mistake: she had been planning to tell her father that she loved Dickstein, and she had been afraid of his reaction- Freud could probably have predicted that at that point she might well imagine her father plotting to kill herlover. Because she nearly believed this reasoning, she was able to smile brightly at them and say, 'Who wants coffee? rve just made some.' Her father kissed bw cheek. 'I didn't realize you were back, my dear.' 'I just arrived, I was thinking of coming out to look for you.' Why am I telling these lies? 'You don't know Yasif Hassan-he was one of my students when you were very small.' Hassan kissed her hand and stared at her the way people always did when they had known Eila. 'Yotere every bit as beautiful as your mother,' he said, and his voice was not flirtatious at all, not even Battering: it sounded amazed. Her father said, 'Yasif was here a few months ago, shortly after a contemporary of his visited us-Nat Dickstein. You met Dickstein, I think, but you were away by the time Yasif came.'
'Was there any oonnee-connectionr she asked, and silently cursed her voice for cracking on the last word. The two men looked at one another, and her father said, 'Matter of fact, there was.' And then she knew it was true, she had riot misheard, they really were going to kill the only man she had ever loved. She felt dangerously close to tears, and turned away from them to fiddle with cups and saucem 'I want to ask You to -do something, my dear,' said her father. 'Something very important, for the sake of your mother's memory. Sit down.' - No more, she thought; this ean!t get worse, please. She took a deep breath, turned around, and sat down fac. ing him. He said, 'I want you to help Yasif here to find Nat Dickstein.' From that moment she hated her father. She knew then suddenly, instantly, that his love for her was fraudulent, that he had never seen her as a person, that he used her as he had used her mother. Never again would she take care of him, serve him; never apm would she worry about how he felt, whether he was lonely, what he needed ... She realized, in the same flash of insight and hatred, that her mother had reached this same point with him, at some time; and that she would now do what Ma had done, and despise him. Ashford continued, 'Mere is a man in America who may know where Dickstein is. I want you to go there with Yasif and ask this man. She said nothing. Hassan took her blankness for incomPrehension, and began to explain. 'You see, this Dickstein is an Israeli agent, working against our people. We must stop him. Cortone-the man in Buffalo-may be helping him, and if he is he will not help us. But he will remember your mother, and so he may cooperate with you. You could tell him that you and Dickstein are lovers.' 'Ha-hah!' Su2Ws laugh was faintly hysterical, and she hoped they would assume the wrong reasons for it. She controlled herself, and managed to become numb, to keep her body still and her face expressionless, while they told her about the yellowcake, and the man aboard the Coparelli, and the radio beacon on the Stromberg, and about Mahmoud and his hijack plan, and how much it would an mean for the Palestine liberation movement; and at the end she was numb, she no longer had to pretend. Finally her father said, 'So, my dear will you help? Will you do it?' With an effort of self-control that astonished her, she gave them a bright air-hostess smile, got up from her stool, and said, 'TVs a lot to take in in one go, isn't it? I'll think about it while rin in the bath.' And she went out.
It all sank In, gradually, as she lay in the hot water with a locked door between her and them. So this was the thing that Nathaniel had to do before be could see her again: steal a ship. And then, he had said, he would not let her out of his sight for ten or fifteen years . Perhaps that meant he could give up this work.- But, of course, none of his plans was going to succeed, because his enemies knew all about them. This Russian planned to rain Nat's ship, and Hassan planned to steal the ship first and ambush Nat. Either way Dickstein was in danger; either way they wanted to destroy him. Suza could warn him. If only she knew where he was. How little those men downstairs knew about herl Hassan simply assumed, just like an Arab male chauvinist pig, that she would do as she was told. Her father assumed she would take the Palestinian side, because he did and he was the brains of the family. He had never known what was in his daughter's mind: for that matter, he had been the same with his wife. Eila had always been able to deceive him: he never suspected that she might not be what she seemed. When Suza realized what she had to do, she was terrified all over again. There was, after all, a way she might find Nathaniel and warn him. 'Find Nat' was what they wanted her to do. She knew she could deceive them, for they already aisumed she was on their side, when she was not. So she could do what they wanted. She could find Natand then she could warn him. Would she be making things worse? To find him herself, she had to lead them to him.
But even if Hassan did not find him, Nat was in danger from the Russians. And if he was forewarned, he could escape both dangers. Perhaps, too, she could get rid of Hassan somehow, before she actually reached Nat What was the alternative? To wait, to go on as if nothing had happened, to hope for a phone call that might never come ... It was, she realized, partly her need to see Dickstein again that made her think like this, partly the thought that after the hijack he might be dead, that this might be her last chance But there were good reasons, too: by doing nothIng she might help frustrate Hassan's scheme, but that left the Russians and their scheme. Her decision was made. She would pretend to work with Hassan so that she could find Nathaniel. She was peculiarly happy. She was trapped, but she felt free; she was obeying her father, yet she felt that at last she was defying him; for better or worse, she was committed to Nathaniel. She was also very, very frightened. She got out of the bath, dried herself, dressed, and went downstairs to tell them the good news.
At four A.M. on November 16, 1968, the Caparelli hove to at Vlissingen, on the Dutch coast, and took an board a port pilot to guide her through the channel of the Westerscbelde to Antwerp. Four hours later, at the entrance to the harbor, she took on another pilot to negotiate her passage through the docks. From the main harbor she went through Royers Lock, along the Suez Canal, under the Siberia Bridge and into Kattendijk Dock, where she tied up at her berth. Nat Dickstein was watching. When he saw her sweep slowly in, and read the name Co. Parelli On her side, and thought of the drums of yelloweake that would soon fill her belly, he was overcome by a most Peculiar feeling, like the one he had when he looked at Suza's naked body... yes, almost like lust He looked away from berth No. 42 to the railway line, which ran almost to the edge of the quay. There was a train on the'line now, consisting of eleven cars and an engine. Ten of the cars carried fifty-one 200-liter drams with sealed lids and the word PLumBAT stenciled on the side; the eleventh car had only fifty drums. He was so close to those drums, to that uranium; he could Woll over and- touch the railway cars-he already had done this once, earlier in the morning, and had thought: Wouldn't it be terrific just to raid this place with choppers and a bunch of Israeli commandos and simply steal the stuff. The Coparellf was scheduled for a fast turnaround. The port authorities had been convinced that the yelloweake could be handled safely, but all the same they did not want the stuff hanging about their harbor one minute longer than necessary. Ilere was a crane standing by ready to load the drums on to the ship. Nevertheless, there were formalities to be completed before loading could begin. 'The fint person Dickstein saw boarding the ship was an official from the shipping company. He had to give the pilots their pourboire and secure from the captain a crew list for the harbor police. The second person aboard was Josef Cohen. He was here for the sake of customer relations: he would give the captain a bottle of whiskey and sit down for a drink with him and the shipping company official. He also had a wad of tickets for free entry and one drink at the best nightclub in town, which be would give to the captain for the officers. And he would discover the name of the ship's engineer. Dickstein had suggested he do this by asking to see the crew list, then counting out one ticket for each officer on the list. Whatever way he had decided to do it, he had been successful: ashe left the ship and crossed the quay to return to his office he passed Dickstein and muttered, 'Me engineer's name is Same,' without breaking stride. It was not until afternoon that the crane went into action and the dockers began loading the drums into the three holds of the Copareffl. IMe drums had to be moved one at a time, and inside the ship each drum had to be secured with wedges of wood. As expected, the loading was not completed that day. In the evening Dickstein went to the best nightclub in town. Sitting at the bar, close to the telephone, was a quite astonishing woman of about thirty, with black hair and a long, aristocratic face possessed of a faintly haughty expression. She wore an elegant black dress which made the most of her sensational legs and her high, round breasts. Dickstein gave her an almost imperceptible nod but did not speak to her. He sat in a comer, nursing a glass of beer, hoping the sailors would come. Surely they would. Did sailors ever refuse a free drink? Yes. The club began to fill up. The woman in the black dress was propositioned a couple of times but refused both men, thereby establishing that she was not a hooker. At nine o'clock Dickstein went out to the lobby and phoned Cohen. By previous arrangement, Cohen had called the captain of the Coparelli on a pretext. He now told Dickstein what he had discovered: that all but two of the officers were using their free tickets. Ile exceptions were the captain himself, who was busy with paperwork, and the radio operator-a new man they had taken on in Cardiff after Lars broke his leg-who had a head cold. Dickstein then dialed the number of the club he was in. He asked to speak to Mr. Same, who, he understood, would be found in the bar. While he waited he could hear a barman calling out Same's name: it came to him two ways, one directly from the bar, the other through several miles of telephone cable. Eventually be heard, over the phone, a voice say, 'Yes? Hello? This is Same. Is anybody there? Hello?' Dickstein bung up and walked quickly back into the bar. He looked over to where the bar phone wa& The woman in the black dress was speaking to a tall, suntanned blond man
