Authors: Haggai Carmon
Suddenly I heard noises and commotion. The roar of a helicopter was
too strong to ignore; I climbed up to the window. Three U.S. Navy
Seahawk twin-engine helicopters were hovering a short distance from
our cell. Approximately twenty soldiers slid down a wire from the helicopter to the roof of the adjacent building. An explosion shook us. The
building rattled and filled with smoke. I heard people yelling in Arabic
and running through the corridors. I smelled the familiar odor of gunpowder and explosives. Machine-gun shots filled the air. The shouting
and yelling became more frantic.
"Help's on the way. This is our chance," I said. "Let's kick this door
down."
After the third attempt the wooden door gave way and we spilled into
a hallway full of smoke. People were running, waving guns. Nobody paid
attention to us. The corridor was empty; Yahye had disappeared.
"Let's run to the roof," said Arnon. "It's only one flight up." On the flat
roof, we could hear the beating of helicopter rotors, but the taller building
opposite us was blocking our view. The clanking noise of the helicopter's
blades grew louder. We looked to the east. "That's where one of them is
coming from," yelled Arnon. A moment later a Seahawk was hovering
above us. We frantically waved our hands, and Arnon took off his formerly white, now almost black shirt, and signaled We are here!
A rescue hoist cable sprang from the Seahawk and two soldiers slid
down, automatic rifles tied to their backs. The first soldier, a Delta Force
Green Beret, shouted, "Identify yourself."
"Dr. Oded Regev," yelled Oded.
"Arnon Tal," said Arnon in a hoarse voice.
"Dan Gordon," I said in huge relief.
He asked us to harness ourselves, one at a time, to the end of the cable,
while he and the other soldier covered us. Gunfire was all around, and the
soldiers returned fire. We flattened ourselves onto the rooftop. The fire
stopped. Another hovering helicopter started firing suppression rounds
from its machine guns. "Hurry up," the soldiers next to me shouted. Oded
went up first, and Arnon followed. Just as it was my turn, we heard more
gunfire. I ran to the side wall and sought shelter next to the Green Beret.
"Sir," he shouted, "go to the other side, you'll attract fire aimed at me.
I have a gun and flak, and you don't."
"I want to help you," I shouted, "give me your other weapon, you must
let me! I see the bastards on the opposite roof. Give me cover and I'll take
them out."
"Can't do that!"
"Aren't you here to help us?"
"No. We're here to save your ass. Not to kiss it. Now get to the other
side; I'll cover you."
This was no time to argue. I ran to the other side of the roof. The
Seahawk slid sideways while Arnon hung on the cable. Oded was already
safely inside. Both of the other helicopters were now using their machine
guns against attackers on the ground and in the building.
I could easily tell that the fire aimed at us was sporadic and inaccurate.
I was not afraid of being hit. In my combat years in the Israeli armed
forces, my teammates liked to say that we shouldn't worry, because "every
bullet has an address." My response was that I was afraid of the ones that
said "to whom it may concern." But here, the bullets all seemed somehow
aimless.
The Seahawk overhead spat fire from two 7.62-millimeter machine
guns mounted on its windows. The cacophony was music to my ears. I
heard another explosion as a Hellfire air-to-ground, laser-guided subsonic missile hit the adjacent building. Smoke and fire erupted as the
building collapsed. The gunfire aimed at us ceased again. The cable was lowered and the Green Beret helped me harness myself. Five minutes
later we were all aboard. The Seahawk made a complete turn, gained
additional altitude, and headed east to the aircraft carrier USS
Constellation in the open sea, a few miles east of Yemen, with the two
other helicopters following.
"Welcome aboard," said the captain as we set foot on the landing deck.
"I'm so glad to be here," I said, "and I speak for the three of us. Thank
you very much. I'm glad you came."
"We had just showed up in the neighborhood when your message
arrived," he said, smiling. "We'll get you to an airport to return you home.
My men here will take care of you," he added as he took in the terrible
hygienic condition of Oded and Arnon. He returned to the command
deck.
"Message?" asked Arnon. "What message?" We were being led by two
sailors through a maze of corridors in the deck below.
"I used a'hello number,"' I told him, "a procedure where, without identifying myself or my location, I can use a code word to signal an emergency
situation to my backup team. While giving Issam a few not-too-secret
facts about my trade, I maneuvered him into asking for a brochure from
one of those Web sites that lure scumbags like him. Whoever read the
message originating in Yemen would also recognize the code word snap -
the name of my golden retriever. Anything that comes from this part of
the world is automatically suspect, and they could see the IP address it was
sent from." I thanked in my heart my instructors at The Farm for working
with me during the short training I had there on "artifact" communications in distress situations.
After an hour-long shower for us all, haircuts and beard trims for Oded
and Arnon, a hearty meal, and a thorough medical checkup by the carrier's doctor, it was time to let go of the tension. I called my children, and,
yes, I shed tears. "I'm safe," I managed to say. They cried, too, and I was
overcome by emotion. I'd already been through hell in my professional
life, but this ordeal had been stronger anything I'd expected. At times I
had been sure I'd die, and violently. I'd been trained to confront the pos sibility of imminent death, or at least I thought I had. Actually staring my
mortality in the face turned out to be something I simply didn't know
how to deal with. There just aren't words for this experience.
I went out to the deck to calm down and wipe my tears. An hour later,
I joined Oded and Arnon, who had also called their families, in the
roomy cabin of the carrier, where we embraced our freedom and sipped
ice-cold ginger ale. After chatting for a while and exchanging impressions, I remembered something I had never told them.
"Guys," I said, "do you remember the third captured message I told you
about?"
"Yes, what about it?" asked Arnon in a disinterested voice.
"I wish I'd broken it earlier," I said. "We could have saved your asses."
That got their attention.
I quoted the message: "`In case of doubt return with the merchandise
to base.' Now I know what that merchandise was. It was you!"
Oded raised his head.
"Think about it," I continued. "That message was sent before they met
with you to negotiate the `scientific cooperation'; the message clearly says,
if you suspect them, kidnap them and bring them to the base."
"That's Monday-morning quarterbacking," said Arnon. "We didn't
know it then. They must have figured out that they were being watched,
and we walked into their trap like amateurs."
"If it's any comfort to you, the same thing happened to me. I was
careless."
"We weren't careless," said Arnon defensively; "we did everything as
planned. But I guess the planning was screwed up."
I had no comment on that. All I knew was what Benny had told me,
and that obviously was not the whole picture. Knowing the Mossad,
though, I knew there would be an internal investigation, conclusions
would be drawn, and at the very least the findings would influence future
operations.
After a restful week sailing the Indian Ocean, we arrived in Capetown,
South Africa.
"So this is good-bye," I said to Arnon and Oded as we were about to
disembark. They were scheduled on an El Al flight to Israel, and my
flight was headed to New York.
Oded shook my hand, wanting to say something, but he just hugged
me. Arnon came over, gave me his hand, and hesitantly said, "I never
asked you who you work for."
"Good," I said conclusively, and he laughed.
As we docked I saw Benny waiting for us on the gangway. "Dan, you
lost weight! What, they didn't feed you?"
Since when was Benny a Jewish mother, equating care with feeding? I
looked at myself; I must have lost thirty pounds. Nothing a few hearty
meals couldn't correct.
He hugged us. "Welcome, and Dan, thanks for helping get my men
back."
"It was teamwork," I said. Oded and Arnon walked to the waiting car.
"I'll see you in New York soon," Benny said to me. "I already cleared a
debriefing session with Hodson. We must learn from the experience." It
didn't sound as if he was admitting that big mistakes had been made,
however.
"I have a few unsolved questions I want to ask you."
"Shoot."
"I wonder why you forgot to tell me that the Mossad in fact sent two
units to approach the Slaves of Allah: Dr. Oded Regev and Arnon Tal in
one, and another three-person team that approached them from a completely different angle."
It had been a long time since I'd seen Benny stunned.
"Who told you that? Even Arnon and Oded didn't know that, for their
own protection."
"Remember that worn-out phrase need-to-know basis?" I teased him.
"Okay, tell me what you do know and 1 won't ask how you found out."
answer. "Simple logic. Always look where you are most likely to find the
"And where is that place?"
"The bank account in Eagle Bank. I went over the various deposits and withdrawals and saw one payment of fifteen thousand dollars made to
Fabrique National Du Kinshasa Congo, SPLR. The reference on the
payment stub was `raw materials.' I ran a quick search on the firm in
Kinshasa's companies registrar and saw that the shareholders were Mr.
Ivan Troy of South Africa and G. D. Pierce of Zimbabwe. So I ran a
search on these names and discovered an interesting thing. The National
Intelligence Agency of South Africa and the Central Intelligence
Organisation of Zimbabwe advised us that the passports in question were
reported lost or stolen."
Benny smiled.
"Should I tell you where they were lost - in case you don't
know? in Israel. Someone in the Office was careless," I said.
"What's the big deal?" asked Benny. "We had two groups soliciting
materials to these bad guys, simply as a precaution in case the negotiations with one team failed."
"But why the fifteen-thousand-dollar payment?"
"Earnest money. We demanded they advance us the money to show
their intent to negotiate in good faith ..." Benny chuckled. "We had
expenses, you know, so every dollar helps."
"There must have been a good reason for you to ask for my help. And
please spare me the usual explanation of friendship. You were using me as
a conduit to offer a trade. We delivered the goods: Your men returned
safely."
Benny smiled, paused for a moment, and said, "You mean our meeting
at the New York Hilton?"
"Of course."
"I told you we know how the Iranians move money into the U.S."
"I'm listening, go ahead."
"There's a twist to the direction of the flow. In fact, I meant how the
Iranians finance their terrorist cells in the U.S."
"I know how - through innocent but-should-have-been-more-suspicious Islamic charities."
"Right. But you asked me why I asked for your help after I had already
approached the big guys in Washington, DC."
"I wondered," I conceded.
"We hacked into the computer system of Schiller Bank in Austria and
downloaded the details of the numbered account of the Slaves of Allah."
"Leaving no audit trail?"
"Of course," said Benny.
"But you told me that you didn't withdraw the money because you
didn't want to expose your men as intelligence operatives."
"True. We hacked into the account just to take a look. We saw how the
money was sent from Eagle Bank into the Austrian bank account as well
as other deposits and withdrawals. I knew you were a foreign money
hunter for the U.S. Department of Justice, so my estimate was that your
office, or even you personally, were working on that case."
"Case? How did you know that there was an inquiry into Eagle Bank?"
I was really amazed.
"Two things happened. The very extensive flow of money from Eagle
Bank to Austria stopped abruptly. We figured there must have been an
unusual reason for that."
"There was. Malik Fazal took off. And the second reason?"
"We read newspapers, you know. There was a small item in the New
York papers about Bernard Lipinsky, the Eagle Bank employee whose
body was found in a Dumpster right after all activity in the bank account
seemed to freeze. That was too much coincidence. So my shot in the dark
hit the bull's-eye, although it wasn't really that dark and not that much of
a shot. So I decided to call you."
"Why not just tell me that at the beginning?"
"Dan, I told you only things you needed to know to help us. That information did not come under that definition."
I knew it was one of the more calculated side effects of intelligence
work - keeping allies in the dark when it suits your purpose to do so. I
wasn't even angry at Benny for it.
"I think there was another reason," I said.
"What?"
"You withheld that information as future payment to the U.S. government for helping find your men."
"Ah," Benny said. "And if you knew, why the passive anger in your voice?"
"Nothing of the sort. I suspected it from the beginning, and that's how
I presented your request to my superiors. A simple trade-in, so now you
owe me, for a change."
"No. We're even," he said, opening up his brown leather briefcase and
handing me a bulky yellow envelope.
"What's that?" Benny's envelopes always contained pleasant surprises
for me: a Jewish version of Santa Claus.
"Open it up," he said. "Payback time."