Raid on the Sun(17)

A field officer, or katsa, observed him for a week, at first using “motionless following,” that is, watching Halim in stages rather than tagging him. Meanwhile, a Shicklut team broke in and bugged his apartment with listening devices in order to learn about his personal life and piece together a profile. And, of course, to ensure that he was not under surveillance by another organization. The yarid would need as much information as possible, for this operation had to be a “cold approach,” and recruiting foreign nationals was delicate work.

According to Victor Ostrovsky, the approach was made in August by an experienced field agent he identified as “Ran S.” It was Ran, Ostrovsky said, who posed as the rich and successful entrepreneur “Donovan,” involved in business from London to Libya. A Mossad phone tap had revealed that Halim’s wife Samira was returning to Iraq to visit relatives for the fall. Donovan took advantage of Halim’s bachelor status to invite him to dinner and walks along the Champs-Elysées. He took him to fine bistros and clubs and to his luxurious hotel suite at the Sofitel Bourbon. They smoked cigars and drank fine wine, something that, as a Muslim, Halim was not used to. But under his new friend’s influence, Halim loosened up and began to enjoy himself. One night after some heavy drinking, Donovan fixed the two of them up with some girls, then, making a phony excuse, left Halim behind with a young French prostitute, Marie-Claude Magalle, who was frequently employed by the Mossad for such jobs, though she had no idea that the organization hiring her was in reality the Israeli secret service.

Finally one night, Donovan invited Halim along on his latest business deal: a scheme to supposedly buy old shipping containers and then resell them to African nations to be used as temporary housing and storage. As Donovan feigned to close the transaction, Halim, aided by some obvious staging by the katsas, noticed that the bottoms of some of the containers were badly rusted. He pointed the damage out to Donovan, who then finagled a discount out of the sellers. When the deal was completed, Donovan celebrated by giving his shocked but grateful new friend a thousand dollars for his help. Though Halim, of course, could not know it, Ran was gradually binding the Iraqi scientist to him using the three time-tested hooks of the spy trade: sex, money, and emotional motivation—in Halim’s case, excitement and friendship. He was now ready for the trap, for some real spy business, some tachless.

One night, some five months after they had met, Halim was having dinner with Donovan and noticed his English friend seemed down. Donovan explained that he was having trouble with a huge deal: he had contracted with a German company to sell pneumatic tubes for shipping radioactive medical materials. The tubes were supposed to have been inspected by an English scientist, but he had disappeared. And now it looked like the deal would, too. Halim, taking the bait, spoke up.

“I can do it. I am a nuclear scientist.”

Surprised, Donovan gratefully accepted his help. The next morning he flew them both to Amsterdam to meet the German businessmen, a Mossad case officer and an Israeli nuclear engineer, according to Ostrovsky, posing as “Mr. Itsik” and “Mr. Goldstein.” After successfully concluding their business, all four went out to dinner. Saying he had to make a business call, Donovan excused himself from the table. Goldstein and Itsik took the opportunity to begin casually querying Halim about his relationship with Donovan and about his work. When Halim divulged that he was working on the Iraqi nuclear project, the two businessmen were taken aback. In an incredible coincidence, they told him, they were at present working on a deal to sell nuclear power plants to Third World nations.

“Your project would make a perfect model for us to use to sell these people,” Itsik remarked. “We could all make a fortune.”

He leaned closer across the table to Halim. “But we have to keep this between us. Donovan will just want a piece of the action.”

Halim was reluctant to supply any plant materials at first, but the two agents worked on him. In the end they convinced him that he had nothing to lose. After all, they only wanted a model of the plant. Nuclear reactors were not exactly state secrets, were they? Donovan paid Halim eight thousand dollars for his services and returned to England. As agreed, Halim went back to work at Sarcelles and provided his new partners with a layout of the nuclear plant at al-Tuwaitha.

The plant outline of al-Tuwaitha showed the schematic of Osirak, the chemical reprocessing plant, the smaller Isis reactor, the administration buildings, and an underground tunnel leading off the main reactor used to channel off free neutrons for further experiments. Paris head Arbel sent the plans back to Hofi in Tel Aviv by armed carrier. There the plans were pored over by IDF intelligence and the IAF, including Ivry. But AMAN and the IDF needed more information. Ran, it was decided, would stay out of the picture while Halim’s new handlers, the Germans, would use him as a “lead” to recruit another more senior scientist or administrator.