Kabakov was on the scrambler with Tell for half an hour. The ambassador expressed no surprise at Kabakov’s. request for roundabout Russian aid. Kabakov had the feeling that Yoachim Tell had never been surprised in his life. He thought he had detected a bit of extra warmth in the ambassador’s voice as he said goodbye. Was it sympathy? Kabakov reddened and stalked toward the door of the communications center. The telex in the corner rattled and the clerk’s voice stopped him in the doorway. An answer was coming to his query about the Syrian bombing in 1971.
The bombing took place August 15, the telex said. It occurred during Al Fatah’s major recruiting effort in Damascus that year. Three organizers were known to have been in Damascus at that time:
• Fakhri al-Amari, who led the team that assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi el-Tel and drank his blood. Amari was believed to be in Algeria at the present time. Inquiries were under way.
• Abdel Kadir, who once bazookaed an Israeli school bus; killed when his bomb factory near Cheikh Saad blew up in 1973. The telex added that doubtless Kabakov would not need his memory refreshed on Kadir’s demise, as he had been present at the time.
• Muhammad Fasil, alias Yusuf Halef, alias Sammar Tufiq. Believed to be the architect of the Munich atrocity and one of the men most wanted by the Mossad. Fasil was last reported operating in Syria. The Mossad believed him to be in Damascus at the time of Kabakov’s Beirut raid, but recent reports, not yet confirmed, placed him in Beirut within the past three weeks. Israeli intelligence was pressing sources in Beirut and elsewhere on Fasil’s whereabouts.
Photos of al-Amari and Fasil were being transmitted via satellite to the Israeli embassy in Washington to be forwarded to Kabakov. The negatives would follow. Kabakov winced at that. If they were sending negatives, the pictures must be poor—too poor to be very useful when transmitted electronically. Still, it was something. He wished that he had waited to ask about the Russians. “Muhammad Fasil,” Kabakov muttered. “Yes. This is your kind of show. I hope you came personally this time.”
He went back into the rain for the trip to Brooklyn. Moshevsky and the trio of Israelis under his direction combed the Cobble Hill bars and short-order restaurants and klabash games looking for traces of Muzi’s Greek assistant. Perhaps the Greek had seen the American. Kabakov knew the FBI had covered this ground, but his own men did not look like police, they fit better into the ethnic mix of the neighborhood, and they could eavesdrop in several languages. Kabakov stationed himself in Muzi’s office, examining the incredible rat’s nest of papers the importer had left, in the hope that he could find some scrap of information about the American or about Muzi’s contacts in the Middle East. A name, a place, anything. If there was one person between Istanbul and the Gulf of Aden who knew the nature of the Black September mission in the United States, and Kabakov could find out his name, he would kidnap that person or die trying. By mid-evening he had discovered that Muzi kept at least three sets of books, but he had learned little else. Wearily, he returned to Rachel’s apartment.
Rachel was waiting up for him. She seemed somehow different and, looking at her, he was no longer weary. Their separation during the day had made something clear to both of them.
Very gently they became lovers. And their encounters thereafter began and ended with great gentleness, as though they feared they might tear the fragile tent their feelings built in air around their bed.
“I’m silly,” she said once, resting. “I don’t care if I’m silly.”
“I certainly don’t care if you’re silly,” Kabakov said. “Want a cigar?”
Ambassador Tell’s call came at seven a.m., while Kabakov was in the shower. Rachel opened the bathroom door and called his name into the steam. Kabakov came out quickly, while Rachel was still in the doorway. He wrapped a towel around himself and padded to the telephone. Rachel began to work very hard on her fingernails.
Kabakov was uneasy. If the ambassador had an answer on the Russians, he would not have used this telephone. Tell’s voice was calm and very businesslike.
“Major, we’ve gotten an inquiry about you from the New York Times. Also some uncomfortable questions about the incident on the Leticia. I’d like for you to come down here. I’ll be free a little after three, if that’s convenient.”
“I’ll be there.”
Kabakov found the Times on Rachel’s doormat. Page one: ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER IN WASHINGTON FOR MIDEAST TALKS. Read that later. COST OF LIVING. GM RECALLS TRUCKS. Page two. Oh, hell. Here it is:
By MARGARET LEEDS FINCH A Lebanese seaman was questioned under torture by Israeli agents aboard a Libyan merchant vessel in New York harbor last week prior to his arrest by U.S. Customs officials on smuggling charges, the Lebanese consul said Tuesday night.
In a strongly worded protest to the U.S. State Department, Consul Yusuf el-Amedi said first mate Mustapha Fawzi of the freighter Leticia was beaten and subjected to electric shock by two men who identified themselves as Israelis. He said he did not know what the agents were after and refused to comment on smuggling conspiracy charges pending against Fawzi.
An Israeli spokesman emphatically denied the allegations, saying the charge was “a clumsy attempt to arouse anti-Israeli feeling.”
Department of Corrections physician Carl Gillette said he examined Fawzi at the Federal House of Detention on West Street and found no evidence of a beating.
Consul Amedi said Fawzi was attacked by Major David Kabakov of the Israeli Defense Force and another unidentified man. Kabakov is attached to the Israeli embassy in Washington.
The Leticia was impounded…
Kabakov skimmed the rest of the article. The Customs authorities had kept their mouths shut on the investigation of the Leticia and the newspaper did not have the Muzi connection yet, thank God.
“You are being ordered home, officially,” Ambassador Tell said.
The corner of Kabakov’s mouth twitched. He felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach.
Tell moved the papers on his desk with the tip of his pen. “The arrest of Mustapha Fawzi was reported routinely to the Lebanese consul, as Fawzi is a Lebanese citizen. A lawyer was provided by the consulate. The lawyer apparently is acting on orders from Beirut and he’s playing Fawzi like a calliope. The Libyans were informed, since the vessel is of Libyan registry. Once your name came into it, I have no doubt Al Fatah was alerted and so was Colonel Khadafy, the enlightened Libyan statesman. I haven’t seen the deposition supposedly authored by Fawzi, but I understand it’s very colorful. Very graphic anatomically. Did you hurt him?”
“I didn’t have to.”
“The Lebanese and the Libyans will continue to protest until you are withdrawn. Probably the Syrians will join it, too. Khadafy owns more than one Arab diplomat. And I doubt that any of them know why you are really here, with the possible exception of Khadafy.”