Triple (30 page)

Ken Folleff

Dickstein's room on the house phone, let it ring twice, then hang up.

It rang a second time. Rostov and Tyrin stood still, silent waiting.

It rang

They rel ed.

It stopped after the seventh ring.

Rostov said, "I wish he had a car for us to bug."

"I've got a shirt button."

'NVhat?"

"A bug like a shirt button."

"I didn't know such things existed."

441tts new.19

"Got a needle? And thread?"

"Of course."

'Then go ahead."

Tyrin went to Dickstein7s case and without taking the shirt out snipped

off the second button, carefully removing all the loose thread. With a

few swift strokes he sewed on the new button. His pudgy hands were

surprisingly dexterous.

Rostov watched but his thoughts were elsewhere. He wanted desperately to

do more to ensure that he would hear what Dickstein said and did. The

Israeli might find the bugs in the phone and the headboard; he would not

wear the bugged shirt all the time. Rostov liked to be sure of things,

and Dickstein was maddeningly slippery: there was nowhere you could hook

on to him Rostov had harbored a faint hope that somewhere in this room

there would be a photograph of someone Dickstein loved.

"There." Tyrin showed him his handiwork. The shirt was plain white nylon

with the commonest sort of white button. The new one was

indistinguishable from the others.

"Good," Rostov said. "Close the case."

Tyrin did so. "Anything else?"

"Take another quick look around for telltales. I can't believe Dickstein

would go out without taking any precautions at all."

They searched again, quickly, silently, their movements practiced and

economical, showing no signs of the haste they both felt. There were

dozens of ways of planting telitales. A hair lightly stuck across the

crack of the door was the most simple; a scrap of paper jammed against

the back of a 168

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drawer would fall out when the drawer was opened; a lump of sugar,under

a thick carpet would be silently crushed by a footstep; a penny behind the

lining of a suitcase Rd would slide from front to back if the case were

opened

They found nothing.

Rostov said, "All Israelis are paranoid. Why should he be different?"

"Maybe hes been pulled out."

Rostov grunted. "Why else would he suddenly get carelessT,

"He could have fallen in love," Tyrin suggested.

Rostov laughed. "Sure," he said. "And Joe Stalin could have been

canonized by the Vatican. Lets get out of here."

He went out, and Tyrin followed, closing the door softly behind him.

So it was a woman.

Pierre Borg was shocked, amazed, mystified, intrigued and deeply worried.

Dickstein never had women.

Borg sat on a park bench under an umbrella. He had been unable to think

in the Embassy, with phones ringing and people asking him questions all

the time, so he had come out here, despite the weather. The rain blew

across the empty park in sheets, and every now and then a drop would land

on the tip of his cigar and he would have to relight it.

It was the tension in Dickstein that made the man so fierce. The last

thing Borg wanted was for him to learn how to relax.

The pavement artists had followed Dickstein to a small apartment house

in Chelsea where he had met a woman. "Irs a sexual relationship," one of

them had said. "I heard her orgasm." The caretaker of the building had

been interviewed, but he knew nothing about the woman except,that she was

a close friend of the people who owned the apartment.

11e obvious conclusion was that Dickstein owned the flat (and had bribed

the caretaker to lie); that he used it as a rendezvous; that he met

someone from the opposition, a woman; that they made love and he told her

secrets.

Borg might have bought that idea if he had found out about the woman some

other way. But if Dickstein had suddenly become a traitor he would not

have allowed Borg to

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become suspicious. He was too clever. He would have covered his tracks.

He wduld not have led thepavement artists straight to the flat without

once looking over his shoulder. His behavior had innocence written all

over it He had met with Borg, looldng like the cat that got at the cream,

either not knowing or not caring that his mood was all over his face. When

Borg asked what was going on, Dickstein made jokes. Borg was bound to have

him tailed. Hours later Dickstein was screwing some girl who liked it so

much you could hear her out in the fucking street. The whole thing was so

damn nalve it had to be true.

AJI right, then. Some woman had found a way to get past Dickstein!s

defenses and seduce him. Dickstein was reacting like a teenager because

he never had a teenage. The important question was, who was she?

The Russians had Illes, too, and they ought to have assumed, like Borg,

that Dickstein was invulnerable to a sexual approach. But maybe they

thought it was worth a try. And maybe they were right.

Once again, Borg's instinct was to pull Dickstein out immediately. And

once again, he hesitated. If it had been any project other than this one,

any agent other than Dickstein, he would have known what to do. But

Dickstein was the only man who could solve this problem. Borg had no

option but to stick to his original scheme: wait until Dickstein had

fully conceived his plan, then pull him out.

He could at least have the Loondon Station investigate the woman and find

out all they could about her.

meanwhile he would just have to hope that if she were an agent Dickstein

would have the sense not to tell her anything

It would be a dangerous time, but there was no more Borg could do.

His cigar went out, but he hardly noticed. The park was completely

deserted now. Borg sat on his bench, his body uncharacteristically still,

holding the umbrella over his head, looking ble a statue, worrying

himself to deatIL

I'he fun was over, Dickstein told himself: it was time to get back to

work.

Entering his hotel room at ten o'clock in the morning, he realized

that-incredibly-he had left no telitales. For the first time in twenty

years as an agent, he had simply forgot-

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ten to take elementary precautions. He stood in the doorway, looking

around, thinking about the shattering effect that she had had on him

Leaving her and going back to work was like climbing into a familiar car

which has been garaged for a year: be had to let the old habits, the old

instincts, the old paranoia seep back into his mind.

He went into the bathroom and ran a tub. He now had a kind of emotional

breathing-space. Suza was going back to work today. She was with BOAC,

and this tour of duty would take her all the way around the world. She

expected to be back in twenty-one days, but it might be longer. He had

no idea where he might be in three weeks' time; which meant he did not

know when he would see her again. But see her again he would, if he

lived.

Everything looked different now, past and future. The last twenty years

of his life seemed dull, despite the fact that he had shot people and

been shot at, traveled all over the world, disguised himself and deceived

people and pulled off outrageous, clandestine coups. It all seemed

trivial.

Sitting in the tub he wondered what he would do with the rest of his

life. He had decided he would not be a spy anymore-but what would he be?

It seemed an possibilities were open to him. He could stand for election

to the Knesset, or start his own business, or simply stay on the kibbutz

and make the best wine in Israel. Would he marry Suza? If he did, would

they five in Israel? He found the uncertainty delicious, like wondering

what you would be given for your birthday.

If I live, he thought Suddenly there was even more at stake. He was

afraid to die. Until now death had been something to avoid with all skill

only because it constituted, so to speak, a losing move in the game. Now

he wanted desperately to live: to sleep with Suza again, to make a home

with her, to learn all about her, her idiosyncracies and her habits and

her secrets, the books she liked and what she thought about Beethoven and

whether she snored.

It would be terrible to lose his life so soon after she had saved it.

He got out of the bath, rubbed himself dry and dressed. The way to keep

his life was to win this fight.

His next move was a phone call. He considered the hotel

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phone, decided to start being extra careful here and now, and went out to

find a call box.

The weather had changed. Yesterday had emptied the sky of rain, and now

it was pleasantly sunny and warm. He passed the phone booth nearest to

the hotel and went on to the next one: extra careful. He looked up Lloy&s

of London in the directory and dialed their number.

"Lloyd's, good morning."

'I need some information about a ship."

"rhaes Lloyd's of London Press,-I'll put you through."

While he waited Dickstein looked out the windows of the phone booth at

the London traffic, and wondered whether Lloyd's would give him what he

wanted. He hoped so-he could not think where else to go for the

information. He tapped his foot nervously.

"Lloyd's of London Press."

"Good morning, rd like some information about a ship."

"What sort of informatio'nr, the voice said, with-Dickstein thought-a

trace of suspicion.

"I want to know whether she was built as part of a series; and if so, the

names of her sister ships, who owns them, and their present locations.

Plus plans, if possible."

'I'm afraid I can't help you there."

Dickstein's heart sank. "Why not?"

"We don't keep plans, that's Lloyd's Register, and they only give them

out to owners."

"But the other information? The sister ships?"

"Can't help you there either."

Dickstein wanted to get the man by the throat. "'Men who can?"

"We're the only people who have such information."

"And you keep it secretr'

"We don't give it out over the phone."

"Wait a minute, you mean you can!t help me over the phone."

"Tbaes right.-

"But you can if I write or call personally."

"Um. . . . yes, this inquiry shouldn't take too long, so you could call

personally."

"Give me the address." He wrote it down. "And you could get these details

while I wait?"

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"I think so."

"All right. IM give you the name of the ship now, and you should have a

the information ready by the time I get there. Her name is CopareM." He

spelled it

"And your namer'

"Ed Rodgers."

6611ie company?"

"Science InternWianal."

"Will you want us to bill the company?"

"No, rll pay by personal check."

"So long as you have some identification."

"Of course. I'll be there in an hour. Goodbye."

Dickstein hung up and left the phone booth, thinking: Thank God for that.

He crossed the road to a caf6 and ordered coffee and a sandwich.

He had lied to Borg, of course- he knew exactly how he would hijack the

Coparelli. He would buy one of the sister ships-if there were such-and

take his team on to meet the Coparell! at sea~ After the hijack, instead

of the dicey business of transferring the cargo from one ship to another

offshore, he would sink his own ship and transfer its papers to the

Coparellt. He would also paint out the Coparelli's name and over it put

the name of the sunken sister ship. And then he would sail what would

appear to be his own ship into Haifa.

This was good, but it was still only the rudiments of a plan. What would

he do about the crew of the Coparelli? How would the apparent loss of the

Coparelli be explained? How would he avoid an international inquiry into

the loss at sea of tons of uranium ore?

The more he thought about it, the bigger this last problem seemed. There

would be a major search for any large ship which was thought to have

sunk. With uranium aboard, the search would attract publicity and

consequently be even more thorough. And what if the searchers found not

the Coparelli but the sister ship which was supposed to belong to Dick-

stein?

He chewed over the problem for a while without coming up with any

answers. There were still too many unknowns in the equation. Either the

sandwich or the problem had stuck in his stomach: he took an indigestion

tablet.

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