by Allan Topol
“I had a Bank account there with money I had accumulated gambling at European casinos over the years. I’m quite skillful at chemin de fer.” He winked at her. “Money will buy you anything. So I found a good plastic surgeon in the area.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t remember. Who cares?”
“We care.”
He gave a deep sigh. In a tone of exasperation, he answered, “Dr. Heinrich Wilhelm. He redid me totally. Face, hair, eyes, the works.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Fingerprints, too. He ran a small private hospital. I stayed there two weeks.”
“And then?”
He waved his hand in boredom. “You’re pretty smart. You’ve probably figured out the rest.”
“We want you to tell us.”
“I paid a forger to prepare Russian papers. Now I had a new identity as a resident of Moscow, and I slipped into Russia. My name was Anatola Ginzburg. I was a Jew, living in Moscow. From there it was easy. I applied for a visa to Israel. That was the time they were being freely given. To be safe, I paid a couple of hefty bribes, and my visa came through. So I joined the thousands of others immigrating to the promised land. I blended in.”
His voice became more animated as he remembered the rest. “When the El Al plane landed at three a.m. at Ben Gurion one chilly March morning four and a half years ago, I came down the stairs clutching a battered suitcase in one hand and assisting a frail old woman in a babushka with the other. Behind us a young man took a violin out of his case and began to play. And when I reached the bottom of the stairs, and the old woman could walk herself, I cried for joy with the others. Then I joined them in falling down to kiss the ground with gratitude—even though my lips encountered only oily airplane tarmac instead of the land of Israel.”
She looked angry. “Don’t be such a cynical bastard. Those people were escaping persecution and realizing their lifelong dream.”
He stared back at her harshly. “I’m not being cynical. I was thrilled to be here. General Chambers had mobilized the entire American military to find me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You were just happy to save your neck.” She yawned. “All right, one more subject. Yael Golan. When did you first meet her?”
He had known this was coming. “About four years ago in a café on Diezengoff in Tel Aviv. September the tenth, to be precise. I’ll never forget that date. It was what we Americans call love at first sight.”
“Why do I think you’re hiding something?”
“Because you’re the cynic. You don’t believe in romance.”
His comment stung her, which was what he’d intended, hoping she would drop the subject. “Why would I lie about this to you?” he said. “I’ve told you everything else you wanted to know.”
Having been warned by Moshe that the subject of Yael was off limits, Sagit decided to back off though she was not persuaded that David was telling the truth. She was also tired from writing. She opened and closed her right hand to relax her fingers, while she leafed through her notes.
“It’s late,” he said, looking at the wall clock. “You want to sleep here tonight?”
She smiled. “You’re a persistent fellow with a massive ego, aren’t you?”
For once he didn’t have to pretend. “I didn’t mean that. I’ll sleep in the living room on the couch. You can have the bed to yourself, if that’s what you want.” His voice and face were earnest. Waiting for her to respond, he compared her with Yael, which he didn’t want to do; but he couldn’t turn off his mind. She wasn’t nearly as bold or headstrong. Probably more intelligent, though less physically beautiful. Despite the deliberately harsh manner she exhibited tonight, he had found on the plane and in Paris that she radiated a warmth. She...
Oh hell, what was the use of trying to articulate it? Love was chemistry, and they had a strong chemistry between them. He was convinced that she felt it as much as he did.
She closed her pad and gave a long sigh. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“What happened at the Bristol was business for me, and that’s all.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?”
* * *
He drove her to a point about twenty yards from the entrance to the kibbutz. From behind the wheel of the pickup, he watched her walk the rest of the way herself and climb into the back of an old battered Chevrolet Caprice. He sat in the moonlight to see if she waved or looked back at him, but she didn’t.
After parking the pickup, he walked over to the dark, deserted High-Tech Center and went to his office in the back of the building. With only a tiny desk lamp for light, he booted up his computer.
In a matter of seconds, the marvelous machine was feeding him information about the French oil company—PDF. It was one of the largest privately owned companies in France. Madame Jacqueline Blanc was the owner of all of the stock. She was variously described as cunning, resourceful and as an industrial visionary. She was wealthy and eccentric. A Howard Hughes personality, but not a recluse. Through interlocking directorates she had slots on the boards of directors of a half dozen other important French companies, including Renault. PDF was involved in oil exploration and development around the world. It manufactured chemicals from petrochemical feed stocks at a number of facilities in France and scattered all over the globe. PDF didn’t sell retail gasoline or other products. Rather, it sold only to other oil companies. PDF had had substantial contracts with Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War and with Libya before Quaddafi was ostracized. They had entered into several transactions to explore for oil in the former Soviet Union.
This is crazy, he thought. I don’t even know whether PDF or Madame Blanc is involved. But all of his instincts told him both were. And those same instincts had kept him alive in the some difficult situations over the years. He wasn’t about to disregard them.
As he walked out of the High-Tech Center, he nearly stumbled on Gideon, sitting on the steps of the building. Startled, David said, “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Working.”
“The same for me.”
He knew that he had to tell Gideon something. “The Mossad has asked me to cooperate with them on this Kourosh business. I’m working with Sagit, trying to obtain information for her.”
Gideon stood up and looked at David in utter disbelief. He may have been just an old army vet and a security guard, but he was smart enough not to believe a single word this hot shot spy posing as computer expert told him. “I don’t care about you, Mr. Super Spy. Daphna, your stepdaughter is, a child of this kibbutz, and I don’t want her to end up like Kourosh. You and Sagit should bring her home before something happens to her.”
“We’re working on it, Gideon. Believe me, Daphna’s the first priority.”
* * *
Madame Blanc puffed deeply on her Cohiba, blew the smoke out of the window of the Rolls Royce and studied the profile of Colonel Khalid seated next to her. In appearance, he reminded her of Anwar Sadat, especially the smile and the dark brown eyes. He was tall and thin, and he carried himself with great dignity. His skin was light brown and he had a very high forehead. Much of the hair was gone on top. His teeth were white and glistened when he smiled and he had a thin brown mustache, perfectly trimmed. He exuded confidence. He was someone whom others would follow.
The two of them were alone in the car. She had asked Claude, her driver, to take a walk. From their vantage point, parked on a bluff overlooking the airfield below, Khalid was peering intently through night-scope binoculars. He was studying loading operations conducted under the cover of darkness. Above, thick clouds in the Provence sky obliterated the moon.
Madame Blanc had no need to watch. She had been assured by the CEO of Granita Munitions that everything she had requested—the entire inventory on Colonel Khalid’s list—all of the tanks, mortars, automatic rifles and ammuni
tion—would be delivered to the airfield at midnight. The C130 cargo jet with Saudi markings had arrived a few minutes later.
“Four hours is all we’ll need,” she had assured the civilian who directed operations at this airfield and who had been handsomely paid. Close friends of hers in the French military privately knew what she was doing tonight, but if they were asked about it, they would vociferously deny any knowledge. This was, after all, not a French governmental operation.
Looking at Khalid, she thought it was more than a little ironic that weapons were being shipped to a nation that had one of the largest stockpiles of unused weapons in the world. Khalid had explained to her the reason when he gave her the list. The core of his Democratic Front was comprised of air force officers, including the entire upper command. As yet they had only isolated support among the army, and access to the army’s supplies was questionable. These weapons would be stored and concealed in air force hangars, where army supporters of the Democratic Front would gain rapid access to them at the time of the coup. Khalid’s hope was that with this kindling, the whole army would catch fire.
Madame Blanc didn’t question Khalid’s knowledge of the Saudi military. From his dossier, she knew his father had been a much decorated air force pilot who died in an air battle with rebels over Yemen when Khalid was eight years old. As the only son, he had vowed to follow in his father’s footsteps. Following an education at Oxford, at Saudi government expense, he joined the Saudi air force to become a pilot. His natural abilities were so strong that he never needed the influence of his father’s colleagues to make it into officers school. When he was sent to Alabama for training on American fighters in a mixed Saudi-Israeli class, he was the only Saudi pilot to gain the grudging respect of the Israelis.
Satisfied, Khalid put his binoculars down on the thick leather seat of the Rolls and turned to Madame Blanc. “What happened with Greg Nielsen?” he asked.
“We’re making progress. I’ll know for sure in a few days. He’s not an easy nut to crack.” She paused and thought about what Victor had told her. “I’m making great efforts to enlist his help. Do you really think he adds that much?”
Khalid didn’t hesitate. His tone was unyielding. “Absolutely. He’s smart. He was committed to my cause. And he developed the defense systems for the king’s palace. His participation means a great deal to me.”
She tried to shake him. This David was proving to be trouble. It would be easier without him. “But you were planning to go forward before you accidentally happened to see him in Paris.”
“I know that,” he replied firmly. “But if we can get Nielsen on board, fewer lives will be lost.”
“You have to crack eggs to make an omelet, my friend.”
Her callous indifference annoyed him. The dead would all be Saudis, not French. “I want the minimum amount of bloodshed. For the long years that the House of Saud has ruled my country, as if it were their own private domain, their idea of justice was killing anybody and everybody who disagreed with their views. The bloodier their punishment, the more of a deterrent they thought it would be. Well, we won’t operate that way.
“Their blatant corruption has produced a situation in which, if our group doesn’t act now, and doesn’t bring democracy to the country, the inevitable result will be a revolution staged by the fundamentalists, and Saudi Arabia will resemble Iran. This is the last chance to save my country. So you have to understand that our motives aren’t selfish. We’re patriots. Loyal citizens of the true nation of Arabia.”
As Khalid continued with the self rationalization lecture he had given her the first time they met, nearly two months ago, she stopped listening. She found the colonel to be tiresome. She didn’t care what his motives were, and whether or not they were pure. For her, it was a matter of business—plain and simple.
If Khalid succeeded, PDF would become the dominant foreign oil presence in the country, and the American and British oil firms, which had so long been puppets of the Saudi regime, would be out. The deal she had cut with Khalid in return for her support was a five-year exclusive oil exploration and oil industry consulting contract to straighten out the inefficient and troubled Saudi oil industry. The new Saudi government would pay PDF a one percent commission during those five years on all oil exported from the country. At current market prices, that would be more than $500 million per year. But she wasn’t prepared to stick with the current market prices. She intended to use the Saudi market power to work with other countries and drive the price higher, thereby increasing the amount of PDF’s royalty.
“What precisely do you want from Nielsen?” she asked.
“I want him to analyze and to evaluate the defenses being employed at the king’s palace, and then I want him to develop a plan for overcoming those defenses.” Khalid paused, looked at her thoughtfully and continued. “But I don’t want him to know I’m involved.”
Once they had been friends, and they had worked together; but that was five years ago. Khalid didn’t want to alarm Madame Blanc, but he had no idea what Nielsen had done in the last five years. He couldn’t be certain where the man’s current loyalties lay.
Madame Blanc nodded her approval.
The plan was so good for PDF that she wanted it to succeed at all costs. If Khalid wanted help from Greg Nielsen or David Ben Aaron, or whoever the hell he was, then she would make it happen. Regardless of what had to be done.
* * *
An hour later as the Rolls raced back to Paris on the deserted highway, Madame Blanc replayed in her mind the discussion with Khalid tonight. The good news was that he was solidly in favor of the coup. The wavering and uncertainty she had detected earlier was gone.
The bad news was that he was even more adamant about his desire to have Greg Nielsen participate. She didn’t know what his reaction would be if she couldn’t get Nielsen on board, but she didn’t intend to find out.
Indifferent to the fact that it was almost three a.m., she picked up the car phone and dialed Victor’s apartment in Paris. He didn’t seem to fully appreciate the urgency of getting the job done. She decided to add her own pressure to the effort.
When he answered the phone, he showed none of the anger that someone usually expresses when they are awakened from a sound sleep. He had no doubt who was calling in the middle of the night.
“Hello, Jacqueline,” he said before she said a word.
She wasted no time on greetings. “I’m going to make your job with Greg Nielsen easier.”
“What’s that mean?” he asked warily while he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“This is your client,” she said brusquely. “And I’m giving you a direct order. So pay attention. Before Nielsen walks into his meeting with you next Wednesday morning—and I mean, right before—I want his stepdaughter to be kidnapped, and I want her taken to the house outside Grasse. Is that clear?”
Her sharp tone had him fully awake. “Very clear.”
The Rolls Royce was moving at 120 miles per hour in the left lane of the Autoroute, and another driver was flashing his lights for the Rolls to pull over so he could pass.
“I don’t want her harmed at this point. Right now she’s no good to us dead.”
“Go faster, Claude,” she barked from the back seat. “Don’t let that lunatic pass us.”
Chapter 9
David flew to Paris alone on Tuesday. He had persuaded Sagit to cancel the Mossad tail, for the first day, telling her that he didn’t want Daphna to end up like Kourosh. Arriving at the Bristol, he took the first room he was shown, to the surprise of the assistant manager, Gilles, who had anticipated another trek around the hotel. He discreetly handed David a sealed envelope. When the man left, David opened it. There was a typed note that read:
The car will pick you up at ten tomorrow morning. I hope you have a nice evening in Paris.
—V
Also inside the envelope was a full frontal nude picture of a voluptuous young woman, standing on a beach, with the sea behind her. A
Paris telephone number was written on the bottom of the picture. The envelope also contained a thick wad of French francs.
David put the money from Victor into his pocket. He tore the picture into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
Then he went to a pay phone in the hotel lobby and called Taillevent. Three years ago, when he and Yael had been in Paris, he had had the greatest meal of his life at there, thanks to Bruno’s friendship with Monsieur Vrinat, the legendary proprietor. But, tonight he hadn’t picked Taillevent for the food. He wanted a place that the people following Daphna couldn’t possibly penetrate and listen in from a nearby table.
Again Bruno Wolk’s name worked wonders, and David was able to book a table for two at eight-thirty. Then he called Daphna and told her to meet him on the Champs Elysées in front of the United Airlines office.
The night was damp and rainy, and she huddled close to him under his black umbrella as they approached the restaurant’s midnight blue awning. In the corner of his eye, David spotted Daphna’s tail—a man in a green soldier’s coat standing on the corner, pretending to be looking in the window of a wine shop. A car, also part of their team, pulled over to the curb near the corner.
After Monsieur Vrinat directed an assistant to take them to a corner table, well within the restaurant’s wood-paneled inner sanctum, Daphna exclaimed, “Wow! I didn’t know the kibbutz funded meals like this in Paris. Maybe I’ll go back to Israel after all.”
Ignoring her comment, David let his eyes roam back and forth across the rapidly filling restaurant. He hadn’t used the phone in his room to make the reservation, for fear it was bugged, and he hadn’t given Daphna the name of the restaurant on the phone. Logically, no one could have known where they were going in time to book a second table—even if that was possible in the completely sold-out restaurant—but he couldn’t assume anything. Victor Foch was well connected in Paris.
