12.07.2015 Views

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS
  • No tags were found...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

BY WAY OF DECEPTION 4quently met his department heads and ordered them to find animmediate Iraqi tie-in to the manufacturing plant at Sarcelles,France.An exhaustive two-day search <strong>of</strong> personnel files came up empty,so Biran called the head <strong>of</strong> the Paris station, David Arbel, a whitehairedmultilingual career Mossad <strong>of</strong>ficer, giving him thenecessary details for the assignment. Like all such stations, theone in Paris is located in the heavily reinforced underground <strong>of</strong> theIsraeli embassy. Arbel, as head <strong>of</strong> the station, outranked even theambassador. Mossad personnel control the diplomatic pouch (the"dip"), and all mail in and out <strong>of</strong> the embassies goes throughthem. They are also in charge <strong>of</strong> maintaining safe houses, knownas "operational apartments"; the London station alone, forexample, owns more than 100 such flats and rents another 50.Paris also had its share <strong>of</strong> sayanim, Jewish volunteer helpersfrom all walks <strong>of</strong> life, and one <strong>of</strong> them, code-named JacquesMarcel, worked in personnel at the Sarcelles nuclear plant. Had theproject been less urgent, he would not have been asked toprocure an actual document. Normally, he would pass alonginformation verbally, or even copy it onto paper. Taking adocument involves the risk <strong>of</strong> getting caught and puts the sayan indanger. But in this case, they decided they needed the actualdocument, primarily because Arabic names are <strong>of</strong>ten confusing(they frequently use different names in different situations). Andso, to be certain, Marcel was asked for the list <strong>of</strong> all Iraqipersonnel working there.Since he was scheduled to come into Paris for a meeting thenext week anyway, Marcel was instructed to put the personnel listin the trunk <strong>of</strong> his car along with others he was legitimatelybringing to the meeting. The night before, a Mossad katsa(gathering <strong>of</strong>ficer) met him, got a duplicate trunk key, and gavethe man his instructions. Marcel was to make one round <strong>of</strong> a sidestreet near the Ecole Militaire at the appointed time: there hewould see a red Peugeot with a particular sticker on the backwindow. The car would have been rented and left all night in front<strong>of</strong> a cafê to guarantee a parking spot, always a prime commodity inParis. Marcel was told to circle the block, and when he came back,the Peugeot

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!