Triple (53 page)

TJUPLE

could be spotted; they would know nothing until a hail of bullets tore

into them. Quick, quickl Up in the stem was the winding gear for the

anchor, with a large pile of slack chain. 'Sapir." Abbas pointed, and

Sapir crawled along the deck to the position.

"I like the crane," Porush said.

Abbas looked at the derrick towering over them, dominating the whole of

the foredeck. The control cabin was some ten feet above deck level. It

would be a dangerous position, but it made good tactical sense. "Go," he

said.

Porush crawled forward, following Sharrett's route. Watching, Abbas

thought: He's got a fat ass--my sister feeds him too well. Porush gained

the foot of the crane and began to climb the ladder. Abbas held his

breath-if one of the enemy should happen to look this way now, while

Porush was on the ladder--4hen he reached the cabin.

Behind Abbas, in the prow, was a companion head over a short flight of

steps leading down to a door. The area was not big enough to be called

a wesle, and there was almost certainly no. proper accommodation in

there-4t was simply a for'ard store. He crawled to it, crouched at the

foot of the steps in the little well,- and gently cracked the door. It

was dark inside. He closed the door and tamed around, resting his gun on

the head of the steps, satisfied that he was alone.

7bere was very little light at the stem end, and Dickstein!s boat had to

get very close to the Coparelli's starboard ladder. Gibli, the team

leader, found it difficult to keep the boat in position. Dickstein found

a boat hook in the well of the launch and used it to hold the boat

steady, pulling toward the Copareftl when the sea tried to part them and

pushing away when the boat and the ship threatened to collide broadside.

Gibli, who was ex-army, insisted on adhering to the Israeli tradition

that the officers lead their men from in front, not from behind: he had

to go first. He always wore a hat to conceal his receding hairline, and

now he sported a beret. He crouched at the edge of the boat while it slid

down a wave; then, in the trough when boat and ship moved closer to-

gether, he jumped. He landed well and moved upward.

On the edge, waiting for his moment, Feinberg said, "Now, then-I count

to three, then open my parachute, rightr, Then he jumped.

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Katzen went next, then Raoul Dovrat Dickstein dropped the boat hook and

followed. On the ladder, he leaned back and looked up through the

streaming rain to see Gibli reach the level of the gunwale then swing one

leg over the rail.

Dickstein looked back over his shoulder and saw a faint band of lighter

gray in the distant sky, the first sign of dawn.

Then there was a sudden shocking burst of machine-gun fire and a shout.

Dickstein looked up again to see Gibli falling slowly backward off the

top of the ladder. His beret came off and was whipped away by the wind,

disappearing into the darknes& Gibli fell down, down past Dickstein and

into the sea.

Dickstein shouted, "Go, go, got"

Feinberg flew over the rail. He would hit the deck rolling, Dickstein

knew, then-yes, there was the sound of his gun as he gave covering fire

for the other&--

And Katzen was over and there were four, five, many gum crackling, and

Dickstein was scampering up the ladder and pulling the pin from a grenade

with his teeth and hurling it up and over the rail some thirty yards

forward, where it would cause a diversion without injuring any of his men

already on deck, and then Dovrat was over the rail and Dickstein saw him

hit the deck rolling, gain his feet, dive for cover behind the stern

superstructure and Dickstein yelled, "Here I come you fuckers" and went

over in a high-jumper's roll, landed on hands and knees, bent double

under a sheet of covering fire and scampered to the stem.

"Where are they?" he yelled.

Feinberg stopped shooting to answer him. "In the galley," be said,

jerking a thumb toward the bulkhead beside them. "In the lifeboats, and

in the doorways amidships."

"All right." Dickstein got to his feet. "We hold this position until

Badees group makes the deck. When you hear them open fire, move. Dovrat

and Katzen, hit the galley door and head below. Feinberg, cover them,

then work'your way forward along this edge of the deck. I'll make for the

first lifeboat. Meantime give them something to distract their attention

from the port stem ladder and Badees team. Fire at will. 99

Hassan and Mabmoud were interrogating the sailor when the shooting

started. They were in the chartroom, aft of the 304

71UPLE

bridge. Ile sailor would speak only German, but Hassan spoke German. His

story was that the Coparell! had broken down and the crew had been taken

off, leaving him to wait in the ship until a spare part arrived. He knew

nothing of uranium or hijacks or Dickstein. Hassan did not believe him,

for-as he pointed out to Mahmoud-if Dickstein could arrange for the ship to

break down, he could surely arrange for one of his own men to be left aboard

it. The sailor was tied to a chair, and now Mahmoud was cutting off his

fingers one by one in an attempt to make him tell a different story.

They heard one quick burst of firing, then a silence, then a second burst

followed by a barrage. Mahmoud sheathed his knife and went down the stairs

which led from the chartroom. to the officers! quarters.

Hassan tried to assess the situation. The Fedayeen were grouped in three

places--the lifeboats, the galley and the main amidships superstructure.

From where he was Hassan could see both port and starboard sides of the

dock. and if he went forward from the chartroom to the bridge he could see

the foredeck. Most of the Israelis seemed to have boarded the ship at the

stern. The Fedayeen, both those immediately below Hassan and those in the

lifeboats at either side, were firing toward the stern. There was no firing

from the galley, which must mean the Israelis had taken it. They must have

gone below, but they had left two men on deck, one on either side, to guard

their rear.

Mahmoud's ambush had failed, then. The Israelis were supposed to be mown

down as they came over the rail. In fact they had succeeded in reaching

cover, and now the battle was even.

The fighting on deck was stalemated, with both sides shooting at each other

from good cover. That was the Israelis! intention, Hassan assumed: to keep

the opposition busy on deck while they made their progress below. They

would attack the Fedayeen stronghold, the amidships superstructure, from

below, after making their way the length of the 'tweendecks gangways.

Where was the best place to be? Right where he was, HasSan decided. To

reach him the Israelis had to fight their way along the 'tweendecks, then

up through the officers' quarters, then up again to the bridge and

chartroorn. It was a tough position to take.

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Ken Folleff

'Mere was a huge explosion from the bridge. The heavy door separating

bridge and chartroorn rattled, sagged on its hinges and fen slowly

inward. Hassan looked through.

A grenade had landed in the bridge. The bodies of three Fedayeen were

spread across the bulkheads. Ali the glass of the bridge was smashed. The

grenade must have come from the foredeck, which meant that there was

another group of Israelis in the prow. As if to confirm his supposition,

a burst of gunfire came from the foeard crane.

Hassan picked up a submachine gun from the floor, rested ft on the window

frame, and began to shoot back.

Levi Abbas watched Porush's grenade sail through the air and into the

bridge, then saw the explosion shatter what remained of the glass. The

guns from that quarter were briefly silenced, and then a new one started

up. For a minute Abbas could not figure out what the new gun was shooting

at, for none of the bullets landed near him. He looked at either side.

Sapir and Sharreft were both shooting at the bridge, and neither seemed

to be under fire. Abbas looked up at the crane. Porush-it was Porush who

was under fire. There was a burst from the cabin of the crane as Porush

fired back.

7be shooting from the bridge was amateurish, wild and inaocurate-the man

was just spraying bullets. But he had a good position. He was high, and

well protected by the walls of the bridge. He would hit something sooner

or later. Abbas took out a. grenade and lobbed it, but it fell short.

Only Porush was close enough to throw into the bridge, and he had used

all his grenades--only the fourth had landed on target.

Abbas fired again, then looked up at the control cabin of the crane. As

he looked, he saw Porush come toppling backward out of the control cabin,

turn over in the air, and fail like a dead weight to the deck.

Abbas thought: And how will I tell my sister?

The guriman in the bridge stopped firing, then resumed with a burst in

Sharrett's direction. Unlike Abbas and Sapir, Sharrett had very little

cover: he was squeezed between a capstan and the gunwale. Abbas and Sapir

both shot at the bridge. The unseen sniper was improving: bullets

stitched a searn in the deck toward Sharrett's capstan; then Sharrett

screamed, jumped sideways, and jerked as if electrocuted

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while more bullets thudded into his body, until at last he lay still and

the screaming stopped.

The situation was bad. Abbas's team was supposed to command the foredeck,

but at the moment the man on the bridge was doing that. Abbas had to take

him out.

He threw another grenade. It landed short of the bridge and exploded; the

flash might dazzle the sniper for a second or two. When the bang came

Abbas was on his feet and running for the crane, the crash of sapies

covering fire in his ears. He made the foot of the ladder and started

firing before the sniper on the bridge saw him. Tlien bullets were

clanging on the girders all around him. It seemed to take him an age to

climb each step. Some lunatic part of his mind began to count the steps:

seven-eight-nine-ten-

He was hit by.a ricochet. The bullet entered his thigh just below the hip

bone. It did not kill him, but the shock of it seemed to paralyze the

muscles in the lower half of his body. His feet slipped from the rungs

of the ladder. He had a moment of confused panic as he discovered that

his legs would not work. Instinctively he grabbed for the ladder with his

hands, but he missed and fell. He turned partly over and landed

awkwardly, breaking his neck; and he died.

The door to the foeard store opened slightly and a wideeyed, frightened

Russian face looked out; but nobody saw it, and it went back inside; and

the door closed.

As Katzen and Dovrat rushed the galley, Dickstein took advantage of

Feinberg's covering fire to move forward. He ran, bent double, past the

point at which they had boarded the ship and past the galley door, to

throw himself behind the first of the lifeboats, one that had already

been grenaded. From there, in the faint but increasing light, he could

make out the lines of the amidships superstructure, shaped like a flight

of three steps rising forward. At the main deck level was the officers'

mess, the officers' dayroom, the sick bay and a passenger cabin used as

a dry store. On the next level up were officers' cabins, heads, and the

captain's quarters. On the top deck was the bridge with adjoining

chartroom. and radio booth.

Most of the enemy would now be at deck level in the mess and the dayroom.

He could bypass them by climbing a ladder alongside the funnel to the

walkway around the second deck,

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