Retribution (2 page)

“The terrorists who don’t want this treaty put into effect know they’ve already lost Holland. It’s the first Common Market
country to agree—but only the first. If they can make the Dutch suffer for it, other countries will think twice before announcing
their intention to sign.”

“Hit the tourist trade?” Charley suggested.

“That’s what I think,” Malleson agreed, “and that’s why the Dutch government is not linking these killings to its announcenent
to sign, saying that the murders are senseless and the work of a madman. They go to the trouble of stating that they can find
no political motivation, which is bullshit. They don’t want Americans to cancel their trips. It was bad enough last year,
when so many American tourists stayed away. If the vacationers’ dollars don’t come in again this summer, the Dutch treasury
will feel the pinch.”

“That would explain why they went after Americans instead of Dutch people,” Charley said. “Do you think it’s the Belgian Communist
Fighting Cells or the
German Red Army Faction or some Dutch group of terrorists who did it?”

“The newspapers don’t report it, but the story is that the killers left a star and crescent scrawled in blood. That could
make them Iranians or Arabs or anyone in sympathy with them.”

“Or someone who wants the authorities to think he is.”

“Maybe,” Malleson allowed. “Anyway I’m going to look into it. This looks like just the start of things. There may be something
for Richard in this. Is he still up in Maine?”

“Yes. I suppose I should nose around too.” Charley Woodgate was Richard Dartley’s uncle and he acted as contact for the professional
assassin. Herbert Malleson often served as Dartley’s paid intelligence and logistics expert. They had no doubt that Dartley’s
survival so far in his chosen career was a result of their joint efforts on his behalf—Woodgate’s careful screening of his
assignments and Malleson’s support systems. Dartley himself never allowed them to think otherwise.

They went on with their tasks in silence in the farmhouse kitchen, each buried in his own thoughts. When Malleson gathered
up his newspapers and announced he was going home, Woodgate asked him, “You think they’ll strike in Holland again?”

“Definitely, if only to show everyone that the Hallorans’ deaths were not an isolated, senseless act. They will want their
message to come across loud and clear.”

Charley grimaced. Malleson had an eerie talent for predicting future events.

English was the only common language shared by the Dutch military intelligence agent and the Israeli colonel who met his flight
at Tel Aviv. They both spoke it well. Gerrit van Gilder did not reveal his rank, which made Colonel Yitzhak Bikel wonder if
the Dutchman ranked lower than him or very much outranked him. He suspected the latter. Van Gilder also would not want to
make it look like Dutch intelligence had to send a very senior man on what was only a routine job for the Israelis, something
that could safely be entrusted to a colonel.

Driving in from the airport, Bikel briefed van Gilder. “The June 4–New Arab Social Front, which made the threats against your
government, is a breakaway group from the PLO. They’re anti-Arafat and pro-Syrian. They probably skim money from most of the
Arab oil-producing countries in a sort of protection racket and then buy arms on the free market.”

Van Gilder said impatiently, “They didn’t send me down here on a background study, Colonel. We want action. I’d like to be
back in Amsterdam tonight with something to show for my trip.”

Bikel smiled. The Dutchman did not realize what a compliment he was paying the Israelis by having these expectations. Or maybe
he did, and this was what was making him a little irritable. Holland had to come to Israel for help.

The colonel said, “The Front’s operational headquarters are in a building at the southern edge of Ain Khilwe, a Palestinian
district of Sidon.”

Van Gilder knew that the port of Sidon was less than two hundred kilometers away, north along the coast of Lebanon. “I want
to go.”

That’s not possible. We could not risk a non-Jewish Dutch national falling into our enemies’ hands from a downed Israeli aircraft.
Your queen would have to apologize to them. We would look bad.”

“But I must see that the building is destroyed,” van Gilder insisted.

“We will provide you with full-color aerial reconnaissance shots. Before and after.”

“How will I know it was the Front’s headquarters?”

“You will hear the complaints tomorrow at the United Nations in New York,” Colonel Bikel said patiently. “Of course they will
claim the building was a hospital or an orphanage.”

Three olive drab Huey Cobra helicopter gunships swept in from the sea in loose formation. They flew close to the tops of buildings
at more than 150 miles per hour, and were gone before anyone could fire on them. The gunships traveled over the outskirts
of Sidon, zeroing in on the Palestinian district of Ain Khilwe.

While one chopper raked the streets with the three-barrel 30mm gun in its turret, the other choppers attacked a two-story
building with rockets. The Cobra’s pair of stub wings carried four XM-159 pods, each
containing nineteen 2.75-inch rockets. The gunships swooped down on the building, over and over again, from all angles, the
rockets biting chunks out of the walls, filling the interior with orange flames and sending up a column of black smoke.

At one corner of the building the second floor collapsed down into the first. Men ran from inside out onto the street, their
clothes blazing on their backs, only to be cut down by the turret gun of the third Cobra.

Then, suddenly as they had come, the three gunships disappeared. They moved rapidly across the city outskirts once again,
this time by a different route, and flew far out to sea before turning south for Israel.

At Ain Khilwe, ambulances manned by armed militiamen raced to the scene of the disaster. Youths, many in their early teens,
their assault rifles on their backs, searched in the rubble, in the smoke and dust, for fathers, brothers, and friends. Some
shed tears of sorrow or rage. Most had fixed expressions on their faces.

Few noticed a high-flying jet, well out of range of their weapons. In its belly the lens of an automatic camera continually
clicked.

The senior civil servant looked up irritably from the papers on his desk as a subordinate came into his office. The man was
respectful and hesitant to disturb what he must have assumed were the complex and serious thoughts of his superior—which were
actually
occupied with what a gray rainy day it was in The Hague, just the kind of day to complete with a visit from his wife’s idiot
sister and her penniless husband.

“What do you want, van Heerden?” he snapped.

“The airlines are giving us trouble, sir. They want some kind of security cordon set up around Schiphol airport.”

“Schiphol
is
secure. There’s no better guarded airport in the world!”

“We know that, sir. So do the airlines. But the tourists don’t. The airport security is mostly plainclothes. The suggestion
is for some kind of visible cordon, in order to reassure everyone. Then the hotels out there jumped in too—they want to be
inside the cordon. The Hilton Schiphol, Ibis, and Sheraton.”

“What the hell do they want?” the senior man asked. “Tanks and uniformed troops?”

“That’s a good idea, sir.”

“No, it’s not. At all costs this must be played down. There is no threat and nothing to worry about. An isolated incident
occurred and the police have strong leads on the perpetrators. Nothing more.”

“We’ve already said that, sir, and no one believes us,” van Heerden said. “Our department spokesman told me that reporters
jeered him at this morning’s press conference. He wants me to ask you for some hard facts to release and some comment on Arab
terrorist threats made to the government.”

“Tell him there’s no truth to those rumors.”

“But, sir,” van Heerden insisted, “he doesn’t
know what to say anymore and he has to tell them something. He complains he knows absolutely nothing about what’s going on.”

The senior man smiled grimly. “That’s why he’s our spokesman.”

While it still drizzled heavily in The Hague, the rain had stopped in Amsterdam and the spring air had a warm, moist breath.
Potted geraniums stood on windowsills. Flaxen-haired young people cycled bicycles over the cobblestones. Bronze statues of
men on horseback and of kings looked at the horizon. Tourists stared at the tall gables of old houses with copper roofs. Sight-seeing
barges plied the canals.

Naim Shabaan kept the little yellow Renault circulating with the traffic, unhurriedly following a wide circle through the
area. Ali and Hasan were to take no action until they received his signal. Things needed to be exactly right. If not today,
they would act tomorrow— though he would be pleased to have finished here today because Holland was a small country, Amsterdam
a regional city, not somewhere easy to fade or blend into. He and the others were already receiving wary, though not hostile,
looks because of their Mediterranean appearance. It would be only a matter of time before one or more of them was stopped
by the police for an identity check. Their fake passports were top quality— Naim had no worries about that. None of the three
of them were wanted by the police in any country. They had nothing to fear. All the same, Naim wanted to be
somewhere big like Paris or London, where they would not stand out so much. But first he had work to complete in Holland.

He drove by the canal. Two pleasure launches and a sight-seeing boat moved slowly in his direction. He decided not to risk
waiting. A car parked here for any time might bring police attention. He put the Renault in first gear, eased out the clutch
pedal, and moved into the traffic again.

Hasan, Ali, and he were keeping apart. They had their instructions. Unless everything went exactly according to plan, they
were to do nothing. Hasan was reliable. Naim was worried about Ali. He had hardly spoken a word since hearing about his brother’s
death at Ain Khilwe, except to curse the Dutch and Americans, although the Israelis admitted that they were responsible for
the attack.

“The Dutch pigs asked them to do it,” Ali growled. “The Yankees dogs paid for it.”

Naim granted that he might be right. “All the same, we have our work to do and we cannot let private grief or rage affect
our judgment. I have to be able to rely on you wholly to obey my orders exactly, Ali, and not to try to strike in blind anger
at our enemies.”

Ali grunted and said nothing.

Naim decided that if Ali caused any trouble, he would execute him immediately and make it look like an Israeli hit. He missed
no opportunity to embarrass the Zionists. But first he would give Ali a chance. It had been Naim’s experience that someone
who enjoyed
life as much as Ali quickly recovered from mourning. To relieve Ali’s feelings, Naim had given him the chance to act first
today. But only on Naím’s signal…

He had completed another circuit in the city traffic and was back at the canal edge again—for the fifth time. A sight-seeing
barge, crowded with tourists, chugged placidly along. The barge had already passed the place at which he had pulled over the
Renault and would shortly pass beneath the arch of a picturesque bridge. Everything was exactly right.

Naim got out of the car, walked to the canal’s edge, and looked down into the water. He remained there motionless for some
moments, then walked quickly back to the car— just before the barge reached the bridge.

Hasan Shawa had no view of the canal or the bridge from where he sat in the café. He could see the quai edge on which it was
illegal to park. A few cars had stopped there from time to time, and the yellow Renault had stopped twice very briefly. Hasan
assumed it was Naim’s yellow Renault, although he could not be sure since his brother fighter had not emerged. Then, at last,
after so many cups of coffee, he saw the Renault stop and the door open. Naim got out and stood at the edge of the quai. Hasan
pulled out his money and put thirty guilders in notes on the table—too much money but better that than have an irate waiter
chase after him. He tensely watched Naim stand looking down at the water. When Naim turned back toward the car, Hasan
rose quickly from the table and hurried out of the café. Everything had been worked out and carefully timed.

He saw Ali on the other side of the bridge, just about to walk onto it. Under Ali’s arm was the large sketch pad on which
he had been rendering architectural details of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century houses while he waited. Hasan darted across
the street and walked onto the bridge. The yellow Renault was already approaching.

Looking over the bridge wall, Hasan saw the barge beneath. The front of the long narrow craft had not yet disappeared beneath
the arch. He slowed his steps. Ali was coming toward him on the same sidewalk. Naim said he was to let Ali go first.

Hasan slipped his right hand into his side pocket. He felt the two metal spheres there, each no bigger than a Ping-Pong ball
with a lever attached. They were painted military green, with white letters: NWM and V40-HE. Naim had gotten them someplace,
two for Hasan and two for Ali. Naim was amused that these V40 high-explosive fragmentation hand grenades were of Dutch manufacture,
made in ’s Hertogenbosch by NWM de Kruithoorn.

“You have a four-second delay,” Naim warned.

Hasan faced the bridge wall so that passersby would not see what he was doing as he took the two miniature grenades from his
pocket and held them in his right palm. He made sure that the two levers were pressed tightly against his hand. Ali was almost
beside him, and the barge with its load of tourists was passing
directly beneath them. Some looked up at them. When he saw Ali’s right arm raised, Hasan pulled back from the parapet to avoid
the blast. He heard two explosions, a fraction of a second apart, then a moment’s silence before the screams and shouts. He
looked over.

The V40 contained prefragmented metal and had a lethal radius of five meters and a maximum effective zone of twenty-five meters
from the point of detonation. Each grenade produced 400 to 500 fragments.