When Shadows Collide (An Arik Bar Nathan Novel Book 1)

by Nathan Ronen

  Calls of support echoed from anywhere where analysts from the various security agencies were sitting. Parliament members, members of the British Foreign Affairs and Intelligence and Security Committees, and the politicians sitting in the audience were all well aware of the barb directed at them.

  Arik looked at Sir John in disbelief. Did the inherent tension between politicians and professional intelligence personnel exist even here, in the British temple of democracy?

  “I think terrorism is nurtured by the difficult socio-economic conditions prevalent in the swamps in which terror cells grow,” the deputy to the British foreign minister commented. “And if the West worries less about itself and more about financial aid to African and Asian countries, everyone will benefit.”

  Arik could not hold back, venomously tossing out at her, “Give a rat a cookie and it will immediately demand a glass of warm milk next to it.”

  The audience responded with a peal of laughter. She looked at him angrily, trying to discern the identity of the man sitting next to Sir John.

  A vibration rising from the inner pocket of MI5 Director David McBrady’s suit made him reach for his cell phone and glance at it. His face turned somber. He touched Sir John’s knee and signaled him to leave. A question surfaced on Sir John’s face. McBrady pointed at a message on his cell phone screen. His colleague’s expression grew serious as well. Both of them rose with some agitation and left the lecture hall. Arik didn’t know whether to stay and listen to the rest of the fascinating lecture or follow them out. He hadn’t been invited along, it was true, but the British security agency heads’ body language and his own sixth sense instructed him to exit and seek them out in the corridor or in the large garden. He sensed that something dramatic was going on and rose to follow the two men.

  Arik did not look back and did not notice that the Iranian Colonel Rizkawi had also risen from his seat and followed the two. The colonel, too, sensed that something was going on and wondered whether the source of the upheaval was Iman al-Uzbeki.

  * * *

  62Inspired by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari’s article, “What Is Terrorism: From the Middle Ages to the Twenty-First Century,” in the journal Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly, Issue 108, 2009. https://www.openu.ac.il/lists/mediaserver_documents/publications/zmanim108-harari.pdf (in Hebrew).

  Chapter 42

  The Park on the Bank of the Thames

  Sir David McBrady looked greatly excited as he talked in a low voice to his colleague and rival Sir John, head of the Secret Intelligence Service. They walked along East Cedar Street, the road circumscribing the large campus, by the bank of the Thames River. The streetlights cast a yellowish light on a small swarm of gnats filling the air with a dark cloud, attracted to the light as if to a magnet. The annoying croak of frogs in heat rose from the bank of the Thames.

  Arik Bar-Nathan looked at them from afar. He knew he should not approach, ask, or offer advice. This would be considered more than lack of courtesy or civility. In fact, it might be considered intervention by a foreign country in an allied country’s affairs.

  The note of excitement audible in McBrady’s voice intrigued Arik and attracted him, much more than he was willing to admit.

  Are they talking about the Brexit affair that’s driving the British political system crazy? he wondered. What’s the significance of North Ireland’s statement this evening that it won’t be able to join the British exit from the European Union because it doesn’t want a border between it and the independent Irish Republic on its south? Have they discovered that Russian hackers have been interfering in the results of the public poll in their country as well? Or could they be discussing something as ‘trivial’ as Iman al-Uzbeki?

  Arik’s curiosity was immense. At that moment, he wanted to be a fly on the trunk of the tree where the two Brits were standing, about twenty yards away from him.

  About ten yards across from him, concealed by shrubs, Colonel Rizkawi looked at Arik Bar-Nathan, who was watching the two Englishmen as if mesmerized. Behind them, a stone’s throw away, two bodyguards, an Israeli and an Iranian, also hiding in the bushes, watched each other and their bosses, their hands gripping their pistols, prepared for any eventuality.

  Rizkawi’s mind was also racing. He wondered whether he should warn Iman al-Uzbeki that the Brits were on his trail. Or would it be better to keep his silence and let sleeping dogs lie? If he shouted out, “Wolf, wolf!” and nothing happened, he might be blamed for a future failure. Therefore, he preferred to keep quiet and take off.

  Arik stood out in the open gazing at the Brits. He was surprised when David McBrady turned toward him and gestured to him in invitation to approach.

  He strode over rapidly with an expression of tense expectation.

  “We’re tracking the activity in a few central mosques in London in the most covert, respectful way,” McBrady began. “We make sure not to bring the police into the mosques. We’ve recruited a few Brits who returned from ISIS activity as sleeper agents worshipping in their mosques, and one of them told us that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has recently purchased the Hyatt United Church and is currently working toward turning it into a mosque. The crosses towering above the church’s two Gothic turrets have been replaced with the star and crescent emblem. They’ve begun decorating the church walls with geometrical trim and statements in Arabic. What alerted my agent was the fact that intense excavations are being carried out below the mosque floor, as if they’re adding a basement. They’re scattering the soil they’re excavating in public parks, as if they’re hiding something. Our agents say that similar excavations are taking place without municipal authorization in East London’s Grand Mosque in Whitechapel. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Iman al-Uzbeki, but I suspect they’re building a concealed arsenal there.”

  “And why are you telling me about this?” Arik wondered.

  “Because my people are wary of going into the mosque without being discovered, and I thought you might help us. That’s your people’s specialty, right?”

  Sir John did not hold back, interjecting, “I thought you’d be happy to finish off the job you started in Morocco. After all, you and Iman al-Uzbeki are like Captain Ahab and Moby Dick, his lethal whale, right?”

  “So now, suddenly, Great Britain’s secret services are asking for our help in doing your dirty work?” Arik taunted them. “After pummeling us in every international forum, citing human rights, liberalism, and enlightenment?”

  “Let’s make a distinction between the politicians and professionals like us,” Sir John courteously requested. “I suggested to Sir David McBrady that we use your successful track record in the war against Hamas and Palestinian terrorism. You can help us catch the man who’s apparently scheming to hit London with a major terrorist event. We suspect it might be at Westminster Church or Buckingham Palace, or perhaps the Israeli Embassy in London or the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA) in Great Britain.”

  “Still, though, why don’t you contact your allies, for example, the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate?” Arik played the innocent. “Or maybe the intelligence agency of one of the Persian Gulf countries, or Pakistan’s?”

  “Because I don’t trust them,” Sir John explained. “First of all, they’re leaky, and secondly, they’re full of people whose loyalty to the concept and values of the fundamentalist Islamic state are greater than their loyalty to their own country. Also, their level of execution is not equal to yours. If you help us, the Mossad can take credit for exposing and eliminating the greatest arch-terrorist currently walking free, in addition to Egyptian Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Isis’s Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Along with the Americans, we’ve established a special taskforce called ‘Abir’ to eliminate them, including a 25-million-dollar prize for their capture.”

  “I thought Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed by the Americans in Iraq when his headquar
ters were bombed,” Arik said.

  “No,” Sir John replied. “As far as we know, al-Baghdadi was injured in an aerial attack, suffered a spinal injury, and became disabled. Ever since, his deputy, Abu Alaa al-Afri, has been head of ISIS.”

  “Excuse me for being suspicious, gentlemen. What’s the English expression? It’s a bit too good to be true,” Arik said. “Since when do you sub-contract your work, on your soil, to a little agency like the Mossad? You’ll agree that it looks strange and smells a bit fishy.”

  “Arik, come on. You know how we do things in Britain. You said it yourself when we met at my club earlier. If we manage to catch the head of the snake, Iman al-Uzbeki, we’ll be obligated to prosecute him in a British court,” Sir John said. “If we prosecute a terrorist like Iman al-Uzbeki, and we both know he works under the radar, without leaving any fingerprints behind, we won’t be able to link any legal evidence to him, and if we still manage to take him to court, we’ll probably have to set him loose, because we’ll have a problem with exposing our source among his associates. After all, how did we know he was supposed to be on his way here?”

  Arik let out a tense laugh in response. “And if the enlightened British Attorney General’s Office manages to prosecute him after all, he’ll tell the judge some sob story, and at most, receive a year of jail time for illegal entry and violating UK border regulations. Meanwhile, his friends in Iraq or Afghanistan will kidnap a British diplomat, and as part of the negotiations, you’ll be forced to quietly release him. And then he’s immediately back in the terrorist market, the kind of arch-criminal who doesn’t hesitate to kill women and children.”

  The two British spies secretly knew he was right. They nodded and kept silent.

  “You Brits are great when it comes to clear, well-structured action plans,” Arik continued. “You know how to track, foil, or protect. But when it comes to assaults and hits, you call me over to do your dirty work for you?”

  “Arik, my friend,” Sir John said, in fake affability, “you know what our business is like. Everyone has a plan until they get a kick in the face. Both of us know the iron rule when it comes to hits. It doesn’t matter who fired the bullet; what matters is who paid for it.”

  “Meaning, we finish him off and you come out with the big headlines?” Arik said, then fell silent. He realized Israel would never be able to take credit for successful intelligence work on British soil. Especially since no one would allow him to openly make such a declaration without ISIS immediately adding Israel to its list of targets for vengeance.

  “I need to talk to my new boss and to our prime minister,” he finally said. “If we get a greenlight, don’t worry, we’ll take proper care of Iman al-Uzbeki, and then bury him in a hole so deep that none of your old problems will ever rise to the surface.”

  “We also have to get authorization from our policymakers to bring you in,” Sir John said. “Although this Iman al-Uzbeki is really not at the top of their priority list right now.”

  Arik looked at the two heads of Britain’s intelligence agencies and informed them he was asking for free reign to search for al-Uzbeki, as well as for their logistic support in regard to anything he needed.

  “No problem, but if there’s a violent confrontation, it’ll be a British force firing at him, rather than Israelis. Is that agreed?” Sir John asked, for protocol’s sake.

  “At the moment, I’m thinking of an Arabic proverb,” Arik concluded, “which states that you and I are like two parts of an ass within one pair of underwear.”

  The Brits’ expression testified that Arik’s statement was not quite in line with the rules of British decorum. They did not like the analogy or its anal imagery.

  “Shall we shake on it?” Arik asked, extending a firm hand.

  In light of the new plan coming together, he did not know whether he would have time to pass through Oxford Street and buy some clothes for his children as he had planned. He had to catch a flight back to Israel as soon as possible in order to update Mossad Director Raya Ron on the change in plans.

  On his way to the airport, he called his office manager Claire and asked her to indefinitely postpone his trip to France to visit the head of the DGSE, Admiral Lacoste.

  Chapter 43

  An Irregular Division Heads’ Meeting at the Office

  Raya Ron strode into the conference room energetically. She had just emerged from an hour of exercise comprised of running and stretches in the gym built for her next to her office. She had had time to shower and change and entered the conference room with her hair wet, wearing a fashionable power suit.

  “Arik, I understand that there’s some new development. What’s the urgency behind your request to convene the entire forum for an unscheduled meeting?”

  Arik told them about the British request for aid in locating and eliminating Iman al-Uzbeki in London.

  “Do we have any intel about his target?” she asked. “Are the Iranians going to recreate the pattern of their coordinated attacks on the Israeli Embassy as well as simultaneous attacks on Jewish community centers?”

  “The two heads of the British intelligence agencies don’t have any concrete information,” Arik said. “They have suspicions that the Iranians are going to activate Iman al-Uzbeki in London, and if the model of explosions at the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community center in Argentina worked well, I suppose they’ll want to repeat it but with one difference. This time, their executing party is an independent contractor rather than an activist from Hezbollah or Iranian intelligence, which will allow them to wash their hands clean of the results. Iman al-Uzbeki is an especially cautious person, a man of a thousand faces who maintains strict compartmentalization among his people. In 1994, his mode of operation was a sole Lebanese suicide bomber, a Hezbollah activist who set off a 900-pound explosive charge concealed as a car bomb in a Renault Traffic van in front of the AMIA Building, the Jewish community center in Argentina. Two years earlier, it was an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires following the exact same outline. A similar mode of operation occurred in London. In 1994, an attack was first carried out on the Israeli Embassy using a car bomb, and three hours later, another car bomb exploded outside Balfour House in North London, which houses various Jewish and Israeli organizations.”

  “Why are we presuming it’s going to be the same thing?” Raya Ron asked cautiously. “Why are we trapped in that preconception of events? After all, lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, right? I understand we’re dealing with the same man who sent killers to the courtyard of the Grand Mosque in Casablanca to assassinate the Moroccan king, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Arik corrected her. “There, too, he was working with three spearheads. The first stage were car-bomb explosions that got the security forces running to the scene, while abandoning the Grand Mosque where the king and his people were congregating, then there were secondary attacks targeting security forces and ambulances, and once those were busy tending to themselves and their wounded, he deployed the ‘dessert’: a hit squad landing from the sea and an attempt to infiltrate the Grand Mosque. The main problem was the King’s Guard in the Grand Mosque, which betrayed the king and opened fire on him and his entourage. If you want an attack that makes use of Iman al-Uzbeki’s reputation as a bomb expert, you don’t summon him to carry out a shooting attack or a vehicular attack. That’s beneath him.”

  “I studied that terrorist attack in Morocco, and I have to take my hat off to an event that was coordinated and managed on a level like that where Iman al-Uzbeki was in charge,” Raya Ron said. “On the other hand, what do we care if he carries out an attack in London? Maybe that’ll help the Brits understand what we’re going through with Palestinian terrorism. Give me some good reasons why I should be involved if an Arab wants to kill British people.”

  Yoni Soudry interjected, “For starters, Iman al-Uzbeki and the Iranians are not Arabs. There are a bill
ion and a half Muslims in the world, and only 420 million Arabs. We do appear to have a problem. There have been periods when we were good friends with the Iranians, but that was before the ayatollahs took over the country. We were also good friends with the Turks before Erdoğan rose to power.”

  Gideon Perry, the most senior of the bunch, looked at Raya with a paternal smile and said quietly, “We have to be involved because of the Law of Dominoes. That way, the Brits owe us. Although I don’t trust them, and they’ve always been two-faced and fickle under the façade of British politeness.”

  Alex, head of the Intelligence and Research Division, smiled bitterly. “We have to be involved because, ultimately, if we don’t deter the Iranians from exporting their Muslim revolution to the world, it’ll overflow and end up on our doorstep. If not tomorrow morning, then the day after that. I want to remind you that the Iranian regime uses terrorist activity as an ongoing, methodical course of action in order to attain its goals. Off the top of my head, I can think of three events where the Iranian regime eliminated its opponents in France, Germany and Switzerland. First, the murder of Kazem Rajavi, Iran’s former ambassador to the UN, in Switzerland. He was the brother of Masud Rajavi, head of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organization, who was assassinated at a later time. His sister, Maryam Halachi, escaped to Paris and became the leader of the organization. The murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, the exiled Iranian prime minister and secretary general of the movement opposing the Iranian regime, along with his secretary in Paris. And the murder of Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi, the secretary general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, and three of his people, which took place in Berlin.”