On September 24, 1997, the kidon unit flew into Amman from Athens, Rome, and Paris, where they had been positioned for several days. Some members traveled on French and Italian documents. The hit men had been given Canadian passports in the names of Barry Beads and Sean Kendall. They told staff when they checked into the city’s Intercontinental Hotel they were tourists. The other
Beads and Kendall joined them the next day. The two men once more inspected the aerosol. No one knew which nerve agent it contained. The agents speculated that it could induce anything from hallucinations to heart failure before death. They were briefed on the latest movements of Meshal by the station chief.
He had been in London in September 1978 when a Bulgarian defector, Georgi Markov, had been killed by a nerve agent. A passerby had jabbed him in the thigh with the tip of an umbrella. Markov had died an excruciating death caused by ricin, a deadly poison made from the seeds of the castor-oil plant. The passerby had been a KGB agent who had never been caught.
On that optimistic note, Beads and Kendall returned to their hotel shortly before midnight. Each ordered a room service breakfast of coffee, orange juice, and Danish pastries. Next morning, at 9:00 A.M., Beads appeared in the lobby and signed for the first of two rented cars, a blue Toyota. The second, a green Hyundai, arrived shortly afterward and was claimed by Kendall. He told one of the front-desk staff that he and “his friend” were going to explore the south of the country.
At 10:00 A.M. Meshal was being driven by his chauffeur to work; in the back of the car with him were three of his young children, a boy and two girls. Beads followed at a discreet distance in his rented car. Other team members were out on the road in other cars.
As they entered the city’s Garden District, the chauffeur informed Meshal that they were being followed. Meshal used the car phone to call in the make and number of Beads’s car to Amman police headquarters.
As the rented Toyota drove past, Meshal’s children waved at Beads, as they had done to other motorists. The Mossad agent ignored them. Next Kendall’s green Hyundai pulled ahead of the chauffeur and both cars disappeared into the traffic.
Moments later an officer at Amman police headquarters called Meshal to say the car was rented to a Canadian tourist. Meshal relaxed and watched his children once more waving at passing motorists, their faces pressed close to the windows. Every morning they took turns riding with their father to work before the chauffeur dropped them off at school.
Shortly before 10:30 A.M. the chauffeur pulled into Wasfi Al-Tal Street, where a crowd had gathered outside the Hamas office, with Kendall and Beads among them. Their presence caused no alarm; curious tourists often came to the office to learn more about Hamas’s aspirations.
Meshal quickly kissed his children before leaving the car. Beads stepped forward as if to shake him by the hand. Kendall was at his shoulder, fumbling with a plastic bag.
“Mr. Meshal?” asked Beads pleasantly.
Meshal looked at him uncertainly. At that moment Kendall produced the aerosol and tried to spray its contents into Meshal’s left ear.
The Hamas leader recoiled, startled, wiping his lobe.
Kendall made another attempt to spray the substance into Meshal’s ear. Around him the crowd were beginning to recover from their surprise, and hands reached out to grab the agents.
“Run!” said Beads in Hebrew.
Followed by Kendall, Beads sprinted to his car, parked a little way up the street. Meshal’s chauffeur had seen what was happening and began to reverse back down the street, trying to ram the Toyota.
Meshal was staggering around, moaning. People were trying to support him from falling. Others were shouting for an ambulance.
Beads, with Kendall sprawled beside him and still clutching his half-used aerosol, managed to avoid the chauffeur’s car and was accelerating up the street.
Other cars were in pursuit. One of the drivers had a cell phone and was calling for roads in the area to be blocked. The chauffeur was using his car phone to contact police headquarters.
By now backup members of the kidon team had arrived. One of them stopped and waved for Beads to transfer to his car. As the two Mossad men jumped out of the Toyota, another vehicle blocked their path. From it emerged a number of armed men. They forced Beads and Kendall to lie on the ground. Moments later the police arrived. Realizing there was nothing they could now do, the remaining members of the kidon team drove away, eventually making their way undetected back to Israel.
