The point at issue was simple enough: the movements of Sokarev. Elkin insisted on an immediate return to Tel Aviv. The Ambassador with his superior diplomatic rank but without the specific responsibility for Sokarev's safety, required clearance from Jerusalem before the visit to New York could be cancelled. it is impossible to justify the continuance of his journey,' shouted Elkin.
It is a way of life in the Israeli community that title and position count for little when the question of security is at stake. He could browbeat a senior diplomat in a way unthought of throughout Europe. if they can attack here they can attack in the United States. One of our men has died already that this one speech could be made. How many more do we lose protecting him if we go to America? And for what…? '
'He goes for precisely the reason that he came here in the first instance. The threat was known, but we do not bow to threats…'
'He was a scientist, not a target dummy.'
'… The decision was made at Cabinet level that he should come. We will not be cowed by these people.'
'Before, that was a reasonable risk. Not now. They did well tonight, those bastards. That they missed was our luck. No credit to us. Luck, and Mackowicz.'
'The decision must come from Jerusalem.' The Ambassador spoke with finality.
'The decision is easy, Excellency. Very simple, no doubt you can answer it for me. Which way is the Professor more important? A household name, famous, and dead; a martyr to the cause of the survival of our country. That is one option. Or more important in his office, in his anonymity, with his papers and his tables and his work. It is sad you cannot consult with Mackowicz, he would pick between the options.'
There was a purple, veined flush high on the Ambassador's cheeks. He turned to the door. 'As I have said, the decision must come from the Foreign Ministry. I will relay your comments, and they will have consideration.'
'And what of Sokarev? What of his ability to go on?
Will that have consideration?'
But the Ambassador and the security attache were gone.
Elkin looked at the two new men who were to share the room with him, then twisted away lest they should see the tears that now lapped at his eyelids. Like a brother to him, Mackowicz. An elder brother, protective, dominating. And now without his stomach, intestines splayed to the winds.
He crumpled himself full length on his bed. That Sokarev was alive and breathing heavily a few feet away was an inadequate consolation.
The Ambassador, an experienced diplomat, was well versed in the art of self-preservation. His request to Jerusalem for guidance contained no suggestion of his own, and added with prominence the concern of Sokarev's remaining bodyguard. The coded reply he awaited, a jumble of numbers, arrived in the embassy communications room within two hours. After it had been de-ciphered it was brought to him.
XXCLL4782.19
FOREIGN MINISTRY JERUSALEM
OO 182.08 PERSONAL FOREIGN MINISTER TO AMBASSADOR UK ITEM HIS EYES ONLY ITEM
AFTER URGENT CONSIDERATION SOKAREV'S MOVEMENT EYE INFORMING AMBASSADOR USA TO
ANNOUNCE CANCELLATION OF ABOVE'S TRAVEL AND SPEAKING ARRANGEMENTS IN NY AND
OTHERS ITEM SOKAREV SHOULD RETURN ISRAEL FIRST AVALIABLE NON-STOP ELAL FLIGHT
ITEM WE DEMAND FULLEST SECURITY DURING REMAINING HOURS SOKAREV'S PRESENCE
UK PARTICULAR LONDON HEATROW DEPARTURE ITEM YOU WILL ISSUE STRONGEST
PROTEST TO UK GOVERNMENT AT LEVEL NOT BELOW FOREIGN MINISTER PREFERABLY
PRIME MINISTER AT LAX UK SECURITY STRESSING FULL INFORMATION AND WARNING
PROVIDED BY OUR SECURITY SERVICE PRIOR SOKAREV ARRIVAL ITEM WE REQUIRE
PUBLIC EXPRESSION REGRET ITEM COMMUNICATION COMPLETE
XXDY4782.19
Alone in the flat in Beersheba the scientist's wife heard over the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation's final radio news bulletin of the attack on her husband. The information came without warning, as the news media transmitted the story faster than those Government authorities responsible for her husband's welfare could react.
In desperation she tried to telephone first her son; on operational stand-by and not available to take messages.
Next her daughters; both out of their student hostels and not expected back till later. The Director at Dimona, an old friend; away at a conference in Tiberias. The seemingly endless lingering of the disappointments as she waited four times for a familiar voice to come on the line, and on each occasion had her hopes dashed, took a heavy toll. She sat in David Sokarev's chair, beside the fire that would not be lit till the winter came and the cold over the desert and waited for the early morning light still five hours away.
That she knew her man was safe was of some small help.
What caused her to sob soundlessly into the half-darkness of the centre of the room was the knowledge of the deep fear and terror he would have suffered. So inoffensive, so mild, without enemies, without a voice that was ever raised in anger. Buried away in a cramped office, insulated against the hatred and hostility that lay rampant beyond the wire fences of Dimona. But would his work, and the implications of his study, provide him with an insight into this obscenity? She wondered. The preparation of the bomb itself, awful, grotesque, multi-destructive, would that have prepared him to confront the viciousness of the last hours? It was not his way to see the bomb as a finished and completed article of war. Just figures and notes on paper. Drawings that were meaningless to others. Long hours and days and months of work. Calculations and equations.
He would not have understood. He had been too long absent from the world of men who now fought round him to take and protect his life. He would be alone, defenceless.
That was why she wept for him.
The Special Air Service squad were brought to Chisholm Road in two Black Maria police vans from an improvised helicopter landing pad on the football pitches beside the main road that ran out of Richmond to the south. They wore full-length black dungarees, were not encumbered with webbing and equipment and none boasted badges of rank on their upper arms or shoulders. They jumped casually and with ease from the open doors at the back of the vans, and then the heavy canvas bags were handed down.
Jimmy stood in the shadows and watched them. Not youngsters, but most of them still half his age, hair cut close, clean shaven, disinterested faces visible only when the lights rotating on the roofs of the fire engines illuminated the path across which they walked. The killing squad. Different to Jimmy, not self-taught as he had been.
Trained and practised, funded by Government that their expertise should be developed. Selected with care and toughened and primed. Taught not to act independently, but in the pack, deadly and irreversible when the leash was slipped. If they felt excitement they did not show it, just trooped after the one who was their leader across the road to where the Home Office man waited. Some squatted low over sheets of paper held flat on the pavement, others stood in a circle peering into the area lit by torches.
William Dawson was a thorough man. He took them through the diagram of the outside of the house, all windows and doors marked in red, first the ground floor, then the upper storey. The squad said nothing, two taking notes, the others watching and silent. Then came the plans of the interior of the end-of-terrace home. Drawn to scale.
Red marking the doorways again, and blue crosses on those that the neighbours had reported to be fitted with locks and bolts. Fingers ran along the routes of the hallway, the stairs and the landing. Occasionally those at the back would crane their necks up the street to relate the floodlit frontage with the paperwork. Jimmy stood half a dozen paces back from the huddle; Jones was far behind him at the steps of the police control vehicle.