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‘And how will the German public react?’
Sharaf was realistic. ‘At first they won’t care a damn, they won’t even notice. As the first death draws near, however, they’ll begin to think about it, about what it means.’
They would begin to sense the fear, Nabil knew. ‘How long will it take?’ he asked, partly out of consideration of those he was about to sacrifice, partly out of necessity for his timetable.
‘The key,’ Sharaf began to explain, ‘is water. On average, the human body can only survive ten to fifteen days without water, so a hunger strike with no food or water would be over very quickly.’ Too quickly for them, he was thinking, though he did not say so.
‘And if the person took water but no food?’
‘A lower limit of thirty to forty days, an upper limit of approximately seventy to seventy-five.’
‘Is there any way of calculating the probable length of a hunger strike given the individual’s personal characteristics, his weight and body type for example?’
Sharaf guessed the reason for the question. ‘Only within broad outlines. It depends on more factors than just body size and shape. The amount of fat on the body is important. Women therefore tend to survive longer than men, but it also depends on how much exercise the person takes, even the temperature of the room. In the IRA hunger strike of 1981, Bobby Sands was expected to die after about fifty days but survived sixty-five. Joe McDonnell lasted sixty-one, but Kieran Doherty took seventy-three days to die.’
Nabil was staring across the room. ‘So what do you suggest?’
Sharaf’s recommendation was brutal and straightforward. ‘We start one a week, as the IRA did in Belfast. That way the public are made aware of the campaign as each person joins it, that way they are more exposed to the pressure as the deaths become imminent or the people start dying.’ He realised Nabil was looking at the photograph on the desk at the side of the window. ‘In a way,’ he said, ‘the pressure only comes after the first death.’
Nabil took a long time to reply. ‘So the really important person is the second one to die?’ he said at last.
‘Yes. The first death is a necessary sacrifice; it is the second death which is important.’
Nabil was nodding slowly, thinking of it, thinking of the fear it would bring, of the full awesomeness of the pressure he had asked Sharaf to set in motion. ‘You have arranged the second group as I requested?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And they have all agreed?’
‘They have all agreed.’
Nabil knew how important they would be, how important they would all be. ‘Who goes first?’ he asked.
‘Klars Christian Mannheim.’
Abu Nabil knew it would be Klars Christian Mannheim. ‘He knows he will die?’
‘Yes, he knows he will die.’
For the second time, Nabil did not ask how Sharaf had communicated with those in prison. ‘How long will it take?’
The soldier had already made the calculation. ‘He weighs sixty-eight kilos. Within the limits we discussed, about seventy days.’
‘When will he start?’
‘He will announce his intention to go on hunger strike on Christmas Eve. He will start in the New Year.’
Nabil knew that Klars Christian Mannheim had worked it out, that he had set himself a timetable, that there was a reason for it.
‘How will it be for him, for all of them?’ he asked quietly.
‘Hell,’ said Sharaf simply.
Neither of them spoke for thirty seconds.
‘You said the campaign in Europe was dependent upon one condition?’ It was Nabil who broke the silence.
Sharaf nodded. ‘They ask that we start the campaign.’
‘As we expected.’
‘Yes.’ He knew Nabil had already selected both the target and the place.
‘Hassan Nabulsi,’ Nabil’s voice was without emotion. ‘The PLO man in London.’
The choice neither surprised nor displeased Sharaf: the target would satisfy those who had made the request at the Spanish conference, and assassinations within the various factions of the Palestinian movement were not uncommon.
‘Nabulsi is in Tunisia with Arafat at the moment,’ he said.
‘He returns next week.’
Sharaf did not need to know how the other man knew. ‘When?’
‘Before Christmas. Before Klars Christian Mannheim announces his hunger strike. That way he’ll know we’re serious.’
‘Who will do it?’ Sharaf asked at last.
If Walid Haddad was going to end it all, Nabil had already thought, then it was only fitting that Walid Haddad should begin it.
‘Walid Haddad,’ he said.
* * *
The mood in the centre of the city, even a city continuously under siege like Belfast, was festive; the mood in the operations room was tense. Today, Special Branch had confirmed.
At two in the afternoon Enderson left Lisburn and drove into the city; although he was wearing civilian clothes, he carried his personal Browning inside his coat and was accompanied by two members of his team. In Belfast, they had long learned, in the civil war in Ireland, they never went anywhere unaccompanied.
The streets were busy, the shop fronts lit and decorated; he realised how close it was to Christmas, how he had forgotten it was almost Christmas. The driver stopped the car outside a hamburger bar and they went in, not because they were hungry, simply to while away the waiting. It was crowded. Even at the table they did not relax, one always looking at the car, another at the door, looking at who might be looking at them, leaving, setting them up as they left. Outside the afternoon was already getting dark. He looked across the road at the shoppers, hearing the music in the background, the words of the carol.
‘They said there’d be snow at Christmas,
They said there’d be peace on earth.’
Today, the Special Branch had said. This evening. Definitely, they said their informant had told them, without fail. They rose and left the café.
The man whom Abu Nabil had personally chosen to both begin and end his campaign of terror arrived at Heathrow fifteen minutes late at ten forty-five in the morning on Scandinavian Airlines SK501 from Copenhagen. Neither the timing nor the flight was a coincidence. SK501 was one of seven flights to arrive from Europe in a half-hour period; the immigration halls would therefore be crowded and congested. And passengers from Copenhagen attracted less attention from immigration and Special Branch than those from other European cities, such as Rome and Athens, with reputations for terrorist connections.
Walid Haddad was twenty-eight years old, neatly though not expensively dressed in a dark blue business suit. The briefcase he carried contained, among a number of other items all related to his supposed profession of petroleum analyst, a diary with a list of business appointments in London over the next two days which had been easy to arrange but which, if they had been checked, would have provided him with justification for visiting Britain.
He followed the line of passengers off the plane, through the walkways and connecting doors, and into the large impersonal hall lined, at the far end, by the immigration desks. Four queues, he saw immediately, knowing he would have no problem, looking anyway for his insurance. The queues were longer than he had anticipated, with three officials on duty at each desk. Normally two, he thought, wondering why the security was tighter than he had expected, and glanced again at the desks. One official checking passports, a second looking over his shoulder at the person at the desk, looking for the tell-tale signs, the third concentrating on the queue itself. He moved forward, wondering again about the increase in security and looking again for the insurance he needed.
A flood of passengers from another flight began spilling into the hall. There was a moment of confusion as the new group mingled with those already in the hall, deciding which queue to join. He looked round, ignoring the mêlée, and saw the woman. She was young, in her mid-twenties, of Arab appearance, with olive skin and dark piercing eyes, taller than average with long black hair. She also had the one quality above all, the single characteristic he was looking for: that of arrogance. In the way her eyes flashed, the way she held herself. He knew the men at the desks were already looking at her.
The woman was moving towards the third queue from the far side of the hall. He hurried after her, waited till she had almost joined the queue, then stepped in front of her, almost bumping into her. He turned and apologised, politely, not friendly. The queue moved forward. He knew again they had already seen her, already singled her out. The queue to his right was moving faster, already growing shorter. Stay behind me, he spoke silently to the woman, stay where you are, give me cover. The queue shuffled forward, he reached the desk, gave the official his passport, entry visa on page five.
‘Name?’ The voice was harsh. He knew the other two men at the desk were looking at the woman and gave the name in his false passport.
‘What are you doing in London?’
‘Business. I’m a petroleum analyst.’ He thought about the appointments he had arranged in case they questioned him, knew it was a formality, felt himself relax, did not let it show, controlling the degree of eye contact that would give the woman away even though she was entirely innocent. Abruptly the official stamped his passport, snapped it shut and handed it back to him. Forty-five minutes later he had retrieved his one suitcase, cleared customs, collected his hire car, and was driving down the M4 motorway into London. Behind him, he knew, the first tentacles of the security net were beginning to tighten round the woman, the first arrangements for a Special Branch surveillance, the first requests, formal or informal, for a telephone intercept wherever she was staying.
By two thirty he had checked in at the Holiday Inn in Swiss Cottage, unpacked his suitcase and showered. The telephone in the room was direct dial. He checked the number he had been given in Damascus, and phoned the London office of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Green Street.
‘Good afternoon,’ he spoke politely. ‘This is Mohsen Masri from An-Nahar.’ He named a prominent Middle Eastern publication. ‘Is it possible to speak with Mr Nabulsi?’
The receptionist was equally polite. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Nabulsi is away at the moment, can anyone else help?’
He thanked her, but said he needed to speak to the PLO representative personally and asked when she suggested he should phone again.
‘He flies in tomorrow and will be back in the office on Friday. Can I get him to contact you then?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Haddad kept his voice friendly and informal. ‘I’ll try him then.’
‘Make it early,’ she answered. ‘He’s busy after eleven.’
He thanked her and put the phone down. Abu Nabil was right, he thought, Abu Nabil was always right.
The traffic in London’s West End, where the offices of the PLO were situated, was congested, made worse by Christmas. It took Haddad twenty minutes to drive from the hotel to the office and another ten to find a parking space, even though it was on a yellow line. If a traffic warden came, he knew he would only have to move.
The black Ford Granada was parked outside the building which housed, amongst other offices, that of the London office of Yasser Arafat’s faction of the Palestinian movement. It was interesting, he thought, that the chauffeur came to work even when the representative himself was away, even more interesting that he came in the Granada. On a car radio he heard the sound of a Christmas carol. He waited, lost in the crowd of shoppers, the afternoon losing its light and the Christmas lights already on, shining in the dusk.
At five o’clock a man he supposed was the chauffeur left the building and unlocked the car. The man, he noted, checked neither around nor underneath the vehicle. Either, he imagined, because the car was visible from the front windows of the PLO office, or because the man assumed that because the representative was away, there was no security risk.
It was interesting, thought Haddad, how often people made the wrong assumption.
The traffic was heavy. He followed the car across Oxford Street, skirting behind Marylebone station and through the side streets to the west of Regent’s Park. At the intersection on the corner dominated by the cricket ground at Lord’s, he had checked on the street map, the chauffeur should drive straight on, towards the representative’s house in St John’s Wood and the security of the garage, electronically protected, at the side of the house. He knew what the man would do, that when the end came it would be so sudden and unexpected that the chauffeur would have no time to question when he had made his mistake. In front of him, the man turned right, away from St John’s Wood, towards Camden Town.
Ten minutes later Haddad watched the chauffeur reverse the Granada into the garage below the mews flat where the man lived with his wife. In front of the entrance to the flat was a Ford Escort which he assumed was their own vehicle. He parked the hire car and walked down the mews, the air cold, his hands pushed into his pockets, taking his time, as if he had every right to be there. The chauffeur was concentrating on his driving, taking care not to scratch the Granada as he backed it into the narrow space, giving Haddad plenty of time to see what he needed to know. No security, no tell-tale wires, not even a burglar alarm, or the pretence of one. Just the wooden door with the Yale lock.
He returned to the hotel, had another coffee, and waited till it was time to make the telephone call. The same number, Nabil had instructed him, the same time each evening.
At seven o’clock exactly he dialled the number. To his surprise, the voice which answered was American. West Coast, he thought. ‘Hello, John,’ he began, using the names of the code. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes,’ replied the American in the public telephone kiosk. ‘Is that you, Peter?’ The same public telephone kiosk, his masters in Belfast had told Jimmy Roberts, the same time each evening.
‘Yes, it’s Peter.’ Haddad wondered why it surprised him that the IRA contact was an American. Definitely West Coast, he was thinking, the accent too soft to be anywhere else.
Roberts waited for the next part of the code, and wondered why the IRA should give a bomb to the Arabs, why the Arabs needed it, had asked for it specifically, even the type, when he knew they had plenty of their own.
The same thought had occurred to Haddad when he had been briefed by Nabil in Damascus. He had not queried it, assuming there was a reason; with Abu Nabil there was always a reason. ‘Look, John,’ he continued the coded conversation, ‘I’ve got a couple of girls and I need someone to help me out with them.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
The Arab was in a hurry, Roberts thought. ‘Do I get the blonde or brunette?’ Blonde for a straightforward meeting, brunette if he needed to bring the explosive device and detonator.
‘They’re both brunettes.’
Christ, Roberts thought, the Arab really was in a hurry. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the saloon bar at eight thirty.’
The first report came in at four. The car carrying the men from Dublin had crossed the border and was heading north. Three hours to go, thought Enderson. The second report came in half an hour later. The car carrying the men from Londonderry had left the city and was heading south. Two and a half hours, thought Enderson. He went through the plan again, how the man in the roofspace would tell them what was happening, who was arriving, how they were protected, the signal for the moment the unmarked cars would close in, which of his team would cover the back, the ways out, who would go in the front, what they would do when they were inside.
‘Michael leaving his house with his wife and son, getting in cars.’ Enderson heard the voice of the man in the roofspace overlooking the street. McDonald the IRA planner, he thought, the man whose house was less than thirty yards from the drinking club where the informant had said the meeting was to take place. He wondered why he was leaving and what he was doing, why he was taking his wife and son, thought for a moment that the informant was wrong then knew that he was not, realised what McDonald was doing. Putting on a front, acting normally, covering himself for what lay ahead. Two hours to go, he thought. Stand-by, the voice in his head told him, stand-by, stand-by.
The second report from the south came in at five, the men from Dublin closing on the city; he checked with the tail on the car from the north and heard the confirmation. An hour, less than an hour, then he and his men would move into position, any later and they would be too late, any earlier and they would be noticed.
The car from the south entered the city, the car from the north closing fast. They seemed to have been waiting for ever, Enderson thought. It had been dark two hours. Time to move in. Except where the hell was McDonald?
‘Vehicle check, urgent.’ It was the voice of the man in the roofspace. Enderson took the make and registration number of the car and passed it to Lisburn; knew they would only take seconds to run the computer check. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘Probably nothing, but the car’s been up and down the road twice now, first day I’ve seen it.’
The computer check came through.
‘Stolen three hours ago from the city centre,’ Enderson told the man in the roofspace. Not kids, he thought, not the sort of car the teenagers stole for their joy-rides.
‘Passing by again.’ He heard the voice. ‘Slowing in front of Michael’s house.’
The other reports were coming in, the men from Dublin driving through the city, the men from Derry just entering Belfast. He wondered what the car was doing, who it was. Not the Provos, definitely not the Provos.
‘Three men,’ said the man in the roofspace. ‘Windows wound down.’
He knew what it was, began to radio the information back to Lisburn.
‘Michael’s car in street, slowing down. Stopping outside house. Michael and wife getting out.’
He saw what was going to happen.
‘Car coming again. Opening fire, front and rear seats.’ The voice of the man in the roofspace was cold, clinical, factual.
He knew the operation was off, that the men from Dublin and Derry would already have been warned.
‘Michael and wife OK, sheltering behind car. Other car still firing.’
He knew they could not move, could not betray their positions, could not disclose the fact that they had been waiting for the men from the north and south. ‘Alert RUC and army,’ he was informing Lisburn. ‘Probably ambulance as well.’
‘Bomb going in,’ said the man in the roofspace. ‘Car catching fire.’
