by Ken Follett
He looked back. Feinberg had retreated behind the galley, perhaps to reload. He waited until Feinberg started shooting again, then got to his feet. Firing wildly from the hip, he broke from behind the lifeboat and dashed across the afterdeck to the ladder. Without breaking stride, he jumped on to the fourth rung and scrambled up, conscious that for a few seconds he made an easy target, hearing a clutch of bullets rattle on the funnel beside him, until he reached the level of the upper deck and flung himself across the walkway to fetch up, breathing hard and shaking with effort, lying against the door to the officers' quarters.
"Stone the bloody crows," he muttered.
He reloaded his gun. He put his back to the door and slowly slid upright to a porthole in the door at eye level. He risked a look. He saw a passage with three doors on either side and, at the far end, ladders going down to the mess and up to the chartroom. He knew that the bridge could be reached by either of two outside ladders leading up from the main deck as well as by way of the chartroom. However, the Arabs still controlled that part of the deck and could cover the outside ladders; therefore the only way to the bridge was this way.
He opened the door and stepped in. He crept along the passage to the first cabin door, opened it, and threw in a grenade. He saw one of the enemy begin to turn around, and closed the door. He heard the grenade explode in the small space. He ran to the next door on the same side, opened it, and threw in another grenade. It exploded into empty space.
There was one more door on this side, and he had no more grenades.
He ran to the door, threw it open, and went in firing. There was one man here. He had been firing through the porthole, but now he was easing his gun out of the hole and turning around. Dickstein's burst of bullets sliced him in half.
Dickstein turned and faced the open door, waiting. The door of the opposite cabin flew open and Dickstein shot down the man behind it.
Dickstein stepped into the gangway, firing blind. There were two more cabins to account for. The door of the nearer one opened as Dickstein was spraying it, and a body fell out.
One to go. Dickstein waited. The door opened a crack, then closed again. Dickstein ran down the gangway, and kicked open the door, sprayed the cabin. There was no return fire. He stepped inside: the occupant had been hit by a ricochet and lay bleeding on the bunk.
Dickstein was seized with a kind of mad exultation: he had taken the entire deck on his own.
Next, the bridge. He ran forward along the gangway. At the far end the companionway led up to the chartroom and down to the officers' mess. He stepped on to the ladder, looked up, and threw himself down and away as the snout of a gun poked down at him and began to fire.
His grenades were gone. The man in the chartroom was impregnable to gunfire. He could stay behind the edge of the companionhead and fire blind down the ladder. Dickstein had to get on the ladder, for he wanted to go up.
He went into one of the forward cabins to overlook the deck and try to assess the situation. He was appalled when he saw what had happened on the foredeck: only one of the four men of Abbas's team was still firing, and Dickstein could just make out three bodies. Two or three guns seemed to be firing from the bridge at the remaining Israeli, trapping him behind a stack of anchor chain.
Dickstein looked to the side. Feinberg was still well aft--he had not managed to progress forward. And there was still no sign of the men who had gone below.
The Fedayeen were well entrenched in the mess below him. From their superior position they were able to keep at bay the men on deck and the men in the 'tweendecks below them. The only way to take the mess would be to attack it from all sides at once--including from above. But that meant taking the bridge first. And the bridge was impregnable.
Dickstein ran back along the gangway and out of the aft door. It was still pouring rain, but there was a dim cold light in the sky. He could make out Feinberg on one side and Dovrat on the other. He called out their names until he caught their attention, then pointed at the galley. He jumped from the walkway to the afterdeck, raced across it, and dove into the galley.
They had got his meaning. A moment later they followed him in. Dickstein said, "We have to take the mess."
"I don't see how," said Feinberg.
"Shut up and I'll tell you. We rush it from all sides at once: port, starboard, below and above. First we have to take the bridge. I'm going to do that. When I get there I'll sound the foghorn. That will be the signal. I want you both to go below and tell the men there."
"How will you reach the bridge?" Feinberg said.
Dickstein said, "Over the roof."
On the bridge, Yasif Hassan had been joined by Mahmoud and two more of his Fedayeen, who took up firing positions while the leaders sat on the floor and conferred.
"They can't win," Mahmoud said. "From here we control too much deck. They can't attack the mess from below, because the companionway is easy to dominate from above. They can't attack from the sides or the front because we can fire down on them from here. They can't attack from above because we control the down companion. We just keep shooting until they surrender."
Hassan said, "One of them tried to take this companion a few minutes ago. I stopped him."
"You were on your own up here?"
"Yes."
He put his hands on Hassan's shoulders. "You are now one of the Fedayeen," he said.
Hassan voiced the thought that was on both their minds. "After this?"
Mahmoud nodded. "Equal partners."
They clasped hands.
Hassan repeated, "Equal partners."
Mahmoud said, "And now, I think they will try for that companionway again--it's their only hope."
"I'll cover it from the chartroom," Hassan said.
They both stood up; then a stray bullet from the foredeck came in through the glassless windows and entered Mahmoud's brain, and he died instantly.
And Hassan was the leader of the Fedayeen.
Lying on his belly, arms and legs spread wide for traction, Dickstein inched his way across the roof. It was curved, and totally without handholds, and it was slick with rain. As the Coparelli heaved and shifted in the waves, the roof tilted forward, backward, and from side to side. All Dickstein could do was press himself to the metal and try to slow his slide.
At the forward end of the roof was a navigation light. When he reached that he would be safe, for he could hold on to it. His progress toward it was painfully slow. He got within a foot of it, then the ship rolled to port and he slid away. It was a long roll, and it took him all the way to the edge of the roof. For a moment he hung with one arm and a leg over a thirty-foot drop to the deck. The ship rolled a little more, the rest of his leg went over, and he tried to dig the fingernails of his right hand into the painted metal of the roof.
There was an agonizing pause.
The Coparelli rolled back.
Dickstein let himself go with the roll, sliding faster and faster toward the navigation light.
But the ship pitched up, the roof tilted backward, and he slid in a long curve, missing the light by a yard. Once again he pressed his hands and feet into the metal, trying to slow himself down; once again he went all the way to the edge; once again he hung over the drop to the deck; but this time it was his right arm which dangled over the edge, and his machine gun slipped off his right shoulder and fell into a lifeboat.
She rolled back and pitched forward, and Dickstein found himself sliding with increasing speed toward the navigation light. This time he reached it. He grabbed with both hands. The light was about a foot from the forward edge of the roof. Immediately below the edge were the front windows of the bridge, their glass smashed out long ago, and two gun barrels poking out through them.
Dickstein held on to the light, but he could not stop his slide. His body swung about in a wide sweep, heading for the edge. He saw that the front of the roof, unlike the sides, had a narrow steel gutter to take away the rain from the glass below. As his body swung over the edge
he released his grip on the navigation light, let himself slide forward with the pitch of the ship, grabbed the steel gutter with his fingertips, and swung his legs down and in. He came flying through the broken windows feet first to land in the middle of the bridge. He bent his knees to take the shock of landing, then straightened up. His submachine gun had been lost and he had no time to draw his pistol or his knife. There were two Arabs on the bridge, one on either side of him, both holding machine guns and firing down on to the deck. As Dickstein straightened up they began to turn toward him, their faces a picture of amazement.
Dickstein was fractionally nearer the one on the port side. He lashed out with a kick which, more by luck than by judgment, landed on the point of the man's elbow, momentarily paralyzing his gun arm. Then Dickstein jumped for the other man. His machine gun was swinging toward Dickstein just a split second too late: Dickstein got inside its swing. He brought up his right hand in the most vicious two-stroke blow he knew: the heel of his hand hit the point of the Arab's chin, snapping his head back for the second stroke as Dickstein's hand, fingers stiffened for a karate chop, came down hard into the exposed flesh of the soft throat.
Before the man could fall Dickstein grabbed him by the jacket and swung him around between himself and the other Arab. The other man was bringing up his gun. Dickstein lifted the dead man and hurled him across the bridge as the machine gun opened up. The dead body took the bullets and crashed into the other Arab, who lost his balance, went backward out through the open doorway and fell to the deck below.
There was a third man in the chartroom, guarding the companionway leading down. In the three seconds during which Dickstein had been on the bridge the man had stood up and turned around; and now Dickstein recognized Yasif Hassan.
Dickstein dropped to a crouch, stuck out a leg, kicked at the broken door which lay on the floor between himself and Hassan. The door slid along the deck, striking Hassan's feet. It was only enough to throw him off balance, but as he spread his arms to recover his equilibrium Dickstein moved.
Until this moment Dickstein had been like a machine, reacting reflexively to everything that confronted him, letting his nervous system plan every move without conscious thought, allowing training and instinct to guide him; but now it was more than that. Now, faced with the enemy of all he had ever loved, he was possessed by blind hatred and mad rage.
It gave him added speed and power.
He took hold of Hassan's gun arm by the wrist and shoulder, and with a downward pull broke the arm over his knee. Hassan screamed and the gun dropped from his useless hand. Turning slightly, Dickstein brought his elbow back in a blow which caught Hassan just under the ear. Hassan turned away, falling. Dickstein grabbed his hair from behind, pulling the head backward; and as Hassan sagged away from him he lifted his foot high and kicked. His heel struck the back of Hassan's neck at the moment he jerked the head. There was a snap as all the tension went out of the man's muscles and his head lolled, unsupported, on his shoulders.
Dickstein let go and the body crumpled.
He stared at the harmless body with exultation ringing in his ears.
Then he saw Koch.
The engineer was tied to a chair, slumped over, pale as death but conscious. There was blood on his clothes. Dickstein drew his knife and cut the ropes that bound Koch. Then he saw the man's hands.
He said, "Christ."
"I'll live," Koch muttered. He did not get up from the chair.
Dickstein picked up Hassan's machine gun and checked the magazine. It was almost full. He moved out on to the bridge and located the foghorn.
"Koch," he said, "can you get out of that chair?"
Koch got up, swaying unsteadily until Dickstein stepped across and supported him, leading him through to the bridge. "See this button? I want you to count slowly to ten then lean on it."
Koch shook his head to clear it. "I think I can handle it."
"Start. Now."
"One," Koch said. "Two."
Dickstein went down the companionway and came out on the second deck, the one he had cleared himself. It was still empty. He went on down, and stopped just before the ladder emerged into the mess. He figured all the remaining Fedayeen must be here, lined against the walls, shooting out through portholes and doorways; one or two perhaps watching the companionway. There was no safe, careful way to take such a strong defensive position.
Come on, Koch!
Dickstein had intended to spend a second or two hiding in the companionway. At any moment one of the Arabs might look up it to check. If Koch had collapsed he would have to go back up there and--
The foghorn sounded.
Dickstein jumped. He was firing before he landed. There were two men close to the foot of the ladder. He shot them first. The firing from outside went into a crescendo. Dickstein turned in a rapid half circle, dropped to one knee to make a smaller target, and sprayed the Fedayeen along the walls. Suddenly there was another gun as Ish came up from below; then Feinberg was at one door, shooting; and Dovrat, wounded, came in through another door. And then, as if by signal, they all stopped shooting, and the silence was like thunder.
All the Fedayeen were dead.
Dickstein, still kneeling, bowed his head in exhaustion. After a moment he stood up and looked at his men. "Where are the others?" he said.
Feinberg gave him a peculiar look. "There's someone on the foredeck, Sapir I think."
"And the rest?"
"That's it," Feinberg said. "All the others are dead."
Dickstein slumped against a bulkhead. "What a price," he said quietly.
Looking out through the smashed porthole he saw that it was day.
Chapter Seventeen
A year earlier the BOAC jet in which Suza Ashford was serving dinner had abruptly begun to lose height for no apparent reason over the Atlantic Ocean. The pilot had switched on the seat-belt lights. Suza had walked up and down the aisle, saying "Just a little turbulence," and helping people fasten their seat belts, all the time thinking: We're going to die, we're all going to die.
She felt like that now.
There had been a short message from Tyrin: Israelis attacking--then silence. At this moment Nathaniel was being shot at. He might be wounded, he might have been captured, he might be dead; and while Suza seethed with nervous tension she had to give the radio operator the BOAC Big Smile and say, "It's quite a setup you've got here."
The Karla's radio operator was a big gray-haired man from Odessa. His name was Aleksandr, and he spoke passable English. "It cost one hundred thousand dollar," he said proudly. "You know about radio?"
"A little . . . I used to be an air hostess." She had said "used to be" without forethought, and now she wondered whether that life really was gone. "I've seen the air crew using their radios. I know the basics."
"Really, this is four radios," Aleksandr explained. "One picks up the Stromberg beacon. One listens to Tyrin on Coparelli. One listens to Coparelli's regular wavelength. And this one wanders. Look."
He showed her a dial whose pointer moved around slowly. "It seeks a transmitter, stops when it finds one," Aleksandr said.
"That's incredible. Did you invent that?"
"I am an operator, not inventor, sadly."
"And you can broadcast on any of the sets, just by switching to TRANSMIT?"
"Yes, Morse code or speech. But of course, on this operation nobody uses speech."
"Did you have to go through long training to become a radio operator?"
"Not long. Learning Morse is easy. But to be a ship's radioman you must know how to repair the set." He lowered his voice. "And to be a KGB operator, you must go to spy school." He laughed, and Suza laughed with him, thinking: Come on, Tyrin; and then her wish was granted.
The message began, Aleksandr started writing and at the same time said to Suza, "Tyrin. Get Rostov, please."
Suza left the bridge reluctantly; she wanted to know what was in the message. She hurried to the mess, expecting to find Rostov there
drinking strong black coffee, but the room was empty. She went down another deck and made her way to his cabin. She knocked on the door.
His voice in Russian said something which might have meant come in.
She opened the door. Rostov stood there in his shorts, washing in a bowl.
"Tyrin's coming through," Suza said. She turned to leave.
"Suza."
She turned back. "What would you say if I surprised you in your underwear?"
"I'd say piss off," she said.
"Wait for me outside."
She closed the door, thinking: That's done it.
When he came out she said, "I'm sorry."
He gave a tight smile. "I should not have been so unprofessional. Let's go."
She followed him up to the radio room, which was immediately below the bridge in what should have been the captain's cabin. Because of the mass of extra equipment, Aleksandr had explained, it was not possible to put the radio operator adjacent to the bridge, as was customary. Suza had figured out for herself that this arrangement had the additional advantage of segregating the radio from the crew when the ship carried a mixture of ordinary seamen and KGB agents.
Aleksandr had transcribed Tyrin's signal. He handed it to Rostov, who read it in English. "Israelis have taken Coparelli. Stromberg alongside. Dickstein alive."
Suza went limp with relief. She had to sit down. She slumped into a chair.
No one noticed. Rostov was already composing his reply to Tyrin: "We will hit at six A.M. tomorrow."
The tide of relief went out for Suza and she thought: Oh, God, what do I do now?
Nat Dickstein stood in silence, wearing a borrowed seaman's cap, as the captain of the Stromberg read the words of the service for the dead, raising his voice against the noise of wind, rain and sea. One by one the canvas-wrapped bodies were tipped over the rail into the black water: Abbas, Sharrett, Porush, Gibli, Bader, Remez, and Jabotinsky. Seven of the twelve had died. Uranium was the most costly metal in the world.
There had been another funeral earlier. Four Fedayeen had been left alive--three wounded, one who had lost his nerve and hidden--and after they had been disarmed Dickstein had allowed them to bury their dead. Theirs had been a bigger funeral--they had dropped twenty-five bodies into the sea. They had hurried through their ceremony under the watchful eyes--and guns--of three surviving Israelis, who understood that this courtesy should be extended to the enemy but did not have to like it.
