Troika | Page 3

canisters into the crate and sealed it.
"Drive this shipment to the Lufthansa Cargo terminal at Philly International. I'm going to lunch. I'll take the panel truck," Vermaat said.
Willem Vermaat drove the truck to a diner about a mile from the warehouse. In the diner, he ordered a sandwich and a coffee to go. Placing the bag on the seat of the panel truck, he drove further until he came to the Cherry Hill Mall. He parked the panel in a remote corner of the parking area, ate his lunch and went into the Mall.
Sauntering casually, moving from store window to store window, as if window shopping, Vermaat zigzagged down the corridor. Periodically, he checked shop window reflections to make certain that he was not being followed. As soon as he had reassured himself, he went to a phone booth and made a call. He spoke quickly, hung up and went back to the truck.
Vermaat drove the truck out of the Mall parking lot, down a deserted side street near an vacant building in Merchantville, and stripped it of all visible identification. When he had finished he took a bus back to the Industrial Park and walked back to the Mid-East warehouse.
Farid Attiyeh was waiting in his office when Vermaat returned. He lifted an eyebrow to ask if the job had been completed. The older man nodded his head affirmatively and disappeared into the gloom of the warehouse.
DIMONA, ISRAEL
4 November
2330 Hours
The cold desert wind moved across the Dimona Atomic Energy Complex. The work crew had just finished cleaning up the dock area.
"Hey, Itzik, any of that crap you call coffee left?" yelled the crew chief.
"Avi, you wouldn't know decent coffee if it rained on you. I don't know why I even bother to pour it for you," retorted the dispatcher.
The phone rang. "Dispatcher," answered Itzik, glaring at the phone. "O.K.Sure. We'll take care of it," he said in a resigned tone. He hung up turned to Itzik and said angrily, "Now they tell me. Another half hour and Shimshi and his bunch would have had the job."
A truck from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot had just pulled up to the main gate. The guard checked the driver's photo identity card and waved him on to the loading dock where he handed Avi a requisition form. Avi called to the hazardous materials storeroom and asked that the two canisters be brought out and loaded onto the newly arrived van.
"Where's Eli?", Itzik asked.
"I don't know, took the day off, sick, changed shifts, or something," replied the driver shrugging his shoulders. "Can you load me fast? It will get hot today and I don't have an air-conditioned van!"
Itzik and Avi stared at the man. "Well," Avi said to Itzik, "the gate guys passed him. I guess it's okay."
The van was loaded and on its way. At the gate, the guard checked the requisition and waved the van out. The driver moved onto the Dimona-Be'er Sheva road. At the fueling station in Be'er Sheva, he topped off his tank, handed the cashier his fuel chit and drove off. Once out of sight of the station, he veered off the road to Rehovot and proceeded toward the road to Eilat.
Ten kilometers from Be'er Sheva, the driver stopped, removed the Weizmann Institute emblems from the van, tore them into strips, and burned them, scattering the ashes as he drove on. The truck now bore the insignia of the Marine Biological Institute in Eilat.
The driver stopped at a roadside restaurant near Ein Gedi, where he ate breakfast. After finishing his meal he went to the men's room, stripped off his Weizmann coverall, discarded it in a garbage dumpster behind the ret-stop, put on a blue-green coverall with the Marine Institute emblem, went back to his van, and drove onto the back road to Eilat.
Several hours later, he drove into Eilat, down the road toward the Marine Institute, and cut over to a deserted part of the beach, where he was met by two similarly dressed men. All three emptied the van, buried the canisters in the sand under a pier, and drove the truck into the Institute parking lot.
At dusk, the men returned to the beach and dug up the canisters. The shovel hit a canister with a loud clang. Cursing, they moved back into the shadows and waited. A few minutes later they resumed digging. When the canisters were uncovered they were lifted into a small speed boat.
Moving at "dead slow" speed, the craft eased out into the channel. Keeping in the shadows, they slipped past the border at Taba and into Egyptian territory. Once inside Egyptian waters, the crew raised the Egyptian flag, roared across the Gulf of Aqaba to the Jordanian port city of Aqaba and pulled up to a pier at the far end