The Falstaff Enigma (13 page)

Robert Austin followed the directions of the transplanted American. They proved to be reliable. Within minutes he passed by two young soldiers, one of whom was engaged in a conversation with a pretty girl. Austin guessed her age to be in the late teens and put his at about twenty. The other soldier stood off to the side a couple of feet, forcing a smile on his face. He was obviously uncomfortable in his role as third person. Each soldier had an M-16 rifle slung muzzle-down over his shoulder.

Austin spent a minute thinking about what he would say and two minutes building up his nerve.
He approached the third person and tapped the young man's shoulder. The other soldier and his friend continued their conversation, not acknowledging Austin's presence. If anything, they seemed a little relieved, no longer having to worry about entertaining the third person.

"Do you speak English?" Austin
asked.

"Yes, a little," answered the Israeli.
His accent was thick and his words strained. Austin noticed that the soldier's hand relaxed off the grip of his weapon.

The analyst stepped backwards a couple of times and
waved the Israeli to follow him. The soldier complied.

"I need you to speak with your commanding officer."
Austin spoke slowly while maintaining authority in his voice. Authority was the key to manipulating the young man in front of him and Austin had two advantages going for him: he was older and a little taller than the soldier.

“Why?” The s
oldier was instantly defensive. It was a reaction born of a lifetime of conflict.

"I must speak to him about a situation of high importance." The soldier ga
ve Austin a look of puzzlement. "Very important, very important," added the analyst, emphasizing it by using his hands in a pleading motion.

The soldier paused a moment
and then asked, "Who are you?"

The analyst wanted to grab the young soldier by the collar
and shout his name. I'm Robert Austin, damn you.
Listen to me, I'm fighting for my life!
Austin pulled the Canadian diplomatic passport from his back pocket and handed it to the soldier. "My name is Robert Taylor. I am a Canadian Government official in Toronto."

Once again, the fake passport
– the second one since Ankara – proved invaluable. The soldier saw the diplomatic status and immediately decided that letting his superior handle this was the smart move. He turned to his friend, who had been oblivious to everything. The two soldiers exchanged words. Austin's man turned back to the analyst and gave a half smile. The girl handed her flirtatious partner a piece of paper on which she had just written. Austin assumed that it was a phone number. The man happily accepted the paper and finally broke off the conversation.

"You come," said Austin's soldier.
The three walked down the street to a parked jeep.

Thirty minutes later Austin convinced the two soldiers
’ commander to send him up the chain of command another notch. Again, Austin had refused to reveal anything to this officer. After another hour, half of it spent driving to another part of the city, he was in the office of an Israeli colonel.

This new officer walked in.
He was European and about forty years old. As was the case with most members of Israel Defense Force, the man was in very good physical condition.

"Welcome, Mr. Taylor.
Or is it Ambassador Taylor?" The colonel's English was accented but quite good.

"Mr. Taylor is correct," replied Austin.

The officer stepped behind his desk and offered his hand. "Colonel Shinar." The two men shook hands and sat down. "I understand that there is something of grave importance to the free world that you need to get off your chest."

"This is no
joke, colonel."

"Then prove it to me.
Do not play games with my men all day long. This I do not appreciate. Your diplomatic standing entitles you to a certain degree of respect, but there is a limit to all tolerance."

"I appreciate your position, Colonel S
hinar.” Austin paused and looked behind him around the room. "We must be alone."

The colonel laughed.
"Yes, yes, we must be alone," Shinar mimicked as he motioned the others to leave the room. "Now proceed."

"You must get me in touch with the Mossad."

The colonel lost his patience and pointed his finger in Austin's face. "If you want that, then go through your government. In the meantime, get out of my office." The officer's finger was now pointed at the door.

Austin stood up, slamming the desk with his right fist as he did.
"Listen to me, goddamn it, there's something going on that involves your country, the United States and the Soviet Union, and I am, unfortunately, in the middle of it. I don't even know what it is or where I fit in the puzzle, but I do know that it's very, very real.

"Now my next step is to talk with the Mossad and you have to arrange
it for me. And before you ask, I can't tell you what it is or who I am."

The officer stood and pa
ced three times behind his desk. He stopped and stared Austin in the eye. The analyst did not flinch. "Okay, Mr. Taylor, or whoever you are. I'll set up your meeting with Mossad, but only if you give me something that will have meaning to them."

"No."

"Yes. I must have some basis for talking to these people or they will not waste their time."

Austin looked directly into the
colonel’s eyes. He swallowed. "Do you know the name Alexandr Govenin?"

"Of course.
He was a Russian scientist who was killed here two weeks ago."

"Do you know who killed him?"

"Obviously, yes. The PLO. They thought they were killing the head of Mossad."

"So that's the story," Austin
said with a smile.

"It's no story.
Mossad men wounded one of the Palestinians involved. He talked before he died."

"Well I'll tell you what,
colonel, you get in touch with someone high up in Mossad, and I mean high up, and you say this: 'Govenin, KGB team.'"

The office of David Margolis was not what one would expect of the man responsible for coordinating
Mossad field agents in the European portion of the Soviet Union. It was barren and small, with a single narrow window that stretched from floor to ceiling, and offered the view of an inner courtyard. The window was in the center of the room's rear wall opposite the door. In front of it was a small desk, downsized to fit the room, covered with simulated wood Formica. The desk had a futuristic telephone on one side, the only clue that this was the office of someone of any importance. Also, the desk held two notebooks, both with words on the front written in Hebrew, Arabic, English, German and French that boldly said, "Classified. Unauthorized Reading of this Material is Punishable by Life Imprisonment." One notebook was open. Above it loomed a bright reading lamp, its glare obscuring many of the words on the open pages.

The walls in t
his office were not to be seen. Every square foot, from the door frame to the window frame, was covered with bookshelves, and every available slot was occupied. Most of the books were in Russian, the rest in English. No, this did not look like the office of an intelligence operative; it could have been the office of any college professor in the world.

Appearances deceive.
David Margolis was standing, his shoulder against the bookcase, his eyes gazing out the eight inch wide glass, unable to focus. His mind, though, could focus, and it wandered over the facts and details of the life of Alexandr Govenin. Why would the Soviets send an elite team of KGB assassins to Tel Aviv to kill him? Margolis considered a hundred facts at once, all colliding but none meshing into a logical string. What could a physicist who was persona non grata for years have learned about the death of a Soviet war hero? It was all illogical.

And logic was the always the key to David Margolis. His friends often compared his mental process to a computer, a comparison he never discouraged. All A’s are C. B is A. Therefore B is C. His mind thrived on the logical process and his mind had taken him far. From high school in Skokie to a degree with high honors from Northwestern to an MBA from the University of Chicago to a stellar career with IT&T that took him to Moscow on a regular basis. His mind had always been the key. In fact, he could think of only one illogical move he had ever made, and that was when he gave up all that he had achieved to join
Mossad in 1978. He was still grateful for that one lapse, for the Mossad had become his home and his salvation.

Two quick knocks on the door broke David's thoughts. "Enter."

The door opened. A young, excited Mossad agent walked in just enough to close the door behind him. "l think you need to go see Colonel Shinar immediately," the young agent said.

"Why?"

"He has someone in his office who claims to be a Canadian diplomat named Robert Taylor and he wants to see someone in power within Mossad."

"
Well?" asked David, expecting the young agent to supply more details.

"l ran a background on the name and the only Robert Taylor that came up was a fifty-two year old tax collector in Vancouver.
Our guy is in his thirties. Then I called the Canadian Embassy and they've never heard of the name."

"Any guess as to what he wants?"

"No."

Margolis sat down at his desk and picked up the open notebook.
"You go talk to him and when you are sure he is crazy, get him on a flight out of Israel," said David, with his eyes on the notebook pages.

"You're going to want to come with me."

"If you have something to tell me, then tell me." David's eyes were now squarely on his underling.

"He told Shinar to tell us: 'Govenin, KGB team.'"

The young Mossad agent opened the door to Shinar's office. The colonel rose from his seat but Austin stayed in his place with his back to the door. David Margolis entered next with two Mossad security men behind him. The young agent stepped to the side as David advanced to shake the colonel's hand. Then Margolis turned to Austin to introduce himself. Austin stood and extended his right hand.

"
Oh," David blurted out as his body froze. It was not a word, just an audible gasp.

“D
avid?” asked Austin, his knee buckling slightly under him. The shock in his voice soon gave way to an inner relaxation.

David n
odded his head slowly in reply. He began speaking in Russian, knowing that only Austin would understand. "I have no idea how you came to be here, but I am here because I have been in Mossad since August of 1978 and I am now, as you put it, 'high up' in this organization. I assume that you have something very important to discuss with me."

“
Yes.”

"Did you know you would find me
?" David asked.

"
I knew that someone with your name was involved with Govenin, but I was certain that it wasn’t you. I am very glad that my assumption was wrong. Can we go somewhere to talk?"

"Yes.
Immediately."

"All I ask i
s that we go to a place that is very clean and that you not use my name until we get there."

"Done," said David.
He then spoke to the colonel. "This man is now under my authority. You will treat this incident with October classification." Among the Israeli military that term meant that the incident was to be treated as never having taken place. No written reports, no discussions, nothing.

Both men sat down in David's office.
David reached down on the right side of his desk and flipped two switches. On command, a Bach chorale began drifting softly across the room, emitted from small speakers that faced the outer walls and were mounted in ceiling tracks following the circumference of the room less about one foot at all points.

"The last man I tried to bring here met a violent death, as you
no doubt know," David said. Austin nodded in agreement. “How are you, and what the hell are you doing here?”

The American analyst looked down and exhaled, shaking his head from side to side. “I’m not sure where to begin. It’s a long story.”

"Why don't you tell me what you've been doing since we both graduated from Chicago."

Austin
continued. "I'll be brief. I got my PhD and went to work on Wall Street as a military industry analyst for four years. Afterward, I joined the DIA as a Soviet military industry analyst."

"I don't believe it
,” David interjected. “It was you the whole time." The Israeli smiled and relaxed in his seat. The first part of the puzzle as to how Robert Austin wound up in a Mossad office in Israel had already been put in place. There was now a logical reason for Austin to be connected to Govenin. With this piece of the puzzle in place, Margolis gained patience to linger with his old friend.