Triple (32 page)

TrUPLE

when the Americans came roaring up. That made it safe for Dickstein to

shoot-if there were another sniper, he would fire at the obvious target,

the Americans, rather than search the bushes for the source of the shot.

So, with no thought for anything but his own survival, Dickstein had

saved Al Cortone's life.

Cortone had been even more new to the war than Dickstein, and learning

just as fast. Thev were both streetwise kids applying old principles to

new terrain. For a while they fought together, and cursed and laughed and

talked about women together. When the island was taken, they had sneaked

off during the buildup for the next push and visited Cortones Sicilian

cousins.

Those cousins were the focus of Dickstein's interest now.

They had helped him once before, in 1948. There had been profit for them

in that deal, so Dickstein had gone straight to them with the plan. This

project was different: he wanted a favor and he could offer no

percentage. Conw quently he had to go to Al and call in the

twenty-four-yearold debt.

He was not at all sure it would work. Cortone was rich now. The house was

large--in England it would have been called a mansion-with beautiful

grounds inside a high wall and guards at the gate. There were three cars

in the RTavel drive, and Dickstein had lost count of the servants. A rich

and comfortable middle-aged American might not be in a hurry to get

involved in Mediterranean political shenanigans, even for the sake of a

man who had saved his life.

Cortone seemed very pleased to see him, which was a good start. They

slapped each other on the back, just as they had on that November Sunday

in 1947, and kept saying, "How the hell, are you?" to each other.

Cortone looked Dickstein up and down. "You7re the samel I lost all my

hair and gained a hundred pounds, and you haven't even turned gray. What

have you been up to?"

"I went to Israel. rm. sort of a farmer. You?"

"Doing business you know? Come on, let's eat and talk."

The meal was a strange affair. Mrs. Cortone sat at the foot of the table

without speaking or being spoken to throughout. Two ill-mannered boys

wolfed their food and left early with a roar of sports-car exhaust.

Cortone ate large quantities of

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Ken Follett

the heavy Italian food and drank several glasses of California red wine. But

the most intriguing character was a Welldressed, shark-faced man who behaved

sometimes like a friend, sometimes like an adviser and sometimes like a ser-

vant: once Cortone called him a counselor. No business was talked about

during dinner Instead they told war ston

Cortone told most of them. He also told the story of Dickstein!s 1948 coup

against the Arabs: he had heard it from his cousins and had been as

delighted as they. ne tale had become embroidered in the retelling.

Dickstein decided that Cortone was genuinely glad to see him. Maybe the man

was bored. He should be, if he ate dinner every night with a silent wife,

two surly boys and a shark-faced counselor. Dickstein did all he could to

keep the bonhomie going: he wanted Cortone in a good mood when he asked his

favor

. Afterward Cortone and Dickstein sat in leather armchairs in a den and a

butler brought brandy and cigars. Dickstein refused both.

"You used to be a hell of a drinker," Cortone said.

"It was a hell of a war," Dickstein replied. The butler left the room.

Dickstein watched CDrtone sip brandy and pull on the cigar, and thought

that the man ate, drank and smoked joylessly, as though he thought that if

he did these things long enough he would eventually acquire the taste.

Recalling the sheer fun the two of them had had with the Sicilian cousins,

Dickstein wondered whether there were any real people left in Cortone?s

life.

Suddenly Cortone laughed out loud. "I remember every minute of that day in

Oxford. Hey, did you ever make it with that professoes wife, the Ay-rab?"

"No." Dickstein barely smiled. "She's dead, now."

"I'M sorry. to

"A strange thing happened. I went back there, to that house by the river,

and met her daughter ... She looks just like Efla used to.,,

"No kidding. And . . ." Cortone leered. "And you made ft with the

daughter-I don't believe itl"

Dickstein nodded. "We made it in more ways than one. I want to marry her.

I plan to ask her next time I see her."

'Will she say yes?"

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TRIPLE

"rm not sure. I think so. rm older than she is."

"Age doesn't matter. You could put on a little weight, though. A woman

likes to have something to get hold of."

The conversation was annoying Dickstein, and now he re. alized why:

Cortone was set on keeping it trivial. It might have been the habit of

years of being close-mouthed; it might have been that so much of his

"family business" was criminal business and he did not want Dickstein to

know it (but Dickstein had already guessed); or there migbt have been

some. thing else he was afraid of revealing, some secret disappointment

he could not share: anyhow, the open, garrulous, excitable young man had

long since disappeared inside this fat man. Dickstein longed to say, Tell

me what gives you joy, and who you love, and how your life runs on.

Instead he said, "Do you remember what you said to me in oxfordr,

"Sure. I told you I owe you a debt, you saved my life." Cortone inhaled

on his cigar.

At least that had not changed. "Im here to ask for your to

help.

"Go ahead and ask."

"Mind if I put the radio on?"

Cortone smiled. "Mis place is swept for bugs about once a week."

"Good," said Dickstein but he put the radio on all the same. "Cards on

the table, Al. I work for Israeli Intelligence.

Cortones eyes widened. "I should have guessed."

"I'm running an operation in the Mediterranean in November. It's . . ."

Dickstein wondered how much he needed to tell, and decided very little.

"Ifs something that could mean the end of the wars in the Middle East."

He paused, remembering a phrase Cortone had used habitually. "And I aWt

to

shittin! YOU.

Cortone laughed. "If you were going to shit me, I figure you would have

been here sooner than twenty years."

"It's important that the operation should not be traceable back to

Israel. I need a base from which to work. I need a big house on the coast

with a landing for small boats and an anchorage not too far offshore for

a big ship. While Im there-a couple of weeks, maybe mom-I need to be

protect183

Ken Fol"

ed from inquiring police and other nosy officials. I can think of only one

place where I could get all that, and only one person could get it for me."

Cortone nodded. "I know a place--a derelict house in Sicily. Ifs not

exactly plush, kid ... no heat, no phone-but it could fill the bill."

Dickstein smiled broadly. nlat!s terrific," he said. "Thats what I came to

ask for."

"You!re kidding," said Cortone. "That's all?"

To: Head of Mossad

FRom: Head of London Station

DATE: 29 July 1968

Suza Ashford is almost certainly an agent of an Arab intelligence

service.

She was born in Oxford~ England, 17 June 1944, the only child of Mr. (now

Professor) Stephen Ashford (born Guildford, England, 1908) and Eila Zuabi

(born Tripoli, Lebanon, 1925). The mother, who died in 1954, was a

full-blooded Arab. The father is what is known in England as an

"Arabist"; he spent most of the first forty years of his life in the

Middle East and was an explorer, entrepreneur and linguist. He now

teaches Semitic Languages at Oxford University, where he is well known

for his moderately pro-Arab views.

Therefore, although Suza Ashford is strictly speaking a U.K national, her

loyalties may be assumed to lie with the Arab cause.

She works as an air hostess for BOAC on intercontinental routes,

traveling frequently to Tehran, Singapore and Zurich, among other places.

Consequently, she has numerous opportunities to make clandestine contacts

with Arab diplomatic staff.

She is a strikingly beautiful young woman (see attached photograph-which,

however, does not do her justice, according to the field agent on this

case). She is promiscuous, but not unusually so by the standards of her

profession nor by those of her generation in London. To be specific: for

her to have sexual relations with a man for the purpose of obtaining

information might be an unpleasant experience but not a traumatic one.

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TIME

Finally-and this is the clincher-Yasif Hassan, the agent who spotted

Dickstein in Luxembourg, studied under her father, Professor Ashford, at

the same time as Dickstein, and has remained in occasional contact with

Ashford in the intervening years. He may have visited Ashford--a man

answering his description certainly did visit-about the time Dickstein's

affair with Suza Ashford began.

I recommend that surveillance be continued.

(Signed)

Robert Jakes

fo: Head of London Station

FRom: Head of Mossad

DATE: 30 July 1968

With all that against her, I cannot understand why you do not recommend

we kill her.

(Signed)

Pierre Borg

To: Head of Mossad

FROM: Head of London Station

DATE: 31 July 1968

1 do not recommend eliminating Suza Ashford for the following reasons:

1. The evidence against her is strong but circumstantial.

2. From what I know of Dickstein, I doubt very much that he has given her

any information, even if he is romantically involved.

3. If we eliminate her the other side wM begin looking for another way

to get at Dickstein. Better the devil we know.

4. We may be able to use her to feed false information to the other side.

S. I do not like to kill on the basis of circumstantial evidence. We are

not barbarians. We are Jews.

6. If we kill a woman Dickstein loves, I think he will kill you, me and

everyone else involved.

(Signed)

Robert Jakes

185

Ken Folleff,

To: Head of LDndon Station

FRom: Head of Mossad

DATE: I August 1968

Do it your way.

(Signed)

Pierre Borg PosrscupT (marked Persond):

Your point 5 is very noble and touching, but remarks like that wont

get you promoted in this maWs army.P.B.

She was a small, old, ugly, dirty, cantankerous hitch.

Rust bloomed like a skin rash in great orange blotches all over her hull.

If there had ever been any paint on her upperworks it had long ago been

peeled away and blasted off and dissolved by the wind and the rain and

the sea. Her starboard gunwale had been badly buckled W aft of the prow

in an old collision, and nobody had ever bothered to straighten it out.

Her funnel bore a layer of grime ten years thick. Her deck was scored and

dented and stained; and although it was swabbed often, it was never

swabbed thoroughly, so that them were traces of past cargoe*--grains of

corn, splinters of timber, bits of rotting vegetation and fragments of

sackinghidden behind lifeboats and under coils of rope and inside cracks

and joints and holes. On a warm day she smelled foul.

I She was some Z500 tons, 200 feet long and a little over 30 feet broad.

Ilere was a tall radio mast in her blunt prow. Most of her deck was taken

up by two large hatches opening Into the main cargo holds. IMere were

three cranes on deck: one forward of the hatches, one aft and one in

between. Ibe wheelhouse, officere cabins, galley and crew's quarters were

in the stem, clustered around the funnel. She had a single screw driven

by a six-cylinder diesel engine theoretically capable of developing 2,450

b.hp. and maintaining a service speed of thirteen knots.

FWly loaded, she would pitch badly. In ballast she would yaw like the

very devil. Either way she would roll through seventy degrees of arc at

the slightest provocation. Ile quarters were cramped and poorly

ventilated, the galley was often flooded and the engine room had been

designed by Hleronymous Bosch.

186