Arabic.”
Stewart grunted, convinced. “Sounds like Deep Throat.”
“Surely Woodward and Bernstein identified Deep Throat?” suggested Paxman.
“So they claim, but I doubt it,” said Stewart. “I figure the guy stayed in deep shadow, like Jericho.”
Darkness had long fallen by the time the four of them finally let an exhausted David Sharon go back to his embassy. If there was anything more he could have told them, they were not going to get it out of him.
But Steve Laing was certain that this time the Mossad had come clean.
Bill Stewart had told him of the level of the pressure that had been exercised in Washington.
The two British and two American intelligence officers, tired of sandwiches and coffee, adjourned to a restaurant half a mile away. Bill Stewart, who had an ulcer that twelve hours of sandwiches and high stress had not improved, toyed with a plate of smoked salmon.
“It’s a bastard, Steve. It’s a real four-eyed bastard. Like the Mossad, we’ll have to try and find an accredited diplomat already trained in all the tradecraft and get him to work for us. Pay him if we have to.
Langley’s prepared to spend a lot of money on this. Jericho’s information could save us a lot of lives when the fighting starts.”
“So who does that leave us?” said Barber. “Half the embassies in Baghdad are closed down already. The rest must be under heavy surveillance. The Irish, Swiss, Swedes, Finns?”
“The neutrals won’t play ball,” said Laing. “And I doubt they’ve got a trained agent posted to Baghdad on their own account. Forget Third World embassies—it means starting a whole recruiting and training program.”
“We don’t have the time, Steve. This is urgent. We can’t go down the same road the Israelis went. Three weeks is crazy. It might have worked then, but Baghdad is on a war footing now. Things have to be much tighter in there. Starting cold, I’d want a minimum three months to give a diplomat the tradecraft.”
Stewart nodded agreement.
“Failing that, someone with legitimate access. Some businessmen are still going in and out, especially the Germans. We could produce a convincing German, or a Japanese.”
“The trouble is, they’re short-stay chappies. Ideally, one wants someone to mother-hen this Jericho for the next—what? Four months.
What about a journalist?” suggested Laing.
Paxman shook his head. “I’ve been talking with them all when they come out; being journalists, they get total surveillance. Snooping around back alleys won’t work for a foreign correspondent—they all have a minder from the AMAM with them, all the time. Besides, don’t forget that outside an accredited diplomat, we’re talking about a black operation. Anyone want to dwell on what happens to an agent falling into Omar Khatib’s hands?”
The four men at the table had heard of the brutal reputation of Khatib, head of the AMAM, nicknamed Al- Mu’azib, “the Tormentor.”
“Risks just may have to be taken,” observed Barber.
“I was referring more to acceptance,” Paxman pointed out. “What businessman or reporter would ever agree, knowing what would be in store if he were caught? I’d prefer the KGB to the AMAM.”
Bill Stewart put down his fork in frustration and called for another glass of milk.
“Well, that’s it then—short of finding a trained agent who can pass for an Iraqi.”
Paxman shot a glance at Steve Laing, who thought for a moment and slowly nodded.
“We’ve got a guy who can,” said Paxman.
“A tame Arab? So has the Mossad, so have we,” said Stewart, “but not at this level. Message-carriers, gofers. This is high-risk, high-value.”
“No, a Brit, a major in the SAS.”
Stewart paused, his milk glass halfway to his mouth. Barber put down his knife and fork and ceased chewing his steak.
“Speaking Arabic is one thing. Passing for an Iraqi inside Iraq is a whole different ball game,” said Stewart.
“He’s dark-skinned, black-haired, brown-eyed, but he’s a hundred percent British. He was born and raised there. He can pass for one.”
“And he’s fully trained in covert operations?” asked Barber. “Shit, where the hell is he?”
“Actually, he’s in Kuwait at the moment,” said Laing.
“Damn. You mean he’s stuck in there, holed up?”
“No. He seems to be moving about quite freely.”
“So if he can get out, what the hell’s he doing?”
“Killing Iraqis, actually.”
Stewart thought it over and nodded slowly.
“Big balls,” he murmured. “Can you get him out of there? We’d like to borrow him.”
“I suppose so, next time he comes on the radio. We would have to run him, though. And share the product.”
Stewart nodded again.
“I guess so. You guys brought us Jericho. It’s a deal. I’ll clear it with the Judge.”
Paxman rose and wiped his mouth.
“I’d better go tell Riyadh,” he said.
Mike Martin was a man accustomed to making his own luck, but his life was saved that October by a fluke.
He was due to make a radio call to the designated SIS house in the outskirts of Riyadh during the night of the nineteenth, the same night the four senior intelligence officers from the CIA and Century House were dining in South Kensington.
Had he done so, he would have been off the air, due to the two-hour time difference, before Simon Paxman could return to Century House and alert Riyadh that he was wanted.
Worse, he would have been on the air for five to ten minutes, discussing with Riyadh ways of securing a resupply of arms and explosives.
In fact, he was in the lockup garage where he kept his jeep just before midnight, only to discover that the vehicle had a flat tire.
Cursing, he spent an hour with the jeep jacked-up, struggling to remove the wheel nuts, which had been almost cemented into place by a mixture of grease and desert sand. At a quarter to one he rolled out of the garage, and within half a mile he noticed that even his spare tire had developed a slow leak.
There was nothing for it but to return to the garage and abandon the radio call to Riyadh.
It took two days to have both tires repaired, and it was not until the night of the twenty-first that he found himself deep in the desert, far to the south of the city, turning his small satellite dish in the direction of the Saudi capital many hundreds of miles away, using the Send button to transmit a series of quick blips to indicate it was he who was calling and that he was about to come on the air.
His radio was basic, a ten-channel fixed-crystal set, with one channel designated for each day of the month in rotation. On the twenty-first, he was using channel one. Having identified himself, he switched to Receive and waited. Within seconds a low voice replied:
“Rocky Mountain, Black Bear, read you five.”
The codes identifying both Riyadh and Martin corresponded with the date and the channel, just in case someone hostile tried to muscle in on the waveband.
Martin went to Send and spoke several sentences.
On the outskirts of Kuwait City to the north, a young Iraqi technician was alerted by a pulsing light on the console he was monitoring in the commandeered apartment on top of a residential building. One of his sweepers had caught the transmission and locked on.
“Captain,” he called urgently. An officer from Hassan Rahmani’s Counterintelligence signals section strode over to the console. The light still pulsed, and the technician was easing a dial to secure a bearing.
“Someone has just come on the air.”
“Where?”
“Out in the desert, sir.”
The technician listened through his earphones as his direction-finders stabilized on the source of the
