Ken Follett - Triple (1991)

Chapter Eight

It was quite a wrench for Dickstein to leave Suza in the morning and go back to work. He was still ... well, stunned . . . at eleven A.M., sitting in the window of a restaurant in the Fulham Road waiting for Pierre Borg to show. He had left a message with airport information at Heathrow telling Borg to go to a cafe opposite the one where Dickstein now sat He thought he was likely to stay stunned for a long tim maybe permanently. He had awakened at six eclock, and suffered a montept of panic wondering where he was. Then he saw Suza!s long brown hand lying on the pillow beside his head, curled up like a small animal sleeping, and the night had come flooding back, and he could hardly believe his good fortime. He thought he should not wake her, but suddenly he could not keep his hands off her body. She opened her eyes at his touch, and they made love playfully, smiling at one another, laughing sometimes, and looking into each other's eyes at the moment of climax. Then they fooled around in the kitchen, half-dressed, making the coffee too weak andburning the toast. Dickstein wanted to stay there forever. Suza had picked up his undershirt with a cry of horror. $619VItairs this? "My undershirt!" "Undershirt? I forbid you to wear undershirts. They're old-fashioned and unhygienic and theyll get in the way when I want to feel your nipplm" Her expression was so lecherous that he burst out laughing. "All right," he said. "I watet wear them." "Clood." She opened the window and threw the undershirt out into the street, and he laughed all over again. He said, "But you mustn't wear trousers~"

"WHYY not?" It was his turn to leer. "But all my trousers have flys." "No good," he said. "No room to maneuver." And like that. They acted as if they had just invented sex. The only faintly unhappy moment came when she looked at his scars and asked how he got them. "Weve had three wars since I went to Israel," he said. It was the truth, but not the whole truth. "What made you go to Israel?" "Safety." "But it's just the opposite of safe there." "It's a different kind of safety." He said this dismissively, not wanting to explain it, then he changed his mind, for he wanted her know all about him. "Miere had to be a place where nobody could say, 'You!re different, you're not a human being, you're a Jew,' where nobody could break my windows or experiment on my body just because I'm Jewish. You see ... " She had been looking at him with that cleareyed, frank gaze of hers, and he had struggled to tell her the whole truth, without evasions, without trying to make it look better than it was. "It didn!t matter to me whether we chose Palestine or Uganda or Manhattan Island-wherever it was, I would have said, That place is mine,' and I would have fought tooth and nall to keep it. Thafs, why I never try to argue the moral rights and wrongs of the establishment of Israel. Justice and fair play never entered into it After the war . . . well, the suggestion that the concept of fair play had any role In international politics seemed like a sick joke to me. I'm not pretending this is an admirable attitude, I'm just telling you how it is for me. Any other place Jews live-New York, Paris, Toronto-no matter how good it is, how assimilated they are, they never know how long ifs going to last, how soon will come the next crisis that can conveniently be blamed on them. In Israel I know that whatever happens, I won't ' be a victim of that. So, with that problem out of the way, we can get on and deal with the realities that are part of everyone's life: planting and reaping, buying and selling, fighting and dying. That's why I went, I think . . . Maybe I didn't see it all so clearly back then-in fact, I've never put it into words like that that's how I felt, anyway."

After a moment Suza said, "My father holds the opinion that Israel itself is now a racist society." 'That's what the youngsters say. They've got a point. if .. ." She looked at him, waiting. "If you and I had a child, they would refuse to classify him as Jewish. He would be a second-class citizen. But I don!t think that sort of thing will last forever. At the moment the religious zealots are powerful in the government: it's inevitable, Zionism was a religious movement. As the nation matures that will fade away. The race laws are already controversial.were fighting then% and we'll win in the end." She came to him and put her head on his shoulder, and they held each other in silence He knew that she did not care about Israeli politics: it was the mention of a son that had moved her. Sitdng in the restaurant window, remembering, he knew that he wanted Suza in his Ufa always, and he wondered what he would do if she refused to go to his country. Which would he give up, Israel or Suza? He did not know. He watched the street. It was typical June weather: mining steadily and quite cold. The familiar red buses and black cabs swished up and down, butting through the rain, splashing in the puddles on the road. A country of his own, a woman of his own: maybe he could have both. I should be so lucky. A cab drew up outside the cafe opposite, and Dickstein tensed, leaning closer to his window and peering through the rain. He recognized the bulky figure of Pierre Borg, in a dark short raincoat and a trilby hat, climbing out of the cab. He did not recognize the second man, who got out and paid the driver. The two men went into the caM Dickstein looked up and down the road. A gray Mark II Jaguar had stopped on a double yellow line fifty yards from the cafe. Now it reversed and backed into a side street, parking on the comer within sight of the cafe. The passenger got out and walked toward the caf& Dickstein left his table and went to the phone booth in the restaurant entrance. He could still see the cafe opposite. He dialed its number. :rYes?" 'Let me speak to Bill, please."

"Bill? Don!t know hini." "Would you just ask, please?" "Sure. Hey, anybody here called Bill?" A pause. 'Tea, he's con-ting. After a moment Dickstein heard Borg's voice. "Yes?" "Who's the face with you?" "Head of London Station. Do you think we ran trot him?" Dickstein ignored the sarcasm. "One of you picked up a shadow. Two men in a gray Jaguar." "We saw them." "Lose them." "Of course. Listen, you know this town-wbat's the best way?" "Send the Head of Station back to the Embassy in a cab. That should lose the Jaguar. Wait ten minutes, then take a taxi to . . ." Dickstein hesitated, trying to think of a quiet street not too far away. "To Redcliffe Street. ru meet you there." "Okay." Dickstein looked across the road. "Your tail is just going into your caM." He hung up. He went back to his window seat and watched. Ile other man came out of the cafe, opened an umbrella, and stood at the curb looking for a cab. The tail had either recognized Borg at the airport or had been following the Head of Station for some other reason. It did not make any difference. A taxi pulled up. When it left, the gray Jaguar came out of the side street and followed. Dickstein left the restaurant and hailed a cab for himself. Taxi drivers do well out of spies, he thought. He told the cabbie to go to Redcliffe Street and wait. After eleven minutes another taxi entered the street and Borg got out. "Flash your lights," Dickstein said. "Mat's the man rM meeting." Borg saw the lights and waved acknowledgment. As be was paying, a third taxi entered the street and stopped. Borg spotted it. The shadow in the third taxi was waiting to see what happened. Borg realized this, and began to walk away from his cab. Dickstein told his driver not to flash his lights again. Borg walked past them. The tail got out of his taxi, paid the driver and walked after Borg. When the tail's cab had gone Borg turned, came back to Dickstein!s cab, and got in.

Dickstein said, "Okay, let's go." They pulled away, leaving the tail on the pavement looking for another taxi. It was a quiet street: he would not find one for five or ten minutes. Borg said, "Slick." &$IF lasy," Dickstein replied. The driver said, "What was all that about, then?" "Don!t worry," Dickstein told him. "We're secret agents." The cabbie laughed. "Where to now-MI5r' "The Science Museum." Dickstein sat back in his seat. He smiled at Borg. "Well, Bill, you old fart, how the hell, are your' Borg frowned at him. "What have you got to be so fucking cheerful about?" They did not speak again in the cab, and Dickstein realized he had not prepared himself sufficiently for this meeting. He should have decided in advance what he wanted *from Borg and how he was going to got it. He thought: What do I want? The answer came up out of the back of his mind and hit him like a slap. I want to give Israel the bomb-and then I want to go home. He turned away from Borg. Rain streaked the cab window like tem. He was suddenly glad they could not speak because of the driver. On the pavement were three coatless hippies, soaking wet, their faces and hands upturned to enjoy the rain. It I could do this, if I could finish this assignment, I could rest. The thought made him unaccountably happy. He looked at Borg and smiled. Borg turned his face,to the window. They reached the museum and went inside. They stood in front of a reconstructed dinosaur. Borg said, "I'm thinking of taking you off this