Mirage

by James Follett

  A fire department inspector arrived the next day to peer into the deep fat fryers and poke at the steel-clad electric cables. He was happy with the number of fire extinguishers but disappointed to discover that there was no chance of a free drink because the stocks had not arrived. He issued a fire certificate and left in a huff.

  The last of the tradesmen to clear up and leave were the market gardeners. They had filled the flower beds in the front garden wall with a generous selection of plants and had provided large bay trees in tubs on both sides of the arched front entrance. They had even planted a fully-grown Virginia creeper against the front of the building and cunningly trained its tendrils along fine wires so that it looked as if it had been growing in situ for several years. As Sandy had predicted, the creeper transformed the appearance of the building.

  With one day to go, Daniel drove the van to a wholesaler’s in Winterthur and returned with three-thousand dollars’ worth of spirits and bottled lager. He sweated an hour in the afternoon heat unloading the stock behind the bar and into the backyard outhouse but with his mind on the latest news. The Soviet Union was stepping up its arms shipments to Nasser. Two weeks earlier Soviet tanks had rolled into Czechoslovakia and the moderate Czech leader, Dubcek, had been deposed. Western leaders had made disparaging noises about the Russian intervention but had done precisely nothing. The same fate was awaiting Israel. All over the world - Paris - London - Chicago - it seemed that the forces of ranting, Brown-Shirt left-wing revolutionaries were on the march while moderate voices, such as Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, were being struck down by assassins. Assassins .... Even the word was Arabic. He flopped dejectedly into one of the booths when he had finished unloading the van and pressed the wall button. Raquel saw the light come on and stopped work on hanging curtains across the windows. She served him with an iced Coke.

  ‘There you go. Cinderella’s very first drink. Doesn’t it make you feel proud?’

  Daniel downed the drink in one gulp. He was too exhausted and depressed to feel anything.

  Sandy arrived that evening. The three of them sat in the cool of the front garden with their Martinis, marvelling at their creation. The discreet neon ‘Cinderella’s’ was a glowing welcome in the night. The garden, with its strings of coloured lights and scents from the tobacco plants, was a very pleasant place to be on a hot summer’s evening. All that could be seen of Luftech opposite were a few illuminated windows on the first floor. Occasionally men could be seen in discussion at one of the drawing boards.

  ‘The dreaded question,’ said Raquel. ‘How much has it all cost?’ Daniel yawned and grinned. ‘Funnily enough, not far off what we guessed at. Including the van, about fifty thousand dollars.’ ‘Ouch.’

  Sandy looked around, seeing her surroundings in a new light. ‘You never know,’ she murmured. ‘You could become a trend.’ She raised her glass. ‘Well, dears. Here’s to the success of Cinderella’s.’ Daniel joined in the toast but his thoughts were elsewhere - with the design office across the road that held the drawings of a jet fighter that was the key to his country’s security.

  Mirage.

  PART FOUR

  1

  MONACO September 1968

  ‘Mr Dumas will see you now, sir,’ the English butler announced from the top of the yacht’s gangway.

  With a nod to Robbie, Lucky rose from the harbour benchseat and trooped up Thor’s gangway and on to a $10 million ultimate in floating palaces.

  ‘If you would remove your shoes please, sir,’ the butler requested frostily.

  Lucky scowled and pulled his shoes off. He padded across the magnificent polished sapele deck and followed the butler up a carpeted companionway and through an air-conditioning lock. They passed a spacious cabin where two girls, selected more for their looks than their typing abilities, were pecking at IBM golfballs. The butler opened a pair of leather-padded doors at the end of the passageway and bade Lucky enter.

  ‘Mr Lew Nathan, sir,’ the butler declared like a doctor announcing an outbreak of bubonic plague. He withdrew, sweeping the doors closed behind him with practised precision so that they shut together with a soft click. Lucky found himself surrounded by windows in a magnificent office. All around was a forest of masts and radar scanners of the other millionaires’ yachts crammed into the harbour.

  ‘Lucky!’ said Dumas genially, rising from behind an acre of empty desk and holding out his hand. ‘Come in. Come in.’

  Lucky waded through the thick pile to the desk and shook hands warmly with Dumas.

  ‘A drink, Lucky. I’m sure it’s not too early for you. Let me see - a double Scotch? Plenty of ice and no water if my memory serves me. Take a seat. Take a seat. So what do you think of my new headquarters? Hydrofoil. Gyro-stabilized. Capable of fifty knots the builders assure me. I’ve kept the main offices, of course, but it is so much pleasanter conducting business from here, don’t you think?

  Dumas busied himself with a decanter and glasses while keeping up an incessant stream of small talk. He was a tall spare man with distinguished silver hair and a ready smile. For thirty years he had been the chief executive and sole shareholder of Euroarmco. Using the favourable tax and export laws of Monaco, Claud Dumas had built his organization into the world’s largest private company specializing in the supply of arms. All over the world, Euroarmco was helping keep wars and revolutions on the boil. Dumas never concerned himself with the politics or the rights and wrongs of the various countries and causes he supplied. The only question asked was whether or not they could afford the prices listed in his catalogues. That was how Dumas did business: on the surface none of his deals were of a clandestine nature. Weapons ranging from sidearms to self-propelled guns, battle tanks and shoulder-launched ground-to-ground missiles were listed in a large, glossy catalogue that was available to anyone for $200 plus postage. He was fond of jokingly remarking to investigative journalists that he made more money from his catalogue sales than actually selling arms. The clandestine side of the business he left to a worldwide network of independent shipping and forwarding agents who were prepared to finance the forging of end-user certificates and import licences in return for fat commissions.

  ‘Well, Lucky,’ said Dumas as they settled down with their drinks, ‘you’ll be pleased to know that I’m in touch with an agent who has a customer for five of your Hunters.’

  ‘You told me seven, Mr Dumas.’

  ‘I said, possibly seven, Lucky. I can replay the tape of our conversation if you wish. The agents handling the deal tell me that their customer cannot afford seven.’

  ‘For the agreed unit price?’

  ‘For the agreed unit price,’ Dumas confirmed. ‘All you have to do is crate them for Collis Torrence and Co to ship to Jersey. The usual procedure. Do we have a deal?’

  ‘We have a deal, Mr Dumas. For payment up front - that we did agree on. And there’s something else. I need your assurance that no documentation can be traced back to Luckair if the fighters end up in South Africa or Rhodesia.’

  ‘You have my word, Lucky.’

  Lucky nodded, satisfied. Dumas’ word was all he needed. ‘Bloody sanctions,’ he muttered morosely.

  Dumas smiled blandly. ‘Oh, I’m a great supporter of sanctions, Lucky. They’re very good for business.’ He opened a desk drawer that contained cheque books covering accounts in every European country and in every currency. ‘We also agreed Sterling, I believe.’ He scribbled on the cheque, ripped it out and handed it to Lucky who glanced at it before slipping it into his breast pocket.

  ‘Try not to spend it all at once, Lucky,’ said Dumas, smiling.

  ‘Good day to you.’ His smile broadened as he pressed a button set into his desk. ‘Turn right at the end of the quay and you’ll avoid the casino.’

  Lucky drained his glass and stood. ‘One thing, Mr Dumas. I need some information. Do you know if the Israelis have found an alternative supplier for their fighters?’

  Dumas considered the question. He knew why it
was asked. He knew quite a lot about the financial problems facing Luckair, which was why he had been able to drive such a hard bargain with Lucky over the supply of the Hunters. He shook his head. ‘No I don’t, Lucky. A country like Israel needs supersonic fighters. A little out of our league, of course. Sweden is a possibility. No one else that I can think of.’

  The leather-padded double doors clicked open.

  ‘This way, sir,’ said the butler.

  Back on the quayside, Lucky showed the cheque to Robbie.

  ‘Buys us time,’ Robbie observed. ‘But how much?’

  Lucky’s expression twisted into an ugly scowl. ‘Enough to tide us over until we deal with that oily creep in Brazil.’

  2

  WINTERTHUR

  Jodi and Yuri Perak followed in the wake of Bernard and Anita Hellerman. They arrived in Winterthur posing as management recruitment consultants for a Berlin-based chemical processing company. The company existed but it was one of many cover organizations that Mossad had set up throughout Europe.

  Jodi and Yuri were younger than the earlier Mossad agents and their task was different. Their job was actually to penetrate Luftech on a social level by cultivating friendships with senior Luftech personnel rather than carry out an assessment. Acting on information provided by Bernard and Anita, they signed up a three-month lease on an expensive house in Oberwinterthur so that they would be near neighbours of Luftech’s general manager, Michael Haldane. Haldane was not a Jew but Bernard and Anita had discovered that he was known to be sympathetic towards the Israeli cause.

  Bad luck dogged their task right from the beginning. The day they moved in, Haldane and his family moved out. The two agents learned that their target had been posted to South America. Another possible contact that the earlier agents had pinpointed had recently retired. None of their other neighbours held senior positions at Luftech.

  Jodi and Yuri had a problem. They could hardly move out of their house having just signed a lease so they reluctantly reported to Tel Aviv that things had gone badly wrong. Their instructions were to spend the rest of the month in Winterthur gathering general intelligence on the town and then return home. They were to tell their letting agent that they had been urgently recalled.

  Gathering general intelligence was enjoyable work - especially the dining and drinking in different restaurants and bars each day in the hope of picking up useful snippets of information from chance acquaintances. They worked their way steadily through all Winterthur’s hostelries. During their second week it was the turn of the new bar-restaurant that had opened opposite Luftech to receive a visit.

  Despite the heat, Cinderella’s was packed. Loud conversations in English and German. Laughter. Smoke. Music blaring from a jukebox. The only explanation for such a crowd in such an out of the way place was that the well-heeled clientele was made up of Sulzers’ and Luftech’s middle management.

  Yuri was particularly taken by the pretty, long-legged girl cooking behind the bar. Occasionally she would dash out to serve a customer, her incredibly short shorts and sleeveless T-shirt attracting appreciative looks and occasional comments from the predominately male clientele. Whoever said that the Swiss were a reserved nation didn’t know what they were talking about. The girl was rushed off her feet and yet she had time to laughingly trade jokes and flirtatious banter with the customers.

  ‘American,’ Yuri remarked to Jodi, adding jokingly: ‘If she didn’t provide plates, she’d have them eating out of her hand.’

  Jodi sipped her Martini and eyed the good-looking blond manager who was working non-stop serving drinks. She noticed his slight limp. Understandable considering the amount of rushing about he had to do. Two young girls who were helping with the serving took orders from him so she guessed that he was the manager.

  By two o’clock the crowd in the bar was thinning so that Jodi and Yuri could sit at a recently-vacated booth. The menu was simple: homemade soup, toasted sandwiches and hamburgers, and a wide selection of American ice creams. They ordered a hamburger each. The American girl unwittingly treated Yuri to a tantalizing glimpse of her breasts as she bent over the table to clear it.

  By the time their order arrived, there were less than five customers left sitting at the bar. One of them was dared to feed a coin into the jukebox. His selection of Esther and Abi Ofarim singing ‘Cinderella Rockefella’ produced guffaws of conspiratorial laughter. The American girl joined in the general amusement. The blond manager appeared immediately, pretending to be angry. He glared in mock horror at the jukebox and looked accusingly at the gathering around the bar.

  ‘Okay. Who was it this time?’ he demanded.

  The customer who made the jukebox selection was betrayed by the others. He sheepishly dug into his pocket and pushed a banknote into the cancer research collecting box that the manager held under his nose. Jodi and Yuri were amused and impressed by the performance. The Cinderella had barely been open a week and already it had regular customers who were establishing its traditions.

  Yuri was unable to contain his curiosity. ‘What’s the matter?’ he called out to the manager. ‘Don’t you like their music?’

  The other customers laughed at the question.

  ‘No I do not,’ said the manager with feeling. ‘There’s a ten-franc fine for anyone who plays it.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Yuri knowingly, ‘they’re Israelis. You don’t like Israelis?’ Any hint of anti-semitism in the town would go into their report.

  The customers roared with laughter. The American girl behind the bar nearly choked on her orange juice.

  ‘I am an Israeli,’ the manager explained. ‘That’s why I can’t stand those two. Daniel Kalen.’ He held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  Yuri’s hurried introduction of himself and Jodi covered his surprise.

  ‘A coincidence,’ Jodi commented in a low tone to Yuri when they were alone.

  Yuri dug into the generous side salad that had accompanied his hamburger. He glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. ‘His name? Well of course. But an Israeli running a bar in Winterthur? And right here of all places. It must go in the report.’

  ‘Coincidences can wait until we get home,’ said Jodi.

  Hal Quint, McNaill’s director, arrived at Heathrow Airport with a small valise and a large smile. The valise ended up on the back seat of McNaill’s car; the smile on the front seat as he coiled his beanpole frame into the car beside McNaill. ‘Hi there, Ian. You’re putting on weight.’

  McNaill was not amused. ‘It so happens I’m losing weight.’ He wove the car into the traffic heading for the tunnel.

  ‘Well you sure have put it on since I last saw you.’

  ‘That was when I was on a gaining slope. I’m now riding down the other side of the switchback and shedding. With my worries, I don’t have much choice.’

  ‘What worries would they be, Ian?’

  ‘How about you coming here for starters?’

  Quint chuckled. ‘Your report has caused a little flurry in the dovecots of power.’

  ‘Which is why you’re here?’

  ‘You’ve got it. We’ve been piecing together what little we know about Emil Kalen. On the face of it, him using his son on this little enterprise - untrained personnel - is right out of character. It doesn’t make sense. On the other hand, we do know that he’s likely to do things simply because no one else thinks he will. The man’s an enigma.’

  ‘That report of mine was a lot of supposition,’ McNaill interrupted. ‘I thought I made that clear. Maybe I should’ve had “supposition” printed on the cover in seventy-two point caps. We don’t know for sure what the Institute are planning.’

  Quint gave McNaill a careful, sidelong look. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Ian. The suppositions you fire off have a reputation for punching holes in a tight group round the target.’

  McNaill was unimpressed by the compliment. He concentrated on his driving, turning on to the A40 and heading east.

  ‘W
hat do you think the view is in Washington on Israel building her own supersonic fighters?’ Quint asked.

  McNaill lit a cigarette, holding the wheel with one hand. ‘As they don’t want Israel to have Phantoms, the sensible guess would be that

  they’re against it. But there’s no mileage in talking about Washington and sensible guesses in the same breath.’

  Quint chuckled. ‘The answer is yes and no. So you’re right. Israel is a friend we don’t need; the Arabs are enemies we do need. We don’t want to upset the Arabs by fitting out the Israelis with Phantoms, but we would like to see them with aeroplane production independence. Stop all this need for us to nervously finger goodluck charms whenever they come to us with one of their “please may we have aeroplanes” requests. So ... if the Israelis are fixing to steal Mirage drawings—’

  ‘Jesus C,’ McNaill exploded. ‘Are you telling me we’re now shaping foreign policy around my hunches?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here, Ian. To give you the go-ahead to put your hunches to the test.’

  ‘You mean - to order me?’

  ‘That’s right. You’re to find out what’s going on and report back.’ ‘Anything else you’d like me to do while I’m at it? Wire the Kremlin for sound? Plant bugs in Brezhnev’s hot water bottle?’ ‘No. But you can turn round and take me .back to the airport.’ ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll be able to catch the three-thirty to Washington if you step on it.’

  ‘You mean you flew three thousand miles for a ten-minute chat?’

  Quint nodded. ‘That’s right, Ian. I wanted to see you personally. Impress on you just how important this thing is.’

  4

  WINTERTHUR

  The only thing that changed in Albert Heinken’s daily routine was his age. Even his daydreams were always the same. They were either about wealth or were erotic fantasies about the girls in his tracing drawing office at Luftech. But today was going to be different. More than merely different. Today Albert’s daydreams, that he never spoke about to anyone, would be leading him along a dangerous path towards a reality that would eventually shatter his current way of life.