“I've been through that before,” I said. I couldn't have an embassy control officer escort me to my meeting with Benny. Benny would be as silent as a dead fish. “Couldn't you do something?” I almost begged.
“Well,” said David, “if you're just dropping in and can operate under the radar, you might get host-country clearance in three days.”
“I'm sure you could do better than that, David,” I said, relying more on hope than on fact.
“OK,” he said, relenting. “Express me your filled-out travel forms. I'll sign and distribute them for approvals. Call me tomorrow for a possible green light. And let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will,” I said, and hung up.
“If I need anything,” David had said. I sure did need something; I needed to know more about DeLouise, the guy who was about to ruin the vacation in Israel I had promised my children.
Ever since I'd divorced Dahlia, my wife of seven years, I'd tried my best to spend more time with my children, seventeen-year-old Karen and fifteen-year-old Tom. A year after our divorce the children decided they wanted to live with me, so they came to the States. Dahlia hadn't put up a fight over that. She knew too well it was a lost battle; the children were old enough to make up their own minds. Because they were grown and needed only minimal housekeeping assistance, namely in rearranging their mess at home, it was easier for me to travel and leave the house chores to Amanda, my loyal part-time housekeeper.
But now I was about to go to Israel without them. I expected a major earthquake when I broke the news at home. I asked Lan to book me a flight to Tel Aviv for the following day, convinced that David would have the clearance issued quickly. I also gave her a pack of signed, blank travel-request forms. I had a hunch that visiting Israel would only be the beginning of an extensive multicountry hunt for DeLouise.
I went out to lunch and when I got back I was handed a confirmation slip for my flight out of JFK.
S itting in the too-narrow seat of a TWA Boeing 747, I thought about Benny. While I'd left the Mossad three years after I'd joined, Benny had stayed on and had slowly risen to become section chief in the Tevel Division, responsible for the Mossad's contacts with foreign governments, particularly those with whom Israel had no diplomatic relations, and with other intelligence services. The “cocktail party agents,” they'd been called in the Mossad. And indeed, the instructor they'd sent to give the course on foreign relations looked more like a stiff-upper-lip British diplomat than a Mossad combatant. But then, what did Mossad combatants look like anyway? Hollywood movies stereotyped them as dark and handsome, but in reality they resembled your next-door neighbor or your school's bus driver.
As for myself, things were more complicated. With my green eyes and brown hair I didn't look like an average Joe, which had always been an advantage when I was dating but a disadvantage when I wanted to blend in with the crowd during Mossad operations. My 6?4? frame was too noticeable to ignore. Recently, world travel and irregular eating had added a few inches to my waistline. I was fighting it, without too much success. I realized that brain cells come and go but fat cells live forever. But in our trade, looks are not everything. Efraim, the Tevel Division representative, was definitely not a looker, but nonetheless he was a suave guy with worldly manners and a brilliant mind. He could have been my father's law partner.
“Intelligence is a commodity traded over the world markets,” said Efraim. “We trade information for other information or take a credit slip for future exchange. For example, in 1968 a Mossad combatant in France came across information that OAS, the military organization of the French settlers in Algeria, was contemplating the assassination of President de Gaulle as a way to stop the French pullout from Algeria. We immediately alerted de Gaulle's son-in-law, who was his close confidant, and the plot was exposed. We could do that without compromising our source. In return, and not necessarily contemporaneously, in addition to political favors the French intelligence agency provided Israel with local assistance about individuals within the Arab community living in southern France who could be tied to terrorist organizations in the Middle East.”
Benny excelled at his job. Employing the art of negotiation and bargaining as though he'd been born to it, he became a world dealer in information and a master in forming human contacts where political relationships were formally nonexistent. Many non-Arab Muslim countries had strong ties with Israel, although formally they were aligned with the Arab countries most hostile to Israel. Benny and I had stayed in touch over the years and had helped each other out in minor matters. I felt comfortable with him. He was loyal and discreet.
I arrived at my hotel in Tel Aviv too late to call. I was on the phone early the following morning.
“I'm here,” I said. “When can we meet?”
“I can see you this afternoon at our cafeteria. You know the place.”
I took a cab to 39-41 King Shaul Boulevard, a tall office building close to the Tel Aviv courts and the IBM building. Many lawyers, accountants, and businesses used the building, but the Mossad occupied more than half of it. These were the premises the Mossad had moved into after leaving the cramped old buildings located on the other side of Hakirya. The buildings’ employees and the public had free access to a cafeteria on the mezzanine floor.
Benny was waiting for me. He hadn't changed much since we'd last met – only a few additional pounds around his waist and a few more streaks of gray on his mustache and on the hair that was still left on his head. With his medium build, the weight gain made him look more like a bank manager than a highly ranked executive in a world famous spy agency. The greatest part about Benny, though, was that although he was one of the shrewdest men I'd ever met, he was just an ordinary guy – down-to-earth and never condescending.
We found a quiet corner and schmoozed a bit like the old friends we were, drinking tea and coffee. Then things turned serious. Benny handed me an envelope.
“This is for you, and you only. Nothing in it is secret or classified, particularly after so many years, but it could be sensitive so let's lay down some ground rules. After you're finished, return the documents to me. No copies. I want to make sure that Israel is kept out of it if this thing ever blows up.”
I was getting curious. What was he talking about? DeLouise was a common thief. Only the amount of his haul wasn't common.
“Look,” said Benny seriously, as if he'd read my mind. “Let me tell you a few things, then you can go back to your room with that envelope. This person – DeLouise, Popescu, Peled, or whatever he called himself – was not an ordinary person. He was an only child born in Romania to Jewish parents who were Romanian citizens. His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a French teacher – all very normal. But Bruno was a brilliant student in high school and graduated at sixteen. He excelled in math and sciences and was accepted to the Bucharest Polytechnic to study physics and chemistry; he got his degree before his twentieth birthday.
“When immigration to Israel was allowed, he and his parents emigrated to Israel aboard a ship from Constanta, Romania. Soon after arriving in Israel he joined the Israeli Army and fought in the 1948 War of Independence. He was an excellent soldier and was cited for bravery under fire.”
I could see this account would be a real test of my memory. “Go on,” I said.
“He'd taken an Israeli name by then – Dov Peled – and he was sent to the officers’ training academy and became a second lieutenant. The Army assigned him to military intelligence. His first job was in field security; then he was sent to advanced training. A year later Peled was promoted to first lieutenant and placed in a secret unit assigned to collect data on the Arab countries’ technical and scientific capabilities.”