Gordon Thomas - Gideon's Spies

But now Mossad was determined to strike a telling blow to force Britain to sever all diplomatic ties with Damascus by closing down its London embassy, long regarded by Mossad as one of the core missions in Europe for plotting against Israel. Central to the plot would be Abu, the cousin of Nezar Hindawi.

After his dinner with Tov Levy, Abu sought out Hindawi, apologizing for his previous indifference about Ann-Marie. Of course he would help, but first he needed to have some answers. Was she going to keep the baby? Was she still pressing him to marry her? Did Nezar really love the girl? They came from different cultures and mixed marriages rarely worked.

Hindawi replied if he had ever loved Ann-Marie, he did not now. She had become shrewish and weepy, asking all the time what was going to happen. He certainly did not want to marry the chambermaid.

Abu gave his cousin ten thousand dollars—money enough, he said, for Hindawi to be rid of Ann-Marie and continue to live a bachelor’s life in London. The money had been provided by Mossad. In return Hindawi would have to do something for the cause they both believed in: the overthrow of Israel.

On the evening of April 12, 1986, Hindawi visited Ann-Marie in her rooming house in the Kilburn area of London. He brought flowers and a bottle of champagne, purchased with some of the money Abu had provided. He told Ann-Marie he loved her and wanted to keep the baby. The news brought tears to her eyes. Suddenly her world seemed a far better place.

Hindawi said there was one final hurdle to clear. Ann-Marie must get the blessing of his parents for them to marry. It was an Arabic tradition no dutiful son could flout. She must fly to the Arab village in Israel where his family lived. He painted a picture of their lifestyle having changed little since Christ had walked the earth. To a girl educated by nuns and for whom Mass had been an important part of her life, the imagery was final confirmation that she was making the right decision in marrying her lover. He and his family might not be Christians, but that did not matter; they came from the land of her Lord. In her eyes that made them God-fearing people. Nevertheless, Ann-Marie hesitated. She couldn’t just walk out of her job. And where would she get the money to pay the airfare? And for such an important meeting, she would need new clothes. Hindawi stilled her concerns by producing from his pocket a bundle of notes. He told her it was more than enough for her to buy a new wardrobe. With another flourish, Hindawi produced an El Al ticket for a flight on April 17, five days away. He had bought it that afternoon.

Ann-Marie laughed. “You were sure I would go?”

“As sure as I am of my love for you,” Hindawi replied.

He promised that once she returned to London they would be married. The next few days passed in a whirl for the pregnant chambermaid. She quit her job and visited the Irish embassy in London to collect a new passport. She shopped for maternity dresses. Every night she made love to Hindawi. Each morning, over a leisurely breakfast, she planned their future together. They would live in Ireland, in a little cottage by the sea. Their baby would be christened Sean if it was a boy. Sinead if a girl.

On the day of Ann-Marie’s departure, Hindawi told her he had arranged for her to collect a “gift” for his parents from a “friend” who was one of the cleaners on the air side of the airport.

Ari Ben-Menashe, who subsequently claimed to have detailed knowledge of the plot, insisted that “because Hindawi didn’t want to risk her being stopped for having too much carry-on luggage he had arranged for his friend to pass her the bag when she entered the El Al departure lounge.”

Her gullibility in not asking any questions about the “gift” was the reaction of a woman head over heels in love and completely trusting her lover. She was the perfect patsy in the accelerating plot.

In the taxi to the airport, Hindawi was the loving, concerned father-to-be. Would she make sure to do her breathing exercises during the long flight? She must drink plenty of water and sit in an aisle seat to avoid developing the cramps she had started to complain of. Ann-Marie had laughingly shushed him: “Holy be to God, you’d think I was flying to the moon!”

She had lingered at the door to the flight departure area, not wishing to be separated from him, promising to phone from Tel Aviv, saying she would love his parents like her own. He kissed her one last time, then gently pushed her into the line making its way toward the immigration-control desk.

Watching her until she was out of sight, Hindawi continued to follow the instructions given to him by Abu and boarded a Syrian Arab Airlines bus for the ride back into London. Meantime, the unsuspecting Ann-Marie had safely passed through passport control and UK security checks. Next she made her way to the high-security area reserved for the El Al flight. Shin Bet–trained agents carefully questioned her and inspected her hand baggage. She was assigned a seat and motioned through to the final departure lounge to join the other 355 passengers.

According to Ari Ben-Menashe, she was handed the “gift” for Hindawi’s parents by a man dressed in the blue coveralls of an airport cleaner. The man disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared. Ben-Menashe would write: “Within seconds, Ann-Marie was asked to submit to a search. The El Al security people found plastic explosives in a false bottom in the bag.”

The explosives consisted of over three pounds of Semtex. Ann-Marie sobbed out her story to waiting Special Branch and MI5 officers. It was the tale of an ill-starred woman not only crossed in love but double-crossed by her partner. The officers concentrated on establishing Hindawi’s contacts with Syria after they realized Ann-Marie had been an innocent dupe.

As the airlines bus entered London, Hindawi ordered the driver to divert to the Syrian embassy. When the driver protested, Hindawi said he had the “authority” to do so. At the embassy, he asked consular officials to grant him political asylum. He told them he feared the British police were about to arrest him because he had tried to blow up an El Al plane for the “cause.” The astonished officials handed Hindawi over to two embassy security men. They asked him to remain in an embassy staff apartment after they questioned him. They might well have been suspicious that this was some sort of trap to embarrass Syria. If so, those fears would only have deepened when Hindawi left the apartment shortly after.

Hindawi had gone in search of Abu. Failing to find him, he checked into the London Visitors’ Hotel in the Notting Hill district, where he was arrested shortly afterward.

The BBC broadcast news of how the police had foiled the plot. The details were unusually precise: the Czech-made Semtex had been concealed in the false bottom of Ann-Marie’s bag and was primed to explode at thirty-nine thousand feet.

For Ben-Menashe, the operation had swiftly moved to a satisfying conclusion. “Margaret Thatcher closed down the Syrian embassy. Hindawi was jailed for forty-five years. Ann-Marie went home to Ireland where she gave birth to a daughter.” Abu returned to Israel, his role over.

After Hindawi’s trial, Robert Maxwell unleashed the Daily Mirror: “The bastard got what he deserved,” screamed an editorial. “Ambassador of Death,” shrieked a headline on the day of the expulsion of Syria’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. “Get Out, You Syrian Swine,” screamed another. Ari Ben-Menashe would be the first to claim that Mossad had pulled off a “brilliant coup which cast Syria into the political wilderness.”

But there were intriguing questions behind that clear-cut sentiment. Had Ann-Marie Murphy really been handed a working bomb, or had it been part of an elaborate scam? Was the man in blue coveralls—Hindawi’s supposed “friend”—a security officer? How much foreknowledge of the plot did MI5 have? And would it not have been unthinkable for Mossad and Britain’s security services to actually allow Semtex to be taken on board an airliner when there was even the remotest chance the bomb could have detonated on the ground? Such an explosion would certainly have devastated a sizable area of the world’s busiest airport at a time when thousands of people would have been in the area. Had the real brilliance of the coup been that Mossad had achieved the diplomatic castration of Syria at no risk at all to El Al and Heathrow by using a harmless substance resembling Semtex? To all such questions, Prime Minister Shimon Peres would only intone: “What happened is usually known to those who should know and whoever does not know should continue not knowing.”