“Muslim. His wife is Christian and the daughter is Christian as well. They dress as Muslims as a safety precaution.”
The lieutenant adjusted his glasses again, leafed through his file, and went on, “The family fled to Beirut in 1948 when he was two years old. He was educated in London, and at the age of sixteen left his studies and went to the Gulf. In 1964, together with Arafat, they established the Palestine Liberation Organization or al-Fatah. He spent five years as the organization’s representative to the UN in Geneva. Then two years in Ukraine in Simferopol by the Black Sea, where he married his first wife, a Russian. They had a son and the three of them moved to Sidon in Lebanon. His wife was a dentist. Her clinic was destroyed in an Israeli Air Force raid. The wife was killed and the son moved to Khan Younes. Six months ago he, too, was killed in one of our army’s operations. After the attack in Sidon, Abu Shahid founded his own radical faction. He disappeared for three years and then apparently got married in the Shuff Mountains or maybe didn’t actually get married, but anyway they birthed a daughter named Rahma. He then left for Europe again, and under the cover of a textile trader started working with the infamous Carlos and a little bit with others as well, preparing his very big show. He was the only one who knew Carlos really well, and the combination of Marxist ideology, experience as a Haifa trader, and British education must have been a lethal one. According to reports, he combines ruthlessness with a determination that’s simply unstoppable. Along with those, he has tons of knowledge and intellectual capacity that is hard to keep up with. According to all profiles, historical, psychological and behavioral, it will be very hard to stop him.
The girl we brought from Lebanon apparently caused the first crack in his defense, and because of it, he has agreed to bring the media into the plane. I also guess that he understands that the press is a fundamental factor in any effective terrorist action.” The lieutenant raised his eyes from the file.
“The press is indeed fundamental,” Karni said decisively. “A terrorist bombing without media coverage is worth nothing. Media coverage without a bombing is still a bombing. I can vouch for that as a journalist. The question is if Abu Shahid understands it.”
“Alright, thank you, you may go.” Harel released the officer. “I hope you are guarding the mother and daughter properly.”
The lieutenant paused for a moment as if he didn’t understand, and then mumbled, “Yes, yes, they are guarding them well.”
Karni said, “Did I miss something?”
“Let it go,” said Harel. “It’s a problem. The child and her mother are now on everyone’s hit list. Guarding them is part of the whole thing, isn’t it?”
Karni said, “I really did miss something.”
At this point, I intervened. If they trust Karni, then there is no point in continuing this game of charades. “The mother and daughter are at the CNN office in Tel Aviv right now. Ehrlich is with them and he called me ten minutes ago to tell me they are fine. The military police are standing outside my office. It appears that some people had some ideas regarding those two.” I tried hard to avoid giving Harel an angry look. “But now they are relatively safe.”
We moved into the small briefing room. Command was transferred to Dagan, who explained his vision while wolfing down a pile of small sandwiches. Ronny joined us with the lieutenant from intelligence.
“As you are all aware, we have a hijacked Air Force 707 on our hands. It’s a very old model. The hijackers belong to a faction that split away from Jibril’s organization; they are anarchists who want to blow things up and don’t really care what these things are. We have twenty-two Israelis on board, including the foreign minister and the cabinet secretary. Five others have been killed or executed so far, and one body which was released. From what we know, the plane is already booby-trapped, possibly in four locations: two charges are next to the wings, ready to blow up the fuel tanks; one charge is in the cockpit, and one charge is in the tail area. The detonators are most likely motion-activated, just like in the Shatura bombing. One charge will set off the rest. Anything hitting the plane will also set off all four charges. The hijackers have now agreed to allow a TV crew to come on board, and they are planning to pull the wool over the whole world’s eyes. They said they will only agree to a CNN crew, and that’s alright. We can get three people on board. We also have Karni with us, she now works for CNN, as well as Ronny who works with everyone and holds a CNN card. With them, we will send a soundman, one of ours. The play, as far as we are concerned will be for the TV crew to gather as much information as possible. I need to learn everything I can about those charges including how to neutralize them, and I need to know about the state of the Israelis on board and that of the hijackers. As for the hijackers, we have three or four out of the five who boarded the plane. At least one of them was killed during the takeover. That’s as far as information gathering is concerned.
The next thing I want from the crew that’s going aboard is to verify their intentions. The assholes haven’t released anything so far apart from the story about them wanting to blow up the plane and a list of prisoners to be released, and also demanding a lot of crap, just for the fun of it’ like that Israel give up all the occupied territories and apologize, and get down on its knees and cry and possibly disappear, too.
The third thing is the TV interview. This is why we picked Karni. Besides finding out their intentions, we also need to get the hijackers into a psychological space. I’m hardly an expert in these things, but from what I hear from all the professionals, this is a high-stress situation in which pressure and anxiety are maximal not only among the hostages but also among the hijackers. You know the crap about Stockholm syndrome, when hostages start to empathize with their kidnappers. What the cabinet secretary did here was play a sentimental trick on the hijacker who started talking to his daughter and softened up, which got him to thinking about all sorts of things. He actually came back to embrace life after having begun this hijacking from a point at which he was ready to commit suicide along with everyone on that plane.
My expectation for Karni is to interrogate and interview him as much as possible about personal stories. The more he softens up and becomes sentimental, the more his alertness decreases and our ability to act increases.”
Karni said, as if thinking out loud, “Well, that’s all clear… the question is, what do you want from your soundman? Why must you push one of your men into this and endanger all of us?”
“My man is actually from the bomb squad,” Dagan quickly explained, choking on the last bit of sandwich he tried to swallow. “He’s supposed to check out the charges, and with a little luck, if you guys do a good job and keep them busy, he’ll be able to neutralize the charges and solve half the problem.”
“The second half,” Karni said. “Are the personal weapons that they will start to use to kill everyone.”
“Yes, something like that, more or less. But before that happens, we were planning to bring the wife and daughter back into the game.”
“I still don’t get the thing with the wife and daughter. If your plan was to use them then that makes us no different from the hijackers.” Karni wasn’t about to make this easy on Dagan.
“Alright, that’s off the table anyway,” he tried to evade the issue. “Besides, Uzi Bar-Sela from the foreign ministry is planning to brief you on what they call the political option. Micko knows this already. It’s Red Cross bullshit. Not that I give it any chance of success, mind you. Those guys from the foreign ministry can’t even think of something without running off to leak it to the press.”
At this point, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Leaks?” I turned to Dagan in a furious whisper. “Who are you to talk? We can’t start anything until you plug the leak in your own system.”
“What are you talking about?” Harel joined the conversation in anger.
“You know exactly what I am talking about. There’s no way Abu Shahid could have known about the Viper system that could
have cut the plane in two, or about the intention to exhaust him or about any other plan we had, which he got word of within minutes.”
“Half the world watches CNN, it’s all out there. There’s no reason why he of all people shouldn’t know what was about to happen.” Dagan was trying to evade the issue.
“There’s a permanent leak here,” I insisted. “So don’t play games with me. I don’t know what kind of game you guys are playing, whether you are deliberately trying to trick someone or whether there’s a spy among us, if you’ll forgive the expression. At any rate, I am not sending out a crew for you to employ while Abu Shahid already knows about it and is expecting it.”
“We don’t have time for your antics.” Micko tried to shut me up.
“You don’t know me yet and you don’t know my antics either. I asked a question and I am waiting for an answer. The CNN crew isn’t leaving on any mission until I get my answer. This guy,” I pointed at Ronny. “Isn’t going out to the plane to get butchered without at least knowing what’s waiting for him out there.”
Hezi, the intelligence officer, intervened. “The only way to answer your question, given the time constraint, would be at the listening station where they can retrace all the communications going into the plane and coming out of it since the moment of the hijack.”
“Who asked you anyway?” Dagan barked at him. Hezi blinked twice but otherwise showed no sign of being fazed.
“All the communications?” asked Harel. “How do you know that you’re even capturing all of it?”
“I can’t be certain, but besides the main COMINT6 base, which is locked in on the plane, you know that we also deployed the MCB north of Rosh Ha-Ayin and it has a line of sight to the plane.”
“Excuse me, can someone tell me what an MCB is?” I asked.
“Mobile COMINT Battalion,” Hezi replied. “Two monitoring stations are constantly recording every transmission sent to the plane or from it, using computerized frequency scanners that go through all the frequency spectrums known to us, from routine technologies to the most sophisticated ones, looking for the spy’s transmission.”
“And the security service is on it as well, along with the army’s field security,” added Harel.
“So?” I said. “Did they report any findings?”
“Nothing, so far.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know where the leak is coming from, and you know as well as I do that you guys are in deep shit with this. It’s your responsibility to release those hostages unharmed, isn’t it?” I turned to Harel who was trying to support his forehead with three fingers. “Let’s go to that Mobile COMINT Battalion and see what they’ve got. I won’t screw up your plans. I think you want to solve this just as much as I do.”
“Sure I do, but we don’t have time.” He looked at Dagan who was still contemplating whether to kill the intelligence officer or me, but his red-hot anger had cooled down somewhat. He didn’t utter a word.
“So be it,” Harel decided. “Go to the MCB right now. Micko, Hezi-the-wisest-of-men, you, and that guy, Ronny, who simply has to know what he is getting into before he boards that plane. You have exactly two hours to get back here, or else we call off the broadcast and go back to the original plan.”
“The original plan to go in shooting,” added Dagan, who hadn’t believed in an alternative plan from the get-go.
“Exactly,” said Harel. “But if you stumble upon anything there, you need to report to me and to me only.”
* * *
Chapter 24
The Mobile COMINT Battalion had deployed its equipment in the training facility of the Electric Utility Company. Anyone observing from outside would not have noticed the irregular activity or the antennas and satellite dishes erected by the battalion. Long squill stems waved in the wind on the nearby hill.
It was a short ride in a dark night on a bumpy road. Ronny was there with me in the back seat, trying to ease my tension with his solid hand in my hand. The commander of the post was Major Dana who greeted us as we arrived. She had studied electronics before her military service and now served as the deputy battalion commander. She had received notice of our arrival from operations.
“I gather that you are all cleared for this stuff,” she told Hezi. “But some of my equipment here is still too classified to expose.”
Hezi, as usual, adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked her up and down in appreciation. She most certainly was a woman to his taste, professional and to the point. She accompanied us to an antenna-dished truck that had its back part serve as a conference room for four people at best. On the table, stood a small vase with three crocuses.
“A friend brings me fresh ones every morning, from his yard,” she explained, seeing my amazed look. Through the truck’s tiny hatch, the night was still thick and dark. Through the ventilation outlets, I could hear frogs croaking.
“We need to know about transmissions going to the plane. What transmissions have you located?” asked Hezi.
“I believe we located all possible transmissions,” said Dana decisively, almost on the verge of being offended. “We have three computerized scanners working systematically through all known frequencies from fifty to fifteen thousand megahertz. There’s no way anyone could transmit to the plane without us noticing it.”
“And what have you found so far?”
“There were four transmissions in the range of twenty to twenty-five thousand megahertz.”
“A civilian frequency?”
“Yes. A satellite phone. It’s similar to a regular cell phone, but it doesn’t necessitate a local transponder. The same telephone can be used anywhere in the world, from Tibet or from Mexico.”
“And that’s it?” Hezi didn’t look like someone who would be satisfied with anything less than the maximum.
“We jammed them once. The transmission resumed one minute later at one to two thousand megahertz frequency.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning a cell phone. A regular cell phone.”
“So you mean to tell me that when you jammed them they simply switched to a local cell phone?” Hezi found it hard to understand.
“Apparently.” Dana wasn’t about to volunteer any information.
“What exactly did they say in those transmissions?” Ronny was the one to ask.
“I can’t release that information to you,” said Dana, clenching her jaw. “Remember that the general security service and military field security both received the traffic in order to monitor it. I have no idea what they did with it. I understand that there is a problem, but I received a direct order not to release that info to anyone else.”
“That’s very strange,” Ronny pursed his brows. “If it’s material pertaining to the spy, the spy, or God knows what, then why aren’t they doing anything about it?”
“Maybe they want to keep him for more meaningful operations,” said Hezi pensively.
“Really,” I cut him off. “What could possibly be more meaningful than this?”
“It’s highly unlikely,” Micko backed me up. There followed a long silence.
“Did you manage to identify the location of the local cell phone?” I asked.
“We received an initial direction on the transponder at Ben Shemen Junction, not far from Modi’in. Whoever it is, he is transmitting from the area very close to us. We also got the first two digits of the phone number, two and five. The transmission was then cut off. We tried using a transmission simulator, a sort of imitation of the transmission, but it didn’t function.”
“And you didn’t try to jam the cell phone again?”
“We jammed it once, but after I reported the results, I received a clear and definite order not to do it again.”
“I can’t believe that someone is in touch with the plane, that the general security service and military intelligence field security are allowing it to go on,” said Ronny quietly.
It was clear to me that they wouldn’t allow the anonymous spy t
o torpedo operational plans unless they wanted him to.
“It’s possible that the Viper plan was a bit over the top, although the prime minister authorized it. Maybe the army didn’t care whether a plan like that was canceled because of a premature leak, and maybe it actually would have solved a problem they had,” I was thinking out loud. “On the other hand, perhaps silencing the source would have caused a lot of agitation among the hijackers, and would have provoked an unwanted reaction.”
“The challenge that lies before whoever is monitoring the leak from our side is how to keep the communications channel as well as the leak open,” Hezi pointed out, “while monitoring the situation minute by minute, in order to make sure that the information being leaked will not cause significant damage.”
I thought that there was still the question of who exactly would be feeding the leaking spy with adequate information which would be credible on one hand but harmless on the other. I might trust that no harm would endanger my crew boarding the plane because someone is down there to make sure it’s all safe, but it wasn’t good enough. It just didn’t feel right when it came to Karni and Ronny. I wouldn’t let them go out without knowing the whole truth about that leak. I felt that I was getting very close to an answer, and I was determined not to let go.
“Who gave you the order not to jam the transmission again?”
She shook her head. “I can’t give out names.”
“Was it someone from your Herzliya headquarters?” asked Hezi.
She nodded her head.
“Yes,” he mumbled to himself. “But it’s clear that they received an order from higher up.”
So there was this strategy to continue allowing the leaks to the plane, but to what end?
“What happens if they transmit to the plane now?” I asked.
“Then I would record it—”
“And we wouldn’t be allowed to hear,” Ronny cut her off.
“Exactly. I would record it but I wouldn’t jam it.”