Chapter 9
Hôtel D’ Israel, Rue De Rivoli, Paris, France. 3 months ago.
Laurent Gascoigne was not a typical Mossad agent. His parents had immigrated to Israel when he was a child, making him eligible for military service. Laurent had intended to pursue a career in architecture until he found his real home in the army. When his service was completed he was approached by ‘The Insitution’, short for Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, the Israeli national intelligence agency. In English it is better known by its Hebrew name, Mossad.
He was attractive to the Mossad because he was French born and held a French passport. He also spoke fluent French with a Normandy accent. The Mossad had around fifty permanent agents across Western Europe, and a native with total loyalty to the mother country was a prize of great value.
So it was that Laurent found himself walking up Rue Geoffroi L'Asnier towards his hotel. He had just been to the Mémorial de la Shoah to do his final reconnaissance. The Israeli Minister for Culture would arrive early in the morning at Charles De Gaulle Airport and would travel directly to the Museum. In the memorial gardens he would speak about French-Jewish relations and a joint heritage. He would also refer to the Holocaust and salute the many brave resistance fighters who harboured Jews who would otherwise have been slaughtered.
On this occasion Laurent was working with Shin Bet agents. These men were members of the Internal Israel Security agency (ISA), Sherut haBitachon haKlali, known in Israel by the acronym Shabak. Elsewhere in the world they were colloquially referred to as Shin Bet, the old name for the security agency.
Shin Bet was tasked with keeping the Minister safe, and so a team of five agents were staying with Laurent on the Rue De Rivoli, less than five hundred metres from the Shoah centre.
Laurent was tense; a more accurate term would be nervous. The Shin Bet believed that the threat was minimal and that the Gendarmerie and Shin Bet together could eliminate any threat. Laurent was not so sure. There had already been a threat, called in from a phone in a service station on the A1 road. The threat was validated by the agreed code word, and the bomb had been found concealed under a motorway bridge, just yards from where the motorcade would have passed. A remote trigger wired to a mobile telephone would have detonated the explosives. In short, the explosives could have been detonated from anywhere; there was no need for Hamas to have anyone within sight of the explosives to set them off as the Israeli motorcade passed, given that the visit would be televised live from the arrival to the departure four hours later.
The reason for Laurent’s nervousness was that Shin Bet and the Israel based Mossad personnel were already celebrating. The rumour was that an assassin known as ‘le caméléon’ would try to humiliate the Mossad during the visit as a reprisal for not being paid for the earlier assassination of a Hamas leader.
The official ‘internal - eyes only’ explanation was that Islamic Fundamentalists did not want the assassin killing innocent French people along with the Minister, as they were already under pressure in France. They had therefore undermined his plan and called in a warning using the recognised codes.
It made sense, but Laurent didn’t believe a word of it. He figured that if he was planning to take out the Minister, he too might plant a bomb as a diversion. No one was listening to him, however, and so security was down to nine men: himself, five Shin Bet advance agents, and three more Shin Bet agents in the car with the Minister.
***
The five Shin Bet operatives had chosen a table in a booth out of sight of the door and of the bar. They took the additional precaution of concealing their illicit spirits in glasses of coke. The ‘no alcohol’ rule had been well and truly broken since the uptight Mossad man left to do another useless walk around.
“Hello, gentlemen. You can’t hide from me.” The men looked appreciatively at the pretty French girl in a black skirt and white blouse, carrying the tray of drinks. Her badge read Mari-Hostess.
“We are offering you complimentary drinks as it now six o’clock. Would anyone like one?”
In a few seconds the tray was empty and the shot glasses were drained.
One of the Shin Bet men saw the Mossad man heading towards the bar.
“Mari, please take these glasses away with you. We cannot be seen with them. We have a tattle tale in our midst.”
Mari looked puzzled, but she smiled anyway and went on her way. As soon as she rounded the corner she set the tray down on an empty table and removed her badge. Two minutes later, having recovered her coat from the back of a chair, she was stepping out onto Rue De Rivoli. As she walked towards the Louvre she took out her mobile phone and pressed redial.
“Hello.” The voice at the other end was English.
“It is done; all five took the drinks and consumed them.”
“Thank you, Justine. You have been as efficient as usual. I will send you a little bonus this time,” the Chameleon promised, whilst silently thanking some supreme being for the ready availability of Botox in Paris.
***
Laurent had been called from his bed at five in the morning. All five of the Shin Bet men were ill. They had blurred or double vision and partial paralysis. They wanted to vomit but their gag reflex wasn’t working. The doctor had diagnosed botulism, and an ambulance was coming to take the men to hospital.
They had all eaten together at an exclusive Thai Restaurant on Rue de Rivoli the previous evening, and they were blaming the food. Once again Laurent’s alarm bells were ringing. There were now only three Israeli security personnel to protect the Minister.
It was too late to call off the visit, and in any event the Duty Controller back in Tel Aviv told Laurent that he was panicking for no reason. He was reminded that the French, who had assigned undercover armed Gendarmes, were providing the real protection. The Israeli security officers were mainly there as a visual deterrent.
***
Rue Geoffroy L'Asnier is a cobbled street the width of a single car. The paving on both sides is lined with black steel bollards to protect pedestrians, as the pavements are, in places, little more than two feet in width. In short, Laurent thought, this is a terrorist’s wet dream. If you were looking for a good place to ambush someone, this would be the first place you would choose. Laurent had been nervous before; now he was scared.
The Minister was due in a few minutes, and the Palestinian protestors were out in force, carrying banners that read: Two State Solution, Free the Palestinians, Stop Building in the West Bank. They were pre printed in both French and English, and mounted on boards that were affixed to long handles.
In security circles, operatives on protective duties normally like to have a line of sight cleared before they will enter a road or street, but that was impossible here. The banners completely obscured the sight lines.
Nonetheless, the plan was working so far. The uniformed Gendarmes had cleared the top of the street to allow free access to the limousine. The Minister would get out of the car and walk less than fifteen metres to the relative safety of the gardens, which were ringed with machine gun toting French police. Once the Minister had finished, the Gendarmes would move the protestors onto Allez De Justes, behind the limousine, to allow it to freely exit the bottom of the one-way street.
Laurent’s main concern remained the few metres between the car and the garden. He had to concede that everything looked secure, but this was where the Shin Bet men would have been stationed, if they hadn’t been in hospital.
Laurent looked around as the limousine turned into the narrow road. The only building overlooking the arrival and departure was an academy of some kind, but luckily the windows were barred and opaque. The ancient building had two half glazed green doors that in normal circumstances would open outwards, but which were today barred and padlocked to prevent access or egress to the arrival point. The glazing was opaque Georgian wired glass which was protected by vertical steel bars at six-inch intervals.