The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

it down on our heads. We thought that we could either reach the top through him, or at least neutralize him— but we preferred the former. We ran all sorts of checks, and discovered that he has a weak spot for young women. It probably won’t come as news to you if I told you it’s extremely difficult to get agents into Iran, but getting them into Lebanon was much simpler, and we suddenly had an opportunity on our hands. We needed a pretty girl and a link. The connection to the Front was the link, now all we needed was to get a girl in there. We sniffed around a bit. We met with the Shin-Beit, and they told us about a pretty Bedouin girl who was going to Palestinian youth-movement meetings in Acre. Naturally, the Shin-Beit tracks their every move. We discovered that she was an orphan, that all she had was her sister, that her parents were killed in a seaborne attack by al-Sa‘iqa.

Yes… Tamir muttered.

Yes, what?

Nothing. Go on. For a moment, it seemed to him like Musa was standing atop a mounting and reading the veiled holy word of God.

We reached out to her. We tried to see what she was made of, Musa said. It was pretty clear she had a bone to pick with the Palestinians. Even regardless of the al-Sa‘iqa attack, she was a Bedouin, not quite Palestinian, a less distinct identity… It was clear that her parents’ death presented us with a golden opportunity. There’s no better agent to groom than someone with a motive.

Why did she go to the youth movement then?

We wondered that ourselves. So, we asked her. She said that, firstly, it was Fatah, not Sa‘iqa, and secondly, that she wanted to get to know her enemy better.

And you believed her?

No, Oz said.

Not entirely, Musa corrected. It didn’t sound very plausible that a girl her age would make such lofty plans. But she sounded very mature and determined, and was happy to work with us. As if she was waiting for us her entire life.

Too good to be true, Oz hissed through clenched teeth.

It was a dilemma, Musa continued. We knew Rajai’s connection to the Front was tightening. At that time, there were plans being made for action in Iran in the near future but there wasn’t enough intelligence available. We were pressured from above. There were decisions to be made. We decided to bet our money on her. Since we knew Rajai was grooming the Front’s airborne unit, the idea was to slip her in there. We trained her in weapons, in piloting gliders, even Pipers… We came up with a cover story that she was trained by the Palestine Liberation Army in Yemen. It was risky, but we knew Jibril had no contact with the PLA, so there was little chance they’d carry out due diligence.

And then they demolished her settlement, Oz snickered.

We had no idea something like that was brewing, Musa said. Go figure you had to track the activity of every jackass in the Acre municipality as well.

It was a case of Jewifying lands, Oz pointed out.

Jewifying, my ass, Musa growled. Anyway, she was with us in training when it happened. We tried to hide it from her, but she obviously found out later. You can’t keep a thing like that hidden for long. Her sister spoke to the media…

Like a radical Palestinian nationalist, Oz remarked.

We deliberated how to approach damage control. We spoke with her, asked her how she felt. She said that in her settlement, no one ever trusted the Jews, so what happened came as no great surprise to her. She knew Acre is a city of fascists, that’s how she put it, and she knew this day would come. But her priorities were still clear.

I didn’t believe a single word she said, Oz said.

One side killed her parents, the other destroyed her house— which trumps which? Musa asked, musingly. That’s what I told myself back then.

If you even call that a house. Pile of disgusting tin slabs, Oz sputtered.

Tamir thought about the wretched bushes on the banks of the Na‘aman, the thicket, the tamarisk, the herons and the ibises crowding together on its branches after nightfall.

You always have to keep the worst-case scenario in mind, Musa said. Say she’d have reached Lebanon and flipped, turned to the other side. What then? What would she tell them about us? That we recruited her and that we’re interested in top Iranian officials in Lebanon? That’s not too much. I thought it was worth the risk.

Tamir nodded.

We made her sign a confidentiality agreement, of course, and made it clear that she was not to talk about these things to anyone, including her sister. But obviously we couldn’t trust her word on it. Her sister seemed like a weak link. We asked the Shin-Beit to dig up everything they could about her. We then discovered she had a Jewish boyfriend.

Really?

Yes, some guy from Acre who used to frequent her village to buy stuff from her tribe.

Probably agricultural equipment they stole from the kibbutzes, Oz remarked. Tamir found himself nodding in agreement.

In short, it became a whole thing, Musa said. We felt it was best that she moved to live in Acre, rather than some Arab village. That way, it would be easier to keep tabs on her.

And her tin shack was razed anyway.

Yes, Tamir said, but in the interview in the newspaper…

Oh, so you saw that? Musa looked at him sternly.

Yes, I came across it.

Uh huh… Well, she was furious. But she had nowhere to go. Where could she have gone? A girl on her own, and a Bedouin at that… Her only alternative was marriage.

Probably as the second wife of some old pervert, Oz added. A wonderful life.

So we told her, move to Acre, go to Haifa University, just keep quiet. Don’t cause a stir. You’d only be putting your sister at risk.

You suggested she should live with her boyfriend?

Yes, but he insisted she