One

 

The car with the army driver stopped at the kerb. A rear door opened and the general, a stocky, balding man with a black patch over his left eye, stepped to the pavement. People walking past on Dizengoff Street glanced at him with affection, for the general was a talisman to his people, the mere fact of his existence diminishing the threat of the hostile world around.

He moved briskly away from the car, his whole fabric exuding confidence, ability, toughness. Then, grotesquely, he hesitated in mid-step, his alert expression faded, his upright carriage slumped.

At that moment at least twenty bystanders were watching him, and several of these afterwards claimed they had known what was happening even before the sound of the shot reached them.

Blood seeped darkly through the back of the general’s uniform. People hurried towards him. The car door opened again and two aides caught the general as he fell. He looked up weakly, but could not speak.

A small crowd gathered. Soon police and ambulance sirens began to wail.

 

“...all hell to pay. David Blackman, a thin ageing diplomat, said into his telephone in Whitehall. “The Israeli defence minister’s been shot. What? Oh yes, he’s dead—didn’t last two minutes...in the main street of Tel Aviv.

“What’s that? Rifle—from some considerable distance off, it seems. Westward, towards the port, there are a lot of warehouses up that end. It’s the easy way, and economical. Public figure, movements predictable—it only takes one shot with a first-class gun and telescopic sights. Plenty of time to get away. I doubt they’ll ever find out who did it.”

The brigadier on the other end of the line, who was also a member of the prime minister’s advisory committee on the Middle East, asked: “Will the ceasefire get past this?”

“That’s why it’s all so crazy,” Blackman said petulantly. “You know that at our last meeting we thought the chances for a peace settlement that’d stick were better than at any time in the past. That’s no longer the case. The Israeli radio’s howling for blood. They blame the Arabs, but I can’t see what could have brought this on, as an officially sanctioned Arab policy, I mean, at this time, when everything’s been sweetness and light. Nothing could be more provocative, and we must assume whoever did it meant it that way.”

“It’ll be some wild-eyed mob, even farther out and less responsible than Al Fatah,” the brigadier commented. “The fedayeen are spawning them in scores.”

“Just like the bloody Arabs, they’re always going headlong into something like this, without giving a damn about what happens next. Well, the fact is the P.M. does want to know what comes next, so we’re to peer into our glass ball, then tell him. The meeting’s at half-past—that’s in forty minutes from now. Please be prompt, that’s a good chap.” said Blackman, who had a large, now grown-up family and tended to talk to everyone as if they were children. He hesitated, then added as an afterthought:

“There’s another disturbing side to this. No time to tell you about it now. It’ll come up at the meeting, in fact it’s the main thing we have to discuss. Relative to it, bring along anything you have, will you, on the capability of the American STM17? ‘Bye.”

He put down the telephone and, after a brief pause, began to dial another number.

“You shouldn’t do it like that, Sir David,” his secretary, who was new, pretty, and intimidating, reproved him. “Dial with the end of a pencil, I mean. The post office people say it causes a thousand wrong numbers every year. Use your finger.”

“What’s that? Oh, well, since you say so...” and he continued to dial the secret number, awkwardly, with his index finger.

 

The military attaché at the British Embassy in Cairo, Michael Rule, looked speculatively at his companion, Corinne Sampson, and wondered how quickly he would be able to get what he wanted from her, and what it might cost. She was a local reporter—a “stringer,” in the jargon of the trade for the Daily Feature’s foreign correspondent, but according to Rule’s sources, she didn’t make enough money to live on out of that. She was nearly always broke, and that would obviously help.

They were sitting at a minute table, well away from any other, in Seventh Heaven, one of the small dimly lighted bars on Sharia al Gumhuria, a main street of Cairo. Here, due to the economical recycling of the same air through the conditioner, the atmosphere was always stale and heavy with the reek of spirits and tobacco smoke.

When Corinne began to laugh, Rule glanced uneasily about him, seeing no immediate cause for mirth.

“What’s the joke?”

“Listen.”

“But to what?”

“As if anyone could hear much in this place except that band.”

“The band? Yes. Noisy, aren’t they?”

“I meant the tune.”

Rule turned his attention unwillingly to the racket, unable to see why it mattered, and finally recognised the abortive but vaguely familiar and still rollicking snatches of melody.

“Good Lord,” he said. “They can’t know. It is Rule Britannia, isn’t it?”

They both laughed, and the tension that had built up between them relaxed.

“Now,” Corinne said. “Come along with it. I can see you’re in a hurry—so am I. Try not to be tactful and diplomatic.”

Seeing her glass was empty he called over the waiter and bought some more of the pale pink fizzy drink, based on gin.

“It’s about Abu Sharaf,” he said.

“Abbie? Well, what?”

“We know the more obvious things. He’s a Ph.D. in economics, lectures at the university, seems rich, throws his money around more than one would like to see in an economist. Apparently well in with the government, certainly has quite a few friends in important places, particularly the army. Likes foreign women and is especially partial to English girls. You’re the current one.”

Her gaze shifted.

“Actually things are pretty much over between me and Abbie. I think my lease there has finished—Abbie’s always been one for variety where girls are concerned. You’re asking me to sell him out in some way...?”

“It isn’t really that”

“Isn’t it? Well since you say so, I’d just as soon believe you. This is a lousy country,” she added, with apparent inconsequence. “Hot. Too much sand. Too many flies. Messy.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I don’t want to. I’d get out tomorrow if I could.”

“And where would you go?”

“East west, home’s best. London. I’m homesick, homesick as hell.”

He nodded slowly.

“That’s all right. We can do it. Passport, exit permit, passage paid, the lot—and all the other difficulties that’ve been keeping you away. All fixed. Tomorrow if you like.”

The smile left her face, which had become sullen. She looks older, he thought, much closer to her real age.

I’d have to get some money.”

“Naturally. Shall we say a thousand, payable in London?”

“It’s not enough. I’d need more than that. What about two thousand?”

“No.”

“I’m not a fool. I can see you’re after something important about Abbie. It ought to be worth two thousand, shouldn’t it? That’s not much these days.”

“If you don’t take this offer,” he said softly. “You’ll never get back to England. We won’t help you again.”

“As if you gave a damn what happens to me,” she replied contemptuously. The band suddenly stopped playing and the resultant silence shouted, as they sat looking at one another.

Rule thought of the people waiting back at the embassy—the first secretary, the cipher clerk, the teleprinter girl. He glanced at his watch. The meeting in London would have started.

“Yes, time is getting on,” she said, noticing his involuntary movement and coming to a sudden decision. “I have a lot to do. Why not call me when things are more on the go?”

She rose and picked up her bag from the table. Her eyes were hard and her jaw was set. He could see she meant it, and conceded defeat with a gesture.

“Sit down. I can make it fifteen hundred. Not more.”

“All right then. I shan’t haggle.”

“I’ve got to think of the taxpayers.”

“To hell with the taxpayers. What do you want?”

“I want to talk about the Smirnoff’s party. You were there, of course.”

“So it was that,” she replied, without looking at him. “I didn’t even know you were there until I looked around, and you were watching me. You’d been listening in, hadn’t you?”

“You could put it in a nicer way.”

“I shan’t bother. I’d been talking about Abbie?”

“You’d had several too many, I suppose—in fact you were rotten drunk and rather loud. It was lucky the whole party was just as loud. Nobody took much notice of you, except for me, that is.”

“What had I said that was so interesting to you?”

“Something rather dangerous. You said you knew that Abu Sharaf was really a Jew.”

“Lots of people are Jews.”

“And is he?”

She lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

Rule felt the tension fade in his body and mind, his whole being relax.

“How de you know?”

“Abbie keeps a boat, a fast plushy one, called the

Miranda. She’s anchored in Port Said.”

“Port Said? Why not Alex?”

“I wondered about that myself. I asked him once, and he said he liked to cruise about Manzala Lake. Anyway, most of this year I went out with him, oh, quite a few weekends. Quite a few. That stopped a month or so ago.

“Several times when we were out at sea, late at night, I heard him get up. He thought I was asleep, but I was playing ‘possum. There’s a door in one wall of the main stateroom I’d thought just led into a cupboard, but it doesn’t. There’s a little room with a radio. Abbie was talking, then listening, to someone. It was quiet, and even though he wasn’t talking loudly, I could tell it was Yiddish he was speaking. I can’t talk it, but I know it when I hear it. Now why do you think he should be doing that, late at night, talking Yiddish to someone on that radio nobody was supposed to know about?”

Rule answered carefully:

“He doesn’t have to be an Israeli, just because he can speak Yiddish.”

“There are other things,” she said, without looking at him. “Some small things, some rather funny, but they add up.”

“I see.”

“And anyway, you must have had an idea. You wouldn’t have taken so much notice, like that, of what I’d said at the party, to be worth all this trouble, and the money, unless you knew something already.”

He looked up quickly.

“Now about these talks on the radio...you said you couldn’t understand a word. He never spoke in English?”

“Not while I could hear. And I couldn’t tell, of course, what he was talking about, or who to...although I think maybe I know a bit about who...you see, Abbie mentioned his name quite a few times.”

“His name?”

“Just the first name, but it came up three or four times...rather odd when you think of it, that he should say it so much. Still, there are people like that, aren’t there? They can hardly say a thing without repeating your name—Corinne this, Corinne that—”

“And what was the name Sharaf mentioned?”

“Jacob.”

Rule looked at her silently, and got up.

“I say, is that all?” she asked anxiously. “Not that there’s anything else I can think of. Doesn’t seem much for fifteen hundred really, does it?”

 

Dusk in London fell on a dull, sleety day, cold enough for snow, although only odd flakes reached the pavements.

David Blackman was looking out of his office window at the drab evening sky when a knock came at his door. He glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five past four.

“Come on in, John,” he called out.

“How did you know it was me?” Grimwade asked. Blackman glanced at him curiously.

“Don’t you know? It’s because you’re always first—always here three or four minutes before the due time of a meeting. I can’t see why, but nobody else ever is these days.”

“That’s so,” Grimwade agreed, a little startled. “I’d never really thought about it. Am I a nuisance, being like that?”

“Not a bit. Far from it. Like to see you.”

But Grimwade could see that Blackman, who was convener and chairman of the Middle East advisory committee, had only the surface of his mind on the conversation. So he sat down quietly at the table, leaving Blackman to his thoughts. One by one the others came in, until all seven were present. Only then did Blackman turn away from the window and take his place at the head of the table.

“Most of you know already what there is to know about the assassination. The first reactions have been predictable. The Israeli press is yelling for action, and there’s been a rumour—probably untrue—that the first air strikes against the Arab Republic have already taken off.

“However,” and he smiled bleakly, “I don’t think the Russian SAM3 missile defences will permit much activity of that sort. Our appreciation is that Cairo is quite safe from air attack.

“As you’ll know, we’ve discussed this point a good deal at previous meetings and reported to the P.M., I believe accurately, that the one thing that’d take the stomach out of the Arabs so far as war with Israel is concerned would be a major hit at Cairo. That’s why the Soviets have gone to so much trouble and expense over the city’s defences.

“So the Russians think the way we do, and it would seem much Israeli opinion does too. Indeed the defence minister himself regarded Egypt as the only important enemy. He is on record as saying to a gathering of reserve officers, ‘Egypt, and no other country, will be the one to launch an all-out war.’ This is why the Israelis lash out with the repeated ground attacks and air raids designed specifically to hurt the Egyptian people—what they so nicely called the anticipatory counter-attack. The truth is, of course, that the war with Israel hasn’t meant much to the average Egyptian. Not yet. The Cairo fellaheen haven’t suffered personally.

“It was to prevent this, to remove the power of the Israeli Air Force to strike at Cairo in particular, that the Russians put in their missile batteries. And, in any realistic terms, the installation of those SAMs resulted in a ceasefire. So, if you’ll bear with me a little longer, we come to the situation that’s appeared to stand ever since.”

He looked silently down the table for a few seconds, then asked:

“Could Cairo be hurt seriously in any other way? What do we think?”

The brigadier, near the foot of the table, blinked at his cue and said:

“Not really. Air attack seems the only feasible possibility in this kind of limited war. There are all sorts of esoteric things, of course, like nerve gas, bugs, what have you—we’ve worried about them for years. But nobody’s ever used them, nor will, except in the case of major world war, with no holds barred. The same way, a submarine in the Med. could drop an atomic warhead anywhere in the Middle East, but this is not going to happen because there’d be an immediate reaction from the other side. Aside from that kind of thing, I’d say that during the ceasefire matters have been organised so that no major or important attack by conventional means against the A.R.E.( Arab Republic of Egypt—formerly United Arab Republic) heartland, and especially Cairo, would be able to succeed.”

“By conventional means,” Blackman repeated thoughtfully.

The brigadier looked worried. He had with him the information about the American STMI7s and wondered again why he’d been asked to bring it.

“That’s what I said,” he replied levelly.

Blackman smiled, his manner conciliatory.

“I’m sorry if I seem to be talking in riddles. I’ll try and take the matter a little further for you. There’s time to fill in the background, because to be honest that’s all I can do until our chap in Cairo gets one more but very important bit of confirmatory information. I don’t think it’ll be long arriving.

“Meanwhile it’s the Foreign Office assessment that the ceasefire should weather the Tel Aviv killing, so far as the various governments themselves are concerned. Our job, as we see it, is to pour plenty of oil on the troubled waters, and the way to do this is to get organised a thumping great U.N. force, much bigger than the earlier ones, with comparable weapons to those of the Arabs and the Israelis, and the power to use them, if need be, in any circumstances. Whatever it takes, we want to see peace preserved in the Middle East. There are no qualifications to that policy. And, you can take it from me, that’s straight from the top.”

“D’you think the Russians would go along with that?” Grimwade asked.

“On the whole, yes. They’re pretty sick of the regular crises and of having to feed more and more missiles and planes and advisers to the Arabs. If the Soviets could be sure they were getting somewhere with this, they’d no doubt feel differently, but all the evidence is that the Arab world is going to be just as divided, just as disorganised and just as fundamentally unsuccessful militarily as it has been for the last five years. On the other hand, while Israel feels insecure, she’ll stay belligerent.

“Besides, the Russians have small respect for the Arabs and there’s not much love lost in the other direction. No, the Russians would welcome an out, I feel. They’d much rather concentrate on South Asia, especially India and Ceylon, and if I were in their position I’d choose that way too, backing the Mesdames Gandhi and Bandaranaike.

“Come in...” he called, in response to a diffident knock on the door. A clerk brought in a single sheet of teleprinter flimsy and put it on the table before Blackman, who read it immediately.

“Well,” he murmured. They all looked at him with greater interest, but for the time being he continued his previous line of thought.

“As I was saying, nobody wants a big war in the Middle East. It’s too central, far too many other influential people would suffer. Southeast Asia, China—demonstrably it can be risked there, hence the Indo-China war, but the Middle East, no. A war of words, trade embargoes, nastiness on the borders, these things will go on, but the governments in Tel Aviv and Cairo, and their backers, don’t want a real showdown.”

“So is there a problem?” Stephen Roberts, one of the two academics on the committee, asked. An historian, he took a cynical view of the caution and pragmatism of his military and diplomatic associates.

“On the face of it, no,” Blackman said slowly. “But although the governments and no doubt the peoples directly concerned don’t want a war, it doesn’t necessarily mean nobody does.

“Very relevant to this, unfortunately, is the disposition of several United States STMs.”

“Whatever they might be,” Roberts interposed with a show of irritability. “It’s a wretched habit, this labelling of things with a set of initials, as though authority were afraid of their proper names. For Heaven’s sake, old boy, don’t call it a spade, call it an S. D. D.”

“S.D.D.?” Blackman, who had a literal mind, was puzzled.

“Surface digging device.”

Roberts had adroitly sugared his pill with humour. Everyone round the table grinned and the tension lessened, but Blackman had got the point.

“I tend to go along with you,” he conceded. “And I apologise for using the initials, especially since you could have no way of knowing what they mean. As usual, in this case they are simply enough interpreted. They mean ‘small tactical missile’—although that isn’t really specific because the thing isn’t a missile at all but a bomb, and also because it doesn’t let you know the STM is an atomic weapon. I’ll not describe it to you—Brigadier Simons is the expert.”

Simons spoke after a few moments of reflection.

“First off, over the last decade or so the really big atomic bombs, the fusion type, have proliferated so much on both sides they’ve pretty much cancelled themselves out. Everyone’s scared stiff of them, soldiers perhaps most of all. These enormously powerful things are there, Heaven knows, in thousands, more than enough to kill all life several times over—and that’s a considered estimate, not just a figure of speech,

“If they come into use it won’t be war, as any professional understands it, just plain hell on earth. When it comes to using the big fusion weapons, you can count me in with the pacifists.

“What professional soldiers really wanted were field weapons, but evolving these hasn’t been easy. You’ll all know that even a low-power nuclear reactor is a very large object and atomic weapons of the fission type are really just reactors that’ve gone out of control. Mind you, there’s no need to shield a bomb to prevent an extension of radiation, and most of the weight of a reactor is in the shielding.

“Even so, one of the major problems in developing field weapons has been to get them small and light enough to be readily handled. The world’s first hydrogen bomb weighed fifty tons. Of course there’s been the strongest kind of pressure to get this weight and size factor down, because of the requirements of submarine-launched missiles and to reduce the bore of atomic cannon.

“Other problems have come from the desirability of such bombs being ‘clean.’ There’d be little point in using any kind of weapon to get control of territory—and that’s what victory really amounts to—if it were going to stay radio-active for long periods of time. Hence there’s been concentration on making weapons whose residual elements have a short ‘half-life’ during which their radiation can be dispersed to a safe level. This hasn’t been altogether successful—we still haven’t got rid of carbon 14. It has a half-life of eight thousand and seventy years.”

Someone down the table coughed, and Blackman shifted uneasily in his chair.

“However, both sides now have quite a respectable array of field weapons,” Simons continued. “Some are warheads for shells shot out of large, otherwise quite conventional guns, which are, however, not very mobile. A much simpler and more flexible technique is to have actual bombs, which one simply leaves behind, as one retreats, in a position the enemy is likely to pass through later. These can be exploded to order through the use of simple time fuses, or via radio links. The description of this type of weapons as STM was originally an American one, used in NATO communications.”

“STM17?” Blackman prompted.

“What about security?” the brigadier asked.

“Surely we’re all cleared here?” Roberts said impatiently.

“Indeed so,” Blackman said soothingly. “However, as Brigadier Simons knows well, the essence of security is to tell nobody, no matter how well cleared, information they don’t strictly need to know. In this case we don’t need the classified details—it’s more the size and power of the weapon that’s significant to this meeting.”

“I see. STM17 is one of the smallest of the American-manufactured atomic weapons. It’s a fission-type device small enough to be carted round in a light truck and handled by a few men. It looks like a petrol drum, but somewhat longer and thinner. The troops call it the Bunger. The potential is so heavily classified I don’t know it myself, but these things are made to have a limited and predictable explosive force, which is probably in this case a little below that of the Hiroshima bomb. That was the equivalent of twenty thousand tons of T.N.T.”

“Limited!” Roberts commented, and pursed his lips.

“Very much so. The Russians are now said to be planning one hundred megaton fusion warheads for their long-range missiles—the equivalent of one hundred million tons of T.N.T., or five thousand times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. SS9 I.C.B.M.s already in the Russian silos have warheads of twenty-five megatons.”

There was general silence. Simons glanced inquiringly at Blackman, who said:

“That should do, thank you. I will add, however. that while the STM17 is a small weapon as such things go, it could virtually destroy a small city and would do considerable damage even to a large one. Also, ‘clean’ or otherwise, the radiation level is none the less destructive during and after the explosion.”

He paused, and then added slowly, but without particular emphasis:

“There are four STM17s in an Israeli army store near the docks at Tel Aviv. I gather our government didn’t know about this until after the weapons had actually been delivered, and then fought tooth and nail to have the Americans take them away again—however, without success.

“It all happened when the Israeli Prime Minister went to the United States back in October 1969, to ask Mr. Nixon for more weapons. So far as the public were told, these were specifically twenty-five Phantom jets and eighty A-4 Skyhawks. As you may know, Mrs. Meir was once a schoolteacher in Milwaukee, and she can speak with a persuasive voice, especially in the United States.

“She took a shrewd line, appearing not to question the Americans’ insistence on controlling the Middle East power balance by providing only so many aircraft as they believed would not seriously disturb that balance. Mr. Nixon was gratified at this seemingly compliant reaction, and gave a hearing to Mrs. Meir’s further contention that, within this situation of balance as assessed by the big powers, Israel still stood in grave danger in the event of a sudden all-out Arab military attack over the canal. In such a case, she wanted to have a major deterrent.

“Israel’s only effective answer, she argued, could be field atomic weapons. There wasn’t a need for many. She made the point that the Japanese surrendered after the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb because they believed the Americans had more atomic weapons. If, in the case of sudden Arab aggression, Israel could explode one, or possibly two, atomic weapons, this would probably deter the Arab advance for the same kind of reason.

“The Americans agreed, subject to an elaborate set of conditions. Israeli possession of the bombs was to be a secret, and it has indeed been a closely guarded one. The bombs were to be used only in combat, in consultation with the United States and only actually in Israeli territory. The use of the weapons in Sinai was specifically ruled out.”

“So in general they seem safe enough,” Roberts commented.

Blackman said nothing for the moment, but got up from his chair and stared through the window, which now revealed only darkness. Then he turned and spoke again, while remaining on his feet.

“I wonder if I can communicate to you something of what it must feel like to have access to these weapons, such convenient sources of decisive power if used in the right way? If you can, put yourselves inside the mind of a dedicated man, a trained soldier and sincere patriot, who must watch his country strike once, twice, three times, at its enemies—and win—yet never really see a prospect, even a hope, of final victory. The future remains one of a ceaseless war of attrition.

“This war drags on, not fought decisively in the field or in the air, but restrained by constant checks dictated by big-nation opinion and the world balance of power. At the same time comes blow after blow struck by terrorist organisations of the other side, who fight for the other side, but for which its governments refuse to take responsibility.

“Look back through the years—a school bus is bombed, half the children die and others are maimed for life, airliners are blown up in mid-air or hijacked, snipers pick off people working in their fields or travelling near the borders—and there’s no sign of these things ending. Now comes the most insolent and grievous blow of all, the killing, in the centre of Tel Aviv, of the man who in himself was the rallying point of the struggle to survive in spite of Arab hostility.

“Mightn’t the time come when even the most disciplined soldiers felt irregular action from the Israeli side might also be worth a try, especially if such an attack could so punish the enemy his will to fight was broken for good?”

“You’re leading us to the thought,” Grimwade said slowly, “that a sort of modern Stern Gang might commandeer one or more of these nuclear devices, get them into Egypt and explode them there, perhaps even in Cairo. I suppose it’s possible, but surely there are too many good reasons why it’s most unlikely...” he shook his head.

“But if they did, and succeeded,” Blackman persisted. “I want you to speculate as broadly as possible. Supposing by some accident American-made atomic weapons did explode in Egypt, or for that matter anywhere within the Communist spheres of influence. What would be the consequences?”

“Nuclear retaliation, in this case, against Israel,” Brigadier Simons said at once. “Probably nuclear war throughout Europe, perhaps world war.”

But Roberts took issue with him sharply.

“I can’t agree, for the simple reason that all the powers involved know they would suffer themselves—terribly—from a nuclear war. What point could there be to it? Surely this is why nuclear weapons haven’t been used in anger since Nagasaki?”

“But remember that in the case we are considering, atomic weapons would already have been used,” Blackman pointed out. “What then? If you were a Russian leader, what would you do?”

“I still can’t see that the other side could do much about it,” Roberts insisted.

“Can’t you? Put yourself in their position for a while. The bomb or bombs have exploded. There have been enormous casualties. A city has been destroyed. I agree that such matters could probably be tolerated, if necessary, within the power game of nations, all other things being equal. But all else would not be equal. Something else would now exist, a dangerous new precedent. Whatever the professed cause, American atomic weapons would have been used to the massive detriment of a Russian protégé. Soviet citizens, important ones, like military advisers and technical experts, would die.

“If the Communists let such a thing pass the first time, what would they do the next time, and the time after that? Think of the loss of prestige in global terms. Would they gradually allow themselves to be forced back against a wall? Again, could they really be sure the attack was not secretly sponsored by the Israeli Government, perhaps even by the United States itself?

“Gentlemen, I have served in our embassy in Moscow and I am certain that is the way their line of thought would run. They would feel they could not allow such a situation to develop without insisting on some kind of retaliation—I hesitate to use the word revenge. This need not mean full-scale war—but something would happen somewhere. Whatever it might be, and where, we should much rather not find out.”

For a full minute nobody spoke. Then Grimwade said:

“It’s a persuasive line of argument in a way, but then, David, you’re a persuasive type of man. With respect, a professional persuader. What about my earlier point? Surely this hideous idea, fortunately, just isn’t likely. After all, the whole ‘balance of terror’ situation with atomic weapons is hedged around with problems too big for anyone to solve fundamentally. Why is this suddenly so important now? You’ve got a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, haven’t you? Drag him out and let’s see how black he is.” He was not smiling.

Blackman took up the cable flimsy still lying before him on the table and leaned forward, a new urgency in his manner.

“The organisation of Israeli military men I postulated actually exists. We’ve known this for five weeks—also the identity of its leader and the fact that other influential people support him. They’re mostly soldiers, but there are some politicians in it as well.

“During the last elections, the largest gain made by any group was that of the Gahal bloc, a right wing coalition that won 27 of the 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. Gahal largely represents hard-headed businessmen, who want to see the war ended, decisively and for good. Israel is a small country in population and resources and even though her people work hard and make all kinds of sacrifices, although well-wishers in other parts of the world make money contributions, there could be only one end to a long-extended, indefinite war. Israel would be crippled financially in the finish. The Arabs would win by default.

“Naturally it’s not the official policy of the Gahal parties, hawks though they may be, to support irregular operations against Egypt. However, we are sure that at least two of their members in the Knesset are in with the conspirators we’re discussing, who show all the signs of being a very tough group indeed. We know them only by the name ‘Jacob,’ but that could as easily be the code name of the operation they’re planning—for they’re up to something, that we also know.”

“How?” Roberts asked.

Blackman hesitated momentarily before replying:

“Colonel Rudzol, the man who runs this group, has a serviced flat in one of the new three-storied blocks in Arlosoroff Street in the Tel Aviv suburb of Zafon. A woman who cleans the apartments is our contact. Our man is often visited by his friends and at times they’ve been slightly careless because the old lady seems so stupid. However, she has an excellent memory. We asked her to tell us everything she heard, even seemingly meaningless snatches of conversation. It’s surprising how often this method works, and how one can over a period build up a framework of facts. Soon there was no possible doubt to us that Rudzol and his associates were planning an independent action against the Arabs, although we had no clue as to what it might be.

“Then came an extraordinary chain of events. Our informant reported to us a name she’d heard. Naturally, we’re always interested in names so we can enlarge our picture of the Jacob organisation. She thought it was Abu or Abdul Sharaf, but this had no particular significance, even after inquiries, to our people in Tel Aviv. As a matter of routine we circulated the information to all our posts in the Arab world and, sure enough, Cairo knew about a playboy academic named Abu Sharaf.

“He has an English girlfriend, and by a sheer stroke of luck our military attaché, while at a party, overheard this girl claim that Sharaf was really a Jew. It was a noisy party, at which people say all kinds of stupid things, so nobody took any notice of her—except for our man, who already knew enough to be interested in Sharaf. We knew Sharaf was fond of boating on the Mediterranean, which is a strenuous sport to indulge in from Cairo, involving a long drive to and from Port Said, where he keeps this boat—the Miranda, she’s called, a seventy-foot luxury cruiser, remarkably fast. Why Port Said, you may well ask, and not the yacht club at Alex? Port Said is, of course, a hundred and fifty miles or so closer to Tel Aviv.

“The girlfriend had problems we were in a position to help with, and so she agreed to talk. That was only tonight, and the results are in this cable. There is a radio transceiver in the Miranda, on which she several times overheard Sharaf speaking late at night, she claims, in Yiddish. That was what first put the idea in her mind that he could be an Israeli. Then of course other things came along that strengthened her conviction. Our informant doesn’t speak or understand Yiddish, and taken by itself her claim might have been interesting, but too vague to pin much on.

“Then, as an afterthought, and without any prompting, she came out with a name she’d overheard Sharaf use several times in the course of a radio conversation and which she thought was the name of the person on the other end. It was Jacob.”

He lapsed into silence.

“The bombs are guarded, of course?” Grimwade said at last. “These Jacob people couldn’t get at them easily, surely? I’ve no doubt they’re very well looked after.”

Blackman’s face formed a wry smile.

“Indeed they are. The STMs are guarded night and day, on a roster basis, by a crack army unit, a special duties commando group about whose loyalty there could be no doubt. It is an old-style elite corps of hand-picked men grouped around a leader who is himself something of a national hero.”

“Colonel Rudzol?” Brigadier Simons inquired drily.

“Unfortunately, yes.”