The sand and dust masked their movements, while the noise of the wind covered their sounds. Even their muzzle flashes couldn’t be seen clearly in the blinding dust.

The Israelis bailed sand from their shredded defenses and began returning the fire. AK-47’s began jamming almost immediately, but specially trained teams ran up and down the line field stripping the malfunctioning rifles and swabbing them with lubricants from the Concorde. Still, the sand took its toll of guns on both sides, but more so among the defenders who lacked the cleaning and protective paraphernalia of the Ashbals.