Ultimatum (19 page)

‘Give my soul for it.’ She smiled wanly.

‘You needn’t do that. I’ll make it for you. You start talking.’ Ascher went to the cupboard and switched on the kettle. For the next fifteen minutes she told them all she knew.

‘Good.’ He ran his hands through his shaggy hair. ‘Get across to Palace Green right away. Tell all that to the Ambassador and Ezra Barlov. They’ve had the hardcore stuff from Jakob. But you’ve got the detail. After that make for Vauxhall Bridge and get some rest. You’re going to need it soon. Be back here not later than six.’

She stamped her foot. ‘Shalom! We don’t know where it is. What are you doing? We’re wasting time.’

He looked at her in silence. ‘We don’t know where it is, Ruth. But we know it’s expected. Listen to this.’ He switched on the spare Grundig and let it run for a few minutes before switching off. ‘Recorded at ten to two,’ he said. ‘Just over an hour ago.’

‘My God,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before. So Rudi and Ahmad are on their way.’

Ascher shrugged his burly shoulders. ‘Should be, you heard. Due at noon. They’ve not yet arrived. That’s what they’re twitching about in Mocal right now. And that’s why Zol’s up at Palace Green with Ezra Barlov. They’re telling Jakob on the scrambler.’

‘What d’you think has happened?’

‘I don’t think, Ruth. Makes me tired. Better wait and see.’

‘And if we see it delivered?’

‘Let Jakob know at once and wait for instructions.’ He turned to Kagan. ‘Anything new, Micky?’

The young man looked up for a moment. ‘Zeid’s phoned Rudi’s place – wherever it is – from a call-box, but gets no answer. They’re getting really worried over there.
Wondering
what the hell’s happened. They can’t understand why Souref was not phoned at the call-box.’

‘That makes two of us.’ Shalom pulled at his beard and watched a puzzled, tense Ruth putting on her wet
headscarf
. He thought once again what an attractive woman she was. One day, perhaps, when there was more time, he’d tell her how he felt about her.

There was sudden urgency in Kagan’s ‘Shalom! Look!’

Ascher checked the time – 2.47 pm – took the opera glasses from the coffee table, moved into the shadows beside the window and looked through the slots of the Venetian blind. A black van had stopped on the opposite side of Spender Street, outside 39.

‘Just arrived.’ Kagan was husky with excitement.

Two men got out. One went into 39, the other unlocked the van doors, pulled out a pallet and a porter’s two-wheeled trolley. Before long the man who’d gone into 39 came back. He was followed by Zeid Barakat, Hanna Nasour, Najib Hamadeh and Ibrahim Souref. The Israelis had seen Souref leave 39 that morning, and come back at a
quarter-past
-two.

‘The van crew must be Rudi and Ahmad,’ said Ascher.

The six Palestinians gathered round the back of the Bedford, three climbed in and presently the end of a large hessian-wrapped bale appeared. The pallet was pushed beneath the tail-gate and those in the street reached for the bale while those inside lowered it with check ropes. Slowly, with much pushing and heaving, it was settled on the pallet. The men in the van joined the others and, with the aid of the porter’s trolley and crow bars, lifted the front end of the pallet over the kerb. Then all six shoved and pulled until they’d got the bale to the entrance where the double-doors had been opened to receive it. They struggled to get it through, turning it half sideways because it was too wide. Eventually they got it in and the double-doors closed behind them. The two men Ascher had assumed were Rudi and Ahmad came out, climbed into the van and drove off.

Carried out in pouring rain, the whole operation had taken less than five minutes. Other than the Israelis, no one but a handful of pedestrians had witnessed it.

‘Phew,’ said Kagan. ‘Made me tired to watch. It was heavy.’

‘Must have been rollers in the van,’ said Ascher. ‘The pallet had rollers too. Four Israelis could have handled that lot.’

‘Chauvinist!’ Kagan laughed in his excitement. ‘Reckon that’s the nuke?’

‘Of course,’ Ascher said it with finality. ‘They wouldn’t have killed Salamander for a bale of carpets.’ He was thinking that what they’d seen was strangely unreal. They’d waited so long, so patiently, watched and listened so thoroughly, even when it had seemed they were wasting their time. But his mind was too full of what lay ahead to dwell on what had just happened. He put on a duffel coat. ‘You stay here,’ he said to Kagan. ‘Zol Levi will be along in the next half hour. I’m going up to the Embassy. We’ve got to get cracking before the Brits’ Prime Minister announces the sale of Israel.’

At 5.50 pm local time on Wednesday, November 10th, a Sikorsky helicopter touched down on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, not far from the Ramat Aviv Hotel. Cars and a group of security men were waiting on the patch of open ground as two passengers stepped from the helicopter into a big sedan with armoured-glass windows.

Three traffic policemen on motorcycles moved off, a car with five security men followed, then the big sedan. Two more cars, each with five security men, fell in behind.

The motorcade travelled down the Haifa Road into Tel Aviv, picked up the Petah Tikosh road, turned left into Herzl Street and shed the motorcyclists. Soon afterwards, following a series of left and right hand turns, the sedan pulled up outside the entrance to a red-brick building while the escorting cars drove slowly on. A group of men on the
pavement formed a semi-circle round the entrance while others, unseen, watched from windows above the street, sniper rifles at the ready. The helicopter passengers were ushered into the building and the men on the pavement melted away. It all seemed very casual, but it was highly organized.

A few minutes later the Israeli Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary were in Jakob Kahn’s office. They had left Jerusalem within half an hour of receiving an urgent message from the Israeli Ambassador in London. They had come to Kahn rather than summon him to Jerusalem because the situation required immediate secret exchanges with the Ambassador in London and the facility of direct consultation with intelligence staffs at either end. Only Tel Aviv could satisfy those requirements. The Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary had come directly from an emergency meeting of the Israeli Cabinet where decisions concerning the London message had already been taken.

The discussions in Jakob Kahn’s office – both with him and London – concluded shortly before eight o’clock. They were as intense as they were decisive.

The Israeli Ambassador, accompanied by Colonel Ezra Barlov, was received by the Prime Minister at Number 10 Downing Street, at 6.45 pm Greenwich Mean Time. The Prime Minister had with him the Foreign Secretary and Andrew Lanyard, his principal private secretary.

The usual courtesies having been exchanged, the Prime Minister said, ‘I understand you have news of exceptional importance for me, Ambassador.’

The Israeli Ambassador nodded. ‘Yes, Prime Minister. We have found the nuclear warhead …’ He paused. ‘In London.’

The Prime Minister, skilled in concealing emotion, lit an already-lighted pipe with slow deliberation. ‘You have, I take it, reported this to Scotland Yard?’ He knew perfectly well the Ambassador hadn’t, for Scotland Yard would instantly have informed him.

‘No, Prime Minister. I have not.’

The Prime Minister’s manner changed. ‘May I suggest, Ambassador, that that was a serious omission. Where was it found?’

The Ambassador hunched his shoulders, sighed
apologetically
. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Only our deep-cover agents do. May I make it clear that I am acting under the instructions of my Prime Minister.’

‘What are those instructions?’

‘I was told to report the finding to you in these terms, personally and without delay. That was why I asked for an immediate audience. I was also to inform you that our intelligence service has prepared an operational plan to deal effectively with the terrorists guarding the warhead and to prevent its detonation. It is the earnest desire of my Prime Minister and his Cabinet that we should execute the plan in close co-operation with your authorities. If, on the other hand,’ the Israeli Ambassador’s eyes never left the Prime Minister’s, ‘that co-operation is not possible, we shall have no alternative but to carry out the operation on our own. This we will do with extreme reluctance because its execution will then be so much more difficult.’

The Prime Minister pulled himself up in his chair, took the pipe out of his mouth and stared at the Ambassador. ‘Are you suggesting that your Government contemplates carrying out an operation of this sort on British soil? On the territory of the country to which you are accredited?’

‘I am afraid, Prime Minister, our Cabinet took the view that if the nuclear warhead were not found the measures your Government might take, encouraged by the United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab States, would threaten the security of Israel. To return to the warhead, our
intelligence
agents have found it and they have the
capability
to deal with it. Immediately and effectively. Israel appreciates that since it is your territory you would want to be fully involved. Indeed, if as we hope British
co-operation
is forthcoming, the entire operation will be
regarded
as a British one. Israel will claim no credit either
for finding the warhead or assisting in dealing with it.’

The Prime Minister stood up, put his pipe on the
mantelpiece
. Andrew Lanyard recognized the signal. The PM felt cornered, was thinking hard, playing for time. The Israeli Ambassador and Ezra Barlov watched in silence. Eventually the Prime Minister turned to them. ‘I find your proposal quite extraordinary, Ambassador. I am not sure that its flavour of blackmail is any less distasteful than the ultimatum itself.’

The Israeli Ambassador shook his head in disagreement. ‘Blackmail is a harsh word, Prime Minister – quite
inappropriate
to Israel’s attitude. The terrorists’ ultimatum threatens to destroy London. My Government’s proposal is an explicit undertaking to remove that threat. In return we ask for nothing but your co-operation in saving your capital from destruction, its people from death and injury and your country from humiliation and disaster. We do not think world opinion would consider that an unreasonable offer.’

The Prime Minister’s mouth closed in a tight line. ‘Your words are shrewdly chosen Ambassador, but they do not alter the facts. I will discuss the matter with my Cabinet I must warn you, however, that it is highly unlikely they will agree to such a proposal. It is, I repeat, a quite
extraordinary
one.’

The Israeli Ambassador looked at his watch. ‘The situation is quite extraordinary, is it not, Prime Minister? May I ask for a written reply by nine o’clock tonight. I understand you are to address the Nation at ten.’

The Prime Minister stood, chin in hand, deep in thought, before answering. At last he said, ‘Please outline the
operational
plan, Ambassador. I shall have to explain it to the Cabinet.’

‘I am afraid I cannot do that. It is an intelligence service document, not in my possession. If, as we profoundly hope, there is to be co-operation, it will of course be disclosed to those concerned by our agents.’

‘I see. What will Israel do if we reject the proposal?’

The Ambassador nodded towards Ezra Barlov. ‘I would like Colonel Barlov to answer that question.’

The Prime Minister’s ‘Certainly’ was like an icy bullet.

Barlov said, ‘Our men have the nuclear warhead and those with it under continuous surveillance. They also have the operational plan. Their orders are to execute it at midnight unless they receive instructions to the contrary.’

‘Who would give those instructions?’

Barlov spread his hands apologetically. ‘All I can tell you, Prime Minister, is that deep-cover agents work directly under the authority of their headquarters in Israel. We do not control them.’

Shortly before nine o’clock that night, Dugald McGann, Head of the Special Branch, and Andrew Lanyard, were driven to the Israeli Embassy where Ezra Barlov,
forewarned
of their coming, at once showed them in to the Ambassador. Lanyard introduced McGann, and passed the Ambassador a letter. ‘I was instructed by the Prime Minister to hand this to you personally,’ he said.

The Ambassador took the letter. ‘Please sit down, gentlemen.’ They sat down and were silent while he opened and read it: