The bombing took place August 15, the telex said. It occurred during Al Fatah’s major recruiting effort in Damascus that year. Three organizers were known to have been in Damascus at that time:
• Fakhri al-Amari, who led the team that assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi el-Tel and drank his blood. Amari was believed to be in Algeria at the present time. Inquiries were under way.
• Abdel Kadir, who once bazookaed an Israeli school bus; killed when his bomb factory near Cheikh Saad blew up in 1973. The telex added that doubtless Kabakov would not need his memory refreshed on Kadir’s demise, as he had been present at the time.
• Muhammad Fasil, alias Yusuf Halef, alias Sammar Tufiq. Believed to be the architect of the Munich atrocity and one of the men most wanted by the Mossad. Fasil was last reported operating in Syria. The Mossad believed him to be in Damascus at the time of Kabakov’s Beirut raid, but recent reports, not yet confirmed, placed him in Beirut within the past three weeks. Israeli intelligence was pressing sources in Beirut and elsewhere on Fasil’s whereabouts.
Photos of al-Amari and Fasil were being transmitted via satellite to the Israeli embassy in Washington to be forwarded to Kabakov. The negatives would follow. Kabakov winced at that. If they were sending negatives, the pictures must be poor—too poor to be very useful when transmitted electronically. Still, it was something. He wished that he had waited to ask about the Russians. “Muhammad Fasil,” Kabakov muttered. “Yes. This is your kind of show. I hope you came personally this time.”
He went back into the rain for the trip to Brooklyn. Moshevsky and the trio of Israelis under his direction combed the Cobble Hill bars and short-order restaurants and klabash games looking for traces of Muzi’s Greek assistant. Perhaps the Greek had seen the American. Kabakov knew the FBI had covered this ground, but his own men did not look like police, they fit better into the ethnic mix of the neighborhood, and they could eavesdrop in several languages. Kabakov stationed himself in Muzi’s office, examining the incredible rat’s nest of papers the importer had left, in the hope that he could find some scrap of information about the American or about Muzi’s contacts in the Middle East. A name, a place, anything. If there was one person between Istanbul and the Gulf of Aden who knew the nature of the Black September mission in the United States, and Kabakov could find out his name, he would kidnap that person or die trying. By mid-evening he had discovered that Muzi kept at least three sets of books, but he had learned little else. Wearily, he returned to Rachel’s apartment.
Rachel was waiting up for him. She seemed somehow different and, looking at her, he was no longer weary. Their separation during the day had made something clear to both of them.
Very gently they became lovers. And their encounters thereafter began and ended with great gentleness, as though they feared they might tear the fragile tent their feelings built in air around their bed.
“I’m silly,” she said once, resting. “I don’t care if I’m silly.”
“I certainly don’t care if you’re silly,” Kabakov said. “Want a cigar?”
Ambassador Tell’s call came at seven a.m., while Kabakov was in the shower. Rachel opened the bathroom door and called his name into the steam. Kabakov came out quickly, while Rachel was still in the doorway. He wrapped a towel around himself and padded to the telephone. Rachel began to work very hard on her fingernails.
Kabakov was uneasy. If the ambassador had an answer on the Russians, he would not have used this telephone. Tell’s voice was calm and very businesslike.
“Major, we’ve gotten an inquiry about you from the New York Times. Also some uncomfortable questions about the incident on the Leticia. I’d like for you to come down here. I’ll be free a little after three, if that’s convenient.”
“I’ll be there.”
Kabakov found the Times on Rachel’s doormat. Page one: ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER IN WASHINGTON FOR MIDEAST TALKS. Read that later. COST OF LIVING. GM RECALLS TRUCKS. Page two. Oh, hell. Here it is:
Arab Tortured Here by Israeli Agents, Consul Alleges
By MARGARET LEEDS FINCH A Lebanese seaman was questioned under torture by Israeli agents aboard a Libyan merchant vessel in New York harbor last week prior to his arrest by U.S. Customs officials on smuggling charges, the Lebanese consul said Tuesday night.
In a strongly worded protest to the U.S. State Department, Consul Yusuf el-Amedi said first mate Mustapha Fawzi of the freighter Leticia was beaten and subjected to electric shock by two men who identified themselves as Israelis. He said he did not know what the agents were after and refused to comment on smuggling conspiracy charges pending against Fawzi.
An Israeli spokesman emphatically denied the allegations, saying the charge was “a clumsy attempt to arouse anti-Israeli feeling.”
Department of Corrections physician Carl Gillette said he examined Fawzi at the Federal House of Detention on West Street and found no evidence of a beating.
Consul Amedi said Fawzi was attacked by Major David Kabakov of the Israeli Defense Force and another unidentified man. Kabakov is attached to the Israeli embassy in Washington.
The Leticia was impounded ...
Kabakov skimmed the rest of the article. The Customs authorities had kept their mouths shut on the investigation of the Leticia and the newspaper did not have the Muzi connection yet, thank God.
“You are being ordered home, officially,” Ambassador Tell said.
The corner of Kabakov’s mouth twitched. He felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach.
Tell moved the papers on his desk with the tip of his pen. “The arrest of Mustapha Fawzi was reported routinely to the Lebanese consul, as Fawzi is a Lebanese citizen. A lawyer was provided by the consulate. The lawyer apparently is acting on orders from Beirut and he’s playing Fawzi like a calliope. The Libyans were informed, since the vessel is of Libyan registry. Once your name came into it, I have no doubt Al Fatah was alerted and so was Colonel Khadafy, the enlightened Libyan statesman. I haven’t seen the deposition supposedly authored by Fawzi, but I understand it’s very colorful. Very graphic anatomically. Did you hurt him?”
“I didn’t have to.”
“The Lebanese and the Libyans will continue to protest until you are withdrawn. Probably the Syrians will join it, too. Khadafy owns more than one Arab diplomat. And I doubt that any of them know why you are really here, with the possible exception of Khadafy.”
“What does the U.S. State Department say?” Kabakov felt sick inside.
“They don’t want a diplomatic uproar over this. They want to quash it. Officially, you are no longer welcome here as an arm of Israel.”
“The fat-faced idiots! They deserve—” Kabakov shut his mouth with a snap.
“As you know, Major, the United Nations entertains the U.A.R. motion for a censure of Israel this week over the action against the fedayeen camps in Syria last month. This matter should not be exacerbated by another disturbance now.”
“What if I resign my commission and get an ordinary passport? Then Tel Aviv could disown me if it became necessary.”
Ambassador Tell was not listening. “It’s tempting to think that if the Arabs succeed in this project, God forbid, the Americans would be enraged and would redouble their support for Israel,” he said. “You and I both know that won’t happen. The salient fact will be that the atrocity happened because the United States has helped Israel. Because they got involved in another dirty little war. Indochina has made them sick of involvement, just as it did the French, and understandably so. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Al Fatah strike in Paris if the French sell us Mirages.
“Anyway, if it happens here, the Arab governments will denounce Al Fatah for the four hundredth time and Khadafy will give Al Fatah some millions of dollars. The United States can’t afford to be angry at the Arabs too long. It sounds horrible, but the U.S. will find it convenient to blame only Al Fatah. This country consumes too much oil for it to be otherwise.
“If the Arabs succeed, and we h
ave tried to stop them, then it won’t be quite so bad for us. If we stop helping, even at State Department request, and the Arabs are successful, then we are still at fault.
“The Americans won’t ask the Russians for any intelligence from the Middle East, by the way. The State Department gave us the news that the Middle East is a ‘sphere of continuing East-West tension’ and no such request is possible. They don’t want to admit to the Russians that the CIA can’t get the information themselves. You were right to try it anyway, David.
“And now there is this.” Tell passed Kabakov a cable from Mossad headquarters. “The information has also been relayed to you in New York.”
The cable reported that Muhammad Fasil was seen, in Beirut the day after Kabakov’s raid. He had a wound on his cheek similar to the one described by Mustapha Fawzi, the first mate of the Leticia.
“Muhammad Fasil,” Tell said quietly, “the worst one of all.”
“I’m not going—”
“Wait, wait, David. This is a time for utter frankness. Is there anyone you know, in the Mossad or elsewhere, who might be better equipped to deal with this matter than you?”
“No, sir.” Kabakov wanted to say that if he had not taken the tape in Beirut, had not questioned Fawzi, if he had not searched the cabin on the ship, checked the ship’s books, caught Muzi at a disadvantage, they would know nothing at all. All he said was “No, sir.”
“That’s our consensus also.” Tell’s telephone rang. “Yes? Five minutes, very well.” He turned back to Kabakov. “Major, would you please report to the conference room on the second floor? And you might straighten your tie.”
Kabakov’s collar was cutting into his neck. He felt as though he were strangling, and he paused outside the conference room to get hold of himself. Maybe the military attaché was about to read him his orders to go home. Nothing would be accomplished by screaming in the man’s face. What was Tell talking about anyway, what consensus? If he had to go back to Israel he would by God go, and the guerrillas in Syria and Lebanon would wish to hell he was back in the United States.
Kabakov opened the door. The thin man at the window turned.
“Come in, Major Kabakov” said the foreign minister of Israel
In fifteen minutes Kabakov was back in the hall, trying to suppress a smile. An embassy car took him to National Airport. He arrived at the El Al terminal at Kennedy International twenty minutes before the scheduled departure of Flight 601 to Tel Aviv. Margaret Leeds Finch of the Times was lurking near the counter. She asked him questions while he checked his bag and while he went through the metal detector. He answered in polite monosyllables. She followed him into the gate, waving her press pass at the airline officials, and dogged him down the very boarding ramp to the door of the plane where she was politely but firmly stopped by El Al security men.
Kabakov passed through first class, through the tourist section, back to the galley where hot dinners were being loaded aboard. With a smile at the stewardess, he stepped out the open door into the elevated bed of the catering truck. The bed whirred downward, and the truck returned to its garage. Kabakov climbed out and entered the car where Corley and Moshevsky were waiting.
Kabakov had been officially withdrawn from the United States. Unofficially, he had returned.
He must be very careful now. If he fouled up; his country would lose a great deal of face. Kabakov wondered what had been said at the foreign minister’s luncheon with the Secretary of State. He would never know the details, but clearly the situation had been discussed at some length. His instructions were the same as before: stop the Arabs. His team was being withdrawn, with the exception of Moshevsky. Kabakov was to be an ex officio advisor to the Americans. He felt sure the last part of his instructions had not been discussed over lunch; if it was necessary to do more than advise, he was to leave no unfriendly witnesses.
There was a strained silence in the car on the way back into Manhattan. Finally Corley broke it. “I’m sorry this happened, old buddy.”
“I am not your old buddy, old buddy,” Kabakov said calmly.
“Customs saw that piece of plastic and they were screaming to bust those guys. We had to bust them.”
“Never mind, Corley. I’m here to help you, old buddy. Here, look at this.” Kabakov handed him one of the pictures given him as he left the embassy. It was still wet from the darkroom.
“Who is it?”
“Muhammad Fasil. Here, read the file.”
Corley whistled. “Munich! How can you be sure he’s the one? The Leticia crew won’t identify him. On advice of counsel, you can bet on that.”
“They won’t have to identify him. Read on. Fasil was in Beirut the day after our raid. We should have gotten him with the others, but we didn’t expect him to be there. He got a bullet stripe on the cheek. The Lebanese on the freighter had a scab across his cheek. Fawzi said so.”
The picture had been taken in a Damascus café in poor light and it was fuzzy.
“If you’ve got the negative, we can improve it with the NASA computer,” Corley said. “The way they enhance the pictures from the Mariner project.” Corley paused. “Has anybody from State talked to you?”
“No.”
“But your own people have talked to you.”
“Corley, ‘my own people’ always talk to me.”
“About working through us. They made it clear you’re going to help with the thinking and we’re stuck with the work, right?”
“Right. You bet, old buddy.”
The car dropped Kabakov and Moshevsky at the Israeli mission. They waited until it was out of sight and took a cab to Rachel’s building.
“Corley knows where we are anyway, doesn’t he?” Moshevsky said.
“Yes, but I don’t want the son of a bitch to think he can drop by whenever he feels like it,” Kabakov said. As he spoke, he was not thinking about Corley or Rachel’s apartment at all. He was thinking about Fasil, Fasil, Fasil.
Muhammad Fasil was also deep in thought as he lay on his bed in Lander’s ground-floor guestroom. Fasil had a passion for Swiss chocolates, and he was eating some now. In the field he ate the rough fare of the fedayeen, but in private he liked to rub Swiss chocolates between his fingers until the chocolate melted. Then he licked the chocolate off his fingers. Fasil had a number of little private pleasures of this kind.
He had a certain amount of surface passion and a range of visible emotion that was wide and not deep. But he was deep, all right, and cold, and those cold depths held sightless, savage things that brushed and bit one another in the dark. He had learned about himself very early. At the same time he had taught his schoolmates about himself and then he was left alone. Fasil had splendid reflexes and wiry strength. He had no fear and no mercy, but he did have malice. Fasil was living proof that physiognomy is a false science. He was slim and fairly good-looking. He was a monster.
It was curious how only the most primitive and the keenest found him out. The fedayeen admired him from a distance and praised his behavior under fire, not recognizing that his coolness was something other than courage. But he could not afford to mix with the most illiterate and ignorant among them, the ones gnawing mutton and gobbling chickpeas around a fire. These superstitious men had no calluses on their instincts. They soon became uneasy with him, and as quickly as manners permitted they moved away. If he was to lead them all someday, then he must solve that problem.
Abu Ali, too. That clever little man, a psychologist who had made a long, circuitous trip through his own mind, had recognized Fasil. Once, over coffee, Ali had described one of his own earliest memories—a lamb walking around in the house. Then he asked Fasil his earliest memory. Fasil had replied that he remembered his mother killing a chicken by holding its head in the fire. After Fasil had spoken, he realized that this was not an idle conversation at all. Fortunately, Abu Ali had not been able to hurt Fasil in the eyes of Hafez Najeer, for Najeer was strange enough himself.
The deaths of Najeer and Ali had left
a gap in the leadership of Black September that Fasil intended to fill. For this reason, he was anxious to get back to Lebanon. In the internecine slaughterhouse of fedayeen politics, a rival might grow too strong in Fasil’s absence. He had enjoyed considerable prestige in the movement after the Munich massacre. Had not President Khadafy himself embraced Fasil when the surviving guerrillas arrived in Tripoli to a hero’s welcome? Fasil thought the ruler of Libya had embraced the men who had actually been at Munich with somewhat greater fervor than he embraced Fasil, who planned the mission, but Khadafy had definitely been impressed. And had not Khadafy given five million dollars to Al Fatah as a reward for Munich? That was another result of his efforts. If the Super Bowl strike was successful, if Fasil claimed credit for it, he would be the most prestigious guerrilla in the world, even better known than that idealist Guevara. Fasil believed that he could then count on support from Khadafy—and the Libyan treasury—in taking over Black September, and eventually he might replace Yasir Arafat as maximum leader of Al Fatah. Fasil was well aware that all those who had tried to replace Arafat were dead. He needed lead time to set up a secure base, for when he made his move to take over, Arafat’s assassins would come.
None of his ends would be served by getting himself killed in New Orleans. Originally, he had not intended to take part in the action, any more than he had at Munich. He was not afraid to do it, but he was fixed on the thought of what he might become if he lived. If the trouble on the Leticia had not occurred, he would still be in Lebanon.
Fasil could see that the odds of his getting away clean from New Orleans were not good under the current plan. His job was to provide muscle and covering fire at New Orleans Lakefront Airport while the bomb was being attached to the blimp. It was not possible to clamp the nacelle to the blimp at some other location—the ground crew and the mooring mast were necessary because the airship must be held rock-steady while the work was going on.