That was why Torres was being allowed to fly on an unsuspecting commercial airliner with a lethal cargo. The decision to do so had been carefully weighed by the heads of Russian and German intelligence. They had concluded that the risk of the plutonium detonating was “infinitesimal.” Permission for Torres to travel had been given by both their respective governments to see if Torres would lead them to the end user for the material. Israel had not been consulted on the matter. The operation was officially only a German-Russian one. In the past, Mossad, on more than one occasion, had been a silent partner where other agencies had claimed the credit.
From her vantage point overlooking the airport departure gates on that August morning, “Lila” knew her role in this case was over. A Mossad agent—code-named Adler—was already positioned in the lobby of the Excelsior Hotel in midtown Munich, where Torres was to make his handover. Another agent—Mort—was at the Munich airport awaiting the arrival of Flight 3369.
A third agent—“Ib”—sat two seats back from Torres as the plane headed west on its three-hour flight. Across the aisle from Torres sat Viktor Sidorenko, Russian deputy minister for atomic energy. His responsibilities included protecting his country’s nuclear arsenal. Russia now had around 130 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to make sixteen thousand atom bombs, each twice the size of the one that destroyed Hiroshima.
Sidorenko had received a number of disturbing reports that detailed lax controls and low morale among the staff of hundreds of Russian institutes and research centers with access to radioactive substances. A few months before, a worker at a nuclear plant in the Urals had been arrested with radioactive uranium pellets in a plastic bag. Over five kilos of uranium had been squirreled away by workmen at another plant near Minsk and hidden in their homes. The thefts had only come to light when a kilo was sold for twenty bottles of vodka. Sidorenko was traveling to Germany to assure Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government that cases like this would never happen again; the Germans were threatening sanctions.
At 5:45 P.M., exactly on time, Flight 3369 landed at Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss Airport and taxied to its terminal C stand. Minister Sidorenko was the first to deplane. He was whisked away by a waiting car and driven to a high-security area. There he was told that Tashanka had just been arrested in Moscow.
Torres entered the arrivals area. The presence of heavily armed German police would not have surprised him. Munich had always made a show of its security after the Olympic Games massacre of Israeli athletes. Torres made a telephone call to the Excelsior Hotel, and was connected to room 23. Waiting there was a Spaniard, Javier Arratibel, whose passport described him as an “industrialist.” In fact, he was the broker for the plutonium. He called a man he knew only as Julio-O.
The calls had been monitored by German intelligence officers. As Torres strolled to the luggage carousel to collect his suitcase, he was observed from a nearby office by Munich police superintendent Wolfgang Stoephasios and the senior intelligence officer.
Torres picked up his suitcase and walked toward the Nothing to Declare exit. Ib and Mort followed. They could do no more. They had no power of arrest here. Stoephasios emerged from his office. It was the signal for action.
In moments Torres was surrounded and bundled away. The suitcase was taken to a room. Inside waited a white-suited figure with a Geiger counter. With him were bomb-disposal experts. They used a portable X-ray machine to see if the case was wired with explosives. It was not. Neither was there a telltale clicking from the Geiger to indicate a leak of fissionable material. The suitcase was opened. Inside, wrapped in heavy plastic, were the containers of plutonium 239. They were removed and placed in bomb-blast boxes and carried to a waiting armored truck. From there they were taken to Germany’s atomic energy complex.
In the Excelsior Hotel, Arratibel was arrested. But the next link in the chain, Julio-O, had slipped across the border into Hungary. The Hungarian police said they would look for him. But no one was holding his breath in Munich. Hungary was known to be one of the entry points to the West for Russian smugglers.
The Mossad men informed Tel Aviv what had happened.
In Tel Aviv, Mossad’s director general, Shabtai Shavit, saw the outcome as another small victory in the endless battle against nuclear terrorism. But he was not alone in wondering how many other suitcases had slipped through, how soon before there would be a nuclear explosion unless impossible demands were met.
