to signal Tajar and forward the material.
Tajar was waiting in the commandos' operation room when the delivery arrived at the Mossad near midnight.
He read through it and spent the rest of the night preparing a report for Dror. The Runner's material showed that the Soviet Union was taking on the PLO as a full-fledged client in terrorism. For the first time Israel had been made a primary target of the KGB, and the Syrians were to be the link.
***
Before the PLO was founded in 1964, Syrian intelligence had trained Palestinian saboteurs and directed their efforts against Israel. After the PLO was organized, Syrian intelligence was still the main source of arms and training for the PLO. But until the 1967 war, the PLO itself was a negligible factor in Arab policy against Israel. The Arab goal remained outright conquest, to overrun Israel on the battlefield with conventional armies, a continuation of the failed military campaigns of 1948.
The disastrous Arab defeat in the Six-Day War changed all this. Overt aggression was impossible, at least for a time, and the PLO became a more important instrument. Supporting the PLO cause was also the only policy uniting the various Arab countries, busy as they were uncovering treachery in their own ranks and more particularly among each other. Nasser, the former hero of the Arab world who had promised total victory over Israel and instead had delivered total defeat, was no longer everyone's leader. Syria went its own way and used the PLO less as a weapon against Israel than against its neighbor Jordan, where it saw a chance of overthrowing King Hussein and expanding Syria. The Syrian intelligence services, in any case, had always been more intricately involved than anyone else in manipulating the PLO for their own purposes.
The Runner's connection to the Palestinian cause preceded the founding of the PLO. Years earlier, at a time when there were no Palestinian organizations, Tajar had asked the Runner to make himself known in the Palestinian refugee camps. Little Aharon, then the director of the Mossad, had ridiculed the idea as another of Tajar's vague, impractical notions, part of Tajar's lifelong obsession with obscure Arab movements and causes. But Little Aharon had let Tajar have his way because the Runner was only newly arrived in Damascus and had the beginnings of some valuable contacts in the Syrian army.
Thus the Runner's Palestinian connections were profound. The young men he had befriended in the refugee camps were now in positions of importance in the PLO. The man from Damascus known as Halim had been one of their first supporters and advisers, a friend whose garden and money and influence had always been available to them during the empty years. Furthermore, Halim's support was pure. He wasn't an officer of Syrian intelligence who paid them to do work useful only to Syria. Halim had a conscience and was incorruptible. He was a Syrian patriot whose true goal was the Arab revolution.
Early in 1968 rumors began to reach the Mossad that the KGB was taking a closer look at the PLO, through the KGB sections that worked with Syrian intelligence in Damascus. The KGB obviously had a new interest in the PLO, but the Mossad didn't know what form this interest would take. In the material sent to Tajar, the Runner documented the KGB's preparations for a PLO terrorist campaign. A new KGB section was being set up in Damascus to recruit PLO agents for terrorist training in the Soviet Union. Terrorist cells would then be grouped, armed, financed, and directed by the KGB. The Runner provided detailed information on the new KGB section in Damascus, including the names of KGB case officers and PLO recruits. From other sources the Mossad was able to determine that these terrorist cells would operate mostly in Western Europe, an area of far more interest to the Russians than Jordan or Israel or the Arab villages on the west bank of the river, between Jordan and Israel.
For the Mossad, it was a momentous discovery. Dror called the prime minister and there was a meeting in the prime minister's office. When Dror returned to the Mossad late that evening, Tajar was waiting for him.
A somber affair, said Dror. No one underestimates the power of the KGB. We'll be talking to the Americans, but the feeling is we'll have to go it alone for a time.
A time? said Tajar.
Years, probably. We have the proof the KGB is behind it but we can't divulge it, not even to the Americans. I spoke to the prime minister privately and he's adamant that the Runner's material is too sensitive to be shared with anyone. We can't take a chance on compromising the Runner, and if we control his material we can be sure that doesn't happen. The KGB operation is to be run from Damascus and we'll never have anyone so deeply buried there as the Runner. Security has to be tighter than ever. Having the Syrian security agencies as your enemy is one thing. Working against the KGB, in a place as hostile as Damascus, is quite another. So the Americans aren't going to be told how we get our information, and that means they won't trust it one hundred percent. They'll think we're trying to push them into helping us fight our war against the PLO.
Of course they'll help, but not all the way, and what's worse, the intelligence services in Europe will be far less helpful. What do they care about the PLO's squabble with us? Nasty, yes, but also Arab-Jewish business, sandy Middle Eastern business, so why not let the Arabs and Israelis kill each other and work it out? That's the way the European services will see it. They won't want to get involved, even though most of the terrorism will be taking place in Europe. It's clear the KGB is going to work very hard to make this look like strictly the PLO against Jewish targets. So the Europeans will protect themselves and their oil supplies by staying out of it. And if there is a particularly vicious incident involving non-Jews, the PLO will simply say it was the work of some dissident group. The KGB's good at that, and the Europeans will want to believe it anyway.
Tajar agreed. The KGB would keep its role hidden by working through the Syrians, and the Runner's position in Damascus was too sensitive, now, to be shared with anyone. Eventually there would be other sources of information on the terrorist campaign, in the Mossad and elsewhere, and eventually some of them might become as important as the Runner. But for the time being Israel would have to face the terrorism alone, and the Mossad would have to counter it alone. The KGB knew all this, everything except the fact that the Runner existed. In Damascus, especially, the center of their operation, they would be watching everyone who could conceivably be harmful to them. Certainly they wouldn't just rely on the Syrians to safeguard a major KGB
operation aimed at Europe.
The new problems for Tajar were vast, intricate, complex. For the Runner the danger was great. As Dror had said, no one underestimated the KGB and its immense resources. With careful planning the KGB would be able to use the PLO for years. The Third World, oil, anti-Semitism — the KGB had many factors to play upon with an instrument such as the PLO.
Tajar had another meeting scheduled with the Runner in Beirut, the follow-up to their first meeting after the Six-Day War. Now he cancelled this second meeting so he could work out a new procedure, taking even greater precautions. Not surprisingly, the Runner had already suggested this in the message that came in with his special material.
Tajar had to rework the commandos' functions to reflect the new involvement of the KGB. Above all, he was thankful that Halim and not Yossi was in Damascus, a man who was not only strong and self-assured, but real.
Tajar still hadn't come to terms with that idea, that fact. The commandos sometimes noticed a distant look in his eyes and assumed it was his preoccupation with the details of their new assignments. But in fact Tajar was still disturbed by Yossi's transformation into Halim. Having planned it, he understood it. Yet even he wasn't quite sure, now, where it would lead.
How far, he wondered, could a man really go in creating himself? How far, in other words, could the Runner run?
SIX
It was Abu Musa, especially, who urged Assaf to continue to visit Jericho after Yousef disappeared. He had developed a great fondness for Assaf, whose presence relieved the pain he felt for the lost company of Ali and Yousef.
Come bring us tales of mythical Jerusalem, he said to Assaf. The boys used to do that and we need it down here. Otherwise, Bell and Moses and I tend to succumb to the orange blossoms and flowers and live in a jasmine blur of eternal summer . . . unmindful that the world is not a dream, forgetful that the passage of days is not merely the rhythmic click of a shesh-besh game. Up there on the mountain of Jerusalem you have sharp winds and turbulence and raucous blustery noise. Won't you bring us news of this so I can shine as a knowledgeable patriarch when taking my morning coffee in Jericho's marketplace? Of course Jerusalem is a new place when compared to our serene ancient sun down here, but I for one like to keep in touch with the current fashions of men. By which I mean
