Gideon's Spies полностью

On New Year’s Day, 1984, Nahum Admoni’s daily intelligence summary contained news of a coup d’état in Nigeria. A military cabal led by Major General Muhammad Buhari had seized power. Prime Minister Shamir’s first question was to ask what effect this would have on Israel’s oil supplies. No one knew. Throughout the day, urgent efforts were unsuccessfully made to establish contact with the new regime.

On his second day in office, Buhari issued a list of former members of the government accused of a variety of crimes. At its top was Umaru Dikko, the ousted transport minister, charged with embezzling several million U.S. dollars in oil profits from the government treasury. Dikko had fled the country and, despite strenuous efforts to find him, had vanished.

Admoni saw his opening. Traveling on a Canadian passport—another Mossad travel document of choice for undercover missions—he flew to the Nigerian capital, Lagos. Buhari received him late at night. The general listened as Admoni delivered an offer that had the full approval of Rabin. In return for a guarantee of no interruption in oil supplies, Mossad would find Dikko and return him to Nigeria. Buhari had a question: Would Mossad also be able to locate where Dikko had hidden the embezzled money? Admoni said the cash was almost certainly in numbered Swiss bank accounts and would be virtually impossible to trace unless Dikko volunteered to reveal its whereabouts. Buhari smiled for the first time. Once Dikko was back in Nigeria, there would be no problem getting him to talk. Buhari had a final question: Would Mossad agree to work with Nigeria’s own security service and, once Dikko was found, take no credit for his capture? Admoni agreed. There were no kudos to be gained for Mossad in an operation that should be simple enough.

Rafi Eitan’s “survivor spies” were mobilized throughout Europe. Katsas were sent to trawl from Spain to Sweden. Sayanim in a dozen countries were alerted: doctors were told to be on the lookout in case Dikko needed medical attention or even consulted a plastic surgeon to change his appearance; hotel concierges at Dikko’s old playgrounds in St.-Moritz and Monte Carlo watched for him. Clerks at car rental agencies from Madrid to Munich were instructed to report if he hired a car; airline agents were asked to call in if he bought a ticket. Sayanim working for all the credit card companies were asked to watch if he used his cards. Waiters memorized Dikko’s description, tailors his measurements, and shirtmakers his collar size. Shoemakers from Rome to Paris were given details of Dikko’s size-twelve fitting for the customized shoes he wore. In London, Robert Maxwell was asked to probe his high-level contacts among African diplomats in London for any whisper of where Dikko had gone. Like everyone else, he drew a blank.

Nevertheless, Admoni decided that Dikko was hiding out in London—the city had become a haven for Nigerian opponents of the new regime—and he moved his ablest katsas to the city. With them came agents from Nigerian security led by Major Muhammad Yusufu. They rented an apartment in the city’s Cromwell Road. The katsas chose hotels catering to tourists from Africa.

Working separately, the two groups moved among London’s sizable Nigerian community. Yusufu’s men posed as refugees from the new regime, the katsas as sympathetic to black Africans’ aspirations to overthrow the regime in South Africa. Gradually they narrowed down the search to West London, to the area around Hyde Park where many wealthy Nigerians lived in exile. They began to comb electoral registers freely available in the area’s town halls. Each time they drew a blank.

Then, seven months to the day after Dikko had fled from Lagos, he surfaced. On June 30, 1984, a katsa driving down Queensway, a busy thoroughfare off Bayswater Road, spotted a man who fitted the description of Umaru Dikko. He looked older and thinner but there was no mistaking the broad face and the coal black eyes that did not give the katsa’s car a second glance.

Spotting a parking place, the katsa set off on foot to tail Dikko to a house in nearby Dorchester Terrace. Admoni was immediately informed. He ordered the only step to be taken for the moment was full-time surveillance of the house. For the first three days of July 1984, two operatives maintained continuous surveillance on Dikko. Meantime the Nigerians used their embassy as a base to prepare a kidnap operation closely modeled on the one Rafi Eitan had used to snatch Adolf Eichmann.