Ken Follett - Triple (1991)

PieiTe Borg said, "I'm pulling you out." Dickstein whitened. He stared at his boss. Borg said, "I want you to come back to Tel Aviv and ran the operation from the office." Dickstein said, "You go and fuck yourself." They stood beside the lake at Zurich. It was crowded with boats, their multicolored sails flapping prettily in the Swiss sunshine. Borg said, "No arguments, Nat" "No arguments, Pierre. I won't be puffed out. Finish." "I'm ordering you." "And I'm telling you to fuck yourself." "Look." Borg took a deep breath. "Your plan Is complete. The only flaw in it is that you've been compromised: the opposition knows yoifre working, and they're trying to find you and screw up whatever it is you!re doing. You can still run the project-all you have to do is bide your face." "No,10 Dickstein said. "This isn't the kind of project where you can sit in an office and push all the buttons to make it go. I'Va too complex, there are too many variables. I have to be in the. field myself to make instant decisions." Dickstein stopped himself talking and began to think: Why do I want to do it myself? Am I really the only man in Israel who can pull This off? Is it just that I want the glory? Borg voiced his thoughts. -Don!t try to be a hero, Nat. You're too smart for that. YoWre a professional: you followorders." Dickstein shook his head. "You should know better than to take that line with me. Remember how Jews feel about people who always follow orders?" "All right, so you were in a concentration camp-that doesn't give you the right to do whatever the hell you like for the -rest of your lifel" Dickstein made a deprecatory gesture. "You can stop me. You can withdraw support. But you also won't get your uranium, because I'm not going to tell anyone. else how it can be done." Borg stared at him. "You bastard, you mean it." Dickstein watched Borg's expression. He had once had the embarrassing experience of seeing Borg have a row with his teenage son Dan. The boys had stood there, sullenly confident, while Borg tried to explain that going on peace marches was disloyal to father, mother, country and God, until Borg had strangled himself with his own inarticulate rage. Dan, like Dickstein, had learned how to refuse to be bullied, and Borg would never quite know how to handle people who could not be bullied. The script now called for Borg to go red in the face and begin to yell. Suddenly Dickstein realized that this was not going to happen. Borg was remainIng ealm. Borg smiled slyly and said, "I believe you!re fucking one of the other side!s agents." Dickstein stopped breathing. He had felt as if he had been hit from behind with a sledgehammer. This was the last thing he had been expecting. He was filled with irrational guilt, like a boy caught masturbating: shame, embarrassment, and the sense of something spoiled. Suza was private, in a compartment separate from the rest of his life, and now Borg was dragging her out and holding her up to public view: Just look at what Nat was doingl "No," Dickstein said tonelessly. "I'll give you the headlines," Borg said, "Shes Arab, her father's politics are pro-Arab, she travels all over the world in her cover job to have opportunity for contacts, and the agent Yasif Hassan, who spotted you in Luxembourg, is a friend of the family." Dickstein tamed to face Borg, standing too close, gazing fiercely into Borg's eyes, his guilt turning to resentment. 'Mat's all?" "All? What the fuck do you mean, all? You'd shoot people on that much evidencel" "Not people I know." "Has she gotten any information out of you?" Dickstein shouted, "Nol" "You're getting angry because you know you've fiiade a mistake." Dickstein turned away and looked across the lake, struggling to make himself calm: rage was Borg's act not his. After a long pause he said, "Yes, I'm angry because I've made a mistake. I should have told you about her; not the other way around. I understand how it must seem to you---~' "Seem? You mean you don't believe she's an agentT' "Have you chocked through Cairo?" Borg gave a false little laugh. "You talk as if Cairo was my intelligence service. I can't just call and ask them to look her up in their files while I hold the line." "But you've got a very good double agent in Egyptian Intelligence." "How can he be good? Everybody seems to know about him." "Stop playing games. Since the Six-Day War even the newspapers say you have good doubles in Egypt. The point is, you haven!t checked her." Borg held up both hands, palms outward, in a gesture of appeasement. "Okay, I'm going to check her with Cairo. It will take a little time. Meanwhile, you're going to write a report giving all details of your scheme and I'm going to put other agents on the job." Dickstein thought of Al Cortone and Andre Papagopolous: neither of them would do what he had agreed to do for any one other than Dickstein. "It won't work, Pierre," he said quietly. "Yoteve got to have the uranium, and I'm the only one who can get it for you." "And if Cairo confirms her to be an agent?" "rin confident the answer will be negative." "But if it's notT' "YoWll kill her, I suppose." "Oh, no." Borg pointed a finger at Dickstein's nose, and when he spoke there was real, deep-down malice in his voice. "Oh, no, I won% Dickstein. If shes an agent, you will kill her." With deliberate slowness, Dickstein took hold of Borg's wrist and removed the pointing finger from in front of his face. There was only the faintest perceptible tremor in his voice as he said, "Yes, Pierre, I will kill her."

Chapter Eleven

In the bar at Heathrow Airport David Rostov ordered another round of drinks and decided to take a gamble on Yasif Hassan. Ile problem, still, was how to stop Hassan telling all he knew to an Israeli double agent in Cairo. Rostov and Hassan were both going back for interim debriefing so a decision had to be made now. Rostov was going to let Hassan know everything, then appeal to his professionalism---such as it was. Tbe alternative was to provoke him, and just now he needed him as an ally, not a suspicious antagonist. "Look at this," Rostov said, and he showed Hassan a decoded message.

To: Colonel David Rostov via London Residency FRom: Moscow Center DATE: 3 September 1968 Comrade Colonel: We refer to your signal g/35-21a, requesting further information concerning each offour ships named in our signal r/35-21. The motor vessel Stromberg, 2500 tons, Dutch ownership and registration, has recently changed hands. She was purchased for DM 1,500,000 by one Andre Papagopolous, a ship broker, on behalf of the Savile Shipping Corporation of Liberia. Savile Shipping was incorporated on 6 August this year at the New York office of Liberian Corporation Services, Inc., with a share capital of five hundred dollars. The shareholders are Mr. Lee Chung, a New York lawyer, and a Mr. Robert Roberts, whose address is care of Mr. Chung's office. The three directors were provided in the usual way by Liberian Corporation Services, and they resigned the day after the company was set up, again in the usual way. The aforementioned Papagopolous took over as president and chief executive. Savile Shipping has also bought,the motor vessel Gil Hamffton, 1500 tons, for ze 80,000. Our people in New York have interviewed Chung. He says that "Mr. Roberte' came into his office from the street, gave no address'and paid his fee in cash. He appeared to be an Englishman. The detailed description is on file here, but it is not very helpful. Papagopolous is known to us. He is a wealthy international businessman of indeterminate nationality. Shipbroking is his principal activity. He is believed to operate close to the fringes of the law. We have no address for him. There is considerable material in his Ille, but much of it is speculative. He is believed to have done business with Israeli Intelligence in 1948. Nevertheless, he has no known political affiliation. We continue to gather information on all the ships in the list. -Moscow Center.