a
little premature triumph: they were going for it.
He took a taxi from the town and got out close to his car but on the
wrong side of the highway. The Opel went by, then the Ford pulled off the
road a couple of hundred yards behind him.
Dickstein began to run.
73
Ken Folloff
He was in good condition after his months of outdoor work in the kibbutz.
He sprinted to the pedestrian bridge, ran across it and raced along the
shoulder on the other side of the road. Breathing hard and sweating, he
reached his abandoned car in under three minutes.
One of the men from.the Ford had got out and started to follow him. The
man now realized he had been taken in. The Ford moved off. The man ran
back and jumped into it as it gathered speed and swung into the slow
lane.
Dickstein got into his car. The surveillance vehicles were now on the
wrong side of the highway and would have to go all the way to the next
junction before they could cross over and come after him. At sixty miles
per hour the round trip would take them ten minutes, which meant he had
at least five minutes start on them. They would not catch him.
He pulled away, heading for Paris, humming a musical chant that came.
from the football terraces of West Ham: "Easy, easy, eeeezeee."
Ilere was a godalmighty panic in Moscow when they heard about the Arab
atom bomb.
The Foreign Ministry panicked because they bad not heard of it earlier,
the KGB panicked because they had not heard about it first, and the Party
Secretary's office panicked because the last thing they wanted was
another whos-to-blame row between the Foreign Ministry and the KGB, the
previous one had made life hell in the Kremlin for eleven months.
Fortunately, the way the Egyptians chose to make their revelation allowed
for a certain amount of covering of rears. The Egyptians wanted to make
the point that they were not diplomatically obliged to tell their allies
about this secret project, and the technical help they were asking for
was not crucial to its success. Their attitude was "Oh, by the way, we're
building this nuclear reactor in order to get some plutonium to make atom
bombs to blow Israel off the face of the earth, so would you like to give
us a hand, or not?" The message, trimmed and decorated with ambassadorial
niceties, was delivered, in the manner of an afterthought, at the end of
a routine meeting between the Egyptian Ambassador in Moscow and the
deputy chief of the Middle East desk at the Foreign Ministry.
The deputy chief who received the message considered
74
TJUPLE
very carefully what he should do with the information. Ifis first duty,
naturally, was to pass the news to his chief, who would then tell the
Secretary. However, the credit for the news would go to his chief, who
would also not miss the opportunity for scoring points off the KGB. Was
there a way for the deputy chief to gain some advantage to himself out of
the affair?
He knew that the best way to get on in the Kremlin was to put the KGB
under some obligation to yourself. He was now in a position to do the
boys a big favor. If he warned them of the Egyptian Ambassador's message,
they would have a little time to get ready to pretend they knew all about
the Arab atom bomb and were about to reveal the news themselves.
He put on his coat, thinking to go out and phone his acquaintance in the
KGB from a phone booth in case his own phone were tapped-then he realized
how silly that would be, for he was going to call the KGB, and it was
they who tapped people's phones anyway; so he took off his coat and used
his office phone.
The KGB desk man he talked to was equally expert at working the system.
In the new KGB building on the Moscow ring road, he kicked up a huge
fuss. First he called his boss's secretary and asked for an urgent
meeting in fifteen minutes. He carefully avoided speaking to the boas
himself. He fired off half a dozen more noisy phone calls, and sent
secretaries and messengers
little premature triumph: they were going for it.
He took a taxi from the town and got out close to his car but on the
wrong side of the highway. The Opel went by, then the Ford pulled off the
road a couple of hundred yards behind him.
Dickstein began to run.
73
Ken Folloff
He was in good condition after his months of outdoor work in the kibbutz.
He sprinted to the pedestrian bridge, ran across it and raced along the
shoulder on the other side of the road. Breathing hard and sweating, he
reached his abandoned car in under three minutes.
One of the men from.the Ford had got out and started to follow him. The
man now realized he had been taken in. The Ford moved off. The man ran
back and jumped into it as it gathered speed and swung into the slow
lane.
Dickstein got into his car. The surveillance vehicles were now on the
wrong side of the highway and would have to go all the way to the next
junction before they could cross over and come after him. At sixty miles
per hour the round trip would take them ten minutes, which meant he had
at least five minutes start on them. They would not catch him.
He pulled away, heading for Paris, humming a musical chant that came.
from the football terraces of West Ham: "Easy, easy, eeeezeee."
Ilere was a godalmighty panic in Moscow when they heard about the Arab
atom bomb.
The Foreign Ministry panicked because they bad not heard of it earlier,
the KGB panicked because they had not heard about it first, and the Party
Secretary's office panicked because the last thing they wanted was
another whos-to-blame row between the Foreign Ministry and the KGB, the
previous one had made life hell in the Kremlin for eleven months.
Fortunately, the way the Egyptians chose to make their revelation allowed
for a certain amount of covering of rears. The Egyptians wanted to make
the point that they were not diplomatically obliged to tell their allies
about this secret project, and the technical help they were asking for
was not crucial to its success. Their attitude was "Oh, by the way, we're
building this nuclear reactor in order to get some plutonium to make atom
bombs to blow Israel off the face of the earth, so would you like to give
us a hand, or not?" The message, trimmed and decorated with ambassadorial
niceties, was delivered, in the manner of an afterthought, at the end of
a routine meeting between the Egyptian Ambassador in Moscow and the
deputy chief of the Middle East desk at the Foreign Ministry.
The deputy chief who received the message considered
74
TJUPLE
very carefully what he should do with the information. Ifis first duty,
naturally, was to pass the news to his chief, who would then tell the
Secretary. However, the credit for the news would go to his chief, who
would also not miss the opportunity for scoring points off the KGB. Was
there a way for the deputy chief to gain some advantage to himself out of
the affair?
He knew that the best way to get on in the Kremlin was to put the KGB
under some obligation to yourself. He was now in a position to do the
boys a big favor. If he warned them of the Egyptian Ambassador's message,
they would have a little time to get ready to pretend they knew all about
the Arab atom bomb and were about to reveal the news themselves.
He put on his coat, thinking to go out and phone his acquaintance in the
KGB from a phone booth in case his own phone were tapped-then he realized
how silly that would be, for he was going to call the KGB, and it was
they who tapped people's phones anyway; so he took off his coat and used
his office phone.
The KGB desk man he talked to was equally expert at working the system.
In the new KGB building on the Moscow ring road, he kicked up a huge
fuss. First he called his boss's secretary and asked for an urgent
meeting in fifteen minutes. He carefully avoided speaking to the boas
himself. He fired off half a dozen more noisy phone calls, and sent
secretaries and messengers
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