Ultimatum (6 page)

The Minister of Economy and Finance reminded the meeting that in exchange for the supply of Pluton, France had secured from the Syrian Government oil concessions of the utmost importance: a contract to develop the recently discovered Syrian oilfields and to receive from that rich source an assured supply at an advantageous price during the first five years of production. ‘The health of the French economy, its planned re-development, is wholly dependent upon sustaining oil supplies in the long term at prices substantially lower than those established by OPEC. Abrogate this agreement and you do irreparable damage to the fabric of France’s economic structure.’

The Minister of the Interior supported him. ‘This incident, the knowledge that Pluton in limited numbers is going to Syria, has been magnified out of all proportion by the international media and by governments, friendly and unfriendly, who sense the possibility of diplomatic advantage. In a few weeks it will be seen for what it is and forgotten. It is no more than a rational step by France to protect her economy, and maintain the balance of power in the Middle East.’ He paused, conscious of his timing. ‘It is also a calculated attempt by Israel to create a situation aimed at preventing Syria from achieving parity in tactical nuclear weapons.’

The Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed the view that, when the weapons were handed over to representatives of the Syrian Government in Marseille, French responsibility had ended. Every possible precaution had been taken to keep the agreement secret, he said. That was why the missiles and their nuclear warheads had been described as ‘agricultural machinery’ and despatched to Beirut, a Lebanese port, instead of to Latakia, the principal port of Syria.

The French Prime Minister, who had been persuaded against his better judgement to agree to the supply of Pluton, had shaken his head emphatically. ‘Responsibility for
introducing
these weapons into the Middle East belongs in both moral and realistic terms to France. It did so the moment we agreed to supply. No words, no sentiments, no denials, can in any way diminish that responsibility. There is nothing to be gained by deluding ourselves. We have now to face the reality of what has happened.’

The French Cabinet discussed the realities well into the night without arriving at any particularly helpful
conclusions
.

The
Leros
arrived off the Piraeus well after dark on October 13th and anchored in the Bay of Athens. Next day the pilot boarded and, on a fine morning under a blue sky where feathered clouds reflected the rising sun, she entered the port and went alongside. Stevedores swarmed aboard, the hatches were opened and unloading began.

The passenger from Beirut seemed in no hurry to leave although he’d had his passport stamped by the immigration officer in the ship’s dining-saloon. Instead, he stood at the after end of the boat-deck, his leather travel-bag at his feet. Leaning on the guardrail, he could see both along the quay and, obliquely, into number 3 hold.

The cabin steward who’d looked after him passed, balancing a tray on one hand. ‘Not going ashore yet, m’sieu?’ He smiled sympathetically. The Frenchman had tipped well.

‘Waiting for a friend. He’s coming to pick me up. It’s nice loafing in the sun.’

‘You are right, m’sieu. I wish I could.’ The steward waved his free hand and disappeared down a companion ladder.

The passenger was not waiting for a friend but he was interested in the cargo being discharged from number 3 hold which he watched discreetly from the corner of his eye. It was only after a crane had hoisted the large hessian-wrapped bale from the hold and transferred it to the quay that he began to think of moving. When he’d seen the bale picked up by a fork-lift truck and carried into the transit shed, he took his bag and raincoat and went down the passenger gangway to the quay. In the shed he produced an Algerian passport at the customs barrier. The customs officer checked his appearance against the photograph, noted the name, Simon
Dufour, searched perfunctorily through the travel-bag and scrawled on it with white chalk. ‘Okay,’ he said nodding curtly as he handed it back.

The bearded passenger went through the exit, down the steps into the sunlight. He walked across to a line of waiting taxis. To the driver at its head he said, ‘Constitution Square,’ and opened a back door. As he climbed in he slammed it unintentionally. ‘Pardon,’ he said. ‘My mistake.’

The driver grunted something uncomplimentary, let out the clutch and the taxi moved off.

For Tel Aviv the drab, weather-stained building was old. At least thirty years old. Characterless in grey concrete, grubby, neglected and paint-blistered, it looked more. It was in a side street in the Montefiore area between the Jaffa and Shalma roads.

The ground floor windows were boarded up, the entrance doors locked and barred on the inside. Here and there graffiti competed with remnants of old posters long since eroded by sun, wind and rain. The windows of the upper floors had not been cleaned for years and behind them
sun-bleached
blinds shut out what little light might otherwise have penetrated.

It was only the back of the building which showed signs of occupancy. There the upper floor windows were clean, though drawn venetian blinds effectively concealed what was happening behind them. Not that anyone outside could have seen. The blank back of a red-brick building, fronting on to the street on the far side of the block, obscured the view.

The backs of these two buildings were separated by a rectangular patch of sand where an old fig tree struggled for existence. The rectangle was shut in by the windowless flanks of adjoining buildings. Near the fig tree an old wheelbarrow, a decaying oil drum and the rusted remains of a bicycle lay in the yard. The only way into the concrete building was across the yard, and the only access to the yard was through a steel door in the back of the red-brick building.
Anyone making the journey did so through a complicated series of internal passages and locked steel doors overseered by security guards.

Few but the initiated knew that beneath the concrete building there was an underground complex, bomb and radiation proof, with its own generators, life support and communications systems. It was the Headquarters of Israeli Intelligence.

In an office on the second floor two men sat talking on opposite sides of a desk. The elder had crew-cut grey hair and a lean weather-tanned face. The younger was sleek and round. His ingenuous features and enquiring eyes suggested a mildness which did not belong. He was second-in-command to the man to whom he was listening, General Jakob Kahn, Director of Israeli Intelligence. The general had distinguished himself as a brigade commander in the Five-Day War, and as a divisional commander in the October War. On both occasions the younger man, Bar Mordecai, had been on his staff.

‘We do know,’ said Kahn, ‘that our forces had nothing to do with the attack on Shed 27. We did not know – and I accept responsibility for this – that the Pluton consignment had already left France.’

Mordecai nodded in agreement. ‘Nor did we know that they would get nuclear warheads with the first delivery – or at all. Kuper reported they’d get conventional explosive warheads, at least until they’d completed familiarization training. Even then, he said there was doubt in the French Cabinet about supplying nuke warheads unless we deployed ours.’

Jakob Kahn shifted the cheroot from one side of his mouth to the other. ‘In fairness to Kuper he has a hell of a job in Paris. Security at Aerospatiale and the Ministry is
exceptionally
tight. In the circumstances he’s doing well.’

‘Of course, I agree.’ In a characteristic gesture Mordecai stroked his sleek head of hair as if he were brushing it with his hand, ‘But what do you make of the Syrian allegation that the attack on the shed was an Israeli operation? We
know it wasn’t. So what’s behind it? Salamander confirms there
was
an attack. Five Syrian officers
were
killed. And the sixth body? Who was he? We know he wasn’t an Israeli.’

Kahn waved his cheroot in wide circles. ‘There are two possibilities. First, the whole thing may have been set up by the Syrians themselves.’

‘Isn’t that stretching it a bit far? Killing five of their own officers. Hi-jacking their own equipment.’

‘Of course. But what could be more convincing? It would be worth sacrificing six of your own men if the stakes were high enough. And they are.’

‘Six?’

‘Yes. For the purpose of this hypothesis the dead body was another Syrian officer. This time with an Israeli identity disc, phoney Israeli documents in his pocket, and a face slashed beyond recognition. That’s an easy set-up.’

‘Motive, Jakob?’ Mordecai was pretty sure he knew the answer but he liked flying kites. Kahn would shoot them down.

‘To throw a spanner in Kissinger’s works. To destroy the détente he’s trying to set up between Israel and Egypt. The Syrians suspect Kissinger’s is a wedge-driving operation.’ Kahn stubbed out the cheroot, took another from the packet on his desk. ‘Filthy habit,’ he said. ‘But I enjoy them.’

Mordecai shook his head disapprovingly. ‘It’ll kill you before the Arabs do, Jakob. You mentioned two possibilities. What was the other?’

‘Yes. It’s the more probable. Who in the Arab world has the greatest need to block Kissinger’s efforts?’

‘The Palestine liberation movement.’

‘Sure. A successful détente would leave both Syria and Palestine isolated. Unable to exert pressure on Israel for their own ends. But it’s not the PLO. Arafat wouldn’t do it that way. Even the El Fatah attack on a Tel Aviv tourist hotel was out of character for him. That was the PLO’s attempt to neutralize Kissinger. But Arafat wouldn’t deliberately kill Syrian army officers or risk an operation like
the attack on Shed 27. The consequences for the PLO if that failed would have been disastrous.’

‘So it was an extremist splinter group?’

‘Yes.’ Kahn nodded vigorously. ‘Habash’s MPF, or Hawatemeh’s PDF or,’ he paused, staring at Mordecai, ‘for my money, Mahmoud el Ka’ed’s SAS. Ka’ed wouldn’t hesitate to do something like that if he thought it would kill an Egypt-Israeli détente.’

‘So what do you tell the PM and CGS at tonight’s
meeting
?’

Kahn stood up, went to the corner, filled a glass with water from a carafe, came back. ‘Several things. First, exactly what I’ve told you. They must make their own choice. The Prime Minister has superb political intuition. Let’s see how he rates the possibles and probables. Second, whatever the motive for the incident, the nuclear warhead is now in the hands of the people who hi-jacked it. The high probability is that it’s the Palestinians. What are they going to do with it? That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. They’ve got physicists. They know the technology. It’s my belief they’ll use that bomb – use it in Israel, because we’re right next door and we’re target number one. With it they can take out Tel Aviv or Haifa. That’s my appreciation of the situation.’

Mordecai said, ‘I’ve been thinking that for some time. But I didn’t want to put it into words.’

Kahn stood up. ‘There’s another thing the Prime Minister and CGS have got to decide pretty soon.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Syrians have got Pluton. So now they have nuclear capability. We’d better confirm what the world suspects – tell them straight or leak it – that we’ve got it too. Project
MD-660
. No need to tell them it has four times the range of Pluton. Russian and US intelligence already know that. We can take out Cairo, Damascus, Beirut and Amman if they are looking for that sort of fight.’

‘It’s been rumoured for some months that we’ve got nuclear capability.
The
Times
report on October 12th mentioned it.’

‘A rumour’s one thing, Bar. If we confirm it they’re not going to use Pluton unless they’re crazy. But that’s a decision for the Prime Minister.’

The
Times
report on October 12th was followed by
world-wide
condemnation of France’s action in supplying nuclear weapons to the Middle East. The French Government’s defence that Israel had already developed a nuclear capability of her own, and that the Soviet Union would have supplied Syria had France not done so, was brushed aside.

In a leading article the editor of the
New
York
Times
declared:
The
enormity
of
the
moral
offence
can
only
be
matched
by
the
consequences
likely
to
flow
from
it.

The unusual shape these consequences were to take, the speed with which they were to follow, were soon to astonish the leader writer.

The Soviet Government, quick to join hounds baying at the heels of the hunted, requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council …
to
take
immediate
steps
to
preclude
the
proliferation
of
nuclear
weapons
in
the
Middle
East.
By way of a sop to Arab opinion, and to ensure that France and Israel were not let too easily off the hook, it added …
and
to
censure
the
French
and
Israeli
Governments
for
their
grossly
irres
ponsible
imperialistic
actions. 

In a statement issued the next day the Israeli Government reiterated its denial of Israeli complicity in the happenings at Beirut Port on the night of October 5th/6th.

‘On the contrary,’ the statement continued, ‘the incident was clearly a desperate attempt by Palestinian terrorists to block progress towards a détente between Israel and Egypt.’

Israel endorsed the call for a meeting of the Security Council and censured France for initiating the supply of nuclear weapons to the Middle East.

World opinion appeared to attach little credence to the
Israeli counter-charge which Yasir Arafat had quickly repudiated on behalf of the PLO in particular and the Palestine liberation movement in general. Indeed, there was widespread agreement that the Israelis had been responsible for the attack on Beirut Port.

In Washington, the President announced that France’s action in supplying nuclear weapons to Syria would compel the United States to consider making such weapons available to Israel in order to maintain the balance of power. ‘Nothing is more likely to provoke aggression,’ said the President, ‘than the knowledge that you have a nuclear capability and your opponent has not.’

The British Government, with characteristic phlegm, urged calmness and caution, stressing that everything possible should be done to preclude a nuclear build-up in the Middle East. It supported the Soviet Union’s call for a meeting of the Security Council knowing, as did the other Governments concerned, that France would veto any resolution critical of her policy.

On October 14th
Le
Monde
announced that its correspondent in Beirut, Pierre Gamin, had been arrested by Lebanese security police on October 7th and held incommunicado ever since. The paper recalled that Gamin had, on the day of his arrest, telephoned a report of the incident of 5th/6th October and that it was he who had first revealed that France had supplied the consignment now known to be nuclear arms.
Le
Monde
urged the French Government to exert pressure to secure his release. ‘He has committed no crime,’ wrote its editor, ‘unless truth itself be a crime.’

Which excellent point was unlikely to carry much weight with the French Government, considering how angry it was with Pierre Gamin.

Three days after the
Leros
arrived in the Piraeus, the bearded man with the scarred neck walked out of the Attica Palace
Hotel and set off on foot for Constitution Square. It was almost eleven o’clock and the sun was well up in a cloudless sky. When he reached the Square he sat at a table drinking coffee, watching the passers-by. He was early and it was pleasant sitting there basking in the sun. With much tension behind him, and more to come, he found it curiously
soothing
; the patches of shade cast by lemon, casuarina and cypress trees, the sponge sellers, curio and lottery-ticket pedlars, and the bustle of people and traffic.