on, ‘One of these men is a Lebanese businessman based in London. The other was a British journalist, often in the Middle East.’
‘You say he
‘That’s right. He’s dead. Apparently an accident, though some doubts have been expressed.’
Teitelbaum pursed his lips. ‘What were these men supposed to be doing to damage Syria and affect the conference?’
‘It’s not clear, and we may never know. The Lebanese man is in custody now – he’s facing charges over his business dealings, nothing to do with this. But it’s convenient from our point of view that he’s being held.’
‘Yes,’ said Teitelbaum, nodding slowly like a Buddha. ‘I can see that. And the other fellow is even more out of the way.’
Here comes the hard bit, thought Miles, and waited as the waiter delivered his small espresso.
Miles sipped his coffee – it was bitter and scalding hot. He put two sugar cubes in and stirred the cup while he gathered his thoughts. He could see the jeweller across the way struggling unavailingly with the lock of his grille, then give a gesture of exasperation and go inside his shop.
‘In looking into these two men, it was discovered that both of them claimed to be working for your service and one had ties with a member of your embassy in London.’
‘Oh,’ said Teitelbaum, as though there was nothing unusual about it. ‘Who was that?’
‘His name is Daniel Kollek.’
He watched Teitelbaum’s face for a reaction. There wasn’t one, which Miles took to be a reaction in itself. Teitelbaum said slowly, ‘I think I may have heard the name. But then, it’s a famous name in this country – you remember the Mayor of Jerusalem.’
‘Kollek is attached to the trade delegation, apparently.’
‘Really?’ said Teitelbaum with such a show of surprise that Miles was tempted to ask if he’d been to drama school. ‘But what would a trade officer have to do with such men? A Lebanese businessman and a journalist.’
He’s going to make me work for it, thought Miles. Every step of the way. ‘I thought maybe you could tell me.’
‘Me?’ Now the surprise was even more dramatic. ‘I’m just an intelligence officer six weeks short of retirement, ready to crawl off to my place in a kibbutz. What would I know about this?’
Miles ignored this: Edmund Whitehouse had told him that Teitelbaum had been proclaiming his imminent retirement for the last ten years. Across the plaza the jeweller had reappeared with another man, and the two of them set to work on the recalcitrant grille.
Teitelbaum said sharply, ‘Tell me, who discovered this supposed set of connections? You or the British?’
‘We’ve been working together on this,’ Miles said stolidly. What did the Brits like to say?
‘Ari Block has not mentioned this at all,’ said Teitelbaum. Block was the Mossad station head in London, as Miles well knew.
‘We haven’t spoken to Ari Block.’
‘I’m surprised. It seems to me that if MI5 imagined that there was an undeclared Mossad officer working in London they would raise the matter with Mr Block right away. Yet instead you’re here, on a confidential mission arranged by Tyrus Oakes himself.’
‘Yes, but I’m representing the British as well. I’m here with their blessing.’
Ah,’ Teitelbaum said with a child-like appreciation that did not conceal his scorn, ‘what an
‘Oh, that’s simple enough: we don’t believe for a moment that Kollek is just a trade officer. And we’re certain he was running Marcham.’ When Teitelbaum started to interrupt, Miles overrode him.
‘But that’s not all, Mr Teitelbaum. In the course of this investigation, someone tried to kill an MI5 case officer who was directing the British side of things. They came very close to succeeding, too.’
‘That could have been the Syrians,’ protested Teitelbaum, though he looked taken aback by this news. ‘They’ve never been known for their restraint.’
Miles was having none of it. Shaking his head sharply, he said, ‘Not in this instance. There was a Syrian presence we were worried about – trained heavies. But they’ve left the UK now and were closely followed while they were there. No, the attempt to murder the case officer had all the hallmarks of an individual effort.’
‘And you’re accusing Kollek?’ Teitelbaum demanded stiffly.
‘I’m not accusing anyone. But we are concerned. And if Kollek is one of yours, which we believe to be the case, then we wanted you to know about our worries.’
‘In the hope that I can somehow provide you with reassurance?’ There was a challenge in his voice.
‘Yes,’ said Miles. There was no point denying it.
Teitelbaum was silent for almost a minute. He stretched the fingers on one hand, looking at his nails. Then he said at last, ‘Let us play hypotheticals for a moment, Mr Brook-haven. Let us suppose, for example, that there is something in this idea of yours that Danny Kollek is not simply a trade officer. But that doesn’t explain your concern, now does it? Both of these men you mention have had Middle Eastern ties – it might well be they knew things that would interest someone like Kollek, assuming as I say for the sake of argument, that he had auxiliary interests to his normal embassy duties. And there’s certainly no reason to think he would have anything to gain by trying to kill an MI5 officer; the idea is insane. So just what is it you want to know about Mr Kollek?’
Miles thought for a moment; he was determined not to be put off by this cunning bruiser. He said carefully, ‘The bizarre thing about this case is that we don’t know whether the person behind it is working to hurt the Syrians, or to hurt other countries, or both. We’re sure the person isn’t Syrian himself, but whatever is motivating him has something to do with the place. So what I’d like to know about Kollek is if he has any kind of connection with Syria. I know it’s a long shot, but there it is.’
Silence hung between them, and for a moment Miles was convinced Teitelbaum was not going to answer his question. Miles saw the men across the plaza were still struggling to open the shutters. There was something almost farcical about their continuing efforts.
Teitelbaum seemed to make up his mind. He looked at Miles with dispassionate eyes, and said simply, ‘Let me tell you a story.’
FORTY-SEVEN
Liz read on, completely absorbed by Miles’s laconic prose. She was there herself, sitting in that Tel Aviv cafe, listening to Teitelbaum’s hoarse voice telling his simple but haunting tale.
Danny Kollek’s grandfather, Isaac, had been a Syrian Jew. A merchant, who traded in rugs and spice, and almost anything that kept his small shop in the ancient city of Aleppo afloat. He stayed in Syria after the War, and survived the murderous riots against Jews in that city in 1947, when synagogues had been burned down and shops, including Isaac’s, destroyed.
Life had eventually returned to a semblance of normality. Never prosperous, Isaac nonetheless made a living, and was able to support his wife and sole child, a son named Benjamin.
But after Suez the climate suddenly changed again. Isaac found himself the object of an unofficial boycott by local residents, both Muslim and Christian, and the object of harassment by the government itself. Becoming increasingly anxious and fearing the worst, he sent his wife and boy to Israel, where they settled in Haifa and waited for Isaac to join them. He stayed behind to try and sell his business, and also, as Teitelbaum now acknowledged, ‘to help us’.
After six months, just three weeks before he planned to join his family in Israel, Kollek was arrested. Tried on treason charges, he was found guilty, and six days later he was hanged in a public square in front of a silent crowd of Aleppo residents.
