other-side-of-deception-victor-ostrovsky

wouldn't be part of the embassy staff as were the case officers at theLondon station. Several days after the Yarid sweep, the British wereback on their trail because they knew who the bodlim were, and aslong as the station followed security procedures, they were going to bediscovered by the British.Mousa, knowing that the British were watching, had decided tooffer the operation to the Mossad heads as a double blind operation,3hence the name Domino. No doubt the official operational name wassome computer-generated word that would appear on all official documentation,but it was nicknamed Domino.A new face came on the scene, a PLO officer with very fewoptions who'd been recruited by the Mossad during the war in 1982.The man had been a second lieutenant in the late seventies, had been amember of the Al-Sa'iqa$ then graduated from the Fatah militaryacademy and served in the Palestinian armor unit in the Syrian army.In 1978, he was moved, still with his military unit, to Lebanon, wherehe was recruited by the Mossad. It had him ask for a transfer to Force17, which he obtained. The man's name was Muhammad MustafaAbd-al-Rahaman, serial number 13952.The man's only contact in Britain was a Palestinian named Sawan,who had already been working for the Mossad for some time. Mousaassumed (and was probably right) that Sawan was under some sort ofobservation because he was in contact with Barda, his case officer,who in turn had used the safe house that was under surveillance. Fromthis point on, Abd-al-Rahaman was going to be portrayed as the villainand the one with the direct tie to the PLO and Force 17.He was going to bring weapons into England and have Sawankeep them for him in his apartment. This would give the British a falsesense of security: They wouldn't act as long as they thought they knewwhat was going on and might reel in some bigger fish. Moreover, theywere confident that they were doing it all without the knowledge ofthe Mossad. At the right time, both Sawan and Abd-al-Rahamanwould leave the country, and a Mossad Kidon team would come inand carry out the assassination of the Palestinian cartoonist, leaving it3. Double blind operation: An operation carried out for a particular purpose,yet, because the opposition is watching, manipulated to give the impression ithas some other purpose.4. Al-Sa'iqa: Pioneers of the Popular War of Liberation, a Palestinian groupestablished by the Syrian Ba'ath party as part of the PLO in 1968. It broke offfrom the PLO in 1983 and has some 1,200 members.to be blamed on Abd-al-Rahaman, who would be the stooge. But bythen, he'd be resting in a comfortable, unmarked grave in the GazaStrip.As good friends should, the Mossad would then provide theBritish with all the information they needed for the investigation andwould deliver the weapons stash into their hands, throwing in Sawanas an agent gone bad, who was meant to bring in the information butdidn't.The Brit was taking all this down, as well as having the taperecorder running all the time. He hurled an endless barrage of questionsat me, wanting above all to know where this information camefrom. As best I could, I answered his technical questions, but when itcame to the sources, I had to make it clear to him that it was none ofhis business.Instead, I told him I had a new tie pattern for him. I handed him apassport photo with the face cut out."What is that for?" he asked, staring at it."Give this to the people I met in Washington. Tell them this is anew pattern. They'll know what I'm talking about."I'd shown the Brits in our meeting in Washington that all theMossad people whose photos they had were wearing one of three tiepatterns. The photo lab where everyone had his photo taken offeredgeneric ties and jackets to throw on, since it's very rare in Israel tocome to work with a tie. A new diplomat working in the embassy hasto look dignified in a photo handed in to foreign authorities, so he hasno choice but to wear one of the ties. That's why the Mossad peoplecan be easily identified by their ties. I knew that this had helped theBritish identify the new bodlim, and now Ephraim had brought me anew photo of himself, wearing a new tie someone had donated to thephoto lab."How about coming to London for a few days?" the man asked,smiling as if he were awarding me a prize of some sort. "All expensespaid, of course.""Why? So that I could end up like Vanunu?""What are you talking about? We had nothing to do with that."He sounded almost insulted."Don't give me that crap. You had the London station under.observation at the time, and you watched several of the safe houses.There is no way in the world that you didn't know that the girl he wasmeeting, Cindy what's-her-name, was not who she claimed to be. Youhad to know; I gave you people enough information for you to realizethat she was going in to meet people from the London station after she