by Nathan Ronen
Arik called his office manager Claire, whom he had brought with him from the Mossad to the Prime Minister’s Office, and asked her to convene an urgent, special meeting of division heads tomorrow morning in the conference room adjacent to the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Let them know that Cornfield is leaving the office, and I’ve been appointed as acting director of the Mossad.”
Arik drove home. Since he had informed Eva he was returning to the Mossad, a taut silence stretched between them. Eva was sleeping apart from him, in the bedroom, along with little Leo. He wanted to share the news of being appointed as acting director of the Mossad, but when he reached the bedroom, he found himself facing a locked door. He made himself a corned beef sandwich with whole grain bread, covering the slices with a generous amount of Dijon mustard and slicing some vegetables. He then grabbed a cold bottle of Weihenstephaner wheat beer, sat down in the living room in front of the TV, and watched an international karate tournament on the sports channel until he fell asleep.
Chapter 8
The Heads of Division Meeting at ‘The Office’
On Friday, early in the morning, Arik drove to Mossad headquarters, situated in a building opposite the Highway 2, which he knew so well. The guards saluted him and his black Audi 6 climbed the hill and entered the shaded parking spot reserved for the head of the Mossad. It was a statement of sorts, a marking of his territory.
“Quiet Friday” was Arik’s term for the workday in which the entire administrative staff of Mossad headquarters did not show up at the office. It was a day in which the division heads would go over their mail, read intelligence briefings and prepare for the next work week. Other than the Situation Room, which was active twenty-four hours a day, and the offices of the division heads, staffed by operatives on duty, the building was blessedly quiet, in total contrast to its usual buzzing atmosphere, which lasted late into the night during the other days of the week.
Slightly before ten a.m., the division heads arrived at the conference room and sat down sourly in their seats. They looked at him as if he was responsible for Cornfield’s termination under such humiliating circumstances. To them, Cornfield was a charismatic manager who during his four-and-a-half year term had doubled the organization’s hiring quota and taken major steps toward attaining budgets that were unprecedented at scale. Most of the money had been invested in improving technological capabilities, establishing new Mossad stations throughout the world and building a cyberattack force. They felt that a dark shadow now hovered over the Mossad’s five-year budget plan, approved by the Security Cabinet and the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“Gentlemen, I know we’re not all in a good mood here. But this is the acting prime minister’s decision. We’ve got a lot of work awaiting us. We have to snap out of it and get back on track. You should know that at the moment, my position is defined as acting director. As far as I know, the prime minister has a candidate of his own who will head the Mossad in the near future, and I’m supposed to return here as his deputy and head of the Operations Administration.”
The attendees responded with angry murmurs, and Arik struck the table with his fist to quiet them down.
“At the moment, we have one urgent task. This is a task you’ve been dealing with for over a month, if I’m not mistaken. I want to see a situation report regarding the surveillance on the Iranian weapons ship making its way from North Korea toward the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.”
Arik turned to Avi Oron, head of the Tevel Division, dealing with the Mossad’s professional relationship with intelligence agencies throughout the world. “Avi, contact the Americans, who have naval bases in the Indian Ocean and in the countries of the Persian Gulf, as well as the French, who are sitting in the Horn of Africa in their naval base in Djibouti, and the Italians and the British, who are patrolling the Gulf of Oman and the Bab-el-Mandab Strait to secure oil tankers, and ask all of them for information about an Iranian cargo ship making its way north from the Gulf of Oman. In my experience, there’s a good chance it’s flying the flag of some other country, and it’s probably carrying large metal cylinders. I’m instructing you to give this top priority.”
Chapter 9
The Arsuf Neighborhood, Near Herzliya
When the meeting was over, Arik felt that the unknown still exceeded what was known about the weapon-bearing ship. He decided to consult his former commander, Gideon Perry, the previous Mossad deputy director, and a longtime field operative in his past. He dialed Perry on his private phone.
“Gideon, we need to talk. There’s an urgent operational matter that’s about to go down, and I want to consult with you and get your opinion.”
“Come have coffee with us,” Gideon said succinctly.
Arik parked his car next to the handsome house located in the heart of a Mediterranean grove in the Arsuf neighborhood, north of the city of Herzliya. Gideon had invested his entire retirement benefit in this house. Arik entered through the garden gate, aware of the fact that he was being monitored by hidden cameras. Gideon was already sitting and waiting for him on the balcony, looking out at the sea, tall, slim and elegantly dressed as always. He was a man of the world who had received a classical education in France. He had met his wife, Paulina, while on a covert mission as a sleeper agent embedded in an extreme leftist organization in Germany that supported Palestinian terrorists. She was a former officer of the Securitate, Romania’s secret police agency, who had switched her allegiance when she fell in love.
Gideon now offered Arik a cold, freshly squeezed glass of lemonade, adding mint leaves and ice cubes. His entire conduct was mild and peaceful, appropriately for a man who walked six miles a day and practiced yoga. As a senior Mossad retiree, he had established the Habibi Association, for IDF soldiers with no families in Israel, and headed it as honorary chairman.
Perry was actually pleased to hear the tale of Cornfield’s ugly termination from the job of Mossad director. It gave him a satisfying feeling of closure. Cornfield himself had deposed Perry from his role as Mossad deputy director, when ‘cleansing’ the institute of those loyal to David Fischer, the previous Mossad head. It had happened four and a half years ago, but the sense of insult was clearly still burning brightly within Gideon Perry. Like aged wine, the hatred between the two men only increased in flavor as the years went by.
Perry preferred to immerse himself in nostalgia. “I remember welcoming you to the Mossad more than fifteen years ago, after several operational mishaps took place there, and I told you I wanted you to jump right in and start assuming command in the Kidon Unit. I asked whether you were capable of that, and you, all full of yourself after coming from the naval commando, told me with excessive self-confidence, ‘Sure, no problem.’ A year later I met you and asked you how you felt in your new role, and you, with your typical direct style, told me, ‘I never had a problem jumping into the pool, but you forgot to tell me there was no water, and it was all full of hungry crocodiles.’ I laughed and told you that that’s why I brought you in. You were an expert on crocodiles, after all.”
“Gideon, excuse me, but I actually need to pick your brain on an operational matter,” Arik interrupted him.
“Okay, then update me, and start like I taught you: a situation assessment, intelligence and possible modes of operation, background, goal, method, forces and tasks, logistics and administration.”
Arik opened with Tzur’s request to garner defense credit on the scale of Operation Entebbe for the weapons ship sailing from East Asia in the direction of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait on its way north to the Port of Sudan or to the Sinai Peninsula.
“Sounds very interesting,” Gideon responded, “but what’s your modus operandi?” He was exhibiting his grasp of Latin, which he had studied in the Sorbonne.
“I haven’t come up with it yet,” Arik admitted. “And in addition, time isn’t on our side. The ship is too distant from our operative range
. One way to go is to try and take over the ship using our naval commando force, Shayetet 13. It’s possible, but too complex to organize in such a short time. Another approach is to deploy fighter planes to annihilate the ship. But that’s too splashy and involves synchronizing too many agencies and Air Force assets such as fueling tankers, command and control aircraft, radio repeaters, electronic warfare aircraft and more. Another mode of operation is to shoot a cruise missile at the ship from one of our submarines, but that requires sending a plane to mark the target, which is too complicated. In short, it’s too big of a mess that will carry our fingerprints all over it, unless we ask the Americans to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us, in addition to finding the ship and identifying it,” Arik concluded.
Gideon Perry briefly retreated into his own thoughts, then suddenly said: “I have a little addition to your operation. If we do pinpoint this ship’s location, and if it turns out that it is the suspicious vessel, I suggest we take control of it and destroy it in some manner, but lay the blame for its destruction on Eritrean or Somali pirates, who are active in the area. In any case, we have to hurry. Our operation can’t take place after the ship crosses the Gulf of Aden and passes through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to the Red Sea, where there are a fair amount of oil tankers passing through and therefore too many prying eyes from all the superpowers’ navies.”
He went into the house and returned carrying a giant atlas. “I suggest you check with the Intelligence Corps’ Psychological Warfare and Intelligence Warfare departments, who will suggest ‘false flag’ or deception operations in which we destroy this ship without leaving any Israeli fingerprints at all. I would like it to mysteriously disappear.”
“I’m not sure we’ll get the Military Advocate General’s approval. If we get caught, we might get charged based on the laws of naval piracy. And if the ship is Iranian, the Iranians will consider the action as casus belli—a justification for war. You know those nutcases.” Arik noticed that Perry’s gaze was wandering toward the horizon. He knew him well enough to know that once the topic he had brought up lost its innovative edge, Perry was no longer interested. He rose from his seat and thanked him for his help, while knowing that the slow, measured progress Perry had suggested would not satisfy Ehud Tzur’s desire for a splashy action that would ensure his image as “Mr. Security.”
Chapter 10
The Gulf of Aden
The American Poseidon maritime patrol jet took off, heading northwest of the American Air Force base on the Diego Garcia atoll, in the central Indian Ocean. After takeoff, the advanced tracking, scanning and intelligence collection systems were activated. The coordinates given to the pilots were correct twelve hours ago, while currently the plane’s navigator sat and marked out a new search radius for himself in accordance with the average speed of a freight ship, meaning twenty knots per hour in a general southwestern direction, heading for the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. The pilots’ mission statement instructed them to search for a ship with a woman’s name, bearing crates and unusual metal cylinders on deck.
Hundreds of freighters and tankers were cruising the busy lane through the Indian Ocean between the Far East and the Persian Gulf, or in the direction of the Suez Canal. The computer located, identified and analyzed all the input data, and less than two hours after takeoff, the rough outline of the vessel Apollonia displayed on the jet’s screens. The pilot dipped down and photographed the ship from each direction, using special cameras. The ship was flying the Panamanian flag. On its deck sat large shipping containers, metal cylinders and elongated wooden crates, with Chinese or Korean lettering. Due to fuel limitations, the pilot asked another patrol aircraft to take over, and a different Poseidon soon took off from Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar, heading southwest. The plane followed the coordinates supplied by its fellow jet and easily found the ship sailing in a northwestern direction. The excellent photos of the ship were conveyed using the Icarus network of reconnaissance satellites, deployed around the Earth, to the military attaché in the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, care of Colonel Doug Beretta, and from him to Mispan Yam, the Israeli Navy’s intelligence unit, in HaKirya HQ Base in Tel Aviv. Simultaneously, the Israeli reconnaissance satellite Ofek 10 honed in on the ship; Ofek-10 is capable of producing photos at an excellent resolution, day and night, in any weather and visibility conditions, and began to closely track the vessel.
Apollonia’s name and identity were checked by US Navy computers at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and it was quickly revealed that American satellites had located the ship about a week earlier, docking in North Korea’s military Rajin Port, loading cargo that included metal cylinders. Apollonia then sailed south to China, where it docked for another two days at the Port of Nansha, the largest harbor in the south of China. A CIA informant in the North Korean port relayed a copy of the official cargo documentation. The ship’s final destination was supposedly the Port of Bandar Abbas in Iran. The bill of lading also stated that the ship was carrying tractors and spare parts for agricultural equipment. Clearly it had veered far from its official destination. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, it turned south and west and began to sail toward the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, in the direction of the Port of Sudan.
Chapter 11
IDF’s ‘Operations Pit’
The operation’s planning meeting took place in the Supreme Command Post, generally referred to as ‘the Pit.’ This was IDF’s subterranean command center, located at Camp Rabin, also called HaKirya, in Tel Aviv.
In the chief of General Staff’s command center, about a hundred feet underground, a special meeting was taking place in the main briefing room, convened by acting Mossad Director Arik Bar-Nathan. Participants included the Operations Division head, the Navy, Air Force and Communication and Electronics Division commanders, the Logistics Command and IDF Military Intelligence Directorate heads, and several Mossad personnel. All of them sat down on both sides of the table, headed by the chief of General Staff.
Navy Commander Eli Sharon made it clear that a lethal encounter between the weapons ship and Israeli Navy submarine Dolphin could only take place if a cruise missile was deployed at the ship from the Strait of Hormuz, the submarine’s current location. But someone had to illuminate the target from the air or the sea in order for the missile to hone in on it.
“I don’t like that idea,” the chief of General Staff said. “I don’t want to expose our fleet’s capabilities, especially since the submarine Dolphin is currently running silent in the area of the Strait of Hormuz, which is close to the coast of Iran. Do you have a vessel that’s closer?” he asked.
“No,” Sharon answered. “Unfortunately, there are no Israeli vessels in the area right now. The nearest vessel in terms of shooting down the ship in the immediate timeframe is the American supercarrier USS Nimitz, currently cruising south of the Port of Aden towards Somalia with a small flotilla, in an attempt to deter naval pirates and ensure safe passage for oil tankers heading for the Suez Canal.”
I know the Nimitz, Arik thought to himself, recalling his traumatic landing upon the aircraft carrier at the beginning of last year, along with Cornfield. “My people came up with the idea of staging an attack by Somali pirates on the Iranian ship. I assume you’re all familiar with the concept of enemy framing?”
Everyone nodded.
“I talked to the operations people and the psychological warfare department in our organization and in the Military Intelligence Directorate, and it’s definitely doable,” Arik continued. “We need to flood the maritime communications network with distress calls by civilian ships seemingly being attacked by Somali pirate speedboats. For that purpose, we need to create the false impression that at the time of the operation, Apollonia is located Socotra, close to Somalia, on its way north to the Port of Aden and from there to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.”
Arik directed a red laser beam at the map of the area, projected onto giant screens. “Through our Tevel Division, I’
ll make sure to coordinate with the Brits, French and Americans so that their warships will already begin transmitting that they’re on their way to the region to provide assistance. I want Russian and Iranian surveillance stations to receive the false information…”
The senior Communications and Electronics officer opposed the plan. “It’s not that simple. In order for Apollonia to be unable to communicate or hear the entire charade we’re staging over its head, I need an aircraft with electronic warfare equipment to circle above it as early as possible, blocking and neutralizing its communication network. At the moment, we can’t send a plane in that range without aerial refueling, which makes everything more complicated.”
Air Force Commander Major General Gidi Alon nodded in agreement. Secretly he was concerned that Soviet and Chinese satellites tracking naval vessels could relatively easily expose this ‘false flag’ operation.
“What if we join forces with the American Naval Commando?” Arik asked Sharon. “I think it’s also important for us to display our intelligence and operational capabilities in deterring Iran by taking over that ship.”
Chief of General Staff Tal said, “With all due respect to us, we’re not a superpower that has bases spread out all over the oceans and fleets of destroyers and aircraft carriers. To the best of my assessment, due to the tight time constraints, we won’t have time to act in ranges like that without superpower assistance. And even if they do agree to carry this out for us, they’ll never agree to an overt integrated operation, which would expose the extent of our cooperation with them to the Arabs. There’s an aspect of prestige and internal American politics here.”
