The Devil's Alternative

CHAPTER TWENTY

1600 to 2000

OFF THE COAST south of Haifa, the little Dominie turned its nose for the last time and began dropping on a straight-in course for the main runway at Ben-Gurion Airport, inland from Tel Aviv.

It touched down after exactly four hours and thirty minutes of flight, at four-fifteen European time. It was six-fifteen in Israel.

At Ben-Gurion the upper terrace of the passenger building was crowded with curious sightseers, surprised in a security-obsessed country to be allowed free access to such a spectacle.

Despite the earlier demands of the terrorists on the Freya that there be no police presence, officers of the Israeli Special Branch were there. Some were in the uniform of El Al staff, others selling soft drinks, or sweeping the forecourt, or at the wheels of taxis. Detective Inspector Avram Hirsch was in a newspaper delivery van, doing nothing in particular with bundles of evening papers that might or might not be destined for the kiosk in the main concourse.

After touchdown, the Royal Air Force plane was led by a ground-control jeep to the apron of tarmac in front of the passenger terminal. Here a small knot of officials waited to take charge of the two passengers from Berlin.

Not far away an El Al jet was also parked, and from its curtained portholes two men with binoculars peered through the cracks in the fabric at the row of faces atop the passenger building. Each had a walkie-talkie set to hand.

Somewhere in the crowd of several hundred on the observation terrace Miroslav Kaminsky stood, indistinguishable from the innocent sightseers.

One of the Israeli officials mounted the few steps to the Dominie and went inside. After two minutes he emerged, followed by David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin. Two young hotheads from the Jewish Defense League on the terrace unfurled a placard they had secreted in their coats and held it up. It read simply WELCOME and was written in Hebrew. They also began to clap, until several of their neighbors told them to shut up.

Mishkin and Lazareff looked up at the crowd on the terrace above them as they were led along the front of the terminal building, preceded by a knot of officials and with two uniformed policemen behind them. Several of the sightseers waved; most watched in silence.

From inside the parked airliner the Special Branch men peered out, straining to catch any sign of recognition from the refugees toward one of those at the railing.

Lev Mishkin saw Kaminsky first and muttered something quickly in Ukrainian out of the side of his mouth. It was picked up at once by a directional microphone aimed at the pair of them from a catering van a hundred yards away. The man squinting at the riflelike microphone did not hear the phrase; the man next to him in the cramped van, with the earphones over his head, did. He had been picked for his knowledge of Ukrainian. He muttered into a walkie-talkie, “Mishkin just made a remark to Lazareff. He said, quote, ‘There he is, near the end, wearing the blue tie,’ unquote.”

Inside the parked airliner the two watchers swung their binoculars toward the end of the terrace. Between them and the terminal building the knot of officials continued their solemn parade past the sightseers.

Mishkin, having spotted his fellow Ukrainian, looked away. Lazareff ran his eyes along the line of faces above him, spotted Miroslav Kaminsky, and winked. That was all Kaminsky needed; there had been no switch of prisoners.

One of the men behind the curtains in the airliner said, “Got him,” and began to speak into his walkie-talkie.

“Medium height, early thirties, brown hair, brown eyes, dressed in gray trousers, tweed sports jacket, and blue tie. Standing seven or eight feet from the far end of the observation terrace, toward the control tower.”

Mishkin and Lazareff disappeared into the building. The crowd on the roof, the spectacle over, began to disperse. They poured down the stairwell to the interior of the main concourse. At the bottom of the stairs a gray-haired man was sweeping cigarette butts into a trash can. As the column swept past him, he spotted a man in a tweed jacket and blue tie. He was still sweeping as the man strode across the concourse floor.

The sweeper reached into his trash cart, took out a small black box, and muttered, “Suspect moving on foot toward exit gate five.”

Outside the building Avram Hirsch hefted a bundle of evening newspapers from the back of the van and swung them onto a dolly held by one of his colleagues. The man in the blue tie walked within a few feet of him, looking neither to right nor left, made for a parked rented car, and climbed in.

Detective Inspector Hirsch slammed the rear doors of his van, walked to the passenger door, and swung himself into the seat.

“The Volkswagen Golf over there in the car park,” he said to the van driver, Detective Constable Moishe Bentsur. When the rented car left the parking area en route for the main exit from the airport complex, the newspaper van was two hundred yards behind it.

Ten minutes later Avram Hirsch alerted the other police cars coming up behind him. “Suspect entering Avia Hotel car park.”

Miroslav Kaminsky had his room key in his pocket. He passed quickly through the foyer and took the elevator to his sixth-floor room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he lifted the telephone and asked for an outside line. When he got it, he began to dial.

“He’s just asked for an outside line,” the switchboard operator told Inspector Hirsch, who was by her side.

“Can you trace the number he’s dialing?”

“No, it’s automatic for local calls.”

“Blast!” said Hirsch. “Come on.” He and Bentsur ran for the elevator.

The telephone in the Jerusalem office of the BBC was answered at the third ring.

“Do you speak English?” asked Kaminsky.