Triple

Triple

KEN FOLLETT

*

PROLOGUE:

There was a time, just once, when they were all together. They met many years ago, when they were young, before all this happened; but the meeting cast shadows far across the decades. It was the first Sunday in November, 1947, to be exact; and each of them met all the others-indeed, for a few minutes they were all in one room. Some of them immediately forgot the faces they saw and the names they heard spoken in formal introductions. Some of them actually forgot the whole day; and when it became so important, twentv-one years later, they had to pretend to remember; to stare at blurred photographs and murmur, "Ah, yes, of course," in a knowing way. This early meeting is a coincidence, but not a very startling one. They were mostly young and able; they were destined to have power, to take decisions, and to make changes, each in their different ways, in their different countries; and those people often meet in their youth at places like Oxford University. Furthermore, when all this happened, those who were not involved initially were sucked into it just because they had met the others at Oxford. However, It did not seem like an historic meeting at the time. It was just another sherry party in a place where there were too many sherry parties (and, undergraduates would add, not enough sherry). It was an uneventful occasion. Well, almost.

Al Cortone knocked and waited in the hall for a dead an to open the door. The suspicion that his friend was dead had grown to a conviction in the past three years. First, Cortone had heard that Nat Dickstein had been taken prisoner. Towards the end of the war, stories began to circulate about what was happening to Jews in the Nazi camps. Then, at the end, the grim truth came out On the other side of the door, a ghost scraped a chair on the floor and padded across the room. Cortone felt suddenly nervous What if Dickstein were disabled, deformed? Suppose he had become unhinged? Cortone had never known how to deal with cripples or crazy men. He and Dickstein had become very close, just for a few days back in 1943; but what was Dickstein like now? The door opened, and Cortone said, "Hi, Nat." Dickstein stared at him, then his face split in a wide grin and he came out with one of his ridiculous Cockney phrases: "Gawd, stone the crowsl" Cortone grinned back, relieved. They shook hands, and slapped each other on the back, and let rip some soldierly language just for the bell of it; then they went inside. Dickstein's home was one high-ceilinged room of an old house in a run-down part of the city. There was a single bed, neatly made up in army fashion; a heavy old wardrobe of dark wood with a matching dresser; and a table piled with books in front of a small window. Cortone thought the room looked bare. If he had to live here he would put some personal stuff all around to make the place look like his own: photographs of his family, souvenirs of Niagara and Miami Beach, his high school football trophy. Dickstein said, "What I want to know is, how did you find me?" I'll tell you, it wasn't easy." Cortone took off his uniform jacket and laid it on the narrow bed. "It took me most of yesterday." He eyed the only easy chair in the room. Both arms tilted sideways at odd angles, a spring poked through the faded chrysanthemums of the fabric, and one missing foot had been replaced with a copy of Plato's Theaetetus. "Can human beings sit on that?" "Not above the rank of sergeant. But---" "They aren't human anyway." They both laughed: it was an old joke. Dickstein brought a bentwood chair from the table and straddled it. He looked his friend up and down for a moment and said, "You're getting fat."

Cortone patted the slight swell of his stomach. 'Ve live well in Frankfurt-you really missed out, getting demobilized." He leaned forward and lowered his voice, as if what he was saying was somewhat confidential. "I have made a-fortune. Jewelry, china, antiques-all bought for cigarettes and soap. The Germans are starving. And-best of all-the girls Will do anything for a Tootsie Roll." He sat back, waiting for a laugh, but Dickstein just stared at him straight-faced. Disconcerted, Cortone changed the subject. "One thing you ain't, is fat." At first he had been so relieved to see Dickstein still in one piece and grinning the same grin that he had not looked at him closely. Now he realized that his friend was worse than thin: he looked wasted. Nat Dickstein had always been short and slight~ but now he seemed all bones. The dead-white skin, and the large brown eyes behind the plastic-rimmed spectacles, accentuated the effect Between the top of his sock and the cuff of his trouser-leg afew inches of pale shin showed like matchwood. Four years ago Dickstein had been brown, stringy, as hard as the leather soles of his British Army boots. When Cortone talked about his English buddy, as he often did, he would say, "The toughest, meanest bastard fighting soldier that ever saved my goddamn life, and I ain!t shittin! to YOU. "Fat? No," Dickstein said. "This country is still. on iron rations, mate. But we manage." "You've known worse." Dickstein smiled. "And eaten it." "You got took prisoner." "At La Molina." /"How the hell did they tie you downT' "Easy." Dickstein shrugged. "A bullet broke my leg and I passed out. When I came round I was. in a German truck." Cortone looked at Dickstein's legs. "It mended okay?" "I was lucky. There was a medic in my truck on the POW train-he set the bone." Cortone nodded. "And then the campHe thought maybe he should not ask, but he wanted to know. Dickstein looked away. "It was all right until they found out I'm Jewish. Do you want a cup of tea? I can't afford whiskey. "No." Cortone wished he had kept his mouth shut. "Anyway, I don't drink whiskey in the morning anymore. Life doesn't seem as short as it used to." Dickstein's eyes swiveled back toward Cortone. "They decided to find out how many times they could break a leg in the same place and mend it again." "Jesus." Cortone's voice was a whisper. That was the best part," Dickstein said in a flat monotone. He looked away again. Cortone said, "Bastards." He could not think of anything else to say. There was a strange expression on Dickstein!s face; something Cortone had not seen before, something-he realized after a moment-that was very like fear. It was odd. After all, it was over now, wasn't it? "Well, hell, at least we won, didn't we?" He punched Dickstein's shoulder. Dickstein grinned. "We did. Now, what are you doing in England? And how did you find me?" "I managed to get a stopover' in London on my way back to Buffalo. I went to the War Office . . ." Cortone hesitated. He had gone to the War Office to find out how and when Dickstein died. "They gave me an address in Stepney," he continued. "When I got there, there was only one house left standing in the whole street. In this house, underneath an inch of dust, I find this old man." "Tommy Coster." "Right. Well, after I drink nineteen cups of weak tea and listen to the story of his life, he sends me to another house around the comer, where I find your mother, drink more weak, tea and hear the story of her life. By the time I get your address it's too late to catch the last train to Oxford, so I wait until the morning, and here I am. I only have a few hours-my ship sails tomorrow." "You've got your dischargeT' "In three weeks, two days and ninety-four minutes." "What are you going to do, back home?" "Run the family business. Irve discovered, in the last couple of years, that I am a terrific businessman." "What business is your family in? You never told me." "Trucking," Cortone said shortly. "And you? What is this with Oxford University, for Christ's sake? What are you studying?" "Hebrew Literature." "You're kidding."

"I could write Hebrew before I went to school, didn't I ever tell you? My grandfather was a real scholar. He lived in one smelly room over a pie shop in the Mile End Road. I went there every Saturday and Sunday, since before I can remember. I never complained-I love it. Anyway, what else would I studyT' Cortone shrugged. "I don't know, atomic physics maybe, or business management. Why study at all?" "To become happy, clever and rich." Cortone shook his head. "Weird as ever. Lots of girls here?" "Very few. Besides, I'm busy." He thought Dickstein was blushing. "Liar. You're in love, you fool. I can tell. Who is she?" "Well, to be honest . . ." Dickstein was embarrassed. "Shes out of'reach. A professor's wife. Exotic, intelligent, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." Cortone made a dubious face. "It's not promising, Nat." "I know, but still Dickstein stood up. "Youll see what I meam" "I get to meet her?" "Professor Ashford is giving a sherry party. Im invited. I was just leaving when you got here." Dickstein put on his jacket "A sherry party in Oxford," Cortone said. "Wait till they hear about this in Buffalol"

It was a cold, bright morning. Pale sunshine washed the cream-colored stone of the city's old buildings. They walked in comfortable silence, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the biting November wind which whistled through the streets. Cortone kept muttering, "Dreaming spires. Fuck." There were very few people about, but after they had walked a mile or so Dickstein pointed across the road to a tall man with a college scarf wound around his neck. "Ibere's the Russian," he said. He called, "Hey Rostovl" The Russian looked up, waved, and crossed to their side of the street He had an army haircut, and was too long and thin for his mass-produced suit. Cortone was beginning to think everyone was thin in this country. Dickstein said, "Rostov's at Balliol, same college as me. David Rostov, meet Alan Cortone. Al and I were together in Italy for a while. Going to Ashford's house, Rostov?" The Russian nodded solemnly. "Anything for a free drink." Cortone said, "You interested in Hebrew Literature too?" Rostov said, "No, I'm here to study bourgeois economics." Dickstein laughed loudly. Cortone did not see the joke. Dickstein explained, "Rostov is from Smolensk. Hes a member of the CPSU-the Communist Party of the Soviet Union." Cortone still did not see the joke. "I thought nobody was allowed to leave Russia," Cortone said. Rostov went into a long and involved explanation which had to do with his father's having been a diplomat in Japan when the war broke out. He had an earnest expression which occasionally gave way to a sly smile. Although his English was imperfect, he managed to give Cortone the impression that he was condescending. Cortone turned off, and began to think about how you could love a man as if he was your own brother, fighting side by side with him, and then he could go off and study Hebrew Literature and you would realize you never really knew him at all. Eventually Rostov said to Dickstein, "Have you decided yet, about going to Palestine?" Cortone said, "Palestine? What for?" Dickstein looked troubled. "I haven't decided." "You should go," said Rostov. 'The Jewish National Home will help to break up the last remnants of the British Empire in the Middle EasIt ' "Is that the Party line?" Dickstein asked with a faint smile. "Yes," Rostov said seriously. "You're a socialist--" "Of sorts." "---and it is important that the new State should be socialist." Cortone was incredulous. "Tbe Arabs are murdering you people out there. Jeez, Nat, you only just escaped from the Germanst" "I haven't decided," Dickstein repeated. He shook his head irritably. "I don't know what to do." It seemed he did not want to talk about It. They were walking briskly. Cortone's face was freezing, but he was perspiring beneath his winter uniform. The other two began to discuss a scandal: a man called Mosley-the name meant nothing to Cortone--had been persuaded to enter Oxford in a van and make a speech at the Martyr's

Memorial. Mosley was a Fascist, he gathered a moment later. Rostov was arguing that the incident proved how social democracy was closer to Fascism than Communism. Dickstein claimed the undergraduates who organized the event were just trying to be "shocking." Cortone listened and watched the two men. They were an odd couple: tall Rostov, hisscarf like a striped bandage, takIng long strides, Ids too-short trousers flapping like flags; and diminutive Dickstein with big eyes and round spectacles, wearing a demob suit, looking like a skeleton in a hurry. Cortone was no academic, but he figured he could smell out bullshit in any language, and he knew that neither of them was saying what he believed: Rostov was parroting some kind of official dogma, and Dickstein's brittle unconcem masked a different, deeper attitude. When Dickstein laughed about Mosley, he sounded like a child laughing after a nightmare. They both argued cleverly but without emotion: it was like a fencing match with blunted swords. Eventually Dickstein seemed to realize that Cortone was being left out of the discussion and began to talk about theirhost. "Stephen Ashford Is a bit eccentric, but a remarkable man," be said. "He spent most of his life in the Middle East. Made a small fortune and lost it, by all accounts. He used to do. crazy things, like crossing the Arabian Desert on a go camel. "That might be the least crazy way to cross it," Cortone said. Rostov said, "Ashford has a Lebanese wife." Cortone looked at Dickstein. "She's--o' "Shea younger than he is," Dickstein said hastily. "He brought her back to England just before the war and became Professor of Semitic Literature here. If he gives you Marsala Instead of sherry it means you've overstayed your welcome." "People know the differencer, Cortone said. 'This is his house." Cortone was half expecting a Moorish villa, but the Ashford home was imitation Tudor, painted white with green woodwork. The garden in front was a jungle of shrubs. The three young men walked up a brick pathway to the house. The front door was open. They entered a small, square hall. Somewhere in the house several people laughed: the party had started. A pair of double doors opened and the most beautiful woman in the world came out. . Cortone was transfted. He stood and stared as she came across the carpet to welcome them. He heard Dickstein say, 'This is my friend Alan Cortone," and suddenly he was touching her long brown hand, warm and dry and fine-boned, and he never wanted to let go. She turned away and led them into the drawing room. Dickstein touched Cortone's arm and grinned: he had known what was going on in his friend's mind. Cortone recovered his composure sufficiently to say, -WOW." Small glasses of sherry were lined up with military precision. on a little table. She handed one to Cortone, smiled, and said, -rm Eila Ashford, by the way." Cortone took in the details as she handed out the drinks. She was completely unadorned: there was no make-up on her astonishing face, her black hair was straight, and she wore a white dress and sandals--yet the effect was almost like nakedness, and Cortone was embarrassed at the animal thoughts that rushed through his mind as he looked at her. He forced himself to turn away and study his surroundings. The room had the unfinished elegance of a place where people are living slightly beyond their means. The rich Persian carpet was bordered by a strip of peeling gray linoleum; someone had been mending the radio, and its innards all over a kidney table; there were a couple of bright rectangles on the wallpaper where pictures had been taken down; and some of the sherry glasses did not quite match the set. There were about a dozen people in the room. An Arab wearing a beautiful pearl-gray Western suit was standing at the fireplace, looking at a wooden carving on the mantelpiece. Eila Ashford called him over. "I want you to meet Yasif Hassan, a friend of my family from home," she said. "He's at Worcester College." Hassan said, "I know Dickstein." He shook hands all around. Cortone thought he was fairly handsome, for a nigger, and haughty, the way they were when they made some money and got invited to white homes. Rostov asked him, "You're from Lebanon "Palestine."

"Ah!" Rostov became animated. "And what do you think of the United Nations partition plan?" "Irrelevant," the Arab said languidly. 'The British must leave, and my country will have a democratic. government." "But then the Jews will be in a minority," Rostov argued. 'They are in a minority in England. Should they be given Surrey as a national homeT' "Surrey has never been theirs. Palestine was, once." Hassan shrugged elegantly. "It was-when the Welsh had England, the English had Germany, and the Norman French lived in Scandinavia." He turned to Dickstein. "You have a sense of justice-what do you think?" Dickstein took off his glasses. "Never mind justice. I want a place to call my own." "Even if you have to steal mine?" Hassan said. "You can have the rest of the Middle East" "I don't want it." Rostov said, "This discussion proves the necessity for partition." Eila Ashford offered a box of cigarettes. Cortone took one, and lit hers. While the others argued about Palestine, Eila asked Cortone, "Have you known Dickstein long?" "We met in 1943," Cortone said. He watched her brown fins close around the cigarette. She even smoked beautifully. Delicately, she picked a fragment of tobacco from the tip of her tongue. "I'm terribly curious about him," she said. "Everyone is. He's only a boy, and yet he seems so oU Then again, he's obviously a Cockney, but he's not in the least intimidated by all these upper-class Englishmen. But hell talk about anything except himself." Cortone nodded. "Im finding out that I don!t really know him, either." "My husband says hes a brilliant student." "He saved my life." "Good Lord." She looked at him more closely, as if she were wondering whether he was just being melodramatic. She seemed to decide in his favor. "I'd like to hear about it." A middle-aged man in baggy corduroy trousers touched her shoulder and said, "How is everything, my dear?"

"Fine," she said. "Mr. Cortone, this is my husband, Professor Ashford." Cortone said, "How are you." Ashford was a balding man in ill-fitting clothes. Cortone had been expecting Lawrence of Arabia. He thought: Maybe Nat has a chance after all. Eila said, "Mr. Cortone was telling me how Nat Dickstein saved his life." "Reallyl" Ashford said. "It's not a long story," Cortone said. He glanced over at Dickstein, now deep in conversation with Hassan and Rostov; and noted how the three men displayed their attitudes by the way they stood: Rostov with his feet apart, wagging a finger like a teacher, sure in his dogma; Hassan leaning against a bookcase, one hand in his pocket, smoking, pretending that the international debate about the future of his country was of merely academic interest; Dickstein with arms folded tightly, shoulders hunched, head bowed in concentration, his stance giving the lie to the dispassionate character of his remarks. Cortone heard The British promised Palestine to the Yews, and the reply, Beware the gifts of a thief. He turned back to the Asbfords and began to tell them the story. "It was in Sicily, near a place called Ragusa, a hill town," he said. "I'd taken a T-force around the outskirts. To the north of the town we came on a German tank in a little hollow, on the edge of a clump of trees. The tank looked abandoned but I put a grenade into it to make sure. As we drove past there was a shot---only one-and a German with a machine gun fell out of a tree. He'd been hiding up there, ready to pick us off as we passed. It was Nat Dickstein who shot him." Eila!s eyes sparkled with something like excitement, but her husband had gone white. Obviously the professor had no stomach for tales of life and death. Cortone thought: If that upsets you, pop, I hope Dickstein never tells you any of his stories. "The British had come around the town from the other side," Cortone went on. "Nat had seen the tank, like I did, !nd smelled a trap. He had spotted the sniper and was waiting to see if there were any more when we turned up. If he hadn't been so damn smart I'd be dead." The other two were silent for a moment. Ashford said, "It's not long ago, but we forget so fast."

Eila remembered her other guests. "I want to talk to you some more before you go," she said to Cortone. She went across the room to where Hassan was tying to open a pair of doors that gave on to the garden. Ashford brushed nervously at the wispy hair behind his ears. "The public hears about the big battles, but I suppose the soldier remembers those little personal incidents." Cortone nodded, thinking that Ashford clearly had no conception of whar war was like, and wondering if the professor's youth had really been as adventurous as Dickstein claimed. "Uter, I took him to meet my cousins-the family comes from Sicily. We had pasta and wine, and they made a hero of Nat. We were together only for a few days, but we were like brothers, you know?" "Indeed." "When I beard he was taken prisoner, I figured I'd never see him again." "Do you know what happened to him?" Ashford said. "He doesn't say much . . ." Cortone shrugged. "He survived the camps." "He was fortunate." "Was he?" Ashford looked at Cortone for a moment, confused, then turned away and looked around the room. After a moment he said, 'This is not a very typical Oxford gathering, you know. Dickstein, Rostov and Hassan are somewhat unusual students. You should meet Toby-he's the archetypal undergraduate." He caught the eye of a red-faced youth, in a tweed suit and a very wide paisley tie. "Toby, come and meet Dickstein's comrade-in-arms-Mr. Cortone." Toby shook hands and said abruptly, "Any chance of a tip from the stable? Will Dickstein win?" 'Tvrin whatr'Cortone said. Ashford explained, "Dickstein and Rostov are to play a chess match-they're both supposed to be terribly good. Toby think you might have inside information-he probably wants to bet on the outcome." Cortone said, "I thought chess was an old man's game." Toby said, "Ahl" rather loudly, and emptied his glass. He and Ashford seemed nonplussed by Cortone's remark. A little girl, four or five years old, came in from the garden carrying an elderly gray cat Ashford introduced her with the coy pride of a man who has become a father in middle age. 'This is Suza," he said. The girl said, "And this is Hezekiah." She had her mother's skin and hair; she too would be beautiful. Cortone wondered whether she was really Ashford's daughter. There was nothing of him in her looks. She held out the cats paw, and Cortone obligingly shook it and said,"How are you, Hezeldah?" Suza went over to Dickstein. "Good morning, Nat. Would you like to stroke Hezeklah?" "She's very cute," Cortone said to Ashford. "I have to talk to Nat. Would you excuse me?" He went over to Dickstein, who was kneeling down and stroking the cat. Nat and Suza seemed to be pals. He told her, "This is my friend Alan." "We've met," she said, and fluttered her eyelashes. Cortone thought: She learned that from her mother. "We were in the war together," Dickstein continued. Suza looked directly at Cortone. "Did you kill people?" He hesitated. "Sure." "Do you feel bad about it?" "Not too bad. They were wicked people." "Nat feels bad about it. Thairs why he doesn't like to talk about it too much." The kid had got more out of Dickstein than all the grown ups put together. I The cat jumped out of Suza's arms with surprising agility. She chased after it. Dickstein stood up. "I wouldn't say Mrs. Ashford is out of reach," Cortone said quietly. "Wouldn't you?" Dickstein said. "She can't be more than twenty-five. He's at least twenty years older, and I'll bet he's no pistol. If they got married before the war, she must have been around seventeen at the time. And they don't seem affectionate." "I wish I could believe you," Dickstein said. He was not as interested as he should have been. "Come and see the garden." They went through the French doors. The sun was stronger, and the bitter cold had gone from the air. The garden stretched in a green-and-brown wilderness down to the edge of the river. They walked away from the house. Dickstein said, "You don't much like this crowd." "The war's over," Cortone said. "You and me, we live, in different worlds now. All this-professors, chess matches, sherry parties ... I might as well be on Mars. My life is doing deals, fighting off the competition, making a few bucks. I was fixing to offer you a job in my business, but I guess I'd be wasting my time." "Alan. . ." Listen, what the hell. Well probably lose touch now-rm not much of a letter writer. But I wont forget that I owe you my life. One of these days you might want to call in the debt. You know where to find me." Dickstein opened his mouth to speak, then they heard the voices. I,Oh . . . no, not here, not now . . ." It was a woman. "Yesl" A man. Dickstein and Cortone were standing beside a thick box hedge which cut off a comer of the garden: someone had begun to plant a rnst e and never finished the job. A few steps from where they were a gap opened, then the hedge turned a right angle and ran along the river bank. The voices came clearly from the other side of the foliage. The woman spoke again, low and throaty. "Don't damn you, or I'll scream." Dickstein and Cortone stepped through the gap. Cortone would never forget what he saw there. He stared at the two people and then, appalled, he glanced at Dickstein. Dickstein's face was gray with shock, and he looked ill; his mouth dropped open as he gazed in horror and despair. Cortone looked back at the couple. The woman was Eila Ashford. The skirt of her dress VMS around her waist, her face was flushed with pleasure and she was kissing Yasif Hassan.

Chapter One

The public-address system at Cairo airport made a noise like a doorbell, and then the arrival of the Alitalia flight from Milan was announced in Arabic, Italian, French and English. Towflk el-Masiri left his table in the buffet and made his way out to the observation deck. He put on his sunglasses to look over the shimmering concrete apron. The Caravelle was already down and taxiing. Towfik was there because of a cable. It had come that morning from his "uncle" in Rome, and it had been in code. Any business could use a code for international telegrams, provided it first lodged the key to the code with the post office. Such codes were used more and more to save moneyby reducing common phrases to single words-than to keep secrets. Towfiks uncWs cable, transcribed according to the registered code book, gave details of his late aunt's will. However, Towflk. had another key, and the message he read was:

OBSERVE AND FOLLOW PROFESSOR FRIEDRICH SCHULZ ARRIVING CAIRO FROM MILAN WEDNESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 1968 FOR SEVERAL DAYS. AGE 51 HEIGHT 180 CM WEIGHT 150 POUNDS HAIR WHITE EYES BLUE NATIONAL. ITY AUSTRIAN COMPANIONS WIFE ONLY.

The passengers began to Me out of the aircraft, and Towfik spotted his man almost immediately. There was only one tall, lean white-haired man on the flight. He was wearing a light blue suit, -a white shirt and a tie, and carrying a plastic shopping bag from a duty-free store and a camera. His wife was much shorter, and wore a fashionable mini-dress and a blonde wig. As they crossed the airfield they looked about them and sniffed the warm, dry desert air the way most people did the &at time they landed in North Africa. The passengers disappeared into the arrivals hall. Towfik waited on the observation deck until the baggage came off the plane, then he went inside and mingled with the small crowd of people waiting just beyond the customs barrier. He did a lot of waiting. That was something they did not teach you-how to wait. You learned to handle guns, memorize maps, break open safes and kill people with your bare hands, all in the first six months of the training course; but there were no lectures in patience, no exercises for sore feet, no seminars on tedium. And it was beginning to seem like There is something wrong here beguming to seem Lookout lookout beginning to-- There was another agent in the crowd. Towfik's subconscious bit the fire alarm while he was thinking about patience. The people in the little crowd, waitIng for relatives and friends and business acquaintances off the Milan plane, were impatient. They smoked, shifted their weight from one foot to the other, craned their necks and fidgeted. There was a middle-class family with four children, two men in the traditional striped cotton galabiya robes, a businessman in a dark suit, a young white woman, a chauffeur with a sign saying FORD MOTOR COMPANY, and- And a patient Like Towfik, he had dark skin and abort hair and wore a European-style suit. At first glance he seemed to be with the middle-class family-just as Towfik would seem, to a casual observer, to be with the businessman in the dark suit. The other agent stood nonchalantly, with his hands behind his back, facing the exit from the baggage hall, looking unobtrusive. There was a streak of paler skin alongside his nose, like an old war. He touched it, once, in what might have been a nervous gesture, then put his hand behind his back

question was, had he spotted Towfik? Towfik turned to the businessman beside him and said, "I never understand why this has to take so long." He smiled, and spoke quietly, so that the businessman leaned closer to hear him and smiled back; and the pair of them looked like acquaintances having a casual conversation.

7be businessman said, "The formalities take longer than the fliOV Towfik stole another glance at the other agent. The man stood in the same position, watching the exit. He had not attempted any camouflage. Did that mean that he had not spotted Towfik? Or was it just that he had second-guessed Towfik, by deciding that a piece of camouflage would give him away? The passengers began to emerge, and Towfik realized there was nothing he could do, either way. He hoped the people the agent was meeting would come out before Professor Schulz. It was not to be. Schulz and his wife were among the first little knot of passengers to come through. The other agent approached them and shook hands. Of course, of course. The agent was there to meet Schulz. Towfik watched while the agent summoned porters and ushered the Schulzes away-, then he went out by a different exit to his car. Before getting in he took off his jacket and tie and put on sunglasses and a white cotton cap. Now he would not be easily recognizable as the man who had been waiting at the meeting point. He figured the agent would have parked in a no-waiting zone right outside the main entrance, so he drove that way. He was right. He saw the porters loading the Schulz baggage into the boot of a five-year-old gray Mercedes. He drove on. He steered his dirty Renault on to the main highway which ran from Heliopolis, where the airport was, to Cairo. He drove at 60 kph and kept to the slow lane. The gray Mercedes passed him two or three minutes later, and be accelerated to keep it within sight. He memorized its number, as it was always useful to be able to recognize the opposition's cam The sky began to cloud over. As he sped down the straight, palm-lined highway, Towfik considered what he had found out so far. The cable had told him nothing about Schulz except what the man looked like and the fact that he was an Austrian professor. The meeting at the airport meant a great deaI, though. It had been a kind of clandestine VIP treatment. Towfik had the agent figured for a local: everything pointed to that-his clothes, his car, his style of waiting. That meant Schulz was probably here by invitation of the government, but either he or the people he had come to see wanted the visit kept secret. It was not much. What was Schulz professor of? He could be a banker, arms manufacturer, rocketry expert or cotton buyer. He might even be with Al Fatah, but Towfik could not quite see the man as a resurrected Nazi. Still, anything was possible. Certainly Tel Aviv did not think Schulz was important: if they had, they would not have used Towfik, who was young and inexperienced, for this surveillance. It was even possible that the whole thing was yet another training exercise. They entered Cairo on the Shari Ramses, and Towfik closed the gap between his car and the Mercedes until there was only one vehicle between them. The gray car turned right on to the Comiche al-Nil then crossed the river by the July Bridge and entered the Zamalek district of Gezira island. There was less traffic in the wealthy, dull suburb, and Towfik became edgy about being spotted by the agent at the wheel of the Mercedes. However, two minutes later the other car tamed into a residential street near the Officers' Club and stopped outside an apartment block with a jacaranda, tree in the garden. Towfik immediately took a right turn and was out of sight before the doors of the other car could open. He parked, jumped out, and walked back to the corner. He was in time to see the agent and the Schulzes disappear into the building followed by a caretaker in galabtya struggling with their luggage. Towfik looked up and down the street. There was nowhere a man could convincingly idle. He returned to his car, backed it around the corner and parked between two other cars on the same side of the road as the Mercedes. Half an hour later the agent came out alone, got into his car, and drove off. Towfik settled down to wait.

It went on for two days, then it broke. Until then the Schulzes behaved like tourists, and seemed to enjoy it. On the first evening they had dinner in a nightclub and watched a troupe of belly-dancers. Next'day they did the Pyramids and the Sphinx, with lunch at Groppi!s and

dinner at the Nile Hilton. In the morning on the third day they got up early and took a taxi to the mosque of Ibn Tulun. Towflk left his car near the Gayer-Anderson Museum and followed them. They took a perfunctory look around the mosque and headed east on the Shari al-Salibah. They were dawdling, looking at fountains and buildings, peering into dark tiny shops, watching baladi women buy onions and peppers and camers feet at street stalls. They stopped at a crossroads and went into a tea-shop. Towfik crossed the street to the sebeel, a domed fountain behind windows -of iron lace, and studied the baroque relief around its walls. He moved on up the street, still within sight of the tea-shop, and spent some time buying four misshapen giant tomatoes from a white-capped stallholder whose feet were bare. The Schulzes came out of the tea-shop and turned north, following Towfik, into the street market. Here it was easier for Towft to idle, sometimes ahead of them and sometimes behind. Frau Schulz bought slippers and a gold bangle, and paid too much for a sprig of mint from a haff-naked child. Towflk got far enough in front of them to drink a small cup of strong, unsweetened Turkish coffee under the awning of a cafe called Nasif 9. They left the street market and entered a covered souq specializing in saddlery. Schulz glanced at his wristwatch and spoke to his wife-giving Towfik the first faint tremor of anxiety-and then they walked a little faster until they emerged at Bab Zuweyla, the gateway to the original walled City. For a few moments the Schulzes were obscured from TowWs view by a donkey pulling a'cart loaded with Ali-Baba jars, their mouths stoppered with crumpled paper. When the cart passed, Towfik saw that Schulz was saying goodbye to his wife and getting into an oldish gray Mercedes. Towflk cursed under his breath. The car door slammed and it pulled away. Fran Scbulz waved. Towfik read the license plate-it was the car he had followed from Heliopolis-and saw it go west then turn left Into the Shari Port Said. Forgetting Frau Schulz, he turned around and broke into a run.

They had been walking for about an hour, but they had covered only a mile. Towfik sprinted through the saddlery souq and the street market, dodging around the stalls and bumping into robed men and women in black, dropping his bag of tomatoes in a collision with a Nubian sweeper, until he reached the museum and his car. He dropped into the driver's seat, breathing hard and grimacing at the pain in his side. He started the engine and pulled away on an interception course for the Shari Port Said. The traffic was light, so when be hit the main road he guessed he must be behind the Mercedes. He continued southwest, over the island of Roda and the Giza Bridge onto the Giza Road. Schulz had not been deliberately trying to shake a tall, Towflk decided. Had the professor been a pro he would have lost Towfik decisively and finally. No, he had simply been taking a morningwalk through the market before meeting someone at a landmark. But Towfik was sure that the meeting place, and the walk beforehand, had been suggested by the agent. They might have gone anywhere, but it seemed likely they were leaving the city--otherwise Schulz could simply have taken a taxi at Bab Zuweyla-and this was the major road westward. Towfik drove very fast. Soon there was nothing in front of him but the arrow-straight gray road, and nothing either side but yellow sand and blue sky. He reached the Pyramids without catching the Mercedm Here the road forked, leading north to Alexandria or south to Faiyum. From where the Mercedes had picked up Schulz, this would have been an unlikely, roundabout route to Alexandria; so Towfik plumped for Faiyum. When at last he saw the other car it was behind him, coming up very fast. Before it reached him it turned right, off the main road. Towflk braked to a halt and reversed the Renault to the turnoff. The other car was already a mile ahead on the side road. He followed. This was dangerous, now. The road probably went deep into the Western Desert, perhaps all the way to the oil field at Qattara. It seemed little used, and a strong wind might obscure it under a layer of sand. The agent in the Mercedes was sure to realize he.was being followed. If he were a good agent, the sight of the Renault might even trigger memories of the journey from Heliopolis. This was where the training broke down, and all the careful camouflage and tricks of the trade became useless; and you had to simply get on someone's tail and stick with him whether he saw you or not, because the whole point was to find out where he was going, and if you could "anage that you were no use at all. So he threw caution to the desert wind and followed; and still he lost them. The Mercedes was a faster car, and better designed for the narrow, bumpy road, and within a &w minutes it was out of sight. Towfik followed the road, hoping he might catch them when they stopped or at least come across something that might be their destination. Sixty kilometers on, deep in the desert and beginning to worry about getting gasoline, he reached a tiny oasii village at a crossroads. A few scrawny animals grazed in sparse vegetation around a muddy pool. A jar of fava beans and three Fanta cans on a makeshift table outside a hut signified the local cafe. Towfik got out of the car and spoke to an old man watering a bony buffalo. "Have you seen a gray Mercedes?" The peasant stared at him blankly, as if he were speaking a foreign language. "Have you seen a gray car?" The old man brushed a large black fly off his forehead and nodded, once. "ften?" "Today." That was probably as precise an answer as he could hope for. "Which way did it go?" The old man pointed west, into the desert. Towflk said, "Where can I get petrol?" The man pointed east, toward Cairo. Towfik gave him a coin and returned to the car. He started the engine and looked again at the gasoline gauge. He had enough fuel to get back to Cairo, just; if he went farther west he would run out on the return journey. He had done all he could, he decided. Wearily, he turned the Renault around and headed back toward the city.

Towfik did not like his work. When it was dull he was bored, and when it was exciting he was frightened. But they had told him that there was important, dangerous work to be done in Cairo, and that he had the qualities necessary to a good spy, and that there were not enough Egyptian Jews in Israel for them to be able just to go out and find another one with all the qualities if he said no; so, of course, he had agreed. It was not out of idealism that he risked his life for his country. It was more like self-interest: the destruction of Israel would mean his own destruction; in fighting for Israel he was fighting for himself; he risked his life to save his lif& It was the logical thing to do. Still, he looked forward to the tirne~--in five years? Ten? Twenty?-when he would be too old for field work, and they would bring him home and sit him behind a desk, and he could find a nice Jewish girl and marry her and settle down to enjoy the land he had fought for. Meanwhile, having lost Professor Schulz, he was following the wife. She continued to see the sights, escorted now by a young Arab who had presumably been laid on by the Egyptians to take care of her while her husband was away. In the evening the Arab took her to an Egyptian restaurant for dinner, brought her home, and kissed her cheek under the jacaranda tree in the garderL The next morning Towfik went to the main post office and sent a coded cable to his uncle in Rome:

SCHULZ MET AT AIRPORT BY SUSPECTED LOCAL AGENT. SPENT TWO DAYS SIGHTSEE ING. PICKED UP BY AFORESAID AGENT AND DRIVEN DIRECTION QATTARA. SURVEIL LANCE ABORTED. NOW WATCHING WIFF- He was back in Zamalek at nine Am. At eleven-thirty he saw Fran Schulz on a balcony, drinking coffee, and was able to figure out which of the apartments was the Schulzes'- By lunchtime the interior of the Renault had become very hot. Towfik ate an apple and drank tepid beer from a bottle. Professor Schulz arrived late in the afternoon, in the Same gray Mercedes. He looked tired and a little rumpled, like a middle-aged man who had traveled too far. He left the car and went into the building without looking back. After dropping him, the agent drove past the Renault and looked straight at Towfik for an instant. There was nothing Towfik could do about it. Where had Schulz been? It had taken him most of a day to get there, Towfik speculated; he had spent a night, a full day and a second night there; and. it had taken most of today to get bacL Qattara was only one of several possibilities: the desert road went all the way to Matruh on the Mediterranean coast; there was a turnoff to Karkur Tohl in the far south; with a change of car and a desert guide they could even have gone to a rendezvous on the border with Libya. At nine P.M. the Schulzes came out again. The professor looked refreshed. They were dressed for dinner. They walked a short distance and hailed a taxi. Towfik made a decision. He did not follow them. He got out of the car and entered the garden of the building. He stepped onto the dusty lawn and found a vantage point behind a bush from where he could see into the hall through the open front door. The Nubian caretaker was sitting on a low wooden bench, picking his nose. Towfik waited. Twenty minutes later the man left his bench and disappeared into the back of the building. Towfik hurried through the hall and ran, soft-footed, up the staircase. He had three Yale-type skeleton keys, but none of them fitted the lock of apartment three. In the end he got the door open with a piece of bendy plastic broken off a college setsquare. He entered the apartment and closed the door behind him. It was now quite dark outside. A little light from a streetlamp came through the unshaded windows. Towfik drew a small flashlight from his trousers pocket, but he did not switch it on yet. The apartment was large and airy, with white-painted walls and English-colonial furniture. It had the, sparse, chilly look of a place where nobody actually lived. There was a big drawing room, a dining room, three bedrooms and a kitchen. After a quick general survey Towfik started snooping in earnest.

The two smaller bedrooms were bare. In the larger one. Towfik went rapidly through all the drawers and cupboards. A wardrobe held the rather gaudy dresses of a woman past her prime: bright prints, sequined gowns, turquoise and orange and pink. The labels were American. Schulz was an Austrian national, the cable had said, but perhaps he lived in the USA. Towfik had never heard him speak. On the bedside table were a guide to Cairo in English, a copy of Vogw and a reprinted lecture on isotopes. So Schulz was a scientist. Towfik glanced through the lecture. Most of it was over his head. Schulz must be a top chemist or physicist, he thought. If he was here to work on weaponry, Tel Aviv would want to know. There were no personal papers-Schulz evidently had his passport and wallet in his pocket. The airline labels had been removed from the matching set of tan suitcases. On a low table in the drawing room, two empty glasses smelled of gin: they had had a cocktail before going out. In the bathroom Towfik found the clothes Schulz had worn into the desert. There was a lot of sand in the shoes, and on the trouser cuffs he found small dusty gray smears which might have been cement. In the breast pocket of the rumpled jacket was a blue plastic container, about one-and-a-half inches square, very slender. It contained a light-tight envelope of the kind used to protect photographic film. Towfik pocketed the plastic box. The airline labels from the luggage were in a wastebasket in the little hall. The Schulzes' address was in Boston, Massachusetts, which probably meant that the professor taught at Harvard, MIT or one of the many lesser universities in the area. Towflk did some rapid arithmetic. Schulz would have been in his twenties during World War II: he could easily be one of the German rocketry experts who went to the USA after the war. Or not. You did not have to be a Nazi to work for the Arabs. Nazi or not, Schulz was a cheapskate: his soap, toothpaste and after-shave were all taken from airlines and hotels. On the floor beside a rattan chair, near the table with the empty cocktail glasses, lay a lined foolscap notepad, its top sheet blank. There was a pencil lying on the pad. Perhaps Schulz had been making notes on his trip while he sipped his gin sling. Towfik searched the apartment for sheets torn from the pad. He found them on the balcony, burned to cinders in a large glass ashtray. Ihe night was cool. Later in the year the air would be warm and fragrant with the blossom of the jacaranda tree in the garden below. The city traffic snored in the distance. It reminded Towfik of his fathees apartment in Jerusalem. He wondered how long it would be before he saw Jerusalem again. He had done all he could here. He would look again at that foolseap pad, to see whether Schulz's pencil had pressed hard enough to leave an impression on the next page. He turned away from the parapet and crossed the balcony to the French windows leading back into the drawing room. He had his hand on the door when he heard the voices. Towilk froze. "rm sorry, honey, I just couldn't face another overdone steak." "We could have eaten something, for God's sake." Tle Schulzes were back. Towilk. rapidly reviewed his progress through the roomi: bedrooms, bathroom, drawing room, kitchen . . . he had replaced everything he had touched, except the little plastic box. He had to keep that anyway. Schulz would have to assume he had lost it. If Towfik could get away unseen now, they might never know he had been there. He bellied over the parapet and hung at full length by his fingertips. It was too dark for him to see the ground. He dropped, landed lightly and strolled away. It had been his first burglary, and he felt pleased. It bad gone as smoothly as a training exercise, even to the early return of the occupant and sudden exit of spy by prearranged emergency route. He grinned in the dark. He might yet live to see that desk job. He got into his car, started the engine and switched on the lights. Two men emerged from the shadows and stood on either side of the Renault Who ... ?

He did not pause to figure out what was going on. He rammed the gearshift into first and pulled away. The two men hastily stepped aside. They had made no attempt to stop him. So why had they been there? To make sure he stayed in the car ... ? He jammed on the brakes and looked into the back seat, and then he knew, with unbearable sadness, that he would never see Jerusalem again. A tall Arab in a dark suit was smiling at him over the snout of a small handgun. "Drive on," the man said in Arabic, "but not quite so fast, please."

Q: What is your name? A: Towfik el-Masiri. Q: Describe yourseff. A: Age twenty-six, five-foot-nine, one hundred and eighty pounds, brown eyes, black hair, Semitic features, light brown skin. Q: Who do you work for? A I am a student. Q What day is today? A: Saturday. Q: What is your nationality? A: Egyptian. Q: What is twenty mintis seven? A: Thirteen. The above questions are designed to facilitate fine calibration of the lie detector. Q: You work for the CIA. A : No. (TRuE) Q: The Germans? A: No.(TRUE) Q: Israel, then. A: No. (FALSE) Q: You really are a student? A: Yes. (FALSE) Q: Tell me about your studies. A : I'm doing chemistry at Cairo University. (TRUE) I'm interested in polymers. (TRuE) I want to be a petrochemical engineer. (FALSE) Q: What are polymers?

A:Complex organic compounds with long-chain molecules----the commonest is polythene. (TRUE) Q: What is your name? A: I told you, Towfik el-Masiri. (Fnw) Q :The pads attached to your head and chest measure your pulse, heartbeat, breathing and perspiration. When you tell untruths, your metabolism betrays you-you breathe faster, sweat more, and so on. This machine, which was given to us by our Russian friends, tells me when you are lying. Besides, I happen to know that Towfik el-Masiri is dead. Who are you? A: (no reply) Q:Ile wire taped to the tip of your penis is part of a different machine. It is connected to this button here. When I press the button- A: (scream) Q:--an electric current passes through the wire and gives you a shock. We have put your feet in a bucket of water to improve the efficiency of the apparatus. What is your name? A: Avram Ambache. The electrical apparatus interferes with the functioning of the lie detector. Q: Have a cigarette. A: Thank you. Q:Believe it or not, I hate this work. The trouble Is, people who like it are never any good at it-you need sensitivity, you know. I'm a sensitive person ... I hate to see people suffer. Don!t you? A: (no reply) Q:You're now trying to think of ways to resist me. Please don't bother. There is no defense against modem techniques of . . . interviewing. What is your name? A : Avraw Ambache. (TRuE) A: Who is your control? A: I don't know what you mean. (PALsE) Q : Is it Bosch? A: No, Friedman. (READwa mDETERmiNATE) Q: It is Bosch. A: Yes. (PALsE) Q: No, it's not Bosch. Tt's Krantz. A: Okay, it's Krantz-whatever you say. (TRuE)

Q: How do you make contact? A: I have a radio. (PALsE) Q: You're not telling me the truth. A: (scream) Q: How do you make contact? A : A dead-letter box in the faubourg. Q:' You are thinking that when you are in pain, the lie detector will not function properly, and that there is therefore safety in torture. You are only partly right. This is a very sophisticated machine, and I spent many months learning to use it properly. After I have given you a shock, it takes only a few moments to readjust the machine to your faster metabolism; and then I can once more tell when you are lying. How do you make contact? A: A dead-letter-(scream) Q:Ali! He's kicked his feet free-these convulsions are very strong. Tie him again, before he comes round. Pick up that bucket and put more water in it. (pause) Right, he's waking, get out. Can you hear me, Towfik? A: (indistinct) Q: What is your name? A : (no reply) Q: A little jab to help you A : (scream) Q: -to think. A: Avram Ambacbe. Q- What day is today? A: Saturday. Q What did we give you for breakfast? A Fava beans. Q: What is twenty minus seven? A: Thirteen. Q : What is your profession? A:I'm a student. No don't please and a spy yes I'm a spy don't touch the button please oh god oh god- How do you make contact? A: Coded cables. Q:Have a cigarette. Here ... oh, you don't seem to be able to hold it between your lips-let me help ... there. A: Thank you.

Q: Just try to be calm. Remember, as long as you're telling the truth, there will be no pain. (pause) Are you feeling better? A: Yes. Q: So am I. Now, then, tell me about Professor Schulz. Why were you following him? A: I was ordered to. (TRuE) Q: By Tel Aviv? A: Yes. (TRuE) Q: Who in Tel Aviv? A: I don't know. (READING iNDETERmiNATE) Q: But you can guess. A: Bosch. (READING INDETERmiNATE) Q: Or Krantz? A: Perhaps. (TRuE) Q: Krantz is a good man. Dependable. How's his wife? A: Very well, -(scream) Q: His wife died in 1958. Why do you make me hurt you? What did Schulz do? A: Went sightseeing for two days, then disappeared into the desert in a gray Mercedes. Q: And you burglarized his apartment A: Yes. (TRuE) Q: What did you learn? A: He is a scientist. (TRUE) Q: Anything else? A: American. (TRuE) That's all. (TRu*E) Q: Who was your instructor in training? A: Ertl. (READING INDETERMINATE) Q: That wasn't his real name, though. A: I don't know. (FALSE) Nol Not the button let me think it was just a minute I think somebody said his real name was Manner. (TituR) Q: Oh, Manner. Shame. He's the old-fashioned type. He still believes you can train agents to resist interrogation. It's his fault you're suffering so much, you know. What about your colleagues? Who trained with you? A: I never knew their real names. (FALSE) Q - Didn't you? A: (scream) Q: Real names. A: Not all of them- Q: Tell me the ones you did know. A: (no reply) (scream) The prisoner fainted. (pause) Q: What is your name? A: Uh... Towfik. (scream) Q: What did you have for breakfast? A: Don't know. Q: What is twenty minus seven? A: Twenty-seven. Q: What did you tell Krantz about Professor Schulz? A: Sightseeing ... Western Desert ... surveillance aborted.. . Q: Who did you train with? A: (no reply) Q: Who did you train with? A: (scream) Q: Who did you train with? A:Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death- ' Q: Who did you train with? A: (scream) The prisoner died.

When Kawash asked for a meeting, Pierre Borg went. There was no discussion about times and places: Kawash sent a message giving the rendezvous, and Borg made sure to be there. Kawash was the best double agent Borg had ever had, and that was that. The head of the Mossad stood at one end of the northbound Bakerloo Line platform in Oxford Circus subway station, reading an advertisement for a course of lectures in Theosophy, waiting for Kawash. He had no idea why the Arab had chosen London for this meeting; no idea what he told his masters be was doing in the citv-, no idea, even, why Kawash was a traitor. But this man had helped the Israelis win two wars and avoid a third, and Borg needed him. Borg glanced along the platform, looking for a high brown bead with a large, thin nose. He had an idea he knew what Kawash wanted to talk about. He hoped his idea was right. Borg was very worried about the Schulz affair. It had started out as a piece of routine surveillance, juit the right kind of assignment for his newest, rawest agent in Cairo: a high-powered American physicist on vacation in Europe decides to take a trip to Egypt. - The first warning sign came when Towilk lost Schulz. At that point Borg had stepped up activity on the project. A freelance journalist in Milan who occasionally made Inquiries for German Intelligence had established that Schules air ticket to Cairo had been paid for by the wife of an Egyptian diplomat in Rome. Then the CIA had routinely passed to the Mossad a set of satellite photographs of the area around Qattara which seemed to show signs of construction work-and Borg had remembered that Schulz had been heading,in the direction of Qattara when Towfik lost Win. Something was going on, and he did not know what, and that worried him. He was always worried. If it was not the Egyptians, it was the Syrians; if it was not the Syrians it was the Fedayeen; if it was not his enemies it was his friends and the question of how long they would continue to be his friends. He had a worrying job. His mother had once said, "Job, nothing-you were born worrying, like your poor father-if you were a gardener you would worry about your job." She might have been right but all the same, paranoia was the only rational frame of mind for a spyinaster. Now Towfik had broken contact, and that was the most worrying sign of all. Maybe Kawash would have some answers. A train thundered in. Borg was not waiting for a trafiL He began to read the credits on a movie poster. Half the names Were Jewish. Maybe I should have been a movie producer, he thought. The train Pulled out, and a shadow fell over Bor& He looked up into the calm face of Kawash. The Arab said, 'Thank you for coming.- He always said that Borg ignored it: be never knew how to respond to thanks. He said, 'Vhat's new?" "I had to pick up one of Your youngsters in Cairo on Friday. " "You had tor

"Military Intelligence were bodyguarding a VIP, and they spotted the kid tailing them. Military don't have operational personnel in the city, so they asked my department to pick him up. It was an official request." "God damn," Borg said feelingly. "What happened to himro "I had to do it by the book," Kawash said. He looked very sad. "rhe boy was interrogated and killed. His name was Avrarn Ambache, but he worked as Towfik el-Masiri." Borg frowned. "He told you his real name?" "He's dead, Pierre." Borg shook his head irritably: Kawash always wanted to linger over personal aspects. "Why did he tell you his name?" "Were using the Russian equipment-the electric shock and the lie detector together. You're not training them to cope with it." Borg gave a short laugh. "If we told them about it, wed never get any fucking recruits. What else did he give awayr' "Nothing we didn't know. He would have, but I killed him first." "You killed him?" "I conducted the interrogation, in order to make sure he did not say anything important. All these interviews are taped now, and the transcripts filed. We're learning from the Russians." The sadness deepened in the brown eyes. "Why-would you prefer that I should have someone else kill your boysr' Borg stared at him, then looked away. Once again he bad to steer the conversation away from the sentimental. "What did the boy discover about Schulz?" "An agent took the professor into the Western Desert." "Sure, but what for?" "I don't know." "You must know, you're in Egyptian Intelligence!" Borg controlled his irritation. Let the man do things at his own pace, he told himself; whatever information he's got, he'll tell. "I don't know what they're doing out there, because they've set up a special group to handle it," Kawash said. "My department isn't informed." "Any idea why?" The Arab shrugged. "I'd say they don't want the Russians to know about it. These days Moscow gets everything that goes through us."

Borg let his disappointment show. "Is that all Towfik could manage?" Suddenly there was anger in the soft voice of the Arab. "Tbe kid died for you," he said. "IM thsink him in heaven. Did he die in vain?" "He took this from Schules apartment." Kawash drew a hand from inside his coat and showed Borg a small, square box of blue plastic. Borg took the box. "How do you know where he got it?" "It has SchuWs fingerprints on it. And we arrested Towfik right after he broke into the apartment." Borg opened the box and fingered the light-proof,envelope. It was unsealed. He took out the photographic negative. Ile Arab said, "We opened the envelope and developed the film. It's blank." With a deep sense of satisfaction, Borg reassembled the box and put it into his pocket. Now it all made sense; now he understood; now he knew what he had to do. A train came in. "You want to catch this oner' he said. Kawash frowned slightly, nodded assent, and moved to the edge of the platform as the train stopped and the doors opened. He boarded, and stood just inside. He said, "I don't know what on earth the box is." Borg thought, You don't like me, but I think you're just great. He smiled thinly at the Arab as the doors of the subway train began to slide shut. "I do," he said.

Chapter Two

The American girl was quite taken with Nat Dickstein. They worked side by side in a dusty vineyard, weeding and hoein& with a light breeze blowing over them from the Sea of Galilee. Dickstein had taken off his shirt and worked in shorts and sandals, with the contempt for the sun which only the city-born possess. He was a thin man, small-boned, with narrow shoulders, a shallow chest, and knobby elbows and knees. Karen would watch him when she stopped for a break-which she did often, although he never seemed to need a rest. Stringy muscles moved like knotted rope under his brown, scarred skin. She was a sensual woman, and she wanted to touch those scars with her fingers and ask him how he got them. Sometimes he would look up and catch her staring. mid he would grin, unembarrassed, and carry on working. His face was regular and anonymous in repose. He had dark eyes behind cheap round spictacles of the kind which Karen's generation liked because John Lennon wore them. His hair was dark, too, and short: Karen would have liked him to grow it. When he grinned that lopsided grin, he looked younger, though at any time it was hard to say just how old he might be. He had the strength and energy of a young man, but she had seen the concentration-camp tattoo under his wristwatch, so he could not be much less than forty, she thought. He had. arrived at the kibbutz shortly after Karen, in the summer of 1967. She had come, with her deodorants and her contraceptive pills, looking for a place where she could live out hippy ideals without getting stoned twenty-four hours a day. He had been brought here in an ambulance. She assumed he had been wounded in the Six-Day War, and the other kibbutzniks agreed, vaguely, that it was something like that

His welcome had been very different from hers. Karen's reception had been friendly but wary: in her philosophy they saw their own, with dangerous additions. Nat Dickstein returned like a long-lost son. They clustered around him, fed hun soup and came away from his wounds with tears in their eyes. If Dickstein was their son, Esther was their mother. She was the oldest member of the kibbutz. Karen had said, "She looks like Golda Meir's mother," and one of the others had said, "I think she's Golda's father," and they all laughed affectionately. She used a walking stick, and stomped about the village giving unsolicited advice, most of it very wise. She had stood guard outside Dickstein's sickroom chasing away noisy children, waving her stick and threatening beatings which even the children knew would never be administered. Dickstein had recovered very quickly. Within a few days he was sitting out in the sun, peeling vegetables for the kitchen and telling vulgar jokes to the older children. Two weeks later he was working in the fields, and soon he was laboring harder than all but the youngest men. His past was vague, but Esther had told Karen the story of his arrival in Israel in 1948, during the War of Independence. Nineteen forty-eight was part of the recent past for Esther. She had been a young woman in London in the first two decades of the century, and had been an activist in half a dozen radical left-wing causes from suffragism to pacifism before emigrating to Palestine; but her memory went back further, to pogroms in Russia which she recalled vaguely in monstrous nightmare images. She had sat under a fig tree in the heat of the day, varnishing a chair she had made with her own gnarled hands, and talked about Dickstein like a clever but mischievous schoolboy. "Mere were eight or nine of them, some from the university, some working men from the East End. If they ever had any money, they'd spent it before they got to France. They hitched a ride on a truck to Paris, then jumped a freight train to Marseilles. From there, it seems, they walked most of the way to Italy. Then they stole a huge car, a German Army staff car, a Mercedes, and drove all the way to the toe of Italy." Esther's face was creased in smiles, and Karen thought: She would love to have been there with them. "Dickstein had been to Sicily in the war, and it seems he knew the Mafia there. They had all the guns left over from the war. Dickstein wanted guns for Israel, but he had no money. He persuaded the Sicilians to sell a boatload of submachine guns to an Arab purchaser, and then to tell the Jews where the pickup would take place. They knew what he was up to, and they loved it. The deal was done, the Sicilians got their money, and then Dickstein and his friend stole the boat with its cargo and sailed to Israell" Karen had laughed aloud, there under the fig tree, and a grazing goat looked up at her balefully. "Wait," said Esther, "you haven't heard the end of it Some of the university boys had done a bit of rowing, and one of the other lot was a docker, but that was all the experience they had of the sea, and here they were sailing a fivethousand-ton cargo vessel on their own. They figured out a little navigation from first principles: the ship had charts and a compass. Dickstein had looked up in a book how to start the ship, but he says the book did not tell how to stop it So they steamed into Haifa, yelling and waving and throwing their hats into the air, just like it was a varsity rag--and ploughed straight into the dock. "lley were forgiven instantly, of course-the guns were more precious than gold, literally. And that!s when they started to call Dickstein The Pirate'." He did not look much like a pirate, working in the vineyard in his baggy shorts and his spectacles, Karen thought. AN the same, he was attractive. She wanted to seduce him, but she could not figure out how. He obviously liked her, and she had taken care to let him know she was available. But he never made a move. Perhaps he felt she was too young and innocent. Or maybe he was not interested in women. His voice broke into her thoughts. "I think we've finished." She looked at the sun: it was time to go. "You've done twice as much as me." 'Tm used to the work. Ive been here, on and off, for twenty years. 'Me body gets into the habit." They walked back toward the village as the sky turned purple and yellow. Karen said, "What else do you do-when you're not here?" "Oh ... poison wells, kidnap Christian children." Karen laughed.

Dickstein said, "How does this life compare with Californiar, "This is a wonderful place," she told him. "I think theres a lot of work still to be done before the women are genuinely equal." "That seems to be the big topic at the moment." "You never have much to say about it." "Listen, I think you're right; but it's better for people to take their freedom rather than be given it." Karen said, "That sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing." Dickstein laughed. As they entered the village they passed a young man on a pony, carrying a rifle, on his way to patrol the borders of the settlement Dickstein called out, "Be careful, Yisrael." The shelling from the Golan Heights had stopped, of course, and the children no longer had to sleep underground; but the kibbutz kept up the patrols. Dickstein had been one of those in favor of maintaining vigilance. -rm going to read to Mottie," Dickstein said. "Can I comer, "Why not?" Dickstein looked at his watch. "We've just got time to wash. Come to my room in five minutes." They parted, and Karen went into the showers. A kibbutz was the best place to be an orphan, she thought as she took off her clothes. McAtie's parents were both dead-the father blown up in the attack on the Golan Heights during the last war, the mother killed a year earlier in a shoot-out with Fedayeen. Both had been close friends of Dickstein. It was a tragedy for the child, of course; but he still slept in the same bed, ate in the same room, and had almost one hundred other adults to love and care for him-he was not foisted onto unwilling aunts or aging grandparents or, worst of all, an orphanage. And he had Dickstein. When she had washed off the dust Karen put on clean clothes and went to Dickstein's room. Mottie was already there, sifting on Dickstein's lap, sucking his thumb and listening to Treavure Island in Hebrew. Dickstein was the only person Karen had ever met who spoke Hebrew with a Cockney accent. His speech was even more strange now, because he was doing different voices for the characters in the story: a high-pitched boy's voice for Jim, a deep snarl for Long John Silver, and a half whisper for the mad Ben Gunn. Karen sat and watched the two of them in the yellow electric light, thinking how boyish Dickstein appeared, and how grown-up the child was. When the chapter was finished they took Mottie to his dormitory, kissed him goodnight, and went into the dining room. Karen thought: If we continue to go about together like this, everyone will think we!re lovers already. They sat with Esther. After dinner she told them a story, and there was a young womWs twinkle in her eye. "When I first went to Jerusalem, they used to say that if you owned a feather pillow, you could buy a house." Dickstein willingly took the bait. "How was that?" "You could sell a good feather pillow for a pound. With that pound you could join a loan society, which entitled you to borrow ten pounds. Then you found a plot of land. The owner of the land would take ten pounds deposit and the rest in promissory notes. Now you were a landowner. You went to a builder and said, 'Build a house for yourself on this plot of land. All I want is a small flat for myself and my family.' " They all-Iaughed. Dickstein looked toward the door. Karen followed his glance and saw a stranger, a stocky man in his forties with a coarse, fleshy face. Dickstein got up and went to him. Esther said to Karen, "Don't break your heart, child. That one is not made to be a husband." Karen looked at Esther, then back at the doorway. Dickstein had gone. A few moments later she heard the sound of a car starting up and driving away. Esther put her old hand on Karen's young one, and squeezed. Karen never saw Dickstein again.

Nat Dickstein and Pierre Borg sat in the back seat of a big black CitroEn. Borg's bodyguard was driving, with his machine pistol lying on the front seat beside him. They traveled through the darkness with nothing ahead but the cone of light from the headlamps. Nat Dickstein was afraid. He had never come to see himself the way others did, as a competent, indeed brilliant, agent who had proved his ability to survive just about anything. Later, when the game was on and he was living by his wits, grappling at close quarters with strategy and problems and personalities, there would be no room in his mind for fear; but now, when Borg was about to brief him, he had no plans to make, no forecasts to refine, no characters to assess. He knew only that he had to turn his back on peace and simple hard work, the land and the sunshine and caring for growing things; and that ahead of him there were terrible risks and great danger, lies and pain and bloodshed and, perhaps, his death. So he sat in the corner of the seat, his arms and legs crossed tightly, watching Borg's dimly lit face, while fear of the unknown knotted and writhed in his stomach and made him nauseous. In the faint, shifting light, Borg looked like the giant in a fairy story. He had heavy features: thick lips, broad cheeks, and protruding eyes shadowed by thick brows. As a child he had been told he was ugly, and so he had grown into an ugly man. When he was uneasy-like now-his bands went continually. to his face, covering his mouth, rubbing his nose, scratching his forehead, in a subconscious attempt to hide his unsightliness. Once, in a relaxed moment, Dickstein had asked him, "Why do you yell at everybody?" and he had replied, "Because they're all so fucking handsome." They never knew what language to use when they spoke. Borg was French-Canadian originally, and found Hebrew a struggle. Dickstein's Hebrew was good and his French only passable. Usually they settled for English. Dickstein had worked under Borg for ten years, and still he did not like the man. He felt he understood Borg's troubled, unhappy nature; and he respected his professionalism and his obsessional devotion to Israeli Intelligence; but in Dickstein's book this was not enough 'cause to like a person. When Borg lied to him, there were always good sound reasons, but Dickstein resented the lie no less. He retaliated by playing Borg's tactics back against him. He would refuse to say where he was going, or he would lie about it. He never checked in on schedule while he was in the field: bLe simply called or sent messages with peremptory demands. And he would sometimes conceal from Borg part or all of his game plan. This prevented Borg from- interfering with schemes of his own, and it was almost more secure--for what Borg knew, he might be obliged to tell the politicians, and what they knew might find its way to the opposition. Dickstein knew the strength of his position-he was responsible for many of the triumphs which had distinguished Bores career--and he played it for all it was worth. The CitroL% roared through the Arab town of Nazarethdeserted now, presumably under curfew-and went on into the night, heading for Tel Aviv. Borg lit a thin cigar and began to speak. "After the Six-Day War, one of the bright boys in the Ministry of Defense wrote a paper entitled 'The Inevitable Destruction of Israel! The argument went like this. During the War of Independence, we bought arms from Czechoslovakia. When the Soviet bloc began to take the Arab side, we turned to France, and later West Germany. Germany called off all deals as soon as the Arabs found out. France imposed an embargo after the Six-Day War. Both Britain and the United States have consistently refused to supply us with arms. We are losing our sources one by one. "Suppose we are able to make up those losses, by continually finding new suppliers and by building our own munitions industry: even then, the fact remains that Israel must be the loser in a Middle East arms race. The off countries will be richer than us throughout the foreseeable future. Our defense budget is already a terrible burden on the national economy whereas our enemies have nothing better to spend their billions on. When they have ten thousand tanks, well need six thousand; when they have twenty thousand tanks, we'll need twelve thousand; and so on. Simply by doubling their arms expenditure every year, they will be able to cripple our national economy without firing a shot. . "Finally, the recent history of the Middle East shows a pattern of limited wars about once a decade. The logic of this pattern is against us. The Ambs can afford to lose a war from time to time. We can't: our first defeat will be our last war. "Conclusion: the survival of Israel depends on our breaking out of the vicious spiral our enemies have prescribed for us." Dickstein nodded. "It's not a novel line of thought. It's the usual argument for 'peace at any price.' I should think the bright boy got fired from the Ministry of Defense for that paper." "Wrong both times. He went on to say, 'We must inflict, or have the power to inflict, permanent and crippling damage to the next Arab army that crosses our borders. We must have nuclear weapons. Is Dickstein was very still for a moment; then he let out his breath in a long whistle. It was one of those devastating ideas that seems completely obvious as soon as it has been sai(L It would change everything. He was silent for a while, digesting the implications. His mind teemed with questions. Was it technically feasible? Would the Americans help? Would the Israeli Cabinet approve it? Would the Arabs retaliate with their own bomb? What he said was, "Bright boy in the Ministry, hell. That was Moshe Dayan's paper." "No comment," said Borg. Did the Cabinet adopt it?- 'There has been a long debate, Certain elder statesmen argued that they had not come this far to see the Middle East wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. But the opposition faction relied mainly on the argument that if we have a bomb, the Arabs will get one too, and we will be back at square one. As it UnWA out, that was their big mistake." Borg reached into his pocket and took out a small plastic box. He handed it to Dickstein. Dickstein switched on the interior light and examined the box. It was about an inch and a half square, thin, and blue in color. It opened to reveal a small envelope made of heavy light-proof paper. "What!s this?" he -said. Borg said, "A physicist named Friedrich Schulz visited Cairo in February. He is Austrian but he works in the United States. He was apparently on holiday in Europe, but his plane ticket to Egypt was paid for by the Egyptian government. "I had him followed, but he gave our boy the slip and disappeared into the Western Desert for forty-eight hours. We know from CIA satellite pictures that there is a major construction Project going on in that part of the desert. When Schulz came back, he had that in his pocket It's a personnel dosimeter. The envelope, which is light-tight, contains a piece of ordinary Photographic film. You carry the box in your pocket, or pinned to your lapel or trouser belt. If you!re exposed to radiation, the film will -show fogging when irs d&veloped. Dosimeters are carried, as a matter of routine, by everyone who visits or works in a nuclear power station." Dickstein switched off the light and gave the box back to Borg. "You're telling me the Arabs are already making atom bombs," he said softly. "That's right." Borg spoke unnecessarily loudly. "So the Cabinet gave Dayan the go-ahead to make a bomb of his own." "In principle, yes." "How so?" "Mere are some practical difficulties. The mechanics of the business are simple-the actual clockwork of the bomb, so. to speak. Anyone who can make a conventional bomb can make a nuclear bomb. Ile problem is getting hold of the explosive material, plutonium. You get plutonium out of an atomic reactor. It's a by-product. Now, we have a reactor, at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Did you know thair, "Yes." "It's our worst-kept secret. However, we don't have the equipment for extracting the plutonium from the spent fuel. We could build a reprocessing plant, but the problem is that we have no uranium of our own to put through the reactor." "Wait a minute." Dickstein frowned. "We must have uranium, to fuel the reactor for normal use." "correct. We get it from France, and it's supplied to us on condition we return the spent fuel to them for reprocessing, so they get the plutonium." "Other suppliers?" "Would impose the same condition-it's part of all the nuclear non-proliferation treaties." Dickstein said, "But the people at Dimona could siphon off some of the spent fuel without anyone noticing." "No. Given the quantity of uranium originally supplied, it's possible to calculate precisely how much plutonium comes out the other end. And they weigh it very carefully-it's expensive stuff." "So the problem is to get hold of some uranium." "Right" "And the solution?" "Me solution is, you're going to steal it." Dickstein looked out of the window. The moon came out, revealing a flock of sheep huddled in a corner of a field, watched by an Arab shepherd with a staff: a Biblical scene. So this was the game: stolen uranium for the land of milk and honey. Last time it had been the murder of a terrorist leader in Damascus; the time before, blackmailing a wealthy Arab in Monte Carlo to stop him funding the Fedayeen. Dickstein's feelings had been pushed into the background while Borg talked about politics and Schulz and nuclear reactors. Now he was reminded that this involved him; and the fear came back, and with it a memory. After his father died the family had been desperately poor, and when creditors called, Nat had been sent to the door to say mummy was out. At the age of thirteen, he had found it unbearably humiliating, because the creditors knew he was lying, and he knew they knew, and they would look at him with a mixture of contempt and pity which pierced him to the quick. He would never forget that feeling-and it came back, like a reminder from his unconscious, when somebody like Borg said something like, "Little Nathaniel, go steal some uranium for your motherland." To his mother he had always said, "Do I have to?" And now he said to Pierre Borg, "If we're going to steal it any~-way, why not buy it and simply refuse to send it back for reprocessing?" "Because that way, everyone would know what we're up tO.,V "SO?" "Reprocessing takes time-many months. During that time two things could happen: one, the Egyptians would hurry their program; and two, the Americans would pressure us not to build the bomb." "Oh!" It was worse. "So you want me to steal this stuff without anyone knowing that it's us." "More than that." Borg's voice was harsh and throaty. "Nobody must even know it's been stolen. It must look as if the stuff has just been lost. I want the owners, and the international agencies, to be so embarrassed about the stuff disappearing that they will hush it up. Then, when they discover they've been robbed, they will be corhpromised by their own cover-up. "It's bound to come out eventually." "Not before we've got our bomb." They had reached the coast road from Haifa to Tel Aviv, and as the car butted through the night Oickstein could see, over to the right, occasional glimpses of the Mediterranean, glinting like jewelry in the moonlight. When he spoke he was surprised at the note of weary resignation in his voice. "How much uranium do we need?" "They want twelve bombs. In the yellowcake form-that's the uranium oro--it would mean about a hundred tons." "I won't -be able to slip it into my pocket, then." Dickstein frowned. 'Vhat would all that cost if we bought it." "Something over one million U.S. dollars." "And you think the losers will just hush it up?" "If it's done right" "Howr "That's your job, Pirate." -rm not so sure its possible," Dickstein said. "It's got to be. I told the Prime Minister we could pun it off. I laidray career on the line, Nat." "Don't talk to me about your bleeding career." Borg Ht another cigar-a nervous reaction to Dickstein's scorn. Dickstein opened his window an inch to let the smoke out. His sudden hostility bad nothing to do with Borg's clumsy personal appeal: that was typical of the man's inability to understand how people felt toward him What had unnerved Dickstein was a sudden vision of mushroom clouds over Jerusalem and Cairo, of cotton fields by the Nile and vineyards beside the Sea of Galilee blighted by fallout, the Middle East wasted by fire, its children deformed for generation& He said, "I still think peace is an alternative." Borg shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I don't get involved in politics." "Btillshit." Borg sighed. "Look, if they have a bomb, we have to have one too, don't we?" "If that was all there was to it, we could just hold a press conference, announce that the Egyptians are making a bomb, and let the rest of the world stop them. I think our people want the bomb anyway. I think they're glad of the excuse." "And maybe they're right!" Borg said. "We can't go on fighting a war every few years-one of these days we might lose one." "We could make peace." Borg snorted. "You're so fucking naive." "If we gave way on a few things-the Occupied Territories, the Law of Return, equal rights for Arabs in Israel---~'

'Me Arabs have equal rights." Dickstein smiled mirtblessly. "You!re so fucking naive." "Llstenr' Borg made an effort at self-control. Dickstein understood his anger: it was a reaction he had in common with many Lu-aea They thought that if these liberal ideas should ever take hold, they would be the thin edge of the wedge, and concession would follow concession until the land was handed back to the Arabs on a plate-and that prospect struck at the very roots of their identity. "Listen," Borg said again. "Maybe we should sell our birthright for a mess of potage. But this is the real world, and the people of this country won't vote for peace-at-any-price; and in your heart you know that the Arabs aren't in any great hurry for peace either. So, in the real world, we still have to fight them; and if we're going to fight them we'd better win; and if we're to be sure of winning, you'd better steal us some uranium." Dickstein said, "Me thing I dislike most about you though you're usually right." Borg wound down his window and threw away the stub of his cigar. It made a trail of sparks on the road, like a firecracker. The lights of Tel Aviv became visible ahead: they were almost them Borg said, "You know, with most of my people I don!t feel obliged to argue politics every time I give them an assignment. They just take orders, like operatives are supposed to." "I don't believe you," Dickstein said. "116 is a nation of idealists, or it!s nothing." "Maybe." "I once knew a man called Wolfgang. He used to say, 'I just take orders.'Then he used to break my leg." "Yeah," Borg said. "You told me."

When a company hires an accountant to keep the books, the first thing he does is announce that he has so much work to do on the overall direction of the company's financial policy that he needs to hire a junior accountant to keep the books. Something similar happens with spies. A country sets up an intelligence service to find out how many tanks its neighbor has and where they are kept, and before you can say MI5 the intelligence service announces that it is so busy spying on subversive elements at home that a separate service is needed to deal with military intelligence. So it was in Egypt in 1955. The country's fledgling intelllgence service was divided into two directorates. Military Intelligence had the job of counting Israel's tanks; General Investigations had all the glamor. The man in charge of both these directorates was called the Director of General Intelligence, just to be confusing; and he was supposed-in theory-to report to the Minister of the Interior. But another thing that always happens to spy departments is that the Head of State tries to take them over. There am two reasons for this. One is that the spies are continually hatching lunatic schemes of murder, blackmail and invasion which can be terribly embarrassing if they ever get off the ground, so. Presidents and Prime Ministers like to keep a personal eye on such departments. The other reason is that intelligence services are a source of power, especially in unstable countries, and the Head of State wants that power for himselL So the Director of General Intelligence in Cairo always, in practice, reported either to the President or to the Minister of State at the Presidency. Kawash, the tall Arab who interrogated and killed Towfik and subsequently gave the personnel dosimeter to Pierre Borg, worked in the Directorate of General Investigations, the glamorous civilian half of the service. He was an intenigent and dignified man of great integrity, but he was also deeply religious,--to the point of mysticism. His was the solid, powerful kind of mysticism which could support the most unlikely-not to say bizarre--beliefs about the real world. He adhered to a brand of Christianity which held that the return of the Jews to the Promised Land was ordained in the Bible, and was a portent of the end of the world. To work against the return was therefore a sin; to work for it, a holy task. This was why Kawash was a double agent. The work was all he had. His faith had led him into the secret life, and there he had gradually cut himself off from friends, neighbors, and-with exceptions-family. He had no personal ambitions except to go to heaven. He lived ascetically, his only earthly pleasure being to score points in the espionage game. He was a lot like Pierre Borg, with this difference: Kawash was happy. At present, though, he was troubled. So far be was losing points in the affair which had begun with Professor Schulz, and this depressed him. The problem was that the Qattara project was being run not by General Investigations but by the other half of the intelligence effort-Military Intelligence. However, Kawash had fasted and meditated, and in the long watches of the night he had developed a scheme for penetrating the secret project He had a second cousin, Assam, who worked in the office of the Director of General Intelligence-the body which coordinated Military Intelligence and General Investigations. Assam was mom senior than Kawash, but Kawash was smarter. Ile two cousins sat in the back room of a small, dirty coffee house near the Sherif Pasha in the heat of the day, drinking lukewarm lime cordial and blowing tobacco smoke at the fUe& They looked alike in their lightweight suits and Nasser mustaches. Kawash wanted to use Assam to find out about Qattara. He had devised a plausible line of approach which he thought Assam would go for, but he knew he had to put the matter very delicately in order to win Assam's support. He appeared his usual imperturbable self, despite the anxiety he felt inside. He began by seeming to be very direct. "My cousin, do you know what is happening at Qattara?" A rather furtive look came over Assam's handsome face. "If you don't know, I can't tell you." Kawash shook his head, as it Assam had misunderstood him. "I don't want you to reveal secrets. Besides, I can guess what the project is." This was a Ile. "What bothers me is that Maraji has control of it." "For your sake. Im thinking of your career." -rm not worried---~' 'Then you should be. Maraji wants your job, you must know that." The Wit proprietor brought a dish of olives and two flat loaves of pita bread. Kawash was silent until he went on. He watched Assam as the man's natural insecurity fed on the lie about MamjL Kawash continued, "Maraji is reporting directly to the Minister, I gather." "I see all the documents, though," Assam said defensively.

"You don't know what he is saying privately to the Minister. He is in a very strong position." Assam frowned. "How did you find out about the project, anyway? Kawash leaned back against the cool concrete wall. "One of Maraji's men was doing a bodyguarding job in Cairo and realized he was being followed. The tail was an Israeli agent called Towfik. Maraji doesn!t have any field men in the city, so the bodyguard's request for action was passed to me. I picked Towfik up." Assam snorted with disgust. "Bad enough to let himself be followed. Worse to call the wrong department for help. This is terrible." "Perhaps we can do something about it, my cousin." Assam scratched his nose with a hand heavy with rings. "Go on." 'Tell the Director about Towfik. Say that Maraji, for all his considerable talents, makes mistakes in picking his men, because he is young and inexperienced by comparison with someone such as yourself. Insist that you should have charge of personnel for the Qattara project. Then put a man loyal to us into a job there." Assam nodded slowly. "I see." The taste of success was in Kawash's mouth. He leaned forward. "Me Director will be grateful to you for having discovered this area of slackness in a top-security matter. And you will be able to keep track of everything Maraji does." 'This is a very good plan," Assam said. "I will speak to the Director today. I'm grateful to you, cousin." Kawash had one more thing to say-the most important thing-and he wanted to say it at the best possible moment. It would wait a few minutes, he decided. He stood up and said, "Haven't you always been my patron?" They went arm-in-arm out into the heat of the city. Assam said, "And I will find a suitable man immediately." "Ali, yes," Kawash said, as if that reminded him of another small detail. "I have a man who would be ideal. He is intelligent, resourceful,' and very discreet-and the son of my late wife's brother." Assam's eyes narrowed. "So he would report to you, too." Kawash looked hurt. "If this is too much for me to ask He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation.

"No," Assam said. "We have always helped one another." They reached the comer where they parted company. Kawash struggled to keep his feeling of triumph from showing in his face. "I will send the man to see you. You will find him completely reliable." "So be it," said Assam.

Pierre Borg had known Nat Dickstein for twenty years. Back in 1948 Borg had been sure the boy was not agent material, despite that stroke with the boatload of rifles. He had been thin, pale, awkward, unprepossessing. But it had not been Borg's decision, and they had given Dickstein a trial. Borg had rapidly come to acknowledge that the kid might not look like much but he was smart as shit. He also had an odd charm that Borg never understood. Some of the women in the Mossad were crazy about him-while others, like Borg, failed to see the attraction. Dickstein showed no interest either way--.his dossier said, "Sex life: none." Over the years Dickstein had grown in skill and confidence, and now Borg would rely on him more than any other agent. Indeed, if Dickstein had been more personally ambitious he could have had the job Borg now held. Nevertheless, Borg did not see how Dickstein could fulfill his brief. The result of the policy debate over nuclear weapons had been one of those asinine political compromises which bedeviled the work of all civil servants: they bad agreed to steal the uranium only if it could be done in such a way that nobody would know, at least for many years, that Israel had been the thief. Borg had fought the decision-he had been all for a sudden, swift piece of buccaneering and to hell with the consequences. A more judicious view had prevailed in the Cabinet; but it was Borg and his team who had to put the decision into effect. There were other men in the Mossad who could carry out ibed scheme as well as Dickstein-Mike, the head of a prescri Special Operations, was one, and Borg himself was another. But there was nobody else to whom Borg could say, as he had said to Dickstein: This is the problern--go solve it. The two men spent a day in a Mossad safe house in the town of Ramat Gan, just outside Tel Aviv. Security-vetted Mossad employees made coffee, served meals, and patrolled thegarden with revolvers under their jackets. In the morning

Dickstein saw a young physics teacher from the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot. The scientist had long hair and a flowered tie., and he explamed the chemistry of uranium, the natm of radioactivity and the working of an atomic pile with limpid clarity and endless patience. After lunch Dickstein talked to an administrator from Dimona about uranium mines, enrichment plants, fuel fabrication works, storage and transport; about safety rules and international regulations; and about the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Euratom. In the evening Borg and Dickstein had dinner together. Borg was on a halfhearted diet, as usual: he ate no bread with his skewered lamb and salad, but he drank most of the bottle of red Israeli wine. His excuse was that he was calming his nerves so that he would not reveal his anxiety to Dickstein. After dinner he gave Dickstein three keys. "There are spare identities for you in safety-deposit boxes in London, Brussels and Zurich," he said. "Passports, driving licenses, cash and a weapon in each. If you have to switch, leave the old documents in the box." Dickstein nodded. "Do I report to you or Mike?" Borg thought: You never report anyway, you bastard. He said, 'To me, please, Whenever possible, call me direct and use the jargon. If you can't reach me, contact any embassy and use the code for a meeting-III try to get to you, wherever you are. As a last resort, send coded letters via the diplomatic bags." Dickstein nodded expressionlessly: all this was routine. Borg stared at him, trying to read his mind. How did he feel? Did he think he could do it? Did he have any ideas? Did he plan to go through the motions of trying it and then report that it was impossible? Was he really convinced the bomb was the right thing for Israel? Borg could have asked, but he would have got no answers. Dickstein said, "Presumably there's a deadline." "Yes, but we don't know what it is." Borg began to pick onions out of the remains of the salad. "We must have our bomb before the Egyptians get theirs. That means your uranium has to go on stream in the reactor before the Egyptian reactor goes operational. After that point, everything is so TPJPLE

chemistry-theres nothing either side can do to hurry subatomic particles. The first to start win be the first to finish." 'Ve need an agent in Qattara," Dickstein said. "I'm working on it." Dickstein nodded. "We must have a very good man in Cairo." This was not what Borg wanted to talk about. "What are you trying to do, pump me for information?" he said crossly. "Thinking aloud." There was silence for a few moments. Borg crunched some more onions. At last he said, "I've told you what I want, but I've left to you all the decisions about how to get it." "Yes, you have, haven't you." Dickstein stood up. "I think IT go to bed." "Have you got any idea where you're going to start?" Dickstein said, "Yes, I have. Goodnight."

Chapter Three

Nat Dickstein never got used to being a secret agent It was the continual deceit that bothered him. He was always lying to people, biding, pretending to be someone he was not, surreptitiously following people and showing false documents to officials at airports. He never ceased to worry about being found out He had a daytime nightmare in which he was surrounded suddenly by policemen who shouted, "You're a spyl You're a spyl" and took him off to prison where they broke his leg. He was uneasy now. He was at the Jean-Monnet building in Luxembourg, on the Kirchberg Plateau across a narrow river valley from the hilltop city. He sat in the entrance to the offices of the Euratom Safeguards Directorate, memorizing the faces of the employees as they arrived at work. He was waiting to see a press officer called Pfaffer but he had intentionally come much too early. He was looking for weakness. The disadvantage of this ploy was that all the staff got to see his face, too; but he had no time for subtle precautions. Pfaffer turned out to be an untidy young man with an expression of disapproval and a battered brown briefcase. Dickstein followed him into an equally untidy office and accepted his offer of coffee. They spoke French. Dickstein was accredited to the Paris office of an obscure journal called Science International. He told Pfaffer that it was his ambition to get a job on Scientific A merican Pfaffer asked him, "Exactly what are you writing about at the moment?" I "The article is called 'MUF."' Dickstein explained in English, "Material Unaccounted For." He went on, "In the United States radioactive fuel is continually getting lost Here in Europe, I'm told, there's an international system for keeping track of all such material." "Correct," Pfaffer said. "The member countries hand over control of fissile substances to Euratom. We have, first of all, a complete list of civilian establishments where stocks are hold-from mines through preparation and fabrication plants, stores, and reactors, to reprocessing plants." "You said civilian establishments." "Yes. The military are outside our scope." "Go on." Dickstein. was relieved to get Pfaffer talking before the press officer had a chance to realize how limited was Dickstein's knowledge of these subjects. "As an example," Pfaffer continued, "take a factory making fuel elements from ordinary yellowcake. The raw material coming into the factory is weighed and analyzed by Euratom. inspectors. Their findings are programmed into the Euratom computer and checked against the information from the inspectors at the dispatching installation-in this case, probably a uranium mine. If there is a discrepancy between the quantity that left the dispatching installation and the quantity that arrived at the factory, the computer will say so. Similar measurements are made of the material leaving the factory--quantity and quality. These figures will in turn be checked against information supplied by inspectors at the premises where the fuel is to be used-a nuclear power station, probably. In addition, all waste at the factory is weighed and analyzed. "This process of inspection and double-checking is carried on up to and including the final disposal of radioactive wastes. Finally, stocktaking is done at least twice a year at the factory." "I see." Dickstein looked impressed and felt desperately discouraged. No doubt Pfaffer was exaggerating the efficiency of the system-but even if they made half the checks they were supposed to, how could anyone spirit away one hundred tons of yellowcake without their computers noticing? To keep Pfaffer talking, he said, "So, at any given moment, your computer knows the location of every scrap of uranium in Europe. "Within the member countries-France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. And Ws not just uranium, ifs all radioactive material."

"What about details of transportation?" "All have to be approved by us." Dickstein closed his notebook. "It sounds like a good system. Can I see it in operation?" "Mat wouldn't be up to us. You'd have to contact the atomic energy authority in the member country and ask permission to visit an installation. Some of them do guided tours." "Can you let me have a list of phone numbers?" "Certainly." Pfaffer stood up and opened a filing cabinet Dickstein had solved one problem only to be confronted with another. He had wanted to know where he could go to find out the location of stockpiles of, radioactive material, and he now had the answer: Euratom's computer. But an the uranium the computer knew about was subject to the rigorous monitoring system, and therefore extremely difficult to steal. Sitting in the untidy little office, watching the smug Herr Pfaffer rummage through his old press releases, Dickstein thought: If only you knew whats in my- mind, little bureaucrat, yoxfd have a blue fit; and he suppressed a grin and felt a little more cheerful. Pfaffer handed him a cyclostyled leaflet. Dickstein folded it and put it in his pocket. He said, "Thank you for your help." Pfaffer said, "Where are you staying?" 'The Alfa, opposite the raflway station." Pfaffer saw him to the door. "Enjoy Luxembourg." "I'll do my best," Dickstein said, and shook his hand.

Tle memory thing was a trick. Dickstein had picked it up as a small child, sitting with his grandfather in a smelly room over a pie shop in the Mile End Road, struggling to recognize the strange characters of the Hebrew alphabet. The idea was to isolate one unique feature of the shape to be remembered and ignore everything else. Dickstein had done that with the faces of the Euratom staff. He waited outside the Jean-Monnet building in the late afternoon, watching people leave for home. Some of them interested him more than others. Secretaries, messengers and coffee-makers were no use to him, nor were senior administrators. He wanted the people in between: computer programmers, office managers, heads of small departments, personal assistants and assistant chiefs. He had given names to the likeliest ones, names which reminded him of their memorable feature: Diamante, Stiffcollar, Tony Curtis, Nonose, Snowhead, Zapata, Fatbum. Diamante was a plump woman in her late thirties without a wedding ring. Her name came from the crystal glitter on the rims of her spectacles. Dickstein followed her to the car park, where she squeezed herself into the driving seat of a white Fiat 500. Dickstein!s rented Peugeot was parked nearby. She crossed the Pont-Adolphe, driving badly but slowly, and went about fifteen kilometers southeast, finishing. up at a small village called Mondorf-les-Bains. She parked in the cobbled yard of a square Luxembourgeois house with a nailstudded door. She let herself in with a key. The village was a tourist attraction, with thermal springs. Dickstein slung a camera around his neck and wandered about, passing Diamante's house several times. On one pass he saw, through a window, Diamante serving a meal to an old woman. The baby Fiat stayed outside the house until after midnight, when Dickstein left. She had been a poor choice. She was a spinster living with ter elderly mother, neither -rich nor poor-the house was probably the mothees--and apparently without vices. If Dickstein had been a different kind of man he might have seduced her, but otherwise there was no way to get at her. He went back to his hotel disappointed and frustrated-unreasonably so, for he had made the best guess he could on the Information he bad. Nevertheless he felt he had spent a day skirting the problem and he was impatient to get to grips with it so he could stop worrying vaguely and start worrying specifically. He spent three more davs getting nowhere. He drew blanks with Zapata, Fatburn and Tony Curtis. But Stiffcollar was perfect. He was about Dickstein's age, a slim, elegant man in a dark blue suit, plain blue tie, and white shirt with starched collar. His dark hair, a little longer than was usual for a man of his age, was graying over the ears. He wore handmade shoes. He walked from the office across the Alzette River and uphill into the old town. He went down a narrow cobbled street and entered an old terraced house. Two minutes later a light went on in an attic window. Dickstein hung around for two hours. -When Stiffcollar came out he was wearing close-fitting light trousers and an orange scarf around his neck. His hair was combed forward, making him look younger, and his walk was jaunty. Dickstein followed him to the Rue Dicks, where he ducked into an unlit doorway and disappeared. Dickstein stopped outside. The door was open but there was nothing to indicate what might be inside. A bare flight of stairs went down. After a moment, Dickstein heard faint music. Two young men in matching yellow jeans passed him and went in. One of them grinned back at him and said, 'Tes, this is the place." Dickstein followed them down the stairs. It was an ordinary-looking nightclub with tables and chairs, a few booths, a small dance floor and a jazz trio in a comer. Dickstein paid an entrance fee and sat at a booth, within sight of Stiffcollar. He ordered beer. He had already guessed why the place had such a discreet air, and now, as he looked around, his theory was confirtned: it was a homosexual club. It was the first club of this kind he had been to, and he was mildly surprised to find it so unexceptionable. A few of the men wore light make-up, there were a couple of outrageous queens camping it up by the bar, and a very pretty girl was holding hands with an older woman in trousers; but most of the customers were dressed normally by the standards of peacock Europe, and there was no one in drag. Stiffbollar was sitting close to a fair-haired man in a maroon double-breasted jacket. Dickstein had no feelings about homosexuals as such. He was not offended when people supposed, wrongly, that he might be homosexual because he was a bachelor in his early forties. To him, StiffcolJar was just a man who worked at Euratom. and had a guilty secret. He listened to the music and drank his beer. A waiter came across and said, "Are you on your own, dear?" Dickstein shook his head. "I'm waiting for my friend." A guitarist replaced the trio and began to sing vulgar folk songs in German. Dickstein missed most of the jokes, but the rest of the audience roared with laughter. After that several couples danced. Dickstein saw Stiffcollar put his hand on his companion's knee. He got up and walked across to their booth. "Hello," he said cheerfully, "didn't I see you at the Eurar tom office the other dayr, Stiffcollar went white. "I don't know . . Dickstein stuck out his hand. "F-d Rodgers," he said, giving the name he had used with Pfaffer. "I'm a journalist" Stiffcollar muttered, "How do you do." He was shaken, but he had the presence of mind not to give his name. "I've got to rush away," Dickstein said. "It was nice to see you. "Goodbye, then." Dickstein turned away and went out of the club. He had done all that was necessary, for now: Stiffcollar knew that his secret was out, and he was frightened. Dickstein walked toward his hotel, feeling grubby and ashamed.

He was followed from the Rue Dicks. The tail was not a professional, and made no attempt at camouflage. He stayed fifteen or twenty steps behind, his leather shoes making a regular slap-slap on the pavement Dickstein pretended not to notice. Crossing the road, he got a look at the tail: a large youth, long hair, worn brown leather jacket. Momentg later another youth stepped out of the shadows and stood squarely in front of Dickstein, blocking the pavement. Dickstein stood still and waited, thinking: What the hell is this? He could not imagine who could be tailing him already, nor why anyone who wanted him tailed would use clumsy amateurs from off the streets. The blade of a knife glinted in the street light The tail came up behind. The youth in front said, "All right, nancy-boy, give us your wallet." Dickstein was deeply relieved. They were just thieves who assumed that anyone coming out of that nightclub would be easy game- "Don't hit me," Dickstein said. -ru give you my money." He took out his wallet.

'The wallet," the youth said. Dickstein did not want to fight them; but, while he could get more cash easily, he would be greatly inconvenienced if he lost all his papers and credit cards. He removed the notes from the wallet and offered them. "I need my papers. Just take the money, and I won't report this." The boy in front snatched the notes. The one behind said, "Get the credit cards." The one in front was the weaker. Dickstein looked .squarely at him and said, "Why don't you quit while you're ahead, sonny?" Then he walked forward, passing the youth on the outside of the pavement. Leather shoes beat a brief tattoo as the other rushed Dickstein, and then there was only one way for the encounter to end. Dickstein spun about, grabbed the boy's foot as he aimed a kick, pulled and twisted, and broke the boy's ankle. The kid shouted with pain and fell down. The one with the knife came at Dickstein then. He danced back, kicked the boy's shin, danced back, and kicked again. The boy lunged with the knife. Dickstein dodged and kicked him a third time in exactly the same place. There was a noise like a bone snapping, and the boy fell down. Dickstein stood for a moment looking at the two injured muggers. He felt like a parent whose children had pushed him until he was obliged to strike them. He thought: Why did you make me do it? They were children: about seventeen, he guessed. They were vicious-they preyed on homosexuals; but that was exactly what Dickstein had been doing this night. He walked away. It was an evening to forget. He decided to leave town in the morning.

When Dickstein was working he stayed in his hotel room as much as possible to avoid being seen. He might have been a heavy drinker, except it was unwise to drink during an operation-alcohol blunted the sharp edge of his vigilance-and at other times he felt no need of it. He spent a lot of time looking out of windows or sitting in front of a flickering television screen. He did not walk around the streets, did not sit in hotel bars, did not even eat in hotel restaurants-he always used room service. But there were limits to the precautions a man could take: he could not be invisible. In the lobby of the Alfa Hotel in Luxembourg he bumped into someone who knew him. He was standing at the desk, checking out. He had looked over the bill and presented a credit card in the name of Ed Rodgers, and he was waiting to sign the American Express slip when a voice behind him said in English, "My Godl If& Nat Dickstein, isn't it?" It was the moment he dreaded. Like every agent who used cover identities, he lived in constant fear of accidentally coming up against someone from his distant past who could unmask him. It was the nightmare of the policeman who shouted, "You're a spy!" and it was the debt-collector saying,"But your mother is in, I just saw her, through the window, hiding under the kitchen table." Like every agent he had been trained for this moment. The rule wag simple: Whoever it is, you don't know him. They made you practice in the school. They would say, "roday you are Chaim Meyerson, engineering student," and so on; and you would have to walk around and do your work and be Chaim Meyerson; and then, late in the afternoon, they would arrange for you to bump into your cousin, or your old college professor, or a rabbi who knew your whole family. The first time, you always smiled and said "Hello," and talked about old times for a while, and then that evening your tutor told you that you were dead. Eventually you learned to look old friends straight in the eye and say, "Who the hell are you?" - Dickstein's training came into play now. He looked first at the desk clerk, who was at that moment checking him out in the name of Ed Rodgers. The clerk did not react: presumably either he did not understand, or he had not heard, or he did not cam A hand tapped Dickstein's shoulder. He started an apologetic smile and turned around, saying in French, "I'm afraid you've got the wrong---~" The skirt ot her dress was around her waist, her face was flushed with pleasure, and she was kissing Yasit Hassan. "It is youl" said Yasif Hassan. And then, because of the dreadful impact of the memory of that morning in Oxford twenty years ago, Dickstein lost control for an instant, and his training deserted him, and he made the biggest mistake of his career. He stared in shock, .and he said, "Christ. Hassan." Hassan sniffed, and stuck out his hand, and said, "How long ... it must be ... more than twenty yearsl" Dickstein shook the proffered hand mechanically, conscious that he had blundered, and tried to pull himself together. "It must be," he muttered. "What are you doing here?" "I live here. You?" "I'm just leaving." Dickstein decided the only thing to do was get out, fast, before he did himself any more harm. The clerk handed him the credit-card form and he scribbled "Ed Rodgers" on it. He looked at his wristwatch. "Damn, Ive got to catch this plane." "My car's outside," Hassan said. "I'll take you to the airport. We must talk." "I've ordered a taxi . Hassan spoke to the desk clerk. "Cancel that cab-give this to the driver for his trouble." He handed over some coins. Dickstein said, "I really am in a rush." "Come on, then!" Hassan picked up Dickstein's case and went outside. Feeling helpless, foolish and incompetent, Dickstein followed. T'hey got into a battered two-seater English sports car. Dickstein studied Hassan as he steered the car out of a nowaiting zone and into the traffic. The Arab had changed, and it was not just age. The gray streaks in his mustache, the thickening of his waist, his deeper voice--these were to be expected. But something else was different. Hassan had always seemed to Dickstein to be the archetypal aristocrat. He had been slow-moving, dispassionate and faintly bored when everyone else was young and excitable. Now his hauteur seemed to have gone. He was like his car: somewhat the worse for wear, with a rather hurried air. Still, Dickstein had sometimes wondered how much of his upper-class appearance was cultivated. Resigning himself to the consequences of his error, Dickstein tried to find out the extent of the damage, He asked Hassan, "You live here now?" "My bank has its European headquarters here." So, maybe hes still rich, Dickstein thought. "Mich bank is thair, "Me Cedar Bank of Lebanon." "Why Luxembourg?" "It's a considerable financial center," Hassanseplied. "Me European Investment Bank is here, and they have an interna~ tional dock exchange. But what about you?" "I live in Israel. My kibbutz makes wine-rui sniffing at the Possibilities of European distribution." 'raking coals to Newcastle." "I'm beginning to think so." "Perhaps I can help you, if you're coming back. I have a lot of contacts here. I could set up some appointments for YOU." "Mank you. I'm going to take you up on that offer." If the worst came to the worst, Dickstein thought, he could always keep the appointments and sell some wine. Hassan said, "So, now your home is in Palestine and my home is in Europe." His smile was forced, Dickstein thought. "How is the bank doingT' Dickstein asked, wondering whether "my bank" had meant "the bank I own" or "the bank I manage" or "the bank I work for." "Oh, remarkably well." They seemed not to have much more to say to each other. Dickstein would have bled to ask what had happened to Hassan's family in Palestine, how his affair with Eila Ashford had ended, and why he was driving a sports car; but he was afraid the answers might be painful, either for Hassan or for himself. Hassan asked, "Are you married?" "No. You?" "No." "How odd," Dickstein said. Hassan smiled. "Were not the type to take on responsibilities, you and V "Oh, Irve got responsibilities," Dickstein said, thinking of the orphan Mottie who had not yet finished Treasure Island. "But you have a roving eye, ehT' Hassan said with a wink. "As I recall, you were the ladies' man," Dickstein wild uncomfortably. "Ah, those were the days." Dickstein tried not to think about Ella. They reached the airport, and Hassan stopped the car. Dickstein said, "rhank you for the lift!' Hassan swiveled around in the bucket seat He stared at Dickstein. "I can!t get over this," he said. "You actually look younger than you did in 1947." Dickstein shook his hand. "I'm sorry to be in such a rusk" He got out of the car. "Don't forget-call me next time you're here," Hassan said. "Goodbye." Dickstein closed the car doorand walked into the airport. Then, at last, he allowed himself to remember.

The four people in the chilly garden were still for one long heartbeat. Then Hassan's hands moved on Eila's body. Instantly Dickstein and Cortone moved away, through the gap in the hedge and out of sight. The lovers never saw them. They walked toward the house When they were well out of earshot Cortone said, "Jesus, that was hot stult" "Let's not talk about it," Dickstein said. He felt like a an who, looking backward over his shoulder, has walked into a lamppost: there was pain and rage, and nobody to blame but himself. Fortunately the party was breaking up. They left without speaking to the cuckold, Professor Ashford, who was in a comer deep in conversation with a graduate student. They went to the George for lunch. Dickstein ate very litfle but drank some beer. Cortone said, "Listen, Nat, I don't know why you're getting so down in the mouth about it.' I mean, it just goes to show shes available, right?" "Yes," Dickstein said, but he did not mean it. The bill came to more than ten shillings. Cortone paid it. Dickstein walked him to the railway station. They shook hands solemnly, and Cortone got on the train. Dickstein walked in the park for several hours, hardly noticing the cold, trying to sort out his feelings. He failed. He knew he was not envious of Hassan, nor disillusioned with Eila, nor disappointed in his hopes, for he had never been hopeful. He was shattered, and he had no words to say why. He wished he had somebody to whom he could talk about it Soon after this he want to Palestine, although not just because of Eila.

In the next twenty-one years he never had a woman; but that, too, was not entirely because of Efla.

Yasif Hassan drove away from Luxembourg airport in a black rage. He could picture, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the young Dickstein: a pale Jew in a cheap suit, thin as a girl, always standing slightly hunched as if he expected to be flogged, staring with adolescent longing at the ripe body of Eila Ashford, arguing doggedly that his people would have Palestine whether the Arabs consented or not. Hassan had thought him ridiculous, a child. Now Dickstein lived in Israel, and grew grapes to make wine: he had found a home, and Hassan had lost one. Hassan was no longer rich. He had never been fabulously wealthy, even by Levantine standards, but he had always had fine food, expensive clothes and the best education, and he had consciously adopted the manners of Arab aristocracy. His grandfather had been a successful doctor who set up his elder son in medicine and his younger son in business. The younger, Hassan's father, bought and sold textiles in Palestine, Lebanon and Transiordan. The business prospered under British rule, and Zionist immigration swelled the market. By 1947 the family had shops all over the Levant and owned their native village near Nazareth. The 1948 war rained them. When the State of Israel was declared and the Arab armies attacked, the Hassan family made the fatal mistake of packing their bags and fleeing to Syria. They never came back. The warehouse in Jerusalem burned down; the shops were destroyed or taken over by Jews; and the family lands became "administered" by the Israeli government Hassan had heard that the village was now a kibbutz. Hassan's father had lived ever since in a United Nations refugee camp. The last positive thing he had done was to write a letter of introduction for Yasif to his Lebanese bankers. Yasif had a university degree and spoke excellent English: the bank gave him a job. He applied to the Israeli government for compensation under the 1953 Land Acquisition Act, and was refused. He visited his family in the camp only once, but what he !aw there stayed with him for the rest of his life. They lived in a hut made of boards and shared the communal toilets.

They got no special treatment: they were just one among thousands of families without a home, a purpose or a hope. To see his father, who had been a clever, decisive man ruling a large business with a firm hand, reduced now to queuing for food and wasting his life playing backgammon, made Yasif want to throw bombs at school buses. The women fetched water and cleaned house much as al-ways, but the men shuffled around in secondhand clothes, waiting for nothing, their bodies getting flabby while their minds grew dull. Teenagers strutted and squabbled and fought with knives, for there was nothing ahead of them but the prospect of their lives shriveling to nothing in the baking heat of the sun. The camp smelled of sewage and despair. Hassan never returned to visit, although he continued to write to his mother. He had escaped the trap, and if he was deserting his father, well, his father bad helped him do it, so it must have been what he wanted. He was a modest success as a bank clerk. He had intelligence and integrity, but his upbringing did not fit him for careful, calculating work involving much shuffling of memoranda and keeping of records in triplicate. Besides, his heart was elsewhere. He never ceased bitterly to resent what had been taken from him. He carried his hatred through life like a secret burden. Whatever his logical mind might tell him, his soul said be had abandoned his father in time of need, and the guilt fed his hatred of Israel. Each year he expected the Arab armies to destroy the Zionist invaders, and each time they failed he grew more wretched and more angry. In 1957 he began to work for Egyptian Intelligence. He was not a very important agent, but as the bank eXpanded its European business be, began to pick up the occasional tidbit, both in the office and from general banking gossip. Sometimes Cairo would ask him for specific information about the finances of an arms manufacturer, a Jewish philanthropist, or an Arab millionaire; and if Hassan did not have the details in his bank's files he could often get them from friends and business contacts. He also had a general brief to keep an eye on Israeli businessmen in Europe, in case they were agents; and that was why he had approached Nat Dickstein and pretended to be friendly.

Hassan thought Dickstein's story was probably true. In his shabby suit~ with the same round spectacles and the same inconspicuous air, he looked exactly like an underpaid sale with a product he could not promote. However, there was that odd business in the Rue Dicks the previous night: two youths, known to the police as petty thieves, had been found in the gutter savagely disabled. Hassan had got all the details from a contact on the city police force. Clearly they had picked on the wrong sort of victim. Their injuries were professional: the man, who had inflicted them had to be a soldier, a policeman, a bodyguard . . . or an agent After an incident like that, any Israeli who flew out in a hurry the next morning was worth checking up on. Hassan drove back to the Alfa Hotel and spoke to the desk clerk. "I was here an hour ago when one of your guests was checking out;'he said. "Do you remember?" "I think so, sir. Hassan gave him two hundred Luxembourg francs. "Would you tell me what name he was registered under?" "Certainly. sir." The clerk consulted a file. "Edward Rodgers, from Science International magazine." "Not Nathaniel Dickstein?" The clerk shook his head patiently. "Would you just see whether you had a Nathaniel Dickstein, from Israel, registered at all?" "Certainly." The -clerk took several minutes to look through a wad of papers. Hassan's excitement rose. If Dickstein had registered under a false name, then he was not a wine salesman--so what else could he be but an Israeli agent? Finally the clerk closed his fae and looked up. "Definitely not, sir." "Thank you." Haman left. He was jubilant as he drove back to his office: he had used his wits and discovered something important. As soon as he got to his desk he composed a message.

SUSPECTED ISRAELI AGENT SEEN HERE. NAT DICKSTEIN ALIAS ED RODGERS. FIVE FOOT SIX, SMALL BUILD, DARK HAIR, BROWN EYES, AGE ABOUT 40.

He encoded the message, added an extra code word at its top and sent it by telex to the banles Egyptian headquartem It would never get there: the extra code word instructed the Cairo post office to reroute the telex to the Directorate of General Investigations. Sending the message was an anticlimax, of course. There would be no reaction, no thanks from the other end. Hassan had nothing to do but get on with his bank work, and try not to daydream. Then Cairo caged him on the phone. It had never happened before. Sometimes they sent him cables, telexes, and even letters, all in code, of course. Once or twice he had met with people from Arab embassies and been given verbal instructions. But they had never phoned. His report must have caused more of a stir than he had anticipated. The caffer wanted to know more about Dickstein. "I want to confirm the identity of the customer referred to in your message," he said. "Did he wear round spectacles?" "Yea." "Did he speak English with a Cockney accent? Would you recognize such an accent?" "Yes, and yes." "Did he have a number tattooed on his forearm?" "I didn't see it today, but I know he has it ... I was at Oxford University with him, years ago. I'm quite sure it is him." "You know him?" There was astonishment in the voice from Cairo. "Is this information on your file?" "No, Irve never-Y "Then it should be," the man said angrily. "How long have you been with us?" "Since 1957." 'Mat explains it those were the old days. Okay, now listen. This man is a very important ... client. We want you to stay with him twenty-four hours a day, do you understand?" "I caWt," Hassan said miserably. "He left town." "Where did he go?" "I dropPed him at the airport. I don't know where he went.* "Then find out. Phone the airlines, ask which flight he was on, and call me back in fifteen minutes." TJUPLE

"I'll do my best---r "I'm not interested in your best," said the voice from Cairo. "I want his destination, and I want it before he gets there. Just be sure you call me in fifteen minutes. Now that we've contacted him, we must not lose him again." "I'll get on to it right away," said Hassan, but the line was dead before he could finish the sentence. He cradled the phone. True, he had got no thanks from Cairo; but this was better. Suddenly he was important, his work was urgent, they were depending on him. He had a chance to do something for the Arab cause, a chance to strike back at I ast. He picked up the phone again and started calling the airlines.

Chapter Four

Nat Dickstein chose to visit a nuclear power station in France simply because French was the only European lan guage he spoke passably well, except for English, but En gland was not part of Euratom. He traveled to the power station in a bus with an assorted party of students and tour ists. The countryside -slipping past the windows was a dusty southern green, more like Galilee than Essex, which had been "the country" to Dickstein as a boy. He had traveled the world since, getting on planes as casually as any jet-setter, but he could remember the time when his horizons had been Park Lane in the west and Southend-on-Sea in the easL He could also remember how suddenly those horizons had receded, when he began to try to think of himself as a man, after his bar mitzvah and the death of his father. Other boys of his age saw themselves getting jobs on the docks or in printing plants, marrying local girls, finding houses within a quarter of a mile of their parents' homes and settling down; their ambitions were to breed a champion greyhound, to see West Ham win the Cup Final, to buy a motorcar. Young Nat thought he might go to California or Rhodesia or Hong Kong and become a brain surgeon or an archaeologist or a millionaire. It was partly that he was cleverer than most of his contemporaries; partly that to them foreign languages were alien, mysterious, a school subject like algebra rather than a way of talking; but mainly the difference had to do with being Jewish. Dickstein's boyhood chess partner, Harry Chieseman, was brainy and forceful and quick-witted, but he saw himself as a working-class Londoner and believed he would always be one. Dickstein knew-although he could not remember anyone actually telling him this-that wherever they were born, Jews were able to find their way into the greatest universities, to start new industries like motion pictures, to become the most successful bankers and lawyers and manufacturers; and if they could not do it in the country where they were born, they would move somewhere else and try again. It was curious, Dickstein thought as he recollected his boyhood, that a people who had been persecuted for centuries'should be so convinced of their ability to achieve anything they set their mind to. Like, when they needed nuclear bombs; they went out and got them. The tradition was a comfort, but it gave him no help with the ways and means. The power station loomed in the distance. As the bus got closer, Dickstein realized that the reactor was going to be bigger than he had imagined. It occupied a ten-story building. Somehow he had imagined the thing fitting into a small room. The external security was on an industrial, rather than military, level. The premises were surrounded by one high fence, not electrified. Dickstein looked into the gatehouse while the tour guide went through the formalities: the guards had only two closed-circuit television screens. Dickstein thought: I could get fifty men inside the compound in broad daylight without the guards noticing anything amiss. It was a bad sign, he decided glumly: it meant they had other reasons to be confident. He left the bus with the rest of the party and walked across the tar-macadamed parking lot to the reception building. The place had been laid out with a view to the public image of nuclear energy: there were well-kept lawns and flower beds and lots of newly planted trees; everything was clean and natural, white-painted and smokeless. Looking back toward the gatehouse, Dickstein saw a gray Opel pull up on the road. One of the two men in it got out and spoke to the security guards, who appeared to give directions. Inside the car, something glinted briefly in the sun. Dickstein followed the tour party into the Jounge. There in a glass case was a rugby football trophy won by the power station a team. An aerial photograph of the establishment hung on the wall. Dickstein stood in front of it, imprintifig its details on his mind, idly figuring out how he would raid the place while the back of his mind worried about the gray Opel. They were led around the power station by four hostesses in smart uniforms. Dickstein was not interested in the massive turbines, the space-age control room with its banks of dials and switches, or the water-intake system designed to save the ft and return them to the. river. He wondered if the men in the Opel had been following him, and if so, why. He was enormously interested in the delivery bay. He asked the hostess, "How does the fuel arrive?" "On trucks," she said archly. Some of the party giggled nervously at the thought of uranium running around the cotmtryside on trucks. "It's not dangerous," she went on as soon as she had got the expected laugh. "It isn't even radioactive until it is fed into the atomic pile. It is taken off the truck straight into the elevator and up to the fuel store on the seventh floor. From there, everything is automatic." "What about checking the quantity and quality of the consignmentr Dickstein said. "This is done at the fuel fabrication plant The consignment is sealed there, and only the seals are checked here." "Mank you." Dickstein nodded, pleased. The system was not quite as rigorous as Mr. Pfaffer of Euratom had claimed. One or two schemes began to take vague shape in Dicksteiifs mind. They saw the reactor loading machine in operation. Worked entirely by remote control, it took the fuel element from the store to the reactor, lifted the concrete lid of a fuel channel, removed the spent element, inserted the new one, closed the lid and dumped the used element into a water-filled shaft which led to the cooling ponds. The hostess, speaking perfect Parisian French in an oddly seductive voice, said, "T'he reactor has three thousand fuel channels, each channel containing eight fuel rods. The rods last four to seven years. The loading machine renews five channels in each operation." They went on to see the cooling ponds. Under twenty feet of water the spent fuel elements were loaded into pannets, then-cool, but still highly radioactive-they were locked into fifty-ton lead flasks, two hundred elements to a flask, for transport by road and rail to a reprocessing plant. As the hostess served coffee and pastries in the lounge Dickstein considered what he had learned. It had occurred to him that, since plutonium was ultimately what was wanted, he might steal used fuel. Now he knew why nobody had suggested it. It would be easy enough to hijack the track-he could do it singlehanded-but how would he sneak a fifty-ton lead flask out of the country and take it to Israel without anyone noticing? Stealing uranium from inside the power station was no more promising an idea. Sure, the security was flimsy-the very fact that he had been permitted to make this reconnaissance, and had even been given a guided tour, showed that. But fuel inside the station was locked into an automatic, remote-controlled system. The only way it could come out was by going right through the nuclear process and emerging in the cooling ponds; and then he was back with the problem of sneaking a huge flask of radioactive material through some European port. There had to be a way of breaking into the fuel store, Dickstein supposed; then you could manhandle the stuff into the elevator, take it down, put it on a track and drive away; but that would involve holding some or all of the station personnel at gunpoint for some time, and his brief was to do this thing surreptitiously. A hostess offered to refill his cup, and he accepted. Trust the French to give you good coffee. A young engineer began a talk on nuclear safety. He wore unpressed trousers and a baggy sweater. Scientists and technicians all had a look about them, Dickstein had observed: their clothes were old, mismatched and comfortable, and if many of them wore beards, it was usually a sign of indifference rather than vanity. He thought it was because in their work, force of personality generally counted for nothing, brains for everything, so there was no point in trying to make a good visual impression. But perhaps that was a romantic view of science. . He did not pay attention to the lecture. The physicist from the Weizmann Institute had been much more concise. "There is no such thing as a safe level of radiation," he had said. "Such talk makes you think of radiation like water in a pool: if it's four feet high you're safe, if it's eight feet high you drown. But in fact radiation levels are much more like speed limits on the highway-thirty miles per hour is safer than eighty, but not as safe as twenty, and the only way to be completely safe is not to get in the car." Dickstein turned his mind back to the problem of stealing uranium. It was the requirement of secrecy that defeated every plan he dreamed up. Maybe the whole thing was doomed to failure. After all, impossible is impossible, he thought. No, it was too soon to say that. He went back to first principles. He would have to take a consignment in transit: that much was clear from what he had seen today. Now, the fuel elements were not checked at this end, they were fed straight into the system. He could hijack a truck, take the uranium out of the fuel elements, close them up again, reseal the consignment and bribe or frighten the truck driver to deliver the empty shell& The dud elements would gradually find their way into the reactor, five at a time, over a period of months. Eventually the reactoes output would fall marginally. There would be an investigation. Tests would be done. Perhaps no conclusions would be reached before the empty elements ran out and new, genuine fuel elements went in, causing output to rise again. Maybe no one would understand what had happened until the duds were reprocessed and the plutonium recovered was too little, by which time-four to seven years later-the trail to Tel Aviv would have gone cold. But they might find out sooner. And there was still the problem of getting the stuff out of the country. Still, he had the outline of one possible scheme, and he felt a bit more cheerful. . The lecture ended. There were a few desultory questions, then the party trooped back to the bus. Dickstein sat at the back. A middle-aged woman said to him, "That was my seat," and he stared at her stonily until she went away. Driving back from the power station, Dickstein kept looking out of the rear window. After about a mile the gray Opel Pulled out of a turnoff and followed the bus. Dickstein's cheerfulness vanished.

He had been spotted. It had happened either here or in Luxembourg, probably Luxembourg. The spotter might have been Yasif Hassan-no reason why he should not be an agent-or someone else. They must be following him out of general curiosity because there was no way-was there?---that they could know what he was up to. All he had to do was lose them. He spent a day in and around the town near the miclear power station, traveling by bus and taxi, driving a rented car, and walking. By the end of the day he had identified the three vehicles--the gray Opel, a dirty little flatbed truck, and a German Ford-and five of the men in the surveillance team. The men looked vaguely Arabic, but in this part of France many of the criminals were North African: somebody might have hired local help. The size of the team explained why he had not sniffed the surveillance earlier. They had been able continually to switch cars and personnel. The trip to the power station, a long there-and-back journey on a country road with very little traffic, explained why the team had finally blown themselves. The next day be drove out of town and on to the autoroute. The Ford followed him for a few miles, then the gray Opel took over. There were two men in each car. There would be two more in the flatbed truck, plus one at his hotel. The Opel was still with him when he found a pedestrian bridge over the road in a place where there were no turnoffs from the highway for four or five miles in either direction. Dickstein pulled over to the shoulder, stopped the car, got out and lifted the hood. He looked inside for a few minutes. The gray Opel disappeared up ahead, and the Ford went by a minute later. The Ford would wait at the next turnoff, and the Opel would come back on the opposite side of the road to see what he was doing. That was what the textbook prescribed for this situation. Dickstein hoped these people would follow the book, otherwise his scheme would not work. He took a collapsible warning triangle from the trunk of the car and stood it behind the offside rear wheel. T'he Opel went by on the opposite side of the highway. They were following the booL Dickstein began to walk. When he got off the highway he caught the first bus he saw and rode it until it came to a town. On the journey he spotted each of the three surveillance vehicles at different times. He allowed himself to feel a little premature triumph: they were going for it. He took a taxi from the town and got out close to his car but on the wrong side of the highway. The Opel went by, then the Ford pulled off the road a couple of hundred yards behind him. Dickstein began to run.

He was in good condition after his months of outdoor work in the kibbutz. He sprinted to the pedestrian bridge, ran across it and raced along the shoulder on the other side of the road. Breathing hard and sweating, he reached his abandoned car in under three minutes. One of the men from.the Ford had got out and started to follow him. The man now realized he had been taken in. The Ford moved off. The man ran back and jumped into it as it gathered speed and swung into the slow lane. Dickstein got into his car. The surveillance vehicles were now on the wrong side of the highway and would have to go all the way to the next junction before they could cross over and come after him. At sixty miles per hour the round trip would take them ten minutes, which meant he had at least five minutes start on them. They would not catch him. He pulled away, heading for Paris, humming a musical chant that came. from the football terraces of West Ham: "Easy, easy, eeeezeee."

Ilere was a godalmighty panic in Moscow when they heard about the Arab atom bomb. The Foreign Ministry panicked because they bad not heard of it earlier, the KGB panicked because they had not heard about it first, and the Party Secretary's office panicked because the last thing they wanted was another whos-to-blame row between the Foreign Ministry and the KGB, the previous one had made life hell in the Kremlin for eleven months. Fortunately, the way the Egyptians chose to make their revelation allowed for a certain amount of covering of rears. The Egyptians wanted to make the point that they were not diplomatically obliged to tell their allies about this secret project, and the technical help they were asking for was not crucial to its success. Their attitude was "Oh, by the way, we're building this nuclear reactor in order to get some plutonium to make atom bombs to blow Israel off the face of the earth, so would you like to give us a hand, or not?" The message, trimmed and decorated with ambassadorial niceties, was delivered, in the manner of an afterthought, at the end of a routine meeting between the Egyptian Ambassador in Moscow and the deputy chief of the Middle East desk at the Foreign Ministry. The deputy chief who received the message considered very carefully what he should do with the information. Ifis first duty, naturally, was to pass the news to his chief, who would then tell the Secretary. However, the credit for the news would go to his chief, who would also not miss the opportunity for scoring points off the KGB. Was there a way for the deputy chief to gain some advantage to himself out of the affair? He knew that the best way to get on in the Kremlin was to put the KGB under some obligation to yourself. He was now in a position to do the boys a big favor. If he warned them of the Egyptian Ambassador's message, they would have a little time to get ready to pretend they knew all about the Arab atom bomb and were about to reveal the news themselves. He put on his coat, thinking to go out and phone his acquaintance in the KGB from a phone booth in case his own phone were tapped-then he realized how silly that would be, for he was going to call the KGB, and it was they who tapped people's phones anyway; so he took off his coat and used his office phone. The KGB desk man he talked to was equally expert at working the system. In the new KGB building on the Moscow ring road, he kicked up a huge fuss. First he called his boss's secretary and asked for an urgent meeting in fifteen minutes. He carefully avoided speaking to the boas himself. He fired off half a dozen more noisy phone calls, and sent secretaries and messengers scurrying about the building to take memos and collect files. But his master stroke was the agenda. It so happened that the agenda for the next meeting of the Middle East political committee had been typed the previous day and was at this moment being run off on a duplicating machine. He got the agenda back and at the top of the list added a new item: "Recent Developments in Egyptian Armaments-Special Report," followed by his own name in brackets. Next he. ordered the new agenda to be duplicated, stiff bearing the previous day's date, and sent around to the interested departments that afternoon by hand. Then when he had made certain that half Moscow would associate his name and no one elses with the news, he went to see his boss. The same day a much less striking piece of news came in. As part of the routine exchange of information between Egyptian Intelligence and the KGB, Cairo sent notice that an Israeli agent named Nat Dickstein, had been spotted in Luxembourg and was now under surveillance. Because of the circumstances, the report got less attention than it deserved. There was only one man in the KGB who entertained the mildest suspicion that the two items might be connected. His name was David Rostov.

David Rostov's father had been a minor diplomat whose career was stunted- by a lack of connections, particularly secret service connections. Knowing this, the son, with the remorseless logic which was to characterize his decisions an his life, joined what was then called the NKVD, later to become the KGB. He had already been an agent when he went to Oxford. In those idealistic times, when Russia had just won the war and the extent of the Stalin purge was not comprehended, the great English universities had been ripe recruiting-grounds for Soviet Intelligence. Rostov had picked a couple of winners, one of whom was still sending secrets from London in 1968. Nat Dickstein had been one of his failures. Young Dickstein had been some kind of socialist, Rostov remembered, and his personality was suited to espionage: he was withdrawn, intense and mistrustful. He had brains, too. Rostov recalled debating the Middle East with him, and with Professor Ashford and Yasif Hassan, in the green-and-white house by the river. And the Rostov-Dickstein chess match had been a hard-fought affair. But Dickstein did not have the light of idealism in his eyes. He had no evangelical spirit. He was secure in his convictions, but he had no wish to convert the rest of the world. Most of the war veterans had been like that. Rostov would lay the bait----~'Of course, if you really want to join the struggle for world socialism, you have to work for the Soviet Union"---and the veterans would say "Bullshit." After Oxford Rostov had worked in Russian embassies in a series of European capitals-Rome, Amsterdam, Paris. He never got out of the KGB and into the diplomatic service. Over the years he came to realize that he did not have the breadth of political vision to become the great statesman his father wanted him to be. The earnestness of his youth disappeared. He still thought, on balance, that socialism was probably the political system of the future; but this credo no longer burned inside him like a passion. He believed in Communism the way most people believed in God: he would not be greatly surprised or disappointed if he turned out to be wrong, and meanwhile it made little difference to the way he lived. In his maturity he pursued narrower ambitions with, if anything, greater energy. He became a superb technician, a master of the 'devious and cruel skills of the intelligence game- and----equally important in the USSR as well as the WW-lZe learned how to manipulate the bureaucracy so as to gain maximum kudos for his triumphs. ne First Chief Directorate of the KGB was a kind of Head Of[ice, responsible for collection and analysis of information. Most of the field agents were attached to the Second Chief Directorate, the largest department of the KGB, which was involved in subversion, sabotage, treason, economic espionage and any internal police work considered politically sensitive. The Third Chief Directorate, which had been called Smersh until that name got a lot of embarrassing publicity in the West, did counterespionage and special operations, and it employed some of the bravest, cleverest, nastiest agents in the world. Rostov worked in the Third, and he was one of its stars. He held the rank of colonel. He had gained a medal for liberating a convicted agent from a British jail called Wormwood Scrubs. Over the years he bad also acquired a wife, two children and a mistress. The mistress was Olga, twenty years his junior, a blonde Viking goddess from Murmansk and the most exciting woman he had ever met. He knew she would not have been his lover without the KGB privileges that came with him; all the same he thought she loved him. They were alike, and each knew the other to be coldly ambitious, and somehow that had made their passion all the more frantic. There was no passion in his marriage anymore, but there were other things: affection, companionship, stability and the fact that Mariya was still the only person in the world who could make him laugh helplessly, convulsively, until he fell down. And the boys: Yuri, Davidovitch, studying at Moscow State University and listening to smuggled Beatles records; and Vladimir Davidovitch, the young genius, already considered a potential world champion chess player. Vladimir had applied for a place at the prestigious Phys-Mat School No. 2. and Rostov was sure he would succeed: he deserved the place on merit, and a colonel in the KGB had a little influence too. Rostov had risen high in the Soviet meritocracy, but he reckoned he could go a little higher. His wife no longer had to queue up in markets with the hoi polloi---she shopped at the Beryozka stores with the elite-and they had a big apartment in Moscow and a little dacha on the Baltic; but Rostov wanted a chauffeur-driven Volga limousine, a second dacha at a Black Sea resort where he could keep Olga, invitations to private showings of decadent western movies, and treatment in the Kremlin Clinic when old age began to creep up on him. His career was at a crossroads. He was fifty this year. He spent about half his time behind a desk in Moscow, the other half in the field with his own small team of operatives. He was already older than any other agent still working abroad. From here he would go in one of two directions. If he slowed up, and allowed his past victories to be forgotten, he would end his career lecturing to would-be agents at KGB school No. 311 in Novosibirsk, Siberia. If he continued to score spectacular points in the intelligence game, he would be promoted to a totally administrative job, get appointed to one or two committees, and begin a challenging-but safe--career in the organization of the Soviet Union's intelligence effort-and then he would get the Volga limousine and the Black Sea dacha. Sometime in the next two or three years he would need to pull off another great coup. When the news about Nat Dickstein came in, he wondered for a while whether this might be his chance. He had watched Dickstein's career with the nostalgic fascination of a mathematics teacher whose brightest pupil has decided to go to art school. While still at Oxford he had heard stories about the stolen boatload of guns, and as a result had himself initiated Dickstein's KGB file. Over the years additions had been made to the file by himself and others, based on occasional sightings, rumors, guesswork and good old-fashioned espionage. Ile file made it clear that Dickstein was now one of the most formidable agents in the Mossad. If Rostov could bring home his head on a platter, the future would be assured. But Rostov was a careful operator. When he was able to pick his targets, he picked easy ones. He was no death-glory man: quite the reverse. One of his more important talents was the ability to become invisible when chancy assignments were being handed out. A contest between himself and Dickstein would be uncomfortably even. He would read with interest any further reports from Cairo on what Nat Dickstein was doing in Luxembourg; but he would take care not to get involved. He had not come this far by sticking his neck out.

The forum for discussion on the Arab bomb was the Middle Fast political committee. It could have been any one of eleven or twelve Kremlin committees, for the same factions were represented on all the interested committees, and they would have said the same things; and the result would have been the same, because this issue was big enough to override factional considerations. The committee had nineteen members, but two were abroad, one was ill and one had been run over by a truck on the day of the meeting. It made no difference. Only three people counted: one from the Foreign Ministry, one KGB man and one man who represented the Party Secretary. Among the supernumeraries were David Rostov's boss, who collected all the committee memberships he could just on general principles, and Rostov himself, acting as aide. (It was by signs such as this that Rostov knew he was being considered for the next promotion.) Ilie KGB was against the Arab bomb, because the KGB's power was clandestine and the bomb would shift decisions into the overt sphere and out of the range of KGB activity. For that very reason the Foreign Ministry was in favor-the bomb would give them more work and more influence. T'he Party Secretary was against, because if the Arabs. were to win decisively in the Middle Past, how then would the USSR retain a foothold there? The discussion opened with the reading of the KGB report "Recent Developments in Egyptian Armaments." Rostov could Imagine exactly how the one fact in the report had been spun out with a little background gleaned from a phone call to Cairo, a good deal of guesswork and much bullshit, into a screed which took twenty minutes to read. He 'had done that kind of thing himself more than once.

A Foreign Ministry underling then stated, at some length, his interpretation of Soviet policy in the Middle East. Whatever the motives of the Zionist settlers, he said, it was clear that Israel had survived only because of the support it had received from western capitalism; and capitalism's purpose had been to build a Middle East outpost from which to keep an eye on its oil interests. Any doubts about this analysis had been swept away by the Anglo-Franco-Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956. Soviet policy was to support the Arabs in their natural hostility to this rump of colonialism. Now, he said, although it might have been. imprudent-in terms of global politics-for the USSR to initiate Arab nuclear armament, nevertheless once such armament had commenced it was a straightforward extension of Soviet policy to support it. The man talked forever. Everyone was so bored by this interminable statement of the obvious that the discussion thereafter became quite informal: so much so, in fact, that Rostov's boss said, "Yes, but, shit, we can't give atom bombs to those fucking lunatics." "I agree," said the Party Secretary's man, who was also chairman of the committee. "If they have the bomb, they'll use it. That will force the Americans to attack the Arabs, with or without mikes-I'd say with. Then the Soviet Union has only two options: let down its allies, or start World War Three." "Another Cuba," someone muttered. The man from the Foreign Ministry said, "Tbe answer to that might be a treaty with the Americans under which both sides agree that in no circumstances will they use nuclear weapons in the Middle East." If he could get started on a project like that, his job would be safe for twenty-five years. The KGB man said, "Then if the Arabs dropped the bomb, would that count as our breaking the treaty?" A woman in a white apron entered, pulling a trolley of tea, and the committee took a break. In the interval the Party Secretary's man stood by the trolley with a cup in his hand and a mouth full of fruitcake and told a joke. "It seems there was a captain in the KGB whose stupid son had great difficulty understanding the concepts of the Party, the Motherland, the Unions and the People. The captain told the boy to think of his father as the Party, his mother as the Motherland, his grandmother as the Unions and himself as the People. Still the boy did not understand. In a rage the father locked the boy in a wardrobe in the parental bedroom. That night the boy was still in the wardrobe when the father began to make love to the mother. The boy, watching through the wardrobe keyhole, said, "Now I understandl The Party rapes the Motherland while the Unions sleep and the People have to stand and sufferl" Everybody roared with laughter. The tea lady shook her head in mock disgust. Rostov had heard the joke before. When the committee went reluctantly back to work, it was the Party Secretary's man who asked the crucial question. "If we refuse to give the Egyptians the technical help they're asking for, will they still be able to build the bomb?" The KGB man who had presented the report said, "There is not enough information to give a definite answer, sir. However, I have taken background briefing from one of our scientists on this joint, and it seems that to build a crude nuclear bomb is actually no more difficult, technically, than to build a conventional bomb." The Foreign Ministry man said, "I think we must assume that they will be able to build it without our help, if perhaps more slowly." "I can do my own guessing," the chairman said sharply. "Of course," said the Foreign Ministry man, chastened. The KGB man continued, "Their only serious problem would be to obtain a supply of plutonium. Whether they have one or not, we simply do not know." David Rostov took in all this with great interest. In his opinion there was only one decision the committee could possibly take. The chairman now confirmed his view. "My reading of the situation is as follows," he began. "If we help the Egyptians build their bomb, we continue and strengthen our existing Middle East policy, we improve our influence in Cairo, and we are in a position to exert some control over the bomb. If we refuse to help, we estrange ourselves from the Arabs, and we possibly leave a situation in which they still have a bomb but we have no control over it. The Foreign Ministry man said, "In other words, if they're going to have a bomb anyway, there had better be a Russian finger on the trigger."

The chairman threw him a look of irritation, and continued, "We might, then,,recommend to the Secretariat as follows: the Egyptians should be given technical help with their nuclear reactor project, such help always to be structured with a view to Soviet personnel gaining ultimate control of the weaponry." Rostov permitted himself the ghost of a satisfied smile: it was the conclusion he had expected. The Foreign Ministry man said, "So move." The KOB man said, "Seconded." "All in favor?" They were all in favor. IMe committee proceeded to the next item on the agenda. It was not until after the meeting that Rostov was struck by this thought: if the Egyptians were in fact not able to build their bomb unaided-for lack of uranium, for instance-then they had done a very expert job'of bluffing the Russians into giving them the help they needed.

Rostov liked his family, In small doses. Ihe advantage of his kind of job was that by the time he got bored with them-and it was boring, living with children--he was off on another trip abroad, and by the time he came back he was missing them enough to put up with them for a few more months. He was fond of YnrL the elder boy, despite his cheap mill ic and contentious views about dissident poets; but Vladimir, the younger, was the apple of his eye. As a baby Vladimir had been so pretty that people thought he was a girl. From the start Rostov had taught the boy games of logic, spoken to him in complex sentences, discussed with him the geography of distant countries, the mechanics of engines, and the workings of radios, flowers, water taps and political parties. He had come to the top of every class he was put into-although now, Rostov thought, he might find his equals at Phys-Mat No. 2. Rostov knew he was trying to instill in his son some of the ambitions he himself had failed to fulfill. Fortunately this meshed with the boy's own inclinations: he knew he was clever, he liked being clever, and he wanted to be a Great Man. The only thing he balked at was the work he had to do for the Young Communist Izague: he thought this was a waste of time. Rostov had often said, "Perhaps it is a waste of time, but you will never get anywhere in any field of endeavor unless you also make progress in the Party. If you want to change the system, you'll have to get to the top and change it from within." Vladimir accepted this and went to the Young Communist League meetings: he had inherited his father's unbending logic. Ddving home through the rush-hour traffic, Rostov looked forward to a dull, pleasant evening at home. The four of them would have dinner together, then watch a television serial about heroic Russian spies outwitting the CIA. He would have a glass of vodka before bed. Rostov parked in the road outside his home. His building was occupied by senior bureaucrats, about half of whom had small Russian-built cars like his, but there were no garages. The apartments were spacious by Moscow standards: Yuri and Vladimir had a bedroom each, and nobody had to sleep in the living room. There was a row going on when he entered his home. He heard Mariya's voice raised in anger, the sound of something breaking, and a shout; then he heard Yuri call his mother a foul name. Rostov flung open the kitchen door and stood there, briefcase still in hand, face as black as thunder. Mariya and Yuri confronted one another across the kitchen table; she was in a rare rage and close to hysterical tears, he was full of ugly adolescent resentment. Between them was Yuri's guitar, broken at the neck. Mariya has smashed it, Rostov thought instantly; then, a moment later: but this is not what the row is about. They both appealed to him immediately. "She broke my guitarl" Yuri said. Mariya said, "He has brought disgrace upon the family with this decadent music." Then Yuri again called his mother the same foul name again. Rostov dropped his briefcase, stepped forward and slapped the boy's face. Yuri rocked backward with the force of the blow, and his cheeks reddened with -pain and humiliation. The son was as tall as his father, and broader: Rostov had not struck him like this since the boy became a man. Yuri struck back immediately, his fist shooting out: if the blow had connected it would have knocked Rostov cold. Rostov moved quickly aside with the instincts of many years' training and, as gently as possible, threw Yuri to the floor. "Leave the house," he said quietly. 'rome back when you're ready to apologize to your mother." Yuri scrambled to his feet. "Neverl" he shouted. He went out, slamming the door. Rostov took off his hat and coat and sat down at the kitchen table. He removed the broken guitar and set it carefully on the floor. Mariya poured tea and gave it to him: his hand was shaking as he took the cup. Finally he said, "What was that all about?" "Vladimir failed the exam." I'Vladimir? What has that to do with Yuri's guitar? What exam did he fail?" "For the Phys-Mat. He was rejected." Rostov stared at her dumbly. Mariya said, "I was so upset, and Yuri laughed-he is a little jealous, you know, of his younger brother-and then Yuri started playing this western music, and I thought it could not be that Vladimir is not clever enough, it must be that his family has not enough influence, perhaps we are considered unreliable because of Yuri and his opinions and his music, I know this is foolish, but I broke his guitar in the heat of the moment." Rostov was no longer listening. Vladimir rejected? Impossible. The boy was smarter than his teachers, much too smart for ordinary schools, they could not handle him. The school fof exceptionally gifted children was the Phys-Mat. Besides, the boy had said the examination was not difficult, he thought he had scored one hundred percent, and he always knew how he had done in examinations. "Where's Vladimir?" Rostov asked his wife. "In his room." Rostov went along the corridor and knocked at the bedroom door. There was no answer. He went in. Vladimir was sitting on the bed, staring at the wall, his face red and streaked with tears. Rostov said, "What did you score In that exam?" Vladimir looked up at his father, his face a mask of childish incomprehension. "One hundred percent,' he said. He handed over a sheaf of papers. "I remember the questiOns. I remember my answers. I've checked them all twice: no mistakes. And I left the examination room five minutes before the time was up." Rostov turned to leave. "Don!t you believe me?" "Yes, of course I do," Rostov told him. He went into the living room, wherethe phone was. He called the school. The head teacher was still at work. "Vladimir got full marks in that test," Rostov said. The head teacher spoke soothingly. "I'm sorry, Comrade Colonel. Many very talented youngsters apply for places

"Did they all get one hundred percent in the exam?" -rm afraid I can't divulge----~" "You know who I am," Rostov -said bluntly. "You know I can find out." "Comrade Colonel, I like you and I want to have your son in my school. Please don't make trouble for yourself by creating a storm about this. If your son would apply again in one year's time, he would have an excellent chance of gaining a place." People did not warn KGB officers against making trouble for themselves. Rostov began to understand. "But he did score full marks." "Several applicants scored full marks in the written paper----Thank you," Rostov said. He bung up. The living room was dark, but he did not put the lights on. He sat in his armchair, thinking. The head teacher could easily have told him that all the applicants had scored full marks; but lies did not come easily to people on the spur of the moment, evasions were easier. However, to question the results would create trouble for Rostov. So. Strings had been pulled. Less talented youngsters had gained places because their fathers had used more influence. Rostov refused to be angry. Don't get mad at the system, he told himself: use it. He had some strings of his own to pull. He picked up the phone and called his boss, Feliks Vorontsov, at home. Feliks sounded a little odd, but Rostov ignored it. "Listen, Feliks, my son has been turned down for the Phys-Mat."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Vorontsov said. "Still, not everybody can get in." It was not the expected response. Now Rostov paid attention to Vorontsov's. tone of voice. "What makes you say that?" "My son was accepted. Rostov was silent for a moment. He had not known that Feliks' son had even applied. The boy was smart, but not half as clever as Vladimir. Rostov pulled himself together. "Then let me be the first to congratulate you." "Thank you," Feliks said awkwardly. "What did you call about, though?" "Oh ... look, I won't interrupt your celebration. It will keep until morning." "An right. Goodbye." Rostov hung up and put the phone gently down on the floor. If the son of some bureaucrat or politico had got into the school because of string-pulling, Rostov could have fought it: everyone's file had something nasty in it. The only kind of person he could not fight was a more senior KGB man. There was no way he could overturn this year's awards of places. So, Vladimir would apply again next year. But the same thing could happen again. Somehow, by this time next year, he had to get into a position where the Vorontsovs. of this world could not nudge him aside. Next year he would handle the whole thing differently. He would call on the head teacher's KOB file, for a start. He would get the complete list of applicants and work on any who might be a threat. He would have phones tapped and mail opened to find out who was putting on the pressure. But first he had to get into a position of strength. And now he realized that his complacency about his career so far had been erroneous. If they could do this to him, his star must be fading fast. That coup which he was so casually scheduling for some time in the next two

or three years had to be brought forward. He sat In the dark living room, planning his first moves. Mariya came in after a while and ' sat beside him, not speaking. She brought him food on a tray and asked him if he wanted to watch TV. He shook his head and put the food aside. A little later, she went quietly to bed. Yuri came in at midnight, a little drunk. He entered the living room and switched on the light. He was surprised to see his father sitting there. He took a frightened step back. Rostov stood up and looked at his elder son, remembering the growing pains of his own teenage years, the misdirected anger, the clear, narrow vision of right and wrong, the quick humiliations and the slow acquisition of knowledge. "YurL" he said, "I want to apologize for hitting you." Yuri burst into tears. Rostov put an arm around his broad shoulders and led him toward his room. "We were both wrong, you and I," he continued. "Your mother, too. I'm going away again soon, rfl try to bring back a new guitar." He wanted to kiss his son, but they had gotten like Westerners, afraid to kiss. Gently, he pushed him into the bedroom and closed the door on him. Going back to the living room, he realized that in the last few minutes his plans had hardened into shape in his mind. He sat in the armchair again, this time with a soft pencil and a sheet of paper, and began to draft a memorandum.

TO: Chairman, Committee for State Security, PRom: Acting Chief, European Desk copy: Chief, European Desk DATE: 24 May 1968 Comrade Andropov: My department chief, Feliks Vorontsov, is absent today and I feel that the following matters are too urgent to await his return. An agent in Luxembourg has reported the sighting there of the Israeli operative Nathaniel ("Nat") David Jonathan Dickstein, alias Edward ("Ed") Rodgers, known as The Pirate. Dickstein was born in Stepney, East London, in 1925, the son of a shopkeeper. The father died in 1938, the mother in 1951. Dickstein joined the British Army in 1943, fought in Italy, was promoted sergeant and taken prisoner at La Molina. After the war he went to Oxford University to read Semitic Languages. In 1948 he left Oxford without graduating and emigrated to Palestine, where he began almost immediately to work for the Mossad. At first he was involved in stealing and secretly buying arms for the Zionist state. In the Fifties he mounted an operation against an Egyptian-supported group of Palestinian freedom fighters based in the Gaza Strip, and was personally responsible for the booby-trap bomb which killed Commander Aly. In the late Fifties and early Sixties he was a leading member of the assassination team which hunted escaped Nazis. He directed the terrorist effort against German rocket scientists working for Egypt in 1963-4. - On his file the entry under "Weaknesses" reads: "None known." He appears to have no family, either in Palestine or elsewhere. He is not interested in alcohol, narcotics or gambling. He has no known romantic liaisons, and there is on his file a speculation that he may be sexually frozen as a result of being the subject of medical experiments conducted by Nazi scientists. I, personally, knew Dickstein intimately in the fortnative years 1947-8, when we were both at Oxford University. I played chess with him. I initiated his file. I have followed his subsequent career with special interest. He now appears to be operating in the territory which has been my specialty for twenty years. I doubt if there is anyone among the 110,000 employees of your committee who is as well qualified as I am to oppose this formidable Zionist operative. I therefore recommend that you assign me to discover what Dickstein's mission is and, if appropriate, to stop him. (signed) David Rostov.

TO: Acting Chief, European Desk FROM: Chairman, Committee for State Security COPY: Chief, European Desk DATE: 24 May 1968 Comrade Rostov: Your recommendation is approved. (signed) Yuri Andropov. TIUPLE

To: Chairman, Committee for State Security PRom: Chief, European Desk copy: Deputy Chief, European Desk DATE: 26 May 1968 Comrade Andropov: I refer to the exchange of memoranda which took place between yourself and my deputy, David Rostov, during my recent short absence on State business in Novosibirsk. Naturally I agree wholeheartedly with Comrade Rostov's concern and your approval thereof, although I feel there was no good reason for his haste. As a field agent Rostov does not, of course, see things in quite the mane broad perspective as his superiors, and there is one aspect of the situation which he failed to bring to your attention. The current investigation of Dickstein was initiated by our Egyptian allies, and indeed at this moment remains exclusively their undertaking. For political reasons I would not recommend that we brush them aside without a second thought, as Rostov seems to think we can. At most, we should offer them our cooperation. Needless to say, this latter undertaking, involving as it would international liaison between intelligence services, ought to be handled at chief-of-desk level rather than deputy-chief level. (Signed) Feliks Vorontsov.

TO: Chief, European Desk FRom: Office of the Chairman, Committee for State Security copy: Deputy Chief, European Desk DATE: 28 May 1968 Comrade Vorontsov: Comrade AndrGpov has asked me to deal with your memorandum of 26 May. He agrees that the political implications of Rostov's scheme must be taken into account but he is unwilling to leave the initiative in Egyptian hands while we merely "cooperate." I have now spoken with our allies in Cairo, and they have agreed that Rostov should command the team investigating Dickstein on condition that one of their agents serves as a full member of the team. (Signed) Maksim Bykov, personal assistant to the Chairman.