TEL AVIV TO MV STROMBERG PERSONAL BORG TO DICKSTEIN EYES ONLY MUST BE DECODED BY THE ADDRESSEE BEGINS SUZA ASHFORD CONFIRMED ARAB AGENT STOP SHE PERSUADED CORTONE TO TAKE HER AND HASSAN TO SICILY STOP THEY ARRIVED AFTER YOU LEFT` STOP CORTONE NOW DEAD STOP THIS AND OTHER DATA INDICATES STRONG POSSIBILITY YOU WILL BE ATTACKED AT SEA STOP NO FURTHER ACMON WE CAN TAKE AT THIS END STOP YOU FUCKED IT UP ALL ON YOUR OWN NOW GET OUT OF IT ALONE ENDS
The clouds which had been massing over the western Mediterranean for the previous few days finally burst that night, drenching the Stromberg with rain. A brisk wind blew up, and the shortcomings of the ship's design became apparent as she began to roll and yaw in the burgeoning waves. Nat Dickstein did not notice the weather. He sat alone in his little cabin, at the table which was screwed to the bulkhead, a pencil in hand and a pad, a codebook and a signal in front of him, transcribing Borg's message word by crucifying word. He read it over and over again, and finally sat staring at the blank steel wall in front of him. It was pointless to speculate about why she might have done this, to invent farfetched hypotheses that Hassan had coerced or blackmailed her, to imagine that she had acted from mistaken beliefs or confused motives: Borg had said she was a spy, and he had been right. She had been a spy all along. That was why she had made love to him. She had a big future in the intelligence business, that girl. Dickstein put his face in his hands and pressed his eyeballs with his fIngertips, but still he could see her, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, leaning against the cupboard in the kitchen of that little flat, reading the morning paper while she waited for a kettle to boil. The worst of it was, he loved her still. Before he met her he had been a cripple, an emotional amputee with an empty sleeve hanging where he should have had love; and she had performed a miracle, making him whole again. Now she had betrayed him, taking away what she had given, and he would be more handicapped than ever. He had written her a love letter. Dear God, he thought, what did she do when she read that letter? Did she laugh? Did she show it to Yasif Hassan and say, "See how rve got him hooked?" If you took a blind man, and gave him back his sight, and then, after a day made him blind again during the night while he was sleeping, this was how he would feel when he woke up. He had told Borg he would kill Suza if she were an agent, but now he knew that he had been lying. He could never hurt her, no matter what she did. It was late. Most of the crew were asleep except for those taking watches. He left the cabin and went up on deck without seeing anyone. Walking from the batch to the gunwale he got soaked to the skin, but be did not notice. He stood at the rail, looking into the darkness, unable to see where the black sea ended and the black sky began, letting the rain stream across his face like tears. He would never kill Suza, but Yasif Hassan was a different matter. If ever a man had an enemy, he had one in Hassan. He had loved Eila, only to see her in a sensual embrace with Hassan. Now he had fallen in love with Suza, only to find that she had already been seduced by the same old rival. And Hassan had also used Suza in his campaign to take away Dickstein!s homeland. Ob, yes, he would kill Yasif Hassan, and he would do it with his bare hands if he could. And the others. The thought brought him up out of the depths of despair in a fury: he wanted to hear bones snap, he wanted to see bodies crumple, he wanted the smell of fear and gunfire, he wanted death all around him. Borg thought they would be attacked at sea. Dickstein stood gripping the rail as the ship sawed through the unquiet sea; the wind rose momentarily and lashed his face with cold, hard rain; and he thought, So be it; and then he opened his mouth and shouted into the wind: "Let them come-let the bastards comet"
Chapter Fifteen
Hassan did not go back to Cairo, then or ever. Exultation fdled him as his plane took off from Palermo. It had been close, but he had outwitted Rostov againl He could hardly believe it when Rostov had said, "Get out Of MY sight." He had felt sure he would be forced to board the Karla and consequently miss the hijack of the Fedayeen. But Rostov completely believed that Hassan was merely over-enthusiastio, impulsive, and inexperienced. It had never occurred to him that Hassan might be a traitor. But then, why should it? Hassan was the representative of Egyptian Intelligence on the team and he was an Arab. If Rostov had toyed with suspicions about his loyalty, he might have considered whether he was working for the Israelis, for they were the opposition-the Palestinians, if they entered the picture at all, could be assumed to be on the Arab side. It was wonderful. Clever, arrogant, patronizing Colonel Rostov and the might of the notorious KGB had been fooled by a lousy Palestinian refugee, a man they thought was a nobody. But it was not over yet. He still had to join forces with the Fdayeen. The flight from Palermo took him to Rome, where he tried to get a plane to Annaba or Constantine, both near the Algerian coast. The nearest the airlines could offer was Algiers or Tunis. He went to Tunis. There he found a young taxi driver with a newish Renault and thrust in front of the man's face more money in American dollars than he normally earned in a year. The taxi took him across the hundred-mile breadth of Tunisia, over the border into Algeria, and dropped him off at a fishing village with a small natural harbor. One of the Fedayeen was waiting for him. Hassan found him on the beach, sitting under a propped-up dinghy, sheltering from the rain and playing backgammon with a fisherman. The three men got into the fisherman's boat and cast off. The sea was rough as they headed out in the last of the day. Hassan, no seaman, worried that the little motorboat would capsize, but the fisherman grinned cheerfully through it all. The trip took them less than a half hour. As they approached the looming hulk of the ship, Hassan felt again the rising sense of triumph. A ship ... they had a ship. He clambered up on to the deck while the man who had met him paid off the fisherman. Mahmoud was waiting for him on deck. They embraced, and Hassan said, "We should weigh anchor immediately-things are moving very fast now. "Come to the bridge with me." Hassan followed Mahmoud forward. The ship was a small coaster of about one thousand tons, quite new and in good condition. She was sleek, with most of her accommodations below deck. There was a hatch for one hold. She had been designed to carry small loads quickly and to maneuver in local North African ports. They stood on the foredeck for a moment, looking about. "She's just what we iieed," Hassan said joyfully. "I have renamed her the Nablus," Mahmoud told him. "She is the first ship of the Palestine Navy." Hamm felt tears start to his eyes. They climbed the ladder. Mahmoud said, "I got her from a Libyan businessman who wanted to save his soul." The bridge was compact and tidy. There was only one serious lack: radar. Many of these small coastal vessels still managed without it, and there had been no time to buy the equipment and fit it. Mahmoud introduced the captain, also a Libyan---the businessman had provided a crew as well as a ship, none of the Fedayeen were sailors. The captain gave orders to weigh anchor and start engines. The three men bent over a chart as Hassan told what he had learned in Sicily. "The Stromberg left the south coast of Sicily at midday today. The Coparelli was due to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar late last night, heading for Genoa. They are sister ships, with the same top speed, so the earliest they can meet is twelve hours east of the midpoint between Sicily and Gibraltar." The captain made some calculations and looked at another charL "Ibey will meet southeast of the island of Minorca." "We should intercept the Coparelli no less than eight hom earlier." The captain ran his finger back along the trade route. "That would put her just south of the island of Ibiza at dusk tomorrow. "Can we make-it?" "Yes, with a little time to spare, unless there is a storm." "Will there be a storm?" "Sometime in the next few days, yes. But not tomorrow, I think." "Good. Where is the radio operatorr "Here. This is Yaacov." Hassan turned to see a small, smiling man with tobaccostained teeth and told him, "There is a Russian aboard the Coparellf, a man called Tyrin, who will be sending signals to a Polish ship, the Karl& You must listen on this wavelength." He wrote it down. "Also, there is a radio beacon on the Stromberg that sends a simple thirty-second tone every half hour. If we listen for that every time we will be sure the Stromberg is not outrunning us." The captain was giving a course. Down on the deck the first officer had the hands making ready. Mahmoud was speaking to one of the Fedayeen about an arms inspection. The radio operator began to question Hassan about the Stromberes beacon. Hassan was not really listenin& He was thinking: Whatever happens, it will be glorious. The ship's engines roared, the deck tilted, the prow broke water and they were on their way.