“We’ve no confirmation of that yet,” said Peterson. “But don’t let that stop the hypothesis.”

  Levy splayed his fingers, ticking off points.

  “The information about Chad came from us,” he listed. “The information about Germany came from us. The information about Libya came from us.…” He lowered his hands. “And we’ve got nothing back, in return.”

  “You’ve got satellite photographs …” began Peterson, but the Israeli cut him off, impatiently.

  “Don’t patronize me, Peterson. You’re supposed to head the most effective information-gathering machine ever created. Are you asking me to believe that in three weeks, all you’ve done is to manage the most basic aerial reconnaissance and confirm what we already knew!”

  “Yes,” said the CIA Director, simply.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s got to be your misfortune, not mine,” said Peterson, refusing the other man’s aggression. “You didn’t tell us about Chad. You told us about a vague rumor which it took time to confirm and locate the country concerned. You guessed at some German involvement, which needed to be established. You sent rumors about Libya, which required confirmation. And since when has the Mossad trailed around behind the coat-tails of another service, prepared to let them do the work!”

  Levy was momentarily silenced by the force of Peterson’s reaction, a man unused to having his arguments disputed.

  “I don’t think you’re being completely honest with me,” Levy complained, his arrogance temporarily curbed. “We set out talking of complete cooperation and exchange of information.”

  “We did not,” rejected Peterson. “We agreed upon mutually convenient liaison, which is exactly what you’ve been getting. I have informed you of every single item of information that has been appropriate. Are you going to turn over every report that’s come into you from your agents? Show me your paths of inquiry and sources of information?”

  “Something like that,” retaliated Levy.

  Peterson regarded the squat man apprehensively, confused by the answer. “What?” he said.

  “Your analysis must be the same as ours, about that firing picture,” said Levy. “Whatever is planned there is pretty near completion. We’re not going to sit around and wait for it to happen: if Israel had done that, it would have been pushed into the sea years ago.”

  “You only succeed with an Entebbe operation once,” said Peterson.

  “It depends how good you are,” said Levy, the confidence re-emerging. “I’m a general. I’m prepared to sacrifice three hundred men to save three million.”

  “What if it failed?” tried Peterson, anxiously.

  “We cannot afford to fail,” said Levy, the arrogance open now. “So we rarely do.”

  Peterson got up from his chair, filling the silence with movement.

  “Would you like a drink?” he invited.

  “No.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No.”

  Peterson continued to move about the room, debating the response before making it. Any operation that he and Petrov might mount would be problem enough, confronting just the difficulties that existed in Chad. A separate Israeli operation would make success inconceivable.

  He turned back to Levy. “I don’t want you to mount any operation,” he said.

  Levy appeared speechless for several seconds and then he laughed. “You don’t want it!” he challenged.

  “No,” said Peterson. How much could he avoid letting the other man know?

  He returned to the easy chairs, sitting down to face the Israeli again.

  “I’m trying to set up an operation,” he began, carefully. “At the moment none of the details is finalized. It is for that reason that you haven’t already been told of it. If there is to be any chance of success at all, then we’ve got to have the benefit of surprise. It won’t be easy: they’ve already killed three of my men, so they’re alert to our attempts to discover what’s going on. If you try to set up something independent from us, then you’ll ruin everything.”

  Peterson stopped, reviewing what he had said. He had revealed nothing, he realized gratefully.

  For the first time since the meeting had begun, Levy smiled. “Let’s do it together,” he suggested eagerly.

  Oh God, thought Peterson. Soon there would be more people involved in the incursion than in the European landings of World War II.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?” demanded Levy.

  “Because we might fail,” improvised Peterson desperately. “And if we do, then there will need to be men ready and prepared to make another attempt.”

  Levy regarded the American doubtfully. “If the first attempt failed, what chance would the second have?”

  “It would have to be made,” argued Peterson, gauging an advantage in the argument.

  “Perhaps,” said Levy, unconvinced.

  “Already they’re test firing,” reminded Peterson. “There’d be no time … no time at all … to prepare something else if we didn’t succeed. You’d have to be moving within hours.”

  The Israeli was unconvinced, Peterson knew. Anxiously he went on: “We’ve positive confirmation of Libya.”

  “Definite?” demanded Levy. Excitement replaced the uncertainty.

  “Yes,” said the Director. “We know details of a gold transfer … something like $20,000,000.…”

  “You’ve got to be joking!”

  “Libya is purchasing complete access to the satellite for six months.”

  Levy’s face hardened. “When’s the transfer?” he demanded.

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’ve made no plans yet,” admitted Peterson, honestly. “I’ve only got the intelligence in the last hour.”

  “I’d like to handle it,” said Levy.

  It wasn’t a major concession, decided Peterson. In fact, it was peripheral, but it would at least give the Israelis the impression of involvement.

  “Agreed,” he said.

  Levy smiled, gratefully. “We’re very worried about the danger in Chad,” he said.

  “So are we,” admitted Peterson.

  “The point will be made to President Fowler, by the people I’m with,” said Levy.

  “And they will get from him the same assurance of concern that I’ve just given you,” said Peterson. He had averted a problem, he realized suddenly. And without too much compromise. There would be the need for some Israeli commando attempt, if the American-Soviet operation failed. And any difficulty with the gold shipment might give them a little more time.

  Levy rose, extending his hand. “I would not like us to fall out because of this,” he said.

  “Neither would I,” said Peterson, accepting the gesture.

  “We’ll keep in close contact?”

  “You’ve my word,” repeated Peterson.

  “It must not be allowed to happen.”

  “It won’t.”

  “I wish I felt more confident.”

  “We’ll stop it,” insisted the CIA Director. I hope, he thought.

  Peterson travelled towards his White House meeting with the President, encouraged by the encounter with Levy. Ironically, the awareness bothered him; until recently, he realized, he would not have needed the reassurance of such omens. It was a fuller meeting than his last encounter with Fowler. Henry Moore was in the chair he seemed to regard as his own as Secretary of State. Flood, crumpled and unkempt, sat opposite. Did they look at him with more attention than usual, he wondered, as he entered the room. Flood seemed particularly intent. Peterson was unsure whether the fatigue and worry on which Jones had remarked had left his face.

  “Still not exactly a surfeit of information is it?” Flood attacked immediately.

  His report had preceded the Libyan news, Peterson realized. The foreign affairs advisor would suspect that he had held the information back, in order to make a dramatic announcement.

  “We’ve positive confirmation that Libya is to purchase six months’ satellite time from BADRA,” said Peterson, quietly.

  Fowler jerked up from his desk and Flood turned, so that he could see him more easily.

  “Why wasn’t it in the report?” demanded Flood, irritated at having been exposed by his aggressive greeting.

  “It only came in a few moments before I left Langley,” said Peterson. He had read the complete file on his way to the White House and summarized for them the interception of the courier and what they had learned from the contents of his briefcase.

  “Good piece of work,” congratulated Fowler.

  “Thank you,” said Peterson. It would go a long way to diffuse Flood’s attacks.

  “So now we know the problem,” said the President.

  “And it is a problem,” said Flood. “It’ll mean a war in the Middle East.”

  “I’ve seen the Israelis this morning,” said Fowler, generally. “They said they were worried, and now with every reason.”

  “I met the Mossad chief. Levy,” said Peterson.

  “Did you tell him about the Libyan confirmation?” demanded Flood, sharply.

  “Yes.”

  “That was stupid,” attacked the foreign affairs advisor. “You should have sought presidential permission first.”

  “I judged it necessary,” said Peterson, refusing to give way under the man’s renewed pressure. “The transfer is only forty-eight hours away.”

  “They’re going to intercept it?” said Moore, critically.

  “It gives them involvement,” said Peterson. “It’ll have to be an open operation and there’s always the risk of failure. I didn’t want any of my men caught up in an embarrassing diplomatic situation.”

  “I think the Director made the right decision,” supported Fowler.

  “We’ve received a lot of help from the Mossad,” elaborated Peterson. “It was important to reciprocate.”

  Flood was regarding him curiously. “You keeping something from us?” he asked.

  “No,” lied Peterson.

  “We’ve a little leverage to prevent the Israelis becoming too difficult,” said Fowler, coming to the CIA chief’s rescue. “They’ve sought a commitment from me for another one hundred M-60 tanks, a guarantee of oil shipments at an unfluctuating posted price, pegged for two years, and a positive aid program amounting to nearly a billion dollars in addition to what they already get.”

  Peterson breathed out noisily, an exaggerated expression of surprise.

  “Clever bastards, aren’t they?” conceded Fowler, be-grudgingly.

  “It’s a strong demand, even before we knew it was Gadaffi,” said Moore.

  “But it’s a beginning position,” came in Flood, immediately, trying to make the other man appear diplomatically naïve.

  “Only if we accept it as such,” fought back Moore. “We’re the ones in control: we set the rules.”

  “Right,” agreed the President, responding predictably to any argument from a position of strength.

  Flood picked irritably at a fleck of skin against his thumbnail, knowing that the Secretary of State had out-maneuvered him. Peterson sat easily in the chair, content for the other two men to squabble. It took the pressure off him.

  “And we are in control,” continued the President, smiling with satisfaction at the others sitting before him. “While they believe we’re even considering their demands, they’re not going to do anything that might screw their chances.”

  He was looking at Peterson as he spoke. The Director responded with just the slightest movement of his head, indicating his appreciation of the pressure.

  The discussion continued for a further half an hour, ranging over every aspect of the African complex but coming to no fresh conclusions. Peterson got away without any further determined questioning from anyone. From the car he called Langley and learned from Jones that there was nothing sufficiently important to take him back to CIA headquarters. With the glass between himself and the driver raised, he telephoned Paul’s number, but only got the answering machine. He replaced the instrument but then took it up again after a few minutes consideration and dialled the number for a second time. When the indication came for him to dictate his message, Peterson said, haltingly: “I want to say I’m very sorry for what happened last night … it was my fault.… all of it. And I deeply regret it. I’m having to go away again, probably very soon. I’m having Beth found and when that happens, I’ll go to get her … of that you have my word. I want the family together again and not forever at the point of destruction. And I fear it will be destroyed if your mother doesn’t get some permanent care. I’m going to arrange that, too. But while I’m away I would like you to return home, to stop her from drinking herself to death.…”

  Peterson was increasingly aware of the difficulty in talking. He swallowed, pulling his hand across his eyes to clear the blurred vision.

  “Please, Paul,” he stumbled. “Please help me. There isn’t anyone else.…”

  Peterson found Lucille slumped in a living-room chair, eyes glassed over. She appeared unaware of his entry. Today she hadn’t even bothered to make up and her hair was bird’s-nested in disarray. The glass had fallen from her hand and lay in her lap, and the dampness was spread across her skirt. Peterson couldn’t tell whether she had spilled the contents or wet herself.

  He was moving forward to clean her up when the telephone rang. Petrov had welcomed the agreement: he would be in Austria the following day for a second meeting.

  Bock was humming as he drove towards his new friend’s apartment, feeling a contentment he hadn’t known for a long time. Seven months, he reminded himself. Klaus was far nicer than Jurgen — more understanding, too. He did not want to go to the sort of brassy bars or noisy, smoky clubs that had always appealed to Jurgen. It had been Klaus’ suggestion that they eat in his apartment tonight, rather than go out anywhere.

  Bock stood against the back wall of the elevator, tapping his fingers impatiently against the metalwork. The apartment key was already in his hand when he emerged on the tenth floor.

  A meticulous man, Bock had turned to ensure that the apartment door was properly closed behind him and so he had come some way into the room before he realized Klaus was not alone. Bock smiled, nervously. The other two men seemed different from Klaus: with the first twitch of despair, Bock thought they reminded him of officialdom.

  “What is it?” he asked, baldly.

  The man to Klaus’ left grinned, but it was not a pleasant expression. He stretched out, offering something to the Foreign Office official.

  “Look at that picture, Otto,” he invited. “You’ve got a birthmark on your bum!”

  12

  After receiving Petrov’s message, Peterson had fixed a tightly scheduled day, intending to leave Andrews airbase in the afternoon. He booked a six A.M. alarm call, but was awake at dawn anyway. It was complete wakefulness, not a gradual arrival of consciousness, and he recognized the tension. He was not surprised by it or even concerned; such nervousness was natural, making him properly alert. And he would need to be properly alert, until it was all over. He did not get up immediately, but lay in the comforting warmth of the bed, thinking through the arrangements he had made the previous night and trying to anticipate anything he might have overlooked. The breakfast meeting with the President should be over by nine, which made Langley possible by ten. That gave him the morning to approve Jones’ preparations and then, hopefully, enough time to contact Paul before his scheduled departure for Europe.

  He had tried twice, after speaking to the White House and then to Jones, to get through to his son. On both occasions, he’d got the answering machine and each time had repeated the plea he had made from the car, just before his arrival home the previous night. Peterson sighed, pushing back the covers; he was unaware what to do if there had been no response from the boy by the time the plane was scheduled to leave.

  A quick, precise man, Peterson had an established routine for most things, even his morning toilet. He had showered, shaved and dressed and was packing the first of his three suitcases by the time the alarm call came. He finished packing by six-thirty and went, as he did every morning, to Lucille. The curtains were drawn, shutting out almost all the light, so that it was only just possible to isolate the shape of things within the room. She seemed to be sleeping quite easily, with none of the troubled, jerky movements she sometimes had. He started to go into the room and then stopped. What was the point? For whose benefit did he make these morning visits, perhaps to cover her with a displaced sheet or brush away some wisp of hair? It was certainly not for Lucille, who always remained unaware of him. It was an act, accepted Peterson — another part of the preparation that began every day. Abruptly he turned away from his wife’s room, quietly closing the door.

  He had his cases in the hallway by the time the maid arrived, promptly at seven. There was the customary exchange about Lucille remaining in bed and then a slight extension of the parrotted conversation when she saw the cases. A brief trip, he said, wondering if it would be.

  He was at the White House by seven-thirty. Fowler was waiting.

  “Do you want breakfast?”

  “Not really,” said Peterson, gauging the President’s reluctance.

  Fowler led the way out for another Rose Garden conversation, listening as intently as he had done on the first occasion to the preparations that Peterson had made for his return to Austria for the planning meeting with the Russian.

  “It’s going to be a sizeable operation,” predicted Fowler.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re taking a big chance, ignoring congressional approval.”

  I’m taking a big chance, thought Peterson. “There’s really no other way,” he said.

  “Congress won’t accept that, if they ever discover what’s been done.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t discover it.”

  “Sure you can keep it secure?”

  “From whom?” asked Peterson, presciently.

  The President nodded at the question. “Lot of gossip, up on the Hill.”

  “So I’ve heard.”