That there was a connection would seem to be irrefutable. And totally out of place!
As the three figures passed him a perspiring Anthony MacDonald pushed himself off the ground, grunting as he got to his feet. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—understanding that millions upon millions could depend on the next few hours, he reached a conclusion: the sudden enigma that was Khalehla had to be resolved, and the answers he so desperately needed were inside the embassy. Not only could the millions be lost without those answers, but if the bitch-whore was pivotal to some hideous coup and he failed to stop her, it was entirely possible that Bahrain would order his execution. The Mahdi did not suffer failure.
He had to get inside the embassy and all the hell that it stood for.
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules with Israeli insignia cruised at thirty-one thousand feet above the Saudi desert east of Al Ubaylah. The flight plan from Hebron was an evasive one: south across the Negev into the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, proceeding south again equidistant from the coasts of Egypt, the Sudan and Saudi Arabia. At Hamdanah the course change was north-northeast, splitting the radar grids between the airports in Mecca and Qal Bishah, then due east at Al Khurmah into the Rub al Khali desert in southern Arabia. The plane had refueled in midair out of the Sudan west of Jiddah over the Red Sea; it would do so again on the return flight, without, however, its five passengers.
They sat in the cargo hold, five soldiers in coarse civilian clothes, each a volunteer from the little-known elite Masada Brigade, a strike force specializing in interdiction, rescue, sabotage and assassination. None was over thirty-two years of age, and all were fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic and English. They were superb physical specimens, deeply bronzed from their desert training, and imbued with a discipline that demanded split-second decisions based on instantaneous reactions; each had an intelligence quotient in the highest percentile, and all were motivated in the extreme, for all had suffered in the extreme—either they themselves or their immediate families. Although they were capable of laughing, they were better at hating.
They sat, leaning forward, on a bench on the port side of the aircraft absently fingering the straps of their parachutes, which had only recently been mounted on their backs. They talked quietly among themselves—that is to say, four talked, one did not. The silent man was their leader; he was sitting in the forward position and stared blankly across at the opposite bulkhead. He was perhaps in his late twenties with hair and eyebrows bleached a yellowish-white by the unrelenting sun. His eyes were large and dark brown, his cheekbones high, fencing a sharp Semitic nose, his lips thin and firmly set. He was neither the oldest nor the youngest of the five men, but he was their leader; it was in his face, in his eyes.
Their assignment in Oman had been ordered by the highest councils of Israel’s Defense Ministry. Their chances of success were minimal, the possibility of failure and death far greater, but the attempt had to be made. For among the two hundred thirty-six remaining hostages held inside the American embassy in Masqat was a deep-cover field director of the Mossad, Israel’s unparalleled intelligence service. If he was discovered, he would be flown to any one of a dozen “medical clinics” of both friendly and unfriendly governments where intravenous chemicals would be far more effective than torture. A thousand secrets could be learned, secrets that could imperil the state of Israel and emasculate the Mossad in the Middle East. The objective: Get him out if you can. Kill him if you cannot.
The leader of this team from the Masada Brigade was named Yaakov. The Mossad agent held hostage in Masqat was his father.
“Adonim,” said the voice in Hebrew over the aircraft’s loudspeaker—a calm and respectful voice addressing the passengers as Gentlemen. “We are starting our descent,” he continued in Hebrew. “The target will be reached in six minutes, thirty-four seconds unless we encounter unexpected head winds over the mountains which will extend our time to six minutes, forty-eight seconds or perhaps fifty-five seconds, but then who’s counting?” Four men laughed; Yaakov blinked, his eyes still on the opposite bulkhead. The pilot went on. “We will circle once over the target at eight thousand feet, so if you have to make any adjustments, mental or physical, with respect to those crazy bed sheets you’ve got on your dorsal fins, do so now. Personally, I do not care to go out and take a walk at eight thousand feet, but then I can read and write.” Yaakov smiled; the others laughed louder than before. The voice again interrupted. “The hatch will be opened at eight thousand five hundred by our brother Jonathan Levy, who, like all experienced doormen in Tel Aviv, will expect a generous tip from each of you for his service. IOUs are not acceptable. The flashing red light will mean you must depart this luxurious hotel in the sky; however, the boys in the parking lot below refuse to retrieve your automobiles under the circumstances. They, too, can read and write and have been judged mentally competent, as opposed to certain unnamed tourists on this airborne cruise.” The laughter now echoed off the walls of the plane; Yaakov chuckled. The pilot once more broke in, his voice softer, the tone altered. “Our beloved Israel, may she exist through eternity through the courage of her sons and daughters. And may almighty God go with you, my dear, dear friends. Out.”
One by one the parachutes cracked open in the night sky above the desert, and one by one the five commandos from the Masada Brigade landed within a hundred fifty yards of the amber light shining up from the sands. Each man held a miniaturized radio that kept him in contact with the others in case of emergencies. Where each touched ground, each dug a hole and buried his chute, inserting the wide-bladed shovel down beside the fabric and the canvas. Then all converged on the light; it was extinguished, replaced by the single flashlight held by a man who had come from Masqat, a senior intelligence officer of the Mossad.
“Let me look at you,” he said, turning his beam on each soldier. “Not bad. You look like ruffians from the docks.”
“Your instructions, I believe,” said Yaakov.
“They’re not always followed,” replied the agent. “You must be—”
“We have no names,” interrupted Yaakov sharply.
“I stand rebuked,” said the man from the Mossad. “Truthfully, I know only yours, which I think is understandable.”
“Put it out of your mind.”
“What shall I call all of you?”
“We are colors, only colors. From right to left they are Orange, Gray, Black and Red.”
“A privilege to meet you,” said the agent, shining his flashlight on each man—from right to left. “And you?” he asked, the beam on Yaakov.
“I am Blue.”
“Naturally. The flag.”
“No,” said the son of the hostage in Masqat. “Blue is the hottest fire, and that is all you have to understand.”
“It is also in refraction the coldest ice, young man, but no matter. My vehicle is several hundred meters north. I’m afraid I must ask you to walk after your exhilarating glide in the sky.”
“Try me,” said Gray, stepping forward. “I hate those terrible jumps. A man could get hurt, you know what I mean?”
The vehicle was a Japanese version of a Land-Rover without the amenities and sufficiently bashed and scraped to be unobtrusive in an Arab country where speed was a relative abstraction and collisions frequent. The hour-plus drive into Masqat, however, was suddenly interrupted. A small amber light flashed repeatedly on the road several miles from the city.
“It’s an emergency,” said the Mossad agent to Yaakov, who was beside him in the front seat. “I don’t like it. There were to be no stops whatsoever when we approached Masqat. The sultan has patrols everywhere. Draw your weapon, young man. One never knows who may have been broken.”
“Who’s to break?” asked Yaakov angrily, his gun instantly out of his jacket holster. “We’re in total security. Nobody knows about us—my own wife thinks I’m in the Negev on maneuvers!”
“Underground lines of communication have to be kept open, Blue. Sometimes our enemies dig too deeply into the ea
rth.… Instruct your comrades. Prepare to fire.”
Yaakov did so; weapons were drawn, each man at a window. The aggressive preparation, however, was unnecessary.
“It is Ben-Ami!” cried the man from the Mossad, stopping the van, the tires screeching and hurtling over the crevices in the badly paved road. “Open the door!”
A small, slender man in blue jeans, a loose white cotton shirt and a ghotra over his head leaped inside, squeezing Yaakov into the seat. “Keep driving,” he ordered. “Slowly. There are no patrols out here and we have at least ten minutes before we might be stopped. Do you have a torch?” The Mossad driver reached down and brought up his flashlight. The intruder snapped it on, inspecting the human cargo behind him and the one beside him. “Good!” he exclaimed. “You look like scum from the waterfront. If we’re stopped, slur your Arabic and shout about your fornications, do you understand?”
“Amen,” said three voices. The fourth, Orange, was contrary. “The Talmud insists on the truth,” he intoned. “Find me a big-breasted houri and I may go along.”
“Shut up!” cried Yaakov, not amused.
“What has happened to bring you here?” asked the Mossad agent.
“Insanity,” answered the newcomer. “One of our people in Washington got through an hour after you left Hebron. His information concerned an American. A congressman, no less. He’s here and interfering—going undercover, can you believe it?”
“If it’s true,” replied the driver, gripping the steering wheel, “then every thought of incompetence I’ve ever entertained about the American intelligence community has blossomed to full flower. If he’s caught, they’ll be the pariahs of the civilized world. It is not a risk to be taken.”
“They’ve taken it. He’s here.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
“What has it to do with us?” objected Yaakov. “One American. One fool. What are his credentials?”
“Considerable, I’m sorry to say,” answered Ben-Ami. “And we are to give him what leverage we can.”
“What?” said the young leader from the Masada Brigade. “Why?”
“Because, my colleague notwithstanding, Washington is fully aware of the risks, of the potentially tragic consequences, and therefore has cut him off. He’s on his own. If he’s captured there’s no appeal to his government, for it won’t acknowledge him, can’t acknowledge him. He’s acting as a private individual.”
“Then I must ask again,” insisted Yaakov. “If the Americans won’t touch him, why should we?”
“Because they never would have let him come here in the first place unless someone very highly placed thought he was on to something extraordinary.”
“But why us? We have our own work to do. I repeat, why us?”
“Perhaps because we can—and they can’t.”
“It’s politically disastrous!” said the driver emphatically. “Washington sets whatever it is in motion, then walks away covering its collective ass and dumps it on us. That kind of policy decision must have been made by the Arabists in the State Department. We fail—which is to say, he fails while we’re there with him—and whatever executions take place they blame on the Jews! The Christ killers did it again!”
“Correction,” interrupted Ben-Ami. “Washington did not ‘dump’ this on us because no one in Washington has any idea we know about it. And if we do our jobs correctly, we won’t be in evidence; we give only untraceable assistance, if it’s needed.”
“You will not answer me!” shouted Yaakov. “Why?”
“I did, but you weren’t listening, young fellow; you have other things on your mind. I said that we do what we do because perhaps we can. Perhaps, no guarantees at all. There are two hundred thirty-six human beings in that horrible place, suffering as we as a people know only too well. Among them is your father, one of the most valuable men in Israel. If this man, this congressman, has even the shadow of a solution, we must do what we can, if only to prove him right or prove him wrong. First, however, we must find him.”
“Who is he?” asked the Mossad driver contemptuously. “Does he have a name or did the Americans bury that also?”
“His name is Kendrick—”
The large shabby vehicle swerved, cutting off Ben-Ami’s words. The man from the Mossad had reacted so joltingly to the name that he nearly drove off the road. “Evan Kendrick?” he said, steadying the wheel, his eyes wide in astonishment.
“Yes.”
“The Kendrick Group!”
“The what?” asked Yaakov, watching the driver’s face.
“The company he ran over here.”
“His dossier is being flown over from Washington tonight,” said Ben-Ami. “We’ll have it by morning.”
“You don’t need it!” cried the Mossad agent. “We’ve got a file on him as thick as Moses’ tablets. We’ve also got Emmanuel Weingrass—whom we frequently wish we did not have!”
“You’re too swift for me.”
“Not now, Ben-Ami. It would take several hours and a great deal of wine— Damn Weingrass; he made me say that!”
“Would you be clearer, please?”
“Briefer, my friend, not necessarily clearer. If Kendrick is back, he is on to something and he’s here for a four-year-old score—an explosion that took the lives of seventy-odd men, women and children. They were his family. You’d have to know him to understand that.”
“You knew him?” asked Ben-Ami, leaning forward. “You know him?”
“Not well, but enough to understand. The one who knew him best—father figure, drinking companion, confessor, counselor, genius, best friend—was Emmanuel Weingrass.”
“The man you obviously disapprove of,” interjected Yaakov, his eyes still on the driver’s face.
“Disapprove wholeheartedly,” agreed the Israeli intelligence officer. “But he’s not totally without value. I wish he were but he isn’t.”
“Value to the Mossad?” asked Ben-Ami.
It was as if the agent at the wheel felt a sudden rush of embarrassment. He lowered his voice in reply. “We’ve used him in Paris,” he said, swallowing. “He moves in odd circles, has contact with fringe people. Actually—God, I hate to admit it—he’s been somewhat effective. Through him we tracked down the terrorists who bombed the kosher restaurant on the rue du Bac. We resolved the problem ourselves, but some damn fool allowed him to be in on the kill. Stupid, stupid! And to his credit,” added the driver grudgingly, gripping the wheel firmly, “he called us in Tel Aviv with information that aborted five other such incidents.”
“He saved many lives,” said Yaakov. “Jewish lives. And yet you disapprove of him?”
“You don’t know him! You see, no one pays much attention to a seventy-eight-year-old bon vivant, a boulevardier who struts down the Montaigne with one, if not two, Parisienne ‘models’ whom he’s outfitted in the St.-Honoré with the funds he received from the Kendrick Group.”
“Why does that detract from his value?” asked Ben-Ami.
“He bills us for dinners at La Tour d’Argent! Three thousand, four thousand shekels! How can we refuse? He does deliver and he was a witness at a particularly violent event where we took matters into our own hands. A fact he now and then reminds us of if the payments are late.”
“I’d say he’s entitled,” said Ben-Ami, nodding his head. “He’s an agent of the Mossad in a foreign country and must maintain his cover.”
“Caught, strangled, our testicles in a vise,” whispered the driver softly to himself. “And the worst is yet to come.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Yaakov.
“If anyone can find Evan Kendrick in Oman, it’s Emmanuel Weingrass. When we get to Masqat, to our headquarters, I’ll place a call to Paris. Damn!”
* * *
“Je regrette,” said the switchboard operator at the Pont Royale Hotel in Paris. “But Monsieur Weingrass is away for a few days. However, he has left a telephone number in Monte Carlo—”
“J
e suis désolée,” said the operator at L’Hermitage in Monte Carlo. “Monsieur Weingrass is not in his suite. He was to have dinner this evening at the Hôtel de Paris, across from the casino.”
“Do you have the number, please?”
“But of course,” replied the ebullient woman. “Monsieur Weingrass is a most charming man. Only tonight he brought us all flowers; they fill up the office! Such a beautiful person. The number is—”
“Désolé,” intoned the male operator at the Hôtel de Paris with unctuous charm. “The dining room is closed, but the most generous Monsieur Weingrass informed us that he would be at Table Eleven at the casino for at least the next two hours. If any calls come for him, he suggested that the party reaching him should phone Armand at the casino. The number is—”
“Je suis très désolé,” gurgled Armand, obscure factotum at the Casino de Paris in Monte Carlo. “The delightful Monsieur Weingrass and his lovely lady did not have luck at our roulette this evening, so he decided to go to the Loew’s gaming room down by the water—an inferior establishment, of course, but with competent croupiers; the French, naturally, not the Italians. Ask for Luigi, a barely literate Cretan, but he will find Monsieur Weingrass for you. And do send him my affections and tell him I expect him here tomorrow when his luck will change. The number is—”