Hunting Eichmann (40 page)

Once finished, he turned to Malkin and asked, "What date should I put, yesterday's or today's?"

"Just leave it May 1960."

He nodded and signed the paper "Adolf Eichmann, Buenos Aires, May 1960."

"You have done a very good thing. You won't regret it," Malkin said, allowing him another cigarette before refastening the goggles over his eyes.

Suddenly, they heard footsteps charging down the hall, and Medad burst into the room in his gray pajamas. "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled, looking at the wine and cigarettes. "Throwing a party for this murderer?"

Malkin attempted to justify himself, but the Czech-born Medad was livid, his face flushed. "You amuse
him
with my music? This butcher of my family?"

Hearing the shouting, Eitan, Gat, and Nesiahu all rushed to the room. Malkin tried to explain, showing them the signed statement, but they were preoccupied with calming down Medad, then berating Malkin for disobeying orders and speaking to the prisoner.

Eventually, everyone settled down, and Tabor relieved Malkin of his watch. As Malkin retreated down the hall, Eitan stopped him long enough to say, "Good work."

Captain Shmuel Wedeles was at the controls. At 6:25
A.M.
on May 19, en route from Dakar to Recife, he pointed the Britannia down through the clouds over the South Atlantic, and they crossed over the Brazilian coast. They were on track with their flight plan.

Fifteen minutes later, they reached the radio beacon of Campina Grande, eighty nautical miles from Recife, the altimeters indicating they were now at 10,000 feet. Wedeles shifted onto a course heading southeast toward the airport. Then he contacted air traffic control.

"Recife Control, this is El Al 4X-AGD from Dakar to Recife, heading 135, altitude 7,500, descending, estimating Recife on the hour."

"Roger, El Al," the controller radioed in return. "Maintain course. Report when reaching 2,000."

At an altitude of 4,000 feet, the forecast cloud base, the Britannia had yet to descend out of the clouds. In another few minutes, they would be at the airport. Forty nautical miles away, they reached 2,000 feet. Wedeles prepared to contact air traffic control to inform them of their position when the plane finally cleared the clouds. Suddenly, he saw an expanse of green straight ahead. The plane was heading into a hilltop forest. Wedeles immediately pulled back on the stick, bringing the nose of the plane up. Simultaneously, he pushed the engine throttles forward, increasing the speed of the plane to prevent the aircraft from stalling. The plane leveled off, just above the treetops. Everyone in the flight cabin stared out the window as they flew less than a wingspan over the forest.

"My God, the Brazilians think and talk meters, not feet," a member of the cockpit crew exclaimed as Wedeles continued to fly level with the treetops. The Israelis measured altitude in feet, as was the rule in Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. If the cloud base had been a hundred feet lower, they would not have made it.

Ten minutes later, at 7:05
A.M.
on May 19, the Britannia landed safely in Recife. The Israelis' troubles were only beginning.

Tohar wanted to depart as soon as they had refueled and cleaned the plane, an hour at most. To their surprise, when they taxied toward the terminal building, they found a red-carpet reception, including a local band and hundreds of onlookers, waiting for them. Representatives of the local Jewish community cheered their arrival. The airport commander, who was outfitted in a stiffly starched uniform bedecked with medals, welcomed their "overseas strangers to beautiful Brazil."

After the awkwardly staged reception, the crew and delegation disembarked to stretch their legs and grab a coffee in the airport terminal. A few of them bought souvenirs and fruit from the vendors who lined the airfield's perimeter fence. Half an hour later, when Shaul and his fellow navigator, Gady Hassin, attempted to enter the airport control tower to file their flight plan and collect meteorological reports for the journey to Buenos Aires, they were blocked by a soldier who angrily waved them back, barking, "No passage!" The soldier was undaunted by Shaul's imposing presence—six feet five inches tall, and with piercing, humorless eyes—likely because he was the one armed with a carbine. Hassin went to fetch Tohar, but even the captain's presence achieved nothing. The soldier was clear: "The commandant is asleep. Nobody is to disturb him."

Tohar feared that the real reason for their flight had been exposed. To avoid attracting undue attention Tohar backed off.

As the standoff continued, a waiter from the terminal's cafeteria approached. He was in his late twenties and, most likely, a Mossad operative stationed at the airport in case such a situation arose. He spoke briefly with the guard in fluent Portuguese, then told Tohar, "Have patience. I will go into town, and, with any luck, I'll be back within a half hour with a solution." He pedaled away on his bicycle.

Half an hour later, an elderly man, who was the secretary of the local Jewish community center, entered the airport terminal carrying a leather bag. He approached the soldier and said that he had a message for the commandant. The soldier disappeared with the bag, and the commandant himself appeared a few minutes later. In a bravura performance, he slapped the guard twice in the face, delivering a withering curse, then looked straight at Tohar.

"Captain," he said, "why didn't you tell me that you wanted to talk?"

The bribe paid, the Israelis filed their flight plan. Three hours and twenty-five minutes after landing in Recife, the Britannia moved down the runway and lifted gracefully into the sky.

On the way to the airport to await the arrival of the El Al plane, Shalom and Aharoni saw that the whole of Buenos Aires was bustling in anticipation of the anniversary celebrations. Flags flew from every window, people filled the streets and cafés, and tango music played in the public squares. Soldiers and police were stationed everywhere as well, stopping cars and checking documents. The two Shin Bet agents knew that bringing Eichmann to the airport under these conditions was a huge risk. In case they were searched, their prisoner would need to be incapacitated, and his papers would have to be in perfect order.

After being delayed by a traffic accident, they reached Ezeiza Airport. They spotted Isser Harel and Yosef Klein among the crowd of people who had come out to see the first Israeli plane land in Argentina. A host of diplomats from the Argentine Foreign Ministry were on hand, along with a military band and a ground crew ready to roll out the red carpet. This sort of welcome was standard for arriving international delegations. Also in the crowd were many Israeli embassy staff members and scores of people from the local Jewish community, including more than one hundred children holding small Israeli flags. All were eager for the Britannia to land.

But the plane was late. Two hours passed. Klein ran about the airport, anxious to find out what was wrong. He learned that there had been some trouble with the plane receiving clearance to take off in Recife, even though all the clearances had been arranged well in advance. Harel shared Klein's nervousness, but there was nothing either of them could do but wait and hope.

At last, at 4:05
P.M.,
three hours later than scheduled, the Britannia descended from the sky and touched down onto the runway with a screech. The waiting band struck up the Israeli national anthem, "Ha-Tikvah" ("The Hope"). Klein followed the plane's approach toward the terminal.

Eban emerged from the plane to the fervent waving of Israeli flags. He greeted the Argentines and, to the surprise of everyone, delivered a short speech in perfect Spanish. Eban betrayed no sign that his presence was anything other than a diplomatic gesture of goodwill. Standing on the tarmac in front of the plane, Luba Volk enjoyed the moment, proud that her arrangements for the reception had gone smoothly. Then she noticed several men in El Al uniforms whom she did not recognize descend from the plane. As Yehuda Shimoni followed them off the plane, she approached him. After a short greeting, she asked pointedly, "Who are those people?"

"Best regards to you from General Ben Arzi," Shimoni said, taken aback by her question and avoiding it altogether by bringing up her former boss, the head of El Al. "He asked me to remind you that he's still very much interested in you accepting his offer to return full time."

Instead of responding to his comment, Volk said, "I had an unpleasant surprise from the Aviation Ministry. I wanted to take a stretcher case, but they refused."

"You did
what?
" Shimoni said, shocked.

"What's the matter with that? It is within my authority as the representative here."

"I don't know ... This is very bad. Okay, it doesn't matter. You're not involved in what happens from here on in," he said strangely. Seeing her look of bewilderment, he added, "I feel very badly about not being able to tell you what this flight is all about."

A stewardess from the flight appeared, wanting to speak with Volk. Her conversation with Shimoni ended abruptly, before she could ask him what on earth he was talking about. Distracted by her own conjectures, including one that involved someone using the plane to take Josef Mengele out of Argentina, Volk tried to concentrate on greeting the rest of the crew as they filed into the airport terminal.

Captain Tohar then debriefed his crew, telling them to enjoy their sightseeing in Buenos Aires but to be back at their hotel by early evening the next day to prepare for departure. Nobody was to be late. Arye Friedman and Mordechai Avivi, the plane's mechanics, thought that they, too, would be able to enjoy Buenos Aires, but Adi Peleg informed them that they were to stay with the airplane overnight in Aerolineas Argentinas's maintenance area. Peleg explained that they needed to maintain a careful watch because some "hostile agencies" might want to sabotage the Britannia.

Shalom and Aharoni watched all this take place without making their presence known to any of the arriving passengers or crew. They were at the airport to reconnoiter the route to the airport one more time and to ensure that the plane was positioned correctly for the next day. Once this was done, they left for Maoz for a final meeting about the escape operation.

In a café near the airport's Hotel Internacional, shortly after the plane's arrival, Harel sat down with Tohar and Shimoni. Both men looked exhausted. The captain kept their close call before landing in Recife to himself. Instead, he made it very clear that he was ready to do whatever Harel asked of him or his crew—with one stipulation: he categorically refused to land the plane in Brazil again. The Brazilians were untrustworthy. That was fine with Harel, since he wanted to fly straight from Buenos Aires to Dakar anyway, to avoid any opportunity for the Britannia to be stopped in South America.

With that settled, Harel outlined the plan, which was to get Eichmann onto the plane disguised in an El Al uniform. He would need the crew to go through security with their captive. Tohar and Shimoni thought this was a better idea than smuggling him through in a food cart or diplomatic crate. Shimoni told Harel about the stretcher case that Luba Volk had requested and his fear that this might have raised suspicions, but the Mossad chief discounted that and instructed Shimoni just to make sure that there were no unwanted passengers on the flight. Their only point of disagreement was the departure time. Harel wanted to leave as early as possible the next day, but Tohar argued that the crew needed more rest, given the long flight to Dakar and then Tel Aviv. They were testing the Britannia's limits as it was. The added burden of a tired crew was tempting disaster. Harel acquiesced. They would leave close to midnight on May 20.

Tohar went straight from the café to the Hotel Internacional to meet with his crew before they headed into the city. He gathered the other two pilots, Wedeles and Azriel Ronen; the navigators, Shaul and Hassin; and the flight engineers, Shimon Blanc, a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, and Oved Kabiri, together in his suite. This was the team responsible for getting the Britannia safely back to Israel. Tohar thought they deserved to know the purpose of their mission. Except for Wedeles, everyone was astonished by Tohar's explanation, although not everyone in the room knew who Eichmann was. Then he told them that they were going to fly nonstop from Buenos Aires to Dakar and asked his navigators to chart a route and his flight engineers to ensure that the Britannia was capable of the effort. He made it clear that if the reason for their flight was discovered, they might have to take evasive action.

Sobered and fully briefed as to what they had to do, the crew disbanded.

On the other side of town, at the safe house Maoz, Harel joined part of the team. Malkin, Tabor, and Medad remained at Tira to guard Eichmann. For once, Harel did not make a grand speech about the historical importance of their mission. He was all business: schedules, documentation, disguises, routes, cars, backup plans, the Mengele search, cleanup, escape plans for those not taking the flight.

Eitan left early to check on Tira, and the meeting broke up around midnight. Sleep was not on the agenda for any of them.

In the dark hours of their last night at Tira, Rafi Eitan thought he heard someone moving outside. He ran through the house, alerting the other team members. Tabor hurried to Eichmann's cell and prepared to bundle the prisoner into the hiding space above the room, while others peered out the windows, looking for any movement. One agent searched the front of the house, another the back. It was a false alarm.

Everyone settled back down, though the mood was still anxious, everyone desperate to be free of their prisoner and back in Israel. No one had a chance to rest; they were all busy either with guard duty, returning the house to its original condition, going over their new identities and documents, or cleaning up—collecting any items (binoculars, tools, passports, clothes, maps, and so on) that needed to be thrown out or destroyed before they left. Throughout the night, Eichmann sat on the edge of his bed, obviously aware that something was about to happen.