Day of Reckoning

'Tell me.'

Which Ferguson did.

When he was finished, Cohen said, 'Hammerheads. We can't have that.'

'Jerusalem wouldn't look too good after one of those.' 'Exactly. Charles, I need to consider this.'

'What you mean is, you need to talk to the general, your uncle.'

'I'm afraid so.'

'That's no problem. But this is a black one, Gideon. Keep it close.'

In his penthouse office, General Arnold Cohen, head of Mossad's Section One, the group with special responsibility for activities in Arab areas, listened gravely.

When his nephew was finished, he said, 'Hammerheads. This is very serious.'

'So what do we do? Call an air strike on this boat, the Fortuna?'

'In Lebanese waters? Come on, Gideon, we're supposed to be nice at the moment while our British and American cousins castigate Saddam.'

'And he's going to send Hammerhead strikes up our backside.'

His sister, Anya, standing with Levy by the window, said, 'Can I make a point, Uncle?'

'Of course you can. You've gotten away with murder with me ever since you learned to speak, so why should this time be different?'

'Why don't we use Dillon, uncle? He's hell on wheels, that one — remember that job with him in Beirut the other year? He was incredible.'

'She's right,' Levy put in. 'What's important here is disposing of this Fortuna boat and its cargo with a minimum of fuss, right?'

'So?'

'So we make it a small-scale operation. With Dillon to call on, the three of us — Anya, Moshe, me — can handle it in Al Shariz. The right equipment, and we can blow the damn boat to hell.'

'He's right,' Gideon Cohen said. 'No adverse publicity. No air strikes.'

'I like it,' the general said. 'Get on with it.'

Ferguson said, 'Fine, Gideon. I'll send over Dillon. Also an American colleague, Blake Johnson, who works directly for the President. You'll find him most useful. I'll put Dillon on.'

A moment later, Dillon said in bad Hebrew, 'How are you, you lying dog?'

'Dillon, we seem to have business together.'

They switched into English. 'I'm not sure how we'll do this,' Dillon said. 'If we're to blow this Fortuna out of the water, we'll need mines, Semtex, some scuba equipment.'

'We'll take care of it. We'll keep it low-key. Myself, Levy, my sister. With you and this American, that's five. We don't want to draw attention, although things have changed since you operated in Beirut, my friend. It's not quite the war zone it used to be. People are trying to build up the infrastructure again, tourism and so on.'

'Where would Fox stay. Beirut?'

'No, there's an old Moorish palace in Al Shariz which has been refurbished as a hotel. I'd say he'll be there. It's called the Golden House.'

'No good for us, then.'

'No problem. We'll come up on a motor yacht, like tourists. You and your friends can stay on board.'

'We can't exactly sit in the bar at the Golden House, though. We don't want Fox to know it's us. It'd be much better if he thought it was an Israeli job.'

'Do you recall my sister Anya?'

'How could I forget? She played a lady of the night better than a lady of the night.'

'Enough to ensnare this Fox.'

Dillon laughed. 'Enough to ensnare friend Fox.'

'You and Johnson, Levy and myself, we'll stay on our boat, the Pamir, well out of the way. Anya can squeeze what she can out of the guy. We'll send the Fortuna down when we're ready.'

'You Israelis are such morally committed people,' Dillon said. 'But you'll sink that boat, crew and all, without a flicker.'

'Not even half a flicker,' Cohen said. 'See you soon.' Dillon hung up, and Ferguson said, 'So, here we go again.' Hannah Bernstein said, 'What about me, Sir?'

'Not this one, Superintendent. Dillon and Blake, plus our friends from Mossad, are enough. What I'd like you to do is get a little more basic with friend Regan as regards the bunker in County Louth.' He turned to Roper. 'I'm sure the Major here will be more than willing to help.'

'A pleasure, Sir,' Roper said.

'Sorry, Hannah, I'll have to love you and leave you.' Dillon turned to Blake and smiled, a strange excitement there. 'Here we go, old buddy, back to the war zone again.'

9

LEBANON

AL SHARIZ

Brendan Murphy leaned over the rail of the small coastal freighter, the Fortuna, and watched the distant lights of Syria. The ship was Italian-registered and had definitely seen better days, but under its battered exterior the essential bits, the engines, were in excellent condition. They'd left the Black Sea two days earlier and had made good time.

The man who approached him, wearing a seaman's reefer coat, held a cup of coffee in one hand, which he passed to him. His name was Dermot Kelly and he had unfashionably Irish blond hair and a hard, pocked face. He lit a cigarette.

'Jesus, Brendan, they're all fugging Arabs, this crew. If I light up in the saloon, they glare at me. Lucky I brought a bottle on board.'

'Fundamentalists,' Murphy said. 'Army of God, this lot. They're just waiting for death in the service of Allah, so they can go to Paradise and have eternal pleasure and all those women.'

'They must be crazy.'

'Why? You mean we're Catholics and we're right, and they're Muslims and they're wrong? Come off it, Dermot.'

An Arab, in a reefer coat the same as Kelly's, came down a ladder from the bridge. He was the captain and his name was Abdul Sawar.

'How's it going?' Brendan demanded.

'Excellent. We'll be on time.'

'Well, that's good.'

Sawar said, 'Any problems?'

'Well, I miss bacon and eggs for breakfast,' Kelly told him.

'We do our best, Mr Kelly, but some things are not possible.'

'Well, you'd probably have a problem in reverse in Dublin,' Kelly told him.

'Exactly.'

Sawar went back up the ladder, and Murphy said, 'Don't stir the pot, Dermot. You can't expect good Irish bacon on an Italian boat crewed by Arabic fundamentalists off the coast of Syria.'

'All right, so I'll just think of the money.'

'The gold, Dermot, the gold. Speaking of which, we'll check it out.'

He led the way to the stern of the ship, and went down a companionway to a rear saloon. There were two cargo boxes wrapped in sacking.