Lasserre helped himself to some more brandy, then passed the bottle to Culundis.
‘So if I have got this correct,’ said Elleck, ‘you intend to leak to the world that there is a Libya-Amnah plot to fill the Persian Gulf full of nuclear mines, and leave them there until the Israelis agree to withdraw from Sinai and all other occupied territories?’
Lasserre and Culundis both nodded.
‘You will then instruct General Ephraim that he is to persuade the Government of Israel to launch military offensives against both Libya and Amnah, which you expect will lead to a major international conflict, possibly bringing the world to the brink of war?’
Again the Viscomte and the Greek nodded.
‘And your reason for doing all of this is so that it will push the price of gold, of which, by then, you will have plentiful amounts, up through the roof?’
Further nodding.
‘And my role in this, presumably, is to arrange the buying and the selling of the gold?’
‘I knew you would agree, Monty,’ said Lasserre.
Later that night, Elleck took care to lock his bedroom door after he had entered it; a short while after he had climbed into bed and switched off the light, there was a soft knocking on the door. He wondered whether it was Nicole or Culundis, and debated whether to open it or not. He didn’t want to miss out on a night with the gorgeous French girl, but on the other hand he didn’t fancy putting up another fight against the Greek’s advances. The gentle knocking came again, and Elleck decided it was definitely a female’s knock. He knew also, because he was a gambling man, that he must open that door. He went over to it. ‘Who is it?’ he whispered loudly. The reply was further soft knocking. Terrified of being overheard by his host down the corridor, he opened up the door. Two arms hugged him around the chest, and pushed him backwards inside the door.
‘Oh, you wonderful, beautiful creature, I knew you would be waiting for me.’
Elleck pushed with all his might to try and stop the slow, steady, propulsion of himself, by the Greek, towards the massive bed.
16
General Ephraim had sat at his desk for a long time on the morning of the Monday that Elleck, Lasserre and Culundis had met, staring down through the smoked glass windows at the bustle of the traffic. There were three piles on his desk: a pile of memorandums, a pile of letters and a pile of sealed despatches, and they all remained untouched. He pulled open a drawer in the desk, pulled out a piece of chewing gum, unwrapped it and put it in his mouth.
He thought over and over about the Frenchman he had met in the bar of L’Hermitage Hotel in La Baule. It was a massive hotel, fronting onto a beach which was part of a vast south west-facing bay. The tide was out, and the stranger suggested a walk along the sand. There, among the stench of putrid fish and damp seaweed, stepping across a million empty clam shells and past the occasional carcass of a crab, the Frenchman had dictated his instructions to him. He hadn’t liked the Frenchman, in his fashionable pastel trousers and thin, open jacket, when they had first met, and he liked him even less during the next hour.
‘You are to return to Israel, and wait until you receive your intelligence report from Amnah concerning the arrival into the country of the nuclear mines, and the subsequent reports you will receive concerning the threat to use these mines by Amnah and Libya to extort the withdrawal from certain occupied territories by Israel.
‘You will also learn that these are not the only requests that will be made — merely the first, for the Libyans will know that they have got you over a barrel, and you will have no choice but to give in to all and every demand they make. With that information to hand,’ said the Frenchman, who had introduced himself as Arnauld Bauté, ‘your Government could not possibly treat your recommendations of immediate invasion with anything other than full support. It would be a different matter, indeed, if the mines were already in place, for then there would be a danger of them being detonated, which would cause havoc, and for which Israel would be blamed. But the advance intelligence you will receive will tell you that you have probably a few days before these mines will be despatched out in the dhows — all the more reason to act!’
‘Are the mines really going to be there?’ said Ephraim.
‘But sure they are; put there by my people.’
‘And who are your people?’
‘We are called the “Executioners of Mohammed”. We are funded by the PLO.’
‘I’ve never heard of your organization,’ said Ephraim.
‘You will hear of it soon. The whole world will hear of it soon. Very soon.’
It was an overcast day but although it was quite hot, and the schools were now on holiday for the summer, there were not many people on the beach. Ephraim stared ahead at the miles of wet sand, to the left at the battery of white hotels and apartment buildings, most in need of a lick of paint, which trailed off into the horizon, and then to the right, at the breaking waves and, beyond them, the calm, still sea. Somewhere, two and a half thousand miles beyond that horizon was America. It was strange, felt Ephraim, walking out here, in this vast open space, and feeling as trapped as if he had been crammed into a cupboard.
After they had parted, Ephraim had driven straight to Paris and, to his relief, Chaim Weisz, the Chief of Israeli Intelligence Operations in France, was at home. By midnight on the Saturday, he knew for sure that there was no such organization as the ‘Executioners of Mohammed’. He also knew that Arnauld Bauté’s real name was Jean-Luc Menton, and that he lived in an apartment overlooking the old German U-boat pens at St Nazaire. The information on Bauté he had been able to acquire through his foresight in not going to La Baule without someone to cover him.
He was so deep in thought, he did not notice his coffee being brought in, placed on his desk, and his secretary leaving again. His mind was on one thing and one thing only: finding out who the hell was behind all this, and breaking them apart with his bare hands. He had filing cabinets stuffed full with dossiers on terrorist organizations, but he didn’t need to open them: he could reel off pretty well every terrorist organization in the world from the top of his head by memory. He was going through them now, one by one, thinking about the way they operated, the people they used, trying to think whether the events so far matched any of their normal styles of operating. It was a difficult task; so many were unpredictable, and liable to chop and change. Menton, he knew, was his best hope. France had him under twenty-four-hour surveillance, and when offices started up for the week, at about 9.00 — an hour-and-a-half’s time, Israeli time — a full search to discover everything there was to discover about Monsieur Bauté, né Menton, and his mystery employers, would be under way.
Ephraim chewed the gum thoughtfully and slowly, then removed the ball from his mouth, held it between his index finger and thumb, drank a mouthful of coffee, swallowed it, then replaced the gum in his mouth. On Friday, the nuclear mines were due to start arriving in Umm Al Amnah; by the middle of the following week the shipment would be complete. By then, he would have made his reports, and his recommendations; if he went along with what he had been instructed to do, the invasion of Umm Al Amnah and Libya should commence approximately two weeks from today.
In many ways, he would dearly have loved the opportunity to invade Libya. That country had been a thorn in Israel’s side for many years. He believed that without Libya, Israel would be much nearer to a realistic, lasting peace than she ever was now, and somehow, with Libya lurking in the background of the Arab world, there was always a shadow cast on any future hopes. Umm Al Amnah until now had never bothered him much; he had always considered it a tin-pot nation, and too small to be of any consequence. It had connections, no doubt with Libya and with the Soviet Union, but it was a long way away from Israel, and he had never considered it as a likely threat. Israel had limited resources, which meant that the Mossad had limited resources; he would have loved to have had agents in every city in every country of the world, but it just was not possible on his budget, and with the manpower available.