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By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

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194 BY WAY OF DECEPTIONlate, sometimes up to three hours, because the airport had onlytwo runways to handle up to 500 aircraft a day in peak season.Of course Meir's plane would receive top priority, but the constantconfusion in the airport itself was no help to the Mossad <strong>of</strong>ficialsscurrying around trying to find a group <strong>of</strong> terrorists and theirmissiles. They could be anywhere in the airport itself, the nearbyhangars, or in the fields surrounding the airport.For his part as he was patrolling the airport, Kauly ran into aRome-based katsa and asked where the Mossad liaison peoplewere. (They were the ones who would notify the Italian police whenneeded, not the katsas themselves.)"What liaison?" the man replied."You mean they aren't here!" Kauly was incredulous. "No," said theRome katsa.Kauly immediately called the liaison man in Rome and told him tocall Vivani and tell him what was going on. "Pull whatever stringsare necessary. We've got to get reinforcements out here."It seemed more likely the terrorists would be outside the perimeter<strong>of</strong> the airport within missile range <strong>of</strong> Meir's plane, since thereproved to be very few good hiding spots on airport grounds. Still,they searched everywhere, soon joined by Adaglio Malti <strong>of</strong> Italianintelligence.Malti had no idea the place was full <strong>of</strong> Mossad <strong>of</strong>ficers. He wasthere because <strong>of</strong> a tip from the Rome liaison <strong>of</strong>ficer that, based onreliable information received, the PLO was planning to embarrassthe Italians by shooting down Meir's plane over the airport withRussian-made missiles. (That message would have been approvedfirst by liaison command in Tel Aviv before being transferred to theItalians.)* * *<strong>By</strong> this time, the terrorists had split into two groups. One, withfour missiles, went to the south <strong>of</strong> the airport, and the other, witheight, to the north. The fact that two <strong>of</strong> the 14 "cakes" would beunaccounted for after the operation

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