“I was hoping you could tell me that” McGarvey said. He leaned forward in his chair. “What do you think is going on out there” She glanced over his shoulder toward where the Mossad legman had been seated, but he was gone. McGarvey had spotted him leaving a minute ago. “He’s run off to report that you’re having a drink with a so far unidentified man”
McGarvey said. “But I asked you a question”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. McGarvey, or whoever the hell you are. But I think this conversation has gone as far as it’s going to go “The general is waiting for your call, Doctor. But please do it quickly. I think we’re not going to have much time here. She hesitated, obviously torn between wanting to believe he was who he presented himself to be, and reluctance to discuss these highly secret matters so openly. “Let me tell you first” McGarvey said. “We think that the Israelis have hid in or very near their nuclear installation at En Gedi their entire stockpile of battleready nuclear weapons. And we think that the incident our satellite picked up last week may have involved a Soviet penetration of that secret. “oh, Christ” Lorraine Abbott said. “Yes” McGarvey replied. “Oh, Christ”
BOOK TWO
Darkness had settled over the Eastern Mediterranean and with it came the lights of Tel Aviv, a city of 350,000 people, twenty percent of whom were Arabs who lived in an uneasy harmony with their Jewish masters. In a third-floor office of a surprisingly small and unprepossessing building in a courtyard off Hamara Street, Lev Potok sat back from his desk and rubbed his burning eyes. He had been working steadily for the past three hours trying to put everything together in his report to Isser Shamir, director of the Mosad. But the situation wasn’t clear in his own mind, so how could he make anyone else understand? The suicide of Viktor Voronsky in the interrogation cell weighed heavily on his mind. It had been a mistake on his part leaving the obviously distraught Russian alone, even for a few moments. But what in God’s name had motivated the man to such a desperate act? There were forces here, he told himself, that were much greater than any of them had any reason to suspect. Spying and espionage were one thing, but on arrest most spies were professional enough to understand that most likely they would only spend a few months or perhaps a few years behind bars before an exchange was made, and they were repatriated. Voronsky, though, had apparently killed himself so that he would not be broken under interrogation. But who was the master, who had been pulling his strings to such an extent? The Russians he had known were dedicated, but unlike many Arabs they were not fanatics. Lighting a cigarette, he looked at the half-finished page in his typewriter. They had come up with a date barely two weeks from now, but they had no concrete idea what it meant. The Hungarian Embassy was involved, directly or indirectly, but the telephone messages had been cryptic and could have meant anything. Even an upcoming trade agreement. Liebowitz’s speculation that the so-called German failure mentioned on the telephone had something to do with the aborted hijacking of the Pershing missile several days ago was just that-speculation. The pieces of the puzzle seemed to want to come together, almost of their own volition. But it was like building a complicated piece of machinery without blueprints, without even a firm idea what the machine was supposed to do. Someone knocked on his door, and he looked up in irritation as Liebowitz stuck his head inside. “Larry just came up. I think you’d better listen to what he has to say. “What’s she done this time” Potok asked. Larry Saulberg was one of the team assigned to keep a watch on Lorraine Abbott’s movements. So far she hadn’t done much except remain in her hotel, reading the steady stream of NPF documents and reports that had been coming to her out of Washinton twice daily. They had not been able to tamper with the letters for fear they would tip their hand even more than they already had. It was a delicate balance.
“She’s got a gentleman caller”
“Is it that prick-Hayes back again”
“No” Liebowitz said. The man had a flair for the dramatic. Potok pulled the paper out of his typewriter, placed it in a file folder with the rest of his report, and put the entire thing in his desk drawer. He nodded when he was ready, and Liebowitz stood aside. Larry Saulberg was a small, dark, intense man who’d immigrated with his parents from Kenya about fifteen years ago. He had absolutely no sense of humor, but he was like a hound dog with his steadfast devotion to his job. He’d even changed his name to one that sounded more Jewish. “Who is watching her at this moment” Potok asked. “Chaim” the little African said, his obsidian eyes bright. “What have you got for me”
“At seven this evening a man showed up at the hotel where he registered and had his bags sent up to his room. He received a package from the desk, and then went directly to Dr. Abbott who was seated in the lobby cocktail lounge where he introduced himself and sat down”
“Yes, and who is this man” Potok demanded. He glanced at the wall clock.
It was well past eight-thirty. “And why didn’t you report this sooner”
“He is registered under the name of Kirk McGarvey on an American passport; he has a long-term French visa along with a lot of others”
Saulberg reported. “The reason for the delay is I wanted to make sure who he was before I came up here to you. The package he received at the desk was sealed with a diplomatic stamp”
“Why didn’t you just stick with him” Potok asked. There was something else. There was always something else. “Because he had me made from the moment he entered the hotel” Saulberg said. “He even came over to me and told me it wasn’t polite to stare ” Potok suppressed a grin.
Saulberg was deadly serious, as was this entire business. McGarvey was most likely just another NPF courier. “Go on”
“I ran him through our files” the legman said. “Yes”
Liebowitz, who had stepped in behind Saulberg and had closed the door, handed over the file folder he’d brought with him. “He came up with this, Lev”
“Well, who is he” Potok asked, opening the file. “A former CIA case officer” Saulberg said softly. “Who is almost for certain an assassin”
Potok’s eyes shot up from McGarvey’s photograph, something clutching at his gut. “What”
“Not only that, Lev” Liebowitz interjected. “We have it on good authority that he has been in Germany”
“Recently”
“Yes.
Isser Shamir, known as Isser the Little, was a tiny barrelchested man who stood barely five feet, and whose head seemed almost ludicrously too large for his body. His longish white hair was always in disarray, his wide dreamy eyes seemed always to be half-closed as if he were drifting, but his mind was absolutely sharp. First class. Like a computer, his friends said; like a steel trap, his enemies countered. He looked up from reading Potok’s hastily finished report. “There is confirmation that McGarvey was in Kaiserslautern during the incident with the missile”
” Not one hundred percent” Potok admitted. “Liebowitz telephoned a friend on the police force, who said that a man matching McGarvey’s description was there. In fact, it was he who may have disarmed the missile”
“And now he has come here” Shamir said gently. “Yes, sir. Meeting with Dr. Abbott”
“It makes one wonder who he has come here to assassinate”
“That part has not been confirmed” Potok said. He sat forward. “But it has made me ask if there is any connection between the hijacked missile and En Gedi.
Shamir nodded. “That too makes for interesting speculation, Lev. What is your assessment in light of what you learned from the telephone intercept and your interrogation of this Russian” He tapped a finger on Potok’s report. “You don’t say here” With Isser the Little you never speculated. You either had the facts, and all of them, or you admitted up front that you didn’t know. Now he was asking for a guess. Potok, for all his years in the service, felt just a little uncomfortable. But then the stakes were so high that they couldn’t afford not to consider any and every possibility, no matter how farfetched. “I have a feeling that Rothstein and perhaps Simon Asher were working for the Russians. Their contact was Viktor Voronsky. I think that the Russians know about En Gedi, I think that the hijacked missile was somehow reprogrammed to strike there, and I think that they are planning to try again on June thirtieth” Shamir was nodding sadly. “What about Dr. Abbott and the NPT”