Mitla Pass (17 page)

Rich Cromwell looked like a semi-rumpled, silver-haired old Yalie, which he was, who would be far more at home in a blue blazer on Cape Cod. Two-letter man, old Rich, hockey and lacrosse. A middling State Department foreign service employee, who clipped a few coupons from his inheritance, he rose no higher than a consul general post in Peru. He drifted to the CIA for a more fulfilling way of life.

Cromwell knew of Gideon’s lust for prime rib and plumped him up at lunch to a fare-thee-well. When the amenities were done, Rich generally switched on his “sincere” mode. This afternoon he passed right over sincere and went directly to grim. Gideon sipped on his after-lunch Scotch slowly, lest he have a violent reaction to his sudden reexposure to it.

“What happened on the Kalkilia raid?” Rich began.

“Now, how in the hell should I know?”

“Come on, Gideon. This would make you the only one in the country who didn’t know where you were on the night of the tenth. Your buddy Simon Galil got hit by a stray bullet. He was standing right next to you.”

“What are you on my case for, Rich? You’ve been briefed, rebriefed, and debriefed. Christ, a minute-by-minute report has been in all the papers. It was a military operation. Some things went right. Some things went wrong.”

“We all know about your arrangement with the Israelis and we’ve respected it.”

“However,” Gideon said.

“However, it’s getting down to the short strokes.”

“And?”

“You’re a Marine, Gideon.”

Oh balls, he’s going to Semper-Fi me, Gideon thought. Old Cromwell had been a Marine major, not too high a rank, not too low. Just right for a mediocre Yalie.

“Rich,” Gideon said, “I know we shared the big war together, the war to end all wars, you as a major and me as a PFC. So here it is, as one old buck-assed gyrene to another. I don’t know doodly shit.”

Gideon sensed that hardball time was coming up. Rich needed some intelligence, badly.

“Don’t be so modest, Gideon. You’ve got better lines into the Prime Minister’s office than President Eisenhower does. Your pals read like Who’s Who. You chum around with Teddy Kollek, Moshe Pearlman, Beham, Jackie Herzog ...”

“This may be difficult for you to comprehend, but they don’t rush out of cabinet meetings to brief me.”

Cromwell didn’t believe him. He digested his frustration and decided to take a bold step. “I’m going to level with you,” he said. “This place is about to blow up. You may have it within your power to help prevent a catastrophe.”

“I’m listening,” Gideon answered quietly.

“I’m going to give you a scenario, a secret scenario. Maybe you can fill in some of the blank spots.”

Careful, Gideon said to himself, careful.

“Dayan, Golda, Peres, and Moshe Carmel flew to Paris a few weeks back.”

“What’s so earthshaking about that? France is Israel’s major supporter and supplier,” Gideon answered.

“It was a secret mission. They flew via Bizerte in a reconverted French bomber to avoid all civilian airports. Now, I’m talking about Israel’s Foreign Minister, Transportation Minister, Chief of Staff, and Peres, the architect of the French connection. They met at the home, not the office, of Louis Mangin in Montparnasse,” Cromwell went on. “On the French side were Foreign Minister Pineau, Defense Minister Bourges-Maunoury, Director General of the Defense Ministry Abel Thomas, and Chief of Staff Eli with four of his closest aides.”

Gideon managed to listen without expression.

“France and Britain want the Suez Canal back, right?” Cromwell said.

“I suppose so.”

“Israel’s interest is getting Nasser’s troops out of the Sinai, opening the Red Sea to their shipping, and stopping the terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip. Now, let’s make an educated guess what these people were discussing.”

“I don’t know that this meeting even took place, Rich. I know you’re implying some kind of joint military action.”

“Against Egypt,” Rich said.

“Hell, it could be. From the looks of it, Jordan seems to be the target.”

“A decoy,” Rich said. “We think Jordan is a decoy and we take umbrage that two of America’s closest allies are planning a military action without consulting us.”

“It’s all over my head, Rich.”

“Here it is, Gideon, straight and unvarnished. You’re an American. You can get us the answers to a couple of very frustrating questions. We think the British and French aren’t consulting us because they’re afraid we’d stop them.”

Gideon popped out of his chair, tipped the Scotch bottle into his glass, and considered Cromwell’s theory. “Why is it in America’s interest to stop two of her allies from taking back an international waterway vital to the West and why is it in our interest to keep the Suez Canal and Red Sea closed to Israeli shipping? Like, Rich, I don’t follow you.”

Cromwell had succeeded in the first step, getting Zadok to discuss the matter. “The instant England and France make a hostile move against Egypt, the Soviet Union is going to plunge headlong into the Middle East to play hero to the Arabs. We don’t want Russia in here any deeper. It’s Egypt’s canal. Nasser owns it. We don’t give a big rat’s ass if England and France don’t get it back. Are you starting to get the drift of America’s interest?”

Gideon gave a noncommittal gesture.

“What happens when the Kremlin advises the British and French that five hundred Russian missiles are trained on Paris and London and are going to be fired if they set foot in Egypt? Who’s going to get to clean this mess up? I’m talking about the probability of a Soviet-American confrontation. Eisenhower does not want to go to war over the Suez Canal, nor do we want the Russians arming every two-bit Arab dictator in the Middle East. Now, let me ask you one more time. Are Israel, France, and England planning an attack on Egypt? Yes, or no?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon rasped.

“I think you’re a liar.”

“I don’t know. How could I know?”

“I don’t want to be crude but you’ve got a lady friend in the Prime Minister’s office who translates all the top-secret documents into Hebrew. Everybody in Israel knows that Natasha Solomon is your mistress. In fact, you didn’t make much of an effort to cover it until your family arrived.”

Gideon sat again and fidgeted uncomfortably.

“You could find out if you wanted to,” Cromwell pressed.

“Natasha wouldn’t tell me. No way she would tell me.”

“All right, Gideon, sit on this one. Israel is going to mobilize. She’s calling up the reserves the day after tomorrow.”

The thunder of Cromwell’s announcement fell on him, hard. The book. Val. The girls. Ruined! Everything’s ruined!

“I personally like you,” Cromwell said. “You might need me to help you get your family out of here. Things could get very tight.”

“Mind if I have another drink?”

“Help yourself.” Cromwell jotted a number on a slip of paper and handed it to Gideon. “Private line. It’s scrambled so you can talk freely. However, you make your calls from a pay phone. Keep in touch every day and let me know if you have anything to tell me.”

Gideon scarcely heard him. He slipped the note into his pocket, his head reeling, trying to find a way, any way to salvage the wreckage.

Evacuation

October 27, 1956

A
N UNSEEN HAND
swept over the land of Israel gathering up men from the fields and shops, from the offices and factories. A Hebrew code word spoken at news time over the radio sent men of a particular reserve unit scurrying to their homes where they took weapons from a locked closet, packed a bit of food, took their own winter coats and blankets, kissed the family goodbye, and headed quickly and quietly to the bus stop or hitched a ride. Units assembled in predestined secret places, a clump of woods, a kibbutz or moshav, or someplace away from the probing eyes across the border. It all took place in a silent, ethereal way without histrionics. Most of the reserve units were then moved into defensive positions along the border, freeing the standing army to go into the attack.

Transport was gleaned from city streets and highways. Vehicles were stopped at roadblocks, checked off a list, and the driver given a receipt for his confiscated car or truck. He continued on by hitching a ride. A good part of the bus system left the streets and highways to staging areas for the motor pools.

This was an army of poorly equipped militia which had to travel on the shaky wheels of aged buses, laundry vans, flatbed and stake trucks, ancient civilian automobiles, taxis.

Essential committees assembled all over the land and reviewed the emergency plans to keep vital services going with volunteer skeleton crews. This was the role of the older citizens. While the reservists were away the water had to keep running, the electricity humming, the schools and hospitals functioning, food supplies moving from farm to city.

The entire country moved in this ominous, silent, deadly rhythm.

A
FTER LUNCH
Gideon drove the jeep into Tel Aviv where Moshe Pearlman, a reserve colonel in the Prime Minister’s office had commandeered space over an auto agency and was in the process of converting it into the military press, censorship, and spokesman’s office. It was alive with activity, laying in as many new telex lines as possible.

Gideon’s literary agent in New York had again failed to come up with assignments, so he sent a dozen telex messages on his own to the newspaper syndicates asking for work.

From there, Gideon drove to the defense complex and turned in his jeep for the duration, then hitched a ride back to Herzlia. Valerie and the girls were making a game of putting blackout paper over the window.

In their neighborhood, mostly consisting of South African Jews, the men had simply disappeared. “You and Mr. Zimmerman seem to be the only men left,” Val said. “What do you think, hon? Is it going to blow over?”

Apparently the CIA didn’t think so. Gideon shrugged. “I’m not worried,” he lied.

Gideon kept a typewriter at home and took a whirl at writing. After a dozen crumpled pages hit the trash can he gave up.

“Switchboard at the hotel is shut down,” he said. “I’m going to run over to the village and make a few phone calls.”

As he jogged toward the village center, Gideon’s mind went strangely to something other than the call-up of the reserves and the deteriorating situation. He was thinking of his meeting with Rich Cromwell and particularly the stinging words about him and Natasha Solomon.

Back home in L.A., Gideon had always managed his extracurricular affairs with discretion, or so he thought. He controlled them from start to finish, never crossing a certain line of involvement, always pulling out before it became too serious.

“You’re a rotten bastard, Gideon,” a young actress had told him. “You deliberately make a girl fall in love with you then you let her down, always the gentleman. And you run home and pull the drawbridges up.”

Gideon had arrived in Israel determined to stay clean. Israel, he discovered, was quite sophisticated about bed hopping, General Dayan being the most prolific lecher in the country. Even Ben-Gurion was rumored to have a mistress, now and again.

Well, he hadn’t planned to fall in love with Natasha, but he did. For the first time in his life, he went out of control for a woman. There was excitement, madness, daring exceeding anything he had dreamed of. Here was a woman who could match him, make him do what he had made other women do. These were arms he couldn’t walk away from on his whim. He knew jealous anger and went into rages for the first time. He behaved, at times, in a manner he had disdained in other men.

Rich Cromwell said everyone in the country knew. Did Valerie know as well? She never let on that she did. Had some bitch made a sly inference at a cocktail party? Had Natasha herself let Val know obliquely by being overly sweet and patronizing? After all, it wasn’t a state secret, only delicious gossip.

Val had come to Israel, done her best, loved him hard. She didn’t deserve another humiliation. He wanted to leave Natasha. He tried, really tried. Each time he tried they ended up in a wilder reunion. This was a sweet moment in his life he would never know again. He didn’t have the strength or the real desire to walk away.

G
IDEON PULLED
up panting at a tiny corner café where Mrs. Mandel greeted him. He opened the soft-drink cooler. No ice.

“The ice truck was mobilized,” she said, “so was my Harry. I’m closing down until this thing is over with.”

Gideon unsnapped and slowly drank a soft-drink concoction. Satisfied no one else was around, he went to the wall phone and dialed Rich Cromwell’s private number.

“Hello.”

“Hi. This is your old gyrene buddy.”

“Anything we should get together on?” Rich asked.

“No, no new information. Just checking in.”

“I’m glad you did. We’re calling for the evacuation of all Americans.”

Sweat streaked from Gideon’s forehead into his eyes. He wiped it but he stung from the salt. Keep your head, he said to himself. He sipped the soft drink to moisten his dry mouth so he could speak.

“When’s this going to happen?” he asked shakily.

“Starting tonight. We’re flying over some transport from the Rhine-Main base in Germany. They’re already en route. Embassy, consulate, missions, and Point Four personnel are being jerked out of the country. Otherwise, a destroyer is on the way to Haifa to take out civilians working here and tourists. That might take a couple of days.”

“Holy shit.”

“Planes are due in around ten or eleven tonight. Get your family to the airport. I’ll see that they get on tonight. Otherwise, it might be a Chinese fire drill.”

“I don’t know ...” Gideon mumbled.

“This isn’t coming through as a request, Gideon. It’s orders. Eisenhower is pissed. P-I-S-S-E-D. If you stay, you’re on your own and you could run into some real problems.”

“How about my dog?” Gideon said for no reason.

“I don’t think so. Look, got to run. Get to Lydda by nine o’clock and look me up.”

The line went dead.

G
IDEON STRIPPED OFF
his shorts and shirt and stood under the cold outdoor shower for a short eternity hoping the water would suddenly give him strange powers. He wrapped a towel about his waist and walked toward the cottage as though it were his last mile.