Ultimatum (17 page)

As the sound of the footsteps came closer there was an answering, ‘Go ahead, Sally. I read you.’ The pursuer was moving deliberately, one careful step after another, the sound of his approach just audible. The man in the ditch raised the Beretta, held the Sony to his lips. A dark shape loomed above him. The telephone man fired three shots at it, heard a sharp cry. A torch flashed from somewhere behind him. He turned to fire but was too late. A bullet struck him in the back, a heavy blow that threw him against the side of the ditch. ‘Sheep … sheep-wresh,’ he burbled into the Sony. Blood was streaming from his mouth. ‘Durl … durlurv … ford … noo … un …’ He choked on the blood, spat it out. ‘Too … mor …’ he gasped. Another bullet hit him with a club-like blow. Bright lights shone
in his eyes, a bullet smashed into his face and he lost
consciousness
.

Within twenty minutes of the receipt of Salamander’s message Juri had locked and left his apartment in the Rue Hamra and driven down the Avenue du Général de Gaulle and the Avenue Ramlet el Baida, hugging the Marine Drive, the sea to his right. Where Ramlet el Baida turned east to join Rue el Ahtal, he left the road and followed the track down to the beach. The night was intensely dark, the place deserted at that hour.

He turned off the lights, felt for a switch under the dash, flicked it and pushed the lead of a pentop mike into the car radio’s control panel. Concealed behind it was a Siemen’s VHF 500 transmitter. He spoke into the mike. ‘
Suffolk-five
-nine-eight.’ The response was immediate. ‘
Plymouth-three-
seven-two. Go ahead Suffolk-five-nine-eight.’

Juri passed Salamander’s message, adding, ‘Sounds of shots, speech slurred, words garbled.’

The acknowledgement came and he took the mike lead from the panel, shut the switch under the seat, put on
headlights
and drove back into Beirut. The message would probably have been monitored, the point of transmission possibly plotted, but he was not worried. He never
transmitted
from the same place twice. What he was worrying about was Salamander.

At Intelligence HQ in Tel Aviv, Jakob Kahn and Bar Mordecai had problems with Juri’s message. The
communications
division had taken the transmission on tape.
Phonetically
it read,
SHEEP
…
SHEEPWRESH
…
DURL
…
DURLURV
…
FORD
…
NOO
…
UN
…
TWO
…
MORE
…

Kahn frowned with irritation. ‘These bloody phonetics ball things up. Forget the way words look, Bar. They’re
only sounds. Read them over to yourself quickly. Keep doing it. See what you get.’

The two men sat in silence reading and muttering to themselves. ‘Now read aloud, fast,’ said Kahn.

Mordecai did. Several times.

Kahn glanced at him. ‘Got it?’

Mordecai said, ‘I’ve got
Shipwreck.
Delivery
forward
noon
… but I’m not sure of that last bit …
two
more
… Does that fit?’

Kahn was lighting a cheroot, making a ceremony of it. ‘No, it doesn’t. But
tomorrow
does.’

‘Of course. Sticks out a mile.’

‘Always does, Bar, once you’ve been told. Now let’s think this over. I assume
forward
means
brought
forward
.’
Kahn adopted his brooding posture, arms on desk, shoulders hunched, head forward, nodding sagely. Mordecai, too, did some hard thinking. Later, they compared notes. Of certain things they became sure. One – the message almost certainly concerned Mahmoud el Ka’ed, Salamander’s principal assignment. Two – in Israeli Intelligence the code-word
Shipwreck
meant one thing only – the agent using it was in grave danger at the time of transmission. Three – the slurred, garbled words, the sound of shots, suggested
Salamander
had been captured or killed.

‘Killed, I hope,’ said Kahn. ‘He knew too much.’

‘He’ll be difficult to replace,’ said Mordecai. ‘How long has he been in that telephone department?’

‘Seven/eight years.’ Kahn shrugged his shoulders. ‘He had good cover. I hate losing him. But we always find others. Let’s get back to the message. Delivery of what and where? To be brought forward. Why?’

Mordecai was tentative, judicious, flying kites. ‘Possibly, I say possibly, the missing nuke.’

‘Probably, Bar.’ Kahn squinted at the tip of the cheroot he’d just lit. ‘We know Salamander was bugging the Miramar apartment today. We know from this message that he was in bad trouble, but had to get it through. So what could it be? The nuke? I’d say “yes” to that. Why brought forward? I can’t answer that. To be delivered at noon
tomorrow. That’s twenty-four hours before the ultimatum expires. Delivered where? We know that Zeid is Barakat. That he operates in Spender Street.’ Kahn sat bolt upright, and Mordecai read the familiar signal of inspiration. ‘Remember what Ibrahim Souref said in that Mocal tape?’

Mordecai did, but he wasn’t out to spoil Kahn’s play. ‘You mean?’ he asked.

‘
Think
of
Rudi
and
Ahmad.
They
have
to
deliver
the
goods.
That’s what he said.’

‘Or words to that effect.’ Mordecai smoothed his hair. ‘So Rudi and Ahmad
could
be delivering at noon tomorrow to Spender Street.’

Kahn said, ‘I’d rate that possible, Bar. But not as high as probable. London’s a bloody great city. Spender Street may be nothing more than their work cover. The nuke could be going some place else. And it’s outside the search area right now, that’s why it’s still to be delivered. Right?’

‘Right. So what do we do?’

‘Pass Salamander’s message with our interpretation to Barlov. He’ll contact Ascher. We brief Ruth before she leaves in the morning.’ He thought of something. ‘She’ll miss the noon delivery if it
is
Spender Street.’

Most of the London dailies on the morning of Wednesday, November 10th, expressed in one way or another public unease at the lack of information from the Government, observing that the ultimatum would expire at noon on the following day.

In its leader
The
Guardian
urged the Prime Minister to take the people into his confidence however unpalatable the news might be.
Few
Londoners
,
wrote its editor,
can
be
unaware
of
the
massive
search
now
taking
place.
Many,
perhaps
the
majority,
may
ask
if
this
is
not
a
fruitless
undertaking,
the
consequences
of
which
may
be
disastrous.
Whatever
the
humiliation
involved,
would
not
the
Government
be
well
advised
to
call
off
the
search
and
announce
acceptance
of
the
ultimatum’s
terms.
That
this
would
entail
bowing
to
the
will
of
the
terrorists,
so
savagely
and
barbarically
imposed,
should
not
mask
the
greater
truth
that
the
claim
of
the
Palestine
people
to
a
homeland
of
their
own
is
as
well
founded
morally
as
its
settlement
is
long
overdue.

The media generally, while deprecating hysteria and urging calm and business as usual, vied with each other in painting lurid and sensational pictures of the holocaust which might result from the explosion of a fifteen-kiloton nuclear device in the heart of London.

Interviews with nuclear physicists, nuclear weapons experts, recently-retired generals, admirals and air marshals, fought for space and viewing time with those of Hiroshima survivors, witnesses of Pacific atoll tests, scientific and medical luminaries and politicians of varying calibre and all parties anxious to make something of the occasion.

With the advantage of visual presentation, the BBC and ITV dominated the scene and Patrick Moore, James Burke,
Raymond Baxter and other pop scientists were having a field day. If the ultimatum was doing nothing else it was educating the British public in the horrors of nuclear war.

It was not surprising that the media’s exertions in this direction rather more than cancelled out its appeals for calm and business as usual in the other. As the hours dragged by the morale of Londoners began to bend and the exodus to assume serious proportions. Roads leading out of London were choked with traffic – hotel accommodation in the provinces was no longer obtainable – Londoners were staying with relatives and friends in all parts of the country – caravans could no longer be bought or hired – and motorists in their thousands were driving into the country to sleep under canvas or in their cars. The danger of disease through lack of hygiene was but one of the many problems thrown up by the crisis.

The consensus of world media, while sympathetic to Britain’s dilemma, believed she had no practical alternative to acceptance of the ultimatum, and labelled the massive search a dangerous gamble.

In the international political arena there was, however, some opposition to a policy of appeasement, notably in France and Canada where political leaders had both publicly and privately urged the British Government not to yield to nuclear blackmail since to do so would endanger the whole fabric of Western Society. Noting this a French commentator observed:
To
resist
nuclear
blackmail
is
more
easily
said
than
done,
no
matter
how
ethically
correct.
For
France,
who
supplied
the
nuclear
warhead
and
is
herself
not
at
risk,
the
role
of
candid
critic,
however
tempting,
is
disreputable.

There was growing though not yet formidable opposition to appeasement among politicians and military leaders in the United States. Tired of humiliation and retreat, fearful of the growth of nuclear blackmail, and as yet unaware of the US President’s advice to the British Prime Minister to accept the terms of the ultimatum – advice given with the
confidential backing of Mr Brezhnev – they believed such a policy to be disastrous.

In Japan there was opposition to acceptance for more or less the same reasons, reinforced perhaps by a degree of
schadenfreude
; a notion that it might do the West no harm to have a taste of Hiroshima medicine. In Israel, predictably, public and political opinion was implacably opposed to yielding to force. Indeed, the Israeli Prime Minister had that morning announced to a press conference that Israel not only had a nuclear capability but would not hesitate to use it if attempts were made to recover conquered territory by any means other than negotiation. ‘We are not prepared,’ he said, ‘to remain idle while other nations use Israel as a bargaining counter for the solution of their problems, be they oil or something more sinister.’

The oblique reference to the ultimatum was not lost on the correspondents to whom he spoke.

An emergency meeting of the Security Council in New York considered an Israeli resolution condemning the Arab States,
whose
harbouring
and
nurturing
of
the
PLO
and
its
terrorist
offshoots
has
encouraged
this
barbaric
act
,
and censuring France,
whose
action
in
supplying
nuclear
weapons
to
the
Middle
East
has
made
it
possible.
Predictably, the resolution was vetoed by France and the Soviet Union. A French amendment urging the Arab States to persuade those responsible to withdraw the ultimatum and come to the negotiating table was adopted.

A resolution submitted by the Arab States calling upon Israel to announce at once her intention to return the conquered territories, and so remedy the injustice responsible for the ultimatum, was adopted.

In a communiqué issued in Beirut the PLO once again
disclaimed
all responsibility for theft of the nuclear warhead and the ultimatum to the British Government, Yasir
Arafat repudiating the Soukour-al-Sahra’ as a dangerous and irresponsible group of militants whose activities could do irreparable damage to the Palestinian cause. He added, however, that abhorrence of their action should not mask the justice of their claim for the return of the Palestinian homelands.

In London the ad hoc Committee met at frequent intervals, the various searches continued to be as unremitting as they were unrewarding and contingency planning went steadily ahead. As the hours went by, behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity intensified in a number of countries. Opinion among members of the ad hoc Committee was now divided between those who favoured the soft-line advocated by the US President and those who didn’t.

The President’s policy was favoured by the Prime Minister, the Home and Foreign Secretaries, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the Chairmen of the GLC and Port of London Authority.

Opposed to these were the Defence Secretary, the Chief of the General Staff, the Chairman of the Combined Intelligence Committee, the DGSS, the Head of the Special Branch and Sir George Isaacson. Increasingly this group believed that the warhead must be found and neutralized. If this were not done, they said, the threat to London would remain whatever action the Government might take. It was apparent, said the DGSS, that the Soukour-al-Sahra’ had no intention of parting with the warhead and he drew attention to
condition
8 of the ultimatum which stipulated,
the
nuclear
device
will
remain
in
position
in
London
under
the
control
of
the
Soukour-
al
-Sahra
’
until
such
time
as
the
undertakings
have
been
fulfilled
in
all
respects.

There was no guarantee, he said, that the SAS would not impose further demands on the British Government as time went on. There was, he continued, the high probability that the SAS would take the warhead to other countries – threatening detonation if interfered with at any stage – so
that New York, Paris and West Berlin, for example, might well be the next victims of nuclear blackmail.

The Defence Secretary supported the DGSS and added, ‘Let the United States and the Soviet Union, in pursuance of their covert policies, issue their communiqués. Let them offer to provide a new Palestine and guarantee the territorial and sovereign integrity of the State of Israel once she has returned the conquered territories.

‘Let the British Government, if you wish, appear to support such a policy –
but
in
principle
only
and
without
com
mitment
.
In the meantime continue the search for the
warhead
up to and after the expiry of the ultimatum. Continue the search, I say, until it is found.’ The Defence Secretary wagged an admonitory finger at members of the Committee. ‘I do not believe they will detonate that device – even if it is in London, which it may well not be.’

It was against this background of divided opinion in political circles both at home and abroad that the Cabinet, faced with the unenviable task of formulating a policy before the expiry of the ultimatum at noon the next day, itself began to divide into hawks and doves.

At noon on Wednesday, November 10th, the issue was still very much in doubt. During the afternoon it was, however, agreed that the Prime Minister should speak to the Nation and again give the assurance that the
Government
would take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that the warhead was not detonated, however unpalatable those steps might be.

At 5 pm the BBC and ITV interrupted their services to announce that the Prime Minister would address the Nation at 10 pm that night.

There was speculation as to the lateness of the hour. In the main people thought it had been chosen both to reassure Londoners before the onset of the final day, and
because it was a time when most people were likely to be at home.

In fact the time had been chosen because Greenwich Mean Time was five hours in advance of US Eastern Standard Time. The US President and the Chairman of the Soviet Union had agreed confidentially to issue their communiqués at four o’clock Eastern Standard Time. The Prime Minister, having been told this, had decided to speak to the British people an hour later. The communiqués would, he knew, smooth the way for acceptance of the ultimatum.