Mr. Diamond was sitting back in his chair, examining the ceiling while he thought of a way to introduce this problem so that it would not seem to be entirely his fault. “All right,” he said, “a little background. After the Munich Olympics screw-up, we had your commitment that you would control the PLO and avoid that kind of bad press in the future.”
Mr. Able sighed. Well, at least Diamond had not begun his story with the escape of the Israelites across the Red Sea.
“As a sop to them,” Diamond continued, “we arranged that whatshisname would be permitted to appear on the UN floor and unleash his slobbering fulminations against the Jews. But despite your assurances, we recently discovered that a cell of Black Septembrists-including two who had participated in the Munich raid—had your permission to run a stupid skyjacking out of Heathrow.”
Mr. Able shrugged. “Circumstances alter intentions. I do not owe you an explanation for everything we do. Suffice it to say that this last exercise in blood lust was their price for biding their time until American pressure saps Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
“And we went along with you on that. As passive assistance, I ordered CIA to avoid any counteraction against the Septembrists. These orders were probably redundant, as the traditions of incompetence within the organization would have effectively neutralized them anyway.”
The Deputy cleared his throat to object, but Diamond hushed him with a lift of the hand and continued. “We went a step beyond passive assistance. When we learned that a small, informal group of Israelis was on the track of those responsible for the Munich massacre, we decided to interdict them with a spoiling raid. The leader of this group was one Asa Stern, an ex-political whose son was among the athletes killed in Munich. Because we knew that Stern was suffering from terminal cancer—he died two weeks ago—and his little group consisted only of a handful of idealistic young amateurs, we assumed the combined forces of your Arab intelligence organization and our CIA would be adequate to blow them away.”
“And it was not?”
“And it was not. These two men at the table were responsible for the operation, although the Arab was really no more than an agent-in-training. In a very wet and public action they managed to terminate two of the three members of Stern’s group… along with seven bystanders. But one member, a girl named Hannah Stern, niece of the late leader, slipped through them.”
Mr. Able sighed and closed his eyes. Did nothing ever work correctly in this country with its cumbersome form of government? When would they discover that the world is in a post-democratic era? “You say that one young woman escaped this spoiling raid? Surely this is not very serious. I cannot believe that one woman is going to London alone and manage singlehandedly to kill six highly trained and experienced Palestinian terrorists who have not only the protection of your organization and mine but, through your good offices, that of British MI-5 and MI-6! It is ridiculous.”
“It would be ridiculous. But Miss Stern is not going to London. We are quite sure she went to France. We are also sure that she is now, or soon will be, in contact with one Nicholai Hel—a mauve-card man who is perfectly capable of penetrating your people and mine and all the British, of terminating the Black Septembrists, and of being back in France in time for a luncheon engagement.”
Mr. Able looked at Diamond quizzically. “Is that admiration I detect in your voice?”
“No! I would not call it admiration. But Hel is a man we must not ignore. I am going to fill you in on his background so you can appreciate the special lengths to which we may have to go to remedy this screw-up.” Diamond turned to the First Assistant, who sat unobtrusively at his console. “Roll up the printout on Hel.”
As Fat Boy’s lean, prosaic data appeared, rear-projected on the tabletop before them. Diamond quickly sketched out biographic details leading to Nicholai Hel’s learning that General Kishikawa was a prisoner of the Russians and scheduled for trial before the War Crimes Commission.
Japan
Nicholai requested and received a leave of absence, to free his time and energy for the task of locating the General. The next week was nightmarish, a desperate struggle in slow motion against the spongy but impenetrable barricades of red tape, autonomic secrecy, international mistrust, bureaucratic inertia, and individual indifference. His efforts through the Japanese civil government were fruitless. Its systems were static and mired because grafted upon the Japanese propensity toward overorganization and shared authority designed to lessen the burden of individual responsibility for error were elements of alien democracy that brought with them the busy inaction characteristic of that wasteful form of government.
Nicholai then turned to the military governments and, through perseverance, managed to piece together a partial mosaic of events leading to the General’s arrest. But in doing so, he had to make himself dangerously visible, although he realized that for one living on forged identity papers and lacking the protection of formal nationality, it was perilous to irritate bureaucrats who thrive on the dysfunctional status quo.
The results of this week of probing and pestering were meager. Nicholai learned that Kishikawa-san had been delivered to the War Crimes Commission by the Soviets, who would be in charge of prosecuting his case, and that he was currently being held in Sugamo Prison. He discovered that an American legal officer was responsible for the defense, but it was not until he had deluged that man with letters and telephone calls that he was granted an interview, and the best he could get was a half hour squeezed into the early morning.
Nicholai rose before dawn and took a crowded train to the Yotsuya district. A damp, slate-gray morning was smudging the eastern sky as he walked across the Akebonobashi, Bridge of Dawn, beyond which crouched the forbidding bulk of the Ichigaya Barracks which had become symbolic of the inhuman machinery of Western justice.
For three-quarters of an hour, he sat on a wooden bench outside the counsel’s office in the basement. Eventually a short-tempered overworked secretary showed him into Captain Thomas’s cluttered work room. The Captain waved him to a chair without looking up from a deposition he was scanning. Only after finishing it and scribbling a marginal note did Captain Thomas raise his eyes.
“Yes?” There was more fatigue than curtness in his tone. He was personally responsible for the defense of six accused war criminals, and he had to work with limited personnel and resources, compared to the vast machinery of research and organization at the disposal of the prosecution in their offices above. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Captain Thomas was idealistic about the fairness of Anglo-Saxon law, and he drove himself so hard that weariness, frustration, and bitter fatalism tainted his every word and gesture. He wanted nothing more than to see all this mess over and return to civilian life and to his small-town legal practice in Vermont.
Nicholai explained that he was seeking information about General Kishikawa.
“Why?”
“He is a friend.”
“A friend?” The Captain was dubious.
“Yes, sir. He… he helped me when I was in Shanghai.”
Captain Thomas tugged the Kishikawa brief from under a stack of similar folders. “But you were just a child then.”
“I am twenty-three, sir.”
The Captain’s eyebrows went up. Like everyone else, he was fooled by Nicholai’s genetic disposition toward youthful appearance. “I’m sorry. I assumed you were much younger. What do you mean when you say that Kishikawa helped you?”
“He cared for me when my mother died.”