Triple (1991)

by Ken Follett

  "I'm not sure. I think so. I'm older than she is." "Age doesn't matter. You could put on a little weight, though. A woman likes to have something to get hold of." The conversation was annoying Dickstein, and now he re. alized why: Cortone was set on keeping it trivial. It might have been the habit of years of being close-mouthed; it might have been that so much of his "family business" was criminal business and he did not want Dickstein to know it (but Dickstein had already guessed); or there migbt have been some. thing else he was afraid of revealing, some secret disappointment he could not share: anyhow, the open, garrulous, excitable young man had long since disappeared inside this fat man. Dickstein longed to say, Tell me what gives you joy, and who you love, and how your life runs on. Instead he said, "Do you remember what you said to me in oxfordr, "Sure. I told you I owe you a debt, you saved my life." Cortone inhaled on his cigar. At least that had not changed. "Im here to ask for your to help. "Go ahead and ask." "Mind if I put the radio on?" Cortone smiled. "Mis place is swept for bugs about once a week." "Good," said Dickstein but he put the radio on all the same. "Cards on the table, Al. I work for Israeli Intelligence. Cortones eyes widened. "I should have guessed." "I'm running an operation in the Mediterranean in November. It's . . ." Dickstein wondered how much he needed to tell, and decided very little. "Ifs something that could mean the end of the wars in the Middle East." He paused, remembering a phrase Cortone had used habitually. "And I aWt to shittin! YOU. Cortone laughed. "If you were going to shit me, I figure you would have been here sooner than twenty years." "It's important that the operation should not be traceable back to Israel. I need a base from which to work. I need a big house on the coast with a landing for small boats and an anchorage not too far offshore for a big ship. While Im there-a couple of weeks, maybe mom-I need to be protected from inquiring police and other nosy officials. I can think of only one place where I could get all that, and only one person could get it for me." Cortone nodded. "I know a place--a derelict house in Sicily. Ifs not exactly plush, kid ... no heat, no phone-but it could fill the bill." Dickstein smiled broadly. nlat!s terrific," he said. "Thats what I came to ask for." "You!re kidding," said Cortone. "That's all?"

  To: Head of Mossad FRom: Head of London Station DATE: 29 July 1968 Suza Ashford is almost certainly an agent of an Arab intelligence service. She was born in Oxford~ England, 17 June 1944, the only child of Mr. (now Professor) Stephen Ashford (born Guildford, England, 1908) and Eila Zuabi (born Tripoli, Lebanon, 1925). The mother, who died in 1954, was a full-blooded Arab. The father is what is known in England as an "Arabist"; he spent most of the first forty years of his life in the Middle East and was an explorer, entrepreneur and linguist. He now teaches Semitic Languages at Oxford University, where he is well known for his moderately pro-Arab views. Therefore, although Suza Ashford is strictly speaking a U.K national, her loyalties may be assumed to lie with the Arab cause. She works as an air hostess for BOAC on intercontinental routes, traveling frequently to Tehran, Singapore and Zurich, among other places. Consequently, she has numerous opportunities to make clandestine contacts with Arab diplomatic staff. She is a strikingly beautiful young woman (see attached photograph-which, however, does not do her justice, according to the field agent on this case). She is promiscuous, but not unusually so by the standards of her profession nor by those of her generation in London. To be specific: for her to have sexual relations with a man for the purpose of obtaining information might be an unpleasant experience but not a traumatic one.

  Finally-and this is the clincher-Yasif Hassan, the agent who spotted Dickstein in Luxembourg, studied under her father, Professor Ashford, at the same time as Dickstein, and has remained in occasional contact with Ashford in the intervening years. He may have visited Ashford--a man answering his description certainly did visit-about the time Dickstein's affair with Suza Ashford began. I recommend that surveillance be continued. (Signed) Robert Jakes

  fo: Head of London Station FRom: Head of Mossad DATE: 30 July 1968 With all that against her, I cannot understand why you do not recommend we kill her. (Signed) Pierre Borg

  To: Head of Mossad FROM: Head of London Station DATE: 31 July 1968 1 do not recommend eliminating Suza Ashford for the following reasons: 1. The evidence against her is strong but circumstantial. 2. From what I know of Dickstein, I doubt very much that he has given her any information, even if he is romantically involved. 3. If we eliminate her the other side wM begin looking for another way to get at Dickstein. Better the devil we know. 4. We may be able to use her to feed false information to the other side. S. I do not like to kill on the basis of circumstantial evidence. We are not barbarians. We are Jews. 6. If we kill a woman Dickstein loves, I think he will kill you, me and everyone else involved. (Signed) Robert Jakes

  To: Head of LDndon Station FRom: Head of Mossad DATE: I August 1968 Do it your way. (Signed) Pierre Borg PosrscupT (marked Persond): Your point 5 is very noble and touching, but remarks like that wont get you promoted in this maWs army.P.B.

  She was a small, old, ugly, dirty, cantankerous hitch. Rust bloomed like a skin rash in great orange blotches all over her hull. If there had ever been any paint on her upperworks it had long ago been peeled away and blasted off and dissolved by the wind and the rain and the sea. Her starboard gunwale had been badly buckled W aft of the prow in an old collision, and nobody had ever bothered to straighten it out. Her funnel bore a layer of grime ten years thick. Her deck was scored and dented and stained; and although it was swabbed often, it was never swabbed thoroughly, so that them were traces of past cargoe*--grains of corn, splinters of timber, bits of rotting vegetation and fragments of sackinghidden behind lifeboats and under coils of rope and inside cracks and joints and holes. On a warm day she smelled foul. I She was some Z500 tons, 200 feet long and a little over 30 feet broad. Ilere was a tall radio mast in her blunt prow. Most of her deck was taken up by two large hatches opening Into the main cargo holds. IMere were three cranes on deck: one forward of the hatches, one aft and one in between. Ibe wheelhouse, officere cabins, galley and crew's quarters were in the stem, clustered around the funnel. She had a single screw driven by a six-cylinder diesel engine theoretically capable of developing 2,450 b.hp. and maintaining a service speed of thirteen knots. FWly loaded, she would pitch badly. In ballast she would yaw like the very devil. Either way she would roll through seventy degrees of arc at the slightest provocation. Ile quarters were cramped and poorly ventilated, the galley was often flooded and the engine room had been designed by Hleronymous Bosch.

  She was crewed by thirty-one officers and men, not one of whom had a good word to say for her. The only passengers were a colony of cockroaches in the galley, a few mice and several hundred rats. Nobody loved her, and her name was Coparelli.

  Chapter Ten

  Nat Dickstein went to New York to become a shipping tycoon. It took him all morning. He looked in the Manhattan phone book and selected a lawyer with an address on the lower East Side. Instead of calling on the phone he went there personally, and was satisfied when he saw that the lawyer's office was one room over a Chinese restaurant. The lawyer's name was Mr. Chung. Dickstein and Chung took a cab to the Park Avenue offices of Liberian Corporation Services, Inc., a company set up to assist people who wanted to register a Liberian corporation but bad no intention of ever going within three thousand miles of Liberia. Dickstein was not asked for references, and he did not have to establish that he was honest or solvent or sane. For a. fee of five hundred dollars-which Dickstein paid in cash-they registered the Savile Shipping Corporation of Liberia. The fact that at this stage Dickstein did not own so much as a rowboat was of no interest to anyone. The company's headquarters was listed as No. 80 Broad Street, Monrovia, Liberia; and its directors were P. Satia, EX Nugba and J.D. Boyd, all residents of Liberia. This was also the headquarters address of most Liberian corporations, and the address of the Liberian Trust Company. Satia, Nugba and Boyd were founding directors of many such corporations; indeed this was the way they made their living. They
were also employees of the Liberian Trust Company. Mr. Chung asked for fifty dollars and cab fare. Dickstein paid him in cash and told him to take the bus. So, without so much as giving an address, Dickstein had created a fully legitimate shipping company which could not be traced back either to him or to the Mossad. Satia, Nugba and Boyd resigned twenty-four hours later, as was the - custom; and that same day the notary public of Montserrado County, Liberia, stamped an affidavit which said lee that total control of the Savile Shipping Corporation now lay in the hands of one Andre Papagopolous. By that time Dickstein was riding the bus from Zurich airport into town, an his way to meet Papagopolous, for lunch. When he had time to reflect on it, even be was shaken by the compleidty of his plan, the number of pieces that had to be made to fit into the jigsaw puzzle, the number of people who had to be persuaded, bribed or coerced into performing their parts. He had been successful so far, first with Stiffcollar and then with Al Cortone, not to mention Uoyd!s of London and Iberian Corporation Services, Inc., but how long could it go on? Papagopolous was in some ways the greatest challenge: a man as elusive, as powerful, and as free of weakness as Dickstein himself. He had been born in 1912 in a village that during his boy hood was variously Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek. His father was a fisherman. In his teenage he graduated from fishing to other kinds of maritime work, mostly smuggling. After World War 11 he turned up In Ethiopia, buying for knock-down prices the piles of surplus military suppliea which had sud denly become worthless when the war ended. He bought rifles, handgans machin e guns, antitank guns and ammuni tion for all of these. He then contacted the Jewish Agency in Cairo and sold the arms at an enormous profit to the under ground Israeli Army. He arranged shipping-and here his smuggling background was invaluable--and delivered the goods to Palestine. Then he asked if they wanted more. This was how he had met Nat Dickstein. He soon moved on, to Farours Cairo and then to Switzerland. His Israeli deals had marked a transition from totally illegal business to dealings which were at worst shady and at best pristine. Now he called himself a ship broker, and that was most, though by no means all, of his business. He had no address. He could be reached via half a dozen telephone numbers all over the world, but he was never there-always, somebody took a message and Papagopolous called you back. Many people knew him and trusted him. especially in the shipping business, for he never let anyone down; but this trust was based on reputation, not personal contact. He lived well but quietly, and Nat Dickstein was one of the few people in the world who knew of his single vice, which was that he liked to go to bed with lots of girls-but lots.- like, ten or twelve. He had no sense of humor. Dickstein got off the bus at the railway station, where Papagopolous was waiting for him on the pavement. He was a big man, olive-skinned with thin dark hair combed over a growing bald patch. On it bright summer day in Zurich he wore a navy blue suit, pale blue shirt and dark blue striped tie. He had small dark eyes. They shook hands. Dickstein said., "How's business?" "Up and down." Papagopolous smiled. "Mostly UP. Iley walked through the clean, tidy streets, looking like a managing director and his accountant. Dickstein inhaled the cold air, "I like this town," he said. "rve booked a table at the Veltliner Keller in the old city," Papagopolous said. "I know you don!t care about food, but 1 do. Dickstein said, "You've been to the Pelikanstrasse?" "Yes." "Good." Ile Zurich offize of Liberian Corporation Services, Inc., was in the Pelikanstrasse. Dickstein had asked Papagopolous to go there to register himself as president and chief executive of Savile Shipping. For this he would receive ten thousand U.S. dollars, paid out of Mossad's account in a Swiss bank to Papagopolous's account in the same branch of the same bank-a transaction very difficult for anyone to Uncover. Papagopolous said, "But I didn't promise to do anything else. You may have wasted your money." "rm sure, I didn!t" They reached the restaurant. Dickstein had expected that Papagopolous would be known there, but there was no sign of recognition from the headwaiter, and Dickstein thought: Of course, he's not known anywhere. They ordered food and wine. Dickstein noted with regret that the domestic Swiss white wine was still better than the Israeli. While they att, Dickstein explained Papagopolous's duties as president of Savile Shipping. "One: buy a small, fast ship, a thousand or fifteen hundred tons, small crew. Register her in Liberia." This would involve another visit to Pelikanstrasse and a fee of about a dollar per ton. "For the purchase, take your percentage as a broker. Do some business with the ship, and take your broker's percentage on that I don't care what the ship does so long as she completes a voyage by docking in Haifa on or before October 7. Dismiss the crew at Haifa. Do you want to take notesr Papagopolous smiled. "I think not." The implication was not lost on Dickstein. Papagopolous was listening, but he had not yet agreed to do the job. Dickstein continued. 'Irwo: buy any one of the ships on this list" He handed over a single sheet of paper bearing the names of the four sister ships of the Copare it with their owners and last known locations-the information he had gotten from Uoyd!s. "Offer whatever price is necessary: I must have one of them, Take your brokeespercentage. Deliver her to Haifa by October 7. Dismiss the crew~" Papagopolous was eating chocolate mousse, his smooth face imperturbable. He put down his spoon and put on goldrimmed glasses to read the list He folded the sheet of paper in half and set it on the table without comment Dickstein handed him another sheet of paper. 'IMree: buy this ship-the Copares?l But you must buy her at exactly the right time. She sails from Antwerp on Sunday, November 17. We must buy her alter she sails birt belore she passes through the Strait of Chbraltar." Papagopolous, looked dubious. kWell . . 'Vait, la me give you the rest of it Four: early in 1969 you sell ship No. 1, the little one, and ship No. 3, the Coparellt. You get from me a certificate showing that ship No. 2 has been sold for scrap. You send that certificate to Lloyd& You wind up Savile, Shipping." Dickstein smiled and sipped his coffee. "What you want to do is make a ship disappear without a trace." Dickstein nodded. Papagopolous was as sharp as a knife. "As you must realize," Papagopolous went on, "all this is .straightforward except for the purchase of the Coparelft while &he is at sea. The normal procedure for the sale of a ship is as follows: negotiations take place, a price is agreed, and the documents are drawn up. The ship goes into dry dock for inspection. When she has been pronounced satisfactory the documents are signed, the money is paid and the new owner takes her out of dry, dock. Buying a ship while she is sailing is most irregular." "But not impossible "No, not impossible." Dickstein watched him, He became thoughtful, his gaze distant: he was grappling with the problem. It was a good sign. Papagopolous said, "We would have to open negotiations, agree on the price and have the inspection arranged for a date after her November voyage. Then, when she has sailed, we say that the purchaser needs to spend the money immediately, perhaps for tax reasons. The buyer would then take out insurance against any major repairs which might prove necessary after the inspection . . . but this is not the seller's concern. He is concerned about his reputation as a shipper. He Will want cast-iron guarantees that his cargo will be delivered by the new owner of the Coparelli." "Would he accept a guarantee based on your personal reputation?" "Of course. But why would I give such a guarantee?" Dickstein looked him in the eye. "I can promise you that the owner of the cargo will not complain." PapagDpolous made an open-handed gesture. "it is obvious that you are perpetrating some kind of a swindle here. You need me as a respectable front. That I can do. But you also want me to lay my reputation on the line and take your word that it will not suffer?" "Yes. Listen. Let me ask you one thing. You trusted the Israelis once before, remember?" "Of course." "Did you ever regret it?" Papagopolous smiled, remembering the old days. "It was the beat decision I ever made." "So, will you trust us againr' Dickstein held his breath. "I had less to lose in those days. I was ... thirty-five. We used to have a lot of fun. This is the most intriguing offer Irve had in twenty years. What the bell, Ill do it." Dickstein extended his hand across the restaurant tabl& Papagopolous shook it. A waitrem brought a little bowl of Swiss chocolates for them to eat with their coffee. Papagopolous took one
, Dickstein refused.