Triple

  There was only one thing for Rostov to do. It was a dangerous course of action and might well get him pulled off the case--in fact it could even be what Feliks was hoping for. But he could not complain if the stakes were high, for it was he who had raised them.

  He thought for a minute or two about exactly how he should do it. Then he said, "Tell Moscow to put me through to Yuri Andropov's apartment at number twenty-six Kutuzov Prospekt." The operator raised his eyebrows--it was probably the first and last time he would be instructed to get the head of the KGB on the phone--but he said nothing. Rostov waited, fidgeting. "I bet it isn't like this working for the CIA," he muttered.

  The operator gave him the sign, and he picked up the phone. A voice said, "Yes?"

  Rostov raised his voice and barked: "Your name and rank!"

  "Major Pyotr Eduardovitch Scherbitsky."

  "This is Colonel Rostov. I want to speak to Andropov. It's an emergency, and if he isn't on this phone within one hundred and twenty seconds you'll spend the rest of your life building dams in Bratsk, do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Colonel. Please hold the line."

  A moment later Rostov heard the deep, confident voice of Yuri Andropov, one of the most powerful men in the world. "You certainly managed to panic young Eduardovitch, David."

  "I had no alternative, sir."

  "All right, let's have it. It had better be good."

  "The Mossad are after uranium."

  "Good God."

  "I think The Pirate is in England. He may contact his embassy. I want surveillance on the Israelis there, but an old fool called Petrov in London is giving me the runaround."

  "I'll talk to him now, before I go back to bed."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "And, David?"

  "Yes?"

  "It was worth waking me up--but only just."

  There was a click as Andropov hung up. Rostov laughed as the tension drained out of him, and he thought: Let them do their worst--Dickstein, Hassan, Feliks--I can handle them.

  "Success?" the operator asked with a smile.

  "Yes," Rostov said. "Our system is inefficient and cumbersome and corrupt, but in the end, you know, we get what we want."

  Chapter Eight

  It was quite a wrench for Dickstein to leave Suza in the morning and go back to work.

  He was still . . . well, stunned . . . at eleven A.M., sitting in the window of a restaurant in the Fulham Road waiting for Pierre Borg to show. He had left a message with airport information at Heathrow telling Borg to go to a cafe opposite the one where Dickstein now sat. He thought he was likely to stay stunned for a long time, maybe permanently.

  He had awakened at six o'clock, and suffered a moment of panic wondering where he was. Then he saw Suza's long brown hand lying on the pillow beside his head, curled up like a small animal sleeping, and the night had come flooding back, and he could hardly believe his good fortune. He thought he should not wake her, but suddenly he could not keep his hands off her body She opened her eyes at his touch, and they made love playfully smiling at one another, laughing sometimes and looking into each other's eyes at the moment of climax. Then they fooled around in the kitchen, half-dressed, making the coffee too weak and burning the toast.

  Dickstein wanted to stay there forever.

  Suza had picked up his undershirt with a cry of horror. "What's this?"

  "My undershirt."

  "Undershirt? I forbid you to wear undershirts. They're old-fashioned and unhygienic and they'll get in the way when I want to feel your nipples."

  Her expression was so lecherous that he burst out laughing. "All right" he said. "I won't wear them."

  "Good." She opened the window and threw the undershirt out into the street, and he laughed all over again.

  He said, "But you mustn't wear trousers."

  "Why not?"

  It was his turn to leer.

  "But all my trousers have flys."

  "No good," he said. "No room to maneuver."

  And like that.

  They acted as if they had just invented sex. The only faintly unhappy moment came when she looked at his scars and asked how he got them. "We've had three wars since I went to Israel," he said. It was the truth, but not the whole truth.

  "What made you go to Israel?"

  "Safety."

  "But it's just the opposite of safe there."

  "It's a different kind of safety." He said this dismissively, not wanting to explain it, then he changed his mind, for he wanted her to know all about him. "There had to be a place where nobody could say, 'You're different, you're not a human being, you're a Jew,' where nobody could break my windows or experiment on my body just because I'm Jewish. You see . . ." She had been looking at him with that clear-eyed, frank gaze of hers, and he had struggled to tell her the whole truth, without evasions, without trying to make it look better than it was. "It didn't matter to me whether we chose Palestine or Uganda or Manhattan Island--wherever it was, I would have said, 'That place is mine,' and I would have fought tooth and nail to keep it. That's why I never try to argue the moral rights and wrongs of the establishment of Israel. Justice and fair play never entered into it. After the war . . . well, the suggestion that the concept of fair play had any role in international politics seemed like a sick joke to me. I'm not pretending this is an admirable attitude, I'm just telling you how it is for me. Any other place Jews live--New York, Paris, Toronto--no matter how good it is, how assimilated they are, they never know how long it's going to last, how soon will come the next crisis that can conveniently be blamed on them. In Israel I know that whatever happens, I won't be a victim of that. So, with that problem out of the way, we can get on and deal with the realities that are part of everyone's life: planting and reaping, buying and selling, fighting and dying. That's why I went, I think . . . Maybe I didn't see it all so clearly back then--in fact, I've never put it into words like this--but that's how I felt, anyway."

  After a moment Suza said, "My father holds the opinion that Israel itself is now a racist society."

  "That's what the youngsters say. They've got a point. If . . ."

  She looked at him, waiting.

  "If you and I had a child, they would refuse to classify him as Jewish. He would be a second-class citizen. But I don't think that sort of thing will last forever. At the moment the religious zealots are powerful in the government: it's inevitable, Zionism was a religious movement. As the nation matures that will fade away. The race laws are already controversial. We're fighting them, and we'll win in the end."

  She came to him and put her head on his shoulder, and they held each other in silence. He knew that she did not care about Israeli politics: it was the mention of a son that had moved her.

  Sitting in the restaurant window, remembering, he knew that he wanted Suza in his life always, and he wondered what he would do if she refused to go to his country. Which would he give up, Israel or Suza? He did not know.

  He watched the street. It was typical June weather: raining steadily and quite cold. The familiar red buses and black cabs swished up and down, butting through the rain, splashing in the puddles on the road. A country of his own, a woman of his own: maybe he could have both.

  I should be so lucky.

  A cab drew up outside the cafe opposite, and Dickstein tensed, leaning closer to his window and peering through the rain. He recognized the bulky figure of Pierre Borg, in a dark short raincoat and a trilby hat, climbing out of the cab. He did not recognize the second man, who got out and paid the driver. The two men went into the cafe. Dickstein looked up and down the road.

  A gray Mark II Jaguar had stopped on a double yellow line fifty yards from the cafe. Now it reversed and backed into a side street, parking on the corner within sight of the cafe. The passenger got out and walked toward the cafe.

  Dickstein left his table and went to the phone booth in the restaurant entrance. He could still see the cafe opposite. He dialed its number.

  "Yes?"

/>   "Let me speak to Bill, please."

  "Bill? Don't know him."

  "Would you just ask, please?"

  "Sure. Hey, anybody here called Bill?" A pause. "Yes, he's coming."

  After a moment Dickstein heard Borg's voice. "Yes?"

  "Who's the face with you?"

  "Head of London Station. Do you think we can trust him?"

  Dickstein ignored the sarcasm. "One of you picked up a shadow. Two men in a gray Jaguar."

  "We saw them."

  "Lose them."

  "Of course. Listen, you know this town--what's the best way?"

  "Send the Head of Station back to the Embassy in a cab. That should lose the Jaguar. Wait ten minutes, then take a taxi to . . ." Dickstein hesitated, trying to think of a quiet street not too far away. "To Redcliffe Street. I'll meet you there."

  "Okay."

  Dickstein looked across the road. "Your tail is just going into your cafe." He hung up.

  He went back to his window seat and watched. The other man came out of the cafe, opened an umbrella, and stood at the curb looking for a cab. The tail had either recognized Borg at the airport or had been following the Head of Station for some other reason. It did not make any difference. A taxi pulled up. When it left, the gray Jaguar came out of the side street and followed. Dickstein left the restaurant and hailed a cab for himself. Taxi drivers do well out of spies, he thought.

  He told the cabbie to go to Redcliffe Street and wait. After eleven minutes another taxi entered the street and Borg got out. "Flash your lights," Dickstein said. "That's the man I'm meeting." Borg saw the lights and waved acknowledgment. As he was paying, a third taxi entered the street and stopped. Borg spotted it.

  The shadow in the third taxi was waiting to see what happened. Borg realized this, and began to walk away from his cab. Dickstein told his driver not to flash his lights again.

  Borg walked past them. The tail got out of his taxi, paid the driver and walked after Borg. When the tail's cab had gone Borg turned, came back to Dickstein's cab, and got in. Dickstein said, "Okay, let's go." They pulled away, leaving the tail on the pavement looking for another taxi. It was a quiet street: he would not find one for five or ten minutes.

  Borg said, "Slick."

  "Easy," Dickstein replied.

  The driver said, "What was all that about, then?"

  "Don't worry," Dickstein told him. "We're secret agents."

  The cabbie laughed. "Where to now--MI5?"

  "The Science Museum."

  Dickstein sat back in his seat. He smiled at Borg. "Well, Bill, you old fart, how the hell are you?"

  Borg frowned at him. "What have you got to be so fucking cheerful about?"

  They did not speak again in the cab, and Dickstein realized he had not prepared himself sufficiently for this meeting. He should have decided in advance what he wanted from Borg and how he was going to get it.

  He thought: What do I want? The answer came up out of the back of his mind and hit him like a slap. I want to give Israel the bomb--and then I want to go home.

  He turned away from Borg. Rain streaked the cab window like tears. He was suddenly glad they could not speak because of the driver. On the pavement were three coatless hippies, soaking wet, their faces and hands upturned to enjoy the rain. If I could do this, if I could finish this assignment, I could rest.

  The thought made him unaccountably happy. He looked at Borg and smiled. Borg turned his face to the window.

  They reached the museum and went inside. They stood in front of a reconstructed dinosaur. Borg said, "I'm thinking of taking you off this assignment."

  Dickstein nodded, suppressing his alarm, thinking fast. Hassan must be reporting to Cairo, and Borg's man in Cairo must be getting the reports and passing them to Tel Aviv. "I've discovered I'm blown," he told Borg.

  "I knew that weeks ago," Borg said. "If you'd keep in touch you'd be up-to-date on these things."

  "If I kept in touch I'd be blown more often."

  Borg grunted and walked on. He took out a cigar, and Dickstein said, "No smoking in here." Borg put the cigar away.

  "Blown is nothing," Dickstein said. "It's happened to me half a dozen times. What counts is how much they know."

  "You were fingered by this Hassan, who knows you from years back. He's working with the Russians now."

  "But what do they know?"

  "You've been in Luxembourg and France."

  "That's not much."

  "I realize it's not much. I know you've been in Luxembourg and France too, and I have no idea what you did there."

  "So you'll leave me in," Dickstein said, and looked hard at Borg.

  "That depends. What have you been doing?"

  "Well." Dickstein continued looking at Borg. The man had become fidgety, not knowing what to do with his hands now that he could not smoke. The bright lights on the displays illuminated his bad complexion: his troubled face was like a gravel parking lot. Dickstein needed to judge very carefully how much he told Borg: enough to give the impression that a great deal had been achieved; not so much that Borg would think he could get another man to operate Dickstein's plan. . . . "I've picked a consignment of uranium for us to steal," he began. "It's going by ship from Antwerp to Genoa in November. I'm going to hijack the ship."

  "Shit!" Borg seemed both pleased and afraid at the audacity of the idea. He said, "How the hell will you keep that secret?"

  "I'm working on that." Dickstein decided to tell Borg just a tantalizing little bit more. "I have to visit Lloyd's, here in London. I'm hoping the ship will turn out to be one of a series of identical vessels--I'm told most ships are built that way. If I can buy an identical vessel, I can switch the two somewhere in the Mediterranean."

  Borg rubbed his hand across his close-cropped hair twice then pulled at his ear. "I don't see . . ."

  "I haven't figured out the details yet, but I'm sure this is the only way to do the thing clandestinely."

  "So get on and figure out the details."

  "But you're thinking of pulling me out."

  "Yeah . . ." Borg tilted his head from one side to the other, a gesture of indecision. "If I put an experienced man in to replace you, he may be spotted too."

  "And if you put in an unknown he won't be experienced."

  "Plus, I'm really not sure there is anyone, experienced or otherwise, who can pull this off apart from you. And there is something else you don't know."

  They stopped in front of a model of a nuclear reactor.

  "Well?" Dickstein said.

  "We've had a report from Qattara. The Russians are helping them now. We're in a hurry, Dickstein. I can't afford delay, and changes of plan cause delay."

  "Will November be soon enough?"

  Borg considered. "Just," he said. He seemed to come to a decision. "All right, I'm leaving you in. You'll have to take evasive action."

  Dickstein grinned broadly and slapped Borg on the back. "You're a pal, Pierre. Don't you worry now, I'll run rings around them."

  Borg frowned. "Just what is it with you? You can't stop grinning."

  "It's seeing you that does it. Your face is like a tonic. Your sunny disposition is infectious. When you smile, Pierre, the whole world smiles with you."

  "You're crazy, you prick," said Borg.

  Pierre Borg was vulgar, insensitive, malicious, and boring, but he was not stupid. "He may be a bastard," people would say, "but he's a clever bastard." By the time they parted company he knew that something important had changed in Nat Dickstein's life.

  He thought about it, walking back to the Israeli Embassy at No. 2 Palace Green in Kensington. In the twenty years since they had first met, Dickstein had hardly changed. It was still only rarely that the force of the man showed through. He had always been quiet and withdrawn; he continued to look like an out-of-work bank clerk; and, except for occasional flashes of rather cynical wit, he was still dour.

  Until today.

  At first he had been his usual self--brief to the point o
f rudeness. But toward the end he had come on like the stereotyped chirpy Cockney sparrow in a Hollywood movie.

  Borg had to know why.

  He would tolerate a lot from his agents. Provided they were efficient, they could be neurotic, or aggressive, or sadistic, or insubordinate--so long as he knew about it. He could make allowances for faults: but he could not allow for unknown factors. He would be unsure of his hold over Dickstein until he had figured out the cause of the change. That was all. He had no objection in principle to one of his agents acquiring a sunny disposition.

  He came within sight of the Embassy. He would put Dickstein under surveillance, he decided. It would take two cars and three teams of men working in eight-hour shifts. The Head of London Station would complain. The hell with him.

  The need to know why Dickstein's disposition had changed was only one reason Borg had decided not to pull him out. The other reason was more important. Dickstein had half a plan; another man might not be able to complete it. Dickstein had a mind for this sort of thing. Once Dickstein had figured it all out, then somebody else could take over. Borg had decided to take him off the assignment at the first opportunity. Dickstein would be furious: he would consider he had been shafted.

  The hell with him, too.

  Major Pyotr Alekseivitch Tyrin did not actually like Rostov. He did not like any of his superiors: in his view, you had to be a rat to get promoted above the rank of major in the KGB. Still, he had a sort of awestruck affection for his clever, helpful boss. Tyrin had considerable skills, particularly with electronics, but he could not manipulate people. He was a major only because he was on Rostov's incredibly successful team.

  Abba Allon. High Street exit. Fifty-two, or nine? Where are you, fifty-two?

  Fifty-two. We're close. We'll take him. What does he look like?

  Plastic raincoat, green hat, mustache.

  As a friend Rostov was not much; but he was a lot worse as an enemy. This Colonel Petrov in London had discovered that. He had tried to mess around with Rostov and had been surprised by a middle-of-the-night phone call from the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov himself. The people in the London Embassy said Petrov had looked like a ghost when he hung up. Since then Rostov could have anything he wanted: if he sneezed five agents rushed out to buy handkerchiefs.