Ken Follett - Triple (1991)

"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."