Sam 7, p.3
SAM 7, page 3
‘They were bad guys,’ said Naomi, interrupting.
‘So it’s good news!’ The general beamed. ‘Let’s have it then.’
‘We hit a new organization, they’re called Abu Youssouf 73.’ Naomi hesitated, noticing the discomfort of the Iraqi colonel, and let him resume.
‘As you know, General, we believed the cell was part of Black September. But it appears to be a breakaway faction, named in honour of Mohammed Youssouf Najjar, whom Mossad’ – here the colonel smiled acknowledgement to the Director – ‘settled scores with in the Beirut operation of 10 April 1973. Najjar’s alias was Abu Youssouf. As a founder of Black September, responsible for the elimination of Wasfi Tal and the hijack of the Sabena Boeing 707, he was a Fedayeen hero.’
The Mossad Director reflected. ‘What evidence is there that this Abu Youssouf 73 is something more than the one cell we have destroyed?’
It was a valid question. Originally Black September itself had been more a state of mind than an organization. Its existence had lain dormant in the desire of various PLO supporters to take more extreme action than the PLO itself was doing. Many felt that the PLO had not reacted strongly enough against King Hussein. But it was more than a year before their first recorded action, the murder of Wasfi Tal in November 1971. Even when they began turning ideas into deeds, Black September’s order of battle was so informal that in Western terms it would barely have counted as an ‘organization’. An ‘intrigue’ would have seemed a more apt word.
‘Are you sure that Abu Youssouf 73 exists?’ repeated the Mossad Director.
The Iraqi’s dark eyes glittered. He had been in no hurry to reveal what had electrified his team of analysts.
‘They have an address in East Berlin. And they used to have one in Beirut. In Mazraa Street.’
Everyone laughed. At least twenty Palestinian ‘organizations’ had offices there until fighting in the city dislodged them.
‘No names of terrorists either. Only codewords. But there are other names, an astonishing list. I still ask myself, is this a plant or is it genuine? On balance I think it is genuine.’
He passed copies of a long list of names to the General and the Director.
The General glanced at the list, checked himself, then muttered incredulously, ‘This is crazy!’
‘Remember, we thought we were tracking an ordinary Black September cell,’ interjected Naomi, incensed at the suggestion that she might have fallen for a trick.
The Director waved the list she had captured. ‘You are convinced that this was not a plant?’
‘I am. They might have been willing to sacrifice a few immigrant workers to deceive us. But these were not Algerian workers. One was a Syrian, two were Palestinians.’
‘There is confirmation of this from Paris,’ interjected the Iraqi colonel. ‘At first the French assumed this was part of a local immigrant power struggle, another reckoning in the gang warfare they so much enjoy. Our sources inform us that one man shot in the stomach recovered sufficiently to talk. He was the Syrian.’
‘So, Colonel,’ said the Director, ‘you believe this list is the heart of a plan to assassinate political and business leaders in Europe and America who are sympathetic to our country, whether they are Jews or not?’
‘Yes, I do. It may be only an embryo plan. It may even be no more than a dream, a fantasy. But all the working papers we captured refer to the list, so I conclude the overall plan is seriously intended.’ The colonel spoke with quiet intensity. ‘Consider the guerrillas’ past operations: blowing up civilian airliners, letter bombs, assassinations in crowded cities. Extreme forms of violence against targets connected with Israel overseas. What has been the result? Colossal publicity for the guerrillas at trifling cost to them!’ The group listened intently. The Iraqi was an expert on the motivation behind PLO operations. ‘Have these gross examples of violence alienated world opinion? Hardly at all. Why not?’ He glanced questioningly around his small audience. ‘Firstly because the guerrillas can always count on the support of some Arab states. They can always find sanctuary afterwards. Only occasionally can we mount operations like Entebbe. Secondly the European countries where the atrocities are committed are too dependent on Arab oil to risk punishing the guerrillas if they do catch them. The rationale of these operations,’ concluded the colonel firmly, ‘is that violence pays. The older PLO members may worry about its image. But to the breakaway factions, no attack can be self-defeating. That is why I believe Naomi’s list is genuine.’
The Director was impressed. ‘You have a sharp nose for realities, Colonel,’ he said. ‘I think you are right. Except on one point. The world will react defensively against these plans, if we reveal them before they can be activated. We must inform the Prime Minister at once.’
The general nodded. ‘It could be very useful ammunition in the UN debate on the 10th. Real political dynamite.’ He smiled at the Iraqi. ‘Colonel, you may classify this officially as good news.’
Later that night the Prime Minister gave orders for the Foreign Ministry to prepare a brief based on the documents. The brief and the captured papers would be sent to the UN for the Israeli delegate to use in the debate on the 10th.
‘It will be ridiculed, of course,’ remarked his Private Secretary.
‘But the documents will be indisputably genuine. There is no way they can be discredited. What better proof could we have that, in spite of the PLO’s observer status at the UN, the Palestinians remain murderously irresponsible?’ The Prime Minister paused. ‘Didn’t I hear that one of our UN Delegation is home at the moment?’
‘That would be the First Secretary, Ben Maier. He leaves again early tomorrow.’
‘He can work on this, then, and take it back with him. Tell him his visit is extended for a few days more.’
2
Connie Maier woke early in her New York apartment, as she did habitually. Being a pathologist at Bellevue Hospital she was expected to be in her laboratory before 9.00 a.m., which meant leaving home in Tudor City on Forty-second Street by 8.10 a.m. at the latest. As a first-class doctor and also a conscientious one, Connie had firmly continued working after her marriage to Ben, even though she knew that she would have to resign her position when he was posted away from the UN, as eventually he would be. The huge hospital is in the heart of the city on First Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, and it receives as great a variety of cases as any doctor could hope to see outside a war. From attempted suicides, stabbings and shotgun wounds to incipient peritonitis or a child stung in the throat by a wasp – the emergencies come to Bellevue. Invariably there was a huge amount of work waiting for her. This was why she usually gulped down a glass of juice and a cup of coffee at the apartment in the mornings, in order not to delay herself, and waited to eat something more substantial when the mid-morning trolley came round with its welcome burden of Danish pastries and, of course, more coffee. Coffee and Danish is a ritual at Bellevue.
However, there was one thing that made this Friday morning, 3 May, special. Ben was due back from Tel Aviv in the afternoon. In two years of married life they had never been separated so long and she had missed Ben a lot. She had not married until she was thirty-one and established in her medical career. Though her many friends and acquaintances had assumed Connie would make a highly competent job of marriage, most of them had wondered if so self-possessed, well-educated, lavishly reared and by no means plain a young woman would give all of herself to her husband. Their worries had been groundless. Even Connie had been surprised at how wrong they were. During this past week of Ben’s absence she had felt just as though part of her had been physically taken away. She missed his jokes in the morning about her running off in a hurry to cure the sick while he, only having to find a remedy for the whole world’s ills, could safely sleep late. But UN debates often did not start until 4.00 p.m. and then wrangled on long into the evening. So Ben was frequently late to bed. . . . Connie rolled over luxuriously, reflected that she missed him like hell both in and out of it, and then sprang up. He might easily be home before she was today and she wanted to make sure the apartment looked welcoming.
Tudor City is what passes in New York for an ancient building. Constructed around 1929, its apartments are solid and comfortable, with leaded light windows giving them a spuriously old English appearance. It is conveniently close to the towering block of the UN building, and the Maiers were pleased to be there. The L-shaped living room was a full twenty-seven feet long, big enough for the cocktail-party entertaining that is an inseparable part of every diplomat’s career, and its windows overlooked the East River. Connie had bought an armful of flowers the day before and distributed them in vases around the room. Now she darted round, rearranged the roses a fraction, checked that drinks were ready on the tray, removed a dirty glass, then caught sight of herself in the gilt mirror that hung over the fireplace. ‘What a mess,’ she thought. ‘Thank heaven he can’t see me now.’
Most unusually, Dr Connie Maier did not reach Bellevue this morning until ten past nine.
The telephone call from the Israeli UN Delegation came just after the mid-morning trolley had been round. Connie was examining a blood sample under a microscope.
‘Hey, Connie,’ someone called out, ‘the Tower of Babel’s on the line.’
She smiled. Her colleagues were always dreaming up new names for the United Nations, never complimentary ones. New Yorkers had little respect for the embryo world government in their midst. But a sudden shiver of fear lulled her smile. As she took the phone she had that sick, empty feeling in the gut that you get when you know something is going wrong, though you don’t know what.
‘Mrs Maier?’ queried a thick, almost sleepy-sounding man’s voice. Connie recognized it as that of Saul Horovitz, the Counsellor at the Delegation and Ben’s immediate boss.
‘What is it, Saul?’ She could hardly keep her voice steady.
‘Nothing serious, nothing to worry about.’ He had picked up the fear in her tone immediately. ‘We have a telegram from Tel Aviv. They want Ben to stay on some more days. There is something important.’ The counsellor hesitated. On the assumption that every telephone line from the UN was being tapped, he wanted to reveal only what was essential.
‘Yes?’
‘The Prime Minister wishes him to bring back a personal brief for the Ambassador. You understand I cannot tell you more now.’
‘Oh.’ Connie felt a little relieved, but only a little. ‘When will he be back then?’
‘Probably next Thursday.’
‘Nearly another whole week. Oh, Saul.’
‘I am so sorry.’ Horovitz, for all his apparent sleepiness, was a perceptive man. These were good young people, not so long married. He understood. ‘My dear, it is an honour for Ben. He is highly valued.’
‘I was so looking forward to the weekend.’ Connie checked herself.
‘If you would like to pass the Sabbath with us, please come over. We will be delighted.’
Connie considered rapidly, then her voice completely under control again, declined politely.
‘That’s sweet of you, Saul. But I think I’ll go to Rye and visit my family.’
After accepting further commiserations, she rang off. You couldn’t be angry with Saul. Anyway, it wasn’t his fault. She was just disappointed and unaccountably apprehensive. She picked up the phone again and dialled her father’s Wall Street office. Connie was half Jewish on her mother’s side. Her father was a successful stockbroker, a Protestant who had not been overwhelmingly keen on his only daughter marrying an Israeli, even a Harvard man with a PhD and as much charm as Ben. However, it certainly had not affected his adoration of Connie, which in days gone by had amounted to outrageous indulgence. There wasn’t much that money could buy, and which Connie had wanted, or her father thought she ought to have, that she had not been given. She rode her own horses, sailed her own Lightning, and at sixteen had been presented with a dashing red Triumph convertible. During vacations from the exclusive Rye Country Day School, and later from college at Radcliffe, she had visited Europe many times with her mother. Some girls might have been ruined by this generosity. Connie had not been. If her tastes were expensive they were also sophisticated. Nor did she allow them to interfere with the pursuit of her chosen career as a doctor. She had done well in medical school at New York University and emerged from it a mature and capable young woman. All that remained of her privileged childhood now was a tiny, diamond-hard, ineradicable knowledge that if she ever wanted something badly enough, she would damned well get it.
When her father heard what had happened he was all sympathy. ‘Of course, honey, wonderful to have you. Will you come with me on the train?’ Her father was a regular commuter on the fifty-minute ride from Grand Central Station to Rye.
‘No, I’ll drive. I have to pick up some clothes from the apartment. If the traffic isn’t too heavy I’ll be home in time for drinks at seven.’
‘Good. Your mother will be delighted. We’ll have some tennis in the morning. I’ll fix up a court at the club.’
When her hospital stint was over Connie wasted no time. Back at her apartment one rueful glance at the roses in the living room was enough. She felt if she stayed a moment longer she would burst into tears. She packed hurriedly and was heading out along the river on the East Side Drive in her Volvo station wagon just ahead of the heavy Friday evening traffic. With the window open and the wind blowing her black hair, she began to feel better.
That Friday evening an obscure English official was also heading for Westchester County, and another wife was cursing the fact that work had kept her husband on the wrong side of the Atlantic at the weekend. Jim Donaldson was one of a little publicized breed of Civil Servant. In his mid-forties, of average height, dressed in a sober grey suit, he was the sort of person who does not stand out in a crowd. You could see men like him every day on a commuter train into London, New York, or Frankfurt, and take him completely for granted. Unless you chanced to look into his cool blue eyes, deep-set in the way that airline pilots’ or Navy captains’ often seem to be. Then you would notice a lot more determination in his face than a middle-rung Civil Servant might ordinarily need. But Jim Donaldson did need it. His job was investigating aircraft accidents and the accidents were never pretty sights. Wherever a British registered aircraft crashed, Donaldson or one of his fellow inspectors from the Department of Trade went. This time he had been sifting the wreckage of a chartered 707 jet that had descended too low on a night approach to Washington’s National Airport and had impacted a mere hundred feet below the top of Round Hill, killing all on board.
The news had reached him at home in Surrey on Sunday morning three weeks earlier. He had packed, apologized to his wife Jane, kissed his two young daughters and told them to look after Mummy, and caught the British Airways afternoon flight to New York. He was alongside officials of the Federal Aviation Administration thirteen hours after the accident happened. Today he had been compelled to apologize to Jane again. The cable had read: ‘Jane Donaldson, 121 Downing Drive, Epsom, Surrey, England. Terribly sorry darling crash paperwork still unfinished stop hope return Tuesday all my love Jim.’ He sent it via Western Union to make sure it arrived the same day. Cables that passed through the hands of the British Post Office were frequently delivered with the ordinary letter post, which in this case might be Monday morning, allowing that the time in Britain was five hours ahead of New York. Rightly, Jim Donaldson reckoned his wife would be upset. It was the end of his daughters’ school holidays and he had promised to be at home.
Jim Donaldson was not a man who broke promises lightly, and it was true that his draft report on the 707 disaster was incomplete. But there was another reason for his wanting to stay on a few days. During the three weeks he had spent in and around Washington one of the FAA accident investigation team had introduced him to Hugh Johnson, the president of Atlantic Airlines, a New York-based carrier founded by Johnson himself, an energetic former pilot, who was known as one of the most dedicated leaders of American aviation. Johnson drove men hard. This, coupled with the contacts he had made during a lifetime in the business, had enabled him to jockey Atlantic to the level of older-established airlines like Delta and National to the point that Atlantic was now operating internationally. Johnson had invited Donaldson to stay this weekend and, although there was no hint of anything more than kindness to a visiting Britisher in the suggestion, Donaldson’s FAA friends had told him he would be a fool to decline.
‘At least you’ll see how a legend gets born,’ commented one. ‘Johnson’s one of those guys we’ll never see the like of again.’
They had met on the 707 crash site in the wood where 112 people, all members of a British Rotary Club, had died. Jim Donaldson could never inure himself to the horror of inspecting the wreck of an aircraft. This one must have been flying almost straight and level, having pulled out of its descent, when it hit. The tail had come off first, and now lay at an angle to one side of the path that the body of the plane had gouged through the trees. The wings had broken next, twisted and shredded by the tree trunks as the ninety-four-ton weight ploughed down through the upper branches which at first had cushioned the impact slightly. After that the disintegration had been swift. Standing on the tarmac at an airport, or cruising majestically among the clouds, a big airliner looks solid and indestructible. The reality is different. The only solid conglomerations of metal in it are the engines. Its thin aluminium skin can be punctured by hitting a bird. In the days when stiletto heels were fashionable, air hostesses were forbidden to wear them because the weight of an ordinary girl, concentrated on two such thin points, could punch straight through the lightweight floor of an airliner’s cabin. True, the aircraft’s wings are constructed around immensely strong main spars, and its landing gear can take punishment, but the basic airframe is designed to push its way only through air. Anything more substantial destroys it. Not that the human frame is much more resilient. A deceleration from 200 m.p.h. or more to nothing in a few seconds would kill people no matter what vehicle they were in, and there were no survivors of this crash. As always, Donaldson had needed to take a firm grip on himself to prevent himself from being sick as he surveyed the wreckage. With him was another British expert, Peter Denman of Hanson’s, an old family firm of undertakers who had specialized in the identification of air-crash victims since the early days of commercial flying. Denman was retained by several airlines to perform this slow and gruesome task and then to carry through the complicated process of embalming the remains and returning them to the relatives of the dead in a decent and proper manner. He had flown out on the same plane as Donaldson, not for the first time. They had worked together before.
