He waves his hand toward Marie. She sees him.
“Marc!”
She saunters over to him. There’s a lightness to her walk, exuding an unmistakable happiness.
She kisses him on both cheeks and sits close beside him. He feels the warmth come off her body.
“Is it safe for us to talk here?”
“It’s fine.”
“Jonathan told us about what you’re doing.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t worry, we’re all one hundred percent behind you. Minh Chau, Mathieu, and Leyna.”
“Mathieu?”
“Mathieu Hibou. He says that he knows you from Gaza.”
Amazing, the world is a small place. Of course, he knew Hibou.
She’s speaking to him again. Her words pull him back to the present.
“I can help you. When are you going to announce the initiative? I’m sure that I can get the Montreal media to run the story right away.”
“Marie, du calme. I don’t think that you understand the dangers.”
“I’m sorry if I’m getting carried away. It’s fantastic what you’re doing!”
“Look, I’ll let you know, as soon as I can, when we’ll make the announcement. It won’t be long, but we have a problem. We need at least one major international figure to immediately endorse it. We tried Kressmann, but he won’t do it.”
Marie sits back in her chair. No one comes to mind.
“Do you know someone who can get to Senator Obama?”
Again Marie thinks hard. She has few American contacts. Only journalists, and none whom she can trust in any case. When it comes to Israel, US journalists are reluctant to take chances. But there is one exception.
“I know one who might.”
“Who’s that?”
“A journalist called Owen Sharp. He’s a bit of a radical.”
The name is familiar. Taragon searches his memory. Sharp, of course! Riley’s old sidekick in Beirut. The one who had gone with them to Damour. Taragon pulls from his bag some stapled sheets of paper. He pens a quick note on a blank sheet and attaches it to the others.
“Take this. Send it to Sharp tomorrow.”
Marie reads the note.
“Is this really it? I mean, is it the Arkassa Initiative?”
“Yes.”
Marie holds the paper in her hand for what seems to be an eternity and then puts it in her bag.
For a moment, both sit in silence. The crowd in the bar is growing. The chances of getting served anytime soon are slim. The noise level also rises, as tourists and French locals become animated in their discussions. Taragon speaks up.
“Would you like to go someplace else?”
“We can go to my hotel. There’s a quiet bistro there.”
“Can we walk?”
“Yes.”
“Marie, will you excuse me? I’ll be back in a minute.”
Taragon leaves a few euros on the table. He walks to the washroom. It’s empty. He looks around and sees a heating vent. He pries apart the metal with a pocket knife and pushes his cell phone through it. A bounce off the metal, once, twice and then nothing. He bends the vent back into shape. The phone was clean of contact information. He was careful about that. If the call to Kressmann had compromised him, the trail would end here.
When he returns to the table, Marie’s standing with their coats in her arms. In her heels, she’s almost as tall as him. Their eyes meet, but she looks away.
Marie involuntarily feels the same tingling as when she thought of him in Montreal. She shudders. What is she thinking? It’s getting harder to close down these thoughts. He can’t be—he really can’t be. If he were, she would immediately know it, wouldn’t she? She needs to get this uncertainty out of the way.
Chapter
33
Paris – May 2007
DAVID LEANS OVER THE FRENCH TECHNICIAN. Taragon’s cell phone’s location flashes on the computer screen. They’ve succeeded in remotely downloading state-of-the-art tracking software. The technician hands David a new cell phone. The same map appears on its screen.
“Done! You can track him from anywhere now.”
David hands him a thick envelope, generously filled with euros.
The technician raises his hand in protest.
“I’m not doing this for money.”
“Take it.”
Bronstein kisses Leyna one last time before going through airport security. He has decided to fly from Montreal to Cuba and then from Cuba to Spain. It’s a good plan. He knows that the Mossad’s ability to operate in Cuba is quite limited. He glances back. Leyna is still watching him, smiling. He didn’t expect to find someone like her. They share instant trust—something that he’d never felt before.
Bronstein sits back in the airport bar and watches the TV screens as he waits for the boarding call. CNN is flashing pictures of more killing in Afghanistan. The Taliban are far from being beaten there. NATO is increasing its troop levels to prop up the Karzai government and, in doing so, is inflaming tensions throughout the Muslim world. The images change. More bombings in Baghdad—two hundred dead. Bronstein begins to wonder if it’s not already too late to reverse the violence overwhelming the Middle East.
The loudspeaker announces his flight and invites passenger to begin boarding. Bronstein finishes his drink, stands up and squeezes by the luggage of a young girl in ripped jeans immersed in reading a text on her cell phone.
When Bronstein exits the bar, the girl taps into the phone: gate forty-three, Havana. Ramat HaSharon won’t be happy that Bronstein’s heading to the one place barred to them.
‘Akkawi checks out the municipal hall, as Taragon has asked him to. He doesn’t like what he sees. There’s no real security there, just a few old guards. He trusts Taragon for a lot of things, but not for this. Taragon has never been a soldier. ‘Akkawi has already activated his network in Spain and planned his escape route if things go wrong. Three men will come in from Zaragoza, two from Madrid, and one from Valencia. Half the group will be at the press conference. The others will wait outside in the cars that’ll ensure an escape if one is needed. A Basque comrade will bring in the guns from Pamplona. If the opposition tries something, blood will be spilled.
Chapter
34
Beirut – March 1978
THE WHITE MERCEDES PULLS UP just as Hoda reaches the entrance to Fouad Saadeh’s office. The car’s front wheel scrapes the curb. Marwan sits in the driver seat; small beads of sweat appear on his forehead.
“Come, Hoda, we don’t have much time.”
“Marwan, what’s the matter?”
“We have a new assignment.”
“Where?”
“Damascus. I’ll explain on the way.”
“Wait, shouldn’t we first see Fouad?”
“No, he’s not there.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s meeting with Kemal Jumblatt’s son, Walid. The killing of Kemal has thrown everything into disarray.”
As soon as Hoda sits in the car, Marwan pulls out into the traffic and pushes hard on the accelerator. Erratically, he navigates the narrow streets, dodging the poorly parked cars and odd donkey cart until he reaches the Corniche.
“What’s the matter, Marwan?”
“It’s our orders.”
“What about them?”
“Sending us to Damascus doesn’t make any sense!”
Hoda realizes the danger for any Lebanese Social Nationalist to travel to Damascus. Assad is furious most members of the party in Lebanon had sided with Jumblatt and continue to support his son Walid.
“We are to deliver this letter to the party’s leadership in Syria. Fouad wants them to mediate with Assad to end this feud with the Jumblatts. He says that the Israelis are trampling on our sovereignty with impunity and murdering our people with their bombs from the sky, so now is not the time for disunity.”
“And you think that Fouad is wrong?”
“The Sy
rians killed Kemal. How can we trust them?”
“Not all Syrians are the same.”
Marwan looks straight ahead. Hoda waits for a response, but none comes. She also doesn’t trust Syrians, but she can see Fouad’s point. The Social Nationalists, although banned in Syria, still have a large following there and maintain a dialogue with the regime. As for danger, the shifting of political alliances makes all of Lebanon an unsafe place for the courier work that she and Marwan do for the party. Is Damascus really more dangerous?
The Mercedes climbs the steep hill toward Aley. They’ll soon pass Baabda, where Lebanon’s president, Elias Sarkis, sits powerless in his palace. After Baabda will be the first Syrian checkpoint.
The lead Israeli tank comes into view, then another and many more. From their hilltop position outside of Deir Qanoun, Abdullah, Marc, and Riley have a clear view of the armoured column. It’s now three kilometres to the west. Its destination is clearly the Leontes Bridge, which connects the South to the rest of the country.
Marc and Riley had caught up with Abdullah in Mieh Mieh just as he was heading with his fighters to the South. He has a sizeable force under his command—two hundred seasoned fighters, well-armed and with an excellent knowledge of the terrain. If the Israelis’ announced intention of stopping at the Litani is true, the group will serve no purpose staying in Mieh Mieh, 40 kilometres to the north.
Abdullah briefs Marc and Riley on the way to Deir Qanoun.
“Syrians are not going to move out of their positions in the Northern Beka’a valley. Any troops moving through the valley to the South would be easy prey for the Israeli jets. Besides, Assad might want to teach Arafat a lesson after last week.”
“What do you mean?” Riley asks.
“Assad is fed up with Arafat, and letting him get bloodied by the Israelis might teach him a lesson. Arafat’s approval of last week’s attack was sheer madness, another in a long list of bungled operations. I knew that girl Dalal. She was green and never should have been put in charge of the mission. There is no way that it wasn’t going to end in a bloodbath involving civilians.”
“And now the world’s supporting the Israeli invasion,” Marc says.
“What is your strategy?” Riley asks. From his US intelligence contacts, he already knows how bleak the situation is for the Palestinians. Once the Israelis take the bridges on the Litani, they’ll be able to box in the three thousand PLO fighters south of the river.
“We have an ace up our sleeves,” Abdullah says. He walks over to a few antiquated pieces of artillery, salvaged from an abandoned Lebanese Army warehouse.
“The Israelis won’t be expecting these guns. From this hill, we can provide at least some cover for our men when they try to cross the Litani.”
“And how are they going to cross the river?”
“Look!” Abdullah points to a dozen of his men who are descending the narrow dirt track to the river. Over their shoulders, they have rope and in their hands axes. “We’re going to cut down some of those pines by the river to make rafts.”
Within minutes, Abdullah’s men have thrown together the first raft and are testing it on the water. One man swims across the river and attaches a rope around the branch of a large fir and then swims back with the rest of the rope. A rudimentary pulley system is now in place. On the hilltop, the four old Howitzers are pulled into position.
“Over there!” one of Abdullah’s men shouts.
Below, they can see a man making his way through the orange groves toward the river. He’s naked to the waist. It is difficult to tell whether he’s an Arab or Israeli. His frantic darting about suggests that he’s a fugitive. One of the Palestinian fighters looks through the binoculars.
“I know that man. He’s a Fatah fighter from Sidon.”
“Look,” Marc says.
“Where?” Abdullah asks.
“There!”
An Israeli jeep with four men comes into view. It is slowly moving through the orange groves toward the river. The jeep stops and three men fan out into the trees. They’re obviously tracking the fugitive.
Abdullah picks up the radio receiver.
“Cross over and bring back the man running toward the river!”
“Na’am—yes,” the fighter leading the raft-making crew replies.
Marc and Riley watch four of the men below pulley their way across the river. The fugitive sees them and begins swimming toward the raft.
Abdullah picks up the radio again.
“Send a second group to head off an Israeli jeep about one kilometre inland on the dirt road leading to the river. Be careful! There are four men. Do you see the road? It is fifty metres downstream.”
“Yes, should we kill them?”
“No, take them prisoner. They might have valuable intelligence.”
The first group meets up with the fugitive and takes him to the other side of the river while six other fighters pole a second raft across it.
The Israeli jeep stops. The passengers fan out on either side of the vehicle, and the driver advances slowly. This gives the Palestinians time to position themselves in the orange groves where the dirt road meets the river. The Israelis are heading straight into their trap.
Abdullah jumps into a jeep, signalling Marc and Riley to wait. Four husky fighters squeeze into the vehicle, and the group moves down the narrow road to the raft-making camp.
Marc and Riley watch the unfolding of the operation, scribbling furiously and snapping photos with their telephoto lenses. Abdullah’s men crouch in wait for the Israelis. As soon as the enemy passes, the Palestinians hurl their grenades, killing three of the Israelis instantly. The driver guns it, but slides off the road to crash into an orange tree. When he groggily looks up, blood flowing down his forehead, the Palestinians are already on him. They pull his arms behind him and bind them with rope. Downstream, Israeli tank crews have heard the gunshots, and Marc and Riley can see two tanks leave the armoured column to head toward the site of the ambush. The Palestinians also hear the distant rumbling of the tanks. They drag their prisoner to the raft and push off, poling furiously to reach the other side.
The Israeli tanks bulldoze their way through the orchards to the river bank and turn south. The lead tank’s commander spots the raft when it reaches the halfway point in the river. The tank turret swivels and fires a 105-millimetre shell. It just misses the raft and hits a boulder in the water. Rock fragments fly everywhere, knocking one of the fighters into the water. The other Palestinians rescue their comrade and resume poling with all their force.
The fugitive is waiting for them on the opposite shore. He grabs a large knife from one of his rescuers and begins wading through the water toward the raft. Like a mad man, he tries to climb onto it to reach the Israeli prisoner, but the other Palestinians push him back. Abdullah’s car pulls up to the river bank.
“Put down the knife.”
“No, they tortured me. I’m going to kill the bastard!”
“Put down the knife, or I will have you shot now,” Abdullah says.
The man looks baffled, but when all of Abdullah’s men point their guns at him, he throws the knife into the water. Another Israeli tank shell comes whistling toward them, again missing the men, but destroying a half-finished raft. Abdullah rushes into the water, pushes the fugitive aside and pulls the prisoner to shore. Marc and Riley can hear him shout to his radioman with the artillery crew: “Shell those tanks!”
The old guns still pack quite a punch. The first shell hits the lead tank, setting it on fire. The other tank pulls away from the river, and the second and third artillery rounds miss it entirely.
On the hilltop, the Palestinians go into action, picking up and repositioning the old artillery pieces. The next salvo results in a direct hit on the retreating tank. The success is ephemeral. Two Israeli warplanes appear out of the clouds. Their bombs destroy all four guns—their crews escaping seconds before the bombs hit.
With the raft-making operation disrupted and their artiller
y destroyed, the Palestinians aren’t going to wait for the Israeli jets to return. Abdullah orders fifty of his men to go east to set up new crossings to rescue the remaining PLO forces fleeing from the south. A smaller group of ten is told to take the Israeli prisoner to Mieh Mieh for interrogation. The remaining 140 men join Abdullah in what will be an illfated attempt to retake the Leontes Bridge from the Israelis. The Israeli prisoner is bundled into Riley’s car, and guarded by a young fighter from Sabra. Riley and Marc protest that as journalists, they cannot be implicated in the taking of a POW, but Abdullah replies: “We need your car.”
The prisoner is still groggy and bleeding from the forehead. Marc takes out a bandanna to wipe the blood away while Riley fishes out a first aid kit from his bag. They stem the bleeding and give the Israeli some water. He still looks stunned when he asks: “Who are you?”
“Riley, Irish Post, and this is Marc Taragon from Le Nouvel Observateur. Who are you?”
“Bronstein, Lieutenant Jonathan Bronstein.”
“What are you, an infantry officer?” Riley asks.
Bronstein narrows his eyes and stares at the two journalists.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrogate you,” Riley says. “But if you give us some information, we can put it in our reporting. It might just help you.”
Bronstein knows that revealing that he’s an intelligence officer could be a death sentence—one from torture. So he reverts to his well-practised cover story.
“I’m a reservist. I’m on assignment for Israeli Army Radio.”
Riley looks at him sceptically. “Where’s your sound equipment?”
Quill of the Dove Page 18
