Triple (8 page)

TRIPLE

in Damascus; the time before, blackmailing a wealthy Arab in Monte Carlo to

stop him funding the Fedayeen.

Dickstein's feelings had been pushed into the background while Borg talked

about politics and Schulz and nuclear reactors. Now he was reminded that

this involved him; and the fear came back, and with it a memory. After his

father died the family had been desperately poor, and when creditors

called, Nat had been sent to the door to say mummy was out. At the age of

thirteen, he had found it unbearably humiliating, because the creditors

knew he was lying, and he knew they knew, and they would look at him with

a mixture of contempt and pity which pierced him to the quick. He would

never forget that feeling-and it came back, like a reminder from his

unconscious, when somebody like Borg said something like, "Little

Nathaniel, go steal some uranium for your motherland."

To his mother he had always said, "Do I have to?" And now he said to Pierre

Borg, "If we're going to steal it any~-way, why not buy it and simply

refuse to send it back for reprocessing?"

"Because that way, everyone would know what we're up tO.,V

"SO?"

"Reprocessing takes time-many months. During that time two things could

happen: one, the Egyptians would hurry their program; and two, the

Americans would pressure us not to build the bomb."

"Oh!" It was worse. "So you want me to steal this stuff without anyone

knowing that it's us."

"More than that." Borg's voice was harsh and throaty. "Nobody must even

know it's been stolen. It must look as if the stuff has just been lost. I

want the owners, and the international agencies, to be so embarrassed about

the stuff disappearing that they will hush it up. Then, when they discover

they've been robbed, they will be corhpromised by their own cover-up.90

"It's bound to come out eventually."

"Not before we've got our bomb."

They had reached the coast road from Haifa to Tel Aviv, and as the car

butted through the night Oickstein could see, over to the right, occasional

glimpses of the Mediterranean, glinting like jewelry in the moonlight. When

he spoke he was

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Ken Falloff

surprised at the note of weary resignation in his voice. "How much uranium

do we need?"

"They want twelve bombs. In the yellowcake form-that's the uranium oro--it

would mean about a hundred tons."

"I won't -be able to slip it into my pocket, then." Dickstein frowned.

'Vhat would all that cost if we bought it2"

"Something over one million U.S. dollars."

"And you think the losers will just hush it up?"

"If it's done right"

"Howr

"That's your job, Pirate."

-rm not so sure its possible," Dickstein said.

"It's got to be. I told the Prime Minister we could pun it off. I laidray

career on the line, Nat."

"Don't talk to me about your bleeding career."

Borg Ht another cigar-a nervous reaction to Dickstein's scorn. Dickstein

opened his window an inch to let the smoke out. His sudden hostility bad

nothing to do with Borg's clumsy personal appeal: that was typical of the

man's inability to understand how people felt toward him What had unnerved

Dickstein was a sudden vision of mushroom clouds over Jerusalem and Cairo,

of cotton fields by the Nile and vineyards beside the Sea of Galilee

blighted by fallout, the Middle East wasted by fire, its children deformed

for generation&

He said, "I still think peace is an alternative."

Borg shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I don't get involved in politics."

"Btillshit."

Borg sighed. "Look, if they have a bomb, we have to have one too, don't

we?"

"If that was all there was to it, we could just hold a press conference,

announce that the Egyptians are making a bomb, and let the rest of the

world stop them. I think our people want the bomb anyway. I think they're

glad of the excuse."

"And maybe they're right!" Borg said. "We can't go on fighting a war every

few years-one of these days we might lose one."

"We could make peace."

Borg snorted. "You're so fucking naive."

"If we gave way on a few things-the Occupied Territories, the Law of

Return, equal rights for Arabs in Israel---~'

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'Me Arabs have equal rights."

Dickstein smiled mirtblessly. "You!re so fucking naive."

"Llstenr' Borg made an effort at self-control. Dickstein understood his

anger: it was a reaction he had in common with many Lu-aea They thought

that if these liberal ideas should ever take hold, they would be the thin

edge of the wedge, and concession would follow concession until the land

was handed back to the Arabs on a plate-and that prospect struck at the

very roots of their identity. "Listen," Borg said again. "Maybe we should

sell our birthright for a mess of potage. But this is the real world, and

the people of this country won't vote for peace-at-any-price; and in your

heart you know that the Arabs aren't in any great hurry for peace either.

So, in the real world, we still have to fight them; and if we're going

to fight them we'd better win; and if we're to be sure of winning, you'd

better steal us some uranium."

Dickstein said, "Me thing I dislike most about you i16 you're usually

right."

Borg wound down his window and threw away the stub of his cigar. It made

a trail of sparks on the road, like a firecracker. The lights of Tel Aviv

became visible ahead: they were almost them

Borg said, "You know, with most of my people I don!t feel obliged to

argue politics every time I give them an assignment. They just take

orders, like operatives are supposed to."

"I don7t believe you," Dickstein said. "116 is a nation of idealists, or

it!s nothing."

"Maybe."

"I once knew a man called Wolfgang. He used to say, 'I just take

orders.'Then he used to break my leg."

"Yeah," Borg said. "You told me."

When a company hires an accountant to keep the books, the first thing he

does is announce that he has so much work to do on the overall direction

of the company's financial policy that he needs to hire a junior

accountant to keep the books. Something similar happens with spies. A

country sets up an intelligence service to find out how many tanks its

neighbor has and where they are kept, and before you can say MI5 the

intelligence service announces that it is so busy spying on subversive

elements at home that a separate service is needed to deal with military

intelligence.

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Ken Folleff

So it was in Egypt in 1955. The country's fledgling intelllgence service

was divided into two directorates. Military Intelligence had the job of

counting Israel's tanks; General Investigations had all the glamor.

The man in charge of both these directorates was called the Director of

General Intelligence, just to be confusing; and he was supposed-in

theory-to report to the Minister of the Interior. But another thing that

always happens to spy departments is that the Head of State tries to take

them over. There am two reasons for this. One is that the spies are

continually hatching lunatic schemes of murder, blackmail and invasion

which can be terribly embarrassing if they ever get off the ground, so.

Presidents and Prime Ministers like to keep a personal eye on such

departments. The other reason is that intelligence services are a source

of power, especially in unstable countries, and the Head of State wants

that power for himselL

So the Director of General Intelligence in Cairo always, in practice,

reported either to the President or to the Minister of State at the

Presidency.

Kawash, the tall Arab who interrogated and killed Towfik and subsequently

gave the personnel dosimeter to Pierre Borg, worked in the Directorate

of General Investigations, the glamorous civilian half of the service.

He was an intenigent and dignified man of great integrity, but he was

also deeply religious,--to the point of mysticism. His was the solid,

powerful kind of mysticism which could support the most unlikely-not to

say bizarre--beliefs about the real world. He adhered to a brand of

Christianity which held that the return of the Jews to the Promised Land

was ordained in the Bible, and was a portent of the end of the world. To

work against the return was therefore a sin; to work for it, a holy task.

This was why Kawash was a double agent.

The work was all he had. His faith had led him into the secret life, and

there he had gradually cut himself off from friends, neighbors, and-with

exceptions-family. He had no personal ambitions except to go to heaven.

He lived ascetically, his only earthly pleasure being to score points in

the espionage game. He was a lot like Pierre Borg, with this difference:

Kawash was happy.

At present, though, he was troubled. So far be was losing points in the

affair which had begun with Professor Schulz,

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TRIPLE

and this depressed him. The problem was that the Qattara project was being

run not by General Investigations but by the other half of the

intelligence effort-Military Intelligence. However, Kawash had fasted and

meditated, and in the long watches of the night he had developed a scheme

for penetrating the secret project

He had a second cousin, Assam, who worked in the office of the Director

of General Intelligence-the body which coordinated Military Intelligence

and General Investigations. Assam was mom senior than Kawash, but Kawash

was smarter.

Ile two cousins sat in the back room of a small, dirty coffee house near

the Sherif Pasha in the heat of the day, drinking lukewarm lime cordial

and blowing tobacco smoke at the fUe& They looked alike in their

lightweight suits and Nasser mustaches. Kawash wanted to use Assam to

find out about Qattara. He had devised a plausible line of approach which

he thought Assam would go for, but he knew he had to put the matter very

delicately in order to win Assam's support. He appeared his usual

imperturbable self, despite the anxiety he felt inside.

He began by seeming to be very direct. "My cousin, do you know what is

happening at Qattara?"

A rather furtive look came over Assam's handsome face. "If you don't

know, I can't tell you."

Kawash shook his head, as it Assam had misunderstood him. "I don't want

you to reveal secrets. Besides, I can guess what the project is." This

was a Ile. "What bothers me is that Maraji has control of it."

66 whyr

"For your sake. Im thinking of your career."

-rm not worried---~'

'Then you should be. Maraji wants your job, you must know that."

The Wit proprietor brought a dish of olives and two flat loaves of pita

bread. Kawash was silent until he went on. He watched Assam as the man's

natural insecurity fed on the lie about MamjL

Kawash continued, "Maraji is reporting directly to the Minister, I

gather."

"I see all the documents, though," Assam said defensively.

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