Colin's skeptical attitude changed when he realized that the repercussions could affect the UK. If indeed the contract was set up by a British national right under the nose of the British intelligence community and the press got wind of that then the Home Office and perhaps the government would be shaken by the scandal. Colin promised David that he would do his utmost to identify this Alan Ross person and suggested that they meet for dinner.
In the evening they had a fine roast beef dinner at Colin's exclusive club and over a glass of Port in the club's cozy study Colin stated that he had a real surprise for David. David raised his eyebrows and said "I am waiting…"
Colin laughed and said "Hold on to your seat. Alan Ross is the name of the former Iranian citizen whose original name was Ali Rashid". David just looked at him, so after a dramatic pause Colin continued "As a matter of fact he is a member of this gentlemen's club — well, its standards have deteriorated over the years — and he should be here any minute. Believe it or not but he is a senior civil servant in the Foreign Office. In fact, he is now head of the Iranian desk and played a part in the negotiations that led to the signing of the nuclear deal. One of his tasks was to eavesdrop on the conversations of the members of the Iranian delegation without revealing that he understood Farsi."
David was stunned. Finally he managed to say "Do you know if he was acting as a private citizen when he made the contract with Segan or was he on official business for the UK government?"
Colin just smiled and refrained from answering. David persisted until Colin relented "I am still trying to discover that. I have my doubts whether the exchequer would trust him with millions of Euro but stranger things have happened. In our line of business the improbable happens every day and the incredible at least once a week and unacceptable and unbelievable things happen every month. Once in a blue moon the government does its best to undermine itself. I think that Alan Ross has done all of those in one single contract".
David wondered if he could get his hand on Alan Ross and take him to a nice and quiet place where he would drag the truth out of him. He asked Colin "I think I need to have a very private talk with him. What do you know about his personal life?"
Colin looked at David for a long moment before responding "Yes, I am sure that it is a good idea. The Foreign Office has a dubious track record — they always seem to bet on the wrong horse. They failed in preventing the First World War, failed to understand the dangers of Nazism, failed to recognize that the days of the British Empire were over, foolishly participated in the Suez crisis, not to mention the part they played in muddling with affairs of the Middle East countries. The rise of ISIS is undoubtedly one of the outcomes of our intervention in Iraq and our participation in crowning a Shiite ruler after the fall of Saddam's regime. Another signs of the anachronistic approach is the very name The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or FCO for short that has long lost its past grandeur but has failed to acknowledge that. David, I'll try to provide you with some useful intelligence about Ross. Please contact me tomorrow. Remember this conversation has never taken place".
Colin expected David to say "What conversation" and looked expectantly at him, so David obliged and then continued "Thanks for the dinner. It is good to see that there are still clever and honest people in your administration. I'll get back to you tomorrow afternoon after I make some preparations for the warm reception tomorrow night."
David contacted Shimony on a secure line and gave him the gist of his meeting with Colin Thomas. Shimony gave the "go ahead" signal that he had requested and said that a special Mossad team would be sent to London to assist him. David was told to expect them to arrive at noon the next day and meanwhile he called the London station head and arranged to meet him at one of Mossad's safe houses an hour later. Yehuda Tobias was a veteran Mossad operative who received the posting in London as a kind of retirement gift. He had risen through the ranks of Mossad as an expert on European affairs and had no field experience. Therefore he was really excited to have an opportunity to be involved in some real action — of the type he had seen in movies and only heard rumors about the jobs his own organization had carried out. He was also thrilled to work with David Avivi who was a legend in Mossad thanks to his successful operations.
David was pleased to see Yehuda's enthusiasm and his unabated cooperation. Yehuda said that he had only a couple of experienced Mossad operatives at his call but told David that he was informed that three more were on their way from Israel. Mossad had a safe house on the edge of a quiet rural village about 30 km from London that had a basement and its closest neighbors were a half a kilometer away. He said that he would send one of his agents to prepare the house and buy food supplies that would provide meals for half a dozen men for three days. David was very pleased with this and said that he needed a good night's sleep in view of what was planned for the next day. Yehuda would have liked to sit and spin yarns with David for another couple of hours but understood that the time was not right.
Just after noon the Mossad group gathered at Yehuda's private apartment. In addition to David and Yehuda were the two agents from the London office, Yuval and Iris who were a married couple in their late twenties with some field experience in Mossad. Eran and Udi were sent from Israel especially for this mission. Both had served in elite units of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and had been in several fire fights and skirmishes with the Palestinians. They also had been on special operations deep inside some Syria and Lebanon, but they had no field record of clandestine operations in friendly countries like the UK. The pivotal member of the group was a petite dark skinned exotic woman whose real name was Miriam but nobody called by that name. Everybody in Mossad called her by her nickname Mata that she had earned because of her resemblance to the legendary and somewhat infamous World War I spy Mata Hari and because of the jobs she carried out. They had all known the legend about the ploy David had used to extract information from reluctant Greek racists when he was chasing The Dreadful Alchemist and also from an uncooperative Islamist in Germany described in The Dreadful Renegade. Yehuda asked if they would try that again but David just smiled and said that they would use a different technique. He suggested that all familiarize themselves with the target, Alan Ross, and study the venue where he would be captured and the surroundings of the safe house.
In the early afternoon David met with Colin and got all the operational intelligence he needed for operation. Apparently Ross was not a hard worker and usually arrived at the office in King Charles Street at 11 am, had tea and a long lunch and left the office at 5 pm to have a couple of drinks at a nearby pub and then went off to dinner at his club. Ross had been married three times and divorced twice, but was now separated from his third wife as he could not afford another expensive divorce. Colin said that Ross's two main problems were his drinking and his roving eye that was always searching for good looking women. When the two were combined, that is after a few drinks, the search became intense, almost compulsive. Colin added that all three wives were blondes who looked like the proverbial English roses with peach skin and blue eyes but most of his extramarital affairs were with exquisite dark women, probably some ingrained heritage from his youth in Iran in the mid-1970s. Upon hearing this David grinned and said that like a good doctor he had prepared the best medication for the patient. Colin left wishing David good luck in the enterprise he didn't wish to know anything about.